The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity 1138241229, 9781138241220

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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF JEWS AND JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (third to seventh century C. E. ), providing cutting-​edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research. Based on both Jewish and non-​Jewish literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period. The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history. Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London. After her Habilitation in Jewish Studies at the Free University Berlin she taught at Trinity College Dublin, University of Oslo, and SOAS, University of London, and was a research professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has published numerous books and articles on Jews and Judaism in antiquity, with a focus on social history and daily life, the Talmud Yerushalmi, and Jews within the context of Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine-​Christian societies.

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF JEWS AND JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY

Edited by Catherine Hezser

Designed cover image: Proto-​Ionic capitals with seven-​branched candlestick, from Ramat Rachel, Israel, 3rd century. (Photo by DeAgostini/​Getty Images) First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Catherine Hezser; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Catherine Hezser to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Hezser, Catherine, 1960– editor. Title: The Routledge handbook of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity / edited by Catherine Hezser. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business, [2024] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023026174 (print) | LCCN 2023026175 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138241220 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032606149 (paperback) | ISBN 9781315280974 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Judaism–History–Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.–210 A.D. | Judaism–History–Medieval and early modern period, 425–1789. | Jews–History–70-638. | Jews–Iraq–Babylonia–History. | Talmud–Iranian influences. | Rabbinical literature–History and criticism. | Jewish diaspora. Classification: LCC BM177 .R68 2024 (print) | LCC BM177 (ebook) | DDC 296.09/014–dc23/eng/20230626 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026174 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026175 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​24122-​0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​60614-​9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​28097-​4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781315280974 Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Contributors Preface

ix xii xv

1 Introduction: Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity Catherine Hezser PART I

1

Jews in the Byzantine Empire

13

2 From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land” Hagith Sivan

15

3 Changes in the Infrastructure and Population of Byzantine Palestine Claudine Dauphin

30

4 Jews, Judaism, and the Christianization of the Roman Empire Seth Schwartz

59

5 Jews and the Imperial Cult Holger Zellentin

76

v

Contents PART II

Judaism and Christianity

93

6 Jews and the Emergence of Christianity Maren R. Niehoff

95

7 Synagogues and Churches as the Centers of Local Communities Alexei Sivertsev

111

8 The Rabbinic Representation of Jesus and His Followers Thierry Murcia

126

9 The Church Fathers on Jews and Judaism Burton L. Visotzky

140

10 Institutionalization, “Orthodoxy”, and Hierarchy Hayim Lapin PART III

154

Rabbis, Jurists, Philosophers, and Holy Men

169

11 Rabbis and the Image of the Intellectual Catherine Hezser

171

12 Rabbis as Legal Experts in the Roman East Yair Furstenberg

185

13 Personal Representations of the Holy Michael L. Satlow

203

14 Attitudes Toward the Body Catherine Hezser

216

15 Travel Narratives and the Construction of Identity Joshua Levinson

229

PART IV

The Creation of Rabbinic Literature

247

16 From Oral Discourse to Written Documents Reuven Kiperwasser

249

vi

Contents

17 Antiquarianism, Scholasticism, and Rabbinic Anthologies Catherine Hezser

263

18 Rabbinic Literature and Roman-​Byzantine Legal Compilations Marton Ribary

275

19 Rabbinic and Patristic Interpretations of the Bible Carol Bakhos

290

20 Jewish Letter Writing in Late Antiquity Lutz Doering

308

PART V

The Development of a Jewish Visual Culture

323

21 Visuality in Rabbinic Judaism Karen B. Stern

325

22 The Appearance of Jewish Figural Art Lee I. Levine

338

23 Synagogue Architecture, Decoration, and Furnishings Zeev Weiss

351

24 A Distinct Visual Language Rachel Hachlili

371

25 The Liturgical Performance of Identity Ophir Münz-​Manor

386

PART VI

Rabbinic Culture in Sasanian Persia

399

26 Jewish and Persian Leadership Structures Geoffrey Herman

401

27 Babylonian Jewish Communities Simcha Gross

414

28 Babylonian Judaism and Zoroastrianism Shai Secunda

435

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Contents

29 Representations of Persia in the Babylonian Talmud Jason Sion Mokhtarian PART VII

447

The Expansion of the Jewish Diaspora

461

30 Jews in Late Antique Rome Samuele Rocca

463

31 Jews in Late Antique Egypt Rodrigo Laham Cohen

476

32 Jews in Late Antique Syria and Arabia Maurice Sartre

491

33 Jews in Asia Minor Paul Trebilco

509

34 Jewish Communities in North Africa Stéphanie É. Binder and Thomas Villey

527

Index

547

viii

FIGURES

3.1

3.2

3.3

The rabbinic boundaries of the Land of Israel (© C. Dauphin): 1 The crossroad of Ashqelon; 2 the wall of Strato’s Tower; 3 the wall of Dor; 4 the wall of Acco; 5 Kabrîta; 6 the spring of the waters of the Gaaton; 7 Gathoun; 8 Beth Zenîtah; 9 the castrum of Gelil; 10 Yôqeret; 11 qwb’yyh (peaks?) of Aita; 12: the fort of Kurain; 13 the enclosure of Jattir; 14 Beth-​Aita; 15 Kore Rabta; 16 Nahla d-​Abatsal; 17: Ulam Rabta; 18 Misha; 19 Olashta; 20 Tafnit; 21 Nahareshet; 22 Sfinta; 23 the Tower of Harub; 24 mmsyyh d-​Abhat; 25 Nigbata d-​’Ayun; 26 msb spnhh; 27 Upper Tarnegola of Caesarea (Banyas); 28 Karka d-​Bar Sangora; 29 Bet Sukkat; 30 Rafah d-​Hagra; 31 the fort of Raziza; 32 the Trachon in the vicinity of Bosra; 33 Shaqqa; 34 Nimrim; 35 Canatha; 36 Igar Sahaduta; 37 Yivka; 38 Reqem d-​Trachon; 39 Heshbon; 40 Ammon Moab; 41 the river Zered; 42 the great road that leads to the desert; 43 Kadesh Barnea; 44 the gardens of Ashqelon; 45 Ashqelon Distribution of Byzantine sites in Palaestina against the background of soils (Mapping S. Gibson; © C. Dauphin): (A) Terrae Rossae and Brown and Pale Rendzinas; (B) Brown and Pale Rendzinas; (C) Pale Rendzinas; (D) Basaltic Protogrumosols, Basaltic Brown Grumosols, and Pale Rendzinas; (E) Hamra Soils; (F) Basaltic Brown Mediterranean Soils and Basaltic Lithosols; (G) Hydromorphic and Gley Soils; (H) Grumosols; (J) Pararendzinas; (K) Dark Brown Soils; (L) Calcareous Serozems; (M) Brown Lithosols and Loessial Arid Brown Soils; (N) Loessial Arid Brown Soils; (P) Alluvial Arid Brown Soils; (Q) Solonchaks; (R) Loessial Serozems; (S) Brown Lithosols and Loessial Serozems; (T) Sandy Regosols and Arid Brown Soils; (V) Sand Dunes; (W) Regosols; (X) Bare Rocks and Desert Lithosols; (Y) Reg Soils and Coarse Desert Alluvium; (Z) Fine-​grained Desert Alluvial Soils Distribution of sites according to their religion in fourth-​century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin)

ix

32

34 37

List of Figures

3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 5.1 5.2

23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 23.5 23.6 23.7 23.8 23.9 23.10 23.11

Farj (Golan): ancient door lintel in situ engraved with Judaeo-​Christian signs (Drawing B. Wool; © C. Dauphin) Distribution of sites according to their religion in fifth-​century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) Table 1: Distribution of sites in fifth-​century Palaestina per region and per religion (© C. Dauphin) Distribution of sites according to their religion in sixth-​century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) Table 2: Distribution of sites in sixth-​century Palaestina per region and per religion (© C. Dauphin) Four maps showing the distribution of sites per religion in the Nahariyya region in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th centuries (Mapping Shimon Gibson; © C. Dauphin) Distribution of sites according to their religion in seventh-​century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) Table 3 Distribution of sites in ca. 610 C. E . Palaestina per region and per religion (© C. Dauphin) Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, detail from base relief of the column of Antoninus Pius. Creative Commons license Head of Augustus, found in Ephesus, in a basilica near the market, on the eastern side of the middle part under a sixth-​century pavement. Ephesos-​ Museum, Selçuk, Turkey, inv. no. 1891. Reprinted with permission from Arachne, Cologne Ḥorvat ‘Ammudim, north-eastern view (copyright: Z. Weiss) Bet Alpha, plan of the synagogue (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Ḥammat Tiberias synagogue, Stratum IIb (bottom) and Stratum IIa (top). Capernaum, panoramic view into the synagogue. Photo: Ross Burns, available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​athar.ox.ac.uk (see Capernaum) Bar‘am, decorated façade of the mid-​fifth century C.E. synagogue. Photo: Sean Leatherbury, available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​ athar.ox.ac.uk (see Baram) Capernaum, decorated frieze. Photo: Ross Burns, available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​athar.ox.ac.uk (see Capernaum) Sepphoris, the synagogue’s mosaic carpet in the nave divided into seven unequal bands and its geometric carpet in the aisle (the Sepphoris Excavations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Bet Shean, inhabited vine scrolls from the synagogue of Bet Leontis (courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority; photo: Dan Bahat) Bet Alpha, the synagogue’s architectural façade, menorot, lions, and Jewish symbols (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Ḥuqoq synagogue, mosaic depicting the crossing of the Red Sea (courtesy of Jodi Magness, Ḥuqoq Excavation Project; photo: Jim Haberman) Sepphoris synagogue, mosaic featuring the zodiac (the Sepphoris Excavations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; photo: G. Laron)

x

39 44 45 46 47 48 50 51 79

83 352 353 354 355 356 357 359 359 360 361 361

List of Figures

23.12 23.13 23.14 23.15 24.1 24.2 31.1 31.2 33.1 33.2 33.3

Umm el-​Qanatir, the reconstructed Torah shrine (courtesy of Y. Dray, Restoration of Ancient Technology) Ḥammat Gader, chancel screen with a menorah set within a wreath. (Collection of Israel Antiquities Authority; photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Avraham Hay) Sepphoris, polycandelon with six glass lamps (the Sepphoris Excavations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; photo: Gabi Laron; drawing: Sara Halbreich) Ma‘on, the reconstructed three-​dimensional marble menorah. (Staff Archaeological Officer in the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria; photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by David Harris.) Bowl Fragments with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark, c. 300–​350 C.E. 18.145.1a, b, Rogers Fund, 1918, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Mosaic of Menorah, from Hammam Lif synagogue, Tunisia, 6th century C.E. 05.27, Museum Collection Fund, Brooklyn Museum, Creative Commons license Document from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy 1205) concerning the manumission of a Jewish slave and her children, 291 C. E. Copyright: British Library Ketubah (marriage contract) from Antinoöpolis (Cologne inv. 5853), 417 C.E. Creative Commons license. The apse of the Sardis Synagogue, with the bath-​gymnasium complex in the background. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild Face I, with the central section of the inscription listing “God-​fearers”, Aphrodisias stele. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild The two inscribed sides of the Aphrodisias stele. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild

xi

364 365 365 366 372 372 480 485 511 512 513

CONTRIBUTORS

Carol Bakhos is Professor of Late Antique Judaism and Study of Religion at the University of California Los Angeles, USA. Stéphanie É. Binder is Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies, Bar-​Ilan University, Israel. Claudine Dauphin is a retired researcher in Byzantine Studies at the Collège de France, the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Lutz Doering is Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism and academic head of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum at the University of Münster, Germany. Yair Furstenberg is Associate Professor in the Talmud Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Simcha Gross is Assistant Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Rachel Hachlili was Professor Emerita of Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel. Geoffrey Herman is Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études of the University of Paris, France. Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London, UK. Reuven Kiperwasser is a research associate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ariel University, Israel.

xii

List of Contributors

Rodrigo Laham Cohen is Professor of History at the University of Buenos Aires and the National University of San Martín and researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina. Hayim Lapin is Professor of History and Robert H. Smith Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland, USA. Lee I. Levine is Emeritus Professor of Jewish History and Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Joshua Levinson is Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Jason Sion Mokhtarian is Herbert and Stephanie Neuman Associate Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, USA. Ophir Münz-​Manor is Professor of Rabbinic Culture and Dean of Academic Studies at the Open University of Israel. Thierry Murcia is a research associate at the University of Aix-​Marseille –​Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France. Maren R. Niehoff is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Marton Ribary is Lecturer in Law at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Samuele Rocca is Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Architecture at Ariel University and Lecturer at the Neri Bloomfield Academy of Design and Education in Haifa, Israel. Maurice Sartre is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History at the University of Tours, France. Michael L. Satlow is Dorot Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University, USA. Seth Schwartz is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization in the Departments of History and Classics at Columbia University in New York, USA. Shai Secunda is Jacob Neusner Professor of Judaism at Bard College, USA. Hagith Sivan is Professor Emerita in the Department of History of the University of Kansas, USA. Alexei Sivertsev is Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, USA. Karen B. Stern is Professor of History at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, USA.

xiii

List of Contributors

Paul Trebilco is Professor of New Testament Studies in the Theology program of the School of Arts at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Thomas Villey is post-​doctoral researcher at the University of Bamberg, Germany. Burton L. Visotzky is Emeritus Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, USA. Zeev Weiss is the Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Holger Zellentin is Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

xiv

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PREFACE

The creation of this Handbook was initiated by Amy Davis-​Poynter, the former Editor for Classics, Archaeology and Biblical Studies at Routledge. She approached me in May 2016 with the idea of editing a Handbook on Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity, since she had noticed a gap in existing handbooks on the (early) Byzantine period, which tend to focus on Christianity (sometimes including Islam) only. From my first considerations about the possible content, structure, and contributors to the eventual submission of the manuscript the Handbook had a long gestation period. As is probably the case with all joint volumes of this size and scope, experts in the respective research areas willing to write the specific chapters in a set period of time were sometimes difficult to find. Whereas a few colleagues submitted their contributions far ahead of time, others took longer. Some withdrew years after having committed themselves to the task and authors who might replace them could not always be found. Some contributions were perfectly written, whereas others required extensive rewriting and editing. Sadly, two authors died before the Handbook reached its submission stage: Yaakov Elman (died July 29, 2018) had meant to write a chapter on Jewish communities in Sasanian Babylonia; Rachel Hachlili (died January 12, 2019) was able to submit her chapter on a shared Jewish and Christian iconographic language but could not send all of the images she had meant to include. May their memory be for a blessing. I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to this volume, especially those who submitted early and had to wait long to see their essays published, those who stepped in for others who, for whatever reason, were unable to submit, and those who carried out revisions in a speedy and effective way. While the goal was to cover the most important research areas, topics, and regions, I have no doubt that gaps remain. Hopefully, they will be filled by other scholars in the future. I would like to thank my assistant Thabo Huntgeburth for the creation of the index and Marcia Adams for overseeing the project during its final production period. Catherine Hezser London, May 2023

xv

1 INTRODUCTION Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity Catherine Hezser

Late antiquity, that is, the time period between the third and the seventh centuries C.E. , is a particularly interesting period as far as Jews and Judaism are concerned. Within the wider contexts of the late Roman, early Byzantine, and Sasanian Persian Empires, in competition and conflict with Graeco-​Roman, Christian, and Zoroastrian cultures, Jewish religious leadership structures, institutions, and practices developed that are still relevant today. Major developments occurred in this period –​from small teacher-​disciple circles to a distinct rabbinic group identity; from oral instruction to written documents; from synagogues as multifunctional buildings to centers of local religious communities; from the aniconism of the Second Temple period to the emergence of Jewish figurative art; from a focus on the Land of Israel to increasingly significant Diaspora communities –​which indicate a transition from the time after the destruction of the Second Temple to a medieval Judaism with an established communal structure based on rabbis, synagogues, and academies. This transition was triggered by developments in the larger political, socioeconomic, and cultural-​religious contexts in which Jews lived. Political and economic relations between Rome and Persia may at times have enabled or hindered mobility and communication between Jews who lived under these rules. The increased power and hostility of Byzantine Christians may have felt threatening but also evoked the assertion of Jewish religious identity and self-​expression. While the transformation of Roman Palestine into a Christian “Holy Land” involved the Christian appropriation of space and buildings, it may also have inspired the building and decoration of synagogues. At a time when anti-​Jewish laws were issued by Christian emperors and church fathers appropriated biblical texts for their own ideological purposes, rabbis compiled their own legal and exegetical traditions in the large written compilations of the Talmud and Midrash. Therefore the earlier association of late antiquity with the “triumph” of Christianity and the “decline” and “dispersion” of Judaism must be corrected by a more complex and balanced assessment of the period.

1.  Integrating Jews and Judaism into the Study of Late Antiquity While a number of Handbooks, Companions, and Guides to late antiquity have been published in the last two and a half decades (Bowersock, Brown, and Gabar, eds. 1999; Lenski, ed. 2006; Rousseau, ed. 2009; Fitzgerald Johnson, ed. 2012; Bernheimer and Silverstein, eds. 2012), none of these volumes devotes even one chapter to Judaism. The focus of most of these works is on Byzantine Christianity, with some of them also covering the emergence of Islam. Jews, Judaism, DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-1

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Catherine Hezser

and Roman-​Byzantine Palestine are mentioned only incidentally, if at all. While the first part of Fitzgerald Johnson’s Handbook of Late Antiquity (2012) deals with “Geographies and Peoples” and is very wide-​ranging, from the western kingdoms to the silk road in the East, Jews in Palestine and Babylonia are absent from the regional coverage. In the second part entitled “Literary and Philosophical Cultures” education and Hellenism feature prominently, whereas rabbinic literature is not discussed. Neither is Judaism treated in the fourth part on “Religions and Religious Identity”, with chapters on paganism, Christianity, and Islam. The volume edited by Bowersock, Brown, and Gabar (1999) is an alphabetically arranged Guide or dictionary, covering the period between ca. 250 and 800 C. E. While there are introductory chapters on Christianity and Islam, there is none on Judaism. Rousseau’s Companion (2009) focuses on Byzantine Christian theology and the later reception of the Byzantine period. Rather than dealing with Jews and Judaism in their own right, this huge volume merely contains a chapter on “Jewish-​Christian Relations”. In Lenski’s Companion to the Age of Constantine (2006) “Religion and Spiritual Life” is, again, limited to Christianity and its “pagan” forerunners, the “traditional religions” of the Roman world. While Bernheimer and Silverstein (2012) move the focus to the East and include chapters on Zoroastrianism and Buddhism besides Christianity and Islam, Jews and Judaism in the Middle East are absent from the discussion. What could be the reasons for the absence of Jews and Judaism from these collective volumes which claim to be comprehensive introductions and guides to late antique and early Byzantine history, literature, and culture? Perhaps inadvertently, the traditional Christian view that the “triumph” of Christianity led to the decline of Judaism and a dispersal of Jews from the Middle East may have played a role. Since Christians claimed to be the “new Israel”, spreading monotheism to formerly polytheistic cultures and ethnicities, the innovative aspects of the Byzantine period were mainly associated with Christianity. This “triumphant” outlook is most noticeable in Lenski (2006: 1), who claims that under Constantine “Christianity blossomed into a thriving offshoot of Mediterranean religious life”, which “cast its shadow over not just religious matters but art and architecture, philosophy and thought, literature and learning, politics and foreign relations, law and social practice”, giving the impression of an all-​encompassing impact and domination that marginalized and suppressed non-​Christian cultures and identities. On the other hand, Fitzgerald Johnson (2012: xvii) stresses knowledge exchange: in late antiquity, the Middle East, the Far East, and the West “changed into essential spaces for the movement of ideas and the creative interaction of religion, people, and goods”, a development out of which Islam emerged, which is nowadays integrated into the late antique context (Neuwirth 2019; Al-​Azmeh 2014). The absence of Jews from this discussion seems strange, especially since Christianity and Islam developed on the basis of Jewish monotheism and the Hebrew Bible and show similarities with Judaism (Zellentin 2013, 2022). Perhaps even more astonishing is the almost total omission of Judaism, except for a chapter on the late antique reception of the biblical book of Esther (Patmore 2018), from A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity (Lössl and Baker-​Brian, eds. 2018). Again, the book heavily leans on Christianity and the West, with individual chapters reaching out to Egypt, Arabia, and small religious movements such as Manichaeism and Hermetism. Many aspects of Christianity in different regions are discussed in individual chapters, yet no chapter provides a discussion of rabbinic Judaism, late antique synagogues, and the compilation of the Talmud. Although Patmore (2018: 258) claims to use his focus on Esther as a “heuristic tool” to explore “the shape and nature” of late antique Judaism, this focus is much too narrow to do justice to the historical, cultural, and religious changes that Jews experienced between the third and seventh centuries C.E .

2

Introduction

Two volumes that are dedicated to Jews and Judaism in late antiquity may have been meant to rectify this situation, yet the first one deals with rabbinic literature only (Millar, Ben-​Eliyahu, and Cohn 2012) and the second one (Kessler and Koltun-​Fromm, eds., 2020) is an introduction to Judaism in general rather than a focused treatment of the late Roman and early Byzantine period. With their Handbook of Jewish Literature Millar, Ben-​Eliyahu, and Cohn (2012) aim at introducing the various Jewish literary works and genres created in Roman and early Byzantine times to nonexperts, notably classicists and ancient historians, who are usually not familiar with them. Kessler’s and Koltun-​Fromm’s Companion to Late Antique Jews and Judaism (2020) was published by the same publisher who brought out Lössl’s above-​mentioned Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity, perhaps noticing that the latter, although meant to deal with the varieties of late antique religion, did not include Judaism in an appropriate way. While the Judaism-​focused volume addresses many aspects of Judaism (geography, languages and literatures, identity, gender, ritual), it does not focus on late antiquity but includes the literary and material culture of the Second Temple period. It is therefore unable to provide a proper overview of the innovations of the third and following centuries within the context of political and cultural changes that happened at that time. In particular, the consequences of the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the Christian appropriation of the Jewish Bible and the “Holy Land” are not properly explored. What did these changes mean for Jews and Judaism in terms of expressions of Jewish identity, literary developments, and artistic and architectural competition in the public space? And how did the situation of Jews in Sasanian Persia differ from the situation in Palestine under Byzantine Christian rule? A first step toward a better understanding of Jewish experience and culture in late antiquity, in the various regions in which Jews lived, was undertaken by Laham Cohen (2018), who already points to the sparseness of sources for Jewish Diaspora communities, except for Babylonia, where there is at least rabbinic literary evidence available. This problem has also been noted by Kraemer (2020: 1–​42), who has suggested to understand “the absence of evidence” as “evidence of absence”, that is, as an indication of the decimation of Jewish life in certain regions of the Mediterranean Diaspora under Christian rule. Since Greek-​and Latin-​speaking Diaspora Jews hardly left any literary remains that are identifiably Jewish, “[t]‌o write their history we have only what others said about them and an assortment of archaeological remains” (ibid. 1), most of them from Rome (Rutgers 2021; Rocca 2022). On the basis of funerary art, architecture, and inscriptions, and the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum as a late antique Jewish compilation, Rutgers (2021) reconstructs Jewish life and interaction with non-​Jews in late antique Rome. Rocca’s (2022) study is broader, tracing Jewish history in Roman Italy from republican to late Roman imperial times, with a focus on the legal and social circumstances Jews lived in. For historical reasons, Roman Italy and Sasanian Persia were the regions with the largest Jewish communities outside of the Land of Israel in late antiquity. Yet Jewish communities also continued to exist in Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Asia Minor and were affected in different ways by Christianization.

2.  Relations between Jews and Non-​Jews In late antique and early Byzantine times Judaism and Christianity were the main competitors in the Roman-​Byzantine Empire, while Babylonian Jews encountered Zoroastrianism as the main religion of the Persian Empire. The different political and religious contexts had a huge impact on the development of Jewish communal life, literature, and identity. In the last decades scholars have emphasized the formative role played by a “triumphant” Christianity in the development of

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Catherine Hezser

rabbinic literature and a synagogue-​and community-​based Judaism that increasingly asserted its own public identity in Roman-​Byzantine Palestine. Schwartz (2001: 177–​274) has argued that the increased Christian presence in the “Holy Land”, with the establishment of churches and monasteries from the fourth century C . E . onwards, led to a re-​Judaization that saw the building of lavishly decorated synagogues as the centers of local Jewish communities. In competition with an increasingly assertive Christian leadership that propagated its ideology in visual art, architecture, and sermons, Jews created a figurative visual art (Levine 2012) that presented their own interpretation of foundational biblical narratives such as the Binding of Isaac (Aqedah) (Hezser 2018: 31–​80). They used Jewish symbols such as the menorah and ritual implements as visual markers of Jewishness (Hachlili 2018; Laderman 2021). Between the fourth and sixth centuries, numerous basilica-​style synagogues were built in Byzantine Palestine, whose architecture and interior furnishings resembled those of churches (Levine 2000: 210–​249; Milson 2007: 162–​203). Synagogues and synagogue art were probably the most noticeable aspects of marking public spaces as Jewish. Yet the assertion of Jewish identity also took place in intellectual life, at least as far as Roman-​Byzantine Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia are concerned. Rabbis had emphasized the significance of the Torah and Torah study as the basis of Jewish life and practice after 70 C . E ., at a time when paideia-​based Greek education was the Greek and Roman educational ideal. Rabbinic study became an alternative form of secondary education whose formal features –​small disciple circles and oral discussion –​resembled philosophical and legal studies. Rabbis’ focus on halakhah and their role as legal advisors in almost all areas of daily life aligned them with Roman jurists. Especially after 212 C. E. when Caracalla’s Edict (Constitutio Antoniniana) offered Roman citizenship to all subjects of the Roman Empire, rabbis must have feared that Roman private law might substitute Jewish law among the Jewish citizens of the Roman Empire. The compilation of the Mishnah as an alternative Jewish law code ensured the continued importance of rabbinic law, at least among rabbinic circles and their sympathizers (Hezser 2022). In the late antique public arena rabbis presented themselves as Jewish intellectuals who elicited the same respect that was granted to Graeco-​Roman philosophers and sophists, church fathers, and monks. Whereas the form and extent of encounters and disputes between rabbis and Christians remain uncertain from a historical point of view, rabbinic literary sources provide evidence of rabbis’ at least indirect interaction with Christian views and biblical interpretations. Based on an analysis of possible references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, Schäfer (2007) argued that Babylonian rabbis constructed detailed and sophisticated polemics against Christian exegetical arguments and christological ideas: “at precisely the time when Christianity rose from modest beginnings to its first triumphs, the Talmud (…) would become the defining document of those who refused to accept the new covenant, who so obstinately insisted on the fact that nothing had changed and that the old covenant was still valid” (ibid. 2). Whereas Schäfer reckons with a familiarity with certain New Testament texts among Babylonian rabbis, Murcia (2014) is more skeptical: the rabbinic texts, if they actually refer to Jesus and Christians, should be read as perceptions rather than actual knowledge. Whereas earlier accounts of Jesus and his followers as healers may reflect good neighborly relations between Babylonian Jews and Christians, later misunderstandings may indicate mutual hostilities and incomprehension. The question of knowledge based on (Babylonian) rabbis’ access to Christian literature and disputations with Christians is also addressed by Bar-​Asher Siegal (2019: 5), who suggests that certain Babylonian talmudic narratives about heretics (minim) should be understood as reactions to “very common Christian notions” the rabbis would have been familiar with. Besides rejecting Christian biblical interpretations and theological claims, talmudic texts also show similarities to 4

Introduction

Christian literary forms, such as the Apophthegmata Patrum (Bar-​Asher Siegal 2013) and parables (Teugels 2019). The rabbinic and Christian adaptation of these literary forms and the sharing of some of the topics and motifs indicate that rabbis and Christian teachers and monks lived in the same Middle Eastern cultural context whose foundations were the Hebrew (and Greek) Bible and Hellenism. They used the same literary forms and motifs to express religious convictions that were usually quite different and need to be understood within the respective literary, social, and cultural contexts. Such differences are also evident in Jewish and Christian interpretations of the same biblical passages (Grypeou and Spurling, eds., 2009). Either directly or indirectly, late antique Jews and Christians may have been aware of each other’s interpretations. Therefore, Jewish and Christian scriptural exegesis needs to be read side-​by-​side to bring to light the “ powerful intertextuality between the two exegetical traditions” (Alexander 2009: 1). The darker side of the late antique encounter between Jews and Christians must also be acknowledged, however. Once the Roman Empire had become Christian, the emperors began to side with bishops to suppress non-​Christian religious practices that might compete with Christianity. The anti-​Jewish laws of the Codex Theodosianus (16.8.1, 5, 6, 13, and 26; 16.9.1 and 2; Linder 1987; Rabello 2000), issued by the Christian emperors since 312 C.E ., target the Jewish public institutions of the patriarchate and synagogues, prohibiting the building of new synagogues and the restoration of old ones. They also interfere with Jewish private matters by prohibiting the circumcision of non-​Jewish slaves. Although their effectiveness remains uncertain, especially as far as Byzantine Palestine at the periphery of the empire was concerned, their aim was to reduce the public visibility of Judaism, to prevent the increase of non-​Jewish converts to Judaism, and to generally undermine social relations between Jews and Christians. The decrees indirectly testify to Judaism’s continuous attractiveness to non-​Jews, a phenomenon that is also evident in some church fathers’ anti-​Jewish polemics, such as those by the fourth-​ century writer John Chrysostom (Against the Jews). Thus, Wilken (2004: 67) writes: “By awakening curiosity, by bearing witness to another way of life drawn from the same ancient tradition, Judaism attracted Christians, some to the point where they actually joined with the Jews to celebrate Jewish festivals ….” Troianos (2012) describes the relationship between Byzantine Christians and Jews as “a love-​hate relationship”: Jews represented the biblical origins Christianity was based on, yet Christian leaders claimed that Christianity was superior and even replaced Judaism. Anti-​Jewish messages proclaimed by bishops and priests in their sermons instigated Christians to attack synagogues, a phenomenon that seems to have been more common in the Diaspora than in the Land of Israel (Rutgers 1998: 119–​21). Especially well-​known is the case of Ambrose of Milan’s support of the local bishop’s incitement and the Christian mob’s burning of the synagogue in Callinicum in 388 C. E . As Simonsohn (2014: 285) has pointed out, “Ambrose was a sworn enemy of Jews and Judaism and supported violence wreaked by the incited mob upon the Jews all over Christendom, in the East and West”. He associated Jews with Christian heretics (Letter 11.3) and slandered the synagogue as a symbol of “unbelief” (Letter 31.1). Ambrose defended the bishop against accusations of unlawful behavior and even threatened emperor Theodosius with unforeseen consequences, if he decided to punish the bishop, arguing that the bishop could turn against the church and become an apostate or martyr, saying: “I openly affirm that I myself set the synagogue on fire, or at least, that I ordered others to do so; that there might be no place in which Christ is denied” (Letter 31.8). The Callinicum incident provides evidence of the complicity between local bishops and Christian mobs and the bishops’ attempts to exert pressure on the highest political authorities (Hezser 2024). Whether they were successful depended on local Jews’ complaints to the imperial authorities, the respective emperor’s assessment of the situation, and the relationship between local bishops and courts. 5

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3.  Internal Jewish Developments In several regards, internal developments within late antique Judaism constituted the basis of later medieval Jewish communal life and institutions. One of these developments is the greater public role of the rabbi, who emerged as a Jewish type of intellectual alongside philosophers, sophists, rhetoricians, bishops, and monks. Late antique rabbis were keen on being visible and identifiable as scholars in the public space. They walked around in streets and marketplaces, accompanied by their disciples and colleagues. It has been argued that from the third century onwards rabbis became “urbanized”; that is, more rabbis lived in the cities of Roman Palestine than in the preceding century (Lapin 1999, 2000). Their increased presence in cities such as Caesarea, Sepphoris, Tiberias, and Lydda meant that they had access to the cities’ institutions and facilities and contact with other urban inhabitants such as wealthy Jewish grandees and non-​Jews, whether Greek or Roman, pagan or Christian. Especially relevant is rabbis’ exposure to the Graeco-​Roman culture of the cities, which included performances and spectacles in theaters and amphitheaters (Weiss 2014); philosophical, sophistic, rhetorical, and legal scholarship (Hezser 2019); and visual art in synagogues, churches, bathhouses, temples, and private villas (Laderman 2021). From the third century onwards, rabbis increasingly accommodated with this urban Graeco-​Roman culture by adapting their own values and ideas to this environment, as is noticeable in the amoraic traditions of the Talmud Yerushalmi. For example, rabbis justified their visits to Roman bathhouses with statues of the goddess Aphrodite (Schwartz 1998); they perambulated in public spaces like philosophers (Hezser 2017: 28–​31); and they delivered sermons that showed some familiarity with rhetorical training (Hidary 2018). Lapin (2012) even views late antique rabbis as Romans, exploring the various aspects of the Roman provincial environment on rabbis as subalterns. Palestinian rabbis’ increased integration into –​and reaction to –​their Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine Christian environment led to a number of innovations and changes. While the Mishnah already shows certain similarities between rabbinic halakhah and Roman jurists’ law, after Caracalla’s reform in 212 C. E ., rabbis’ familiarity with Roman law seems to have grown. Rabbinic discourse in the Talmud Yerushalmi addresses many legal areas that are also covered by Roman private law, codified in Justinian’s Digest. When Roman citizenship and Roman law were extended to all inhabitants of the Roman Empire, rabbis would have competed with Roman legal experts when trying to maintain and attract Jewish clients. Knowledge of at least some aspects of Roman law would have been advantageous in this climate. Rabbis would “try to usurp jurisdiction for themselves, a power-​grab that attempts to reinforce the rabbis’ own authority, founded as it was in their skills in legal interpretation” (Czajkowski 2020: 85). That they were not always successful in persuading their fellow-​Jews to abide by their decisions is illustrated by the story about R. Abbahu and a woman named Tamar, who preferred the jurisdiction of the Roman governor of Caesarea to rabbinic jurisdiction (Niehoff 2019; Murray 2000). Late antiquity was also the time when the large rabbinic compilations of the Talmud and Midrash were created. Graeco-​Roman and Christian book cultures are likely to have inspired rabbinic scholars to collect their predecessors’ halakhic and exegetical knowledge and preserve it in edited written compilations. While the patriarch R. Yehudah ha-​Nasi is associated with the creation of a version of the Mishnah at the beginning of the third century C.E. , its format and wording, including the order and number of tractates, may have been uncertain throughout the amoraic period until the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds were created in the fourth to sixth centuries or even longer, until the first complete Mishnah manuscripts with all six orders were written (the Kaufmann manuscript of the 10th to 11th c. is considered to be the earliest full manuscript). In 6

Introduction

contrast to the tannaitic and amoraic emphasis on oral instruction and transmission of rabbinic knowledge, at some stage at the end of the amoraic period or shortly afterward scholars who identified with the authorities of the past decided to preserve their teaching in written form to enable future generations to access, study, apply, and further develop it. Once the large rabbinic compilations existed, Judaism –​or at least that form of Judaism represented by male scholastic circles –​became a “book religion”, focused on studying the Talmud in academies and yeshivot of medieval times (Stern 2008). The Palestinian patriarchate (nasi) was also a new development of the late second and early third century, with R. Yehudah ha-​Nasi as its first representative (Jacobs 1995). Like the status of priests and Israelite monarchs, the role was hereditary and remained the domain of a wealthy aristocratic Jewish family. Rather than being acknowledged by Rome as a Jewish leader, the first patriarch seems to have emerged out of the rabbinic movement itself as a primus inter pares or highest-​status rabbi. Accordingly, his role and influence would have been limited, depending on rabbis’ and the Jewish populace’s acknowledgment of his authority in areas such as the festival calendar, internal Jewish law, and the collection of money. Traditions in the Talmud Yerushalmi indicate that rabbis’ support of the patriarch was not unanimous. It likely depended on his scholarly credentials and reputation. The patriarchs of the late third and fourth centuries are not even mentioned by name in rabbinic sources. As provincial grandees, the patriarchs are likely to have possessed Greek paideia and socialized with other members of the elite, a phenomenon that seems to be reflected in stories about Rabbi and an emperor called Antoninus (Krauss 1910), whom some scholars identify with Caracalla (Levine 1996: 29). The rabbinic disregard for the later patriarchs may have contrasted with their “prestige and power” among (Hellenized Jewish and) non-​Jewish elites (Curran 2011: 21). While the Byzantine government eventually acknowledged the patriarch’s status and honored him (Cod. Theod. 16.8.8, 11, 13, 15, 20), the institution ended a few decades later for unknown reasons. In Sasanian Persia the analogous office of the Jewish exilarch (resh galuta) emerged and continued to exist in Islamic times (Brody 1998: 67–​82). Herman (2012), who has examined the sources in the context of Sasanian politics and culture, calls the exilarch a “king without a kingdom”, indicating his high status and role as “the official representative of the Babylonian Jews before the king” (ibid. 1). Several rabbinic texts address the relationship between the patriarch and exilarch, suggesting both collaboration and competition between them. While Palestinian rabbis claimed the superiority of the Land of Israel and its scholars, by the late third and fourth centuries the Babylonian rabbinic movement was well-​established and no longer dependent on Palestinian rabbis’ custody. Nevertheless, network connections between Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis continued and were maintained by travel and mutual visits (Kiperwasser 2021). Babylonian Judaism developed in its Sasanian Persian context, in a religious environment that was determined by Zoroastrianism and also included eastern Christians. The significance of this context is nowadays recognized by scholars (see the contributions in Secunda and Fine, eds. 2012 and Elman’s list of publications ibid. xv–​xxii), in contrast to earlier scholars’ conflation of the two Talmuds and their prioritization of the Graeco-​Roman background for both. From the early fifth century onwards, when the Palestinian patriarchate had ended, Babylonia became the center of rabbinic Judaism in the Middle East and remained so in the early Islamic period. The creation of the Babylonian Talmud and the institutionalization of rabbinic academies in the post-amoraic period of the fifth to seventh centuries may be linked to administrative changes and cultural influences at that time (Lightstone 1994: 265). Whereas the material culture of late antique Babylonian Jewry remains inaccessible, numerous synagogues, private residences, and burial sites have been excavated in Israel and dated to the fourth to sixth centuries C. E . (Levine 2016; Laderman 2021). Especially noteworthy are the two 7

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recently excavated synagogues at Huqoq (Magness et al. 2014, 2018; Grey and Magness 2013; Britt and Boustan 2017; Gordon and Weiss 2018; Cielontko 2023) and Wadi Hamam (Leibner 2010; Leibner and Miller 2010), which greatly expand our knowledge of synagogue art and iconography in late antiquity. The depictions of elephants, workers (Tower of Babel), and a large male figure in military gear (Samson), among others, have elicited much discussion among scholars and different interpretations. Since elephants are never mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the scene seems to depict a nonbiblical narrative, probably an encounter between Jews and Greeks in the Hellenistic period. The depiction of biblical and nonbiblical narratives in Jewish art needs to be examined both in connection with Jewish literary sources and in the context of early Byzantine art. Although few sources are available on Jews in the eastern and western Diaspora in late antiquity (Kraemer 2020: 21–​27), with the exception of Roman Italy (Rutgers 2021), Jews continued to live in regions such as Syria and Egypt, North Africa, Asia Minor, and Greece. How were these mostly Greek-​and Latin-​speaking Jews affected by the expansion of Christianity in these regions and the eventual Byzantine political rule? At least to some extent, Jewish epigraphy and non-​Jewish Graeco-​Roman and Christian literary sources and legal texts can be used to throw some light on these communities. For other more western regions such as Gaul and Spain, some epigraphic and archaeological material is available, especially related to burial practices (Laham Cohen 2018). Obviously, the specific regional context with its population mixture, geo-​political situation, and historical development needs to be taken into account. This Handbook focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Judaism in late antiquity. It provides cutting-​edge overviews of the state of scholarship and methodological approaches and provides bibliographical guidelines for all of the addressed topics. Especially important is the relationship between internal Jewish developments and the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. The chapters pay attention to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, and cultural points of view. They also explore how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Other important aspects concern the development of Jewish visual culture and figural art, mostly linked to synagogues, and its comparison with the pagan and Christian use of similar imagery. Since late antique Judaism was less a “religion of the book” than a “religion of the body”, attitudes toward the body and ritual practice also play an important role. Since we know more about rabbis than about any other Jews in late antiquity, their comparison with other types of “sages” and intellectuals is an important aspect of the investigation. Jews in late antique Palestine and Babylonia lived in different political and cultural contexts. Therefore their experiences and literary expressions have to be examined separately. To create a proper balance, chapters on rabbis and rabbinic Judaism in Palestine and Babylonia are complemented by chapters on other Diaspora communities. While certain gaps remain, partly due to a lack of source material and/​or authors, the Handbook tries to provide a fairly comprehensive overview of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity. The abbreviation of sources follows the 2nd edition of the SBL Handbook of Style.

Bibliography Al-​Azmeh, A. (2014). The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Alexander, P. (2009). “ ‘In the Beginning’: Rabbinic and Patristic Exegesis of Genesis 1:1”, in E. Grypeou and H. Spurling (eds.), The Exegetical Encounter Between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1–​30.

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Introduction Bar-​Asher Siegal, M. (2013). Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Bar-​Asher Siegal, M. (2019). Jewish-​Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity: Heretic Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Bernheimer, T. and Silverstein, A.J. (eds.) (2012). Late Antiquity: Eastern Perspectives. Cambridge: Gibb Memorial Trust. Bowersock, G.W., Brown, P. and Grabar, O. (eds.) (1999, 2nd ed. 2000). Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Britt, K. and Boustan, R. (2017). The Elephant Mosaic Panel in the Synagogue at Huqoq: First Publication and Initial Interpretations. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement Series. Brody, R. (1998). The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Cielontko, D. (2023). “The Elephant Mosaic Panel in the Huqoq Synagogue: A Reappraisal of the Maccabean Interpretation”, in R. Fialová, J. Hoblík, and P. Kitzler (eds.), Hellenism, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity: Transmission and Transformation of Ideas. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 179–​204. Curran, J. (2011). “The Jewish Patriarchate: A State Within a State?”, in C. Kelly, R. Flower, and M.S. Williams (eds.), Unclassical Traditions, vol. 2: Perspectives from East and West in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 15–​28. Czajkowski, K. (2020). “Law and Romanization in Judaea”, in K. Czajkowski, B. Eckhardt, and M. Strothmann (eds.), Law in the Roman Provinces. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 84–​100. Fitzgerald Johnson, S. (ed.) (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gordon, B.D. and Weiss, Z. (2018). “Samuel and Saul at Gilgal: A New Interpretation of the Elephant Mosaic Panel in the Huqoq Synagogue”. Journal of Roman Archaeology 31: 524–​41. Grey, M.J. and Magness, J. (2013). “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee: The 2011–​2012 Archaeological Excavations at Huqoq”. Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 5: 1–​30. Grypeou, E. and Spurling, E. (eds.) (2009). The Exegetical Encounter Between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2018). The Menorah: Evolving into the Most Important Jewish Symbol. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Herman, G. (2012). A Prince Without a Kingdom: The Exilarch in the Sasanian Era. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hezser, C. (2017). Rabbinic Body Language. Non-​Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hezser, C. (2018). Bild und Kontext. Jüdische und christliche Ikonographie der Spätantike. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hezser, C. (2019). “Rabbis as Intellectuals in the Context of Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine Christian Scholasticism”, in S.A. Adams (ed.), Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras: Greek, Latin, and Jewish. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 169–​85. Hezser, C. (2022). “The Mishnah and Roman Law: A Rabbinic Compilation of ius civile for the Jewish civitas of the Land of Israel under Roman Rule”, in S.J.D. Cohen (ed.), What is the Mishnah? The State of the Question. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 141–​66. Hezser, C. (2024). “Byzantine Synagogue Legislation, Christianization, and Postcolonial Theory”, in J. Hahn (ed.), Expropriation and Destruction of Synagogues in Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill, forthcoming. Hidary, R. (2018). Rabbis and Classical Rhetoric: Sophistic Education and Oratory in the Talmud and Midrash. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Jacobs, M. (1995). Die Institution des jüdischen Patriarchen: Eine Quellen-​und traditionskritische Studie zur Geschichte der Juden in der Spätantike. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kessler, G. and Koltun-​Fromm, N. (2020). A Companion to Late Antique Jews and Judaism. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. Kiperwasser, R. (2021). Going West: Migrating Personae and Construction of the Self in Rabbinic Culture. Atlanta: SBL Press. Kraemer, R.S. (2020). The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity: What Christianity Cost the Jews. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Krauss, S. (1910). Antoninus und Rabbi. Vienna: Verlag der Israelitisch-​Theologischen Lehranstalt. Laderman, S. (2021). Jewish Art in Late Antiquity: The State of Research in Ancient Jewish Art. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Laham Cohen, R. (2018). The Jews in Late Antiquity. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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Catherine Hezser Lapin, H. (1999). “Rabbis and Cities in Later Roman Palestine: The Literary Evidence”. Journal of Jewish Studies 50: 187–​207. Lapin, H. (2000). “Rabbis and Cities: Some Aspects of the Rabbinic Movement in its Graeco-​Roman Environment”, in P. Schäfer and C. Hezser (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 51–​80. Lapin, H. (2012). Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 200–​400 ce. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Leibner, U. (2010). “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam (Lower Galilee): The Synagogue and the Settlement”. Journal of Roman Archaeology 23: 220–​37. Leibner, U. and Miller, S. (2010). “A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue of Khirbet Wadi Hamam”. Journal of Roman Archaeology 23: 238–​64. Lenski, N. (ed.) (2006, 2nd ed. 2011). The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Levine, L.I. (1996). “The Status of the Patriarch in the Third and Fourth Centuries”. Journal of Jewish Studies 47: 1–​32. Levine, L.I. (2000). The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Levine, L.I. (2012). Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. Levine, L.E. (2016). “Why Did Jewish Art Flourish in Late Antiquity?”, in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 49–​74. Lightstone, J. (1994). The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, Its Social Meaning and Context. Toronto: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Linder, A. (1987). The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Lössl, J. and Baker-​Brian, N.J. (eds.) (2018). A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell. Magness, J. et al. (2014). “Huqoq (Lower Galilee) and its Synagogue Mosaics: Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 2011–​13”. Journal of Roman Archaeology 27: 327–​55. Magness, J. et al. (2018). “The Huqoq Excavation Project: 2014–​2017 Interim Report”. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 380: 61–​131. Millar, F., Ben-​Eliyahu, E., and Cohn, Y. (2012). Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–​700 ce. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Milson, D.W. (2007). Art and Architecture of the Synagogue in Late Antique Palestine: In the Shadow of the Church. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Murcia, T. (2014). Jésus dans le Talmud et la littérature rabbinique ancienne. Turnhout: Brepols. Murray, M. (2000). “Jews and Judaism in Caesarea Maritima,” in T.L. Donaldson (ed.), Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Caesarea Maritima. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 127–​52. Neuwirth, A. (2019). The Qur’an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Niehoff, M.R. (2019). “A Hybrid Self: Rabbi Abbahu in Legal Disputes in Caesarea”, in M.R. Niehoff and J. Levinson (eds.), Self, Self-​Fashioning, and Individuality in Late Antiquity: New Perspectives. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 293–​329. Patmore, H.M. (2018). “The Beginnings of Jewish Late Antiquity: The Fate of the Book of Esther”, in J. Lössl and N.J. Baker-​Brian (eds.), A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 257–​76. Rabello, A. (2000). The Jews in the Roman Empire: Legal Problems, from Herod to Justinian. Aldershot: Ashgate. Rocca, S. (2022). In the Shadow of the Caesars. Jewish Life in Roman Italy. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Rousseau, P. (ed.) (2009). A Companion to Late Antiquity. Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell. Rutgers, L.V. (1998). The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism. Leuven: Peeters. Rutgers, L.V. (2021). The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Schäfer, P. (2007). Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Schwartz, S. (1998). “Gamaliel in Aphrodite’s Bath: Palestinian Judaism and Urban Culture in the Third and Fourth Centuries”, in P. Schäfer, The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​ Roman Culture, vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 203–​17.

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Introduction Schwartz, S. (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C. E . Princeton: Princeton University Press. Secunda, S. and Fine, S. (eds.) (2012). Shoshannat Yaakov. Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Simonsohn, S. (2014). The Jews of Italy: Antiquity. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Stern, D. (2008). ”The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading”. Jewish Quarterly Review 98: 163–​202. Teugels, L.M. (2019). The Meshalim in the Mekhiltot: An Annotated Edition and Translation of the Parables of Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael and Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Troianos, S.N. (2012). “Christians and Jews in Byzantium: A Love-​Hate Relationship”, in R. Bonfil et al. (eds.), Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 133–​48. Weiss, Z. (2014). Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Wilken, R.L. (2004). John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. Eugene: Wipf & Stock (originally published by the University of California Press in 1983). Zellentin, H.M. (2013). The Qur’ān’s Legal Culture: The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zellentin, H.M. (2022). Law Beyond Israel: From the Bible to the Qur’an. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

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PART I

Jews in the Byzantine Empire

2 FROM ROMAN PALESTINE TO A CHRISTIAN “HOLY LAND” Hagith Sivan

1.  Introduction: Imperial Imprints and Palestine “Even in the very earliest period of his youth he, Constantine, was judged by them, the first Tetrarchy, to be worthy of the highest honor. An instance of this we have witnessed with our own eyes when he traversed Palestine in company of the senior emperor. He stood at the emperor’s side, commanding the admiration of all who saw him, and even then providing proof of his royal demeanor… He was even more plentifully endowed with virtues of the mind than with those of the body, being gifted primarily with wisdom and having benefitted from the advantages of an excellent education”. (Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine 1.19; translation: Cameron and Hall 1999: 77) If Eusebius is to be believed, he saw Constantine with his own eyes c. 300 C.E ., when the young man crossed Palestine in the company of an unnamed senior emperor on their way to an unspecified destination (Sivan 2013: 1–​9). Constantine himself made no reference to this episode, an omission that strikingly illustrates the paradox that Palestine presented in late antiquity. It was a province that barely featured on the agenda of grand imperial affairs at that time. Yet imperial support, prompted and ruthlessly manipulated by enterprising Palestinian bishops and monks, planted Palestine firmly at the center of ecclesiastical and imperial Christianity (Cameron 2016: 3–​22; Flower 2012: 287–​305; Potter 2013: 150–​59; van Dam 2003: 127–​51). This concomitant marginality and centrality is well reflected in the records of imperial legislation. Only once in the entire corpus of the Theodosian Code, which covers more than a century of imperial legislation from Constantine to Theodosius II, were the affairs of the Palestinian provinces discussed. In 409 C.E. emperors Theodosius II and Honorius’s addressed Anthemius, the Praefectus Praetorio per Orientem, endorsing the commutation of military rations for the troops stationed in Palestine from payments in kind to gold (Codex Theodosianus 7.4.30; Pollard 2000: 219). This was a novelty, not the least because the constitution also was the first to refer to three Palestines (Prima, Secunda, and Tertia-​Salutaris). Then, 20 years later another imperial decree designated primates Iudaeorum (Jewish leaders) of Palaestina Prima and Secunda as men nominated to raise money throughout the empire on behalf of the Palestinian patriarchs, a levy

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-3

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that the law redirected to the imperial treasury (Codex Theodosianus 16.8.29, 429 C.E .; Linder 1987: 320–​23). With the Theodosian Code, a cumulative rhetoric of Antijudaism raised a shrill and consistent note (Sivan 2002: 213–​25; Nemo-​Pekelman 2010: 99–​100, 115–​40). An imperial constitution of 429 C. E . also signaled the end of the venerable institution of the Jewish patriarchate as the center of a well-​funded pan-​Jewish authority (Theodosius II to John, Count of the Sacred Largesse, Cod. Theod. 16, 8, 29; May 30, 429 C. E .; Goodblatt 1994: 137; Jacobs 1995: 156–​59, 332; Appelbaum 2013: 176–​86). A novella of Justinian records a rearrangement of the Palestinian provincial administration through upgrading the office and staff of the proconsul (Novella 103, 536 C.E .; Meyerson 1988: 65–​ 71). Delving into a brief historical overview of provincial redivisions, the law also contained a brief panegyric extolling Caesarea Maritima, the provincial capital, and its model citizens, ever conscious of paying due taxes to the imperial treasury. It is the only constitution in the substantial corpus of imperial rescripts issued in Justinian’s name that directly deals with the Palestinian province(s). This scant imperial attention to the land contrasts with the number of laws relating to Palestinian minorities, chiefly Jews and Samaritans in the same legal compilations of late antiquity (Rabello 1997:724–​43; Sivan 2001: 208–​19). Such a focus on Jews and Judaism, Samaritans and Samaritanism, reflects another paradox of the Christianization of Palestine, a process in which imperial laws conspired to marginalize the older inhabitants of the land in favor of an evolving Christian “Diaspora” consisting of newcomers, settlers, and visitors. Had Constantine visited Aelia Capitolina (i.e., Jerusalem, see below), he would have seen a garrison town filled with soldiers and polytheistic civilians. On the Temple Mount that once housed the Solomonic-​Herodian Temple to Yahweh statues of Hadrian and Jupiter had been erected (Eliav 2005: 83–​124). On the site soon to become the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stood a temple that Hadrian had dedicated to Aphrodite. Even the city’s name bore reminiscences not of the biblical city but of Hadrian’s presence. In the second and third centuries the presence of either Jews or Christians in Aelia-​Jerusalem is uncertain and for the most part unlikely, although Iulius Africanus, a Christian polymath of the late second and early third century C.E ., claimed Aelia as his “old home” (Wallraff et al. 2012: 30, Fragment 10); Habas 1994: 86–​91). Perhaps there, too, Africanus had been introduced to the Bible and was able to acquire Greek, Hebrew, and some Latin (Wallraff et al., 2007: xv–​xvi; Sivan 2008). Africanus also boasted a particular connection with Palestinian Emmaus-​Nicopolis, a village promoted to the rank of a polis due to his good services on an embassy to the emperor Elagabalus. Africanus’s eminence in Emmaus suggests the presence of a Christian community with connections to the imperial court (Wallraff et al. 2012: xvi). In the hindsight afforded by the late date of the Vita Constantini (the 330s), Eusebius could contemplate the road that Constantine had traversed from his youthful (and otherwise unattested) passage through Palestine to become a Bible reader and an imperial champion of Christianity. It was a transformation that in the Palestinian orbit started with a wholesale borrowing of Hadrianic monuments and ended with the dedication of a major church in Aelia Capitolina (Wilson Jones 2000: 50–​77; Henig 2006: 65–​76). No Roman emperor besides Hadrian and Constantine left more profound imprints on Palestinian landscapes. No emperor other than Hadrian and Heraclius conducted a ceremonial passage (adventus) through Palestine in the course of six centuries of Roman rule (Sivan 2018a: 293–​300).

2.  The Fourth Century: Constantine and the Hadrianic Imprints Around 130 C.E . Hadrian renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina after himself (Aelius Hadrianus) and Jupiter (Jupiter Capitolinus). This was unusual as was the establishment of a colony atop a military 16

From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land”

encampment (Isaac 1998: 87–​108). The emperor’s vision of a unified empire apparently extended to negotiations with leaders of the Christian community and to a plan to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Both intentions, if correctly reported, were rebuffed (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 4.3.3; Golan 1986: 226–​39; Bazzana 2010: 85–​109). This was the background of the colonization of Jerusalem (Eshel 2000: 637–​43) that entailed a major Jewish revolt (the Bar Kokhba revolt, 132–​35 C .E .) that took over three years to suppress and countless casualties on both sides. At the slave market in Mamre near Hebron, south of Jerusalem, countless Jewish captives were sold to be dispersed all over the Roman Mediterranean. It was the site where Abraham had met the three angels announcing the future birth of Isaac, a significant biblical locality that Constantine set out to Christianize (Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah 6.18.6; Commentary on Zachariah 3.11.4). In nearby Bethlehem, where Hadrian had erected a temple to Adonis over a grotto, Constantine had a church erected to commemorate the Nativity (Jerome, Epistle 58). Converting Jerusalem, however, could not have been accomplished solely by an imperial architectural fiat. Nor does it appear that either Constantine or Eusebius was fully aware of reversing history in restoring Aelia as a universal faith center not to Jews, naturally, but to their own coreligionists. Ken Holum has drawn comparisons between these imperial concepts of transforming Jerusalem heralded in the early second century by the travels of Hadrian throughout the province and in the early fourth century by those of Helena, Constantine’s mother, in the 320s (Holum 1990: 66–​81). Helena’s presence galvanized the fledgling Christian communities of the land, creating a model of partnership between court, pilgrims, and the Palestinian ecclesiastical and monastic establishments. After Helena, Palestine also became a fashionable spot of refuge, retirement, and exile for aristocratic women, a space where each could carve a niche from which to exert piety and patronage. They –​pilgrims, monks, locals, and foreigners –​generated a new and ever-​expanding map of the province (Sivan 1990: 54–​65). It was a map based solely on Scripture and contemporary scriptural exegesis. The Hadrianic dispossession of Jews from Jerusalem created an opportunity for Jewish religious leaders to overhaul Judaism. Rabbinic literature, first crystalized in the third-​century compilations of the Mishnah and Tosefta, delineates a Torah-​oriented Jewishness with a textual rather than concrete Jerusalem. Aware of the extraordinary development of the territory, the later Babylonian Talmud transposed contemporary localities into biblical topography and vice-​versa. Thus Sepphoris, Tiberias, and Caesarea Maritima, none mentioned in the Bible, were identified with biblical locations (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 5b–​6a; Grossmark 2012: 98). The rabbinic interpretative trails appear as fanciful as those forged by Christians, both claiming autochthony. One adventuresome rabbi is said to have ventured as far as the Sinai, where he traced the route of the Exodus with the assistance of an Arab merchant guide (Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra 73b–​74a; Grossmark 2012: 99–​101). Whether fictitious or based on actual travel, the Sinaitic adventures of the rabbi and the relations forged between the monks, pilgrims, and nomads of the Sinai demonstrate how a search to authenticate the Bible generated modes of collaboration and conflict (Caner 2010: passim). At the end of the fourth century C. E ., Egeria traveled through landscapes that were astonishingly uniform, all apparently thoroughly Christianized. She barely noticed the presence of Jews or Samaritans anywhere in the land. Nor did she remark, during her three years of immersion in the Jerusalem liturgy, on the debt that these highly localized rituals owed their Jewish antecedents by way of transformative adaptation (Wilkinson 1981: 54–​88; Lane 2015: 14–​28). Within the space of half a century, Jerusalem acquired so many churches that it was possible to march from one to another during all the calendrical feasts. The Temple Mount, however, the most conspicuous topographical landmark of Jerusalem, remained denuded of monuments but not of people. 17

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3.  The Fifth Century: Competing Visions of the Temple Mount Large-​scale literary activities took place in fifth-​century Palestine, ranging from rabbinic compilation to biblical translation (Flesher and Chilton 2011: 161–6). Members of rabbinic schools were engaged in major endeavors to preserve, interpret and transmit knowledge. The Palestinian Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi), an expanded commentary on the Mishnah, was edited in the early fifth century C .E ., although not in Jerusalem (Stemberger 1996: 169–​71). It was a remarkable achievement of legal sophistry reminiscent of the editorial endeavor of the Theodosian Code (Hezser 1998: 581–​641). The fifth century’s exegetical fermentation extended to rabbinic Midrashim dedicated to interpreting specific biblical books, such as Genesis (Rabbah) and Lamentations (Rabbah). Both Talmud and Midrash were matched, in the same Palestinian orbit and within the same time frame of the early decades of the fifth century, by the production of a Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible by Jerome in Bethlehem, accompanied by a string of erudite theological essays. In churches and synagogues throughout Palestine services were enhanced with liturgical poetry, Christian hymns on the one hand and piyyutim on the other, the latter representing “a rebellion against the idea of standardized fixed prayer” (Petuchowsky 1978: 15; cf. Laytner 1990: 127–​76; Langer 2015: 189–​97). Decidedly less intellectual were activities, such as those of Porphyry in the prosperous city of Gaza, that shaped both land and communities. In Gaza, at the dawn of the century (ca. 400–​405 C.E.), a campaign to Christianize the predominantly polytheistic city was accompanied by an inordinate degree of verbal and physical aggression that belies the tranquil tenor that permeates the pages of Egeria’s diary (Sivan 2013: 121–​36). One aspect of the Christianization of Gaza in the fifth century merits attention: an appeal to members of the imperial court that invariably resulted in a generous subsidy. In Gaza’s case the donation provided by the empress Eudoxia, wife of the emperor Arcadius, enabled Porphyry, the newly appointed Gazan bishop and a transplant from Thessalonike, to rebuild a huge church atop the deliberately destroyed temple of Zeus-​Marnas. The calculated replacement of temples with churches coupled with appeals to the vaunted piety of imperial women was repeated elsewhere (see below for Jerusalem). A hunt for relics emerged as another prominent activity of Palestinian Christianity, forging a pan-​Mediterranean network through the travel of relics from Palestine to destinations all over the empire. In 415 C.E ., John, bishop of Jerusalem (387–​417 C.E .), orchestrated a public search for the bones of St. Stephen the first martyr. When found, they were solemnly conveyed to Jerusalem and deposited in a church of Sion (Venderlinden 1946: 178–​217). Soon thereafter the bones were dispatched to western destinations where they were accredited with a series of miracles (Sivan 2023: 427–76). On the remote island of Minorca, the bones were apparently instrumental in the (forced) conversion of the entire Jewish population (Sivan 2013: 121–​36). Episcopal ambitions and rivalries marked another aspect of the expansion of Christianity in Palestine. Already in the early fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea was hostile to the nascent ambitions of his peers in Jerusalem. John of Jerusalem attempted to extend his seat’s prestige and authority by embarking on construction campaigns beyond Jerusalem proper. Casting an eye on the road to Bethlehem, a town within his jurisdiction, John erected a church for Mary on the road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. His venture, as well as John’s dogmatic leanings, raised a storm of protests from the clergy in Bethlehem, whose chagrin was eloquently expressed by Jerome, then a denizen inhabiting a cave in town (Jerome, Contra Joannem Hierosolytitanum, ed. J.–​L. Feiertag =​Corpus Christianorum Latinorum [CCL] 79A, Turnhout 1999; Sivan 2009: 369–​82; 2006: 443–​56; Rebenich 2002: 52–​60). 18

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We possess a number of biographies of ascetics, all compiled by faithful disciples, which elucidate the relationship of contradictory complementarity between a developing Christian Holy Land and its Christian “Diaspora”. One such was Peter, prince, priest, and pilgrim (Kofsky 1997: 209–​ 22; Horn 2006: 50–​110; Horn and Phenix 2008: 2–​280). Hailing from the princedom of Iberia, Peter, a royal transplant, found in Palestine not only the spiritual nourishment which he had craved but also the snares of ecclesiastical politics. A search for a land on which to build a monastery got him involved in dispute with a neighbor, likewise a Christian. A desire for solitude drove him away from Jerusalem to the Palestinian coast. Peter’s colorful career highlights the complexity of forming a Palestinian Christian identity in a land in which Christianity was shaped also in the shade of doctrinal controversies and ecclesiastical councils far from the province. The verbal and physical clashes that launched the fifth century in Palestine reverberate through the pages of a biography extolling a Mesopotamian ascetic named Barsauma. He embarked on no less than four pilgrimages to Palestine during the first half of the century, each marked by increasing level of destruction and disruption of the fragile equilibrium among communities in Palestine (Sivan 2018b: 53–​74). By far the most active promoter of Christianization through destruction and divisiveness, Barsauma’s biography highlights the power of extravagant piety to transform Palestinian landscapes. It also affords unexpected, if hostile, glimpses into contemporary Jewish aspirations vis-​à-​vis Jerusalem. As in the case of Porphyry and Gaza, imperial presence, this time in situ, is instrumental in lending legitimacy to the divisive activities while emphasizing the imbalance between the vulnerability of royalty vs. the invulnerability of the ascetic. One pilgrimage, recounted in great detail, may serve as a paradigm of the striking disparity between pilgrims seeking to see the Bible with their own eyes and those striving to reshape biblical lands. In Barsauma’s case, the trigger for his pilgrimage was not to touch the territory hallowed by the biblical past but to recurve it according to his vision of a Christian Palestine. Stripped of adulating rhetoric, the Life of Barsauma is also the only non-​Jewish source relating to mid-​fifth century Jewish affairs. Barsauma reached the city with a gang of devoted followers, schooled in attacking Jewish, pagan, and Samaritan sanctuaries. No sooner they entered Jerusalem they parted, Barsauma to a monastery, his followers marching to the Temple Mount. What they encountered atop this hill that had once housed the Jewish Temple was a huge crowd of mourning Jews. To account for their unaccountable presence, Barsauma’s biographer even enclosed documents, without specifying their source, purporting to present a petition of Galilean Jewish leaders to the empress Eudocia in which they ask her to rescind a Constantinian ban on entering Jerusalem: “All the priests and the leaders of the Jewish people had assembled from the whole land of Galilee and its environs and gone up to the city of Jerusalem to present a long petition to the empress Eudocia. They praised her with resounding acclamations, saying: You are the mistress of the world and we are the slaves of your royal highness. Without you we are unable to live. It is true that the emperor Constantine the Great decreed for us: You are not allowed to enter the environs of Jerusalem. But now have mercy on your slaves and permit us to enter and pray in the ruins of the Temple that Solomon built”. (Translation: Palmer 2020: 78) Petitions were routinely addressed to emperors, governors, and a host of officials. Eudocia’s presence in Palestine presented an opportunity to appeal in person to a powerfully connected royalty. The petition’s contents are hardly an anomaly. The reference to a Constantinian ban, otherwise unattested, suggests that whoever upheld the original Hadrianic ban ascribed it to Constantine 19

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(Irshai 2004: 67–​106; Magness 2004: 507–​25). The request to enter Jerusalem does not specify an occasion for the collective prayer, nor does it mention rabbis or for that matter the powerful bishop of the city, Juvenal. According to Barsauma’s biography (Vita 89–​90): “Eudocia accepted the petition of the Jews and issued the following decree: The Jews have the right to enter Jerusalem and pray in the Temple that was built by King Solomon”. (translation: Palmer 2020: 78) This encouraging response resulted in an encyclical letter sent from the Galilee to all Jews: “To the great and strong people of the Jews from the priests and leaders of the Galilee: Warm greetings! We write to inform you that the time of the diaspora of our people is past. Behold, the day has arrived on which our tribes shall be reassembled. The emperors of the Romans have decreed that our city, Jerusalem, is to be restored to us. Make haste, then, and come to Jerusalem for the feast of the Tabernacles, because our reign will then be established in Jerusalem”. (Translation: Palmer 2020: 80) Echoes of the famous decree issued by the Persian king Cyrus in the fifth century inspired the composition:

B.C.E.

clearly

“Whosoever there is among you of all His people, his God be with him, let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the House of the Lord, the God of Israel, He is the God who is in Jerusalem”. (Ezra 1:3) Moreover, the feast of the Tabernacles (Sukkot) was the very first ceremony that the returning exiles celebrated to mark the renewal of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel (Ezra 3:4). It was also one of the three biblically mandated pilgrimages, an internal Jewish discourse now appropriated in a literary work commemorating a Christian pilgrimage (Hausl 2013: 88–​106; Becker 2008: 394–​416). The date of Sukkot, which usually occurs in the fall, coincided with the arrival of Barsauma at Jerusalem in October (c. C . E . 450). Astonishingly, however, the Life of Barsauma’s description of the huge Jewish assembly atop the Temple Mount –​“clothed in black and weeping, ripping up their clothing, scattering ashes on themselves and sitting down at noon in the ruins of the Temple to groan” (Palmer 2020: translation of Vita 91.8) –​recaptures not Sukkot but more likely the Ninth of Av, the annual fast in memory of the destroyed Temple (Shahar 2003: 145–​64; Elizur 2007: 154–​55; Safrai 1980: 376–​93; Hezser 2000: 20–​23; Wilken 1992: 106). That no less than 103,000 were in attendance atop the Temple Mount following the exchange between Jewish leaders and the empress seems unlikely. This patently exaggerated figure, suspected on account of its presumed accuracy, enables Barsauma’s biographer to gleefully contrast it with Barsauma’s bunch of twenty monks who, rather oddly, happened to be there at the same location at the very same moment (Palmer 2020: 79). The reported somber mood of the Jewish crowd matches the sight and sounds reported by the Bordeaux pilgrim in 333 C.E ., confirming that this was an annual event at the end of which the Jews promptly departed from Jerusalem (Itinerarium Burdigalense 591; Jerome, Commentary on Sephania 1.16). It seems likely, therefore, that the Life of Barsauma deliberately replaced one event of the contemporary Jewish calendar by another in 20

From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land”

order to match Barsauma’s pilgrimage with the Jewish traditional pilgrimage that he was about to subvert. Barsauma’s presence in Jerusalem activates an array of protagonists, visions, and miracles, all apparently acting according to an elusive divine design. In this intermingling of the human and super-​human, Jews, the empress, Roman officials, and Christian clergy pose a challenge to Barsauma’s desired order of Jerusalemite topography. On the Temple Mount, the initial encounter between monks (Barsauma’s disciples) and Jews ends with a vision, seen only by Jews, of armed angels bearing upon them, followed by showers of real stones that left many dead (Palmer 2020: 92). The monks themselves remained unscathed. Dramatic as the scene atop the Temple Mount must have been, it proved merely a prelude to a long, complex, and calculated campaign conducted by Barsauma from the safety of the walls of a monastery to which he had retired upon reaching the city. Following the deadly encounter between Barsauma’s disciples and the praying Jews, a delegation composed of Jewish representatives as well as of civil and ecclesiastical officials, all armed with olive branches, marched to Bethlehem to present the case before the empress. In their appeal, the embassy refers to Barsauma’s disciples as Mesopotamian ruffians wearing the habit of monks (Palmer 2020: 93). With corpses as a proof of criminality, the formal accusation leveled at Barsauma’s monkish disciples labeled them as foreigners fomenting disorder. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Barsauma’s disciples, having publicly accused the “Romans” and clergy of collusion with the “crucifiers” (Palmer 2020: 93), were thrown into jail. It was the turn of the Jews to gather in front of the prison in order to pile the corpses of those who had died atop the Temple Mount. Miraculously, it seems, none of the bodies showed signs of human violence. Suddenly a Jewish woman dropped dead, her body shriveling up, a sight that. prompts the imperial officials to order the seizure and arrest of the “Jewish priests” who are now held responsible for summoning their coreligionists to embark on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Palmer 2020: 94). Fearing for their lives, these Jewish priests men urge the release of Barsauma’s monks. They further confess that it was their own sins that had ushered the shower of the deadly stones that had killed so many of their coreligionists (Palmer 2020: 95). As the story of the avenging angels killing Jews atop the Temple Mount makes its rounds through the Christian crowd assembled in front of the prison, five more Jews are said to have fallen dead on the spot, their bodies hardened to stone. Everyone is now convinced that the whole affair had been the manifestation of a divine plan. The jailed monks now reveal their connection with Barsauma who, as we remember, had been thus far safely sequestered in an unnamed monastery in the city. Everyone now heads to the monastery. Eudocia justifies her leniency vis-​à-​vis the Jews by claiming that she had been afraid of their oppressiveness. Barsauma, he insists that legal procedures must be followed lest the Jews slander her and say that she is no more than the monk’s emissary. Eudocia summons the provincial governor, presumably with some troops, from Caesarea to deal with the situation, a move that indicates that in Jerusalem matters had gone out of control. But the governor, it seems, is afraid of entering the city that is full not only of Jews but also of countless monks who had descended on Jerusalem from the many monasteries in the hinterland in order to burn the empress. Overcoming, apparently, his apprehension, the governor attempts to run an investigation. An earthquake suddenly occurs. Contrary to the stoning vision on the Temple Mount, the earthquake hurts no one and destroys no structure (Palmer 2020: 96; Russell 1985: 37–​59; Rucker and Neimi 2010: 97–​106). To mark the miraculous survival of the city, Barsauma and the governor stage public thanks that induce “trembling among the Jews, agitation among the Samaritans and shame among pagans” (Palmer 2020: 96), each party bidding a hasty escape from the city (cf. Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Sabas, 57). The Christian mob that had 21

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been ready to set the empress on fire now metamorphoses into countless choirs, each singing in its own language, while wine, oil, spices, and perfumes infuse streets and celebrants. The Barsauma narrative indulges in an imaginative construct of the Jews as inextricably entangled in their own illusion, believing in the possible recovery of the Temple Mount under imperial auspices (Cohn 2013: 73–​90). The echoes of perennial Jewish messianic expectations and of an all-​pervasive Christian fear of a rebuilt Temple are genuine enough (Kiperwasser and Ruzer 2013: 66–​68). But the biography is full of contradictions. The Jews are presented as powerful and influential, an illusion rather than a reality intended to highlight Barsauma’s pious prowess. The Jew in the text is the object of a discourse that is ever renewed. Being Jewish is in itself the cause that provides an answer to the reversals that punctuate the narrative and control communications: sudden deaths, sudden change of heart, Barsauma’s sudden appearance on the scene, and an earthquake. The sight of Jews atop the site that once had housed the Temple is a trigger of Barsauma’s plan to complete the Christianization of Jerusalem precisely by excising the last remnant of its Jewish association and presence. The Holy Land envisaged by this Mesopotamian monk is a territory without its minorities. It is a vision to which both empress and high Roman officials must conform. Barsauma’s Jerusalem and its countless Jews contrast with the purely Christian character of the city as described by other pilgrims a few decades before. In the early 380s Egeria saw no Jew in Jerusalem. Only churches, monks, pilgrims, and priests (Limor 2001: 1–​15). Who, then, were Barsauma’s Jews? A pure literary fiction? An echo of a genuine group whose tenacity defied the concerted efforts to complete the Christianization of Aelia-​Jerusalem that Constantine had launched with the prominent planting of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher? The description of the Jewish assembly on the Temple Mount is a deliberate literary strategy of transforming Sukkot into a ritual of mourning associated with the Ninth of Av and specifically, I venture to propose, with a group known as Avlei Zion (Mourners of Zion, cf. Isaiah 61:3; Fishbane 1998: 61). According to a text in Pesiqta Rabbati, these mourners regularly prayed for the restitution of the sanctuary, requesting that the Temple rebuilding be entrusted to God directly and not to the angel who had been responsible for its fiery destruction (Pesiqta Rabbati 33–​34; Ulmer 2010: 223–​59; Cohen 2010). As proof that the time of restitution has arrived, the Midrash mentions the vision of a descending light that will shine only on Israel and not on the gentiles (Pesiqta Rabbati 36:8). Characterized by asceticism and social renunciation, these zealous Jewish sharers of God’s mourning over the fate of city and Temple were mocked by other Jews (Pesiqta Rabbati 34; Kraemer 2016: 32; Eliav 2003: 49–​114). They further invoked rabbinic opposition that positioned not Jerusalem but Torah piety at the heart of its theology (Fishbane 1998: 64). Yet in Pesiqta Rabbati, the avelim alone merit the messiah, just as in the Life of Barsauma, only Barsauma and his disciples represent the spirit of true Christian pilgrimage. By uprooting the Mourners of Zion from the Temple Mount, Barsauma eradicated the last vestige of Jewish links with city and Temple. Precisely because the Mourners of Zion posed a strikingly complementary image to Barsauma’s ascetic-​radical ideology, they were regarded as menacing, an irreconcilable foreign element in Barsauma’s Christian topography of Jerusalem. It is hardly a coincidence that the Life does not mention contemporary Christian sanctuaries but only a prison in Jerusalem. Although billed as a pilgrimage, Barsauma’s Jerusalemite rounds are hardly a guide to fifth-​ century Jerusalem. Even the term “pilgrimage” is misleading. The account contains no information about a specific Jerusalem liturgy. Paradoxically, the Life of Barsauma shows that the Temple Mount was considered an essential component of late ancient Judaism. The presence of

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Jews in both the sacred space and the sacred city is what Barsauma aspired to exorcise from his own utopian Jerusalem. The Life of Barsauma is a piece of hagiography that may bear important insights into Jewish responses to the Christian appropriation of the Holy Land. It reflects “a new social and religious fact to the effect that Jews had begun to sense that the Christian Romans who ruled the Land of Israel worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and had a spiritual investment in the city of Jerusalem” (Wilken 1992: 142). The ubiquitous presence of Jewish (and Christian) priests in Barsauma’s narrative may suggest a moment of Jewish messianic awakening, further reflected in the contemporary piyyutim (synagogal liturgical poetry) of Yose ben Yose, whose vision of a rebuilt Temple is, like Barsauma’s, inextricably linked to the revival of the levitical priesthood (Horbury 1981: 177). Such longings reverberated throughout the Mediterranean. In Crete in the 430s, a self-​style messiah led countless Jews to an untimely death by plunging into the sea that he promised to cleave just as Moses had done (Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica 7.38; Schuol 2011: 219–​54). In Palestine, rabbinic literature generated its own genre of travel literature that recreated a rabbinic Land of Israel as a deliberate meta-​map of contemporary Christian pilgrimage cartography (Levinson 2013: 99–​120).

4.  The Sixth Century: Decline and Abandon or a Literary Renaissance? Compared with the exuberance of the fifth century, the sixth seems to denote a decline rooted in a variety of factors: climatic change, natural disasters, and a major bubonic plague (the so-​ called Justinianic plague) that broke out in the early 540s (Hirschfeld 2006: 19–​32). Droughts and earthquakes were not uniquely aligned only in the sixth century but their contemporaneity with a devastating plague led to the deletion of large sectors of the urban population. Rural areas were apparently largely spared devastation and abandonment (Kennedy 2007: 87–​95). For the Samaritans who periodically rebelled against Rome in the sixth century such natural disasters, and ruthless suppression, may have conspired to result in a dramatic decimation of their numbers. The picture is uneven. Excavations at the village of Nabratein (Upper Galilee) point to abandon already in the fourth century in the wake of an earthquake in 363 C.E . Two centuries later, the village was resettled, perhaps by families from nearby villages abandoned in the mid-​sixth century. Nabratein’s sixth-​century synagogue, dedicated in 564 C. E ., was larger than its two predecessors and could accommodate about 260 worshippers (Meyers and Meyers 2015: 404–​14; Spigel 2012: 285–​88). Its construction defied an imperial constitution issued in 543 C.E . that banned the building of new synagogues (Justinian, Novella 131). Since the emperor delegated the dissemination and enforcement of such laws to local clergy, authorizing them to confiscate the property in question, the absence of such agents in Jewish villages allowed for transgressions of the law with impunity (Gray 1993: 264). The gloomy picture of the decline of Palestinian populations and of the economy and agriculture, punctured by evidence of reoccupation of deserted land, is further dispelled by a literary renaissance linked, primarily, to the city of Gaza and to monasticism. The efflorescence of Palestinian monasticism in marginal areas is recorded by a series of energetic monks engaged in hagiography and epistolography. Cyril of Scythopolis’s biographies of holy men recaptures both renowned ascetics and the stark landscape between Jerusalem and Jericho in which they lived (Hirschfeld 1992: 1–​17; Di Segni 2005: 1–​40). Countless hours were spent in Sabas’ Judaean desert monastery (the Great Laura) composing, compiling, and copying works that provided the foundations for a wide-​ranging literary output that lasted for centuries (Peristeris 2001: 171–94). An extensive correspondence emanating

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from Gazan monks (Barsanuphius, John, Dorotheus) and laity (Choricius, Aeneas, Procopius, John) reflects an exceptional scale of intellectual activities, including rhetorical compositions, poetry, and philosophical treatises (Hevelone-​Harper 2005: 81–​86; Coccolella 2006: 78–​95; Amato et al., 2014: passim; Perrone 2007: 217–​44). Gaza’s port was a major center for the export of wine. The amphorae that encased the varieties of alcoholic drinks produced in the countless wine presses throughout Palestine were known as Gazan ware (Kingsley 2001: 44–​68). Sixth-​century Gaza also opens a window to Jewish communities otherwise unattested (cf. Joshua Stylite, Chron. sub anno 502). In Maiumas, Gaza’s harbor, the largest of all recorded late antique Palestinian synagogues was constructed and dedicated in 508 C.E . It was capable of holding one thousand to three thousand worshippers (Werlin 2015: 237–​62; Spigel 2012: 327). Among the donors of mosaics to the synagogue were lumber merchants, suggesting a Jewish involvement in maritime trade. That Jews formed an integral component of society in Christian Gaza is reflected in questions addressed to the famed Gazan monks about interfaith social contacts and commercial transactions: “If a Jew (or a pagan) invites me to dine on his festival, and even sends me presents, should I accept or not?” When informed that such an association was contrary to canon law, the questioner persisted: “What if he is an important person and my friend and he is wont to be saddened by my refusal, what shall I tell him?” (John and Barsanuphius of Gaza, Questions and Answers 776, translation: Hevelone-​Harper 2005: 82; Gray 1993: 245; Champion 2014: 24–​25). John replied that abiding by the commandments and customs of one’s faith does not lessen the love one bears for another. Commensality, then, could breed transgressions, a conviction shared by rabbis, who repeatedly issued warnings against eating gentile non-kosher food. When members of the Jewish community in Gadara consulted Palestinian rabbis about dining with non-​Jews, they received mixed signals. According to one rabbi, meal mingling was permitted for the sake of neighborly peace. According to another, such socializing amounted to idolatry (Palestinian Talmud Avodah Zarah 1:3, 3b; Hayes 1997: 156–​57). The matter was never quite settled. In the Gazan hinterland farmers, regardless of their creed, depended on each other. (John and Barsanuphius of Gaza, Questions and Answers 686). A link has also been suggested between the Gazan literary renaissance of the sixth century and nascent rabbinic Midrash. The invention of the catena (chain), a collection of exegetical passages arranged according to the order of biblical verses, has been accredited to Procopius of Gaza (Romeny 2007: 173–​90). Rabbinic Midrash, such as Genesis Rabbah, employs the catena form to provide a skillfully embroidered patchwork commentary on the biblical book of Genesis (Horbury 1998: 219; de Lange 1989: 171–​81). Although it is notoriously difficult to date rabbinic compilations, sixth-​century Palestine seems to have been a hotbed of experimentation with new approaches to biblical interpretation, both Jewish and Christian (Schwartz 2007: 88). Jewish literary and editorial creativity may also have extended to compiling medical encyclopedias, of which the best known, the so-​called “Book of Remedies”, has been associated with Asaph (Montener 1968: 912–​13).

5.  The Seventh Century: The Coming of the Messiah? Had Barsauma visited Jerusalem in 614 C. E ., he would have had reason to engage in vehement anti-​Jewish rhetoric upon seeing Jews on the Temple Mount rejoicing at the coming of the Sasanid-​ Persians to the land and, even more shockingly, at the sight of the removal of the True Cross from Jerusalem to Ctesiphon in 618. Anonymous piyyutim expressed exuberant joy at the possible fulfillment of messianic hopes, above all the recovery of Jerusalem under Sasanian auspices 24

From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land”

(Sivan 2000: 277–​306; Sivan 2004: 77–​92; Papadonnayakis 2011: 373–​82). The hopes were cut short. In 630 C .E. , half a millennium after Hadrian’s Judaean adventus marked the transformation of Jerusalem into Aelia Capitolina, Heraclius celebrated his victory over Chosroes II in Jerusalem with the restoration of the Cross to its Constantinian structure. It was a show designed to manifest the divine favor shown to the Christian empire whose monarch marched through the streets imitating not Hadrian but David. The Hadrianic rule that banned Jews from Jerusalem was apparently instantly revived with the eviction of Jews from Jerusalem, as though to seal the final Christianization of David’s city. It was to be complemented by an empire-​wide forced baptism of all Roman Jews (Heilo 2016: 20–​40). The Heraclian euphoria lasted even less than the Jewish one a few decades earlier. In 634 C. E. the Muslim invasion of Palestine began and by 638 C.E . Jerusalem was conquered. Palestine became part of the Umayyad and other successive Islamic dynasties (Gil 1992: 11–​74). The Sasanian siege of Jerusalem in 614 C. E . was brief but the number of Christian casualties may have been high, though marginal compared with those sustained by Jews during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C. E . According to the verses penned by Sophronius, a Jerusalemite clergyman (later the city’s patriarch) who was notably absent during the fourteen years of Sasanian control over Jerusalem, the Christian sufferings echoed biblical disasters as did Sophronius’s invocation of divine revenge (Anacreontica [Gigante] 102–​07; Olster 1994: 99–​115). Returning to Jerusalem in 634 C. E ., when the Muslims defeated a Roman force near Gaza, Sophronius delivered his Christmas sermon (On the Nativity) at the Church of the Theotokos. He asserted that orthodox Christianity was bound to blunt the Ishmaelite sword (Booth 2010: 22). The sermon On the Nativity may signal the moment of the birth of a local Palestinian Christianity, entangled in the strength of its conviction and detached from its imperial network, from Rome, and from Roman identity. Having accused Jews of collaboration with the Persians, Sophronius, now the patriarch of Jerusalem, projected God alone as the ultimate and sole source of salvation, provided one adheres to the correct creed (Booth 2010: 24–​25).

6. Conclusion This account can, at best, hint at the complexity of the transformation of the territory and the people during the centuries that, as we can judge in hindsight, proved critical. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the centuries that witnessed the rise of Christianity and the Christianization of Palestine is the voluminous literary activity of practically all the religious communities of the land, Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and pagans. What emerges is like a “dialogue of the deaf”, a misunderstanding carefully nurtured by all sides, with reality at times hidden, at others distorted. Yet the overall picture of the taking of the land through persistent Christian manipulation of the biblical text seems clear, as is the tenacious adherence of both Jews and Samaritans to their Scripture and land.

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From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land” Sivan, H. (2000). “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem: Jewish Perspectives and Jewish-​Christian Polemics”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 41: 277–​306. Sivan, H. (2001). “Why Not Marry a Jew? Jewish-​ Christian Marital Frontiers in Late Antiquity”, in R.W. Mathisen (ed.), Law, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 208–​19. Sivan, H. (2002). “Canonizing Law in Late Antiquity: Legal Constructs of Judaism in the Theodosian Code”, in M. Finkelberg and G. Stroumsa (eds.), Homer, the Bible and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 213–​25. Sivan, H. (2004). “Palestine Between Byzantium and Persia (C.E. 614–​619)”, in Convegno internazionale: La Persia e Bisanzio (Roma, 14–​18 Ottobre 2002). Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 77–​92. Sivan, H. (2006). “Contesting Calendars: The 9th of Av and the Feast of the Theotokos”, in B. Caseau et al. (ed.), Pèlerinage et lieux saints dans l’antiquite et le Moyen Âge. Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 443–​456. Sivan, H. (2008). “Review of Wallraff et al., Iulius Africanus”, Bryn Mawr Classical Review (available at https://​bmcr.brynm​awr.edu/​2008/​2008.04.43/​). Sivan, H. (2009). “On the Way to Bethlehem: Mary between Jerome and John of Jerusalem”, in A. Cain and N. Lenski (eds.), The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 369–​82. Sivan, H. (2013). “A Passage through Palestine. Notes on Eusebius’ Vita Constantini 1.19”, in ed. D. Bojović (ed.), Saint Emperor Constantine and Christianity. International Conference Commemorating the 1700the Anniversary of the Edict of Milan, vol. 1. Niš: Centre of Church Studies, 1–​9. Sivan, H. (2013). “Between Gaza and Minorca: The (Un)Making of Minorities in Late Antiquity”, in N.B. Dohrmann and A.Y. Reed (eds.), Jews, Christians and the Roman Empire. The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 121–​36. Sivan, H. (2018a). Jewish Childhood in the Roman World. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Sivan, H. (2018b). “Subversive Pilgrimages: Barsauma in Jerusalem”, Journal of Early Christian Studies 26: 53–​74. Sivan, H. (2023). “Saint Stephen in Africa. On Saints, Spinsters and Synagogues in Late Antiquity”, Journal of Late Antiquity 16: 427–76. Spigel, C.S. (2012). Ancient Synagogue Seating Capacities. Methodology, Analysis and Limits. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Strack, H.L. and Stemberger, G. (1996). Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress. Ulmer, R. (2010). “The Jerusalem Temple in Pesiqta Rabbati. From Creation to Apocalypse”, Hebrew Studies 51: 223–​59. Ulmer, R. (2011). “Construction, Destruction, and Reconstruction. The Temple in Pesiqta Rabbati”, in S. Fine (ed.), The Temple of Jerusalem from Moses to the Messiah. In Honor of Professor Louis H. Feldman. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 105–​24. Van Dam, R. (2003). “The Many Conversions of the Emperor Constantine”, in K.R. Mills and A. Grafton (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 127–​51. Venderlinden, S. (1946). “Revelatio Sancti Stephani”, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 4: 178–​217. Wallraff, M. et al. (2007). Julius Africanus, Chronography. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter.: Wallraff, M. et al. (eds.) (2012). Iulius Africanus. The Extant Fragments. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. Werlin, S.H. (2015). Ancient Synagogues of Southern Palestine, 300–​800 C.E.: Living on the Edge. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Wilken, R. (1992). A Land Called Holy. Palestine in Christian History and Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wilkinson, J. (1981). Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land. Jerusalem: Ariel. Wilson Jones, M. (2000). “Genesis and Mimesis: The Design of the Arch of Constantine in Rome”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 56: 50–​77.

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3 CHANGES IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND POPULATION OF BYZANTINE PALESTINE Claudine Dauphin

1.  Setting the Stage A decade after the creation of the State of Israel, Professor Michael Avi-​Yonah, the founder of Byzantine Archaeology in Israel, showed that there was a five-​fold increase in archaeological sites from the Canaanite to the Byzantine period in Israel (Avi-​Yonah 1958: 40). After the quelling of the first Jewish revolt by the Romans, their capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 C . E ., Jews were banished from Judaea. They emigrated northwards to the Galilee and the Golan, while Roman military personnel and their Jewish collaborators, who may be alluded to as “land-​thieves” (anas), that is, usurping occupants in Mishnah Kilayim 7:6, settled in central Palestine. The internal demographic increase’ was augmented by an influx of other populations from the fourth century onwards. Builders and artisans were attracted in large numbers to Palestine, where four Constantinian foundations were simultaneously under construction: on the Mount of Olives the Eleona Church (where Jesus had taught his disciples), built in 333 C . E ., and the Chapel of the Anastasis (where Christ is believed by Christians to have risen to heaven), a mid-​fourth century rotunda with porticoes; in the Holy City itself the Church of the Holy Sepulchre consecrated in 335 C . E ., and in Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity which was completed in 339 C . E . Fleeing from the Goths and the Vandals at the beginning of the fifth century, many members of the Roman aristocracy sought refuge in Palestine with their gold and jewels (Avi-​Yonah 1958: 43–​4). Pilgrims were already thronging to the Holy Places (Hunt 1982). As demand increased, the agricultural production of the Jerusalem region was stimulated. The fertile Terrae Rossae of Judaea and Samaria were able to fulfill this demand by intensifying the growing of grain, olive trees, and vines. Plantations spread, landed property was parceled out, and villages multiplied. Jews had completely fallen out of this success story of the Christian Holy Land –​a major lacuna only partly filled by the monumental studies by Alon (1977; 1980; 1984) and Avi-​Yonah (1979; 1984). Meanwhile, the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums (IDAM) pursued the work of the British military and subsequent Mandatory administration of Palestine (1918–​1948) by 30

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inspecting sites declared “archaeological”, with the results recorded and published in a series of Schedules and Palestine Gazettes (1929–​1947), and by conducting salvage excavations. Furthermore, founded in 1964 and attached to IDAM, the Association for the Archaeological Survey of Israel undertook “the systematic archaeological exploration of the State of Israel” (Kloner 1970) as well as conducting salvage surveys in Judaea-​Samaria and the Golan immediately after the Six Days War in 1967 and in 1968, and the Negev Emergency Survey in 1978–​1989. Numerous sites were threatened by the creation of military bases in the Negev following the retrocession of Sinai to Egypt. By 1975 it was clear that a new spatiotemporal quantitative approach was necessary to integrate the information contained in the 3,710 files of the archaeological archives of the Mandatory government of Palestine, the Archaeological Archives of the State of Israel (excavation archives and scientific archives, in which the data on archaeological sites is regularly updated), with the field-​files of the Archaeological Survey of Israel and to analyze this material on the basis of the historical sources (Dauphin 1978).

a)  Palaestina and the “Land of Israel”: A Maximalist View The geohistorical entity of “Palestine” with its distinctive features coincides with the modern country Israel within its extended borders, resulting from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, minus Sinai, which was returned to Egypt following the 1980 Camp David agreements. It covers the three “Palestines” of the Roman and Byzantine civil, military, and ecclesiastical administration (Avi-​Yonah, 1936; 1940; 1970; Dauphin 1998, vol. 1: 39–​40, 54–​5). It also incorporates the rabbinic “Land of Israel”, whose borders were delineated by the Mishnah, Tosefta, Jerusalem (or Palestinian) Talmud, and tannaitic Midrashim (Sussmann 1976; Dauphin 1998, vol. 1: 68–​9; Figure 3.1). This maximalist view of Palestine adopted in the present chapter comprised Western Galilee, which in the Byzantine period was part of Phoenicia Maritima, and the Golan, which was astride Phoenicia Maritima, Palaestina Secunda, and Provincia Arabia. On the other hand, Sinai, which never belonged to geohistorical Palestine (but was in the orbit of Egypt) is excluded from our inquiry. For administrative purposes, the Byzantine border between Palaestina and Phoenicia ran through mutatio Certha (a place for the change of horses on the Roman cursus publicus) at Khirbet Dastri (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 3/​188) south of Haifa, but the rabbinic boundary between the Land of Israel and Sourya was further north, beyond the walls of Acco (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 3/​304). Moreover, the northern part of Western Galilee, which was situated outside the Land of Israel, included nine “forbidden towns in the territory of Tyre” (Tosefta Shevi’it 6:1). These were subjected to the strictest rules of tithing and Sabbatical Year produce, which theoretically were applicable only to settlements inside the Land of Israel (Dauphin 2002b: 162–​5).

b)  The Sources and Their Limitations For a study of the population dynamics of late antique Palestine from the reign of Constantine (324–​337 C .E .) to the Umayyad Conquest (636–​640 C.E .), archaeological sources are copious: nineteenth-​century travelogues (some 5,000 books and articles published between 1800 and 1878, according to Ben-​Arieh 1979: 15), the explorations of V. Guérin (1868; 1874; 1880), the descriptions and maps of the Survey of Western Palestine by C.R. Conder and H.H. Kitchener (1881–​1883), the archaeological archives of the Mandatory Government of Palestine (1922–​1948), and those of the State of Israel since 1948 and of the Archaeological Survey of Israel since 1964. 31

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Figure 3.1 The rabbinic boundaries of the Land of Israel (© C. Dauphin): 1 The crossroad of Ashqelon; 2 the wall of Strato’s Tower; 3 the wall of Dor; 4 the wall of Acco; 5 Kabrîta; 6 the spring of the waters of the Gaaton; 7 Gathoun; 8 Beth Zenîtah; 9 the castrum of Gelil; 10 Yôqeret; 11 qwb’yyh (peaks?) of Aita; 12: the fort of Kurain; 13 the enclosure of Jattir; 14 Beth-​Aita; 15 Kore Rabta; 16 Nahla d-​Abatsal; 17: Ulam Rabta; 18 Misha; 19 Olashta; 20 Tafnit; 21 Nahareshet; 22 Sfinta; 23 the Tower of Harub; 24 mmsyyh d-​Abhat; 25 Nigbata d-​’Ayun; 26 msb spnhh; 27 Upper Tarnegola of Caesarea (Banyas); 28 Karka d-​Bar Sangora; 29 Bet Sukkat; 30 Rafah d-​Hagra; 31 the fort of Raziza; 32 the Trachon in the vicinity of Bosra; 33 Shaqqa; 34 Nimrim; 35 Canatha; 36 Igar Sahaduta; 37 Yivka; 38 Reqem d-​Trachon; 39 Heshbon; 40 Ammon Moab; 41 the river Zered; 42 the great road that leads to the desert; 43 Kadesh Barnea; 44 the gardens of Ashqelon; 45 Ashqelon.

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The systematic scrutiny of the archaeological archives led to a database of 2,930 sites, listed and described in the Catalogue of volume 3 of the present author’s demographic study of Byzantine Palestine (Dauphin 1998), which were computerized, sorted, and depicted in a series of 20 regional demographic maps (as exemplified by Figures 3.3, 3.5, 3.7, 3.9, and 3.10). Despite shortcomings due to the destruction of the data, which is often incomplete and rarely precisely dated, the considerable contribution of the archaeological data enables the filling-​in of numerous lacunae in the literary sources such as geographical and ecclesiastical lists; registers of military units; works of biblical topography; the Madaba mosaic map; Latin, Greek, and Syriac hagiography and patristic literature; rabbinic literature; and Arabic geographical and historiographical texts.

c)  Demographic Increase Between the fourth and the mid-​sixth century, Palestine witnessed a dramatic demographic and economic expansion evidenced by the density of settlements. Contradicting the inflated number of 2,800,000 inhabitants put forward by Avi-​Yonah (1979: 219–​21), both Ben-​David (1974: 41–​4) and Broshi (1979) have correctly linked population numbers to agricultural potential and estimated the population of Byzantine Palestine at about 1,000,000. Population distribution depends on the climate and natural environment, in particular hydrography. Thus, the coastal plain and inland basins of Eastern Samaria and Galilee, which are endowed with deep and well-​watered soils (springs, a high water table and rivers, Arabic wadis, running a few meters beneath the surface of plains and thus being easily diverted in order to irrigate fields), offered favorable conditions for agriculture. On the other hand, owing to the sparseness of water (underground water being at a low or medium depth) and to soil erosion solely controlled by terrace-​agriculture, the karstic central uplands were unsuitable for agriculture. Thus, the natural geographical conditions of Palestine would lead one to expect a concentration of settlements in the plains, the uplands being less densely populated. The map depicting the distribution of the population of Byzantine Palestine (Figure 3.2) shows exactly the opposite. This “anomaly” is due to a direct correspondence between density of settlement and fertility of soil. Consequently, in the Byzantine period, settlement density was at its highest in the central highlands, on two types of soil: on Terrae Rossae (Type A soils), on which the Mediterranean trilogy of cereals (wheat and barley), olive, and vine as well as fruit trees (apricot, apple, and plum trees) were grown, and on Brown and Pale Rendzinae (Type B), which are not rich but easily cultivated soils, on which olive trees and vineyards, requiring little or no water, prosper. Despite sharing similar properties with Terrae Rossae, the dark basaltic soils (Types D and F) of the Golan and Lower Galilee were slightly less populated. Characterized by basaltic Protogrumosols, basaltic brown Grumosols, and pale Rendzinae (Type D), the Lower Golan and Eastern Lower Galilee were pasturelands, with wheat and barley growing on patches of deep soil. In the highest part of the Golan plateau, deep Basaltic brown Mediterranean soils (Type F) which are superimposed over the oldest lava flows, were excellent for cereals and fruit trees, whereas thinner soils covering the most recent flows served as good pasturelands.

2.  An Innovative Approach: Archaeological Demography Since it is clear even from a cursory glance at the map (Figure 3.2) that the agricultural and demographic landscape varied regionally, a detailed analysis of the distribution of the 2,930 sites in our database was conducted according to the subdivision of Palestine into 26 maps by 33

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Figure 3.2  Distribution of Byzantine sites in Palaestina against the background of soils (Mapping S. Gibson; © C. Dauphin): (A) Terrae Rossae and Brown and Pale Rendzinas; (B) Brown and Pale Rendzinas; (C) Pale Rendzinas; (D) Basaltic Protogrumosols, Basaltic Brown Grumosols, and Pale Rendzinas; (E) Hamra Soils; (F) Basaltic Brown Mediterranean Soils and Basaltic Lithosols; (G) Hydromorphic and Gley Soils; (H) Grumosols; (J) Pararendzinas; (K) Dark Brown Soils; (L) Calcareous Serozems; (M) Brown Lithosols and Loessial Arid Brown Soils; (N) Loessial Arid Brown Soils; (P) Alluvial Arid Brown Soils; (Q) Solonchaks; (R) Loessial Serozems; (S) Brown Lithosols and Loessial Serozems; (T) Sandy Regosols and Arid Brown Soils; (V) Sand Dunes; (W) Regosols; (X) Bare Rocks and Desert Lithosols; (Y) Reg Soils and Coarse Desert Alluvium; (Z) Fine-​grained Desert Alluvial Soils.

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the Archaeological Survey of Israel, and by the combined use of several grids (physical geography, pedology, hydrography, and climate). This new analytical method –​a variant of Landscape Archaeology, conceived and applied by the present author to Byzantine Historical Geography –​dubbed “Archaeological Demography”, enables one to follow the rhythm of growth particular to each region, as well as to progress from a microanalysis to a global view. It is striking that the most densely settled areas of Palestine in the Byzantine period were on the one hand the uplands, plateaux, hills, and mountains of Judaea, Samaria, Galilee, and Golan and, on the other, marginal zones requiring irrigation. These areas, considered to be “harsh” owing to their topography or climate, share the following characteristic: the extension of the “sown” land is commensurate to man’s stubborn labor. A cyclical Boserupian pattern emerges: the increase in agricultural production, and consequently the limitation of food shortages, gave rise to a demographic boom which necessitated further extension of arable land as well as the intensification of agricultural productivity (Boserup 1965: 118), olive and vine plantations being the classic response of Mediterranean agriculture to demographic expansion. This cycle accelerates during migratory thrusts toward border zones. This was precisely the case of the Golan even before the Byzantine period. Following the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–​135 C . E .), the center of Jewish settlement moved from Judaea to northern Palestine. Banished from Jerusalem and expelled from Judaea, the Jewish communities established themselves across Gaulanitis, initially in the northern pastureland distant from central Roman administration. Clearing the bush and oak forests, they subsequently spread to southern Gaulanitis (Urman 1975; 1985). Extensive and intensive development are combined here. Land that had been cleared was sown with wheat and barley or planted with olive trees or vines –​the classic response of Mediterranean agriculture to demographic expansion (Le Roy Ladurie 1969: 65). This pattern is evident in Galilee, which like the Golan benefitted from a population influx after 135 C.E . Flavius Josephus describes the olive groves of Galilee as flourishing already in the Second Temple period (B.J. 2.592; Vita 74–​75). Destroyed by order of Emperor Hadrian to punish the Jewish communities of Galilee for having participated in the Bar Kokhba revolt, olive groves covered the region again a century later, as witnessed by Rabbi Shimon, a third-​generation amora, in the Jerusalem Talmud in the second half of the third century C.E . (y. Peʾah 7:1, 21b). Galilean oil was considered ritually pure. Since the rabbis forbade the use of “foreign” oil lest it had been polluted by impure containers (b. Abod. Zar. 35b-​36b), the Jewish communities of Syria and Phoenicia imported pure Galilean oil by way of the harbor city of Tyre. The almost total exclusiveness of Tyrian coinage in the numismatic repertory of Khirbet Shema, Gush Halav, and Meiron (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, nos. 2/​103, 2/​76 and 2/​100) for three and a half centuries after 70 C . E ., proves that these Galilean towns were in the economic orbit of Tyre. Likewise, the Golan being within the rabbinically defined boundaries of the Land of Israel and producing pure Jewish oil, merchants sold it to the Jewish communities of Syria and Arabia. Increasing demand for oil from external markets resulted in the extension of olive groves. “Populating” calls for “planting” (Le Roy Ladurie 1969: 75), but “planting” also requires “populating”. The oil boom is cyclically associated with a demographic boom. In the arid zone, the Negev desert, increased demand for agricultural produce was linked to the settling of limitanei. The intensification of commercial traffic focused on Gaza and led to the sedentarization of nomads. The increased demand could be fulfilled only by the extension of arable land thanks to wadi agriculture and irrigation (Mayerson 1962). The methods practiced in the Byzantine Negev to enable an extensive response gave rise to a multiplication of villages, hamlets, and farms. 35

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3.  Religious Demography In late fourth-​century Palestine, only 94 sites are known to us based on their Jewish, Samaritan, or Christian archaeological remains. The large majority of sites do not provide evidence of their inhabitants of religious persuasion. The historian G. Alon (1980: 6) stated that Jews predominated in fourth-​century Palestine, exceeding gentiles and Samaritans in number. This opinion can be disproved numerically. On the map of religious demography of late fourth-​century Palestine (Figure 3.3), 48 Christian settlements, 40 Jewish settlements, 5 Samaritan sites, 2 “mixed” cities, and a town which may also have been “mixed” are clearly marked against a background of settlements that remain undefined religiously. Since the third century C. E. , the presumed Jewish majority declined as a result of a severe economic crisis (Sperber 1978). Rabbinic sources reflect this loss in importance. Rabbi Yohanan (third century C.E .) believed that “the greatest part of the Land of Israel belonged to the Israelites”, whereas his student Rabbi Eleazar b. Pedat was of the opinion that “the greatest part of the Land of Israel was in the hands of the Gentiles” (y. Demai 2:1, 7a). In a single generation, the decline in number and influence could already be sensed. At the turn of the fourth century, the Syriac Life of Barsauma the Monk echoes Rabbi Eleazar’s statement in attributing to the pagans a particularly important position in numbers (Nau 1913: 274). Thus, hypothesizing that the “silent majority” consisted of pagans is reasonable.

a)  Which Jews? Hellenized Jews and the Am ha-​Aretz Two categories of Jews are distinguished in the rabbinic debate through which the daily life of the Jewish communities of Byzantine Palestine may be perceived. Hellenized Jews lived in walled pagan cities, such as Kyrios Leontis who, in the sixth century C.E ., had his house in Scythopolis (Bet She’an) paved with mosaics depicting Ulysses and the Sirens, Nilotic scenes, and the sole Jewish symbol of a seven-​branched menorah (Zori 1966). Another set of people identified in rabbinic texts, the ‘am ha-​aretz or “people of the land”, were suspected of not observing rabbinic purity rules, particularly those related to tithing and the Sabbatical Year (Oppenheimer 1977). Rabbis suspected their agricultural produce (demaï) of not having been duly tithed in contrast to that of the so-​called haverim, who followed rabbis’ advice.

Poshe Yisrael: the Judaeo-​Christians In 404 C .E ., in his Epistle 112 addressed to Augustine, Jerome mentioned two groups of dissident Jews who, although remaining faithful to the precepts of Mosaic Law, also adhered to the Gospel of Christ: “What may I say about the Ebionites who pretend to be Christians? Until today, in all the synagogues of the East, there is among the Jews a sect who are called the Minaeans till now ostracized by the Pharisees; they are commonly called Nazareans; they believe in Christ, son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and they say that it is he who under Pontius Pilate suffered and resurrected; in him, we also believe, but whereas they wish to be both Jewish and Christian, they are neither Jews nor Christians” (Ep. 112:13). Who were these fringe Jews? Following the martyrdom of James, “the Lord’s brother”, in 62 C .E . and shortly before the Jewish revolt of 66 C.E ., the members of the Nazarean Church of Jerusalem recruited from among the Jews and grouped around the 12 apostles, were directed

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Figure 3.3  Distribution of sites according to their religion in fourth-​ century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin). 37

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by revelation to leave Jerusalem. At Pella in the Decapolis, where they sought refuge (Pritz 1988: 122–​7; Blanchetière and Pritz 1993), they came into contact with members of heterodox sects of Judaism (Baptists, Hellenists, Essenians), who for some time already had settled in Peraea (modern Northern Transjordan), away from both the central Roman and Jewish authorities. As a result of this contact, the Jerusalem Judaeo-​Christians split into numerous groups, of which the most important were the Nazareans and the Ebionites. The “Orthodox” Nazareans followed Mosaic Law, in particular the law of the Sabbath and circumcision, but they believed in the divinity of both the one and only God and of Jesus-​Christ (Magnin 1975; 1976: 293–​307; Pritz 1988: 109–​10). The Ebionites scrupulously followed the rulings of Mosaic Law (Sabbath, circumcision, purifications), turned toward Jerusalem to pray, and rejected Paul, who had apostatized the law. They may be identified with the Poshe Yisrael (or “bad Jews”), mentioned in rabbinic texts, who were rebels to Judaism because they believed that Jesus was the Messiah while continuing to be part of the Jewish people (Magnin 1974: 234–​6; Simon 1983: 299–​301). In his treatise against heresies, Epiphanius (315–​403), Bishop of Salamis on Cyprus, described the Nazareans and Ebionites as established in the Decapolis in the neighborhood of Pella and in Basanitis in the area of Kokba, to the southwest of Damascus (Adv. Haeres. 1.2–​29.7–​8; PG 41, cols 401–​404; 30.2; PG 41, col. 408). It is precisely on the western edge of the Bashan that detailed surveys (1979–​1988) of the ancient settlements of Farj (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 2/​113) and Er-​ Ramthaniyye (ibid. no. 2/​81) in the eastern Golan have brought to light not only a great number of basalt architectural fragments decorated with Jewish or Christian symbols but also lintels of doors and windows, as well as cut stones incised with Judaeo-​Christian signs. The iconographic repertory includes a sign which is purely Jewish, the seven-​branched candlestick (menorah) on a rounded or triangular tripod; two signs which are exclusively Christian (cross and anchor); signs which belong to the two religions (palm =​lulab, fish, ship, bunch of grapes and cup); and finally signs which are peculiar to Judaeo-​Christianity (the Hebrew letters waw and taw, the wind-​cross, shipmast-​cross, axe, and plow, see Testa 1962; Daniélou 1964: 89–​101; Bagatti 1971; Dauphin 1984 and 1993). These symbols were juxtaposed on the same stones and sometimes even superimposed on each other, for example, on an ancient door-​lintel in situ in Farj (Figure 3.4). Chronological pointers are provided by some signs. The menorot on a triangular tripod flanked on either side by a lulab or by cult objects such as the ram’s horn or shofar are typical of the period from the end of the second century to the mid-​fourth century C . E . According to the typology put forward by A. Negev, this type of menorah was replaced between the second half of the fourth century and the first half of the fifth century by a menorah with curved branches supporting a tray depicted by a straight line (Negev 1963). The cross-​shaped anchor was depicted in Rome as the symbol of Christ from the mid-​second century until the beginning of the fourth century. However, outside Rome, it continued to be depicted until the mid-​fourth century (Kirsch 1924). Thus, our Golan fragments seem to date between the end of the second century and the beginning of the fifth century, which fits in well with the information provided by Epiphanius and Jerome. The concentration of carved Judaeo-​Christian “signs” at Farj in rooms 21–​22 of quarter III, the position in situ of the door lintel, as well as the architectural stratigraphy of these two rooms suggest that this building incorporates the remains of a Judaeo-​Christian synagogue. According to Epiphanius, the Essenian Ebionites “call their meeting-​place synagogue and not church” (Adv. Haeres. 1.2–​ Haeres. 30.18. 2; PG 41). Soon after 80 C. E ., a curse was inserted into the twelfth of the Eighteen Benedictions of the daily Amidah prayer: “For the apostates let there be no hope. And let the arrogant government 38

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Figure 3.4 Farj (Golan): ancient door lintel in situ engraved with Judaeo-​Christian signs (Drawing B. Wool; © C. Dauphin).

be speedily uprooted in our days. Let the noẓerim and the minim be destroyed in a moment. And let them be blotted out of the Book of Life and not be inscribed together with the righteous. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant” (Schechter 1898). Rabbis used the term minim for those who differed from specific rabbinic views, whoever they may have been (Simon 1983: 216–​7). In 80 C. E ., the Nazareans who may have been ostracized by the Birkat ha-​Minim would have represented only one category among other types of minim (Pritz 1988: 106–​7). In 376, Epiphanius emphasized that in their thrice daily prayers, in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, the Jews cursed the Nazareans (Adv. Haeres. 1.2–​Haeres. 29.9; PG 41, col. 40). Despite their scrupulous adherence to Mosaic Law, they were suspected of heresy by rabbis because of their Christology. A quarter century later, St Jerome confirmed that the Birkat ha-​Minim was still solemnly proclaimed in the synagogues of Palestine, but by then the term “Nazarean” was synonymous with “Christian”: “Thrice daily in each synagogue, they [the Jews] anathemize the Christians under the name of Nazareans” (In Esaiam 2.5.18–​19;). At the same time, the Tosefta uses the term minim as a socioreligious category distinct from the Jewish community (t. Hul 2:20) and equated with Christians. In the course of the fourth century, the hardening of stances of both post-​Nicene Christianity and rabbinic Judaism brought about a double rejection of Judaeo-​Christianity. Its initial rejection followed by internal sclerosis inevitably led to its disappearance and absorption by one or the other of the entities to which Judaeo-​Christianity had attempted to belong simultaneously. In the early fifth century, it was no longer possible to partake of both Judaism and Christianity. The Birkat ha-​Minim had proved effective and ceased to be a detector of heresy. Hybrid Judaeo-​ Christianity had been eliminated. Due to a shared doxology, the Nazareans were easily absorbed by the Church of the Gentiles. Those among them who clung to the precepts of Mosaic Law had no choice but to rejoin the synagogue. Thereafter Judaism and Christianity confronted each other.

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Scholarly Theories on the Origins of the Samaritans As the result of the Assyrian conquest of Palestine in 722 B.C.E ., part of the population of Samaria was deported to Northern Syria and Babylonia (2 Kgs 17:3–​6; 18:9–​12). It was replaced in Samaria by natives of Babylonia and Cuthah in Mesopotamia, hence their name Kuthim in the rabbinic sources. As Jewish converts, the Kuthim mixed with the original inhabitants of Samaria, some of whom had remained (Crown 1989c). Despite their belief in their own ethnic purity, the Samaritans were considered to be of mixed stock and hence despised by Jews.

Samaritan Material Culture The material culture of the Samaritans was not greatly different from that of the Jews, so it is difficult to attribute archaeological remains with certainty to the Samaritans. For instance, the motifs decorating Samaritan terracotta lamps of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries C.E . were shared by both Jews and Samaritans: the menorah, Torah scroll, cups, the Temple, harp, winepresses, and flowers (Sussman 1978). Knives and daggers belonged to the iconographic repertory of Jewish art in synagogues, graves, and ossuaries but never appear on lamps (Pummer 1989: 161). Symmetrically placed daggers on a lamp from Samaria (Sussman 1978: 244–​5, no. 13) perhaps refer to the Passover sacrifice, which the Samaritans still practice nowadays (Crown 1987–​8: 42–​4). Mount Gerizim –​the sacred mountain of the Samaritans –​was visually represented by a stylized, stepped, and chequerboard-​patterned trapeze that appears both on lamps and on the mosaic pavement of the synagogue of Sha’alvim (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 7–​8/​422). The Samaritans scrupulously observed the second commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exod 20:4–​5; Deut 5:8). Thus, the mosaic pavements of Samaritan synagogues exhibit only nonfigurative designs as is evident at Bet She’an (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 6/​52), Tel Qasileh (ibid. no. 7–​8/​144), and Sha’alvim (ibid. no. 7–​8/​422). Only two inscriptions in Samaritan script belonged indubitably to a Byzantine Samaritan synagogue in Palestine. On the lower polychrome geometric mosaic pavement of the Sha’alvim synagogue, a Samaritan inscription quotes Exod 15:18 “The Lord will reign eternally”, while a second Samaritan inscription is heavily damaged. Above the depiction of two menorot flanking a stylized mountain, probably Mount Gerizim, a third inscription in Greek mentions a restoration, probably at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century (Sukenik 1949: 20; Tod 1951). Several other Samaritan inscriptions engraved into stone have been attributed to Byzantine Samaritan synagogues (Reeg 1977: 351). Like Samaritan inscriptions on lamps (Naveh 1987) and amulets (Pummer 1987), inscriptions on stones consist of quotes from the Pentateuch that had a prophylactic function. According to Naveh (1989: 62), most Samaritan inscriptions on stones belonged not to synagogues but to private houses. Incised on “the doorposts of your house and on your gates”, as ordained in Deut 6:9, these inscriptions aimed at protecting the houses and their inhabitants from the evil eye, demons, spirits, illnesses, and all kinds of misfortunes. If a site or object lacks a Samaritan inscription, only its location –​if it is in the area traditionally inhabited by Samaritans –​can indicate its Samaritan origin.

Samaritan Territory The Samaritan homeland is described in the rabbinic sources as extending in a radius of 15 km around Neapolis, modern Nablus (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 5/​299) and Sebaste, modern 40

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Shomron-​Sabastiya (ibid. no. 5/​242). Its religious high place was the main peak of Mount Gerizim (ibid. no. 7–​8/​26), on which stood the Samaritan temple (Magen 1993a), destroyed by John Hyrcanus in 128 B. C. E. , but still used for the Samaritan cult (Pummer 1989: 169–​74). Samaritan sarcophagi dating to the second, third, and perhaps even fourth centuries are found mainly in two geographical zones (Barkay 1987–​8: 16–​7, Fig. 4; Magen 1993b). About 75% of the sarcophagi were discovered in the area around Nablus, the others in the coastal plain between Caesarea (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 5/​57) and Netanya. This distribution highlights Samaritan expansion beyond its traditional territory following the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–​135 C.E . (Crown 1989b: 206–​9). From the second half of the second century onwards, the Samaritans settled in areas from which the Jewish population had been eliminated as a consequence of the revolt (Zertal 1979: 106–​ 7). Moreover, the Samaritans were attracted by the prosperity of harbor cities such as Caesarea, where they could hide among the Jewish inhabitants and thus circumvent the ban to circumcise which the Romans had laid on them. Finally, from the fourth century onwards, the Samaritans were no longer under the authority of a clergy, attached to the temple on Mount Gerizim, but of a lay council (Crown 1986: 110–​11; 1987: 40–​3; 1989b: 207). Worship shifted from Mount Gerizim to local synagogues (Magen 1993c; Di Segni 1993), notably that of Balâta, which was founded in the third or fourth century (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 7–​8/​1). Samaritan expansion along the Mediterranean coast, described by the Tosefta (t. Demai 1:11 and 5:24), is confirmed by the discovery of Samaritan lamps of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries at Apollonia-​Arsûf (Sussman 1983) and Caesarea. Samaritans also moved northward, settling in the Jezreel Valley and in the vicinity of Bet She’an, to the north of the city-​wall, where a Samaritan synagogue was built at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century (Dauphin, 1998, vol. 3, no. 6/​52). The Shephela, particularly the Judaean foothills, constituted a “Samaritan pocket”, which included the city of Emmaus-​Nicopolis (ibid. no. 11–​12/​31) with its fifth-​century Samaritan synagogue, and the Samaritan villages of Shalvi’im (ibid. no. 7–​8/​422) and el-​Khirba (ibid. no. 11–​12/​418).

Schismatic Jews, Non-​Jews, or Heretics? Schismatic Jews, the Samaritans were first considered defective by rabbis, since they were thought to be of “doubtful stock” according to the Mishnah (m. Qidd. 4:3). In later rabbinic texts they are suspected of corruption (gilgul) owing to their contacts with gentiles (y. Pesah. 1:1, 2b) since their expansion outside their original territory. Accordingly, rabbis relegated them to the category of “non-​Jews” and their produce, notably their wine, had either to be tithed or in some cases was simply forbidden for consumption by Jews (Schiffmann 1985). Likewise, the legal and religious status of the Samaritans in relation to the Christian state deteriorated. The Jews were considered witnesses of Old Testament Israel, superseded by Christians as the self-​proclaimed Israel of the New Covenant (Simon 1983: 102–​3). The Samaritans were but a mere group resulting from a split in Judaism. In Christian eyes they were guilty thrice over: schismatics of a nation that had rejected the Messiah and had ceased to be the “chosen people”, they obstinately refused the Christian message (Avi-​Yonah 1973: 37). At first, Samaritans and Jews were linked together by Byzantine legislation, their religions being considered similar enough to justify an identical legal status (Cod. Theod. 13.5.18 of 390 C . E .; Linder 1987: 182–​5, no. 19; Cod. Theod. 16.8.16 of 404 C.E .; Linder 1987: 222–​4, no. 33). For instance, Novella 3 of 438 C. E . forbade both Jews and Samaritans to hold office in the imperial or municipal administration, to build new synagogues (although they were allowed to undertake repairs in already existing ones), or to convert (and consequently circumcise) both slaves and free 41

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citizens (Nov. 3 of Theodosius II; Linder 1987: 323–​32, 334–​7, no. 54). In Justinianic legislation, from being at first considered to be sectarian Jews (Cod. Justin.1.5.12,9 promulgated in 527 C . E .; Linder 1987: 358, no. 56), the Samaritans were soon separated from the Jews and lumped together with pagans and heretics of gnostic tendencies (Cod. Justin. 1.5.21 of 531 C.E .; Linder 1987: 371–​4, no. 60).

The Ethnic Cleansing of the Samaritans From the fifth century onwards, in its march toward a totalitarian victory of Christianity, the Byzantine state relentlessly pursued a policy aiming at annihilating its Samaritan subjects by all possible means. When the soft approach –​conversion by persuasion through the missionary activity of monks –​had failed, the church relied on the state to eliminate Samaritans. The state’s main weapon was legislation curtailing the rights of the Samaritans and excluding them from Byzantine society, notably by forbidding access to posts in the imperial, municipal, and military service and confiscating property. Meanwhile, Christian tactlessness –​ the appropriation of the relics of Old Testament figures venerated by the Samaritans such as Joseph in Sichem, modern Balâta (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 7–​8/​1), and Eleazar, Ithamar, and Pinhas, the heirs of the Great Priest Aaron (Crown 1986: 126; 1989a: 70), had triggered the first Samaritan revolt in 484 C.E ., suppressed militarily with fanatical violence. Moreover, by order of Emperor Zeno, the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 7–​8/​26) was immediately razed to the ground and replaced by a fortified complex dedicated to the Theotokos or “mother of God” (Magen 1990). To dispossess the Samaritans of their temple on their holy mountain was a death blow for a people whose religious practice expressed itself in rites and ceremonies rather than in beliefs (Crown 1987: 30). The Samaritan answer was a second revolt under Emperor Anastasius (491–​518 C.E .). The erosion of the Samaritan community is evident by the small number of Samaritan sites on the archaeological map of sixth-​century Palestine (Figure 3.7). This picture is balanced, however, by the continued occupation of Samaritan villages in their traditional homeland, as mentioned in the historical sources. Samaritan resilience in the face of ethnic cleansing is also proven by the presence of Samaritan terracotta lamps of types 3 (pear-​shaped and wide, with horizontal or oblique lines around the opening and the nozzle) and 4 (oval) in coastal Apollonia of the fifth-​ seventh century, which continued to be used after the Umayyad conquest (Sussman 1983: 74, 85). Their smaller number in comparison with third-​fourth century types 1 and 2 indicates stagnation and decline. Type 3 and 4 lamps were also found in Lower Galilee, Bet She’an, the Sharon, the Shephela, in Samaria, Judaea, and even in the northern Negev (Sussman 1983). The archaeological evidence of the Samaritans in Palestine on the eve of the Islamic conquest is meager and dispersed. The archaeological map of religious demography around 610 C.E . (Figure 3.10) illustrates the outcome of the Christian process of undermining the Samaritan population by physical elimination and assimilation through conversion. The only archaeologically attested Samaritan villages (8 in number) were in the Bet She’an region, in the Shephela, and in Samaria itself. The ferocious quelling by slaughter, torture, and forced conversions and of five Samaritan revolts in 484, 491–​518, 529, 556, and 578 C.E . resulted in decimating five successive generations of Samaritans, thus preventing the natural renewal of this demographic group (Sivan 2008: 167–​75). This was compounded by the demographic consequences of natural catastrophes (famines and plagues), which weakened Palestine in the sixth century (Dauphin 1998, vol. 2: 508–​ 25); the cumulative effect of this physical and spiritual decimation was felt only in the seventh century. On the eve of the Arab conquest, the Samaritans were no longer a population prone to rebelling, which the Byzantine administration had to reckon with. When the Arabs seized Caesarea 42

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(Dauphin 1998, vol.3, no. 5/​57) in 640 C. E ., there were 30,000 Samaritans among the 700,000 inhabitants (Baladhuri, Futuh al-​Buldan 2.11), whereas in fourth-​century Caesarea the Samaritans had been superseded in number only by the Jews and gentiles combined.

b)  Religious Demography: Nahariyya, a Regional Example In order to trace the resilience of Jewish communities in the face of the Christian state’s struggle for supremacy, we have developed an analytical method of regional religious demography. It combines the distribution of archaeological remains bearing religious symbols and signs with cartography and the historical sources, notably legislation. This innovative approach has enabled us to bring to light modifications in the religious composition of the cities, towns, villages, and hamlets of Byzantine Palestine, measured for each region and century. The region of Nahariyya in North-​Western Galilee has been chosen as an example, since it was a zone with a large Jewish population, which included the north-​western border of the Land of Israel. Judaism had entered pagan Phoenicia from Upper Galilee, the Gelil ha-​goyim of Isa 8:23 (Ternant 1980: 76–​83), whose pagan inhabitants were forcefully converted to Judaism by the Hasmonean ruler Aristobulas Is (104–​103 B. C. E .). The region’s Jewishness had been reinforced by the influx of Jewish refugees expelled from Judaea after the Jewish revolt of 66–​70 C.E . and after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–​135 C. E . From this strong base Judaism expanded westward. The population of Mount Carmel had similarly been subjected to enforced Judaization after Alexander Jannaeus’ conquest of the territory from Phoenicia (Avi-​Yonah 1979: 69). As a by-​product of Pompey’s Roman conquest of Palestine in 64 B. C.E ., Mount Carmel was returned to Phoenicia and remained open to Jewish influence from the south. By the second century C.E ., North-​Western Galilee was predominantly Jewish. Sixteen small towns (‘ayarot) are described in the works of Flavius Josephus and in rabbinic sources (Dauphin 2002a: 456–​7: nos. 1/​1, 1/​2, 1/​3, 1/​7, 1/​10, 1/​ 18, 1/​21, 1/​25, 1/​30, 1/​32, 1/​45, 1/​49, 1/​50, 1/​52, 1/​59, 1/​62). Of these, Mafsetah (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 1/​21) and Bet Hôbaiyâh (ibid. no. 1/​45) were included in the list of the 24 priestly courses who served in the Temple of Jerusalem (1 Chr 24). Following the Bar Kokhba revolt and Emperor Hadrian’s prohibition of Jewish settlement in Judaea, these were transferred to Galilee, where they settled. The facts that Mafsetah lay on the eastern edge of Western Galilee and Bet Hôbaiyâh in its southern part add support to the hypothesis of the introduction of Judaism to Western Galilee from the east and south. Meanwhile, Christianity was spreading from Caesarea to Antioch along the Mediterranean coast (Acts 21:4–​7). The earliest churches in Galilee were erected close to the Via Maris. The church of Shavei Zion (Dauphin 1998 vol. 3, no. 1/​48) was founded in the late fourth or early fifth century (Prausnitz, Avi-​Yonah and Barag 1967) and that of Evron (Dauphin 1998 vol. 3, no. 1/​39) in 415 C .E . (Tzaferis 1987). On the northern border of the Land of Israel, Ecdippa-​Akhzib had both a Jewish and a Christian population (Dauphin 1998 vol. 3, no. 1/​20). A comparison of the maps of the Nahariyya region in the fifth and sixth centuries (Figures 3.5 and 3.7) indicates two demographic developments: the abandonment of several ‘ayarot by Jews and the penetration of a Christian population into these or into their surroundings (Figure 3.6). The priestly towns of Mafsetah and Bet Hôbaiyâh, as well as Kefar Amîgo (Dauphin 1998 vol. 3, no. 1/​50), are mentioned in the Mishnah and Tosefta but not by the Jerusalem Talmud. Yet, rims and bases of sixth-​century Late Roman C wares and sherds from the late sixth and early seventh centuries collected at these sites prove that these ‘ayarot did not “die” completely. Abandoned by their earlier Jewish population, were Bet Hôbaiyâh and Kefar Amîgo resettled by Christians and, like Mafsetah, endowed with a church? Did Yoqeret (ibid. no. 1/​10), Yanôah (ibid. Nahariyya 43

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Figure 3.5 Distribution of sites according to their religion in fifth-​century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin).

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Figure 3.6 Table 1: Distribution of sites in fifth-​century Palaestina per region and per religion (© C. Dauphin).

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Figure 3.7 Distribution of sites according to their religion in sixth-​century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin).

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Sheet no. 1/​49), and Kefar Sîmay (no. 1/​52), mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud, remain Jewish in the sixth century? These questions also apply to Arke (no. 1/​62), where the presence of Christians is indicated by a Christian inscription in Greek, while dressed stones and the monolithic shafts of columns that were reused in houses of the Arab village of Yîrkâ may have belonged to a church or synagogue. The Jewish inhabitants stood their ground at Zenîtah (no. 1/​25), Gathoun (no. 1/​32), and Yâsîf (no. 1/​59). Nevertheless, Christianity made deep inroads into the formerly Jewish territory. Under the reign of Emperor Justinian (527–​565 C. E .), churches were built at Khirbet ‘Alya in 536 and at Suhmâtâ in 539 C. E . (nos 1/​29 and 1/​37). Others were erected in the sixth century at Gelil, and at rabbinic Pî Masobah (nos 1/​18 and 1/​3). According to the Rehov synagogue inscription, these small towns were still Jewish, as was Beset, modern el Bassa (no. 1/​7), where a Christian dedicatory inscription in Greek on the lid of a sixth-​century reliquary suggests the existence of a church. The foundation in the sixth century of a church at el-​Tuweiri (no. 1/​27) seems to have been part of a Christian ploy to attempt a break-​through from the coast, where Christianity was well established, toward the Jewish heartland, in order to link up with the Christian community of the “mixed” settlement at Kabri (no. 1/​33). The pincer-​movement technique previously used by Jewish officials to strangle Phoenician paganism was used again, but this time against the Jews by Christianity. The successful encircling of the Jewish ‘ayarot of Western Galilee, which combined a war of attrition with an offensive to fill the vacuum left by the departure of some Jewish communities, led to the near total Christianization of Western Galilee. Only a handful of settlements of its ancient Jewish population survived in the early seventh century. Most of them had been unable to limit the processes of Christian penetration and aggregation.

Figure 3.8  Table 2: Distribution of sites in sixth-​ century Palaestina per region and per religion (© C. Dauphin).

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Figure 3.9 Four maps showing the distribution of sites per religion in the Nahariyya region in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th centuries (Mapping Shimon Gibson; © C. Dauphin).

During two centuries, the demography of the Nahariyya region changed completely. Whereas in the fifth century Christian sites were sparse against a predominantly Jewish background (Figure 3.5), in the early seventh century Jewish sites had become incongruous “islands” in a Christian “ocean” (Figures 3.8 and 3.9). Jews continued to inhabit the northern border of the Land of Israel (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, nos. 1/​18, 1/​25, 1/​30, 1/​32), the harbor-​city of Akhzib-​Ecdippa (no. 1/​20) with its “mixed” population, and a few small towns of the territory of Tyre beyond the rabbinically defined border (nos 1/​2, 1/​3, 1/​7). After mentioning nine ‘ayarot in which the strictest rulings pertaining to tithing and the sabbatical year had to be applied, owing to their substantial Jewish population (Frankel 1979: 194), the Rehov mosaic inscription (Vitto 1981; Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 6/​85) adds: “and all [the lands] which the Jews have acquired” (Sussmann 1981a; 1981b: 149). This reference, absent from the 48

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Tosefta, but already included in the Jerusalem Talmud and still applicable at the end of the sixth century, acquires a new meaning when the religious demographic maps of the Nahariyya region in the fifth and sixth centuries are compared to that of the same region in the seventh century (Figure 3.10). Increasingly pushed out of the hinterland by fifth-​century Christians and repelled northward toward the Tyre region, the Jews of Western Galilee joined those Jews who had already settled there by buying land in the nine ‘ayarot south of the Ladder of Tyre. In Western Galilee the occupation of a formerly Jewish area by Christians led to Jews being expelled beyond the rabbinically defined northern border of the Land of Israel. Their settling in great numbers between Akhzib, the Amanus Mountains, and the Euphrates River in a sort of no man’s land, a buffer-​zone between the Land of Israel and foreign lands which they called Sourya, was symbolic. Having staunchly and obstinately rejected Christianity, from the Christian point of view Jews deserved to live in limbo.

c)  Changes in the Religious Demography Applying our method to the entire territory of Byzantine Palestine led to the creation of a general religious demographic map of fifth-​century Palestine (Figure 3.5), which collates all available data, archaeological and literary. It is useful for observing the development of the population’s religious distribution. Changes in the religious distribution between the fifth century and the Arab conquest of 636–​640 C. E . may be traced by comparing the distribution of Jews, Samaritans, and Christians in the sixth (Figure 3.7) and the beginning of the seventh century (Figure 3.10) with that of those same groups in the fifth century. Table 1 (Figure 3.6) illustrates our evaluation of the various population groups per region and per religion in the fifth century. Across the entire territory of fifth-​century Palestine, Christians held 160 sites and perhaps another 8; Jews still held onto 155 sites and perhaps another 2 villages; and 21, or perhaps even 22, villages were Samaritan. In 45 (perhaps even 48) “mixed” cities and small towns, Jews, Samaritans, and Christians coexisted in public life in various permutations. Still a minority in the fourth century, the Christians of Palestine had substantially increased numerically, slightly overtaking the Jewish population. The Galilee, the Golan, and the Darôm (South) in the Negev desert were traditionally “Jewish lands” on which Jews maintained a hold, particularly in Upper Galilee and in the Northern Golan. However, Christian encircling of Jewish ‘ayarot became more resolute. In Central and Lower Galilee Christians did not limit themselves to settling on the edges of the strongly Jewish areas. Slowly, patiently but resolutely, they gained ground (Dauphin 1998 vol. 3, nos. 3/​11, 3/​54, 3/​98, 3/​106, 3/​148, 3/​316, 4/​52, 4/​152). In Sepphoris-​Diocaeserea, Nazareth and Legio (nos 3/​122, 3/​173, 3/​354), Tiberias, Aphek-​Apheca, Îksalô-​Exaloth, and Na‘îm-​Nain (nos 4/​108, 4/​102, 4/​150, 4/​182), the confrontation mutated into forced coexistence. Although scattered, the Jewish ‘ayarot were still numerous in the fifth century in Samaria and Northern Judaea, in the Sharon plain, and in the Shephelah. The Samaritan enclave around Mount Gerizim stretched from Nablus-​Neapolis (Dauphin no. 5/​299) in the north to Yeshûb (no. 7–​8/​ 129) in the south, from Qiryath Hajja (No.7–​8/​6) on the west to Bet Dagôn (no. 9/​7) on the east in the Jordan Valley. The Mediterranean coast and the Sharon plain between Caesarea (no. 5/​57) and Sozousa (no. 7–​8/​20) were dotted with solely Samaritan villages (nos 5/​151, 5/​164, 5/​188) and one “mixed” Samaritan and Christian village (no. 5/​269). The forcible and definitive eviction of Jews from Jerusalem after the fall of Betar, which put an end to the second Jewish revolt, had caused the depopulation of the region. The vast Constantinian 49

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Figure 3.10  Distribution of sites according to their religion in seventh-​ century Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin).

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Figure 3.11 Table 3 Distribution of sites in ca. 610 C .E . Palaestina per region and per religion (© C. Dauphin).

building program incorporating the holy places, followed by the policy of founding churches, monasteries, and hospices pursued by Empress Eudocia, the separated wife of Theodosius II, resulted in an influx of manpower and pilgrims (Hunt 1982: 234–​40) and a multiplication of monasteries and hermitages in the Judaean desert. From Jerusalem, Christianity spread its tentacles toward the Mediterranean coast, infiltrating into Jewish localities (Dauphin 1998 vol. 3, nos. 7–​8/​289, 7–​8/​318, 7–​8/​319, 7–​8/​327, 7–​8/​417) and occupying the neutral terrain between Jewish villages (nos 7–​8/​267, 7–​8/​361, 7–​8/​362, 7–​8/​ 372, 7–​8/​373, 7–​8/​379, 7–​8/​380, 7–​8/​381, 7–​8:415, 7–​8/​426). Moving northward in the Jordan valley, Christian settlement avoided two Jewish villages with deep ancient roots, Sartaba and Nô‘aran (nos 9/​37, 9/​79). Reaching the Bet She‘an valley, it collided with the southern tip of the Jewish settlement of Galilee and eventually penetrated it (nos 6/​10, 6/​20, 6/​51, 6/​73). The missionary Christian monks understood that it was pointless to attempt infiltrating the hard-​Jewish nucleus of the Darôm (nos 14/​21, 14/​24, 15–​16/​14, 15–​16/​15, 15–​16/​29, 15–​16/​40, 15–​16/​49, 15–​ 16/​54, 15–​16/​62, 15–​16/​66, 15–​16/​88). Anaea and Jethira (nos 15–​16/​85, 15–​16/​87), mentioned by St Jerome in his Onomasticon as being Christian already in the fourth century (On. 26.9; and 108.1–​3, 110.17–​18), were on the southern edge of this Jewish nucleus. At Khirbet Istabûl, ancient Aristobulias (no. 15–​16/​24), the ruins of a basilica dating from the early fifth century testify to the Christianization of the village and to the beginning of Christianity’s intrusion into a nearly exclusively Jewish enclave. Palaestina Tertia (the Negev, Sinai, and southern Transjordan) was devoid of Jews. The “absence” of Jewish sites in the Negev desert is also clear from the phrasing of the law promulgated by the

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emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III in Constantinople in 429 C.E . (Cod. Theod. 16.8.29; Linder 1987: 321). Owing to the end of the Jewish patriarchate, order was given to John, comes of the Sacred Largesses to recover for the public treasury the aureus coronarius –​a tax previously collected by the patriarch from Jewish Diaspora communities. Henceforth, this tax was to be levied annually on the Jewish synagogues of Palestine by the heads of communities appointed by the sanhedrins of the two provinces of Palestine and handed over to the public treasury. The understanding was that the Jews of Palaestina Tertia or Salutaris were too few to have an official administrative representative.

4.  The Church and the Jews If the Byzantine state openly advocated the ethnic cleansing of the Samaritans, its persecution of the Jews of Palestine was conducted more subtly. While state and church aimed to annihilate the unruly Samaritans, who rejected the Christian faith and rebelled against both church and state, the spiritual and temporal authorities insidiously joined forces to legally degrade the Jews without aiming for their extinction. In the new Christian world order, the Jews were the living proofs of biblical truth and had a role to play as “witnesses” of the faith in Yahweh, of Mosaic law, and of divine justice. The latter was considered to weigh heavily on them for not believing in Christ. Thus, it was necessary to keep but also to subdue them. The atrophy of Palestinian Judaism caused by its slow asphyxiation resulting from an imperial policy aiming to tighten the legal status of Jews left archaeological traces. The distribution of the Jewish and Christian settlements of Palestine in the sixth and early seventh centuries can be considered an expression of the slow stifling of Judaism etched into the landscape of the Holy Land.

a)  Christian Expansion and Jewish Decline In the sixth century, extensive stretches of the countryside were still inhabited by Jews: the Galilee, the Golan, and the Darôm. Some Jewish sites mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud may have survived into the sixth century. On our religious demographic map of sixth-​century Palestine (Figure 3.7), which combines archaeological and literary data, these sites are symbolized by a menorah (indicating Jewish settlements) followed by a question mark. The propagation and consolidation of Christianity in the sixth century resulted in 176 Christian settlements or monasteries, and possibly another 15. Jews held securely 32 sites and perhaps another 61 small towns and villages. In 31 “mixed” cities and small towns, Jews cohabited with Christians, sometimes even with Samaritans. In 11 other sites, the Jewish community had weakened numerically and was on the way to being replaced by a Christian population which had already infiltrated the areas. Rather than having gained ground, since the fifth century Christianity had undermined the basis of Jewish settlement. This erosion resulted from a strategy of encircling and asphyxiation, followed by infiltration. Varying its techniques (propaganda and physical violence), the Christian mission proceeded by attacking Jewish communities that were already stagnating. This necessarily led to a decline of the Jewish population. In Table 2 (Figure 3.8), Jewish and Christian sites in sixth-​century Palestine are distributed regionally. It is important not to generalize for the whole country but to observe the erosion of the Jewish population of Palestine withing its regional setting. The quantity of Jewish settlements declined from north to south. In the Galilee and Golan 23 sites were certainly Jewish and 52 may have been. Eight sites were scattered in the Sharon plain, the mountains of Samaria, and the Jezreel valley. Jews were in even less numbers in the southern Sharon plain, the Shephela, southern Samaria, and northern Judaea, where there were only four possible Jewish settlements. There were only three possible Jewish sites in the plain of Philistia. 52

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After the Galilee and the Golan, the Darôm had the greatest number of small Jewish towns: three were certainly Jewish in the sixth century, while nine may have retained their original Jewishness. Two enclaves, the Bet She’an Valley, which included four Jewish sites and one which may have been Jewish, and the Lower Jordan Valley with two Jewish sites in the vicinity of Jericho were the links between the Jewish population of the Galilee and that of the Darôm.

b)  The Conquering Cross The Christian take-​over of the Jews’ collective past is evident in the appropriation of the tombs of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs –​Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah in the Machpelah Cave in Hebron (Gen 49:21) and the tomb of Rachel (Gen 35:19) on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem –​as well as in the inventio (discovery of graves) of Old Testament heroes –​the prophets Zachariah, Habaquq, and Micah –​and the building of splendid funerary monuments for the exclusive veneration by Christian saints. Between the fifth and seventh centuries, the church’s missionary zeal developed toward hatred, violence, and cruelty, with the state’s blessing, until the state itself initiated a policy of forced conversions (Dauphin 1998, vol. 1: 338–​42). The dissemination of Christianity by terror in regions where Christians were not the majority, such as Galilee, could only be accomplished by well-​organized groups going from town to town and village, torching synagogues, murdering all opponents, and forcibly baptizing those too weak to resist (Rubin 1983: 107). In the mid-​fifth century the Syrian monk Barsauma and his crew of 40 fanatical monks arrived from Mesopotamia and sowed terror in the Jewish ‘ayarot and villages of Palestine. The description of the siege and destruction of the synagogue of Rabbath-​Moab/​ Areopolis, in the district of al-​Karak in Palaestina Tertia, coincides with the archaeological evidence of the burning of the synagogues of En-​Gedi around 530 C.E . (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 15–​ 16/​29), Ma‘oz Hayyim (no. 6/​65), and Caesarea (no. 5/​57). In 415 C .E . the emperors Theodosius II and Honorius II had forbidden the Jewish patriarch Gamaliel VI to found new synagogues and ordered him to destroy synagogues in deserted sites –​ probably villages abandoned by their Jewish population (Cod. Theod. 16.8.22; Linder 1987: 288, no. 41). In February of 423 C. E ., the building of new synagogues as well as the repair or embellishment of old ones were forbidden (Cod. Theod. 16.8.25; Linder 1987: 288, no. 48). In 545 C . E . Justinian repeated the prohibition against building new synagogues and threatened to make all illegally erected synagogues the property of local churches (Nov. 131. 14.25–​26; Linder 1987: 400–​01, no. 65). Yet, some synagogues were embellished, such as the one attached to the House of Kyrios Leontis in Bet She‘an (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3, no. 6/​52) and new synagogues were erected in sixth-​century Golan at Mazra‘at Kanaf, el-​Manshiyye, and Khirbet Zumâimîra (nos 4/​ 39, 4/​54, 2/​121). Others were built and paved with splendid figurative mosaics at Ma‘on-​Nirim (second half of the fifth century), at el Mînâ (in July–​August 509), at T. Abu Faraj (in the sixth century), at ed Duyûk (at the end of the sixth century), and at T. el Jurn (in the late sixth or early seventh century, see ibid, nos. 13/​26, 10/​317, 6/​116, 9/​79, 9/​82). Provincial Byzantine civil servants must have been aware of these transgressions of imperial rulings but seem to have ignored them thanks to substantial bribes.

5.  Between Idea and Reality On the eve of the Persian invasion of 614 C. E ., the church’s dream had nearly turned into reality. In less than three centuries the Christians had become the majority in Palestine. Map (Figure 53

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3.10) and Table 3 (Figure 3.11) illustrate the distribution of religions at the beginning of the seventh century, ca. 610 C. E ., before the Persian occupation transformed the demography and religious landscape. The maps show the results of the church’s militancy against nonbelievers and the ethnoreligious policy of the emperors Justin II (565–​578), Maurice Tiberius (582–​602), and Phocas (602–​610). Jews had been eliminated almost completely from the entire length of the coast of Palestine and its hinterland, in particular the Sharon plain, the Shephelah, and the plain of Philistia, as well as from the highlands of Samaria and Judaea. In these regions, Jews remained present only in “mixed cities”, harbors such as Ecdippa, Ptolemais, Sycaminon, Dora, Caesarea, Ascalon, and Maiumas Gazae (nos 1/​20, 3/​4, 3/​33, 3/​304, 5/​57, 10/​185,10/​317), in episcopal cities, and major market towns, Eleutheropolis and Gaza (nos. 11–​12/​369 and 11–​12/​331). The Darôm, formerly a Jewish stronghold, had only one entirely Jewish town left, Khirbet Susye, and another, Horvat Rimmon, which the Christians had infiltrated (nos. 15–​16/​62 and 14/​24). The Jews of Menois (no. 13/​26) had succeeded in holding their ground, as this garrison town became a bishopric. The Bet She‘an valley and the Lower Jordan valley had retained two small Jewish enclaves (nos. 6/​65, 6/​85, 6/​116; and nos. 9/​79 and 9/​82). An important and prosperous Jewish community was well established in the “mixed” city of Scythopolis (no. 6/​52), capital of Palaestina Secunda. In all the regions from which the Jews had been evicted, the number of Christian sites had doubled or even trebled. The Jews had lost their numerical supremacy in their own territories. There were only 34 Jewish sites in the traditionally “Jewish lands” of Galilee and Golan, 13 which may have kept their original Jewish religious identity, against 80 Christian sites, plus 14 which may have been Christian. Over the whole of Palestine, 41 Jewish towns and villages, plus another doubtful 13 weighed nothing in comparison with 403 Christian sites and 51 which were probably Christian. Jews and Christians cohabited in 31 “mixed” villages and small towns. In Nazareth and Hebron, Jews and Christians only met in connection with pilgrimage (nos 3/​173 and 11–​12/​462). Although Christians appear to have become the most important element in the population of Byzantine Palestine by the sixth century C. E ., there is no indication of religious identity on 2,392 of the 2,930 sites recorded. Therefore, the evaluation of the data is full of pitfalls. However, “the situation was not uniformly bad everywhere” (Alon 1984: 240). Rabbis’ and church fathers’ repeated prohibition against meeting and mixing with members of the respective other religion indicates that their rules were not observed (Dauphin 1998, vol. 3: 320–​30). Jews were able to evade widespread economic hardship as indicated by donations to synagogues and the monetary contents of their genizah (ibid. 335–​7). Recent archaeological discoveries have disproven the assumption that Jews lived in dire poverty due to the legal discrimination against them. Paradoxically, it is precisely at a time when Jews were weighed down by humiliations and bullying that the piyyutim (liturgical poems) flourished (Shiloah 1979: 123; Carmi 1979: 258–​9). At the beginning of the seventh century the church was triumphant. The Christian mission had borne fruit: 267 churches, 62 chapels, 72 buildings which may have been churches, 9 possible chapels, 85 monasteries, and 26 rural hermitages (metochia) were built by that time. Episcopal sees were no longer the privilege of walled cities. There were bishops in 32 large towns. The influx of pilgrims to the Holy Land, who subsequently settled in Palestine, tipped the demographic scales on the Christian side. However, to ensure total victory, the state went beyond the wishes of the church and from Emperor Justinians’s reign onwards used means which ultimately backfired. Novella 146 “On the Hebrews” imposed on synagogues the reading of the Septuagint instead of the Old Testament in Hebrew, forbade the Mishnah and the Gemara as the bases of exegetical sermons, which followed the reading of a section of the Torah, and dictated what Jews should believe, threatening with the most severe punishments those who denied the resurrection of Christ 54

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and last judgment, or who declared that angels were not divine creatures (Linder 1977: 402–​11, no. 66). The absurd prohibition to celebrate the Jewish Passover at a date other than Christian Easter amounted to a policy of total enslavement of Judaism under Christian dominion. In Justinian’s conception of Christianity, the role of Jews as fossil witnesses of the biblical past of the church, which was considered the true Israel (Verus Israel), diminished Jewish religious history. The totalitarian Christian state demanded their disappearance. The only alternative was forced conversion. Inaugurated by Justinian, the policy of forced baptism was continued by Emperor Maurice (582–​602 C. E .). These measures of imperial exceptions were met by Jewish revolts. While Jews had not joined the Samaritan revolts of 484 and 529 C. E ., they rebelled in 578 C.E ., having nothing to lose any longer. The last two years of Phocas’ reign were characterized by major urban agitation in the large cities of the empire, including Jerusalem. The real break between the Jews and Christians of Byzantine Palestine came during the Persian invasion, which acted as a catalyst. Jews sought revenge for three centuries of Christian oppression: in Galilee, along the path of the Persian army, and in Jerusalem churches were burned, Christian homes were ransacked, and Christians were massacred (Dauphin 1998, vol. 2: 339–​41). Having vanquished the Persians and reinstalled the Holy Cross retrieved from Chosroes II in Golgotha on 21 to 22 March 631, Emperor Heraclius banned Jews from Jerusalem and a surrounding radius of three Roman miles and opted for forced baptism, the effectiveness of which the church had always doubted. The ineptitude of Justinian and his four successors was punished not by revolts but by treason (Starr 1939: 281). It was a Jew named Joseph, who in Year 19 of the Hegira (Muhammad’s departure from Mecca to Medina), a Sunday in 649 C.E., led the Moslem army of Mu‘âwiya through the low-​level aqueduct of Caesarea, thus allowing them to enter surreptitiously into the city and to surprise the Christian inhabitants in their church (al-​Balâdhuri, Futûh al Buldân 2.11.141).

6. Conclusion Through the prisms of archaeological evidence, the laws of the Byzantine state, Christian religious propaganda, and church councils, we have been able to trace the movements and countermovements of the various religious segments of the population of Byzantine Palaestina. As a consequence of the Persian occupation of Jerusalem and despite being temporarily excluded from Jerusalem by Caliph ‘Umar (Issa 1976: 113), Jews rapidly regained access to the Holy City. An ancient Karaite commentary on Deut 2:32 explains: “For before their [the Muslims’] arrival, they [the Jews] could not enter Jerusalem. They were obliged to come from the other corners of the earth to Tiberias and Gaza because of their wish [to see] the sanctuary [the Temple]. But now, after their [the Muslims’] arrival, they brought them [the Jews] to Jerusalem, assigned them to a quarter and numerous Jews settled there. Since then, the Jews come from the four extremities of the earth to Jerusalem to study and pray” (Mann 1922: 518–​24). After four centuries of Christianity’s merciless struggle to eliminate Jews and Judaism from Palestine the cards of religious demography had been reshuffled by the Muslim conquest.

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4 JEWS, JUDAISM, AND THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE Seth Schwartz

1.  The Meaning of the Term The term Christianization has several separable though intertwined senses that are relevant to the experience of the Jews in late antiquity. First, the conversion of Constantine to Christianity in 312 C . E . marks the beginning of a long process, which may be reductively so designated, whereby Roman state institutions and public norms became ever more closely identified with Christianity. This process had a crucial impact on the political and social status and organization of the Jews, including –​but not restricted to –​the gradual increase of pressure on Jews to convert to Christianity. The second sense of Christianization is social. The Roman Empire eventually became demographically Christian. This happened at different rates in different places and its consequences for those who opted out of Christianity varied. The general pattern that emerges from the admittedly partial and problematic literary sources is that, near the beginning of the fifth century, at least in some places, a rather stark shift occurred in the role of Christianity in constituting social networks (see below). Before that time, in many places there was competition and even violence between the different groups, that is, Nicene Christians, “heretical” Christians, pagans –​for want of an equally economical term –​and Jews (it would be a mistake to think that there was no comparable competition and violence in the High Empire, 31 B.C.E . to 305 C.E .), but the social fabric of the cities, at any rate, was not irreparably rent. Indeed, there is also evidence of social networks crossing religious lines in an untroubled way even much later in some places, and the change need not have been in every case unidirectional. Nevertheless, as a crude generalization, one might suggest that in the fourth century social networks often crossed religious lines, while in the fifth and sixth social networks and groups defined by religious affiliation increasingly constituted coterminous entities. Christianization pushed Jews, among others, out of society. Finally, Christianization may refer to a cultural shift. Christianity like Judaism is a totalizing religious system. It massively simplified, organized, and standardized the religious life of the Roman Empire, notwithstanding constant internal struggles between adherents of Nicene and later Chalcedonian “orthodoxies” and various “heresies”. A distinctive culture emerged along with these changes, one that stood at an oblique angle to classical traditions, eventually embraced local languages for both liturgical and literary purposes and promoted new types of material culture. We DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-5

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can easily trace these developments because they are relatively well-​attested, both in preserved literature and in archaeology. Other aspects of a cultural revolution –​changes in general attitudes toward wealth and poverty, for example, or toward the body –​are the subjects of plausible but still somewhat controversial speculation, and their significance for the Jews has not been adequately studied (most influentially, Brown 2012; 1988). In any case it can be easily shown that Jews, among others, could participate quite fully in this type of Christianization without compromising their Jewishness. Cultural Christianization could also be described as the emergence of a late antique (as opposed to specifically Christian) culture, but such a formulation understates the extent to which the new culture was Christian in content and elides the overwhelming force of politics: the new culture was hegemonic; it could not have developed without the Christianization of state and society.

2.  Christianization of the State The main outlines of this development have been repeatedly described (Cameron 2012: 58–​83). The conversion of the emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 C.E . did not make the empire Christian. In no sense was Christianity the official religion; the Roman senatorial aristocracy and the bureaucratic classes remained non-​Christian or in many cases religiously labile for many decades to come. Professions of devotion to classical paideia (education, culture) did not divide the upper classes but united them. Indeed, there is little evidence that non-​Christian aristocrats even felt especially embattled or threatened before the mid-​fifth century (Cameron 2011). Emperors could still expect to be in some sense deified after death. Not until the last third of the fourth century was it ever certain that the next emperor would be Christian. At the same time, though, Christianity would never again be illegal, nor would Christians –​provided they were not labeled as heretics –​be subject to persecution. In the Edict of Milan, issued in 313 C.E ., Constantine declared not the triumph of Christianity but religious toleration. But many of the bishops Constantine and his successors so ardently patronized had very different ideas about the political role of Christianity. They wanted activist emperors who would do everything in their power to stamp out paganism and heresy and also eliminate Judaism –​or at least contain or subjugate it –​by aggressively promoting conversion. The laws on paganism, heresy, and Judaism collected primarily in Codex Theodosianus book 16 reflect the tensions between emperors, primarily though not exclusively of the Constantinian dynasty (305–​363 C.E .; Julian’s laws from 361 to 363 C. E . are not included in the Code, nor are those of Constantius I, 305–​ 312), still committed to traditional norms and bishops filled with revolutionary fervor (Sizgorich 2009: 81–​107, on Ambrose, Libanius and Theodosius I; Sandwell 2007: 3–​11, on Antioch; Hahn 2004: 15–​120, on Alexandria). What did this mean for the Jews? The rather small quantity of legislation concerning the Jews issued by the Constantinians is enough to indicate that a drastic political change was underway. It seems unlikely that the Jews had much of a recognized corporate legal identity after 70 C.E . (Schwartz 2014: 104–​5 and 129–​ 31 contra Linder 1987: 67–​77, among many others). All that was left was their obligation to pay the annual two-​denarius tax that replaced the half-​sheqel donated to the Temple, attested into the third century and apparently regarded at least by some as a fine for being Jewish, and the right/​ restriction affirmed by Antoninus Pius of Jews to circumcise their sons but no others (Digest 48.8.11 =​ Linder 1987: no. 1: presumably slaves and male converts). Tertullian (Apologeticum 21.1, ca. 200 C .E .) famously declared Judaism a religio licita, a phrase that has been mistaken for an expression of official policy but simply means that no laws prohibit it, unlike Christianity. It implies nothing about recognition of the corporate legal personality of the Jews. Indeed, a rescript 60

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of 213 C.E . explicitly denies that a specific Jewish community and, by extension, Jewish communities in general, possesses any such corporate legal personality (Codex Justinianus 1.9.1 =​Linder 1987: no. 3; see Cotton 2007; Schwartz 2014). The pre-​Christian Roman state did not, between 70 C.E . and the fourth century, recognize the Jews as a group with legally meaningful political or religious institutions, or any right to live by their own laws. It simply failed to declare them illegal. Constantinian legislation already reflects the Christian view that the Jews constitute a religious community and goes further by recognizing the legitimacy and even to some extent the privileged state of communal institutions (Cod. Theod. 16.8.2, 330 =​Linder 1987: no. 9, repeated frequently thereafter throughout the Code). One of the peculiarities of Christian Roman legislation about the Jews is that at least until well into the Theodosian period, the relative privilege of the Jews as a religious community is frequently affirmed, but Jews and Judaism are spoken of in a violently harsh language. So, to provide a few early examples, in Cod. Theod. 16.8.1 (=​Linder 1987: no. 8, a law of 329 C.E ., forbidding Jews to attack Jewish converts to Christianity), the Jews are both a “beastly” and a “nefarious sect”; in Cod. Theod. 16.8.6 (=​Linder 1987 no. 11, 339 C.E .), the Jews lead (perhaps servile) women into the “fellowship of their turpitude”; in Cod. Theod. 16.8.7 (=​Linder 1987 no. 12, 353 C.E .), the Jews constitute “sacrilegious assemblies”. On the other hand, Cod. Theod. 16.8.2 (Linder 1987 no. 9, 330 C. E .), exempting Jewish “clergy” from liturgies and curial duties, uses perfectly neutral language. The legal staff of the Theodosian emperors expressed more consistent and shriller hostility, even in favorable laws (cf. Cohen 1979). Furthermore, the Constantinian dynasty aggressively promoted Christianization, setting a precedent for late imperial emperors and aristocrats more generally, by pouring money and resources into the theologically driven project of Christianizing Palestine. This entailed founding churches and monasteries, identifying sites of biblical importance and encouraging Christian pilgrimage to those sites, and eventually also “discovering” and exporting relics –​physical objects associated with the Gospels and the primitive history of Christianity, eg pieces of the True Cross, bones of apostles and other early saints, and so on (Wilken 1992; Hunt 1982). For the Jews, these developments had paradoxical sets of effects. Scholars have claimed to find in contemporaneous Christian and Jewish texts traces of competition over spiritual ownership of holy places (Levinson 2013), but non-​Christian Jews had no interest in specifically Christian holy sites and probably pre-​Christian sites like the Cave of Machpelah, Rachel’s Tomb, Mamre, and so on, though partly Christianized, did not bar Jews or even pagans from performing their traditional ministrations (on the Machpelah see Antonini Placentini Itinerarium 30: as late as the 560s C . E ., Jews and Christians worshiped there simultaneously but had separate entrances; on Mamre, Sozomenos Historia Ecclesiastica 2.4 [=​ PG vol. 67, 1860, 941–​5]; Jacobs 2004: 130–​1). Was the sense of dispossession produced by the Christian emperors worse than that produced in the past by Vespasian and Hadrian? Jewish texts provide surprisingly little direct evidence for competition over holy places, or Jews’ sense of displacement, though the liturgical poet Yannai, in the sixth century, certainly conveys in some of his poems a strong sense of dispossession and defeat in the face of a triumphant Christian Rome, incidentally providing evidence that even in the postplague era, and a century after the fall of the West, eastern Rome’s power seemed to its subjects unchallengeable (Schwartz 2001: 268–​74). On the other hand, all the new foundations, the revival of Jerusalem and parts of its Judaean hinterland, the emergence of hitherto insignificant settlements like Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Capernaum as major urbanized pilgrimage centers, the constant flow of pilgrimage, whatever its impact on Jewish sensibilities, constituted massive state investment in an otherwise notoriously 61

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poor province (Wilken 1992; Hunt 1982; Bar 2008; Sivan 2008: 51–​106; Maraval 2002). The rising prosperity easily legible in the archaeological record of Palestine in the Christian empire, at the very least down to the arrival of bubonic plague around 540 C.E . (Harper 2017: 199–​245), including Jewish areas of the province, may have had other causes too, but imperial investment was not the least important one. Palestinian Jews benefitted from specifically Christian investment in their province. Theodosius I’s Edict of Thessalonica (Cod. Theod. 16.1.2, 380 C . E .) is a milestone in the long process of the Christianization of the Roman state. Unlike the Constantinians and the short-​lived dynasty that succeeded them, whose commitment to Nicene Christianity, and even to Christianity tout court, often seemed weak, the Theodosians were strongly committed to Nicene orthodoxy and allowed ecclesiastical concerns a larger role in shaping law and policy than their predecessors had done. In his Edict Theodosius declared it his will that all his subjects adhere to Nicene Christianity, a statement that admittedly was not buttressed by sanctions and provided no means for its own enforcement, but in spirit diverged radically from Constantine’s Edict of 313 C . E . Certainly, the tenor of the laws in Codex Theodosianus book 16 changes in the 380s. First of all, the Theodosians issued much more religious legislation than their predecessors or successors. They seemed to be working out, for the first time, coherent policies toward the nonorthodox (Sandwell 2007: 34–​59). It would be reasonable to take this as a reflection of a widely shared subjective sense that the empire had reached a tipping point. Christians were on a sharp rise, and if they did not yet constitute a majority of the population (how could anyone in antiquity have known? –​cf. Bagnall 1993: 278–​89; Hopkins 1998), their demographic predominance was inevitable and imminent. Constantinian pluralism was thus beginning to falter and new developments in the provinces gave the emperor and his staff an opportunity to work out some of the consequences through legislation. Be this as it may, there had been some occasional legislation against sacrifice as early as the 340s, but in the 380s to 390s the legislation is more abundant and urgent, with an anomalous result. From now on sacrifice was unambiguously forbidden and pressure to close temples grew and yielded results. But it was not and never would be illegal to profess “Hellenism”. Paganism was thus, in theory, reduced to a credal system, shorn of its central rituals (in exhaustive detail Trombley 1993: 1–​97, followed by lengthy arguments for the marginal survival of pagan religious activity into the sixth century; Rives 2007: Epilogue). The scattered hints of a policy toward the Jews detectable in the sparse Constantinian legislation acquire substance and specificity under the Theodosians but also begin to move in ominous directions (cf. Cohen, 1979). For example, traditional Roman law had had a horror of circumcision and so prohibited the Jews’ ostensible practice of circumcising (and so probably converting) male slaves. Constantinian legislation retained aspects of this tradition, but with a fateful ideational shift. The primary problem was no longer circumcision as taboo act of genital mutilation but conversion to Judaism. An additional concern for Christian lawgivers was domination: they deemed it intolerable that Jewish masters should dominate Christian slaves (Cod. Theod. 16.9.1; 16.9.2; Cod. Just. 1.10.1; Linder 1987: 138–​51; more explicit still in Cod. Theod. 3.1.5, with comments of Linder 1987: 174–​7). Theodosian legislation enshrines and massively extends this principle: Jews should not be allowed to serve in any role in which they might exercise dominion over Christians, even the softer dominion of state and bureaucracy. So Jews were gradually barred by law from serving in government bureaus, as military officers, agentes in rebus, even as patrons and defensores of cities (Cod. Theod. 16.8.16 with Linder 1987: 222–​4; Cod. Theod. 16.8.24 with Linder 1987: 280–​3; Constitutio Sirmondiana 6 with Linder 1987: 305–​13). The only official role left to them was the decurionate, less an opportunity for domination and a source of honor than a burden and a punishment. 62

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On the other hand, the idea behind the somewhat obscure Constantinian law apparently ascribing limited authority over Jewish communities to Jewish officials became under the Theodosians a full-​blown acknowledgment of the exclusive right of the primates of the Jews –​a generic term for their communal leaders –​to police the boundaries of the local community. The community was thus implicitly recognized as an entity possessing a strong form of legal personality, empowered to administer religious law, and even to have their civil adjudications recognized as valid arbitration under certain circumstances. Jewish communities were inviolate: their property could not be seized or destroyed by private individuals or groups. With a few exceptions, the state endorsed their right to live in accordance with their own laws. Even the Tiberian patriarch was recognized, until the middle of the reign of Theodosius II, as the legitimate and official authority over the Jews, permitted to raise funds from his constituents, and in general enjoying remarkably high status, though aspects of his role are to us very obscure indeed. But the decline of the patriarchate starting in 415 C.E. –​clearly the result of shifting alliances at the imperial court (cf. Holum 1982: 98–​100) –​coincided with the issuance of a series of increasingly hostile and restrictive laws. Theodosius I’s defense of the Jews of Callinicum in 388 C.E. against their Christian attackers, who openly violated Roman law by destroying the local synagogue (Zelzer 1982: no. 74; Kraemer 2020: 132–​ 7), eventually withered on exposure to the sustained outrage of St Ambrose of Milan (see below). But Theodosius II began officially pecking away at the Jews’ long-​established rights, for example, by prohibiting the construction of new synagogues and encouraging the destruction of synagogues located in abandoned settlements (Cod. Theod. 16.8.27, issued 423; and see Hezser, forthcoming). By the middle of the fifth century, it is certainly possible to think of the state as Christian, regardless of the personal piety or impiety of many of the emperors. Perhaps most notorious was Justinian as described by his eloquent foe Procopius in his scabrous Anecdota (Secret History, Loeb Classical Library volume 290). But legislation slows to a trickle. The intense concern about the Jews demonstrated in the Codex Theodosianus (see above) is replicated nowhere in the Codex Justinianus, which merely repeats some of the content of the earlier Code, though in one case with a change whose significance is hard to assess. A law of Arcadius issued in 398 C.E . (Cod. Theod. 2.1.10 =​ Linder 1987: 204–​11) gave the Jews the right to adjudicate their own religious laws but urges them to use Roman courts for civil law. The version in Codex Justinianus 1.9.8, whether strategically or accidentally, omits the word “non” so that the law now requires the Jews to adjudicate even religious law in Roman courts. The most substantial novelty is found not in Justinian’s Code but among the Novellae (constitutions issued after the publication of the Code), namely, number 146, issued in 553 C.E . (Linder 1987: 405–​10). However, one understands the pretext for the issuance of this confusing and highly rhetorical text; it is certain that the constitution involves the emperor’s direct intervention in matters of internal Jewish religious practice and belief (Jews must continue to use the Greek Bible, preferably the Septuagint; they may not use their deuteroseis –​a neologism in patristic literature from the Greek deuteros, meaning second –​whatever those are; any Jew who denies belief in resurrection or angels is to be expelled from his community) in a way which flies in the face of the legislation of the Theodosian Code, which grants to the Jews themselves absolute jurisdiction over such matters (Schwartz 2002; Rutgers 2003). Justinian’s explicit interest in this law was to draw Jews as nigh as possible to the truths of Christianity. In the next section I will explore cases of much earlier conversionist initiatives. It is customary to say that Justinian’s conversionist legislation anticipated the Middle Ages, but in truth medieval law, at least in the West, was usually closer in spirit to Constantinian and Theodosian 63

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legislation than to Justinian’s: Jews are a licit self-​governing religious community, but inferior; they should convert but should not be compelled or put under undue pressure; true conversion requires authentic change of heart.

3.  A Christian Society a) Violence There has been a flood of recent scholarship exploring what appears to have been heightened nonstate violence associated with the first centuries of Christian rule (in addition to Sizgorich 2009; Hahn 2004, see round-​up in Shaw 2011). To some extent, this has been a reaction to the happy and peaceful vision of Christianization that arguably underlies the work of Peter Brown (starting with Brown 1971). Was the Late Empire (284–​640) really more violent than the High Empire (27 B.C.E . –​235 C. E .)? We need not solve this problem, but it may be worth registering some doubts. There is no shortage of information about brigandage, street crime, rioting, raiding, and so on in the High Empire, but the main ancient historiography reflects the perspectives of a metropolitan aristocracy well protected from violence and possessing a high tolerance for violence and chaos among the lower orders of society and in the provinces. For example, the provincial historian Josephus devoted nearly a full book, Jewish Antiquities 18, to Judaean disorder in the administration of Pontius Pilate, but the Roman ex-​consul Tacitus covered the same subject in three words –​sub Tiberio quies (“under Tiberius, calm”: Hist. 5.9.2). Appropriately for someone of his rank, the violence that interested Tacitus was that perpetrated by the Roman state against its enemies, or by Roman aristocrats against their competitors. Except for Ammianus Marcellinus, a tiny group of classicizing poets, and some decidedly upper-​class church fathers like Ambrose or Augustine, late antique writers generally do not channel the attitudes of a metropolitan aristocracy (though as bishops the patristic aristocrats were unusually tied to local concerns). Like Josephus, late antique Christian writers had strong local loyalties and interests and so provide something closer to a bottom-​up account than a Tacitus ever had the desire or means to do. At the same time, they were highly theological and (tellingly) highly contentious. It is often difficult for us to assess even the most basic historicity of many late antique accounts of inter-​communal violence, because they are so thoroughly shaped by biblical topos and theological argument. In the case of violence against Jews, or between Jews and Christians, we are often left wondering what to do with the sources: they seem in many cases fundamentally unreliable, yet the very diffusion of the topos of violence against Jews is an important datum and says much about the dangers, actual or potential, of the social world that Jews and Christians shared. Thus, briefly to note examples: three stories set in the early fifth-​century feature or in one case hint at large-​ scale violence against Jews perpetrated in each case by bishops or influential monastics and their followers. A much-​analyzed episode in book 7 of Socrates Scholasticus’s Historia Ecclesiastica begins with a complex confrontation in an Alexandrian theater on a Sabbath morning in 414 C.E . between a group of Jews (who should have been at the synagogue), the Roman governor Orestes and the thuggish followers of the fanatical bishop Cyril (Socrates disapproved of him). The governor took the Jews’ side –​this is in itself a hoary topos of Alexandrian literary and political discourse –​but later on, when the Jews attacked a group of Christians, Cyril and his gang drove them (all the Jews? the band of miscreants?) out of the city, without any reaction from Orestes. The story continues without the Jews, but with escalating tensions between Cyril and the governor and culminates in the murder by Cyril’s followers of the prominent pagan philosopher-​mathematician 64

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Hypatia. We may well wonder whether anything like this actually happened. The most cautious recent analysis of the story concludes: yes, maybe (Irshai 2013). The same question has been asked of another brief but famous narrative, better written but featuring less surface plausibility than Socrates’ account, contained in the Letter on the Conversion of the Jews by Severus, the early fifth-​century bishop of Minorca, which was preserved as part of the dossier of promotional material for the cult of the relics of St. Stephen the Protomartyr (text, translation, commentary, and historical introduction in Bradbury 1996). In this tale, the arrival of the relics on the island in 417 C. E . so stirs up Severus and his followers that they can no longer tolerate the presence and, indeed, the political and social prominence of the Jews on the island. So they march from the “judenrein” episcopal see of Jamona to the mixed, supposedly Jewish-​dominated town of Magona. There, according to Severus’s cunningly obfuscatory account –​designed to conceal any traces of violent threat against the Jews –​the Jews eventually agree to convert en masse to Christianity, demolish their synagogue with their own hands and replace it with a church. A few contemporaneous hints inform us that something likely happened on Minorca in 418 C.E ., and that it was probably more violent and coercive, and less successful, than the letter of Severus claims (Bradbury 2006; Kraemer 2009; Kraemer 2020: 43–​74). On the other hand, the episodes of destructive violence reportedly perpetrated in the 420s in the vicinity of Palestine and Arabia by the Syrian monk Barsauma are pure hagiographic fantasy (Palmer 2020: 37–​47; 67–​85, provides a new translation of the relevant sections of the Syriac Life; Schwartz 2014: 124; Stemberger 2020: 88: “pure fiction”). The author of The Life of Barsauma imagines that at this late date, Palestine and Arabia were still completely dominated by wealthy, powerful, and ruthless Jewish, Samaritan, and pagan majorities who mercilessly persecuted the Christian minority. Barsauma and his followers took their revenge by in effect purifying the land of religious abominations, destroying synagogues and temples, and subduing their communities. The entire tale is constructed of biblical tropes derived especially from the militant book of Joshua and many of the details are fantastic –​a massive gold-​decked synagogue modeled on Solomon’s Temple at Rabbath-​Moba, of all places, and so on –​yet many scholars are determined to salvage some facts from the tale (for full references see Stemberger 2020: 73–​6). What actually matters about the story is its association of sanctity and extreme violence committed against the enemies of Christ –​Jews, Samaritans, and pagans. The Life of Barsauma is fantastical even by the standards of saints’ lives, but the idea of sacred violence bears notice for its potential social impacts, even if actual violence was less common in life than in the story (Shaw 2011; Gaddis 2005). This said, there were indubitably historical acts of violence and persecution, even in the relatively calm fourth century. Most reliably attested is the episode at Callinicum, a town on Rome’s Euphrates frontier, in 388 C. E ., already mentioned above (Zelzer 1982: no. 74; Kraemer 2020: 132–​ 7). Here the basic facts of the case are not in question. The local bishop led his followers in the destruction of a synagogue, in violation of Roman law. The Jews complained and Theodosius I intervened on their behalf, requiring the bishop to fund rebuilding of the synagogue. But the affair came to the attention of St. Ambrose, whose first move, a long letter defending the Syrian bishop and tacitly threatening Theodosius with unrest should the law be observed, failed to impress. But when the emperor attended his church on a visit to Milan, the bishop unleashed such a torrent of rhetoric that Theodosius, though reportedly still unimpressed by the substance of Ambrose’s arguments, backed down and the miscreant bishop went unpunished (McLynn 1994: 298–​307). Are the reported episodes the tip of an iceberg or passing rarities? We have no way of knowing. But we might at least note the utter pervasiveness of violent rhetoric directed against the Jews, extending in social terms through the entirety of the sources, from imperial constitutions to the most literarily modest saints’ lives, and occasionally even to epigraphy (Ameling 2004: no. 5a 65

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from Ikaria, Greece). Such discourse does not tell us all we need to know. Its relationship to social reality is certain to be complex and partial, with strong variations by place and time. But to deny the possibility that it might have been in some circumstances generative of violence, and if not of violence then of mutual revulsion and separation, would be most counterintuitive.

b)  Social Disengagement Many of the tales that end in violence between Christians and Jews regard it not as the state of nature but as the result of a sudden, conversive shift. Such stories begin with a prehistory: Jews and Christians lived in harmony. The above-​mentioned Letter on the Conversion of the Jews by Severus provides or invents first-​rate social history: at Magona Jews and Christians live in a fully integrated social network, a fact that “injures Christ daily” (3.6). The wealthier Jews’ patrocinium (patronage) is not confined to their coreligionists, and Christian dependents are happy to receive it. In contrast to medieval and later stereotypes, the Jews are not at all presented as predatory but upstanding and effective protectors of the interests of their town and its inhabitants. Perhaps the arrival of the relics of St Stephen in Minorca in 417 C.E . produced a wave of religious enthusiasm that made it impossible to sustain such exemplary pluralism and tranquility. Severus in effect offered the Jews an ultimatum: You can maintain your position in the social network, but only if you convert to Christianity. The Jews yielded and Theodorus, the leader of the Jewish community but also an important figure in the city in general, accepted Christ, to the effect that he was welcomed with embraces and kisses by his Christian dependents (Schwartz 2014: 135–​7). We can posit, then, as a very broad hypothesis that cannot, in most places, be tested that social Christianization worked on the Jews in two ways, which sound contradictory but which in real life must often have worked hand in hand. The tradition of vituperative rhetoric, directed at Jews and other religious rejectionists, was complex in its sources and impact. For preachers like Chrysostom trained in the classical tradition, psogos (vituperation) was a standard practice inherited from forensic rhetoric (Wilken 1983: 112–​27). Advocates were expected to make ludicrously insulting and manifestly untrue claims about their opponents, and some at least of the homiletical attacks against Jews and others are ultimately drawn from such traditions. The stakes in old-​time forensic or political rhetoric had often been very high, but the audiences were also expected to delight in the ludic excesses of the best practitioners. They understood the conventions and did not take every claim totally seriously (Koster 1980; Pernot 1993; Rinker 1979). But we may wonder how much of this ludic quality remained among the Christian practitioners of the forensic speech. What did Chrysostom’s audience hear when he denounced the Jews as diabolical Christ-​killers, their synagogues as places of prostitution (PG 48.846–​7 =​Harkins 1979: 9–​10; 11)? On the other hand, Chrysostom (c. 347–​407 C. E .), like the author of Severus’ Letter (see above) claims that the justification for such excess is that Jews and Christians in late fourth-​century Antioch get along all too well: Jewish festivals and rituals were (still?) part of the fabric of the city’s public religious life and many (or some) Christians participated in them un-​self-​consciously. The sense that the Jews, though believed to be superseded by Christians, were still beneficiaries of the authentic and original, and therefore in some hard-​to-​define way valid promise of divine favor, embodied among other things in the enduring religious potency of their sacred books, was shared in various ways by Chrysostom’s audience but also by their contemporary hierarchs, Jerome and Augustine. Hardly any extant Jewish sources address these issues. Judaism was a theological problem for Christians, but Christianity was, on the whole, not a theological problem for Jews. At most, we can infer that in some places Jews were happy to play the sorts of roles ascribed to them by Severus, 66

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when describing the prehistory of the conversion, or by Chrysostom. Certainly, social and political integration into the fabric of their cities served their interests. Jews can hardly have welcomed violence or intense conversionist pressure, when these eventually arrived. Well into the fifth century sources describe them, with unascertainable reliability, as sometimes responding to these threats aggressively. Laws accompanied bottom-​up pressures, as suggested above, by demanding that Jews be combed out of the general social networks and be consigned to a status that was simultaneously protected by the state, somewhat shakily to be sure, and marginalized (Cod. Theod. 16.8.16; 16.8.24: Jews barred from government service except for the decurionate and advocacy; Constitutio Sirmondiana 6 [=​Linder 1987: 307–​8]: Jews and pagans barred from all government service including advocacy “lest people of the Christian law come to serve them”). Were the laws, among other pressures, effective? They must have been to some extent. From the late fourth century onwards, the local Jewish community gradually became the most widespread form of social organization for Jews. Even under Justinian, the community was to some extent protected by the state, though it was becoming increasingly vulnerable. This inward turn, the recorporatization of the Jews, and the revival of meaningful internal social networks that were in some measure marginalized, ie cut off from the general ones, probably indicates that the project of social Christianization was in the long term successful, though with some caveats. Some scraps of evidence, as at sixth-​century Venosa –​burial inscriptions from a Jewish catacomb in southern Italy which seem to show that Jews still held local magistracies (Noy 1993: 61–​149) –​point to the persistence of the old model in some places. On the other hand, we do not actually know how well-​integrated Jews were before the onset of Christianization in the various parts of the empire. Finally, even in their marginalized state Jews could never have maintained local communities in the complete absence of some form of integration into the broader structures. So the changes may have been in many places slow, incremental, and incomplete (see Schwartz 2001: 179–​202 for this analysis).

4.  Cultural Christianization By “culture” I mean material and literary culture. The study of ancient Jewish culture in the ethnographic sense has barely begun, hindered by insufficient evidence and perhaps even more so by insufficient scholarly ingenuity (for an attempt to define the issues, see Schwartz 2010). Recently developed and developing scientific techniques as applicable to ancient material remains (Scheidel 2018) hold out promise, especially in Israel –​some results have already been achieved through chemical analysis of pottery (Sherman, Weiss, Zilberman, and Yasur 2020; Adan-​Bayewitz, Asaro, Wieder, and Giauque 2008), though these are as relevant to economic as to cultural history –​but a still heavily bookish field needs to find the will, not to mention the funding, to support such work.

a) Literature By contrast, the literary and material remains are eloquent or, at any rate, easily legible. We may first note how little Jewish literature likely to have been produced between 100 and 400 C.E . survives. Josephus’s late works, published in the 90s, are probably the latest surviving Jewish texts written in Greek. Perhaps the later Jewish revolts (116–​117; 132–​135) had their own Josephuses, but we know nothing of them. Greek Jewish literature survived because Christians, not Jews, preserved it, and Christian readers and copyists had no interest in preserving any Jewish text later than Josephus, who presumably was preserved because he provided important testimony to the times, and in a limited way the life, of Jesus and the apostles. If Jews other than rabbis were writing 67

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in Semitic languages, but in other forms and formats, we have no trace of such works either (the authors of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch were contemporaries of Josephus, the texts once again preserved by Christians, presumably in part because they demonstrated fulfillment of Christ’s prophecies). But it is not impossible that huge quantities of post-​70 C.E . literature were not lost: they simply never existed. In the aggregate, the three failed Jewish revolts, starting in 66 and ending in 135 C . E ., left the Roman imperial Jewish world a shambles, resulting almost certainly in demographic cataclysm, large-​scale coerced movement of populations as slaves, a destroyed center, and much peripheral destruction as well, especially in Alexandria and Egypt, often regarded as the main place of origin of Greek Jewish literature. In this context, the flood of literature that began to rise starting about 400 C.E . may be among other things a symptom of some demographic recovery, helped by the fact that political and social Christianization was nudging Jews back into the conditions of partial self-​rule, comparable to the political conditions that had supported so much of their extensive literary production in the mid to later Second Temple period. The new literature was in most ways drastically different from the old. Almost all of it was broadly “rabbinic”, that is, it bore some relationship to the peculiar high imperial texts which are the only Jewish survivors of the period, the Mishnah (c. 200 C.E .), the Tosefta (third century?), possibly the halakhic Midrash collections, though these are hard to date (Neuman 2012), and the Palestinian Talmud, produced in some form between 365 and c. 400 C.E . the Talmud barely acknowledges the Christianization of Palestine. These works, according to the now prevailing view, may have existed primarily as “oral texts”, preserved through memorization and recitation, until they were written down sometime at the very end of antiquity or in the early Middle Ages (Sussmann 2005; Hezser 2002). They were not individually authored but presented themselves as collections of teachings that had accumulated over time mainly on legal themes, organized by editors into topical tractates, and the tractates in turn organized into six “orders”. Some of the teachings in these collections are anonymous, but many are attributed to named individuals, most of whom have the title Rabbi. Divergent views are frequently provided, but we are not usually informed whose view is correct. The Tosefta is in part a commentary on the Mishnah and in part a supplementary and alternative collection of laws on the same topics (hence its name, meaning “supplement” in Aramaic). The Talmud for its part incorporates the Tosefta but is organized as a commentary on the Mishnah. It is concerned with resolving contradictions between earlier traditions and with discovering the biblical sources of rabbinic laws. While the Mishnah has a utopian feel, the Talmud tries to find ways of applying the Mishnah’s laws to real-​life situations, probably reflecting the transformation of the rabbis from a peripheral small organization to a larger group of legal experts whose authority was gaining broader acceptance among Palestinian Jews. For its part, halakhic Midrash also explores the relationship between biblical prescription and rabbinic law, but it does so in the form of Bible commentary, and its rabbinic laws are often subtly different from those of the Mishnah (Strack and Stemberger 1996; Ben-​Eliyahu, Cohn, and Millar 2013: 23–​33; Schwartz 2014: 99–​111; 140–​5). Rabbinic literature, in its first, so-​called “classical” period between 200 and 400 C.E ., has neither precedents nor congeners. It is not like the Bible or like other types of Second Temple period literature, nor does it resemble, except in the broadest possible terms, other literature of the Roman Empire, whether pagan or Christian (Schwartz 2020). The literature that emerged from this unusual foundation in late antiquity likewise has many distinctive features. For example, many Second Temple texts, like Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, or the Genesis Apocryphon, are new texts in biblical style that in various ways supplement and alter their biblical source but are not framed as commentary. An uninformed reader might not know 68

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that such texts even had a particular base text. Rabbinic and subsequent Jewish religious literature was different. The Bible was no longer serving as a model for new compositions. The liturgists of pre-​70 C .E . Jerusalem and Qumran had continued to write what were in effect Psalms, continuing two thousand years of Northwest Semitic tradition. But that tradition was now dead. New liturgical poets in the fifth and following centuries, known as “payyetanim” (singular: payyetan), mined the Bible for vocabulary that they manipulated into new and unexpected forms, but they did not write Psalms. Indeed, the defining characteristic of traditional Semitic poetry, parallelismus membrorum, largely disappeared and was replaced by various strophic forms using a rough approximation of meter, and eventually rhyme (the fullest introduction in English is Lieber 2010; also, Lieber 2018; Fleischer 2007; Elizur 2019; in brief: Scheindlin 1991: 13–​8). In addition, late antique Jews produced compendious collections of biblical commentary called aggadic Midrash, which differed from the earlier halakhic Midrash collections in that they did not focus on legal exegesis. They also differed from Qumran pesher (commentaries on Scripture) in that they did not treat the biblical texts as oracles that could be interpreted to predict the future of any reader who would eventually read the biblical text. In fact, aggadic Midrash was very varied in form and function. In some respects, rabbinic Midrash resembled Christian commentary literature, but Midrash was never single authored (unlike Origen’s Homilies on Leviticus or Jerome’s Homilies on Psalms) and was not as thematically structured. And though late antique Midrash, as is generally agreed, has some relation to synagogue homily (midrashic pericopes cannot themselves have served as homilies –​they are too brief and concentrated), its poetics are utterly unlike those of Christian homily collections. This does not exclude the possibility that homilies as actually performed in synagogues and churches were quite similar. In what ways, then, do these and other late antique Jewish texts (including magical texts like Harba de-​Moshe, Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer Ha-​Razim; the Hekhalot texts; and late antique/​early medieval apocalyptic texts) reflect cultural Christianization? The simple answer is: few of them do. The rabbis produced a remarkably self-​contained great tradition that in many ways failed what cultural productions of the dominated are supposed to do, namely, engage in subculturally idiomatic imitation of hegemonic cultural production –​or mimicry, to use Homi Bhabha’s term (cf. Rosen-​Zvi 2017; for variant views see Hezser 1998; 2018; Lapin 2012). But there are some exceptions, of which the most thoroughly studied is piyyut, ie late antique and early medieval Hebrew liturgical poetry (Lieber 2010; a few poems are in Aramaic: Lieber 2018). The overwhelming majority of these texts were unknown until they were discovered among the manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah. In the case of the piyyut it is not hard to trace the network of family resemblances that bind this literary form to several bodies of eastern Christian liturgical poetry, most strikingly the Madrashe of Jacob of Serug (died 521) and the Kontakia of Romanos the Melode (died mid-​sixth century. Van Bekkum 2014). The similarities are blatant. All the poems reject their languages’ classical poetic traditions: the pre-​Islamic poets Yosi ben Yosi, Yannai, and Elazar Qiliri, and the Syrian Christian Jacob all abandoned the millennia-​old West Semitic tradition of parallelism, and Romanos, for his part, rejected classical prosody. They embraced instead a new poetic style, shared across linguistic and religious boundaries, featuring a reliance on litany, strophe-​and-​refrain, and eventually rhyme. It has been argued that this new style was indebted to late Greek rhetoric. Similarities extend to treatment of the biblical text, which includes not only reliance on the exegetical traditions well-​established in their specific religious traditions, but also to a tendency toward speculation about the biblical characters’ psychological states and, in general, dramatization. There are also differences. Romanos embraced the haplotes (simplicity) that distinguished Christian from pagan Greek, but much piyyut, though not all of it, is dazzlingly learned and scholastic and could have 69

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been fully accessible only to a tiny minority of its audience (Aslanov 2012; Münz-​Manor 2010). The language is neither biblical Hebrew nor rabbinic Hebrew; it has its own rules and conventions which make it, on initial exposure, practically impenetrable, though, presumably, more learned and attentive congregants could eventually get the hang of it. Aramaic piyyutim are much simpler and more accessible, but it is unclear what liturgical purposes they served. The piyyut lies at the intersection of the rabbinic great tradition and the local little traditions, traces of which are preserved in archaeology. To be sure, the great payyetanim of the sixth and seventh centuries stood, in one sense, at the pinnacle of late antique Jewish high culture, but their product was meant for popular consumption in weekly synagogue services, unlike rabbinic texts narrowly construed, which were only ever meant to be studied/​heard by small groups of experts and students. What we can learn from the piyyut –​its gates open a crack to the little traditions (on “little” and “great traditions”, see Redfield 1956) and to synagogue and funerary archaeology –​ demonstrates the crucial importance for Jews of cultural Christianization: the liturgical forms of the eastern churches, not to mention their architecture, design, and decoration, all had very close counterparts in synagogues.

b)  Material Culture This confirms and enriches the conclusions we might have drawn from archaeology alone. Just to focus on the synagogue, the overwhelming majority of archaeologically preserved synagogues are late antique, datable to the fourth to sixth centuries C.E . (Levine 2005; 2012). Like the piyyutim, they demonstrate Jews’ participation in a set of cultural norms shaped by Christianity, but also the Jews’ efforts to cultivate difference. Just as piyyutim are not after all Kontakia or Madrashe, synagogues, too, are marked in ways specifically meant to distinguish them from churches. We may begin with the similarities. Some monumental synagogues may have been built as early as the first century C. E ., but there is no evidence that anyone before the fourth or fifth centuries thought that every Jewish settlement requires a purpose-​built monumental synagogue structure. Late antique synagogue epigraphy suggests that this development went along with an emerging sense that each Jewish town in Palestine constituted a more or less self-​contained “holy community”. But we cannot fail to notice that the great age of small-​settlement synagogue construction between 400 and 600 C. E . was also at least in the East the great age of small-​settlement church construction. The latter development was similar but not identical to contemporary synagogue construction. Few church inscriptions in Palestine and Syria evince as strong a sense of the sanctity of the village community as is relatively routine in synagogue epigraphy, surely in part because ecclesiastical life was organized differently. The Jews had no meaningful equivalent to a hierarchical clergy, so local communities felt fully local in a way that parishes usually did not. Nevertheless, a glance at the rural landscape that gradually emerged in the late antique East shows that in terms of large developmental patterns, Jewish settlements followed the same basic norms as Christian ones. Formerly urban institutions and practices such as monumental construction, epigraphy, more or less strong senses of local corporate identity, moved out into the villages, and the familiar medieval-​style landscape of country villages centered on a church. The funds for the construction of these buildings must often have been laboriously assembled Church-​centered communities came to prevail everywhere, except in Jewish areas of Palestine, where villages centered not on churches but on synagogues (Schwartz 2001, 275–​89). The structures of synagogues and churches displayed a broadly similar kind of monumentality, but here too there were distinctions, some but not all of them due to differing circumstances. 70

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Church architecture was much more regular than synagogue architecture. In some urban sites, this was simply because synagogues were constrained to use whatever spaces they could fit into. Only very rarely were they centrally located on large plots of ground, as for example at Sardis. But even rural Palestinian synagogues, which usually were centrally located, had a wide variety of forms. Some of the patterns were roughly local: Upper Galilean synagogues often resembled the Syrian shrines surveyed more than a century ago by H.C. Butler (Butler 1919), having highly ornamented facades but relatively simple interiors. One such structure, at Kafr Bir’im (Bar’am) in Upper Galilee, survived in an excellent state of preservation. Recent discoveries, starting with Merot in the 1980s and including Khirbet Wadi Hammam and Huqoq (Britt and Boustan 2017; Dunbabin 2018; Balty 2018), have complicated this by demonstrating that some “Galilean style” synagogues had heavily decorated interiors, featuring mosaic pavements and wall painting. Synagogues in the region of Bet Shean (Scythopolis), a metropolis of Palaestina Secunda, were often apsidal basilicas with ornate interiors. These were generally constructed in the sixth century and their debt to local ecclesiastical architecture is obvious. Approximately contemporaneous synagogues from the villages of the desert fringe of southern Judaea are often so-​called broad houses, with the Torah niche set in the middle of one of the long walls of the structure (Levine 2005: 174–​249). The organization of interior space is also similar but not identical. Churches and synagogues shared with Mithraic temples the fact that all liturgical activity occurred within the structure in the presence of the congregation. This was not the case for most temples (including the Jerusalem Temple before 70 C. E .), where priests performed rituals within, with or without the presence of a congregation situated elsewhere than in the cella (inner chamber). But churches usually featured a well-​defined barrier between the clergy and the congregation. Some synagogues had items similar to chancel screens, but they probably served to demarcate the area around the Torah shrine, not to mark off a special place for a clergy, though we can hardly be certain. The discovery by Spigel (2012) that very few Palestinian synagogues were large enough to fit more than a fraction of the population of the town in which they were situated, however, raises questions about how the space was utilized. Perhaps the synagogue narthex or courtyard was used ritually. How was it decided who could enter and who remained outside? By age? By rank? First come, first served? Or was attendance normally sparse? One would like to have the corresponding information about village churches. Synagogues and churches both made extensive use of decorative resources borrowed ultimately from aristocratic Roman domestic decoration –​wall painting (of which, however, relatively little survives) and especially floor mosaic. Like synagogues and churches themselves, the ubiquity of these arts demonstrates the spread into the countryside of previously urban practices, and one must assume that painters and mosaicists were still usually city based. This material has been extensively surveyed, though new material is constantly discovered. As is indubitably true of many other decorative items and pieces of furniture found in these buildings, they were produced by workshops and craftsmen who served both Christians and Jews. Here too, the style and content of the decorations are similar but not identical. Thus, both Christians and Jews used carpet mosaics and wildlife scenes, but Jews made more use of biblical scenes and, in general, seemed less squeamish about figurative art in a public religious space than Christians (late antique Christian houses and nonecclesiastical public spaces differ in this regard). No church has anything precisely corresponding to the common synagogue motif of the zodiac circle surrounding an image of the sun (and sometimes the moon) inscribed in a square featuring personifications of the seasons in the corners, although a pavement from the Monastery of Lady Mary in Scythopolis comes close (in general, Schwartz 2014: 137–​48; Hezser 2016). That site testifies to the emergence in modest ecclesiastical structures of the sixth century of a simplified version of the frontal 71

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Byzantine style famous from the contemporary churches of Ravenna, but no synagogue mosaic features anything like that style. Before the sixth century, synagogues used a variety of idiomatic contemporary styles –​thus, the controversial aisle mosaic from Huqoq evokes in miniature the style of Piazza Armerina (Britt and Boustan 2017), the relatively early and aristocratic Hammat Tiberias mosaic is highly classicizing. But in the sixth century peculiarities emerge, most famously the Bet Alpha mosaic (Sukenik 1932). Some have regarded this as an especially vivid example of folk or “provincial” art (Stewart 2016), but it may be more plausible (given that the mosaicists Marianos and Aninas are known to have been metropolitan professionals based in the provincial capital) to see it as reflecting a growing discomfort with certain types of figuration –​ not vivid folk art then but a vivid rejection of both classical norms and of the emerging Byzantine style. Christianization thus had its limits.

Bibliography Adan-​Bayewitz, D., Asaro, F., Wieder, M., and Giauque, R. (2008). “Preferential Distribution of Lamps from the Jerusalem Area in the Late Second Temple Period (Late First Century BCE-​70,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 350, 37–​85. Ameling, W. (2004). Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, Band II: Kleinasien, TSAJ 99, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Aslanov, C. (2012). “Romanos the Melodist and Palestinian Piyyut: Sociolinguistic and Pragmatic Perspectives,” in R. Bonfil et al. (eds.), Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Brill: Leiden, 613–​28. Bagnall, R. (1993). Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Balty, J. (2018). “La ‘mosaïque à l’éléphant’ de Huqoq: un document très convoité et d’interprétation controversée,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 31, 509–​12. Bar, D. (2008). “Fill the Earth”: Settlement in Palestine during the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods, 135–​640 C.E. (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi. Ben-​Eliyahu, E., Cohn, Y., and Millar, F. (2013). Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 150–​700 CE. London: British Academy. Bradbury, S. (1996). Severus of Minorca: Letter on the Conversion of the Jews. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Britt, K. and Boustan, R.S. (2017). The Elephant Mosaic Panel in the Synagogue at Huqoq. Portsmouth: JRA Supplement Series. Brown, P.R.L. (1971). The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad. London: Thames and Hudson. Brown, P.R.L. (1988). The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Brown, P.R.L. (2012). Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Butler, H.C. (1919). Syria: Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–​5 and 1909. Division II Architecture; Section A: Southern Syria. Leiden: Brill. Cameron, A. (2011). The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cameron, A. (2012). The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity 395–​700 AD. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Cohen, J. (1979). “Roman Imperial Policy Toward the Jews from Constantine until the End of the Palestinian Patriarchate,” Byzantine Studies/​Etudes Byzantines 3: 1–​29. Cotton, H. (2007). “Private International Law or Conflicts of Laws: Reflections on Roman Provincial Jurisdiction,” in R. Haensch and I. Heinrichs (eds.), Herrschen und Verwalten. Der Alltag der römischen Administration in der Hohen Kaiserzeit. Cologne: Böhlau, 134–​55. Dunbabin, K. (2018). “Introduction to a Range of Interpretations of the Elephant Mosaic Panel at Huqoq,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 31, 506–​8. Elizur, S. (2019). Sod Meshalshei Qodesh: The Qedushta from its Origins to the Time of Rabbi Elazar beRabbi Qillir. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies. Fleischer, E. (2007). Shirat ha-​Kodesh ha-​Ivrit bi-​Yeme ha-​Benayim. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Gaddis, M. (2005). There is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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The Roman Empire Gildemeister, J., ed. (1889). Antonini Placentini Itinerarium. Berlin: Reuther 1889. Hahn, J. (2004). Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt: Studien zu den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen, Heiden und Juden im Osten des römischen Reiches (von Konstantin bis Theodosius II). Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Harkins, P. (1979). Discourses against Judaizing Christians. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America. Harper, K. (2017). The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the Fate of an Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hezser, C. (1998). “The Codification of Legal Knowledge,” in P. Schäfer (ed.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol.1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 581–​641. Hezser, C. (2002). “The Mishnah and Ancient Book Production,” in A. Avery-​Peck and J. Neusner (eds.), The Mishnah in Contemporary Perspective, Part One. Leiden: Brill, 167–​92. Hezser, C. (2016). “ ‘For the Lord Godi is a Sun and a Shield’ (Ps. 84:12): Sun Symbolism in Greek Jewish Literature and in Amoraic Midrashim,” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 213–​36. Hezser, C. (2018). “The Creation of the Talmud Yerushalmi and Apophthegmata Patrum as Monuments to the Rabbinic and Monastic Movements in Early Byzantine Times,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 25, 368–​93. Hezser, C. (forthcoming). “Byzantine Synagogue Legislation, Christianization, and Postcolonial Theory,” in J. Hahn (ed.), Expropriation and Destruction of Synagogues in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Holum, K. (1982). Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hopkins, K. (1998). “Christian Number and its Implications,” JECS 6: 185–​226. Hunt, E. (1982). Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, AD 312–​460, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Irshai, O. (2013). “Christian Historiographers’ Reflections on Jewish-​Christian Violence in Fifth Century Alexandria,” in N. Dohrmann and A.Y. Reed (eds.), Jews, Christian, and the Roman Empire. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 154–​66. Jacobs, A. (2004). Remains of the Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire in Late Antiquity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Koster, S. (1980). Die Invektive in der griechischen und römischen Literatur. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain. Kraemer, R. (2009). “Jewish Women’s Resistance to Christianity in the Early Fifth Century: The Account of Severus, Bishop of Minorca,” JECS 17: 635–​65. Kraemer, R. (2020). The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity: What Christianity Cost the Jews. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lapin, H. (2012). Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–​400 CE. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Levine, L. (2005). The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Levine, L. (2012). Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Levinson, J. (2013). “There Is No Place Like Home: Rabbinic Responses to the Christianization of Palestine,” in N. Dohrmann and A.Y. Reed (eds.), Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, CA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 99–​120. Lieber, L. (2010). Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press. Lieber, L. (2018). Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity: Translations and Commentaries. Leiden: Brill. Linder, A. (1987). The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Maraval, P. (2002). “The Earliest Phase of Christian Pilgrimage in the Near East (Before the 7th Century),” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56: 63–​74. McLynn, N. (1994). Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Münz-​Manor, O. (2010). “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East –​A Comparative Approach,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1: 336–​61. Newman, H. (2012). “Early Halakhic Literature,” in R. Bonfil et al., Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden: Brill, 629–​41.

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The Roman Empire Van Bekkum, W. (2014). “Jewish and Christian Hymnody in the Early Byzantine Period,” in J. Aitken and J. Carleton Paget (eds.), The Jewish-​ Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 261–​78. Wilken, R. (1983). John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Wilken, R. (1992). The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Zelzer, M. (1982). Sancti Ambrosii Epistulae extra Collectionem. CSEL 82.3, volume 10 part 3. Vienna: Hoelder-​Pichler-​Tempsky.

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5 JEWS AND THE IMPERIAL CULT Holger Zellentin

1. Introduction The notion that all wielding of political power is ultimately sanctioned by a supreme deity is a cultural trait that ancient Jews shared with their Graeco-​Roman neighbors –​even at times when issues of the identity and physical representation of such power drove them apart. When the Seleucid ruler and “manifest god” Antiochus IV Epiphanes placed a statue of Zeus in the Jerusalem Temple in the second century B . C . E ., when the Roman emperor and “living god” Caligula planned to place a statue of himself in the same Temple in the early decades of the first century C . E ., and when the posthumously deified Hadrian placed both a statue of Jupiter and of himself on the Jerusalem Temple Mount in the early second century, all parties agreed on the fundamental alignment of the political power with the will of God. What led to differences of interpretation –​and, directly or indirectly, to the Maccabean revolt, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and in the end to the rabbinic accommodation with Roman power –​were the related struggles to define the identity of this deity as either pagan or biblical and its will as either manifest or immanent. Most subjects of the Hellenistic and Roman Empires seem to have agreed that the deity’s will was the pagan rule, yet many Jews (as well as later Christians) among them understood the pagan empires merely as precursors to the establishment of an empire that would be God’s very own. The so-​called “cult of the emperor”, or “imperial cult”, the deification of deceased or even living emperors that became especially pronounced in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, was, therefore, one of the central religious and political phenomena confronting the classical rabbis. The cult, in their eyes, constituted an essential aspect of idolatry within the pagan and later Christianizing world they inhabited, making it necessary to negotiate the nexus of politics and religion on a daily basis. This essay seeks to sketch the religious and political compromises that the rabbis of Palestine –​ the so-​called tannaim active in the late first and second centuries of the common era and their successors, the amoraim of the third and fourth centuries –​managed to strike in order to live in the Roman Empire at its cultural and political apex. We will trace the rabbis’ restraint and pragmatic precision in negotiating the demands of their loyalty to the world’s true divine ruler on the one hand with their loyalty, or at least acquiescence to the deified human rulers on the throne of the Roman Empire on the other. The attitude toward the Roman Empire we find in Christian thought will serve as a double comparandum for the rabbis. First, in the pre-​Constantinian era, both rabbis and Christians may have rejected the divine status of the emperor himself, yet both equally accepted the political reality and thereby the temporal 76

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-6

Jews and the Imperial Cult

divine sanctioning of the Roman Empire as such. The main difference between Christians and rabbis in this era was constituted by their respective political status as defined by Roman legal practice and by their attitudes toward the ongoing appropriateness of sacrifice in general. Second, in the century after Constantine, Jewish and Christian attitudes toward the sacredness of the empire and the emperor remained intertwined even as they began partially to diverge. Whereas many church fathers celebrated the Christianization of the Roman Empire as a defeat of idolatry, the rabbis, along with some marginalized Christian figures, in turn, pointed to the Romanization of Christianity as itself constituting idolatry, especially so in the form of the ongoing imperial rites. At the same time, rabbis and mainstream Christians both began to conceive of the sacred histories of Israel and of the Roman Empire as intimately connected, yet in starkly different ways. Rabbis and Christians both perceived of God’s rule in the form of an empire. Yet while some Christians perceived a continuity of the biblical Israel and Christian Rome, the rabbis after Constantine considered the relationship between Israel and Rome more antagonistic than their tannaitic predecessors did. In order to illustrate this development, we will first consider the Mishnah and Tosefta, rabbinic legal documents edited in the early third century C.E ., and then turn to the commentary on the Mishnah in the Talmud Yerushalmi (henceforth simply Yerushalmi), redacted in the late fourth or early fifth century C. E . –​at the time when the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the creation of a Palestinian “Holy Land”, were in full swing.

2.  Mishnah Avodah Zarah: A Focus on Imperial Rome? Ephraim Urbach argued long ago that the Mishnah’s legislation against idolatry pays very close attention to the imperial cult. While we should not understand this as the Mishnah’s only concern, Urbach’s view, endorsed by several other scholars, seems largely accurate (see Urbach 1959: 238–​ 9; for later discussions see, eg Goldenberg 1997: 94–​7, Zellentin 2016, and Weiss 2018). Some scholars rejected Urbach’s reading (see, eg Eliav 2002: 423 and Furstenberg 2010), yet we will see that the Mishnah’s focus on the imperial cult emerges clearly from a historical analysis that is equally corroborated by the Yerushalmi’s interpretation of the Mishnah. In the Mishnah’s tractate on avodah zarah, “idol worship”, or more literally, “foreign worship”, we read: “All likenesses [kol hatslamim] are prohibited because they are worshipped once a year—​ the words of Rabbi Meir. And the sages say: They are only prohibited if they have a stick or a bird or a ball. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Any [likeness] that has anything in its hand [is prohibited].” (m. Abod. Zar. 3:1, Ms. Kaufman folio 121 verso) Here, the rabbis read the biblical term tselem (“image” or “likeness”) akin to their understanding of the Greek term eikon (or ʾiqon in rabbinic Hebrew), namely, as denoting any two-​or three-​ ­dimensional representation, and therefore as broader than our English term “icon”. In three subsequent steps, the Mishnah lays out different rabbinic approaches to the category of representations that are “prohibited”, which means that Jews must not derive any direct or indirect benefit from their usage. First, Rabbi Meir would like to prohibit any image, assuming that they all play a role in a pagan act of worship at least once a year, following the biblical sense of a blanket prohibition of representations of God’s creatures (see, eg Exodus 20:4–​6 and Deuteronomy 8:8–​10). Then

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“the sages” –​probably reflecting the view of the anonymous editors of the Mishnah –​drastically restrict this class of prohibited images. For them, for an image to qualify as idolatrous, it must depict a person and feature “a stick or a bird or a ball”. According to another manuscript, “the image”, ie the depicted person, must “hold” these objects “in his hand” (see Ms. Parma de Rossi 138 (folio 111 recto; the Tosefta, as well as the citation of the Mishnah in the Yerushalmi, y. Abod. Zar. 3:1, 42c, line 44), likewise all specify that the three objects –​the stick, the bird, or the ball –​be held in the image’s hand). Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel then again slightly alters the category, falling in between Rabbi Meir’s stringency and the rabbis’ relative leniency. R. Shimon b. Gamliel prohibits images that carry anything in their hand, not just the three objects the sages had specified. In its commentary on the Mishnah, the Yerushalmi (as well as the Babylonian Talmud, henceforth simply the Bavli) later explicates the Mishnah’s discourse as evoking the “king”, that is, the king of Rome as the rabbis customarily call the “emperor” –​the term I shall henceforth employ. The key to understanding the Mishnah’s prohibition as relating to the imperial cult, as later rabbis clearly did, lies with Roman material culture and with the rabbis’ generally lenient attitude toward Graeco-​Roman paganism. Archaeology, at the same time, allows us to identify what images the Mishnah’s rabbis had in mind when speaking of a “stick”, a “bird”, or a “ball”. While a “stick” is rather vague –​one could think of Hermes’ caduceus (a sometimes winged staff with two snakes wrapped around it), or Asclepius’ serpent-​entwined staff –​the deliberate combination of the three attributes is far more pointed. The eagle, the scepter, and the orb, ie the bird, the stick, and the ball, are the attributes of Jupiter. The combination of these three objects by anonymous sages in m. Abod. Zar. 3:1 evokes the supreme Roman deity, in whose image emperors were portrayed in sculptures and on coins from Claudius to Titus, and from Antoninus Pius to Constantine. Power as such, including absolute political power, was conceived of as divine, and this power was considered immanent in the images. The power of the imperial images and associated rituals shaped the lives of every Roman citizen in one way or another. As Matthew Canepa has put it: “Although official legal or religious formulations provide some explanation of what people in late antiquity knew about their sovereigns, the knowledge that made the deepest impact in individuals’ daily lives and understanding of the world was manifest through nondiscursive, visual, ritual, and environmental expressions” (Canepa 2015: 169). The image of the emperor, in many ways, was the emperor and a manifestation of his power. The Mishnah’s three-​stage logic in dealing with imperial images restricts its prohibition of idolatrous images at the same time as seeming to expand it: rather than prohibiting all images that are actually worshipped, it focuses on imperial imagery as the epitome of idolatry. This restriction of the prohibition allowed rabbis to function in a pagan society to which they accommodated themselves as much as possible. While Rabbi Meir seems most concerned about idolatry in the sense of worship of the gods, the anonymous sages and Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel draw the line closer toward images of imperial power. It was these images that not only symbolized but indeed manifested the emperor’s attempt to encroach most clearly onto God’s own dominion, and it is this encroachment, as Daniel Weiss recently argued, that itself constitutes a form of idolatry, regardless of actual acts of worship (Weiss 2018). If the Mishnah’s anonymous sages prohibit any worshipped image that depicts the Roman emperor in the guise of a divinity, then Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, who is given the last (and often decisive) word, slightly expands the category by prohibiting any worshipped image holding anything in its hand. Hence, the imperial focus of the Mishnah should not be understood as halakhically exhaustive. The combination of the three objects specified by the sages puts the likeness of the emperors into sharper perspective even if the final prohibition is somewhat broader.

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Figure 5.1 Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, detail from base relief of the column of Antoninus Pius. Creative Commons license.

The combination of these three imperial attributes is nicely illustrated by Figure 5.1, the column depicting the apotheosis of Antoninus Pius on the Campus Martius, which Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus set up in 161 C. E . Urbach has already drawn our attention to this image, prominently erected in Rome not long before the redaction of the Mishnah. On this column, a winged genius carries the deified Antoninus and his wife Faustina upward. The emperor holds a scepter, a “stick” –​crowned with an eagle –​ a “bird”, while eagles also fly upward with them. Faustina too holds a scepter, crowned with a sphere –​a “ball” (see Urbach 1959 and Zellentin 2016: 324–​5). In effect, the image depicts the imperial couple holding all three items the rabbis seek to prohibit. The Tosefta adds to the Mishnah’s thrust, adding several other imperial attributes to the list of prohibited objects, such as the sword, the crown (or “wreath”), the ring, and the snake, all items that are of major importance in imperial imagery (see t. Abod. Zar. 5:1 and Zellentin 2016: 325–​6). These imperial representations in turn form the symbolic core of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel’s broader definition, a fact corroborated by the Mishnah’s focus on imperial festivals elsewhere in the tractate. We can thus conclude with Weiss that “[t]‌oo often, avodah zarah is framed narrowly by scholars in terms of pagan cultic sacrifice or other ritual actions … While such actions certainly represent the core halakhic category associated with avodah zarah, what is often overlooked is the extent to which basic claims of political rulership also were theologically treated by rabbinic texts as inherently bound up with a form of (illegitimate) divine service, alongside the concrete acts of sacrifice to which such claims were often linked” (Weiss 2018: 395–​6). While the Mishnah’s focus remains on actual sacrifice, Weiss’s emphasis on the idolatrous nature inherent in the emperor’s claim to universal rule indeed illustrates one of the Mishnah’s guiding principles.

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The connection of claim to power and sacrifice shapes the Mishnah’s discussion of this issue throughout. The Mishnah goes as far as permitting those idols whose worship ceases in times of peace, as long as the peace lasts, clearly pointing to the rabbis’ conception of imperial power as intrinsically linked with the use of military force (m. Abod. Zar. 4:6). The Mishnah, by the same logic, permits those “imperial altars”, or perhaps “pedestals” (bomsyaot shel melakhim in the manuscripts, from Greek bomos) that had been put up during an imperial procession, since their idolatrous nature only derives from the emperor’s presence (ibid). Any other altar (rabbinic Hebrew bomos or bimos) that was built for the purpose of general idolatry, by contrast, is prohibited (see ibid 3:10 in the manuscripts). Thus, idolatry is always prohibited, and the active veneration of the emperor counts clearly as an idolatrous act. Yet even the emperor’s very claim to power is itself a political form of idolatry. The Rabbis considered the emperor’s power transferred to his statues, a mechanism described at a later time by Basil the Great (Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 18.45, see Jensen 2015, 205). By contrast, those altars whose idolatrous function depended on the emperor’s actual presence were considered mere stones and therefore permitted. This can be considered evidence of the rabbis’ great deal of acuity in understanding Roman religion (see Furstenberg 2010: 347 for a different reading of these passages and for a helpful discussion of the Tosefta’s view of Hadrian’s altars that aligns with Weiss’s reading above). In their focus on imperial images, the rabbis left room for more halakhic exceptions beyond those applying to imperial altars. Since images on coins were not directly connected to the imperial cult, even if they shared its imagery, the Mishnah allows Jews to use Roman coinage –​only in the Yerushalmi do we find a rabbi who problematizes their usage, as we will see below. The large numismatic record is a testimony to the ubiquity of the deified emperor’s image that so prominently features in the Mishnah’s discussion. It makes perfect sense for the rabbis to prohibit the image of a foreign ruler, especially in light of the political history of foreign rulers seeking to place their images in the Temple. A myriad of material remains from the Roman East further corroborate the ubiquitous presence of statues and other images of the emperor. Imperial statues were revered in Caesarea, in Jerusalem, and quite likely even on the Temple Mount (for a catalog of imperial temples and shrines in Asia Minor, see Price 1984: 249–​74; for Palestinian evidence, see Geiger 2004, Bernette 2007, Brodd and Reed, 2011 and Mazor 2016). Seth Schwartz’s insight concerning rabbis’ general leniency toward idolatry, based on their distinction between “culture” and “cult”, becomes even more plausible in view of their stringency regarding the imperial cult (see Schwartz 2001: 164–​5 and idem 2007: 345–​6). Once a firm bottom line was drawn, the rabbis had more freedom to permit other images as merely decorative. The Mishnah’s heightened concern regarding the emperor thus makes good sense in light of Roman culture, too, for the imperial cult became increasingly important over the first four centuries, with military loyalty to the emperor gaining in importance (on the development of the imperial cult see especially Ando 2008: 95–​119, Stewart 2003, Gradel 2002, Clauss 1999, and Price 1984). Goldenberg suggests five reasons why the rabbis’ view of idolatry was shaped by the imperial cult: the stories about the worship of human likenesses in biblical stories, the fact that an image of the emperor likely continued to stand on the Temple Mount, the pervasiveness of imperial images in the public sphere, the irreducibly cultic character of these images, and, at least up to the second century, the social exclusion that Jews experienced as a result of their refusal to worship the emperor (Goldenberg 1997: 94–​5). In addition, Goldenberg argues that the Mishnah’s list of pagan festivals also focuses largely on the imperial cult, prohibiting contact with pagans around the festival of the calends of January (the new year festival as marked by the Julian

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calendar), the accession (of Caesar, ie Augustus), the anniversary (of the current emperor), and the imperial memorial day (ibid. 95). Moreover, Fritz Graf’s brilliant analysis of Roman festivals according to the tractate Avodah Zarah of the Mishnah and Tosefta (see esp. m. Abod. Zar. 1:1–​3 and 4:6 as well as t. Abod. Zar. 1:4–​8), written independently of Goldenberg, confirms that the rabbis’ calendrical regulations also focus on the imperial cult. The only festival that is not connected with the imperial cult are the Saturnalia; yet, as Graf points out, the Saturnalia were celebrated by soldiers stationed in Palestine, whose actions could hardly have been missed by the rabbis (see Graf 2002: 442–​3 and ibid 2015: 66–​85 as well as Zellentin 2016: 327). Finally, Mira Balberg has recently pointed out that the rabbinic vision of sacrifice, and thereby of divine governance, was itself constituted by an imperial ideology, with the Temple at its center. “Within this rabbinic imperial vision, as in imperial Rome”, Balberg writes, “participation in the sacrificial cult is a marker of citizenship, a marker of loyalty, and a marker of identity” (eadem 2017: 246). The difference between the rabbinic and Roman view of the temple and imperial cult is that for the rabbis, empire and emperor are associated with the immanent God of Israel rather than with a manifest deified human. We can thus take it as established that the Roman images and festivals that the rabbis prohibit most strictly all symbolize the imperial cult. In their focus on the imperial cult, and in their implicit permission of many other religious images and festivals, the Mishnah and Tosefta may have somewhat willfully “misunderstood” the religious nature of the remainder of Graeco-​Roman culture, as Schwartz has argued (ibid, Schwartz 2001: 164–​5, as noted above). We should, however, also note that the Mishnah’s focus on the imperial cult revealed the rabbis’ keen sense of Roman religiosity, for the cult of the emperor, instituted by Augustus, can be classified as the political essence of the religiosity of the Roman Empire. Any attempt at distinguishing between Roman religion and the cult of the emperor seems misguided. Price argues for the inherently religious nature of the imperial cult and in turn for the key role of images in its development: Imperial images are not merely illustrations of ideology, they partly constitute it. Their iconography articulated different aspects of imperial rule, the civilian, military and divine. But the images also became the focus of contemporary reflection about the emperor. They not only constituted their own discourse, they were also the objects of discourse. (Price 1984: 205) The Mishnaic rabbis understood this discourse to a degree and participated in it on their own terms. The cult of the emperor had a central role in the body politic as well as in the religion of the Roman Empire, dovetailing neatly with the Mishnah’s and Tosefta’s use of these images as the symbolic core of the laws on idolatry. The acute and diverging consequences of the imperial cult for the rabbis and their Christian contemporaries under the pagan Roman rule are also worth pointing out. The burning of incense for the emperor’s well-​being was one of the demands Decius made on January 3, 250, a few decades after the Mishnah’s creation, with Eusebius recording a similar demand made under Diocletian (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 8 and the Acts of the Martyrs of Palestine). Both occasions gave rise to Christian martyrdom. The Jews, by contrast, were at least practically exempted from the cult (see Millar 1973, Bowersock 1982, Rives 1999, McLaren 2005, and Jensen 2015), even if the Jewish exemption from public sacrifice may not have been as formal as is often assumed (see Rajak 1984). It may well be that many Jews were open to some aspects of the imperial cult, eg when it came to taking oaths in the name of the emperor (see Czajkowski 2015), yet there is one key difference between Jews and Christians. Unlike Christian apologists, it is clear that most Jews did, in principle, support the institution of sacrifice, and had mostly been willing to sacrifice for the well-​being of the emperor when the Temple still stood (see, eg Balberg 2017, 223–​250 and Berthelot 2020). While Decius’ decree may well post-​date the Mishnah, it is clear that the rabbinic 81

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prohibition of deriving benefit from objects associated with the imperial cult should be seen in analogy –​though not necessarily as a direct “reaction” –​to the very public character of the Christian martyr’s refusal to participate in the cult, at least in the third and early fourth centuries. Other than when it comes to sacrifice, the imperial ideology of the rabbis did not dramatically diverge from that of the church fathers. Like the rabbis, Tertullian considered the pagan emperor to be sanctioned by God and saw his Christian contemporaries as the loyal subjects of a ruler whom God has invested with power. And as is the case with the rabbis, it is merely the veneration of this emperor as divine which Tertullian considered problematic –​a belief that in the end led to his own martyrdom (see esp. Tertullian, Apology 29–​36, see also Rankin 2001 and Furstenberg 2010: 353–​ 4; Binder 2012: 166 merely mentions this important point of comparison in passing). With this in mind, we can now turn to the ways in which rabbinic attitudes toward the imperial cult shifted but also remained the same, at a time when the Palestinian rabbis experienced the Christianization of the Roman Empire and, as part of this process, the Christianization of the imperial cult.

3.  The Imperial Cult in the Early Byzantine Empire Much has been written about the slow Christianization of the so-​called “Late Roman Empire” (see, eg MacMullen 1986 and Watts 2015) and of Palestine (see, eg Stemberger 2000). Key to understanding a long and convoluted evolution is the awareness that the progression toward outlawing paganism and endorsing Christianity was highly contentious and must be considered locally, region by region. Several locations in Palestine, especially Jerusalem and its environs, stood at the forefront of this Christianization. Yet also the rabbis in Galilee and in Caesarea Maritima would have at least experienced the most public aspects of Rome’s Christianization: visits of the Christian emperors or members of their families, the transformation of Jewish and pagan sites into churches, anti-​Jewish legislation, and the uneven, sometimes brutally expedited demise of Roman paganism (see, eg Irshai 2009; for the situation in Galilee, see, eg Aviam 1999). Seth Schwartz has speculated about the ways in which the Christian destruction of paganism must have perplexed witnessing rabbis, among them the editors of the Yerushalmi (see Schwartz 2001: 147). While Schwartz’s conclusions broadly hold true, he may have overestimated how much the archaeological evidence can really tell us. On the one hand, by the end of the fourth century, traditional paganism was indeed “uprooted” from parts of the land of Israel. On the other hand, while the smashing of idols and temples looms large in some Christian stories such as those of Mark the Deacon, Epiphanius, and Eusebius, solid scholarship demonstrates that paganism survived well beyond the fourth century in some places (on Palestine see, eg Barr 2008 and Tsafrir 1988, on the Roman Empire as a whole see, eg Lavan and Mulryan 2011). Moreover, Christian authorities would often prohibit sacrifice while generally leaving pagan shrines and busts intact, even preserving those that were found to be of “artistic”, ie “cultural” value, as the Theodosian Code specifies –​an intriguing similarity of pre-​Constantinian Jewish and post-​Constantinian Christian attitudes toward the “pagan” Roman religion as interpreted above (see Cod. Theod. 16.10.8 and Clauss 1999: 451). More acutely, Roman statues, including prominent imperial ones, were sometimes fully integrated into Christian worship by being carefully marked with a cross, as evidenced by a statue of Augustus in Ephesos (Figure 5.2). According to Jacobs, this statue, which was subsequently disfigured and destroyed later events, was initially only carefully marked with a cross and thereby “most likely converted to the Christian faith in an official ceremony, which may very well have resonated with the real practice of baptism within the eastern church” (Jacobs 2010: 280). Jacobs adduces ample further literary and archaeological evidence of such integration of pagan portraits and shrines into 82

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Figure 5.2 Head of Augustus, found in Ephesus, in a basilica near the market, on the eastern side of the middle part under a sixth-​century pavement. Ephesos-​Museum, Selçuk, Turkey, inv. no. 1891. Reprinted with permission from Arachne, Cologne.

the Christian rite, alongside evidence of destruction or mutilation. Especially nude statues, even those herma statues (mercuriae) figuring genitalia, were generally disfigured (ibid, 279–​93). We are thus well advised to use the long and variegated process of the integration of pagan cultus into the emerging Byzantine context both when it comes to ritual and general and when it comes to the imperial cult. Many pagan temples did become churches, leading the rabbis to a nuanced halakhic response and a modified blessing when seeing partially modified or incompletely uprooted places of pagan worship, as Neis has persuasively suggested. In their view, the Yerushalmi’s commentary on the appropriate blessing for idolatry that is wiped out from one place or uprooted in one place to be reestablished in another reflects “a time of removal and replacement (and sometimes recycling) of ‘pagan’ objects with Christian ones” (Neis 2013: 194, see the full discussion ibid. 191–​6). At the heart of the Christianization of the Roman Empire stands the slow “Christianization” of the imperial cult. The cult of the emperor continued in a modified yet robust way by the emperor who eventually became Divus Constantinus, “the Divine Constantine”, as well as by his successors. Henceforth, Christ alone was considered to be born divine, with the result that sacrifices to the imperial images were abolished and the ritual cremation and senatorial deification ceased with Constantine or perhaps already with Constantius Chlorus (see Arce 2010). Yet along with these modifications to the most “pagan” aspects of the cult, there is clear evidence of its public reinvigoration as its center moved east and as the enduring divinity of the Roman emperors began to be recast in Christian terms (see especially the evidence for the Late Roman veneration 83

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of the imperial images adduced by Bardill 2012, Ando 2008: 186–​97, and Clauss 1999: 448–​65). Constantine’s successors declared Easter a holiday and continued the celebration of the founding of Constantinople, the empire’s “New Rome” (see, eg Socrates Scholasticus 1.16.1), but they also continued to celebrate the founding of Rome, the calends of January and the birthday of the emperor, to the dislike of some church fathers (see Codex Theodosianus 2.18.19 as well as Graf 2015: 103–​238 and idem 2002: 441). Parallel to the slow Christianization of the imperial image is the evolution of images on Roman coinage. Depictions of sol invictus are common on Constantine’s early coins, and indeed most of Constantine’s later coins continue to display traditional imagery such as the sphere and the spear; yet some later Constantinian coins feature either a combination of traditional Roman and “Christian” symbols (such as the Chi-​Rho, the combination of the Greek letter Chi placed over the Greek letter Rho in evocation of the first two letters of the name “Christ”) or Christian symbols alone. The portrait of the emperor remained a central image in Roman life. Eusebius’ description of the labarum (his military standard again featuring the Chi-​Rho symbol) makes it clear that it included “the golden head-​and-​shoulders portrait (eikona) of the God-​beloved emperor, and likewise of his sons”, as Eusebius reports (ibid, Life of Constantine 1.31.2, translation according to Cameron and Hall 1999: 81–​2). Constantine and later emperors, in other words, saw no contradiction whatsoever between Christianity and the use of imperial iconography –​including precisely the iconography that the rabbis had long outlawed for Jewish usage. In terms of divine attributes at least, Roman statuary before and after Constantine looks much the same. In Rome, Eusebius tells us, Constantine had ordered “a grandiose spear in the form of a cross” to be placed “in the hand of a statue that was an image (eikonos) of himself” (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 1.40.1–​2) –​whether or not Eusebius was the only one who saw a Christian symbol in the spear, the representation remains clearly idolatrous by the Mishnah’s far-​sighted definition. His statue in Constantinople, moreover, depicted Constantine holding a sphere in one hand and either a spear or a scepter in the other, possibly wearing a radiant crown (see Barnes 2011: 24, Bralewski 2011, and Limberis 2002: 17–​21). This statue too, then, fell within the purview of the Mishnah’s and Tosefta’s legal prohibitions outlined above. The imperial cult itself, however, was altered. It is true that animal sacrifice ceased, as was noted above. Yet some of the honors given to Constantine’s statue, such as the burning of incense and the procession of images, continued angering some church fathers. The early Byzantine discourse on the veneration of Constantine in statuary and cult, taken together with the (admittedly scant) material remains, is evidence of practices and ideas to which Palestinian rabbis may have been exposed. Many church fathers endorsed the veneration of Constantine; the negative Christian voices may be tendentious, yet certainly reflect how hotly the topic was discussed among Christians. Philostorgius, for example, the “impious enemy of God”, as his epitomizer names the late fourth-​/​early fifth-​century historian from Constantinople, “... accuses the Christians of offering sacrifices to an image (eikona) of Constantine placed upon a column of porphyry, and of honouring it with lighted lamps and burning of incense, and of offering vows to it as to God, and making supplications to it to ward off calamities.” (Amidon 2007: 35) According to this account, then, the use of images in Constantinople appears to have been in continuity with their use in Rome and other Graeco-​Roman cities. We do not need to rely on the rabbis’ numerous claims to have traveled to Rome to witness such a ceremony to reflect it in their legislation. They could easily have learned about it either from other travelers or even from 84

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contemporaneous Christian polemics against these practices. John Malalas depicts in great detail the yearly procession of Constantine’s images in Constantinople, before which later emperors and reportedly even Constantine himself bowed down (see Malalas 13.3–​8 and esp. Bardill 2012: 151–​ 9; among the vast literature on this topic, see, eg Ando 2008: 191 and Limberis 2002: 17–​21). Zosimus describes how a statue of Rhea was brought to Constantinople and likely repurposed for Christian usage (see Zosimus 3.31 and Limberis 2002: 14–​21). Similar traditions of other cultic objects being transferred to the city abound, including the story about the Athenian Palladium (allegedly moved from Rome, see, eg Bardill 2012: 151–​9, Cameron 1998: 394–​7, and Mango 1963: 56–​9). Irrespective of whether and to what degree the reports by Philostorgius, Malalas, Zosimus, and others are to be trusted, they are patent proof of a Christian discourse largely condoning –​yet partially condemning –​the ongoing cult. As Jensen points out, most church fathers as well as the Theodosian Code emphatically endorsed the veneration of the Christian Roman emperors. Jerome, a resident of Palestine who likened the adoration of the emperor’s statues to the adoration of the golden idol in Daniel, seems to be part of a minority (see Jerome, Commentary on Daniel 1.3.12–​8 and Jensen 2015). Still, action against the imperial icons, for a variety of reasons including political protest against taxation, was not uncommon. In Antioch in 387 C.E ., for example, Theodosius’ imperial images had been torn down. Chrysostom, furthermore, relates that Constantine’s statue had once been pelted with stones by the local citizens on an unspecified occasion (see John Chrysostom, On the Statues 21.10–​11, Neis 2013: 181–​6, and Jensen 2015). It was not only in the eyes of rabbis that the early Byzantine imperial images occasionally proved problematic. Both veneration and violence directed against imperial images were firmly established in the provinces –​it is for this reason that they are relevant to the present inquiry about rabbis’ responses to both practice and discourse. As Goldenberg has remarked, the rabbis saw no need to update their categories of idol worship after the onset of the empire’s Christianization. Goldenberg concludes: “With some allowance for economic developments, the [Palestinian] Talmud simply continues an old discussion, framing questions and seeking answers that arise from the Mishnah’s categories. No new categories enter the discussion. There is no inquiry as to whether Christianity can be accounted for under existing classifications; this seems taken for granted” (Goldenberg 1997: 96; see the discussion ibid. 96–​8 and Goodman 2000). While I concur with Goldenberg in general, his logic leads one to suspect that post-​Constantinian rabbis would have had even more reason to focus on the imperial cult than their predecessors under pagan Rome. In the following section I shall illustrate how the Yerushalmi’s specific changes to the laws of idolatry may well reflect the Christianization of the imperial cult. Weiss’s intriguing suggestion why late antique rabbis would have classified Christianity as Roman idolatry here becomes crucial: whatever the rabbis’ views of the veneration of Jesus, they may have perceived post-​Constantinian Christianity as an imperial and therefore as an idolatrous religion.

4.  The Cult of the Emperor in Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah: A Late Roman aggiornamento? The Talmud Yerushalmi is our key witness to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. While its exegetical focus lies on the Mishnah, and while many of the authorities it names predate the beginning of the Constantinian shift, its redaction around 400 C.E . and the shaping of its legal commentary as a whole fall into the time of Roman-​Byzantine efforts to Christianize the “Holy Land” (on the contentious debate of the Yerushalmi’s date, cf., eg Sussman 1990 and Epstein 1962: 85

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274). The Yerushalmi’s commentary on the Mishnah’s tractate on idol worship is a remarkable literary construct (Schäfer 2002). While its discussion of Ashera trees and herma statues (mercuriae) directs the focus toward the time of the first Temple and traditional pagan Roman practices, the Yerushalmi’s legislation simultaneously reflects the practical concerns of its present, epitomized by its hardening of attitudes toward idols in general and toward the imperial cult in particular (see, eg, Schwartz 2001: 173). A key question is to what extent the Yerushalmi perceives the Christianizing empire in terms of idolatry. While Christian sources of the fourth century celebrate the vanquishing of idolatry, the amoraic rabbis seem to consider Romanized Christianity itself a form of idolatry –​not so much due to the worship of Jesus but because Christians had effectively put on the mantle of imperial power, a development that may itself be seen as an idolatrous impingement on the divine prerogative. A hardening shift of attitude can be seen, for example, in the Yerushalmi’s first commentary on Mishnah Avodah Zarah 3:1, in which the Talmud reinforces the suggested reading that the image prohibited in the Mishnah is indeed that of the Roman emperor: “All images [kol hatslamim] are prohibited, etc. Said Rabbi Hiyyah bar Ba: Because they are worshipped in the great city of Rome several times a week. From this it should follow that wherever they are worshipped, they should be prohibited, and in a place where they are not worshipped, they should be permitted! Said Rabbi Yose: Since they are prohibited in one place, they are prohibited everywhere. What can we establish? If it is certain that [the images] are those of the emperors [melakhim], all agree that it is forbidden. If it is certain that [the images] are from the government [shiltonut], all agree that it is allowed”. (y. Abod. Zar. 3:1, 42b, lines 54–​60) As we saw above, the Mishnah discussed by the Yerushalmi had effectively outlawed the most common representations of the Roman emperor, yet it had done so in a circumscriptive way. The Yerushalmi, by contrast, explicates that it is indeed the cult of the emperor with which it is concerned, which it connects to the city of Rome –​either Rome or Constantinople. Importantly, like the Mishnah, the Yerushalmi differentiates between the difficult question of the actual worship of an idolatrous image and its imperial nature. The voice of the stam, the Yerushalmi’s anonymous editorial commentary, in a typical manner weaves citations from previous rabbis into its own dialogue. The stam concludes by reporting the agreement that any image belonging to the (likely provincial) government (shiltonut) is allowed, whereas images of emperors (melakhim) are prohibited for Jews. It is difficult to establish what, exactly, constitutes government images; note the parallel distinction between the imperial fiscus and the state finances throughout the history of the Roman Empire (see, eg Millar 2004: 69–​72). It is clear, however, that the Yerushalmi sees the Mishnah’s image of the person holding the imperial insignia in his hands as that of the Roman emperor, and that it thereby endorses the Mishnah’s view that the very claim to imperial power is an idolatrous one. The text does not doubt the legitimacy of a foreign government over the Holy Land as such, and even acquiesces to this government’s use of icons, yet it seems to draw the line slightly more tightly than the Mishnah when it comes to the imperial cult. It remains of course difficult to establish whether the Yerushalmi’s explicit focus on the imperial cult reflects Christian innovations to it. Unlike most of Constantine’s imperial statues, the Chi-​Rho symbol or the cross, discussed above, would not automatically be covered by the Mishnah imagery 86

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of “stick”, “ball”, and “bird”. This may explain why the Yerushalmi finds it necessary to explicate the category of prohibited images as pertaining to the imperial cult. Such a subtle adjustment is perhaps also the purpose of the Yerushalmi’s next passage. “Ayshan the Carpenter said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: Images [ʾiqonyot], why are they prohibited? Because they burn incense before them when they put them up. Said Rabbi Yohanan: It is permitted to look at them when they put them down. What is his reasoning? When the evildoers will be cut off, you will see [Psalm 37:34]”. (y. Abod. Zar. 3:1, 42b, lines 61–​62) This passage may well reflect the religious situation of the fourth and fifth centuries C.E . in two ways. First, to begin with the latter part of the passage, Rabbi Yohanan’s permission to look at images when they are “taken down” fits well with the scenario of religious envy evoked by Neis and Schwartz: from Constantine onwards, it was the Christians who had “put down” some of the idolatrous images in Palestine, leaving the rabbis in the awkward position of partially agreeing with the actions of their Byzantine overlords. Second, the focus on incense is a possible, though equivocal, indication of the Yerushalmi’s reaction to the Christianization of Palestine. An otherwise unknown rabbi by the name of Ayshan outlaws the use of images because incense is burned when they are put up. The use of incense in and of itself is inconspicuous; incense burning was a ubiquitous practice throughout Graeco-​Roman religions (including, of course, Judaism) and, as such, could easily designate an act of pre-​Christian pagan worship according to the Yerushalmi. The burning of incense for images of the emperor is well-​attested throughout classical Rome. Incense burning, in effect, constitutes one of the key elements of the pagan imperial cult and even features in the Christian martyrs’ refusal to participate in emperor worship. The use of incense, however, is also one of the practices that were associated with the statue of Constantine, as we saw, eg in Philostorgius’ testimony above. This may allow us to identify a second possible overlap between late Roman discourse and the Yerushalmi’s commentary on the Mishnah, in addition to Neis’ observation regarding the rabbis’ modified blessing in view of the transformation of pagan sites into Christian ones. There are further examples that show a hardening of attitudes toward the imperial cult in the late Roman period. Later in the text of the Yerushalmi, we learn about (the first-​generation amora) Nahum bar Simai who “never looked at the image of a coin” (y. Abod. Zar.3:1, 42c, lines 5–​7). While the tradition about Nahum may date back to the time when the coins featured the emperor’s identification with sol invictus, it is clear that the Mishnah did not see imperial coins as problematic. By the time the Yerushalmi records this censuring, any imperial coin featured the Christian emperors, who thereby simply become the default target of the Talmud’s recasting of previous polemics against Roman paganism. A similar shift from a pagan to a Christian target occurs elsewhere in the Yerushalmi, when two rabbis recall that the same Rabbi Nahum was reported to have passed by “the procession of an image (tslemah)”. The two rabbis take Nahum’s action as a justification for being allowed to pass by, all the while “blinding” the image’s eye, at least figuratively (y. Abod. Zar. 3:13, 43b, lines 58–​62). At the time of Nahum, it was perhaps a pagan image that rabbis encountered; but when the Yerushalmi was edited, a rabbi would have been much more likely to encounter a Christian image carried around and venerated in processions in Constantinople and beyond (see, eg Kitzinger 1954, cf. Brubaker 1998). Hence, the Yerushalmi’s mere inclusion of existing antipagan traditions

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as such already readjusts the focus toward a Christianizing Rome and likely included a focus on Christian practice. While it is possible to understand the Yerushalmi’s references to the burning of incense, the imperial images on coins and images carried around as reflecting “pagan” Rome, it would be perverse to consider those practices that had long ceased to exist the Talmud’s sole focus. In early Byzantine times, when the text was edited, incense was burned for the statues of the Christian emperors or other Christian figures; it was Christian rather than pagan emperors who were featured on the coins; and it was statues of Christian rather than pagan emperors or their gods who were carried around in processions. Inversely, we should ask ourselves why only the Yerushalmi’s editorial hand –​ and not that of the Mishnah or the Tosefta –​ finds incense worthy of inclusion in these considerations, and why the stricter attitudes toward idolatry emerge only here. If we take the historical context of the Yerushalmi’s redaction seriously, we can assume that its first readers will have understood the burning of incense, the images on coins, and perhaps even the procession of idols as referring to practices associated with the images of the Christian emperors in Constantinople –​and also in Palestine.

5.  Imperial Christianity as Roman Idolatry? If it is difficult to differentiate between Christian and pagan practice as the object of the Yerushalmi’s legal discourse, then the obfuscation of the Christian nature of its surroundings may be appreciated as part of the Talmud’s message. Eclipsing Christianity and obliterating signs of its specific historical context were among the chief rhetorical weapons of the Yerushalmi’s editors. This is a message that Daniel Weiss has unearthed in his recent article: depicting Christians as pagan Romans may have been part of rabbinic polemics against a religious movement they now saw as idolatrous. Weiss summarizes: “[P]‌re-​Constantinian Christianity, even if highly problematic in rabbinic eyes, would not have been seen as avodah zarah, due to its active rejection of Roman imperial ideology. By contrast, the process of Christianity’s merging with imperial power after Constantine meant that, from the rabbinic perspective, Christianity now becomes idolatrous, while the Roman Empire remains idolatrous: despite the removal of “pagan” sacrifice, political power-​claims mark a key continuity in the sphere of avodah zarah.” (Weiss 2018: 394) Important as Weiss’s suggestion is, it relies on an argument from silence: the very absence of rabbinic comments on the Christianization of the Roman Empire, beyond the laconic remark that the pagan Roman Empire has turned to heresy (minut, see y. Soṭah 9:17, 24c), becomes a key argument for rabbis’ “imperial” ideology here. We can corroborate the Yerushalmi’s “silent” condemnation of Roman Christianity as imperial idolatry with the very sequel of the halakhic passage discussed above. As I myself have argued at some length in the past (in turn based on a seminal article by Saul Lieberman), the Yerushalmi discusses its legislation on imperial images by segueing into a lengthy passage on the supernatural events that occurred when certain rabbis died (see y. Abod. Zar. 3:1, 42c, lines 1–​61). This passage, which includes the destruction of pagan shrines as well as a number of miraculous portents, evokes Graeco-​Roman discourse on the close affinity between the fate of Roman emperors and their shrines. At the same time, however, the Yerushalmi also adopts for polemical purposes a broad spectrum of narratives that can also be found in (though not likely stemming directly from) contemporary Christian discourse, such as Eusebius’ Acts of the 88

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Martyrs of Palestine, Epiphanius’ Panarion, and the traditions surrounding the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. These texts feature the destruction of pagan shrines and feature many of the miracles we find in the Yerushalmi (see Lieberman 1939–​44 and 1946, Schwartz 2001: 147, and Zellentin 2016; see also Moffatt 2017: 100). Since the Yerushalmi’s aggadic elaboration of the rules on how to deal with imperial images echoes late Roman discourse, it seems more than likely that this would also be the case when it comes to the halakhah itself, corroborating Weiss’ reading and the considerations above. Finally, after the above-​mentioned passage, the text carries on with several other narratives about the passing of certain rabbis –​a topic for which the focus on the imperial cult seems less acute –​until resuming the discussion of the imperial attributes of the stick, the bird, and the ball (y. Abod. Zar. 3:1, 42c, lines 42–​61). The first recurrence of one of these imperial attributes appears in connection with the attempted ascension of “Alexander the Great”, who “tried to ascend” until he perceived of the earth as a ball. For this reason, rabbis say, artists depict Alexander with a ball in his hand –​a quite accurate description not of Alexander himself but of the apotheosis of the Roman emperors from Aurelian to Constantine and beyond, who were often associated with Alexander. Alexander remained a central character in late Roman discourse. Eusebius, for example, explicitly compares Constantine and Alexander in his Life of Constantine 1.7–​8 (see Barnes 2011: 55 and 98). The Yerushalmi goes on to discuss the difference between the emperor and God, pointing out that while both carry the designation kosmokrator, only God fully deserves it, since only he rules both land and sea –​an explicit denial of the emperor’s divinity, and another instance in which the Yerushalmi makes it explicit that the claim to divine power was as idolatrous in pagan times as in the late Roman-​Byzantine Empire, in the view of rabbis and also some Christians. Rabbis thus operate within their very own imperial ideology, as Weiss and Balberg, in the publications discussed above, have recently illustrated. This insight, along with rabbis’ intimate knowledge of relevant aspects of Roman religious discourse, partial as it may be, calls for a revaluation of the predominant scholarly view of rabbis as uninterested in pagan and Christian Roman imperial discourse. While headways have been made regarding the former topic, much work remains to be done regarding the latter. To give but one example of where further scholarship may take us, we can consider an erudite article Sarit Kattan Gribetz has recently dedicated to the ways in which rabbis dealt with the pagan Roman calendar. As one of her chief examples, she discusses the way in which the Yerushalmi weaves together the history of ancient Israel and the foundation of Rome presenting the foundation of Rome through Romulus and Remus as a result of Israelite idolatry. The text connects the emergence of Roman emperorship with the disappearance of Elijah, who so effectively opposed idolatry (y. Abod. Zar. 1:3, 39c, lines 39–​43). Kattan Gribetz contextualizes the passage within rabbinic literature and persuasively shows how intimately the Yerushalmi’s story was attuned to Graeco-​Roman discourse (eadem 2016: 67–​77). Like many other fine studies of the Yerushalmi before, it remains fully focused on pagan Romans. The rabbis’ keen sense of the Roman empire and its Christianization suggests that future research should contextualize stories such as the Yerushalmi’s portrayal of Romulus and Remus within the Talmud’s Late Roman context. Christian parallels to the Yerushalmi’s reading of Roman history are ample and intriguing. Like the Yerushalmi, early church fathers such as Tertullian contrast Christ with the mythical founders of Rome (see, eg Tertullian, Against Marcion 7). Yet later fathers such as Augustine even do by depicting the church as Israel (see, eg Augustine, City of God 15:5), offering a rather concrete intellectual context for the Yerushalmi’s discourse. Most acutely, the story of Rome’s foundation by Romulus and Remus was retold by several late Roman sources in order to reflect on the division of the Roman Empire and the system of government instituted by the sons of Theodosius I in 395 C.E., very much in the Yerushalmi’s era 89

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(see Bruggisser 1987: 136–​8, further developed by Graf 2015: 186–​92). It thus seems that rabbis closely followed Christian writers when connecting the histories of Rome and of Israel, albeit with distinctly different outcomes. While the idea of Rome as the “New Israel” may only appear in the sixth century, its seed can be found in the triumphalist writings of church fathers at the time of Constantine (see Sivertsev 2011). In light of what has been suggested here we should understand the Yerushalmi in light of its own time, the late Roman Empire –​an approach that may also shed new light on the talmudic discussion of the imperial calendar, which underwent the same forms of Christianization as the imperial cult (see Graf 2015: 103–​238 and 305–​22 and Kattan Gribetz 2016: 65–​77 as well as Stern 2012: 331–​53). The late Roman-​Byzantine Empire still holds much in store for scholars of rabbinic literature.

Bibliography Amidon, P.R. (2007). Philostorgius: Church History. Translated with Introduction and Notes by Philip R. Amidon, S. J. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Ando, C. (2008). The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Arce, J. (2010). “Roman Imperial Funerals in Effigie,” in B. Ewald and C. Noreña (eds.), The Emperor and Rome: Space, Representation, and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 309–​24. Aviam, M. (1999). “Christian Galilee in the Byzantine Period,” in E.M. Meyers (ed.), Galilee Through the Centuries. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 281–​300. Balberg, M. (2017). Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Bardill, J. (2012). Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnes, T. (2011). Constantine: Dynasty, Religion, and Power in the Later Roman Empire. Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell. Bernette, M. (2007). “Roman Imperial Cult in the Galilee: Structures, Functions, and Dynamics,” in J. Zangenberg, H.W. Attridge, and D.B. Martin (eds.), Religion, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Galilee. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 227–​56. Berthelot, K. (2020) “Power and Piety: Roman and Jewish Perspectives,” in eadem (ed.) Reconsidering Roman Power: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Perceptions and Reactions. Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 269–​289. Binder, S.E. (2012). Tertullian, on Idolatry and Mishna Avodah Zarah: Questioning the Parting of the Ways between Jews and Christians. Leiden: Brill. Bowersock, G. (1982). “The Imperial Cult: Perceptions and Persistence,” in B.F. Meyer and E.P. Sanders (eds.), Jewish and Christian Self-​Definition, vol. 3. London: SCM Press, 171–​82. Bralewski, S. (2011). “The Porphyry Column in Constantinople and the Relics of the True Cross,” Studia Ceranea 1: 87–​100. Brodd, J. and Reed, J.L. (eds.) (2011). Rome and Religion: A Cross-​Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Brubaker, L. (1998). “Icons before Iconoclasm?” Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 45 : 1215–​54. Bruggisser, P. (1987). Romulus Servianus: La légende de Romulus dans les commentaires à Virgile de Servius. Mythographie et idéologie à l'époque de la dynastie théodosienne. Bonn: Habelt. Cameron, A. (1988). “Consular Diptychs in Their Social Context: New Eastern Evidence,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 11: 385–​403. Cameron, A. and Hall, S.G. (1999). Eusebius: Life of Constantine, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon. Canepa, M. (2015). “Emperor,” in C.M. Chin and M. Vidas (eds.), Ancient Knowing: Explorations in Intellectual History. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 155–​174. Clauss, M. (1999). Kaiser und Gott: Herrscherkult im römischen Reich. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner. Czajkowski, K. (2015). “Jewish Attitudes to the Imperial Cult,” Scripta Classica Israelica: Yearbook of the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies 34: 181–​95.

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Jews and the Imperial Cult Eliav, Y. (2002). “Viewing the Sculptural Environment: Shaping the Second Commandment,” in P. Schäfer (ed.). The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 411–​33. Epstein, J.N. (1962). Introduction to Amoraic Literature. Babylonian Talmud and Yerushalmi, [Hebr.], E.Z. Melamed (ed.). Jerusalem: Magnes. Furstenberg, Y. (2010). “The Rabbinic View of Idolatry and the Roman Political Conception of Divinity,” The Journal of Religion 90: 335–​66. Geiger, J. (2004). “The Worship of the Rulers in Roman Palestine” [Hebr.], Katedra 111: 5–​14. Goldenberg, R. (1997). The Nations That Know Thee Not: Ancient Jewish Attitudes Toward Other Religions. Stony Brook, NY: New York University Press. Goodman, M. (2000). “Palestinian Rabbis and the Conversion of Constantine to Christianity,” in P. Schäfer and C. Hezser (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1–​10. Gradel, I. (2002). Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graf, F. (2015). Roman Festivals in the Greek East: From the Early Empire to the Middle Byzantine Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graf, F. (2002). “Roman Festivals in Syria Palestina,” in P. Schäfer and C. Hezser (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 435–​51. Irshai, O. (2009). “The Christian Appropriation of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century: The Case of the Bordeaux Pilgrim,” Jewish Quarterly Review 99: 465–​86. Jacobs, I. (2010) “Production to Destruction? Pagan and Mythological Statuary in Asia Minor,” American Journal of Archaeology 114: 267–​303. Jensen, R. (2015). “The Three Hebrew Youths and the Problem of the Emperor’s Portrait in Early Christianity,” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in its Roman-​Byzantine Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 303–​20. Kattan Gribetz, S. (2016). “A Matter of Time: Writing Jewish Memory into Roman History,” AJS Review 40: 57–​86. Kitzinger, E. (1954). “The Cult of Images in the Age Before Iconoclasm,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8: 83–​150. Lavan, L. and Mulryan, M. (eds.) (2011). The Archaeology of Late Antique “Paganism”. Leiden: Brill. Lieberman, S. (1939–​44). “The Martyrs of Caesarea,” Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves 7: 395–​445. Limberis, V. (2002). Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Making of Christian Constantinople. London and New York, NY: Routledge. MacMullen, R. (1986). Christianizing the Roman Empire, AD 100–​400. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mango, C. (1963). “Antique Statuary and the Byzantine Beholder,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17: 55–​75. Mazor, G. (2016). “Imperial Cult in the Decapolis: Nysa-​Scythopolis as a Test Case,” in A. Killebrew and G. Faßbeck (eds.), Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology. Leiden: Brill, 355–​383. McLaren, J.S. (2005). “Jews and the Imperial Cult: From Augustus to Domitian,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 27: 257–​78. Millar, F. (1973). “The Imperial Cult and the Persecutions,” in E. Bickerman (ed.), Le Culte des Souverains dans l’Empire Romain: Sept Exposés Suivis De Discussions. Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 145–​75. Millar, F. (2004). Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Moffat, A. (2017). “A Record of Public Buildings and Monuments,” in E. Jeffreys, B. Croke and R. Scott (eds.), Studies in John Malalas. Leiden: Brill, 87–​110. Neis, R. (2013). The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price, S.R.F. (1984). Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rajak, T. (1984). “Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?” Journal of Roman Studies 74: 107–​23. Rankin, D. (2001). “Tertullian and the Imperial Cult,” in M.F. Wiles and E.J. Yarnold (eds.), Studia Patristica Vol. XXXIV: Papers Presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 1999. Leuven: Peeters, 204–​216. Rives, J.B. (1999). “The Decree of Decius and the Religion of Empire,” The Journal of Roman Studies 89: 135–​54. Schäfer, P. (2002). “Jews and Gentiles in Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah,” in P. Schäfer (ed.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 335–​52.

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PART II

Judaism and Christianity

6 JEWS AND THE EMERGENCE OF CHRISTIANITY Maren R. Niehoff

1. Introduction The question of Jewish attitudes toward the emergence of Christianity has fundamental implications for our overall understanding of Judaism in late antiquity. Between the first and fourth centuries C . E . the religious, political, and cultural landscape of the Roman Empire dramatically changed. In the mid-​first century C. E . the Jewish author Paul wrote several epistles that would become the first documents of nascent Christianity. In the fourth century C.E . the Roman emperor Constantine championed Christianity even before his official conversion and enacted four rules with negative implications for Jews. He suspended the exemption from the curia and other religious liturgies, prohibited Jewish action against converts to Christianity and vice versa prevented Christians from converting to Judaism, and, finally, no longer permitted Jews to have non-​Jewish slaves (Niehoff 2021). These rapid developments raise fundamental questions about Jewish attitudes toward the new religion, which had emerged from within their own. How and when did Jews notice that a group within their religious community became theologically, socially, and institutionally independent? Did this awareness dawn at different times and in different ways among the various Jewish communities? What were the main issues that became points of contention in the different contexts? Finally, what impact did the different stages of realization have on the further development of Judaism in late antiquity? Answers to these questions have significant implications for our overall understanding of the “parting of the ways”, namely the separation of Christianity from Judaism and its emergence as an independent religion (for different views, Becker and Yoshiko Reed 2003, Baron et al. 2018). Historically, Jews are likely to have been the first to notice such differences. They were also the group most immediately impacted by the emergence of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Indeed, how did Jews react to Christianity and position themselves vis-​à-​vis the new religion, which had been a former Jewish sect, and how did they reconfigure themselves alongside the new sibling religion that would claim the same canonical texts? What role did late antique Jews and especially the rabbis claim in an empire turning increasingly Christian? Lively scholarly debates and remarkably polarized positions have developed over these issues in modern scholarship. Burton Visotzky in his contribution to the present volume stresses the “disparity of gaze”. In his view, “Judaism essentially looked away, while the New Testament and the church fathers looked always upon Judaism with an Oedipal eye”. DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-8

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Visotzky presents an approach shared by several other scholars of ancient Judaism and especially of rabbinic literature. Goodman (2000: 1–​9) fervently argued against Neusner (1987) that Jews paid no attention to Christianity, not even commenting on Constantine’s conversion. Schremer (2010) coined the term “brothers estranged” and criticized scholarly inquiries into intellectual contacts between rabbis and Christians, arguing that we should not overestimate the role of Christianity in shaping rabbinic Judaism and instead look for internal reasons for change, such as the destruction of the Second Temple and the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Cohen similarly asserted that “the sages are simply not interested in Christianity and Christians” (2018: 337). By contrast, Schäfer spoke about “the birth of Judaism out of the spirit of Christianity” (2010) and detected traces of Jesus in the Talmud (2007). Boyarin also assigned Christianity a significant role in the shaping of rabbinic Judaism but proposed a dialectical model, according to which the rabbis eventually withdrew from positions promoted by Christians (Boyarin 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004). Most recently, Butts and Gross (2020) have published a collection of articles on Jews and Syriac Christians, in which they take up long-​discussed issues with new methodological sophistication and offer fresh perspectives, highlighting the diversity of ancient Judaism. In the present chapter I will focus on Jewish reactions to the emergence of Christianity rather than treating the broader implications of this encounter, such as the ensuing competition between rabbis and Christians, which is discussed in a separate section of the present volume. Initially, I will discuss the nature of our sources, distinguishing between direct and indirect evidence, and then focus on several key moments and key texts that highlight the diversity of reactions among the different Jewish communities. I hope to show that there was not one Jewish approach to the emergence of Christianity, either altogether ignoring it or overwhelmingly engaging with it, but a variety of positions and complex negotiations of views. Given my focus on the emergence of Christianity, the Mediterranean area rather than Babylonia will be at the center of my discussion. Metropolitan cities in the Mediterranean such as Rome, Alexandria, and Caesarea Maritima played a key role as platforms of encounters and spaces in which religious identity was constructed (on the role of cities, see also Rüpke 2020). Each city had its characteristic issues around which the debates revolved. Hellenistic Jews played a special, yet hitherto overlooked role in the encounter with Christianity and will thus be given special attention here.

2.  The Sources The situation of the available sources for our inquiry is extraordinarily complex, as the first extant and complete Jewish document discussing Jesus’ life is the Toledot Yeshu, the earliest manuscript of which dates to the eleventh century (Schäfer and Meerson 2014, Horn 2015, Rubenstein 2010: 272). Most scholars assume, however, that the Toledot Yeshu drew from much earlier Jewish sources. Worth (2003) argued for source materials from the sixth century, and Alexander (2011) for Jewish accounts that emerged at the same time as the gospels of the New Testament. Horbury (2011) highlighted the role of a Jewish critique of Christianity mentioned in Origen’s Contra Celsum, a third-​century Christian response to the pagan philosopher Celsus, probably from mid-​ second-​century Alexandria. One way of tracing Jewish responses to the emergence of Christianity is to investigate the roots of the Toledot Yeshu. Of prime importance in this respect are both Celsus’ Jew mentioned by Origen and the snippets of information contained in the rabbinic sources, ranging from the Tosefta, where materials about Jesus are first attested, to the Babylonian Talmud. In this chapter I pay serious attention to these sources, devoting one section to the Jewish voice in Contra Celsum and 96

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another to rabbinic sources, mainly those from Roman-​Byzantine Palestine. Yet, there is more to say and more evidence to investigate. The other evidence at our disposal is indirect and comes from one pagan and several Christian sources, all of which require special methodological attention. The pagan historian Suetonius (born ca. 69 C .E .) mentions Claudius’ edict of 49 C.E ., which reacts to some unrest among Jews concerning a certain “Chrestos” (Suet., Claud. 25.4). This document is highly enigmatic but may reflect the earliest attested Jewish reactions to the teachings of Jesus. We will discuss it in detail in the next section. The New Testament is full of stories about Jewish reactions to the teachings of Jesus and Paul. The Christian apologist Justin Martyr, writing in mid-​second century Rome, wrote a Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, imagining a Jewish reaction to Christian biblical interpretation. Separate sections will be devoted to these sources in view of the question of whether they reflect historical reality and allow us to recover Jewish positions vis-​à-​vis Christianity. While scholars initially took such reports literally and reconstructed historical reality on their basis, the so-​called “linguistic turn” has drawn attention to the literary and rhetorical nature of these reports (Simon 1986, Taylor 1995, Clark 2004). Christian references to Jews have thus often turned out to play a substantial role in inner-​Christian polemics and may well reflect the authors’ imagination rather than the views of their Jewish contemporaries. The linguistic turn has introduced a most welcome sophistication in the analysis of the rhetorical features of ancient sources. Polemical and vilified images of Jews as opponents can no longer be taken at face value. Stereotypes must be analyzed rather than treated as facts and cornerstones of an early “parting of the ways”. At the same time, however, such rhetoric had an impact on contemporary discourses and often created a dynamic of their own, leaving traces on cultural and religious developments. In this essay we will discuss these issues, especially in the sections on the New Testament and Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho. Historically, it stands to reason that the Jews would be the first to notice the emergence of Christianity as a separate religion, precisely because Christianity began as a sect within Judaism and then grew into an independent religion by distancing itself both theologically and socially from the Jewish communities. Which religious and political issues were decisive in these complex processes of differentiation? In which locations did independent social structures emerge and on what grounds? How did the specific political circumstances of each location influence the debates and the respective constructions of identity? To tackle these questions, we need to bear in mind the diversity of the ancient Jewish communities and their different reactions to the emergence of Christianity by focusing on specific debates in various cities. Following the geography of the Roman Empire, we will look for traces of Jewish debates before and beyond rabbinic literature. Rome will emerge as the earliest stage where separation processes are visible, with echoes of Jewish voices distancing themselves from Christ-​ followers in the first century C. E . Alexandria is the second stage where Jewish reactions can be grasped in the mid-​second century, this time with a scholarly focus on the texts of the gospels. In the third century, Caesarea served as a center of debates reflecting Jewish positions and constituted a bridge between Alexandria and rabbinic literature.

3.  Claudius’ Edict of 49 C . E . The possibly earliest evidence of a Jewish reaction to Jesus and the emerging community of his followers is Claudius’ edict of 49 C. E . Suetonius cryptically says that he “expelled from Rome Jews who constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestos” (Suet., Claudius 25.4, in Stern 1980: 2.113–​7). Scholars have long recognized that “Chrestos” must refer to Christ as 97

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the cause for some upheaval within the Jewish communities of Rome (Leon 1995: 23–​7; Tobin 2005: 35–​40, 395–​400; Watson 2007: 167–​74). Modern debates revolve around the nature of this upheaval and its implications. Can the short note in Acts 18:2 about the expulsion of “all the Jews” from Rome, including Aquila and Priscilla, help to elucidate Claudius’ edict? Pervo (2009: 446–​7) has warned not to attribute too much historical value to the report in Acts. The fact that Josephus does not mention this expulsion at all further strengthens the impression that not “all the Jews” were expelled. Nevertheless, some Jewish-​Christian leaders, such as Paul’s close collaborators, apparently had to leave Rome but could return after Claudius’ death. Priscilla and Aquila consequently became active in Corinth and Ephesus but were subsequently able to return to Rome, further promoting Paul’s message there (Rom 16:4, 1 Cor 16:19). What upheaval may early Jewish Christ-​followers such as Priscilla and Aquila have caused among traditional Jews of Rome so that Claudius felt compelled to react? Is it possible that Christ-​ following Jews had been expelled from the synagogues in Rome or were at least threatened to be expelled? Had Roman Jews turned to the authorities and pointed to significant differences between themselves and the Christ-​followers with a view to protecting their own legal status in the Empire, which was always fragile and depended on the goodwill of the emperors (Schnelle 2019: 23–​6)? In previous scholarship, especially before World War II, the historical scenario in Rome tended to be described in terms of an intensive missionary competition between Jews and Christ-​followers, in the case of Harnack also with triumphalist undertones (Harnack 1904: 365–​82, Bremmer 2021). However, since the notion of Jewish missionary efforts has been questioned in modern scholarship (Goodman 1994, Taylor 1995), other venues for understanding the upheaval in Rome have become available. Recently, van der Lans and Bremmer have offered an insightful comparative analysis of Claudius’ edict concerning the Jews in the broader context of his religious policies (van der Lans 2015, van der Lans and Bremmer 2017). They argued that while only small numbers were expelled, the announcement of the expulsion had a significant symbolic value and defined boundaries of “politically correct” religious behavior. Claudius’ decree thus responded to Jewish unrest about “Chrestos” and distinguished between traditional Jews and those that followed Christ. Even before the term “Christian” was coined, a social and political distinction was already in place. According to van der Lans and Bremmer, these historical circumstances must be seriously considered as the background of Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the emergence of Christianity as an independent religion, which Nero would encounter one generation later. Rome thus emerges as the earliest platform for the negotiation of differences between traditional Jews and Christ-​followers. While Jews probably had an active part in this parting of the ways and formulated a distinct position vis-​à-​vis Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings, the precise circumstances and arguments remain unknown. Social distancing, however, seems already to have taken place in mid-​first century Rome, while other cities in the empire entertained far more fluid structures. In this context the testimony of Josephus is significant. Generations of scholars have debated the historical veracity of the so-​called Testimonium Flavianum, now recognized as a passage on Jesus which was expanded and rewritten by early Christian scribes (Jos., A.J. 18.63–​4; see notes of the English translator Louis Feldman ad loc.). Nevertheless, Josephus may well have briefly referred to Jesus, thus giving rise to the Christian intervention, as he also mentions his brother James as being executed by the high priest Ananus (A.J. 20.200). In the latter passage he distances himself from the Christian identification of Jesus as Messiah, stressing that “Jesus was called the Messiah” (ibid). Josephus moreover reports that this execution prompted lively debates among Jews, leading to the replacement of Ananus through King Agrippa (ibid. 201–​3). If indeed Josephus was aware of

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the early Jesus movement and its controversial relationship with central institutions of the Jewish religion, his silence about other leading figures, such as Paul, may not derive from his ignorance or a lack of emerging boundaries, but rather from his conscious decision or political caution. Asiedu (2019) has begun to analyze Josephus’ silence and much more research is required to gain clarity on this matter.

4.  The New Testament Perhaps surprising to some readers, I start this section with Paul’s letters rather than with the gospels, because this sequence reflects the historical chronology of the New Testament writings and needs to be taken seriously (Ehrman 1997, Mason and Robinson 2013). Paul’s letters have been at the center of modern scholarly debates about the parting of the ways. The so-​called New Perspective has argued for their full integration into Second Temple Judaism (Gager 2000, Dunn 2005, Nanos and Zetterholm 2015, Fredriksen 2017). On this view, Paul saw himself as a rather traditional Jew and participated in Jewish discourses, neither adopting a separate identity nor provoking Jewish reactions to “Christianity”, which did not yet exist as a distinct entity. The New Perspective thus precludes any questions concerning Jewish reactions to the emergence of Christianity within the New Testament. However, a careful differentiation of sources and their respective historical contexts shows that the picture is far more complex and diverse. The so-​called “Romans Debate” has highlighted the importance of historical context for a proper appreciation of Paul’s various letters (Donfried 1977). The epistles do not express one preconceived and stable theology, applied to different communities as it were. They were instead written as lively communications prompted by specific questions and issues that had arisen in the various locations of Christian life. To the Corinthians Paul even wrote several installments of communications, responding in each to the ongoing debates among the Christ believers (Mitchell 2010). The letters to the Galatians and Romans stem, respectively, from the early and late phases of Paul’s activity, responding to specific hermeneutic problems in Galatia and in Rome, the latter with attention to circumstances after Nero’s ascension to power. These letters often treat the same subjects and invite precise comparisons, which can illuminate the influence of the implied audiences and their religious as well as cultural assumptions. The question of Jewish responses to Paul’s teaching about Jesus plays a crucial role in both letters and suggests important developments. In his letter to the Galatians Paul reacts to Jewish-​ Christian missionaries, who insisted that pagan newcomers must be circumcised (Betz 1979: 7, 137, Martyn 1997: 121–​4). They relied on Genesis ­chapter 17 and used traditional Jewish methods of exegesis to support their arguments. Paul reacts by engaging similar exegetical methods, endeavoring to show that the correct interpretation of the Hebrew Bible will lead to the conclusion that circumcision is not required. Both the questions and the solutions to the problems of faith, circumcision and covenant are treated in Galatians within the context of Hellenistic Judaism as we know it from Alexandria (Niehoff 2020a). Philo and his colleagues engaged in surprisingly similar debates and provided parallel answers on exegetical grounds. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, by contrast, speaks to Roman readers and Christians of an overwhelmingly pagan background with only a few references to specifically Jewish exegesis (Wolter 2014: 30–​56). Written in the 50s of the first century C .E ., the letter conveys a notion of faith that has been identified as resonating with Roman notions (Schumacher 2017). Paul’s image of Abraham has considerably changed in comparison to Galatians and shows distinctly Roman features, such as inner debates of an exemplary hero with whom the readers are invited to identify in a personal manner (Niehoff 2021).

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What does this Roman orientation of Paul’s letter to the Romans tell us about Jewish reactions to the emergence of Christianity? As this letter responds to the situation of Christ-​believers in Rome following Claudius’ edict and subsequent death, we have here important indirect evidence for Jewish reactions to the emergence of Christianity as a distinct group. As far as Romans anticipate a Roman audience with a pagan background, traditional Jews in Rome, namely those who did not believe in Jesus, seem to have created a space that was socially, institutionally, and theologically distinct from that of the Christ-​followers. From this literary perspective, too, Rome emerges as an early platform for intensive encounters and equally intensive constructions of boundaries. In comparison to Alexandria, it is remarkable that, as far as we can tell based on Romans, the issues at stake in Rome were not the stories about Jesus but rather broader cultural and political questions, such as Abraham’s circumcision and law. The gospels, too, need to be examined each on their own in the context of their author’s cultural and political environment. The confines of the present essay do not allow me to deal with each gospel in detail, with its general orientation and depiction of Jewish reactions to Jesus. While important historical work has already been done on the biased portrayal of the Pharisees in the gospels (Sanders 1985, Mason 1991), the author of Luke-​Acts deserves further attention. Wills (1991) and Levine (2010) have already pointed to the negative role of the Jews in Luke-​Acts as opponents of Jesus. These features deserve further study in the context of Roman discourses in view of which the author wrote his treatises. Analyzed critically and in connection with Paul’s letter to the Romans, Luke-​Acts will yield further information about Jewish positions in Rome and will provide further insights into the highly complex pictures of historical interactions.

5.  Trypho the Jew in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue Trypho, the Jew in Justin’s Dialogue, has long been recognized as a pivotal figure that illuminates both Christian identity in the mid-​second century and the gradual parting of the ways. Generations of scholars have debated whether Trypho was a historical figure, who engaged in a real dialogue with Justin, the Christian apologist, or rather a literary construct invented by the author or perhaps a mixture of both. While Allert (2002) and Bobichon (2003: vol.1: 129–​66) argued for the historical reality of Trypho and interpreted the Dialogue as a work addressing contemporary Jews, Rajak (1999), Boyarin (2004: 37–​73), and Munnich (2013) have stressed the fictional nature of Justin’s Jew. The latter consequently suggested that his image served inner-​Christian debates, especially vis-​à-​vis the Gnostics, whom Justin was the first to openly criticize. Lieu (1996: 103–​13) argued for a mixture of both approaches and insisted that while Justin may have created a fictive Jew for Christian audiences, he nevertheless reflects a historical reality of debates between Jews and Christians. What is at stake in these debates regarding our topic, namely Jewish reactions to the emergence of Christianity? Taking Trypho as a historical figure or at least as a reasonable reflection of a historical figure allows scholars to use the Dialogue to reconstruct a Jewish reaction to early Christianity. On this view, it is possible to identify the topics that concerned a second-​century Jew in Rome. If, on the other hand, Trypho is merely a figment of Justin’s imagination, we obviously have little evidence of authentic Jewish perspectives. What role, in other words, does the Dialogue play? New light is thrown on this question if we analyze the Dialogue in the context of contemporary Roman discourses. Niehoff (2019) has shown that Trypho plays the literary role of an Oriental Other, a kind of inverse mirror image to the Roman character of Justin’s definition of Christianity. Trypho confirms the distinctly Roman orientation of Roman Christianity and the parting of the 100

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ways along the issues of circumcision, universalism, nature, and moral (or “spiritual”) exegesis. These issues resonate with Paul’s letter to the Romans and highlight the early separation of Jews from Christians. Ironically, the Dialogue shows that there was little communication with “real” Jews, who were probably busy inscribing themselves into Roman discourses, stressing their Roman, non-​Christian identity.

6.  A Jewish Fragment in Origen’s Contra Celsum: The First Extant Jewish Critique of Christianity from the Mid-​Second Century C . E . Toward the end of his career in Caesarea, the church father Origen wrote a detailed refutation of the first extant pagan critique of Christianity written by Celsus, a Platonist philosopher most likely active in mid-​second century Alexandria (Wilken 1984: 94–​125; Frede 1997; Lona 2005: 27–​49). Intriguingly, in the first two books of Contra Celsum Celsus’ critique contains numerous quotations of words said by a Jew. While Origen stresses that Celsus “put into the mouth of the Jew what no Jew would have said” (Contra Celsum 1.28), scholars have investigated these fragments with the tools of modern historical criticism and increasingly realized that they are an authentic source of utmost importance for the history of Jewish attitudes toward Christianity. Bammel (1992), Baumgarten (1990), and Blumell (2007) raised the possibility that the Jewish voice reflected through Celsus and Origen is authentic. While they differed regarding the number of Jewish perspectives that may be contained in Contra Celsus, they all highlighted the discrepancies between the views attributed to the Jew and those expressed by Celsus himself. These gaps supported the assumption of authentic Jewish material, as distinct from the position of the pagan author. Albert Baumgarten (1990: 42), the most outspoken defendant of Celsus’ Jew’s authenticity, concluded that “Celsus has contributed little to the sections preserved in bk. I and II of Origen’s response”, namely the sections where the Jewish voice in prominent. Building on these insights, Niehoff (2013) argued that the fragments attributed to the Jew in Contra Celsus derive from a written Jewish source, composed in mid-​second-​century Alexandria. She initially pointed to the literary features of the fragments, showing that Origen provides rather clear contours of this Jewish source, saying that Celsus now “introduces” a Jew and later that the Jew “concludes all this” (Contra Celsus 1.28, 2.79). Celsus’ original treatise, which Origen used for his own refutation, allowed him to refer to the specific boundaries of an earlier Jewish critique of Christianity. The authenticity of this Jewish document is guaranteed by the fact that it differs from and even contradicts the views of both Celsus and Origen. Niehoff (2013) moreover provides a historical contextualization of the Jewish fragments in Contra Celsus, which enable her to place the anonymous Jew in the cultural environment of Alexandrian Judaism. She concludes that the Jewish critic of Christianity was an author with a high scholarly profile, who used Alexandrian methods of critical scholarship known from the Homeric scholia and the writings of Philo of Alexandria (Niehoff 2011 and 2018: 173–​91). Celsus’ Jew offered the first literary analysis of the gospels, which were at his time still in flow and not yet fully canonized. The treatise of the anonymous Jewish author, quoted in Contra Celsus, moreover indicates that at least part of the Jewish community in Alexandria recuperated after the Diaspora revolts and reached a high level of material as well as intellectual wellbeing. At the same time, however, a considerable number of Alexandrian Jews seem to have embraced Christianity, probably also as a reaction to the brutal Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt, thus prompting the alarmed reaction of Celsus’ Jew. The revolt may indeed have represented a significant juncture, which required decisions and precipitated the “parting of the ways” in the Greek parts of the 101

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Roman Empire. Undoubtedly, Christianity was perceived by at least one Jewish intellectual in the mid-​second century as a separate religion, which he analyzed in detail and to which he responded by offering an updated self-​definition of the Jewish community in Alexandria. Since the Jewish document in Contra Celsus is generally overlooked in discussions of Jewish attitudes toward the emergence of Christianity, I will provide some central passages for illustration here. I hope that its importance will thus be recognized, without suggesting that the arguments of Celsus’ Jew represent the views of all other Jewish communities. In contrast to Celsus, who tended to focus on the social misbehavior of the early Christians, the Jewish author in Contra Celsus approached the issue from a distinctly scholarly perspective. He shows an overall conception of how the different gospels emerged and distinguishes between a primitive layer created by Jesus himself and a subsequent, apologetic layer added by his disciples. Jesus is said to have “fabricated” the story of his mother’s virgin conception to cover his shameful origins from an adulterous woman (C. Cels. 1.28). Jesus’ disciples subsequently embellished the Jesus traditions with fanciful stories. While true reports about Jesus were available, they chose to make up stories, which they hoped would present their master in a more favorable light (C. Cels. 2.13). The disciples also invented the motif of Jesus’ foreknowledge of his own death to “excuse the events of his life”, especially the public embarrassment of his crucifixion (C. Cels. 1.13–​15, 2.15–​19). According to the Jewish author in Contra Celsus, the gospel literature developed in the following way: “Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and change the first text of the gospel three or four or several times over and they remodel it to enable them to deny difficulties in face of criticism”. (C. Cels. 2.27) The anonymous Jewish author analyzes the redaction of the gospels, pointing to theological controversy as the impetus for subsequent rewritings. In this view, there was an Urtext, which differed from the available gospels and directly echoed the historical Jesus. Celsus’ Jew is thus acutely aware that the gospels cover the same material about Jesus’s life but present different and even conflicting perspectives, a fact which is critically interpreted. The status of the different gospels is clearly debated at his time, as he refers to “three, four or several” gospels, the latter probably including the Gospel of Thomas, which enjoyed popularity in Egypt. The scholarly nature of this critique can be appreciated by looking at titles of modern academic works, such as Bart Ehrman’s The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (2011). In the ancient context, Celsus’ Jew is best understood in the framework of Alexandrian scholarship, which discussed the authorship of foundational texts with special attention to text manipulations (Niehoff 2021). Philo, the best known and most influential of the Alexandrian Jews, inquired into the literary dimension of the Jewish Scriptures, distinguishing between Moses, the author of the Pentateuch, and his “friends” or “students”, who composed the book of Psalms (Niehoff 2020). While Philo himself insisted on the overall authenticity of the Torah, some of his Jewish colleagues suspected that certain biblical passages resulted from later editing (Niehoff 2011: 112–​29). Celsus’ Jew notes further stitches and contradictions in the narrative of the gospels, one of them pertaining to Jesus’ different genealogies in Matt 1:6–​10 and Lk 3:38: “But he [Celsus’s Jew] says that the men who compiled the genealogies boldly said that Jesus was descended from the first man and from the kings of the Jews. He thinks that he 102

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makes a fine point in saying that the carpenter’s wife would not have been ignorant of it had she had such a distinguished ancestry”. (C. Cels. 2.32) Origen reports that Celsus’ Jew dismantled the genealogies, which are altogether lacking in Mark, on the grounds that they contradict the behavior of the protagonists in the narrative. Jesus’ mother, otherwise depicted as the humble wife of a carpenter, does not act as if she was aware of an illustrious genealogy. If the family tree were a historical fact rather than later fiction, she would have had different expectations of her environment. The Jewish author in Contra Celsus furthermore stresses the implausibility of some gospel stories, foremost among them the story of the virgin conception: “He [Celsus’ Jew] reproaches him because he came from a Jewish village and from a poor country woman who earned her living by spinning … She was driven out by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, as she was convicted of adultery. After she had been driven out by her husband and while she was wandering about in a disgraceful way, she secretly gave birth to Jesus … Because he was poor, he hired himself out as a workman in Egypt and there tried his hand at certain magical powers, on which the Egyptians pride themselves, and he returned full of conceit because of these powers and on account of them proclaimed himself as god”. (C. Cels. 1.28) Origen further reports the following words of the anonymous Jew: “Then was the mother of Jesus beautiful? And because she was beautiful did God have sexual intercourse with her, although by nature he cannot love a corruptible body? It is not likely that God would have fallen in love with her since she was neither wealthy nor of royal birth”. (C. Cels. 1.39) These passages present a subversive reading of the Gospel according to Matthew. Ignoring the general outline of Luke’s version, Celsus’ Jew relies on Matthew’s plot with its emphasis on Joseph suspecting his fiancée’s adultery. The report that “Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to expose her, resolved to send her away secretly” (Matt 1:19) is taken as the historical basis of Jesus’ biography. The appearance of the angel, by contrast, who reassures Joseph about Mary’s conception by the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:20), is assumed to be a fabrication for apologetic purposes. The Jewish critic subsequently asserts that Jesus’ real father was a soldier by the name “Panthera” (C. Cels. 1.32). He moreover relies on Matthew’s reference to Jesus as “the son of a carpenter” (Matt 13:55) and stresses his low social status. The picture is completed by the motif of the mother earning money by spinning. Given these lowly circumstances, it is utterly unlikely that any divine being would have shown an interest in Mary, let alone falling in love and having sex with her. The latter comments are of course a parody on the story of the Holy Spirit, exposing the impiety of attributing human sex to the transcendental deity. Strikingly, Celsus’ Jew assumes as self-​evident the notion of Jesus’ claim to divinity. He does not discuss it as a contested option, but rather treats it as a fact and explains its cause, namely that Jesus was misled by his magical powers acquired in Egypt. In the synoptic gospels, by contrast, Jesus’ miracles are regularly reported to have provoked debates about whether he was the “son 103

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of man” or had instead been directed by Belzebub, as the Pharisees suspected (Matt 12:24–​28, Mark 3:22, Luke 11:14–​20). While higher forms of Christology are already visible in the Gospel of John, the Letter of Barnabas from contemporary Alexandria mentions for the first time the nomen sacrum of Jesus and speaks of him as the “Lord”. Barnabas presents Jesus in divine terms, stressing that “all things are in him and for him” (Barnabas9.8, 5.1, 5.3, 12.7; Hurtado 1998). The Jewish author quoted in Contra Celsus thus registers sharp theological differences between Judaism and faith in Jesus. In his view, the disciples of Jesus fell victim to a Jewish magician of low social background, who made up for this shortcoming by claiming divine status. The invention of his birth from a virgin and the Holy Spirit contradicts the biblical perception of the nature of God and is in his view nothing but a shameful apology for the real story of adultery. The identity of the messiah is another theological controversy mentioned by Celsus’ Jew. He accuses Christians of “using prophets who proclaimed beforehand the facts of Jesus’ life”, while in reality, “the prophecies could be applied to thousands of others far more plausibly than to Jesus” (C. Cels. 2.28). The prophetic verses used by Christians to prove Jesus’ divine mission are exposed as an abuse of the Jewish Scriptures in Greek. Celsus’ Jew moreover explains that Jesus cannot be the expected messiah of the Jews, because “the prophets say that the one who will come will be a great prince, lord of the whole earth and of all nations and armies” (C. Cels. 2.29). In addition to these fundamental theological differences, the Jewish author in Contra Celsus also points to social boundaries between the religious communities. Christianity, he implies, has become an independent social organization, distinct from traditional Jewish communities. In the second part of his treatise he addresses fellow Jews, who have become Christ followers, and asks: “what happened to you that you left the ancestral law” (C. Cels. 2.1)? It is this deep concern for the welfare of the observant Jewish politeia that animates this whole section. Our anonymous author shares his basic outlook with Philo, who also insisted on Torah observance as the common denominator of the Jewish community, which he, too, described in terms of a politeia. While Philo praised Tamar for deserting paganism in favor of the Jewish constitution (Migr. 89–​93), Celsus’ Jew bemoans the “desertion” of contemporary Jews in favor “of another name” (C. Cels. 2.1), probably a reference to Jesus’ nomen sacrum mentioned in the Letter of Barnabas. Celsus’ Jew identifies a dramatic and highly paradoxical development in the history of the Jesus movement. Initially, he says, Jesus observed “all the customs of the Jews” and “took part in their sacrifices” but was rejected by his fellow Jews and even sentenced to death as a criminal (C. Cels. 2.6). In the author’s own days, however, many Jews have become adherents of Jesus and consequently “abandoned the law of our fathers”. This movement away from Judaism is highly alarming to our author and prompts the following bitter remark: “How come you take your origin from our holies, and then making progress you despise these things, even though you cannot point to any other origin for your doctrine than our law?” (C. Cels. 2.4) The anonymous Jewish author distinguishes the “dogma” of the Christ-​followers from Jewish law and regrets that their progress in their own religious matters implies rejection of their former Jewish tradition. Clearer boundaries, both intellectual and social, can hardly be imagined. The argument is sophisticated in its historical analysis, its overall scholarly approach to the Christian texts, and its engagement with the latter’s interpretations. 104

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This detailed critique of Christianity by a Jewish author from Alexandria has no parallel in the extant sources from Rome, which we have reviewed in the previous sections. This may merely be the result of accidental transmission. After all, the voice of Celsus’ Jew also came down to us accidentally, namely thanks to the lucky preservation of Origen’s Contra Celsus. An equivalent critique from Rome may easily have been lost. At the same time, however, we may wonder whether there may also be more substantial reasons for these local differences in the extant sources. Were the Gospels less important in first-​ and second-​century Rome than they were in second-​century Alexandria, thus prompting detailed scholarly reactions in one metropolis but not in the other? Furthermore, did the tense relations between Jews and Roman authorities in Rome, following Claudius’ edict and subsequent revolts, have an impact and render Jews more reticent to voice their critique of Christianity openly? While Celsus’ Jew wrote after a Jewish Diaspora revolt against Rome, he evidently felt sufficiently comfortable to offer his views on Christianity.

7.  Hellenistic Judaism in Late Antique Palestine The inscriptions from late antique Palestine, especially from Caesarea, show that Jews continued to cultivate the Greek language and Greek culture (Ameling and Cotton 2011: no. 1228, 1262, 1275, 1440–​1678). In Caesarea, Jews were exposed to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the capital of the Roman province and many of them would have been fluent in Greek, even reciting the Shema in that language (y. Sotah 7:1). Origen moreover attests that Jews “ignorant of the Hebrew language” relied on Aquila’s translation as the “most successful of all” the Greek translations (Epistle to Africanus 4, Nautin 1977: 314–​42; de Lange 2008: 526–​7 and 2016). Such Greek-​ speaking Jews are often mentioned by Origen as his discussion partners. Once he even admits to having changed his views concerning the Mosaic authorship of certain Psalms following a conversation with a learned Jew (Niehoff 2023). Usually, however, Origen hoped to convince Greek-​ speaking Jews about the truth of his gospel. Their Greek education, he assumed, would make them more receptive than native Hebrew or Aramaic speakers (Niehoff 2020b). The precise contours of Hellenistic Judaism in late antique Palestine, next to rabbinic centers of learning, have not yet been reconstructed, given that no primary text from this community has survived. This area of inquiry still awaits further research as part of broader investigations into Jewish culture alongside or in opposition to rabbinic sources (Lapin 2003, Lapin in the present volume, Alexander 2017, and Gross in this volume). Awareness of Christianity, however, may have been one of the distinct features of Hellenistic Judaism in late antique Palestine. Given the lack of direct literary sources, Origen holds the key to unlocking at least some aspects of this riddle. He is not only a precious witness but took an active part in the debates, undoubtedly prompting many Jews to notice Christianity and its distinct interpretations of the Bible. Recent scholarship has shown that in Contra Celsus Origen addresses not only a pagan audience identifying with Celsus but also Jewish readers who participated in the debates about Christianity and took an interest in the critique of Celsus’ Jew (Niehoff 2020b). Once Origen responds to an argument of Celsus’ Jew by recalling his experience “in some debate with those said to be wise among the Jews … when many were present to judge what was said” (C. Cels. 1.45). This setting assumes lively discussions between Jews and Christians in third-​century Palestine, perhaps even about Celsus’ critique of Christianity and the Jewish document contained in it. Moreover, Origen sometimes turns directly to an implied Jewish reader, as distinct from “Celsus and those with him” (C. Cels. 1.43, 1.35). As Origen did not know enough Hebrew, let alone Aramaic, to hold such conversations in those languages, he must have addressed Greek-​speaking Jews in this environment. These literary features of Contra Celsus prompt us to ask whether we can detect the views of 105

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the implied Jewish readers regarding the arguments of Celsus’ Jew and, by implication, concerning the emergence of Christianity. The virgin birth seems to have been as controversial in third century Palestine as it had been in Alexandria. Setting out the arguments that Celsus ought to have put into the mouth of a Jew, Origen provides valuable evidence of third-​century Jewish perspectives as he perceived them. The Jews he was familiar with would have discussed Jesus’ virgin birth by reference to Isaiah’s prophecy: “But if a Jew should ingeniously say that the expression ‘behold a virgin’ is not written [in Is. 7.14], but instead ‘behold a young woman’, we will say to him that the [Hebrew] expression ‘alma’, which the Septuagint rendered ‘virgin’, while others translated ‘young woman’, also occurs, as they say, in Deuteronomy as applied to a virgin (Deut. 22.23–​6) … However, lest we appear to take support from the Hebrew expression to convince people who do not understand whether to accept it or not, that the prophet said that this man would be born of a virgin, concerning whose birth it was said ‘God is with us’, let us explain the affirmation from the passage itself”. (C. Cels. 1.34–​5) While Celsus’ Jew in Contra Celsus offered a counter-​history based on a close reading of the Gospel of Matthew and some contemporary Alexandrian traditions, Origen expects Greek-​ speaking Jews in Caesarea to argue from the different Greek translations of Isaiah’s prophecy. He anticipates a lively debate, estimating that his Jewish audience is still undecided whether to accept Isaiah’s prophecy as a proof for Jesus. Remarkably, such Jews pointed him to a passage in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy, which uses “young woman” and “virgin” interchangeably, thus reducing the significance of the different translations. This linguistic discussion about Isaiah’s prophecy clearly belongs to a later time than that of Celsus’ Jew, who like other Alexandrian Jews was most likely unaware of the Hebrew version of Scripture. Origen engages contemporary Greek-​speaking Jews and notes their possible reaction to the story of the virgin birth. He expects them to rely on Aquila’s translation of the Bible into Greek and to be interested in debates about Jesus. Their readiness to point him to the Septuagint version of Deut 22:23–​6 in support of his argument is remarkable and indicates their curiosity. Origen moreover stresses his common ground with these Jews because they –​unlike Celsus –​accept the authority of the prophets and seriously relate to Isaiah’s prediction concerning Immanuel’s birth (Isa 7:14). Celsus and “those with him”, by contrast, reject the biblical prophecy. Origen hopes that Greek-​speaking Jews will take one further step and acknowledge that there is no better candidate for the role of Immanuel than Jesus. He even adduces a passage from the New Testament because “these things [speak] to a Jew who accepts the prophecy” (C. Cels. 1.35). How historical is this presentation of Hellenistic Jews in Caesarea and their allegedly open reaction to the emergence of Christianity? Does Origen, like Justin, create a fictive image of Jews that suits his own rhetorical purposes? In this case, it is harder to know than in the case of Justin’s Dialogue, where the overriding rhetoric was easily detectable. Origen’s responses to Celsus’ Jew continue to engage contemporary issues and open a new window into Jewish-​Christian relations in third century Caesarea. Additional topics that come up are the dove at Jesus’ baptism and the question of law observance. Origen’s specific references to Jewish Bible translations and interpretations may well reflect historical Jewish perspectives. Through Origen, we thus become aware of a thriving Jewish culture in Greek, based on the Greek Bible translations and engaging in debates about the New Testament. Such Jews, who probably 106

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lived in Caesarea, seem to have been knowledgeable about Christianity and eager to distinguish its specific features from Judaism.

8.  Rabbinic Positions in Palestine and Babylonia We finally turn to rabbinic sources and place them in the context of earlier Jewish reactions to the emergence of Christianity. Rabbis were certainly not the first Jews to react to Christian texts and Christian arguments. How do their reactions compare with those of earlier or contemporary, nonrabbinic Jews? The study of rabbinic literature has undergone a similar paradigm shift as the study of Christian literature. Here, too, the linguistic turn prompted an awareness that polemical references to “heretics” may not necessarily refer to “real” Christians or Jewish Christians but could rather serve inner-​Jewish rhetoric, perhaps in view of nonrabbinic Jews. More recently, the pedal began to swing back, however, and scholars ask again what rabbinic references to “heretics” may contribute to a historically critical picture of Jewish-​Christian relations (Kalmin 1994, Bar-​ Asher Siegal 2019). Rabbinic stories about Jesus, both in the Palestinian and Babylonian sources, have been amply studied (Schäfer 2007, Kalmin 2014 and 2017). In the present volume, Thierry Murcia discusses them with special emphasis on rabbinic familiarity with contemporary Christian interpretations of the Bible. I will conclude this review essay by pointing to the connections between some rabbinic traditions and the earlier views of Hellenistic Jews. It is remarkable that the first explicit reference to Jesus in rabbinic literature appears in the Tosefta, which Saul Lieberman has already recognized as a prime text engaging Hellenistic traditions and customs. The passage in t. Hullin 2:22–​4 mentions Yeshua ben Pantera and his miraculous healing techniques, two motifs we have already encountered in the critique of Celsus’ Jew. As Alexander (2011) and Horbury (2011) have shown, these similarities point to relations between Hebrew–​and Aramaic-​speaking rabbis, on the one hand, and the Hellenistic Jewish community, on the other. Palestinian rabbis thus seem to have encountered Christianity as a separate religion in the context of their broader conversations with Greek-​speaking Jews, who had already long before reacted to the emergence of Christianity. The issues that are addressed in rabbinic discussions on the topic show a distinctly Alexandrian or Eastern color rather in contrast to issues that animated Roman debates.

9.  Future Research Directions In view of the developments in scholarship outlined above, further research should seriously consider the diversity of Jewish communities in late antiquity within their respective geographical contexts. Throughout this chapter, it has become clear that Jews, including rabbinic Jews, did not simply ignore the emergence and development of Christianity but were concerned about the new sibling religion and its implications for their own status in the Roman-​Byzantine Empire and the character of their own religion. Further aspects of these dynamics will hopefully be uncovered in the future by studying specific Jewish and Christian texts in view of nonrabbinic types of Judaism and the development of early Christianity.

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Maren R. Niehoff Allert, C.D. (2002). Revelation, Truth, Canon and Interpretation. Studies in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho. Leiden: Brill. Ameling, W. et al. (2011). Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/​Palaestinas, vol. 2 Berlin: de Gruyter. Asiedu, F.B.A. (2019). Josephus, Paul, and the Fate of the Early Christianity. History and Silence in the First Century. Lanham: Lexington Books. Bammel, E. (1992). “Der Jude des Celsus,” in idem, Judaica. Gesammelte Schriften. Tübingen: Mohr. 265–​83. Bar-​Asher Siegal, M. (2013). Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bar-​Asher Siegal, M. (2019). Jewish-​Christian Dialogue on Scripture in Late Antiquity: Heretic Stories in the Babylonian Talmud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baron, L. et al. (eds.) (2018). The Ways That Often Parted. Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus. Atlanta, GE: SBL Press. Baumgarten, A. (1990). “Jews, Pagans and Christians on the empty grave of Jesus,” Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies. 2: 37–​44. Becker, A.H. and Yoshiko Reed, A. (eds.) (2003). The Ways That Never Parted. Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Betz, H.-​D. (1979) Galatians. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press. Blumell, L. (2007). “A Jew in Celsus’s True Doctrine? An Examination of Jewish Anti-​Christian Polemic in the Second Century CE,” Studies in Religion 36: 299–​310. Bobichon, P. (2003). Justin Martyr. Dialogue avec Tryphon. Edition critique. Fribourg: Département de Patristique et d’Histoire de l’Eglise de l’Université de Fribourg. Boyarin, D. (1998). “Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6: 577–​627. Boyarin, D. (1999). Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Boyarin, D. (2000). “A Tale of Two Synods: Nicaea, Yavneh, and Rabbinic Ecclesiology,” Exemplaria 12: 21–​62. Boyarin, D. (2004). Border Lines. The Partition of Judaeo-​Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Bremmer, J. (2021). “The First Pogrom? Religious Violence in Alexandria in 38CE?” in B. Schliesser et al (eds.), Alexandria. A Hub of the Hellenistic World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 245–​60. Butts, A.M. and S. Gross (2020), “Introduction,” in A.M. Butts and S. Gross (eds.), Jews and Syriac Christians. Intersection across the First Millennium. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 1–​26. Clark, E.A. (2004). History, Theory and Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, S.J.D. (2018). “The Ways That Parted. Jews, Christians, and Jewish-​Christians, ca. 100–​150 CE,” in Joshua Schwartz and Peter J. Tomson (eds.), Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. 307–​39. De Lange, N.R.M. (2008). Origène. Philocalie, 1–​20. Sur les Ecritures et La Lettre à Africanus sur l’Histoire de Suzanne. Paris: Éditions du Cerf. De Lange, N.R.M. (2016). “Hebraists and Hellenists in the Sixth Century Synagogue: A New Reading of Justinian’s Novel 146,” in C. Cordoni and G. Langer (eds.), “Let the Wise Listen and add to their Learning” (Prov. 1.5). Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of his Seventy-​Fifth Birthday. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 217–​226. De Lange, N.R.M. (2015). Japeth in the Tents of Shem. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Donfried, K.D. (ed.) (1977). The Romans Debate. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Dunn, J.D.G. (2005). The New Perspective on Paul. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Ehrman, B.D. (1997). The New Testament. A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York, NY and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ehrman, B.D. (2011). The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frede, M. (1997). “Celsus’s Attack on the Christians,” in Jonathan Barnes and Miriam Griffin (eds.), Philosophia Togata II. Plato and Aristotle at Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 232–​40. Fredriksen, P. (2017). Paul. The Pagan’s Apostle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gager, J. (2000). Reinventing Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Jews and the Emergence of Christianity Goodman, M. (1994). Mission and Conversion. Proselytizing in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Goodman, M. (2000). “Palestinian Rabbis and the Conversion of Constantine to Christianity,” in P. Schäfer and C. Hezser (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2: 1–​9. Harnack, A. (1904). The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. New York, NY: Putnam’s Sons. Horbury, W. (2011). “Rabbinic Perceptions of Christians and the History of Roman Palestine,” in M. Goodman and P.S. Alexander (eds.), Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late Roman Palestine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 353–​76. Horn, C. (2015). “Jesus at School among Christians, Jews and Muslims,” in Tony Burke (ed.), Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier. New York, NY: New York University Press, 111–​31. Hurtado, L.W. (1998). “The Origin of the Nomina Sacra: A Proposal,” JBL 117: 655–​73. Kalmin, R. (1994). “Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,” Harvard Theological Review 87: 155–​69. Kalmin, R. (2014). Migrating Tales. The Talmud’s Narratives and their Historical Context. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Kalmin, R. (2017). “Jesus’s Descent to the Underworld in the Babylonian Talmud and in Christian Literature of the Roman East,”. in Maren R. Niehoff (ed.), Journeys in the Roman East: Imagined and Real. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 355–​69. Lapin, H. (2003), “Hegemony and its Discontents,” in Richard Kalmin and Seth Schwartz Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire. Leuven: Peeters, 319–​48. Levine, A.-​J. (2010), “Luke,” in A.-​J. Levine and M.A. Brettler (eds.), The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 96–​152. Lieu, J. (1996). Image and Reality. The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Leon, H.J. (1995). The Jews of Ancient Rome. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers. Lona, H.E. (2005). Die “Wahre Lehre” des Kelsos. Übersetzt und erklärt. Freiburg, Basel, and Wien: Herder. Martyn, J.L. (1997). Galatians. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mason, S. (1991). Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-​Critical Study. Leiden: Brill. Mason, S., Robinson, T. (eds.). (2013). Early Christian Reader. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Mitchell, M.M. (2010). Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Munnich, O. (2013). “Le Judaïsme dans le Dialogue avec Tryphon: une fiction littéraire de Justin,” in S. Morlet, O. Munnich, and B. Pouderon (eds.), Les Dialogues Adversus Ioudaeos. Permanences et Mutations d’une Tradition polémique. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Augustiniènnes. Pages 95–​156. Nanos, M.D. and Zetterholm, M. (eds.) (2015). Paul within Judaism. Restoring the First-​Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Nautin, P. (1977). Origène. Sa Vie et son Œuvre. Paris: Beauchesne. Neusner, J. (1987). Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine: History, Messiah, Israel and the Initial Confrontation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Niehoff, M.R. (2011). Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Niehoff, M.R. (2013). “A Jewish Critique of Christianity from second century Alexandria. Revisiting Celsus’ Jew,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 21: 151–​75. Niehoff, M.R. (2018). Philo of Alexandria. An Intellectual Biography. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Niehoff, M.R. (2019). “A Jew for Roman Tastes. The Parting of the Ways in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho from a Post-​Colonial Perspective,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 27: 549–​78. Niehoff, M.R. (2020). “Paul and Philo on the Psalms. Towards a Spiritual Notion of Scripture,” Novum Testamentum 62: 392–​415. Niehoff, M.R. (2020a). “Abraham in the Greek East: Faith, Circumcision and Covenant in Philo’s Allegorical Commentary and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” Studia Philonica Annual 32: 227–​48. Niehoff, M.R. (2020b). “Homer between Celsus, Origen and the Jews of Late Antique Palaestina,” in J. Price and R. Abramovitz-​Zelnik (eds.), Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama: Essays in Honor of Margalit Finkelberg. London: Routledge, 185–​209. Niehoff, M.R. (2021). “Antisemitismus,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 31, VI–​XXXVII.

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7 SYNAGOGUES AND CHURCHES AS THE CENTERS OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES Alexei Sivertsev

The period between the fourth and the seventh centuries C.E . witnessed the progressively greater institutionalization of Jewish and Christian identities in the Near East. To use Seth Schwartz’s felicitous language, over the course of the three centuries the members of each group came to see themselves as “a community of shared symbols and discourse” (Schwartz 2001: 240). During the same time, churches and synagogues were built en masse in cities and villages across Roman Palestine, Syria, and Arabia. Both shared key elements of common morphology, including the use of the basilican plan, the organization of interior space in accordance with the structural principles of differentiated sanctity, and the use of common mosaic motifs (Lapin 1999: 259; Schwartz 2001: 242, 258; Levine 2005: 617–​23). The formation of group identities and the construction of monumental religious buildings were not unrelated developments. Locally, Jewish and Christian communities were centered on synagogues and churches. The buildings, their architecture, artwork, and epigraphy visually embodied and publicly proclaimed the symbolic identities of their congregations. This chapter explores some of the ways in which Christian and Jewish communities were symbolically constructed through the medium of synagogues and churches. Due to space constraints, I will limit my analysis primarily to the sources that originate in late antique Palestine and adjacent regions, with occasional references to the situation in Jewish communities elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

1.  A Note on Terminology and Interpretative Contexts One of the lasting contributions of Erwin R. Goodenough’s work on Jewish symbols in the Greek and Roman world has to do with the recognition of the fact that Jews in antiquity articulated themselves in multiple sign systems, irreducible to a single set of hermeneutic standards (Goodenough 1953–​1968). These systems are not always mutually transparent or translatable and can be adequately analyzed only by using multiple, complementary levels of description. Codes developed within one system (eg rabbinic literature) do not necessarily provide useful hermeneutic tools for the interpretation of another system (eg Jewish art). As we examine the diverse sets of material and written evidence, notes Penelope M. Allison, one needs “to be critically self-​ conscious of the inferences that result from one body of data being used to interpret another” (Allison 2001: 181; cf. Hezser 2010: 16–​23). DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-9

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In studying late antique synagogues and their functions, we have to deal with a wide variety of sources ostensibly irreducible to a single set of normative readings. In his article on inscriptions mentioning “rabbis” (the so-​called “epigraphical rabbis”), Shaye J. D. Cohen grapples with the possibility that Jewish epigraphic and literary sources may very well constitute two self-​referential systems that cannot be easily translated into each other’s language. The range of meanings associated with the term “rabbi” in inscriptions, Cohen argues, should not be delineated on the basis of the range of meanings associated with the same term in rabbinic literature. In Cohen’s words, we should “allow the epigraphical evidence to speak for itself and not impose upon it ideas derived from literary sources” (Cohen 1981: 16). Instead of interpreting the “epigraphical rabbis” as members of a group of traditionalist scholars, as is the case with the use of the title “rabbi” in rabbinic texts, Cohen opts for a much broader understanding of “the word rab and its forms to designate individuals of rank” (Cohen 1981: 9). That rank could be based on one’s mastery of tradition but also on one’s socioeconomic standing as well as other criteria. In the wake of Cohen’s article various scholars offered different solutions to the problem. While some have agreed with Cohen, others have been more open to reading the term “rabbi” as a technical title for Torah scholars in epigraphic setting as well as rabbinic literature (Hezser 1997: 119–​23; Lapin 2011: 311–​46; Millar 2011: 253–​77; Miller 2004: 39–​48). Fergus Millar states an alternative to Cohen’s approach most succinctly and to the point: “None of these arguments, however, comes anywhere near to disturbing the basic empirical principle that, if the same term is used in different sources relating to the same society, it should be assumed to have the same meaning unless there are clear reasons to think differently” (Millar 2011: 262). The value of Cohen’s argument, however, lies precisely in calling into question the apparent and yet misleading simplicity of what we consider to be “the same term”. In the world of multilingual communities articulating themselves through a polyvalent range of codes, sameness is a tricky category. The fundamental issue identified by Cohen still remains valid: We can no longer simply assume that an idiosyncratic application of the title “Rabbi” in rabbinic literature offers a universal key for interpreting this term across sources, genres, and –​to appropriate Ramsay MacMullen’s useful terminology –​epigraphic and literary habits (MacMullen 1982: 233–​46). The situation becomes even less certain if we attempt to use the title “Rabbi” for interpreting inscriptions from the Greek-​and Latin-​speaking Jewish Diaspora. A series of titles that appear there do not reference rabbis but are functionally similar to what a “rabbi” is described to be in rabbinic literature. A mosaic inscription in the Sardis synagogue commemorates “a vow of Samoe, hiereus and sophodidaskalos” (Kroll 2001: 17). In this particular case, how far is one prepared to stretch Millar’s “same term” category? Is Greek sophodidaskalos, indeed, the same term as Hebrew rabbi? According to Millar’s interpretation of the inscription it is: “In the context hiereus (priest) can only mean that he was a cohen; sophodidaskalos should mean ‘teacher of wisdom’, perhaps to be thought of as a translation of talmid hacham” (Millar 2006: 437; for a more cautious description of the same text, cf. Millar 2006: 471). Millar further references several undated Jewish epitaphs from Rome that mention a nomomathes, “learned in law” (Frey 1936–​52: vol. 1, no. 333), and mathetes sophon, “disciple of the wise” (Frey 1936–​52: vol. 1, no. 508). All these people, in Millar’s words, “are recorded on inscriptions in terms which suggest a role or function comparable to that of a rabbi” (Millar 2006: 446, cf. 454). Comparable, however, does not mean identical or even related. When Millar uses talmid hakham as the interpretive key to unpacking the meaning behind sophodidaskalos, he makes a series of important assumptions, which themselves need to be proven. The term talmid hakham is attested solely in rabbinic literature of uncertain date and provenance, a point that Millar emphasizes elsewhere in his work (Millar 2006: 500–​1). The term, as opposed to “rabbi”, never appears in epigraphic or other texts securely datable to late antiquity. 112

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Can we use it to elucidate a range of meanings behind Greek titles that circulated in late antique Diaspora communities? Is functional similarity (or what appears to be a functional similarity) sufficient to bridge a significant epistemic and terminological gap between Greek epigraphic and rabbinic literary habits? Several Diaspora inscriptions, indeed, mention “rabbis” (although not talmide hakhamim), but the relationship between these “rabbis” and those of rabbinic literature remains uncertain. Simply subsuming the Diaspora epigraphical rabbis, literary rabbis, and a series of Greek titles that appear to be functionally similar to literary rabbis under a single rubric is in my opinion too indiscriminate and, therefore, problematic. In the context of the Greek-​speaking Jewish Diaspora, Tessa Rajak and David Noy use methodology similar to Cohen’s to unpack a range of meanings associated with the title archisynagogos. In addition to its epigraphic usage, the title is well-​attested in multiple literary sources, such as early Christian writings, legislative acts of Christian Roman emperors, and occasional pagan references, such as the Historia Augusta. It is far from clear, however, whether one can project the general meaning associated with this term in one group of sources onto the rest of them. The archisynagogos references in early Christian and patristic literature are mostly conditioned by meanings associated with this term in the Gospels and Acts (Rajak and Noy 2001: 399–​402). In imperial legislation, such as the Theodosian Code, “we seem to find no more than a generalized awareness of the relevant Jewish officialdom”, so that “archisynagogoi figure in a shifting pattern of reference to the Jewish leaders” (Rajak and Noy 2001: 402). What seems to characterize these laws is a vague and highly generic awareness of the governance structures of the Jewish community. The titles such as archisynagogoi, fathers of the synagogues, priests, patriarchs, presbyters, and emissaries –​repeatedly used in various combinations by the laws –​function as “catch-​all” categories intended to ensure the totality of the law and its application. In a sense, I would add, these titles are akin to the lists of names in invocation formulas designed to ensure the total effectiveness of a spell. The formulaic nature of legislative acts argues against any precise meanings associated with the terminology that they use. The legislation also appears to imagine a fairly rigid and hierarchical authority structure within the synagogues, possibly modeled on the contemporaneous ecclesiastical offices, but not corroborated by other sources including, as we shall see later in this chapter, inscriptions (Rajak and Noy 2001: 403; Linder 1987: 134–​35, 202, 216; Schwartz 2001: 192). As a result, Rajak and Noy conclude that the highly formulaic and often idiosyncratic nature of patristic and imperial texts prevents us from using them as universal codes for unlocking the meaning of the title archisynagogos across the sources. Instead, different groups of sources stand in need of separate sets of interpretive tools. The epigraphic evidence for archisynagogoi reflects status distinctions of standard Graeco-​Roman inscriptions, in which honor is valued over function (Rajak and Noy 2001: 410–​1). Several characteristics of epigraphic archisynagogoi situate them within the epigraphic habit of Graeco-​Roman associations and, more broadly, the epigraphic habit of the Graeco-​Roman city (eg that it is a life-​long appointment, that the nature of the title is honorific rather than function based, and that the title is associated with multiple generations and multiple members of a single family, including women and children). In many cases, Jewish title-​holders act as benefactors or patrons for local communities operating “essentially like Graeco-​Roman benefactors within a ‘euergetistic’ framework of giving benefits and receiving honors” (Rajak and Noy 2001: 416). Indeed, there is evidence for archisynagogoi who were not Jewish but rather functioned as benevolent patrons of Jewish communities. All this represents a very different world from the one that emerges from patristic and legislative literature. Interpretive norms associated with one setting cannot be seamlessly translated to another. Rather, one has to learn how to deal with the groups of sources that inhabit multiple and sometimes incommensurate semantic planes. 113

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Rabbinic literature, a body of Hebrew and Aramaic writings composed between the third and eighth centuries C. E . in Roman Palestine and Sasanian (later – Muslim?) Babylonia and associated with an otherwise elusive provincial subelite known as “sages” or “rabbis”, offers another example of a late antique literary habit. Like early Christian texts and imperial legislation, rabbinic literature constitutes a corpus shaped by the worldviews and idioms of a relatively small traditionalist group with a distinct and often idiosyncratic set of interests. Social groups and functions associated with synagogues and known to us from other sources do not register much within the field of vision of rabbinic texts. At the same time, what rabbinic texts choose to emphasize about synagogues may or may not accurately reflect the way in which synagogues really functioned. Many regulations that appear in rabbinic literature seem to contradict what is otherwise known about the workings of late antique synagogues (Levine 2011: 107–​11). Like other types of ancient literature, the rabbinic literary habit is governed by its own unique set of rules and conventions. Hence, the codes it offers cannot necessarily be used as universal interpretive tools. Developed within study circles whose main function was the creation and transmission of Torah-​centered knowledge, rabbinic literature tends to focus on those aspects of synagogue life that best conform to the broader hermeneutic parameters of rabbinic norms. According to several versions of a tradition preserved in the Talmud of the Land of Israel, local communities would approach the leading rabbis of their day with the request to find someone who could serve as a preacher, judge, hazzan, teacher of Bible and Oral Law, as well as to “attend to all our needs” (y. Yebamot 12:6, 13a, y. Shebi‘it 6:1, 36d; Levine 2005: 436). As it delineates a list of skills expected from an ideal synagogue functionary, the story implicitly projects a set of values otherwise characteristic of rabbinic study circles onto the synagogue communities of late Roman Palestine. Whether or not such a projection accurately reflects the hierarchy of values on the local level must remain an open question. Rabbinic texts imagine the synagogue as primarily a Torah-​ and prayer-​centered institution. As a result, functions and offices associated with these two activities become central aspects of synagogue life registered by the rabbinic gaze. The office of hazzan appears with some frequency in rabbinic texts, although there seems to be a tendency to reduce hazzan to the status of a mere performer of rabbinic regulations (m. Sotah 9:15; y. Yoma 7:1, 44b; Levine 2005: 436). A hazzan’s functions emphasized in rabbinic accounts have to do with either orchestrating various elements of liturgical ceremony (eg the Torah reading, priestly blessing, and communal prayer) or making public announcements (Levine 2005: 439–​ 42). Other officials associated with synagogues in rabbinic texts include schoolteachers (soferim) and preachers (meturgemanim) (Levine 2005: 442–​5). Once again, both offices conform to a broader rabbinic vision of synagogues as text-​centered institutions and, hence, register as meaningful markers within the rabbinic frame of reference. Can we use the rabbinic understanding of the hazzan’s functions to interpret epigraphic references to hazzanim any more than we use the range of meanings associated with the title “Rabbi” in rabbinic literature to interpret the “epigraphical rabbis”? The answer is unclear. The meager evidence that we have suggests that epigraphical hazzanim had more public significance attached to them than rabbinic references to hazzanim as the mere performers of liturgical tasks would lead us to believe. The inscriptions indicate that the title was associated with status within the honor-​based framework of the epigraphic habit. The exact nature of that status, however, eludes us. Whether it had to do exclusively with the hazzan’s liturgical role as delineated in rabbinic texts is also unclear, for most of the epigraphical hazzanim are commemorated as donors rather than communal functionaries (Lifshitz 1967: no. 40; Naveh 1978: nos. 20, 28; Levine 2005: 437). We face a similar dilemma when dealing with the title of rosh knesset, occasionally mentioned in rabbinic literature. Similar to the hazzan, the rabbinic rosh knesset usually appears in connection with 114

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Torah reading (m. Yoma 7:1, m. Sotah 7:7–​8), although, sometimes, the two titles may indicate status criteria more broadly conceived (y. Berakhot 3:1, 6a; Levine 2005: 420–​22). Finally, many of the rabbinic references to a rosh knesset are unique to the Babylonian Talmud and, hence, their relevance to the title’s potential Graeco-​Roman context is uncertain. Whether one can read rosh knesset as a Hebrew version of archisynagogos and view meanings associated with both terms as complementary must, consequently, remain uncertain. The classic works of Emil Schürer, Samuel Krauss, and Jean Juster offer systematic reconstructions of synagogue communities based on the reading of rabbinic, Christian, imperial, and epigraphic sources as coextensive and complementary bodies of evidence (Schürer 1973–​ 1986; Krauss 1910–​1912; Juster 1914). These reconstructions are, perhaps, too systematic and too seamless. In the words of Rajak and Noy, as one reads through them, “a fantasy realm opens out, of uniform, neat and tidy communities across the Jewish world, with serried ranks of officials, each with a clearly demarcated job to do” (Rajak and Noy 2001: 406). This fundamental tendency of reducing the existent sources to the common denominator, a common set of universally applicable codes, has been called into question in more recent years. As we search for language that would make it possible to negotiate among the linguistically and conceptually disparate types of evidence available to us, we have to be mindful not to sidestep the fundamental problem of hermeneutic discontinuity intrinsic to our sources. These sources belong to different symbolic orders and the possibility of situating them within a single semantic field needs to be considered a challenge rather than taken for granted. For the purposes of the present discussion, I will primarily rely on synagogue epigraphy from late Roman Palestine bracketing out for the time being other groups of sources and alternative sets of codes associated with them.

2.  Multilingualism in Palestinian Synagogue Inscriptions Greek was the most common liturgical and epigraphic language used in Jewish communities across the Mediterranean in late antiquity. The situation in the Palestinian provinces, however, was more complex. In the words of Catherine Hezser, “even though not every Jew who lived in Roman Palestine will have been bilingual or even multilingual, the Jewish community as a whole can be defined as such” (Hezser 2001: 243, and more broadly, 227–​47). Aramaic and Greek dominated the scene, although their distribution across communities and social classes was uneven. Some communities used exclusively Greek for epigraphic purposes. Other communities only used Aramaic (sometimes intermingled with Hebrew). Combinations of Greek and Aramaic within the same synagogue setting were also common. Overall, Aramaic texts constitute the highest percentage of synagogue inscriptions, followed by Greek and, the distant third, Hebrew (Hezser 2001: 399; Smelik 2010: 135; Lapin 1999: 245–​6). The prevalence of a particular language in inscriptions can easily be taken as a sign of that language’s dominant role in the community’s daily life. The exclusive use of Greek in synagogue inscriptions, the argument goes, would indicate that Greek was the preferred medium of communication in that particular community, whereas the exclusive (or nearly exclusive) use of Aramaic indicates that the community was predominantly Aramaic-​speaking. This interpretation of the evidence may or may not be accurate, however, given the range of considerations (such as the symbolic value of language and status-​related issues) that usually went into choosing a particular epigraphic habit (Lapin 1999: 246; Smelik 2010: 135–​7). A choice of language(s) informs us first and foremost about the dynamics of self-​representation in a particular community and only indirectly about actual languages used by community members in everyday life. On balance, Greek inscriptions offer the main mode of expression in Greek-​speaking cities such as Caesarea, Gaza, 115

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Scythopolis/Bet She’an, and places in their vicinity. The epigraphic habit followed by Jews in these places is more or less identical to the epigraphic habit followed by urban Jewish communities across the Eastern Roman Empire (Rajak 2001: 379–​80). Aramaic-​only (or Aramaic/​Hebrew) synagogues are found primarily in small towns and villages in the Palestinian countryside (Naveh 1978: 7; Roth-​Gerson 1987: 16; Hezser 2001: 400; cf. Lapin 1999: 246). In some cases, however, the same community would set up inscriptions in both Aramaic/​ Hebrew and Greek. This situation was particularly characteristic of the cities of Tiberias, Sepphoris, and areas nearby but could also be encountered in smaller communities across the region. The choice to articulate oneself in multiple languages by necessity entailed the choice to articulate oneself through multiple symbolic systems, as well as the implied readiness to negotiate among the systems. The multitude of linguistic codes and the resulting need to routinely engage in the process of code-​switching were important characteristics of Jewish communities in late Roman Palestine (Fraade 2012: 15*–​39*). What is known about synagogue liturgical practices in Palestine also testifies to varying degrees of multilingualism among different Jewish groups. Bilingual public readings of the Torah in Hebrew and Aramaic translation or Hebrew and Greek translation were often the norm, although in other communities the reading could be performed exclusively in Hebrew or Greek (Alexander 1988: 238–​41, 247–​50; Fraade 1992: 253–​73; Smelik 2012: 123–​51). A similar diversity of linguistic codes and the resulting need to negotiate among them through a variety of code-​switching techniques, such as multilingual sermons or written translations, characterized Christian communities in the Roman Near East (Millar 2006: 383–​90; Brock 1982: 17–​34). There we encounter the same scenarios of multilingualism as among Jews, ranging from exclusive proficiency in one language to degrees of proficiency in several languages, typically Greek and various dialects of Aramaic. For both Jews and Christians, a particular language was not necessarily taken to be a symbolic marker of distinct identity, although by the sixth century, Hebrew seems to have gradually acquired this status among some Jewish groups (De Lange 1999: 147–​54). It may be significant, however, as noted by Millar, that Greek inscriptions clearly dominate Christian epigraphic scenery in the Palestinian provinces, whereas Christian Aramaic is rather infrequent (Millar 2006: 395–​6). By contrast, Aramaic inscriptions provide an important medium of commemorative writing and, therefore, self-​representation in Jewish synagogues. Compared to their Jewish counterparts, Christian donor inscriptions adhere almost exclusively to the Greek epigraphic norm of the day. Consequently, the need to negotiate among multiple linguistic codes, central to many synagogue inscriptions, is much less pronounced in Christian epigraphy. One of the difficulties associated with analyzing Jewish epigraphic material from late antique Palestine has to do with the fact that there are relatively few final reports with the full publication of data from specific archaeological sites available to us. Instead, epigraphic materials have been collected and published as corpora of inscriptions removed from their immediate archaeological as well as epigraphic contexts. Joseph Naveh’s On Mosaic and Stone (Naveh 1978) and Leah Roth-​ Gerson’s Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in Eretz-​Israel (Roth-​Gerson 1987), the two most commonly used collections of Palestinian synagogue epigraphy, classify inscriptions primarily on the basis of their language (Aramaic and Hebrew in Naveh versus Greek in Roth-​Gerson). To add a further layer of complexity, subsequent studies, as they draw on these collections for primary evidence, subconsciously embrace the collections’ scheme of classification. Consequently, the discussion is often framed by comparing and contrasting Greek and Aramaic/​Hebrew inscriptions as if they were two monolithic entities comparable and contrastable with one another. Scholars look for features that would be characteristic of the Aramaic/​Hebrew epigraphic culture or the Greek 116

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epigraphic culture as a whole. Although this approach does yield some interesting results, we also find ourselves in a situation where the principle of classification by language, introduced by the publishers of the two corpora, is pushed beyond its limits as heuristically meaningful (Price and Misgav 2006: 468–​80). In reality, many of the Aramaic and Greek inscriptions, published by Naveh and Roth-​Gerson as two distinct and self-​enclosed collections, often come from the same synagogues. Some of them were donated by the same people. Others date to approximately the same period of time and probably commemorate families and individuals who knew one another as members of the same community. We frequently encounter communities that use multiple languages, simultaneously inhabit intersecting symbolic universes, and consequently express themselves in multiple idioms. Rather than merely being distinct corpora, separated by language and epigraphic habit, Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew inscriptions function as layers of codes through which bi-​or trilingual synagogue communities articulated themselves. In what follows, I would like to read a handful of sample inscriptions in relation to their immediate epigraphic contexts. I choose to focus on a set of multilingual texts that comes from a fourth-​century synagogue excavated at Hammat Tiberias. There, due to the comprehensive report by Moshe Dothan, the inscriptions can be situated in their immediate archaeological and epigraphic settings. My goal is to investigate some of the ways in which multilingual inscriptions could function as alternating communication codes within the broader framework of a synagogue’s symbolic space and, to use Schwartz’s language, “mark the inscribers’ participation in a loosely constituted but broadly shared set of social and cultural assumptions” (Schwartz 2001: 281). The fourth-​century synagogue discovered at Hammat Tiberias, the area near the hot springs to the south of Tiberias, features a range of Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew inscriptions, most of them commemorative in nature. The bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscription on the tabula ansata in one of the synagogue’s eastern aisles consists of the upper Greek half and the lower Aramaic half. The inscription reads as follows: Greek: “Severos, threptos of the most illustrious patriarchs completed [it]. Blessings on him and on Ioullos the supervisor”. (Dothan 1983: 60) Aramaic: “May peace be upon anyone who has done the good deed in this holy place and anyone who will do the good deed may he be blessed. Amen, Amen, Selah, and for myself Amen”. (Dothan 1983: 53) It appears that both parts of the inscription were laid out at the same time, recorded the same benefaction, and were meant to be read as part of a single commemorative statement honoring the donor Severos (Price and Misgav 2006: 478; but see Hezser 2001: 402–​3 for a distinction between the individually named donors in the Greek inscription and the Aramaic collective donation, a pattern visible throughout Palestinian Jewish epigraphy). If so, either Severos himself or the community considered it necessary to commemorate his donation in two different linguistic systems. In the words of James N. Adams, said in the context of his analysis of Greek and Latin bilingual inscriptions at Delos, “one of the main functions of a bilingual inscription was not so much to convey information to the maximum number of readers, but to project some sort of identity” (Adams 2002: 126). If my hypothesis is correct, code-​switching was an important aspect of Severos’ epigraphic identity and the way in which his persona was meant to be remembered by 117

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the congregation. The bilingual inscription also implies that code-​switching was a reading technique expected from the inscription’s audience. The ability to negotiate among multiple linguistic codes and associated literary habits was, in other words, an important element in a congregation’s self-​representation. Some of the elements within the inscription are clearly reserved for the Greek portion of the text. These include titles of the main benefactor, Severos, who is described as “threptos of the most illustrious patriarchs (ton lamprotaton patriarchon)” and Ioullos the supervisor (pronoetes). Both titles belong within the Greek nomenclature, just as do other titles that appear in dedications in the synagogue (Dothan 1983: 54–​62; Lapin 1999: 247, n. 22, and 253–​4, n. 42; Hezser 2001: 405). There is no attempt to translate these titles into Aramaic. In contrast to the Greek part of the inscription, its Aramaic section remains programmatically anonymous. It addresses a group as opposed to individuals and may be meant to situate the individuals named in the inscription’s Greek section in relation to the timeless community of those who have done or will do “the good deed (mizvatah) in this holy place (’atrah kadishah)”. Both texts are invocations intended to draw blessings upon donors, but they do so in two different idioms. Whereas the commemoration in Greek defines donors in relation to civic and honorific norms associated with the late antique Mediterranean city (Rajak 2001: 373–​91), the Aramaic formula allows donors to be imagined in relation to an alternative, if complementary, set of linguistic and symbolic markers, such as mizvatah and ’atrah kadishah (Price and Misgav 2006: 479; cf. Fraade 2012: 31*–​33*). In addition to reserving some of their messages exclusively to a particular language, inscriptions at Hammat Tiberias communicate other messages in both Greek and Aramaic thus allowing for semantic cross-​pollination between the idioms. In his analysis of a bilingual Greek-​Aramaic tombstone inscription from Zoar, Steven Fraade notes that each part of the inscription “reflects distinctive epigraphic conventions, while they mirror one another in content and function” (Fraade 2012: 27*). The same can be argued for some of the bilingual inscriptions from Hammat Tiberias. There too, the same content could be articulated multiple times in various language systems. It was precisely the repetition of the same function in alternating codes, rather than the communication of new content that was deemed important. Another Greek text from the synagogue’s eastern aisles reads as follows: “May be remembered for good and for a blessing. Profoturos the Elder constructed this aisle of this holy place. Blessing upon him. Amen. Shalom” (Dothan 1983: 61). Written in Greek with Hebrew shalom as the conclusion, the inscription participates simultaneously in Greek and Aramaic epigraphic habits. The opening formula of “may be remembered for good and for a blessing” (mnesthe eis agathon kai eis eulogian) represents a Greek version of the Aramaic dekir le-​tab, known from multiple synagogue inscriptions, a handful of Christian inscriptions, and somewhat earlier Aramaic votive inscriptions from pagan temples at Hatra, in Mesopotamia (Dothan 1983: 61; Price and Misgav 2006: 475; Lapin 1999: 253, n. 40, and 263, n. 80; Schwartz 2001: 282–​3). Whether the Aramaic or the Greek version of the formula is original is of secondary importance for the purpose of the present discussion. What really matters is that the congregation in Hammat Tiberias articulated itself through structurally reversible codes that opened themselves up to reading in both Greek and Aramaic. The same applies to the use of the term “this holy place” (tou hagiou topou) to describe the synagogue in the Greek inscription, an exact rendering of the Aramaic behaden ’atrah kadishah that appears in the Aramaic-​Greek bilingual inscription discussed above. The concluding phrase, “Blessing upon him. Amen” (eulogia auto amen) in the Greek inscription corresponds almost exactly to the “may he be blessed. Amen, Amen, Selah” in the Aramaic section of the bilingual text. Indeed, the eulogia auto formula also appears in the inscription’s Greek portion so that the blessing is invoked in both Greek and Aramaic idioms (Lapin 1999: 263, n. 80). In a similar manner, the formulaic structure of Greek and Latin 118

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inscriptions from Delos analyzed by Adams was characterized, among other things, by the uses of “Greek morphology in a Latin text, a Greek syntactic structure of formal epigraphy transferred into Latin (the accusative of the honorand), and a Latin pattern of filiation adopted in Greek, not only by Romans but also by Greeks” (Adams 2002: 126; cf. Fraade 2012: 27*). The result at Delos as well as Hammat Tiberias was a series of epigraphic cross-​language formulas that could be read “in both directions” semantically as well as syntactically.

3.  Matters of Identity Synagogue inscriptions identify individual donors by situating them within webs of relationships. These webs may include donors’ family members, places of birth and/​or residence, and honorific or civic titles. The result is a range of signifiers through which and in relation to which an individual commemorated in an inscription can be meaningfully described and remembered. In what follows, I would like to review some of these signifiers to see what they can tell us about the symbolic universe inhabited by local Jewish communities in late antiquity. Like Hammat Tiberias, the town of Hammat Gader was a spa town famous for its hot springs and, consequently, thermal baths (Sukenik 1935: 19–​21). The synagogue excavated there was likely built in the fifth century and continued to function until the seventh century. It has yielded a series of dedicatory inscriptions, all of them in Aramaic. The most common way of describing individual donors in Hammat Gader was by situating them in relation to other members of their families. The inscription set up prominently in the center of the mosaic’s first panel in front of the Torah Ark commemorates “Kyris Hoples, and Kyra Protone, and Kyris Sallustius his son-​in-​law, and Comes Phroros his son and Kyris Photios his son-​in-​law, and Kyris Ḥaninah his son –​ they and their children –​whose acts of charity are constant everywhere” (Sukenik 1935: 41; Naveh 1978: no. 32). While composed in Aramaic and in line with Aramaic epigraphic norms, the inscription simultaneously inhabits the universe of Greek social markers. Most of the names listed in it are Aramaic transliterations of Greek names, a reflection of the widespread epigraphic practice of transcribing names of Greek and Latin origin in Semitic characters and vice versa (Lapin 1999: 259). The titles of kyris/​kyra are Aramaic transliterations of Greek honorific addresses (Lapin 1999: 251, n. 33, and 253, n. 41–​42). Finally, one of the donors is remembered as comes, an honorific title which may indicate that person’s service in the local imperial administration. The inscription commemorates several members of one extended family, identified by their family ties and through a series of signifiers that situate the members of the family in relation to the system of Greek and, perhaps, imperial honorific conventions (Lapin 1999: 247, n. 24). Two more inscriptions appear inside a tabula ansata at the top of the second panel, slightly below the first inscription. People commemorated there include, among others, Rab Tanhum the Levite, son of Halipha, Kyris Patricius of Kefar ‘Aqabyah, and Yose, the son of Dositheus, who is from Capernaum (Sukenik 1935: 48; Naveh 1978: no. 33). In addition to Greek titles such as Kyris, one person is described through a different set of terms as both Rab and Levi. What we find here is another instance of negotiating among codes, when the audience is expected to identify donors in relation to multiple, although not mutually exclusive, systems of signification. In addition to identifying a person in relation to his or her family and honorific titles, the inscription also describes donors in relation to their place of birth and/​or residence. In the words of Millar, across Roman Syria, villages “may often have been the main social units by which people identified themselves” (Millar 1993: 250; cf. Lapin 1999: 267; Schwartz 2001: 206–​8, and 277–​80). Synagogue inscriptions support this impression to a degree, although families in these inscriptions seem to play a more central role as the primary means of identification. In addition to 119

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named individuals, identified by their belonging to a particular geographic locale, the inscriptions from Hammat Gader feature group names of anonymous donors derived from the names of their hometowns. The same inscription that mentions Rab Tanhum also contains a reference to “the Arbelites who gave their woven fabrics” (Sukenik 1935: 48; Naveh 1978: no. 33). The adjacent inscription commemorates a somewhat mysterious group called ’iraya, most likely another derivative from a place name (Sukenik 1935: 53; Naveh 1978: no. 34; Schwartz 2001: 275, n. 2). The names of hometowns, in other words, constitute another dimension and a further vector along which individuals and groups could be described in the setting of late antique synagogues. In the case of Hammat Gader this particular vector could be especially meaningful, since many people who resided in this resort town were outsiders of some (but not necessarily excessive) means. By contrast, the role of villages as identity markers in Palestinian Christian inscriptions is not nearly as prominent (Schwartz, 2001: 275, n. 3; Ovadiah 1987: no. 76), an issue that would certainly merit further research. In Hammat Gader the families are remembered in connection with their gifts made to the local kenishtah, a term that could designate both an assembly and a synagogue building (Sukenik 1935: 53; Naveh 1978: no. 34, cf. no. 71). Most of these gifts are relatively small, yet they and the donors who offer them are meticulously recorded in inscriptions. A series of inscriptions from the sixth-​to eighth-​century synagogue in Na’aran follow the same pattern. Like the inscriptions from Hammat Gader they mostly commemorate named benefactors, usually described in relation to other members of their families (Naveh 1978: nos. 58–​63, 65–​66). At least one inscription, however, commemorates the congregation as a whole: “All those who donate and contribute or who give to this holy place … Their share is in this holy place” (Naveh 1978: no. 64). The inscription folds individual benefactors into the anonymous and, hence, timeless totality of everyone whose share is in “this holy place” (’atrah qadishah) (cf. Naveh 1978: nos. 65–​66, for other uses of the phrase “whose share is” in the same synagogue). What emerges as a result is the sense of the community as a sum total of its members immortalized in the inscription. If this interpretation is correct, Jewish inscriptions and contemporaneous Christian epigraphy may offer different readings of what constitutes a liturgical community. Christian inscriptions tend to commemorate local clergy, in whose tenure work on a particular church was done, rather than individual families that constitute the congregation. The inscriptions are also careful to provide names and titles that help identify the clerics in relation to their place within the broader framework of the church hierarchy (Ovadiah 1987: nos. 3, 7, 26, 51, 93, 100, 147, 216; for individual donors, cf. nos. 24, 119, 120; Lapin 1999: 264, n. 82). In Jewish inscriptions, on the contrary, individual families and their contributions become the main objects of remembrance, while references to synagogue functionaries are extremely rare (Lapin 1999: 263–​6). The synagogue community is understood to be a timeless presence of generations past and present rather than a timeless hierarchy through which God’s immaterial mysteries become revealed in sensible forms and symbols. Indeed, the phrase “holy community”, common in its several versions in synagogue epigraphy (Naveh 1978: nos. 46, 69, 84), is atypical for Palestinian Christian inscriptions. There, the designation “the most holy” (hagiotatos) is frequently used as an honorific epithet attached to the office of bishop or archbishop, but not to the community as a whole (Ovadiah 1987: nos. 3, 7, 72, 93, 100, 138; for the use of the word “holy” and its derivatives to refer to a church building, cf. nos. 7, 8, 97). As noted above, the legislation promulgated by Christian Roman emperors tends to imagine Jewish communities along the lines of a neatly ordered ecclesiastical hierarchy. How much of that is historically accurate must remain an open question. By the same token, Schwartz’s observation regarding “the synagogue as a site of elaborate performance, led by a clergy, of a numinous 120

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type”, with the result that “the religiosity of the synagogue was very much like that of the church” (Schwartz 2001: 273; cf. Levine 2005: 238–​48, 630–​2) is only partially supported by epigraphic evidence. Instead, as Schwartz notes elsewhere in his book, late antique Jewish communities emerge as programmatically egalitarian entities (Schwartz 2001: 284–​7; Lapin 1999: 266). The honorific recording of donors with rather modest contributions has a symbolic value of inscribing all actively involved members into the collectivity of “this holy place”. The precise relationship between the synagogue community and a local town to which it belonged is not entirely clear (Hezser 2001: 403; Schwartz 2001: 275–​80). In Hammat Gader, the kenishtah included families that hail from a variety of towns. In other words, the members of the congregation did not necessarily identify with Hammat Gader as the place of their residence. The resort nature of the town, however, could mean that Hammat Gader was somewhat unusual among other towns and villages of the Galilean countryside. In other cases, some of the epigraphic formulas are applied interchangeably to the inhabitants of a town and the congregation. Whereas, for example, an inscription from Isfiya uses the phrase “great and small”, a distinction that could indicate class as well as age difference to describe the residents of the town (benei qartah), an inscription from Jericho applies the same formula to the members of “the holy congregation” (qahalah qadishah) (Naveh 1978: nos. 39, 69, cf. nos. 83–​84; Hezser 2001: 403). An inscription on a circular bronze polycandelon identifies the latter as belonging to “the holy place of Kafar Hannanya” (Naveh 1978: no. 16). It appears that, by and large, the symbolic boundaries of synagogue communities and their respective townships overlapped, although, as the case of Hammat Gader demonstrates, they were not necessarily considered identical. The situation becomes even less certain as we attempt to look beyond local identities (Lapin 1999: 255–​7; Schwartz 2001: 275–​89). The formulaic “Peace upon Israel” (shalom ‘al Yisrael) appears in several inscriptions, but it is unclear whether the Yisrael in question refers to a local community or some type of overarching identity (Naveh 1978: nos. 38, 50, 68, 70, and 75; Lapin 1999: 261, n. 72). As noted by Schwartz, whereas the Hebrew inscription at Gerasa contains the blessing shalom ‘al kol Yisrael (“Peace upon all Israel”), the Greek inscription in the same synagogue renders the formula differently and reads erene te synagogue (“Peace to the synagogue [community]”), thus “raising the possibility that Yisrael might sometimes refer primarily to the community” (Schwartz 2001: 288–​9, n. 39; Naveh 1978: no. 50; Lifshitz 1967: no. 78; cf. a Samaritan inscription in Ovadiah 1987: no. 203). A version of the shalom ‘al Yisrael formula that appears in the synagogue of Almah offers a bridge between the localized and the more universal readings of the blessing: “May there be peace on this place and on all the places of the people of Israel” (Naveh 1978: no. 3). A variation of the same blessing carved by the same artisan in the neighboring town of Baram reads, “may there be peace on this place and on all the places of Israel” (Naveh 1978: no. 1). The blessings understand Yisrael as interchangeably the reference to a localized community inhabiting a particular village and a broader entity that encompasses the sum total of such villages (“all the places of Israel”). The word “people”, used in conjunction with Yisrael in Almah, appears in the synagogue inscription from En Gedi as an invitation to the local community to invoke a curse against anyone who might “reveal the secret of the village (qartah) to the nations”: “And let all the people (‘amah) say, Amen and Amen, Selah” (Naveh 1978: no. 70). In a similar manner, the Greek laos was often used as a reference to a local community (Lifshitz 1967: nos. 64 and 81). The inscriptions, in other words, imagine the collective Yisrael as a regional network of villages. There is no evidence that the frame of reference would expand beyond that. The community of Hammat Gader described itself in relation to villages and towns in Galilee, the most significant of them being Sepphoris. Geographic horizons delineated in the inscriptions that list the 24 priestly 121

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courses and their towns of residence, as well as the halakhic inscription from Rehov that regulates agricultural practices in the Scythopolis/Bet She’an area, are strictly regional as well (Naveh 1978: nos. 51, 52, 56 [priestly courses], and 49 [the Rehov inscription]). The horizon of the Greek inscription from Sepphoris that commemorates a Jewish family of high standing is broader and includes the cities of Tyre and Sidon on the Phoenician coast, but within the broader epigraphic context of Palestinian synagogues, this inscription is somewhat exceptional (Lifshitz 1967: no. 74, Roth-​Gerson 1987: no. 24; Lapin 1999: 255, n. 49). Imperial markers in synagogue epigraphy are equally sparse. An Aramaic inscription from Bet Alpha is unique in dating the mosaic to the reign of Emperor Justin I (518–​527) (Naveh 1978: no. 43). Only two inscriptions, one in Aramaic from Hammat Gader and the other in Greek from Sepphoris, describe donors in relation to what could be construed as offices in the imperial administration. In both cases, one of the family members honored in the inscription is described as comes, a title indicating that the person might have served as an imperial functionary (Naveh 1978: no. 32; Lifshitz 1967: no. 74; Roth-​Gerson 1987: no. 24; Lapin 1999: 253, n. 41). In the Greek inscription, moreover, the father of the person identified as “the most illustrious comes” was also comes, thus raising the possibility of the title’s hereditary nature. By contrast, church inscriptions in Palestine provide more references to imperial office holders, even if we leave references to local clergy aside (Ovadiah 1987: no. 26, 138; Schwartz 2001: 286). The higher frequency of references may reflect a greater degree of integration of local Christian elites into the imperial bureaucracy at the time when Jews were gradually removed from imperial offices and marginalized within imperial social networks (Schwartz 2001: 195–​9). The sense of belonging to an empire-​wide system and the attachment to that system’s symbolic value was, consequently, more pronounced among local Christian elites. Dating the construction by the reign of a particular emperor, however, is as unique in churches as it is in synagogues. One inscription dates the construction of the church to the reign of Emperor Maurice (582–​ 602) in a formula that reads very similar to the one in the inscription from Bet Alpha (Ovadiah 1987: no. 172). In his discussion of the late antique mosaic in the church of St. Stephen at Umm er-​Rasas in Jordan, Glenn W. Bowersock makes the following observation: “We might reasonably say that the designer’s gaze looked westward more than to the interior. It looked to the sea, on to Egypt, and presumably to the greater world beyond. Something similar seems to be happening in the Madaba map, and this tendency would encourage belief in the reports of Smyrna and Constantinople on the map at the time of its discovery” (Bowersock 2006: 75). In the case of roughly contemporaneous synagogue inscriptions, the designer’s gaze is significantly more inward-​turned. Like Christian mosaics surveyed by Bowersock, cities, towns, and villages constitute the main geographic and semiotic markers in relation to which late antique Jewish communities situate themselves. In that sense, Bowersock’s characterization of the imagined cartographies of the Christian Near East as “a self-​representation in which cities saw themselves in relation to other cities” (Bowersock 2006: 28) is equally applicable to the imagined cartographies of the Rehov inscription, the lists of priestly courses, and synagogue donor inscriptions. None of these cartographies, however, looks westward to the sea and beyond. Instead, the symbolically meaningful geographies delineated in Jewish inscriptions are limited to several regions in Roman Palestine with little ambition to venture out either east or west. A useful parallel to the introversion characteristic of Jewish communities may come from Ihor Ševčenko’s analysis of the regional perceptions of Constantinople in the middle Byzantine period (Ševčenko 1980: 712–​47, esp. 723–​6, 735–​7). Ševčenko argues that within the symbolic universe of someone living in Asia Minor in the ninth century, the empire’s main city was marginal at best. 122

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As a result, spaces and institutions in relation to which people identified themselves tended to be consistently local, just as they were for those who set up inscriptions in late antique synagogues several centuries beforehand. The symbolic geographies of a higher order, whether they have to do with Israel or the Byzantine Empire, do not feature prominently in the epigraphic habit. We have to look at other, mostly literary, sources to find them.

4. Conclusions In conclusion, I would like to go back to this chapter’s opening observation: when dealing with a variety of visual and written sources we deal with a variety of sign systems irreducible to a single set of hermeneutic norms. I see two complementary methodologies that will allow us to deal with the issue in a productive manner. One is to approach each group of sources on its own terms as a self-​enclosed system that requires its own set of categories and codes to become legible. Only when we fully understand each system’s grammar can we begin the process of translating meanings from one system to another. As we do so, rather than searching for a single key to unlock a uniform meaning across systems, it might be more productive to follow Hezser’s advice “to establish a so-​called Bildfeld, that is, a range of possible associations” for symbols to evoke in the viewer and through which symbols acquired meaning within cultural, literary, and visual contexts of the time (Hezser 2016: 215). As argued in Hezser’s article on Helios floor mosaics in late antique synagogues, the search for a single meaning behind a particular image or symbol should be replaced with the delineation of a field of potential meanings that informed the act of image viewing. The same is true for synagogue inscriptions. Intended for public display the inscriptions were formulas that worked by evoking a particular range of associations in their viewers. Establishing the range of possible associations within which meaningful literary and artistic forms could develop is a task that requires a careful interdisciplinary reading of all available literary, epigraphic, and pictorial sources.

Bibliography Adams, J.N. (2002). “Bilingualism at Delos,” in J.N. Adams et al. (eds.), Bilingualism in Ancient Society: Language Contact and the Written Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 103–​27. Alexander, P.S. (1988). “Jewish Aramaic Translations of Hebrew Scriptures,” in M.J. Mulder and H. Sysling (eds.), Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Assen: Van Gorcum, 217–​53. Allison, P.M. (2001). “Using the Material and Written Sources: Turn of the Millennium Approaches to Roman Domestic Space,” American Journal of Archaeology 105: 181–​208. Bowersock, G.W. (2006). Mosaics as History: The Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press. Brock, S. (1982). “From Antagonism to Assimilation: Syriac Attitudes to Greek Learning,” in N. Garsoian, et al. (eds.), East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 17–​34. Cohen, S.J.D. (1981). “Epigraphical Rabbis,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 72: 1–​17. De Lange, N.R.M. (1999). “A Thousand Years of Hebrew in Byzantium,” in W. Horbury (ed.), Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-​Yehuda. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 147–​61. Dothan, M. (1983). Hammath Tiberias: Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic and Roman Remains. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Fraade, S.D. (1992). “Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum, and Multilingualism in the Jewish Galilee of the Third-​Sixth Centuries,” in L.I. Levine (ed.), The Galilee in Late Antiquity. New York, NY: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 253–​86. Fraade, S.D. (2012). “Language Mix and Multilingualism in Ancient Palestine: Literary and Inscriptional Evidence,” Jewish Studies 48: 1*–​40*.

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Synagogues and Churches Smelik, W. (2012). “Code-​switching: The Public Reading of the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek,” in L. Morenz and S. Schorch (eds.), What is a Text? Alttestamentliche, ägyptologische und altorientalistische Perspektiven. Berlin: de Gruyter, 123–​51. Smelik, W. (2010). “The Languages of Roman Palestine,” in C. Hezser (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 122–​41. Sukenik, E. (1935). The Ancient Synagogue of El-​Hammeh (Hammath-​by-​Gadara): An Account of the Excavations Conducted on Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Rubin Mass.

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8 THE RABBINIC REPRESENTATION OF JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS Thierry Murcia

1. Introduction Rabbinic literature teaches us nothing new about Jesus as a historical figure, nor anything about his close disciples. Most of its documents were written a good deal later and, other than the sections that concern the transmission of halakhah (rabbinic legal rules), they reflect the milieu in which they were produced rather than the time and place of which they speak. They are witnesses of their own time, and they mirror it. They relay not who Jesus was, but the way in which he was perceived in a given place at a given time. This perception is linked directly with that of Christians with whom rabbis coexisted, and the image of Jesus passed on by them. This body of literature was written over several centuries (ca. 200–​700 C. E .). Half a millennium separates the compilers of the Mishnah from the editors of the Bavli (Babylonian Talmud). The political, cultural, and religious spheres in which each of these compilations evolved were quite distinct in several ways. Here are some markers: -​ At the time of the Mishnah (ca. 200–​220 C. E .), the Roman Empire was pagan. Still only a small minority, Christians were sometimes tolerated and sometimes persecuted. -​ The Palestinian Talmud (ca. 400 C. E .) was finished when Christianity was at its peak: it officially became the “state religion” in 380 C. E . -​ The final editing of the Babylonian Talmud (ca. 700 C.E .) coincided with the triumph of Islam in Babylonia (at the end of the Sasanian Empire in 642 C.E .), while in the West the Byzantine Empire had been Christian for several centuries. The representations of Jesus and his followers are not strictly identical in all rabbinic corpora. An evolution in the discourse on Jesus and his followers is perceptible from earlier to later rabbinic documents. In general, rabbis were less outspoken on Jesus and Christianity than the Church Fathers were on Judaism. There is no explicit reference either to Jesus or to his disciples in the earliest rabbinic document, the Mishnah, and attempts to unearth any hidden references have been inconclusive (Murcia 2014: 529–​76). This is also the case in tannaitic Midrashim in which Jesus and his followers are not mentioned once, either explicitly or implicitly (Van Voorst 2000: 107). 126

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In fact, they make their first appearance in another tannaitic corpus, the Tosefta (ca. 300 C.E .), in t. Ḥul. 2:22–​23 (the story of Ben Dama, who is bitten by a snake) and in t. Ḥul. 2:24 (discussion between Rabbi Eliezer and “Jacob the min”): two texts that have been much commented on by scholars (for references see Murcia 2014: 103–​4, notes 35–​54 and 165–​6, notes 62–​85). The writers of the later corpora, the Talmud Yerushalmi and Bavli, are mostly content with recycling the same material. They provide few new insights. They take stories recorded in earlier tannaitic documents and rework and refashion their characters and dicta for their own ends, in order to draw new lessons from them. They do not hesitate to produce “false”, that is, invented tannaitic narratives to assert their authority. This is notably the case for many of the baraitot that appear in the Bavli, but of which no trace can be found in earlier documents. These rewritings, which reflect their late antique Sitz im Leben, are of great importance: they reveal the context in which they were written as well as the ideology of the editors.

2.  The Name Yeshua ben Panthera Known as “son of Joseph” by his contemporaries (Luke 3:23; 4:22; John 1:45; 6:42), Jesus is mentioned for the first time in the Tosefta by the name of Yeshua ben Panthera (t. Ḥul. 2:22; t. Ḥul. 2:24). In the censored editions of the Talmud, this name has been erased or replaced by the neutral term pelan or peloni which means “a certain” or “so-​and-​so”. Many hypotheses have emerged to explain this name, of which the two most popular are: - Panthera is a distortion of the Greek parthenos, the “virgin”. This hypothesis is of long standing and, to this day, boasts the most subscribers (eg Klausner 1925: 23–​4; Boyarin 1999: 154–​5; Kalmin 2009: 111). Yet it is not convincing. First, the use of the word parthenos to refer to Mary appears only twice in the New Testament (Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:27) and the name “son of the virgin” to refer to Jesus was not widespread in the first centuries (eg Smith 1978: 46–​7). Furthermore, if “son of Panthera” had been a controversial distortion of “son of the virgin”, that fact would almost certainly have been remembered. And yet the rabbis who, in the Talmud, discuss the possible meanings of “Ben Pandera” and “Ben Stada” only propose wordplay as a means of explaining the latter (b. Shabb. 104b; b. Sanh. 67a). Moreover, none of the documents in our possession attributes the origin of this name to the mother of Jesus. For Celsus’s Jew, who was writing at around 150 C. E . (Niehoff 2013: 151–​75), Panthera is a man and a soldier. And in the Tosefta, as in later sources, Ben Panthera is a patronym. Finally, if this name had been offensive, Panthera would not have been considered one of Jesus’ ancestors by the church fathers (Eisler 1931: 407). - Panthera is the name of a person, a “family name”, possibly the “surname of Joseph the father of Jesus of Nazareth” (Jastrow 1903: 1186; Schonfield 1937: 148–​9; Lauterbach 1951: 536; Goldstein 1950: 37–​9). The epigraphy has in effect proven, contrary to what certain scholars have claimed, that this name, previously unknown outside Jewish and Christian sources, “was not an invention of Jewish scoffers” (Deissmann 1927: 74). It features on various epitaphs (Deissmann 1906: 871–​5), eg that of the legionary from Sidon, Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera (d. in 40 C.E .), who belonged to a cohort of archers garrisoned on the Rhine from 9 C.E . (Bingerbrück tombstone). For the purposes of this paper, the testimony of the anti-​Christian polemicist Celsus, preserved by Origen in his Contra Celsum (ca. 248 C. E .), is particularly valuable. Origen frequently mentions a Panthera (Contra Celsum 1:32–​33, 69), presented by Celsus’s Jew (the main source of Celsus’s 127

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writing about Jesus) as the father of Jesus: “the mother of Jesus [has] been turned out by the carpenter who was betrothed to her, as she had been convicted of adultery and had a child by a certain soldier named Panthera” (trans. Chadwick 1965: 31). Jesus would therefore be an illegitimate child. Celsus’s Jewish source cannot have been written by a rabbinic Jew. He “undoubtedly belongs to a Hellenistic Jewish cultural milieu” (Stern 1992: 230) and would have compiled his text in Alexandria around 150 C. E . (Niehoff 2013: 151–​75). For many critics, this illegitimate birth by a “Roman” soldier was dreamt up in response to the Christian affirmation of the virgin birth and Jesus’s alleged Davidic descent (Klausner 1925: 23–​4, 232; Schäfer 2007: 19; Jaffé 2008: 267). Celsus wrote his treatise ca. 170 C.E ., and Celsus’s Jew wrote his own ca. 150 C. E . The name Panthera was therefore known before this date, and it is thus necessary to go back quite far to find the source known to “Celsus’s Jew” [following this diagram: Source X (Jewish) →Celsus’s Jew →Celsus →Origen]. When it appeared for the first time in rabbinic sources, the name Panthera did not carry any pejorative connotations. The writer simply used it to distinguish the character: Yeshua ben Panthera, as opposed to somebody else. Similarly, in the Talmud, as in most of the Toledot Yeshu, Panthera was just a name. Nothing is known of him, save that it is a Greek name. Celsus and his source make him a “soldier” (nothing more precise), whom most scholars have then transformed into a “Roman” soldier (eg Schäfer 2007: 21; Furstenberg 2015: 307, 313). But the Greek name Panthera does not imply a foreign origin. It can be found elsewhere (in the form Panther) among many Jewish names on a papyrus from the Fayum (Deissmann 1927: 74). Many Jews, at the time of Jesus, had Greek or Latin names: Agrippa, Alexander, Andrew, Antipas, etc. And some names, like Cl[e]‌opas (the brother of Joseph, according to tradition: Hegesippus apud Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 3:11; Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 78:7.5) were rarely used (see Murcia 2017: 189–​93). Some scholars insist that, in attributing to Jesus a father called Panthera, Jesus “becomes not only a bastard but even the son of a non-​Jew” (Schäfer 2007: 19). The name Panthera on its own implies neither of these notions. Moreover, double-​barrelled and composite names, used as nicknames, were very widespread. Nothing prevents the full name of Jesus’ father from being Joseph Panthera, as it is found in certain Toledot. In any case, Yeshua ben Panthera is never presented as an illegitimate child in tannaitic sources. Besides, the church fathers never claimed that the name Panthera was an invention. Eusebius of Caesarea considered it to be a simple mistake (Eclogae propheticae 3:10 on Hosea 5:14 and 13:7). Then, in the second half of the fourth century, it is inserted into the list of Jesus’ ancestors. Epiphanius of Salamis (Panarion 78:7.5) writes: “Joseph was the brother of Cleopas, but the son of Jacob surnamed Panther; both of these brothers were the sons of the man surnamed Panther” (trans. Williams 2013: 620). Ever more sophisticated genealogies come to light that include the names Panther and Bar-​Panther and try to reconcile the contradictory genealogies of Matthew 1:1–​16 and Luke 3:23–​38 (Murcia 2014: 67–​79). Incorporation may have seemed more effective than simple denial as a means of defusing slander from the opposing camp. Or the weight of this tradition in the Jewish sphere (cf. Celsus’s Jew, the Tosefta, Toledot Yeshu), could have led the church fathers to consider it historically reliable. Either way, the inscription of Panther in fine in the list of Jesus’ ancestors demonstrates the strength of this Jewish tradition.

3.  The “Son of the Harlot” Not too long ago, many researchers claimed that one particular passage in the Mishnah should be seen as an allusion to Jesus. In the passage in question, Ben Azzai claims: “I have found a

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genealogical scroll in Jerusalem and therein is written: ‘So-​and-​so is an illegitimate child [ish peloni mamzer] from [an adulterous union with] a married woman’ ” (m. Yebam. 4:13). The term peloni or pelan (so-​and-​so), which is occasionally used to refer to Jesus when the author does not wish to name him explicitly (notably in the censored editions), is very common in rabbinic literature. The Mishnah does not mention Jesus once, either under his own name or under the name Ben Panthera. It seems that the author of this passage was not referring to Jesus. It was only from the seventh century onwards that this passage acquired a polemical meaning (Murcia 2014: 72–​9, 98). Many scholars are of the opinion that “Son of Panthera” had negative connotations in Jewish sources from the start, and that for Jews of the second century, it was equivalent to “son of a prostitute” (eg Jaffé 2008: 267–​8). But no trace of such a slander can be found in the earliest rabbinic sources, not even in the Talmud. In the Bavli (b. Shabb. 104b; b. Sanh. 67a), the mother of Jesus is certainly identified as Miriam megaddela (for the analysis of these texts see Murcia 2017: 41–​51), that is to say, Maria the Magdalene (sometimes incorrectly translated as Mary of Magdala) in the Gospel. But, for the Eastern Christians (eg Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Resurrection 4:13; Romanos the Melodist, Hymns 35:11–​12), who were the rabbinic writers’ contemporaries, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. She was the mother of Jesus. Furthermore, in the Bavli, she is not suspected of prostitution but of marital infidelity (b. Shabb. 104b; b. Sanh. 67a). Even in more polemical works such as the Toledot Yeshu she is rarely denigrated: “In all the versions, Miriam (Mary), Jesus’ mother, is described in a favorable light” (Dan 1972: 1209). She is a presented as victim, never as a “woman with a sinful life”, and Jesus therefore becomes the fruit of an involuntary adultery, a quasirape, committed during the period of menstruation (cf. Kallah 1:16). The appellation “son of the harlot” –​found in Pesiqta Rabbati 100b–​101a, a composite work that is difficult to date –​is extremely rare in Jewish sources. It is simply an allegory. The assimilation of idolatry with prostitution is already found in biblical texts (Isa 1:21; Jer 2:20). And the addition of heresy, which is closely associated with prostitution, is very early too (m. Soṭah 9:15; t. Shabb. 13:5 cf. Is 57,8). It is from this perspective that the Pharisees’ response to Jesus in the gospel of John should be understood: “We were not born of whoredom” (8:41b). This rabbinic metaphor, however, has been misinterpreted (eg Horbury 2011: 59). Very early on it was considered critical of the mother of Jesus (Tertullian, De Spectaculis 30:5–​6). The second part of the response explains the first: “We have one Father: God” (John 8:41c). In other words: We, the Pharisees, are Jews faithful to the religion of Abraham. The subtext was that Jesus is not. The dictum in the Gospel of Thomas –​ “Jesus says: ‘Whoever knows father and mother will be called the son of [the] harlot’ ” (logion 105) –​is no more than an echo of John 8:39–​41 (Brown 1993: 534–​5; see also Tertullian, De Spectaculis 30:5–​6). In this instance too, the term is, without doubt, used as an allegory. From the first century C. E . onwards, all “religious deviance” (minut) was, thanks to a play on words, lumped together with prostitution (zenut). Put on the same level, idolatry and heresy were personified and allegorized with the traits of a prostitute (cf. Rev 17:1). The accusation of illegitimate birth was initially meant simply to bring into question the legitimacy of Jesus’ teaching. It was not (apart from in Celsus, whose writing is not based on rabbinic tradition) an ad hominem attack. For rabbis, it was Christianity that was the “son of the harlot”, whereas Jews were “sons of Abraham” (cf. m. Abot 5:19; John 8:33, 37–​44, 53, 56). More concrete accusations of debauchery, connected with Christianity in later rabbinic documents and found in certain far-​fetched and “risqué” tales (Qoh. Rab. 1:25; b. Abod. Zar. 17a–​b; b. Abod. Zar. 28a; Cant. Rab. 7:13), are not the basis of this metaphor but the result of it. They appeared several centuries after the pagan

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slander against Christians (which ended in the third century C.E .) and were meant to invalidate a contemporary religion as treason against God. In the Mishnah, an ex eventu prophecy is attributed to Rabbi Eliezer (ca. 40–​120 C.E .). He announces that at the time of the coming of the Messiah, “the idolatrous kingdom [the Roman Empire] will be turned to minut” and that “the house of meeting will be for whoredom [zenut]” (m. Soṭah 9:15). Zenut stands for “church” here. This entire passage is a late addition to the Mishnah, probably of Babylonian origin (Teppler 2007: 162). At the time of its insertion, the Roman Empire was Christian. At that time minut was considered more important than idolatry.

4.  Who Are the Minim? According to Schremer: “In early rabbinic parlance, minim is a broad term for different Jewish groups who were considered by the rabbis as having secluded themselves from the community, and social separatism (or any indication of a tendency toward separatism) is termed minut” (Schremer 2010: IX). Minim (sing. min) is an umbrella term used in rabbinical literature to qualify rabbinic opponents (or supposed to be), but the question of what exactly it refers to continues to be debated (see Grossberg 2017). The term is quite often used to refer to Jewish Christians, and even to non-​Jewish Christians, particularly in the Bavli. The term notzrim is more specific. Initially, it referred only to Christians of Jewish origin and to Jews who converted to Christianity (cf. Acts 24:5). In the Bavli it refers to all Christians. Very early on, rabbis tried to protect themselves from any deviation from their halakhic rules. Included in the Amidah (also called Standing Prayer and Eighteen Benedictions), the birkat ha-​minim, or “curse of the heretics” (the term “benediction” is used euphemistically here) ironically refers to a curse formulated against these “deviant” Jews. Between the first and fourth centuries, the notzrim are explicitly referred to in this imprecation. According to Epiphanius (Pan. 29:9.2), three times a day –​in the morning, at noon, and in the evening –​Jews stand to curse the “Nazoraeans” (ie the notzrim). Three times a day a prayer (the Amidah) is said while standing. It is very clear here that Epiphanius is referring to the birkat ha-​ minim included in the Amidah. In the Mishnah, those who read from the “external books” and those “who whisper over a wound” are counted among “those who have no share in the world to come” (m. Sanh. 10:1). Since they are described as reading “external books” (perhaps the gospels and epistles of the New Testament) and carrying out healings (see infra), many scholars claim that it is Jewish Christians that are referred to here (eg Jaffé, 2018: 113–​5, 200–​4). But the “external books” could equally refer to deuterocanonical literature, to apocryphal literature, or to any other corpus of nonrabbinic texts. Besides, Christians rejected neither the belief in the resurrection of the dead (as did the Sadducees and the Gnostics) nor the divine inspiration of the Torah as claimed for the “Epicurean” (perhaps a general term for an atheist or free-​thinker) at the beginning of the same passage. Finally, reciting biblical verses for healing purposes was not the prerogative of Judaeo-​Christian groups only. Rabbis did so too. The practice was only forbidden if carried out by heretics. If this passage is aimed at Christians, it is not aimed at those of the mainstream church. The Tosefta (t. Ḥul. 2:20–​21), in contrast, deals with possible relations between rabbinic Jews and minim, chief among them Jewish Christians. It is forbidden to sell to them, buy from them, or receive anything from them. Their scriptures are put on the same level as books about magic and are thus forbidden. Any matrimonial union with them is prohibited. Their offspring are called “illegitimate children” (mamzerin). It is forbidden either to share know-​how with them or to be treated by them. 130

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5.  Christians as Healers An anecdote illustrates this last instruction. The episode in t. Ḥul. 2:22–​23 introduces two eminent figures of the second century, R. Ishmael and R. Eleazar ben Dama, and a min called Jacob, a doctor or healer who works in the name of Jesus. The Talmud Yerushalmi (y. Shabb. 14d-​15a; y. Abod. Zar. 40d-​41a), the Bavli (b. Abod. Zar. 27b) and tractate Qohelet Rabba (Qoh. Rab. 1:24) all contain versions of the story, reworked to varying degrees. Ben Dama is bitten by a snake. Jacob comes “to heal him in the name of Yeshua ben Panthera”. Ishmael prevents him from doing so, in spite of protestations from the patient, who dies before he can invoke a verse from the Bible to justify the intervention. Ishmael congratulates himself: “Happy are thou, Ben Dama, for you have departed in peace and have not broken down the fence [ordinances] of sages”. Whether or not it is true, this episode is of great interest. It may bear witness to relations between (the followers of) rabbis and the followers of Jesus at the time of, or prior to, its composition between the end of the first and the end of the third century (as a broad time frame) and most plausibly around 130 C. E . At this time, Jewish Christians from Galilee continued to treat sick Jews in the name of Jesus. Despite the birkat ha-​minim, Jewish Christians and Jewish non-​Christians (rabbis included) maintained friendly relations. At the time when the Tosefta was composed (ca. 300 C. E .) and possibly even earlier some rabbis seem to have been keen on ending such relationships. This episode, with its tragic conclusion, is used to set a precedent: the radical attitude of Rabbi Ishmael is presented as a model to follow from this time onwards. Another case of healing attributed to an anonymous min, who intervenes in the name of Yeshua ben Panthera, can be found in the Talmud Yerushalmi (y. Abod. Zar. 40d; y. Shabb 14d) and late Midrashim (Lam. Rab. 5:16 [ed. Buber]; Qoh. Rab. 10:5). Here, again, the intervention is criticized. As for the Talmud Bavli, another story about the healer Jacob the min is recounted, but in a parodic and salacious tale, supposed to have taken place at the time of R. Abbahu, a fourth-​ century rabbi associated with Caesarea. In this narrative Christianity is implicitly likened to a contagious disease with sexual connotations (Murcia 2014: 145–​53). The Christian heresy is thus perceived, by the tannaim as by their successors, as a real threat to the Judaism embodied by the rabbis. This is the root of the halakhic ban on accepting any aid from a min, even in situations of mortal danger. In Palestinian tales, it is always in the name of Yeshua ben Panthera that his followers heal or try to heal. The practice of healing is associated with this name from the very start (Murcia 2003: 145–​53). Note that it is never a question of sorcery or magic, or even of miracles in these tales. The healers are presented as the possessors of a popular medical knowledge that has already proved to be effective.

6.  Possible Relations? Rabbinic instructions leave open the possibility of conversing with a min, though they do discourage it. Through anecdotes they point to the dangers that are likely to be encountered by those who risk such contacts. It is said that even the renowned Rabbi Eliezer himself (d. ca. 120 C.E .) was seduced by Christian discourse, which almost led to his ruin. Arrested on a charge of minut, he was brought before a judge. He was at that time of great age. The governor, well-​disposed toward him because of his gray hair, is said to have questioned him (t. Ḥul. 2:24). Some scholars (Maier 1978: 152–​60; Schäfer 2007: 43–​6) believe to have found an allusion to sexual debauchery here, but there is nothing of this sort in the narrative (Murcia 2014: 174–​7). Skillfully, the old man dodges the questions and is eventually released. But the suspicion of heresy allegedly affected him terribly. The story goes on to state that his disciple, R. Akiva, questioned him. Eliezer remembers

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having had a discussion in Sepphoris with a min named Jacob (see supra). Jacob had delivered a teaching of unknown content to him in the name of Yeshua ben Panthera, which he appreciated. R. Eliezer reportedly realizes his mistake and, citing Proverbs (Prov 5:8; 7:26), draws his own lesson from the encounter by establishing an implicit parallel between heresy and “the adulterous wife” (the whore in the Bavli), whom one must not approach. The editors of the Bavli and Qohelet Rabbah, who revisit the scene of the encounter between the two characters (b. Abod. Zar. 16b-​17a; Qoh. Rab. 1:24), stress its polemical nature. The political and religious situation has evolved considerably by this point; the stakes have changed. Minut has overtaken idolatry to become the principal threat (b. Abod. Zar. 17a-​b). The Tosefta gave no details on the alleged dictum that Jacob received from Jesus. But later editors, who reformulated the episode, take it upon themselves to fill in the gaps. The dictum, they say, concerned “the hire of a harlot”, which is forbidden by law: “You shall not bring the hire of a harlot […] into the house of the Lord your God” (Deut 23:19). Jesus is said to have taught that these gifts, which cannot be accepted, must be returned to where they had come from: “They came from excrement and they will return to excrement”; therefore it is permitted to use them to make latrines (and bath-​houses, according to the Qoh. Rab. version). Irony is at its peak here: the entirety of Jesus’ teaching is boiled down to a halakhah on prostitutes, latrines, and excrement! It is necessary to read between the lines of this development (Murcia 2014: 605–​10). This alleged halakhah must be understood ironically as a self-​condemnation, in the sense of the mea culpa from Jesus in b. Giṭṭin 57a, in which he justifies his own infernal punishment. The harlot –​a biblical allegory that stands for idolatry –​refers to minut, that is, to Christianity. Excrement also refers to idolatry and thus to Christianity identified as such by rabbis. The latrines refer to places of Christian worship. They have nothing to do with “the house of the Lord”, the synagogue, which had replaced the Temple by then. The high priest (b. Abod. Zar. 17a) refers to the “leader of the Christians”, that is, the bishop of Rome, the patriarch of Constantinople, the Catholicos. So the moral is that the offerings of Christians (“The hire of the harlot”) cannot be accepted. They must be returned to where they came from. Thus, Christians should use this money to build “latrines”, ie churches (cf. m. Abod. Zar. 1:7), and “bath houses”, ie baptisteries (Qoh. Rab. 1:24). The episode ends with the same declaration as in the Tosefta. Eliezer cites Proverbs (Prov 5:8; 7:26) but, this time, the citation is made explicit: “ ‘Keep your way far from her’: this refers to minut. ‘And do not go near the door of her house, for many are the victims she has cast down’: this refers to the harlot”. Here, the editor provides the key that allows the attentive reader to unveil the second meaning. Rather than Jesus, it is the Christians who lived at the time of the editors who are targeted: their dignitaries, places of worship, and insolent display of wealth. And, very subtly, it is Jesus who plays the role of “witness for the prosecution” (“harlot”, “excrement”, “latrines”) against the movement he is supposed to have founded. It is also he who rules that the synagogue should not accept the offerings of Christians. At this late stage, the editors engage freely in parody, irony, and sarcasm. Christianity no longer constitutes the same attraction it held at the end of the first and beginning of the second century C. E ., but it is nonetheless seen as a threat against which Jews must protect themselves.

7.  Jesus the Idolator In the Bavli, Jesus is most often called Yeshu ha-​Notsri. Yeshu is not an insulting acronym, but rather corresponds to the pronunciation of the name Jesus in the churches where Syriac was spoken (Murcia 2014: 389–​94; see also Shuali 2020: 169–​71). And ha-​Notsri should not be translated –​ anachronistically –​with “the Nazarene” or “of Nazareth”. In the Bavli, ha-​Notsri simply means 132

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“the Christian”. For Babylonian rabbis, Jesus is simply the most perfect example of a “Christian”. This Jesus ignores Jewish customs. As an idolater, he becomes the founder of his own cult (b. Sanh. 107b; b. Soṭah 47a). Presented as the disciple of a sage (Yehoshua ben Peraḥia) who had lived more than a century earlier, he accompanies him to Egypt but is rejected, following a double misunderstanding. In despair, Jesus erects (zaqaf, also translated with “crucified”) a tile (or a brick) and prostrates himself before it (the icon was erected before being worshipped). The erected tile constitutes a physical sign that, for rabbis, Christianity is a neo-​idolatry of which the adoration of the cross (R. Yehiel, Disputation of Paris, 1240) and of icons (Boyarin 1999: 150) is the visible sign. Rather than Jesus, the iconodule and staurolatrian Babylonian Christians are meant here. Sages dread having “a son or disciple who publicly ‘burns his dish’ like Yeshu ha-​Notsri” (b. Ber. 17a–​b; b. Sanh. 103a), that is to say, one who converts to Christianity and then promotes this heresy. The Egyptian episode is the result of the Bavli editors’ reformulation of another narrative transmitted in the Yerushalmi (y. Ḥag. 77d; y. Sanh. 23c). The names of the principal characters have been changed. Promoted to the rank of a “disciple of sages”, Jesus is “rabbinized” here (Kalmin 1994: 155–​69). Rabbis have made him one of their own. But this is not a mark of esteem. Rabbinization is simply a parodic device used in the tales about Jesus. The narrators use the character, refashion him, and turn him into their own mouthpiece. In the Bavli, too, Jesus is presented as an avatar of Balaam with whom he shares certain characteristics. Both are presented as idolaters, sorcerers, and seducers. Both attempted to deceive and lead Israel astray. Since he promoted idolatry, associated with excrement (Murcia 2014: 599–​608), Jesus undergoes the unusual torture of “boiling excrement” in Gehenna (b. Giṭ. 56b–​57a). Invoked by necromancy, he stands up for Israel and justifies his own punishment, at the same time giving justification to rabbis who wished to punish him. Furthermore, the Bavli maintains the confusion between Jesus and the idolater Ben S(o)tada (the “son of Sotades”), an unknown character outside of rabbinical literature (Murcia 2014: 321–​ 75). The earliest sources (t. Shabb. 11:15; t. Sanh. 10:11) report only that Ben Stada (apparently ca. 100 C.E.) was condemned to death and stoned in the town of Lod (Lydda) for having attempted to seduce Israel (“to idolatry”: Schäfer 2007: 64). The Yerushalmi, which embellishes the theme, turns Ben Sotada into a sorcerer who had brought spells from Egypt (y. Shabb. 13d). The Bavli (in the uncensored editions) adds: “And he was hanged on the eve of Passover. Ben Stada is Ben Pandera” (b. Sanh. 67a; b. Shabb. 104b).

8.  Jesus’ Execution and the Trial and Execution of His Disciples In the Bavli, the execution of Jesus is reported in the following way: “It was taught: On the Eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu ha-​Notsri and the herald went forth before him forty days, saying: ‘ “Yeshu ha-​Notsri is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and deceived and led astray Israel. Whoever knows anything in his defence, let him come forward and plead on his behalf”. But they found nothing in his defence and they hanged him on the eve of Passover. Ulla said: “Do you suppose that Yeshu ha-​Notsri was one of those for whom one would plead in favour? He was a deceiver, and the Merciful says: ‘You shall not spare nor conceal him’ ([Deut 13:9]). But it was different with Yeshu ha-​Notsri, for he was close to the kingdom”. (b. Sanh. 43a) 133

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Scholars have discussed whether the reference to the execution of Jesus can be considered “historically” useful. The beginning of the section is presented as a baraita (“it was taught”). But no trace of this tradition can be found in earlier documents, because it is a pseudo-​baraita, a creation of the Bavli editors. Associated with Balaam and Ben Stada, Jesus becomes an idolater, deceiver, and sorcerer here. An “idolater” because the heresy of Christianity was considered a neo-​idolatry; a “deceiver” (or: “beguiler”, “seducer”, or “enticer”) because he tried to mislead Israel into idol-​ worship; a “sorcerer” because idolatry and sorcery were associated with each other (cf. Gal 5:20; Rev 21:8). It is worth noting that this accusation of sorcery brought against Jesus does not feature in earlier rabbinic sources. But it is a topos belonging to the ancient anti-​Christian controversy (Murcia 2003: 196–​206, 274–​5). Contrary to what has often been claimed (eg Klausner 1925: 27–​8, 272; Goldstein 1950: 27; Smith 1978: 43–​4; Stanton 1994: 175–​80), there is no evidence that this accusation was made at Jesus’ own time. It first appears in the second century C.E ., in texts written by authors who projected their own preoccupations onto the gospels: Justin (Dial. 69:7), Celsus’s Jew, and Tertullian (Apol. 21:17). In the gospels, Jesus is accused of being mad, possessed (Mark 3:21–​2, 30; John 7:20; 8:48, 52; 10:20), and of casting out demons by the power of Satan (Matt 9:34; 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15). The accusations of madness and possession, allegedly brought against him by scribes and by members of his own family (Mark 3:20–​35), have nothing to do with the accusation of sorcery, which is a localized slander that fits a specific context (Murcia 2017: 303–​8). As for the healings, they simply related to the question of how to interpret Sabbath rest. It was only in response to Christian propaganda that Jesus became a “sorcerer”: a charge that can be seen in Christian literature of the following centuries, when Christian writers tried to refute it (Murcia 2014: 120–​5; 442–​53). The Babylonian rabbinic perception of Jesus as a sorcerer is neither based directly on gospels (Twelftree 1984: 320–​1, 340) nor on earlier rabbinic tradition. In earlier rabbinic sources (Tosefta, Yerushalmi), Jesus and his followers are presented as competent healing practitioners (see supra), not as sorcerers. In the Bavli tradition (b. Sanh. 43a), Jesus undergoes the rabbinic punishment set out for the set of crimes of which he is accused: he is condemned to stoning, and his body hung on a piece of wood (cf. m. Sanh. 7:4 and 6:4). The editors thus skillfully avoid mentioning the cross, an object of veneration for Christians and a symbol of their dissidence. The 40-​day period between sentencing and execution recalls the period of fasting before Passover, to which the Christians (whom rabbis would have encountered in Babylonia) adhered. The proximity of Jesus to the “kingdom”, that is to say the Roman Empire, can be explained by the political context. At the time when the Bavli was written, the Roman emperors were Christian. As for those held responsible for the execution, the text can be considered an echo of contemporary Christian discourse: “It was the Jews who killed Jesus” (eg Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 16:4; 133:6; John Chrysostom, Adversus Judaeos 1:7.2 and 5; 2:3.8; 3:6.6; 6:1.7 and 3.1; Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Faith 12.9). The editors merely repeat and appropriate what they have heard: Jesus was hanged “on the eve of Passover” and it was the Jews, who carried out the trial and execution. The final sentence expresses surprise that nobody came forward in Jesus’ defense although Jesus “the Christian” was “close to the kingdom”, ie Rome. This is another anachronism suggesting that the narrative was formulated in a post-​Constantinian context (Murcia 2014: 423–​74). To Jesus’ execution, the Bavli editors add, for good measure, the execution of “his disciples” (b. Sanh. 43a). These are five fictional characters whose names were invented for the occasion (apart from the first: Mattai =​ Matthew). Their trial proceeds as a series of duels between the disciples and their judges (apparently members of the Sanhedrin who represent the sages here), based on verses from the Hebrew Bible, in which the sages always come out on top. One after another the 134

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disciples are condemned to death as a consequence of this fictitious trial that combines Bible verses with wordplay. It is obvious here that rabbis are not responding to the “written text” of the gospels (the only written reference is the Hebrew Bible) but to a Christian doctrine that spread orally. The target is not the written itself but the discourse on the written. Herford (1903: 93–​4) noted that each of the five disciples represents one “facet” of the Christian belief in the Messiah. Rather than his disciples, it is Jesus to whom rabbis really refer, namely, the Jesus of faith, of Christian discourse and its promoters.

9.  What About the Gospels? In rabbinical literature, several references are made to the term gilyonim (pl), but does this term refer to the gospels? That all depends on the era and the context. In Isaiah 8:1, gilayon (sg.) refers to a surface used for writing, perhaps a “tablet”. In the Mishnah, it refers to the “margins”, the “blank space” of a manuscript scroll (m. Yad. 3:4) likely to contain annotations. But in the Tosefta the gilyonim are put on the same level as the books of the minim and Ben Sira (t. Yad. 2:13; t. Shabb. 13:5). In this instance, is it simply scriptural margins annotated by minim that are meant, or a group of writings rejected by rabbis because they were authored by minim? This ambiguity is made explicit in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Shabb. 116a). With a double word play, rabbis link the noun gilayon to the Gospel (evangelion): “Rabbi Meir called it ’aven gilayon (margin of falsehood). Rabbi Yoḥanan called it avon gilayon (sinful margin)”. Here the explanations are attributed to early Palestinian rabbis but probably stem from Babylonian sages (on Rabbi Meir see Murcia 2018: 183–​90). The Bavli recounts two stories in which a third of a verse (Matt 5:13b) and half a verse (Matt 5:17b) may be quoted from the gospels. The first (b. Bek. 8b) pits Yehoshua ben Ḥananiah (ca. 130–​150 C .E .) against Athenian sages. The situation has been transposed: the historical context is in fact that of the talmudic editors. “Athenian Sages” probably refers to Christian clergy. In the continuation of the text they question the rabbi: “When salt becomes unsavoury, wherewith is it salted?” Yehoshua answers: “With the afterbirth of a mule”. The “Athenian sages” retort that such a thing does not exist (a mule is not supposed to give birth), to which he replies: “And can salt become unsavoury?” An absurd question is followed by an absurd answer. This controversial section is aimed at criticizing Christian doctrine: just as salt cannot lose its flavor and a mule cannot give birth (theoretically), a virgin cannot have a child (Schäfer 2007: 22–​4; Rosenberg 2016: 484–​6). The second story (b. Shabb. 116a–​b), which immediately follows the double word play cited above, sets the scene with three characters: Rabban Gamliel, Imma Shalom, and a “philosopher”. Imma Shalom is presented as Gamliel’s sister: a family connection dreamed up by the narrators of the story (Ilan 1997: 11–​7). Gamliel and “his sister” try to corrupt the “philosopher”, a Christian judge with the reputation of being incorruptible. Imma Shalom gives him a lamp of gold. The philosopher is quick to agree with her on a question of inheritance and refers to the “gospel”, which is supposed to have replaced the Torah. The next day, the pair come back to find him. Gamliel gives him a Libyan ass and cites the gospel he claims to have read: “I have not come to take away from the Law of Moses and I have not come to add to the Law of Moses”. The philosopher then sides with Gamliel in the inheritance dispute and Imma Shalom says at the end: “The ass has come and trodden out the lamp!”. This episode, supposed to have taken place around 70–​80 C . E ., does not describe a historical event (vs. Jaffé 2005: 333–​4). It is a fictional tale of late composition (Maier 1982: 81; Ilan 1997: 14–​7; Zellentin 2011: 137–​66; Paz 2019: 517–​40) that belongs to the latest period of the 135

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Talmud’s editing (ca. 700 C . E .). The editor has adapted an earlier (Hebrew) tale that appears in Pesiqta de Rav Kahana 15:9 (Wallach 1941: 404–​6; Maier 1982: 80; Ilan 1997: 15; Zellentin 2011: 143–​6). The adapted version maintains the main idea (the corruption of judges) and the morale: “The ass has trodden out the lamp”. The underlying meaning is that “one bribe casts out another”. Contrary to what has been suggested recently (Zellentin 2011: 145, 164–​5), it should be made clear that there are no connotations of sexual debauchery in this tale (Murcia 2014: 280–​2). The text is didactic, polemical, and satirical. The issues at stake fall, for the most part, into two categories: religious and economic. On the one hand, it seeks to discredit Christianity (Ilan 1997: 14–​7) by pointing out its contradictions: the gospels have not superseded the Torah because they claim the opposite themselves (Matt 5:17–​18). As in the first story (b. Bek. 8b), the writer demonstrates that a sage (in this case Gamliel) is able to bring down a supposedly educated Christian with his own weapons. Any discussion is therefore useless. But the lack of integrity is also evident. This concerns Christians, whose reasoning is shown to be deceptive (they cite only what suits them), their justice system and, more broadly, any non-​Jewish justice system. In matters of inheritance, Jewish women could be tempted to turn toward non-​Jewish authorities who treated both sexes on equal terms, even if it meant converting to Christianity (Zellentin 2011: 155–​6). The writer therefore insists on the corruption of Christian judges, who have nothing more than a veneer of honesty. They are so corrupt that no bribe can offer a real guarantee. The quotation from Matthew 5:17b, which the narrator places “at the end” of Matthew’s gospel, betrays his lack of familiarity with the real contents of the gospel. This half-​verse may have been well-​known among Jewish intellectuals (Murcia 2014: 258).

10.  Evidence of Direct Knowledge? R. Abbahu (d.died ca. 320 C. E .) was a Palestinian rabbi who lived in Caesarea. The Yerushalmi attributes to him the following dictum: “If a man tells you, ‘I am God’, he lies. ‘I am the Son of Man’; in the end he will regret it. ‘I go up to heaven’, he said it but will not perform it” (y. Ta‘an. 2:1, 65b). Experts agree that this passage refers to Jesus (eg Schäfer 2007: 107–​9; Carleton Paget 2010: 279). But the polemic does not necessarily depend on any direct knowledge of or allusion to the gospels. A more general knowledge of Christian claims is enough to explain it (Herford 1903: 62–​3). The Yerushalmi and the Midrashim also credit Abbahu with having relations with the minim, with whom he seems to have entered into discussions frequently. According to Herford (1903: 90), “the Rabbis gained most of their information about Jesus from such intercourse”. According to Schäfer (2007: 8–​9; see also Furstenberg 2015: 303–​24), talmudic tales about Jesus and his family “are deliberate and highly sophisticated counternarratives to the stories about Jesus’ life and death in the Gospels”. They allow the reader to presuppose “a detailed knowledge of the New Testament” (ibid.). But many scholars remain skeptical of “the strongest formulation of his thesis, namely, that the rabbis of the Bavli had the New Testament before them as a written source” (Kalmin 2009: 110). In fact, it is clear that the attack is not formulated against “a literary source […] some version of the New Testament available” (Schäfer 2007: 122), but against an oral discourse based on it. This is evident in the parodic tales seen above and in the rabbinic discourse itself. It demonstrates the lack of knowledge and interest rabbis had in this literature. For the sages, the gospel was no more than a heretical text, whose very name lends itself to negative wordplay. Contact with Christians –​even indirect contact –​is enough to explain the little information at their disposal (the sum total of gospel quotations in rabbinic literature amounts to a half-​verse and a third of a verse). 136

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The Bavli scribes had no more than a vague idea about the era in which Jesus lived. He is said to have been the disciple of Yehoshua ben Peraḥia (ca. 100 B.C.E .), and the contemporary of R. Eliezer, R. Akiva, and Pappos ben Yehuda (ca. 100 C.E .). According to these irreconcilable dates, he should have been alive either a century before, or a century after the time the gospels associate him with. A direct consultation of the gospels would have allowed rabbis to see that 1) Jesus was born at the time of Augustus, at the end of the reign of Herod the Great; 2) he was a child at the time of Archelaus; 3) he died under the reign of Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judaea (mentioned by Philo and Josephus), when Herod Antipas was tetrarch, Caiaphas high priest, and Ananus ex-​high priest. Their lack of knowledge implies that neither the gospels nor Jesus or his disciples (whose names rabbis do not know), were of any real interest to sages. It was the Christians and the Christianity of their era that were the focus of their attention.

11. Conclusions With two exceptions (the tannaitic use of the patronym Ben Panthera for Jesus and the reputation of his followers as healers), rabbinic literature, written over many centuries, does not speak of Jesus as a historical figure nor mention his disciples. It merely tells us how they were perceived by rabbis. In the Hebrew Bible, the traits of a prostitute were used as an allegory for pagan cults and idolatry was associated with excrement. Originating from Judaism, “the Christian heresy” supplants “idolatry” and becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire. Identified with a neo-​idolatry, minut, which inherits the same negative attributes, becomes the principal threat. It is this double entendre of “prostitute” and “excrement” that expresses these simple ideas about Christianity’s starting point and destination and Jesus himself: the illegitimate birth of Jesus (and Christianity) on the one hand –​metaphorically, “the son of the harlot” –​and the final destination of Gehenna with the torture of “boiling excrement” on the other. Guided by this spirit, rabbinical literature is essentially self-​referential. Later rabbis reworked stories from earlier corpora to express new concerns. They refashioned and combined characters to suit their needs. Their fascination with minut and its danger underlie most of the episodes that feature Jesus and his followers. These texts mirror the milieu and Sitz im Leben in which they were written. In the Bavli, Jesus “the Christian” (ha-​Notsri) is anachronistically made responsible for his own cult. As an idolater, seducer, and sorcerer, associated with Balaam (or Haman in the Targum) and confused with Ben Stada, he is stoned and hanged for his crimes. Rather than the historical Jesus himself, the target of this polemic are iconodules, that is, cross-​worshipping Babylonian Christians. They are the ones who “mock the words of the sages” and, metaphorically, “publicly burn their dish” by promoting their neo-​idolatry. The rabbinic tradents and editors of the Bavli and late Midrashim (Qoh. Rab.) excel in the art of parody. They employ irony with finesse and do not hesitate to resort to derision and even cynicism when it comes to discrediting their adversaries. Jesus is “rabbinized” and used as a mouthpiece of rabbis on the way to (and even in) Gehenna. Allusions and appeals to implicit meanings, which are common in this literature, indicate that the message is directed at an audience that has been forewarned. The tales of the Bavli are of late craftmanship. The Babylonian corpus could have been completed as late as the second half of the eighth century C.E . in Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid Caliphate (Murcia 2014: 678). The possibility that its editors had access to a primitive copy of the Toledot Yeshu, a document that circulated in Babylonia for more than two centuries, must therefore be taken into account. Unlike rabbis, the authors of the Toledot demonstrated, as did Trypho (Justin’s Jew) and Celsus’s Jew, a genuine knowledge of the content of the gospels. This difference 137

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in perception and reaction, triggered among Jews by their encounter with Christianity, invites an examination of the interaction between rabbinic and synagogal Judaism and the evolution of this relationship. Everything seems to indicate that the fusion of the two was still not accomplished at the time of the final editing of the Babylonian Talmud.

Bibliography Boyarin, D. (1999). Dying for God. Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brown, R. E. (1993). The Birth of the Messiah. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Doubleday. Carleton Paget, J. (2010). Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Chadwick, H. (trans.) (1965). Origen: Contra Celsum. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dan, J. (1972). “Toledoth Yeshu,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 15. Jerusalem and New York: Keter Publishing House & Macmillan, 1209. Deissmann, A. (1906). “Der Name Panthera,” in C. Bezold (ed.), Orientalische Studien: Theodor Nöldeke zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, vol. 2. Giessen: Töpelmann, 871–​75. Deissmann, A. (1927). Light from the Ancient East. The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-​Roman World. 4th ed. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Eisler, R. (1931). The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist. London: Methuen. Furstenberg, Y. (2015). “The Midrash of Jesus and the Bavli’s Counter-​Gospel,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 22: 303–​24. Goldstein, M. (1950). Jesus in the Jewish Tradition. New York, NY: Macmillan. Grossberg, D. M. (2017). Heresy and the Formation of the Rabbinic Community. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Herford, R. T. (1903). Christianity in Talmud and Midrash. London: Williams and Norgate. Horbury, W. (2011). “The Strasbourg Text of the Toledot,” in P. Schäfer, M. Meerson and Y. Deutsch (eds.), Toledot Yeshu (“The Life Story of Jesus”) Revisited. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 49–​59. Ilan, T. (1997). “The Quest for the Historical Beruriah, Rachel, and Imma Shalom,” AJS Review 21: 1–​17. Jaffé, D. (2005). Le judaïsme et l’avènement du christianisme. Paris: Cerf. Jaffé, D. (2008). “Une ancienne dénomination talmudique de Jésus: Ben Pantera. Essai d’analyse philologique et historique,” Theologische Zeitschrift 64: 258–​70. Jaffé, D. (2018). Les identités en formation. Rabbis, hérésies, premiers chrétiens. Paris: Cerf. Jastrow, M. (1903). A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. London: Luzac & Co. Kalmin, R. (1994). “Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,” Harvard Theological Review 87: 155–​69. Kalmin, R. (2009). “Jesus in Sasanian Babylonia,” Jewish Quarterly Review 99: 107–​12. Klausner, J. (1925). Jesus of Nazareth. His Life, Times, and Teaching. New York, NY: Macmillan. Lauterbach, J. Z. (1951). “Jesus in the Talmud,” in J. Z. L auterbach (ed.), Rabbinic Essays. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 473–​570. Maier, J. (1982). Jüdische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Christentum in der Antike. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Murcia, T. (2003). Jésus. Les miracles élucidés par la médecine. Paris: Carnot. Murcia, T. (2014). Jésus dans le Talmud et la littérature rabbinique ancienne. Turnhout: Brepols. Murcia, T. (2017). Marie appelée la Magdaléenne. Entre Traditions et Histoire: ier-​viiie siècle. Aix-​ en-​Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence. Murcia, T. (2018). “The Parable of the Twins in the Tosefta: An Underlying Reference to Jesus?” in P. Lanfranchi and J. Verheyden (eds.), Jews and Christians in Antiquity. Leuven: Peeters, 183–​90. Niehoff, M. R. (2013). “A Jewish Critique of Christianity from Second-​Century Alexandria: Revisiting the Jew Mentioned in Contra Celsum,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 21: 151–​75. Paz, Y. (2019). “The Torah of the Gospel: A Rabbinic Polemic against The Syro-​Roman Lawbook,” Harvard Theological Review 112: 517–​40. Rosenberg, M. (2016). “Sexual Serpents and Perpetual Virginity: Marian Rejectionism in the Babylonian Talmud,” Jewish Quarterly Review 106: 465–​93. Schäfer, P. (2007). Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schonfield, H. J. (1937). According to the Hebrews. London: Duckworth.

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The Rabbinic Representation of Jesus and His Followers Schremer, A. (2010). Brothers Estranged: Heresy, Christianity, and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shuali, E. (2020). “Yešu or Yešuaʿ? A Sketch of the History of Jesus’ Names in Hebrew from Antiquity to the Present,” Revue des études juives 179: 161–​79. Smith, M. (1978). Jesus the Magician. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Stanton, G. N. (1994). “Jesus of Nazareth: A Magician and a False Prophet Who Deceived God’s People?” in J. B. Green and M. Turner (eds.), Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ. Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 164–​80. Stern, M. (1992). Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. 2. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Strack, H. L. (1910). Jesus, die Häretiker und die Christen nach den ältesten jüdischen Angaben. Leipzig: Hinrichs. Teppler, Y. Y. (2007). Birkat haMinim. Jews and Christians in Conflict in the Ancient World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Twelftree, G. H. (1984). “Jesus in Jewish Traditions,” in D. W enham (ed.), The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 289–​341. Van Voorst, R. E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Wallach, L. (1941). “The Textual History of an Aramaic Proverb (Traces of the Ebionean Gospel),” Journal of Biblical Literature 60: 403–​15. Williams, F. (trans.) (2013). The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, books II-​III. 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill. Zellentin, H. M. (2011). Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish and Christian Literature. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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9 THE CHURCH FATHERS ON JEWS AND JUDAISM Burton L. Visotzky

From its advent, Christianity cast its gaze upon Judaism as it sought to distinguish itself first among the Jews, and then from the Jews as a universal church of the gentiles. It engendered a sibling rivalry on the order of Cain and Abel’s, often with similar results for the Jews. Throughout the first centuries of the church, indeed for the half-​millennium of the patristic period, and then all the way through World War II, the eye of the church never removed its hostile gaze from defining itself in opposition to Judaism, even as the latter grew, matured, and evolved. In this chapter, we survey Jews and Judaism in the works of the church fathers (cf. Krauss 1892, for the earliest of these surveys). We cover a period during which Christianity developed out of and then alongside Judaism, sharing a biblical foundation and reinterpreting it in variant ways. In late antique and early Byzantine times, Judaism and Christianity were seen by the church to be competitors with one another. Christianity envisioned itself in relationship to Judaism, as the well-​rooted tree to which its Christian stock was successfully grafted (Rom 11:17–​8). Judaism, in turn, found itself unconsciously influenced in positive ways by the church, and more consciously in reaction to what it perceived to be the predations of the Christian Empire, post-​325 C . E ., with Constantine’s ascent at the Council of Nicaea and the advent of muscular Christianity. From the earliest years of the Christian movement(s), Judaism, and in particular rabbinic Judaism, tended to look away from Christianity (but see Niehoff in this volume). While it can never be clear whether this was a case of willfully ignoring Christianity –​perhaps in the hopes that it was an inconsequential heresy and if ignored would just go away –​the earliest rabbinic literature fundamentally avoids discussion of Christianity or includes it among Graeco-​Roman religious practices that were considered idolatrous. Only a miniscule portion of rabbinic literature treats Christianity explicitly (Burns 2016; Visotzky 2017, but see Schäfer 2012). This created a disparity of gaze. Judaism essentially looked away, while the New Testament and the church fathers looked always upon Judaism with an Oedipal eye. It is against this background that we turn to examine Jews and Judaism in the works of the church fathers.

1.  The Sources and Their Languages The works of the church fathers are many and varied, much as was the church itself during this period. It has been the custom of Western scholars to focus their attention on works in Greek and Latin (eg Quasten 1950–​86). This is in part due to the classical education those scholars received, 140

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and in part to the hegemony of the Greek-​and Latin-​speaking church in Rome, Constantinople, and to some extent the Levant. But there remains a significant corpus of patristic literature in Syriac, and a collection of works of the Desert Fathers (as well as so-​called Gnostic literature to which the Fathers reacted) in Coptic. To be sure, there are other, smaller corpora, but Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic cover the broadest linguistic expanse of the ancient church. While there has always been a romantic nostalgia for recovering works of the early church in Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic (as opposed to Syriac), those works have been lost to us, suppressed, or simply did not exist. The range of languages entails more than surface linguistic distinctions. Syriac and Greek speakers had much greater day-​to-​day contact with the Jews who were their neighbors than did Latin speakers in the West, where Jews were few and far between. In Greek-​speaking parts of the Roman-​Byzantine Empire, both Jews and Christians spoke that language. Further east, while Christians ostensibly spoke Syriac and Jews spoke Eastern Aramaic, there was little practical difference between the two dialects, but for a few specialized items of vocabulary. The two communities could not only understand one another but perhaps even found some common cause as minorities among the Sasanian-​Zoroastrian majority. Furthermore, language choice affected the genres of patristic literature. There is much affinity between a Syriac verse homily on the Christian “Old Testament” a memra or a madrasha, and a rabbinic Aramaic or Hebrew piyyut (liturgical poetry) or midrash (biblical interpretation) on the same passage. So too, there are commonalities between the Greek kontakion (hymn) of Romanos Melodious and those in Hebrew and Aramaic (Schirmann 1953; Brock 1997 and 1999; Münz-​ Manor 2010). However fluent the Jews of Roman Palestine were in Roman rhetoric (see the summary in ­chapters 5–​7 of Visotzky 2016), the distance between Greek or Syriac was much shorter than between Latin genres and those of the Jews. What, then, are the works we survey here? It is not our brief to survey the works of the New Testament, even though it is there that the attitudes and tropes of the fathers toward Jews and Judaism are first found. While it behooves us to mention Paul’s authentic letters, the epistles to the Hebrews and James, and of course the gospels and Acts, we will not discuss them further. Below we will note that some of the areas of dispute in current scholarship also have their origins in the study of the New Testament and its interpretations.

a)  Apostolic Fathers We look to the works of the Apostolic Fathers, the books in Greek that represent the writings of those earliest Christian writers (first and early second century C.E .) who presumably might have had first-​hand knowledge of Jesus’ disciples. Of these, we may briefly focus on the Didache and Barnabas, the former for its affinities to and attempt at distinction from Jewish literature. The Didache often seems closest in genre to the Mishnah in its didactic prescriptions for Christian behaviors. Much of what it discusses comfortably could be considered “Jewish”. That said, the author is likely distinguishing himself and his community from the Jews when he says: “But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week. Rather, fast on the fourth day and the preparation [Friday]. Do not pray like the hypocrites, but rather as the Lord commanded in his gospel” (Didache 8:1–​3). For his part, Barnabas has a sustained argument regarding Christian replacement of Judaism (­chapters 2 and 12–​13). Yet Barnabas also displays textual affinities to rabbinic Judaism’s interpretative methods and content (eg chapter 12 in typologies of the cross, ­chapter 9 with use of numerical equivalencies. See Visotzky 1995: 12–​6). To round out our brief survey of the Apostolic 141

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Fathers, we should also mention that the Martyrdom of Polycarp implicates the Jewish community in cheering on his death (chapters 12 and 17–​18). This is less aggressive than the narrative motif found in Acts, where the Jews themselves cause the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7:59).

b)  Ante-​Nicene Fathers The tone shifts considerably when we turn to the works of Justin (ca. 100–​165 C.E .). Writing in Greek in the mid-​second century, Justin was born in Flavia Neapolis (=​Nablus/​Shechem). He probably understood Aramaic and possibly had direct contact with some members of the Jewish community. Minimally, Justin would have known Samaritans who lived in the Neapolis environs. Justin repeats the case for Christian supersession of both Jewish practice and Judaism as a covenantal religion (chapter 11). He further accuses the Jews of cursing Christians in synagogues (chapter 16) and levels charges of deicide against the Jews (ibid.), all in his Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew. Cursing the Christians is a charge against the Jews found in the Gospel of John (eg John 7:49, and the aposynagogos in John 9:22, 12:42, and 16:2), although there are those who debate whether Justin had access to that gospel (a thorough study of Jewish curses presumed to be against Christianity is provided by Langer 2012). The accusation of deicide is found in the New Testament in 1 Thess 2:14–​15 (see especially Justin, Dialogue chapter 16 and my discussion with Reinharz on John’s gospel in Visotzky and Reinharz 2005). Justin’s charges have had a long Nachleben in Christian texts and theology, pre-​Vatican II. Justin’s contemporary, Marcion of Sinope (ca. 85–​160 C.E.), was ultimately deemed a heretic by the church. He utterly rejected the God of the Jews and the Hebrew Bible, going so far as to bowdlerize his version of the New Testament (Vinzent 2014). He did not propagate replacement theology, as did so many of the church fathers. Rather, he utterly rejected any association with Judaism. There was little subtlety in his theological rationale rejecting Judaism (on Justin, Marcion, Melito, and other second-​ century fathers, see Lieu 1996; Fredriksen and Irshai 2006). Another contemporary was Melito of Sardis (d. 180 C.E.). In his Easter homily, he repeats charges of deicide and other negative depictions of the Jews, even as he has strong affinities with Jewish calendar practices regarding Passover. This confusion of theological purity has led some to assume Melito was born Jewish, and others to suggest that he was reacting against the power of the justly famous Sardis synagogue, which actually post-​dates him (Wilken 1976; Cohick 2000). Moving from Greek-​speaking Asia Minor to Latin North Africa, we note that Tertullian of Carthage engaged in a thorough-​going anti-​Jewish invective. In his aptly named tract, Adversus Iudaeos, written ca. 200 C.E., Tertullian argues for Christian supersession and adds the argument that Jewish rejection of Jesus led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Levitical cult there (Adversus Iudaeos, passim; Dunn 2008). His arguments would be echoed two centuries later in North Africa by Augustine of Hippo. Origen, born in Alexandria (ca. 185 C . E .) is a special case. He was so prolific that Jerome (Letter 33:4) said of him: “Who has ever managed to read all that he has written?” Origen was a meticulous scholar who learned Hebrew and Aramaic –​he lived for the last two decades of his life in Caesarea Maritima. He consulted Jews regarding the text and commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. His views on Jews and Judaism hold sufficient interest that he was the subject of a pioneering monograph more than four decades ago (de Lange 1976, see more recently McGuckin 1992).

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c)  Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers A somewhat later father, Eusebius, hailed also from Caesarea Maritima and was its bishop from ca. 314 until his death ca. 340 C. E . In addition to being a prolific biblical scholar, Eusebius had the favor of Emperor Constantine; so, when the latter held his famous Council of Nicaea, it was Eusebius who took minutes. In addition to his politics during that highly contentious period of Arian controversies –​including those that determined the posthumous fate of Origen –​Eusebius wrote in Greek about biblical geography, chronology, and most powerfully, ecclesiastical history. It was this latter work that established Christian theological supersessionist history as the Western “norm” for the sixteen centuries that followed (Wilken 1971). Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica and his Demonstratio Evangelica explore at length Christianity’s superiority over and replacement of Judaism. Following the death of Eusebius, there arose a generation (second half of the fourth century C . E .) often referred to as “the golden age”. These “fathers” are technically scholars of the church, given their later dating, but their works in Greek and Latin may be seen as high points of patristic literature. John Chrysostom wrote in Greek from Antioch on the Orontes. As he lived in close contact with the Jewish community there and was also familiar with Jews in Galilee, his comments are important to the historian, as were his anti-​Jewish or anti-​judaizing invectives trenchant for generations of Antisemitism following him. Chrysostom was a controversialist throughout his life, and this has yielded varying assessments of his legacy (eg Kelly 1995; Meeks and Wilken 1978; Wilken 1983; Sandwell 2007). Chrysostom’s Latin writing colleagues were even more influential than he. Jerome lived the last three and a half decades of his life in Bethlehem, after serving in the great metropolises of Rome (as Pope Damasus’ secretary) and Antioch. He was a prolific writer, and we have his own letters to help us reconstruct his life, scholarship, and attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. Jerome studied Hebrew in order to advance his commentaries and translation of the Bible into the Latin version now known as the Vulgate, itself a subtle form of supersessionism, since it would replace the Hebrew Bible in the church. His diatribes against his theological and political enemies (who seemed to him legion) include many nasty comments about the Jews. His work and life are much studied (Kelly 1975; Kamesar 1993; Newman 2001). Augustine of Hippo lived and wrote in the fifth century C.E . in North Africa. He was enormously influential on virtually all subsequent Western church doctrine and thought. Augustine’s theories about the persistence of the Jewish people despite their rejection of Christ were the cause of both scholastic speculation and active persecution in the Middle Ages. His vast legacy also remains the subject of apologetics and debate (Brown 1967; Chadwick 1986; Fredricksen 2008). We close this section with a brief notice of a bête noire of Augustine and Jerome: Pelagius. Each of them thought that the British monk’s theology on freedom of will and his opposition to the notion of original sin was “too Jewish”. In truth, there are many affinities between Pelagius and subsequent Pelagian writing and those of the rabbis in the late-​fourth and early-​fifth centuries (Visotzky 2009).

d)  Syriac Writings and Coptic and Greek Desert Fathers We have thus far considered the Greek and Latin fathers more or less chronologically. If we take a brief detour in time back to the early third century, we may also survey some notable Syriac sources and their attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. There is a strong linguistic bond between the Syriac speakers of the eastern church and the Eastern Aramaic speakers of the Babylonian rabbinic

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Jewish community in that period. As mentioned above, one might have expected certain alliances between the two minority religions, but this does not seem to have been the case. Particularly from the mid-​fourth century, once Christianity was deemed to be the religion of the enemy Roman Empire, Jews and Christians largely showed enmity for one another. This was even the case in Edessa, which was within the limes of the eastern Roman Empire. The Didascalia Apostolorum is a fertile text for comparing Syriac Christianity with Judaism in the early third century. Although it draws on earlier, original Greek church teachings while offering scriptural exegeses, we can see among its explanations how Jews came to have the law as punishment for the golden calf (Didascalia Apostolorum chap. 26, 2.1.6), and why Judaism was superseded by Christianity. Its distinction between the ten commandments and the “second legislation” may stem from Greek references to deuterosis but could also be attributable to the Syriac community (Visotzky 1991; Fonrobert 2001). When we move to the fourth-​century writings of Aphrahat, we find a sustained anti-​Jewish polemic. In his Demonstrations (homilies) 11, 12, 13, 15 he refutes Christian observance of circumcision, Passover, the Sabbath, and Jewish dietary laws, respectively. His homilies, written in the last years of his life (he died in 345C. E .) make clear that he was influenced by rabbinic Judaism even as he refuted it (Ginzberg 1906; Neusner 1997). His younger colleague Ephrem spanned the Roman and Sasanian empires. He was part of the School of Nisibis (founded ca. 350 C. E .), located on the westernmost border of the Sasanian Empire. But, when it was forced to move in 363, it moved to Edessa, firmly on the Roman side of the border. The school returned to Nisibis in 489 C.E ., and from this later period we also have the canons of the School of Nisibis. These have been profitably exploited as a source of Jewish history of the period (Gafni 1981). Ephrem, for his part, was active in the school by teaching, writing biblical commentary, hymns, and refutations of heresies. He moved with the school to Edessa, where he died in 373 C. E . Ephrem’s many hymns were easy to remember and set to catchy tunes. Through them, he taught catechesis, attacked doctrines with which he disagreed, as well as attacking Judaism (Shepardson 2008). Recently there has been an apologetic attempt to show Ephrem’s appreciation for Judaism and Jewish modes of exegesis (Narinskaya 2010). We close this overview of the major works of the church fathers relevant to Jews and Judaism with notice of the fifth century C. E . Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Desert Fathers). Contemporary and somewhat later monks were responsible for whipping up the masses into anti-​ Jewish frenzy and even leading mobs to burn synagogues (Ambrose, Epistle 41.1 to his sister Marcellina; as bishop, Ambrose supported the monks). But this was not the case with the early desert fathers, who were primarily ascetics and contemplatives. Stories about these men and women circulated in Coptic and eventually were committed to writing in Greek. There are affinities in both form and content between these narratives and those of Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis (Hezser 1995, 1996, and 2018; Bar-​Asher Siegel 2013).

2.  Texts, Translations, and Handbooks The following texts, translations, and handbooks on the church fathers are available to researchers and others interested in Christianity and its relationship to Jews and Judaism in late antiquity.

a)  Text Editions The standard editions of patristic texts remain those in the Patrologia Graeca (161 volumes) and the Patrologia Latina (221 volumes) edited between 1844 and 1886 under the general supervision 144

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of Jacques Paul Migne in Paris (now available online). There are occasional critical editions of specific father’s works, but Migne remains the standard collection. There is also a two-​volume Patrologia Syriaca presenting Syriac texts and Latin translations in facing columns published under the editorship of Graffin during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (also available online). Other smaller Syriac works (and studies of their relationship to Judaism) have been published more recently by Oxford scholar Sebastian Brock (1979, 1997, 1999).

b)  English Translations Translations have been issued in four major series, along with a compendium of patristic commentaries on Scripture that is currently in progress. The Ante-​Nicene Fathers were published in 1885 and following years under the editorship of Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson in ten volumes. The Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers were translated and published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century under the general editorship of Philip Schaff and Henry Wace in 28 volumes (14 in the first series, another 14 in the second series). All 38 volumes were republished in 1994 by Hendrickson Publishers and are now all available online. More recent translations have been done in the series The Fathers of the Church, published by Cima Publishing and the Catholic University of America Press, currently at 127 volumes. Some of these volumes are available online. Another series of translations, Ancient Christian Writers, now at seventy volumes, has been edited by Quasten, Burghardt, and Lawler. Occasional editions of church fathers (eg Apostolic Fathers, Augustine’s Confessions) with original text and English translation are available in the Loeb Classical Library edition published by Harvard University Press. English renderings of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and The Lives of the Desert Fathers, both translated by Benedicta Ward, were issued in the 1980s by Cistercian Publications. Finally, we note the recent series Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, under the general editorship of Thomas Oden, published by InterVarsity Press. This series (somewhat comparable to the Miqraot Gedolot and Glossa Ordinaria compendia of medieval commentaries in Hebrew and Latin) counted twenty-​nine volumes as of 2001 (subsequent volumes have been published).

c) Handbooks Handbooks on the church fathers occasionally appear under the title Patrology. Thus, there are such general volumes published by Bardenhewer (German original 1894, English 1908; available online), Altaner (German 1938, English 1960), and the four volumes by Quasten (1950–​86). More recently Drobner published The Fathers of the Church: A Comprehensive Introduction (German 1994, English translation with updated bibliographies 2007). In recent years, more specialized handbooks on patristic literature have been published. Among them are McGuckin’s Patristic Theology (2004) with an entry on “Judaism, the Church and” and Kannengiesser’s Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity (2006), with a section on rabbinic literature. Brock’s voluminous work on Syriac Christianity regularly notes its intersections with Judaism.

3.  The Categorization of Patristic Literature on Jews and Judaism a)  Chronological Approaches Chronological approaches are already implicit in the divisions of patristic literature into Apostolic Fathers, Ante-​Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers. Such divisions are helpful for doing research as 145

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one can trace both the comparable status of Judaism in a given period as well as the development of Christian attitudes toward the Jews over time. Yet as we have indicated above, many of the church fathers’ negative attitudes are already found in the New Testament, so there is little question of development. Rather, we are instead observing the persistence of Anti-​Judaism. The most significant division is between the pre-​Constantinian and post-​Constantinian era. Once Christianity was a licit religion and in fact became the religion of the Byzantine Empire, it was in a position to legislate against the Jews and Jewish practices. Current historiography, recognizing the period called late antiquity, has offered a boon to the study of patristic texts.

b)  Geographical and Linguistic Divisions Another common approach is the geographical-​linguistic divide. There were fewer Jews in the West, and as we move west to east, from the Latin-​to the Greek-​speaking parts of the Roman Empire, the frequency of contact between Jews and Christians increases significantly. Finally, as one moves east beyond the limes of the empire, engagement between Syriac-​speaking Christians and Aramaic-​speaking Jews is considerable, even as Judaism holds a stronger minority status than does Christianity in the Sasanian Empire (Brock 1979 and 1999; Neusner 1965–​70).

c)  Literary Genres Of course, it also matters just what kind of literature of the church fathers is under examination. Jews and Judaism will have a role –​usually of being progressively more eclipsed and reviled –​in histories (eg Eusebius) and legal materials (eg Theodosian Code). Furthermore, in certain apologetic settings, Judaism can serve as the foil for Christianity or the subject of patristic scorn (eg Justin). Heresiologists (eg Irenaeus and Epiphanius) may include aspects of Judaism and judaizing in their attacks. Letters, like sermons, can be especially revealing of patristic attitudes. For example, Jerome, who freely admits having a Hebrew teacher, nevertheless subjects him and Jews to his (rhetorical?) invective in a number of his commentaries (Commentary on Titus 3:9, on Eccl. 3:1, on Isa. 49:1). In homiletical settings (eg Chrysostom), Jews and Judaism can serve as the foil against which Christian practice is compared or as the target of diatribe. Nevertheless, there is a potential to glean positivistic social history from such writings (Wilken 1983).

d)  Comparative Exegesis The final genre to be listed is that of exegesis. Given their common training in Hellenistic hermeneutics and rhetoric, it is not surprising to see church fathers and rabbis using similar techniques for interpretation and for them to come to similar conclusions about the meaning of a passage, mutatis mutandis. There has been a great deal of fruitful comparison done in this area since the 1980s (eg Baskin 1985; Robbins 1988; Hirshman 1996; Visotzky 1995; Kessler 2004; Reuling 2006; Grypeou and Spurling 2009; see also Bakhos in this volume).

4.  Specific Church Fathers and Areas for Further Study In our short review of the literature of the church fathers on Jews and Judaism thus far, we only have looked at the major figures. But there is further room for exploration among certain fathers as well as room to expand study among what we may deem minor fathers, at least in regard to Judaism. 146

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a)  Syriac Fathers In the first case, let us return to the Syriac fathers, of whom we have only scratched the surface of a vast literature, much of which remains unpublished, available in manuscripts. Here we add to the listing of those fathers’ works where there is likely to be profit in future studies. In the areas of comparative exegesis, wherein the relations with extant Jewish interpretation is a natural fit, Levene’s The Early Syrian Fathers on Genesis (1951) can serve as an example. While Levene published the first eighteen chapters “including a study on comparative exegesis”, there is yet much work to be done. This is true for the Syriac exegetical literature in general. Sebastian Brock has pioneered in this area, and his work also charts a path for his students and disciples (eg Becker 2006). There are many Syriac works among the 49 volumes of the Patrologia Orientalis (1904–​1995; some of them available online). There is much comparative work to be done between rabbinic literature and, inter alia, the Acta Martyrum Syriacorum, Syriac marriage rites, the narratives of the Syriac Cave of Treasures, and many of the works cited in Brock (1979) and Becker (2010).

b)  Ante-​Nicene Fathers Justin Martyr merits a great deal more study than has been done so far. The degree to which Justin actually knew the mores and customs of the Jewish (probably nonrabbinic) community of his time remains unresolved. It is equally possible that he knew his Samaritan neighbors and extrapolated from them and his study of the Old Testament to create a “hermeneutic Jew” (more on this phenomenon below), whom he dubbed Trypho. It should not escape our notice that there was a prominent late first-​and early second-​century rabbi named Tarphon, who may have stood in as Justin’s imaginary interlocutor. I am dubious about the identification, but the coincidence illuminates the difficulties in the research. Justin’s work merits further exploration regarding the Christian and possible Jewish sources in his library, the actual diffusion of his work (including his Apology), and the extent to which his anti-​Jewish canards were original to him or already widespread among Christians in his own day (see Rokeah, 2002; see also Niehoff in this volume). Origen’s special status has already been well established by de Lange (1976). This groundbreaking work should be seen as a guidebook for future explorations of Origen’s vast oeuvre in regard to Jews and Judaism. Origen’s case is complicated by his own Nachleben as a “heretic” in the church. By his own testimony, he had contact with the Jewish community (de Lange 1976). There have even been scholars who have gone so far as to suggest that they could identify the rabbi with whom Origen argued about interpretation of Song of Songs (Urbach 1971; Kimelman 1980). While these scholars’ attempts to identify specific dialogues are likely unwarranted, the works of Origen nevertheless continue to provide fertile ground for exploration.

c)  Nicene and Post-​Nicene Fathers The later church fathers are perhaps the most potentially fruitful area for special consideration and further research on developing attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. They are contemporary with the largest corpora of rabbinic literature and the significant groundwork done already should guarantee that study will bear fruit. Eusebius has been considered only recently for his relations with Jews and Judaism (see Irshai 2011). He served as bishop of Caesarea at a time when a rabbinic Jewish community flourished there. As mentioned above, his Praeparatio Evangelica and Demonstratio Evangelica have a 147

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strong brief against the Jews. Further, he advanced the myth of the “flight to Pella” by the nascent Christian community (Koester 1989) in the face of the first war with Rome (66–​70 C.E .). This narrative served the historiographic notion of “the partings of the ways”, which is no longer en vogue among historians of the period (Dunn 1991; Becker and Reed 2003). Eusebius’ influences on Constantine and subsequent anti-​Jewish legislation are also subjects for further scholarly investigation. Jerome’s significance cannot be overstated. In Jerome, we have a father who served in Rome and in Bethlehem. While in Rome he was at the seat of power, serving as secretary to the pope and engaging with pagan leadership (Visotzky 1984–​85). His delight in invective, his argument with Pelagius, his time in Roman Palestine, and his deep engagement with the Hebrew language and his Hebrew teacher are assurance that there is yet much research to be done in studying his works. Having mentioned Pelagius, his own work is scattered, as is that of his disciples, particularly because they lost their fight with Augustine on the doctrine of free will. But he and his students all speak to the importance of the law and the commandments in their vision of the divine economy. While it is not clear that the monk had any contact with Jews in England, it is likely he and they knew something of the Jewish community of Roman Palestine, given their strong affinities with some aspects of rabbinic theology (Visotzky 2009). There also remains work to be done in the study of Augustine’s attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. Augustine is generally credited with the doctrine of “Jewish witness”, which avers a place for Judaism despite the Jews’ rejection of Christ (Cohen 2009). Recently, the origins of this doctrine in light of Augustine’s Contra Faustum and that work’s role in addressing the Pelagian controversy (Visotzky 2009) have called into question the meaning of the “witness” doctrine and perhaps its interpretation over many centuries (Fredricksen 2008). Yet, as we will discuss below, one must question whether there are apologetic motives in this rereading of Augustine. Given this giant’s extensive writing, in particular his exegetical contributions to scriptural analysis and interpretive theory, there is still rich gold to be mined in the study of Augustine on Jews and Judaism. Similarly, the great orator and controversialist John Chrysostom’s work remains fertile ground for further study on our topic. The debate regarding his anti-​Jewish invective remains to be resolved (Wilken 1983). Certainly, the aftermath of his sermons resulted in anti-​Jewish behaviors by Christians. But there is room to believe the actual target of those original sermons may have been the judaizing Christians of his congregation. His descriptions of the Jewish community of Antioch largely conform with what we might expect from rabbinic Jewish practices. The rabbis themselves speak of their visits to Antioch. Robert Wilken, in particular, has written about Chrysostom and the Jews (Meeks and Wilken 1978; Wilken 1983). While there might be occasion to wonder if Wilken is engaged in some form of apologetic on behalf of Chrysostom, his argument relies upon Liebeschuetz’s classic work on Antioch (Liebeschuetz 1972: 34–​5). Further research on Chrysostom’s writings on Jews and Judaism bears great promise. Chrysostom supported the so-​called Tall Brothers, a group of fifth-​century Egyptian monks from Nitri, who were doctrinal disciples of Origen. They were famous for their biblical interpretations and as such deserve further study for both their affinities with Jewish (particularly Philonic allegorical) interpretations and their depictions and refutations of the Jewish teachers in their work. We might further recommend exploration of the division between those church fathers who followed Alexandrian allegoresis versus those who followed Antiochean historia-​theoria in their readings. Affinities between these methods and rabbinic methods have already been demonstrated (Visotzky 1988).

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Finally, the Cappadocian fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil of Nazianzus) merit investigation due to their epistolary relationship with Libanius (Cribiore 2013), the Jewish patriarch also having been Libanius’ correspondent (the patriarch’s son likely studied with Libanius; see Stemberger 2000: 242–​5), and the proximity of their towns in Asia Minor to the Jewish communities there. To some degree, every church father constitutes a special case, and there remains a great deal of ground to be explored to fully excavate the relationships between the churches and synagogues of late antiquity. The study of these relationships is strewn with methodological pitfalls, areas of dispute, and apologetics and polemics, as we have alluded to above.

5.  Methodological Considerations and Disputed Areas When comparing the works of church fathers with rabbinic literature from the period, there is always the difficulty of languages. While there is ample evidence for knowledge of Greek among the Jewish population of Roman Palestine during this period, there is no hard and fast guarantee that the rabbis necessarily were fluent enough to truly engage in dialogue. If this poses a hurdle for Greek patristic literature, it is all the more difficult for Latin Christianity. With the notable exception of Jerome, who lived his last years in Bethlehem, it is a fair assumption that Latin fathers had little to no access to Jewish literature of the period. But it is possible that they knew and interacted with actual Jews, eg in North Africa (Noy 2013). This, too, is a methodological issue: did the church fathers know contemporary Jews, or should their references to Jews be considered a hermeneutical construct, mere “straw men” to focus their attacks upon, using Jews not as living examples of practices but as an abstract category “to think with” regarding the boundaries of Christian identity and praxis (Cohen 1999). Another complex issue in the study of patristic attitudes toward Jews and Judaism is the question of Jewish-​Christianity. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the first Christians were Jews who practiced Judaism. In the first two centuries, there was a gradual separation between Jews and Christians (more on this topic below). In the New Testament one can already discern differing stances toward the practice of Judaism and different forms of identification with the religion (as opposed to a Christian identity per se). Yet there also seems to have been a reemergence of Christian affinities for Jewish practices and ideology in the fourth century C.E . The debate and its issues have shifted over the past few decades, but there remains much research and theoretical work to be done (Visotzky 1989; Mimouni and Jones 2001; Jackson-​McCabe 2007; Carleton Paget 2010). Similarly, there has been a great deal of debate and revision on what was once called the “Partings of the Ways” (Dunn 1991). This historical theory, heavily influenced by Eusebius’ history, assumed an irrevocable split between Judaism and Christianity between the first Jewish revolt against Rome in 70 C. E . and the Bar Kokhba rebellion in 132–​135 C.E . Recent scholarship has moved away from this model and assumes a tangled web of ongoing interrelationships for many centuries –​“The Ways that Never Parted” –​that necessarily affect the ways in which the fathers viewed both Jews and Judaism (Becker and Reed 2003). This much messier view of history conforms with the general complexity of reality and has opened many avenues for a much more sophisticated approach to relations between the two (separate?) religions. Among the issues discussed are the ways in which rabbinic Judaism may have influenced Christian doctrine and development. But there are also many studies demonstrating how Christianity shaped Judaism during the formative postdestruction period (eg Boyarin 2004). There is much space for

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debate among scholars who adhere to more traditional and newer views between those who maintain a clearly defined border between the two religions and those who consider the border more permeable. There is also an ongoing debate regarding the terminology of Anti-​Judaism, Antisemitism, and a complete reassessment of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism in late antiquity. Is Christianity to be considered the daughter religion of Judaism or is a sibling relationship a better metaphor in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple? Did the church claim to be verus Israel (“true Israel”, see Simon 1986), supplanting Judaism in its entirety? Was Judaism then considered a dead religion in the mind of ancient Christians, surviving only to prolong the punishment for rejecting Christ or to bear witness to the truth of Christianity? These questions have been particularly acute in studies of Augustine (Fredricksen 2008), whose views of the Jews and Judaism obtained doctrinal status in the church. Yet the modern study of Augustine, Chrysostom (Wilken 1983), and perhaps other fathers, is today tinged with apologetics, as though to restore to pristine status the grandeur of a given church father while exonerating him from any taint of Anti-​Judaism and Antisemitism. While the viewing of Antisemitism as anathema is welcomed both from a historical and theological point of view, it does not help us in gaining a clear view of the actual attitudes of the church fathers toward Jews and Judaism, as well as the often pernicious Nachleben of those attitudes through the Middle Ages and beyond. To the detriment of real historical understanding, however, we are able to see the past only through the lenses of our own present anxieties and situations. There is also a debate about historiography –​exactly how the histories of the period should be written. This is a two-​fold debate, one part concerning the ability of the historian to make any positivistic historical claims (see the works of what might be dubbed “the Morton Smith School”, eg Schwartz 2001), and the second part regarding the range of evidence that one may bring to bear when writing history. Do we rely primarily on Christian and Jewish literary documents or can pagan, “gnostic” and other noncanonical texts (eg Bauer 1971) along with archaeological remains, papyrological evidence, law codes, and other traces of antiquity such as art and architecture be profitably added to the historian’s palette (Meyers and Strange 1981; Sivan 2008)? All of these issues are part of current scholarly debates on method and meaning. We cannot end this chapter without recognition of the weighty changes that took place in the aftermath of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. Put simply, the church profoundly forged a new direction in its attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in both the present and in its (re)views of the past. This sea-​change in attitude meant that an enormous undertaking of historic revisionism was called for. With the publication of the Second Vatican Council’s document, Nostra Aetate (1965), subsequent clarifications and endorsements of it, and concomitant Protestant changes in their views on Judaism, the church not only entered a new era of positive relations with the Jews but also reassessed those relations in early church history. Thus, since 1965, scholarship on the church fathers’ attitudes toward Jews and Judaism has been growing ever more complex, critical, and nuanced. This is a most welcome swing of a very long pendulum. Inevitably, there will be both resistance to the revisionism on the one hand, and apologetics for the devastations of the past on the other. Jewish-​Christian relations currently are at a high point in our 2000-​year history. We look forward to continued growth of these good relations and to more scholarship reassessing the history and attitudes of Jews and Christians toward one another in late antiquity, and their implications for us today.

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Bibliography Allen, G. (ed.) (1988). Genesis 1–​3 in the History of Exegesis. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Altaner, B. (1938). Patrologie. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Altaner, B. (1960) Patrology. New York, NY: Herder & Herder. Bar-​Asher Siegal, M. (2013). Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Bardenhewer, B.O. (1894). Patrologie. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Bardenhewer, B.O. (1908). Patrology: The Lives and Works of the Fathers of the Church. New York, NY: Herder & Herder. Baskin, J. (1985). “Rabbinic-​Patristic Exegetical Contacts in Late Antiquity: A Bibliographical Appraisal,” in W.S. Green, ed., Approaches to Ancient Judaism 5: Studies in Judaism and its Greco-​Roman Context. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 53–​80. Bauer, W. (1971). Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press. Becker, A. (2006). Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Becker, A. (2010). “The Comparative Study of ‘Scholasticism’ in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East Syrians,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 34: 91–​113. Becker, A. and Reed, A.Y. (eds.) (2003). The Ways that Never Parted. Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Boyarin, D. (2004). Borderlines: The Partition of Judeo-​ Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Brock, S. (1979). “Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30: 212–​32. Brock, S. (1997). A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature. Kerala: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. Brock, S. (1999). From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity. London: Routledge. Brown, P. (1967). Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Burns. J.E. (2016). The Christian Schism in Jewish History and Jewish Memory. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Carleton Paget, J. (2010). Jews, Christians, and Jewish Christians in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr/​Siebeck. Chadwick, H. (1986). Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cohen, J. (1999). Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cohen, J. (2009). “Revisiting Augustine’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness,” Journal of Religion 89: 564–​78. Cohick, L.H. (2000). The Peri Pascha Attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting, Purpose, and Sources. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Cribiore, R. (2013). Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Drobner, H. (1994). Lehrbuch der Patrologie. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Drobner, H. (2007). The Fathers of the Church: A Comprehensive Introduction. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Dunn, G. (2008). Aduersus Iudaeos: A Rhetorical Analysis. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Dunn, J. (1991). The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the Character of Christianity. London: SCM Press. Fonrobert, C.E. (2001). “The Didascalia Apostolorum: A Mishnah for the Disciples of Jesus,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9: 483–​509. Fredriksen, P. (2008). Augustine and the Jews. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Fredriksen, P. and Irshai, O. (2006). “Christian Anti-​Judaism: Polemics and Policies,” in S.T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 977–​1034. Gafni, I. (1981–​82). “Nestorian Literature as a Source for the History of the Babylonian Yeshivot” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 51: 567–​76. Ginzberg, L. (1906). “Aphraates, The Persian Sage,” Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1. New York, NY: Funk and Wagnalls, 663–​5. Grypeou, E. and Spurling, H. (eds.) (2009). The Exegetical Encounter between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill.

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Burton L. Visotzky Hezser, C. (1995). “Apophthegmata Patrum and Apophthegmata of the Rabbis,” in La Narrativa Cristiana Antica. Codici, Narrativa, Struttura Formale, Schemi Retorici. Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 453–​64. Hezser, C. (1996). “Die Verwendung der Hellenistischen Gattung Chrie im frühen Christentum und Judentum,” Journal for the Study of Judaism. 27: 371–​439. Hezser, C. (2018). “The Creation of the Talmud Yerushalmi and Apophthegmata Patrum as Monuments to the Rabbinic and Monastic Movements in Early Byzantine Times,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 25: 368–​93. Hirshman, M. (1996). A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Horbury, W. (1998). Jews and Christians in Contact and Controversy. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. Iricinschi, E. and Zellentin, H. (eds.) (2008). Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Irshai, O. (2011). “Jews and Judaism in Early Church Historiography: The Case of Eusebius of Caesarea (Preliminary Observations and Examples),” in R. Bonfils et al. (eds.), Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 799–​828. Jackson-​McCabe, M. (ed.) (2007). Jewish Christianity Reconsidered. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Kamesar, A. (1993). Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kannengiesser, C. (2006). Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Kelly, J.N.D. (1975). Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Kelly, J.N.D. (1995). Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kessler, E. (2004). Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Kimelman, R. (1980). “Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third-​Century Disputation,” Harvard Theological Review 73: 567–​95. Koester, C. (1989). “The Origin and Significance of the Flight to Pella Tradition,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 51: 90–​106. Krauss, S. (1892). “The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,” Jewish Quarterly Review 5: 122–​57. Lange, N.R.M. de (1976). Origen and the Jews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langer, R. (2012). Cursing the Christians? A History of the Birkat Haminim. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Levene, A. (1951). The Early Syrian Fathers on Genesis. London: Taylor’s Foreign Press. Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. (1972). Antioch: City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lieu, J. (1996). Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. McGuckin, J.A. (1992). “Origen on the Jews,” Studies in Church History 29: 1–​13. McGuckin, J.A. (2004). The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Meeks, W.A. and Wilken, R. (1978). Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Meyers, E.M. and Strange, J.F. (1981). Archaeology, the Rabbis, and Early Christianity. London and Nashville, TN: SCM Press. Mimouni, S. and Jones, F.S. (eds.) (2001). Le Judéo-​Christianisme dans tous ses États: Actes du colloque de Jérusalem 6–​10 juillet 1998. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Münz-​Manor, O. (2010). “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East: A Comparative Approach,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1: 336–​61. Narinskaya, E. (2010). Ephrem, a “Jewish” Sage: A Comparison of the Exegetical Writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian and Jewish Traditions. Turnhout: Brepols. Neusner, J. (1965–​70). A History of the Jews in Babylonia, vols. 1–​5. Leiden: Brill. Neusner, J. (1997). Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-​Jewish Argument in Fourth-​Century Iran. Leiden: Brill. Newman, H. (2001). “Jerome’s Judaizers,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9: 421–​52. Noy, D. (2013). “Jews in the Western Roman Empire in Late Antiquity: Migration, Integration, Separation,” Veleia 30: 169–​77. Quasten, J. (1950–​86). Patrology: vol. 1, The Beginnings of Christian Literature (1950); vol. 2, The Ante-​ Nicene Literature after Irenaeus (1953); vol. 3, The Golden Age of Greek Patristic Literature (1960), vol. 4, The Golden Age of Larin Patristic Literature (1986). Utrecht: Spectrum (vol. 1–​3), Westminster, MD: Newman Press (vol. 4).

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The Church Fathers on Jews and Judaism Reuling, H. (2006). After Eden: Church Fathers and Rabbis on Genesis 3:16–​21. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Robbins, V.K. (1988). “The Chreia,” in D.E. Aune (ed.), Greco-​ Roman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1–​24. Rokeah, D. (2002). Justin Martyr and the Jews. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Sandwell, I. (2007). Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews, and Christians in Antioch. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Schäfer, P. (2012). The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schirmann, J. (1953). “Hebrew Liturgical Poetry and Christian Hymnology,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 44: 123–​61. Schwartz, S. (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 BCE–​ 640 CE. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shepardson, C.C. (2008). Anti-​Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-​Century Syria. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Simon, M. (1986). Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire 135–​425. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sivan, H. (2008). Palestine in Late Antiquity. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Stemberger, G. (2000). Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the Fourth Century. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. Urbach, E. (1971). “Homiletical Interpretations of the Sages and the Expositions of Origen on Canticles, and the Jewish-​Christian Disputation,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22: 248–​75. Vinzent, M. (2014). Marcion and the Dating of the Synoptic Gospels. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. Visotzky, B.L. (1984–​85). “Hillel, Hieronymus, and Praetextatus,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 16–​17: 217–​24. Visotzky, B.L. (1988). “Jots and Tittles: On Scriptural Interpretation in Rabbinic and Patristic Literatures,” Prooftexts 8: 257–​69. Visotzky, B.L. (1989). “Prolegomenon to the Study of Jewish-​ Christianities in Rabbinic Literature,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 14: 47–​70. Visotzky, B.L. (1991). “Three Syriac Cruxes,” Journal of Jewish Studies 52: 167–​75. Visotzky, B.L. (1995). Fathers of the World: Essays in Rabbinic and Patristic Literatures. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Visotzky, B.L. (2009). “Will and Grace: Aspects of Judaising in Pelagianism in Light of Rabbinic and Patristic Exegeses of Genesis,” in E. Grypeou and and H. Spurling (eds.), The Exegetical Encounter between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 43–​62. Visotzky, B.L. (2016). Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Visotzky, B.L. (2017). “Jesus in Rabbinic Tradition,” in A.-​J. Levine and M.Z. Brettler (eds.), Jewish Annotated New Testament. 2nd ed. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 580–​81. Visotzky, B.L. and Reinharz, A. (2005). “Methodological Considerations in the Study of John’s Interactions with First-​Century Judaism,” in J. Donahue (ed.), Life in Abundance: Studies in John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 91–​116. Wilken, R. (1971). The Myth of Christian Beginnings: History’s Impact on Belief. New York, NY: Anchor and Doubleday, 52–​76. Wilken, R. (1976). “Melito, The Jewish Community at Sardis, and the Sacrifice of Isaac,” Theological Studies 37, 53–​69. Wilken, R. (1983). John Chrysostom and the Jews. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Williams, M.H. (2008). “Lessons from Jerome’s Jewish Teachers,” in N.B. Dohrmann and D. Stern (eds.), Jewish Biblical Interpretations and Cultural Exchange. Comparative Exegesis in Context. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 66–​86.

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10 INSTITUTIONALIZATION, “ORTHODOXY”, AND HIERARCHY Hayim Lapin

The title of this chapter invites the assumption that Jews and Judaism in late antiquity had a coherent structure across a vast geography and over a very long time. Whether this is true or not is in fact rather contested. A previous generation debated whether to handle diversity by asking whether we have one Judaism or multiple Judaisms in antiquity. More recently, debate has been around whether and at what point the terms “Jew” and “Judaism” are appropriate to describe people of Judaean origin as a collective, and if so, how to understand that collective (Mason 2007; Schwartz 2011; Baker 2017; Boyarin 2019 are important interventions). The issue I wish to stress here is not the terminological one, but social-​historical. Late antique Jews lacked any single institution that could collectively represent or even reach all Jews everywhere. In the first century C.E ., the Jerusalem Temple and its leadership or Herod’s successors could at least claim a central role, the former drawing donations and pilgrims from abroad, Agrippa I intervening on Jews’ behalf with Emperor Gaius. The dislocation and violence of the late first and early second century in Palestine and the Diaspora (Schwartz 2016) meant, for instance, that the lines of patronage and authority and presumably also any “natural” legitimacy that the Jerusalem Temple, priesthood, or Herodian aristocracy had had were disrupted. In addition, like everyone else, Jews had to cope with the difficulties (duration, cost, risks) of communication, much less enforcement, over long distances. If despite this, Jewish practices and institutions did cohere in some ways across the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Diasporas, if patriarchs successfully raised funds from Diaspora communities and intervened in their administration, if rabbis managed to maintain and even expand the circles of people who looked to them as authorities, these are developments that we should seek to explain rather than assume as inevitable. This chapter takes a step toward explanation, by taking a critical look at how Jewish populations (in practice, really rabbis, about whom we can say the most) regulated their boundaries by stigmatizing “heresy”; the kinds of distinctive institutions developed by Jews (synagogues, the patriarchate and exilarchate, possibly rabbinic academies), and the strategies available for authorization of these institutions.

1.  Orthodoxy or Heresy “Orthodoxy” is a particularly problematic category for analyzing late-​antique Judaism. The Greek term orthodoxia means “correct belief”, and came to be used by Christians, especially in the 154

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-12

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fourth century, to define Christian beliefs that one must accede to, as well as the legitimacy of the human representatives of those beliefs and their use of spiritual and material power in combating other heretical or schismatic (but possibly more populous) Christian communities. Christian orthodoxy’s evil counterpart, “heresy” (Greek, hairesis) has a longer history in both ancient Jewish and Christian usage, initially in its more generic sense of “school of thought” (this is how Josephus describes the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, in B.J. 2.119–​166; in A.J. 18.11 he uses the term “philosophies”). As early as the middle second century Justin Martyr used the term to characterize specifically incorrect views (Le Boulluec 1985), and heresiology –​the collection, analysis, and refutation of false teachers and teachings –​proved to be a crucial genre in Roman-​era and late-​ antique Christian writing. To our knowledge, Jews did not invest the kinds of resources into researching, delineating, and refuting heresies that Christian writers did. Councils, beginning with Nicaea (325), called by emperors and constituted by bishops, debated increasingly specific definitions of the persons of the Trinity and their relationship, anathematizing others (Drake 2000, for a political reading of the process). Here, Christian orthodoxy, institutions, and hierarchy came together. In this respect, the approach taken by Shaye Cohen in an influential textbook about Second Temple and earliest rabbinic Judaism is representative of a broader approach: when identifying who Jews are or what Judaism was, practice was at least as determinative as what Jews believed (Cohen 2006: 53–​102, also idem, 2008: 69–​87). As “religions”, Judaism and Christianity are thus incommensurate. According to this approach, Jews may well have shared beliefs. We might guess that they believed in a deity, in the importance of the Torah, and in a special role for Israel in the divine economy. At this level of generality, “orthodox” Christians believed this too, although they would certainly differ over who constituted “Israel” or, having accepted the goodness of Scripture and the God who issued it (Fredriksen and Irshai 2006: 980–​4), the purpose of the Torah/​Law. Jews presumably defined “Israel” along lines of ancestral origin. However, in practice, we have no idea whether rabbis’ “matrilineal” principle (that the child of a non-​Israelite mother could not be an Israelite) was recognized outside of the rabbinic circles that developed it or whether all Jews shared the sharp demarcation of gentiles propounded by early rabbis (Ophir and Rosen-​Zvi 2018). In addition, converts (Greek: prosēlytēs; Hebrew: gēr) appear in our intra-​Jewish literary (rabbinic) sources, inscriptions, and in Roman law. At a minimum, the ethnic definition had to be porous enough to allow for outsiders to join voluntarily (“converts”) or under coercion (eg slaves) to join. It is also not inconceivable that there were Jews who believed that “Jewishness” was a matter of commitment not birth. Scholars have had difficulty deciding whether Joseph and Aseneth is a “Jewish” or “Christian” work in part because it describes the (Egyptian) Aseneth’s commitment to Joseph’s (Israelite) God in terms that we have come to think of as Christian, rather than Jewish, but need not be: her own acts of iconoclasm and repentance and the mediation of a heavenly visitor (Standhartinger 2014: esp. 367–​71). Expressions like nomomathēs (“disciple of the law”) or philentolos (“lover of the commandment”) in inscriptions point to a veneration of the Torah that is wider than rabbinic circles (eg Noy 1993, vol. 2: nos. 68, 212, 564, all from Rome). That veneration does not require any one theory of Torah or its composition. The Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio (Mommsen 1890; Hyamson 1913; Frakes 2011), written by a Jew or a Christian in late antiquity, begins with a heading (on which see Frakes 2011: 257 n. 1) “The law of God which the Lord taught (praecipit) to Moses”, but throughout the work the law is characterized by “Moses says”, functionally equivalent to the Roman jurists with whose writings Mosaic law is juxtaposed. It is rare that we can identify clear-​cut rules defining what a late-​antique Jew should believe. The paradigmatic examples of excommunication in rabbinic literature –​that of Aqabiah b. Mehalalel 155

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in the Mishnah and of R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus in the two Talmuds –​do not focus on the content of opinion, “beliefs”, but on failure to submit to the normative authority of the collectivity of sages (m. ‘Ed. 5:6–​7; y. Moʿed Qaṭ. 3:1, 81c–​d; b. B. Meṣ. 59b). The most widely cited examples of policing opinion are framed negatively: opinions that are prohibited. One passage in the Mishnah limits what should be the object of human inquiry (m. Ḥag. 2:1) although it falls short of prohibition. Another excludes from the world-​to-​come one who denies that the resurrection derives from the Torah or that the Torah itself is from heaven, and one who is an ’apiqoros (m. Sanh. 10:1; for ’apiqoros, presumably from “Epicurean”, see Labendz 2003: 197–​213; Grossberg 2017: 144–​66). Adjacent material in the Mishnah and related traditions in the Tosefta suggest that improper beliefs or opinions make up only one kind of evil. The Mishnah continues with two additional views that exclude reading “external” (but otherwise unspecified) books; whispering a biblical verse over an injury as healing; and pronouncing the divine name as written. The last two exclusions refer to instrumental, “magical” use of sacred knowledge. The immediately corresponding passages in the Tosefta suggest that they relate more narrowly to the authority of Scripture: failure to adhere to the yoke of Torah on the one hand, and misuse of its text on the other (t. Sanh. 12:9–​10). In both the Mishnah and Tosefta, the passages include discussion of transgressive biblical figures and generations who may or may not have a share in the world to come (m. Sanh. 11:1–​3; cf. t. Sanh. 12:8–​11; 13:6–​12). The Tosefta traditions cast the net wider, asking, for example, whether the children of Israelite sinners have a share, and whether Israelites and gentiles are subject to the same punishments (t. Sanh. 13:1–​3). In rabbis’ delineation of who has a share in the world to come, “orthodoxy” seems less than central. It may still be useful to think with the concept of “heresy”, however. Daniel Boyarin, in particular, has argued that rabbinic ideology, and the cultural work of boundary-​making in terms of excluded groups, emerged precisely in conversation with developing Christian heresiological discourse (Boyarin 2004; but see now Grossberg 2010, 2017; Klawans 2019b, 2019a: 39–​79; Bar-​Asher Siegal 2019). The Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language lists one hundred and three occurrences in classical rabbinic literature of the word min (plu. minim) in the sense of holders of wrong opinions (“heretics”) and forty-​nine of minut (“heresy”) for the state of holding these opinions (Academy for the Hebrew Language 2019 s.v. myn 2; Schremer 2009: 69–​86 and passim). It is possible that minut is a calque (“loan translation”) from Greek hairesis. Minim are also to be decried in statutory prayer (t. Ber. 3:25; y. Ber. 4:3, 8a; y. Taʿan. 2:2, 65c, b. Ber. 28b–​29a). The literature on birkat ha-​minim is vast, in part because of its connection to Christians. There is consensus now that it did not originate specifically as a blessing about “Christians” and certainly cannot be unproblematically aligned with the claim in the Gospel of John that believers in Christ become aposynagōgos (“outside the synagogue”: John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2) or in Justin Martyr that the Jews curse Christians in the synagogues (eg Dialogue with Trypho 16.4 see Cohen 2018: 329–​35). In fact, min in rabbinic literature seems designed to be a blanket term and to not refer to any particular group. Nevertheless, the practice does single out certain groups for (presumably) divine displeasure. By excluding some opinions (and their bearers) while letting others stand, rabbinic texts are clearly attempting to regulate membership. But whom do they exclude? To consider the examples of excluded opinions discussed above, the author of the heading of the Collatio will have assented that the Torah is “from heaven” (as would Philo and Josephus in the first century) but perhaps not to the expansive Palestinian rabbinic statement that “Scripture, Mishnah, Talmud, halakhot and aggadot, even every ruling that an experienced disciple (talmid vattiq) will give before his master has already been said to Moses at Sinai” (y. Meg. 4:1, 74c; y. Ḥag. 1:8, 76d). The concern with resurrection presupposes an eschatological (and therefore “directed”) view of history. The denial 156

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of resurrection from the Torah to which the Mishnah refers (m. Sanh. 10:1) has been ascribed to Sadducees as described in the New Testament (Mark 12:18–​23; Matt 22:23–​8; Luke 20:27–​33; Acts 23:6–​7) and Josephus (J.W. 2.165); but at least Josephus’s version of the Pharisees’ views (J.W. 2.163) would be excluded as well. It similarly may exclude those whose epitaphs –​where we expect pious platitudes rather than theological daring –​are marked by phrases that suggest a heavenly afterlife or astral immortality (van der Horst 1991: 114–​26). Does the phenomenon of thinking with minim, then, construct a narrowly defined circle of insiders with whom the rabbinic “we” associate, or a big tent, excluding only egregiously transgressive views but allowing a multiplicity of voices within? Does the exclusion of minim and minut in practice (eg m. Ḥul. 2:9), in exegesis and in liturgy call “Judaism” or at least the rabbinic movement into being (Boyarin 2004)? Does it operate with a rhetoric of consensus, leaving potential internal divisions below the surface (Klawans 2019b)? Or were rabbis actively trying to build coalitions and to be inclusive (Cohen 1984)? A single answer that spans the entire rabbinic literature over several centuries and in the two distinct subcultures of Palestine and Babylonia is not possible. Even if it were, it would tell us about rabbis, not necessarily about Jews or Judaism.

2.  Institutions, Institutionalization, and Hierarchy In contrast to recent work by economists (eg Hodgson 2006), historians generally use the term “institution” to refer to intersections of rules, people, and behaviors, and in particular to the ability of an “institution” to self-​perpetuate. A school with a curriculum, hierarchical organization or rules for admission, and the ability to continue operating even as all the faculty and students are replaced is an institution. Circles of teachers and disciples or groups of friends studying together that disband after their principals have moved on are not. “Institutionalization” is the degree to which (and/​or the processes whereby) informal, impermanent structures are formalized from within by repetition or regularization or from without by cooptation or legislation. The repertoire of distinctively “Jewish” institutions in our period is actually rather small: synagogues, the Palestinian patriarchate and the Babylonian exilarchate, and rabbinic “academies”. Certainly, they do not coalesce into a single coherent Jewish supralocal institution. At the same time, convergence among synagogue titles, the presence of patriarchal emissaries in the Diaspora, and the occasional evidence of rabbinic presence outside rabbinic literature itself allows us to assess whether Jewish institutions operated in a supralocal network constituted and reinforced by ongoing collaboration and communication (eg Collar 2013: esp. ­chapter 4). The picture is decidedly mixed. The synagogue is by far the most widely attested institution. We have evidence from archaeological remains, inscriptions including from synagogues themselves, and numerous types of literary texts of both Jewish and non-​Jewish origin, including Roman legal texts (Levine 2000a is the best synthetic study; White 1996: 2, 271–​362 has many primary sources). In the Diaspora and in Palestine, cities might have more than one synagogue, and they are sometimes named for the neighborhood where they were located or, interestingly, for the origins of the members or founders. Thus, for example, Palestinian rabbinic literature mentions “the synagogue of the Babylonians (or: of Babylon)” and that “of [the village of] Gophna” in Sepphoris (Gen. Rab. 33:3, ed. Theodor, Albeck 305; y. Ber. 5:1, 9a; y. Ber. 3:1, 6a). At Rome as well, catacomb inscriptions refer to upward of ten synagogues, some named for neighborhoods in Rome and others for places outside Rome (Leon 1960: 140–​66; note also “of the Hebrews”: Noy 1993, vol. 2: no. 578). It is really only from rabbinic texts that we have a relatively detailed (although still incomplete) notion of the activities in synagogues: statutory prayers and their performance through prayer 157

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leaders, reading and interpreting of the Torah, and occasionally other practices. Part of the legacy of late antique Palestine in particular is a body of liturgical poetry (piyyuṭ) following the statutory patterns found in rabbinic literature and often intimately tied to rabbinic exegetical traditions (Fleischer 2007: 77–​277; Novick 2019). The strong rabbinic traces in piyyuṭ may reflect a growing prominence for rabbinic tradition in ritual practices in Palestine in the fifth-​seventh centuries. More surprising is the inclusion of a fragment of Jewish liturgy following the rabbinic pattern in the Christian Apostolic Constitutions (7.33–​38), from late fourth-​century Syria (Fiensy 1985; Horst and Newman 2008: 1–​93; for a Hebrew back-​construction: Kister 2008). In a few relatively late examples, inscriptions link with rabbinic texts or liturgical practice (Rehov: Sussman 1973; Misgav 2015; Jericho: Werlin 2015: 74–​8). Taking the phenomenon more broadly, synagogues were local institutions, funded by local initiative and honoring local donors and the community; in the Diaspora they sometimes honored local grandees as well. They were not part of the public cults of the cities or provinces. Although privileges for or restrictions on Jews may have been mediated through synagogues (below), synagogues appear to have been permitted or tolerated rather than mandated. From the ruling by Caracalla that the Jewish association (universitas) of Antioch could not legally accept a legacy (Codex of Justinian 1.9.1, Linder 1987: no. 3) we can conclude that that particular association may not have been a duly constituted corporation under Roman law (cf. Digest 34.5.20, Ulpian). Whatever the broader implications for the status of communities under Caracalla (Eckhardt 2019), one may suspect that the inclusion of the law in the Codex Justinianus means that the sixth-​century editors denied corporate status to Jewish communities. By late antiquity, there was at least some convergence among synagogues both in the Roman Diaspora and Palestine: at a minimum, the use of the title archisynagogos (for which see Rajak and Noy 1993) or rosh ha-​knesset, orientation to Jerusalem, and architectural emphasis on a Torah shrine (Levine 2000a: 299–​309, 415–​27). Christianization at the imperial and provincial level may have indirectly increased and regularized the formal authority of synagogue heads: Constantine addressed the status of office holders for purposes of exemption from liturgies and in another law lists the leaders who should know about the contents of the law (Codex Theodosianus 16.8.4 [330]; 16.8.1 [329]; Linder 1987: nos. 9 and 7; see also Linder 1975). Laws from the end of the century similarly refer to community heads by title (Codex Theodosianus 16.8.13 [397], 14 [398], Linder 1987: nos. 27 and 29). These latter are part of a policy that gave the Palestinian Jewish patriarch powers over communities at large (see below). Still, the limits of both convergence and institutionalization are also significant. We never see the formation of a standardized clerical structure akin to that established by contemporaneous competitors for Christian orthodoxy (bishop, presbyters, deacons; subsequently marginalized: widows and virgins). No archisynagogue could command the kinds of financial and human resources that a bishop did. Nor can we assume any consistency of liturgy or practice. Justinian’s Novella 146 (533) intervenes in what appears to be an attempt by a “Hebraizing” (and Rabbinizing?) faction in one or more communities to require Hebrew Scriptures and perhaps other practices connected to the reading in a community that had long been using Greek (Colorni 1964; Schwartz 2002; cf. Rutgers 2003). At that late date, efforts at reform or standardization faced local opposition. At the supralocal level, we have only the patriarchs and exilarchs and the kinds of associations formed by rabbis. The histories of the Palestinian patriarchs and Babylonian exilarchs are inevitably intertwined since the representatives of both institutions made similar claims (notably, Davidic descent) and our rabbinic sources juxtapose and occasionally merge them (Jacobs 1995; Levine 1996; Herman 2012; see also Goodblatt 1994). 158

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Our earliest sources give the impression that the patriarchate originated within rabbinic circles in Palestine. By the third and fourth centuries, respectively, patriarchs claimed connections both to the family of Gamliel from late Second Temple Jerusalem and to the House of David (Sivertsev 2002: 74–​83; Stern 2003). In Palestinian rabbinic sources referring to the later third and fourth centuries, rabbis objected to the seeming monopoly that patriarchs held over “appointments” connected with calendrical and ritual functions that rabbis deemed themselves both qualified for and entitled to (Alon 1977). This polemic against “those appointed for money” intersects with polemics against other fundraising practices of the patriarchs, most strikingly, the complaint that they appropriated tithes designated in the Bible for Levites and priests (y. Sanh. 2:6, 80d; Gen. Rab. 80:1, ed. Theodor Albeck 2: 951). Epiphanius, writing in the 370s about the reign of Constantine, describes the patriarch as accompanied by a circle of apostles who are always with him and consult with him on matters of law, presumably, “Torah” (Panarion 30.4.2). Joseph, an apostle and an elder in the patriarch’s circle, also traveled to Cilicia where he collected funds and also demoted community officers (30.11.1–​4). Communities in the Diaspora seem to have been an important and arguably central (Schwartz 1999) source of funding and locus of activity for patriarchs in the fourth century. The patriarchal levy or apostolē met with sufficient objections from the Jews of some prominent community that Emperor Julian addressed the practice (Epistle 51, Stern 1974 vol. 2: no. 468a; Linder 1987: no. 13, addressed “to the koinon of the Jews”). Roman laws from the late fourth and early fifth centuries indicate that for a time both the apostolē and regulating the membership and offices of communities was sanctioned by Roman emperors (funds: Codex Theodosianus 16:8.14 [399], 17 [404], 29 [429], Linder 1987: nos. 30, 34, 59; officers and membership: Codex Theodosianus 16.8.8 [392], Linder 1987: no. 20). For exilarchs, we rely almost entirely on rabbinic material, and much of that from the Babylonian Talmud. One recent area of new work has been to compare the role of the exilarch to that of the Christian Katholikos, who similarly claimed authorization from the Sasanian ruler (Herman 2012: passim, advancing us beyond Neusner 1969; Beer 1970). Geoffrey Herman’s general assessment is that the exilarchate was created by and for the Persian state and served “as the leadership of a religious community by the crown” (Herman 2012: 259). What this meant in practice is not entirely clear. Exilarchs did not collect taxes on behalf of the state (Goodblatt 1979). While exilarchs ran courts that had some sort of royal sanction, precisely our dependence upon the Babylonian Talmud means that accounts of these courts are embedded in discussions of the authority of rabbis and their own tribunals (Mokhtarian 2015: 94–​123), and frequently serve polemical purposes. The degree of institutionalization among rabbis as a movement remains a significant problem (Hezser 1997, who suggested that Palestinian rabbis should be seen as a loose network of colleague-​ friends). There is some recognition of status that is marked by the intrarabbinic use or omission of the title “Rabbi” or “Rab” (Breuer 1997). Whether there was some formal conferral of status is more difficult to say. In Palestinian texts “appointment” appears to operate outside of rabbinic control; in the Babylonian Talmud the corresponding practice (semikhah, “laying on of hands”) was said to be operative only in the Land of Israel (b. San. 14a; cf. y. Bikk. 3:3, 65d). This suggests that the title itself was not a formal one. Equally problematic is the rabbinic academy (yeshiva, metivta) as a formal institution. In the 1970s two scholars developed contrasting theories of academic development in Mesopotamia, Goodblatt (1975) arguing that there were no academies, only loosely constructed discipleship circles, and Gafni (1978) pointing to apparent references to academies. A generation later, Jeffrey Rubenstein (2003: esp. 16–​38; cf. Gafni 2011) argued that the formalized depictions belong to the stratum of the editing of the Talmud. This in turn reopens questions about late-​antique 159

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scholasticism in the Middle East in general (Becker 2010; see also Amsler 2018 on editorial practices and writing). Geoffrey Herman has drawn attention to the way the Babylonian version of the story of Gamliel’s deposition makes use of imagery and language of the Sasanian court (Herman 2008), again drawing attention to the peculiarly Babylonian concerns with formal, hierarchical organization and their Sasanian context. In the Babylonian Talmud, the characterization of the academy aligns with the relatively narrow elite and sectarian concerns of the (later) Babylonian rabbinic group (cf. Kalmin 1999). In the Babylonian Talmud, ‘am ha-​’areṣ (lit., “people of the land”) is transformed from a label for those who ignore purity and tithing rules into one for the unlearned (or un-​rabbinized?) members of Jewish society. In two places, it is even extended to one “who has read [Scripture] and recited [rabbinic tradition/​Mishnah] but has not served the disciples of sages” (b. Ber. 47b; b. Soṭ. 22a). Here, the focus is on proper deference and dedication to rabbis and their life of Torah study and observance. Elsewhere, statements about the ‘amme ha’areṣ can be violently hostile, rejecting marriage with them (eg b. Pes. 49b). By contrast, study of Torah (ie the specific rabbinic virtue) is said to be valued above honoring parents, sacrifices, or rebuilding the Temple (b. Erub. 63b; b. Meg. 3b, 16b; b. Sanh. 43b). Since the Babylonian Talmud often recasts Palestinian materials in its own image, scholars have had to learn to disentangle the history of Palestinian rabbis from their Mesopotamian characterization. In sources from Palestine, the story of the deposition of Gamliel is unusual for the degree of formalization of the meetings of sages that it describes (y. Ber. 4:4, 7c–​d; y. Taʿan. 4:1, 67d). The story retrojects a formalized setting onto late first-​or early second-​century figures and may also tell us more about the patriarchate than the rabbinic academy. In contrast to the Babylonian sources, late antique Palestinian works tend to depict relations between rabbis as network of looser and less hierarchically ordered relationships (Hezser 1997: 155–​328). There is no firm evidence of a formal rabbinic academy of the kind presupposed by late Babylonian sources before the eighth century (Elizur 1999, documenting the death of its head), when it may reflect developments of the early Islamic period. Still, there are tendencies that we can detect among Palestinian rabbis as well that point in the direction of greater institutionalization of the movement. Thus, the Palestinian Talmud can point to fixed meeting places in the urban landscape of Sepphoris and Tiberias (eg y. Shabb. 6, 8a; y. Sanh. 10:1, 28a: Tiberias; y. Hor. 3:7, 48a; Lev. Rab. 5:4, ed. Margalioth, 113; cf. Deut. Rab. 4:8: Sepphoris) or study houses (bet/​batê midrash) named for individuals, seemingly operating after the demise of the sage for whom it was named (eg y. Shabb. 4, 7a; 6, 8a; y. Beṣ. 1:6, 60c; y. B. Meṣ. 2:12, 8d; y. Sanh. 10:1, 28a). There is one epigraphically attested bet midrash, from Dabbura in the Golan; the date of the site is sufficiently later than the rabbi that it putatively names, so it may exemplify the same phenomenon (Lapin 2011: 334 no. 12). Perhaps more significantly, the following point to an emerging self-​understanding of rabbis as a more or less coherent group in late antiquity: (1) the production of literary compendia, most notably the Mishnah, (2) the use of the Mishnah to serve as the foundation for new material, (3) the quotation and discussion of other early material, (4) the expressions of anxiety about committing tradition to memory (Naeh 2001), (5) and the practice of providing “genealogies” for sayings (“R. A said in the name of R. B … ”.) and for the rabbinic “school” as a whole (m. Abot 1–​2, with Tropper 2004).

3.  Authority and Legitimation The ongoing processes of legitimation and authorization utilized by institutions are obscure, although we may be sure they took place and were the site of competition. We can think of these as 160

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operating on two dimensions: laterally, linking local communities into networks, and hierarchically, asserting the prerogatives or authority of patriarchs, exilarchs, or in some cases rabbis over others. We might attribute the widespread graphic representation of the menorah and other Temple-​related images (Levine 2000b: 23–​31 and 2012: 341–​7; Hachlili 2001) or orientation toward Jerusalem to an agenda promoted by priests (but see below). Even so, it seems likelier that practices were propagated across linked communities than that representatives visited every locale. On the other hand, we do know that patriarchs sent apostles out to communities to collect funds. The law that dates the end of the patriarchate to or before 429 C. E ., refers to synedria in Palestine that sought to continue revenue collection (Codex Theodosianus 16.8.14.29 [429], Linder 1987: 59). Possibly, the sixth-​century funerary inscription from Venosa in southern Italy that mentions duo apostuli et duo rebbites, “two apostles and two rabbis”, reflects similar fundraising practices (Noy 1993: I 86). Among rabbis, traditions refer to ongoing communications between Babylonian and Palestinian circles (eg the so-​called naḥotê, rabbinic travelers between the two regions; Hezser 2015; Schwartz 2015), as well as examples of letter writing in the service of law or ritual, fundraising tours, and educational inspections (letters: Hezser 2001: 267–​79; Tomson 2019: 21–​ 40; other matters: eg Levine 1989: 161–​2 n. 119). Outside the literature itself, rabbis are rarely visible, especially in the Mediterranean Diaspora. Arguably, rabbis simply turned their backs on the Greek-​and Latin-​speaking Diaspora (Edrei and Mendels 2007, 2008, 2014). It may equally reflect their difficulty in gaining traction, or the limited scope of rabbinic authority everywhere. Even in Palestine, inscriptions do not imply rabbinic authority over synagogue practices or characteristically rabbinic values among the interred, much less community leadership everywhere (however, cf. above regarding Rehov, Dabbura, and perhaps Jericho). We can be certain of rabbinic paradigms in the case of liturgical poems for the Day of Atonement that model the description of the Temple ritual on Mishnah Tractate Yoma, a practice that appears attested as far afield as Egypt (Swartz and Yahalom 2005; for Egypt see Cowley 1915: 211). In Mesopotamia, rabbis may have been more insular, but the striking use of references to rabbinic figures, legal formulae, and even citations of texts in incantation bowls suggests some circles of people for whom knowledge of and about rabbis could be deployed powerfully (Shaked 2013: 22–​3, 53–​4; Bamberger 2015). Something analogous may perhaps be at work in the emulation of rabbinic texts in Hekhalot works (Swartz 1996). To the extent that we can trace it, claims to legitimacy and authority were organized around a handful of themes: aristocracy of birth, Temple and priesthood, and Torah. Patriarchs and exilarchs claimed descent from David, linking them back both to Scripture and to history, and at least on some level to the ongoing salience of (long-​term) messianic expectations. Possibly, connection to Jerusalem in Temple times had some significance. The Gamlielides linked both patriarchs and rabbis to an illustrious Jerusalemite family. In Babylonia, it has been argued, rabbis sought to undercut people who claimed Hasmonaean descent (b. Qidd. 70a–​b, with Kalmin 1999: 61–​7). Temple and priesthood constitute two closely connected themes. Priestly descent is one of the recurrent features that is registered in inscriptions from both the Diaspora and Palestine, and priests and Levites retained certain prerogatives in rabbinic liturgy and practice. Temple-​ related images were widespread and in Palestine in particular, Temple, sacrifice, and priesthood became important recurrent themes in synagogue art and liturgy. Some have argued that this signals a rise in the prominence of priests as a class (Yahalom 1999: 107–​15; Irshai 2012; see also Magness 2006; Grey 2011), although the claim appears overstated (Weiss 2012; Fine 2014: 181–​93). 161

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Precisely what priests as a group could have promoted remains unclear. Attempts to link Hekhalot texts (Elior 2004), Targum (Flesher 2003) and Piyyuṭ literature (Yahalom 1999: 107–​ 36) with self-​conscious priests have not been entirely persuasive. Still, an inscription with the Palestinian tradition listing the 24 priestly courses and their associated villages in Galilee has been found near Sana‘a in Yemen (Degen 1973). What Palestinian and/​or priestly practices might the South Arabian sponsors of the inscription have been engaging in? Also intriguing is the notice in the Syriac accounts of the martyrs of Najran (again, in Yemen) that priests (kahane) from Tiberias were involved in the Himyarite king’s persecution (some translated sources in Jeffrey 1945). Priests could certainly claim an ancestral connection to receiving and promulgating the Torah, but priests had no monopoly on it. Nor, presumably, did rabbis although as usual rabbinic literature constitutes the bulk of our knowledge. The first two chapters of Mishnah tractate Abot trace the transmission of the Torah from Moses onwards. In addition to playing out competing intrarabbinic claims to authority (culminating once with the Gamlielide patriarchs in m. Abot 1:16–​2:7; and again with Yohanan b. Zakkai and his disciples ibid. 2: 8–​16), the genealogy skips over priests or Davidic kings in preserving or promulgating Torah. This is almost certainly a polemical move, marking a special role for the precursors of rabbis and them alone in preserving Torah. With rabbis, legitimation through Torah took on special characteristics, since “Torah” was not limited to a written Scripture but included “the laws, and fine details, and interpretations by the hand of Moses at Sinai” (Sifra, Be-​ḥuqotai pereq 8:12, ed. Weiss 112c), or, as the same passage suggests, “Oral Torah” alongside the written (see also Sifre Deut. 351, ed. Finkelstein 408; and more frequently in amoraic corpora). In this way, rabbis construed themselves as receiving a vast tradition even as they expanded the boundaries of the Torah considerably. As an example, Mishnah tractate Ḥullin takes twelve chapters to lay out the rules of lay slaughter not touched on at all by the Torah, and seemingly redefines ṭrēfah, a “torn” animal, to include the examination of viscera. While the Mishnah itself states “all [Israelites] slaughter and their slaughter is valid” (m. Ḥul. 1:1), the Babylonian Talmud specifies the knife, the person of the slaughterer, and the knowledge of anatomy required so that the practice of kosher slaughter becomes one of considerable and particularly rabbinic expertise (b. Ḥul. 2a–​3b; see Novick 2017). Individual rabbis acquired authority within this system through their piety, learning, and attendance upon expert sages. Babylonian rabbinic culture, it has been argued, is especially marked by concern for aggressive competitive demonstrations of dialectic and the devastating effects of shame (Rubenstein 2003: 67–​79). Finally, we must allow for the possibility of authority that draws on continuing revelation or special paths of transmission. Recent work has suggested that the attribution of Hekhalot material to rabbis is a relatively late (seventh century or later) development in the literature (Boustan 2007; Swartz 2019). Sefer ha-​Razim (Margalioth 1966) demonstrates both a genealogy of (secret) transmission, reaching back to the antediluvian age, and methods for inducing individual revelation (a feature it shares with earlier collections of Greek magical papyri). Eschatological anticipation may generate new revelation. We hear of at least one late antique messiah from Crete (Socrates, Church History 7.38). At the end of our period, we see the resurgence of apocalyptic texts that –​like Sefer Zerubbabel –​do not attribute knowledge to rabbis or establish an explicitly rabbinic messianic age (Reeves 2006: 1–​28; Himmelfarb 2017).

4. Conclusions Rabbis at least attempted to exclude Jews who held incorrect doctrines by prohibiting certain kinds of speculation, denying that the holders of certain opinions had a share in the world to come, 162

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and by mandating the singling out of minim in prayer. To this extent “heresy” is a useful category for strategies of rabbinic boundary maintenance. However, opinion, belief, or doctrine were only one set of problems among other boundary issues that seem to have loomed larger, such as compliance with the will of the sages. The term “orthodoxy” –​in the sense of mandated positive “correct” beliefs –​is unhelpful. It grants too much power to the dialectical other (“Christianity”) and even there does not pay sufficient attention to questions of conformity and praxis. Furthermore, we can only trace heresy and heresiology among rabbis. We do not know how representative rabbis, or for that matter minim, were in ancient Jewish society, nor can we generalize about the social impact of such groups or individuals. There are relatively few “institutions” that served distinctively “Jewish” functions in late antiquity. Synagogues were local institutions. Our knowledge of Babylonian exilarchs is extremely restricted. The slightly wider evidence for Palestinian patriarchs suggests considerable prominence in the fourth century, and a state-​supported role at the turn of the fifth. Within the dispersed setting for late antique Jews, the coherence among synagogues and their offices and the success of patriarchs in creating a network for fundraising and communal interventions are impressive but also incomplete. Institutionalization among rabbis presents its own specific problems, with a pronounced Babylonian interest in describing roles, functions, and hierarchy. Finally, institutions, communal boundaries, and hierarchical organization are “real” only to the extent that they are enacted, through iterative intersubjective practices in space and time. We have only limited evidence for these kinds of practices (sending emissaries on fund-​raising trips, letter writing, giving homilies, leading prayers). We are in a slightly better position to identify the kinds of themes around which claims to precedence or authority might have been made: pedigree, the Temple, and Torah scholarship. As our discussion shows, these were not static themes in late antiquity but rather dynamic and diverse, corresponding to circumstances, settings, and interactions in which they appeared.

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PART III

Rabbis, Jurists, Philosophers, and Holy Men

11 RABBIS AND THE IMAGE OF THE INTELLECTUAL Catherine Hezser

By calling themselves “sages” Palestinian rabbis distinguished themselves from their Jewish contemporaries and aligned themselves with other types of knowledge experts in the Roman-​ Byzantine environment in which they lived (Hezser 2019). Although the term “intellectual” was coined in modern times, the phenomenon of knowledge experts who propagated particular forms of wisdom and lifestyles already existed in antiquity, as classicists have shown. Besides rabbis, Graeco-​Roman philosophers, sophists, jurists, and Christian church fathers and monks would have belonged to this category. They served as intermediaries between the general public, whose levels of education and literacy were low, and the growing bodies of traditional knowledge that were increasingly transmitted in written form (Torah, Homer, Plato and Aristotle, New Testament) but required oral propagation, interpretation and application to maintain their cultural significance. Rabbinic sources suggest that late antique rabbis were keen on presenting themselves as particularly Jewish types of intellectuals who resembled Graeco-​Roman and Christian scholars but also distinguished themselves from them.

1.  The Category of the Intellectual The term “intellectual” is a modern category that is used by some Enlightenment philosophers and in public discourse from the late nineteenth century onwards (see Thomas-​Fogiel 2011: 204 on Kant’s use of the term; Conner 2014: 120–​7 on the role of the Dreyfus affair in introducing the term to public discourse). Its modern understanding is based on modern political, social, and economic circumstances that did not exist in the same way in pre-modern times. Yet scholars of antiquity and the Middle Ages have argued that the phenomenon of the scholar who distinguished himself from the “unlearned” masses and assumed an intermediary role appears in literary sources of these time periods already. Copeland has suggested to focus on “how intellectual lives are produced as literary artefacts, turning individual lives to public, historical account” (Copeland 2002: 40). In this approach the focus is on the literary creation of a certain category of learned individuals who are styled or style themselves as intellectuals, that is, as members of a scholarly elite in distinction from both political and economic elites. Copeland explores “how a pre-​modern category of intellectuals comes into being, not simply as a phenomenon unto itself, but rather as a kind of career and life trajectory that can be –​must be –​narrativized” (ibid. 41). DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-14

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It is therefore texts that allow us to access the phenomenon of intellectuals in pre-modern times. One may even go so far and argue that they create awareness of such an elite in the first place. This may be especially true for rabbinic literature which is a collective phenomenon, in contrast to the lives and biographies of individual intellectuals that were created in Graeco-​Roman society and the Middle Ages. Besides literary presentations, material artifacts exhibited the image of the intellectual in Graeco-​Roman society. Zanker has argued that ancient society venerated and imitated its most prominent thinkers, whose images and values were made visible to the public in statues, masks, and paintings (Zanker 1995). Philosophers, poets, and tragedians were presented as “good citizens” alongside –​but also in striking distinction from –​politicians. While the bodies and poses of politicians exhibited health, strength, and authority, intellectuals were almost always represented as frail and bearded old men whose seated posture and facial expressions were meant to underline their intellectual abilities. The very fact that such monuments were erected indicates the value that ancient society attributed to intellectual activity (ibid. 8). Their exchangeability, that is, the reuse of heads and bodies of statues and the repetition of features, suggests that it was not individual intellectuals but “the position and image of intellectuals as a class within a particular society” that were celebrated in this form (ibid. 9). Although no statues of ancient rabbis have been excavated yet, rabbis would have been aware of the image of the intellectual in Roman society. If they wanted to be considered intellectuals by both their fellow Jews and wider Roman-​ Byzantine society, they had to conform to this image to some extent. Traces of this conformity are visible in the ways in which rabbinic demeanor and body language are described in rabbinic texts (Hezser 2017). Intellectuals would have constituted one type of ancient elite besides political rulers and the wealthy. In Graeco-​Roman society these social categories seem to have overlapped more than in Palestinian Jewish society. In general, the acquisition of paideia was the privilege of the upper strata of society. Only the children of the wealthy had the necessary leisure time and material support to spend years in higher education, whether in rhetoric, law, or philosophy. Some of these intellectual skills would be useful for pursuing political offices. Although philosophers may have derided the lifestyle of the wealthy, their own self-​restriction was a deliberate choice rather than a necessity. Rabbis, on the other hand, seem to have come from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds, at least from the third century C . E . onwards. Local Jewish grandees, eg those who donated to and commemorated themselves in synagogue inscriptions, may not have recognized rabbis as their status-​equals unless they belonged to the upper strata of society themselves. They would have conversed in Greek and participated in the empire-​wide culture of Greek paideia (Miles 2000: 48), whereas rabbis developed and represented an “indigenous” alternative to it. The actual significance of rabbis as Jewish intellectuals within ancient Jewish and Roman-​ Byzantine society is difficult to fathom. In contemporary historical-​critical scholarship rabbis’ impact on other Jews is much more circumscribed than in the scholarship of the past. They are no longer seen as communal leaders with coercive authority who imposed their legal rules on other Jews with Roman support but as a network of scholars with small circles of students and followers who venerated them for their traditional knowledge (Hezser 1997: 329–​466; Schwartz 2001: 103–​ 28; Lapin 2012: 37). The Roman authorities seem to have tolerated their activities if they did not interfere with their own interests in the region. An official recognition of the patriarchs is evident in the late fourth century only (C. Theod. 16.8.13 dated 397 C.E .), shortly before this institution ended. In Graeco-​Roman society at large the relationship between intellectuals and political rulers seems to have vacillated between disregard, disagreement, and support (see the articles in Bosman

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2018). Rather than taking stories about encounters between intellectuals and politicians literally, one can understand them as integral parts of their self-​fashioning. By emphasizing wisdom over political power, rabbis, monks, and philosophers created their own social hierarchies.

2.  Intellectuals as Knowledge Experts and Role Models What distinguished ancient intellectuals from their contemporaries was their expertise in the traditional knowledge of their respective cultural traditions, a knowledge that was available in written form but propagated, discussed, expanded, and elaborated orally. While rabbis emphasized the study of the “written” Torah and applied it to new situations, Hellenistic and Roman philosophers based their thinking on Plato and Aristotle; poets and tragedians stood in the tradition of Homer and Virgil; church fathers and monks were knowledgeable of Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible and of the writings of the New Testament. They would not have been able to teach and advise others without having acquired this traditional knowledge themselves first, through years of primary and secondary education with already established experts. Yet they were not just custodians of their constituencies’ intellectual heritage. An ancient intellectual was able to use that tradition creatively, as the foundation of a new body of knowledge that fit their own time and place. Rabbinic halakhah as well as Stoic philosophy and patristic exegesis made traditional knowledge relevant to their contemporaries through innovation. This innovation happened in a shared cultural space based on centuries of Hellenism in the Near East. Graeco-​Roman, Jewish, and Christian intellectuals “were drawing on a resonant idiom that implicitly situated their movement among the intellectual disciplines of the Roman empire, while simultaneously asserting its priority and superiority to the rest …” (Eshleman 2012: 215, whose focus is on Christians). Such creative competition would result in an intellectual culture that shared its emphasis on study and discussion, theory and practice but differed in the essential elements of its teaching even within the respective in-​groups themselves. One of the major differences between ancient and modern intellectuals is the close connection between teaching and lifestyle among the ancients. Theoretical deliberations, ethical advice, and halakhic rulings were meant to be embodied in daily life practices by the intellectuals themselves and those who followed them. Josephus already mentions that the Torah covers all aspects of one’s life; Jews’ daily practice was guided by detailed instructions concerning their diet, socializing, work ethics, family relations, and resting times (Contra Apionem 2.18). For rabbis, Torah study and Torah observance were two sides of one and the same coin. Application of Torah law to new circumstances required a good knowledge of the ancestral tradition itself. Therefore the study of the Torah, in which rabbis excelled, was considered a necessary prerequisite for leading a Torah-​ observant lifestyle. While rabbis encouraged all Jews to attend study houses, they knew that only a few of their contemporaries had the necessary primary education and leisure time to become expert scholars themselves. Therefore they offered their services as intermediaries who provided Torah-​based instruction and advice to those of their contemporaries who followed them (Hezser 1997: 360–​8). Such teaching was not only conducted orally, through private conversations and public sermons (Hidary 2018: 46–​8). Rather, rabbis embodied Torah knowledge and served as role models and exemplars in all situations of daily life (Lightstone 2006: 104; Rubenstein 2012: 193). Others were encouraged to observe and imitate them in their practices (Hezser 2017: 259). This embodiment of knowledge is an important feature of ancient intellectual culture. It is based on the notion that a person’s values are visible in his or her demeanor, comportment, and lifestyle (Corbeill 2004: 2–​4, 109).

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3.  Disciple Circles, “Schools”, and Scholarly Networks The primary unit in which rabbinic, philosophical, and early Christian instruction took place was the disciple circle, that is, the renowned scholar surrounded by a more or less small number of his personal students. Scholars of rabbinic literature nowadays agree that temporary disciple circles rather than permanent “academies” were the main settings of rabbinic instruction in tannaitic and amoraic times in both Roman Palestine and Sasanian Persia (Green 2003: 40; Rubenstein 2007: 59 and 66–​7; Cohen 2010: 291). Disciples of sages seem to have studied with one “master” at a time. This relationship usually involved living in the master’s household, observing him in his daily activities, and catering to his worldly needs (shimush hahamim, ie “service of sages”, Hezser 1997: 334; Sivertsev 2005). Since most late antique rabbis maintained their families on the basis of ordinary professions, a rabbi’s personal disciples may also have worked with him. The close social and spatial proximity would have allowed them to gain access to their master’s Torah knowledge and behavior in all life situations. They were therefore best suited to memorize and transmit his teachings and stories about his practice to later generations. Similar teacher-​disciple relationships are known for Graeco-​Roman philosophers and early Christians (Anderson 1994: 116). Alexander writes: “Like the Sophists and other Hellenistic travelling teachers, both Paul and Peter travelled with a ‘disciple circle’ or retinue … from place to place. They set up new disciple circles on arrival, and left behind a number of supporters in the local community …” (Alexander 2004: 79). Locally, Paul “used a variety of locations for his teaching activities: the private houses of a patron, his own workshop, a rented public building” (ibid.). The gospels associate the formation of a disciple circle with Jesus (Hezser 2018). Personal disciple circles continued to be the main social settings of Christian teaching in late antiquity, both in ascetic and patristic contexts (Stenger 2018; Hadjittofi 2018). Peter Brown has already stressed that in antiquity a student “would always have gone to a person –​to Libanius, to Origen, to Proclus” rather than to an institution (Brown 1987: 4). Wilken points to imitation of one’s teacher as the main way of learning as far as the students of desert monks are concerned. The “Lives” of these monks “hold up ‘imitation’ as the path to virtue” (Wilken 1995: 131). In fact, Theodoret of Cyrus (4th–​5th c. C. E .) states that he wrote down the lives of Syrian ascetics “so that others may ‘imitate’ them” (Religious History 1–​3, mentioned by Wilken 1995: 131). Similarly, disciples of rabbinic sages memorized their master’s actions as much as their halakhic sayings. In rabbinic literature these practical examples are as significant as verbal rulings (Hezser 2017: 250–​2). Personal disciple circles also surrounded sophistic teachers (Wilkins 1988: 35–​ 6). Dio Chrysostom (1st to early 2nd c. C. E .), who belonged to the so-​called Second Sophistic, refers to the disciples of individual sophists, who joined them for studying purposes, such as the students of Pythagoras (A Refusal of the Office of Archon Delivered Before the Council 32.5.7) and the students of Anaxagoras (ibid. 32.6.5). Elsewhere he compares the student-​teacher relationship to the slave-​master relationship, while also pointing to differences (On Slavery and Freedom 65.19.3, 6), just as rabbis do (Hezser 2005: 174–​8). Wilkins points out that in Dio’s view the student-​ teacher relationship was not merely based on learning; rather “[t]‌he relationship is defined by the concept of imitation of conduct” (Wilkins 1988: 36 with reference to Dio’s fourth discourse on Kingship 4.40.3), an aspect that seems to have governed student-​teacher relations in rabbinic and Christian (monastic) circles too. According to Dio, the disciples served as status symbols of their masters, “men lifted aloft as on wings by their fame and disciples” (On Man’s First Conception of God 5.5). In public spaces virtual competitions between rivaling teacher-​student groups were carried out (On Virtue 9.3). Due to “his own ascetic humility” Dio is critical of “the arrogant Sophists who are gathering disciples” (Wilkins 1988: 37–​8 with reference to Dio, On Man’s First 174

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Conception of God 13.6; see also Winter 1997: 179–​96 on Paul’s criticism). His remarks suggest, however, that ancient intellectuals had to surround themselves with disciples in public spaces to “perform” their role of knowledge experts and public teachers. The disciples surrounding Stoic sages had to listen to and observe their teachers carefully to be able to adopt their ideal lifestyle. With reference to Seneca, Braund points to “the corrosive and destructive emotions that Stoic disciples had to divest themselves of if they were to attain the tranquillity of the Stoic sage (sapiens)” (Braund 2015: 32). Jervis emphasizes the underlying notion that humans “bear a likeness to god” (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta 1.537 [Cleanthes], see Jervis 1996: 146), similar to the biblical belief in the creation of (wo)man as imago Dei expressed in Gen. 1:27. Therefore the “goal of discipleship” was “to live as the gods live”, that is, in accordance with the divine power of reason and in harmony with the universe (ibid.). What such a lifestyle consisted of could be found out through close association with a Stoic master. Since the focus was on individual student-​teacher relationships and rabbis, sophists, philosophers, church fathers, and desert monks differed among themselves in the specific instruction and advice they provided to their students, the transmission of their knowledge to later generations of scholars would have been linked to individual teachers too. The disciples of a certain rabbi, Stoic, sophist, or monk would have transmitted his teachings to their own students and followers and so on. In this way chains of transmission were created that may be called “schools” in an intellectual rather than institutional sense (cf. Elm 2012: 323 on “the school of Chrysippus and Zeno” mentioned by Julian, Epistle 89b). Yet we also know of institutionalized philosophical schools in Athens and Alexandria in late antiquity (Watts 2006). In contrast to informal disciple circles, these schools or academies outlived individual scholarchs. They had a study curriculum and a succession of teachers. The Athenian and Alexandrian schools of philosophy attracted students from various regions who were interested in gaining a more specialized “higher” education than the more general paideia that characterized members of the upper strata of society. Lessons consisted of interpreting philosophical texts from the perspective of the respective school’s tradition and introduced them to “ideals of conduct” and “appropriate behaviour” (Watts 2006: 4). Famous rhetoricians and sophists such as Libanius in Antioch also founded schools (Cribiore 2005 and 2007). In fact, Cribiore argues that Libanius’ school was the first one of its kind: “This is the first time that a whole institution of learning emerges from antiquity, together with the names and identities of several teachers and details about their respective work” (Cribiore 2007: 30). Entrance to Libanius’ school was based on personal letters of recommendation and introduction (ibid. 112). Recommendations also governed the appointment of new teachers to “chairs” (Watts 2006: 12). Letters were one of the primary means of networking among late antique scholarchs and intellectuals. Watts provides a number of examples: Libanius’ letters on behalf of Harpocration (ibid. 1), Christian bishops’ letters to each other and to educated Christians and non-​Christians (ibid. 16), letters of friendship exchanged among philosophers (ibid. 18). Within rabbinic society institutionalized schools or academies seem to have emerged in post-​ amoraic times only. Throughout late antiquity, disciple circles and informal networks of rabbinic colleague-​friends seem to have been the main modes of socializing and communicating with one another (Hezser 1997: 185–​239 for Palestinian rabbis; Rubenstein 2007: 70–​3). Rubenstein has shown that rabbinic study sessions (Hebrew: yeshiva; Aramaic: metivta) in the sense of permanent institutions appear in the latest editorial (stammaitic) layer of the Babylonian Talmud only. They constituted “new forms of social organization” that do not seem to have existed either in Roman-​ Byzantine Palestine or in Sasanian Persia before the fifth to seventh centuries C.E. (Rubenstein 175

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2007: 70). Once they had emerged, they resembled institutionalized schools elsewhere in the Near Middle East: “The stammaitic academy appears to have been a tightly organized, hierarchically structured body, led by the ‘Head of the Academy’ (rosh yeshiva or rosh metivta’)” (ibid.). In contrast to the small number of students within disciple circles, these institutions may have attracted 50–​100 students at a time (ibid.). In rabbinic society, individual disciple circles seem to have continued alongside the emerging Babylonian academies that developed in Sura and Pumbedita from the fifth and sixth centuries onwards. Becker has compared these Babylonian academies to the Eastern Christian schools, especially the one at Nisibis attested from the sixth century C.E . (Becker 2006 and 2010). Stenger associates a Christian monastic school with the city of Gaza in the late fifth and sixth centuries, in analogy to the continuous prominence of Athens and Alexandria for Greek philosophical education in late antiquity (Stenger 2018: 1–​5; see also Bitton-​Ashkelony and Kofsky 2006). He talks about “learning cities” in the Byzantine period and suggests exploring “the complex interplay of educational activities and their urban environment” (ibid. 9). He concedes, however, that the term “institutionalization” may be misleading, since teaching remained an integral part of monastic life and the focus was on ethics rather than more scholastic activities (Stenger 2017). As far as we know, the cities of Roman-​Byzantine Palestine inhabited by rabbis never achieved such a reputation, although Caesarea Maritima seems to have been an intellectual center in late antiquity. In the third century Origen taught his students there (Heine 2010: 154). Geiger mentions individual (pagan) intellectuals rather than “schools” in places such as Ashkelon and Gadara (Geiger 2014). These Greek intellectuals formed “networks” of like-​minded scholars rather than schools (Geiger 1994 and 2018). It seems then, that informal teacher-​centered study continued in rabbinic as well as in Graeco-​Roman and Christian circles in late antique and early Byzantine times, with institutionalized schools or academies developing in a few urban centers only.

4.  Study Sessions and Perambulatio In Palestinian rabbinic texts the two major frameworks in which rabbinic teaching is presented are seated study sessions (a student “sat before” a teacher) and perambulatio, that is, walking and talking in public spaces (Hezser 2017: 30–​1; 245–​8). These settings constituted the framework for halakhic discussions. They may be mentioned so frequently in rabbinic sources because they were also the settings in which Graeco-​Roman philosophical teaching is said to have been conducted. Rabbis –​and the editors of rabbinic documents –​may have modeled their own scholastic roles on those that were most common in their Graeco-​Roman environment. Like sophists and Stoics, they present themselves as walking about in the marketplace, accompanied by their students, deeply involved in discussions, yet ready to give advice to their “unlearned” contemporaries who might approach them. Such a scenario often forms the beginning of narratives that deal with legal, theological, and ethical issues emerging from the outdoor locations rabbis find themselves in (for examples of rabbis “walking on the way” see Hezser 2011: 215–​21). Another scenario is the seated session in which his close disciples “sit before” a rabbi, listen to his teaching, and ask questions (Hezser 2017: 103). In some instances, rabbinic study sessions are depicted in a more formal and public way, with a hierarchical arrangement of chairs and benches and a much larger number of disciples and bystanders present (ibid. 102–​5). Such depictions seem to be modeled after philosophers’ and sophists’ public sessions and meetings of the court where a distinction between participants and observers and a hierarchical seating arrangement is also evident (ibid. 107–​10).

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O’Sullivan has emphasized the significance of walking and talking in Roman culture: “The Roman man conveyed his status in the way he moved through the city …” (Sullivan 2011: 17). He would walk and talk to his social equals or be accompanied by slaves who carried his utensils and cleared the way. As far as discussions with fellow scholars were concerned, “[t]‌he Roman ambulatio was therefore a social and even an intellectual activity, a setting for conversation among social equals” (ibid. 9). Rabbis are presented as walking with colleagues and students. Status differences between the different levels of scholarship are clearly indicated, for example, by having students walking behind their masters like slaves, while status-​equal rabbis would walk beside each other (Hezser 2017: 142–​3). In a Graeco-​Roman context such spatial distinctions and behaviors would have been interpreted as hierarchical distinctions. Ambulatio was especially associated with philosophers and other ancient intellectuals, based on the ancient Greek peripathetic tradition. O’Sullivan provides various examples, ranging from Plato to Diogenes Laertius and Epicurus. Palestinian rabbis must have been familiar with the tradition from hearsay as well as from observation, especially if they lived in cities. We do not know whether and to what extent literary depictions of rabbis’ ambulatory discussions and seated study sessions had a basis in social reality. Did Palestinian rabbis behave like Graeco-​ Roman intellectuals in the public sphere or are they merely presented as such in the stories that later generations of scholars transmitted about them? These descriptions are not merely editorial but appear in tannaitic and amoraic traditions. Were these traditions molded to resemble philosophical traditions? This is rather unlikely, since rabbinic traditions were mostly transmitted orally, and rabbis are unlikely to have read philosophical texts in Greek. A certain connection between social behavior and –​however stylized –​transmission of that behavior in oral and written form is therefore more likely. If Palestinian rabbis are seen as integral members of Graeco-​Roman society (Lapin 2012), their adoption of intellectual modes of conduct that were typical for that society is plausible.

5.  Exegesis, Ethics, and Law Late antique rabbis’ intellectual activity comprised biblical interpretation, moral guidance, and legal advice. They overlapped with different types of non-​Jewish intellectuals in their scholarly pursuits. In their focus on biblical exegesis they resembled Christian church fathers and monks (Visotzky 1988 and 2006; Grypeou and Spurling 2009). In a wider sense, Graeco-​Roman philosophers’ discourses were also based on specific base texts, such as Homer, Virgil, and Hesiod (Niehoff 2012; Hezser 2016). According to Schenkeveld, “the poems of Homer and Hesiod are like clearing houses of ancient, pre-​philosophical wisdom on theology. These myths must be interpreted …” by philosophers such as Chrysippus, Zeno, and other Stoics who “apply much philological acumen to the text of the epics by suggesting other readings … their interpretation goes along the lines of Stoic beliefs …” (Schenkeveld 1999: 222). What Palestinian rabbis shared with Graeco-​Roman philosophers and Christian church fathers was the broadly defined Hellenistic hermeneutical tradition. As Veltri has pointed out correctly, this hermeneutical tradition was very variegated: “Rabbinic hermeneutics reflects this multifaceted world of the text and of reality, seen as a world of reference worth commentary” (Veltri 2015: 2). Furstenberg has shown that the way in which scholars of the Second Sophistic function “within Homeric literary activity of the Roman period, may serve as a useful category for understanding contemporaneous rabbinic midrash” (Furstenberg 2012: 304). They related to Homer and Hesiod in much the same way as rabbis relate to Moses, competing with the ancients in their claim for a better understanding of the base texts.

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Rabbis also resembled Hellenistic philosophers and early Christians, especially desert monks, in providing ethical advice. Rabbis provided advice on how to lead a morally good life, based on biblical values but going far beyond them in their range of topics and specificity (Hezser 2018a). Nussbaum has emphasized the centrality of ethics in Hellenistic philosophy (Nussbaum 1993: ix–​x). While the goals of Stoic ethics, namely, happiness and freedom (Stephens 2007) would have differed from the goals of rabbinic ethics, namely, leading a God-​pleasing life, some of the issues addressed and suggestions given could be quite similar. Both rabbis and Stoic philosophers recommended their students and followers to practice self-​control in their words and actions (Hezser 2018a: 397–​8). Self-​control and moral advice were also the prerogatives of the Egyptian desert monks of the fourth and fifth centuries C . E . whose traditions are transmitted in the various versions of the Apophthegmata Patrum. Some of the ethical topics addressed in these traditions have analogies in rabbinic sources (Bar Asher-​Siegal 2013). Rubenson has emphasized that “[m]‌oral instruction is at the centre” of these traditions: “The wisdom transmitted is a wisdom about how to live and the tone used is paraenetical” (Rubenson 2005: 521). Rabbis’ moral instructions were likewise meant to be put into practice in daily life. Theoretical theological issues, on the other hand, were of little interest to rabbis and monks in late antiquity. In their halakhic discussions and case stories rabbis resembled Roman jurists. Like jurists, they provided legal advice to those who lacked their expert knowledge. In an environment in which various forms of informal arbitration coexisted (Harries 2010: 90–​2), rabbis provided a viable alternative to Roman law to their Jewish contemporaries. In order to do so, they needed to be at least roughly familiar with Roman legal practices. Cohn uses the term “cultural mimicry” to describe this phenomenon of awareness, appropriation, and imitation (Cohn 2013: 36). Berkowitz argues that “the discourse of rabbinic execution was engaged with Roman execution in both hidden and manifest ways” (Berkowitz 2006: 154). The transmission of legal rules and case stories that deal with some of the same issues and reach some of the same conclusions as Roman jurists indicates that Palestinian rabbis were interested in presenting themselves as a particularly Jewish type of legal adjudicators. The presentation of rabbis in the likeness of other types of intellectuals and wise men in Roman-​ Byzantine society is already a feature of the tannaitic and amoraic tradition. It must have begun in the oral cultural environment of rabbinic disciple circles already, in the ways in which disciples commemorated their masters. They used forms (eg case stories, anecdotes, example stories, legal rules) they were familiar with from the Graeco-​Roman environment they lived in. At some stage, this transmission of traditions associated with individual masters became what we can call scholastic, that is, the desire to collect and transmit a broader set of traditions associated with different rabbis emerged. Cabezón has suggested to use the term scholasticism as an analytical category to analyze phenomena in different time periods that have the following concerns: “self-​identification with a specific tradition and lineage and commitment to its preservation”; concern with the interpretation of Scripture; “textual and analytical inclusivity”; “completeness and compactness”; the view that it is possible to understand the world and universe; orderliness and categorization (Cabezón 1998: 4–​7). Based on this definition, the sages who created the Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Midrashim engaged in scholastic activities. They considered themselves part of a larger rabbinic movement that continued to preserve knowledge worthy of preservation and transmission in a more orderly, complete, and fixed format than was possible through individual oral transmission. The resulting documents themselves can be compared with other late antique and early Byzantine encyclopedic works that attempt to compile knowledge associated with particular types of knowledge experts, whether rabbis, monks, philosophers, or jurists (see König and Woolf 178

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2013: 1–​5 for their new definition of encyclopedism based on shared processes of knowledge management rather than genres; Hezser 2018b for a comparison between the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Apophthegmata Patrum on that basis).

6.  Competition and Dispute The dispute form is a constitutive element of tannaitic documents already. In the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmuds, different views on halakhic matters are juxtaposed to create a conversation between rabbis. Rabbis are presented as if in constant dialogue and discussion with each other. As Neusner has already pointed out: “In Halakhic documents, the Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli, Rabbinic sages ubiquitously record disagreements on matters of law” (Neusner 2004: 229). He was wrong in assuming, however, that the dispute form serves the expression of agreement on principle matters, that it constitutes “a necessary component of the statement of law and of theology” (ibid.). The dispute form rather indicates that halakhic thinking was flexible rather than fixed, pluralistic rather than uniform. The famous saying in Tosefta Sotah 7:12, which gives divine legitimacy to differing rabbinic opinions (“all these words have been given by a single shepherd, one God made them …”) and encourages Jews to accept them, points to the fundamental belief that human knowledge about God’s will could be approximated only and that intellectual diversity and discussion was the best way to engage in this process. This is also emphasized by Abraham Joshua Heschel in his philosophical discourse on the rabbinic notion “these and these are the words of the living God” (Heschel 2006: 701–​7). Goldhill has argued that the literary representation of dialogue is a characteristic feature of ancient rabbinic and Graeco-​Roman culture but virtually absent in early Christianity: “… with the coming of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, a sea-​change occurred in the use of dialogue” (Goldhill 2008: 1). Dialogue and dispute are closely linked to democracy and began in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. E . (ibid. 2). In classical Greek culture, dialogue became an important feature of politics, philosophy, and theatrical performances. “Roman culture … adopted the dialogue form”, as evident, for example, in Cicero’s philosophical dialogues (ibid. 5). Especially interesting is the following observation: “What we see in Roman dialogue is a double vision: dialogue is also a way of negotiating a space between cultures and traditions, a way of expressing Roman intellectual life in and against Greek models” (ibid.). Rabbis would have been similarly involved in negotiating and bridging cultures: the culture of their biblical tradition with the culture of their Graeco-​Roman environment. By using the dialogue form, a genre that was closely linked to the sympotic tradition in both Greek and Latin, to adapt Torah law and values to their Roman-​Byzantine context, rabbis resembled intellectuals of the so-​called Second Sophistic (cf. Boyarin 2008: 226, whose focus is on the Babylonian Talmud). They used the dialogue form to negotiate their own space within the cultural environment they lived in (see especially Burrus 2017: 460 in response to Boyarin). The Second Sophistic was concerned with maintaining and negotiating a Greek identity within a Roman cultural environment. Dench points to the Roman Empire’s “protoglobalization” as a motivating factor for movements that asserted and carved out their own cultural identities within a context that prioritized citizenship over ethnicity and promoted “the internationalism of the elite” (Dench 2017: 99). That the Second Sophistic can be understood as a reaction to the Roman Empire has also been emphasized by Goldhill, who uses the term “Everything is Greece to the Wise Man” (Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 1.36) as a slogan to illustrate Greek intellectuals’ efforts to claim the superiority of and preserve their own cultural tradition within the Roman political realm: “Both Lucian and Philostratus see Greek culture –​its establishment, value, maintenance –​as a question 179

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integral to their intellectual projects, and to the social impact of their writing” (Goldhill 2001: 7). By analogy, rabbis saw the Torah as integral to their identity as Jews within the Roman Empire and continued to use Hebrew and Aramaic instead of (Greek and) Latin. How did the dispute form help to negotiate an alternative ethnic minority identity within the Roman-​Byzantine context? According to Schwartz, rabbis “exploited” Graeco-​Roman practices such as the symposium for their own “holier ends”, as a framework for rabbis’ sympotic dialogue on halakhic issues (Schwartz 2008: 216). The employment of the dispute form, which was a well-​ known literary device for presenting philosophical discussions in antiquity, would have had a similar function, namely, to indicate that rabbis were engaged in intellectual discussions on Jewish values, based on the Torah, just as Graeco-​Roman philosophers discussed Hellenistic values based on Homer and the classical Greek poets. To what extent such dialogues and disputes, constructed by the editors of the respective literary documents, were part of rabbinic scholastic culture remains uncertain and depends on rabbis’ network connections, proximity, and communication practices.

7.  The Public Role of Ancient Intellectuals Ancient intellectuals had to perform their identity in public to be acknowledged as knowledge experts. Whitmarsh talks about “sophistic performance” that centered around the body (2005: 26). The public was less prone to remember the words of the speeches given than the way in which the speaker comported himself. Did he look convincing and reliable? Were his gestures exaggerated or supportive of the ideas he expressed? Did his behavior in public reveal a morally good persona? Clothing, physical appearance, gestures, facial expressions, pitch of voice, speed of walking, and entourage were all crucial for the impression a person made (ibid. with reference to Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists). Palestinian rabbinic texts indicate that rabbis were cognizant of the significance of public performance and adjusted some of their behaviors to the Graeco-​Roman norms (Hezser 2017: 66). A rabbinic text states that “… disciples of sages are recognizable in the market by the way they walk, the way they talk, and the way they wrap themselves in their cloaks” (Sifre Deut. 343:11). Rabbis had to be recognizable as a specifically Jewish type of intellectuals in order to gain disciples and followers among the public. Levine and Lapin have already argued that rabbis’ public roles expanded in late antiquity from the third century onwards, a phenomenon that was probably linked to their greater presence in the cities of Roman Palestine (Levine 1989: 25; Lapin 2000). In the third and fourth centuries more rabbis seem to have sojourned in Sepphoris, Tiberias, Caesarea, and Lydda than in the first two centuries. Rabbis who lived in urban contexts would have been familiar with non-​Jewish intellectuals’ modes of self-​presentation. To be acknowledged as intellectuals, both by their urban fellow-Jews and by non-​Jewish intellectuals, they would have had to conform to the ways in which intellectuals displayed their identity in public. They also seem to have increased their visibility in public, for example, by giving public sermons in synagogues and discussing Torah with other Jews in local study houses. As such, they seem to have fashioned themselves as part of the cities’ alternative elites besides the wealthy office-​holding strata of society. These alternative elites would have partly overlapped with the economic-​political elites as far as they belonged to the upper strata of society themselves (eg the Jewish patriarch and some wealthy rabbis). The majority, however, seem to have gained prestige on the basis of their Torah learning only rather than through heritage, wealth, or offices, at least as far as Roman-​Byzantine Palestine is concerned. Hidary has argued that rabbis resembled sophists in giving public orations, serving as judges in public court settings, and engaging in dialectic discourse in public spaces (Hidary 2018: 80). The public image he creates for rabbis seems to be exaggerated at least as far as the first and second 180

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centuries are concerned. Sermons are almost only mentioned in amoraic sources; the phenomenon that rabbis used Aramaic rather than Greek would have limited their audiences to fellowJews; rabbis’ primary focus remained the teaching of their small circles of students rather than popular instruction; rabbis are never associated with the gestures typical of Roman rhetoricians (Hezser 2019a). And yet their public role and self-​fashioning as a particularly Jewish type of intellectual seem to have expanded in late antique and early Byzantine times. This was also the time when written compilations of earlier traditions were created, in line with Graeco-​Roman and Christian intellectuals’ favoring of the written mode. The Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds, and Midrashim became the basis of a new type of text-​based rabbinic study that prevailed throughout the Middle Ages and modern times. With the eventual adoption of the codex form rabbinic study became “bookish” and more widely practiced among medieval Jews (Stern 2008).

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Catherine Hezser Cribiore, Raffaella (2007). The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cribiore, Raffaella (2013). Libanius the Sophist. Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Dench, Emma (2017). “Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity,” in Daniel S. Richter and William A. Johnson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 99–​114. Elm, Susanna (2012). Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Eshleman, Kendra (2012). The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire: Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Furstenberg, Yair (2012). “The Agon With Moses and Homer: Rabbinic Midrash and the Second Sophistic,” in Maren R. Niehoff (ed.), Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. 299–​328. Geiger, Joseph (1994). “Notes on the Second Sophistic in Palestine,” Illinois Classical Studies 19, 221–​30. Geiger, Joseph (2014). Hellenism in the East: Studies on Greek Intellectuals in Palestine. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Geiger, Joseph (2018). “Greek Intellectual Networks in Late Antique Palestine,” ARAM Periodical 30: 1–​2, 161–​6. Goldhill, Simon (2001). “Introduction. Setting an Agenda: ‘Everything is Greece to the Wise,’ ” in Simon Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–​28. Goldhill, Simon (2008). “Introduction: Why Don’t Christians Do Dialogue?” in Simon Goldhill (ed.), The End of Dialogue in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green, William Scott (2003). ”Storytelling and Holy Man: The Case of Ancient Judaism,” in Jacob Neusner (ed.), Take Judaism, for Example: Studies Toward the Comparison of Religions. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers. Grypeou, Emmanuela and Spurling, Helen (eds.) (2009). The Exegetical Encounter Between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hadjittofi, Fotini (2018). “Town and Gown in the Orations of Choricius of Gaza,” in Jan R. Stenger, Learning Cities in Late Antiquity: The Local Dimension of Education. London: Routledge. 145–​63. Harries, Jill (2010). “Courts and the Judicial System,” in Catherine Hezser (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 85–​101. Heine, Ronald E. (2010). Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heschel, Abraham Joshua (2006). Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations. Edited and Translated from the Hebrew with Commentary by Gordon Tucker with Leonard Levin. New York, NY and London: Continuum. Hezser, Catherine (1997). The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hezser, Catherine (2005). Jewish Slavery in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hezser, Catherine (2011). Jewish Travel in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hezser, Catherine (2016). “The Torah Versus Homer: Jewish and Greco-​Roman Education in Late Roman Palestine,” in Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts (eds.), Ancient Education and Early Christianity. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. 5–​24. Hezser, Catherine (2017). Rabbinic Body Language: Non-​Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hezser, Catherine (2018). “Followers, Servants, and Traitors: The Representation of Disciples in the Synoptic Gospels and in Ancient Judaism,” in Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts (eds.), Early Christianity and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. 71–​86. Hezser, Catherine (2018a). “Guidelines for the Ideal Way of Life: Rabbinic Halakhah and Hellenistic Practical Ethics,” in Michael L. Satlow (ed.), Strength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J.D. Cohen. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. 389–​404. Hezser, Catherine (2018b). “The Creation of the Talmud Yerushalmi and Apophthegmata Patrum as Monuments to the Rabbinic and Monastic Movements in Early Byzantine Times,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 25: 4, 368–​93.

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Rabbis and the Image of the Intellectual Hezser, Catherine (2019). “Rabbis as Intellectuals in the Context of Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine Christian Scholasticism,” in Sean Adams (ed.), Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras: Greek, Latin, and Jewish. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. Forthcoming. Hezser, Catherine (2019a). “Review of: Richard Hidary, Rabbis and Classical Rhetoric. Sophistic Education and Oratory in the Talmud and Midrash, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017,” Theologische Literaturzeitung, 144: 1/​2, 49–​51. Hidary, Richard (2018). Rabbis and Classical Rhetoric: Sophistic Education and Oratory in the Talmud and Midrash. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jervis, L. Ann (1996). “Becoming Like God Through Christ: Discipleship in Romans,” in Richard N. Longenecker (ed.), Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans Publishing Co. König, Jason and Woolf, Gregg (2013). “Introduction,” in Jason König and Gregg Woolf (eds.), Encyclopaedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–​22. Lapin, Hayim (2000). “Rabbis and Cities: Some Aspects of the Rabbinic Movement in its Graeco-​Roman Environment,” in Peter Schäfer and Catherine Hezser (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 51–​80. Lapin, Hayim (2012). Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–​400 CE. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Levine, Lee I. (1989). The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity. Jerusalem: Yad Itzhaq Ben-​Zvi. Lightstone, Jack N. (2006). The Commerce of the Sacred: Mediation of the Divine Among Jews in the Greco-​ Roman World. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Miles, Richard (2000). “Communicating Culture, Identity, and Power,” in Janet Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire. London: Routledge. Neusner, Jacob (2004). How Not to Study Judaism: Examples and Counter-​Examples, vol. 1: Parables, Rabbinic Narratives, Rabbis’ Biographis, Rabbis’ Disputes. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Niehoff, Maren R. (2012). “Why Compare Homer’s Readers to Biblical Readers?” in Maren R. Niehoff (ed.), Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. 3–​14. Nussbaum, Martha C. (1993). The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. O’Sullivan, Timothy M. (2011). Walking in Roman Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubenson, Samuel (2005). “Wisdom, Paraenesis, and the Roots of Monasticism,” in James Starr and Troels Engberg-​Pedersen (eds.), Early Christian Paraenesis in Context. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. 521–​34. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (2007). “Social and Institutional Settings of Rabbinic Literature,” in Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 58–​74. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. (2012). Rabbinic Stories. New York, NY: Paulist Press. Schenkeveld, Dirk M. (1999). “Language,” in Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld, and Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 177–​226. Schwartz, Seth (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schwartz, Seth (2008): “No Dialogue at the Symposium? Conviviality in Ben Sira and the Palestinian Talmud,” in Simon Goldhill (ed.), The End of Dialogue in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 193–​216. Sivertsev, Alexei (2005). Households, Sects, and the Origins of Rabbinic Judaism. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Stenger, Jan R. (2017). “What Does it Mean to Call the Monasteries of Gaza a ‘School’? A Reassessment of Dorotheus’ Intellectual Identity,” Vigiliae Christianae 71: 1, 59–​84. Stenger, Jan R., ed. (2018). “Learning Cities: A Novel Approach to Ancient Paideia,” in Jan R. Stenger (ed.), Learning Cities in Late Antiquity: The Local Dimension of Education. London: Routledge. 1–​23. Stephens, William O. (2007). Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom. London: Bloomsbury. Stern, David (2008). “The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading,” Jewish Quarterly Review 98: 2, 163–​202.

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12 RABBIS AS LEGAL EXPERTS IN THE ROMAN EAST Yair Furstenberg

1. Introduction The rabbinic movement, which developed after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E ., saw itself as a successor of the Pharisees, one of three major “sects” (alongside the Sadducees and Essenes) that were active in Judaea during the Second Temple period and offered competing modes of Torah observance. The rabbis adopted some facets of Pharisaic ideology, such as the notion of oral tradition, and they explicitly identified with Pharisaic positions in legal matters (m. Yad. 4:4–​6). However, in addition to these ideological connections, scholars have claimed some form of institutional continuity between the Sanhedrin, imagined as the pre-​70 Jerusalem high court, that was controlled –​ according to this view –​ by proto-​rabbinic figures, and two rabbinic institutions that presumably governed Jewish society after 70, the Great Court in Yavneh (Jamnia) and the patriarchate. According to this narrative, later generations of rabbis managed to transfer these institutions of Jewish leadership from Judaea to Galilee after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–​ 136 C.E .). Their activity is considered to have culminated in the compilation of the Mishnah, the corpus of authoritative rabbinic law brought about by R. Judah the patriarch. According to this narrative, the third and fourth centuries saw a growing rift between the two branches of rabbinic governing institutions in Palestine, the rabbinic academy and the patriarchate, due to the latter’s cultural assimilation until the final abolishment of the patriarchate at the beginning of the fifth century. Although this narrative of institutionalized rabbinic leadership was prominent among historians up to the last decades of the twentieth century (eg Safrai 1974), this approach is now generally dismissed (see Hezser 1997: 185–​239; Schwartz 2001a: 103–​28; Lapin 2012: 38–​97). This account is based primarily on a harmonized selection of mostly later rabbinic sources and does not take into account the deep political and social ruptures following the two revolts against Rome. The image of an all-​encompassing rabbinic authority over Jewish society does not fit nonrabbinic evidence, both literary and material. It overlooks nonrabbinic Jewish practices and disregards the standards of Roman administration (Schwartz 1999: 210). In fact, such a reconstruction is not even compatible with what emerges from a close examination of contemporary rabbinic traditions. On the whole, these sources portray a much more restricted image of rabbinic activity and authority. DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-15

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At the same time, the collapse of the traditional institutional model of rabbinic authority over Jewish society in current historiography has left some fundamental questions concerning the nature of the rabbinic “movement”, its status and its modes of action, unresolved. Some have characterized the rabbinic movement in Palestine as a collegial network with circles of close disciples linked to individual rabbis (Hezser 1997; Rubenstein 2007: 58–​65), which extended its influence only to a limited crowd of relatives and adherents. Others described the rabbis in “sectarian” terms (Lapin 2012: 112). Scholars also suggested to compare the rabbis to holy men (Goodman 1987: 108), and their movement to locally organized voluntary associations or philosophical schools, familiar to Roman society (Lapin 2006: 216). Admittedly, however, this minimalistic approach fails to explain the substantial discrepancy between the allegedly marginal status of the rabbis and their inflated self-​image reflected in rabbinic literature. Furthermore, a purely intellectual image of the rabbis does not account for the nature and function of their legal activity (besides dismissing it as merely utopian; Lapin 1995: 172), nor does it serve to explain how this group finally gained its recognized status as legal authorities toward the end of the talmudic period. Without assuming rabbinic authority as a historical fact, we should nonetheless ask: What were the means through which the rabbis in Palestine eventually acquired public recognition and judicial authority? (For the situation in Babylonia, which will not be addressed here, see Rubenstein 2007: 66–​73.) In this chapter I offer an alternative approach to the changing forms of rabbinic activity within the public sphere from the perspective of their main course of action as law experts. I will argue that the emerging role of rabbis as a new type of recognized law expert was the outcome of the provincialization of Jewish society in Palestine. The making of a provincial society required all inhabitants to adapt to a new system of jurisdiction, which challenged traditional forms of legal action and jurisdiction (on the judicial situation in Roman Palestine see Harries 2010). At the heart of the renewed rabbinic movement from the second century onwards stands the development and expansion of juristic knowledge and practice, which gradually evolved into a system of local law and courts. While scholars have pointed to the general similarity between rabbis and Roman jurists as well as between rabbinic halakhah and Roman law (Goodman 1983: 127; Cohen 1999: 976; Hezser 1998: 584–​6, 2003, and 2007), I will argue that the rabbinic movement is best understood within the peculiarities of the provincial situation and its unique forms of exposure to Roman law and practice (Jackson 1981). The rise of this movement correlates with the growing role of local jurists in the Roman provinces, who served to mediate the multiple legal traditions to both the local population and the Roman imperial administration. Consequently, for the first time, at the beginning of the third century, a system of local Jewish law was formulated in Palestine against the backdrop of the spread of Roman legal knowledge. The formulation and systemization of local law through the juristic activity of the rabbis would have served to establish their public authority. Consequently, in consideration of their professional knowledge, they became involved in adjudication under the auspices of the patriarch, who gradually from the third century C.E. onwards acquired imperial recognition. The rise of local jurists in the Roman provinces and the development of new legal discourse and new patterns of judicial administration allow us to trace substantial changes in the role of rabbis from the first to the fourth centuries without positing an institutionalized history. Rabbis utilized local legal and administrative tendencies to establish their own authority through the promotion of a Jewish legal system and identity. The approach suggested here does not only locate rabbis within an urban imperial environment (compare Lapin 2012: 6–​7) but views their channels of activity as a direct outcome of the transformation of legal practices through the provincialization of the region. 186

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As law experts, rabbis enabled Jews to integrate in the Roman sphere while maintaining a distinct local identity (compare the model suggested by Ando 2010).

2.  Torah Instruction in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods Following Deuteronomy 17:8–​13, rabbinic sources tend to describe the Jerusalem Sanhedrin active during the Second Temple period as a centralized institution that served multiple functions, including a high court, administrative center of a national court system, and authoritative source of ritual instructions (t. Sanh. 7:1). However, in Judaea during that time period there seems to have been an unmistakable distinction between two separate legal realms: the administration and adjudication of cases in law courts on the one hand and scholars’ instruction of the laws of the Torah on the other (Goodman 1987: 70–​4). In Second Temple literature the Pharisees are depicted as experts in Torah and in the customs of the elders, and their opinions were accepted by the populace (Josephus, Ant. 13:297; Deines 2010). The Gospels are a major source for our knowledge of the specific subject matters which concerned the Pharisees. They include the major ritual spheres that shaped daily lives of Jews during that period: Sabbath observance, purity, tithes, as well as marriage and oaths (Neusner 1971: 3.239–​ 48). This also holds true for scribes, although Luke refers to them as, nomikoi, jurists (compare for example Luke 11:45 and Matthew 23:2–​4, Luke 14:3 and Matthew 15:1; Schams 1998: 171). These issues also informed most of the controversies between the Pharisees and their opponents, such as the Qumran sectarians, who offered in their legal compilations –​such as the Temple Scroll, Damascus Document and 4QMMT –​alternative interpretations of the law and competing ideologies of Torah observance (Shemesh 2009: 131–​40; Furstenberg 2020: 783–​7). Except for a short period toward the end of Hasmonean rule, there is no evidence that the Pharisees were involved in the administration of the public court system (Josephus, J.W. 1:110–​112; Neusner 1973: 45–​66). Thus, while jurisdiction of civil law seems to have been conducted by local communal leaders, that is, city councils and courts under the patronage of the respective political administration, whether Hasmonean or Herodian (Schürer, 1973–​97, vol. 2: 184–​8; Josephus, Ant. 4.214, 287; J.W. 2:273, 569–​71; Mark 13:9), Pharisees derived their status from their knowledge of Scripture and sought to expand their authority through instruction in matters of ritual. They were a pietistic elite with sectarian manners who applied their expertise of the Law to expand their circle of influence. An astonishing level of continuity exists between early rabbinic forms of instructions and those associated with the Pharisees whom they viewed as their predecessors (compare Cohen 1984: 36–​ 42). The study of the evolution of early rabbinic literature after the destruction of the Temple allows us to isolate the earliest layer of this literary corpus. This layer pertaining to the teachings of the earliest named rabbis, such as represented in the mishnaic tractate of Eduyot (=​testimonies concerning rulings from the Second Temple period), reveals the concern for the precise transmission of extra-​scriptural traditions, in close correspondence with the Pharisaic commitment to the ancestral traditions, which was repeatedly refuted by their opponents (see Mark 7:1–​13 and Josephus, Ant. 13.297; Goodman 2007: 120; Yadin-​Israel 2015: 183–​206). In contrast, later forms of rabbinic teaching tone down the role of precise transmission of traditions in favor of creative interpretation and creation of disputes (Furstenberg 2018a: 587–​604). Another aspect of the close correspondence between early rabbinic teachings (of the first century) and the Pharisees, in contradistinction to later rabbinic innovations, concerns their fields of instruction. Teachings of rabbis who flourished after the destruction of the Temple cover the very same fields that concerned the Pharisees: purity, tithes, the Sabbath, and oaths, as well as marriage and divorce. None of the laws included in Mishnah tractate Eduyot address issues of civil or criminal law. 187

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An overview of the Mishnah as well as other tannaitic sources also reveals that the traditions attributed to the rabbis of the first century hardly extend beyond issues of ritual law. The expanded tractates dealing with courts and civil law (such as Neziqin and Sanhedrin) are a product of later second century rabbis, as we may learn from the names of the rabbis quoted therein. Although the reliability of the specific formulations of attributed sayings has been occasionally questioned (Neusner 2006), on the whole tannaitic traditions do not tend to pseudoepigraphically attribute sayings to rabbis concerning new subject matters. Rather, they may adjust existing sayings to later interpretations and conceptions (Stemberger 2010: 86–​90). It is therefore possible to trace the expansion of rabbinic study by comparing the teachings of rabbis in different generations and tannaitic academies. Notably, then, Second Temple sources on the teachings of the Pharisees correspond to early rabbinic traditions and validate the coherent image of the scope of their instructions. The division between instructing in ritual law and the settlement of disputes was a basic feature of the early rabbinic movement which initially was involved primarily in the instruction of ritual and family law (Goodman 1983: 93–​118). This image of the spheres of instruction among the first rabbis is further corroborated by additional tannaitic sources pertaining to rabbinic activity in the time between the first and second Jewish revolt against Rome (70–​132 C. E .). Anecdotes included in the tannaitic corpus frequently refer to the “high court” that was active in Yavneh between the two revolts and to rabbinic gatherings that took place there. Such anecdotes may reflect historically reliable depictions and should be distinguished from the image that evolved in later talmudic stories about this admired institution (eg y. Ber. 4:1, 7c and b. Ber. 28b; compare Simon-​Shoshan 2017 and Hezser 2018). Despite its name, the actual issues this court treated, according to these sources, were limited to the realm of ritual law. The decrees attributed to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai offered ritual substitutions for Temple worship (m. Rosh Hash. 4:1–​4), Rabban Gamliel’s court in Yavneh was in charge of setting the calendar (m. Rosh Hash. 2:8), and rabbis would address questions of ritual practice brought by the public to the study house (bet midrash; m. Yad. 4:3–​4; Mandel 2017: 169–​221). As Haim Shapira has demonstrated, there is in fact no indication that during the post-​70 C .E . period these rabbinic institutions served to resolve matters of private law, since this was not considered part of their responsibility (Shapira 2007: 327–​33). Hayim Lapin further pointed out the “circumscribed and specialized concerns this early literature associated with rabbis” (Lapin 2006: 208). A careful analysis of the “protocol of the high court” (t. Sanh. 7:2–​10) reveals that references to court procedures were added to the core text at a later stage (Rosen-​Zvi 2009). The tradition originally focused on study and instruction by rabbis of the early second century to implement some form of uniform practice in ritual matters (eg m. Bek. 4:5; m. Parah 7:6) as well as in marriage and family law (m. Ketub. 4:6). Thus, while this institution represents a short-​lived attempt to establish a centralized framework for rabbinic activity (eg m. Yad. 3:5–​4:4) that surpassed the organizational settings of their Pharisaic predecessors, and it included a fixed place for the gatherings of dozens of elders, and set rules for discussion and voting, nonetheless it followed the model of the Pharisees Torah expertise (Schremer 2018: 564–​72; Lapin 2006: 207–​ 12. Compare Cohen 1984: 45–​51). The correlation between the Pharisaic model of Torah instruction and early rabbinic activity is essential for our understanding of the legal culture in Palestine under Roman rule, and for assessing the role of the rabbis within a complex legal landscape. Arguably, the restriction of rabbinic activity to the field of ritual law did not derive from Roman limitations imposed on the local jurisdiction following 70 C. E ., nor was it caused by the fact that people preferred Roman power over the limited authority of local Jewish courts. Indeed, the archive of Babatha found in the Judaean Desert provides an astounding testimony to the speed by which local litigants accommodated to 188

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Roman presences and prepared their legal documents in accordance with Roman legal forms in the governor’s court (Cotton 2002: 13–​8; Harries 2010: 95–​8). However, the option of resorting to Roman courts did not eliminate the advantages of the traditional local courts, and would not have directly impacted the status of the rabbis, who were involved in other forms of instruction. Rabbinic literature provides some information about the organization of local non-​Roman courts and archives in the cities of Palestine at this stage (for a helpful survey see Goodman 1983: 158–​62), but at first the rabbis do not seem to have been directly involved in the administration of justice. Rabbis of the second century did occasionally engage in arbitration on the basis of their personal, nonprofessional, judgment (see the story of R. Yose b. Halafta in y. Sanh. 1:1, 18a), and their teachings in Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin ­chapter 3 address this practice of arbitration as a major venue for resolving issues of private law (Harries 2010: 90–​2). Nonetheless, up to the third century the rabbis are not depicted in actual case stories as involved in administrating local courts and accommodating them to the presence of Roman jurisdiction. Beyond the realm of the rabbis, local adjudication in Palestine depended primarily on familiarity with local norms concerning property, commercial contracts, and the forms of legal documents. In general, these issues did not require the approval of experts in the Judaean legal tradition. Furthermore, surveys of the laws of the Torah from the Second Temple period, such as Josephus’ detailed description of the constitution of Moses, do not include private law in any systematic manner, beyond occasional reference to damages, theft, and ethical demands for the care of the weak (Josephus, Ant. 4.196–​301; C. Ap. 199–​219). These issues are addressed in the Bible but hardly provide a sufficient foundation for managing cases of private law (Lapin 1995: 150–​68). Torah knowledge did not make one a recognized adjudicator. It is not surprising, then, that in his survey of cases brought to rabbis of the second century C . E . Shaye J.D. Cohen found only an insignificant number dealing with private law, whereas most of the cases addressed ritual and marriage law (Cohen 1999: 967–​71). Cohen concluded (ibid. 971) that rabbis occupied only a marginal status within Jewish society at that time and were consulted only by a limited group of followers. They did not engage in the legal disputes of the general Jewish population. However, rather than testifying to the status of rabbis, these findings indicate the nature of rabbinic instruction during this period and point to their fields of expertise (Lapin 2010: 265). This division of labor was to change during the following century and radically transform the nature and status of the rabbinic movement and their self-​image. Among other administrative developments we encounter in third-​century sources, such as the establishment of the patriarchate, these later sources relate to the appointment of rabbis as judges and their growing involvement in jurisdiction and treatment of legal disputes. This development fits the changing legal culture of the Roman provinces and the rise of the local jurist, which transformed the nature of rabbinic activity, as will be argued in the following sections.

3.  The Rise of Local Jurists in the Roman East There is a curious correlation between the early stages of the rabbinic movement and the development of classical Roman jurisprudence (Cohen 1966: 15; Alexander 1990:114–​5). During the first century B.C.E ., a developed theory and practice of autonomous law, resonating with the novel traits of rabbinic legal activity, emerged among Roman lawyers (Frier 2014). This approach set the grounds for the learned activity of the two schools of law under the early Principate, the Proculians and the Sabinians; similarly, rabbis viewed their contemporaries, the schools of Shammai and Hillel, as founders of rabbinic legal practice. The literary production of the Roman jurists, which 189

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extended to the end of the Severan period, coincided with the creation of the foundational rabbinic corpus, the Mishnah, at the beginning of the third century C.E . However, viewed within the wider imperial context, these general similarities between Roman and rabbinic legal experts should not detract from the multifaceted forms of legal profession that developed throughout the Roman Empire during the second century. Two developments which have become most visible during that period transformed the nature of legal practice in the provinces: the rise of local jurists and the spread of Roman legal literature in the provinces. Both tendencies, I shall argue, had a far-​reaching impact on the nature of rabbinic juristic and literary activity. During the second century, the distribution and development of legal knowledge has become a key feature both in the administration of justice and the dissemination of imperial ideology. In addition, it served as a major resource for provincials in their encounter with Roman jurisdiction. A combination of factors emanating both from the Roman center and the provinces enhanced the growing professionalization of juristic knowledge among Roman administrators and local elites. From the Roman perspective, imperial administration of the second century required the creation of a class of legal experts who served on the councils of Roman magistrates and supplied them with legal advice. The emperor and provincial governors adjudicated cases and offered authoritative legal responsa, but they relied on the judgment and formulation of their legal advisers. This development culminated with the legal reform of Hadrian who integrated the jurists into imperial legal administration by formalizing their position and worked to unify legal instructions through the publication of authoritative rescripts (Bauman 1989: 235–​86; Tuori 2016: 196–​240). The rescripts issued by the emperors replaced the previous private responsa of the legal experts, who under Augustus were granted an imperial right of response (ius respondendi). Following Hadrian’s reforms these jurists served at the emperor’s council and were responsible for the formulation of his own rescripts and for fixing their status as general laws in their own writings (Honoré 1981: 46–​53; Tuori 2016: 216). In addition, Hadrian fixed the form of the Praetor’s edict, whose details previously depended upon the personal judgment of the exchanging magistrate. The formulas of the civil procedure, whose continued reformulation served initially as a resource for the development of Roman jurisprudence, had now become stabilized and their systematic interpretation engendered an abundance of literary activity. Thus, instead of the republican model of legally informed magistrates, who gained their knowledge from involvement in legal tribunals and the administration of justice, a new model of jurist-​bureaucrats developed (Schulz 1953: 103; De Blois 2001: 136–​8; Tuori 2006: 228–​9). The transformation of legal education during the second century coincided with the emergence of a corpus of literary production of contemporary legal experts (Harries 2016: 156–​60). Alongside the development of comprehensive commentary literature on the major sources of law, and in particular on the Praetor’s Edict, a second branch of legal literature developed, introductory handbooks, to serve the needs of the growing class of legal bureaucrats. The most important exemplar of this literature, which later served as the model for Justinian, is the Institutes of Gaius, a mid-​second century jurist from the eastern provinces. He was not a member of the emperor’s council but his writings, including a commentary on the provincial edict, nonetheless enjoyed authoritative status in Roman jurisprudence. The creation and diffusion of legal literature and imperial rescripts stimulated the establishment of the legal profession among non-​Roman provincials as well. From the second century onwards, local jurists (nomikoi) make their appearance in documentary, inscriptional, and literary sources from the Roman East (Jones 2007). The emergence of these local professionals points to the challenge among provincials to make sense of the multiplicity of diverse legal practices and to mediate between local and Roman legal settlements under Roman administration. While Rome did 190

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not impose its own laws on the inhabitants of the provinces (even after Caracalla granted citizenship in 212 C .E . to all free persons in the Roman Empire), it offered them access to Roman jurisdiction (Alonso 2013; Alonso 2020). Consequently, local jurists were obligated to acquire a new form of legal proficiency, which found expression in the various aspects of their activity. Papyri from Roman Egypt present evidence of the service of local jurists to the Roman courts. Besides experts in Roman law, Roman magistrates who sought to enforce local law through Roman procedure and standards occasionally required the assistance of experts in local legal traditions (Taubenschlag 1959; Ando 2012: 85–​93). This encounter led to the formation of a defined corpus of “Laws of the Egyptians” during the second century (Yiftach Firanko 2009). At the same time, the findings in the Babatha archive seem to indicate that local experts assisted provincials in adjusting their documents to the principles of Roman law, preparing them for appeals to the governor’s court in accordance with Roman formulas (Czajkowski 2017: 88–​106). Furthermore, these jurists also supplied litigants with information about precedents, rescripts, and documented practices, whether Roman or local, which could serve their interests in an appeal to a Roman court (Crook 1995: 69). They made use of local archives, including those serving the local conventus iuridicus (assize centers) that kept collections of literary sources of Roman law, and to this end were involved in developing a new form of legal knowledge of texts, documents, and principles (Schulz 1953: 154; Kantor 2009: 262–​4). These local jurists were therefore involved in both the formulation of local law in relation to Roman practices and in the distribution of Roman legal documents and literature. The knowledge of the distinct legal traditions and their interpretations enabled the litigants to argue their cases by negotiating between principles of Roman law and local practices. The imperial imposition of a centralized infrastructure of legal administration while, at the same time, allowing various forms of legal pluralism within the same legal instances on the local level, resulted in a mutual interest in diffusing legal knowledge in a literary format and in the development of a legal profession in the provinces (Bryen 2012: 796–​800). Arguably, the dissemination of various types of legal documents among provincials also established their confidence in the power of Rome to secure their interests, and therefore directly served imperial ideology (Ando 2000: 73–​130). I shall discuss the cultural context of Roman juristic activity and its rabbinic counterparts below. At this stage, it should be noted that the elements that nurtured juristic knowledge in the Eastern provinces during the second century can be discerned among rabbis as well. Although rabbis offered a unique response to the situation, it is this provincial legal culture that explains the new routes of rabbinic legal activity. Unfortunately, we have no evidence of rabbis advising Roman courts with respect to local customs (see Goodman 1983: 274 n. 187; compare Niehoff 2019) or offering legal services to those who sought legal remedy in the Roman courts. At the same time, their response to the situation reflects a form of engagement with the legal pluralism under Rome: the creation of a class of legal experts and the unprecedented development of a textual corpus of local legal traditions and customs. Rabbinic sources expressly oppose Jews turning to Roman courts and, in accordance with earlier Jewish tradition (eg 1 Cor 6:1–​11; Berkowitz 2017), advise that Jews should litigate only among themselves. At the same time, they were well aware that Roman courts adjudicated cases according to local customs, although it is hard to say how common this practice was, considering the resources required to appeal to Roman courts (Goodman 1983: 166). A rabbinic tradition of the beginning of the second century prescribes: “You [the Jewish court] may judge according to their [foreign] laws, but they [the foreign court] may not judge according to your laws” (Mekhilta, Neziqin 1; b. Gittin 88b). Although the rabbis opposed the prevailing practice of turning to Roman courts, this approach required them to develop a corresponding legal system and an indigenous 191

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legal corpus on which rabbinic legal adjudication could be based. Rabbis explicitly acknowledge the multiplicity of legal systems. In order to encourage their fellow Jews not to turn to Roman courts they even offered the service of arbitrating their cases according to Roman principles (Sifre Deuteronomy16; Furstenberg 2018b). Rabbis did not primarily serve as judges and initially hardly dealt with cases of private law. Yet the development of Roman jurisdiction in the provinces and the dissemination of legal knowledge created the need for mechanisms to manage local legal interests in face of the multiplicity of legal options. As in other regions, this situation encouraged the activity of local law experts who could organize and formulate legal knowledge alongside the Roman alternative. Notwithstanding their expressed ideological opposition to the Roman courts, rabbis were best equipped for addressing this new challenge, since they were considered authorities in the interpretation of Jewish law and had developed their own legalistic discourse. Consequently, rabbis devoted themselves to this new field of legal expertise.

4.  The Creation of Legal Literature We do not know much about the ways Jews in Palestine settled their legal disputes during the second century (notwithstanding their occasional resort to the Roman court, as evident from the Babatha archive mentioned above). Nonetheless, we can identify a fundamental change in scope and nature of rabbinic study culture during the latter part of this century, as the Mishnah gradually evolved from its earlier traditions into its final form. The most evident development concerns the expansion of rabbinic study into the fields of private and civil law, including monetary cases which scarcely appear in the Torah. Legal issues concerning sale, leasing and hiring, and the writing of legal documents, which did not appear in the discussions of earlier rabbis, now come to the fore. Arguably, during this period rabbis transformed themselves from experts of traditional Jewish law into proper jurists, who developed various areas of private law. In this vein, Daube (1944) has underlined the novelty of rabbinic creation of private law as a separate legal filed in the Mishnah. Clearly, legal thinking was hardly alien to rabbinic study, but the new circumstances compelled rabbis to expand their legal expertise from ritual to civic matters. Furthermore, as Dohrmann (2012) has argued, rabbis’ exposure to Roman legalism resulted in their creation of legal literature, while marginalizing other forms of literary and intellectual production (although some early tannaitic writings incorporate nonlegal material, the overall framework of tannaitic Midrashim is legal). Scholars have long debated the meaning and intention of the Mishnah, and whether it could be considered in some respect as a “legal code”, as it was conceived by the later talmudic commentators. On the one hand, it is the first Jewish text that encompasses Jewish law in its entirety and it provides a systematic framework for its study: it is divided into discrete subject matters, and it provides a comprehensive view of each topic. On the other hand, the Mishnah’s most salient feature is the disputes that abound it and defy any attempt to infer the actual legal practice. Thus, alongside the traditional view of the redaction of the Mishnah as a legal code, scholars have suggested viewing the Mishnah as an assorted anthology of earlier rabbinic sources, or as a teaching manual of rabbinic traditions (Strack and Stemberger 1996: 134–​9; Elman 2004: 58–​65). Considering the gradual process of mishnaic composition, and the varied sources it is based on, it is difficult to attribute this compilation to a single intention. Nonetheless, within this composition, we can identify a tendency toward elaborating the fields of private and civil law beyond the biblical foundations, on a par with current juristic literature (Hezser 2022). 192

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In order to create these new fields of private law the Mishnah, followed by the Tosefta and the Talmuds, combines creative interpretations of Scripture, local practices, and legal customs that are thereby fixed as binding norms (eg m. B. Meṣ. 9:1–​3), and a tendency toward conceptual consistency. At first sight, due to the lack of explicit legal terminology, one can hardly identify any attempt to adopt Roman rules or legal institutions; on the contrary, rabbinic law shows traces of opposition to Rome (Katzoff 1989; Rosen Zvi 2017). However, in addition to the formation of new fields of law, the Mishnah and the Tosefta include specific literary and conceptual patterns corresponding to Roman sources. Thus, for example, the system governing the status of a newborn in m. Qidd. 3:12 corresponds to Roman principles (Cohen 1985: 42–​6; Furstenberg 2019: 183–​6), and with respect to laws of acquisition we find a parallel sequence of cases in the Tosefta (B. Qam. 10:2–​7) and in Gaius (in Dig. 41.1.5–​7; see Cohen 1966: 486). Despite the lack of explicit references to Roman institutions and terminology, early rabbinic sources reveal some knowledge of Roman law and legal discourse (Hezser 2021 and 2022). Such examples reflect a rabbinic attempt to create a body of legal knowledge that corresponds in its level of conceptualization and organization to the standards of Roman law. In this sense, rabbinic legal production is comparable to the development of local customary law in indigenous courts under colonial rule (Furstenberg 2021). The need to fit into the legal space under Roman imperial administration created a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, early rabbinic literature celebrates its isolation from its legal and cultural surroundings. Besides the language barrier, early rabbinic literature (and particularly the Mishnah) almost completely ignores Roman presence and institutions, and it gives the impression that it exists within its own autonomic space. Some have suggested viewing Mishnaic laws as a utopian alternative to the Roman administration, and as expressing rabbinic resistance to the current political and legal order (eg Lapin 1995: 182). Indeed, such an approach is supported by the rabbinic discussion of corporal punishment, shaped in opposition to Roman forms of execution and violence (Berkowitz 2006: 153–​79). At the same time, the very creation of a new mode of legal discourse reflects rabbis’ attempt to create a legal system that could participate within –​and not outside of –​Roman legal space alongside Roman jurisdiction. Rabbis developed legal categories that could help litigants define their legal rights and personal status in relation to foreign systems of law (“Laws of the Nations”). Among inhabitants of the Roman provinces, rabbis are exceptional in creating a comprehensive literary corpus of non-​Roman local law. At the same time, on a smaller scale other cases of reproduction or compilation of local costumery laws are familiar from this period in other eastern provinces, such as the creation of the “laws of the Egyptians” and the reerection of the inscription of the “Great Code of Gortyn” (Bryen 2012: 794). This new literature served to consolidate a separate legal identity that could confront Roman officials and serve the internal interests of the local Jewish population. During this formative period of the rabbinic movement until the redaction of the Mishnah under the auspices of the patriarch at the beginning of the third century, this evolving legal corpus did not acquire an authoritative status. Rabbis remained law experts and consultants and would have adjudicated cases on a private basis. This situation changed during the third century through their association with the growing power of the patriarch as I shall argue below.

5.  Law, Rhetoric, and the Second Sophistic The legal production of the rabbis during the latter part of the second century reveals the extent of rabbinic participation in the development of legal professionalism among provincial elites. To be sure, this resulted in the creation of a unique legal corpus –​the Mishnah –​unparalleled among populations subjected to Rome, which offered Jews a distinct legal identity alongside Roman 193

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jurisdiction. However, despite its unique features, in some important respects rabbinic law-​making was in line with wider tendencies among Greek elites who sought to enhance their distinct cultural identity under the Roman Empire, a phenomenon regularly associated with the movement of the Second Sophistic (between the mid-​first and mid-​third centuries C.E .). Among both Jewish and Greek intellectual elites, the final entrenching of Roman imperial administration and accelerated Romanization of the provinces during this period led to the rise of new movements of scholars who sought to reappropriate their classical heritage as means for exhibiting a vibrant cultural identity while at the same time integrating within the Roman political order (see already Hezser 2019: 175–​7 and her chapter on rabbis as intellectuals in this volume). Following Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, the period of the Second Sophistic (parallel to the rabbinic tannaim) is considered to have exhibited a burst of classical Greek culture. These eminent speakers revived with extraordinary erudition, rhetorical skills, and control of attic literary style the glorious Greek past as they recreated historical situations through their declamations. As an urban elite, the Sophists were entrenched within Roman order by representing their city’s interests before the emperor and his delegates, thereby making their way within the imperial power structure. At the same time, their classicistic inclinations, through which they gained recognition, reflect a familiar paradox characteristic of local elites subjected to the power of the empire. Their mastering of the past and ability to perform their Greekness secured their position within their local community and at the same time enhanced their consciousness of Greek supremacy. It established the Sophists’ authority in the eyes of the Roman authorities, but beneath their political allegiance lay a fundamental loyalty to Greek and local interests. Scholars thus debate to what degree the Sophists (like their rabbinic counterparts) in fact fully accommodated to the imperial power, to which they undoubtedly owed their own status. According to Ando (2010), the Roman Empire encouraged peoples to cultivate distinct, often historical, often slightly “artificial” versions of themselves. Thus, in his view, the cultivation of Greek identity was a distinctively imperial way of being Roman (compare Bowersock 1969: 43–​58; Bowie 1970: 28–​41; Swain 1996: 65–​100). Rabbinic activity exhibits a similar composite of literary and cultural responses, and scholars have pointed out various features within rabbinic discourse that fit well within the environment of the Second Sophistic (Hezser 2019: 176). The two cultural movements seem to share a similar approach toward the past. For example, the succession list at the head of Mishnah Avot depicts rabbis as direct successors of the biblical past, much like and in close chronological correspondence with Philostratus’ linkage between the sophists in classical Greece and their current successors (Tropper 2004: 137–​56). Furthermore, rabbinic literature in general tends to ignore current reality and circumstances and is occupied primarily with meticulous study of the biblical past. The rabbis dedicated their intellectual efforts to develop their knowledge of the superior past, whereas the intermediate history does not seem to have interested them much. Even their preoccupation with the absent Temple was directed toward its ideal biblical model rather than the actual historical Second Temple. As Joseph Geiger writes: “The rabbis lived in a world of texts, and these exclusively chosen texts belonged to a privileged past” (Geiger 2007: 448). Furthermore, rabbis’ exegetical approach derived to a large extent from a “sophistic” approach to the past. The rhetorical revival of the classical past enabled the sophists to directly confront classical sources and suggest their own alternative interpretation to the course of events, which resulted in what scholars consider “Homeric revisionism” (Bowersock 1994: 11). Surprisingly, we even find rabbis expressing a competitive approach to Moses the lawgiver, claiming that as sophisticated scholars they understood the material better than Moses himself (Furstenberg 2012). Within this sophistic environment, we can understand how rabbinic Midrash developed into a 194

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bold and independent counterpart to Scripture, radically at odds with previous forms of biblical exegesis during the Second Temple period. Like sophists, rabbis utilized classical materials to exhibit their mastering of other bodies of knowledge and address current cultural models (Rosen Zvi 2006: 71–​4; Balberg 2011). But there is more to these literary similarities between rabbis and the Second Sophistic than a common approach to the classical past and its literature. They extend to the channels of action of these groups within the imperial setting and are comparable to the close correspondence between Roman jurists and Greek sophists during this period (de Blois 2001: 142–​7). Scholars have debated to what degree rabbis’ social status is comparable to that of the sophists (Tropper 2004: 150–​1; Schwartz 2001b), since on the whole rabbis were careful to avoid contact with imperial politics. They celebrated their cultural seclusion (Rosen-​Zvi 2017) and were hardly as powerful as the high-​profile sophists. Significantly, however, in both cases the chief legal skill among local elites –​Greek rhetoric and rabbinic Torah knowledge –​was harnessed by its most prominent representatives to empower local identity against the establishment of the Roman governing legal administration (Hezser 2019: 176–​7). Arguably, rabbinic activity embodies the same role of public legal service that cultivated the status of the sophists as well as local jurists in the Roman East. It has been suggested that rabbis were exposed to some elements of rhetorical education and that it inspired their forms of legal exegesis and disputation (Lieberman 1950: 47–​67; Daube 1949; Hidary 2018). However, the role of Graeco-​Roman rhetorical education extended beyond the mere knowledge of forms of argumentation and served to create a class of legal professionals, who were now also involved in facilitating juristic knowledge for public service. Despite the distinction between orators and jurists, epigraphical and papyrological evidence testifies to the overlapping functions of legal consultants and advocates, including the drafting of documents, supplying legal sources, and representing their local constituencies (Crook 1995: 69, 144, 155–​ 6, 195). Inscriptions portray an intellectual elite, which complemented its rhetorical and literary education with the study of this relatively new body of legal knowledge at the centers of legal education in the East, most famously in Berytus (Atkinson 1970; Millar 1999). Rabbinic material discloses a similar pattern, whereby the new legal discourse became a major vehicle for transforming rabbinic study and creating the new model of an intellectual serving his community (Dohrmann 2012).

6.  The Patriarch and Rabbinic Judicial Authority A survey of the cases that were brought before rabbis between the second and fourth centuries C.E . reveals a substantial transformation of the nature of their activities at the beginning of the third century (Lapin 2010 and 2012: 98–​125). As already noted (Hezser 1997: 191–​5), cases involving second-​century tannaim predominantly addressed ritual issues, including priestly gifts and purity (notably, the number of cases drop in the latter half of the second century, and this seems to be related to the lack of rabbinic organization during this period; cf. Goodman 1987: 110). As Lapin has noted, even cases involving property ultimately relate to issues of status, the calendar, and other rabbinic concerns. On the other hand, during the third century, we find in the Palestinian Talmud a growing involvement of rabbis in adjudication of property cases, including collection of debts, sale, lease, and inheritance (Neusner 1983: 115–​50). The rabbis are depicted as imposing monetary penalties for business misconduct (y. Abod. Zar. 1:6, 39d) and they developed a system for confiscation of debtor’s property comparable to expropriation in other provincial courts (y. Shebu. 7:9, 38a; Tropper 2005). 195

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How does one account for this change in rabbinic activity? Lapin suggests an expansion of rabbinic influence during the third century. He stresses the voluntary nature of rabbinic adjudication, since rabbis still lacked any formal means of coercion. They merely acted as arbitrators, following an agreement on the part of both parties, which could have been later enforced by Roman authorities (Harries 2003). The change that took place in the third century may have been the result of rabbis’ growing encounter with Jewish elites following their transition to the cities and their proximity to the centers of power. Here they could capitalize on the resources and prominence of the patriarch in order to extend their own authority over a wider segment of the Jewish population (Lapin 2012: 119). Indeed, the Palestinian Talmud reflects the broadening contacts of rabbis with nonrabbinic groups (Levine 1989: 98–​133). At the same time, rabbis’ involvement in adjudication seems to reflect a more substantial change in their form of action within the development of wider political patterns. The making of rabbinic judges is best understood against the recent establishment of the institution of “appointment” (minuy), which made its first appearance during the time of Rabbi Judah the patriarch. Tannaitic literature does not know of the appointment of rabbis to communal functions (Hezser 1997: 78–​94; Stemberger 2005). Rabbis may have been ceremonially introduced into rabbinic circles (smicha), but this practice would not have involved any recognized position in the community’s institutions. In contrast, traditions concerning R. Judah the patriarch and his descendants testify to the appointment of rabbis to public service including (but not limited to) the role of a judge. The Palestinian Talmud abounds with anecdotes on politics of appointment (minuy; Levine 1996: 7–​10; Hezser 1997: 79–​93). We hear of rabbis who were appointed by the patriarch to positions in villages (y. Yebam. 12:7, 13a), as well as rabbis who were involved in appointing communal leaders (arkhon), and others who failed to do so (y. Pe’ah 8:7, 21a; y. Sheb. 6:1, 36d). In other cases, rabbis were deprived by the patriarch of the right to be appointed, or their appointment was restricted (y. Mo‘ed Qat. 3:1, 81c). On the other hand, third-​century rabbis complain against the patriarch for appointing unworthy people for the sake of money (y. Bik. 3:3, 65d). Alon explained these tensions as a result of a patriarchal attempt to merge two previously distinct court systems, that of the rabbis and nonrabbinic urban courts, by granting local elites rabbinic titles. This policy undermined rabbis’ position but was primarily intended, according to Alon, to impose rabbinic legal standards on urban courts (Alon 1977: 374–​436). This theory, however, is hardly tenable in consideration of the lack of evidence for a functioning rabbinic court prior to this period. Arguably then, rabbis were now competing for the first time for positions as communal functionaries, equipped with their expertise and with growing political support (Hezser 1997: 87–​ 93; Schwartz 2001a: 122). As law experts, rabbis began to integrate into local courts, which were increasingly coming under the influence of the patriarch. They now had the chance to implement their own legal concepts, which they previously developed in rabbinic schools. In an oft-​quoted letter Origen acknowledges Roman de-​facto recognition of the patriarch’s jurisdiction even in cases of corporal punishment (see Goodblatt 2006: 419). Later, toward the end of the fourth century, imperial legislation granted the patriarch and his representatives a formal status comparable to that of church clerics (Linder 1987: 201–​4). The question remains, however, to what degree the integration of rabbis into the local systems of public service under the auspices of the patriarch in the third century C. E . fit into broader trends within the legal administration in the provinces. Viewing the expansion of rabbinic judicial activity within the framework of recognized arbitration in Roman legal culture, Lapin suggests that the establishment of rabbinic arbitration is another indication of the weakening of the Roman state during the third century (Lapin 2010: 272, following Harries 1999: 172–​190). Alternatively, the combination of sources on the appointment 196

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of rabbis and on their activity as judges suggests that the position of rabbis was established within local political structures in accordance with current political and administrative trends. As the Jewish population of the Land of Israel and the Diaspora became more dependent on the patriarch and he was gaining Roman recognition (Schwartz 1999), we can identify a bureaucratization of rabbinic activity. Scholars have repeatedly pointed to the transformation of civic political culture under Rome at the beginning of the third century. Until the Antonine period cities served the local aristocracy as an arena of civic munificence and a source of political and cultural pride, as evident in the many inscriptions in praise of gods and men. Thereafter, the role of the city in constructing identity and its independent status eroded (Brown 1978: 27–​53). As the elites sought to transfer their investments out of the city for the sake of entering the ranks of imperial aristocracy, the status of the lower-​ranking city decurions deteriorated. Serving the city was now considered a penalty (Jones 1940: 207–​10). Consequently, the cities were increasingly dependent on external intervention to force participation in the local administration and to supply resources for the city’s expenditures through public liturgies (Garnsey 1998: 3–​27). Palestinian rabbinic texts of the period give witness to the increasing burden of liturgies upon the city magistrates: “R. Yohanan said: If they nominate you to the boule [city council], let the Jordan be your border. R. Yohanan said: People appeal to the government to be exempted from the boule” (y. Sanh. 8:2, 26b). This political environment facilitated the emerging role of the patriarch as a semi-​official representative of Roman interests, and his appointments of local administrators may have received imperial approval. It is during this period that we hear of Roman supervision of local appointments through the office of the defensor (ekdikos) (Katzoff and Sperber 1993). Another aspect of rabbinic appointments rooted in current imperial developments is the immunity granted to particular professionals including grammarians, rhetoricians, philosophers, and physicians. Naturally, the cities resisted these immunities, which could severely diminish their resources, and they required repeated imperial legislation to delimit this practice to a small number of professionals (Millar 1983). In the same manner, appointment by the patriarch may have granted the appointees the desired privilege. For example, we hear of the people of Sepphoris protesting against a particular appointment and of Rabbi Judah the patriarch limiting the number of appointees (Lieberman 1946: 359–​264). As they negotiated their status amidst the powers of the patriarch and local politics, rabbis of the third century may have acquired a recognized and privileged position in the communal administration of Palestine.

7.  Ma‘asim Literature Here we consider the final stage of the process by which rabbis became part of the institutions of local jurisdiction in the cities of Palestine. At first, rabbis worked as legal experts to devise a recognizable system of private law evident in the Mishnah (Hezser 2022). Subsequently, they became part of the local bureaucracy of law administration, as was the case with imperial jurists during the same period. Finally, during the fifth and sixth centuries C.E . in Palestine we encounter a new form of legal literature, a uniquely Palestinian genre of court rulings (ma‘asim; not to be confused with the earlier genre of case stories [ma‘asim] in the talmudic corpus; see Newman 2012: 632 n. 7), which point to Rabbinization of Jewish courts and the rabbis’ participation in the Byzantine legal landscape. It is difficult to determine the exact scope and order of these court rulings, which have only survived through quotations and paraphrase in later Geonic responsa alluding to this compilation of Palestinian rulings. More fragments of these compilations that include the term ma‘aseh have 197

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been identified in the Cairo Genizah. In these cases, their Palestinian provenance is made evident from their language, Palestinian Hebrew and Greek loan-​words, as well as from the legal tradition they embody. Although the particulars of the cases are at times unidentifiable due to their reworkings within the compilation of rulings, they offer a glimpse at the actual working of courts in the posttalmudic period, and the dissemination of rabbinic legal activity to wider circles. Many ma’asim deal with the appropriate formulation of legal documents, such as testaments, property inventory, and the requirement of an arbitration agreement (compromissum) in the case of a dispute with a non-​Jew. These documents reveal a rich array of current legal vocabulary and legal tools applied in the rabbinic courts of Palestine during the fifth and sixth centuries (Newman 2012: 631–​8). As such, these rulings provide a valuable indication of the Rabbinization of Jewish society during the posttalmudic period, a process which was facilitated through the rabbis’ judicial activity and legal profession (Lapin 2012: 151–​69).

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13 PERSONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HOLY Michael L. Satlow

This chapter examines the Jewish “holy man” in late antiquity in light of both contextual historical work that locates such a figure within the larger shifting landscape of Greek, Roman, and Christian religious entrepreneurs and theoretical understandings of the “holy”. The chapter distinguishes between the actual presence of such figures in antiquity and their representation, primarily in rabbinic texts. Depictions of wonder-​working rabbis are to be distinguished from the (very few) rabbinic depictions of “holy men” and from Christian holy men. Miracle workers were portrayed as having supernatural powers but not as channeling the holy. In a seminal article, Peter Brown argued that one of the distinguishing features of late antique Mediterranean society was the rise of the “holy man”, who became, as Brown puts it, “the professional in a world of amateurs” (Brown 1971: 97). In Brown’s account, the holy man was seen as a nexus between heaven and earth and, as such, was accorded a special and central role within his society. Although Brown would later modify his original suggestion to take more seriously the distinction between the “real” holy man and the discourse about holy men in his sources (Brown 1998: 364–​6), his central idea fueled a generation of scholarship around the question of how, when, and why the “holy” is associated with an individual in late antique society and what that assignation might say about either the social-​historical context or the discourse and the functions for which it was deployed (eg Krueger 1996: 36–​56; Frank 2000: 1–​34; Rapp 2005: 56–​ 99; Frankfurter 2018: 87–​103). A few years after Brown’s article appeared, Jonathan Z. Smith clearly articulated this new sensibility: “Rather than a sacred place, the new center and chief means of access to divinity will be in a divine man, a magician, who will function, by and large, as an entrepreneur without fixed office… . Rather than celebration, purification and pilgrimage, the new rituals will be those of conversion, initiation into the secret society or identification with the divine man” (J. Z. Smith 1978: 187; see also M. Smith 1971). The phenomenon of the “holy man” was already known to scholars of Jews in antiquity prior to the appearance of Brown’s article. Prophesying, wonder-​working Jewish charismatics wander in and out of part of Josephus’s narrative and irrupt into wider view in figures such as the Teacher of Righteousness from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus (eg Josephus, B.J. 2.261–​262). In 1922, Adolf Büchler brought more notice to such figures as they appeared in (later) rabbinic literature (Büchler

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-16

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1922: 196–​264). Brown’s article, though, had a catalyzing effect on scholars of Rabbinics and led to a flourishing of scholarship devoted more specifically to the rabbinic holy man. The goal of this essay Is to survey and evaluate the present state of the field on the issue of the “holy man” in late antique Jewish communities. How did rabbis in particular and Jewish communities in general (although little relevant information from these communities survives) think about the possibility that “holiness” can reside in an individual? What are the characteristics of such “holy men”? How novel was their conception of such individuals and in what ways was it similar to or different from perceptions current among their neighbors? What can we say about the existence of actual Jewish holy men in late antiquity? But first, we must define what we mean by “holy” and why it is important.

1.  Defining the “Holy” At the heart of this inquiry is a critical terminological crux: what do we mean by “holy”? The term has a long and complicated history in the “history of religions” but for our purposes might best be explicated along two axes. The first is the extent to which it is thought to be socially constructed or an essential quality. The second is the line between the emic and etic use of the term. There is a sharp division between definitions of the “holy” that understand the concept to be socially constructed and those that understand it as an actual phenomenon. The earliest proponent of the first approach is the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–​1917), who preferred to use the term “sacred” (sacré) over that which might best be translated from the French as “holy” (ie saint). According to Durkheim, each society constructs a notion of the sacred –​encapsulated in its treatment and beliefs about special, “sacred” things –​that stands in opposition to that of the profane. The sacred is set aside and imbued with awe; it gives meaning to the elemental institutions of social life (Durkheim 1995: 99–​126). From the sacredness of an object or action, for example, flow taboos and the penalties for their violation. In this sense, Durkheim understands “sacred” less as a noun (although he does use it in this sense as well) and more as an adjective (Paden 1991: 14–​6). “Sacred” objects are those to which a collective attributes a special power, separating them from things and situations that are considered profane (Durkheim 1995: 140). For Durkheim, the “sacred” has no inherent content; it denotes a power arbitrarily ascribed to the object (which can include a space or a time). The sacred object is a social creation that always stands in relationship to the “profane” from which it is considered to be different. Today, such an approach might be termed proto-​structuralist. Later structuralist anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-​Strauss and Mary Douglas further developed Durkheim’s notion of the sacred and its importance for social life. For Lévi-​Strauss, humans have an innate tendency to construct binary spheres, of which the sacred and profane are an example (Lévi-​Strauss 1993: 80, on which see Tremlett 2011: 360–​2). Mary Douglas’s engagement with Durkheim is more direct. She considers the ways in which purity and impurity are used to establish the boundaries between sacred and profane and to promote group cohesion (Douglas 1966: 115–​29). In Douglas’s approach “holiness” becomes a flexible category constructed around taboos and tied to notions of purity and impurity. These sociological and anthropological understandings of holiness as a social construct provoked a backlash. In 1917 Rudolf Otto published Das Heilige–​Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen, translated in 1923 under the title The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-​Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Otto goes back to a theological notion of the “holy” that also relies on philosophical ideas of a priori apprehension. The individual, irrational experience of the “numinous” (a word 204

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he coined) –​the awe in face of a greater force –​in large measure demonstrates the very existence of holiness (Otto 1924: 5). The feeling of that external holiness may not be rational but should nevertheless be acknowledged. Mircea Eliade took Otto’s idea one step further. For Eliade, the sacred (or holy) was a core structuring principle that stood at the core of what it meant to be a homo religiosus (Eliade 1959: 162–​215). For Eliade, the sacred is real. There is some scholarly debate over whether Eliade means this in an ontological sense or is focusing more on the reality of the world in the mind of the homo religiosus, but he does seem to consider the sacred to be a force that can actually be experienced (Rennie 1996: 17–​25; Studstill 2000). In subsequent scholarship Otto’s and Eliade’s notions of the holy have largely fallen flat, faulted for being unverifiable, theological, and imprecise (Rennie 1996: 179–​212). Recently, however, some scholars have begun to push back. Robert Orsi, for example, sees the concept of the “holy” as a way to approach an experience which, for at least some people, is ultimately real (Orsi 2011). For Orsi, the “holy” becomes a way to talk about the lived experiences of those who identify as religious. Orsi’s approach intersects with another axis for considering the “holy”, that of emic and etic. An emic approach focuses on how a group itself defines the “holy”. An etic approach, on the other hand, requires scholars to work from these etic definitions in order to construct a wider, comparative definition of the holy. These approaches can overlap, since an etic definition often relies on collating emic data –​that is, how individual communities articulate their concept of the holy. This, in turn, points toward yet another problem in defining the holy, that of terminology. Are the words from different languages, which we normally translate into English as “holy”, truly equivalent? What, then, do we mean when we talk of “holy” Jewish individuals in antiquity? If we consider only those who are explicitly labeled as “holy” in the sources (an emic approach), this would be an extremely short essay. Very few individuals bear this designation and it is difficult to draw generalizations from those that do. When writing about the phenomenon of Jewish “holy” individuals in antiquity, scholars have generally chosen to adopt a much looser etic understanding, based primarily on the individual’s possession of supernatural powers.

2.  Jewish Holy Individuals from an Emic Perspective The term in the Hebrew Bible that scholars normally translate as “holy” or “sacred” is qadosh. It appears frequently throughout the Hebrew Bible and later parabiblical literature in a variety of forms (cf. Gammie 1989 for an overview, and Wright 1992: 237; Milgrom 1996: 71–​2; Himmelfarb 2006: 160–​86). The term is most often applied to God and the heavenly realm (eg Lev 19:2); the sanctuary or temple and things associated with it, including its priests (eg Ps 65:5; Lev. 21:7) and designated times (eg Is 58:13). Less frequently (and probably in certain biblical sources only), the term is applied to Israelites or priests (eg Exod 19:6) or Nazirites (Num 6:5). While some of these texts are ontological (ie the groups are seen as intrinsically holy), in several others holiness is understood as being achieved through proper behavior: holiness is considered the end result of a moral life (Klawans 2000: 21–​42). In only three cases –​Elisha (2 Kgs 4:9), Aaron (Ps 106:16), and Jeremiah (Jer 1:5) –​is the term applied to an individual. Jewish literature of the Second Temple period continues to use the term q-​d-​š in much the same way as it is used in the Bible (Naudé 1999; Harrington 2001: 202–​5). The sectarian texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls frequently term their own community or groups within it as “holy” (1QM 6:6, 14:12; 1QS 8). The “holy spirit of the community” (1QS 3:7) transforms a sinner into an accepted member of the yaḥad. New Testament texts use the term “holy” both to indicate members of a 205

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larger eschatological group and for those who behave according to accepted norms (eg 1 Thess 4:2–​3; Hodgson 1992). The Teacher of Righteousness is never singled out as “holy” and the New Testament almost never applies the term to Jesus (Mark 1:24 par. Luke 4:34; John 6:69). In the rare instances where rabbinic sources call individuals “holy” they tend to do so in the context of supererogatory ascetic practices. One passage states that “our holy master”, the patriarch R. Yehudah, was called holy “because he never looked at the place of his circumcision”, and then follows up by noting that “Nahum, a man of the holy of holies” was called thus because he “never looked upon a [human] form on a coin” (y. Sanh. 10:3, 29c, with parallels). The rabbis say that Elisha, one of the very few individuals termed “holy” in the Hebrew Bible, was thus called because of his sexual restraint (Lev. Rab. 24:6, Margoliot ed. 340). The examples of Rabbi Yehudah ha-​Nasi and Elisha point to a tendency in rabbinic sources to link holiness with sexual restraint. Koltun-​Fromm understands this nexus in the context of emerging late antique notions of holiness. Holiness is not simply to be found in specific groups (eg priests, Israelites) but can be achieved through a person’s actions. “Moreover”, she writes, “more often than not the Rabbis focus on sexuality as the means to that holy end … . [S]‌exual restraint —​ often in legitimate sexual unions —​comes to the fore as the primary rabbinic way to ‘be holy’ ” (Koltun-​Fromm 2010: 214). This connection between holiness and sexual restraint parallels trends in contemporary Christian Syriac sources (Brock 1979: 225–​6; Visotsky 1991: 173–​5). A few rabbinic sources claim that other activities, such as fasting (b. Ta’an. 11a) or abstaining from forbidden work on the Sabbath (Midrash Tannaim to Deut 14) lead to holiness. This has led Eliezer Diamond to argue for a more expansive understanding of the rabbinic notion of holiness. Holiness can be achieved by refraining “from behaviors generally permitted to others” (Diamond 2004: 75–​91, ibid. 85). This is in contrast, according to Diamond, to those that the rabbis call ḥasidim, whose piety is marked by doing supererogatory deeds. To my knowledge, only a single inscription from late antique Palestine terms Jewish individuals qedoshim. A fragmentary inscription from the catacombs of Bet She’arim (third century C . E .) mentions a rabbi with his sons and uses the epithet qedoshim (Avigad 1971: 243–​5). While the Greek equivalent, hagios, is used for several Christian individuals from Palestine (Tzaferis 1987: 40), the term is never applied to Jewish individuals (although Jews do use it to denote space, particularly in synagogues, eg Roth-​Gerson 1987, inscription 17). Nor, to my knowledge, do the terms qadosh or hagios appear as epithets for Jewish individuals in any inscription outside of Palestine. In Rome, however, the Latin term sanctissimae (“holiest”, “most holy”) does appear on a Jewish epitaph, referring to a daughter (Noy 2005: no. 361). It is likely that here, as in the rabbinic literature, the term has a sexual nuance and is thus to be translated as something along the lines of “most pure”, possibly referring to the girls’ virginity. Perhaps the use of qedoshim at Bet She’arim is meant to apply only to the sons who are then to be understood as unmarried, or virgins. None of the individuals termed “holy” (qadosh or hagios) in rabbinic sources, such as Rabbi Yehudah ha-​Nasi, mentioned above, seem to be associated with any special powers, such as miracle working. To the extent that we can make out, all are men (and almost all bear the title rabbi) and seem to exercise some kind of restraint, particularly sexual. Rabbis clearly approved of such restraint, although they do appear to stop short of commending it more widely and draw the lines at behavior that actually becomes foolish or sinful (Diamond 2004: 85–​91). In fact, these traditions point far less toward a figure of the “holy man” than they do to a quasitechnical usage of the term that conflates supererogatory sexual restraint with ritual purity. Such figures are admirable to be sure, but what makes them “holy” is their concern with staying in a state of purity, certainly ritual and perhaps metaphorical as well. 206

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3. 

Non-Rabbinic Wonder-​Workers

Although there are few Jews in our sources who are labeled “holy”, a more expansive, etic notion of the category allows us to consider a range of figures who in some important ways share characteristics with Christian “holy men”. Scholars have typically put into this category figures who are depicted as miracle workers. Rabbinic sources depict a number of such figures. Most of them are rabbis but a few are not. All are men. To my knowledge, neither rabbinic sources nor any prior Jewish sources depict women as having supernatural powers or label them as “holy”. Among the non-rabbinic wonder-​workers depicted in rabbinic sources, Ḥoni has often been seen as paradigmatic. According to the tradition in the Mishnah, a certain Ḥoni was asked to pray for rain. After failing to bring rain, he drew a circle, stood in it, and told God that he would not leave until it rained. His demand was so successful that it rained too much and Shimon ben Shetaḥ rebuked him, declaring that were he not favored by God as a son (cf. Ben-​Pazi 2017: 556–​9) he should have been put under a ban (m. Ta’an. 3:8). This seems to recast a story known from Josephus about a character named Onias whose prayer for rain was answered because he was “righteous and God-​beloved” (A.J. 14.2.1.22). There are other parallels in rabbinic literature. One omits Ḥoni’s name, referring to him only as a ḥasid (t. Ta’an. 3[2]‌:1); another calls Ḥoni a tsadiq (y. Ta’an. 3:9, 67a); and a third makes Ḥoni a rabbi with disciples (b. Ta’an. 23a). The scholarly literature on this story is extensive (eg Sarfatti 1956–​57; Green 1979; Avery-​ Peck 2006; Stone 2007; Halberstam 2009; Simon-​Shoshan 2012: 149–​66). Much of it focuses on Ḥoni’s designation as a ḥasid or pietist and tends to see him as emblematic of the existence of a particular form of piety in the Second Temple period (eg Büchler 1922: 196–​264; S. Safrai 1965: 17–​20; Vermes 1973a: 67–​9). In this telling, the hasid is characterized by righteous behavior that draws him close to God like a “son to a father”, an intimate relationship to the divine through which he acquires supernatural abilities. More recent scholarship, however, focuses less on Ḥoni as a real historical figure and more on how he is represented by the sources (including the parallel stories that change or omit his name) and what that representation reveals (Green 1979). It may be significant that the Mishnah’s representation is somewhat anomalous: Ḥoni is presented as almost petulant and with little, if any, sympathy. The other traditions label him as pious in some way (eg hasid, zadiq) and thus deserving of God’s favor. This might indicate discomfort with the idea (and/​or historical phenomenon?) of wonder-​working among the Mishnah’s framers (cf. M. Smith 1951: 83). The traditions about Ḥanina ben Dosa share many characteristics with those about Ḥoni. Geza Vermes, in his wide-​ranging study of all of the traditions about Ḥanina ben Dosa, argues that he was a pre-​rabbinic figure known widely for his wonder-​working abilities (Vermes 1972: 37–​46; Vermes 1973b: 57–​64). In tannaitic texts, the source of Ḥanina’s power is located primarily in his scrupulousness regarding his religious duties (Büchler 1922: 83–​7). Hence according to one story, Ḥanina was so deeply engaged in prayer that when a snake bit him, he did not notice and the snake itself died (t. Ber. 3:20). Like Ḥoni, Ḥanina ben Dosa becomes rabbinized. In addition to simply calling him a rabbi, these sources always understand his supernatural abilities as deriving from his piety. According to Baruch M. Bokser, Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic sources take the Ḥanina ben Dosa traditions in different directions (Bokser 1985). The Palestinian Talmud puts Ḥanina ben Dosa in the context of a number of stories that make the point that prayer is a “means to gain divine protection and a special relationship with God” (Bokser 1985: 60; y. Ber. 5:1, 9a). The Babylonian Talmud, on the other hand, largely (or at least explicitly) minimizes his supernatural power and instead portrays him as an exemplary leader (Bokser 1985: 60–​71). 207

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For Bokser, the Ḥanina ben Dosa traditions and their transformation are emblematic of a wider Jewish approach to “holy men” informed by three factors. Firstly, as the rabbis increasingly understood themselves as communal leaders, they fused or rabbinized supernatural figures and powers to make them seem dependent on knowledge of Torah. Secondly, in the wake of the destruction of the Temple, the rabbis saw piety as accessible to everyone. This caused them to look warily at “holy men” and other exemplars of supernatural powers that were not (at least theoretically) accessible to everyone. Thirdly, as the trauma of the Temple’s destruction receded, rabbis became more open to the possibility of individuals, particularly leaders, having such powers, especially when they worked within the rabbinic orbit. Moreover, according to Bokser, the cultural milieu played a role in the ways in which rabbinic sources portrayed Ḥanina ben Dosa and, by extension, other “holy men”. This played out differently in Palestine and Babylonia. In Babylonia, where rabbis had a role both in Jewish communal affairs and in dealing with the Persian government, they imbued their ideal leaders with wonder-​ working abilities; they thus came to look more like Christian holy men, with their unique political and intercessionary role. However, in Palestine, where the rabbis did not play an important role in governance, the stories about Ḥanina ben Dosa and individuals like him emphasize the role that piety –​extraordinary, to be sure, but available to all –​plays in gaining God’s protection. Ḥoni and Ḥanina ben Dosa are among the few non-rabbinic wonder-​workers in rabbinic literature. Many of the others appear in a collection of anecdotes about wondrous rain-​makers in b. Ta’an. 22a–​23b (but see also y. Ta’an. 1:4, 64b–​c). The stories, as Richard Kalmin has noted, are formally similar, depicting “the character of the main protagonist as a socially marginal individual who performs actions which either appear to make no sense or which seem to violate the standards of normal social intercourse” (Kalmin 2003: 230–​1). Upon interrogation, these protagonists are revealed to be doing righteous acts that cause their prayers for rain to be answered. A different story also analyzed by Kalmin portrays the main character, Ashmedai, as a Jewish holy man run amok, a scholar who turns into a demon (b. Git 68a-​b; Kalmin 2003: 234–​41). Like Ḥoni and Ḥanina ben Dosa, these figures also tend to be “rabbinized”, especially in the Babylonian Talmud. In the earliest versions of these stories, these miracle-​working protagonists were probably not identified as rabbis. When later rabbis elaborated on these tales, however, they transformed them into sages or at least gave them characteristics valued by rabbis, even when these figures were viewed negatively (eg Ashmedai) or ambivalently (eg Ḥoni). Indeed, in the Babylonian Talmud even Jesus is viewed as a sage gone bad (b. Sanh. 103a; cf. Schäfer 2009: 31–​6). One reason for this phenomenon might be the rabbinic understanding of the importance of Torah as a conduit for supernatural power. Supernatural power obtained and exercised outside of the rabbinic system made rabbis uneasy: Where did it come from and how does one get it? While rabbis do not always look favorably at those who have such powers, they can at least explain the phenomenon as flowing from the sage’s mastery of Torah. This is why the vast bulk of wonder-​ workers found in rabbinic literature are identified as rabbis.

4. 

Rabbinic Wonder-​Workers

In his survey of rabbinic notions of holiness, Novick suggests that the rabbis in general moved toward refocusing holiness from the Temple and sacrificial service to the Law and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the individual (Novick 2018). In truth, the depictions of wonder-​working rabbis conflate these categories. While a few traditions follow the trends of Ḥoni and Ḥanina ben Dosa in ascribing supernatural powers to an individual’s righteous behavior, the majority of 208

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wonder-​working rabbis are portrayed as gaining their power through the mastery of Torah (in its broader meaning). Such rabbis are considered virtual embodiments of the Law through whom God’s numinous power is channeled. The story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai is emblematic of such figures. A few different versions of this story exist. The version in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Sheb. 9:1, 38d) focuses on his ability to purify the city of Tiberias (L. Levine 1978). The account opens with R. Shimon bar Yoḥai “hiding” in a cave for 13 years, sustained by a miraculous carob tree but also afflicted with a skin disease. He goes to the public baths in Tiberias (perhaps to ease his skin condition?) and, while in the city, he raises all corpses within city limits and removes them, thus, purifying the city from corpse impurity. When a “Samaritan” tries to trick him by burying a new corpse in a place that R. Shimon bar Yoḥai had already purified, the latter discovers the deception with the help of “the holy spirit”. He curses the Samaritan, who subsequently dies. The account is followed immediately by another one in which he curses a “scribe” who mocked him, who then immediately dies as well (ibid.). There is an expanded version in the Babylonian Talmud that shifts the story’s focus (b. Shabb. 33b–​34a). In this version, R. Shimon bar Yoḥai went into hiding after criticizing the Romans –​ although they established some potentially good things (markets, bathhouses, and bridges), they did so only for themselves. The Romans were informed and he fled with his son, ending up in a cave where they were sustained by a miraculous carob tree and spring. During the day they buried themselves in the sand, naked, and studied Torah, emerging only to pray (for this purpose they put on clothes). After 13 years, they emerged from the cave and looked with disdain at those who worked instead of studying. Their gaze was murderous and God ordered them back to their cave for twelve months. On emerging, they had mellowed somewhat and R. Shimon bar Yoḥai –​who, as in the Palestinian Talmud’s account, has a skin affliction but also increased his learning dramatically –​miraculously was able to discover and mark the areas of Tiberias in which corpses were buried. The story ends with him cursing –​and thus killing –​both the man who mocked him and the informer. In the Babylonian Talmud’s version, the tradition about the purification of Tiberias (which is minimized and made marginal) has been transformed into a story about the tension between the study of Torah and ordinary work (Rubenstein 1999: 105–​38). R. Shimon bar Yoḥai’s miraculous powers –​including the power to kill –​are derived primarily from his mastery of Torah and, secondarily, from his asceticism. The narrator, however, does not celebrate these powers. Mastery of Torah is good, the story suggests, but scholars can misuse its power through their haughtiness and disdain for others. With such power comes responsibility. There have been many scholarly treatments of this story. Some scholars have focused on its relationship to Plato’s allegory of the cave (Republic 514a–​517d). Charlotte E. Fonrobert, for example, argues that the narrator of the R. Shimon bar Yoḥai tale in the Babylonian Talmud was in dialogue with Plato’s tale and inverted its political meaning (Fonrobert 2007). Whereas Plato’s sage resists this-​worldly reality on emerging from his cave, R. Shimon bar Yoḥai is forced to reconcile, even bend, his principles to it. In Fonrobert’s account, R. Shimon bar Yoḥai inverts Plato’s message by making R. Shimon bar Yoḥai a wonder-​working philosopher who, by those very qualities, is qualified to serve as a ruler. Unlike Plato’s philosopher, he must engage with the world. If Fonrobert asks us to consider the story of R. Shimon bar Yoḥai in a Graeco-​Roman context of wonder-​working philosopher-​kings, Michal Bar-​Asher Siegal understands it against a Christian hagiographical background (Siegal 2013: 133–​69). Bar-​Asher Siegal argues that the narrator in the Babylonian Talmud “reworked Palestinian materials in light of [Christian] monastic texts to create something new and different: a holy man literary tradition similar to that of their monastic neighbors” (Siegal 2013: 167). Irrespective of whether there were actual Jewish holy men who 209

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resembled Christian ones in Sassanian Babylonia, the Talmud created a hagiographical trope of the holy man that is modeled on Christian traditions but also distinctly rabbinic. The central motif of the traditions about R. Shimon bar Yoḥai –​ his acquisition of miraculous powers gained through his mastery of Torah –​is exemplary but hardly unique in rabbinic literature. Rabbis are sometimes portrayed as hearing the voices of angels (eg b. Ta’an. 21a), and those who are particularly learned are preceded by a pillar of fire (eg b. Ketub. 62b). In the Babylonian Talmud in particular rabbis are sometimes seen (as in the case of R. Shimon bar Yoḥai) as having a lethal gaze (eg b. Ber. 58a), and there is even a talmudic maxim that wherever the sage looks “poverty and death” develop (eg b. Mo’ed Qaṭ. 17b). In one story R. Yehoshua ben Levi is depicted as so learned that he would sit among those with skin disease, knowing that his Torah knowledge would protect him (b. Ketub. 77b). His learning and action (it remains uncertain which) led God to grant him a wish on his deathbed. He allegedly used it to trick the angel of death, with the result that he gained paradise without actually dying. This story is followed immediately by another one in which a pillar of fire appeared upon the death of Rabbi Ḥanina bar Papa, who is also seen as both learned and possessing miraculous powers (ibid.). Miracle-​working rabbis also play a role in the determination of halakhah. In one of the more famous narratives of this type, Rabbi Eliezer called on miracles to prove to his rabbinic colleagues that his view was correct (b. B. Meṣ. 58b-​59a). The tradents reject this form of halakhic proof, claiming that halakhah follows the rabbinic majority, not a heavenly voice. This passage does not serve as the final word on this issue, however. A fuller examination of rabbinic literature suggests that an alternative rabbinic opinion existed which claimed that learned rabbis had the ability to evoke divine confirmation of their legal views (Baumgarten 1983: 246–​52; Neusner 1987: 46–​54).

5.  Jewish “Holy Men” in Antiquity Scholars such as Adolf Büchler have long taken rabbinic accounts about early divine men like Ḥoni at face value (Büchler 1922: 196–​264). They are seen as the tip of an iceberg, indicating the presence of a larger population of “men of deeds” who performed wonders at the fringes of the rabbinic community. Despite many modern scholars’ reluctance to read rabbinic accounts as accurate depictions of the past, at least some authors continue to maintain that at least in the first couple of centuries such individuals actually existed (Safrai and Safrai 2004). Given the state of our evidence, it is very difficult to determine the existence and extent of this phenomenon. There is some evidence from inside and outside of rabbinic sources that Jews were known for their practice of “magic” (Janowitz 2002: 9–​26). There is a fine, shifting, and sometimes vanishing line between the “magician” and the “divine man” (ie your magician might be my holy man), and it is possible that this evidence as well points to the existence of such figures. Moreover, in contrast to both Greek and Christian biographies of miracle-​workers, almost no such Jewish biographies (with the possible exception of Philo’s tractate on Moses) exist from antiquity. We have surveyed some traditions in rabbinic literature that cluster around certain ­figures –​ eg Ḥoni and Hanina ben Dosa –​but the figures are never developed in an extended and coherent way; we see only snippets scattered here and there (D. Levine 2004: 48). The existence of Jewish miracle-​workers around the time of Jesus is relatively well-​attested, particularly by Josephus. It makes sense that such figures, functioning as “religious entrepreneurs” like rabbis themselves, continued to be active in Jewish communities in late antiquity, perhaps adapting to the emerging sentiment that individuals increasingly channel the holy. Rabbinic literature casts a few –​even in relative terms, very few –​rabbis as participants in this religious koine, and it is certainly not impossible that some rabbis really did attract followers who thought that 210

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they were holy. The evidence for these Jewish holy men, however, is far more suggestive than definitive. What is certainly incontrovertible is that the rabbis created narrative representations, however fragmentary, of wonder-​working holy men. Whence did these representations arise and what role did they play?

6.  Rabbis and the Representation of the Holy Man Rabbinic representations of wonder-​workers are best understood against three wider contexts: Graeco Roman and Christian representations, and certain logical strains of rabbinic thought. Greek and Roman societies have a rich literary tradition of representing “holy”, or better, “divine” men. Sometimes called the theios anēr, the divine man is often portrayed as having some special connection to the divine realm that often confers on him wondrous or salvific power. Alexander the Great was promoted as a kind of “god-​man”, which served as a model for later Hellenistic rulers as well (Fredricksmeyer 2003: 274–​8). The political uses of this concept extend well into the Roman period. Miracle-​working stories commonly appeared in the context of the ruler cult. Roman emperors, in particular, were often portrayed as performing miracles (Riemer 2006: 33–​6). These miracles were signs of the emperors’ claimed divinity and hence reinforced their authority. The fact that many of the stories of rabbinic wonder-​workers involve issues of leadership may be an attempt to evoke or draw upon this type of imperial propaganda. Philosophers too can be represented as divine. Plato (eg Theateton 176b) mentions the divine nature of the sage, an idea that also appears in Stoic philosophy (Winston 1995: 171–​80). Such representations extended into the Roman period, as exemplified by Philostratus’s portrayal of Apollonius of Tyana, a religious entrepreneur or virtuoso whose abilities were tied to his wisdom (Anderson 1994: 36; and on the broader phenomenon, Fowden 1982: 33–​8). Jewish writers in Greek in the Hellenistic world often represented Moses in this vein (Uusimäki 2018: 14–​7). The portrayals of rabbinic wonder-​workers might be a continuation of this rhetoric. The Christian depiction of the holy man of late antiquity fuses the classical idea of the theios anēr with the depictions of Jesus as a locus for the holy. Unlike Jesus, but like many of the depictions of the theios anēr, these holy men are depicted as holding political power, even if it is often noninstitutionalized. As noted above, rabbinic stories of wonder-​workers such as Shimon bar Yoḥai share numerous motifs with Christian stories of holy men. While scholars continue to have no clear sense of whether Christians and Jews in late antiquity, particularly in Sasanian Persia, knew enough of each other’s stories and literature to appropriate them directly –​and if they did, which mechanism they would have employed –​it is reasonable to think that both grew from the same general intellectual and social milieu, which included the notion of the theios anēr, and were to some degree responding to each other. The rabbinic stories of wonder-​workers, cannot be reductively explained as simply an appropriation of classical or Christian motifs, however. The rabbinic stories of rabbinic wonder-​workers are also internal reflections about the power of Torah and its mastery. For the rabbinic sages, one who mastered Torah actually embodied it (Jaffee 1997: 532–​3). At the same time, rabbis, and perhaps the wider Jewish community as well, attributed a numinous power to the written Torah. As Steven Fine has shown, the rabbinic understanding of the “holiness” of the synagogue depended on a kind of contagious holiness ascribed to the physical presence of Torah scrolls (Fine 1997: 127–​58). Did embodying Torah mean taking on the kind of divine powers that the actual Torah was thought to contain? On the one hand, it does seem that Babylonian rabbis in particular concluded that while proper and pious behavior might lead to divine favor, expertise in Torah was the quality that brought truly 211

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supernatural powers. It is knowledge of Torah, not an otherwise exemplary life, that saves rabbis from harm and death (eg b. Mo’ed Qat. 28a; b. Meg 29a). On the other hand, rabbis consider such power dangerous, prone to misuse, and threatening to the rabbinic social order. They admire it but are also ambivalent about it. This creates a tension that they can never quite resolve. The rabbinic narratives of wonder-​working rabbis can, of course, be understood as responses to “external” stimuli. These narratives have sometimes been read as parodies of Christian claims: it is the rabbi, with his mastery of Torah, who has wonder-​working power, not the Christian “holy man” (cf. Zellentin 2011: 167–​212). They have also been read as responses to the existence of actual, non-rabbinic, Jewish wonder-​workers and healers. In this sense, the narratives can be seen as minimizing or even “domesticating” such figures, both by making them more rabbinic and by casting a wary eye on their powers. At the same time, however, these stories encapsulate a more abstract rabbinic meditation and debate about the power of Torah and its limits. These explanations are not mutually exclusive, but which one(s) we prioritize depends very much on how we understand the social context of this literature.

7. Conclusions Over the past century, scholarly portrayal of the Jewish “holy man” has evolved and might somewhat crudely be seen to have undergone four stages. In the first, scholars such as Büchler, building on prior German scholarship, saw the depictions of such figures as essentially reflecting real people. Even if Ḥoni and Ḥanina ben Dosa were literary figures and did not actually live, these scholars assume that there were people like them who embodied the kind of piety associated with them. The second stage, perhaps best represented by Vermes, accepts that these figures were real and puts them in the context of first-​century C. E . wonder-​workers like Jesus. In the third stage, which can be seen in the work of Green and Bokser, scholars moved toward understanding them more as literary characters. Intersecting with the work of Peter Brown, they see their proper context not in the first century but in the third century and later. Today, scholars such as Rubenstein and Bar-​Asher Siegal are far more likely to see these narratives as purely literary representations that cannot be separated from their late antique context and the cultural function they have within it. Just as Christians wrote hagiographies of their “holy men”, so too did Jews –​or at least rabbis. A crucial difference between such Christian and Jewish hagiographies, though, is that while Christian narratives constructed the wonder-​worker as a locus of the holy, a place where heaven met earth, the rabbinic narratives seek to do more prosaic cultural work, whether working out an inner rabbinic tension about Torah or parodying Christian stories. The rabbis could not have foreseen the later Jewish “cult of saints” and, had they been able to, would most likely have been appalled (eg Ben-​Ami 1998: 61–​74). The distinction between the goals of the Christian, Jewish, Greek, and Roman conceptions of and narratives about “holy men” is important. For Greeks and Romans, the theios anēr was not a channel for the divine or a place where heaven and earth met, but a kind of “god-​man”. Some scholars have seen this conception as informing the understanding of Jesus as divine, although this view has been critiqued (Holladay 1977: 1–​45). Christian saints never ascended to this level but were seen instead as channels or vessels for God’s power. They were explicitly referred to by Greek, Latin, and Syriac terms that can reasonably be translated as “holy”. Jewish texts of late antiquity, however, almost never explicitly label their wonder-​workers, or in fact any individuals, as “holy”. The very few cases where they do so suggest a certain kind of abstemious, supererogatory behavior, not supernatural powers. Even if “holy” and “holiness” is considered from an etic perspective, it would be hard to make the case that it is appropriate to 212

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call characters like Ḥoni, Ḥanina ben Dosa, or Shimon bar Yoḥai “holy”. They are not depicted as being set apart, possessing a “numinosity”, or being people through whom others can experience the sacred. They do have supernatural powers that can work wonders, often (although not always) earned through pious behavior or knowledge of Torah, but that is largely the extent of their “holiness”. Whereas much recent scholarship has seized on the undeniable analogies between Jewish and Christian representations of such figures, there is a stark difference in their respective understanding of the role that they play in the divine economy. What can we say, however, of the situation on the ground? In late antiquity, the Roman Empire (and perhaps the Sasanian Empire as well) saw what appears to have been an explosion of “religious entrepreneurs”, individuals who had only loose institutional connections but promised access to the sacred and its powers, as writers like Lucian note with disdain. Scholars tend to slot these entrepreneurs into categories such as “magician”, “holy man”, and “prophet”. I suspect that most people in late antiquity would not have made such distinctions, particularly if these entrepreneurs were perceived as producing results. I also have little doubt –​despite the relative lack of evidence whether or not characters such as Ḥoni really did exist and fall into this category –​that such religious entrepreneurs operated in Jewish communities across the Mediterranean and in Sasanian Babylonia. That, however, did not stop writers from using them –​to use Levi-​Strauss’s phrase –​ “to think with” (Levi-​Strauss 1963: 89).

Bibliography Anderson, G. (1994). Sage, Saint and Sophist: Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman Empire. London: Routledge. Avery-​Peck, A.J. (2006). “The Galilean Charismatic and Rabbinic Piety: The Holy Man in Talmudic Literature,” in A.-​J. Levine et al. (eds.), The Historical Jesus in Context. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 149–​65. Avigad, N. (1976). Beth She’arim, vol. 3: Report on the Excavations During 1953–​1958: The Catacombs 12–​23. Jerusalem: Massada Press on behalf of the Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University. Baumgarten, A.I. (1983). “Miracles and Halakah in Rabbinic Judaism,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 73: 238–​53. Ben-​Ami, I. (1998). Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Ben-​Pazi, I. (2017). “Honi the Circle Drawer: ‘A Member of the Household’ or ‘A Son Who Implores His Father,’” Journal for the Study of Judaism 48: 551–​63. Bokser, B.M. (1985). “Wonder Working and the Rabbinic Tradition: The Case of Ḥanina ben Dosa,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 16: 42–​92. Brock, S.P. (1979). “Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30: 212–​32. Brown, P. (1971). “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Roman Studies 61: 80–​101. Brown, P. (1998). “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man, 1971–​1997,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6: 353–​76. Büchler, A. (1922). Types of Jewish-​Palestinian Piety from 70 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.: The Ancient Pious Men. London: Jews’ College Publications. Diamond, E. (2004). Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge. Durkheim, É. (1995). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York, NY: Free Press. Eliade, M. (1959). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York, NY: Harcourt. Fine, S. (1997). This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-​Roman Period. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Fonrobert, C.E. (2007). “Plato in Rabbi Shimeon bar Yohai’s Cave (B. Shabbat 33B-​34A): The Talmudic Inversion of Plato’s Politics of Philosophy,” AJS Review 31: 277–​96.

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Michael L. Satlow Fowden, G. (1982). “The Pagan Holy Man in Late Antique Society,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 102: 33–​59. Frank, G. (2000). The Memory of Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Frankfurter, D. (2018). Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fredricksmeyer, E.A. (2003). “Alexander’s Religion and Divinity,” in J. Roisman (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Alexander the Great. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 253–​78. Gammie, J.G. (1989). Holiness in Israel. Minneapolis, MI: Fortress Press. Green, W.S. (1979). “Palestinian Holy Men, Charismatic Leadership and Rabbinic Tradition,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt 2(19): 619–​47. Halberstam, C. (2009). “Encircling the Law: The Legal Boundaries of Rabbinic Judaism,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 16: 396–​424. Harrington, H.K. (2001). Holiness: Rabbinic Judaism and the Graeco-​Roman World. London: Routledge. Himmelfarb, M. (2006). A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hodgson, R. (1992). “Holiness (NT),” in D.N. Freedman (ed.), Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3. New York, NY: Doubleday, 237–​54. Holladay, C.R. (1977). Theios Aner in Hellenistic-​Judaism: A Critique of the Use of this Category in New Testament Christology. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Jaffee, M.S. (1997). “A Rabbinic Ontology of the Written and Spoken Word: On Discipleship, Transformative Knowledge, and the Living Texts of Oral Torah,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65: 525–​49. Janowitz, N. (2002). Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians. London: Routledge. Kalmin, R. (2003). “Holy Men, Rabbis, and Demonic Sages in Late Antiquity,” in R. Kalmin and S. Schwartz (eds.), Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire . Leuven: Peeters, 211–​49. Klawans, J. (2000). Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Koltun-​Fromm, N. (2010). Hermeneutics of Holiness: Ancient Jewish and Christian Notions of Sexuality and Religious Community. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Krueger, D. (1996). Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius’s Life and the Late Antique City. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lévi-​Strauss, C. (1963). Totemism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Lévi-​ Strauss, C. (1993). “Linguistics and Anthropology,” in idem, Structural Anthropology, vol. 1. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Levine, D. (2004). “Holy Men and Rabbis in Talmudic Antiquity,” in M. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz (eds.), Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 45–​57. Levine, L.I. (1978). “R. Simeon b. Yohai and the Purification of Tiberias: History and Tradition,” Hebrew Union College Annual 49: 143–​85. Milgrom, J. (1996). “The Changing Concept of Holiness in the Pentateuchal Codes with Emphasis on Leviticus 19,” in J.F.A. Sawyer (ed.), Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 65–​75. Naudé, J.A. (1999). “Holiness in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in P.W. Flint and J.C. Vanderkam (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 171–​99. Neusner, J. (1987). The Wonder-​Working Lawyers of Talmudic Babylonia: The Theory and Practice of Judaism in its Formative Age. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Novick, T. (2018). “Holiness in the Rabbinic Period,” in A.L. Mittelman (ed.), Holiness in Jewish Thought. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 35–​53. Noy, D. (2005). Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, vol. 2: The City of Rome. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Orsi, R.A. (2011). “The Problem of the Holy,” in R.A. Orsi (ed.), The Cambridge Guide to Religious Studies. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 84–​105. Otto, R. (1924). The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-​Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paden, W.E. (1991). “Before ‘the Sacred’ Became Theological: Rereading the Durkheimian Legacy,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 3: 10–​23. Rapp, C. (2005). Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Personal Representations of the Holy Rennie, B.S. (1996). Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion. Albany, NJ: State University of New York Press. Riemer, U. (2006). “Miracle Stories and their Narrative Intent in the Context of the Ruler Cult of Classical Antiquity,” in M. Labahn and B.J. Lietaert Peerbolte (eds.), The Wonders Never Cease: The Purpose of Narrating Miracle Stories in the New Testament and Its Religious Environment. London: T&T Clark, 32–​47. Roth-​Gerson, L. (1987). The Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in Eretz-​Israel (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak ben Tzvi. Rubenstein, J.L. (1999). Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press. Safrai, C. and Safrai, Z. (2004). “Rabbinic Holy Men,” in M. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz (eds.), Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 59–​78. Safrai, S. (1965). “The Teaching of the Pietists in Mishnaic Literature,” Journal of Jewish Studies 16: 15–​33. Sarfatti, G.B. (1956–​57). “Pious Men, Men of Deeds, and the Early Prophets” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 26: 126–​48. Schäfer, P. (2009). Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Siegal, M. Bar-​Asher (2013). Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Simon-​Shoshan, M. (2012). Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Smith, J.Z. (1978). Map Is Not Territory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Smith, M. (1971). “Prolegomena to a Discussion of Aretologies, Divine Men, the Gospels and Jesus,” Journal of Biblical Literature 90: 174–​99. Studstill, R. (2000). “Eliade, Phenomenology, and the Sacred,” Religious Studies 36: 177–​94. Tremlett, P.-​ F. (2011). “Structure amongst the Modules: Lévi-​ Strauss and Cognitive Theorizing about Religion,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 23: 351–​66. Tzaferis, V. (1987). “The Greek Inscriptions from the Early Christian Church of Evron,” Eretz-​Israel 19: 36–​53. Uusimäki, E. (2018). “The Rise of the Sage in Greek and Jewish Antiquity,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 49: 1–​29. Vermes, G. (1972). “Hanina ben Dosa: A Controversial Galilean Saint from the First Century of the Christian Era (1),” Journal of Jewish Studies 23: 28–​50. Vermes, G. (1973a). Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels. London: Collins. Vermes, G. (1973b). “Hanina ben Dosa: A Controversial Galilean Saint from the First Century of the Christian Era (2),” Journal of Jewish Studies 24: 51–​64. Visotzky, B.L. (1991). “Three Syriac Cruxes,” Journal of Jewish Studies 42: 167–​75. Winston, D. (1995). “Sage and Super-​Sage in Philo of Alexandria,” in D. Pearson Wright et al. (eds.), Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish and Near Eastern Ritual Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbraun’s, 815–​24. Wright, D.P. (1992). “Holiness (OT),” in D.N. Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3. New York, NY: Doubleday, 237–​49. Zellentin, H.M. (2011). Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish and Christian Literature. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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14 ATTITUDES TOWARD THE BODY Catherine Hezser

The Christianization of the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E . also had an impact on attitudes toward the body. While early Christian theology already prioritized the soul over the body and individual afterlife over one’s material existence in this world, the rise of asceticism and monasticism exemplified an extreme version of bodily self-​control and idealized spirituality and contemplation. Whereas public nakedness, bathhouses and brothels, homosexuality, and sexual promiscuity, at least as far as men were concerned, were ordinary aspects of pagan Roman society, Christian leaders banned these practices and declared them illicit on religious grounds. How did Jewish attitudes toward the body persist or change in the late antique environment? Which alternative interpretations of the shared biblical texts enabled rabbis to uphold their own, different views on sexuality and the body? The consequences of the different attitudes were wide-​ranging. In Christian circles a veneration of the martyr developed, who was believed to have sacrificed his life in this world to be with Christ in heaven. Rabbis, on the other hand, were concerned with the preservation of the human body, the maintenance of health, and ritual purity. The insistence on the unity of body and soul enabled them to attach religious significance to material existence. Notions of the human body and humans’ link to nature also have a huge impact on ecology.

14.1  Body and Soul The creation stories of the Hebrew Bible already emphasize the bodily existence of human beings. Goshen Gottstein (1994: 174–​5) has argued that rabbis understood the creation of humans “in the image of God” (Gen 1:26) as referring to the body, thereby “giving religious value to taking care of the body”. Like other living creatures, humans are imbued with the “breath of life” (Gen 1:26–​ 30; 2:7). Adam’s creation from the “dust of the earth” (2:7) emphasizes his material existence and link to the substance the world is made of. Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib (2:22) underlines their shared fleshiness. The dual creation and gender division serve the purposes of complementarity and procreation (2:23–​24; Meyers 2013). To “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28) is a divine commandment and applies to humans and animals alike (cf. 1:22). As God’s creatures, the first humans are healthy, and their nakedness is natural. Their punishments after misbehaving are imposed on their bodies: arduous physical labor for men and pain in childbirth for women (3:16–​ 17). While plants, seeds, and animals (note that only plants are mentioned in 1:29 and 2:16) are 216

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meant to provide nourishment to humans, complex regulations apply to their choice and preparation (cf. Ex 23:19, 34:26; Lev 11:2–​43; Deut 14:3–​23). Similarly complex are ritual purity rules introduced in the book of Leviticus (Lev 12:2–​7, 15:2–​33; Douglas 1966 and 1999). Adherence to these food laws and purity rules is part of Torah observance and the Israelites’ covenantal relationship with God. In the Hebrew Bible the “breath” (ruah) of life and the “soul” (nephesh, neshamah) are not clearly distinguishable from each other. They denote the source or principle of life that all living beings possess rather than a separate and immortal spiritual entity (Hirsch 1947: 57–​72; Suriano 2018: 135–​8). The focus of the Bible and biblical law is on life in this world, whereas the so-​ called afterlife or any kind of postmortem existence of the soul is never speculated upon (Suriano 2018: 6; on the notion of Sheol see Finnley 2016: 25–​9; on the biblical roots of later Jewish views see Raphael 2019: 33–​60; on competing views on heaven and hell see Ehrman 2020). Whereas Hellenistic Jewish authors and the Essenes adopted Greek ideas about the immortality of the soul (Elledge 2013; Starr 2020: 60–​90), rabbis emphasized the unity of body and soul by, at the same time, adopting some aspects of the Greek concept of the soul and ideas about divine reward and punishment that are absent from biblical theology. In one of the rabbinic stories about the patriarch R. Yehudah ha-​Nasi’s encounter with an imaginary Roman emperor called Antoninus the unity of the body and soul is exemplified in connection with sin. Reckoning with the body and soul as separate entities, Antoninus suggests that on the day of judgment either of them might exculpate itself by blaming the other for the sins a person committed. The parable Rabbi uses in his answer reveals the rabbinic view of personhood: a lame and a blind watchman collaborate in stealing fruit from a tree and are both held responsible by the orchard owner. Similarly, God “takes the soul and casts it into the body and judges them as one” (Mekhilta on Ex 15:4 par. b. Sanh. 91a). The parable “treats body and soul as equal parts of the human being” (Teugels 2019: 246; the parable is discussed ibid. 238–​53). Although one might argue that a similar view appears in Cyril of Jerusalem’s writings, “The body sins not of itself, but the soul though the body. The body is an instrument, and, as it were, a garment and robe for the soul” (Catechetical Lecture 4.23), the soul is clearly considered the main authority here, whereas the body serves as its mere tool. The rabbinic view of body and soul as equal and combined parts of the body differs from the Christian idea of personhood from Augustine onwards, which was an adaptation and appropriation of the Graeco-​Roman tradition from Plato to Plotinus (Rist 1998: 347). Christian theologians tended to view the body or “flesh” as inferior to the soul, which alone could achieve resurrection. Scholars of ancient Judaism have stressed the significance of the body in rabbinic texts. Eilberg-​Schwartz (1992) has suggested to call Jews the “people of the body”. Boyarin (1992: 27; 1993) uses the term “carnal Israel”, which appears as an anti-​Jewish slur in Augustine (Adversus Judaeos 7.9), in the title of his book. This is because the body and bodily practices are of major importance in Jewish religious practice. In fact, all halakhic rules concern physical activities, not beliefs, thoughts, or an abstract notion of spirituality. Agus (1998: 155) has pointed to “the great physicality” in the description of rabbis and the embracement of fleshiness, aging, frailty, decay, and death as natural states of the body. The “real-​being-​in-​the world” is “not the ‘Idea’, whose shadow the person is”, but a materiality and sensuality that encompasses both pleasure and pain (ibid. 162). Perhaps the rabbinic focus on the body and bodily practices in this world as an expression of Jewish religiosity can be understood not only in continuation of biblical law but also in reaction to and self-​distinction from the Church, which developed an “orthodox” dogmatic theology in the fourth century C. E . By emphasizing the unity of body and soul and devising practices that concerned ritual purity, food, sexuality, and health management, late antique rabbis 217

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created an embodied Jewish identity that, by its very existence, challenged Christian spirituality and otherworldliness.

2. Sexuality In her evaluation of studies on sex and the body in Judaism in the 1990s, Seidman (1994) points to the influence of Foucault’s writings on sexuality. This new focus served as a counterforce against –​or at least a supplement to –​the “ ‘spiritualizing’ of Judaism” (ibid. 116) brought about by the Science of Judaism in late nineteenth-​century Europe. Rather than initiating a corporeal turn in Jewish Studies, “it proves that Judaism is thoroughly enmeshed with corporeality” (Fonrobert 2005: 464). As Wieseltier (2005: 436) has pointed out, rabbinic literature “is richly and unabashedly engaged with sexual questions, and more generally with the experience of the Jewish body, male and female”. While these issues may have a metacorporeal significance in the sense of expressing Jewish Torah observance, this does not mean that they are “metaphysical” aspects of Judaism (ibid. 437; Boyarin’s response in idem 2005: 444). The positive attitude toward sexuality found in rabbinic texts is based on the biblical notion that to “be fruitful and multiply” is a blessing. According to Biale, rabbis turned procreation into a divine commandment (Biale 1992: 35). Procreation, if it happened within the confines of a legitimate marriage, was of major importance for the survival of Jewish identity under (Christian) Rome. Rabbis devised complex rules around legitimate and illegitimate sexual unions and the offspring of such unions (Hezser 2005: 194–​201). Although they could not prohibit freeborn Jewish men from having intercourse with slave women, such unions were deemed illegitimate, did not constitute a valid betrothal, and could not produce heirs. Rather, the children of unions between female slaves and free male Jews would automatically obtain the status of their mother, that is, they would be slaves themselves (m. Qidd. 3:12). The same regulation applied to unions between male Jews and non-​Jewish women (ibid.). By contrast, in legally valid marriages between a free Jewish man and woman, the children would have the social status of the father (m. Qidd. 3:14). Such distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate unions had analogies in Roman law, which similarly safeguarded marriages between Roman citizens (cf. Gaius, Institutes 1.81; Rawson 1966: 72). As far as Jews are concerned, these regulations clearly differ from biblical practices, where the patriarchs are said to have had children and heirs with their slaves (cf. Abraham and Hagar in Gen 16; Jacob and Bilhah in Gen 30) and with foreign women (Joseph and Aseneth in Gen. 41:45, 50). The context of Roman and Byzantine Christian imperialism seems to have necessitated the stricter rules and limitations to maintain the Jewish identity of the families. While procreation was important, it was not the only aspect of intercourse between husbands and wives that rabbis were concerned with. As Satlow (2001: 26) has argued, within the context of marital relations, desire and pleasure were also relevant: “Babylonian rabbis … saw the purpose of marriage as legitimately channelling male sexual desire and seed for the purpose of procreation, which they saw as an individual, rather than social good”. Sexual desire was considered natural and should be fulfilled. For example, in case a recently married woman’s virginity was uncertain, sages argued that the matter must be dealt with as soon as possible: “Even for a single day a man will not hold back” (y. Ket. 1:4, 25c). While the just quoted text focuses on male experiences, both husbands and wives were obliged to satisfy each other’s sexual needs (Satlow 2014). Rabbis maintained that women preferred sexual satisfaction over wealth (R. Yehoshua in m. Sotah 3:4). According to ARNA 1:8, “the woman desires her husband [especially] at the time when he goes on a journey”. To be able to fulfill their marital obligations, rabbis therefore advised men to limit their time away from home. Even if a 218

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man had taken a vow to abstain from intercourse with his wife, the abstention must be limited to a maximum of one week (Hillel) or two weeks (Shammai) and she must consent, otherwise he should divorce her (m. Ketub. 5:7; t. Ketub. 5:6). An exception is made for disciples of sages only, who may leave their wives without their permission for thirty days (ibid.). Interestingly, the Talmud Yerushalmi (y. Ket. 5:7, 30a) expands this period: with his wife’s consent, a student may stay away to study with a master for an unlimited period of time. Does this mean that late antique rabbis advocated sexual abstinence for the purpose of Torah study, similar to celibacy in Christian monastic circles? Late antique Christian society also had different mores for ordinary Christians and for monks as “spiritual athletes”. For ordinary Christians, sex within the confines of marriage was permissible but considered a concession to fleshly desires. The so-​called Haustafel of the New Testament letter to the Ephesians instructs men to love their wives and to become “one flesh” with them (Eph. 5:28–​33). Yet 1 Cor. 7:1 suggests that “it is well for a man not to touch a woman”, indicating a preference for sexual abstinence. Clark has shown that 1 Cor. 7 was used by later Christian “ascetic interpreters” to support their call for celibacy (Clark 2019: 499). For example, according to Origen, the “perfect” already practiced abstinence (Commentary on 1 Cor. 7:1–​4), while John Chrysostom considered marital sex a progression from indulgence in sex with prostitutes (Homily 19 on 1 Cor. 1–​2). Some even argued that 1 Cor. 7:1 should overrule Christian concessions of marriage. For Tertullian, the conclusion was that all touching in sex was “evil” (On Monogamy 3.4). Harmonizing between the more lenient and strict views, Augustine argued that only ascetics could fully observe the ideal expressed in 1 Cor. 7:1 (On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.16.18). Clark (2019: 499) summarizes his view as follows: “By not requiring this level of ascetic renunciation, … God leaves open to Christians voluntary renunciation with its great rewards …”. For rabbis, sexual renunciation was never an ideal. In the above-​mentioned talmudic text, not marriage, but the requirement to stay away from home to study Torah with a distant rabbinic master is seen as a concession that only Torah scholars can be expected to make. Furthermore, abstention from marital sex was never meant to be permanent but only temporary, due to the disciple’s necessary absence from home. This attitude was therefore very different from both church fathers, who considered celibacy an ideal, and monks who actually practiced it permanently from the time they took their vow. On the one hand, the monks’ radical asceticism was a consequence of Christian theology with its disdain for the “flesh”, the human body, and the material world. On the other hand, as Brown (1988: 22) has pointed out, self-​control and restraint governed upper-​class Roman men’s behavior at least from the third century onwards. When the Roman Empire fell apart and traditional elites lost their power, asceticism enabled them to exert authority over their own bodies by suppressing its natural needs related to sex, food, and proper clothing. Since rabbis never belonged to the elites and lacked political power, their experience of these late antique developments would have been different. Although rabbinic Torah observance also required self-​control (Diamond 2004; Hezser 2018), the world-​denial and asceticism of the Eastern desert monks, expressed in the Apophthegmata Patrum (see ibid. 213–​58), differed from rabbinic religiosity, which venerated God through behavior in daily life and in relation to other people. From the perspective of the male Roman elites, both before and after the Christianization of the empire, both rabbis and desert monks may have seemed “queer”, in the sense of diverting from the imperial elite’s definitions of manliness. Boyarin (1997: 130; Boyarin, Itzkovitz, and Pellegrini 2003: 2) has argued that rabbinic literature presents the Torah scholar as “soft” and effeminate in contrast to the imagined strength and public authority of the Roman military hero. In a story in the Babylonian Talmud (b. B. Mes. 84a), R. Yohanan is presented in “highly erotic or 219

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even sexualized imagery” as an “extravagantly beautiful and androgynous” individual (Boyarin 1997: 129). His alleged beardlessness would have distinguished him from the senior sage, who is commonly imagined as a bearded old man (Hezser 2017a: 51–​6). It is questionable whether, according to Boyarin, the notion of effeminacy can be extended to all rabbis or was reserved for young men and specific individuals such as the biblical Joseph only (see ibid. 57–​61). Whether and to what extent rabbinic attitudes toward homosexuality differed from Christian ones is debated among scholars. Harper (2013) has argued that the Christianization of the empire brought about a change in sexual morality by declaring certain practices sinful. Whereas “tolerance for homosexuality” (ibid. 37) characterized Roman society, especially as far as the hierarchically structured relations of adult men with boys and male slaves were concerned (see also Boswell 1980: 135; Cantarella 1992 on male and female homosexuality), the church fathers turned something that may have been considered shameful into a sin, that is, a religious transgression against the alleged order set out by God. To some extent, this can be considered a continuation of Hellenistic Jewish sexual ethics: in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, porneia includes prostitution, incest, unchastity, and one may even argue that homosexuality became “the mother of all evil” (Harper 2013: 89). Nevertheless, according to Harper, “the Christian assault on modes of same-​sex contact was sudden, violent, and total” (ibid. 139). Boswell (1980: 162) emphasizes that this was a late antique development that went hand-​in-​hand with an emphasis on the procreative purpose of heterosexual marital relationships. It may also have been motivated by Christian leaders’ attempts to distinguish Christians from their pagan past. Late antique rabbis may have been anxious about homosexual relations without explicitly outlawing them (Greenberg 2004: 167–​9). Most of the evidence seems to stem from the Babylonian Talmud, where sexual relations between men are presented from a humorous perspective and considered detrimental to marital sex and procreation. Thus, homosexual relations may be problematized in the context of the rabbinic emphasis on procreation, but they were not considered unnatural or even sinful, as argued by Christian writers. The social construction of gender categories is already expressed in the two versions of the biblical creation story: in the first version (Gen 1:27), the first human is imagined as androgynous, combining male and female characteristics (Waskow 2009: 260), an aspect that is taken up in rabbinic Midrash (Boyarin 1993: 42; on androgynes and eunuchs see Strassfeld 2022). In the second version (Gen 3), the gendered social roles of males and females provide the background of the “fall from the garden of Eden” story (Meyers 2013: 127).

3.  Ritual Purity While early Christian texts do address purity issues, especially the purity of gentiles when joining Jewish Christians, for the church fathers of the fourth century C.E . ritual purity had become part of the legal and “material” aspects of Judaism which Christianity had left behind. Late antique Christians redefined the discourse on purity by claiming “spiritual purity” for themselves and declaring Jewish nonbelievers “impure”. Weiss and Zellentin (2016: 191) use the expression “the impurity of ritual purity” to denote this attitude. By contrast, late antique rabbis were much concerned with ritual purity. They continued and expanded the biblical laws of Leviticus (cf. 12:2, 4–​5; 15:19–​33) by defining complex rules on issues including birth and menstruation, the emission of semen, and corpse uncleanness. Balberg (2016: 2) has shown that after 70 C. E ., issues of purity and impurity “lived on as powerful conceptual and hermeneutic tools through which ideas about self and other can be manifested, through which one’s body and environment can be scrutinized and defined, and 220

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through which one constitutes and forms oneself as a subject”. The very complexity of rabbinic purity rules, which would have been properly practicable by rabbinic Jews only, enabled rabbis to distinguish themselves not only from non-​Jews –​who could not become impure, since the rules did not apply to them (Hayes 2002: 128) –​but also, or perhaps especially, from nonrabbinic Jews (Balberg 2016: 154). Impurity was believed to be incurred by bodily emissions, whether uterine blood emitted at times of menstruation and childbirth or seminal emissions in contexts other than marital intercourse (Klawans 2000: 23; Wasserman 2017: 114). Some categories of people were deemed impure (on zab impurity associated with abnormal genital discharge see Lev 15:1–​15) and special rules applied to the handling of corpses (m. Kel. 1:1–​4; cf. Klawans 2000: 95–​6). The rabbinic discussions about menstruation and menstrual impurity in tractate Niddah of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmuds provide insights into the ways in which rabbis thought about blood and women’s bodies (Fonrobert 2000: 1–​2). Fonrobert notes that in contrast to Western sensibilities shaped by Christian discourse, rabbis showed “no sense of embarrassment, shame, or disgust” when discussing “messy” bodily issues such as menstrual and seminal discharge (ibid. 2). The very phenomenon of discussing female bodies and the most intimate aspects of female corporeality already distinguished rabbis from “ordinary” Roman men, unless they were medical experts and practitioners. Rabbis may have known and engaged with some of the scientific theories concerning female physiology and menstruation (ibid. 11). In the Didascalia Apostolorum, a third-​century Syriac text, male and female purity rituals associated with marital intercourse are called “foolish and hurtful” (6.21–​22, 249–​254). Christians are advised to “flee and avoid such observances” since they “have received release” from them through Jesus Christ (ibid. 251). Although the mentioned purity practices differ from those discussed in rabbinic texts, they seem to have been associated with Jewish converts to Christianity, who may have practiced them to maintain their Jewish ethnic identity (Fonrobert 2000: 11). In this late antique context of Christian leaders’ rejection of ritual purity, rabbis’ detailed and complex engagement with purity issues can be considered a defiance of pagan Christianity’s spiritualization of religion and a continued insistence on physicality and bodily rituals. In particular, ritual immersion in a miqvah or source of living water became a means of reversing one’s status to purity. Archaeologists of the Land of Israel have pointed to “the large number of miqva’ot uncovered across the country dating to the late Roman and Byzantine periods” (Werlin 2015: 25, with references). The issue of (im)purity is, to a large part, related to blood, especially as far as women are concerned. The emission of uterine blood during menstruation and childbirth was seen as a source of impurity (Fonrobert 2008). Similarly, blood was associated with corpse uncleanness (Noam 2009; Klawans 2000: 192). As a natural bodily fluid, blood was not considered unclean as such, but only in certain situations where it left the body. Whereas the blood of wounds incurred by accidents or military action was not associated with impurity, blood related to the beginning and end of life was different. In connection with menstrual blood, Douglas (1966: 97) writes: “If the blood had not flowed it would have become a person, so it has the impossible status of a dead person that has never lived”. As the “source of life” blood had a special significance in the Israelite and Jewish religion (ibid. 121). Because of the biblical prohibition against eating blood (Gen. 9:3–​ 6; Lev 17:10–​13), all blood must be removed from the carcass of slaughtered animals to render them permissible. By contrast, Christians symbolically “drank” the blood of Christ during the Eucharist ritual, which gained significance in early Byzantine times. By the fourth century C.E ., the Eucharist was understood as a sacrifice (sacrificium): Christ repeatedly sacrifices himself to God on the altar of the church and believers partake of this sacrifice by “eating” his body and “drinking” his blood. According to Schaff (1910: 502–​3): “[t]‌he germs of the Roman doctrine appear in Cyprian around 221

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the middle of the third century … The doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass is further developed in the Nicene and post-​Nicene fathers … with much wavering between symbolic and grossly realistic conceptions … until in all essential points it is brought to its settlement by Gregory the Great at the close of the sixth century”. The early Byzantine sacrificial understanding of the Eucharist has found artistic expression in churches of the sixth century, such as the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, where the biblical scene of the Binding of Isaac (Aqedah) is reinterpreted, connected with the offerings of Abel and Melchizedek, and identified with the “sacrifice” of Jesus (Kessler 2002: 84–​5, who quotes from the Eucharist liturgy, which links Abraham, Abel, and Melchizedek to the “sacrifice” of Jesus). In the context of this symbolic Christian “cannibalism”, the rabbinic association of blood with impurity and abstention from eating the blood of animals gains a new meaning (on attitudes toward animals in rabbinic Judaism see Berkowitz 2018).

4. Circumcision For male Jews, their Jewish identity was literally written onto their bodies. Circumcision was a physical marker of Jewishness, from which Byzantine Christians expressly distinguished themselves. Aversion against the biblically commanded practice (Gen 17:10–​14) was already rife among Greek and Roman writers, who misunderstood the procedure as a form of bodily mutilation. The Roman imperial administration tried to control and delimit the practice and at times even outlawed it, as was the case under Hadrian in connection with the Bar Kokhba war of 132–​5 C.E . (Abusch 2003: 84). In early Christianity, Paul already abolished the practice in his strive to gain pagan converts to Christianity, whereas Jewish-​Christians associated with the Jerusalem apostles continued to practice it (Galatians 2). The further the church distanced itself from its Jewish-​ Christian beginnings and became pagan, the greater the hostility directed against circumcision. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin Martyr stated that circumcision was a time-​ bound commandment that no longer applied to Christians (Cohen 2005: 75). He argued that Christians as “the true spiritual Israel” and the children of Abraham “who is uncircumcised” do not need circumcision, since they are already saved through Christ’s crucifixion (Dialogue with Trypho 9). Throughout his treatise “fleshly circumcision” is contrasted with spiritual circumcision, which Jews allegedly lacked (ibid. 19). This new Christian “circumcision” is deemed more excellent: “the blood of that circumcision is obsolete, and we trust in the blood of salvation; there is now another covenant, and another law has gone forth from Zion. Jesus Christ circumcises all … with knives of stone that they may be a righteous nation, a people keeping faith, holding to the truth, and maintaining peace” (ibid. 24). Cohen has pointed out that “[m]‌any of Justin’s anti-​circumcision arguments became commonplace in subsequent Christian polemic in both Greek and Latin …” (Cohen 2005: 76). The legal prohibition against circumcising non-​Jews was an enduring part of Roman law from Antonius Pius until Justinian (Rutgers 1998: 212). Rutgers points out that among the various anti-​ Jewish laws of the Codex Theodosianus the one taken up and repeated by Justinian was the ban against circumcision: “in the eyes of Justinian’s legal experts, the Jews qua heretics continued to have that special touch even now: they practiced circumcision” (ibid.). The Codex Theodosianus calls circumcision the nota iudaica (16.8.22) and prohibits the circumcision of Christian slaves (19.9.1, Constantine in 336 C. E ., reissued by Constantine II and Theodosius), who must be manumitted immediately (Hezser 2005: 41–​4). The formulation of the decree by Constantine II (16.9.2) even threatened Jews who circumcised their non-​Jewish slaves with capital punishment. Since male slaves had to be circumcised in order to work in Jewish households, the laws prohibited the Jewish ownership of male non-​Jewish slaves. As I have already pointed out elsewhere: “the rules 222

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also link the power of masters over slaves to the power and assumed superiority of one religion over another. The late Roman imperial statute was meant to limit the power of Jews over (potential) Christians now that Christianity had become linked to empire and was eager to express its superiority” (Hezser 2022: 135).

5.  Preservation of the Body Christian martyrdom theology of the third century C.E., which developed at the time of the Roman persecutions of Christians, idealized the annihilation of the human body on behalf of “union with Christ”. Church fathers such as Tertullian and Cyprian used the religious idealization of the martyr to unify the church. Martyrdom was seen as “the perfect fulfillment of the will of God” (Hummel 1946: 34) and an imitation of Christ in his suffering and death (ibid. 101–​7). After the Christianization of the empire the notion of the martyr continued to be significant (see the contributions in Gemeinhardt and Leemans 2012). Martyrdom legends and hagiographical texts, which described tortures and trials in much detail, provided idealized examples of Christian ethics and spirituality. Relics were venerated and motivated pilgrimages and feasts. While death under oppression was also an aspect of pre-​Christian Judaism (cf. 2 Macc. 6:18–​31: Eleazar; ibid. 7: the woman with her seven sons), the interpretation of such events as martyrdom (cf. 4 Macc.) may have developed only later, in the second century C.E., when Jews were oppressed by Hadrian and Christian martyrdom theology emerged (Boyarin 1999: 115–​7). In late antiquity, that is, in the third and fourth centuries, martyrdom legends became a Christian specialty and the veneration of the martyr a mark of Christian identity. For Palestinian amoraim, health and the preservation of the human body were ideals whose importance could override other halakhic concerns such as the observance of the Sabbath and festivals (Hezser 2023a). Although examples of individuals who took their own lives exist in the biblical and postbiblical tradition (Jütte 2021: 242), for rabbis the “right” to end a human life belonged to God alone. An early death was considered a divine punishment, whereas long life was a blessing. Rabbinic recommendations about diet, fasting, health maintenance, and the curing of diseases must be understood within the context of the Graeco-​Roman philosophical and medical traditions (Hezser 2016). Obviously, the respective political and socio-​economic conditions under which Jews lived would also determine the physical and mental state of the Jewish population. One may assume that under the Pax Romana of the late second and third centuries Jews fared much better than under the discriminatory legal regulations of the later Byzantine Christian rulers. In her programmatic article Seidman (1994: 118) mentions research areas related to Jews and the body that had not received much scholarly attention in the Nineties, but which have been dealt with since. One such area is the human life cycle from birth to death, which is thematized in rabbinic literature in connection with vulnerability and aging. Schofer has analyzed these texts in light of their ethical and theological messages (Schofer 2010). Rabbinic texts address issues of aging, frailness, and death in the context of master-​disciple relationships: “For contemporary ethics, the materials provide rich examples of cultural forms that both confront vulnerability and channel the confrontation into self and communal cultivation” (ibid. 1). Since the senior rabbinic teacher was imagined as a bearded old man, the process of aging and relations between younger and older scholars would play an important role. Disciples are encouraged to support their elderly teacher, to visit him when he is sick and on his deathbed. The human body is perceived as naturally vulnerable and perishable within the context of a theology that ultimately associated the giving and taking of life with God. During one’s lifetime, taking good care of one’s body was seen as a 223

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religious duty, which included visits to bathhouses, medical remedies, and abstention from fasting if deemed detrimental to one’s health (Bokser and Bokser 1989: 47–​9). Another important area of research is disability studies (on disability in antiquity see the contributions in Laes 2017). Abrams (1998) provides a literary and anthropological survey of ancient Jewish texts that mention persons with disabilities and attitudes toward them. Watts Belser (2018) interprets Babylonian Talmud texts on disability in the context of the general theme of destruction and disruption after the destruction of the Second Temple and the Jewish revolts against Rome “to showcase catastrophe as a crisis of the flesh” (ibid. xii). She argues that “Roman dominance is etched on Jewish flesh and inscribed in rabbinic memory as an assault on the body and a violation of the land” (ibid.). As a consequence of experiencing Roman brutality, rabbis addressed the issues of sexual violation, enslavement, and disability, that is, “the physical impact of catastrophe on tangible human bodies” (xiii). Usually, disability is seen as an anomaly that distinguishes individuals from the “normal” and “healthy” (ibid. 80). The rabbinic stories show that disability can be charged politically to signify the destruction of a “healthy” communal condition by imperialism and suppression. Thus, “the subjugated body becomes a potent site of resistance” against the oppressors (ibid. 79). The study shows that the meaning and significance of the concept of disability needs to be examined within the political, historical, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which it is used (see also Belser 2020). Obviously, gender plays an important role in all aspects of the body and its representation in the literary sources. This applies to bodily experiences such as childbirth and menopause, the male control of women’s bodies and values attached to virginity, and the sexual mistreatment of women in prostitution and rape (Hezser 2017b and 2023b). Recent studies on Christian women have focused on late antiquity as a period in which certain changes occurred. Clark (1993) examines Christian and pagan women’s experiences between the third and sixth centuries C.E . including celibacy and prostitution, healthcare and medical theories. While some of the earlier Roman attitudes toward women and female bodies continued, others such as female sexual renunciation were new developments of Christian society. Wilkinson (2015) addresses the notion of female modesty, which seems to have had repercussions for many areas of women’s lives ranging from clothing to identity. The cult of women saints such as Thecla is seen as an empowerment of women and acknowledgment of their piety (Davis 2001). These changes in the experience and perception of women must also have had an impact on Jewish women in late Roman and early Byzantine times. Ilan (1995: 62–​3) has noted that “the preference of celibacy over marriage eventually became the most striking contrast between Judaism and Christianity”. Yet concerns about girls’ and women’s modesty and chastity were shared by late antique rabbis and Christian leaders.

6.  Ethical Issues A number of issues of rabbinic and patristic ethics concerned the body, such as abortion and euthanasia. Rules and precedents transmitted in the Hebrew Bible constituted the foundation of these discussions. In the case of abortion, Exod 21:22 (if a pregnant woman is accidentally hit and has a miscarriage, those who hit her must pay compensation to her husband) has been used to show that feticide is not identical to homicide in the Bible. Also relevant are the questions from what stage in its development a fetus can be considered a human being and whether the mother’s well-​being should be more important than the survival of an unborn child. Gorman (1998) has examined Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-​Roman views on abortion. He discusses motifs, contexts, and methods as well as biblical, Jewish, and patristic attitudes until the fifth century C.E . Jewish and Christian views also need to be seen in the context of Graeco-​Roman medicine and Roman 224

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practices of abortion in late antiquity. Schiff (2002), who has traced abortion in Judaism from biblical and rabbinic texts to modern times, has pointed to the centrality of procreation as a complicating factor in rabbinic discussions (ibid. 3). Abortion is allowed in particular circumstances, especially if the mother’s life is at risk. In biblical and rabbinic Judaism, the fetus was not considered a nefesh, that is, a living soul (ibid. 23); therefore it’s intentional destruction was not the same as killing a person. In contrast to rabbis, church fathers such as Tertullian and Augustine used the Septuagint to argue that the killing of a fetus was homicide and deserved the strictest punishment (ibid. 24). Euthanasia is another contemporary ethical problem that is discussed with recourse to ancient sources. In his recent study, Bekos (2019) examines the writings of the monk and apologist John of Damascus (seventh–​eighth century C. E .) and the monk Simeon the New Theologian (tenth century C .E .) in this regard. Under which circumstances is voluntary death permissible and how can it be carried out? Is it self-​sacrifice or murder? Does it conflict with the biblical notion of the creation of humans in God’s image? Bekos shows that wider issues of Christian anthropology and the understanding of death inform both ancient and modern euthanasia debates. This broader framework also applies to the discussion of the topic in Judaism. According to Gen 7:22, the onset of death can be determined by checking a person’s breath emanating through the nose. Based on this foundational text, a variety of understandings concerning the passing from life to death are offered in rabbinic sources (see, eg b. Yoma 85a). One might argue that the principle of pikuach nefesh, the religious duty to save a life, might prevent a person from helping someone else to end his or her life. Yet rabbis (Genesis Rabbah 34:13) discussed the case of Saul, who killed himself when his arms bearer refused to stab him with his sword (1 Sam 31:4–​5). According to Offer Stark and Friedman (2023: 234), “the biblical story of the suicide of King Saul provides a clear precedent for legitimating suicide under certain exceptional conditions” and enabled later religious authorities to also discuss other circumstances besides the military situation. Obviously, the modern technology that keeps seriously ill people alive did not exist in antiquity, when dying was a more natural process.

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Attitudes Toward the Body Hayes, C.E. (2002). Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hezser, C. (2005). Jewish Slavery in Antiquity. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hezser, C. (2016). “Representations of the Physician in Jewish Literature from Hellenistic and Roman Times,” in W.V. Harris (ed.), Popular Medicine in Graeco-​Roman Antiquity: Explorations. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 173–​97. Hezser, C. (2017a). Rabbinic Body Language: Non-​Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hezser, C. (2017b). “Prostitution: Early Judaism,” in Julia M. O’Brien et al. (eds.), Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies. Online edition: Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hezser, C. (2018). “Self-​Control in a World Controlled By Others: Palestinian Rabbinic ‘Asceticism’ in Late Antiquity,” Religions in the Roman Empire 4: 9–​27. Hezser, C. (2022). “What Was Jewish about Jewish Slavery in Late Antiquity?” in C.L. de Wet, M. Kahlos, and V. Vuolanto, Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150–​700 CE. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Hezser, C. (2023a). “Introduction: The Significance of Health in Jewish History, Culture, and Society,” in eadem (ed.), Jews and Health: Tradition, History, and Practice. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hezser, C. (2023b). “Plurisignation in Biblical and Rabbinic Law: The Meaning and Punishment of ‘Rape’,” in A. Gray and C. Bakhos (eds.), Making History: Studies in Rabbinic Literature, History, and Culture in Honor of Richard L. Kalmin. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Hirsch, W. (1947). Rabbinic Psychology. Beliefs about the Soul in Rabbinic Literature of the Talmudic Period. London: Edward Goldstone. Hummel, E.L. (1946). The Concept of Martyrdom According to St. Cyprian of Carthage. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Ilan, T. (1995). Jewish Women in Greco-​Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Jütte, N. (2021). The Jewish Body. A History. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kessler, E. (2002). “The Sacrifice of Isaac (the Akedah) in Christian and Jewish Tradition: Artistic Representations,” in M. O’Kane (ed.), Borders, Boundaries and the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 74–​98. Klawans, J. (2000). Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Laes, C. (ed.) (2017). Disability in Antiquity. London: Routledge. Meyers, C. (2013). Rediscovering Eve. Ancient Israelite Women in Context. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Noam, V. (2009). “Corpse-​ Blood Impurity: A Lost Biblical Reading?” Journal of Biblical Literature 129: 243–​51. Offer Stark, I. and Friedman, W. (2023). “Quality of Life versus Sanctity of Life: Euthanasia in Modern Halakhic Discourse and Israeli Law,” in C. Hezser (ed.), Jews and Health: Tradition, History, and Practice. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 231–​57. Raphael, S.P. (2019) Jewish Views of the Afterlife. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Rawson, B. (1966). “Family Life Among the Lower Classes at Rome in the First Two Centuries of the Empire,” Classical Philology 61: 71–​83. Rist, J.M. (1998). “Platonic Soul, Aristotelian Form, Christian Person,” in A.I. Baumgarten, J. Assmann, and G.G. Stroumsa (eds.), Self, Soul and Body in Religious Experience. Leiden: Brill, 347–​62. Rutgers, L.V. (1998). The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism. Leuven: Peeters. Satlow, M.L. (2001). Jewish Marriage in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Satlow, M.L. (2014). Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Schaff, P. (1910). History of the Christian Church, vol. 3: Nicene and Post-​Nicene Christianity, A.D. 311–​ 600. 3rd revised ed. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Schiff, D. (2002). Abortion in Judaism. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Schofer, J.W. (2010). Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. Seidman, N. (1994). “Carnal Knowledge: Sex and the Body in Jewish Studies,” Jewish Social Studies N.S. 1: 115–​41. Starr, Z.A. (2020). Toward a History of Jewish Thought: The Soul, Resurrection, and the Afterlife. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock.

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15 TRAVEL NARRATIVES AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY Joshua Levinson

1. Introduction The past decade has seen the emergence of an intense interest in travel writing –​in its mimetic, imaginative, and hybrid modes –​as a complex range of practices and representations. However, since Homer sang of Odysseus’ return from Troy or the Bible recounted Abraham’s emigration from Ur to Canaan, the travel narrative has held a privileged place in the social imagination of many cultures. The genres of travel writing have assumed a myriad of literary forms throughout their long history and served a variety of social and ideological functions. Already in antiquity, they ran the gamut from Pausanias’ Guide to Greece and the travelogue of Theophanes, to Egeria’s epistolary Itinerary and Lucian of Samosata’s True History where the narrator travels to the moon. Given this embarrassment of cultural riches and the inherently hybrid nature of this literary form, it is notoriously difficult to define. Following Rubies and others, I will concentrate here on those writings (literary or documentary) that take travel (real or imagined) as an essential condition of their production or dramatic situation and describe the movement of individuals across some kind of boundary (Rubies 2000: 6). This is the definition I will use here to investigate how rabbinic travel narratives function as a vehicle for exploring, producing, and policing its own fictions of identity. “If all travel involves an encounter between self and other that is brought about by movement through space, all travel writing is at some level a record or product of this encounter, and of the negotiation between similarity and difference that it entailed” (Thompson 2011: 10). For this reason, identity in its multiple contradictory and varying forms is always a subtext of travel narratives, our own and an-​Other’s. Travel writing functions as a vehicle for cultural self-​ perception and produces representations of an-​Other and his world, against which and through which it explores and invents a particular sense of self. In the following pages, I will explore aspects of personal, ethnic, and spatial identity as dramatized in rabbinic travel narratives. I will focus on travel writing as an opportunity for a culture to represent and dramatize its own fissures and fictions of identity in the complex interaction between self and Other that is brought about by movement in space.

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-18

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2.  Rabbis on the Road a)  Roadside Encounters A prerequisite of travel and travel narratives is the material means of travel, and specifically roads. The Romans were justly proud of their road building accomplishments, which at the height of the empire extended over 100,000 kilometers, from Britain to Mesopotamia (Tilburg 2007: 6). While the main impetus for this massive project was to facilitate troop movements and communications throughout a rapidly expanding empire, it would be a mistake to see these roads merely in terms of the army’s supply and movement. As the central nervous system of the empire, they had definite cultural and ideological ramifications (Laurence 1999: 39), and as one of the mechanisms for fashioning cultural hegemony these roads functioned as part of a discourse of authority, constructing an empire-​wide monument that symbolized Rome’s power and presence. Roadside encounters and discussions are ubiquitous in rabbinic literature and range from the innocuous and comic to the ominous. Unlike the study-​house or synagogue, they occur in social spaces where the rabbis are not in their own milieu. For this reason, as Hezser has remarked, “they could therefore serve as ideal stages for fictional encounters between rabbis and ‘others,’ directing one’s focus on the travelers’ ethnic, cultural, and religious differences” (Hezser 2017: 239). One prevalent theme is the dangers of travel due to the pervasive menace of bandits that wandered the roads (Isaac 1984; Blumell 2007). While this is a common theme in late antiquity, when rabbinic literature portrays these dangers it often does so in terms of ethnic conflicts. Thus, the Tosefta advises those who travel with gentiles to walk in a position from which they can defend themselves, and if a non-​Jewish traveling companion enquires about your destination, it is best to fob him off with a vague answer, as Jacob did with Esau (Gen 33:14; t. Abod. Zar. 3:4). Not surprisingly, this biblical narrative of fraternal rivalry became a kind of template for rabbinic travel. It is said that when R. Yehuda ha-​Nasi had to travel to meet government officials, he learned from this passage not to travel with Roman companions. Once, he forgot “and did not arrive at the port in Akko before he had to sell his cloak [having lost all his possessions]” (Gen. Rab. 78:15). As literary settings that enable nonhierarchical interactions, these anecdotes often have surprising results. Thus, the Babylonian Talmud contains a collection of three roadside encounters of R. Yehoshua b. Hananiah with nonrabbinic Jews (b. Erub. 53b). In the first he is rebuked by a female innkeeper for table manners unbecoming a sage, in the second by a young girl for trespassing, and in the third he is bested by a clever child when asking for directions. It is not fortuitous that all of these anecdotes, where the rabbinic protagonist admits that he is defeated by marginal characters, take place on the road. A similar pattern emerges in the following tale that is transmitted in the same literary context: “R. Yose the Galilean was walking along the road. He met Beruriah and asked: By which road shall we go to Lod? She replied: Galilean fool, did not the sages say: Do not talk too much with a woman (cf. m. Abot 1:5)? You should have said: By which to Lod?” Here too, a seemingly innocuous meeting on the road is the setting for an embarrassing encounter between a famous sage and a woman. However, in distinction from the previous narratives, Beruriah (in the Babylonian Talmud) is the learned wife of R. Meir, so this confrontation is with an-​Other who is both same and different. At first glance, the difference of only two Hebrew words between the original question and Beruriah’s corrected version seems inconsequential. However, Beruriah not only displays a greater knowledge of rabbinic norms but forces R. Yose to doubly 230

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transgress them, as his blunder compels him to lengthen his engagement with her, while she corrects his presumptuous offer of companionship in his use of the plural form (“we”). The Babylonian Talmud often uses the narrative setting of roadside encounters to dramatize interactions with nonrabbinic Jews who challenged rabbinic assumptions about themselves and their Others (see b. Taan. 20a). In the context of a discussion about how sages are particularly vulnerable to sexual temptation the following tale appears: “Abaye heard a certain man saying to a woman: Let us rise early tomorrow and travel together. Abaye said [to himself]: I will follow them in order to keep them from transgression. And he followed them for three parasangs. When they parted from each other, he heard them saying: Our journey [has been] far but our company sweet. If it were I, thought Abaye, I would not have been able to restrain myself. So he went and was about to jump off the planks of a bridge, when a certain old man appeared and taught him: The greater the man, the greater his evil inclination.” (b. Sukkah 52a) Abaye decides to follow a couple he believes is planning an illicit meeting. When they depart chastely from each other, he realizes that the problem was not the sexual designs of the couple but rather his own illicit thoughts. If being “on the road” and beyond the scrutiny of normative authorities could enable an intimate liaison, the Other that Abaye encounters here is his own darker self. Thus, the rabbi’s self-​appointed identity as moral police is ironically undermined by the rabbinic narrator.

b)  The Inn One social space that was frequented by many travelers at the same time was the wayside inn (Aramaic pundaq =​Greek pandocheion, “accepting all comers”), which functioned as a hybrid space between home and abroad. It provided protection and sustenance like home, yet was inhabited by strangers. For this reason, inns “were points for meeting and exchange between people, whether of the same or different religious beliefs” (Constable 2003: 15). As a social space where identities could meet and mingle, the inn could provide a framework for the dissemination or challenging of religious beliefs. Thus, the Midrash portrays Abraham setting up an inn not only to feed wayfarers but also to spread his beliefs among them (Gen. Rab. 54:6). However, many other texts portray the unsavory character of inns and innkeepers (Rosenfeld 1998). Thus, we hear of an innkeeper who cooperated with a band of local bandits and robbed his guests when he sent them on their way in the middle of the night, supposedly to join a passing caravan. R. Meir is spared only because he acts in accordance with his understanding of Scripture that one should travel only in the daytime (Gen. Rab. 92:6). In a similar narrative told in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Yoma 83b), R. Meir is saved from a thieving innkeeper only because he can discern his host’s character by interpreting his name in a rabbinic fashion, connecting it to the appropriate verse. Both of these narratives use the reality and literary trope of danger on the road, yet rabbinize them by displaying how the character’s rabbinic knowledge sets him apart and protects him. The hybrid nature and mixed clientele of the wayside inn are often presented as a challenge or threat to rabbinic norms (m. Ḥul. 8:2; m. Abod. Zar. 2:1). This theme is dramatized in a humorous fashion in a tale of R. Yannai who stopped at an inn whose proprietress was a witch (b. Sanh. 67b). She attempts to enchant him with a powerful potion with the intent of transforming him into an 231

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ass to “serve” her needs. This image of a woman-​gentile-​witch riding upon a man-​Jew-​sage is the ultimate reversal of rabbinic identity. Saved by his own cunning, the narrative concludes with the carnivalesque image of Yannai riding her (in the form of an ass) through the marketplace. This act with its erotic connotations restores rabbinic ideological constructions of identity, power, and gender by putting the witch in her proper place –​under the rabbi’s saddle.

c)  Rabbis Traveling Together We have seen roadside encounters between rabbis and various nonrabbinic and non-​Jewish figures. However, rabbis mostly traveled with other rabbis, and the dramatic situation of “on the road” created its own special challenges. Since the circumstances of travel necessitated some social leveling, issues of rabbinic honor often came to the fore, already in tannaitic tradition and the Talmud Yerushalmi (Hezser 2011: 136–​7) and receiving greater prominence in the Babylonian Talmud (Hezser 2017: 130–​5). Thus, in a tale of two rabbis on the road it is recounted that the donkey of the less distinguished rabbi accidentally advances in front of his teacher. In order to assuage his colleague’s damaged pride, the former compares himself to an “ass of evil habits” (b. Shabb. 51b). The following tale deals with a similar situation: “Once Rabin and Abaye were traveling on the road and Rabin’s donkey got in front of that of Abaye. Abaye said [to himself]: Since this one has come up from the West [Palestine], he has grown arrogant. When he [Rabin] arrived at the door of a synagogue, he waited and said: Will your honor please enter [first]. He said to him: Was I not ‘your honor’ until now? Rabin replied: Thus said R. Yohanan: We do not give precedence [to others] either on the road or on a bridge or in the washing of the greasy hands [at the end of a meal], but only in a doorway in which there is a mezuzah.” (b. Ber. 47a) The dramatic tension at the heart of this narrative is the theme of travel itself, travels past and travels present. In the first half of this story, Abaye interprets Rabin’s lack of scholastic etiquette as an intentional sleight due to the latter’s recent return from studies in Palestine. The competition between these two centers of rabbinic learning is well documented (Gafni 1997: 96–​117). In fact, Rabin is one of the few rabbis mentioned among the nechotei, those rabbis who often traveled between Palestine and Babylonia, constituting a network of communication and knowledge (Hezser 2015; Kiperwasser 2021). Only when Rabin explains that he was acting according to Palestinian codes of conduct while on the road is the situation defused. This short tale is one of many that exemplify the personal side of the competition and enmity between the two major rabbinic centers of learning, and how travel narratives act as the literary venue to dramatize these conflicts.

3.  Identity and Place a) Pilgrimage One of the important types of travel tales that connect mobility, identity, and place are pilgrimage narratives. Pilgrimage as sacred travel is a term and practice that is difficult to define. While many would agree that it always involves some form of mobility, it is not always possible to distinguish between various types of religiously motivated travel (Rutherford 2001: 40–​1). I will use here a 232

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minimalist definition of pilgrimage as a religiously/​culturally motivated journey to venerated sites or persons in order to gain access to the sacred (Frank 2008: 826; Elsner and Rutherford 2008; Hezser 2011: 365–​88). The Bible commands thrice-yearly pilgrimage (Exod 23:17; Deut 16:16), and if Philo is to be believed, “innumerable companies of men from a countless variety of cities, some by land and some by sea, from east and from west, from the north and from the south, came to the Temple at every festival” (Philo, Special Laws 1.69). Nevertheless, he seems to have made only one pilgrimage journey to Jerusalem himself. Goodman has argued that pilgrimage from faraway regions was practiced in Herodian times only as a consequence of Herod’s efforts on behalf of the local tourist industry (Goodman, 1999). Following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E ., pilgrimage as a phenomenon of mass ritual travel ceased functioning as an expression of communal identity. There is, however, sporadic evidence that up to the fourth century C.E . individual rabbis continued to visit the Temple Mount (Eliav 2005: 192). Likewise, the Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333 C .E .), the earliest preserved account of a Christian pilgrim, describes Jews who come to “anoint a pierced stone (lapis pertusus) once a year”, perhaps a reference to ritualized visits to the Foundation Stone of the Temple on the Ninth of Av (Wilkinson 1999: 30).

b)  Pilgrim Itineraries Despite its biblical roots, a proper understanding of the rabbinic relation to sacred travel is dependent upon an appreciation of emergent patterns of Christian pilgrimage in late antiquity. One of the crucial developments in this period, for both Jews and Christians alike, was the realignment and reinterpretation of sacred space. For Jews, this development was necessitated by the loss of a sacred center, for Christians by its gain (Levinson 2013: 102). The idea of the Christian “Holy Land” emerged in the fourth century, following the unitary Mediterranean rule of the emperor Constantine I (from 324 C. E .) and the subsequent travels of his mother Helena in the eastern empire (326–​328 C. E .). These developments contributed to the transformation of the genre of the Christian itineraria or travelogues. In place of the earlier scholastic interest in locating places mentioned in Scripture, there emerged a more tactile yearning to experience the holy sites and participate in sacred moments from the biblical past (Hunt 1984: 413). Thus, in the 380s C.E ., Egeria travels to “see everything which the Books of Moses tell us” (5.8; Wilkinson 1999: 113). Likewise, Paulinus of Nola claimed, “no other sentiment draws men to Jerusalem but the desire to see and touch the places where Christ was physically present” (Epistles 49.14). This Christian Holy Land was constructed as a cartographical palimpsest upon older Jewish sites. Just as Christian interpretation appropriated the biblical text as a prefiguration of the life of Christ, so too did the pilgrim travel narratives use interpretational imperialism to usurp Jewish history and holy sites (Bowman 1992: 156; Jacobs 2002). This appropriation rewrote the landscape so that it reflected emerging notions of a new Christian identity that was based on the connection of sight, site, and citation in a manner that validated scriptural events, as memory of the sacred past was projected upon the present landscape.

c)  Seeing the Past Christian pilgrimage created a powerful link between sacred text and sacred land. “For early Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, seeing was believing … [it] provided access to spiritual knowledge or truth, and visual encounters with the sacred” (Smith 2007a: 136; see also Frank 233

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2000: 106; Limor 2001). It seems that nothing could emphasize in a more visceral fashion the triumph of Christianity than its conquest of real and imagined space. Like the grains of sand falling from an hourglass, rabbis and other Jews must have felt how their own territorial identity was gradually slipping away from them, and they were on the way to becoming strangers in their own land. Rabbinic literature did not create or preserve anything like Egeria’s itinerary, which presented a chronological travelogue of people met and places visited (Salway 2001; Elsner 2000; Smith 2007b). However, the loss of the sacred center in Jerusalem, attended by the Christian monumentalization of the landscape, may have contributed to the emergence of new types of sacred space and new forms of rabbinic travel writing. Just as Christian hermeneutics engaged in supersessionist colonization of the Hebrew Bible, so too did they appropriate the newly acquired Holy Land and took imaginative possession by colonizing it with markers of their own identity. In response, the rabbis created a countercartography by populating the land with familiar figures from their own past in an attempt to reclaim it for themselves. Several scholars have pointed out that rabbinic literature does contain several texts of ritualized travel that resemble itineraries. For example, the following: “Our rabbis taught: One who sees the place of the crossing of the [Red] Sea, or the fords of the Jordan, or the crossings of the streams of Arnon, or hailstones on the descent to Bet Horon, or the stone which Og, king of Bashan, wanted to throw at Israel, or the stone on which Moses sat when Joshua fought with Amalek or [the pillar of salt of] Lot’s wife, or the wall of Jericho which sank into the ground–​for all of these he should give thanks and praise to the Lord.” (b. Ber. 54a) Neis has suggested that many of the sites mentioned here “pertain to the movement of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, culminating with the fall of Jericho. This is nothing less than a journey into nationhood, a conquest itinerary” (Neis 2013a: 241). More than a mimetic guide (how can one see “the place of the crossing of the Sea”?), this text creates a “memoryscape” that fuses history and landscape to create a repository of common memories, myths, and traditions. Like Egeria’s itinerary, this text exemplifies the creation of the Holy Land as a map of scriptural events (Leyerle 1996: 128). Perhaps we can view this list as a kind of cultural mimicry, where rabbis appropriate the form of the Christian pilgrim itinerary but project their own fictions of identity onto the landscape.

d)  Divine Displacement and Travel An example of how religious identities were expressed and contested in terms of sacred travel can be seen in the Christian appropriation of the Mount of Olives. From here Jesus was believed to have set out on his messianic adventus to the Temple in Jerusalem; from here he ascended to heaven, and to here he was expected to return (Hunt 1982: 162). In the early fourth century, Eusebius begins remapping the sacred cartography of Palestine when he replaces the Temple Mount with the Mount of Olives. Quoting Ezekiel, who portrays “the glory of the God of Israel” moving from “the midst of the city till it stood on the mountain east of the city” (11:22–​3), he describes in what could well be part of a ritualized pilgrim itinerary that Christians “from all parts of the world” first stopped to see the site of the destroyed Temple and then moved on to worship at the Mount of Olives, “where the glory of the Lord migrated when it left the former city” 234

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(Demonstratio Evangelica 6.18). This relocation of the divine presence and patronage is reenacted as a supersessionist mythologeme, when the pilgrims imitate the “glory of the Lord” as their own spatial trajectory moves from the old to the new, from the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives (Maraval 2002: 66). Given this narrative of divine travel where “the glory of the Lord migrated” from the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives, it is surprising to find a parallel rabbinic text of divine travel. A Midrash recounts a poignant reversed pilgrimage, where the Presence of God (shekhinah) bids farewell, departs from the Temple in tears, moves to the Mount of Olives, and from there ascends to heaven to await Israel’s repentance (Pesiq. Rab Kah. 13:11). This narrative is a surprisingly parallel counternarrative to the Christian account and exemplifies how both the loss of a sacred center as well as its gain can generate opposing yet similar travel narratives of identity.

e)  Seeing Sages As we saw, the loss of a sacred center enabled the emergence of new forms of sacred travel as well as the transformation of existing ones. One of these was to replace the holy place with the hallowed sage. This development coincided with changing conceptions of sanctity and the emergence of the holy man in late antiquity. As Hezser has explained, “the collective, vertically-​oriented Temple cult had been replaced by a horizontal network based on one’s personal affiliation with a specific representative of the holy” (Hezser 2016: 205). This “scholastic pilgrimage” to rabbis had roots in the periegetic travelers like Pausanias and was an established tradition in the schools of antiquity, particularly the Second Sophistic, where aspiring philosophers and orators journeyed to the famous academies of Athens, Beirut, and Antioch (Watts 2004). It also influenced the Christian cult of saints who were considered living icons of the sacred (Frank 2000: 96–​101). Along these lines, we can easily understand the emergence of a new form of rabbinic piety and religious travel that facilitated both the transfer of knowledge as well as consolidating the identity of the sage as an individual and member of a larger movement. In the present context, I cannot discuss rabbinic scholastic travel in general, which took various forms in both Palestine and Babylonia (Schwartz 2015; Hezser 2011: 213–​77, 311–​64, eadem 2015 and 2016). Suffice it to say, rabbinic texts praise intellectual travel as a necessary stage for the formation of the student self. R. Shimon b. Yochai proclaims: “Study with someone who is with you in town and afterwards spread it to other places” (Sifre Deut. 48:2). Likewise, Rav Yosef praises those who “bruise their feet in going from town to town to study Torah and discuss the words of God” (b. B. Bat. 8a). We find tales of scholars who fled home to join disciple-​circles (Gen Rab. 41:1) or journeyed between the scholastic centers of Palestine and Babylonia (y. Ber. 2:8, 5c), as well as rabbis consulting with other rabbis on their travels (b. Beṣah 25b, b. B. Meṣi͑ a 43b). Many of these narratives dramatize issues of local patriotism and identity (b. Yoma 9b), and the conflict between different local customs (b. Ḥul. 110a). These developments converged to create a new type of visual piety –​the journey to see the sage. “Rabbi and R. Hiyya were on a journey. When they came to a certain town, they said: If there is a student of the rabbis here, we shall go and pay him our respects [literally: receive his face]. They were told: There is a student of the rabbis here and he is blind. R. Hiyya said to Rabbi: Stay [here]; you must not treat your position as patriarch lightly, I shall go and visit him [receive his face]. But [Rabbi] took hold of him and went with him. When they were taking leave from him [the blind scholar], he said to them: You have visited one who 235

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is seen but does not see. May you merit to receive the face of the divine presence who sees but is not seen. Said [Rabbi to R. Hiyya]: If [I had listened to you] you would have deprived me of this blessing.” (b. Ḥag. 5b) In both biblical and rabbinic parlance, pilgrimage to Jerusalem was expressed in the language of visual piety: seeing and coming to be seen by God (Ex 23:17; m. Ḥag. 1:1). For this reason, the talmudic context preceding our tale exempts a blind person from the religious obligation of pilgrimage, since he cannot see God, while here he becomes its object. To my knowledge, there is no biblical or postbiblical precedent for this new type of religious travel and visual piety. What we see here is an attempt to relocate visible sanctity in a postdestruction era as the visage of the sage becomes a type of living icon that substitutes for the divine one (Neis 2013b: 69); as the Jerusalem Talmud says: “anyone who ‘receives the face’ of his teacher, it is as if he received the face of the divine presence [shekhinah]” (y. Erub. 5:1, 22b). Not surprisingly, this development “dovetails with an increasing desire in the fourth century for praesentia, the corporeal and material manifestations of the sacred perceived by the human eye” (Neis 2013b: 203).

4.  The Marvelous: Seeing Is Believing Another prevalent theme in travel writing that is connected to the ocular is the marvelous and exotic. As Hartog said of Herodotus, “any traveler’s tale that claims to be a faithful report must contain a category of thoma (marvels, curiosities)” (Hartog 1988: 230). Paradoxically, as Jerome reports, it is seeing the marvelous that “verified things of which I had previously learned by report” (Jerome, Contra Rufinum 3.22). One of the tensions inherent in this genre is precisely the need to negotiate between the exotic and the mundane, the known and the unknown. Travel writing strives to appropriate and naturalize the foreign and to make the Other comprehensible. Yet, a distant place without marvels is not so distant after all (Frank 2000: 46). Therefore, “the Other must continue generating the attraction of the foreign, to continue to defy total domestication” (Elsner 1994: 226). It is this aspect of travel discourse that was so wonderfully parodied in Lucian’s second century work A True Story, in which he promised “to tell all kinds of lies in a plausible and specious manner” (1.2). Rabbinic literature, especially the Babylonian Talmud, contains some fantastic travel tales that Lucian would have delighted in, like the well-​known collection of paradoxography attributed to Rabbah bar bar Hana (b. B. Bat. 73b–​74a; Kiperwasser 2007). Not surprisingly, there is little in this collection that is specifically Jewish. However, sometimes the marvelous itself can become the narrative fulcrum that produces and polices identity: “The imperial house of Caesar once sent two commissioners with the orders: Go and find the tomb of Moses. They climbed up above and saw it below, but when they went down below, they saw it up above them. They then split up, half of them going up and half going down, but those above saw the bier below, while those below saw it above. Hence Scripture says: ‘… and no man knows of his tomb unto this day’.” (Sifre Deut. 357) This tale is a remarkable piece of comic burlesque, and although it is intriguing that the interested parties are connected to the imperial house, the reasons for their interest are not entirely clear. 236

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It is tempting to see the target of this quip as those pedantic pilgrims and biblical tourists, such as Melito of Sardis (190 C. E .), Alexander of Cappadocia (213 C.E .), and Origen (230 C.E .), who traipsed around Palestine with the Bible in hand in a futile quest to discover the hidden biblical past which, according to our author, endlessly slips away from them. In any case, it is not surprising that Egeria herself saw various biblical marvels like the Burning Bush “still alive and sprouting” (4.6; Wilkinson 1999: 112), or when the monks on Mount Nebo took her to “where Moses was buried by the angels” (ibid. 12.2). Here, the marvelous endorses Christian triumphalism in its combination of site, sight and citation, whereas the rabbinic text undermines it, as the imperial questers become a farcical enactment of the verse addressed to Moses upon his death: “You may see the land from a distance–​but you shall not go there” (Deut 32:52).

5.  Involuntary Travel a)  Exile and Diaspora One of the prevalent types of travel narratives in rabbinic literature intimately connected to identity is tales of exile. Over the past few decades, there has been a proliferation of studies and definitions of exile and Diaspora ranging from the catastrophic to the celebratory. While exile has retained its semantic range as an “abnormal and unsustainable state of crisis governed by a narrative of sin, punishment, and longing for restoration, ‘Diaspora’ has come to signify a dynamic and even generative politico-​spatial condition that is characterized by porous social boundaries and cultural vitality” (Boustan 2011: 135). The catastrophic view of exile is the dominant paradigm in the Bible, where exile appears as the ultimate divine punishment for national failure to observe the covenant (Lev 26:33; Deut 28:36; Tölölyan 2007). This disaster model involves forced travel that is usually considered transitory with the hope of return from the hostland to the homeland. This model continues to appear in rabbinic literature, for example, in the tale of 400 children who committed mass suicide rather than be sold into slavery by jumping into the sea from the ship that carried them to captivity (Lam. Rab. 1:44; b. Git. 57b). While many scholars stress how identity is negotiated within the triadic space of self, home, and “host” nation, others have stressed the importance of a diasporic hybrid or “double consciousness”. Clifford, for example, has stressed that Diaspora discourse articulates both roots and routes to construct a double consciousness; the copresence of both here and there, displacement and placement, traveling and dwelling (Clifford 1994: 308). Along these same lines, Boyarin has suggested that specifically the Babylonian Talmud constructs a more irenic model of Diaspora when it states that dispersion to various lands was intended to protect Israel from the evil designs of any given ruler (b. Pesaḥ. 87a; Boyarin 2015: 43). In this same context, R. Hanina states that Jews were exiled specifically to Babylon because its “language (Aramaic) is close to the language of Torah” (ibid.), thus improving their ability to study. And R. Yochanan cites a parable that presents exile to Babylonia as a kind of homecoming reunion to their land of origin, since Abraham originally came from Ur: “This is comparable to a man who is angry at his wife to where does he send her? To the house of her mother” (ibid.). While exile as punishment is not denied here, it is certainly mitigated. Gafni suggests that this position could almost be read as the “embracing of what is usually considered a uniquely Hellenistic idea, namely that Israel, like other ethnic groups, have a dual homeland” (Gafni 1997: 63). Boyarin may be overstating his argument when he states that “the entire notion of ‘diaspora’ as the act of forced dispersion from a single homeland is exploded by the Talmud at this moment” (ibid. 43), since the parable itself 237

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already appears in early Palestinian literature (t. B. Qam. 7:3). However, he is certainly correct that diasporic identities can undermine the dichotomy of center and periphery that often accompany discourses of exile. This tension between center and periphery is dramatized in a series of travel anecdotes in the Jerusalem Talmud (y. Ma’as. Sh 5:2, 56a). The first three describe the utopian chronotope of Temple times. Thus, “the daughters of Sepphoris [in Galilee] would travel to the Temple for the Sabbath, yet no one would rise to gather figs on Sunday before them. And the daughters of Lydda [in Judaea] would knead their dough [for the Sabbath], go to Jerusalem, pray, and return even before the dough leavened”. If exile constructs a dichotomy of center and periphery, here the powerful cultural presence of the sacred center did not leave room for any margins, as if Jerusalem was everywhere just around the corner. However, these travel mirabilia only set the stage for a more disturbing vision of the post-​Destruction present, as this collection concludes with the following anecdote: “A man was standing and plowing. His cow broke away from him and started running. He ran after it and it fled, he ran and it fled, until he found himself in Babylonia. The [local] Babylonians asked him: When did you leave? He answered: Today. They asked him: By which way did you come? He answered: By this one. The said: Come and show us. And he went out and tried to show them, but he no longer recognized the way he came. As the verse says: ‘He has walled in my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths a maze’ (Lam 3:9).” (y. Ma’as. Sh. 5:2, 56a) The first part of this text exemplifies a nostalgic utopia in which everywhere is in the neighborhood of the Temple in Jerusalem. However, the final anecdote registers a different kind of spatial consciousness, wherein the possession of the land is so ephemeral that the mere blink of an eye separates here from there, and place from displacement. We have moved rapidly from a utopian world in which everywhere is in the center, to a dystopian vision where “things fall apart; the center cannot hold”. The margins have conquered the center, and exile is literally inescapable.

b)  Tales of Captivity The taking of captives for slaves or ransom was a common practice in the Roman Empire. Captivity itself exemplifies what Mary Louise Pratt has called a “contact zone” in travel literature, those “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination” (Pratt 1992: 4). It is thus not surprising that captivity is a prevalent theme in Greek and Roman literature of late antiquity. The popular genre of the Greek novel usually begins with a young couple’s kidnapping and concludes with their restoration to hearth and home (Reardon 1969; Whitmarsh 2015). Captivity is a kind of personal exile and is intimately connected with the loss of identity. A captive is always in a position of subjection, and therefore in danger of losing his or her identity as a subject. Since captivity represents an extreme situation where the social markers of status and identity are violently stripped away, these narratives are a kind of ultimate test case for personal identity. While all travel narratives negotiate alterity and thematize this meeting of self and Other, in tales of captivity the other identity grappled with is often the Other that the self has lost or has become. 238

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c)  The Redemption of Rabbi Yishmael It is not uncommon that the sense of difference generated by captivity can also result in a rediscovery of one’s own identity. If, as one scholar said, “it is when we are on the road that we most assiduously produce [the idea of] home” (Harrison 2001: 36), then this is certainly true of captivity. It is this play of sameness and difference engendered by captivity that is often dramatized in rabbinic travel tales. I mentioned above that Diaspora can create new hybrid identities because of the double consciousness of embeddedness within two simultaneous social systems. We can witness this dynamic in the tale of R. Yishmael’s captivity and redemption. As is often the case in rabbinic literature, there are multiple versions of this text in different collections that vary in their details. In the Palestinian version (y. Hor. 3:4, 48b), we are told that while R. Yehoshua was in Rome he hears of “a Jerusalemite youth—​ruddy-​cheeked with beautiful eyes, handsome and with curly locks—​who was [held captive] in a brothel”. He redeems him “for a huge sum, and sends him to the Land of Israel, reciting the verse: ‘the precious children of Zion; once valued as gold’ (Lam 4:2)”. This narrative is constructed in a circular trajectory from Jerusalem to Rome and back. In fact, it both opens and concludes with a marker of home-​identity: a Jerusalemite youth and “the precious children of Zion”. While these are ostensibly both the same place, since one is a narrative description and the other is a quotation from Lamentations –​they can be understood as different types of identity, personal versus cultural identities. This difference in repetition in the narrative frame constructs the main dynamic here concerning place and identity. Is this youth only from Jerusalem geographically or is he actually a child of Zion in the religious and cultural sense? This dilemma is mirrored in the physical description of the youth, which is hermeneutically overdetermined. Within the biblical intertext, this fourfold description of his physical beauty is a collage of biblical quotations (cf. 1 Sam 16:12; Song of Songs 5:11). Seen in this light, our anonymous youth may be held captive in a brothel in Rome, but this collage of biblical verses that literarily inscribe his body indicates that he has traveled with his home-​identity intact. However, reading this same physical description in the larger cultural intertext marks him as a desired sexual object, a puer delicatus, very much at home in a Roman brothel. As Martial said: “If I could choose one boy (puerum), in any style from any country–​this would be my choice … Let his eyes rival the stars and his soft locks tumble over his neck” (Epigrams 4:42). Just as the double epithet of a Jerusalemite or a “child of Zion” creates an ambiguous narrative identity, so too does the description of the youth’s beauty generate two conflicting semantic fields and two disparate identities. As a mosaic of fragments of a displaced discourse, his body is a text that tells two very different stories (Levinson 2016). The pursuant conversation between R. Yehoshua and the captive youth is composed entirely of biblical verses. When the youth responds in a way that reflects his acknowledgment that his personal fate as a displaced captive in Rome is just divine punishment, he is transformed from a Jerusalemite youth into a “child of Zion” and a synecdoche of the Jewish people in exile. This travel tale of captivity moves in a circular trajectory from Jerusalem to Rome and back home. Although from this Palestinian text we know nothing of his identity or fate after his redemption, the completed circle reunites the semiotics of place and identity that were disrupted by the exile. Just as the youth returns the verse to its proper order, so too is he repatriated to his proper place and identity. The Babylonian version (b. Git. 58a) of this tale makes a number of significant changes. Only in this version is the anonymous youth specifically identified as the famous sage R. Yishmael ben Elisha. He is not identified as a Jerusalemite, however, and therefore the narrative concludes not 239

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with his return to the Land of Israel, but with the pronouncement that he will become a great teacher “in Israel”. If the Palestinian version adheres to the standard circular trajectory of a “comic” travel narrative, the Babylonian version reconfigures this structure and transforms its closure. It ends literally with Diaspora (i.e., dispersion), as R. Ishmael becomes a sage who teaches not in the land of Israel, but to the collective people of Israel, wherever they may be. In this version, Jerusalem is not a home one leaves or returns to, and rather it is his future identity as a sage that justifies his redemption. If the Palestinian version is a narrative about the reunification of place and identity disrupted by exile and captivity, then the Babylonian version is a tale of scholastic identity irrespective of exile, that is, of deterritorialization. This version neutralizes the component of place in identity and replaces the earthly Jerusalem with a kind of textual homeland. It is not entirely surprising that the diasporic rabbinic community in Babylonia neutralizes the component of place in corporate identity. Perhaps only in this exilic community, which famously vied with Palestine for hegemony, was it possible to replace a physical homeland with a textual one (Boyarin 2015).

6.  Rome and Jerusalem a)  When in Rome Rabbinic literature contains many accounts of rabbis traveling to the Diaspora. Sometimes the purpose of these journeys is stated explicitly (economical, political, intellectual), but just as often the reason is not stated. In this section, I will concentrate on rabbinic voyages to one particular destination, namely, travels to Rome. There are a fair number of narratives of rabbinic voyages to Rome, many of them centered on the second-​century rabbi Rabban Gamliel II. Unfortunately, we know very little about the purposes of these travels or even the veracity of the accounts (Safrai 1994; Hezser 2011: 264–​72). One can say many things about imperial Rome, it was crowded, noisy, and filthy, and ancient Romans complained about them all (Juvenal, Satires 3.232–​238). However, rabbinic visitors arriving from the provincial backwater of Palestine could not fail to be astounded by the sheer size and commotion of the capital. Greenblatt’s definition of wonder as the ability to “stop the viewer in his or her tracks, to convey an arresting sense of uniqueness” (Greenblatt 1991: 42) captures the sense of rabbinic wonder when they state: “There are three voices going from one end of the world to the other: the sound of the revolving of the sun, the sound of the tumult of Rome, and the sound of the soul as it leaves the body” (b. Yoma 20b). In a similar vein, R. Yosi b. Halafta reports: “There are three hundred and sixty five districts in the great city of Rome, and in each there were three hundred and sixty five warehouses, and in each there were three hundred and sixty five steps [?]‌, and each was sufficient to provide the whole world with food” (b. Pesaḥ. 118b). These hyperbolic descriptions, perhaps alluding to the Roman grain dole (annona urbis), capture the wonder of Rome so typical of ethnographic travel narratives that we mentioned above. The travel-​writer’s act of translation into his own culture must be simultaneously an “Othering” which keeps the described outside his culture: it must be remarkable as much as it brings down to earth. While residents and visitors to Rome might complain of constant crowds, noise, and squalor, they would also concur that Rome was more than a city; it was the figurehead and embodiment of the empire itself –​urbs et orbis the city and the world (Ovid, Fasti 2.684). This symbolic resonance of Rome was not lost on the rabbis. In rabbinic cultural cartography, Rome and Jerusalem were thought of as opposing metaphysical entities (b. Meg. 6a). For example, there is a prevalent tradition that on “the day Solomon sinned by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter, [the angel] Michael descended and planted a reed in the sea; it gathered sediment around it and a great forest was 240

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created and this is the great city of Rome” (y. Abod. Zar. 1:2, 39c; b. Shabb. 56b). This moral mapping is reflected in travel narratives. Thus, it is recounted that when R. Yehoshua b Levi went to Rome, he saw columns that were clothed in opulent tapestries to protect them from the elements, but also a poor man wrapped in a reed-​mat (Gen. Rab. 33:1). This depiction of Rome as a moral dystopia brought him to ponder the ways of divine providence. While Jerusalem lay in ruins, Rome was represented as the ultimate megalopolis. This negative analogy is forcefully presented in a pair of travel narratives. In the first, it is told that “R. Gamliel and R. Yehoshua and R. Elazar b. Azariah and R. Aqiva were travelling to Rome, and they heard the tumult from the city already from the port of Puteoli, a hundred and twenty [Roman] miles away” (Sifre Deut 43:16). Up to this point, this tradition could be read in a similar vein to the previous ones concerning the marvels of Rome. However, here the first three rabbis break out in tears because this city of idol worshippers is “sitting in peace and calm; while the footstool of our Lord has been set aflame and become an abode for wild animals” (ibid.). Aqiva consoles his companions with an argumentum a fortiori: “If this is what He gives to those who anger Him, all the more [will He give] to those who do His will” (ibid.). This vignette is then followed by a mirror narrative, wherein the same rabbis are depicted as traveling to Jerusalem and burst into tears upon seeing a fox emerge from the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount. Once again, Aqiva consoles them with a midrashic exegesis that promises future redemption. This double narrative contrasts the two cities and all they represent. While the fox that appears here would seem to be a fulfillment of the image mentioned in the first part (“an abode for wild animals”), it is in fact a sign of the coming redemption.

b)  Temple Relics in Rome In connection with rabbinic visits to Rome, mention should be made about a cluster of traditions where rabbis testify to seeing some of the Temple relics in the city. We know from Josephus and others that the spoils of the first Jewish revolt, including the sacred implements of the Jerusalem Temple, were paraded through the streets of Rome in a triumphal procession. This Roman triumphus is represented on the Arch of Titus in Rome, and Josephus recounts that some of these items were placed on display in the newly built Temple of Peace (Josephus, B.J. 7.118–​62). These rabbinic anecdotes are attributed to either R. Elazar b. R. Yose or R. Shimon b. Yochai, both of whom lived in the second-​century C. E ., and they are all formulated in similar language (“I saw in Rome/​When I went to Rome I saw”). The earlier texts mention the Temple veil (parochet), the menorah, and the high priest’s headband (t. Yoma 2:16; Sifre Zut. 8:2; y. Yoma 4:1, 41c), and later sources add various other Temple items (Abot de R. Nat. version A 41; Esth Rab. 1:12). While it is not inconceivable that some rabbis heard about or even saw the depictions on the Arch of Titus, or even saw the Temple implements in Rome before the Temple of Peace was destroyed by fire in 192 C .E ., arguments that rabbis engaged in sacred sightseeing and traveled to Rome with the explicit purpose of seeing the Temple relics are unconvincing (Noy 2005). We should be cautious against reading these traditions as transparent travelogues that record the actual experiences of second-​century rabbis in the capital. Irrespective of their historical veracity, Boustan (2008: 6) has pointed out that earlier nonrabbinic texts have the Temple vessels buried in the earth in or around Jerusalem, to emerge unpolluted at the time of redemption (2 Macc. 2:7–​8; 2 Baruch 6:8). It is only the later rabbinic traditions that have the vessels travel into exile, and specifically to Rome. He has noted that at about the same time that Christian pilgrims were finding in the Holy Land remnants and relics that proved their faith, rabbis were finding them in Rome: “By imagining late antique Jews —​rabbis 241

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among them —​locating the remains of the Jewish past at Rome, in the heart of the empire, these texts reverse the direction of travel and exploration, turning Christian sacred space inside out. They thereby map out a ‘counter-​geography’ within which a resistant Jewish identity could be fashioned” (ibid.). He makes the intriguing suggestion that this inversion of the process of travel, discovery, and ideological appropriation resulted in a judaizing of Rome, at the same time that the empire was ideologically invested in the creation of a Christian Holy Land.

c)  Going Native in Rome Many of the texts we have briefly discussed above are based on a dichotomy of identities; Jew versus Gentile, Jerusalem versus Rome, homeland versus hostland. As travel narratives thematize “an encounter between self and other that is brought about by a movement through space” (Thompson 2011: 10), they can often challenge the manner we see both ourselves and others. Lotman has pointed out that the notion of a border is inherently hybrid; it both separates and connects. Since it is always the boundary of something else, it is not only the site where identities are defined and defended but also where they meet and mingle (Lotman 1990: 136). As we saw in the tale of R. Yishmael’s redemption from captivity, it is this hybrid nature of any boundary that both connects and separates identities that travel narratives often negotiate. In the context of rabbinic magic contests with gentiles, the Jerusalem Talmud recounts a complex tale of a rabbinic trip to Rome (y. Sanh. 7:13, 25d). The narrative is composed of three scenes. The first depicts rabbis’ arrival, and in the second they are hosted by a local Jewish family. The behavior of their host arouses their suspicion that their host has “gone native” by practicing idolatry, but they subsequently learn that his son was suffering from impotence due to sorcery. The tale concludes with the victorious confrontation with a local witch and the birth of one of the founding diasporic rabbinic figures, R. Yehudah b. Batyra. The connection between a magic contest and travel narrative is not as unusual as it first sounds (Levinson 2010). As we have seen, travel narratives thematize boundary crossings, a departure from the known world and an encounter with the unknown. It is this generic mixture in the narrative as a whole that stages the central cultural anxiety represented here. As a magical contest, it exemplifies the power of the sages who venture forth from the colonized periphery of the empire to its very center and vanquish there a local witch who threatens rabbinic continuity. But as a travel narrative, we could say that the sages journey not from the periphery of the empire to its center, but rather from the heart of normative Jewish identity in Palestine to its margins in the Diaspora. The tension between these two motifs of power and identity is most apparent in the opening scene of the narrative: “R. Eliezer, R. Yehoshua, and Rabban Gamliel traveled to Rome. They came to a place and found some children making piles of dirt, saying: This is how the people of the Land of Israel do and say. This is for the heave offering and this is for the tithe. They [the rabbis] said: It appears that there are Jews here.” (y. Sanh. 7:13, 25d) The first thing the rabbis encounter on foreign soil is actually a copy of themselves, a scene of cultural mimicry, as Roman (Jewish?) children “play” the role of Palestinian Jews. It is hard to think of a better way to dramatize the instability of identity, of identity as performance, than as child’s play, and the talmudic narrator utilizes this encounter in order to stage the porous borders of rabbinic identity. 242

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Thus, in this tale, the sages travel to the heart of the other culture only to encounter there a refracted image of themselves. Likewise, in each scene expectations of identity or difference are confounded. In the first scene, as we saw, they anticipate otherness, but meet sameness. In the second scene, their host seems to embody the foreign otherness of idolatrous practices but is revealed to be waiting for the prayers of the very sages who suspect him. In the final scene, the sages are revealed as master practitioners of magic, but the price they pay for their victory is to destabilize any essential difference between themselves and their opponents. In each scene they expect to confront a strange Other only to find themselves before the uncannily familiar. It does not seem coincidental that their first encounter itself takes place on the border, not only the border between land and sea, but more importantly that between rabbinic, pagan, and diasporic Jewish identities. It embodies in a particularly forceful manner the hybrid nature of any boundary where identities are both defended and transgressed. This travel tale to Rome exemplifies how the attempts to stabilize an essential identity are problematized not only because of a threatening Other, but because the identity of the sages themselves is revealed as hybrid. In a wonderfully dialogical manner, neither side here can express its own identity without using that of the Other. (Levinson 2023)

7. Conclusion Travel always involves a crossing of borders, and an encounter between self and other that is brought about by movement through space, and travel narratives thematize these boundary crossings, a departure from the known world and an encounter with the unknown. However, borders are not only where identities are established; they are also where they meet and mingle and are performed and contested. It is this hybrid nature of any boundary that both connects and separates identities that travel narratives often negotiate. It is thus not surprising that rabbinic travel narratives, as seen throughout this essay, function as a vehicle for exploring, producing, and policing their own fictions of identity. However, while we normally think, as James Clifford has remarked, that “roots always precede routes”, this dynamic should not blind us to the possibility that practices of displacement, like travel, construct meaning and identity no less than social existence grounded in circumscribed places (Clifford 1994: 3). Since every center or home is someone else’s periphery and Diaspora, discrete identities may also be seen as a consequence of travel, and not merely the ground from which traveling departs from or returns to.

Bibliography Blumell, L. (2007). “Beware of Bandits! Banditry and Land Travel in the Roman Empire,” Journeys 8: 1–​20. Boustan, R. (2008). “The Spoils of the Jerusalem Temple at Rome and Constantinople: Jewish Counter-​ Geography in a Christianizing Empire,” in G. Gardner and K. Osterloh (eds.), Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-​Roman World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 327–​72. Boustan, R. (2011). “The Dislocation of the Temple Vessels: Mobile Sanctity and Rabbinic Rhetorics of Space,” in R. Boustan et al. (eds.), Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History: Authority, Diaspora, Tradition. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 135–​46. Bowman, G. (1992). “Pilgrim Narratives of Jerusalem and the Holy Land: A Study in Ideological Distortion,” in A. Morinis (ed.), Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 149–​68. Boyarin, D. (2015). A Traveling Homeland: The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Clifford, J. (1994). “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology 9: 302–​38.

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Joshua Levinson Constable, O.R. (2003). Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Eliav, Y. (2005). God’s Mountain: The Temple Mount in Time, Place, and Memory. Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press. Elsner, J. (1994). “From the Pyramids to Pausanias and Piglet: Monuments, Travel and Writing,” in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 224–​54. Elsner, J. (2000). “The Itinerarium Burdigalense: Politics and Salvation in the Geography of Constantine’s Empire,” The Journal of Roman Studies 90: 181–​95. Elsner, J. and Rutherford, I. (eds.) (2008). Pilgrimage in Graeco-​Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Frank, G. (2000). The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Frank, G. (2008). “Pilgrimage,” in S. Harvey and D. Hunter (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 826–​43. Gafni, I. (1997). Land, Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press. Goodman, M. (1999). “The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period,” in L.I. Levine (ed.), Jerusalem, Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. New York, NY: Continuum, 69–​76. Greenblatt, S. (1991). “Resonance and Wonder,” in I. Karp and S. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 42–​56. Harrison, J. (2001). “Travelling Home,” Journeys 2: 29–​49. Hartog, F. (1988). The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hezser, C. (2011). Jewish Travel in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hezser, C. (2015). “Crossing Enemy Lines: Network Connections Between Palestinian and Babylonian Sages in Late Antiquity,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 46: 224–​50. Hezser, C. (2016). “Mobility, Flexibility, and the Diasporization of Palestinian Judaism After 70 C.E.,” in C. Cordoni and G. Langer (eds.), ‘Let the Wise Listen and Add to Their Learning’ (Ps. 1:5). Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 197–​216. Hezser, C. (2017). “Strangers on the Road: Otherness, Identification, and Disguise in Rabbinic Travel Tales of Late Roman Palestine,” in M. Niehoff (ed.), Journeys in the Roman East: Imagined and Real. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 239–​53. Hunt, E.D. (1982). Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD 312–​460. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hunt, E.D. (1984). “Travel, Tourism and Piety in the Roman Empire,” Echos du Monde Classique 28: 391–​417. Isaac, B. (1984). “Bandits in Judaea and Arabia,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 88: 171–​203. Jacobs, A. (2002). “‘The Most Beautiful Jewesses in the Land’: Imperial Travel in the Early Christian Holy Land,” Religion 32: 205–​25. Kiperwasser, R. (2007). “Rabba bar Bar Channa’s Voyages” (Hebrew). Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 22: 215–​242. Kiperwasser, R. (2021). Going West: Migrating Personae and Construction of the Self in Rabbinic Culture. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Laurence, R. (1999). The Roads of Roman Italy: Mobility and Cultural Change. London: Routledge. Levinson, J. (2010). “Enchanting Rabbis: Contest Narratives between Rabbis and Magicians in Late Antiquity,” Jewish Quarterly Review 100: 54–​94. Levinson, J. (2013). “There Is No-​Place Like Home: Rabbinic Responses to the Christianization of Palestine,” in N. Dohrmann and A.Y. Reed (eds.), Jews, Christians and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 99–​120. Levinson, J. (2016) “Captured by Texts: Travel Tales of Captivity in Rabbinic Literature,” Journeys 17: 75–​95. Levinson, J. (2023). “When in Rome,” in B. Bitton-Ashkelony and M. Goodman (eds.), Essays on Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity in Honour of Oded Irshai. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 221–239. Leyerle, B. (1996) “Landscape as Cartography in Early Christian Pilgrimage Narratives,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64: 119–​43.

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Travel Narratives and the Construction of Identity Limor, O. (2001). “Reading Sacred Space: Egeria, Paula, and the Christian Holy Land,” in Y. Hen (ed.), De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem: Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy, and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder. Turnhout: Brepols, 1–​15. Lotman, Y. (1990). Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Maraval, P. (2002). “The Earliest Phase of Christian Pilgrimage,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56: 63–​74. Neis, R. (2013a). “Pilgrimage Itineraries: Seeing the Past through Rabbinic Eyes,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 20: 224–​56. Neis, R. (2013b). The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Noy, D. (2005). “Rabbi Aqiba Comes to Rome: A Jewish Pilgrimage in Reverse,” in J. Elsner and I. Rutherford (eds.), Pilgrimage in Graeco-​Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 373–​85. Pratt, M.L. (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge. Reardon, B. (1969). “The Greek Novel,” Phoenix 23: 291–​309. Rosenfeld, B.-​Z. (1998). “Inn-​Keeping in Jewish Society in Roman Palestine,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41: 133–​58. Rubies, J.P. (2000). “Travel Writing as a Genre: Facts, Fictions and the Invention of a Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Europe,” Journeys 1: 5–​35. Rutherford, I. (2001). “Tourism and the Sacred: Pausanias and the Traditions of Greek Pilgrimage,” in S.E. Alcock et al. (eds.), Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 40–​56. Safrai, S. (1994). “The Visits of Yavnean Rabbis to Rome” (Hebrew), in idem, In Times of Temple and Mishnah: Studies in Jewish History, vol. 2. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 365–​81. Salway, B. (2001). “Travel, Itineraria, and Tabellaria,” in C. Adams and R. Laurence (eds.), Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire. London: Routledge, 22–​66. Schwartz, M.M. (2015). “As They Journeyed from the East: The Nahotei of the Fourth Century and the Construction of the Rabbinic Diaspora,” Hebrew Union College Annual 86: 63–​99. Smith, J.A. (2007a). “‘What Now Lies Before Their Eyes’: The Foundations of Early Pilgrim Visuality in the Holy Land,” Journal of Greco-​Roman Christianity and Judaism 4: 135–​57. Smith, J.A. (2007b). “‘My Lord’s Native Land’: Mapping the Christian Holy Land,” Church History 76: 1–​31. Thompson, C. (2011). Travel Writing. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Tilburg, C. van (2007). Traffic and Congestion in the Roman Empire. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Tölölyan, K. (2007). “The Contemporary Discourse of Diaspora Studies,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27: 647–​55. Watts, E. (2004). “Student Travel to Intellectual Centers: What Was the Attraction,” in L. Ellis and F. Kidner (eds.), Travel, Communication and Geography: Sacred and Profane. Aldershot: Ashgate, 13–​23. Whitmarsh, T. (2015). Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Wilkinson, J. (1999). Egeria’s Travels. 3rd ed. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.

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PART IV

The Creation of Rabbinic Literature

16 FROM ORAL DISCOURSE TO WRITTEN DOCUMENTS Reuven Kiperwasser

1.  Oral Discourse and Oral Texts Whereas the rabbis generally insisted on the importance of oral study and transmission (Jaffee 2001) and coined the term Oral Torah for their literary traditions, eventually they seemed to have preferred the written transmission of their knowledge. Otherwise, we would not have at our disposal the various collections of rabbinic literature. Modern readers have borrowed the term Oral Torah from rabbinic literature as a rather anachronistic term for the entire body of rabbinic compilations from the Mishnah onwards. The very habit of calling a collection of written texts “an oral teaching” can be interpreted as a reflection of a process embodied in the title of this article: oral traditions were transmitted but somewhere along the way they were fixed in writing. Little is known about the nature of this process. If a transformation from oral discourse to written texts occurred, we do not know whether it was based on a one-​time rabbinic decision or a gradual process in which written traditions eventually supplanted –​or at least supplemented –​oral discourse. Did any types of written texts circulate during the age of oral discourse? What was the “original” nature of rabbinic discourse: was it entirely oral, oral with elements of writing, or written with oral elements? Did the ancient dogma of obligatory oral instruction serve as a justification? The prohibition on writing down oral tradition appears in only two pericopes of the Babylonian Talmud, in b. Gittin 60b and b. Temura 14b). The antiquity and even the authenticity of this norm could be doubted (Sussman 2005: 332; Furstenberg 2022: 131–50). For most of these questions, it is extremely difficult to find any satisfactory answer. A well-​ known problem is the lack of ancient manuscripts of rabbinic literature. Today we have a relatively small number of (partly fragmentary) medieval manuscripts of rabbinic works. If we follow the history of their creation, reconstructing their prototypes and the prototypes’ prototypes, and consider the evidence of medieval authors, reliable evidence for the existence of written texts exists not earlier than the sixth to seventh century C.E. Thus, the period between the alleged compilation of the main works of rabbinic literature and the emergence of the first evidence for the existence of their written versions comprises several centuries. Does this mean that throughout this time rabbinic texts were transmitted orally, or just that earlier manuscripts were lost? The Mishnah, for example, which undoubtfully originated in the third century C.E ., is known to us only in the manuscript tradition of the tenth to eleventh centuries. In other words, we do not know how much orality DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-20

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was involved in the formation and transmission of the works. Interestingly, as I shall show later, the desire to distinguish between formation and transmission, or conversely, an unwillingness to do so, has led scholars to different models explaining rabbinic literary development. To provide a historical framework for this phenomenon, I should mention that explanatory models for the shift from orality to written texts, at least as far as the main works of rabbinic literature are concerned, were proposed in medieval times already. For medieval Jewish scholars, the question of the relationship between the oral and written components of rabbinic literacy and book production seemed complex and discordant (see a fascinating analysis in Sussman 2005: 227–​31). From the seventeenth century until the 1830–​40s Rashi’s view prevailed, according to which no written text existed throughout the amoraic period. However, at the dawn of the Enlightenment the first authors guided by the critical-​historical approach (listed in Sussman 2005: 226, n.3; see Krochmal 1851: 254; Rapoport 1914: 13–​4; Zunz 1974: 162) were inclined to continue the position of Maimonides, according to whom the Talmud (and apparently all halakhic literature) was recorded in written form already in the amoraic period (see Maimonides Introduction to the Mishneh Torah); before that, rabbinic teachings existed in the form of oral traditions only. Both medieval conceptions are not based on historical knowledge, but rather on the perception of the value and authority of one or the other type of transmission. For Maimonides only written transmission was authoritative; for Rashi, on the other hand, it was oral transmission. The view of Maimonides was embraced by such figures of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) as Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport, Nachman Krochmal, and Leopold Zunz, who saw in Maimonides a rationalist and a sort of proto-​Enlightener (Sussman 2005: 232). By contrast, the point of view of Rashi was adopted and formulated in very indisputable form by Samuel David Luzzato, who proclaimed that the patriarch Rabbi Yehudah ha-​Nasi did not write down the Mishnah and that Rav Ashi did not put the Talmud down in writing (Luzzato 1838: 70). Contemporaries saw in Luzatto’s position religious apologetics, that is, the desire to defend Rashi’s position, causing a heated controversy that was taken up by Abraham Geiger (1836: 476; 1839: 412), A.H. Weiss (1847: 52), and others, in defense of written rabbinic literature (Sussman 2005: 233 and 365). After the publication of the works of Zacharias Frankel (1862: 272–​3; 1923: 217), the “fact” of the written transmission of the Mishnah became an axiom that was taken for granted. This continued until the middle of the 20th century, when the paradigm of oral transmission returned and dominated scholarship. In the following, I shall identify trends in modern scholarship on orality and writing in ancient Judaism. oral versus the written paradigm I would like to embrace Elizabeth Shanks-​Alexander’s approach, which distinguishes between a purist model of understanding transmission as exclusively oral, and an integrative model, according to which orality functions in an environment in which written texts exist and are being used. The first trend is represented by some Israeli philologists, the second by American scholars of rabbinic literature. Jacob N. Epstein can be considered a representative of the “purist” approach. He searched for textual evidence indicating that Mishnaic texts existed in written form and took anecdotal evidence at face value. His claim was, however, that the Mishnah had been recited in an exclusively oral manner. In the context of rabbinic study, the Mishnah was cited from memory (see Epstein 2000 698–​703). Written versions of the text existed only to serve the student as a point of reference, when questions concerning the correct version of the text arose. The written version, then, established the authoritative and correct text, which the orally performed version in the academy made accessible for study. Following Epstein, and casting no doubt on the evidence he collected, Saul Lieberman understood the role of the written texts to be exactly the opposite of that argued by Epstein (Lieberman 1994: 83–​99). Whereas Epstein argued that the written versions were to be accepted 250

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as authoritative, Lieberman believed that only the oral versions that circulated among rabbis had authority. According to Lieberman, the written versions were used for personal reference only and had no official status at all. Shmuel Safrai added a diachronic touch to the discussion (Safrai 1987: 39–​60). In the beginning, rabbis used exclusively oral means of transmission; they composed, consolidated, and edited the text orally. Only later, when the Mishnah had achieved a stable identity as Oral Torah, was it recorded in writing. At that point, it was no longer problematic to write down Oral Law because it could no longer be confused with the Written Torah. He did not explain, however, why the shift to writing was made. Sussman, after thoroughly and meticulously examining Epstein’s evidence, concluded that none of it can be accepted as reliable (Sussman 2005: 16–​7). He argued that we lack any evidence of a written Mishnah in amoraic times. In his seminal article Sussman emphasized the validity of Rashi’s suggestion regarding oral transmission (Sussman 2005 226–​38, 365–​6). He concluded that the Mishnah was transmitted orally and did not exist in writing throughout amoraic times. Rabbis did not have any written books available except for the Hebrew Bible. Sussman’s approach is more similar to Lieberman’s hypothesis of an oral Mishnah than to Epstein’s model. However, he went much further than Lieberman in his rejection of the existence of written texts. Sussman denied the existence of written tannaitic traditions among the tannaim themselves, their followers, and rabbinic study houses as props for reciting and memorizing texts. Reciters of tannaitic texts functioned as walking books; they did not use written texts as memory aids. Sussman is the most radical supporter of the “purist” explanation that reckons with oral transmission only. According to him, books were not used in rabbinic circles until the end of the amoraic period, which leads to a relatively late dating of the written forms of rabbinic works. We will return to this issue below. Examining rabbinic references to books, Sussman noticed that halachic books are never mentioned. This observation led to his conclusion, following Rashi, that halakhic books did not exist in tannaitic and amoraic times (Sussman 2005: 295). However, according to Shlomo Naeh, some evidence exists that a version of Midrash Sifra (or Torat Kohanim) already existed in amoraic times (Naeh 1997: 483–​515). He assumes that the Babylonian Talmud (b. Qidd. 33a) and some late midrashic compilations refer to a tannaitic Midrash on Leviticus divided into nine sections called megillot (Naeh 1997: 486–​8). The versions of Sifra preserved in our medieval manuscripts have the same structure, suggesting that it has an ancient origin. Naeh claims that the division into nine scrolls does not reflect its contents but rather the ancient physical division of the book (Naeh 1997: 489–​501). He assumes that the book was a written composition at the time of the formation of the Babylonian Talmud or in amoraic times already. Sussman has disputed this approach (Sussman 2005: 373–​5). He argues that all midrashic anthologies are called “books” (sefer, sifra) by rabbis because they are based on a particular biblical book; the term applies to the latter and not to a written version of midrash (Ibid, 374). According to Sussman, the nine “scrolls” mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud and in late midrashic anthologies refer to the nine parts of the book of Leviticus, which was, according to ancient tradition, recorded in different scrolls. Moreover, he insists that the term “scroll” for these textual units was associated with Sifra only in the transmission process; the original term for the units of the Sifra was dibbur (Sussman 2006: 373–​4). Obviously, rabbinic formulations can be interpreted in various ways. The absence or presence of halachic written texts is still an open question. Elman suggested that, even though the Toseftan baraitot were transmitted orally in Babylonian Aramaic circles, they were committed to writing at an early date (Elman 1994: 71–​111). Now I shall turn to the second model of oral-​textual relationships, proposed mostly by American scholars. This approach is based on the theoretical insight that throughout history orality and writing have rarely been distinct phenomena. This insight is shared by scholars in different fields 251

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of orality studies. Contemporary scholars of rabbinic literature embrace the explanatory models from other disciplines, trying to rethink the role of writing in the performance and study of rabbinic teachings: “Rather than assuming that writing necessarily confers fixity and therefore must be disassociated from the oral life of the Mishnah and other rabbinic texts, scholars are increasingly finding evidence for the fact that writing played an integral part in the composition and transmission of the teachings of Oral Torah” (Alexander 2007: 53). The coexistence of orality and writing stands at the center of both Jaffee’s and Alexander’s argumentation. While Alexander essentially bases her thesis on general theories of orality (like Goody’s and Finnegan’s), Jaffee deals with typological similarities between rabbinic and Graeco-​ Roman literacy. Jaffee was the first scholar who employed insights from the field of orality studies to examine written and oral transmissions in rabbinic literature. Jaffee’s work examines instances in which the composition and study of specific texts involved both writing and oral performance (Jaffee 2001: 128–​40). According to Alexander, this allowed Jaffee to disregard anecdotal rabbinic evidence of the use of writing and to substitute it with evidence that has left traces in the texts themselves (Alexander 2007: 53). Jaffee refers to Roman rhetorical exercises, in which students revised famous written texts while performing them orally (Jaffee 2001: 128–​40). He considers such phenomena as possible models for the development of rabbinic literature and explanations for the possible coexistence of both oral traditions (mnemonic devices, lists, and narratives) and written versions of the Mishnah. For example, when Jaffee discovers in rabbinic texts the well-​known phenomenon of passages interspersed with later glosses, which appear to him as written glosses, he concludes that this text must have existed in written form, since glosses cannot be oral. When pointing to such written facets of rabbinic literature, Jaffee had to explain why rabbis were uncomfortable with the writing down of oral traditions. He proposes that the key difference between learning material orally and learning it from a written text is the mediating presence of a sage, who is the source of oral instruction (Jaffee 2001: 140–​52). When a disciple studies a text on his own, he may not be able to understand it. The sage embodies halakhah through exemplary action. (Alexander 2007: 54). Rabbinic culture valued oral transmission because it was a very powerful device in the enforcement of the master-​student hierarchy and the perpetuation of the existing relationships. For Jaffee, rabbinic orality lives in a face-​to-​face encounter between sage and disciple. Hezser has questioned Lieberman’s hypothesis of the exclusively oral publication of the Mishnah, arguing that “there is no analogy for the oral transmission of a literary corpus as large as the Mishnah in late antique Graeco-​Roman society” (Hezser 2002: 183). As I will propose below, rabbinic culture may differ from Graeco-​Roman culture in the value it assigned to orality vis a vis textuality (see also Bakhos 2010: 496; Hezser 2001: 71–​89 and 190–​209). Steven Fraade has proposed another model for the interaction between written texts and oral performance based on Finnegan’s work on the broadside ballads (Fraade 1991). He argues that orality lies both behind and in front of the extant rabbinic texts. Based on Midrash Sifre Deuteronomy, Fraade suggests that rabbinic texts may have served as scripts for oral performances. He considers rabbinic texts “the literary face of an otherwise oral circulatory system of study and teaching” (Fraade 1991: 19), which had its origins in oral performance before being recorded in written form. Fraade proposes a second stage of “re-​oralization” (Ibid: 74), in which the written text acts as a script, anticipating the questions and answers that its study will generate. Rather than thinking of the extant rabbinic texts as “reports of a transformation already completed”, Fraade suggests we think of them as “part of the very work of that transformation” (74). Rabbis did not want their texts to be received as the fixed record of past study. The texts are not a literary by-​product but the outcome and part of an ongoing process of study and interpretation. Here, the focus shifts 252

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from recovering an “original” orality to highlighting the oral afterlife engendered by rabbinic texts. Following Jaffee and Fraade, Alexander proposes that “rabbinic culture cultivated a strong oral-​performative tradition, as attested by the countless instances in which disciples and masters are represented as engaging in discourse over a publicly recited text. At the same time, this oral-​ performative tradition intermeshed in numerous ways with scribal practices in which written texts were memorized and oral conventions of diction and formulation shaped what was written” (Jaffee 2007: 34 and n. 23). With these scholars’ orality can be understood as the social enactment of written texts. Summarizing these models, one can say that Israeli authors tend to distinguish clearly between the processes of formation and transmission of traditions. They limit orality to the formation period, believing that written versions emerged only when the text was “settled”. This approach is diachronic. American scholars, on the other hand, prefer the notion of synchronicity in transmission. As historians of religions, they are influenced by studies of folklore and orality, claiming that a text can have both an oral and written status. Their interest lies in the study of interaction between these modes. Scholars who argue for a diachronic development from orality to writing are eager to find evidence for this process in rabbinic literature itself. Scholars who argue for a synchronicity of orality and writing are not interested in anecdotal evidence and apply explanatory models imported from other disciplines. Still, it seems useful to stress that rabbinic culture emphasized the advantage of orality over writing to maintain the authority of sages in transmission and interpretation. Zoroastrian culture can provide some similarities. In the Zoroastrian book, the Dēnkard, the Zoroastrian priests convince the reader of the reliability of oral transmission, thereby providing a reliable basis for their authority as bearers of tradition (Denkard V 24.13, see Huyse 2008: 143). Interestingly, when Babylonian rabbis need to show that their scholarship is better than that of the Zoroastrians, they emphasize their commitment to the written word, mocking the customs of Zoroastrian recitation (b. Sotah 22a, see Kiperwasser and Ruzer 2014: 212) in the frame of polemic against rabbinic practices (Vidas 2014: 140–​5). In general, orality seems to have been used by rabbis as a marker of identity, contrasted with the written transmission of knowledge in other societies. When faced with the orality of other groups, however, written transmission could be emphasized more. Contrary to Jaffee and Alexander, I suggest that rabbinic anecdotal evidence should not be dismissed completely when examining orality and literacy.

2.  Books and Other Texts: Forbidden, Permitted, and Inherited The scholars whose opinions were discussed above were perplexed by the enigmatic nature of rabbinic oral transmission. They tried to understand the transmission history of the Mishnah and other halakhic traditions. Perhaps less effort has been invested in analyzing the literary history of aggadic Midrash. While scholars have noticed that the latest mentioned sages, as well as some realia and other historical details, point to the fourth century C.E . as the end of the amoraic period and the time of origination of these traditions (Margulies 1993, XXVII–​XXXIII), they suggested various dates from the fourth to the seventh centuries as the time when the extent Midrash collections were edited (Lerner 2006: 166–​9). The earliest evidence of written texts is medieval manuscripts found in the Cairo Genizah, however. Yet books of this kind, in the form of written texts, are mentioned in rabbinic literature. The so-​called aggadic books are frequently mentioned in amoraic traditions. Rabbis are said to have studied such books (b. Git .70a; see also b. Ber. 23a–​b). Some rabbis seem to have condemned this practice, though. Thus, R. Zeira rebukes “these [masters] of aggadah” referring to them as “teachers of divination” (sofre kisme) or, as it was proposed by some scholars, as “books of 253

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divination” (sifre kisme) (y. Ma’as. 3:4 51a). He rebukes scribes who were allegedly writing down aggadic teachings. In another tradition attributed to R. Yehoshua b. Levi the latter states that in his entire life he saw only one of these books of aggadah, and afterward remained sleepless the entire night (y. Shabb. 16:1, 15b). His anxiety did not prevent him from quoting a long passage of highly speculative exegesis from that book. We usually do not know what the content of these condemned aggadic books was, but according to this evidence, it may not have been very different from what we know from extant Midrashim. Some scholars have suggested that negative rabbinic attitudes toward them may have been based on their sectarian or speculative content (Albeck 1959: 112, n. 20). It is possible, however, that the writing down of aggadic traditions in general was under attack here (Sussman 2006: 294; Lieberman 1994: 194). Of interest is the advice attributed to Rabbi Yohanan concerning the learning of aggadah from a book. It is argued that in such a case the person will better remember the studied material (see y. Ber. 5:1, 9a). In my opinion, the text suggests that Palestinian rabbis were already familiar with written aggadic collections. Sometimes rabbinic literature mentions the learning of aggadic midrash from a book (cf. y. Kil. 9:3, 32b par). However, as I noted above, some scholars claim that it is uncertain whether these traditions refer to written collections of rabbinic aggadic traditions or the biblical books themselves, which served as the basis of oral exegesis (Sussman 2005: 294, following Bacher). Others, however, consider these references clear evidence for the existence of written aggadic anthologies (Naeh 2005: 558, following Zunz). Whatever rabbis’ relationship to books of aggadic content was, one has to reckon with the phenomenon that ancient libraries contained written books. Books that were known to rabbis encompassed permitted writings whose existence was encouraged by rabbis or accepted as customary and writings not encouraged by rabbis and even sometimes condemned by them, which were present in the surrounding world. Within the first category would have been the books of the Hebrew Bible, the scroll of the list of days when fasting is forbidden (the so-​called Megilat Taanit), the apocryphal Book of Ben Sira (and even probably an Aramaic Pseudo Ben Sira). Among other literary texts, letters or epistles should be mentioned, which were widespread in the Christian world where they could acquire the status of books. Letters are frequently mentioned in rabbinic literature, though they were apparently shorter than Christian epistles and failed to achieve an equally important status (Doehring 2012: 343–​76). Written texts also included consecutive lists made for memorization, that could be inscribed on a pinax. Literally, this word means waxed tablet for records or short temporary notes; however, sometimes it probably referred to a form of codex (see below) which was used by an author for his close circle of disciples or for himself. Sometimes it is difficult to deduce from rabbinic texts which kind of pinax they are talking about. If this pinax was something that would be used over a longer period of time, we may assume that it was a small book. Thus, m. Shabb. 1:13 relates that R. Ishmael committed a minor transgression on the Sabbath and wrote in his pinax that when the Temple will be restored, he will have to bring a sacrifice for that sin. Tractate Semahot 8 states that when Shmuel the Small died his pinax was put into his grave with him, because he did not have a son who could read it after his death. In both cases the impression is that these were diaries written during the life of the scholar, which fit the form of a codex. However, the Palestinian Talmud mentions the pinax of particular Palestinian sages and that other rabbis obtained halakhic information from these texts (y. Kil. 1:1, 27a, y. Ma’as. 2:3, 49d). Another no less puzzling pinax known to Babylonians is that of Bilham, the biblical gentile prophet. In this case a talmudic sage witnesses having seen certain literary traditions about Bilham in this text (b. Sanh. 106b), which probably means that in this case pinax is a term for some aggadic book of limited circulation (see Lieberman 1994: 203; Sussman’s skeptical approach in idem 2015: 215 n. 24). Even if these pinakes mentioned in Palestinian rabbinic literature are no 254

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more than personal notebooks of a scholar, they were some sort of book prototypes. Sussman refused to accept this evidence as relating to something close to a book (Sussman 2005: 215, n. 24–​25). However, Lieberman’s proposition does make sense, because the tablet is the known prototype of the codex. Literary evidence suggests that the Romans, following the structural and functional principles of the tablet, invented the codex from wooden tablets to papyrus and parchment leaves –​already used for informal notebooks –​and produced the codex or the book in the format we know it today (Roberts and Skeat 1987 15–​23), though it took a long time for the codex to completely overtake the scroll. Among books, it is probably necessary to mention the megilat starim, ie a secret scroll with halakhic notes (b. B. Mes. 92a, see Zunz 1974: 50 and Albeck in the Hebrew ed. of Zunz, 285, n. 54; see Sussman’s critical comments in idem 2006: 215–​216), which plays almost the same role as the pinax. Another typical scroll-​text is the megilat yuhasin, pedigree scrolls, which could register trivial pedigree information (m. Yebam. 4:12; b. Yebam. 49b) as well as aggadic pedigrees of ancient rabbis (y. Taan. 4:2, 68a). Other types of written texts were Aramaic retellings of biblical books, so-​called targumim, the aggadic books mentioned above, lists of benedictions, texts of Haftarot, that is, portions from the Prophets read before or after Torah portions, sometimes with exegetical additions, perhaps textbooks for children and so on. Did late antique rabbis view writing as a technical skill that was distinct from their scholarly activities? Scholars nowadays agree that the ability to write was less common among Jews than the ability to read, in analogy to Graeco-​Roman society (Hezser 2001: 68–​89). The acquisition of writing skills was part of professional scribal education in antiquity. It was probably acquired in the framework of the family and scribal guilds (Jaffee 2001: 22). Jews interested in administrative careers probably had to be at least bilingual in Aramaic and Greek. Rabbinic sources also refer to professional scribes who hired themselves out as writers of letters and documents for other Jews (Hezser 2001: 474–​95). The Palestinian Talmud (y. Sanh. 10:1, 28a) warns rabbinic Jews against owning so-​called heretical books, such as the wisdom book of Ben Sira. This warning reappears in the late Midrash Qohelet Rabba on Qoh. 12:12 (“But beyond these, my son, be warned: There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the flesh”). The Midrash then adds: “Read ‘beyond these (mehema)’ as ‘confusion (mehuma)’, because whoever brings into his house more than the twenty-​four books introduces confusion into his house, such as the book of Ben Sira …”. Together with the book of Ben Sira, these texts mention the book of Ben Laana (y. Sanh. 10:1, 28a) and the book of Ben Talga (Qoh. Rab. 12:12) but both are apparently not real but fictitious titles of books poking fun at the name of Ben Sira. This text exhorts the reader to own no more than the canonical 24 books of the Bible. Rabbinic exhortations not to include more than the 24 books of the accepted biblical canon do not necessarily reflect reality. The statement that ownership of these books should be sufficient for the rabbinic household indicates that many more books circulated among Jews at the time. Interestingly, Qoh. 12:12 evoked similar interpretations among Christian authors, where we find the first evidence for the existence of written rabbinic texts (Newman 2018: 697). The fragment of a commentary attributed to Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria in the third century C.E ., cited in a seventh-​century catena, suggests that the formulation “much study wearies the flesh” refers to paradoseis, which Newman understands as a reference to rabbinic traditions, though not necessarily books. However, in an earlier adaptation of Dionysius by Olympiodorus in the sixth century, the written books of the Jews are explicitly mentioned –​“which book does Christ deter [one] from making? Those of … the unlimited and mythical traditions (deuteroseis) of the Jews” (Patrologia Graeca 93, col. 625). Another reference to a written work of Oral Torah, according to 255

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Newman, comes from Visigoth Spain and is datable to 637 C.E . In one of the church documents, Jews are described as sentenced to bring all their books to the local church authorities for examination: books of the Bible, books of oral law (deuterosis) and even some other books named apocryphas (Newman 2018: 699). Thus, late antique Jewish libraries seem to have included some religious literature and probably at least part of rabbinic literature in early Byzantine times. Supporting evidence may also be found in the Talmud Yerushalmi (y. Sanh. 3:9, 20d), which transmits a story about the death and last will of the Babylonian Rabbi Kahana. He is said to have died in the Land of Israel and willed his estate to his colleague Rabbi Yoshia. The family of the deceased did not accept this decision and applied to the court for restitution. Perhaps not surprisingly, Rabbi Eleazar, the Palestinian judge, decided to uphold Kahana’s will and ruled that the inheritance should go to his Palestinian friend. The story mentions books among the estate of the deceased. This detail is not taken up in the halakhic discussion. As valuable material goods book scrolls were part of the estate. If the entire estate should be given to the friend of the deceased, why are these items singled out? The books may have constituted the symbolic heritage of the deceased Babylonian rabbi. Perhaps they were his personal library. We know very little about personal libraries at the time in Roman times (Small 1997: 42–​50) and even less about rabbinic libraries. However, book ownership and book collecting are sporadically mentioned in rabbinic texts (Naeh 1997: 512; 2005: 555–​6). The fact that some ancient Jews used and owned written books is undeniable. Rabbinic book production needs to be understood within this wider context. Within the Roman-​ Byzantine Empire at large, the book market was probably dominated by Roman and Christian bookmakers. Eventually, rabbis decided to create written collections of their own ancestral traditions.

3.  Aggadic Compilations While the existence of written compilations of aggadic traditions is explicitly mentioned in rabbinic texts, their oral transmission remains hypothetical. Some textual phenomena in aggadic texts could be explained more easily in terms of oral conceptualization though. Avigdor Shinan (1981: 44–​60) has used explanatory models common in folkloristic research to explain traces of oral transmission in late Midrashim, in isolation from the rest of the aggadic works (see the critique of this approach by Rosen Zvi 2008: 242). In his unpublished doctoral dissertation Paul Mandel (1997: 160–​78) dealt with the textual history of Lamentations Rabbah and proposed an explanation for the existence of two different versions of this Midrash. The two versions were known in the early Middle Ages, which means that the split would have happened quite close to the approximate date of the compilation of this anthology. The differences and similarities between the two versions suggest the existence of a shared proto-​version. Mandel discovered that at least in one of these versions there are known elements of oral formation and transmission, such as repetitions and transitions from one dialect to another. He suggested that the textual prototype was transmitted in both an oral and written form. He surmised that oral transmission may have been more common in the East and written transmission in the West. One of the versions of this aggadic work seems to have reached Babylonia orally, while the other one was transmitted in the Land of Israel and its western Diasporas in written form. Mandel (2000: 74–​106) has shown that Lamentations Rabbah was probably committed to writing in fifth-​century Byzantine Palestine, although it continued to be transmitted orally in Babylonia as late as the Geonic period. I would like to add the following suggestion to these observations. In aggadic Midrashim such as Qoheleth Zuta and Song of Songs Rabbah (see Kiperwasser 2005: 34–​42; 2021: XXXVI; 256

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Steller 1990: 94–​132) there is sometimes a strange phenomenon: the aggadic passage is attached not to the verse that it should have explained but to another verse, which is not close in content; the first words of the verse to which it is attached are the same as those at the beginning of the seder verse. This phenomenon can best be explained as the result of memorization for oral transmission. The reciter memorized the text of the midrash as attached to the biblical verse with the verse marking the beginning of the passage. When a certain verse was mentioned, he would have been able to recall the appropriate passage of midrash like a computer checking its directory. When there were similarities between verses, he might have attributed the midrashic file to the wrong verse, however. Such a failure may shed light on the mnemotechnique of the reciter. Disruptions in the recollection of oral material usually derive from the nature of the mnemonic process. The seeming errors in the above-​mentioned works of aggadic midrash may derive from mistakes in audio perception. The mnemonic structure consisted of a sequence of biblical verses. When trying to reconstruct it, the mnemonist failed. Such aggadic collections were probably recorded by dictation to scribes as was common in antiquity (Small 1997: 170–​4). The process of fixing the text in writing would have followed the oral compilation of the text. which nevertheless acquired its final form at the transmission stages, not at the stage of redaction. Thus, even if most aggadic traditions in the literature of the Palestinian Midrash date from the fourth to fifth centuries, the fixation of the written form of these texts seems to have occurred from the sixth century onwards.

4.  Scrolls and Codices In late antiquity two material forms were used for the recording of literary works: the scroll and the codex (or book form). The scroll was a more ancient form, whereas the codex gained popularity in the second to third centuries only and became the main form of written transmission in the fourth to fifth centuries. The first evidence for the use of the codex, as opposed to private notes and memoranda written on wooden tablets, comes from first-​century Rome (Bagnall 2009: 86). The codex originated from wooden tablets, which allowed Bagnall to suggest that its adoption is a manifestation of the spread of Roman habits and technologies (ibid 87). The advantage of the codex was its compactness, which enabled the preservation of a larger amount of information in a smaller format. Moreover, the codex was written on both sides of the sheets, allowing for the preservation of more information in the same space. The use of a much smaller amount of papyrus or parchment reduced costs. The sequence of the material could be changed by inserting or replacing sheets. This process was easier and more logical than adding sheets at the end of a scroll. The codex also made the text more accessible. While a scroll had to be opened from one end to the other, a codex provided greater flexibility: one could simply open a particular page. Did the Christians adoption have an impact on rabbis and their attitudes to “sacred” texts? Christians of the second and third centuries did not invent the codex. Their preference for the codex must be seen in the context of the book culture of their time. Christians used the codex form for texts that they valued most and considered holy scriptures (Hurtado 2006: 43–​93). Bagnall (2009: 70–​90) has shown that Christian use of the codex in the second and third centuries resembled the use of this format in Roman society. Porter (2012: 72–​4) proposed that Christians first used the scroll for textual transmission, “using what was the frequently found form of conveyance in the ancient world, further reinforced by the use of the scroll in Jewish circles” (74). He assumes that Christianity’s origins in Judaism would have inspired Christians to use the scroll. Soon afterward, however, they adopted the codex and made it their primary vehicle of textual transmission. 257

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Despite Porter’s interesting suggestions, his assumptions about Jewish book culture may be wrong. It is customary assumed that rabbinic references to “books” (sefarim) relate to scrolls (megillot). However, a replacement of the scroll by the codex may have taken place in Jewish culture too. We lack material evidence of literary texts in the archaeological record of the Land of Israel and Babylonia in late Roman-​Byzantine times. If Jews in Roman Egypt can be considered representative, already in the first centuries C. E . the codex-​form was used. Nicolas De Lange has shown that in the Byzantine period Jews used Greek translations of the Bible in codex form (de Lange 2015: 58 and 71–​2). These Greek Jewish texts can be distinguished from Christian texts, eg by reference to the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew characters. Jews seem to have used the codex form for Greek texts by the second century C. E . By the fourth century the codex had become the normative format for books in all languages (Resnick 1992: 1–​17, de Lange 2015: 58). At the same time, biblical scrolls were still used in synagogues for liturgical purposes. Interestingly, as recently shown by Johnson (2000: 616 and 618), public reading from a scroll was a performative action of Roman intellectuals but never part of wider educational processes that relied on speech and short notes. In late antiquity rabbis’ disciples may have used codices for note-​taking. Yet the earliest extant Hebrew codex with a Masoretic Bible text dates from the eighth century C.E . (Sirat 2002: 35). Scholars therefore assume that Hebrew-​speaking circles remained attached to the scroll format (de Lange 2015: 58). Scholars usually make connections between the appearance of the codex in Jewish culture and the development of the masorah (Stern 2008: 194–​6). We do not really know, however, what came first, the masorah or the codex, since, early medieval codices are our first actual evidence for the masorah. The masoretic period is generally accepted as the period when the codex book-​form was finally adopted by Jews (Stern 2008: 195). However, it is very unlikely that Jewish adoption of the codex happened as late as the seventh or eighth centuries, because nearly everyone else in the late antique Graeco-​Roman and Mediterranean worlds seems to have accepted the codex as the normative book form by the fourth century (Roberts and Skeat 1987: 35–​7). I am not convinced by the argument that Jews resisted the codex because of the innate conservatism of rabbinic Judaism or that their resistance stemmed in part from a desire to differentiate themselves and their sacred Scripture from the Christians and their Old and New Testaments (Resnick 1992: 88). Jews are likely to have noticed the economic advantages of the use of the book format even before the masoretic period (Amsler 2023: 75–91). A certain analogy in the development of books in Egypt and Palestine is possible. The shift from scroll to codex seems to have happened in Roman Palestine as well. We know that in the years 340–​365 and consequently in 366–​379 C. E . the bishops Acacius and Euzoios ordained that parchment codices should replace the partially damaged papyrus rolls in the library of Caesarea (Bäbler 2018: 146). Even if Jews were more conservative than local Christians, it is not impossible that in the fifth century Jews also used the codex. Perhaps the codex began to be used in Jewish circles around the same time when the first attributed amoraic traditions came into existence and when the Mishnah became a major text of study in the amoraic academies. The codex conquered the book world in the fourth century, when amoraic traditions circulated and multiplied. Lieberman already suggested that Jews may have preserved their oral tradition in small codices from which large books were created at a later time (Lieberman 1994: 204–​6). He assumed that the codex was chosen for this purpose because the scroll had the connotation of holiness. A collection of rabbinic traditions in scroll format might have claimed equal sanctity to the Torah. Therefore, in order not to assign an equal status to their own collections, rabbis may have preferred the codex form. This proposition is difficult to prove, however. All we can say is that the transition from

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scroll to codex was a development of late antique book culture. At various stages and for a variety of purposes early Christian writers and rabbis would have adopted the codex format. Perhaps the transformation from oral to written transmission occurred in rabbinic circles in the fourth century only, when the codex had finally won the competition with the scroll and these smaller-​format media for the storage and transmission of knowledge began to proliferate. Whereas the rabbinic tradition lacks a term for the codex form, the terms pinax (“tablet”) and sefer (“book”) may sometimes refer to it (Lieberman 1994: 203). Perhaps rabbis and their students used the codex for the writing down of oral traditions. If the aforementioned rabbinic reference to the “books of heretics” implies the presence of rabbinically prohibited books (including Christian books) in Jewish households, the presence of permitted books remains possible. In Tosefta Yad. 2:13 books that do not defile the hands (about this kind of impurity see Goodman 2007: 69–​78; Milikowsky 2000: 149–​62), in contrast to biblical books, are specified as gilyonim ve sifrei ha minim “parchments and heretical books”. These books and parchments may include biblical verses; otherwise, the question about their ritual status would not be raised at all. Similarly, t. Shabb. 13:5, when dealing with the question which kind of holy writings should be rescued from a fire that breaks out on the Sabbath, notes that gilyonim ve sifrei minim, “parchments and heretical books”, should not be rescued. What are these books and parchments? Some scholars think that gilyonim refers to those parts of Torah scrolls that are left empty or to Torah scrolls written by heretics (Maier 1982: 60). Others translate the text with “gospels (euangelion with the plural suffix -​im) and heretical books” and assume that at least some early Christian books were known to the rabbis and other Jews of the period (Katz 2006: 279; Jaffee 2007: 84–​101). If gilyonim refers to the gospels, however, this text would belong to a late stratum of the Tosefta, for even Christian texts do not mention the gospels in the plural before the late second century C.E . (Stemberger 2010: 512). I therefore prefer to read this text literally as a reference to heretical texts using biblical verses. Gilyonim literally means strings made from parchment and these are most likely scrolls or maybe codices made of parchment, and books (sefarim) are codices made from any other material. If the most probable heretic in an early rabbinic text is a Christian, then the most likely form of his book is a codex, not a scroll. Therefore, some books mentioned in rabbinic literature are possibly codices and not necessarily scrolls. Two seemingly parallel processes have been discussed here. The first process concerns the transition from the scroll to the codex that began in the western Roman Empire in the second century C .E . and reached its apex in the fourth century. The second process concerns the creation of rabbinic compilations. Tannaitic traditions began to acquire a fixed form in the second century, stabilized in the third, and were probably recorded in writing in amoraic times. Amoraic traditions are mostly dated to the fourth century and would have been compiled and circulated in written form in the following centuries. It therefore seems that rabbinic traditions started to be transmitted as books from the time period when the codex became the most common book form. Rabbinic literature is scholarly literature that developed in rabbinic study circles and houses. Due to its size and weight a scroll would have been difficult to use in scholarly discussions, whereas the codex was much easier to handle and therefore ideal to studying purposes. The use of the codex would have allowed the writing down of oral traditions as a small collection of halachic traditions of certain rabbis or as aggadic books, The lack of literary references to halakhic books of Oral Torah may be explained by the relatively early age of these traditions: they were mostly formulated before the fourth century, while the editing and written recording of these traditions happened after the fourth century, when the codex was increasingly used.

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From Oral Discourse to Written Documents Kiperwasser, R. (2021). Midrashei on Kohelet: Kohelet Rabbah 7–​12 and Kohelet Zuta 7–​9: Critical Edition and Commentary (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Schechter Publishing House. Krochmal, N. (1851). Moreh Nebuke ha-​Zeman (Hebrew). Lemberg: M. Wolf. Lange, N. de (2015). Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Greek Bible Translations in Byzantine Judaism. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Lerner, M.B. (2006). “The Works of Aggadic Midrash and the Esther Midrashim,” in S. Safrai et al. (eds.), The Literature of the Sages, Vol. 2. Assen: van Gorcum, 133–​229. Lerner, M.B. (2006). “The Works of Aggadic Midrash and the Esther Midrashim,” in S. Safrai, Z. Safrai, J. Schwartz, P.J. Tomson (eds.), The Literature of the Sages, The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, Vol. 3. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum and Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 133–​230. Lieberman, S. (1994). Hellenism in Jewish Palestine. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Luzzato, S.D. (1838). “‘Letter’ (Hebrew),” Qerem Hemed 3: 68–​82 Maier, J. (1982). Jüdische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Christentum in der Antike. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Mandel, P. (1997). Midrash Lamentations Rabbati–​Prolegomenon, and a Critical Edition to the Third Parasha (Hebrew), Vol. 1. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mandel, P. (2000), “Between Byzantium and Islam: The Transmission of a Jewish Book in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods,” in Y. Elman and I. Gershoni (eds.), Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and Cultural Diffusion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 74–​106 Margulies, M. (1993). Midrash Wayykkra Rabbah: A Critical Edition (Hebrew). New York, NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Milikowsky, C. (2000). “Reflections on Hand-​Washing, Hand-​Purity and Holy Scripture in Rabbinic Literature,” in M.J.H.M. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz, Purity and Holiness: The Heritage of Leviticus. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 149–​62. Naeh, S. (1997). “The Structure and Division of Torat Kohanim [A]‌: Scrolls” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 66: 483–​515. Naeh, S. (2005). “The Craft of Memory: Constructions of Memory and Patterns of Text in Rabbinic Literature,” in Y. Sussman and D. Rosenthal (eds.), Mehkerei Talmud: Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Ephraim E. Urbach. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 543–​90. Newman, H.I. (2018). “A Patristic Perspective on Rabbinic Literature” (Hebrew), in M. Kahana, V. Noam, M. Kister, and D. Rosenthal (eds.), The Classical Rabbinic Literature of Eretz Israel: Introduction and Studies (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Yad Ben-​Zvi, 681–​704. Porter, S.E. (2012). “What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? Reconstructing Early Christianity from Its Manuscripts,” in S.E. Porter and A. Pitts (eds.), Christian Origins and Greco-​Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 41–​74. Rapoport, S.J.L. (1914). Erech Milin (Hebrew). Warsaw: Hazefira. Resnick, I.M. (1992). “The Codex in Early Jewish and Christian Communities,” Journal of Religious History 17: 1–​17. Roberts, C.H. and T.C. Skeat (1987). The Birth of the Codex. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rosen-​Zvi, I. (2008). “Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric: New Directions in Mishnah Research,” AJS Review 32(2): 235–​249. Safrai, S. (1987). “Oral Torah,” in S. Safrai and P.J. Tomson (eds.), The Literature of Sages, First Part. Assen/​ Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 35–​120. Shinan, A. (1981). “The Aggadic Literature: Written Tradition and Transmission” (Hebrew), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 1: 44–​60. Sirat, C. (2002). Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages. Edited and translated by Nicholas de Lange. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Small, J.P. (1997). Wax Tablets of the Mind. Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Classical Antiquity. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Steller, H.E. (1990). “Shir Hashirim Rabbah 5.2–​8, Towards a Reconstruction of a Midrashic Block,” in A. Kuyt, E.G L. Schrijver, and N.A. van Uchelen (eds.), Variety of Forms: Dutch Studies in Midrash, Papers Read at the Workshop “Midrash”. Amsterdam: Juda Palache Institute, 94–​132. Stemberger, G. (2010). “The Impact of Paganism and Christianity,” in C. Hezser (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 259–​98.

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Reuven Kiperwasser Stern, D. (2008). “The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading,” Jewish Quarterly Review 98: 163–​201. Stroumsa, G.G. (2003). “Early Christianity–​A Religion of the Book?” in M. Finkelberg and G.G. Stroumsa (eds.), Homer, the Bible, and Beyond. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 153–​73. Sussman, Y. (2005). “The Oral Torah in the Literal Sense: The Power of the Tail of a Yod” (Hebrew), Mehkerei Talmud 3: 209–​384. Vidas, M. (2014). Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Weiss, A.H. (1847). “Hashlamat ha mamar” (Hebrew), Kochbe Itzhak 11: 49–​54. Zunz, L. (1832). Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden historisch entwickelt. Ein Beitrag zur Alterthumskunde und biblischen Kritik, zur Literatur–​u. Religionsgeschichte. Berlin: Asher. Zunz L. (1974). Ha-​drashot Be-​Israel (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik.

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17 ANTIQUARIANISM, SCHOLASTICISM, AND RABBINIC ANTHOLOGIES Catherine Hezser

Between the third and sixth centuries C. E . Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-​Roman scholars created anthologies of past knowledge that obtained canonical status among later generations. The editors of these compilations distinguished themselves from the scholars who preceded them and sometimes remained anonymous, as in the case of rabbinic documents. By compiling written collections of their predecessors’ teachings and views, the editors not only commemorated them and preserved their knowledge for future generations. They also established the identity of the movements that would henceforth be associated with the “classical” rabbinic, juristic, and monastic periods. This chapter will ask why the large canonical compilations were created in late antiquity and how this editorial work was carried out. Are shared mechanisms and principles noticeable and what are the main differences? How did rabbinic, legal, and monastic education and practice change once the compilations existed and what may have been the purposes of the texts?

1.  Late Antique Antiquarianism One reason for the creation of large compilations in late antiquity would have been the accumulation of large bodies of knowledge associated with individual rabbis, jurists, and desert monks that were transmitted by their students and/​or individually authored but scattered, diffuse, and difficult to perceive in their entirety. In the third and fourth centuries C . E . many different rabbinic, legal, and monastic teachings and stories circulated that were partly overlapping and partly contradictory. Especially among those who relied on oral transmission, much material would have been lost because of a disruption of the transmission chain or was threatened to be forgotten if not preserved in written form. At a time when the Roman Empire underwent what is usually described as the “crisis” of the third century (see Liebeschuetz 2007) and a cultural change was brought about by Christianization (Linder 1987; Brown 1995; Nixey 2017), scholarly circles would have felt the need to preserve their knowledge and intellectual group identity of the past few centuries. Such a need would have been most virulent among those who lived at the peripheries of the empire and did not subscribe to the new Christian episcopal regime, such as rabbis in Roman Palestine and the desert monks in Egypt and Syria (Chitty 1966; Burton-​Christie 1993; Harmless 2004). They would have noticed that they lived at a time of transformation, when

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-21

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traditional forms of scholarship and cultural expression had already vanished or were threatened to disappear soon. Transformations always bring about innovation. In the case of rabbinic Judaism this was certainly the case when the Palestinian Talmud was created. The compilation of the Talmud enabled scholars to view a wide range of rabbinic views side-​by-​side, to identify differences of opinion and contradictions, to discuss the various opinions in relation to each other, and to become aware of the vast scope of rabbinic knowledge that had accumulated in previous generations. In the preface to the composition of the Digest (Cod. Justin. 1.17.1, Watson, ed. 1998), Justinian points out that “the whole extent of our laws” that have accumulated over time is “so confused that it extends to an inordinate length and is beyond the comprehension of any human nature”. His goal is to bring order into the legal tradition by instructing the compilers to sift through classical jurists’ law, choose relevant excerpts, and remove “all repetition and discrepancy” to create a unified work that “will suffice in place of them all”. While the issue of preservation was important, contemporary usefulness also played a role. The compilers were supposed to “get rid of unnecessary prolixity, make up what is deficient, and present the whole in proportion and in the most elegant form possible” (ibid.). In contrast to the editors of the Talmud Yerushalmi, the editors of the Digest had a huge number of written texts available. The phenomenon that most of the classical jurists’ writings are no longer extant indicates that the Digest fulfilled its purpose of replacing the disintegrated and chaotic transmission of huge numbers of individual jurists’ texts with one authoritative volume. Maas has pointed out that Justinian combined an antiquarian attitude toward the past with a Christian religious ideology (Maas 1992: 74). Legal traditions of the past were not simply preserved in the way in which they were originally written. Through the compilation of the Digest, Justinian, Tribonian, and legal experts created “classical” Roman law as part of a legal code that future generations could rely on. According to Maas “[it] was an ideal of Rome … far more than any accurate knowledge of Roman antiquity, that gradually emerged in Byzantium … The status of the Roman past in this emerging Byzantine environment was a matter of debate and invention” (ibid. 1). One may similarly argue that the compilers of the Talmud created and at least to some extent “invented” the rabbinic past in the sense of presenting individual scholars as mutually connected and constantly debating with each other. Henceforth, the textual representation became the only way of access to the knowledge of the “classical” rabbinic period. The Babylonian Talmud contains numerous Palestinian traditions that do not appear in the Palestinian Talmud. At least for some time, these traditions must have been available outside of the Yerushalmi, once this first Talmud was created. Eventually, however, traditions not included in the large compilations are likely to have disappeared. Those that were included reflected, at least primarily, the formulations and views of the editors, whereas earlier versions –​but not the “original” versions, since oral tradition is reperformed with each utterance –​can be recovered through complex text-​historical analyses only. A new attitude toward the past is also evident among the writers of the so-​called Second Sophistic, who were interested in maintaining a Greek cultural identity under imperial Rome (Webb 2006). Whitmarsh (2005: 1) has argued that the postclassical Greek writers of the first three centuries C.E . were less interested in “originality” and more in “creative imitation”, “reception, replication, and the intertextual refashioning of earlier literary works”. The third-​century sophist Philostratus’s work Lives of the Sophists can be considered a (re)creation of the sophistic past in which received traditions are reformulated and mixed with hearsay and invention. Whitmarsh (2013: 121) describes the new approach as “reinscribing, reincorporating, the plenitude of the past, even as it evanesces”. In this process, “[r]‌eading, imagining, re-​viewing can serve as a (circumscribed, imperfect) traversal of the boundaries that separate past from present” (ibid.). 264

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Similarly, the late antique editors of rabbinic documents reinvented, reviewed, and incorporated the rabbinic past from their own perspective and for their and later generations’ scholastic needs. Besides the accumulation of knowledge and the wish to preserve it in an orderly fashion, the sense of an ending would have played a motivating role. In early Byzantine times the Palestinian patriarchate came to an end and Babylonia became the center of rabbinic scholarship. At the beginning of the fifth century, Scetis was destroyed and the Egyptian desert monks who lived there had to settle in the adjacent regions of Syria and Palestine (Harmless 2004: 206). Within monastic circles, there was pressure to live in coenobite communities rather than as dispersed individuals. Palestinian rabbis and desert monks who survived these changes and the following generations who identified with them must have feared that their predecessors’ learning and lifestyle could be forgotten, especially if it continued to be transmitted orally. These circumstances would have motivated them to collect and preserve their knowledge for later generations.

2.  Encyclopedism and the Creation of Large Compilations König and Woolf have suggested to view encyclopedism as a scholarly process of knowledge management rather than as a specific literary genre. Encyclopedism comprises “the ways in which a series of different authors (…) made use of a range of shared rhetorical and compilatory techniques to create knowledge-​ordering works of different kinds, works that often claimed some kind of comprehensive and definitive status” (König and Woolf 2013: 1). This process resulted in “an encyclopaedic spectrum, with different texts drawing on shared encyclopaedic markers to different degrees and for very different purposes” (ibid.). Shared techniques included the collection, selection, and excerption of material and its rearrangement in new compositions based on structural decisions. Shared attitudes involved the ideal of comprehensiveness, even if de facto this was not the case, polyphony, that is, the inclusion of many different and even contradictory voices, and the editors’ self-​distinction from those whose knowledge they presented, eg by remaining anonymous, although they might identify with their predecessors’ values and beliefs (ibid. 6–​13). In late Roman and early Byzantine times encyclopedic works were created in Graeco-​Roman legal and philosophical, rabbinic, patristic, and monastic circles. A major difference between the Graeco-​Roman and patristic compilatory processes and the compilation of rabbinic and monastic material concerned the format of the source material that the editors had access to. The legal experts who created Justinian’s Digest read and excerpted approximately one and a half thousand books that contained the classical jurists’ views (Honoré 2010: 29). In his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Diogenes Laertius lists each of the philosophers’ works that he allegedly used. By contrast, the sources that Philostratus used for his Lives of the Sophists seem to have been “mainly anecdotal” (Bowersock 1969: 15), showing “a strong propensity towards gossip and scandal” (Adams 2013: 100). In comparing Diogenes Laertius’s and Philostratus’s approaches Adams points out that whereas Diogenes Laertius cites his sources almost obsessively, Philostratus “is quite reluctant to identify the source of his information or quotation”: “It appears that Philostratus’ most consistent source was personal reminiscences” of his teachers and older colleagues (ibid.). Furthermore, philosophical succession was “one of the primary features” of Diogenes Laertius’s work, whereas in Philostratus’s work “the theme of succession is practically nonexistent” (ibid. 101). Adams considers Diogenes Laertius’s approach scholarly in contrast to the entertainment value of Philostratus’s compilation (ibid. 100). The Talmud Yerushalmi does not fit neatly into any of these two categories. While it contains attributions and chains of transmission, these cannot be considered historically reliable (Kraemer 1989). There is no evidence that suggests that the editors of the Talmud had large numbers of 265

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written texts, authored by individual rabbis, available that they could use in the way that Diogenes Laertius and the editors of the Digest did. On the other hand, the use of attributions and quotes at least gives the impression of verbatim and authoritative statements of earlier rabbinic authorities, in contrast to Philostratus’s lack of concern for source information. This means that the editors of the Yerushalmi, even if they mostly relied on orally transmitted material and anecdotes, present it as “school” transmission, that is, material they received in a scholastic context rather than through mere hearsay and observation in the marketplace. At the same time, it needs to be pointed out that Diogenes Laertius’s use of written sources does not necessarily make his work on individual philosophers more historically reliable, especially since many of the cited writings are no longer extant. In the case of the Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, for example, it was unclear in antiquity already whether he left any writings and whether he really was the author of the tragedies that Diogenes Laertius lists for him (Navia 1996: 84). Philostratus seems to have had some written sources at his disposal, which he liberally reformulated (Miles 2018). Similarly, Justinian allowed the legal editors to abbreviate and reformulate the written source texts they chose to include in the Digest. Therefore, distinctions between ancient editors who used written sources and those who relied mostly on oral transmission may not have been as pronounced as one might assume. In both cases sources were not quoted literally but represented in whatever form the editors saw fit (see also the contributions in Meccariello and Singletary 2022). The first step toward a compilation, namely, the collection of source material, always resulted in a selection, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Thus, although the compilation may have claimed or given the impression of being comprehensive, it never was and never could be. Firstly, the compilers would have relied on their personal network connections to contact and solicit material from their colleague-​friends. This means that material transmitted by rabbinic scholars they were close to would be over-​represented in the compilation, whereas that which more distant scholars possessed might have been excluded. Secondly, the editors could only collect material that had survived the vagaries of transmission. Especially in societies where most knowledge was transmitted orally, as was the case in rabbinic circles, earlier rabbis’ views could only “survive” for several generations if there was a constant line of transmission. Since most rabbis seem to have had relatively small numbers of students, even in amoraic times when they had become more open to accepting them (Hezser 1997: 104–​7), the chances for a continuous line of succession and transmission over several generations would have been slim. Only some of the average number of two to seven disciples would have become rabbis themselves. Some students may have moved on to other masters and transmitted their views rather than those of the first teacher they studied with. Others may have simply forgotten (some of the) opinions they heard and practices they witnessed. Furthermore, each time an earlier rabbi’s view was mentioned, it would have been represented in the words and from the perspective of the person who uttered it, that is, it was always already changed. Therefore the early Byzantine collectors of earlier (tannaitic and) amoraic material from many generations and more than 200 years of rabbinic scholarship could access only those traditions that their contemporaries were able to remember or had recorded in written notes, in the latest formulation in which these scholars had preserved them. Some decades ago Schäfer (1986) and Becker (1999) argued that the Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrash Genesis Rabbah should not be seen as edited compilations but as gradual accumulations of material that developed in different text formats and versions until the time of the first extant manuscripts in the Middle Ages. This hypothesis, which conflates the work of editors and scribes, has already been challenged by Milikowsky (1988: 203) on the basis of the limited number of textual variants in the respective manuscript evidence. Clearly, these late antique rabbinic compilations 266

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have textual boundaries and a “redactional identity” (ibid.). With regard to the Talmud Yerushalmi, Bokser (1990: 101) has pointed to the carefully orchestrated nature of the sugyot. The editors are responsible for “an artificially created anonymous framework aimed at integrating the divergent earlier amoraic traditions and at employing them for theoretical discussions” (ibid. 87). While the Yerushalmi stam may be less developed than the stam of the Bavli, the editors nevertheless ordered and structured the earlier material into logically coherent and sophisticated dialogical units on halakhic themes. The structure of “talmudic dialectic” created by the stam “aimed at correlating and integrating sources and approaches” (ibid 88). Social-​historical aspects also challenge Schäfer’s and Becker’s hypothesis from a pragmatic point of view. A gradual accumulation of material that resulted in the Talmud could only have happened if a central storage place, which combined a scholasterion with an archive or library, had been used by rabbis for five or more generations. There is no evidence of such a central place and institution, however. Rather, rabbinic texts suggest that in each generation rabbis lived in various cities, towns, and villages of Roman Palestine. A gradually developing text to which individual scholars would have added bits and pieces over hundreds of years is simply unimaginable due to the geographical dispersal of rabbis and the lack of a central academy (Goodblatt 1994). There is also no analogy for such a process in late antique scholastic culture. The compilations from late antique and early Byzantine times were either individually authored or created by scholarly circles at a particular time and place. Differences between the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Apophthegmata Patrum underline the distinction between a careful editorial procedure and a mere collection of individual anecdotes and sayings that circulated in versions of variant lengths and composition (Hezser 2018: 383–​7). The Apophthegmata Patrum circulated in the form of an alphabetical collection, following the alphabetical order of the names of the monks, and a systematic, thematically organized collection that included more material. Additional material was added to the collections at later stages of recopying. Due to the simple structural arrangement based on the monks’ names and general subject matters, without much if any editorial input (Rönnegard 2010: 5: “These short stories stand independently from each other, without any attempt to connect them”), the later addition of material would have been easy. Especially anonymous traditions and traditions concerning monks from outside of Scetis seem to have been added secondarily (Bousset 1923: 77). By contrast, the later insertion of additional material into the argumentative structure of talmudic sugyot would have been more difficult if not impossible. As I have already pointed out elsewhere, “[t]‌he more complex editing process created a more elaborate compilation whose textual boundaries would have been more evident to copyists” (Hezser 2018: 292). Nevertheless, it seems that whole sugyot could be inserted, by editors or copyists as the phenomenon of parallel sugyot in (the same or) different tractates indicates (Assis 1976). Certain structural conventions govern all tractates of the Talmud Yerushalmi. Most obviously, the Talmud presents its material in the form of a commentary on the Mishnah and follows the Mishnah’s division into orders and tractates. For the first time, there is evidence of this mishnaic structure and division, which is never mentioned in amoraic traditions that merely refer to individual Mishnah tractates. Therefore Lieberman (1962: 83–​99) assumed that only an orally memorized and recited version of the Mishnah existed in amoraic times. Although a written transmission is more likely (Hezser 2002), amoraic rabbis may have had access to specific tractates only and various written versions of such tractates may have circulated at their time (Hezser 2001: 142–​3). The first evidence of a full collection of Mishnah tractates of the first four orders is provided by the Talmud Yerushalmi itself. The phenomenon that the Yerushalmi provides gemara on the first four orders of the Mishnah and tractate Niddah only does not necessarily mean that it is 267

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incomplete. Perhaps the rest of the tractates were simply not available to the editors who arranged the material. In her investigation of the Babylonian Talmud in the context of late antique book culture Amsler (2023) looks at the ways in which intellectual knowledge was managed and ordered to create a commentary on the Mishnah. She asks whether the Talmud is a “commentary plus” or an “encyclopedia minus”: “Do genres matter at all in the late antique library or to the late antique author, or was the ancients’ focus rather on the genealogical, and thereupon ideological, affiliations which books were supposed to have?” (Amsler 2019). She argues that in places where the Talmud uses series of stories about specific rabbis, it enables “a deliberate reduction or extension of the plot” (ibid.). As Rubenstein (1999) has already pointed out, the long and elaborate series of stories found in the Bavli likely reflect the Babylonian editors’ work and ideology. Since at least some of the material integrated in the Bavli has earlier analogies in the Yerushalmi and amoraic Midrashim, the Bavli editors’ reworking of the material can be examined (ibid. 19). The stories indicate “the conscious process of Stammaitic redaction” that caters to a learned audience of like-​minded Torah scholars (ibid. 21). The complex construction of these narratives renders the possibility of later accretions, as in the case of the Apophthegmata Patrum, unlikely. Although the Talmud Yerushalmi follows the structure of the Mishnah, it is not just a commentary on the earlier compilation and differs from it in many regards. The Talmud contains many more attributions to named sages than the Mishnah, where legal statements are mostly presented anonymously. The increased use of attributions stands in relation to the much more complex discursive and argumentative structure, where attributions serve to distinguish arguments from each other. Also new is the use of thematic units or sugyot, which are combined to create a more or less lengthy discussion. This discussion’s relationship to the Mishnah is diverse and complex. Rather than simply explaining the Mishnah, the Mishnah is used to initiate a discussion that can lead to the introduction of new and unrelated subject matters and alternative solutions to the issues raised. In the gemara, additional tannaitic traditions (baraitot) are quoted that may contain opinions which differ from the Mishnah. Small literary units such as case stories, anecdotes, and parables can be loosely associated with the subject matter or connected to the discussion through a mere keyword connection. Altogether, then, the Mishnah provides a general structure, but the Talmud’s discussion goes far beyond a mere commentary on the earlier text. Should we assume that the composition of talmudic sugyot and tractates was an “unconscious process” of gathering and combining material by loosely arranging it in accordance with the Mishnah’s structure and themes (Vidas 2014: 5 with reference to Sussmann 1990)? Or did the editors create a dialectic structure that at least to some extent had analogies within their early Byzantine context? Most scholars have focused on the Babylonian Talmud, whose stam is more developed and whose arguments are more explicit than those of the Yerushalmi. Neusner (1997) has compared the dialectical structure of the Bavli with analytical arguments in Greek philosophy, arguing that “[i]‌mportant traits, form and substance alike, of Classical dialectics of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, are replicated in the Gemara’s argument” (ix). How Babylonian rabbis, who spoke Babylonian Aramaic and lived in a Sasanian Persian context governed by Zoroastrianism, could have had access to classical Greek philosophy is not explicated. What Neusner emphasizes is the open-​endedness of the discussion, which readers and later generations of scholars are meant to enter and engage with: “The Talmud is open-​ended and invites the disciple to join in the discussion. The main trait of the Talmud is its argumentative character, its dialectical argument, question-​ answer, back and forth” (x). He sees a similar dialectic represented in Plato’s Socratic dialogues, which does not necessarily mean that the Talmud was modeled on these texts. The preponderance of dialogue and dispute in ancient rabbinic culture in contrast to the alleged “end of dialogue” 268

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in late antique Christian circles, has been emphasized by Goldhill (2008: 8), and Schwartz has pointed to the Sympotic dialogues as an analogy to certain Palestinian talmudic texts (Schwartz 2008: 4). Yerushalmi Neziqin, which has a more rudimentary gemara than the rest of the tractates, is usually seen as an early version of Talmud, with the Babylonian Talmud at the end of the development (Sussmann 1990; Lieberman 1931, who argues that y. Neziqin was redacted in Caesarea; Wewers 1984, who rejects Lieberman’s arguments). Based on this line of thought, a long and complex talmudic discussion suggests that the talmudic editors spent more time on creating it, integrating more material, and molding the narratives and argumentation in accordance with the circumstances they lived in. Thus, Rubenstein (2005) has suggested that the texts created by the Babylonian editors reflect the fierce and combative atmosphere of the post-amoraic academies. Other scholars have focused on the “end product” of the (Babylonian) Talmud as an expression of the anonymous editors’ creativity from a more literary-​critical and redaction-​analytical perspective. Thus, Vidas (2014: 13) examines compositional structures to reach conclusions about the Bavli editors’ identity. He emphasizes that the editors “froze” the wording of the traditions they received, integrated them into new literary contexts, and thereby discontinued earlier studying practices. Through a careful analysis one can identity the talmudic “author’s voice” and “distinguish this voice from that of its sources” (ibid.). The characteristics of and differences between the Yerushalmi’s and Bavli’s discussion of the Mishnah can be evaluated through comparison (see Hayes 1997 for tractate Avodah Zarah). Rather than determining chronological relationships between parallel talmudic texts, Blankovsky (2020: 2) asks: “What was the author doing in composing the text in this particular way?” He suggests examining the “internal dynamic” and rhetoric of talmudic argumentation and shows how the Bavli’s discussion goes far beyond the Mishnah’s treatment of tort law (ibid. 20–​39). These more recent approaches have shifted the focus from a literary-​historical analysis of the Talmud’s traditional components (Halivni 1986 and 2013) to a study of the Talmud in its own right, as the innovative creation of author-​editors who worked under specific political, social, and cultural conditions. Are there any late antique and early Byzantine analogies to the Talmud as a compilation, taking its use of traditional material, structural alignment with an earlier collection, and discursive nature into account? Although no complete analogy exists, there are certain similarities and overlaps with other late antique encyclopedic works that both commemorated a scholarly past and constituted the foundation of later medieval study and practice. Both the Talmud Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Digest compile earlier legal material of the “classical” rabbis and jurists into a comprehensive and more or less ordered whole that enables further discussion, application, and expansion of the earlier opinions and views (Hezser 1998). The traditional legal material comprises both legal arguments, reacting to and commenting on earlier and other authorities’ views, and legal narratives –​ case stories and precedents –​ which present solutions to specific legal problems in daily life situations (Simon-​Shoshan 2012). Many of the legal topics addressed in the Yerushalmi and Digest are the same, such as property law, torts, family law, including wills and inheritances, and commercial law. In both cases the treatment is open-​ended, providing a foundation for further discussion and application in similar and different circumstances. Since the Digest was created in the sixth century, it cannot have provided the model for the Yerushalmi, however, and there are differences with regard to various aspects of the respective compilation projects (on the compilation of the Digest see Honoré 2010). Various types of commentaries were created in antiquity. Legal scholars, such as the second-​ century Roman jurist Gaius, wrote commentaries that explain and elaborate earlier private law regulations (Abdy and Walker 2006). Similarly, Scaevola’s works included a multi-volume 269

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commentary on the ius civile (Mousourakis 2012: 33). Several later jurists (Ulpian, Pomponius, and Paul) commented on Sabinus’s works and these comments are marked as ad Sabinum in the Digest (ibid. 53). Thus, legal commentary was a literary genre that existed from the time of the classical jurists onwards. Excerpts from the earlier works, sometimes commenting on the same subject matter, were included in the Digest and arranged in a thematic and argumentative format (Honoré 2010: 42–​3). Commentaries were also written on canonical narrative texts such as the Hebrew and Greek Bible, the New Testament, and the works of Homer. Many church fathers wrote commentaries on specific books of the Greek Bible and the New Testament. Patristic biblical commentaries are comparable to rabbinic Midrash, but they usually present the interpretations of their individual authors only rather than a polyphonic overview of possible understandings of the text (Visotzky 1995 and 2003; Fraade 2012). Various authorities’ exegeses of specific biblical passages were collected in the so-​called florilegia of early Byzantine times, some of them created in monastic circles, which served as the basis of theological debates (Ekonomou 2007: 128). In Graeco-​Roman and early Byzantine scholarly circles commentaries on the works of Homer and other ancient writers such as the tragedians were written (Dickey 2007: 18–​42; Browning 1992). The large late antique rabbinic compilations, foremost among them the Talmud Yerushalmi, are encyclopedic in their presentation of multiple rabbinic views, inclusion of different literary genres, and broad range of subject matters from all areas of daily life. While there are similarities and overlaps with other late antique compilations, the Talmud is unique in its scope. Comparisons with other late antique scholastic practices and compilation techniques can provide insights into the development of the Talmud and determine the characteristics of the transmission and preservation of rabbinic knowledge in its Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine Christian contexts (Hezser 2024).

17.3  The Possible Purposes of the Compilations Since there is no direct evidence on the purposes of the compilation of the Talmud and Midrash collections in late antiquity, one can only reach hypothetical conclusions based on the nature of these compilations and the surrounding book culture. It has often been pointed out that the Palestinian Talmud, which contains commentary on the first four orders of the Mishnah and tractate Niddah from the sixth order only, is “incomplete”, yet the Babylonian Talmud is incomplete too, although it is more voluminous (Margolis 1892: 127; Wimpfheimer 2020: 165). Perhaps the editors had only specific tractates of the Mishnah available when they connected sugyot and attached them to specific Mishnah passages. The notion of the Talmud’s alleged incompleteness led scholars to the assumption that it was created “in haste”. Thus Schiffman (1991: 267) writes: “The deteriorating political situation in Byzantine Palestine, and the accompanying anti-​Semitism, brought the amoraic development of the Palestinian Talmud to an early end. Not only were the amoraim unable to complete their work, but the Talmud of the Land of Israel had to be completed in haste”. More recently, scholars have reevaluated the situation of Jews in Roman Palestine in early Byzantine times and pointed to the building and flourishing of synagogues in this period which suggests a creative competition with rather than a suppression by Christian institutions and authorities (Schwartz 2001: 179–​289; the contributions in Kalmin and Schwartz, eds. 2003). One may therefore argue that rabbis’ awareness of Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine Christian intellectual culture and literary production may have motivated them to create their own written compilations of past knowledge as a Jewish alternative to Roman law and Christian biblical exegesis (Hezser 2022). At a time when numerous books and compilations by non-​Jewish scholars circulated and formed the basis of discussions in intellectual circles, rabbis may have feared that 270

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the rabbinic knowledge that had accumulated in (tannaitic and) amoraic times might be forgotten and lost if it was not preserved in written form and in compilations that included many rabbis’ views. The basic structures of the Torah (for the Midrash collections) and the Mishnah (for the Talmud) provided ordering principles for arranging the vast amount of material at the editors’ disposal. According to Honoré (2010: 81), Justinian’s Digest “was meant to put an end to conflicts of juristic opinion”. The editors were instructed to avoid overlaps and contradictions when choosing the material to include. However, the Digest is neither coherent nor systematic and does include differences of opinion. Honoré points out that the goal of unanimity would have been “impossible” to achieve (ibid.). Rather than constituting a systematic legal code in the modern sense of the term, the Digest could be used by legal experts as a basis of further discussions when dealing with specific legal cases and problems. It brought the many and variegated jurists’ views together under thematic rubrics and thereby enabled a synoptic view of the “legal landscape” on certain issues. Similarly, the Talmud would allow readers to perceive and discuss individual rabbis’ differences of opinion, weigh the arguments, and follow the disputes’ logical sequence. Before the existence of the Talmud and Digest, rabbis’ and jurists’ disciples studied with their individual teachers and lay-​people consulted specific sages and legal experts, getting to know these authorities’ views only. Once the large compilations existed, readers could get an overview of the broad scope of rabbinic scholarship and Roman legal science. Whereas the Palestinian and even more so the Babylonian Talmud were studied, applied, and commented upon in medieval and modern times (Fishman 2011; Fidora and Hasselhoff 2019), the late antique midrashic compilations on books of the Torah and later also on other books of the Hebrew Bible could be used as the basis of rabbinic communal sermons and in disputes with Christians on the proper understanding of biblical terms, verses, passages, and narratives. According to Yuval (2006: 87), rabbinic Midrash presented the meaning of the biblical text in its own right and in the Jewish context, whereas Christian exegesis imposed its own christological and theological beliefs onto the biblical texts. Thus, Midrash became an important and forceful tool to counter Christian interpretations and appropriations of the Bible and uphold an alternative Jewish understanding.

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18 RABBINIC LITERATURE AND ROMAN-​B YZANTINE LEGAL COMPILATIONS Marton Ribary

1. Introduction The subject of this chapter poses a methodologically unique challenge. Innocent as it may first sound, the connective “and” which stands between “rabbinic literature” and “Roman-​Byzantine legal compilations” insinuates a historically significant relationship. It remains uncertain, however, whether and to what extent the surviving evidence suggests that the creators of Palestinian rabbinic texts and those responsible for the Roman-​Byzantine legal compilations showed any interest in each other’s affairs. At least from the Roman-​Byzantine point of view, their relationship may best be characterized by ignorance and indifference. This observation has two key consequences as far as the present chapter is concerned. Firstly, the study of rabbinic literature and of Roman-​Byzantine legal compilations have largely been carried out in isolation from each other and on their own terms. Secondly, the comparative study of the two corpora is more likely to produce important insights into structural and conceptual analogies than suggesting direct impact and mutual dependence. I rush to acknowledge that scholars who approach the comparative challenge from the direction of rabbinic literature still dominantly focus on identifying evidence for the exchange of ideas and institutions via direct contacts between Judaism and Rome. This chapter will present the achievement of scholars aiming at generating historical insights. At the same time, it will point toward research avenues where comparison is used as a powerful tool for describing compositional, legal, and conceptual characteristics of texts. For the purpose of this chapter, I will primarily focus on the Talmud Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis. I will provide a brief overview of available sources and study materials, theories about the compositional history of these texts, and their afterlife in reception history and contemporary scholarship. The reason for focusing on the Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Corpus is their thematic, geographic, and temporal proximity. They are legal texts which originated from the Eastern Roman Empire in late antiquity. Setting the parameters by thematic, geographic, and temporal proximity guarantees laboratory conditions for comparison. The more control variables we have for our intellectual experiments, the clearer the picture of similarities and differences becomes. Still, cultural contact needs to be established independently from textual evidence, and one should avoid the methodological fallacy of arguing for cultural contact on the basis of textual similarities. DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-22

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I suggest reversing the discussion of the Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Corpus for the following reasons. Justinian’s Corpus has a stronger textual foundation than the Talmud Yerushalmi thanks to the exceptional manuscript evidence of the Codex Florentinus. The cultural context, reception history, compositional and conceptual structure of Justinian’s Corpus probably feel more familiar to the reader. Understanding how the Corpus works and what questions scholars have asked about Roman-​Byzantine legal compilations provides a good baseline for approaching the Yerushalmi and Palestinian rabbinic legal literature. Research topics dealt with by scholars of rabbinic legal texts have generally been addressed a few decades earlier in Roman legal scholarship. Being aware of this time gap and the existence of similar investigations into Roman law may help to ask better questions, accelerate debates, and identify exciting new research avenues in rabbinic legal scholarship. As the reader may also find information about scholarship on rabbinic literature in other chapters of this Handbook, more room is given here to discuss Justinian’s Corpus.

2.  The Components of Justinian’s Corpus Justinian’s Corpus, compiled in the first half of the sixth century, consists of four major parts: (1) the Codex Constitutionum with imperial ordinances, (2) the Digesta or Pandectae containing civil law compiled from the juristic works, (3) the Institutiones, providing an outline of legal institutions, and (4) the Novellae, a collection of new ad hoc legislation. The publication of these legal materials and the corresponding legal educational reform was part of Justinian’s efforts to restore Rome’s ancient imperial glory. Justinian’s Institutes were published together with the Codex and the Digest in 533 C.E . The text follows a multilevel thematic structure initiated by the jurist Gaius in his own Institutes (ca. 165 C .E .) and quotes earlier sources to illustrate the historical development of rules culminating in what is presented as the most refined version of Justinian’s law. The so-​called “institutional framework” divides Roman law into three areas: the law of persons, the law of things, and the law of actions. In an imperial pronouncement in the Constitutio Imperatoria, Justinian explains that the clear hierarchical structure of the Institutes was designed to give law students “an elementary framework, a cradle of the law, not based on obscure old stories” (Const. Imp. 3 in Birks and McLeod 1987: 33). Justinian’s Codex sought to replace previous sources of imperial law. The Codex Gregorianus from the late third century C. E . collected imperial legislation from well over a century, while the Codex Hermogenianus included laws from the period of 293 to 294 C.E ., when the eastern and western parts of the empire were both formally ruled by two coemperors according to emperor Diocletian’s design. These two codices were both unofficial collections of imperial legislation. The Codex Theodosianus was commissioned by the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II and his western coemperor Valentinian III in 429 C. E . and published in 438 C.E . Theodor Mommsen’s edition (1905) of the 16-​book long Codex reconstructed books 1–​5 according to the Beviarium Alarici, published by the Visigothic king Alaric II in 506 C.E ., and relied on the witness of the Turin manuscript (Ms. Turin A. II. 2) for the remaining eleven books. Collections of essays edited by Jill Harries and Ian Wood (2010) and Detlef Liebs (2002) as well as monographs by John F. Matthews (2000) and Boudewijn Sirks (2007) reignited interest in the Codex Theodosianus as a source for writing the history of the divided empire. It remained the foundation of legal development in the West even after the time of Justinian I. As far as the empire’s eastern part is concerned, Justinian’s Code successfully wiped out the Codex Theodosianus. The first version of Justinian’s Code was published in 529 C.E . after the emperor’s editors sifted through previous codices to remove rules no longer in force. Only a small 276

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fragment (P. Oxy. XV 1814) testifies the existence of this first version which was republished in twelve books in a new version in 534 C. E ., a year after Justinian’s Digest and Institutes (Corcoran 2008). The publication of the original text of the Codex with Fred H. Blume’s English translation, edited by Bruce W. Frier (2016), and the publication of David J.D. Miller’s annotated English translation of the Novellae, edited by Peter Sarris (Miller and Sarris 2018), are landmark scholarly achievements. They have given a new momentum to research focusing on Justinian’s Corpus and its historical context. The Digest’s significance still overshadows other components of Justinian’s Corpus. It includes more than nine thousand thematically arranged quotations of jurists’ law with over a million words. It documents a thousand years of Roman legal development in civil law and provides the foundation of current legal systems in the western world. It was published together with the Institutes in 533 C .E ., only three years after its creation had been commissioned by Justinian in the imperial pronouncement Deo auctore. The single most important textual evidence for the Digest is the Codex Florentinus, a very early copy created only a couple of decades after the official publication of the text in 533 C.E . The manuscript’s extraordinary antiquity gave the Florentinus almost unquestionable authority in Byzantine and medieval times. As Charles M. Radding and Antonio Ciaralli have put it, “all manuscripts in the medieval university tradition thus became codices descripti –​copies of a still existing manuscript –​-​making their inclusion in the edition [of Mommsen] unnecessary” (Radding and Ciaralli 2007: 173). The medieval philological tradition approached the text of the manuscript with measured philological criticism and created minor variant readings in the so-​called vulgate (“common”) versions of Justinian’s Corpus. Theodor Mommsen considered and mostly rejected these variant readings in favor of the Codex Florentinus. His edition acknowledged only those textual emendations of medieval scholars that could be confirmed by early textual evidence. Even though some argue that more credit is due to the medieval philological engagement with Justinian’s Corpus (Radding and Ciaralli 2007: 209), the Codex Florentinus as it is basically reproduced in Mommsen’s edition (1872–​95) remains the textual witness of the Digest which constitutes the basis of the English translation edited by Alan Watson (1998).

3.  Scholarship on Justinian’s Codex The Justinianic legal corpus gradually sank into oblivion after the death of emperor Justinian in 565 C .E . In the Greek-​speaking Byzantine Empire, the complex and voluminous text of the Digest proved to be inaccessible to the Byzantine jurists, who were more interested in legal practice than in legal science. Justinian’s Corpus was abridged to serve the practical needs of the law schools and courts. Emperor Leo III enacted a summary of Justinian’s codification in the Ecloga Legum (“Select Passages”) in 741 C. E . In the late ninth and early tenth century, Justinian’s Corpus was adapted, updated and abridged in the practical compilations known as the Eisagoge (“Introduction”) and its revised version, the Procheiros Nomos (“Useful Law”) (Schminck 1986 and Bochove 1996), which are available in English in the translation of Edwin Freshfield (1926 and 1928). The most important document of the period is the Basilika, which was initiated by emperor Basil I and completed by his son Leo the Wise in 890 C.E . The Basilika is a revised and reordered Greek paraphrase of Justinian’s Corpus in sixty books, which omits obsolete laws and presents the material in a supposedly more orderly fashion. It was published in seventeen volumes by the Groningen School of Byzantine Law under Herman Scheltema’s supervision (Scheltema et al., 1955–​98). The Basilika was further abridged, for example, in the Hexabiblos (“Six books”, 277

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created in 1345 C. E .), which was instrumental in preserving some form of Roman law in the Greek-​speaking world (Lokin and Stolte 2011 and Stolte 2015). Contrary to the Institutes, the Codex and the Novellae which, according to Radding, “had been in continuous use throughout the early Middle Ages” (Radding 1988: 8), the Digest was a difficult source on account of its breadth and complexity, which was studied to a more limited extent. As Wolfgang Müller notes, the Digest “completely disappeared in the Latin West. After Pope Gregory the Great last cited it in a letter of 603, the sources remained silent for almost half a millennium” (Müller 1990: 1). The revival of the study of Roman law in the eleventh century has been customarily related to the “rediscovery” of the Digest in Pisa (Conrat 1891 and Kantorowicz 1938). The revival of Roman law is usually associated with the late eleventh-​century Bologna-​ based jurist Irnerius, who developed a curriculum of Roman law independent from the study of canon law and Lombard customary law (Radding 1988: 159–​71 and Ascheri 2013: 20–​8). The “four doctors” of Bologna, Bulgarus, Martinus Gosia, Jacobus de Boragine, and Hugo de Porta Ravennate, followed Irnerius’ glossing technique. The glossators’ work, which is curiously similar in both format and style to those used by the Jewish commentator Rashi (1040–​1105 C.E .) and the Tosafists of the twelfth and eleventh centuries for rabbinic law, were preserved in the monumental collection completed by Accursius in 1230 C. E . His Glossa Ordinaria had been preserved on the margins of manuscript editions of Justinianic texts before being published in printed format by Denis Godefroy in 1583, coining and immortalizing the term Corpus Juris Civilis. Another group of Roman legal scholars in the Italian peninsula known as the Commentators became dominant in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Unlike the Glossators, who worked according to strict exegetical principles and concentrated on the sources of Roman law, the Commentators –​such as Bartolus (1314–​57) and Baldus (1327–​1400) –​sought to adapt Roman law to contemporary circumstances (Stein 1999: 71–​ 4). Franz Wieacker asserts that “the Commentators were able to transform the law of Justinian into the ius commune, a common law for the whole of Europe, and to apply to the rich variety of the non-​Roman laws in Europe their ways of thinking about law” (Wieacker 1995: 57). The quotations from Roman jurists in the Digest were first exposed to text-​critical scrutiny by the legal humanists of the sixteenth century. They wanted to reconstruct the “true” and “eloquent” original text by either relying on “conjecture” (Stein 1999: 77) or consulting the wording of related laws in Justinian’s Codex. The humanist intervention had a contradictory impact on the study of Justinianic texts. Some sixteenth-​century scholars such as François Duaren, François Connan, or Hugues Doneau set out to develop civil law as a science in the spirit of Cicero’s call for a “civil law transformed into science” (Cicero, De Oratore 1.41.185–​42.191 and Moatti 2015: 247–​55). Others like Alberico Gentili dismissed the humanist ideals and sought to accommodate Roman law to local customary law in the spirit of the Commentators, Bartolus and Baldus. In most parts of Europe, the Bartolist approach, which emphasized the practical application of the ius commune in local legal practice, became dominant. From the Bartolist powerhouses of Italy and France, the center of legal learning moved to the Dutch provinces, which were gradually gaining independence (Stein 1999: 99–​101). Natural law thinkers of the seventeenth century envisioned a geometrical order which they wished to rediscover in (or impose upon) Justinian’s disorderly Corpus. The most notable efforts are the Corpus Iuris Reconcinnatum (“The Repaired Legal Corpus”) by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Armgardt 2014) and the Pandectae Justinianae in Novum Ordinem Digestae (“Justinian’s Encyclopaedia Arranged in a New Order”) by Joseph Pothier (1748–​52). Codes from the eighteenth century were based on the geometrical ideals of Leibniz and Pothier and occasionally referred to Roman sources as they sought to unify diverse local laws, remove obsolete rules, and 278

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settle disputed legal matters. Pothier’s work is directly related to the French Code Civil (1804), which subsequently motivated the project of a unified code for all German-​speaking lands. This latter project was advocated by Karl-​Friedrich von Savigny in his 1814 pamphlet “Of the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence” (Savigny 1975), which is the beginning of the modern era of Roman legal scholarship. His System of Modern Roman Law is a text-​critical analysis of medieval witnesses to provide a solid foundation for restoring the law of the classical Roman jurists (Savigny 1979). The discovery of Gaius’s Institutes by Barthold Niebuhr in Verona in 1816 strengthened Savigny’s and other scholars’ text-​critical efforts, which reached a climax toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was at this time that Theodor Mommsen published his edition of Justinian’s Corpus, and Otto Lenel reconstructed the Praetor’s Edict and the sources cited in the Digest (Lenel 1883 and 1889). The texts published by Mommsen and Lenel have remained standard editions in Roman legal scholarship until today. Savigny’s efforts in restoring classical law thrived in the nineteenth-​century German Pandect science with the landmark publication being Rudolf von Jhering’s The Spirit of Roman Law (1852–​58). The Pandectists had an enormous impact on the German Civil Code, which came into force in 1900 and marked the end of the most influential period of Roman legal scholarship. In most European countries, Roman law with its envisioned geometrical system has retained its status as the entry to legal learning. The study of Roman law has lost its immediate practical value, however, and become a mere academic discipline. In the first half of the twentieth century, text-​ critical interest was dominant. Justinian’s Corpus was exposed to meticulous inquiry by scholars who wished to purify the sources of the classical jurists from what they thought to be nonclassical Byzantine interpolations. Since the criteria for identifying nonclassical elements in the classical jurists’ texts by either style or legal doctrine proved to be unverifiable, the so-​called “hunt for interpolations” (Lenel 1925: 17–​38) eventually lost its momentum. While Roman law is still a core subject at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, scholars from English-​speaking countries mostly engage in its study on the basis of a historical or classicist background. Notable exceptions are Scotland, South Africa, and the American state of Louisiana, where law is primarily based on the Roman tradition. Common law scholars occasionally use Roman sources to stimulate legislative change. Peter Birks wished to provide English private law with a more orderly framework partly inspired by Roman law (Birks 2000). More recently, Neal Wiley investigated how Justinianic sources motivated Supreme Court decisions in the United States (Wiley 2016). In the civilian tradition, some envision the European Union as a possible central force for a unified European legislation based on the Roman legal tradition. An important contemporary voice in this regard is Reinhard Zimmermann, who promotes this pan-​European direction (Zimmermann 1996 and 2001).

4.  Sources and Scholarship on the Talmud Yerushalmi Unlike the leading role Justinian’s Corpus played in the history of the western legal tradition, the Talmud Yerushalmi (=​Palestinian Talmud) has been side-​lined in favor of the Talmud Bavli (=​ Babylonian Talmud) in the Jewish legal tradition since the Middle Ages. The Talmud Yerushalmi has been used primarily to provide additional evidence and parallels for the study of the Talmud Bavli. North African talmudic scholars of the eleventh century such as Rabbi Hananel of Kairouan and Alfasi of Fez as well as the twelfth-​century Moses Maimonides used the Yerushalmi for the explanation of the Bavli’s text. Additionally, talmudic scholars from the twelfth century onwards, known collectively as the Tosafists, produced explanations to the Bavli’s text and drew support for their arguments from the Yerushalmi (Urbach 1955: 543) in a manner similar to that of the 279

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medieval Glossators of Justinian’s Corpus. It was not until the thirteenth century that one of the Yerushalmi’s tractates (tractate Sheqalim) received a commentary of its own, arguably by Rabbi Meshullam in Normandy (Stemberger 2011: 187). The first printed edition of the Yerushalmi was produced in Venice in 1523–​4 by Daniel Bomberg, who primarily used the only complete manuscript of the Yerushalmi, MS Leiden, which is dated to 1289 (Sussmann 2001: ix–​x and xiv–​xvi). With the exception of tractate Berakhot (“Blessings”), tractates in the first order of the Mishnah (Zeraim or “Seeds”) discuss laws about agricultural activity in the Land of Israel. These tractates did not receive commentaries in the Bavli, presumably for the reason that they had no relevance for the Babylonian Jewish community living outside of the Land of Israel. Some talmudic tractates, therefore, only appear in the Yerushalmi, which attracted special attention from talmudic scholars of the mid-​sixteenth century. The first comprehensive commentary was produced by the eighteenth-​century scholar Rabbi Moshe Margolies, whose Penei Moshe (“The Face of Moses”) is one of the two most important traditional commentaries on the Yerushalmi. The other is David Fränkel’s Qorban ha-​‘Eidah (“Community Sacrifice”), also from the eighteenth century. With few exceptions, traditional Talmud scholarship has remained focused on the Bavli and uses the Yerushalmi as a supplementary resource only. Günter Stemberger lists modern commentaries on the Yerushalmi produced by scholars working according to secular academic standards (Stemberger 2011: 188). Examples are Israel Lewy’s commentary on the first six chapters of tractate Bava Qamma (1895–​1914) and Saul Lieberman’s Ha-​Yerushalmi Ki-​fshuto (“The Yerushalmi in its Literal Meaning”, Lieberman and Katz 2008). In a brief monograph with the title Talmud shel Qisrin (“The Talmud of Caesarea”), Lieberman suggests that while the majority of the Yerushalmi’s tractates were produced in Tiberias before 429 C . E ., the tractates of order Neziqin (“Damages”) were produced by rabbis in Caesarea earlier than the rest of the tractates considered to originate from Tiberias (Lieberman 1931). The legal context of the Rabbinic movement in Roman Palestine was the subject of the work by Jean Juster (1914) in French and the two-​volume work by Alfredo Mordechai Rabello (1987) in Italian with a shorter version produced for the Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt series (Rabello 1980). The collection of Roman imperial laws concerning Jews by Amnon Linder (1987) in Latin and English is another excellent source to consult. As academic Talmud scholarship has dramatically expanded in the last few decades, scholars have started to look at less chartered territories. Palestinian sources, which were historically overshadowed by the Bavli, have received more attention, and they are now studied in their own right. Ishay Rosen-​Zvi (2008) and Amram Tropper (2010) provide an overview of the explosion of recent research concentrating on the Mishnah. To a lesser extent, the Yerushalmi has also received more attention than before as the main literary source on Jews and Judaism in Roman-​Byzantine Palestine in late antiquity. The Yerushalmi’s text was the subject of two major research projects: the first one, conducted in Berlin under the leadership of Peter Schäfer and Hans-​Jürgen Becker, produced a synoptic edition of the major text witnesses (Schäfer and Becker 1991–​2001); the second project, conducted in Jerusalem by Yaakov Sussmann, led to the publication of a critical edition of the MS Leiden text (Sussmann 2001). Heinrich Guggenheimer’s English translation (2000–​12) sought to replace the maligned translation completed by Jacob Neusner (1982–​94). The Yerushalmi’s German translation and commentary, initiated by the late Martin Hengel in 1975 (Avemarie et al. 1975–​2021), remains the only translation in any modern language which was created according to the highest academic standards, taking manuscript variants into account.

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Gerd Wewers’s philological and theological account of the Bavot tractates of the Yerushalmi provides a systematic comparison between these tractates and the rest of the Yerushalmi (Wewers 1984). Based on Liebermann (1931) and Wewers (1984), Hezser (1993) examines the Form, Function, and Historical Significance of the Rabbinic Story in Yerushalmi Neziqin, providing the first historical-​critical examination of the important legal form of the case story in these allegedly earliest tractates of the Yerushalmi. The three-​volume collection of articles edited by Peter Schäfer and Catherine Hezser, which was published under the title The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​ Roman Culture (1998–​2002), is possibly the most comprehensive collection of scholarship on the Yerushalmi within its Graeco-​Roman cultural environment produced in recent decades. Hezser (1998: 581–​641) presents the first systematic comparison between the Talmud and Roman law codes, with particular focus on Justinian’s Digest, taking the literary forms, editing processes, and social contexts of rabbis’ and jurists’ rendering of legal advice into account. She also edited a volume of articles on rabbinic law in its Roman and Near Eastern context, including her own contribution on rabbinic and Roman slave law (Hezser, ed. 2003). In recent years, Kartell Berthelot has conducted a European Research Council project on Jerusalem and Rome, which included the interdisciplinary study of the perception of Roman law by Jews and other inhabitants of the Roman Empire (Berthelot et al., eds. 2021). While the study of the Bavli has remained the main focus in rabbinic scholarship in Israel and is nowadays examined within its Persian Sasanian context, the study of the Yerushalmi is crucial for our knowledge of Jewish and rabbinic culture and society in the Land of Israel in late antiquity. Studies on the Bavli’s text nowadays examine the parallels in the Yerushalmi and evaluate the differences between Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic society. Among the many monographs accounting for differences between the Yerushalmi and the Bavli, between the Jewish community in Roman Palestine and Sassanid Persia, Christine Hayes’ Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (1997) and Richard Kalmin’s Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (2006) stand out.

5.  The Reconstructed Compositional History of the Digest The speed and magnitude of the work undertaken by the Digest’s editorial committee, appointed by Emperor Justinian and headed by the jurist Tribonian, almost stands beyond belief. According to the imperial pronouncements in Latin and Greek, the Constitutio Tanta and the Dedoken, the committee revised “nearly two thousand books and nearly three million lines” (Const. Tant. 1, Watson 1998: xxxvii). One quotation follows another, carefully truncated to subject and arranged in a designed order. The effort is staggering which would be quite impossible even in our era with the available power of modern technology. A key area of scholarly interest is the supposed intervention of the compilers of the Digest in the quoted sources (Buckland 1924: 343–​64; Wieacker 1988: 154–​82). It was assumed that the hand of the compilers could be detected beyond the minimal evidence of section titles, the order of the sources, and references. The investigation of the quoted materials for editorial interventions was encouraged by the instruction to the editorial committee in the imperial pronouncement Deo auctore by which Justinian commissioned the creation of the Digest in 529 C.E .: “If you find anything in the old books that is not well expressed, or anything superfluous or wanting in finish, you should get rid of unnecessary prolixity, make up what is deficient, and present the whole in proportion and in the most elegant form possible. What is more, if you find anything not correctly expressed in the old laws or constitutiones [enactments], which 281

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the ancient writers quoted in their books, you should also take care to rectify it and put it into proper form, so that what is chosen by you and set down there may be deemed genuine and the best version and be treated as if it were what was originally written; and let no one dare to assert that your version is faulty by comparison with the old text.” (Deo auctore 7, Watson 1998: xxxiv–​xxxv) The era of “interpolation hunting” was followed by strong opposition (Lenel 1925) before a cautious conservative approach has become dominant which holds that editorial intervention was mostly stylistic, and the compilers did not make substantive changes (Kaser 1972, Johnston 1989). Sources which predate the Digest’s wording can be used as independent witnesses to these cases, but such cases and sources are scarce. One notable example is the Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (“Comparison of Mosaic and Roman Law”) by the hand of a presumably “Christian jurist in Italy in the early 390s” who was versed in both Roman and biblical legal cultures (Frakes 2011: 149). Some scholars of the Digest suggest that the editorial efforts concentrated on the methodical processing of a vast library instead of meddling with the sources (Hoffmann 1900; Pugsley 2006). By a leap from text to history, the Digest’s literary design has been credited to Tribonian who supposedly crafted the layout of thematic sections based on the Codex and Emperor Julian’s Perpetual Edict (Tuori 2007: 135–​79). Friedrich Bluhme’s classic Massentheorie suggested that Tribonian created a method by which the source masses and their constituent groups had been systematically read, truncated, and arranged in thematic sections (Bluhme 1820, Honoré 2006). According to this reconstruction, the two sides of the design, that is, the thematic structure and the allocated juristic works in the source masses, “merely” had to be put together, allowing a speedy and reliable processing of the sources which culminated in the Digest’s 9,132 quoted fragments. The model advocated by Bluhme and Honoré is not entirely convincing. The Digest shows some structural affinity with the 45 titles of the Praetor’s Edict (Lenel 1883: xvi–​xxvi) and the 12 books of the revised second version of Justinian’s Codex, but the similarities are not comprehensive enough to account for the Digest’s thematic arrangement. Tribonian’s design is generally related to the Law of Citations by Emperor Valentinian III, who wished to achieve a reliable and transparent operation of the law. It was issued in 426 C.E . and is preserved in the Codex Theodosianus (Cod. Theod. 1.4.3; see Kaser 1967: 230–​1 and Bretone 1992: 243–​4). The Law of Citations authorized the use of works by the second-​and third-​century jurists Papinian, Paul, Gaius, Ulpian, and Modestinus, and it provided a mechanistic calculation according to authority in case their opinions clashed on a particular matter. The restrictive and inflexible nature of the mechanism is thought to have been improved by Tribonian’s committee members, who were inclusive in their use of sources and thorough in their presentation of the fragments. According to Bluhme’s ground-​breaking theory about Tribonian’s editorial team, three separate committees worked on their own to excerpt and truncate sources according to preconceived thematic subjects (Bluhme 1820). Eventually, the sections produced by the subcommittees were put together to create the thematic sections. David Pugsley has been a unique voice among scholars interested in reconstructing the historical development of the Digest (Pugsley 1995–​2000). Based on a reevaluation of the literary and contextual evidence, he has suggested that Tribonian rediscovered Emperor Constantine’s law collection in the imperial library of Constantinople and convinced Justinian that the priceless collection should be made public in some form. As an emperor of great ambitions, Justinian commissioned the creation of the Digest and a corresponding reform of legal education. Pugsley suggests that the law schools had been using annotated commentaries by the jurists Ulpian on the 282

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works by Sabinus and on the Praetor’s Edict to present the positions of the five jurists prioritized by the Law of Citations. The law schools presumably created collections of fragments arranged under thematic titles from these annotated commentaries. The “collection of inscription-​less fragments” (Pugsley 2006: 196) was a convenient but generally disorganized teaching material. However, it provided a thematic design for the Digest which had already been familiar to the law schools. The description of the Digest’s text needs to be clearly distinguished from the scholarly accounts about the Digest’s compositional history. The former is a fact, the latter is well-​educated speculation. When I now turn to the Talmud Yerushalmi, which presents a more complicated literary profile with virtually no contextual evidence about its history, the literary description and historical reconstruction of the Justinianic sources will offer a valuable reference point. Keeping in mind that the chasm between text and history is virtually unbridgeable, the Digest’s reconstructed compositional history can be used as an orientation point, according to which the literary evidence of the Yerushalmi is examined.

6.  The Hypothetical Compositional History of the Talmud Yerushalmi Drawing conclusions from the text to its possible historical development is even more complicated for the Talmud Yerushalmi than for Justinian’s Institutes and Digest. We have no internal or external evidence about the historical circumstances, the identity of the creators of the text, and the processes that led to its composition. Rav Sherira Gaon’s famous Epistle from tenth-​ century Babylonia (Lewin 1921 and Schlüter 1993) speculates about the authors and historical circumstances of rabbinic works from a distance of several centuries after the supposed creation of the documents. Sherira relies on the careful examination of the literary evidence and provides no indication that he has access to contextual historical information. Sherira is virtually in the same position as modern-​day scholars, who try to distill historical knowledge from internal literary evidence. The Yerushalmi’s meticulous quotation technique projects a hierarchy of sources. The quoting formulas introduce quotations from the Hebrew Bible, distinguish between tannaitic teachings from inside (mishnayot) and “outside” of the Mishnah (baraitot) and mark amoraic teachings after the Mishnah’s text was closed (memrot). The material evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Cairo Genizah fragments, and medieval manuscripts support the idea that the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah have a textual history independent from the Yerushalmi (Tov 2001: 21–​154). Even though the Yerushalmi editors may not have had access to written copies of these earlier texts, the literary characteristics of the Yerushalmi suggest that the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah were available to them as independent source texts. The Yerushalmi applies hermeneutical techniques to the text of the Mishnah which are based on the techniques developed for the interpretation of the biblical text (Samely 1991 and 2001). The Yerushalmi adopts the Mishnah’s method and applies it to the text of the Mishnah itself. The Yerushalmi approaches the Mishnah in segmented parts and expects an intimate acquaintance with the Mishnah comparable only to the Bible. The reader is expected to identify what is and what is not from the Mishnah. On the one hand, the Yerushalmi assumes that readers recognize where the mishnaic quotations begin and end. On the other hand, the Yerushalmi assumes that readers recognize whether the quotations come from “outside” the Mishnah text, even though the quoted tannaitic authority may regularly appear in the Mishnah. It is debated in what form baraitot (as well as memrot) were available to the editors of the Yerushalmi and how they used these sources for the composition of the text. The Tosefta, a collection of tannaitic teachings arranged in the order of the Mishnah, and the tannaitic commentaries to the 283

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biblical books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy include many of the baraitot quoted in the Yerushalmi. In a similar fashion, the biblical commentaries from the amoraic period provide parallels to many of the Yerushalmi’s memrot. In the absence of material evidence (manuscripts or fragments) and literary references, it seems unlikely that baraitot and memrot were preserved and transmitted in edited collections. Unlike Otto Lenel, who tried to reconstruct lost juristic works in his Palingenesia (1889) according to the quotations preserved in the Digest, Michael Higger’s modern collection of baraitot (Higger 1938–​48) is not the reconstruction of a lost literary document. Higger does not make historical claims and merely presents his work as a useful study tool (Higger 1942: 93–​8). In David Weiss Halivni’s view, baraitot and memrot are genuine records of legal rulings which were memorized and transmitted without explanations. In a historical reconstruction of the Talmud Bavli’s editorial process, Halivni posits that the anonymous redactors composed elaborate discursive passages in order to justify the snippets of apodictic rules they had received from previous generations (Halivni 1986: 76–​92 and 2013: 145–​54). He uses the term stammaim to denote the anonymous compilers of the Talmud and associates the anonymous voice of the Bavli’s text with the Bavli’s editors (Halivni 2013: 3–​24). The term stammaim has misleading connotations which blur the difference between the Talmud’s anonymous voice (stam) and the unidentified editors responsible for the Talmud’s compilation (stammaim). For dating purposes, the term relates to postamoraic times. Halivni seems to merge the historical process of editing the Talmud with the literary phenomenon of anonymous comments and the harmonization of amoraic traditions. Daniel Boyarin and Shamma Friedman supplement Halivni’s understanding by attributing greater creativity to the anonymous editors of the Bavli. Like Halivni, they also associate the editors with the quoting-​narrating voice (Boyarin 2007: 339–​42 and Friedman 2010: 58). There seems to be a certain obsession with dating which entices scholars to make the leap from the perceived literary persona to an enigmatic group of historical people. When Robert Brody contests the (late) dating of the historical composition of the Bavli, he notes that “it is often necessary to distinguish between the nucleus of the memra and the anonymous layer or comment referring to it” (Brody 2009: 227). As Moulie Vidas adds, “the different styles of presentation –​Aramaic vs. Hebrew, brief vs. verbose, anonymous vs. attributed –​[are not] indicators of different periods but as different conventions for transmitting material with different functions” (Vidas 2014: 47). Brody correctly dissociates literary features from the historical creators of the text, but similarly to his fellow Talmud scholars, he fails to uproot the mistaken idea that text can be translated into history without the external evidence about the historical context. Treating the editorial process with Hans-​Jürgen Becker as an open-​ended one may sound underwhelming, but it is the one which drives our attention from history back to the text itself (Becker 1999). Scholars like Yaakov Sussmann and Christine Hayes offer a different strategy to answer the enigma of the compositional history of the Talmuds, which avoids the problem of identifying historical “authors”. According to them, the Yerushalmi and Bavli should be seen as snapshots of a literary continuum of a cumulative commentary enterprise which was shaping over many generations and centuries. According to this explanation, the fact that the Yerushalmi has a thinner editorial layer and a less worked-​out structure compared to the Bavli is simply due to the fact that the Yerushalmi preserves an earlier phase in the crystallization of the Talmud. Hayes, who takes Yaakov Sussmann (1990: 96–​105) as the point of departure for her own explanation, explains the different nature of the two Talmuds by reference to “the enormous time lag between the completion of the two works and the intense and vigorous development of the Bavli that occurred particularly in the later part of the period (perhaps into the seventh century)” (Hayes 1997: 21). 284

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Even though the Hayes-​Sussmann theory is compelling in its elegant simplicity, it refrains from describing the Yerushalmi as “a genuine ‘talmud’ (study) of the Mishnah [which] is composed primarily of comments, glosses, and explanations of the Mishnah–​around which it revolves. … For the Bavli, on the other hand, the Mishnah is but a point of departure for lengthy and involved debates and dialectical discussions” (Hayes 1997: 21). What Hayes writes about the Bavli also applies to the Yerushalmi. Pace Sussmann and Hayes, the difference is more to do with the literary surface than with the nature of the enterprise. Following the lead of Jacob Neusner, scholars in the 1970s abandoned the idea of writing biographies of rabbinic authorities as they had become disenchanted with the historical reliability of the stories about their lives scattered in rabbinic literature. (Green 1978: 77–​96). Scholars in the 1980s and 1990s abandoned the idea of reconstructing the intellectual profile of rabbinic authorities as they had become disenchanted with the reliability of attributions of quoting formulas (Kraemer 1989, Stern 1994). It is probably time to give up on the possibility that the compositional history of rabbinic texts could be written based on the literary evidence of the texts themselves. This does not mean that we need to embrace a nihilistic or relativistic approach. The Yerushalmi’s compositional history may lack contextual evidence of a rabbinic origin but its reconstruction may be assisted by the comparison with the reconstructed compositional history of Justinianic texts and the Digest in particular. The comparison requires that the Yerushalmi is seen, on the one hand, as a coherent compositional entity, and, on the other hand, commensurate to the Digest. For the first requirement, we can point to the fact that the Yerushalmi’s literary features communicate ideological and editorial preferences which are coherent with other rabbinic texts. The collective evidence of multiple rabbinic literary compositions indicates that the Yerushalmi’s approach to the old law of the biblical and subsequent generations is not only a literary fiction but can be associated with its editors, even though we do not know who these people were and when they lived. For the second requirement, we can point to the shared anthological nature of the Digest and the Yerushalmi, to the similar technological limitations of their editorial processes, as well as to their similar educational and study environments.

7. Conclusions Scholars of Roman and rabbinic legal texts used to try to unlock their unfamiliar structure and ascertain the reliability of quotations in their primary sources. Due to the lack of evidence, this type of investigation has now been largely abandoned. Romanists have come to the conclusion that the “interpolation hunting” cannot reconstruct the “original” and “genuine” voice of the jurists. The hunt ended in the common opinion that in most cases there is no reason to doubt that the Digest’s quotations are reliable. Most scholars assume that the intervention of the compilers was minimal (Johnston 1989). Due to a lack of external evidence, incoherence in style and logic could not be translated into evidence about the interpolating activity of the compilers. As Wolfgang Kaiser writes, “clarity about the alterations and omissions made by the compilers can be achieved only in those cases in which the same text has not only survived in the Digest but is also attested elsewhere” (Kaiser 2015: 128). In rabbinic scholarship, textual criticism has reached a similar conclusion. The variations in wording and contradictory attributions of the same quotations at distinct parts of the rabbinic corpus have been acknowledged to be “commonplace … [and] often insignificant” (Vidas 2014: 65). Such variations in wording and attribution generally do not affect the logic of the passages where they appear, the law and its justification effectively stay the same.

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Resources for the comparison between rabbinic literature and Roman-​ Byzantine legal compilations are abundant. An excellent one-​stop resource is the “Judaism and Rome” website which presents the achievements of a European Research Council-​funded project on “Rome’s political and religious challenge to Israel and its impact on Judaism” led by Katell Berthelot (also see the book publication Berthelot 2021). This is probably the pinnacle of traditional historical comparative scholarship in this field which will provide ammunition for scholars interested in identifying cultural exchange and historical influence between Judaism and Rome. This traditional investigation will continue as it should, but it will hopefully engage more critically with its own historical assumptions. I first voiced my skepticism about a still widespread obsession with historical influence at a conference held in Cambridge on the topic of “Talmud and Christianity” in 2016 which struck a chord with some colleagues but upset more. I was not convinced that we ask the right questions, when we hurry to talk about history before we understand how the texts actually work. We have computer-​assisted methods at our disposal, which allow us to analyze texts at a superhuman scale. These so-​called digital humanities methods are based on the idea of “big data”. They use machine-​assisted statistical analysis of entire corpora known as “natural language processing”. They allow researchers to gather quantifiable information about structural and linguistic patterns (Ribary and McGillivray 2020). These methods could be used to refocus on the evidence we actually have, namely, the texts. They could supercharge a much-​needed structuralist turn in the comparative study of rabbinic literature and Roman-​ Byzantine legal compilations. We could eventually start asking the right questions –​those we have the evidence to answer.

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19 RABBINIC AND PATRISTIC INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BIBLE Carol Bakhos

1. Introduction For Jews and Christians of late antiquity, scriptural interpretation served to offer moral lessons, anchor theological convictions, bolster beliefs, and respond to competing intramural as well as interreligious claims. Making sense of biblical stories and figures from Adam to Ezra, Eve to Esther, was also a means by which rabbis and church writers responded to wider cultural currents and sociopolitical exigencies. The Jewish and Christian traditions both claim the Bible to be the authoritative word of God, but what constitutes the Bible is different for these two communities. Moreover, each religion understands “Bible” and its content differently (Bakhos 2014: 15–​9). While the rabbis and early church writers interpreted their shared scriptural heritage on the basis of incompatible beliefs, they nonetheless shared a common set of assumptions about the Bible’s sacredness and authority. It was considered devoid of contradictions and inconsistencies; it was read on multiple levels and with the understanding that each part sheds light on the other. Its meaning is not always readily grasped, and yet, it is foundational to one’s relationship to God whether on an individual or communal basis. About the Bible, the rabbinic maxim exhorts, “Turn it over again and again, for everything is in it” (m. Abot 5:22). Christian exegetes of the time who grappled with theological issues and sought to make their Bible relevant to their followers would have agreed. Scholarly attempts to recast the relationship between Judaism and Christianity from that of mother and daughter to that of twins go to great lengths to point to the ways in which they partook in an intertwined, complex world of cultural and spiritual discourse. Increasingly at the turn of this century, scholars argued against conceptualizing the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in terms of borrowing and influence and advocated for a fuller embrace of the notion of dynamic, interactive mutual exchange (for example, Boyarin 1999, Becker and Reed 2007, Yuval 2008). As Schäfer writes: “We have all learned by now that the old model of the ‘parting of the ways’ of Judaism and Christianity needs to be abandoned in favor of a more sophisticated model, taking into consideration a long process of mutual demarcation and absorption” (Schäfer 2012: 84). Despite varying degrees of emphasis and approach, the longstanding view of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity has become sufficiently problematized, even as others

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argue that the “mutual demarcation had been achieved by the early decades of the 2nd century CE ” (S.J.D. Cohen 2018: 3). In the fourth century C. E . the Christianization of the Roman Empire transformed the landscape of the ancient Mediterranean world. The Jewish sages of late antiquity were all too cognizant of the emergence of Christianity and its ascending political power, and Christian writers were all too aware that they shared a scriptural heritage with the Jews. Yet, it would be misleading to read Christian exegesis only in light of Jewish exegesis and vice versa. It would also be misleading not to consider the extent to which Jewish and Christian exegesis took place vis-​à-​vis the other. The degree to which Jews and Christians read their scriptures with real and imagined others in mind is difficult to assess. Different times, languages, and geographical settings are factors to consider. So, too, is the fact that while ancient Jewish interpretation was compiled into anonymous anthologies, Christian exegesis took the form of commentaries, homilies, treatises, martyrologies, and letters that circulated under the names of particular authors. Christian sources, especially of the early period, are far more explicitly occupied with Jews and Judaism than rabbinic sources are with Christianity. Rabbinic reactions to and engagement with Christian teachings is neither systematic nor static. References to Christianity are more implicit and scattered throughout the vast corpus of rabbinic literature. Jewish biblical interpretation served not only to provide a basis for contemporary legal ordinances and principles for how to live one’s life, but also served to maintain the efficacy of the traditions of the past and the biblical narrative that came to shape the story of the Jewish people. In doing so, it titillated the imagination; gave expression to cultural norms, practices, and ideas; and responded to contemporary social and religious concerns, especially as the rabbis competed with Christian teachers who made a claim to the Hebrew Bible, their “Old Testament” (see, for example, Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem; Evans 1972). For the early church fathers, the Hebrew Bible was also where they turned to find everything they needed to understand the life of Jesus. The notion that Christians are the spiritual inheritors of the Jewish Scripture with respect to its sacred teachings and divine revelations is paramount to understanding early church interpretation. Through allegory and typology, Christian exegetes fostered the unity of the “Old” (Hebrew Bible/​Jewish Scripture) and the “New” Testaments. In the words of Augustine: “In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed” (“Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet,” in Seven Questions Concerning the Heptateuch 2.73). This notion that the Old and New Testaments are intrinsically connected not as two separate parts of one whole, but one whole, each part as part and parcel of the other, is fundamental to unlocking Christian approaches to Scripture. Early Christian interpretation more readily betrays its concerns, whether they are aimed at promoting a theological doctrine, railing against wayward congregants, disparaging Jews or other Christians. Given the anonymity and anthological character of rabbinic literature, it is far more difficult to detect when midrashim tend to philological, textual irritants or deal with extratextual matters; that is, when they are less obviously or deliberately concerned with political and theological matters. Although in many instances in rabbinic literature Esau represents Rome and certainly in later fourth-​to seventh-​century sources of Christianity, other midrashim demonstrate his depiction as an imagined Other (see below). Rabbis were aware of Christian postulations and far from hermetically sealed off from their environs –​au contraire. Studies, especially over the past several decades, highlight the fertile ground from which both groups cultivated literary production and underscore the ways in which both participate in a broader context of mutual cultural exchange (eg Visotzky 1995, Hirshman 1996, Boyarin 2004, Becker and Reed 2007, Yuval 2008, Kedari 2009, Bar-​Asher Siegel 2019). 291

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2.  Late Antique Jewish Interpretation The term “midrash” (pl. midrashim), from the Hebrew root drsh (“to investigate, seek, search out, examine”), refers to any act of interpretation. However, in its strictest and most precise sense it refers to the process as well as content of rabbinic biblical interpretation. The interpretation of the Bible is found throughout the vast literature of the rabbis, the midrashic collections as well as the Talmuds, in stories and parables, sage teachings, theological musings, religious dicta, laws, homilies, and exegetical commentary. Through the midrashic process, the rabbis made the Hebrew Bible relevant to their contemporaries, taught moral lessons, told fanciful stories, and developed as well as maintained theological beliefs and ethical codes of behavior. Compilations of rabbinic interpretation, that is, collections of midrash, are often described along three axes: halakhic or aggadic –​ referring to the overarching type of collection; tannaitic or amoraic –​demarking earlier and later rabbinic material; and exegetical or homiletical –​ characterizing the format. The first category is especially problematic because texts deemed halakhic also include aggadic expositions. One of the striking characteristics of Jewish exegesis of the period is its anonymous and anthological character. Rabbinic compilations reflect the diverging opinions of a host of rabbis on a specific word or phrase. Whether halakhic or aggadic, late antique or early medieval, the midrashic locus of exegesis is a biblical word or phrase. Punsters par excellence, rabbis were keen on making philological associations. They culled TaNaKh (acronym for the tripartite division of the Jewish Bible: Torah, Nevi’im/​Prophets, and Kethuvim/​Writings) for verbal affinities; they spun stories and drew connections in order to elucidate the verse at hand. Every letter of a word, every phrase, was open to interpretation, for the Bible, God’s Word, was expressed in a certain way to teach or explain something. For rabbis, nothing in Scripture is superfluous and every word has many meanings, some more apparent than others. Indeed, one will often find contradictory statements from various rabbis made about the meaning of a word, and one interpretation is not more acceptable than another. The multiplicity of meanings does not challenge scriptural authority, but rather reflects its infinitude. Rabbis made use of parables (Hebrew meshalim, pl., mashal sg.). Parables about kings are the signal form of narrative in rabbinic exegetical literature (on the king parables, see Appelbaum 2010). Nearly all rabbinic meshalim consist of a bipartite structure –​ the fictional narrative, that is the mashal proper, and its application, the nimshal, which usually concludes with a biblical verse serving as the mashal’s prooftext. Formulaic phrases mark the two parts: mashal le, “it is like” (also, mashlu mashal, mashal lema hadavar dome le, or simply le), and kak, “so, too, similarly” (Stern 1991, Appelbaum 2010; for an analysis of rabbinic and New Testament parables, see Kister 2018). Midrashic interpretation deploys a variety of exegetical techniques that are often tightly connected to the language of Scripture (Daube 1949, Fischel 1973, Fraade 1991, Kugel 1986, 1990, Stern 1991 and 1996, Visotzky 1988 and 1995, Yadin 2004 and 2014). In addition to wordplay, rabbis occasionally use gematria, whereby the arithmetical value of Hebrew letters is used to interpret a word or verse. Intertextuality and the atomization of scriptural words, phrases, and verses are fundamental characteristics of the midrashic method.

3.  Late Antique Patristic Literature Many literary genres shape early Christian biblical interpretation. Through the use of homilies, letter writing, and commentary, Christian writers engaged the meaning of individual verses as well as entire passages and books of the Bible. The role scriptural interpretation played in the formation 292

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of doctrine and indeed in all areas of the life of the church contributed to Christianity’s vitality and development over the centuries. It both influenced and was influenced by doctrinal discussions. How the early Christian exegetes understood biblical passages throws light on the ways in which Christian communities conceived of themselves. Like their Jewish counterparts, Christian interpreters made sacred texts relevant to wider Christian audiences. Through sermons, lessons from the lives of biblical characters became accessible and practical. This is especially true given that most Christians could not read the Bible and its commentaries. Thus, what they understood to be God’s word was mediated by the more learned leaders who were devoted to disseminating the Word of God orally, but biblical commentaries as noted above also took the form of epistles and treatises. In retelling the biblical story for edifying purposes, church fathers in a sense “re-​wrote” the narrative. They also engaged in internecine debates on theological matters and drew on Scripture to bolster their beliefs. Church writers and theologians unequivocally accepted the inspired nature of Christian scriptures. They differed with respect to determining the meaning of the divine word, when to take it figuratively and when to read it literally. The term literal refers to the sense of Scripture intended by the writer. That is to say, the literal sense may be metaphorical. Christian exegetes acknowledged that the explicit literal meaning may also include an implicit sense. Early Christian scriptural interpretation took into account the need to consider a variety of approaches to Scripture, otherwise how indeed was one to understand the dictum, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Exod 21:24), when, for example, a toothless baby is murdered? Or, how does one read anthropomorphic statements about God in Genesis (eg Gen 3:8)? As Ambrosiaster (Quaestiones 10. 1) writes, “The meaning deserves to be explored because divine scripture says nothing that would be useless or out of consideration” (Kannengiesser 2006: 175). And, as Chrysostom explains (Commentary on the Psalms 9), “In some things it is possible to find a fuller sense, whereas others should be understood only at face value”. Early Christian interpreters exhibit two general tendencies. The need to read the Old Testament Christologically against Jews and Gnostics pushed them toward allegory, while the dangers of exaggerated gnostic allegorism fostered a more literal interpretation of scriptural sources. Early church writers thus display both of these tendencies and therefore cannot be characterized as mere allegorists, despite the prominence of symbolic interpretation among Christian exegetes. The Alexandrian and Antiochene schools represent these two broad trends. However, one must not succumb to the all too simplifying classification that plagued previous scholarship for decades (Martens 2018, Simonetti 1994: 67). As Martens writes: “Alexandria cannot be collapsed into allegory, nor can Antioch be reduced to literalism, for there is too much evidence that complicates both of these assertions. The geographic epithets also require scrutiny. Origen and Theodore, key representatives of ‘Alexandria’ and ‘Antioch’ respectively, exercised enormous influence beyond their Greek worlds. Their legacies stretched into Latin, Syriac, and Armenian literatures of late antiquity, transcending the boundaries of the cities in which they respectively resided for only parts of their careers” (Martens 2017). Early church exegetes engaged a variety of strategies in order to secure the relationship between the Old and New Testaments as they threw light on the meaning of individual words, phrases, and verses, if not entire stories. Patristic methods of interpretation are generally described as taking into account the literal or plain sense on the one hand, and the allegorical and typological on the other. In order to maintain the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, prophetic literature was read through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Beginning with Paul, the Old Testament was believed to prefigure Jesus and the church. The new developments were 293

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considered to unlock the deeper meaning of events recorded in the earlier text. Examples of prefiguration include Adam as a typos (type) of Jesus in Paul’s writing (Romans 5:12–​21, 1 Corinthians 15). Furthermore, the fulfillment statements in Matthew exemplify how the gospel reads the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. For example, in Matthew 13:34–​35: “Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world’ ” (Psalm 78:2, NSRV). The New Testament, as rendered in the above passages, in the fulfillment prophecies of Matthew and in Paul’s use of types, embodies the very understanding of its relationship to the Old Testament that the early church interpreters promulgated. Typology is a form of allegorical interpretation. A biblical place, person, event, or institution can function as a type to the extent that the place, person event, or institution signifies someone or something that will be fulfilled or manifested in the future through God. Its connection to revelation history is what sets typology apart from allegory. Typology fastens to religious history whereas allegory need not have any connection to an original “event” in order to derive meaning. Isaac, Joseph, Joshua, and David are regarded as topoi of Jesus. Typological readings are widespread among the church fathers. Events such as the crossing of the sea are read typologically. Thus, in Pseudo-​Barnabas (12:2–​3) the prayer of Moses, as he extends his hands during the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites, is understood as a typos of the cross and crucifixion. In ­chapter 40 of Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, the law given to Moses is a typos prefiguring Christ and the church (Falls 2008). In Life of Moses (2.124–​129; Malherbe 1978), Gregory of Nyssa explains the Red Sea as typos of baptism. Thus, the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt is read as a prefiguration of the death of Jesus and freedom from sin. Not all early Christian interpretation is by nature nonliteral. Biblical figures served as exemplars of proper, virtuous behavior. Ambrose of Milan (ca. 340–​397 C.E .), for example, turned to Sarah, Leah and Rachel as models for how childless women should behave toward their husbands: “That wonderful wife desired only that her husband forgive her sterility, and, wishing to avoid being herself the reason for her husband’s not having children, she persuades him to go in to the slave girl. Later on, Leah and Rachel did the same thing. Learn, O woman to put aside jealousy, which often drives women to madness” (On Abraham 1.4.24, Sheridan 2002: 43). While most early Christian exegetes interpreted the couple in the Song of Songs as Christ and the church (see below: “Song of Songs”), Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–​428 C.E .) read it as a love song, and hence did not accept its canonicity. “He argued”, writes Kaplan, “that Song of Songs should only be understood as a love song between two human lovers, particularly Solomon and his beloved” (Kaplan 2015: 41).

4.  Poetic Exegesis The treasure trove discovered in the Cairo Genizah in the late 1800s introduced the poetry (piyyut) of the acclaimed poet (payytan) Yannai to a new audience. Like the English word “poetry”, piyyut derives from the Greek poiein, “to create, make”. Piyyut generally refers to Jewish liturgical poetry, composed in Hebrew and other languages, especially Aramaic (see also Munz-​Manor in this volume). Dating back to the fourth or fifth century C.E., Yose ben Yose typifies the early period and Yannai is the major figure of the beginning of the “classical period” (fifth to eighth centuries), who lived in Byzantine Palestine in the late fifth to early sixth century, probably during the reign of Justinian, whose imperial leadership was undergoing greater fortification (Lieber 2010). 294

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Yannai’s influence was felt for centuries to come. The first named Hebrew poet, he signed his signature in his works by means of an acrostic. He was also the first to use true end-​rhyme and produced work that not only used biblical words, phrases, and verses, but also drew on rabbinic literature. He was best known for his liturgical qedushta’ot, liturgical poems that embellish the first three blessings of the Amidah prayer (Lieber 2010: 13). Like midrash, his piyyutim are intertextually playful and allusive. The certainty of Israel’s redemption and the fall of Edom (Byzantine Rome) echo throughout his liturgical poetry, not only in qedushta’ot for the Jacob-​Esau narrative in Genesis but also elsewhere (Lieber 2010: 272). Turning to the Christian poetic tradition, the poetry of Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306–​373; see also Visotzky in this volume) shares similarities with piyyut. Ephrem is considered one of the most well-​ known writers of the golden age of Syriac literature, which spanned the fourth to eighth centuries. He is best remembered for his teaching and scriptural interpretation. His extensive oeuvre may be divided between prose, including expository as well as rhetorical works, and poetry. He was most famous for his dialogue poems, metrical homilies (mêmrê), and “teaching songs” (madrashê), often referred to as hymns. According to Jerome, these compositions were recited publicly after the reading of Scripture (Griffith 2006: 1407). As many have noted, their closest analogues might be piyyutim; however, the purpose of madrashâ (singular) is akin to its Hebrew cognate, midrash, to instruct. Indeed, as highly regarded as his prose was, it was his poetical works that brought him wide acclaim, for it was through them that he conveyed his theological teachings, displayed his mastery of Semitic poetic devices, and exhibited his artistic genius.

5.  Studies in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Bible Interpretation Christian writers of the period anchor their arguments about authority and identity in biblical texts. A body of literature entitled Adversus or Contra Iudaeos (against the Jews) refers broadly to texts that served to distinguish the superiority of Christianity vis-​à-​vis Judaism. This corpus took the form of biblical commentaries, typologies, letters, and treatises. The term also refers to specific works that respond to real and imagined Jewish allegations against Christians and Christianity. These works were written by, or later attributed to, Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Ambrosiaster, Augustine, and Theordoret of Cyrus. “Scholars continue to debate whether Adversus Iudaeos literature reflects a social reality of religious competition and vibrancy throughout the ancient period or vigorous internal anxiety and debate” (Jacobs 2013: 113; see also Niehoff in this volume). Whereas Tertullian and Origen mention public dialogues between Jews and Christians, other dialogues of the later Byzantine period seem to reflect Christian anxieties over imperial defeats and a waning sense of dominance (Olster 1994). While Christian scriptural exegesis is replete with references to Jews and Judaism, rabbinic literature surprisingly lacks a vigorous explicit engagement contra Christianos (Schäfer et al., eds. 2011). This is not to say that the rabbis were unaware of Christian teachings, on the contrary (Vizotsky 1988 and 1995, Hirshman 1996, Boyarin 1999 and 2004, Zellentin 2011, Schäfer 2012, Bar-​Asher Siegal 2019). At times competition with Christians lurks beneath and through midrashic interstices; other times exegetical factors and the rabbinic penchant for wordplay may give rise to a specific interpretation. To disentangle whether an interpretation is driven by textual or extratextual concerns is notoriously difficult. It can be seductive to read Christian claims to the covenantal legacy, for example, behind rabbinic passages concerning Abraham and Jacob, but exegetical shifts and strategies are also situation specific, specific to the literary as well as sociocultural context. Jewish and Christian biblical interpretation of late antiquity not only faced outward, but it also, in fact to a large extent, faced inward, serving to impart teachings and beliefs 295

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to their respective communities. That said, careful analysis of rabbinic texts produced during the long process of the Christianization of the empire betrays a heightened rhetoric of denigration not to be ignored.

6.  Ishmael and Isaac in Jewish and Christian Interpretation Rabbinic sources invoke a conflict between Ishmael and Isaac in order to underscore the younger brother’s chosenness over and against the elder. They often designate Ishmael a marker of the outsider, the non-​Jew. At times he represents Arabs, other times the generic Other. Rabbis read into Ishmael, as for most biblical figures, multiple meanings and significations, some more negatively charged than others (Bakhos 2006). That the Bible depicts no sibling rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac does not mitigate the negative images associated with him. In Christian writings he represents the old covenant as well as the nonbeliever. Like Jewish sources, Christian references to Ishmael also posit him in a less than flattering light (Bakhos 2014: 177–​83). The notion that the younger son Isaac is the chosen son through whom God will maintain his covenant is the lens through which early Christian readers interpreted verses pertaining to Ishmael. For both Jews and Christians, Ishmael is the nonchosen son sent away and cut off from the family of Abraham. The ambiguity of the term metsaḥeq in Genesis 21:9, “Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing (metsaḥeq)”, afforded rabbis an opportunity to malign and marginalize Ishmael. Through a series of intertextual biblical references, rabbis turn to other verses in the Bible, where a form of metsaḥeq (tsḥq) appears (letsaḥeq in Gen 39:17, Exod 32:6 and visaḥaqu in 2 Sam 2:14–​16) in order to promulgate the portrait of an idol worshipper, shedder of blood and fornicator (t. Sotah 5:12 and 6:6; Genesis Rabbah 53:11). Although there are more neutral, even favorable depictions of Abraham’s firstborn in rabbinic literature (t. Qidd. 5:17–​19, Gen. Rab. 30:4 and 59:7), this negative image has the most staying power. Taking their cue from Paul, Christian exegetes often use Ishmael, born “according to the flesh” (Gal. 4:29), to symbolize sin and licentious desire. Christian writers drew on the biblical story in order also to encourage Christians to remain upright and resilient against the temptations of the flesh (Origen, Homilies on Genesis 7.2). Whereas late antique rabbinic sources refer to Ishmael only in non-​Jewish terms, Christians used Ishmael to refer to other Christians. Augustine’s Treatises on John (In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus), homily 11, on John 2:23–​25 and 3:1–​5, is a good illustration of how Ishmael and Isaac are taken out of their scriptural context and interpreted metaphorically. Augustine uses the Isaac–​Ishmael dyad to refer to the opposition between Donatists, members of a schismatic church in the Roman-​Byzantine province of Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries, and Catholics. He interprets Ishmael’s “playing” with Isaac in Genesis 21:9 as pointing to the Donatists’ persecution of Christians. That is, the Donatists deceive other Christians into believing that they must be rebaptized. While Catholic rulers have inflicted physical pain on Donatists, they themselves inflict spiritual suffering through their deception. For Augustine, the meaning of the story of Genesis is given full expression in the contemporary situation between Catholics and Donatists (Bakhos 2014: 179–​81). In Augustine’s other works, Ishmael represents the old covenant, Isaac the new (Treatises on John 11, on John 2:23–​25; 3:1–​5). In his discussion of Psalm 120, Augustine again reads them in opposition to each other –​not to illustrate divisions between Christians or between Jews and Christians but rather as representations of darkness and light, of that which is earthly, fleshly, and that which is of the spirit. The psalm, much like Paul’s allegorizing reading of Abraham’s two sons in Galatians 4, is read in the context of the church –​the spiritual body of believers who dwell among the unrighteous, “among the tents of Qedar”, among descendants of Ishmael, those that are 296

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flesh, and dark, for qedar is a reference not only to southern desert dwellers but also to darkness, as it is rendered in Latin (tenebrae). Here Ishmael is an allegory of Christians of the flesh who persecute Isaac, Christians who strive to elevate themselves above carnal desires. Ishmael represents those who gainsay spiritual progress. He detracts them, in a sense “plays” with them by offering deceitful words (Bakhos 2014: 181–​3). Augustine’s interpretation echoes Origen’s. According to Origen, Sarah, who represents virtue, is offended that Ishmael, born of the flesh, entices and seduces Isaac, who is of the spirit. This is what Origen claims Paul means by “persecution”. He writes: “And you, therefore, O hearer of these words, do not suppose that alone is persecution whenever you are compelled by the madness of the pagans to sacrifice to idols. But if perhaps the pleasure of the flesh allures you, flee these things as the greatest persecution, if you are a child of virtue. Indeed, for this reason the apostle also says, ‘Flee fornication’ (1 Cor 6:18)”. (Homilies on Genesis 7.3) That is to say, physical temptations are a form of persecution for the virtuous. Furthermore, Ishmael embodies the allurements of the flesh, which through their very temptation persecute the spirit. For Origen, the matter is not about Jews or anti-​Pauline apostles who demand adherence to the law, but rather the seduction that impedes spiritual well-​being (Bakhos 2014: 178–​9). In the competition for the covenant, both Jews and Christians identified with Isaac. Christians and Jews depicted Ishmael and Isaac in antipodal terms as means to address contemporary situations of a political, social, or religious nature. Ishmael, the generic rabbinic other, was also a metonym for Arabs prior to the emergence of Islam (Bakhos 2006). Later midrashic portrayals demonstrate the ways in which rabbis associate him with Islam (Bakhos 2006: 85–​128).

7.  Esau and Jacob as Metonyms Another set of brothers that played a similar role in Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions of late antiquity consists of Esau and Jacob. Centuries of Christian and Jewish interpretation have laden the relationship between the twins with theological and political meaning such that competing images of the struggling siblings in Rebecca’s womb come to mind. For early Christians who envisioned themselves as heirs of Jacob, the identity of Esau, the older superseded brother who shall serve the younger, is clear. He stands for Jews, Judaism, and the synagogue; his younger brother Jacob symbolizes Christians, Christianity, and the church, the self-​proclaimed verus (true) Israel. Christian writers often, but not exclusively, read Jacob and his deeds as prefiguring Jesus. The 12 tribes of Jacob, for example, prefigure the 12 apostles (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 21.2–​3). Christian writers used the verse, “And the older shall serve the young” (Gen 25:23) to emphasize the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. Quoting from Irenaeus, Hacohen writes: “ ‘The later people has snatched away the blessings of the former from the Father, just as Jacob took away the blessing of Esau’ ” (Hacohen 2019: 85). Writing around 180 C.E., the Latin church Father Tertullian in his Adversus Judaeos (I), as Hacohen observes, “ ‘followed suit’: The prior and ‘greater’ people—​that is, the Jewish—​must necessarily serve the ‘lesser,’ that is, the Christian” (Hacohen 2019: 85). And in his Five Books Against Marcion (book 3, ­chapter 25), he explains, “[T]‌he Jews … in Esau were the prior of the sons in birth, but the later in affection” (Hacohen 2019: 85). So, too, in Augustine’s City of God 16:53 (Bettenson 1984: 698), we read: “The older people of the Jews was destined to serve the younger people, the Christians” (Hacohen 2019: 90). 297

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In his commentary on Genesis, Hyppolitus of Rome (d. ca. 236) equated Esau with Jews and the devil, and Jacob with Christ and the church (Hacohen 2019: 85). Ample studies on Esau and Edom in rabbinic literature attribute tropological meaning to him such that it is taken for granted that Esau represents Rome and later Christianity (Neusner 1986 and 1999, Freedman 1995, Boyarin 1999, Yuval 2008). As Freedman observes: “Throughout tannaitic and amoraic literature, Rome is known as Edom. With the decline of Rome as an imperial power, the Roman church acquires the cognomen” (Freedman 1995: 114). The range of what is meant by Esau in rabbinic literature is a bit more nuanced, however. It is not, for example, always clear whether the reference is to Christianity or to Christian Rome (Bakhos 2007). Furthermore, often Christian Rome is read behind the metonymic use of Esau as evidence that Judaism was not only aware of Christianity but also reacted vigorously to its theological claims that Christianity influenced Judaism of the post-​Destruction period. In some cases, internal stimuli –​ textual and intracommunal –​ might have given rise to the ways in which Esau is figured, stimuli that come from interpretive strictures as well as from fundamental rabbinic conceptions of Jewish self-​ identity. In creating midrashim that delineate Israel vis-​à-​vis Esau rabbis were not always reacting specifically to Roman domination or Christian claims as heirs of the Abrahamic covenant, but were giving voice to the foundational concept of Israel, God’s covenantal people. They were attending to internal, longstanding concerns that are manifestly and essentially bound to any group or community’s notion of itself as sui generis.

8.  Hagar in Rabbinic Literature Like her son Ishmael, Hagar is a marginal biblical figure. However, unlike her son, the biblical narrative gives her both a voice and agency (Gen 16:1–​16, 21:8–​21). In fact, the angel of the Lord speaks to her directly, commanding her to return to her mistress Sarai (Sarah) and promising her numerous offspring (Gen 16:7–​11). Although she is usually portrayed as an outsider, she does not represent a specific ethnic group. Rather, like other marginal biblical figures, including Esau and the children of both Keturah and Ishmael (Bakhos 2006), Hagar serves as a marker of Otherness (Bakhos 2014: 109–​21). Rabbinic literature identifies Hagar in multiple ways. Her Egyptian ancestry is explained in Midrash Genesis Rabbah 45:1: Pharaoh gives his daughter Hagar to Sarah as compensation for the troubles she endured in his house. The midrash plays on the Hebrew word for reward, agar, and Hagar. According to rabbis, the verse, “And he gave her to Abram her husband to be a wife to him” (Gen 16:3), should be read literally, that is, Hagar was Abraham’s wife, not his concubine (Genesis Rabbah 45:1). This is made more explicit in their interpretation of another verse, “After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac. And Isaac settled near Be’er Lahai Ro’i” (Gen 24:62), which is associated both with Hagar’s encounter and with the angel after she flees from Sarah and with Ishmael’s birth. In Midrash Genesis Rabbah 60:14 rabbis ask, “Why was Isaac coming from Be’er Lahai Ro’i?” and they answer: “To fetch Hagar”. That is, after the death of his mother Sarah, Isaac brought back Hagar so that his father might marry her. And according to some rabbis, Scripture refers to Hagar as Keturah, the woman whom Abraham marries five verses later: “And Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah” (Gen 25:1). In other words, according to the midrash, Isaac seeks Hagar, who is actually Keturah, for his father. Given Hagar’s association with Be’er Lahai Ro’i, the biblical text lends itself to the interpretation that Isaac was in Be’er Lahai Ro’i to fetch Hagar, but nowhere in the biblical text are we told explicitly that Hagar and Keturah are the same person (the identification of Keturah as Hagar is also found in Genesis Rabbah 61:4.). The image of Abraham bringing her back from the desert and making her 298

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his wife counteracts the impression of Abraham as insensitive for having expelled her and their son from his home and into the wilderness. While Sarah was alive, he listened to her at God’s behest, and reluctantly granted her request, but now that she is no longer alive, he is free to bring her back. The suggestion that Hagar and Keturah are the same person perhaps hinges on the idea that for rabbis, having several concubines does not reflect well on Abraham. This concern may underlie R. Berekhiah’s interpretation in the same chapter (Genesis Rabbah 61:4): “Because it is said, ‘And she went and wandered’ [Gen. 21:4], you might say that she [Hagar] was suspect of immorality. Scripture says, ‘Her name was Keturah’ [from qatar, to tie up], meaning one who is a seal of a treasure and he finds her with its seal”. Here R. Berekhiah assumes that Hagar and Keturah are the same person. Like R. Yudah, who claims that she was “perfumed with good deeds”, he avers that she is “a seal of a treasure”. R. Berekiah, moreover, anticipates a negative interpretation of the phrase, “And she went and wandered”, and preemptively offers an alternative favorable reading. Thus, the rabbinic depiction of Hagar is fairly neutral or, in the case of Hagar as Keturah, rather positive. If rabbis had demeaned Hagar and turned her into an unsavory figure, what would that say about Abraham, or even about Sarah, for that matter –​Sarah who “gave her to Abram her husband to be a wife to him” (Gen. 16:4)? In rabbinic literature Hagar is neither a full member of Abraham’s family nor completely ostracized, and Keturah, similarly, is not discussed in negative terms. After all, these are women associated with Abraham. Even though they do not play as pivotal a role as Sarah in the Jewish metanarrative, their association with Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people, places them in a liminal position between acceptance and rejection, between being part of and apart from the family of Abraham.

9.  Christian Interpretations of Sarah and Hagar Christian exegetes who took their allegorical lead from Philo, including Origen and Ephrem, read Abraham as representing wisdom and learning. That he takes a wife at the advanced age of one hundred signifies the limitless vitality of wisdom. As Origen notes, Abraham was at least 137 years old when he took Keturah as his wife. Scripture uses language relating to “wife”, implying long-​term fidelity, to indicate his continued learning (Origen, Homilies on Genesis 11.1). In his Commentary on Genesis, Ephrem claims that by marrying Keturah and having many sons with her, Abraham spread the worship of God: “through the uprightness of his many sons who were to be scattered in lands throughout the entire earth, knowledge and worship of the one God would be spread” (Mathews 1991:166–​7). Augustine, however, reads the verse literally and uses it as evidence that it is not a sin to marry a second time after the death of the first wife (City of God 16.34). The church fathers do not provide ample commentary on Hagar but what is written has its roots in the writings of Paul and Philo. Philo’s writings had a ripple effect on Christian writers such as Clement of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen. Clement explicitly credits Philo, the etymological expert, for his interpretation of Hagar as a symbol of Greek learning and culture (Stromateis 1.5.28–​32; Thompson 2001: 29–​30). Hagar, a symbol of Greek philosophy, is preliminary to the attainment of wisdom represented by Sarah. A major difference between Clement and his predecessor is that Philo connects wisdom to law whereas Clement associates wisdom with Christ (van den Hoek 1988: 23–​47). Like Philo, Paul allegorizes both women, one the mother of Abraham’s free descendants, the other the mother of his enslaved progeny. In Galatians 4:21–​5:1 Paul identifies Sarah with the heavenly Jerusalem and Hagar with the earthly Jerusalem. His reading plays a significant role in building a basis on which later exegetes forge a hostile antipodal relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Not surprisingly, in City of God Augustine writes that Hagar symbolizes the “earthly 299

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city”, or the sinful condition of humanity (15:2). Paul’s interpretation displaces the Jews as heirs of the biblical promise and establishes those who follow his own teachings as “children of the promise, like Isaac” (Bakhos 2014: 117). One of the earliest references to Paul’s reading of the story is found in Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem (ca. 200–​211 C. E .), which attempts to refute Marcion’s gnostic understanding of Christianity. According to Tertullian, the “one from Mount Sinai” refers to the synagogue of the Jews, which leads to bondage, whereas the other is the holy church. Through the use of allegory Paul undoubtedly shows that Christianity had a noble birth, stemming from Isaac, Abraham’s son with the free woman. From Ishmael, the son of the bondmaid, came the legal bondage of Judaism (Adversus Marcionem 5.4.8). Christian writers turned the Jewish lineage to Abraham via Isaac on its head. In Origen’s sermon on Genesis 21, Sarah is identified with Christianity and Hagar with Judaism, yet instead of using Hagar to represent the law, Origen turns to the bottle of water Abraham gave Hagar when he sent her off into the wilderness and maintains that the bottle failed to provide sufficient water because those born according to the flesh drink from it: “The bottle of the Law is the letter, from which that carnal people drinks, and thence receives understanding. This letter frequently fails them … But the church drinks from the evangelic and apostolic fountains which never fail but ‘run in its streets’ [Proverbs 5:16], because they always abound and flow in the breadth of spiritual interpretation”. (Genesis Homilies 7.5; Heine, 133) Hagar is portrayed as seeking Christ, the true well of living water, a reference to the Samaritan woman in John 4:15 (Genesis Homilies 7.5, Heine, 133–​34). In Origen’s hands, Hagar is both Judaized and Christianized; she is synagogue and church. In this instance he takes his lead from Philo, not from Paul, who presents Hagar as the forebear of enslaved children. Origen transforms her into a freeborn child of Sarah. His affirmation of Hagar moves beyond both Philo and Paul, presenting us with a rehabilitated and Christianized Hagar who in the biblical passage received a revelation of comfort and promise from God. Origen’s reading of Hagar is complicated –​allegorical yet anchored in the literal. While she is rehabilitated and Christianized, she is also identified with the synagogue. This linkage plays out in the description of Hagar’s inability to locate the well in the desert. She represents the synagogue that remains in darkness, blind to the truth, until the angel of God removes “the veil of the letter” so the synagogue can see the “living water”. Origen writes: “For the Jews lie around the well itself, but their eyes are closed and they cannot drink from the well of the Law and the prophets” (Genesis Homilies 7.6; Bakhos 2014: 119). And his reading of Hagar’s expulsion on account of the persecution of Isaac, “the spirit”, at the hands of her son, “the law”, implicates her in her son’s behavior. Furthermore, Origen uses the Sarah-​Hagar allegory to illustrate a difference between Jewish and Christian exegetical understandings of Scripture. Bound to the literal reading of Scripture, Jews have an unquenchable thirst –​the bottle does not suffice. Christians, in contrast, drink from flowing fountains of wisdom and insight. Needless to say, Origen’s caricature of the multifaceted Jewish interpretive traditions of the ancient period leaves much to be desired. Cyril of Alexandria (Glaphyra on Genesis 3.10), too, reads Hagar as the mother of the Jews whose eyes are closed, but in this case her eyes remain shut (Sheridan 2002: 99). Allegory was used also to asceticize the story. Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 C.E .), among others, portrays Sarah and Abraham as an asexual couple. By harking back to Abraham’s claim to Abimelech, king of Gerar (Gen 20:1–​2), that Sarah is really his sister, Clement (Miscellanies 300

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6.12) makes a case for the chastity of wives. That Sarah “laughed” when the visitors told her that she would bear a son (Gen 18:12) is not, according to Clement, a sign of her disbelief but rather a reaction of shame to having engaged in sexual intercourse (Clark 2006: 132). In his literal reading, Didymus (On Genesis 235) explains that Scripture teaches that saints married not for the purpose of pleasure but for procreation: “There is in fact a tradition that say they would go with their wives only when the time was suitable for conception. They would not go with them during the lactation period, when they were nursing their young, or when they were with child, because they regarded neither of these times as suitable for coming together” (Sheridan 2002: 42). Other church fathers, however, eschewed such ascetically inclined interpretations. Chrysostom offers a sympathetic image of Sarah as the reasonable wife who questions her husband’s excessive affections for Ishmael (for more on Chrysostom and others, see Bakhos 2014: 116–​21). The church fathers’ use of the biblical narrative of Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham demonstrates ways these writers attempted to exert Christianity’s superiority over Judaism through interpretation. The negative statements about Judaism found throughout the works of the church fathers reflect an attempt to distinguish Christianity from Judaism. While Christians often locate the break between the two religions in the works of Paul, the actual separation did not occur overnight, certainly not during Paul’s lifetime (see also Niehoff and Visotzky in this volume). He furnished the scriptural anchoring for the emerging theological differences, but on the ground Judaism remained very attractive to those who followed the teachings of Jesus, so much so that church fathers such as Tertullian (Adversus Judaeos, Dunn 2004; Barnes 1971), John Chrysostom, who railed against judaizing Christians in eight sermons (Harkins 1979), and others (Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrosiaster, and Augustine) went to great lengths to disparage Jewish traditions (Wilkens 1983, Jacobs 2013, Williams 2013). Origen, moreover, who lived in Caesarea, near a thriving Jewish community, was aware of the fact that many members of his congregation attended synagogue on Saturday and church on Sunday. They displayed more than a passing interest in Jewish practices, such as circumcision, services, fasts and festivals. “Origin”, writes Clark, “rebuked Christians who observed Yom Kippur, celebrated Passover with unleavened break, adorned themselves for the Jewish Sabbath” (Clark 1986: 391–​2) (see section 19.10). As in Jewish sources, Sarah and Hagar are often presented as opposites in early Christian writings, but also as in Jewish sources, Hagar is not always envisioned unfavorably. As noted above, according to Origen, Hagar’s eyes open to Christ, the true well of living water. In the family of Abraham, Sarah plays a far more important role than Hagar, who is placed at its margins when included. Abraham’s wives exchange positions in Islam, Hagar playing a more central role than Sarah, but in Islam the less important wife, Sarah, is still a full member of Abraham’s family (Hassan 2006, Bakhos 2014: 121–​6).

10.  Rabbis, Origen, and the Song of Songs A song of adolescent love, lust, and longing, the Song of Songs stands out among the books of the Bible for its erotic evocation and the ways in which Jews and Christians have understood it. Although the biblical tradition employs the marriage metaphor to depict the relationship between God and his beloved people, it remains unclear when in the Song’s reception history it was transformed from a secular poem to a divine song (Kaplan 2015: 5–​7). “There is no evidence at all”, writes Barton, “that any serious interpreters in antiquity ever read the Song ‘literally’ anyway” (Barton 2005: 5). After all, the literal meaning might very well be figurative (Bloomfield 1972: 301–​17). Be that as it may, Jewish exegetes held it in high regard, so much so that R. Aqiva pronounced: “The whole world was not as worthwhile as the day that the Song of Songs was given 301

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to Israel, for all the Writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies” (m. Yad. 3:5). Its sanctification “is not only linked to an allegorical understanding, which views it as a song of love between Israel and God, but also as containing God’s most arcane secrets” (Hirshman 1996: 86). And, for Christians, Origen’s commentary, the first important Christian commentary on the Song of Songs, and homilies (preserved in the Latin translations of Rufinus and Jerome, respectively) set the stage for a variety of allegorical readings, such as the church’s longing for union with Christ. Late antique Jewish and Christian interpretations of Song of Songs demonstrate the ways in which rabbis and church Fathers made use of Scripture in their ongoing theological competition, each interpreting the erotic biblical book as an expression of the profound love between God and his beloved, Israel or the church, respectively. In addressing when the allegorical interpretation first arose, facile and problematic dichotomies such as Jewish vs. Christian, midrash vs. allegory, allegorical vs. literal, polemic vs. apologetic have often framed scholarly discussions of late antique exegetical traditions of the Song of Songs (Kedari 2009). Intent primarily on ferreting out the relationship between Jewish and Christian interpretations, such debates rehearse “more ancient rivalries about the originality and belatedness of the respective religious traditions out of which interpretations first emerged” (Stern 2008: 88). That is, who “borrowed” from whom? Did the “church” and “synagogue” “move forward in relatively great isolation from one another, with only few signs of combining tracks?” (Saebø 1996, vol. 1: 745). Were Jews and Christians generating new readings in response to one another or were they attending to exegetical considerations and internecine tensions? For well over a century, scholars have considered Origen’s writings in the context of ancient Judaism (for a review of scholarship on the subject see Baskin 1985: 61–​4, Kedari 2009; for a critical assessment, see Goshen-​Gottstein 2003–​4), and for good reason. Living in Caesarea, a vibrant port city in the third century, Origen’s circle of interlocutors included Jews, pagans, and other Christians. His familiarity with rabbinic exegesis is now taken for granted, even if scholars disagree on the extent and depth of his acquaintance (Rosen Zvi 2019: 475; de Lange 1976 and Blowers 1988 represent two extremes). A comparison of Origen’s exegesis of the Song of Songs and midrashic material opens up avenues of inquiry for scholars of biblical hermeneutics, ancient Judaism, and early Christianity (Kedari 2009). Underscoring the beloved status of Israel, verses of the Song of Songs are scattered throughout rabbinic literature in connection with the Exodus from Egypt. The identification of the groom with God and the bride with Israel is taken for granted, even if rabbis disagreed on the interpretation of individual verses. As Kaplan argues, “the interpretation of the Song of Songs in the tannaitic midrashim as a divine love song proved in the coming centuries to be a powerful way for the rabbinic tradition to understand Israel’s past and imagine Judaism’s future” (Kaplan 2015: 188). The interpretation of “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” (Song of Songs 1:2a) in Song of Songs Rabbah, a later exegetical compilation (probably redacted in the seventh century) reflects this notion. Rabbis consider different places the verse was said: at Sinai, in the Tabernacle or the Temple. The intimacy between God and God’s beloved Israel shapes the rabbis’ understanding of Israel’s history in theological terms as salvation history. So, too, Leviticus Rabbah 23, intertwines Song of Songs 2:2, “like a rose among the thorns” with Israel’s history. God redeems the congregation of Israel, “a rose among thorns”, not only in Egypt but in the future redemption (Leviticus Rabbah 23: 6). Turning to Christian readings of the Song of Songs Origin is considered the founder of the Christian allegorical interpretation. His hermeneutical works permeated Latin Christianity “from Ambrose to the High Middle Ages” (Matter 1990: 25), despite resistance from the likes of Theodore of Mopsuetia who railed against his allegorization and the Council of Constantinople’s 302

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condemnation of his interpretation in 553 C.E. Origen’s work “opens new directions of research and suggests fruitful new understandings of the materials included in and excluded from ShirR” (Kedari 2009: 79). Origen considered the Song of Songs the most sacred song of the Bible which should be kept away from the spiritually immature. At the same time, he also acknowledges that it is a wedding song. The opening of his Commentary (Lawson 1957) sets out the two ways in which the Song was interpreted at his time, as the union between Christ and the church and between Christ and the soul: “This little book is an epithalamium, that is a nuptial song, which it seems to me that Solomon wrote in a dramatic form, and sang after the fashion of a bride to her bridegroom, who is the word of God, burning with celestial love. Indeed, he loves her deeply, whether she is the soul, made in his own image, or the Church” (Matter 1990: 28). Origen’s spiritual rhetoric is his lasting legacy to the prevailing allegorical readings of the Song of Songs. Even though Jerome would become a vocal critic of Origen, in the Prologue to his Latin translation of Origen, he wrote, “While Origen surpassed all writers, in his Song of Songs he surpassed himself” (Lawson 1957: 265). In his own sermons on the Song of Song the Greek Bishop Gregory of Nyssa praised Origen for his interpretation. At the same time, his allegorical reading is grounded in a particular time and place, that is, the context of his own Caesarean congregation where members were drawn to a syncretic form of worship. The distinguishing motif emphasized throughout his commentary is, according to Clark, “the union of Jew and Gentile in the Christian Church” (Clark 1986: 390). New directions in the study of late antique Jewish and Christian exegesis continue to benefit from advancements in related research arenas, especially sociocultural Levantine and Byzantine history. While it is important to comprehend broader cultural contexts from which exegetical traditions grew and developed, exegetical traditions must also be understood within a particular body of literature, whether a discrete writer’s oeuvre or a collection of interpretations as in the case of rabbinic literature. They must also be examined within a system of beliefs and practices, and along comparative vectors that draw attention to methods and themes within and across religious traditions. In order to deepen comparisons, future researchers should consider late antique/​early medieval Islamic exegesis. It is exceedingly important to highlight the ways in which specific methods and working assumptions play out in discrete rabbinic and patristic traditions, yet it is equally valuable to attend to the ways they resonate across traditions, including Islam. Traversing “Jewish”, “Christian”, and “Islamic” boundaries afford scholars an opportunity to appreciate transreligious and transcultural aspects of scriptural interpretation, and at the same time general aspects and features of each particular polychromatic tradition.

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Rabbinic and Patristic Interpretations of the Bible Goshen-​Gottstein, A. (2003–​2004). “Polemicomania: Methodologicals Reflections on the Study of the Judeo-​ Christian Controversy between the Rabbis and Origen over the Interpretations of the Song of Songs” (Hebrew), Jewish Studies 42: 119–​90. Green, R.P.H. (1997). Saint Augustine on Christian Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffith, S.H. (2006). “Ephraem the Exegete (306–​373): Biblical Commentary in the Works of Ephraem the Syrian,” in C. Kannengiesser (ed.), Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 1395–​428. Hacohen, M.H. (2019). Jacob and Esau: Jewish European History between Nation and Empire. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Harkins, P. (1979). The Fathers of the Church. A New Translation. Saint John Chrysostom. Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, vol. 68. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Hassan, R. (2006). “Islamic Hagar and Her Family,” in P. Trible and L.M. Russell (eds.), Hagar, Sarah and Their Children: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives. Louisville, KN: Westminster John Knox Press, 149–​67. Heine, R.E. (1982). Origen: Homilies on Genesis and Exodus. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Heine, R.E. (2010). Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hirshman, M. (1996). A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Jacobs, A.S. (2013). “Adversus Iudaeos,” in R. Bagnall, et al. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 111–​13. Kannengiesser, C. (2006). Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Kaplan, J. (2015). My Perfect One: Typology and Early Rabbinic Interpretation of Song of Songs. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Kedari, T. (2009). “Rabbinic and Christian Models of Interaction on the Song of Songs,” in M. Poorthuis, J. Schwartz and J. Turner (eds.), Interaction Between Judaism and Christianity in History, Religion, Art and Literature. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 65–​82. Kister, M. (2018). “Parables and Proverbs in the Jesus-​Tradition and Rabbinic Literature,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 41: 5–​28. Kugel, J.L. (1986). “Two Introductions to Midrash,” in G.H. Hartman and S. Budick (eds.), Midrash and Literature. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kugel, J.L. (1990). In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Lange, N. de (1976). Origin and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-​Christian Relations in Third-​Century Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lawson, R.P. (1957). Origen: The Song of Songs Commentary and Homilies. New York, NY: Newman. Lemans, J. (2010). “After Philo and Paul: Hagar in the Writings of the Church Fathers,” in M. Goodman et al. (eds.). Abraham, the Nations and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 435–​47. Lieber, L.S. (2010). Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press. Malherbe, A. (1978). Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Martens, P.W. (2017). “Adrian’s Introduction: An ‘Antiochene’ Handbook on Biblical Exegesis,” Ancient Jew Review (online journal) Nov. 14, 2017, available at: www.ancie​ntje​wrev​iew.com/​artic​les/​2017/​8/​31/​adri​ ans-​intro​duct​ion-​an-​ant​ioch​ene-​handb​ook-​on-​bibli​cal-​exege​sis?rq=​mart​ens Martens, P.W. (ed.) (2018). Adrian’s Introduction to the Divine Scriptures: An Antiochene Handbook for Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Martyn, J.L. (1990). “The Covenants of Hagar and Sarah,” in J.T. Carroll, C.H. Cosgrove, and E. Johnson (eds.), Faith and History: Essays in Honor of Paul W. Meyer. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 160–​92. Mason, S. (2007). “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38: 457–​512. Mathews, E.G. (1991). St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Matter, E.A. (1990). The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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Carol Bakhos Millar, F., Cohn, Y., and Ben-​Eliyahu, E. (eds.) (2013). Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–​700 CE. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Niehoff, M.R. (2020). “Homer between Celsus, Origen and the Jews of Late Antique Palestina,” in J. Price and R. Zelnick-​Abramovitz (eds.), Text and Intertext in Greek Epic and Drama: Essays in Honor of Margalit Finkelberg. New York, NY and London: Routledge, 185–​209. Neusner, J. (1986). From Enemy to Sibling: Rome and Israel in the First Century of Western Civilization. New York, NY: Queens College. Neusner, J. (1999). Judaism and Its Social Metaphors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olster, D.M. (1994). Roman Defeat, Christian Response, and the Literary Construction of the Jew. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Rosen Zvi, I. (2019). “Two Midrashic Selves: Between Origen and the Mekhilta,” in M.R. Niehoff and J. Levinson (eds.), Constructions of the Self in the Roman Empire. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 469–​501. Saebø, M. (1996). Hebrew Bible/​Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Schäfer, P. (2007). Jesus in the Talmud. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schäfer, P. et al., eds. (2011). Toledot Yeshu (“The Life Story of Jesus”) Revisited. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schäfer, P. (2012). The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sheridan, M. (2002). Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament II Genesis 12–​50. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press. Simonetti, M. (1994). Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Stern, D. (1991). Parables in Midrash Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stern, D. (1996). Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Stern, D. (2008). “Ancient Jewish Interpretation of the Song of Songs in Comparative Context,” in N.B. Dorhmann and D. Stern (eds.), Jewish Biblical Interpretation and Cultural Exchange in Context. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 87–​107. Strack, H. and Stemberger, G. (2009). Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. Thompson, J.L. (2001). Writing the Wrongs: Women of the Old Testament. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Urbach, E. E. (1971). “The Homiletical Interpretations of the Sages and the Exposition of Origen on Canticles, and the Jewish Christian Disputation,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22: 248–​75. Van den Hoek, A. (1985). “Mistress and Servant: An Allegorical Theme in Philo, Clement and Origen,” in L. Lies (ed.), Origeniana Quarta. Fourth International Colloquium for Origen Studies . Innsbruck: Tyrolia-​Verlag. Van den Hoek, A. (1988). Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model. Leiden: Brill. Visotzky, B.L. (1988). Clement of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model, Leiden: Brill, 1988. Visotzky, B.L. (1988). “Jots and Tittles: On Scriptural Interpretation in Rabbinic and Patristic Literatures,” Prooftexts 8: 257–​69. Visotzky, B.L. (1995). Fathers of the World: Essays in Rabbinic and Patristic Literatures. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Walfish, B.D. (2018). “Song of Songs: The Emergence of Peshat Interpretation,” TheTorah.com (online journal), available at: https://​theto​rah.com/​arti​cle/​song-​of-​songs-​the-​emerge​nce-​of-​pes​hat-​int​erpr​ etat​ion. Wilkens, R.L. (1983). John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. Berkeley, CA: University California Press. Williams, A.L. (2013). Adversus Judaeos: A Bird’s-​Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Yadin, A. (2004). Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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20 JEWISH LETTER WRITING IN LATE ANTIQUITY Lutz Doering

According to a common definition of late antiquity, which assumes its beginning in the third century C .E ., often in the context of the so-​called “crisis” of the Roman Empire (235–​284 C.E .), and its end somewhere in the seventh or eighth century C.E ., with either the Muslim conquest or the termination of the Heraclian dynasty, the majority of the evidence for Jewish letter writing comes from either rabbinic literature or documentary finds. Apart from this, there is only sparse evidence. While the focus is on Jewish letter writing in late antiquity, I shall also refer to some tendencies and practices of earlier Jewish epistolography that have had an impact on late antique Jewish letter writing and shaped some of its features.

1.  History of Research Jewish letter writing is a topic that until recently had received only limited scholarly attention. A first attempt was made in the context of the Wissenschaft des Judentums by Joel (Julius) Müller (1886), who reviewed letters and responsa in pre-​Geonic Jewish literature, noting the sparseness of tannaitic letters and explaining it with the oral character of Jewish teaching after the Temple destruction, which did not permit the rise of epistolary literature. Franz Kobler’s two-​volume anthology, Letters of Jews (1952), contained only a few specimens from the period under discussion here. Kobler claims (1952, vol. 1: xlviii) that the early Christian use of the letter form hampered the Jewish deployment of letters after 70 C. E . Much of the subsequent research has tended to separate Jewish letters by language. Thus, Dirk Schwiderski studies Hebrew and Aramaic letters but devotes barely one page to letters from the period under discussion here (Schwiderski 2000: 330; Lindenberger 2003 is entirely limited to Hebrew and Aramaic letters dating from the seventh to the fourth century B.C. E .), while Dennis Pardee’s Handbook focuses on Hebrew letters, with a chapter on “Tannaitic letter fragments” by S. David Sperling (Pardee 1982: 183–​211). Ryan Olson limits himself to the study of Greek letters in Flavius Josephus (Olson 2010). Working with different languages, Irene Taatz concentrates on a particular letter type (Taatz 1991: “community-​leading letters”). In his influential article, Philip Alexander focuses on Second-​Temple letters (Alexander 1984). Only more recently, research has turned to the full evidence and interconnections between Jewish letters in different languages. As part of her study of ancient Jewish literacy, Catherine

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Hezser surveys letters in Josephus and rabbinic literature as well as documentary letters from Roman Palestine, arguing for a rather limited use of letters by ancient Jews (Hezser 2001: 253–​ 90). A fuller overview, including letters mentioned in literary texts, is provided by Hans-​Josef Klauck (Klauck 2006: 229–​97), while a more comprehensive and thoroughgoing discussion can be found in Doering 2012, who discusses ancient Judaean and Jewish letters from Elephantine, the Second-​Temple period, and references to letters in tannaitic and amoraic texts, both in the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora.

2.  Core Features of Ancient Jewish Letters The latter study suggests that, while Judaean/​Jewish letter writing was part and parcel of the Northwest Semitic and Greek epistolary cultures, several points affect a considerable number of (though not all) ancient Judaean/​Jewish letters: Firstly, ancient Judaeans or Jews wrote or copied letters in different languages. While this is evident in the multilingualism of the Bar-​Kokhba correspondence, from which letters in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek have survived (for which see the detailed study by Wise 2015), this is also relevant for translation processes, such as the translation of authoritative writings from Hebrew or Aramaic into Greek. In this context, we note cross-​influences between the letter traditions in different languages, such as the reduction of the initially long Aramaic (and Hebrew) epistolary salutations to the “one-​word greeting” shelam/​ shalom, presumably under the influence of the Greek “one-​word salutation” chairein (Schwiderski 2000: 313–​8; Doering 2012: 134–​8), and, conversely, the entry of “peace” terminology into the Greek Christian letter preface established by the Jew and apostle Paul (Doering 2012: 406–​15). Secondly, some Jewish letters offer special formal and content-​related peculiarities, especially in the proem –​sometimes in the form of a eulogy –​where we find expressions of gratitude to God and his salvific actions toward the Jewish people (eg 2 Macc 1:11–​17; 2 Bar. 78:3–​7) or the request to God to care for fellow Judaeans (2 Macc 1:2–​5), in a position in which Greek letters usually had a formalized wish for good health (Doering 2012: 415–​21). And thirdly, many Jewish letters from antiquity are written by groups of addressers and/​or are addressed to groups of recipients. This has partly to do with the social and political situation of the Jews in antiquity, in which leaders of Jewish communities communicated with rulers and officials, but also with the interaction between Jerusalem/​the Land of Israel and the various areas of the Jewish Diaspora. The latter is reflected in the specific letter type of the “Diaspora letter” (Doering 2012: 430–​4), which has one of its origins in Jeremiah’s written communication with the Babylonian golah (Jer 29) and was later also deployed for matters of common and uniform festival celebration (eg 2 Macc 1–​2) as well as halakhic matters (see below). The relative dearth of private letters is largely owed to the contexts in which ancient Jewish documentary letters were found: Many were preserved in archives, deliberately preserved and hidden in the Judaean desert alongside various legal documents, especially during the Bar Kokhba revolt –​ a repository form that privileges official or administrative over private, ephemeral letters.

3.  Letters in Tannaitic Literature Tannaitic texts make rare mention of letters, though they show familiarity with letter realia. Thus, several texts mention letter seals (m. Shabb. 8:5; m. Ohal. 17:5, here with reference to “letters from overseas” to “the sons of high priests”; t. Ohal. 17:6). We find references to “recipients of notes” (m. Shabb. 10:4), which are explained in b. Shabb. 52b with reference to “royal couriers”. We learn that divorce effected by letter was invalid (m. Giṭ. 6:5 [7]‌) and that it was not permissible 309

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to “send letters through a gentile on Friday” (t. Shabb. 13 [14]:11 [13]), lest the gentile carry or deliver the letter for the Jew on Shabbat. Only a few letters have survived verbatim in tannaitic literature. Whether this has to do with a focus on oral teaching and the prohibition of writing down legal rulings, as suggested by Müller (1886: 5–​7), is questionable. Alternatively, one might argue that the genre and focus of the Mishnah (and other tannaitic texts) were not amenable to the narration and quotation of epistolary exchanges. However, those letters that have been preserved are of great interest because of their specific features. Two partly related epistolary practices stand out: the use of official letters and the deployment of letters with legal (halakhic) contents. To the former group belong the letters allegedly sent out by local courts or the Jerusalem high court, respectively, during the late Second Temple period. According to rabbinic tradition, death sentences were announced by circular letters “everywhere”, presumably in Judaea (m. Sanh. 10 [11]:4; t. Sanh. 11:7), although the practical relevance is questionable, at least in the Roman period, due to the ius gladii usually being the prerogative of the governor. We also learn (t. Sanh. 7:1) that from the high court in the chamber of hewn stone “they send and search” apt candidates for the task of judge, although it is only the Bavli (b. Sanh. 88b) that expressly uses the wording here that “they write and send everywhere”. More substantially, in t. Sanh. 2:6 we find a group of three Aramaic letters ascribed to Rabban Gamliel (I or II? –​see the discussion in Doering 2012: 358–​64), which inform various regions of the Diaspora (golah) about the necessity to intercalate a month in the calendar, as well as distant areas in the Land of Israel about the time of setting aside the tithes. Interestingly, these letters use the greeting formula from two royal encyclicals in the Book of Daniel (Dan 3:31; 6:26, “may your peace/​well-​being abound”) that is also appropriated, in Greek and merged with the “Pauline” salutation, in Christian Diaspora letters and related texts (1 Pet 1:2; 2 Pet 1:2; Jud 2; and the prologues of 1 Clem., Pol. Phil., and Mart. Pol.). A tradition in Midrash Tannaim ascribes similar letters about tithing, here in Hebrew (with mere shalom as salutation and “be it known to you” as disclosure formula), to Rabban Simeon b. Gamliel and Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai (Midrash Tannaim Deut 23:13). It is possible that in writing (or being presented as writing) such letters, the leading rabbis appropriated (or are presented as appropriating) the competence that the high priests held in the late Second Temple period: According to Acts 9:1–​2 and 22:5, the high priest together with the synhedrion gave the pre-​Christian Paul letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, aiding him in bringing any adherents of “the way” (a term used for the group of Jewish Christ-​believers) bound to Jerusalem for punishment. Moreover, letters focusing on halakhic and calendrical matters continue the tradition of administrative “Diaspora letters” mentioned above. Notable features are the address “our brothers” in connection with various regions of the Diaspora and the remote areas of the Land of Israel (cf. 2 Macc 1:1; 2 Bar. 78:3–​4), variants of the so-​called disclosure formula (“we let you know that” in the Gamliel letters, “let it be known to you” in the Simeon and Yohanan letters; cf. 2 Macc 1:18; White 1986: 207), and instructions to comply with legal or calendrical rulings (cf. 2 Macc 1:10a; 2:16). The tannaitic letters thus display some connections with earlier Jewish letter writing from the Second Temple period, though at the same time they represent literary imaginations of (authoritative) letter-​writing at the beginning of late antiquity.

4.  Amoraic Representations of (Partly Earlier) Letters Halakhic and calendrical issues also occur in other letters mentioned in rabbinic texts redacted around the fifth century C. E ., therefore belonging to amoraic literature. The calendrical authority seems to have remained with rabbis in Roman-​Byzantine Palestine. Hence, R. Judah the patriarch (“Rabbi”, flourishing around 200 C. E .) allegedly wrote three letters in Hebrew to Hananiah, 310

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the nephew of R. Joshua ben Hananiah, rebuking him for his attempt to intercalate the year in Babylonia (y. Sanh. 1:2, 19a par. y. Ned. 6:13, 40a). Following epistolary etiquette, the first letter is respectfully addressed “to the holiness of Hananiah”. This address is otherwise not attested in Jewish letters but a similar formula appears in a synagogue inscription at Susiya: “the sanctity of my master, Rabbi Isi/​Isai, the priest” (Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/​Palaestinae vol. 4.2: 3870, fourth–​eighth centuries C. E ., ed. Cotton et al. 2010–​23). The tone sours in Rabbi’s second letter and reaches full-​fledged rebuke in the third, threatening the addressee with separation from the community: “If you do not accept this for yourself [i.e., to refrain from intercalating], go to the thorny wilderness and become a slaughterer, and Nehonyon will sprinkle (sc. blood)” (y. Sanh. 1:2, 19a par. y. Ned. 6:13, 40a). In the narrative, Hananiah accepts the first two letters but rejects the third, though the letter carriers deny him this opportunity and emphasize that the Torah goes forth from Zion, that is, “In our country”. This episode underlines the role of letter carriers in antiquity, who did not merely deliver letters but also supplied further information relative to the letter’s content (Head 2009). Furthermore, Rabbi is said to have written to the emperor (styled “King Antoninus”) as his client-​friend (Gen. Rab. 75:5), which is probably based on rabbinic self-​perception and self-​ presentation rather than historical fact. Again, epistolary etiquette, and hence the management of social relations, is at stake: R. Efes, commissioned by Rabbi with writing this letter, suggests the following prescript: “From Judah the Patriarch to our lord King Antoninus”, emphasizing Rabbi’s status as patriarch of the Jews, whereas Rabbi prefers the style, “From Judah your slave to our lord King Antoninus”, thereby both taking up Jacob’s self-​styling in Gen 32:5 (“Thus says your slave Jacob”) and deploying respectful terminology well-​known from official Ancient Near Eastern letters (cf. Ezra 4:11; Doering 2012: 367–​72). Thus, proper power relations need to be maintained when the leader of Palestinian Jews writes to the supreme Roman authority (in Greek? –​the text does not inform us about the language). At the same time, the text suggests that the patriarch commonly used one of his rabbinic clients as a scribe for his letters and perhaps also as letter carrier (Hezser 2001: 370). The latter aspect does not seem to be merely amoraic fiction. According to Eusebius, “even now it is customary for the Jews to call apostoloi those who bring encyclical letters from their rulers”, that is, from the Jewish patriarchs to the Diaspora (Commentary on Isaiah 18:1–​2). The content of these letters is debated. According to Jerome, the “apostles” were apparently sent out with instructions about law observance, which earlier had impressed Paul’s Galatians (Commentary on Galatians 1:1). However, Epiphanius presents the “apostles” as those who, on the one hand, advise the patriarch and, on the other hand, are concerned with tax-​collection (Panarion 30.4.2; 30.11.1–​4). The tax collection itself is called apostolē and is probably mentioned disapprovingly in a letter from the emperor Julian (apparently written in 363 C . E ., of disputed authenticity), in which he exhorts “my brother Iulus [=​Hillel], the most reverend patriarch, to rescind that which is called among you the apostolē” (Stern 1980: no. 486a); a similar mention is found in a law by Honorius, issued in the western part of the empire in 399 C . E . (Cod. Theod. 16.8.14). It can be assumed that in exchange for the contribution of funds and taxes the patriarchs and his representatives interceded on behalf of Diaspora Jews before the Roman authorities. Seth Schwartz has suggested that the network of fundraising and taxation gave the patriarchs a stronger standing in the Diaspora than in the Land of Israel (Schwartz 1999), although this might underestimate the networks of the patriarchs in Roman Palestine. Schwartz also argues that the “apostles” were particularly trained in rhetoric and thus rather distinct from rabbis. However, given the role of rabbis in patriarchal correspondence mentioned above, one should probably not press the difference too much. 311

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This is also suggested by references to letters of recommendation as a specific letter type of which the patriarchs made use, according to both amoraic sources and the Greek letter collection of the Antiochian rhetor Libanius. Thus, an often-​quoted example is a story in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Ḥag 1:8, 76d par. y. Ned. 10:8, 42b): R. Hiyyah bar Ba asks R. Eleazar to intervene with the patriarch, R. Yudan Nesi’a, to write for him a letter of recommendation because he wishes to move abroad for his livelihood. The patriarch answers this request, writing, “Behold, we are sending you a great man, our messenger, and he is like us until he returns to us”. Note the Hebrew terminology for “messenger” (shaliach), for which apostolos is the Greek equivalent. Most likely, R. Hiyya has been appointed as the patriarch’s messenger and is now commended as such to a patron abroad (Gafni 2010). On the other hand, in the second half of the fourth century C . E ., the Jewish patriarch corresponded with the famous rhetor Libanius, with only the latter’s part of the Greek epistolary exchange having survived, which however refers to the patriarch’s letters as well. These letters, for the most part, commend mutual protégés (occasionally also female ones) to patronage abroad or discuss aspects of their visit (see Stern 1980: nos. 496–​503). Again, we see the importance of letters of recommendation in the maintenance of networks. Amoraic texts also preserve (or imagine) letters from earlier periods. Thus, the Jerusalemites are said to have written to the Alexandrian Jews and asked for the return of a certain person who had taken refuge in Alexandria. The setting is different in the two Talmuds. According to the Yerushalmi, the letter requests the return of Judah ben Tabbai, partner and rival of Simeon ben Shetach in the first century B . C . E .: Having allegedly been appointed nasi’ by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Judah fled to Alexandria, “and the inhabitants of Jerusalem wrote: ‘From Jerusalem the Great to Alexandria the Small. How long is my betrothed sitting at your place and I am sitting grieving over him?’ ” (y. Ḥag. 2:2, 77d; cf. also the parallel in y. Sanh. 6:9, 23c, with a slightly different wording in the body of the letter). The parallels in the Bavli, however, feature a different setting: Here, it is Joshua ben Perahiah who had fled to Alexandria because of the killing of Pharisees (the Bavli says: of “our rabbis”) under King Alexander Jannaeus, and Simeon ben Shetah sent a letter to Alexandria summoning Joshua back when peace returned. Thus, b. Soṭah 47a presents the following wording of the letter: “From me, Jerusalem, the holy city, to you, Alexandria, my sister. My husband is staying in your midst, and I am sitting desolate” (see the parallel in b. Sanh. 107b; for the terminology, cf. the inscription “Jerusalem, the holy” on the reverse of coins from the first revolt). To be sure, “[i]‌t is hard to see why such a tradition was preserved or invented after 70” (Alexander 2018: 266). Most likely, this letter in its variations preserves some memories of power relations between Jerusalem and Alexandria (or Egyptian Jewry) in the late Second Temple period and elaborates them in different ways. Peter Schäfer has suggested that the original setting was a request by the Jerusalemites authorities under Hasmonaean rule that the Oniad priest at the Leontopolis temple return to Jerusalem as high priest (Schäfer 1998). However, the different uses to which the letter is put in the Talmuds suggest that the power relations were generic in nature and were remembered without the precise historical context. Another letter in the Bavli also reflects on relations between Jerusalem and the Diaspora in the Second Temple period. According to b. Pesaḥ. 3b, R. Judah ben Bathyra, who resided in Neṣibin (probably Nisibis), helped expose a Syrian gentile who, pretending to be a Jew, boasted of (illegally) eating from the Passover sacrifice: R. Judah instructed him to ask for a part forbidden for consumption. The Temple authorities asked the gentile who instructed him, and he gave R. Judah’s name. Therefore, the authorities “sent” to R. Judah ben Bathyra (according to Neusner 1969: 46–​52, there were two persons by this name, this one apparently being the first-​century C.E . 312

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R. Judah): “Well-​being (shelam) to you, R. Judah ben Bathyra, for you are in Neṣibin, but your net is spread in Jerusalem”. The use of the salutation shelam, typical of Roman-​period Aramaic letters, suggests that their message was delivered by way of a letter. On the other hand, the combination of the salutation with the congratulatory statement shows a creative and adaptive deployment of the Aramaic letter form.

5.  Letters on Halakhic Matters in the Talmud Yerushalmi and Bavli In both Talmuds we find increased references to letters exchanged among rabbis on halakhic issues (Müller 1886: 8–​10 with endnotes; Hezser 2001: 271–​2). An example in the Yerushalmi mentioning relatively early rabbis is y. Nid. 3:2, 50c: According to R. Ba, R. Hiyya the Elder went to the South and was asked by two colleagues there about the status of an aborted fetus. He did not know the answer and went back to consult Rabbi, who advised him to “go forth and write to them” that the abortion is no viable fetus. Particularly in the Yerushalmi, the formula typically used for epistolary inquiries regarding halakhic problems is “R. X sent [and] asked” (shalach sha‘al). Thus, y. Qidd. 3:14, 64d states that R. Tanhum ben Papa “sent and asked” R. Yose about two cases that had come from Alexandria regarding questionable marriage connections. R. Yose “sent and wrote” in response to these two cases and asked his colleagues and former students R. Mana and R. Berekhiah to sign the letter as well. While the first complied, the latter initially refused to sign, and when he was finally persuaded to do so the letter had already been sent off. Similarly, R. Yohanan “sent and asked” R. Simeon ben R. Yose ben Laqonia about a warning concerning the prohibition of intercourse with an unclean woman (y. Hor. 2:5, 46d), and R. Judah “sent and asked” R. Eleazar regarding the legal status of a placenta (y. Nid. 3:4, 50d). In addition, sages located in different places exchanged information about the ruling of specific cases, such as three rabbis judging the case of Tamar, who complained about them to the governor of Caesarea, whereupon the three rabbis wrote to R. Abbahu in Caesarea, who then wrote back to them (y. Meg. 3:2, 74a), or R. Yohanan’s advice regarding a case in Antioch suggesting that the case should be heard in Antioch rather than he (in Tiberias) be chosen as judge, and that the judges there “write and send to rabbis” (y. Sanh. 3:2, 21a; Hezser 2001: 272). In the Bavli, in contrast, the usual terminology for epistolary communication seems to be merely shalach, “sent” (Thomson 2000: 211, 219–​21; see b. Pes. 3b above). Sometimes personal attacks and questioning of the addressee’s behavior are the topic of short epistolary exchanges, such as in b. B. Meṣ. 83b, where R. Eleazar ben R. Simeon, in a letter from R. Joshua ben Qorḥa, is accused of denouncing fellow Jews to the king’s palace, on which R. Eleazar replies that he is merely eradicating “thorns from the vineyard”. However, more widespread is the use of letters to convey exhortation or guidance or to request legal advice. Thus, b. Ned. 81a recounts an epistolary instruction from the Land of Israel to Babylonia (“they sent from there”): “Be careful with regard to grime, be careful with regard to [Torah study in] company, be careful with regard to [the education of] the sons of paupers”. According to b. San 12a, during the time of Roman persecution the sages in the Land of Israel, “sent” an encoded message to Rava, hinting figuratively at the correct time of intercalation, which may be determined before Rosh Hashanah but publicized only after that day. Halakhic questions were also sent by way of letter between sages in Palestine and Babylonia. Thus, Rav “hung” a question regarding the potential seizure of mortgaged property for the benefit of the daughters’ dowries “between the lines” of a letter to Rabbi, who then discussed it with R. Hiyya sitting before him (b. Ketub. 69a; cf. y. Giṭ. 5:3, 46d). Interestingly, most of what is “sent” in these letters seems to have been formulated in Hebrew, not Aramaic (Margaliot 1962: 24–​5). 313

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It seems that the post-​talmudic genre of the responsa, which is documented from the Geonic period onwards, has a veritable precursor in these epistolary exchanges mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, to which one might compare the responses of Roman jurists and the rescripts of the church fathers. Sometimes we hear of the “the people”) of a certain place “sending” to a sage and posing their halakhic or practical questions. Thus, the “people of Bashkar sent to Levi” about setting up a canopy (on the Sabbath), about cuscuta (hops) in a vineyard (ie whether it constitutes kila’im), and about (the burial of) a person who died on a holiday (b. Shabb. 139a). According to another source, the “people of Akra de-​Agma sent to Shmuel” about competing claims of sons to be the firstborn (b. B. Bat. 127a). The letters of halakhic content demonstrate that amoraic rabbis did not have problems with writing down matters of “Oral Torah”. In the anonymous stratum of the Bavli’s redaction (the stam) there is no evidence of epistolary communication, although the Geonim, as mentioned, are very well versed in writing responsa and other letters.

6.  Greek Jewish Documentary Letters from Late Antiquity In addition to references to letters and letter-​writing in rabbinic literature, several documentary letters written by Jews in late antiquity have been preserved. Let us start with papyrus letters in Greek. The evidence is not overwhelming, not least due to the near-​absence of Jews from the documentary record in the aftermath of the crushing of the Diaspora revolt under Trajan 115–​ 117 C .E . Some of the evidence is debated because “biblical” names were shared by Christians and the Christian population drastically increased in the third and fourth centuries C.E ., casting doubt on the identification of some texts as “Jewish” (see eg Epp 2006). So far, most finds date from the fourth century C. E . but there is at least one later specimen. While the extant late antique Greek Jewish letters were all found in Egypt, one of them (to be discussed below) originated in Eleutheropolis (Bet Guvrin) in Palestine. Formally, these letters follow the more elevated Greek epistolary style of late antiquity. Thus, the prescript, even in private letters, gives the addressee in the first position, sometimes lacking the standard Greek salutation chairein; a common respectful address is kyrios “lord, sir” in combination with “father” or the like (cf. Exler 1923: 61, 63; White 1986: 200 assumes Latin influence). An example is P. Oxy. XLVI 3314 (fourth century C.E .), “To my lord (and) father Iōsē and to my spouse Maria, Ioudas”, the names –​especially Judas as an unlikely choice for Christians –​ suggesting Jews (so cautiously Epp 2006: 38–​43). In this specimen, Ioudas, who lies ill in the Egyptian Babylon (Fustat) having fallen from his horse, prays to “the divine pronoia” for the addressees’ health before asking his wife –​“my lady (kyria) [and] sister” –​to send her own brother to help him with his injury in a strange place, where hardly anyone else can be found for assistance. The letter seems to have been drawn up by a scribe, while Ioudas apparently adds a health wish in his own handwriting. Another, fragmentary private letter (SB XIV 11541, sixth to seventh century C . E .), mentioning a prostatēs (here probably “patron”; cf. Schürer 1986: 102 with n. 54), recounts that someone passed away, that one Ioustos went away, and probably that something happened on, or in relation to, the Sabbath. One letter from the early fourth century C.E . is a business letter referring to wine trade (P. Oxy. LXI 4123), this time with the prescript, “Theudas to his brother Ananias, greeting”. The former, his name an unlikely choice for a Christian in light of Acts 5:36, orders the latter to pay a certain amount of money to a logopraktōr (an official of unclear function). Finally, three extant letters are petitions: P. Herm. 52 and 53 (399 C.E .) consist of a petition and its duplicate (copy?) addressed to Aurelius Petrus, magistrate and nyktostratēgos (a kind of police officer) of Hermoupolis Magna, “from Aurelius Annan, son of Iōsēs, Jew”, about a burglary in the latter’s basement in the previous night. Another petition, P. Herm. 20 (fourth century C.E ., of unknown 314

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provenance), by “Aurelius Beniamin, of Iōsēs, the father [i.e., the son of Iōsēs]”, complains about grave bodily harm infringed on the addressor’s brother by a group of men. It refers to an earlier petition, asks again that the culprits be summoned, and closes with dieutychei (“good fortune”), which is the typical final salutation of Greek petitions from this period (Exler 1923: 72). The final petition to be mentioned here is P. Oxy. L 3574, from ca. 314 to 318 C.E ., found at Oxyrhynchus. The petitioner is Aurelius Malchus, son of Eiōnathas, from the region of Eleutheropolis in Nea Arabia, ie as mentioned above, Bet Guvrin in Palestine. He petitions to Aurelius Antonius, “the most illustrious praeses of Aegyptus Herculia”, ie the governor of the neighboring province in the reorganized early Byzantine East, regarding a claim against one Didymus of Boubastos, who held a jar of wine that the petitioner had put up as a security on a loan of money to one Saeibas of Skenai ektos Gerous, both towns in the East Delta of Egypt. The money was not paid, and the wine, kept for a long time, went bad. If Aurelius Malchus, son of Eiōnathas, is rightly deemed a Jew (Mayerson 1994: 255), the document shows fairly wide-​ranging business connections and communication involving Jews and non-​Jews across provincial borders, which are “treated as absolutely routine” (Bagnall 1993: 108). Again, the final salutation in the petition is dieutychei. We also find the remark of the scribe who wrote the petition because Aurelius “does not know letters”, at least not enough to draft such a document.

7.  Aramaic and Hebrew Jewish Documentary Letters from Late Antiquity Apart from the Greek specimens, there are a number of late antique documentary letters in Aramaic and Hebrew found in Egypt, with paleographical dates from the fourth (possibly the third, see below) to the eighth centuries C. E . (cf. Sirat 1985: 55–​68). These letters might attest to the revival of the use of Aramaic and Hebrew in Egypt in late antiquity (see Ilan 2015), though a few of them appear to come from Palestine. Most of the Aramaic specimens seem to be private letters to one or more individuals, often family members. Thus, Oxford Ms. Heb. e 120 (Cowley 1903: 7; Sirat 1985: 125, plate 88) is a letter from a woman, Ḥarqan, the daughter of Jonathan the priest, to her brother Eleazar, who is addressed with a series of endearing terms (“my darling, my beloved, my hope, and my prospect”), which appear to suggest a particular rapport between sister and brother. The contents of this brief letter focus on the well-​being of the brother’s family, but the letter occupies only the uppermost part of the papyrus sheet, leaving much of it uninscribed. A wide range of dates has been suggested for this letter: While initially associated with the eighth century, the date has subsequently been brought down to the sixth and even to the third century C.E . (the latter date was suggested by Ada Yardeni; see Mishor 2000: 53 with n. 2 and 5; Ilan 2020: 406 with n. 30–​ 31). The letter might have been penned by Ḥarqan herself (for discussion see Ilan 2020: 407–​8), which would render it the oldest specimen of an Aramaic letter in the handwriting of a Jewish woman (CPJ III 424, from 87 C. E ., seems to be an older letter in Greek written down by a woman, Ioannē: see Bagnall and Cribiore 2006: 291–​2). While Arthur Cowley took the fact that the letter covers only a small part of the papyrus sheet as evidence that it might never have been finished and sent off (and thus originated in Egypt, where it was found), Mordecai Mishor (2000) argued that observable traces of the letter folding render this unlikely and that the letter must therefore have been dispatched. According to Mishor, Ḥarqan, probably residing in Palestine, took advantage of the sudden opportunity of a letter carrier and therefore kept the letter short. Other letters of familial contents deploy multiple iterations of shelam “well-​being”, often intensified with sagi “much”, at or near the beginning of the text (not at the end of the prescript as, eg in the Bar Kokhba letters). This shows that epistolary salutations continued to be creatively 315

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developed in late antique Aramaic (and Hebrew) letters. Like their Greek counterparts (see above), these letters tend to be more formal and somewhat verbose in the Byzantine period. Thus, the Aramaic letter Oxford Ms. Heb. f 114 (Cowley 1903: 7–​8; Sirat 1985: 125, plate 89) begins: “Well-​ being, well-​being, much well-​being (shalom shelam sagi shelam)”, with shelam being reiterated further in the course of the letter; note the first word of the salutation is in Hebrew (similarly in Oxford Ms. Heb. c 58: Sirat 1985: 120, plate 74, the only letter from this period on parchment]). The letter features Greek loan words, inter alia, for the word “letter” proper (epistulitah). Berlin P. 8149 (Sirat 1985: 108, plate 38; Beyer 1994: 243) contains copies of two letters, one beginning with “well-​being and much well-​being to Sir Sambati, my son,” the other with “well-​being and much well-​being to Sambati, my brother”. The two letters are written in different hands, possibly by two authors to the same addressee (Sirat ibid. suggests that the second is an answer to the first). The number of Greek loanwords is remarkable. The second letter has the greeting from Dan 3 and 6 Masoretic Text, used in the Gamliel letters mentioned above, toward the end (“and may your well-​being abound forever”). Apparently, this formula was no longer reserved for encyclical letters by the time of writing. This is also the case in Berlin P. 8283 (Sirat 1985: 109, plate 40; Beyer 1994: 243), a letter from Sarah to her sons Tanhum and Itzhak: It begins with “well-​being and much well-​being” (though, different from the previous example, mentioning the author first: “from Sarah, from her, to you, my sons”) and toward the end uses the phrase, “and your well-​being and mu[ch] well-​being [… that] you have may abound and multiply forever”. A final example of formulas and salutations can be found in Oxford Ms. Heb. e 111k (Sirat 1985: 124 [here given as “111i”], plate 85; Beyer 1994: 244): “To my son Menahai from your father, much [well-​being]!” Somewhat striking here is the use of first-​and second-​person suffixes, as compared with the largely “third-​person” style in the Aramaic letters from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. While contents are often unclear in these letters, there can be no doubt that the expressions of mutual friendship or, in the terms of epistolary theory, philophronesis, is greatly enhanced here. Alongside Aramaic letters, there are also a number of Hebrew letters. One remarkable specimen from ca. 500 C.E . (Oxford Ms. Heb. d 69; Sirat 1985: 120–​1, plate 75; Mishor 1989), which does not originate from Egypt but from Palestine, is a private letter about a complex case of recovering a loan. The author, Leazar ben Jose, had lent money to the addressee, Jacob ben Itzhak in “the South”. Having received back about half of the loan, Leazar travelled to Jacob’s place but could not find him because he had gone “to the Aramean dog” (?). Shortly before the Sabbath he came home but all of his money was with “the Arameans”. Creditor and debtor then agreed to increase the amount to be paid back, and Leazar is now asking Jacob in this letter to send the amount with a trustworthy person, suggesting in an afterthought that the carrier of the present letter might bring the money along on his way back. The letter features an extended and respectful prescript, apparently intended to find favor with the addressee (“Much well-​being from on-​high and profit from above forever, without end, to Sir Jacob ben Itzhak, well-​being”), as well as an elaborate final salutation (“your well-​being and that of all the members of your household be fruitful and multiply forever; well-​being”). Following the afterthought mentioned above, the author adds a further expression of self-​belittling and hence aggrandizing of the addressee (“your slave, your dust, your pupil”), and a final statement declares that one Issi acted as scribe on his behalf. Other exemplars are official letters, recognizable by a careful script and layout as well as a reference to the situation of communication. Most of the extant ones are in Hebrew, although there are some Aramaic and mixed Hebrew-​Aramaic specimens too. One Hebrew official letter (Oxford Ms. Heb. c 57a, fourth to fifth century C. E ., found at Oxyrhynchus; Cowley 1915: 210–​11; Sirat 1985: 120, plate 73) is “from the heads of the synagogue” and “the members of the synagogue” of an unknown location to another “head of the synagogue … and to the elders of the synagogue and 316

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to … the entire holy congregation” of another place. The authors assure the addressees that they will pray for their lives and for the well-​being of their children and their households. Another official letter from the same period (John Rylands Library Manchester, Box 5 14/​26; Sirat 1985: 118, plate 70–​71), written in a blend of Hebrew and Aramaic (note shelam), also mentions a “head of the synagogue”, though it is not entirely clear whether this is a designation of the addressee or the author. A further “head of the synagogue” is mentioned, probably as author, in a fragmentary letter from the fifth or the sixth century C. E . (Ms. Vienna H36; Sirat 1985: 95, plate 8), and a potentially later letter found at Oxyrhynchus likely refers to “the heads of the[synagogue” too, here, as addressees (Oxford Ms. Heb. d 83b; Cowley 1915: 212; the letter mentions also prostatin, from Greek prostatēs, probably “patrons”, see above). Finally, a further letter from the sixth or the seventh century C. E . (Florence PSI inv. 26018 +​26019; Sirat 1985: 107, plate 34–​35; Mishor 1991: 286–​7), again referring to the “head of the synagogue”, fragmentarily mentions “the entire holy congregation”: “they do good works”, “we have written to your honor immediately”, “and we are checking the matter tomorrow”, ending with the salutation “forever, well-​being”). An Aramaic example of an official letter, on account of its ornate script (Mishor 1989: 246), seems to be extant in Berlin P. 8281 +​P. 8282 +​P. 8489 (Sirat 1985: 109, plate 40), again deploying the well-​known Aramaic initial salutation “well-​being, much we[ll-​being]”.

8.  Potentially Jewish Literary Letters Apart from the rabbinic and documentary letters, there are two potential literary letters preserved in Latin from (late) antiquity, which might be attributed to Jews, though the matter is debated. One is the pseudonymous Letter of Mordecai to Alexander, transmitted in Latin as an appendix to one of the medieval versions (recension J3) of the Alexander Romance (Siegert 2006). The superscription reads, “To the highest ruler Alexander, the philosopher—​Mordecai, the lowliest of the Judaeans, most humble greetings (servitutem)”. The letter, which shows strong Stoic influences and may have been a translation from the Greek, as the introduction claims, deals with knowledge of God and the divine creation of the world, includes a cosmological proof of God, recommends monotheistic worship, and discusses the purpose of the creation of humankind, the immortality of the soul, and the notion of a Last Judgement with double outcome. According to Siegert, the composition might be dated to the early Roman Empire, when traditions about Alexander were added, and might be a rare specimen of Jewish “public relations” in antiquity. However, it is difficult to establish the date of this text (cf. Dionisotti 1988, who probes both a medieval date and one in the fourth century) and unclear whether –​if indeed ancient –​it was ever “published” before the Middle Ages. The other potential literary Jewish letter, also preserved in Latin, is the Epistola Anne ad Senecam de superbia et idolis “Letter of Annas to Seneca on Pride and Idols”. This text was discovered by Bernhard Bischoff in a ninth-​ century Latin manuscript in the library of the archbishops of Cologne and published in 1984. Its intellectual standard is considerably higher than that of the pseudonymous Seneca-​Paul correspondence, which similarly draws on Seneca’s name. The text, which again shows strong Stoic leanings, deals with God as the Creator of the world and of humankind, criticizes the veneration of creatures in lieu of the Creator, exposes misguided philosophical ideas about the soul –​ which is affirmed as being divine and returning to heaven after death –​polemicizes against the useless veneration of human-​made idols, points out the perceptibility of God from the order of nature, and, before breaking off, attributes pagan idolatry, especially the cult of the Liber Pater, the Italian god of vegetation and wine, to human desires and vices. However, there is disagreement about the provenance of this fragmentary text, 317

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probably dating from around the fourth century (in which the Seneca-​Paul correspondence was likely forged): While Bischoff (1984), Momigliano (1985), Cracco Ruggini (1988), Wischmeyer (1990), and Rutgers (1995) accept Jewish provenance, Hilhorst (1991), Jakobi (2001), and Ramelli (2004) argued for a Christian background, supported more recently by Fürst (2006). The argument in favor of Christian provenance includes the observation that the antiidolatry polemic derives from the biblical book of Wisdom (chs. 13–​15) rather than from post-​biblical Jewish tradition; secondly, that the address fratres “brothers”, occurring twice in the text, would not be conceivable for a Jewish author writing to pagans but would fit a Christian author, either as an address to fellow-​Christians (Hilhorst 1991: 160–​1) or as an address to the brotherhood of all humans in the paternity of God (Ramelli 2004: 39); and finally, as proposed by Jakobi and defended by Fürst, that the letter’s incipit suffered a transcriptional error and would have originally read Epistola Annaei Senecae, “Letter of Annaeus Seneca”, thereby leaving no room for a Jewish author. On the other hand, Sterk (2014: 6) has recently observed correctly that the fratres “are not the prime addressee of the text but represent a … group addressed in an apostrophe within the text”, which he identifies as “a Iamblichan neoplatonic group”. Sterk also revives the earlier suggestion that “Annas” here is not the Sadducean high priest familiar from Josephus and a contemporary of Seneca but rather an Annas (Momigliano 1985: 218–​9), possibly Annas the didascalus Iudaeorum twice mentioned in Codex Theodosianus (Cod. Theod. 16.9.3 of 415 C. E . and 16.8.23 of 416 C.E .; Rutgers 1995: 254; Sterk 2014: 152–​4). This Annas, according to Sterk, could then well be the real author of the letter, rendering only the name of Seneca spurious. Sterk thinks this name might stand in for a “circle of aristocratic pagans who formed around the Symmachi and Nicomachi in Rome” (Sterk 2014: 192). More generally, Heil (2020: 69, 94–​6) has argued that the Epistola is a Jewish text composed in Latin, perhaps in Southern Europe. On the other hand, the proposal by Jakobi and Fürst would elegantly solve the problem that the text, apart from the incipit, does not ostensibly address “Seneca” but might fit an ascription to Seneca due to its Stoic outlook, though this proposal remains conjectural and does not really explain how and why the original incipit was corrupted. As matters currently stand, the Epistola Anne ad Senecam is a potential but disputed witness to Jewish literary letters in late antiquity.

9. Conclusion In sum, Jewish letter writing in late antiquity continued some earlier trends of Jewish letter writing, especially the communication with and between communities, partly between the Land of Israel and the Diaspora, which is now supplemented by rabbinic letters to individual colleagues. In contrast to the paucity of letters in tannaitic literature, letter writing is mentioned much more often in amoraic texts. Amoraic rabbis are portrayed as communicating with colleagues and the patriarch, and the latter with influential non-​Jews of the higher echelons, which –​as the Libanius letters show –​ may in part reflect historical reality. During this period, epistolary inquiries on halakhic issues, especially mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, also prepare the ground for the later Geonic responsa. Documentary letters found in Egypt, after a hiatus following the Diaspora revolt of 115–​17 C. E ., are attested again for the fourth and possibly the third century C.E . While the Greek documentary letters continue to follow Greek epistolary style, which however becomes more elaborate in the Byzantine period, Aramaic and Hebrew documentary letters authored by Jews develop especially new variations of the “peace” greeting that are more eloquent and complex than the earlier examples. Like Aramaic letters from the early Hellenistic period, these letters contain many Greek loanwords. Both private and official letters in Hebrew and Aramaic are attested in Egypt. While some of the letters found in Egypt might have originated there, others 318

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stem from letter writers in Palestine. Both reflect the resurgence of Aramaic and Hebrew in Egypt in late antiquity. There is evidence that Jews either had scribes pen their letters or, more rarely, wrote in their own, at times clumsy handwriting. Finally, Jews might occasionally have deployed literary letters in the context of philosophical debate, defending monotheistic beliefs and engaging in “public relations”, although the details remain debated.

Bibliography Alexander, P.S. (1984). “Epistolary Literature,” in M. E. Stone (ed.), Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus. Assen: Van Gorcum and Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 579–​96. Alexander, P.S. (2018). “ ‘From Me, Jerusalem, the Holy City, to You Alexandria in Egypt. My Sister …’ (Bavli Sanhedrin 107b): The Role of Letters in Power Relations between ‘Centre’ and ‘Periphery’ in Judaism in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Islamic Periods,” in P. Ceccarelli et al. (eds.), Letters and Communities: Studies in the Socio-​Political Dimensions of Ancient Epistolography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 253–​70. Bagnall, R. S. (1993). Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bagnall, R. S. and Cribiore, R. (2006). Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC–​AD 800. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Beyer, K. (1994). Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer. Ergänzungsband. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Bischoff, B. (1984). “Der Brief des Hohenpriesters Annas an den Philosophen Seneca –​eine jüdisch-​ apologetische Missionsschrift (Viertes Jahrhundert?),” in idem, Anecdota novissima: Texte des vierten bis sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1–​9. Cotton, H.M. et al. (eds.) (2010–​23). Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/​Palaestinae. A Multi-​Lingual Corpus of the Inscriptions from Alexander to Muhammad, vols. 1.1-​5.2. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. Cowley, A. E. (1903). “Hebrew and Aramaic Papyri,” Jewish Quarterly Review 16/​1: 1–​8. Cowley, A. E. (1915). “Notes on Hebrew Papyrus Fragments from Oxyrhynchus,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 2/​4: 209–​13. Cracco Ruggini, L. (1988). “La Lettera di Anna a Seneca nella Roma pagana e cristiana del IV secolo,” Augustinianum 28: 301–​25. Dionisotti, A. C. (1988). “The Letter of Mardochaeus the Jew to Alexander the Great: A Lecture in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 51: 1–​13. Doering, L. (2012). Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian Epistolography. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Epp, E.J. (2006). “The Jews and the Jewish Community in Oxyrhynchus: Socio-​Religious Context for the New Testament Papyri,” in T.J. Kraus and T. Nicklas (eds.), The New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Exler, F.X.J. (1923). The Form of the Ancient Greek Letter: A Study in Greek Epistolography. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America. Fürst, A. (2006). “Der Brief des Annaeus Seneca über Hochmut und Götterbilder: Ein angeblicher Brief des Hohenpriesters Annas an Seneca,” in idem et al., Der apokryphe Briefwechsel zwischen Seneca und Paulus: Zusammen mit dem Brief des Mordechai an Alexander und dem Brief des Annaeus Seneca über Hochmut und Götterbilder. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 176–​97. Gafni, I.M. (2010). “Epistles of the Patriarchs in Talmudic Literature” (Hebrew), in Z. Weiss et al. (eds.), “Follow the Wise”: Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honot of L. I. Levine. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 3–​10. Head, P.M. (2009). “Letter Carriers in the Jewish Epistolary Material,” in C.A. Evans and H.D. Zacharias (eds.), Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon. London: T&T Clark, 203–​19. Heil, J. (2020). “Für ein Corpus jüdisch-​lateinischer Texte der Spätantike und des Frühmittelalters: Überlegungen zur Erforschung der vorrabbinischen Kultur des Judentums im westlichen Mittelmeerraum,” Sefer Yuḥasin 8: 65–​103. Hezser, C. (2001). Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

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Lutz Doering Hilhorst, A. (1991). “The ‘Epistola Anne ad Senecam’: Jewish or Christian? With a New Edition of the Text,” in G.J M. Bartelink, C. H. Kneepkens, and A. Hilhorst (eds.), Eulogia: Mélanges offerts à Antoon A. R. Bastiaensen à l’occasion de son soixante-​cinquième anniversaire. Steenbrugge: St. Pietersabdij, 147–​62. Ilan, T. (2015). “The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 CE in Light of Old and New Papyri,” in Y. Furstenberg (ed.), Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 203–​24. Ilan, T. (2020). “An Addendum to Bagnall and Cribiore, Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt: Two Aramaic Letters from Jewish Women,” in A. Salvesen, S. Pearce and M. Frenkel (eds.), Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 397–​416. Jakobi, R. (2001). Die sogenannte “Epistula Anne ad Senecam”: Verfasserfrage, Edition, Kommentar. Torún: Nicolaus Copernicus University. Klauck, H.-​J. (2006). Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Kobler, F. (1952). Letters of Jews through the Ages: From Biblical Times to the Middle of the Eighteenths Century. 2 vols. London: Ararat Publishing Society. Lindenberger, J. M. (2003). Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic Letters. 2nd ed. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Margaliot, E. (1962). “Hebrew and Aramaic in Talmud and Midrash” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 27–​28: 20–​33. Mayerson, P. (1994). Monks, Martyrs, Soldiers and Saracens: Papers on the Near East in Late Antiquity (1962–​1993). Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society in Association with New York University. Mishor, M. (1989). “MS. Heb. d.69 (O) Oxford Hebrew Letter” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 53: 215–​64. Mishor, M. (1991). “The Hebrew Papyruses in the Genizah” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 65: 281–​8. Mishor, M. (2000). “Papyrus Oxford e.12” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 63: 55–​9. Momigliano, A. (1985). “The New Letter by ‘Anna’ to ‘Seneca’ (Ms. 17 Erzbischöfliche Bibliothek in Köln),” Athenaeum N.S. 63: 217–​9. Müller, J. (1886). “Briefe und Responsen in der vorgeonäischen jüdischen Literatur,” Berichte über die Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums in Berlin 4: 3–​36. Neusner, J. (1969). A History of the Jews of Babylonia: vol. 1: The Parthian Period. 2nd rev. ed. Leiden: Brill. Olson, R. S. (2010). Tragedy, Authority, and Trickery: The Poetics of Embedded Letters in Josephus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pardee, D. (1982). Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Letters. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Ramelli, I. (2004). “L’Epistola Anne ad Senecam de Superbia et Idolis, documento pseudoepigrafico probabilmente cristiano,” Augustinianum 44: 25–​50. Rutgers, L.V. (1995). The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora. Leiden: Brill. Schäfer, P. (1998). “ ‘From Jerusalem the Great to Alexandria the Small’: The Relationship between Palestine and Egypt in the Graeco-​Roman Period,” in idem (ed.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 129–​40. Schürer, E. (1986). The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–​A.D. 135), vol. III/​ 1, revised and edited by G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Schwartz, S. (1999). “The Patriarchs and the Diaspora,” Journal of Jewish Studies 50: 208–​22. Schwiderski, D. (2000). Handbuch des nordwestsemitischen Briefformulars: Ein Beitrag zur Echtheitsfrage der aramäischen Briefe des Esrabuches. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Siegert, F. (2006). “Der Brief des Mordechai an Alexander: Zur jüdischen Öffentlichkeitsarbeit in der Antike,” in A. Fürst et al., Der apokryphe Briefwechsel zwischen Seneca und Paulus: Zusammen mit dem Brief des Mordechai an Alexander und dem Brief des Annaeus Seneca über Hochmut und Götterbilder. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 147–​74. Sirat, C. (1985). Les papyrus en caractères hébraïques trouvés en Égypte. Paris: Éditions du CNRS. Sterk, A. (2014). The Epistola Anne ad Senecam in its Literary and Historical Context. PhD Dissertation, University of Manchester. Stern, M. (1980). Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Edited with Introductions, Translations and Commentary, vol. 2. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Taatz. I. (1991). Früjhüdische Briefe: Die paulinischen Briefe im Rahmen der offiziellen religiösen Briefe des Frühjudentums. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Jewish Letter Writing in Late Antiquity Tomson, P.J. (2000). “Halakhic Correspondence in Antiquity: Qumran, Paul and the Babylonian Talmud,” in J.T. Pawlikowski and H.G. Perelmuter (eds.), Reinterpreting Revelation and Tradition: Jews and Christians in Conversation. Franklin, WI: Sheet & Ward, 210–​30. White, J.L. (1986). Light from Ancient Letters. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress. Wischmeyer, W. (1990). “Die Epistola Anne ad Senecam. Eine jüdische Missionsschrift des lateinischen Bereichs,” in J. van Amersfoort and J. van Oort (eds.), Juden und Christen in der Antike. Kampen: J.H. Kok, 72–​93. Wise, M. O. (2015). Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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PART V

The Development of a Jewish Visual Culture

21 VISUALITY IN RABBINIC JUDAISM Karen B. Stern

Conceptual turns in fields of visual studies are finally beginning to impact scholarship of rabbinic Judaism. Explanations for historical delays in these developments are twofold. Firstly, scholars traditionally have emphasized textuality (and inter-​textuality) rather than visuality in their studies of rabbinic Judaism because most documentation for ancient rabbis is literary rather than visual. Secondly, scholarship has reified specific interpretations of biblical (and subsequent rabbinic) prohibitions against making and venerating images by overlooking the significance of sight and viewing practices in rabbinic writings. But as recent monographs and articles now clearly demonstrate, visuality and the visual, as defined broadly below, played extraordinarily important roles in the textual, epistemic, exegetical, devotional, social, and cultural worlds of ancient rabbis. Closer studies of texts of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds, and exegetical Midrashim, moreover, reveal multiple ways in which rabbis regulated modes of seeing as a means to direct daily activities among rabbinic Jews and to circumscribe their relationships with Levantine and Babylonian cultures that encompassed them. Despite the fact that rabbinic Judaism is best attested textually (with exceptions considered in Cohen 1981; Rosenfeld 2010; Lapin 2011; Miller 2004), this chapter suggests that enhanced attention to the role of visuality in rabbinic corpora, as informed by advances in visual theory, art history, the history of the senses, and cognate disciplines, demonstrates how varied, potent, and interactive rabbinic modes of seeing were. Discussions of such features ultimately promise renewed insights into the sensory experiences and varied cultural dynamics that ancient rabbinic societies advocated and practiced. The following discussion retains limited goals: to present select examples of how extensively and diversely modes of seeing inform textual discourse concerning the daily behaviors and activities rabbis conducted, including those of study and prayer. It also considers other rabbinic texts that circumscribed acts of vision and other visual practices to facilitate rabbis’ successful negotiations with the non-​rabbinic environments that surrounded them in Roman Palestine and Babylonia, in which their neighbors perceived and manifested divinities in “every aspect” of their lives (Toner 2014: 10). Acts as quotidian as walking, shopping, and bathing in Roman Palestine and Babylonia entailed rabbis’ direct engagements with places, spaces, and landscapes filled with icons, statues, shrines, and other visible appurtenances of their neighbors’ worship practices (Klein 2018: 66; Schwartz 2001: 162–​76; Lapin 2012: 88–​90; Elman 2007; Secunda 2013). Rabbinic

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-26

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texts thus prescribe directed modes of seeing to accommodate the types of logistical challenges these realities posed. Complementary examinations of ancient theories of vision, epistemology, and devotional viewing, promoted in cultures throughout the Levant and Babylonia, also promise additional insights into the concepts that shaped rabbinic attitudes toward vision and visuality. By considering select cases below, this review demonstrates how diverse and context-​dependent were rabbinic strategies of seeing. As the following treatment is introductory, however, it can only gesture to additional and important questions, such as how differently (or similarly) distinct rabbinic writings approached visuality through time (how visuality is represented in the Mishnah and Tosefta, as opposed to the Talmuds, for instance), as well as place (how visuality is represented in the Talmud Yerushalmi, as opposed to the Bavli, for another example; Neis 2013a: 53–​8). Specialized monographs and scholarly articles, including several listed in the bibliography, offer interested scholars and students a path toward more nuanced considerations of questions such as these, in addition to directions for further study of rabbinic positions on visuality, localism, chronology, and geography.

1.  Modes of Seeing in Rabbinic Judaism: Rationale and Terminology Why should one consider the role of visuality in the world of the ancient rabbis? Explanations relate as much to the abundance of overlooked data within rabbinic corpora as to broader trends within scholarship of antiquity. As indicated above, until quite recently, most studies of ancient rabbis focused on the textual nature of associated literature. Reasons for this, at first glance, appear logical. First, most (but not all) information about ancient rabbis, whose practices, ways of life, and cultures eventually coalesced into what is commonly called rabbinic Judaism, is preserved primarily in textual form (Lapin 2012: 38–​41). Most rabbinic corpora particularly valorize activities of textual study and intertextual interpretation, commonly conducted in the study hall, or bet midrash (Lapin 2012: 78–​80), a fact, which has implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) suggested to many scholars that modes of seeing (rather than modes of reading, studying, interpreting, and arguing about texts) played only ancillary roles in rabbinic cultures of learning. In tandem, received traditions about the aniconism and “artlessness” of Jews –​rabbinic and otherwise –​from antiquity through the early modern period –​have predisposed scholars to overlook matters related to vision, seeing, and visual perception in rabbinic Judaism (Bland 2000: 3; Olin 2001; Miller 2004: 29). Traditional readings of specific biblical texts, which prohibit constructions of “graven images” (eg Ex 20:4, 20; Deut 4:16–​9), and of rabbis’ subsequent interpretations of those texts (eg b. Abod. Zar. 43b; b. Sanh. 61a), historically encouraged scholars of various disciplines to classify Jews as an “artless” people, who prioritized textual or auditory rather than visual experiences (Wolfson 1994: 13–​5). For such reasons, as Kalman Bland notes, Jews of the past and present are commonly cast as “a People of the Book rather than a People of the Image” (Bland 2000: 3). As ongoing archaeological discoveries of ancient synagogues, decorative mosaics, paintings, and inscriptions increasingly reveal, however, Jews –​including rabbis –​engaged in robust cultures of image making, use, and viewing in antiquity in devotional as well as mortuary contexts (Levine 2011 and 2012; Fine 2010; Britt and Boustan 2017; Miller 2004: 32). Renewed attention to texts that prescribe for, or attest to activities of seeing in ancient rabbinic thought and life underscore this point and highlight how misleading previous assumptions about the predominantly nonvisual concerns of all ancient Jews, including rabbis, are (Olin 2001). Indeed, as the discussion below indicates, ample evidence exists within rabbinic corpora to demonstrate how rich were rabbinic visual practices and how carefully choreographed were rabbis’ modes of (and prescriptions for) seeing. 326

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Recent considerations of the rabbis and visuality also respond to broader trends in modern scholarship. Efforts to identify and explore the importance of the visual in rabbinic texts and culture simultaneously reflect widespread transformations in cultural and literary studies, anthropology, sociology, history, and religious studies, as well as in the history of the senses, which have adopted phenomenological approaches to interpreting historical data. Scholars in these fields consider, to an increasing extent, information about the sensory, embodied, and experiential dimensions of people’s lives in the historical past (Squire 2016; Morgan 1998; 2005; 2012: 3–​17; Plate 2002; Tilley 1994: 7–​34; Brown 1988). Such broader concerns are also reflected in studies of rabbinic culture that particularly interrogate the sensory and sensual worlds of the rabbis, refracted through discussions of smell, taste, and touch (Green 2008 and 2011; Rosenblum 2010; Satlow 1995). Analyses of visuality and the visual, which incorporate complementary methods and focus, have recently proliferated in studies of religious practices in periods contemporaneous to rabbinic textual production and situated within overlapping worlds of Greek, Roman, and Persian thinkers and writers (Squire 2016; Toner 2014; Jensen 2013: 309; Elsner 2007; Gonda 1969; Arnhold et al. 2018). Ancient theories of optics –​many quite different from those promoted in modern science –​shaped (however indirectly) how Jews and their neighbors perceived connections between their visual practices, study, and worship. For instance, ancient philosophical debates about the “intromissive”, “extramissive”, or even “interactionist” mechanics of sight (eg Squire 2016: 16–​7), all betrayed understandings of seeing that entailed physical and sometimes synesthetic connections between viewers and the objects and activities they encountered, from the mundane (other people, animals) to the sacred (including holy texts, scenes, statues, or buildings). Significant to these approaches are the ways they highlight unanticipated relationships that ancient peoples, including rabbis and other Jews, forged with objects they viewed. For instance, while vision in modernity is often considered monodirectional (cf. Eck 1985: 5), this was not necessarily so in antiquity, in which the gaze –​even when directed to objects –​could be anticipated as “reciprocal”. Jaś Elsner notes, for instance, that when confronting or encountering a statue of a god in antiquity (during pilgrimage), “there is a form of visuality in which the image does not just look back at the viewer, but in which the viewer has specifically made the journey in order that the image should look back” (Elsner 2007: 23). Aspects of this understanding shift in later antiquity (Leatherbury 2018), but remain critical to understanding how potentially powerful and dangerous acts of seeing (whether directed to texts, objects, foreign icons, or imagined visions) could be for ancient rabbis (Neis 2012: 537; 2013a: 5, n. 13). Foundational studies by Rachel Neis (2012; 2013a; 2013b), Daniel Boyarin (1990: 532–​50), and Marc Bregman (1999 and 2003), along with those of Kalman Bland (2000) and Elliot Wolfson (1994 and 1996) that consider texts and documents of the medieval period, have generated significant insights into these and other aspects of visuality in writings the rabbis produced amidst Greek, Roman, Christian, and Zoroastrian hegemonic cultures. Some findings from these studies are integrated into the discussion that follows. Before directly considering some presentations of visuality in rabbinic texts, two additional points require discussion. These relate to definitions of visuality and of “rabbinic Judaism” more broadly. From the outset, visuality as considered here concerns neither the study of visual culture nor that of artistic production including sculptures, mosaics, paintings, and ceramics, commonly recovered through archaeological expeditions and studied in diverse academic contexts (Fine 2010; Eliav 2002; Levine 2012; Neis 2012: 534). Here visuality is used as a term for how people see things, or, for Rachel Neis, “ways of seeing” (Neis 2013a: 2; cf. Morgan 1998). As Neis has cogently argued, moreover, vision is not static, objective, or intrinsic, but rather a sense that is shaped by the precise cultural and historical variables informing the lives or vantage points of viewers. Modes of vision, moreover, are not innate but rather their “meanings, understandings, 327

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and seeing itself shift[s]‌according to differing cultural conditions” and contexts (Neis 2013a: 4; 2012: 535). And as Neis also reminds us, while it is impossible to reconstruct precisely “what” ancient rabbis saw, one can read rabbinic texts to begin to appreciate “how” they saw the world around them –​or, at the very least, how they prescribed appropriate ways of seeing that world (Neis 2013a: 3). Therefore, visuality can constitute both a process and system of strategies that label types of seeing, imagined or prescribed, by rabbis and (potentially) experienced historically. But what precisely is meant by the term “rabbinic Judaism”, particularly as it relates to conversations about visuality? It describes systems of practices, beliefs, and activities associated with certain types of Jews who engaged in activities of study, textual redaction, and interpretation, who lived between the second and seventh centuries in distinct historical and cultural circumstances in Roman Judaea, Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia (Miller 2017). The greatest advantage of the term is its brevity, but it suffers from several fundamental shortcomings. For instance, while most of the cultures associated with rabbinic textual production prioritize activities of studying and interpreting the Torah, this basic commonality often masks significant diversities among constituent individuals and groups. Indeed, rabbinic circles who produced the Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds, and exegetical Midrashim in Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia were neither homogenous nor (necessarily) intrinsically similar to each other or to rabbinic Jews from later times (Lapin 2012: 157–​9; cf. Miller 2004). Application of this term here serves only as useful shorthand but presumes extensive internal and geographic variability among constituent rabbinic circles –​such topics are considered extensively elsewhere in this volume. Studies of historiography and the rabbis, of course, confront multiple challenges. As indicated above, for instance, rabbinic descriptions of acts of seeing in texts of the Mishnah or Talmud need not report or replicate historical events (Schwartz 2001: 163; Lapin 2012: 43–​6). In many cases we can assume that rabbinic texts offer prescriptions for rather than descriptions of, historical realities (Rosenblum and Ullucci 2014). Even if links between the rabbis’ lived experiences and their narratives and exegesis remain obscure, the texts mentioned below offer some examples of ways of acting (including seeing) that rabbis projected as authoritative and conventional (Lapin 2012: 126; Schwartz 2001: 163–​4). These acts of seeing, in turn, broadly concern behaviors of textual study, devotion, and the conduct of daily activities from within the hegemonic cultures that surrounded them in the Levant and Babylonia (Lapin 2012: 157–​9; Neis 2013a: 28–​40).

2.  Acts of Sight, Study, and Learning Acts of Torah study and interpretation have pride of place in rabbinic Judaism (Lapin 2012: 40–​2) and consistently remain the preserve of men. They serve as a means of education for the young (Sivan 2018: 107) and as a (pre)occupation for those of more advanced age. Indeed, texts of the Mishnah, exegetical Midrashim, Tosefta, and Talmuds praise certain rabbis and sages for rarely veering from the study hall and deviating from associated acts of Torah study and learning (b. Sukkah 28a). Even viewing the beauty of nature poses an unacceptable distraction (m. Abot 3:7). Esteem for textual study therefore serves as both a means and an end of participation in rabbinic cultures (t. Bek. 6:3) and as an index of social and religious status (y. Pe’ah 1:1). This is true to such an extent that some have considered describing rabbinic societies, more broadly, as “textual communities” (Hezser 2001: 12, 26). Scholarship of rabbinic writings, moreover, has commonly emphasized the auditory features of activities of textual study, as tannaitic and amoraic texts alike describe learning as verbal, oral, and aural exercises and processes (Hezser 2001: 50–​2). Partly for these reasons, many scholars have simultaneously underscored related features of rabbinic pedagogy, study, and textual interpretation, while overlooking their visual dimensions. 328

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Several tannaitic texts, however, describe acts of seeing as foundational to textual learning and study. One passage of the Mishnah (m. Avot 3:10), for example, makes explicit the instrumental role of seeing in processes of acquiring and maintaining knowledge: “R. Dosetai b. R. Yannai says in the name of R. Meir, Whoever forgets a single thing from his learning (mishnato), Scripture regards him as if he were liable for his life, as it says: ‘Only take great care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the words which your eyes saw’.” (Deut 4:9; transl. with Neis 2013a: 253) In this passage, R. Dosetai b. R. Yannai (in the name of R. Meir) approaches the lemma (Deut 4:9) by recommending diligence in memorization and describing the mortal dangers of forgetting single elements of one’s learning. It specifically cautions against forgetting words initially encountered and learned through seeing (“the words which your eyes saw”). The associated mishnah thereby breaks down the process of acquiring (let alone forgetting) knowledge, initiated by ocular encounters with written words (of the Torah) and perhaps sustained through visual repetition and subsequent memorization. While this text valorizes scriptural study and mental retention as do so many others, here it is the technique of seeing –​to Neis, a “scholastic techne” –​which, so tellingly, remains foundational to processes of learning. Seeing is a mechanism whereby students and sages initially engage with the text that they then commit to memory and interpretation (2013a: 212). But not all rabbinic discussions of visuality describe activities of seeing as generative for learning. Indeed, differences emerge in considerations of visuality and memory when reading across rabbinic texts of varied chronology and provenance. Some describe certain types of seeing as detrimental to life in the bet midrash. One mishnah, for instance, disparages the sense of sight as a means of distraction that impedes productive textual study (m. Abot 3:9). Such seemingly contradictory perspectives on the relationships between sight and learning are not unusual within rabbinic writings, given the variable circumstances of rabbis and textual redactors and the substantive heterogeneity of associated corpora. Nonetheless, certain aspects of these and other treatments coincide: they consistently describe seeing and visual perception as powerful and efficacious, playing formidable if occasionally oppositional roles in epistemic processes. These apparent inconsistencies (if not the ambivalence) in rabbinic perspectives on the relationships between vision and learning, however, echo discrepant attitudes toward sight more broadly among the rabbis’ contemporaries throughout the Roman Levant and Sassanian Babylonia. Indeed, while vision was commonly understood to be a powerful means to acquire knowledge, most peoples in “antiquity lacked any singular, culturally dominant model for explaining the mechanics of sight” (Squire 2016: 15). Opinions about vision and its value varied accordingly. Plato, for instance, implicated sight as a distortion of reality (Timaeus 45bc); he alleged that most people could only see “material semblances” (Squire 2016 14), while only true philosophers’ souls could “see” forms that were true (eg Republic 475d-​e). Aristotle cautions philosophers, somewhat differently, to direct their gazes carefully and selectively (for learning and otherwise), because he argued that the eye “becomes like” the object it views (On the Soul 2.5, 418a3–​4; Nightingale 2018: 54). In later antiquity, Augustine of Hippo drew from such discussions to extol sight as the most important sense in initiating knowledge (Confessions 35.54; Jensen 2013: 309), while other Roman and Christian thinkers regarded vision, much like Plato, as an illusionistic, distracting, and deceptive way of learning about the world (eg Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1.36.101–​2). Sight, according to the latter understandings, impeded proper behavior or access to reality (Jensen 2013: 313). Variability in rabbinic discussions of vision likely reflects such diverse debates and understandings (Neis 2013a: 28–​33). 329

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Additionally informing the ambivalence concerning vision and study in rabbinic texts, moreover, are discrepancies between the rabbinic cultures that produced texts in environments dominated by Greek and Roman writers and cultures (including those of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud Yerushalmi, and many of the exegetical Midrashim) and those that emerged from Sasanian Babylonian contexts (as manifest in the Bavli) (Elman 2007; Hayes 2020: 61–​70; Secunda 2013; Neis 2013a: 53). While Zoroastrian and Brahminical texts rarely present theories of optics, or explicitly implicate the link between vision and epistemology as do Greek and Roman authors, Neis notes that they consistently and decisively implicate vision as critical to ritual processes (Neis 2013a: 33–​5; cf. Eck 1985: 6–​8). When considering relationships between visuality and learning, therefore, rabbinic texts from Babylonia likely refract, to a similar degree, the variable perspectives advocated from within their surrounding cultures.

3.  Seeing, Pilgrimage, and Prayer Activities of learning rarely stand alone in rabbinic writings because processes of studying and interpreting sacred texts of the Torah simultaneously constitute devotional acts. One of the instances in which rabbis most consistently connect visuality with acts of devotion, veneration, or prayer, however, emerges in interpretations of Pentateuchal narratives concerning activities once conducted in the Jerusalem Temple (Schumer 2017: 2; Neis 2013b). For the rabbis, of course, visual encounters with the Temple and participation in its pilgrimage festivals and sacrificial rites could only exist in the imagination. For instance, while some of the tannaitic rabbis might have lived before, or shortly after the Romans destroyed Herod’s Temple –​the most quintessentially holy of structures associated with divine worship in Jewish tradition –​the amoraic rabbis who fastidiously described its architecture, personnel, and associated practices had been born hundreds of years after its destruction. Indeed, one of the most striking features of rabbinic literature, more broadly, is the degree to which the Temple and its detailed description occupy such important roles in scriptural interpretation, so long after the obliteration of the structure (Cohn 2013; Schumer 2017: 2–​4; Stern 2019: 63–​5). For this reason, the memorial functions of these texts, in several ways, best align with what Marianne Hirsch has described as “postmemory” in 20th-century contexts (Hirsch 2012: 3): they promote memories of an institution, among generations of individuals, who had never directly experienced it for themselves (Stern 2019: 63). Arguments about sight and devotional behavior, as it relates to discussions of the Temple, thus combine visual and postmemorial practices by synthesizing memories of the Temple’s historical past with the realities of a liturgical (rabbinic) present. Several tannaitic texts, whose redaction significantly postdated 70 C.E ., demonstrate how acts of visualizing the destroyed Jerusalem Temple, its appurtenances, and its rituals, could constitute devotional activities unto themselves. Such modes of seeing rendered sensible the memory of the Temple and its components and reified historical practices of worship once conducted inside its precinct, including those of pilgrimage and prayer. Fastidious descriptions of the Temple’s architecture (m. Mid. 2:1, 2:3), purity restrictions (m. Kelim 1:8), decoration, appurtenances, and associated rituals, including sacrifice (b. Qidd. 42a), therefore served to enhance related rabbinic visions, often mirroring classical traditions of ekphrasis. Several texts of the Mishnah, for instance, are so detailed that they constitute visual “tours” of the Temple (m. Ḥag. 3.5). Rabbinic “participation” in such tours, it appears, served as a means to collapse time, inviting rabbis of later generations to join in Israelite pilgrimages of the past in the realms of their imagination. These virtual tours included acts of conjuring visions of cult objects in the Temple, whose appearances were so vivid that they prompted rabbis to consider their potential susceptibilities to impurity (m. Ḥag. 3:8). 330

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More than this, however, is the degree to which participation in pilgrimage, in the mind’s eye, facilitated the rabbis’ abilities to experience visual encounters with the Temple and the divine. Rabbinic readings of Exodus 34:23, a text which among others obligates Israelites to “be seen by the face of the Lord” (re’iyah), that is, to go on pilgrimage (regel) to Jerusalem three times a year, inspired corresponding virtual visits to the Temple (m. Mid. 2:3). By imagining their participation in these triannual pilgrimages (which predated 70 C.E .), rabbis were able to use their internal senses of sight to fulfill historical obligations to serve as pilgrims during these appointed times (eg Exod 23:14–​17; Deut 16:1, 9–​10, 12, 16–​17), well after the Temple’s destruction (Neis 2013a: 53). While biblical prescriptions for associated pilgrimages vary considerably, including strictures for precisely who was obligated and eligible to participate (m. Ḥag 1:1), elaborate rabbinic interpretations of associated visions underscore the importance of “seeing” the cultic sites and joyfully “experiencing” such acts of pilgrimage (b. Ḥag. 3a), so many years after the Temple had been destroyed (Neis 2013b: 250–​1). In such cases, rabbis’ visualizations and imagined visitations of the Jerusalem Temple constitute activities of prayer and devotion unto themselves (m. Ḥag. 2:2). These embodied dimensions of ritual viewing reflect Elsner’s identifications of “a ritual-​centered attitude” toward sacred buildings, which shaped ancient individuals’ “ways of seeing” of sacred images and architecture, as well as events (Elsner 2007: 48). Visions of the Temple, in addition to the sounds and smells imagined within it, implied through descriptions of horns blowing (b. Sukkah 51a), and incense burning (m. Yoma 5:1; b. Yoma 53b; b. Ker. 6a), forged synesthetic connections between memorial activities, as well as sacred images and rituals, in the mind’s eye.

4.  Beholding Divine Images Other prescriptions and prohibitions concerning prayer relate to the power of visuality and its connections with holiness par excellence –​the divine or His Shekhinah (divine presence). Some texts imagine the possibility that individuals could “see” the Shekhinah during their lifetimes. This could serve as the highest reward to individuals for devoting their days to immersion in Torah study (Wolfson 1994: 15). Still other texts, by contrast, follow biblical prescription (Exod 23:30) to imply that visual encounters with the divine during one’s lifetime would be possible but dangerous and inappropriate, and therefore to be avoided at all costs. Select midrashic texts, for example, explain the blindness of the biblical patriarch Isaac, as a result of his inappropriate viewing of the Shekhinah (Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer 32, 73b; Num. Rab. 11:3). Potential anxieties about viewing or being viewed by the divine, may reflect understandings described earlier by Elsner (2007: 23), implicating the potential dangers of reciprocal viewing with deity (Neis 2013a: 52–​6). But just as some texts describe invocations and prayer as activities whose power can extend beyond the grave (b. Sukkah 45b; b. Qidd. 31b; Brodsky 2018: 349), other writings promote acts of viewing the divine as appropriate only in a posthumous setting and in the world to come. In fact, as an interpretation from Midrash Tanḥuma makes explicit, the ability to “see” the divine is one of the greatest rewards for those who wished to achieve such a fate: “Thus, you find that the whole tribe of Levi is very sparse. Why were they so small in number? For they looked upon (the face of) my Shekhinah …The Holy One, Blessed Be He, said: In this world they vanished on account of the fact that they looked at my glory, as it says, ‘man may not see me and live’. However, in the world-​to-​come, when I return my Shekhinah to Zion, I will be revealed in my glory to all of Israel, and they will see me and will live eternally.” (Midr. Tanḥ. Num. 17, ed. Buber; slightly modified from transl. Wolfson 1994: 45) 331

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This text describes a punishment worse than blindness for the Levites, who had beheld the Shekhinah during their lifetimes, namely, their death and disappearance from this world. Matters are different, however, after death and in messianic times, after which point, beholding visions of the glory of the Shekhinah becomes the special privilege of all of Israel.

5.  Beholding Divine Images of Others The preceding discussions of seeing practices concern overlapping activities of study and worship. These modes of viewing involve several common features –​including their conduct inside environments specifically dominated by rabbis and their peers –​whether inside houses of study, inside rabbis’ heads, rabbis’ private dwellings, and perhaps even inside synagogues. But such spaces did not encompass the totality of rabbis’ daily experiences or perambulations. Rabbis, just like their non-​Jewish and nonrabbinic Jewish peers, also inhabited and traversed more heterogeneous landscapes, in which they were cultural and religious minorities (Neis 2012: 534). When rabbis traveled along roads through towns, bathed in public bathhouses, sold or purchased goods in marketplaces, or entered civic spaces, they participated in the societies of their polytheist, Christian, and Zoroastrian neighbors (Schwartz 2001: 158–​9; Brodsky 2018: 365). In so doing, they necessarily witnessed activities associated with the veneration or worship of foreign gods, whether through the viewing of public statues or the shrines where they resided, using coins stamped with divine images, or beholding activities associated with business transactions, including oath-​taking and sacrifice (DesRosiers 2014). Some texts suggest that witnessing these objects and activities could be as dangerous as they were inevitable to the rabbis who encountered them. But why would this be so? What could make encounters with foreign architecture, statues, coins, or practices of worship so problematic, if rabbis did not believe in the power or authenticity of the gods so sculpted, painted, supplicated, or otherwise commemorated in pagan, Christian, or Zoroastrian contexts? Once again, the dangers posed by these types of encounters often relate directly to the powers rabbis ascribed to practices of vision. One passage in the Tosefta, for instance, implicates the dangers of seeing images of foreign gods, by prohibiting looking at even the “writing that goes under figures or icons” and on weekdays at the icons themselves, “… as it says, ‘do not turn towards the idols’ (Lev 19.4)” (t. Shabb. 18:1). To the redactors of these passages, participation in the worship of gods did not require direct engagement in ritual activities or prescribed acts of veneration. It merely involved looking at them. Even the cursory examination of statues (on weekdays and all the more so on the Sabbath) could be as dangerous as regarding the legends that labeled them (cf. Sipra Qidd. 1; ed. Weiss, 87a; Neis 2012: 538). This is so because, as several rabbinic texts indicate, the mere act of viewing icons or their labels can lead to aberrant behavior or inappropriate worship (b. Shabb. 149a). At first glance, such a reading might appear strange, particularly in its deviation from what constitutes trespasses of worship in biblical texts. In fact, Neis has argued that this exact passage of the Tosefta “gestures more to contemporaneous Graeco-​Roman visual, sculptural, and inscriptional culture than to biblical hermeneutics” (Neis 2012: 541), as late ancient pagan and Christian writers consistently regarded viewing as a form of interactive worship (cf. Julian, Oration on the Mother of the Gods 294c–​d; Neis 2012: 546, n. 57; Elsner 2007: 23–​4). One of the solutions this passage of the Tosefta poses for rabbis’ encounters with pagan icons in a Graeco-​Roman world, let alone with the inscriptions that serve as labels for devotional statues, apparently internalize such understandings. This is why it advocates avoiding entirely any visual encounters with them. While the prospect of consistently ignoring icons (or idols) in one’s path seems somewhat difficult to imagine inside Graeco-​Roman cities (Klein 2018: 54), the repetition of stories about rabbis 332

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walking past icons without seeing them exemplifies both their ubiquity and the pervasiveness of rabbinic advocacy (at least in Levantine texts) for avoiding their visual encounters (eg y. Abod. Zar. 3:8, 43b). Another possible explanation for the avoidance of undue visual attention to foreign gods might relate to broader understandings of the mechanics of sight, as well as the function of sight in the human body throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. In Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman philosophy, “intromissive” notions of optics imagined that objects emitted atoms that physically impacted viewers’ eyes; “extramissive” theories of sight posited that the eyes emit fiery rays that physically collide with an object of sight; and more “interactive” models posited that the rays emitted by viewers’ eyes actually touch a viewed object then return to the eye (Squire 2016: 16). While these theories about acts of sight differ in many ways, they resemble each other in one fundamental respect: vision is described as tactile (cf. Eck 1985: 9). This commonality, perhaps, underscores perspectives advocated in some rabbinic texts, which consider acts of sight as linked to, or equivalent to touch. Prohibitions against looking at one’s own genitalia or even looking at other people in certain ways may similarly equate specific ways of seeing with those of sexual touch (Neis 2012: 542–​5). This logic could commensurately explain why some tannaitic and amoraic sources render acts of seeing or viewing icons, images, or idols as interactive and tactile practices of veneration or worship (eg b. Shabb. 118b; m. Abod. Zar. 3:3; t. Abod. Zar. 6:.6; b. Ned. 13a). The frequency with which rabbinic texts discuss ways of seeing or avoiding images of pagan worship thus underscores the importance of policing visual practices as forms of tactile encounter and engagement. Such a promotion of visual avoidance, however, is problematic for multiple reasons. As Neis and others have pointed out, the pure avoidance of looking at statues of other gods (“looking away”) accords power to these objects as sacred or powerful in some way (Neis 2012: 538). After all, if images were “false” (rather than powerful and legitimate representations of rival deities), why should rabbis have expressed any concerns about their visual examination? For these reasons Neis differentiates between practices of avoiding sight or seeing (as in the example above) and those of “looking awry” –​strategic ways of looking that both deprive an object (statue, painting, etc.) of power and accord viewers (in this case, rabbis) the ability to redefine that object. Manifestations of this latter possibility of “looking awry” occur particularly in texts of tractate Abodah Zarah, which offers multiple examples of rabbis operating successfully in Graeco-​ Roman environments filled with depictions of gods by depriving their surroundings of religious potency. The famous story from the Mishnah concerning Rabbi Gamliel in Aphrodite’s bath in Akko (m. Avod. Zar. 3:4) exemplifies this strategy of seeing or re-​seeing (Schwartz 2001: 167). In the associated pericope, the informed pagan interlocutor Proklos ben Philosophos asks Rabbi Gamliel why it is permissible for him to bathe in a bathhouse in front of a statue of the goddess Aphrodite. Gamliel declares that he cannot answer the question in the bathhouse, because it is an inappropriate place to discuss Torah. But when they depart from the bathhouse to continue the conversation, Gamliel replies: “I did not enter her territory, she entered mine. You do not say: The bathhouse is made as an ornament for Aphrodite, but: Aphrodite is made as an ornament for the bathhouse. Furthermore, if you were given much money, you would not enter your temple naked, having just ejaculated, and urinating before the goddess. And yet here she is set over the drain and everyone urinates before her. It is written: ‘their gods’—​in cases where they are treated as gods they are forbidden, when they are not, they are permitted.” (transl. Schwartz 2001: 167) 333

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Here the vocabulary of seeing is absent, but the operative principles of “looking awry” inform Rabbi Gamliel’s response. The learned interlocutor (Proklos) implies that, according to common interpretations of Deut 13:13–​19, the pagan statue’s presence in the bathhouse would be considered herem (banned) rendering the space prohibited for Jewish use. Gamliel’s response that pagan behavior in the bathhouse was unsuitable for sacred contexts evades the issue. He focuses on efforts to redefine and thereby desacralize the statue. Gamliel, in other words, is acting “awry” to circumvent his need to look awry. In declaring that the statue of Aphrodite was only an ornament, which aligns with what Seth Schwartz has called a “doctrine of mere decoration”, this mishnah like others in Abodah Zarah (m. Abod. Zar. 3:3; 4:5; 4:5–​6) re-​renders the role of sight by depriving pagan objects of their sacred power for both Jews and pagans (Schwartz 2001: 169). Several other rabbinic writings, however, indicate that approaches such as those attributed to Gamliel above were not satisfactory for all rabbis. For example, some texts suggest that the explicit avoidance of viewing images would be a better choice to resist acts of inappropriate or inadvertent worship. For such reasons, R. Nahum bar Simai is said to have avoided seeing any images including those stamped onto coins (which as Schwartz observes is supererogatory). His behavior is treated as exemplary, if not entirely normal or practicable (Schwartz 2001: 173, n.22; Neis 2012: 556). Nonetheless, the story of Rabban Gamliel rather than the example of R. Nahum seems to describe a far more “normal” situation for rabbis, let alone other Jews, in Roman Palestine and elsewhere. It demonstrates how rabbis alongside other Jews inhabited towns and cities whose infrastructure, civic spaces, and sights were built, populated, and designed by those who worshipped foreign gods. These realities required strategic thought and action. Whether bathing in bathhouses filled with statues of gods, walking through town whose buildings were adorned with paintings or sculptures of gods, or frequenting marketplaces filled with altars for oath-​taking and associated deal-​making (DesRosiers 2014), the rabbis of the Mishnah lived in a world in which Graeco-​ Roman polytheistic cults were ubiquitous and dominant (just as the redactors of the Yerushalmi and the Bavli lived in Christian and Zoroastrian worlds, respectively; Schwartz 2001: 173). Rabbis developed visual strategies to cope with these inevitable encounters. Of course, evidence of rabbinic Jews and their seeing practices is not entirely limited to rabbinic literature. Archaeological evidence offers distinct and complementary information about how some rabbis employed visual strategies in the societies that surrounded them. Some examples derive from synagogues, which were mostly (but not entirely) built and visited by Jews; many included elaborate wall paintings and mosaic floors that contained figural images of pagan as well as biblical association (Miller 2004: 52–​5; Levine 2011). Others come from settings shared with non-​Jews. Findings from sites such as Hamat Gader, paired with information from Palestinian rabbinic writings (such as the Mishnah and Yerushalmi), suggest that the rabbis visited and used hot springs there that were also used by non-​Jewish populations. Such activities necessarily involved encounters with statues and images of deities erected around local springs and shrines (Hirschfeld 1997; Naveh 1978: 32–​5; Schwartz 2001: 174, n. 26.). In addition to other cities mentioned in rabbinic texts, for which robust archaeological evidence exists, such as Bet She’an/Scythopolis, Caesarea, and Sepphoris, scholars continue to investigate how the daily lives and visual practices of rabbis, alongside Jews of nonrabbinic orientation, were embedded in the pagan and Christian material worlds that surrounded them. Unlike study houses (Lapin 2012: 76–​80), synagogues, or domestic spaces, these were fully public realms with displays that fell outside of rabbinic control. Several rabbinic texts, including those mentioned above, therefore demonstrate how diverse strategies of seeing could redefine and ultimately master such complex realities.

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6. Conclusions Multiple elements within rabbinic corpora reveal how variegated rabbinic approaches to visuality were. Rabbinic attention to various types of seeing demonstrates the importance of visuality in all aspects of daily life. Even the select examples above illuminate the degrees to which rabbis circumscribed acts of seeing to police the sensory and experiential worlds that surrounded them, both inside and outside of the house of study. This discussion thereby indicates the significance of visuality in rabbinic corpora and demonstrates its importance for decoding and illuminating more nuanced features of rabbinic life inside and outside of their own communities. Indeed, as Neis has pointed out, rabbinic texts enable us to recognize rabbis’ “viewing habits”, and “how they sought to legislate vision as part of a wider effort to impose their perspective on the world” (Neis 2012: 536). While several recent studies have analyzed the role of visuality in rabbinic Judaism, more work remains to be done. Renewed attention to visuality and the visual can offer further insights into rabbinic beliefs and practices at distinct times and places –​whether in Roman Palestine or Sasanian Babylonia. Associating Palestinian archaeological sites with the “literary rabbis” often remains challenging (Cohen 1981; Lapin 2012; Rosenfeld 2010; Miller 2004), but future scholarship might produce more sophisticated readings of relationships between chronology, regional variability, and difference in rabbinic texts and archaeological expressions of visuality among nonrabbinic Jewish populations. As is already the case in scholarship on Greek and Roman art and archaeology (eg Elsner 2007) considerations of visuality and synesthesia, associated with the scholarship of the history of the senses, will continue to shape studies of Jewish texts, archaeology, and cultural history in late ancient Palestine, Babylonia, and beyond.

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Karen B. Stern Eck, D. (1985). Darsán: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books. Eliav, Y.Z. (2002). “Viewing the Sculptural Environment: Shaping the Second Commandment,” in P. Schäfer (ed.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 411–​33. Elman Y. (2007). “Middle Persian Culture and Babylonian Sages: Accommodation and Resistance in the Shaping of Rabbinic Legal Tradition,” in C.E. Fonrobert and M.S. Jaffee (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 165–​97. Elsner, J. (2007). Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fine, S. (2010). Art and Judaism in the Greco-​ Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gonda, J. (1969). Eye and Gaze in the Veda. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company. Green, D. (2008). “Sweet Spices in the Tomb: An Initial Study on the Use of Perfume in Jewish Burials,” in L. Brink and D. Green (eds.), Commemorating the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context. Berlin and New York, NY: Walter de Gruyter, 145–​76. Green, D. (2011). The Aroma of Righteousness. Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature. University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hayes, C. (2020). “Halakhah le-​Moshe mi-​Sinai in Rabbinic Sources: A Methodological Case Study,” in S.J.D. Cohen (ed.), The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 61–​118. Hezser, C. (2001). Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hirsch, M. (2012). The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Hirschfeld, Y. (1997). The Roman Baths of Hammat Gader: Final Report. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Jensen, R. (2013). “Visuality,” in B.S. Spaeth (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 309–​43. Klein, G. (2018). “Sabbath as City: Rabbinic Urbanism and Imperial Territoriality in Roman Palestine,” in M. Ahuvia and A. Kocar (eds.), Placing Ancient Texts: The Ritual and Rhetorical Use of Space. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 53–​86. Lapin, H. (2011). “Epigraphical Rabbis: A Reconsideration,” Jewish Quarterly Review 101: 311–​46. Lapin, H. (2012). Rabbis as Romans. The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–​400 CE. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Leatherbury, S. (2018). Inscribing Faith: Between Reading and Seeing in Late Antiquity. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Levine, L.I. (2011). “Synagogue Art and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 2: 79–​104. Levine, L.I. (2012). Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity. Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Miller, S.S. (2004). “Epigraphical Rabbis, Helops and Psalm 19: Were the Synagogues of Archaeology and the Synagogues of the Sages One and the Same?” The Jewish Quarterly Review 94: 27–​76. Miller, S.S. (2017). “The Study of Talmudic Israel and/​or Roman Palestine: Where Matters Stand,” in M. Ben-​Asher Siegal, T. Novick, and C. Hayes (eds.), The Faces of Torah: Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Early Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 433–​54. Morgan, D. (1998). Visual Piety. A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Morgan, D. (2005). The Sacred Gaze: Visual Culture in Theory and Practice. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Morgan, D. (2012). The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Naveh, J. (1978). On Stone and Mosaic: The Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Neis, R. (2012). “Eyeing Idols: Rabbinic Viewing Practices in Late Antiquity,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102: 533–​60. Neis, R. (2013a). The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Antiquity. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Neis, R. (2013b). “Pilgrimage Itineraries: Seeing the Past through Rabbinic Eyes,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 20: 224–​56.

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Visuality in Rabbinic Judaism Nightingale, A. (2018). “Sight and the Philosophy of Vision in Classical Greece: Democritus, Plato and Aristotle,” in M. Squire (ed.), Sight and the Ancient Senses, Abington and New York, NY: Routledge, 54–​67. Olin, M. (2001). A Nation Without Art. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press. Plate, B., (ed.) (2002). Religion, Art and Visual Culture: A Cross-​Cultural Reader. New York, NY: Palgrave. Rosenblum, J.D. and Ullucci, D. (2014). “Qualifying Rabbinic Ritual Agents: Cognitive Science and the Early Rabbinic Kitchen,” in N.P. DesRosiers, J.D. Rosenblum, and L.C. Vuong (eds.), Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-​Roman World. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 101–​14. Rosenblum, J.D. (2010). Food and Identity in Early Rabbinic Judaism. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Rosenfeld, B.Z. (2010). “The Title ‘Rabbi’ in Third-​to Seventh-​Century Inscriptions in Palestine Revisited,” Journal of Jewish Studies 61: 234–​56. Satlow, M.L. (1995). Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies. Schumer, N.S. (2017). The Memory of the Temple in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, New York, NY. https://​doi.org/​10.7916/​D8TH9​002. Schwartz, S. (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Secunda, S. (2013). The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in its Sasanian Context. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sivan, H. (2018). Jewish Childhood in the Roman World. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Squire, M. (ed.) (2016). Sight and the Ancient Senses. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Stern, K. (2019). “Memory, Postmemory and Place in the Synagogues of Roman Syria,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 62: 53–​85. Tilley, C. (1994). Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments. Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg. Toner, J. (2014). “Introduction: Sensing the Ancient Past,” in J. Toner (ed.), A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity. London: Bloomsbury, 1–​22. Wolfson, E. (1994). Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wolfson, E. (1996). “Iconic Visualization and the Imaginal Body of God: The Role of Intention in the Rabbinic Conception of Prayer,” Modern Theology 12: 137–​62.

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22 THE APPEARANCE OF JEWISH FIGURAL ART Lee I. Levine

The appearance of figural art in ancient Jewish contexts fluctuated greatly from one period to the next and from one community to another owing to the absence or presence of an overriding political or religious authority that might have determined an overall Jewish policy in these matters (for example, the Hasmonean period). Contrary to the once prevalent assumption that Jews invariably eschewed figural decorations (anchored primarily in the presumed normativity of the Second Commandment and actual Jewish practice in the late Second Temple period), archaeological remains and literary sources from antiquity have yielded a great deal of evidence that clearly demonstrates a fluid Jewish attitude toward figural art throughout the ages.

1.  Figural Art in the Biblical Period Beginning with the Israelite era (twelfth through fourth centuries B.C.E .), the evidence for figural representation in both the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel is significant (Levine 2016). For example, the statuette of a bronze bull figurine from twelfth-​century northern Samaria has been interpreted as a cultic object, a votive offering, or a pedestal or throne for a deity. Several cultic stands from tenth-​century Megiddo and Taanach bear a more elaborate display of figures, such as lions, sphinxes, human images (including a naked woman), a sun disk, and a bull. Scholars have suggested that the god on the Taanach stand was meant to be Baal, Asherah, or perhaps Yahweh himself. The display of such figures seems to have been influenced by Near Eastern practices where similar motifs were ubiquitous. The coupling of Yahweh and Asherah is remarkably preserved in an inscription on a pithos from Kuntillet Ajrud located in the eastern Sinai Desert and dating ca. 800 B.C.E ., in what is assumed to have served, inter alia, as an Israelite/​Judahite cultic center; the names of four gods are recorded at the site –​Yahweh, Asherah, Baal, and El. The inscription reads: “To YHWH of the Têmān [of the south] and His asherah: Whatever he asks from a man, that man will give him generously. And if he would urge—​YHW will give him according to his wishes” (Meshel 2012, 98–​100, inscription 3.9). Painted drawings were also found on walls, pithoi, and other potsherds at the site. One drawing features two large figures of Bes facing frontwards and bearing the characteristic feathered crown, lion-​like face, kilt, and tail (some suggest genitals) hanging between their legs. To the right of 338

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-27

The Appearance of Jewish Figural Art

the Bes figures is a seated woman in profile playing a lyre. Given the fact that the inscription mentioning Yahweh and Asherah appears directly above the two Bes figures, it has been argued that these figures are, in fact, representations of these deities. Numerous theories have been offered regarding the interpretation of this evidence from Kuntillet Ajrud. The minimalist view advocates that there was no inherent connection between the inscription and the artistic portrayal, as they seem to have been drawn at different times by different hands. This does not preclude the possibility that the person who wrote these inscriptions may have identified the drawings with Yahweh and Asherah. The maximalist position maintains that there was a connection between these components, claiming that Yahweh and Asherah were probably represented in one or more of these drawings. Whether we label this type of representation as a form of syncretism or as an expression of an expanded and more complex Yahwistic worldview that incorporated other deities, this maximalist position assumes that the worship of more than one deity was clearly known in the First Temple Israelite period (M.S. Smith 2002; Levine 2012b: 19–​20). A striking example of figural art during much of this period was the use of figurines taking a human form. Some three thousand Iron Age terracotta pillar figurines, the overwhelming majority of which are female, have come to light at numerous Israelite sites and date from the tenth to sixth centuries B .C. E ., with the bulk stemming from the eighth to sixth centuries. Such figurines are well known throughout the eastern Mediterranean, beginning in the second millennium B.C.E . and continuing through the mid-​first millennium and beyond. It has long been debated whether these figurines with well-​accentuated breasts represent goddesses –​ perhaps a mother goddess or Asherah (a maximalist position) –​or a votive offering expressing a wish for fertility (a minimalist position) (Levine 2016: 319–​21). Equally ubiquitous are the pillar figurines from the southern kingdom of Judah dating to the eighth and seventh centuries B. C. E . Approximately 1300 such objects were discovered in the 1960s on the eastern slopes of the City of David in what was identified as a favissa (ie a repository of vessels and other objects sometimes associated with a sanctuary). Of these, 429 objects (in addition to many fragments) were figurines of animals or humans, the latter featuring primarily female pillar figurines. It should be noted that animal figurines, such as those of horses (often with riders) and birds, outnumber human figurines in late First Temple Judah (Kletter 1996: 32, 65–​6) and on occasion have been interpreted as toys (Kletter 1996: 73). Thomas A. Holland (1977: 132–​55), who published an inventory of clay figurines associated with Jerusalem, counted a total of 597 such objects found in Jerusalem since the beginning of excavations in the nineteenth century. Raz Kletter (1996: 43–​8) assembled 854 such figurines from 42 sites throughout the region, 75 percent of which came from the hills of Judah, 15% from the coastal area, and some 10 percent from the northern Negev (Levine 2012b: 20–​1). The same sort of division into anthropomorphic (of human form) and theriomorphic (of animal form) figurines also characterizes the largest assembly of ceramic figurines (1309 in all) discovered in Yigal Shiloh’s excavations in Jerusalem between 1978 and 1985. Most of these objects date to the late First Temple period; 19% are anthropomorphic, 73% are theriomorphic, and 2% are furniture (chairs, beds, etc.). Of the animal category, some 82% are horses, usually rendered schematically, while the human figurines are overwhelmingly of females. Thus, when added to the earlier finds, close to 2000 such figurines were found in Jerusalem alone. Such a quantity is not approximated at any other local site; the closest is Megiddo, with two hundred figurines. Thus, whether from alleged cultic centers (per Kathleen Kenyon) or dwellings, these locally produced figurines appear in similar concentrations and were clearly a reflection of a common practice among the local populace that flourished between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C.E . –​despite 339

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the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Kings 18:4; 23:4ff.). Much has been written about these finds, particularly those from Kenyon’s and Shiloh’s excavations. Erin Darby (2014) presents a detailed overview as well as a comprehensive and updated critique of the numbers of figurines cited by earlier scholars (eg Kletter; Holland). Another popular practice finds expression in the almost 100 figurines of females holding a round object identified as a drum. However, many scholars have interpreted these remains as cultic figurines of goddesses or human figures engaged in religious rites (Paz 2007). Found primarily in the northern kingdom of Israel in Iron Age II contexts (ninth to eighth centuries B.C.E .), these figurines were discovered in both public and private venues and reflect possible Mesopotamian influence. Most of the figurines discovered are unique to Judah and, indeed, the pillar figurine is the only anthropomorphic representation found in this region. Shiloh’s excavations indicate that these representations were distributed evenly throughout the various excavations of residential areas in Jerusalem. In addition to the above, figural art was found in Samaria on several hundred ivory fragments and on noncultic objects such as seals, bullae, and stamped jar handles, reflecting Egyptian and Phoenician iconography, all dating to the ninth or eighth century B.C.E . (Levine 2012a: 321–​2, 326–​8). The kingdom of Israel had extensive contact with Phoenicia and, as a result, adopted a large number of iconic motifs from its northern neighbor. We also know of Judahite royal seals from the eighth century B. C. E . that reflect similar Phoenician influences; later eighth-​and seventh-​ century objects were generally produced under Syrian and Mesopotamian influence. Of special note are almost one thousand lmlk (meaning “belonging to the king”) seal impressions found on jar handles, featuring either the four-​winged beetle or the two-​winged sun disk of Egyptian influence. These have been interpreted as royal Judahite insignia from the late eighth and early seventh centuries (Mazar 1990: 455–​8; Levine 2012b: 21–​2). The above archaeological evidence stands in sharp contrast to the normative stance adopted in the Bible, which notes the use of figural art largely in a critical vein, the major exception being its description of the Jerusalem Temple’s decorations (eg the cherubs, lions, oxen, and bronze serpent –​Exod 25:20; 26:1, 30; Num 21:8–​9; 1 Kings 6:23–​36; 7:23–​37; 10:19–​20; 12:26–​33).

2.  Iconography as a Key to Understanding Biblical Israelite Religion The iconographic evidence noted above highlights four dimensions of Israelite religious practice (Levine 2016: 336–​9). First, the extent to which early Israelite beliefs and practices were similar to those of their neighbors underscores the claim that the religion of the Israelites found common ground with Canaanite traditions at its inception (see Ezek 16:3; “By origin and birth you are from the land of the Canaanites –​your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite”), that it later developed concurrently with the neighboring native cults (ie tenth-​century Ammon, Moab, Edom, Egypt, and Phoenicia), and, finally, that it shared many characteristics with the dominant Mesopotamian civilizations of the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E . (Machinist 2003; Miller and Hayes 2006: 248–​52). Secondly, Israelite creativity might be expressed not only in what was borrowed, but also to what degree such material was adapted and incorporated into the Israelite scene. Thus, while the four-​winged scarab and the four-​winged uraeus are not limited to Judahite iconography of the late eighth century, neither are the falcon-​headed winged sphinxes peculiar to northern Israel. However, in both cases, they are much more conspicuous in the Israelite realm than anywhere else and, consequently, they probably were of considerable importance and perhaps also identifiably Judahite and Israelite at one and the same time. 340

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A third aspect of Israelite art concerns the diversity of motifs and their possible connection to religious practices. Artistic artifacts have vividly highlighted this wide range of contacts, although the redactors of the Bible presumably wished to minimize, marginalize, or even condemn it. Whether we categorize this heterogeneity as the difference between right and wrong conceptions (per the biblical redactors) or as variations stemming from regional, chronological, official-​popular, or urban-​rural distinctions, many, if not most, Israelites apparently recognized more than one deity during this period. Indeed, the range and intensity of polemical condemnations throughout the biblical text attest to the extent of this diversity. Archaeology has confirmed many of these variations and has even added new evidence regarding their extent and nature (eg Kuntillet Ajrud). Rather than viewing the cults and beliefs dismissed by the Bible as mere aberrations, it would probably be more cautious and historically accurate to regard them as legitimate expressions of early Israelite religion, and perhaps even of Yahwism itself (M.S. Smith 2002). The fourth aspect of the iconographic remains reflects the dynamic diachronic dimension of Israelite religion, which complements the above-​noted synchronic diversity. It is dynamic in the sense that at first, in the premonarchic twelfth and eleventh centuries, the cult of Yahweh either competed with other forms of worship (eg Baal), at times subsuming them (as in Exod 15:11 and Ps 82:1), or may have successfully embraced them (eg El). As evidence becomes more abundant for the monarchic era, the variety of religious expression in Israelite/​Judahite contexts appears to have expanded within the Yahwistic orbit and beyond. At the same time, the “Yahweh-​alone” (to borrow a felicitous phrase coined by Morton Smith (1971: 347) ideology became an ever more prominent component in pursuance of its aim to win over Israelites. This heightened activity resulted in the crystallization of a more concretely perceived monotheism that was successfully garnering priestly, royal, prophetic, and popular Deuteronomistic support from the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E. The reforms of Hezekiah, particularly the destruction of the centuries-​old bronze serpent, signaled an instance of this change, which continued under Josiah (Num 21:9; 2 Kings 18:4; 23:4ff.) and in the postexilic sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. In certain circles, the doctrine of a “pure” monotheism went hand in hand with a regnant aniconism and the denial of the deity’s visibility, thereby giving expression to a unique and distinctive religious approach that was to characterize later Judaism. Nevertheless, despite this apparently negative attitude toward figural images in biblical traditions from the early Second Temple era, numismatic finds, ie the Yehud coins minted in Jerusalem by Jewish authorities in the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods (fourth and third centuries B.C.E .), continued to feature a wide range of figural representations, including owls, eagles, a winged animal, a Persian king, possibly a divine figure sitting on a winged wheel, a warrior, and even depictions of Ptolemy, Berenice, and Athena. As late as the first decades of the second century B .C. E ., the Tobiad Hyrcanus used carved animal reliefs on his estate at Iraq al-​Amir in Transjordan (Lapp and Lapp 1993: 646–​9).

3.  The Avoidance of Figural Art in Late Second Temple Judaea While the establishment of the Hasmonean state engendered radical political changes in Judaea (see Levine 2002: 91–​148), the cultural­religious sphere under the Hasmoneans embraced contrasting and even contradictory developments. Although varying degrees of Hellenization were in evidence throughout Hasmonean society, cultural-​religious markers nevertheless surfaced in Judaea, distinguishing it from the surrounding world. These included the prohibition of foreign wines, pottery, and other commodities; an emphasis on purity, as evidenced by the first appearance of 341

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ritual baths (miqva’ot); the increased centrality of the Jerusalem Temple and its rituals; and the emergence of organized religious sects (eg Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes). Perhaps the most dramatic change was in the realm of art (see Levine 2005a: 11–​6). Heretofore the use of images –​be they of animals, humans, or deities as discussed above –​had been a main component of Israelite­Jewish art and of ancient art generally. Now, however, after a millennium or so of incorporating such figural art, the pendulum swung sharply in the opposite direction at the outset of the Hasmonean period in the second century B.C.E . and lasted some 300 years. Beginning with the family tomb that Simon erected in Modi‘in ca. 142 B.C.E . (1 Macc 13:25–​30), the artifacts from subsequent generations reflect an almost universal aniconic policy. What brought about this dramatic transition from figural to aniconic representations? Why were all figural images prohibited, and why at this time? Was this trend politically or ideologically motivated (in a religious vein), or perhaps both? And, finally, what would account for Judaean society’s immediate and almost universal acceptance of this prohibition? It is probable that the force behind this change was the Hasmonean dynasty itself, just as it was undoubtedly instrumental in creating many other religious markers. Moreover, the book of Deuteronomy seems to have played a key role in shaping Hasmonean attitudes and policy toward figural art. The Hasmoneans ostensibly regarded their situation as analogous to what the Deuteronomist describes (ie on the threshold of [re]conquering the Promised Land) and chose to incorporate much of this worldview into their own practices –​hostility toward the local pagan population, the destruction of all traces of idolatry (shrines and temples), and even the removal of the idolaters (through conversion, execution, or exile) –​for the purpose of preserving the sanctity and distinctiveness of the “chosen people” and, in effect, aiming to Judaize their realm. Deuteronomy’s anthropomorphic aversion seems to have gone far beyond the worship of pagan cultic images, as the Israelites were warned against all forms of image-making: “The Lord spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape—​nothing but a voice… . For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—​since you saw no shape when the Lord your God spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire—​not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever: the form of a man or a woman, the form of any beast on earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the form of anything that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth.” (Deut 4:12, 15–​18; my emphasis) While it is generally agreed that these injunctions against imagery were directed first and foremost against idolatrous representations, the elaboration of specific types of images emphatically prohibits not only that of a deity but of any noncultic representations. Whatever the original intention of the Deuteronomist, it is evident that the repeated injunction to eschew images could easily have led later interpreters, in Hasmonean times as well as today, to interpret it as covering a wide variety of visual representations comprising de facto a comprehensive prohibition of figural images. It is this Deuteronomic emphasis, as conceived and enforced under the Hasmoneans, that most likely provided the basis and justification for their dramatic move to adopt nonfigural art as a marker separating Jews from non­Jews. If, indeed, this prohibition of figural art was dictated and enforced by the political power of the Hasmoneans, as suggested, then this policy was adhered to quickly and almost universally throughout Judaean society. Not

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only did it become normative under their rule, but it continued to be widely observed, with minor exceptions (particularly in Herodian circles) until the second century C.E . Thus, the elimination of figural art constituted the Hasmoneans’ most radical divergence not only from contemporary Hellenistic, and also earlier Israelite-​Jewish, practice. Nevertheless, the nonfigural art of the Hasmoneans and other Jews was also influenced by Hellenism and included features of the Doric order, rosettes, wreaths, grape clusters, and more. Indeed, a Jewish collective identity was now given expression, based on the adoption and adaptation of a series of nonfigural Hellenistic artistic motifs along with the rejection of figural depictions that was so ubiquitous in Hellenistic culture. Such an amalgamation is a clear reflection of the Hasmoneans’ selective acceptance and rejection of non-​Jewish culture, which is apparent in the two main types of artistic remains from this era –​funerary monuments and coins (see Levine 2012b: 40–​5).

4.  The Flourishing of Jewish Figural Art in Late Antiquity In the centuries following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the defeat of Bar-​ Kokhba (70 and 135 C. E ., respectively), Jewish attitudes began changing once again, this time with the pendulum swinging toward, inter alia, figural art (Levine 2012b: 225–​475). By the third and fourth centuries C . E ., Jewish art was once again becoming more compatible with other contemporary ethnic and religious traditions in the Roman Empire (eg Bet She‘arim, Ḥammat Tiberias) while, at the same time, relating to its own historical, theological, and educational agendas (eg Dura Europos, Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam, Sepphoris. During the Byzantine era (fourth to seventh centuries C.E .), religious symbols, biblical motifs, and overtly pagan mythological motifs (especially the zodiac signs and the image of Helios) were displayed on the mosaic floors of synagogues, which by then had become ensconced as the central communal institution in every Jewish community. This prominent display of communal art stands in striking contrast not only to late Second Temple art, but also to the Sitz im Leben of earlier Israelite-​Jewish art, which was intended primarily for private contexts (eg houses and palaces), the confines of the Temple, and fourth-​ to third-​century B.C.E . coinage. The transformation of Jewish art in late antiquity began to take shape soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the prohibition against using figural representations began changing with the emergence of new leadership groups such as the Galilean municipal aristocracies and the proto-​patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II. This shift increased in the third century and thereafter, when relations with Rome underwent political and social changes that included a greater acceptance by Jews of cultural developments in the East. Central to this process in its early stages was the figure of Rabbi Judah (ha-​Nasi) and the later patriarchs, together with the Severan dynasty and subsequent emperors (Levine 2012b: 119–​70). Evidence of the Jews’ acceptance of Roman material culture is attested in the necropolis at Bet She‘arim which, in the wake of Rabbi Judah’s burial at the site, featured elements drawn from the East –​an overwhelming predominance of Greek inscriptions (over 80%) and the use of pronounced architectural features known also in Roman Syria, as exhibited in the façades of its two main catacombs (14 and 20) and the mausoleum of Catacomb 11. The art from Bet She‘arim (dating from the third to fifth [and possibly even sixth] centuries C.E .) demonstrates the use of a far more extensive range of animal and human motifs than heretofore known, including two-​and three-​dimensional figures and scenes drawn from Greek mythology (eg the Amazons, Leda and the Swan, etc.). The simultaneous appearance at Bet She‘arim of Jewish symbols, particularly the menorah, is equally noteworthy. The combination of Roman and Jewish motifs in an artistic repertoire within

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a strictly Jewish context was repeated at yet another site under patriarchal and local aristocratic auspices –​ the fourth-​century synagogue of Ḥammat Tiberias, which displays, for the first time ever, the zodiac and Helios motifs alongside a cluster of Jewish symbols on its mosaic floor. In fact, the appearance of such Hellenistic-​Roman artistic motifs beside recognizable local ones was far from uncommon at this time. A combination of Roman and Eastern motifs appears on sarcophagi from Palmyra, and in one case the lid of one sarcophagus depicts the interred as an Eastern caravanner while the chest itself displays the same person in Roman dress. Perhaps one important impetus for the representation of Jewish objects as symbols, a heretofore unknown phenomenon in Jewish culture, was the use of comparable symbols throughout the East in the late Roman era. Such a change in Jewish practice was clearly not the outcome of internal Jewish developments, as there was little precedent for displaying the menorah by itself. Beforehand, a menorah appeared on only a minimal selection of Hasmonean coins and in the Magdala synagogue, and then only in a Temple/​priestly context at the end of the Second Temple period. This widespread use of icons in the Roman East may more readily explain the third-​century emergence of the menorah and other religious artifacts as symbols, a phenomenon that continued among Jews with even greater intensity under Byzantine Christianity from the fourth century onwards (Levine 2012b: 341–​7; Hachlili 2016: 196–​208). Thus, the flourishing of ancient Jewish art found its fullest expression, including its figural dimension, in the Byzantine-​Christian era. What transpired in this era reflects not only the continuation of a process that had already surfaced earlier in some Jewish communities, as discussed above and elsewhere (Levine 2012b: 69–​96, 166–​70), but was also a response to the challenges posed and stimulation offered by the emerging Christian society and its extensive use of art in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. Thus, for example, the widespread and unprecedented use of Jewish symbols in synagogues, cemeteries, and domestic settings was probably in part a reaction to Christianity’s use of symbols, particularly the cross. It was only in the fourth century that this symbol became ubiquitous among Christians, as vividly attested by John Chrysostom, and it was at this time that the menorah assumed a similar function among Jews, quickly becoming the Jewish symbol par excellence with well over a thousand examples recorded to date. The assertion that the use of the menorah was in part a Jewish response to the cross is not simply a theoretical possibility. Archaeological finds from several Jewish contexts display the menorah precisely where a cross was depicted on a similar artifact from the Christian realm. For example, a menorah was incised on a chancel screen at Ḥammat Gader just as a cross was incised on a chancel screen at Masu’ot Yitzḥaq, and lamps suspended from menorot in Na‘aran resemble those hanging from a cross in North Africa. Moreover, crosses decorated late Byzantine oil lamps, glass jugs, and jars from Jerusalem and elsewhere in precisely the same place that menorot appeared on these same types of objects. In addition, biblical motifs that were rarely used by Jews before the third century C . E . appear in relative abundance in late antiquity (Levine 2012b: 348–​54). Depictions such as the Binding of Isaac, David, Daniel, Noah and the Ark, Aaron and the Tabernacle appurtenances, Samson, the Crossing of the Red Sea, Jonah, and the building of the Jerusalem Temple may have been motivated, directly or indirectly, by comparable Christian depictions (Magness et al. 2018). Contemporary Christianity’s emphasis on holiness also seems to have played an important role not only in promoting biblical art among Jews but also in facilitating the transformation of the synagogue itself into a decidedly religious institution (Levine 2012b: 354–​9). Given the revolutionary changes under Byzantine rule, when the territorial empire of Rome became a religious 344

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realm centered in Constantinople, religious identity –​whether Jewish, Samaritan, or Christian –​ emerged as a significant dimension in later Roman society generally and in its art specifically. This recognition of a new sort of Jewish resilience in late antiquity is relatively new in modern scholarship. Until recently, the Jews of Palestine and the Byzantine world generally were perceived to have endured unending persecution, discrimination, exclusion, and delegitimization brandished by the church and supported by imperial circles. It is not surprising, then, that with respect to Late Antiquity generally, it was no less an authority than Salo W. Baron (1962: 172) who referred to this early Byzantine era as one of “incipient medievalism”. One factor that has led to this fundamental and far-​reaching reevaluation of Jewish culture at this time is the realization that the bulk of literary sources at our disposal emanates, in one form or another, from Christian circles that, for the most part, harbored hostile and antagonistic attitudes toward the Jews and Judaism. Given this newer understanding, many scholars have been inclined of late to dismiss extreme expressions of Christian hostility as being historically inaccurate and misleading owing to their blatant polemical character. Moreover, this new and more balanced assessment of Jewish life in Late Antiquity has been affected in recent generations by two radically different sources of information that focus on internal developments within the Jewish community. Both the large number of archaeological finds and the recovery of texts from the Cairo Genizah illuminate many heretofore unknown dimensions of Jewish society that vastly enrich and significantly revamp our view of Jewish life and culture in this era. The archaeological finds embrace the art and architecture of scores of synagogue buildings and several extensive necropoleis. The many hundreds of inscriptions and the thousands of Genizah documents also tell us much about the cultural and religious spheres in Palestine of late antiquity. As a result, the earlier picture of late antiquity now requires substantial reassessment and revision. The archaeological data are generally indicative of widespread Jewish settlement, economic prosperity, and what appears to have been a stable political and social environment. Sepphoris and Tiberias grew in size, along with other towns and villages in the country where well over 100 synagogues were constructed (Levine 2018). The greatest concentration was in the Galilee and Golan, although such buildings have also been found in the Bet She’an region, southern Judaea, and the coastal area. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of synagogues excavated in Palestine date from late antiquity. Despite the restrictions proscribed in imperial laws, the Jews in Byzantine Palestine continued to build new communal institutions (Merot, Capernaum, Bet Alpha, Ḥuqoq, Sepphoris, southern Judaea), repair those already standing (Ma‘oz Ḥayyim, Ḥammat Tiberias, Ḥammat Gader, ‘En Gedi, Ḥorvat Kur), and rebuild and refurbish others after a period of abandonment or neglect (Nevoraya). In fact, it was precisely at the end of this period, in the sixth and seventh centuries C. E ., that a number of synagogue buildings (such as Ḥammat Tiberias, ‘En Gedi, Nevoraya, Ḥorvat Rimmon, Ma‘oz Ḥayyim) reached their largest dimensions (Stern 1993, passim). In several regions, synagogues were erected where few, if any, had existed before. Most surprising are the discoveries in the Golan, where some 30 such institutions were discovered, almost all of which (Gamla excluded) were built in the Byzantine era (Meir and Meir 2015). Even on the periphery of Judaea (both to the east and west, but especially in the south), some ten synagogues have been discovered to date (Werlin 2015). Given the emperor Hadrian’s prohibition of Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, the extensive destruction in Judaea during and after the Bar-​ Kokhba revolt, the large number of Judaean synagogues was indeed unexpected. Altogether, synagogue remains have proved to be an important factor in reassessing Jewish life in the Byzantine period. The monumental nature of many of these buildings, such as the synagogue’s edifice in 345

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Capernaum dating to the latter part of the fourth and perhaps even fifth centuries, indicates a prosperous and politically confident community. Another factor in reevaluating Jewish life in late antiquity is based on the extensive literary sources from the Cairo Genizah, some of which were formerly dated to the early Middle Ages but are now acknowledged to have been written, at least in part, in the Byzantine era. These include both known and new literary genres –​piyyut (liturgical poetry) (van Bekkum 2008; Münz-​ Manor 2010), early aggadic midrashim and targumic traditions (Shinan 2006), Hekhalot literature (Boustan 2013), apocalyptic works (Reeves 2005), magic treatises and amulets (Schäfer 1990; Swartz 2006), and astrology (Charlesworth 1987). Clearly, this was not a post-​Classical (or posttalmudic) era of decline, as once assumed, but rather one that generated new literary forms reflecting new cultural and spiritual foci as well as enhanced activity in the creation and transmission of traditions and practices. The cultural vitality of the fourth to sixth centuries C.E . reflected in these literary compositions and archaeological remains may have been prompted, at least in part, by the creation of Palaestina Secunda, a province comprising the main area of Jewish settlement in Palestine of late antiquity. Judging by the number of ancient synagogues that have been discovered to date, this region contained about 90 such institutions constituting almost 85% of the total number known in the country in late antiquity. Finally, renewed research on the status of the Jews, Jewish institutions, and Jewish society at large in fourth-​century Palestine suggests that, notwithstanding whatever adjustments or tensions surfaced at that time under Byzantine-​Christian rule, the challenges that presented themselves to the Jews there, and in Palaestina Secunda in particular, were relatively marginal. Thus, the earlier picture of Byzantine Palestine as a cultural wasteland characterized by political decline, economic decay, and cultural stagnation should now be replaced by a very different and far more nuanced appreciation of this era. Jewish society in the fourth and early fifth centuries, at the very least, seems to have enjoyed a significant measure of prosperity, political stability, and cultural vibrancy. Regarding the extensive use of Jewish art in late antiquity, the impressive remains of three synagogues –​Ḥammat Tiberias, Sepphoris, and Ḥuqoq –​bear witness to this flourish in the fourth to sixth centuries C. E . Ḥammat Tiberias: Built at the end of the fourth century, this synagogue was clearly associated with the patriarchal office and contained twelve inscriptions, ten written in Greek naming several patrons and two noting one Severus, the foremost benefactor who was also identified as a close associate of the patriarch. The most striking feature of this building is its exquisite mosaic floor featuring, for the first time, a panel with a cluster of Jewish symbols (a Torah shrine, pairs of menorot, lulavim, etrogim, shofarot, and incense shovels) and a prominent central panel containing a representation of the sun god Helios surrounded by the zodiac signs (Hachlili 2002; Weiss 2005: 104–​41; Magness 2005; Levine 2012b: 243–​59; Hezser 2016). This mosaic is an outstanding example of how important political, social, and cultural contexts are for understanding the art of a particular synagogue. The historical context of late fourth-​century Tiberias, the motifs selected for the mosaic floor and their presentation, as well as the focus on the patriarchal setting, go a long way in explaining the high quality of the artistic work, the themes highlighted, the participation of the local urban aristocracy, as well as the predominance of Greek and Latin names in the inscriptions. All these elements point to a patriarchal initiative (or of those in his coterie) supported by a wealthy and acculturated group of Tiberians (Levine 2012b: 245–​7). Thus, by the turn of the fifth century, Jewish life was accorded repeated assurances that its central institutions had the support of the imperial government. The patriarch was approaching the zenith of his power at this time. Jewish practices and observances were being reconfirmed in 346

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imperial law, and synagogues flourished. The establishment of Palaestina Secunda may well have constituted yet another step in Rome’s support of the social, communal, religious, and cultural life of this region’s predominantly Jewish population. Sepphoris: This process did not end with the turn of the fourth century but continued thereafter, as evidenced by the creativity of the Jewish art in several early fifth-​century synagogues. The first of these synagogues, discovered in 1993, was located in Sepphoris. Its impressive mosaic floor boasted seven panels (some of which are subdivided) instead of the usual three in most ancient synagogues. These include a panel with a dedicatory inscription flanked by two lions; a panel with the cluster of Jewish symbols similar to the one in Ḥammat Tiberias; two panels depicting the Desert Tabernacle, one including a portrayal of the high priest Aaron (now almost entirely destroyed) and Temple-​related objects; the zodiac theme with the sun replacing the usual figure of Helios; and, finally, two partially preserved scenes from the book of Genesis –​ the Aqedah (Binding of Isaac) and Sarah standing at the entrance to her tent. The various themes portrayed here have attracted a good deal of scholarly attention and have generated a number of theories regarding the meaning of the floor as an anti-​Christian polemic, an expression of the ideas of promise and redemption, motifs signifying early synagogue piyyutim, and an emphasis on priestly presence in the city (Weiss 2005: 225–​62; Levine 2012b: 267–​77). Ḥuqoq: Finally, excavations at the recently discovered synagogue at Ḥuqoq, located just north of Tiberias, near the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, have yielded a rich trove of biblical mosaic depictions, including several scenes of Samson, the Tower of Babel, Noah and the ark, the splitting of the Red Sea, and Jonah and the whale. The zodiac and Helios also appear there, as well as a rare postbiblical scene of a Greek general or king accompanied by Greek soldiers facing (or meeting in what appears to be a friendly encounter) a Jewish leader (possibly a high priest) and Jewish soldiers. The identification of the specific figures in this last scene remains controversial (Magness et al. 2014 and 2018: 92–​5). In noting the many examples of biblical art among Jews of late antiquity, special mention should be made of the remarkable appearance of the figure of Helios, the zodiac, and the four seasons, which are quite different from what we would find in a late Christian context. This preeminent motif, well documented in the Hellenistic and Roman eras, has piqued scholarly curiosity not only owing to its obvious pagan associations but also because of its prominent display in eight Palestinian synagogue mosaic floors. It is invariably the largest panel on synagogue floors (Na‘aran excepted), located in the center of the prayer halls of no less than eight synagogue buildings in urban and rural communities throughout Byzantine Palestine, from the Galilee in the north to the southern Hebron hills and from the Carmel Mountain range in the west to the Jordan Valley in the east. Additional points merit attention in this regard: (1) the zodiac motif appears only in Palestinian synagogues, never in the Diaspora; (2) in Roman usage, the depiction of the three components of this motif vary: any one of series of deities might appear in the center; either the zodiac or the months of the year occupy the circle; and the seasons of the year or other depictions appear in the four corners. However, in Jewish art the combination of these same motifs remains constant –​Helios or a representation of the sun appears in the smaller center circle, the zodiac signs in the larger one, and the seasons in the four corners; and (3) most significantly, no other religious group in the Byzantine Empire –​pagan, Samaritan, or Christian –​ used this specific combination of motifs. Thus, ironically, the zodiac de facto became a Jewish motif par excellence in late antiquity. Why this was so and what it meant to the Jews specifically are issues that have merited considerable discussion and endless theories (Levine 2012b: 319–​36; Hezser 2016). 347

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5. Conclusions The rise of Christianity in the fourth century inaugurated a new era for the Jews of Palestine that would continue for some 300 years, until the Arab conquest in the seventh century C.E. Throughout this time, the Jews were actively engaged in a broad range of cultural areas and were often influenced by what was transpiring in society at large. Given the importance of the above contextual factor, it would be fair to ask why communities responded in such varied ways in the artistic realm –​some producing an art that was conservative in nature, others making full use of “borrowed” motifs, and even others having no qualms about featuring Helios (what could have been considered a radical and daring depiction) on their synagogue mosaic floors. Moreover, some communities eschewed figural representations altogether. The primary explanation for this diversity is that each community was essentially autonomous and determined how its central religious and communal institution should look and function. This applied not only to the architectural and epigraphic dimensions of synagogue life, but also to questions of liturgy and communal policy. Indeed, for the first time in Jewish history, we are witness to the unfiltered messages of the vox populi (or, more accurately, vōcēs populi), ie the wide swathes of society that constituted perhaps as much as 80–​90% of the population not represented in the literary sources. It is this last-​noted feature that accords the archaeological evidence, and particularly its architectural and artistic remains, such importance for our understanding of Jewish life in late antiquity, providing a corrective to the picture portrayed by the literary sources (Levine 2012b: 387–​402; 2005b: 381–​411). Moreover, as noted, from the fourth through seventh centuries C.E. the Jews of Palestine found themselves concentrated in one particular province, Palaestina Secunda, wherein many, if not most, of their literary sources were created –​the Jerusalem Talmud and midrashic collections, religious poetry (piyyut) for use in the synagogue liturgy, Aramaic translations of the Bible (targumim), mystical treatises (Hekhalot), books of magic –​not to speak of the construction of scores of synagogues (Levine 2012b: 213–​21). Thus, when viewing the larger context of the resilient Jewish art at this time, it should be borne in mind that the overall vibrancy of Jewish culture was undoubtedly affected by its new provincial setting that may have indeed strengthened these trends. It is only when the entire range of evidence for this period is taken into consideration –​the artistic and archaeological remains no less than the literary traditions of the intellectual and religious elites –​that one can gain the fullest possible appreciation of the Jewish past, affording valuable insights into the religious and cultural preferences of the many autonomous Jewish communities in late antiquity. Moreover, these instances of Jewish creativity in the material and literary realms can be fully understood and appreciated only if viewed in the wider Byzantine-​Christian orbit in which they coalesced. This material, in turn, attests to the degree of the Jewish communities’ openness and willingness to adopt and adapt influences from the surrounding society. If the term “late antiquity”, widely used in studies of this period, points to processes of renewal, vitality, and creativity in the societies of the third to seventh centuries, then clearly it is not difficult to identify similar developments in the Jewish sphere as well. The creativity and resilience of the Jews as reflected in these sources, together with the as yet undefined measure of vulnerability that was now beginning to surface in Jewish life, can best characterize this era of Jewish history.

Bibliography Baron, S.W. (1962). A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. 2. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Bekkum, W.J. van (2008). “The Hebrew Liturgical Poetry of Byzantine Palestine: Recent Research and New Perspectives,” Prooftexts 28: 232–​46.

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The Appearance of Jewish Figural Art Boustan, R. (2013). “Introduction: Hekhalot Literature at the Intersections of Jewish Regional Cultures”, in R. Boustan, M. Himmelfarb, and P. Schäfer (eds.), Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, XI–​XXIV. Charlesworth, J.H. (1987). “Jewish Interest in Astrology during the Hellenistic and Roman Period,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.20.2: 926–​50. Darby, E. (2014). Interpreting Judean Pillar Figurines: Gender and Empire in Judean Apotropaic Ritual. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Hachlili, R. (2002). “The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Synagogal Art: A Review,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 9: 219–​58. Hachlili, R. (2016). “Why Did the Menorah and Not the Showbread Table Evolve into the Most Important Symbol of Judaism?” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 189–​211. Hezser, C. (2016). “ ‘For the Lord God is a Sun and a Shield’ (Ps. 84:12): Sun Symbolism in Hellenistic Jewish Literature and in Amoraic Midrashim,” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 213–​36. Holland, T.A. (1977). “A Study of Palestinian Iron Age Baked Clay Figurines with Special Reference to Jerusalem Cave I,” Levant 9: 121–​55. Kletter, R. (1996). The Judean Pillar-​Figurines and the Archaeology of Asherah. Oxford: Tempus Reparatum. Lapp, N. and Lapp, P. (1993). “ ‘Iraq el-​Emir,” in E. Stern (ed.), New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, vol. 2. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 646–​9. Levine, L.I. (2002). Jerusalem: A Portrait of the City in the Second Temple Period (538 B.C.E.–​70 C.E.). Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society. Levine, L.I. (2005a). “Figurative Art in Jewish Society,” Ars Judaica 1: 9–​26. Levine, L.I. (2005b). The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years, 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Levine, L.I. (2012a). “The Emergence of a New Jewish Art,” in D. R. Schwartz and Z. Weiss (eds.), Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism Before and After the Destruction of the Second Temple. Leiden: Brill, 301–​39. Levine, L.I. (2012b). Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Levine, L.I. (2016). “Israelite Art in Context,” in A.E. Killebrew and G. Faßbeck (eds.), Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel–​Essays in Honor of Rachel Hachlili. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 308–​54. Levine, L.I. (2018). “Palaestina Secunda: The Geohistorical Setting for Jewish Resilience and Creativity in Late Antiquity,” in M.L. Satlow (ed.), Strength to Strength: Essays in Appreciation of Shaye J. D. Cohen. Providence, RI: Brown University, 511–​35. Machinist, P. (2003). “Mesopotamian Imperialism and Israelite Religion: A Case Study from the Second Isaiah,” in G. Dever, and S. Gitin (eds.), Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 237–​64. Magness, J. (2005). “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59: 1–​52. Magness, J. et al. (2014). “Huqoq (Lower Galilee) and Its Synagogue Mosaics: Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 2011–​13,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 27: 327–​55. Magness, J. et al. (2018), “The Huqoq Excavation Project: 2014–​2017: Interim Report,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 380: 61–​131. Mazar, A. (1990). Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 10,000–​586 B.C.E. New York, NY: Doubleday. Meir, D. and Meir, E. (2015). Ancient Synagogues of the Golan. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-​Zvi. Meshel, Z. (2012). Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (Ḥorvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-​Sinai Border.. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Miller, J.M. and Hayes, J.H. (2006). A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. 2nd ed. Louisville, KN: Westminster John Knox. Münz-​Manor, O. (2010). “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East: A Comparative Approach,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1: 336–​61. Paz, S. (2007). Drums, Women, and Goddesses: Drumming and Gender in Iron Age II Israel. Fribourg and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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23 SYNAGOGUE ARCHITECTURE, DECORATION, AND FURNISHINGS Zeev Weiss

The synagogue, the communal building that operated in the late Second Temple period, developed after the destruction of Jerusalem into an autonomous central religious and communal center for the Jews of Roman Palestine and the Diaspora (Levine 2005: 179–​206). A synagogue building is attested either by the excavation of an entire building or the detection of even a single component, be it an inscription, architectural element, or artistic composition. About 125 synagogues are currently known in ancient Palestine, mainly in the Galilee and Golan but also in the Jordan Valley, the southern Judaean hills, and the coastal area. It is estimated that there were at least 150 synagogues at sites throughout the Diaspora, from Syria in the east to Spain in the west and North Africa in the south. The earliest excavated synagogue building dates to the end of the Second Temple period, but after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and especially from the third century C.E . on, the synagogue had undergone radical changes in both form and content and was prominent in both urban and rural landscapes. The abundance of archaeological finds has enhanced our understanding of this Jewish institution from the late Second Temple period through late antiquity and has also generated new methods of research that provide important insights into the study of the ancient synagogue (Levine, Weiss, and Leibner, eds. 2023). The scope of discussion on this central institution is broad and varied, encompassing art, architecture, internal furnishings, liturgy, and inscriptions, and revealing information about donors and donations, communal leaders, chronology, and more. Although there are still quite a few unresolved issues and disagreements in current synagogue research, great strides have been made in this field in recent decades.

1.  The Architecture of the Synagogue To date, not a single synagogue constructed between 150 and 250 C.E . has been fully uncovered in the region, although some finds may hint at their existence (Meyers 2010). It is quite possible that early religious activity may have taken place either in simple structures lacking the architectural features of monumental public buildings or in private houses that were converted to serve as local synagogues resembling the domus ecclesiae in the Christian realm. Alternatively, the absence of monumental synagogues may be due to their lack of discovery to this day. It is more likely, however, that when a synagogue was rebuilt at a later stage, the remains of the original DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-28

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structure were buried beneath the later edifice or completely obliterated with the new construction, leaving hardly a trace of earlier material evidence. Architectural elements in secondary use in some of the “Galilean” type synagogues and the existence of earlier walls beneath the synagogues in Capernaum, Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam, and Arbel are associated in current scholarship with the early synagogues of some local communities in Roman times (Leibner and Arubas 2022). Contrary to opinions prevalent in the twentieth century that the tripartite typological division of the ancient synagogues built in Roman and Byzantine Palestine is also a chronological one, it is now clear that diversity is what ultimately characterized the architecture of the synagogues constructed after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, from the second half of the third century C .E . through late antiquity (Levine 2005: 313–​60). Several basic principles guiding the plan of the building as a place of cult and prayer were applied independently at each locale, as were the subject matter and quality of its artistic and architectural decorations. Such diversity suggests that each community made its own decisions about how to build its prayer hall based upon cultural proclivities, Zeitgeist, local traditions, availability of craftsmen and masons, and primarily the economic capabilities of the communal members to cover building expenses (Weiss 2021: 76–​ 7). Diversity also exists to some extent in the construction of churches, though compared to the Jewish realm their architectural layout is more uniform and exhibits a clear preference for the basilical plan (Patrich 2006).

a)  Shaping the Late Antique Synagogue: The Archaeological Evidence Synagogue buildings from late antique Galilee and Golan were monumental, embellished with decorative elements on their interior and exterior walls that followed the prevalent decorative style in Roman Syria. These include the synagogues at Bar‘am, Capernaum, Chorazin, Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam, Ḥuqoq, Ḥorvat ‘Ammudim (Figure 23.1), Meiron, Nabratein, and Merot in the

Figure 23.1 Ḥorvat ‘Ammudim, north-eastern view (copyright: Z. Weiss).

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Galilee, and Ḥorvat Dikke, Qaṣrin, Khirbet ‘Aziz, and Umm el-​Qanatir in the Golan. Their façades, constructed of white limestone or basalt ashlar blocks, were decorated with stone carvings (Hachlili 2013: 125–​62). In most places the decorated façade faced south, toward Jerusalem, and had three entrances –​ the central one was larger than the side entrances flanking it, although smaller structures had only one entrance. The rectangular building had a gabled roof supported by three rows of columns inside the hall that corresponded to three of the walls, excluding the façade wall. The corner columns were often heart shaped. Smaller synagogues had two rows of columns dividing the central hall into two aisles. In some synagogues, the columns supported another row of shorter columns that raised the roof of the hall to create a clerestory and possibly also a second story with multipurpose galleries (but not a women’s section). Most of the “Galilean”-​type synagogues were paved with flagstones, except for Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam, Ḥuqoq, Ḥorvat Ammudim, and Merot that were embellished with colorful mosaics containing figurative images. Spolia –​stones taken from dismantled buildings –​were used in some locales, creating columns with different diameters, varying pedestals, and an assortment of capitals of three main orders: Corinthian, Ionian, and Roman-​Doric (Meyers et al. 1990: 100–​3; Aviam 2007: 39–​41). The architectural layout and construction of other synagogues in late antique Palestine were inspired primarily by the Christian basilica (Hachlili 1997; Weiss, forthcoming a), which at times included galleries over the aisles and high clerestory windows above the nave that brought light into the building. Churches were usually built on an east-​west axis with their apses facing eastward, whereas the orientation of synagogues depended on their geographical location within ancient Palestine that directed prayer toward Jerusalem. Synagogues of this type were found at several sites around the Sea of Galilee (Ḥammat Tiberias, Stratum 1), in the Jordan Valley (Bet Alpha, see Figure 23.2, and Na‘aran) and on the Judaean coastal plain (Gaza-​Maiumas). Most of them followed the usual pattern of a nave and two aisles, while the early sixth-​century Gaza-​ Maiumas synagogue had four aisles –​two on either side of the main hall (Ovadiah 1981: 129–​30). In contrast to the Galilean and Golan synagogues, the artistic focus was on the buildings’ interior

Figure 23.2 Bet Alpha, plan of the synagogue (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

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Figure 23.3 Ḥammat Tiberias synagogue, Stratum IIb (bottom) and Stratum IIa (top).

while their stone-​cut exterior walls were left bare in most cases. Several architectural features such as pedestals and capitals, which were mainly spolia, were also used here, but it was the floor inside these buildings, adorned with rich and colorful mosaics, that merited most attention. Although it has been thought that synagogues with an apse, built according to the basilical plan, were not constructed before the sixth century C. E . (Foerster 1995), an analysis of finds unearthed at Ḥammat Gader, Tiberias, and Ma‘oz Ḥayyim suggests that such a plan was, in fact, appropriated by the Jews earlier, in the fifth century C. E . (Dothan 2000: 93–​4; Tzaferis 1982: 242–​4). Other synagogues in the region were constructed according to different architectural plans. Those in Susiya, Eshtemoa, Khirbet Shema, and Ḥammat Tiberias (Stratum 2, see Figure 23.3) were broadhouses whose long wall, containing the Torah shrine, faced Jerusalem and whose interior space was arranged accordingly (Hachlili 2013: 73–​6, 117–​8). In the Galilean synagogues, however, rows of columns were added to support the roof, thereby dividing the prayer hall into several areas. The prayer hall in the Khirbet Ma‘on and Khirbet Anim synagogues in Judaea was rectangular (Amit 2003: 92–​101, 117–​28), and at Bet Leontis in Bet She’an it was square (Bahat 1981), but these were all relatively smaller in size and had no columns to support the roof. In contrast, the interior space of two other urban synagogues was built asymmetrically. The synagogue at Ḥammat Tiberias (Stratum 2) was a broadhouse with three rows of columns dividing its interior into four aisles (Weiss 2009b), one to the west of the nave and two to the east, whereas the synagogue in Sepphoris (Figure 23.7) had only one aisle, north of the main hall (Weiss 2005a: 40–​50). Synagogues in the Diaspora were found in all parts of the empire around the Mediterranean: Dura Europos and Apamea in Syria; Gerasa in Jordan; Priene, Sardis, Andriake, and Limyra in Asia Minor; Aegina in Greece; Stobi in Macedonia; Saranda in Albania; Plovdiv (Philippopolis) in Bulgaria; Bova Marina and Ostia in Italy; Elche in Spain; and Ḥammam Lif (Naro) in North Africa (Levine 2005: 250–​91; Çevik et al. 2010; Burkhardt and Wilson 2013; Seyer and Lotz 2013). Most synagogues in the Diaspora were located on the city’s periphery, close to the city wall and in conjunction with the single thoroughfare leading into the urban center. They were often incorporated into earlier structures, at times extending the contours of the original edifice or using only part of 354

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it; here, too, materials for their construction came largely from spolia. The Diaspora synagogues varied in their dimensions, floor plans, decorations, and facilities, but they were all oriented toward Jerusalem. The location of the main entrance leading into these synagogues varied from site to site, and at times a room, hallway, or courtyard with a cistern, water basin, or fountain was placed in front of the building, separating the synagogue from the outside grounds. The synagogue at Dura Europos had murals, but most of the other buildings were embellished with colorful mosaics whose finds were diverse and compositions less coherent (Levine 2012: 235–​40).

b)  Current Trends in Dating the Galilean Synagogues Among the diverse synagogues known to have stood in ancient Palestine, the date of the “Galilean”-​ type synagogue, except for those in the Golan that are all dated to the fourth century C.E. and later (Maʻoz 2017: 68–​90), is still debatable among scholars. This is due not only to the paucity of dated inscriptions that could have helped establish the construction date of at least some “Galilean”-​ type synagogues, but mainly because the interpretation of the archaeological finds by scholars employing different research methods to date such buildings is not entirely clear (Amit 2007). The resemblance of the “Galilean”-​type synagogues to Roman buildings (especially temples) in the southern Levant in terms of their monumentality, architectural style, and use of ornate reliefs on the buildings’ exterior and interior has led some scholars to argue that these synagogues should also be dated to the Roman period. According to this approach, the construction date of the “Galilean”-​ type synagogue should be determined by its architectural and artistic styles, while the later finds discovered beneath the building’s floor (eg Capernaum) (Figure 23.4) are associated with later renovations and repairs of the “Galilean”-​type building (Foerster 1992: 290–​302; Tsafrir 1995; Maʻoz 2017: 22–​44). In contrast, other scholars argue that the date of the “Galilean”-​type synagogue should be determined by a stratigraphical analysis of the archaeological remains and a thorough study of the finds (pottery, coins, etc.) collected beneath the building’s sealed floor that would

Figure 23.4 Capernaum, panoramic view into the synagogue. Photo: Ross Burns, available at Manar al-​ Athar, www.manar-​al-​athar.ox.ac.uk (see Capernaum).

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serve as a terminus post quem for its construction (Corbo 1975: 116–​69; Loffreda 1972; Ilan and Damati 1987: 43–​71; Magness 2001). According to this approach, the chronological parameters of the buildings’ architectural style are not as rigid as claimed by the other scholars. Therefore, it may be concluded that the construction of the “Galilean”-​type synagogues was inspired by the Roman architectural forms that continued to prevail in Syria until the sixth century C.E. (Magness 2001: 33–​5). Although the stratigraphical approach is well accepted in current research, there is a lack of consensus among scholars regarding the methodological use of the archaeological finds in absolute terms and the implications of these data in dating each and every synagogue (Spigel 2016; Meyers 2019: 948–​53). Another approach that has not been accepted as decisive by the two groups of scholars mentioned above combines the above methods, arguing that the ashlars and ornate reliefs originated in Roman times but were reused as spolia in the construction of the synagogues in the Byzantine period. This suggestion was initially raised to resolve the contradiction between the architectural and stratigraphic finds as well as determine the date of the synagogue building in Capernaum (Ma‘oz 1999) and was again implemented in the excavations of the synagogue at Bar‘am (Figure 23.5). The finds uncovered in several critical loci at Bar‘am suggest that the synagogue was constructed in the mid-​fifth century C.E., however, an analysis of the architectural decoration of the façade clearly indicates that it was built in the Byzantine period with spolia from one or several Roman buildings (Aviam 2007). This last approach seems plausible, and while it should be applied at other sites it nevertheless leaves an unresolved question: where did these stones used as spolia come from? It can be assumed that the stones were dismantled from an earlier building (not necessarily a synagogue) that was located elsewhere and were transferred to Bar‘am for the construction of the synagogue. Alternatively, the stones and architectural decorations may have come from an earlier synagogue at Bar‘am, and after it was completely dismantled in the Byzantine period the building materials were reused by the local community to construct their new prayer hall on the same spot (Foerster 2004: 528–​9).

Figure 23.5 Bar‘am, decorated façade of the mid-​fifth century C. E . synagogue. Photo: Sean Leatherbury, available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​athar.ox.ac.uk (see Baram).

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Future excavations at other synagogues throughout the Galilee will undoubtedly provide further insights to support or reject earlier assumptions. At this stage of research, however, it has become clear that the “Galilean”-​type synagogues should not be treated as a distinct group that is uniformly dated either to the early or later period but, rather, each building must be examined independently in light of the finds discovered at the site. Some synagogues were presumably constructed during the third century C. E . while others were built in the fifth and even early sixth centuries C.E .

2.  Decorating the Sacred Realm Synagogue ornamentation varied in both subject matter and artistic quality. The exterior walls of the synagogues in the Galilee and Golan were embellished with decorative elements, although most synagogue buildings focused their attention on adorning the inner space of the prayer hall according to late antique tradition. Motifs inspired by Graeco-​Roman and early Christian iconographic traditions were now introduced into synagogue art and, developing at a different pace from one site to the next and from one community to another, were already noticeable in the Roman period, intensifying significantly in late antiquity.

a)  Architectural Decorations In the “Galilean”-​and “Golan”-​type synagogues, ornate reliefs usually decorated the buildings’ façades, the lintels of its entrances and windows as well as the Torah shrine in the prayer hall (Hachlili 2013: 223–​35). The sumptuously decorated synagogues (eg at Capernaum and Chorazin) boasted reliefs on the “Syrian gables” of the buildings’ façades as well as on the pilasters, convex friezes (Figure 23.6), cornices, and capitals decorating their interior spaces (Hachlili 2013: 235–​ 46). Jewish symbols –​such as the five-​to nine-​branched menorah, a menorah with a shofar (ram’s horn), incense shovels, and an aedicula-​shaped Torah shrine –​are clearly discernible on architectural elements that also bore pagan motifs, such as two Victories bearing a wreath, garlands and cupids, acanthus and vine scrolls containing figures of animals, fruit, geometric forms, and in one case even human figures in a depiction of a grape harvest (Hachlili 2013: 456–​60). Reliefs of paired eagles and heraldic lions are also evident in such synagogues, as were three-​dimensional statues of lions that may have flanked both sides of the Torah shrine in several locales (Hachlili 2013: 436–​47).

Figure 23.6 Capernaum, decorated frieze. Photo: Ross Burns, available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​ athar.ox.ac.uk (see Capernaum).

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The variable nature of ornamentation finds expression on lintels of a building’s exterior (Hachlili 2013: 224–​35). Geometric, floral, and figurative elements adorned these lintels; in addition, the menorah appears on them frequently as a central independent motif (Khirbet Shema), within a wreath (Nabratein), or in pairs flanking a central feature (Asaliyyeh). An eagle or a pair of eagles adorn the lintels of several “Golan”-​type synagogues: the soffit of the synagogue at Gush Ḥalav displays an eagle flanked by two garlands (Hachlili 2013: 447–​50); two heraldic lions grasping a bull’s head in their claws located on either side of a krater decorated the lintel at Ḥorvat Ammudim (Hachlili 2013: 441); and flying Victories flank a wreath in the lintel at Bar‘am (Hachlili 2013: 458–​60, 532–​3).

b) Mosaics Synagogues, like churches, were embellished with colorful mosaic floors that at times covered the entire prayer hall and adjacent rooms. The mosaic carpet in some synagogues was divided into several horizontal panels while many of the depictions portrayed in churches were arranged in one large carpet with no partitions (Hachlili 2009: 220–​2). By and large, synagogue mosaic art is characterized by uniformity, repetition, and continuity. The themes embedded in such floors were selected according to the tastes and proclivities of each community and its patrons to convey ideas they deemed important. Over the years, the artists, influenced at times by Christian and other artistic traditions, adapted themes and compositional models that accommodated the needs of the Jewish community and conformed to their religious beliefs. However, as far as we know today, there was no central authority guiding a local Jewish community’s decision to select certain themes or compose its synagogue’s mosaic layout. Mosaic carpets featuring figurative images took several forms. In most cases, figurative and other significant panels placed in the nave –​in contrast to the geometric motifs in the aisles –​were meant to emphasize the focal interior of the building that drew the attention of the worshippers to the bema (platform) and the direction of prayer. In the Ḥammat Tiberias, Na‘aran, and Bet Alpha synagogues, for instance, the mosaic carpet was divided into three unequal bands, and in the Sepphoris synagogue –​into seven (Figure 23.7). In such buildings the zodiac appears in the center of the carpet, the architectural façade and Jewish symbols are displayed in the panel next to the bema, and the biblical themes and other motifs are dispersed throughout the other panels. A slightly different layout was found in the synagogues at Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam and Ḥuqoq, and probably also Merot, where the figurative panels containing biblical narratives also appear in the aisles (Weiss 2016: 128–​33). Other synagogues are adorned with mosaics containing an overall pattern that covers the entire carpet. The synagogue floors at Ḥammat Tiberias (Stratum 1a) and ‘En Gedi, for example, have geometric designs, the latter also containing several birds and peacocks, but no human figures (Hachlili 2013: 269–​72). Some sites have a single pattern covering the entire carpet, while others have two or more carpets featuring different designs. Carpets with more complex overall designs are known for several synagogues, either in the prayer hall (Ma‘on-​Nirim and Bet Leontis in Bet She’an) (Figure 23.8) or in the aisle (Gaza-​ Maiumas) (Hachlili 2013: 265–​9). The figurative images in such mosaics are arranged in a series of vine medallions with vine branches issuing from an amphora located at the bottom of the mosaic carpet. The number of vertical and horizontal rows varies from site to site, depending on the size of the prayer hall. The row on the vertical axis features animals or objects associated with agricultural themes and the medallions in each parallel row portray birds and animals placed antithetically along its axis. 358

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Figure 23.7 Sepphoris, the synagogue’s mosaic carpet in the nave divided into seven unequal bands and its geometric carpet in the aisle (the Sepphoris Excavations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

Figure 23.8 Bet Shean, inhabited vine scrolls from the synagogue of Bet Leontis (courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority; photo: Dan Bahat).

Synagogue mosaics comprise a variety of decorative forms besides geometric and floral designs –​ figurative images, Jewish symbols, and mainly the portrayal of biblical scenes and the incorporation of the zodiac. The mosaics discovered to date in the Diaspora synagogues contain mainly geometric and stylized floral designs. In ancient Palestine, the themes appearing in synagogue mosaics at times differ from those decorating church floors (Vitto 1995: 285–​91; Hachlili 2009: 222–​42). For example, biblical scenes and religious motifs find more expression 359

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Figure 23.9 Bet Alpha, the synagogue’s architectural façade, menorot, lions, and Jewish symbols (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

in synagogues while daily life, Nilotic scenes, and landscapes are more prevalent in churches. Similarly, the zodiac often appears in synagogues whereas the labors of the months are frequently portrayed in the Christian realm. Jewish symbols –​the menorah (seven-​branched candelabrum), lulav (palm branch), etrog (citron), incense shovel, and shofar –​appear in various synagogues mosaics in ancient Palestine and the Diaspora, reflecting here, as in the synagogues decorated with reliefs, the ethno-​religious identity of these communities (Hachlili 2018: 21–​54). An architectural façade flanked by two menorahs, the four species, a shofar, and an incense shovel appears at the top of the mosaic, near the bema, in several synagogues, whereas tongs were added to the same formatted panel in the Sepphoris synagogue (Figure 23.9). Some synagogues feature the entire iconographic set of ritual objects, others depict an abbreviated set of objects, while still others depict only the menorah (Fine 1997: 105–​26; Weiss 2005a: 235–​7). The number of biblical scenes in synagogue mosaics is not particularly large, and although the scenes vary from one site to the next, they include a range of motifs from the books of Genesis, Exodus (Figure 23.10), Numbers, Judges, 1 Samuel, Isaiah, Jonah, and Daniel (Weiss 2016: 121–​ 6; Magness et al. 2018: 86–​118; Miller and Leibner 2018: 147–​68; Gordon and Weiss 2018; Britt and Boustan 2021). Several theories have been proffered over the years for the inclusion of biblical scenes in synagogue floors, from the meaning of a single scene to the wider programmatic use of such themes in mosaics. Some scholars maintain that the biblical episodes portray important historical events illustrating the covenant between God and His people (Kraeling 1956: 346–​63; Miller and Leibner 2018: 175–​8). Others suggest that they reflect the liturgy performed in the ancient synagogue (Fine 2005: 165–​209; Schwartz 2001: 263–​72) or echo the desire of the priests to use visual art for establishing their status as leaders of the Jewish community in the fifth and sixth centuries C.E . (Amit 2004: 143–​54; Levine 2012: 260–​79). Still, others propose interpreting some of the scenes in the context of the Jewish-​Christian controversy, arguing that they illustrate new trends emerging in the face of Christian attempts to undermine God’s promise to the biblical patriarchs (Kessler 2000; Weiss 2009a). Although each of these proposals can be equally persuasive and problematic, the growing number of biblical scenes that have been uncovered in 360

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Figure 23.10 Ḥuqoq synagogue, mosaic depicting the crossing of the Red Sea (courtesy of Jodi Magness, Ḥuqoq Excavation Project; photo: Jim Haberman).

Figure 23.11  Sepphoris synagogue, mosaic featuring the zodiac (the Sepphoris Excavations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; photo: G. Laron).

synagogue art, such as the most recent finds at Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam and Ḥuqoq, and their distribution throughout the region may allude to an even wider practice among the Jews of antiquity, to decorate their prayer halls with such scenes. In contrast to the Christian realm, they were not considered inappropriate to appear on a synagogue floor on which people stepped. Alongside these biblical scenes, there was the zodiac, which was incorporated into the floors of seven or eight synagogues dating from the fourth to sixth centuries C.E . (Foerster 1985; Hachlili 2002; Weiss 2005b; Magness et al. 2018: 106–​11) (Figure 23.11). Despite the iconographic and stylistic differences in its design at each site, this pagan motif and its basic layout remain unchanged. Owing to its large size, the motif occupied a considerable part of the mosaic floor and 361

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undoubtedly served as a focal point. However, its exact meaning in these Jewish circles is elusive and therefore debatable. Without going into the details and meaning of the zodiac, its inclusion in several ancient synagogues is indicative of its importance in the eyes of the Jewish community despite its pagan origins. The composition, iconography, and use of symbols in synagogue mosaics differ from those embellishing churches, and yet some carpets in both buildings exhibit similar layouts and comparable designs, such as the populated scrolls (acanthus and vine scrolls containing figures) in the synagogue at Ma‘on-​Nirim and the church at Shellal or the interlocking geometrical patterns at Na‘aran and Madaba (Hachlili 2009: 220–​2; 2013: 265–​9). Moreover, detailed examinations reveal similarities in the mosaic craftsmanship of both communities, for example, in the execution of the architectural façade of the synagogue in Susiya and the Theotokos chapel in the Church of Saints Lot and Procopius at Khirbet el-​Mukhayyat; in the inclusion of several elements, such as the amphora, animals, birds, and peacocks on either side of an inscription, in the mosaic carpets of the small synagogue at Bet Shean and the el-​Maqerqesh chapel at Bet Guvrin; or in the design of the mosaic border with alternating geometric patterns and compartments containing birds at Ma‘oz Ḥayyim and Ḥorvat Berachot (Foerster 1990: 545–​7; Hachlili 2009: 111–​47). These examples, among many others, suggest that Jews and Christians in ancient Palestine at times used similar iconographic models and comparable styles when decorating their houses of worship with mosaics.

c) Murals To date, figurative wall paintings embellishing the prayer hall have been discovered only in the mid-​third-​century C.E . synagogue at Dura Europos in Syria (Kraeling 1956: 66–​254). They contain biblical themes arranged in three horizontal bands, covering all four walls of the prayer hall, each of which is divided into a number of panels. Biblical representations arranged vertically above the Torah shrine are more symbolic in nature, whereas the rich narrative depictions on the walls of the prayer hall portray important biblical events denoting the covenant between God and His people. These unique murals, executed in fresco, have led some scholars to argue that it was unlikely that such biblical scenes were represented on the walls of ancient Palestinian synagogues (Avi-​ Yonah 1981: 388; Levine 2012: 70–​9, 97–​118). By contrast, according to some sources, Christians in the southern Levant adorned their church walls with biblical and New Testament themes, at times for didactic purposes (Mango 1972: 32–​3, 60–​72). Yet archaeological finds retrieved from the debris of several synagogues in our region suggest that the white plaster walls at some sites were decorated with drawings and inscriptions, including those at Ḥammat Tiberias, Ma‘oz Ḥayyim, Ḥorvat Rimon, Merot, ‘En Gedi, Reḥov, and, more recently, Ḥuqoq (Vitto 1995: 291–​3; 2015; Magness et al. 2018: 88–​91). A sixth-​century C.E . inscription from Susiya mentions Rabbi Isi the priest biribbi, who made that synagogue’s mosaic and plastered its walls (Naveh 1978: 114–​6), suggesting that this synagogue’s walls might have been decorated with frescoes. Based on these finds it has been suggested that the walls in these synagogues were coated with uniformly colored backgrounds, which were then decorated with simple geometric or stylistic floral motifs, at times even with inscriptions and Jewish ritual symbols, but never with figurative images and biblical themes (Vitto 1995: 297). Given the fact that the walls in most synagogues were preserved up to foundation level and that only several small fragments of frescoes were found in the debris, it is conceivable that figurative and biblical themes may have graced some ancient Palestinian synagogues. Evidence for such a practice is found in a Genizah fragment with an excerpt from the Jerusalem Talmud that mentions some third-​century Palestinian sages who refer to paintings in a public 362

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building, in all probability a synagogue: “In the days of Rabbi Yoḥanan, paintings were allowed on the walls, and they did not object” (y. Abod. Zar. 3:3,.42d; Epstein 1932: 20). Reading this passage, one could argue that rabbis were responding to an innovative practice regarding wall paintings. However, the text does not provide enough details about the nature of this art. One could question the rabbis’ need to articulate their attitude had the buildings been decorated solely with simple nonfigurative designs. The use of colorful paintings with geometric and floral patterns is well documented in the houses of the wealthy in first-​century Galilee –​in Yodefat and Sepphoris as well as in the synagogue at Magdala. Thus, in the mid-​third century –​the days of Rabbi Yoḥanan and around the time the Dura Europos synagogue was decorated with a plethora of figurative images –​Galilean rabbis commented, post facto, on this innovative practice that had also become a reality in their own environs. Figurative images were in use at about the same time in the necropolis of Bet She‘arim, the assumed burial place of the patriarch Rabbi Yehudah ha-​Nasi, and it is probable that a number of Jewish communities in late antique Galilee and the Diaspora decided to decorate their own synagogue with figurative depictions and biblical scenes (Avigad 1976: 275–​ 87; Levine 2012: 119–​28).

3.  Interior Furnishings Over the years, additional finds have provided important information about the spatial arrangement, lighting, and accompanying liturgical furnishings in the synagogues of ancient Palestine and the Diaspora in the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple. In most of the synagogues, two or three rows of stepped benches were built along the walls of the prayer hall to accommodate the worshippers. In those synagogues that did not have permanent benches, or if additional seating was needed on special occasions, the members of the community might have sat on wooden benches or on carpets and mats spread over the floor (Spigel 2012: 38–​42).

a)  Orientation of Prayer and the Emergence of the Torah Shrine The orientation of prayer toward Jerusalem, originating in the halakhic stipulation appearing in the tannaitic midrash Sifre Deuteronomy 29 (Finkelstein 1969: 47), seems to have influenced the design of many synagogues built from the third century C.E . onwards in ancient Palestine and the Diaspora, although exceptions to this rule are well documented at several sites (Ehrlich 2004: 64–​ 98; Levine 2005: 326–​30). As noted, not a single synagogue constructed between 150 and 250 C.E . has been found to date in the region, however, the buildings constructed in the second half of the third century C .E . –​ Ḥammat Tiberias (Stratum 2b), ‘En Gedi, and Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam, which were all oriented toward Jerusalem –​had no permanent Torah shrine. Judging by the description in several rabbinic sources, it seems that the Torah ark (Heb. tevah) was brought into the prayer hall of these buildings for the Torah-​reading ceremony and was then returned to its place upon the completion of the service. When the ark was brought into the prayer hall, it was set down so that “it faces the people and its back is to the holy” (t. Meg. 3:21), thereby indicating its orientation toward Jerusalem (Sapir 2007: 134–​7). Only by the late third and mainly fourth centuries C.E ., with the introduction of a bema into the prayer hall, did the Torah shrine that was set upon it become a permanent fixture, serving as a ritual focus and indicating conclusively that the direction of prayer was toward Jerusalem (Weiss 1990: 14–​20; Levine 2005: 345–​7). In the synagogues constructed in the third century C. E . (mentioned earlier) an elevated bema was added later, sometime in the fourth century C .E ., while those constructed from the fourth century C.E . onwards (Susiya, Reḥov, and Sepphoris) were built from the outset with a permanent bema. 363

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Figure 23.12 Umm el-​Qanatir, the reconstructed Torah shrine (courtesy of Y. Dray, Restoration of Ancient Technology).

The bema in the synagogue, as in the church, served as a focal point and marked the direction of prayer. However, it was furnished and utilized differently in each locale (Habas 2000: 111–​20). Compared to the church, the size of the bema projecting into the synagogue’s prayer hall was relatively smaller. The bema in the synagogue accommodated a Torah shrine, whereas the bema in the church had an altar, synthronon (two or three benches leaning against the apse for the clergy, with the bishop’s throne in the center), and protruding ambo (elevated pulpit). The bishop and other clergy remained inside the enclosed bema during ceremonies conducted in the church, however, the ḥazzan (synagogue official), Torah reader, meturgeman (translator), and darshan (preacher) performed their tasks elsewhere in the prayer hall, since the bema was too small to hold all of them. Architectural elements belonging to a Torah shrine found in the late fifth-​century C.E . synagogue at Umm el-​Qanatir in the Golan allowed for the reconstruction of a five-​meter aedicula for the first time (Dray et al. 2017: 224–​9) (Figure 23.12). Several architectural elements found elsewhere in the region or in the Diaspora suggest that similar facilities existed in other synagogues (Younger 2009: 88–​92). The Torah shrine at Umm el-​Qanatir, built on a bema, took the form of an aedicula adorned with columns supporting a gabled lintel. The bema in other synagogues of ancient Palestine and the Diaspora –​and not necessarily the basilical type –​contained a less elaborate ark (Yeivin 2000: 62–​3; Hachlili 2013: 163–​82) but was enclosed by a chancel screen resembling the bema in the church, which was formed by a row of marble columns and panels decorated with various symbols in low relief (Habas 2000; Hachlili 2013: 211–​5; Seyer and Lotz 2013: 136–​9) (Figure 23.13).

b) Illumination Illumination of the synagogue’s interior depended on the natural light entering the building through a series of clerestory windows located on the second story, around the nave, and a few other windows interspersed along the building’s walls. In addition, lighting fixtures were installed throughout the prayer hall for use on cloudy days and at night. A variety of fixtures of similar 364

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Figure 23.13 Ḥammat Gader, chancel screen with a menorah set within a wreath. (Collection of Israel Antiquities Authority; photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Avraham Hay).

Figure 23.14 Sepphoris, polycandelon with six glass lamps (the Sepphoris Excavations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; photo: Gabi Laron; drawing: Sara Halbreich).

size, shape, and purpose were used in both synagogues and churches (Hachlili 2013: 330–​2; Caseau 2007: 558–​69). Besides the simple clay and bronze oil lamps interspersed throughout the building’s interior, other lamps and chandeliers hung from the ceiling to enhance the light inside the prayer hall. The polycandelon –​ a larger fixture with six glass lamps having hollow stems that hung by a chain from the ceiling –​was also commonly used in both synagogues and churches throughout the Byzantine period (Figure 23.14). Moreover, several synagogues had an 365

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Figure 23.15 Ma‘on, the reconstructed three-​dimensional marble menorah. (Staff Archaeological Officer in the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria; photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by David Harris.)

eternal light suspended above the Torah ark; based on depictions appearing in mosaics, a similar feature also hung in church sanctuaries, either over the altar in the main hall or side apses (Levine 2005: 356–​7; Bouras and Parani 2008: 27–​8). Free-standing marble or limestone menorot adorned the prayer halls of synagogues in ancient Palestine and the Diaspora (Amit 2003: 154–​65; Kroll 2001: 42, 44–​5) (Figure 23.15). The size, shape, material, and craftsmanship of these menorot differ in each locale (cf. Ma‘on, Susiya, Ḥammat Tiberias, and Sardis), but in light of the common depiction in ancient Jewish art of an architectural façade flanked by two menorot and other Jewish symbols it is possible that at least one such element actually stood near the Torah shrine in several ancient synagogues (Hachlili 2018: 117–​29; Milson 2007: 106–​40). At times, the menorah was used to illuminate the prayer hall, yet by placing it beside the Torah shrine in the direction of prayer, it signified the sanctification of the synagogue and seems to have symbolized the Jerusalem Temple and the hope for future redemption of the Jews in those communities.

4.  The Later History of the Synagogue –​ Concluding Remarks After the initial construction of synagogues was completed, the buildings continued to exist for one or two centuries, fulfilling the religious needs of the local communities. At times, they were renovated, expanded, or rebuilt, often preserving the general contours of the original building, or they were equipped with new accouterments donated by local patrons or introduced into the sanctuary to accommodate ongoing ritual needs. Signs of gradual decline were identified in various synagogues, finding expression, for example, in the poor repair of a mosaic carpet, the later construction of a building’s floor, or the modification of the size of a prayer hall. Current scholarship focuses primarily on the physical appearance of the synagogue or the liturgical and communal activities that took place in the building at the height of its glory, but its later history –​how long 366

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synagogues were in use and when and what led to their abandonment –​are rarely the subject of discussions. Earthquakes are often invoked as the ultimate explanation for the destruction of several ancient Palestinian synagogues. However, other circumstances are also known to have led to their destruction and final abandonment (Weiss, forthcoming b): stormy weather exerted pressure on the side walls of the monumental synagogue at Umm el-​Qanatir, causing it to collapse (Dray et al. 2017: 228–​9); irreparable damage led to the abandonment of the synagogue at Sepphoris, and after a period of lying in ruins its walls were deliberately dismantled (Weiss 2005a: 29–​30); traces of a massive fire were found inside the synagogue at ‘En Gedi, suggesting that it was destroyed under violent circumstances in the late sixth or early seventh century C.E ., before the Persian conquest (Barag et al. 1981: 117; Porat 2021: 233–​4). Similar circumstances led to the abandonment and destruction of synagogues in the Diaspora. However –​based on written imperial legislative and Christian sources –​it is assumed that Diaspora synagogues were destroyed by Christians, as evidenced, for example, in the synagogue buildings at Stobi, Apamea, Palmyra, and Gerasa (Jastrzębowska 2011–​12). It seems that the above circumstances that led to the abandonment and final destruction of synagogues at the end of late antiquity did not happen simultaneously. A comparative analysis of the archaeological finds clearly indicates that, for the most part, this was an ongoing process occurring over one or two centuries, when most of the impressive synagogues that once served as a source of pride for local Jewish communities diminished, leaving in their wake the past glory that is still visible amidst the remains. The surveys and excavations of synagogues conducted in ancient Palestine and the Diaspora from the beginning of the twentieth century until today significantly enhance our knowledge of this central institution of the Jewish community that continued to flourish after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. It is hoped that future excavations in Israel and throughout the Mediterranean region will provide new information about this pivotal Jewish institution and that new finds will be studied, compared, and evaluated on the basis of what is already known. Such studies will ultimately enrich our understanding, answer old questions, and open new vistas regarding the late antique synagogue in Palestine and the Diaspora.

Bibliography Amit, D. (2003). The Synagogues of Hurbat Ma‘on and Hurbat ‘Anim and the Jewish Settlement in Southern Judea (Hebrew). Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Jerusalem: Hebrew University. Amit, D. (2004). “Priests and the Memory of the Temple in the Synagogues of Southern Judaea” (Hebrew), in L.I. Levine (ed.), Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-​Christian Palestine. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-​Zvi, 143–​54. Amit, D. (2007). “The Dating of Ancient Synagogues” (Hebrew), Cathedra 124: 6–​12. Aviam, M. (2007). “The Ancient Synagogue at Bir‘am” (Hebrew), Michmanim 20: 33–​42. Avigad, N. (1976). Beth She‘arim: Report on the Excavations During 1953–​1958, vol. 3: Catacombs 12–​23. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Avi-​Yonah, M. (1981). Art in Ancient Palestine: Selected Studies. Jerusalem: Magnes. Bahat, D. (1981). “A Synagogue at Beth-​Shean,” in L.I. Levine (ed.), Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 82–​5. Barag, D. et al. (1981). “The Synagogue at ‘En-​Gedi,” in L. I. Levine (ed.), Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 116–​9. Bouras, L. and Parani, M.G. (2008). Lighting in Early Byzantium. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Britt, K. and Boustan, R. (2021). “Scenes in Stone: Newly Discovered Mosaics from the North Aisle in the Huqoq Synagogue,” Studies in Late Antiquity 5: 509–​79.

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Zeev Weiss Burkhardt, N. and Wilson, M. (2013). “The Late Antique Synagogue in Priene: Its History, Architecture, and Context,” Gephyra 10: 169–​99. Caseau, B. (2007). “Objects in Churches: The Testimony of Inventories,” in L. Lavan, E. Swift, and T. Putzeys (eds.), Objects in Context, Objects in Use: Material Spatiality in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 558–​79. Çevik N. et al. (2010). “A Unique Discovery in Lycia: The Ancient Synagogue at Andriake, Port of Myra,” Adalya 13: 335–​66. Corbo, V.C. (1975). Cafarnao I: Gli edifici della città. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press. Dothan, M. (2000). Hammath Tiberias, vol. 2: Late Synagogues. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Dray, Y. et al. (2017). “The Synagogue of Umm el-​Qanatir: Preliminary Report,” Israel Exploration Journal 67: 209–​31. Ehrlich, U. (2004). The Nonverbal Language of Prayer: A New Approach to Jewish Liturgy. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Epstein, J.N. (1932). “Yerushalmi Fragments” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 3: 15–​26. Fine, S. (1997). This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of Synagogues during the Greco-​Roman Period. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Fine, S. (2005). Art and Judaism in the Greco-​Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Finkelstein, L. (ed.) (1969). Sifre Deuteronomy (Hebrew). New York, NY: Jewish Theological Seminary. Foerster, G. (1985). “Representations of the Zodiac in Ancient Synagogues and Their Iconographic Sources” (Hebrew), Eretz-​Israel 18: 380–​91. Foerster, G. (1990). “Allegorical and Symbolic Motifs with Christian Significance from Mosaic Pavements of Sixth-​Century Palestinian Synagogues,” in G.C. Bottini et al. (eds.), Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land, New Discoveries: Essays in Honour of Virgilio C. Corbo, Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 545–​52. Foerster, G. (1992). “The Ancient Synagogues of the Galilee,” in L.I. Levine (ed.), The Galilee in Late Antiquity. New York, NY and Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 289–​319. Foerster, G. (1995). “Dating Synagogues with a ‘Basilical’ Plan and an Apse,” in D. Urman and P.V.M. Flesher (eds.), Ancient Synagogues, vol. 1. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 87–​94. Foerster, G. (2004). “Has There Indeed Been a Revolution in the Dating of Galilean Synagogues?” in L.I. Levine (ed.), Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-​Christian Palestine. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-​Zvi, 526–​9. Gordon, B.D. and Weiss, Z. (2018). “Samuel and Saul at Gilgal: A New Interpretation of the Elephant Mosaic Panel in the Huqoq Synagogue,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 31: 524–​41. Habas, L. (2000). “The Bema and Chancel Screen in Synagogues and Their Origin,” in L.I. Levine and Z. Weiss (eds.), From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 111–​30. Hachlili, R. (1997). “Aspects of Similarity and Diversity in the Architecture and Art of Ancient Synagogues and Churches in the Land of Israel,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-​Vereins 113: 92–​122. Hachlili, R. (2002). “The Zodiac in Ancient Synagogal Art: A Review,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 9: 219–​58. Hachlili, R. (2009). Ancient Mosaic Pavements: Themes, Issues, and Trends–​Selected Studies. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2013). Ancient Synagogues–​Archaeology and Art: New Discoveries and Current Research. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2018). The Menorah: Evolving into the Most Important Jewish Symbol. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Ilan, Z. and Damati, E. (1987). Meroth: The Ancient Jewish Village (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Society for the Protection of Nature. Jastrzȩbowska, E. (2011–​12). “The Church Atop a Synagogue in Chersonesos?” Archeologia 62–​63: 61–​73. Kessler, H.L. (2000). “The Sepphoris Mosaic and Christian Art,” in L.I. Levine and Z. Weiss (eds.), From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 64–​72. Kraeling, C.H. (1956). The Excavations at Dura-​Europos, vol. VIII/​1: The Synagogue. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kroll, J.H. (2001). “The Greek Inscriptions of the Sardis Synagogue,” Harvard Theological Review 94: 5–​127.

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Synagogue Architecture, Decoration, and Furnishings Leibner, U. and Arubas, B. (2022). “Invisible Synagogues of the Second Temple Period” (Hebrew), Cathedra 180: 9–​32. Levine, L.I. (2005). The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Levine, L.I. (2012). Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Levine, L.I., Weiss, Z, and Leibner, U. (eds.) (2023). Ancient Synagogues Revealed (1981–​ 2022). Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Loffreda, S. (1972). “The Synagogue of Capernaum, Archaeological Evidence for Its Late Chronology,” Liber Annuus 22: 5–​29. Magness, J. (2001). “The Question of the Synagogue: The Problem of Typology,” in A.J. Avery-​Peck and J. Neusner (eds.), Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism. Part 3: Judaism in Late Antiquity, IV: The Special Problem of the Synagogue. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 1–​48. Magness, J. et al. (2018). “The Huqoq Excavation Project: 2014–​2017 Interim Report,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 380: 61–​131. Mango, C. (1972). The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–​1453: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Ma‘oz, Z.U. (1999). “The Synagogue at Capernaum: A Radical Solution,” in J.H. Humphrey (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Near East, vol. 2. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 137–​48. Ma‘oz, Z.U. (2017). On Ancient Synagogues in Galilee and the Golan. Qazrin: Archaostyle. Meyers, E.M. (2010). “The Problem of the Scarcity of Synagogues from 70 to ca. 250 C.E.: The Case of Synagogue 1 at Nabratein (2nd-​3rd Century C.E.),” in Z. Weiss et al. (eds.), “Follow the Wise” (B Sanhedrin 32b): Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 435–​48. Meyers, E.M. (2019). “Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam and the Galilean Synagogues,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 32: 946–​55. Meyers, E.M. et al. (1990). Excavations at the Ancient Synagogue of Gush Halav. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Miller, S. and Leibner, U. (2018). “The Synagogue Mosaic,” in U. Leibner, Khirbet Wadi Ḥamam: A Roman-​ Period Village and Synagogue in the Lower Galilee. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University. Milson, D. (2007). Art and Architecture of the Synagogue in Late Antique Palestine: In the Shadow of the Church. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Naveh, J. (1978). On Stone and Mosaic: The Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Carta. Ovadiah, A. (1981). “The Synagogue at Gaza,” in L.I. Levine (ed.), Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 129–​32. Patrich, J. (2006). “Early Christian Churches in the Holy Land,” in O. Limor and G.G. Stroumsa (eds.), Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land: From the Origins to the Latin Kingdoms. Turnhout: Brepols, 355–​99. Porat, Y. (ed.). (2021) The Synagogue at En-​Gedi. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University. Sapir, Y. (2007). The Ancient Synagogue in Israel in the Light of the Talmudic Sources (Hebrew). Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Jerusalem: Hebrew University. Schwartz, S. (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Seyer, M. and Lotz, H. (2013). “A Synagogue in Limyra? Preliminary Report on a Byzantine Building with Jewish Elements,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 4: 133–​48. Spigel, C.S. (2012). Ancient Synagogue Seating Capacities: Methodology, Analysis and Limits. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Spigel, C.S. (2016). “Debating Ancient Synagogue Dating: The Implications of Deteriorating Data,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 376: 83–​100. Tsafrir, Y. (1995). “The Synagogues at Capernaum and Meroth and the Dating of the Galilean Synagogues,” in J.H. Humphrey (ed.) The Roman and Byzantine Near East: Some Recent Archaeological Research. Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 151–​61. Tzaferis, V. (1982). “The Ancient Synagogue at Ma‘oz Ḥayyim,” Israel Exploration Journal 32: 215–​44.

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Zeev Weiss Vitto, F. (1995). “The Interior Decoration of Palestinian Churches and Synagogues,” Byzantinische Forschungen 21: 283–​300. Vitto, F. (2015). “Wall Paintings in the Synagogue of Rehov: An Account of Their Discovery,” Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology 7: 2–​12. Weiss, Z. (1990). “The Location of the Sheliah Tzibbur during Prayer” (Hebrew), Cathedra 55: 8–​21. Weiss, Z. (2005a). The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message in Its Archaeological and Socio-​Historical Contexts. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society. Weiss, Z. (2005b). “The Zodiac in Ancient Synagogue Art: Cyclical Order and Divine Power,” in H. Morlier (ed.), La mosaïque gréco-​romaine, vol. IX/​2. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1119–​30. Weiss, Z. (2009a). “Between Rome and Byzantium: Pagan Motifs in Synagogue Art and Their Place in the Judaeo-​Christian Controversy,” in L.I. Levine and D.R. Schwartz (eds.), Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 367–​90. Weiss, Z. (2009b). “Stratum II Synagogue at Hammath Tiberias: Reconsidering Its Access, Internal Space, and Architecture,” in Z. Rodgers et al. (eds.), A Wandering Galilean: Essays in Honour of Seán Freyne. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 321–​42. Weiss, Z. (2016). “Decorating the Sacred Realm: Biblical Depictions in Synagogues and Churches of Ancient Palestine,” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 121–​37. Weiss, Z. (2021). “The Mosaics of the En-​Gedi Synagogue,” in Y. Porat (ed.), The Synagogue at En-​Gedi. Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, 55–​82. Weiss, Z. (forthcoming a). “Building God’s House: Synagogues, Churches, and Intercommunal Relations in Late Antique Palestine,” in E. Iricinschi and C. Kotsifou (eds.), Coping with Religious Change in the Late-​ Antique Eastern Mediterranean. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Weiss, Z. (forthcoming b). “The Synagogue in Late Antique Palestine: Prosperity and Decline in Times of Shifting Hegemonies–​ Between Byzantine Rule and the Umayyad Caliphate,” in J. Hahn (ed.), Expropriation and Destruction of Synagogues in Late Antiquity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Yeivin, Z. (2000). The Synagogue at Korazim: The 1962–​ 1964, 1980–​ 1987 Excavations (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. Younger, J.G. (2009). “Architectural Elements and Sculptures,” in E.M. Meyers and C.L. Meyers, Excavations at Ancient Nabratein: Synagogue and Environs. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 78–​101.

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24 A DISTINCT VISUAL LANGUAGE Rachel Hachlili

1.  Jewish Symbols The most significant symbols depicted on synagogue and church floors are, respectively, the seven-​ armed menorah and the cross, the former being the identifying symbol of Judaism and the latter of Christianity. The menorah, the showbread table, the ark, and various other ritual objects discussed here are uniquely Jewish motifs that express profound values of the religion. These chosen Jewish religious symbols derived from the Temple rites and ceremonies. The menorah (see Figures 24.1 and 24.2) particularly has an important place in Judaism as a light-​giving and cult vessel used both in the Jerusalem Temple and in synagogues in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora (Hachlili 2018). There are many menorot on synagogue mosaic pavements and wall paintings as well as in catacombs and on sarcophagi, tombstones, and other objects, in both the Land of Israel and the Diaspora, usually in a prominent place (Figure 24.2). The earliest depictions of menorot appear in the Second Temple period (first century B. C. E . to first century C.E .) on various objects: The first dated depictions of the seven-​armed menorah appear on the rare bronze coins of the last Hasmonean king Mattathias Antigonus (40–​37 B. C. E .) in which the menorah is rendered on the reverse and the showbread table on the obverse. The best-​known and most famous of the early depictions of the menorah and the showbread table is found on the relief panel of the triumphal Arch of Titus in Rome. Other depictions consist of five lightly incised seven-​armed menorot discovered on the eastern wall of the porch in Jason’s Tomb in Jerusalem, dated to 30/​31 C.E .; several menorot incised on ossuaries; a menorah engraved on a stone found in the first-​century C.E . Migdal synagogue –​ this menorah is a unique find, being the only one found in synagogue decorations of this period; a simple menorah is incised on one side of a small limestone sun-​dial found near the southern wall of the Temple Mount excavations in Jerusalem. Frequently the menorah is flanked by ritual objects. Most have elaborately ornamented arms and bases. The majority have seven arms but there are some with five or nine. It seems the model for all of them was the elementary form with seven arms and a tripod base, on which artists were free to elaborate (Hachlili 2001). There are other Jewish symbols representing the Temple cult utensils that appear frequently, usually accompanying the menorah. These include four ritual objects: the lulav (palm branch), etrog (citron), shofar (ram’s horn), and the incense shovel which, in the Diaspora, is frequently replaced by a vase (Hachlili 2001: 211–​20). The lulav is depicted as a palm branch, as a stylized DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-29

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Figure 24.1 Bowl Fragments with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark, c. 300–​350 C. E . 18.145.1a, b, Rogers Fund, 1918, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Figure 24.2 Mosaic of Menorah, from Hammam Lif synagogue, Tunisia, 6th century C. E . 05.27, Museum Collection Fund, Brooklyn Museum, Creative Commons license.

incised branch, or as a bundle that includes two branches of myrtle (hadas) and willow (arava) as well. The design of the etrog is often circular or ovoid, with a small stem. In ancient Jewish art the etrog usually appears together with the lulav; it may even be bound with it. The shofar is portrayed in the form of a ram’s horn, open and wide at one end and narrowing to a knob-​like protuberance at the other. The four ritual objects which in the Jewish art of late antiquity customarily accompany 372

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the menorah are associated with the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot). Sometimes a hanging lamp, Torah scrolls, and even birds and animals flank the menorah. This group of ritual emblems is commonly depicted in both synagogue and funerary art, though more so in the synagogue. Sometimes other objects are incorporated within the scene surrounding the menorah. One important cult furnishing is the showbread table. Originally, the gold showbread table was one of the three most important vessels placed inside the sanctuary (Exodus 25:23–​30), first in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. It appears together with the menorah on a variety of objects from the Second Temple period. One can find it on the reverse side of the early bronze coins of the last Hasmonean king, Mattathias Antigonus (40–​37 B.C.E .), on the Arch of Titus in Rome, on a tomb drawing and later in the third to seventh centuries C.E . on the synagogue mosaic pavements at Sepphoris and the Samaritan synagogue at el-​Hirbeh (Hachlili 2001: 233–​9, fig. V-​13); A round, three-​legged showbread table is depicted on the central panel of Band 4 on the fifth century C.E . mosaic floor of the synagogue at Sepphoris, with twelve round loaves, some of them destroyed, on the table (Weiss and Netzer 2005: 95–​101). The fourth-​century Samaritan synagogue at el-​Hirbeh shows another variation of the showbread table. Here it appears together with a menorah and a sanctuary. The table is a round X-​crossed tripod type with eight loaves and vessels set on it in two rows. It seems these tables were based on contemporary furniture. The Torah shrine or the Ark of the Scrolls flanked by a pair of menorot and ritual objects is a frequent ornamentation of the synagogue mosaic floor panel, usually in front of the Torah shrine. On several synagogue mosaics the panel presents a symmetrical composition including a pair of menorot, one on either side of the Torah shrine (as at Bet She’an A, Hammat Tiberias, Sepphoris, and Susiya), or of the Ark of the Scrolls (as at Bet Alpha and Na‘aran). Each of the menorot is flanked by two, three, or four ritual objects (Hachlili 2001: 211–​49; 2009: figs. II-​10, 11, pl. II.2). The Torah shrine, covered by a veil and flanked by menorot with no Ark of the Scrolls, is depicted in a panel at Bet She’an A, and a stylized Ark appears on the pavement of the Jericho synagogue (Hachlili 2001: 211–​49). The similarity in the composition of these unusual panels, which are found at various sites separated by distance and time, is an indication that they followed a traditional pattern (Hachlili 1988: 391–​4; 2013: 198–​9). Artistic renditions of the Torah shrine on mosaics and stone, and architectural fragments, usually of aediculae (stone structures housing the Ark) found in excavations of synagogues (Hachlili 1988: 183–​7; 2005: 239–​47), enable us to reconstruct its form. The examples portray a uniform Torah shrine facade with two or sometimes four columns, which carry a gable decorated with the conch motif. The Ark of the Scrolls is frequently set within the facade and it varies in form. It is usually rendered as a freestanding open chest, topped by a gable or an arch which housed the Torah (the scrolls), and stood inside the Torah shrine (whether an aedicula, a niche, or an apse). Together, the ritual objects flanking the menorah represented the lights and fires used during the nocturnal celebrations of rejoicing at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. Depictions of a menorah flanked by ritual objects, or of the Torah shrine flanked by menorot and ritual objects, came to symbolize participation in the annual pilgrimage of this holiday. The presence of the Torah shrine in post-​Temple art evokes this rite of Tabernacles and commemorates the seven-​year cycle of reading the Torah. Apparently, the designs used in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora were somewhat different, though based on the same original models. In the Land of Israel, one or more of the ritual objects accompany the menorah, while in the Diaspora the menorah usually appears on its own and the incense shovel is replaced by a vase. The menorah’s unique and impressive design made it an excellent choice to symbolize the meaning of Judaism: its form instantly recognizable, the menorah symbol would be immediately associated with the Jews. The qualities of the menorah 373

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that led to its status as the most important symbol and the identifying mark of Judaism are light, form, cult, and symbol. Light –​this, the main ritual significance, was realized in illumination. Form –​the form of the menorah is unique, unusual, and easily recognizable. Cult –​the menorah was used in the daily ritual, first in the Temple and later in the synagogue. Symbol –​the seven arms of the menorah represented the seven days of the week and the seven planets, and the menorah functioned as a daily and weekly ritual calendar (Hachlili 2016).

2.  Christian Symbols Christian symbols, in contrast to the numerous Jewish symbols positioned in prominent locations on synagogue pavements, symbolic motifs, and religious elements, are rarely depicted on church floors. The Christian mosaic pavements depict only a small number of symbols, particularly the cross and occasionally the monogram of Christ. In addition, examples of shrines interpreted as the stylized representation of the Jerusalem Temple appear on chapel mosaic floors in Jordan (Hachlili 2009: pl. II.4). The Christian symbol of the cross appears on several mosaic pavements in the Land of Israel and on some mosaic pavements discovered in Jordan (Tzaferis 1971: 61–​3, figs.78–​87; Hachlili 2009: 224–​6, pl. XI.2; fig. XI-​3). The cross –​usually the Greek cross –​appears braided, jeweled, monogrammatic, or isosceles-​shaped (with two sides of equal lengths), and sometimes set in a circle, or within a band of interlocking circles; its four arms occasionally enclose four crosslets, or the cross might be shown with an inscription or some Greek letters. The representation of the cross on church pavements proves that the symbol was utilized despite the decree of Theodosius II and Valentinianus dated 427 C.E . and issued in Constantinople. The edict forbade the use of the cross and other Christian religion symbols on pavements and demanded the removal of those in existence. Many of the crosses were rendered on pavements before the decree of 427 C. E . and a few of the early pavements were covered or changed. Avi-​ Yonah (1933: 63) contends that the crosses were usually placed on pavements in small apses, in front of or behind the altar, and in basins, “almost exclusively in places not likely to be stepped upon, or approached only barefooted, or on which only the priest during the functions could tread”. Other scholars propose that crosses placed noticeably near or on the entrance have an auspicious function, to protect the building from evil powers. Tzaferis (1971: 63) maintains that even if most of the cross illustrations were produced before the prohibition decree, it is difficult to prove that this order did effectively influence the representations. Jensen (2000: 141) notes that “the cross as symbol was clearly present in the visual imagination of early Christian writers, who saw it not only as an apotropaic sign, but also as a sign of Christ’s victory over sin and death”.

3.  Illustrated Biblical Themes A relatively limited selection of biblical themes provided an important element in the Jewish figurative repertoire, and these appeared repeatedly on synagogue mosaic pavements and other art forms. All these scenes were presented in a simple concise narrative. They shared a common theme, representing a yearning for hope and salvation with reference to traditional historical events; they might have had some symbolic meaning associated with prayer, especially in times of drought. The composition on the various mosaics is quite similar, while the artistic rendition and style of each scene were different. These narratives depict either individual events or continuous 374

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episodes of biblical history and occurrences of divine intervention in a symbolic traditional way. In the cases of Noah and the Flood and the Binding of Isaac, it seems the mosaic portrayals focus on the end of the tales (Hachlili 1988: 285–​300; 1998: 239–​62; 2009: 57–​96, 214–​42; Hachlili 2013: 389–​434). Biblical scenes occur in Jewish synagogue mosaics but seldom on church pavements. In synagogue art, the earliest representations found, dating to the third century C.E ., are the wall paintings of Dura Europos, which present a great variety of biblical scenes executed in detailed illustrations. Some are also found on synagogue mosaic pavements from late antiquity. Here we will discuss examples of two categories of biblical illustrated tales:

a)  Prominent and Notable Figures Samson Three episodes of the Samson cycle are portrayed on the recently excavated synagogue mosaic pavements of Wadi Hamam (third to fourth centuries C.E .) and Huqoq (fifth century C.E .) both in the Lower Galilee. The episode of Samson and the Philistines on the Wadi Hamam synagogue west aisle mosaic pavement depicts a combat between a giant and a group of armed warriors on one of the panels (Leibner and Miller 2010: 249–​57, fig. C; Hachlili 2013: 409–​10, fig. VIII-​11). A giant figure’s large hand is grasping two of three warriors by their hair; between the giant’s spread legs are two more fallen warriors, with blood pouring from their heads. Below them are fallen weapons. A horseman on the right seems to be fleeing. An Aramaic dedicatory inscription that survived, in the lower right-​hand corner, mentions “the sons of Simon who dedicated this panel from their own [means]”. Leibner and Miller (2010: 256–​7) suggest that the scene renders Samson slaying the Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15–​17). One of the two episodes portrayed on the Huqoq synagogue mosaic depicts the episode of Samson placing torches between the tails of foxes (Grey and Magness 2013 and Magness 2013a). What remains is a partially preserved large figure wearing a blue decorated tunic, a thick decorated belt, and a red cloak. Next to the figure are two, partly preserved, pairs of foxes with their tails tied around a torch, their faces and bodies facing away from each other. The scene is identified as the Samson episode in which he ties pairs of foxes to torches by their tails and sets them free to burn the crops in the Philistine fields (Judges 15:4–​5). The second episode on the Huqoq mosaic shows Samson carrying the gates of Gaza on his shoulders (Judges 16:3); in another patch of mosaic (to the west), below a break in the mosaic, the lower part of Samson’s body with a red and blue belt, white tunic, and red cloak is preserved. In the northwest corner of the square is a third patch of mosaic showing a man with a horse, presumably a Philistine; the boot of another male figure and the hoofs of a horse above them are also preserved (Magness 2013b; Magness et al. 2014). Magness notes that the Bible does not describe Samson as a giant but rabbinic tradition does: “Although it is impossible to ascertain the relevance of these rabbinic traditions to the Huqoq mosaic, the community must have chosen Samson because they viewed him in a positive light. The orbiculum on his tunic indicates that he is depicted as a military hero. When Samson is described as a messianic figure in rabbinic tradition, it is as a warrior-​redeemer. In some of these rabbinic traditions, as in the mosaics at Huqoq and Wadi Hamam, Samson is depicted as a giant, although the Bible describes him only as being very strong”. (Magness 2013a) 375

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These Samson cycle scenes, recently found in the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq synagogues in the eastern part of the Lower Galilee, are a new addition to the biblical repertoire of Jewish synagogue art in the Land of Israel. Magness (2013b: 66) suggests that these two communities might have considered Samson a local hero, as his origins were in the tribe of Dan, which settled in the north after being expelled from Judaea. Comparable narrative episodes describing Samson’s exploits are found in the Samson cycle on the northernmost aisle of the mosaic floor at Misis-​Mopsuestia (Cilicia, Turkey, fifth to sixth century C.E .), which is depicted in a run-​on arrative manner with no divisions between episodes and has survived in poor condition. Either nine or eleven distinct episodes are narrated according to the biblical sequence of Samson’s deeds, although Budde (1969: 67–​77, pls. 144–​57, fig. IV-​ 6E; Kitzinger 1973) numbers the scenes I-​VIII from left to right; each scene is followed by the appropriate Greek passage from the Septuagint (Judges 14–​16); the relevant inscription appears along the top of the scene, except for scene VI which has the inscription at the bottom. This allows the viewer to identify each scene from both its inscription and the actual depiction. Budde (1969) considered the Misis structure as a martyrium church, but the structure was probably a synagogue, as suggested by Avi-​Yonah (1981: 186–​90). Two of the Misis-​Mopsuestia scenes can be compared to the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq Samson episodes: The third episode (III) shows Samson sending the foxes bound by their tails to burn the Philistine fields (Judges 15:4–​5). The fourth (IV) episode shows remains of a head with eyes closed and a woman dressed in black mourning. There being no inscription here, Budde (1969: 70, pl. 196) and Kitzinger (1973: 141–​4) interpret the scene as the episode in which Samson killed the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:15). Avi-​Yonah, however (1981), suggests this scene tells the story of the burning of Samson’s wife and father by the Philistines (Judges 15:6). The Huqoq figure wearing a decorated tunic is similar to the damaged giant figure of Samson wearing a short decorated tunic, at Misis-​Mopsuestia (scenes VIII and IX, XI, Budde 1969: pls. 155–​156). In Christian art, Samson scenes are known at various sites and in different media from the fourth to eleventh centuries (Hachlili 1998: 259–​62, fig. V-​12). In the Via Latina catacomb in Rome, three scenes of the exploits of Samson are painted, dated to the fourth century C.E .: Samson fighting the lion, Samson setting the foxes on the Philistines, Samson killing the Philistines with an ass’s jawbone (cubiculum L, B, F; Ferrua 1960: figs. 59, 31, 33, 1). The Misis Samson cycle, although very badly damaged, nonetheless records several important details of composition and form that distinguish it from comparable episodes. The sequence follows the biblical order, whereas comparable material portrays chosen single scenes; the Misis episodes indicate that cycles illustrating biblical stories existed in antiquity and might have been modeled on mythological stories. The Misis Samson cycle is the only example of illustrations closely following the biblical text that inspired it. Avi-​Yonah (1981: 190) suggests that the origin for the Samson cycle may have been “graphic depictions devised to instruct non-​Jews … by the Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria”. Kitzinger (1973) is probably correct when he suggests that a model of some kind, perhaps a biblical pattern book with illustrations of the texts, was used. This contrasts with the Dura Europos paintings and the Wadi Hamam and Huqoq mosaic episodes, which are rendered without any explanatory inscriptions, names, or biblical quotes. It is quite apparent that the illustrated figure of Samson as a giant is distinctive in the tales depicted on the Wadi Hamam, Huqoq, and Misis mosaics, though in the Bible he is not described as a giant, only as a hero; but in some Jewish legends, Samson is described as strong and superhuman. It is worth noting that several of the biblical scenes in the Dura Europos wall paintings 376

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present some of the main ­figures –​Aaron, Ezekiel, Moses, Samuel –​ on a larger scale than the others in the same scene (Hachlili 1998: pls. III–​9, 10, 11, 15, 19–​20). This reflects the tendency in some narrative arts in antiquity to enlarge figures in keeping with their importance in the tale or the scene.

Jonah A recently discovered fragment of the Huqoq mosaic pavement depicts a Jonah episode in which “Jonah’s legs are shown dangling from the mouth of a large fish, which is being swallowed by a larger fish, which is being consumed by a third, even larger fish” (Borschel-​Dan 2017). This is the only rendition of the story of Jonah found in an ancient synagogue in Israel to date. The tale of Jonah is a favorite theme in early Christian art, often presented in a cycle; about 100 Jonah figures are rendered in catacombs or on sarcophagi (Jensen 2000: 91, fig. 20). Comparable Jonah scenes are found on the Mahat al Urdi church mosaic floor at Bet Guvrin, Israel (Ovadiah 1974). The scenes are rendered on two different octagons: The first octagon, in the north aisle, shows Jonah in the jaws of the fish; the second, in the south aisle, portrays Jonah lying under the gourd (Hachlili 2009: 91–​2, fig. IV-​24). The other octagons and squares are filled with animals, vases, peacocks, lobsters, etc. A Jonah scene appears on the mosaic pavement of the North African church of Aquileia (Grabar 1967: pl. 19) as well.

Daniel in the Lion’s Den This illustrated tale appears in three synagogues in Israel dating to the fifth to sixth centuries C . E . Two are on mosaic pavements: the Na`aran synagogue nave mosaic shows Daniel with outstretched arms, flanked by two lions; above Daniel’s left arm is the identifying Hebrew inscription “Daniel shalom”. A similar scene was probably depicted on the Susiya synagogue pavement but is destroyed almost entirely; only a fragment of an animal’s upper part and tail and the end of the name “[Dani]el” are preserved. These illustrations are apparently based on the biblical narrative in the book of Daniel (6:16) (Hachlili 1988: 294–​5, fig. 34; 2009: 79–​83, fig. VIII-​16; 2013: 418–​20, figs. IV.16–​18). The third episode is carved on the En Samsam stone relief, probably originating in the En Nashut synagogue in the Golan, and it may have been the base of the side wall of an aedicula (Hachlili 2013: figs. VIII-​16c; IX.3). The stone is carved with a scene depicting a figure holding up his hands, flanked by a lion on one side and a lioness suckling her cub on the other. The central figure on the side of the stone is shown en face, holding up his hands. The right hand holds the lion’s head; the lion and lioness, with small heads and stylized manes, stride in profile. The scene might be Daniel in the lions’ den, though the addition of the lioness and her cub gives the biblical scene a local naïve interpretation. An incised relief found in the Sardis synagogue (Turkey) forecourt consists of three broken light gray marble fragments of flat slabs, probably dated to the fifth century C.E . The Sardis plaque might have been installed originally on the north or west wall. On its front, the Sardis plaque shows an incised scene: on the left is a tall standing figure with an outstretched arm holding a scroll in his hand and four partly destroyed lions, one above the other facing the figure; the Sardis plaque could perhaps be reconstructed with three more lions (Rautman 2010: 49, 51, 54, figs. 3–​5). This relief presents the biblical tale of Daniel in the lion’s den. Rautman (2010: 55, 57) maintains that the Sardis plaque: “suggests a commission based on local pictorial and literary traditions, the result of a synthetic creative process rather than an expressly sectarian undertaking … displayed in the Synagogue’s forecourt, the image of Daniel with his lions would have been broadly intelligible to local inhabitants”. 377

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Two additional illustrations of Daniel in the lions’ den have been found in Israel in a Byzantine Christian context. One is a wall painting in a tomb near Lohamei Haghettaot, dated to the late fourth or early fifth century C. E . The other is a scene carved and incised on the western wall in the northern cave at Tel Lavnin, Judaean Shephelah, dating to the fifth to sixth centuries C.E . (Hachlili 2009: 80, fig. IV-​17). This theme was also popular in early Christian art, appearing on catacombs, paintings, sarcophagi, mosaics, etc. Most compositions depict a central figure with outstretched arms flanked by a pair of lions. It is associated with a death cult, symbolizing a person saved because of his belief (Hachlili 2013: 83). This episode is depicted symbolically, in contrast to the other biblical scenes found on synagogue pavements, which are narrative in style. The representation of a figure flanked by lions might have been enough to suggest the theme of Daniel to observers. Goodenough (1953: 129) maintains that the Daniel scene at Na‘aran symbolizes the victory over death, as the word shalom illustrates. Grabar (1968: 8) contends that figures such as Daniel, Noah, and others in Christian funerary art are “allegories of the soul of the pious believer and of Christ as the shepherd”.

Noah’s Ark and the Flood Three depictions of Noah’s ark (Genesis 6–​ 8) have been found on synagogue mosaic pavements: at Gerasa, at Huqoq, and at Misis-​Mopsuestia (Turkey) (Hachlili 1988: 292–​4; 2009: 63–​72; 2013: 402–​7). The surviving part of the Gerasa synagogue (530–​531 C.E.) mosaic portrays three rows of animals–​birds, mammals, and reptiles, striding from left to right. In the south (left) corner of the panel is a perched dove holding an olive branch, conveying the news of the receding flood. Under the branch are two partly preserved human heads with the inscribed names of Noah’s sons Shem and Japhet. The Gerasa scene commemorates the moment when the animals leave Noah’s ark, with Noah and his family celebrating this event (Genesis 8:11, 14–​19). (Kraeling 1938: 323; Piccirillo 1993: 290, figs. 546–​551). Recently, another illustrated episode of Noah’s ark was found on the mosaic floor in the nave of the Huqoq synagogue. The scene portrays pairs of various animals entering the enormous boat before the great flood (cf. Genesis 6–​9; Magness et al. 2016). At Misis-​Mopsuestia, two different episodes (an earlier and a later one) of Noah and the ark are portrayed on the western panel of the nave’s mosaic pavement. The early scene renders two wide rows of animals –​the inner row consists of birds and the outer row of mammals –​surrounding the ark; only a single example of each animal species appears. A dove is visible inside the ark and the tail end of another dove protrudes from the side opening (Budde 1969: 38–​43, 54, 109, fig. 26–​49, pl. 50). Budde suggests that the later scene shows Noah and his two sons Shem and Japhet offering thanks after their rescue. The Gerasa and Misis mosaic pavement scenes depict only the latter part of the story (Gen 8:10–​20), while the Huqoq tale renders the earlier episode. These illustrations suggest that the Jewish symbolic meaning of this scene is God’s promise not to destroy the world again. By comparison, in early Christian art found on catacombs and sarcophagi, the scene is usually a symbolic rendition of the ark as a box with Noah standing inside it, sending off the dove. For the Christians, the story symbolized death and resurrection, and salvation for the believer (Hachlili 1988: 292–​4; 1998: 249–​56; 2009: fig. IV.10; Jensen 2000: 66, fig. 18).

The Binding of Isaac (the Aqedah) This narrative theme, described in Gen 22:1–​13, 19, is portrayed in three episodes above the Torah Shrine niche on the wall painting of the Dura Europos synagogue and on the nave mosaic pavements 378

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at the Bet Alpha and Sepphoris synagogues (Hachlili 2009: 57–​64, figs. 1–​2, pl. IV.1; 2013: 390–​7, fig. VIII-​1–​3). At Bet Alpha the scene is portrayed from right to left: Abraham, Isaac and the altar, the ram, the thicket, the Hand of God, the donkey, and the lads, all in one scene. Names and Hebrew biblical verses are inscribed. The Sepphoris synagogue nave mosaic (Weiss and Netzer 2005: 141–​53) displays the Binding of Isaac in two panels, which are damaged. The preserved parts include, on the right panel, the head of the ram tethered to the tree, with two upturned pairs of shoes below it, and on the left panel, two servants with the ass. The surviving parts are similar in content and composition to the Bet Alpha mosaic pavement rendition. The drama of the central episode is highlighted by the Hand of God depicted at Dura Europos and Bet Alpha (Hachlili 2013: 397–​401, figs. VIII-​5, 6). The scene in both mosaics should be read from right to left (as Hebrew is read), and it apparently illustrates the latter part of the biblical version (Hachlili 1988: 288–​92; 2009: 57–​64, pl. IV.1a; fig. IV-​1a). The Binding of Isaac, one of the most important stories of Judaism, is an event bearing deep religious implications and holding a central place in the Jewish tradition. With time, it came to symbolize the covenant between God and the Jewish people, denoting God’s mercy and kindness to Israel. The Binding of Isaac became a popular theme in early Christian art as well, being depicted in catacomb paintings, sarcophagi, and gold glasses dating to the fourth century C . E . (for a detailed comparison between the Jewish and Christian uses and understandings of this motif see Hezser 2018: 31–​80). In these dramatic portrayals of the scene, Abraham is the largest figure, holding a knife in his right hand, with Isaac frequently kneeling; the ram is on the left, the altar is often depicted, and the Hand of God is shown in a corner of the design. Jensen (2000: 143–​8) discusses the interpretation of the Binding of Isaac as a symbolic reference to Christ’s passion. Some scholars propose that depictions of a sheep or ram tied or entangled in front of or beside a tree on fifth-​ to sixth-​centuries C. E . church pavements in Jordan might refer to the Sacrifice of Isaac (Piccirillo 1998: 322 n. 48, 339, figs. 117, 122, 138, 447). The rendition of the abbreviated scene as found on the Christian mosaic pavements, consisting of the ram tied to a tree, would have represented, if at all, a merely symbolic notion. As suggested above, the Jewish and early Christian depictions of the Binding of Isaac appear to have been based on two different conventions. For Judaism, the Binding of Isaac represented life and the belief in God’s help as well as confirmation of God’s covenant with Israel. For the early Christians, on the other hand, it served as a pre-​figuration of the life and crucifixion of Jesus and was related symbolically to death and salvation. This difference in concept would explain the difference in the venues for portrayal preferred by each religion –​the Jews in the synagogue and the early Christians in their funerary art. When the Christians used it on mosaic floors they did so only in an abbreviated symbolic form.

The Exodus –​The Parting of the Red Sea The illustrated tale of the Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea (Ex 14:24–​28, 15:4) is portrayed on the recently discovered mosaic pavements of the Wadi Hamam (Leibner and Miller 2010: 257–​ 9, fig. C) and Huqoq (Magness et al. 2016) synagogues. The illustrations include armed figures, horses, a chariot, and waters filled with fish. Comparable scenes are depicted on the Dura Europos wall painting, panel WA3, whose second scene shows the drowning of the Egyptian soldiers (Kraeling 1979: 74–​86). The crossing of the Red Sea appears on the wall mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore and the Via Latina catacomb in Rome (Grabar 1968: figs.137 and 242). These scenes depict a great number of soldiers drowning but no fish. 379

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Other Biblical Themes Not all biblical themes that appear on synagogue mosaic pavements are included in the discussion above. Among those not mentioned are: David/​Orpheus, who appears on the Gaza synagogue mosaic pavement and in the Dura Europos wall paintings; David with Goliath’s weapons on the Merot synagogue mosaic; the End of Days scene on the mosaic pavement of the bet midrash at Merot; and the Twelve Tribes of Israel at Japhi‘a. On the Sepphoris synagogue pavement, there are three additional illustrations: the Consecration of Aaron to the Service of the Tabernacle and the Daily Offerings, the Showbread Table and the Basket of First Fruits, and possibly the Visit of the Three Angels to Abraham and Sarah (Hachlili 1988: 285–​300; 1998: 239–​62; 2009: 57–​96; Hachlili 2013). A previously unencountered biblical theme was discovered on the mosaic pavement of Wadi Hamam: a construction scene identified as the construction of either Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem or the Tower of Babel (Leibner and Miller 2010: 246–​9). A similar scene, which the excavators identify as a depiction of the building of the tower of Babel, is portrayed on a Huqoq mosaic fragment (Borschel-​ Dan 2017). The earliest representation of this art in synagogues appears in the third century C.E . wall paintings of Dura Europos, which depict a great variety of biblical scenes executed in detail. From the third to fourth centuries on, they are also found on synagogue mosaic pavements. While the Jewish biblical scenes are narrative-​descriptive in form, including details and inscriptions with names and explanatory verses and serve as a reminder of the tradition of biblical stories, in early Christian art the scenes are presented in a concise and often allegorical and symbolic manner. It was the symbolic meaning that was of primary interest to Christians (Hachlili 1988: 373–​4; 2009: 92–​6; 2013: 428–​34). In Jewish portrayals, the association is with the belief in God’s salvation for the chosen people. In Christian art, the connection is with the individual’s salvation, death and afterlife. Grabar (1968: 8, 25–​6, 94–​5) holds that figures such as Daniel, Noah, and others in Christian funerary art are “allegories of the soul of the pious believer and of Christ as the shepherd”. He describes them as image-​signs. On synagogue pavements, the episode of Daniel in the lions’ den, in contrast to the other biblical scenes, is given a symbolical depiction, in contrast with the generally used narrative style. The representation of a figure flanked by lions might have been enough to suggest the theme of Daniel to observers. The basis of these themes in both religions was probably not a common figurative art tradition but the biblical text. The Jewish narratives of the biblical scenes were simple and concise. Their common theme was the yearning for hope and salvation with reference to traditional historical events. They might also have had some symbolic meaning associated with prayers, especially in times of drought. The composition on the individual mosaics is quite similar, while the artistic depiction and style of each scene on the synagogue pavements is different. Biblical illustrated tales occur in Jewish synagogue mosaics but seldom on church pavements. The lack of sanctity inherent in the Jewish approach of placing these scenes on the mosaic pavement that was meant to be trodden on would have been unacceptable to Christian believers. In early Christian catacomb art the Old Testament was also used as a prefiguration of the New Testament. Christian art frequently took its subjects from the biblical stories emphasizing a promise of individual salvation. The depictions of Jonah, Moses, Daniel in the lion’s den, Noah’s ark, and the sacrifice of Isaac were understood in this way.

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4.  The Calendar: The Zodiac, the Months, and the Seasons The representation of time –​the year and the calendar –​is illustrated differently in Greek-​Roman pagan art, Jewish art, and Christian art. One of the central themes of the synagogue pavement design was the depiction of the zodiac panel. The zodiac design consists of three parts: personification of the seasons, the zodiac signs, and the sun god, all characteristic of Jewish synagogues, somewhat similar to Graeco-​Roman examples. To date this art form has been found in eight synagogues: Bet Alpha, Hammat Tiberias, Huseifa, Na‘aran, Sepphoris, Susiya, and recently, on the floor of the Wadi Hamam synagogue, where it is almost completely destroyed; also recently, a zodiac design was found at the Huqoq synagogue. On church pavements, on the other hand, the illustrations include personifications of the 12 months together with the four seasons in separate designs and different compositions. The synagogue zodiac designs, forms, and compositions are almost all identical, but their dates range from the fourth to the seventh centuries C. E . Furthermore, there is the En Gedi Hebrew mosaic inscription that lists the 12 zodiac signs followed by the names of the 12 months (Hachlili 1988, 2002; 2009: 35–​56, pls. III.2–​4; figs. III-​3–​4; 2013: 345–​73). The composition of all the zodiac cycles consists of a square frame containing two concentric circles. Within the corners of the square frame, the four seasons are personified as busts of women, accompanied by Hebrew inscriptions naming the first month of each season. The outer circle, divided into units, depicts the 12 signs of the zodiac, which are identical to the 12 months of the Jewish year, each accompanied by its Hebrew name. The inner circle shows the figure of the sun god Helios in chariot drawn by four horses. At Sepphoris, only the sunrays in the chariot are rendered, with star(s) and a crescent moon in the background. The Sepphoris mosaic has some unique additions: the zodiac signs of Gemini, Virgin, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius are presented with the addition of figures with an active posture, and the seasons’ renditions are also accompanied by their Greek names (Weiss and Netzer 2005: 104–​41). These schemes of the zodiac in the synagogues, all so alike, may have functioned as an annual calendar consisting of the seasons, the signs of the zodiac representing the months, and day and night symbolized by the sun and the moon. The zodiac panel mosaic at Sepphoris, where the Hebrew names of the months follow the names of the signs, as well as the inscription on the En Gedi synagogue pavement, provide confirmation for this assumption. The zodiac cycle served the Jewish communities as a symbolic calendar, providing the framework for the annual ritual cycle in the synagogue (for a discussion on sun symbolism in ancient Jewish literature and the sun as a shared visual motif see Hezser 2016). Greek-​Roman zodiac designs exist on ceilings and mosaic floors of Roman villas, each unique in terms of form, content, and harmony (Hachlili 2013: 373–​82, table VII-​4). The contents of the central circle frequently differ from one example to the next. Several examples depict the months rather than the zodiac signs. In some cases, the balance is disrupted, with one section dominating the others (Hachlili 2009: 49–​53). The basic form was usually, but not always, the same: two concentric circles within a square. What changed was the composition of the various parts and, as mentioned above, the balance between them. A central circle containing the planets in a geometric design underwent a transition into a center containing the sun god. A continuous running zodiac in the outer circle gradually transformed into one divided into radial units, each containing one zodiac sign. The purely decorative design of sirens or fishes in the corners of the square was replaced by the design of the seasons. Originally, the scheme was displayed on ceiling decorations, only later being projected onto the mosaic floor. In the zodiac designs of Roman art, we can trace three stages of development of the radial zodiac composition. This progression is illustrated by 381

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two stone ceiling relief decorations from first century C.E . Palmyra, one depicting the seven stars, the second rendering the zodiac signs; and thirdly two mosaic pavements: the Münster mosaic floor, and the Antioch second-​century mosaic floor which depicts the representations of the months instead of the zodiac signs (Hachlili 2013: fig. VII-​24–​26). The most striking resemblances to the Jewish zodiac are found on three contemporary Roman-​Byzantine mosaic pavements in Greece with a similar composition. A fourth-​century dining room mosaic in a Roman villa at Odos Triakosion in Sparta has an inner circle containing busts of the youthful Selene and Helios (the moon and the sun) with no attributes; the outer circle contains the 12 signs of the zodiac, with the 4 winds in the corners of the square. No inscriptions accompany the design. The fifth-​century pavement in the main hall of the Tallaras Baths on the Greek island of Astypalaea (Assimakopoulou-​Atzaka 2003: 94, fig. 109) shows a zodiac design consisting of two circles within a square in the center of a geometric carpet. The central circle contains a bust of Helios crowned with rays. He holds a globe in his left hand and has his right hand raised in a blessing gesture. The 12 signs of the zodiac are in the outer circle. The corners of the square contain the four seasons, rendered as busts of women with their typical attributes. Within the geometric carpet are 12 squares holding the 12 personifications of the months, arranged in 4 groups, 3 in a row, facing the center (Hachlili 2013, fig. VII-​28c). Here too, no inscriptions accompany the details of the design and Helios’s chariot is missing. Another mosaic was found in the triclinium at Aiolou St. Thessaloniki (Assimakopoulou-​Atzaka 2003: 150–​1, fig.163). The mosaic shows a design of two concentric circles within a square, in the center of a geometric carpet (Hachlili 2013: figs. VII-​29, 30). The central circle is completely destroyed. The excavator proposes that it contained a personification of the sun. The outer circle contains zodiac signs in a continuous line in a counterclockwise direction. The only surviving signs are the fish-​Pisces, the ram-​Aries, and the bull-​Taurus. Each corner of the square contains a vase flanked by a pair of birds. The zodiac design was surrounded originally by an outside scheme arranged with 12 octagons (of which only 5 survived) that enclosed circles, each of which contained the personification of a particular month, and another four corner octagons containing the personifications of the 4 winds. Though the Graeco-​Roman examples are similar in design, the balance of the zodiac composition in these examples usually varies, with one section dominating the others. Zodiacs and calendars appearing in pagan Graeco-​Roman art have a cosmic and astronomical meaning (Hachlili 2009: 184–​97). Two Christian examples of the calendar have been found in the Land of Israel. One is a badly damaged mosaic pavement on the main panel of the narthex of the mid-​sixth century C.E . Christian funerary chapel at El-​Hammam, which depicts the 12 months laid out in two rows of six. The months consist of active, full-​length standing figures, each with its Latin name and its number of days inscribed in Greek. The left part of the mosaic with the first six months, despite being damaged, shows that the first month is January (Avi-​Yonah 1936: 22–​6, pl. xv). The second is the mosaic floor of Hall A of the sixth-​century Monastery of the Lady Mary at Bet She’an, which shows a central composition consisting of two concentric circles, the outer one divided into 12 units. Within each unit is a single figure in frontal pose and in full activity. At its feet are the name of the relevant Julian calendar month and the number of its days in Greek letters. The inner circle contains personifications of the sun and moon as female busts bearing torches (Fitzgerald 1939: 6–​ 7, pls. vi-​viii). Based on the similarity with the El-​Hammam mosaic pavement, it can be assumed that both mosaic pavements indicate that the first month was January (Fitzgerald 1939: 6–​7, pls. vi-​viii; Hachlili 2013: 379–​81, fig. VII-​32a).

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The two Christian examples differ in their basic form but are similar in the general depiction of the personified labors of the months. The Latin names of the months and the number of days written in Greek letters are identical. The emphasis in these personifications is on the figures’ rural occupations. These two Christian pavements at Bet She’an represent civil and agricultural calendars, probably following earlier Roman calendar designs. It is worth noting that except for the Bet She’an monastery, all the comparable mosaic pavements decorate civic or domestic buildings, while the Jewish zodiac designs ornament synagogues. The reason for the use of zodiac signs rather than representations of the labors associated with the months is probably that the Jewish community preferred abstract symbols to direct representations of human activity. This underlines the Jewish zodiac’s religious nature and liturgical purpose. Therefore the Jewish calendar, which integrates the zodiac wheel with its 12 signs representing the Hebrew months, the sun and the moon representing day and night, and the four seasons, can be considered a variant version in form, design, and meaning. In Christian art, the representation of religious symbols on floor pavements was forbidden by imperial decree in 427 C. E . (Codex Theodosianus 1.8.1). At the same time, church pavements began to employ figurative ornamentation consisting mostly of personifications of the natural world, genre subjects such as vintage, village life, and hunting scenes, which were considered inoffensive. Even though figurative designs were now employed, the negative attitude toward depictions of symbolic subjects was retained. One of the causes for this different development may have been the intentional desire of Jews to distinguish their art and architecture from those of Christianity. They did so by an emphatic affirmation of Jewish spiritual values that they symbolically expressed through the specific ornamentation of their synagogues. The similarities and differences between synagogues and churches show that close contacts and mutual influences continued to exist. The association between the Jewish and Christian communities is illustrated in the similarity of iconographic themes and motives, which at times even express the same meaning. This may have been because of a shared biblical tradition and common themes, but also because of the shared employment of artists, who designed and worked for both synagogues and churches and often used the same motifs in both contexts. Choices concerning the ornamentation were probably made by the donors, community representatives, and occasionally the artists themselves. A preference for symbols, iconography, and special motifs is noticeable in the ornamentation of synagogues, while the inclination for rural life, vintage, and hunting scenes is more common in church mosaic pavements.

Bibliography Assimakopoulou-​Atzaka, P. (2003). Mosaic Pavements. An Approach to the Art of Ancient Mosaic (Greek). Thessaloniki: University Studio Press. Avi-​Yonah, M. (1933). “Mosaic Pavements in Palestine,” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 3: 26–​47, 49–​73. Avi-​ Yonah, M. (1936). “Mosaic Pavement at El-​ Hammam, Beisan,” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 5: 11–​30. Avi-​Yonah, M. (1981). “The Mosaics of Mopsuestia–​Church or Synagogue?” in L.I. Levine (ed.). Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 186–​190. Borschel-​Dan, A. (2017). “Earliest Mosaic of Jonah and the Whale Found in Galilee Synagogue,” The Times of Israel 7 July 2017. Available at www.timeso​fisr​ael.com/​earli​est-​mos​aic-​of-​jonah-​and-​the-​whale-​found-​ in-​gali​lee-​synago​gue/​ (accessed 20 May 2021). Budde, L. (1969). Antike Mosaiken in Kilikien, vol. 1: Frühchristliche Mosaiken in Misis Mopsuhestia. Recklinghausen: Bonger. Ferrua, A. (1960). Le pittura della nuova catacomba di Via Latina. Rome: Vatican City.

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Rachel Hachlili Ferrua, A. (1991). The Unknown Catacomb: A Unique Discovery of Early Christian Art. Florence: Geddes and Grosset Ltd. Fitzgerald, G.M. (1939). A Sixth Century Monastery at Beth Shan (Scythopolis). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. Goodenough, E.R. (1953). Jewish Symbols in the Greco-​Roman Period, vol. 2: The Archaeological Evidence from the Diaspora. New Haven, CT: Parthenon Books. Grabar, A. (1967). The Beginnings of Christian Art, 200–​395. London: Thames & Hudson. Grabar, A. (1968) Christian Iconography, A Study of Its Origins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Grey, M.J., and Magness, J. (2013). “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee: The 21–​2012 Archaeological Excavations at Huqoq,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 5: 1–​30. Hachlili, R. (1988). Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel. Leiden: Brill. Hachlili, R. (1998). Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2001). The Menorah, the Ancient Seven-​armed Candelabrum. Origin, Form and Significance. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2009). Ancient Mosaic Pavements: Iconographic Themes, Issues and Trends. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2013). Ancient Synagogues–​Archaeology and Art: New Discoveries and Current Research. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Hachlili, R. (2016). “Why Did the Menorah and Not the Showbread Table Evolve into the Most Important Symbol of Judaism?” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 189– ​212. Hachlili, R. (2018). The Menorah: Evolving into the Most Important Jewish Symbol. Leiden: Brill. Hezser, C. (2016). “ ‘For the Lord God is a Sun and a Shield’ (Ps. 84:12): Sun Symbolism in Hellenistic Jewish Literature and in Amoraic Midrahim,” in U. Leibner and C. Hezser (eds.), Jewish Art in Its Late Antique Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 213–​236. Hezser, C. (2018). Bild und Kontext: Jüdische und christliche Ikonographie der Spätantike. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Jensen, R.M. (2000). Understanding Early Christian Art. London and New York, NY: Routledge. Kitzinger, E. (1973). “Observations on the Samson Floor at Mopsuestia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27: 133–​44. Kraeling, C.H. (1938). Gerasa, City of the Decapolis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kraeling, C.H. (1979). The Synagogue: The Excavations at Dura-​Europos, vol. 8, part 1. New York, NY: Ktav Publishing House. Leibner, U. and Miller, S. (2010). “A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 23: 238–​64. Magness, J. (2013a). “Samson in the Synagogue,” Biblical Archaeology Review 39: 32–​9, 66. Available at www.bas​libr​ary.org/​bibli​cal-​arch​aeol​ogy-​rev​iew/​39/​1/​2 (accessed 5 May 2023). Magness, J. (2013b). “Scholars Update: New Mosaics from the Huqoq Synagogue,” Biblical Archaeology Review 39: 66–​8. Magness, J. (2013c). “New mosaics discovered in synagogue excavations in Galilee”. Available at https://​ phys.org/​news/​2013-​06-​mosa​ics-​synago​gue-​exca​vati​ons-​gali​lee.html (accessed 5 May 2023). Magness, J. et al. (2014) “Huqoq (Lower Galilee) and its Synagogue Mosaics: Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 2011–​13,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 27: 327–​55. Magness, J. et al. (2016). “Huqoq 2015 Preliminary Report,” Hadashot Arkheologiot 128: 107. Magness, J. et al. (2018). “The Huqoq Excavation Project: 2014–​2017 Interim Report,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 380: 61–​131. Ovadiah R. (1974). “Jonah in a Mosaic Pavement at Beth Govrin,” Israel Exploration Journal 24: 214–​5. Piccirillo, M. (1993). The Mosaics of Jordan. Amman and Baltimore, MD: American Center of Oriental Research. Piccirillo, M. (1998). “The Mosaics,” in M. Piccirillo and E. Alliata (eds.), Mount Nebo. New Archaeological Excavations 1967–​1997. Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, 265–​371.

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A Distinct Visual Language Rautman, M. (2010). “Daniel at Sardis,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 358: 47–​60. Tzaferis, V. (1971). Christian Symbols of the 4th Century and the Church Fathers. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Hebrew University Jerusalem. Weiss, Z. and Netzer, E. (2005). The Sepphoris Synagogue. Deciphering an Ancient Message through Its Archaeological and Socio-​Historic Contexts. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.

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25 THE LITURGICAL PERFORMANCE OF IDENTITY Ophir Münz-​Manor

Liturgical poetry was a late antique innovation of nascent Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Poetry always played a role in the ancient Near Eastern cult, for example, the Psalms, but new kinds of religiosity, and liturgy in particular, emerged in response to the decreasing prevalence of animal sacrifice during the Common Era. Jewish liturgy took shape in Palestine in the first centuries of the Common Era and by the end of the third century began to take on fixed forms. In the late fourth century, poets began to embellish liturgical prose, infusing religious meaning with poetic beauty. By the seventh century C. E ., piyyut (Jewish liturgical poetry) became an integral medium of religious discourse and instruction, and payytanim (liturgical poets) evolved into prominent cultural figures. Histories of religion in late antiquity have often underplayed the role of liturgical texts in verse or in prose. In the context of theology and exegesis, liturgy is usually regarded as a versified version of rabbinic discourse. However, liturgy, and piyyut in particular, played a significant and independent role in the formation of individual and communal identities, especially for lay or unlettered audiences. Moreover, the rhetoric and aesthetics of late antique piyyut offer a unique mode of religious discourse that transcends devotional boundaries. Ultimately, the study of piyyut offers a more comprehensive and nuanced consideration of late antique religion and culture.

1.  The Current State of Scholarship on Piyyut In relation to other academic fields of late antique Judaism, the study of piyyut is relatively young and rather small in scale. This relates to the fact that most of the payytanic texts from this period were discovered toward the end of the nineteenth century in the Cairo Genizah; hence their publication in proper critical editions took a very long time. In fact, some of the texts still await publication. Since piyyut is poetry, as the Greek word poietes that stands behind it reveals, it lends itself first and foremost to literary studies (Yahalom 1987). Indeed, throughout most of the twentieth-​century scholars of piyyut focused on literary and linguistic investigations of the texts (van Bekkum 2008, Rand 2014). But piyyut is also liturgical by nature; hence scholars also explored the relationships between piyyut and statutory texts of Jewish prayer and elaborated on the dynamics between the two (Fleischer 2007 and 2012, Reif 1993). Only toward the turn of the millennium scholars began to explore the historical and cultural facets of piyyut (Yahalom 1999). From that moment on, there 386

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has been a striking growth of interest in piyyut. Scholars began to study it as a historical and cultural phenomenon and singled out its interfaces with related Jewish literature and practices as well as with contemporary Jewish and Samaritan liturgical poetry (Lieber 2022, Münz-​Manor 2010). Another notable feature of the present study of piyyut is the interest shown by nonspecialists (most notably historians) who begin to utilize payytanic texts more and more (Fine 2005, Irshai 2013). It is also worthwhile noting that there existed Jewish paraliturgical poetry written in the vernacular, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, namely religious poetry that was used outside the synagogue service. The corpus of Aramaic poetry is tiny in relation to piyyut, yet it is very interesting and its relation to Hebrew piyyut was also part of the scholarly discussion (Yahalom 2006, Rand 2007, Lieber 2014 and 2018, Münz-​Manor 2011). With that in mind, this chapter seeks to provide a scholarly gateway to the central themes in the contemporary study of piyyut, with special emphasis on its performative and ritual aspects as well as on its connections with rabbinic literature and Christian liturgical poetry.

2.  The Ritual Aspects of Piyyut For late antique rabbis and payytanim, recitation of biblical verses and narratives was a potent religious practice. This assertion finds clear evidence in the following dictum from a Palestinian source of the third century C. E ., the Mekhilta de Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai 23:25: “Which service is of the heart? You must say this is prayer”. Even more pointedly is the following dialogue between Abraham and God recounted in the Babylonian Talmud: “[Abraham asks:] At a time when the Temple is not in existence, what will become of [the Israelites who sinned]? [God responds:] I have already established for them the Order of Sacrifices. When they read them before me, I will count it for them as if they had offered them before me, and I will pardon them for all their transgressions” (b. Ta’anit 27b). According to the text, God has promised Abraham that reading biblical passages about sacrifice will have the same effect as performing the ritual of sacrifice described in these verses. It was Michael Swartz, in a study of a particular genre of late antique piyyut, the seder avodah, who singled out the ritual theory that stands behind it: “One way of addressing the problem of the absence of sacrifice in a system to which it was once central is through rituals of recitation. That is, by recounting a lost ritual verbally, a community develops a way of memorializing that ritual in an act which is itself a ritual… Recitation needs to be taken quite seriously as a potent form of ritual behavior and as an example of the actualization of sacred space in time. Memorization, recitation, and performance, we must remember, are physical acts, requiring intensive preparation, stamina, and physical prowess” (Swartz 1997: 152–​3). The seder avodah piyyutim associate the creation of the world and the history of the first generations with the sacrificial ritual of the high priest in the Temple during the Day of Atonement. The traditional way to interpret the seder avodah was to see it as a reflection of a lost past or a prediction of a promised future. However, Swartz and others have suggested that the seder avodah is focused instead on the liturgical present as a full substitute for the sacrificial cult of the Temple. In Swartz’s words: “its purpose is not to recapitulate a historical event by ritual recognition, but to recall a ritual by recounting it verbally” (Swartz 1997: 137). According to that understanding, the payytan creates a continuum between the history of the created world, sacrificial rituals of atonement, and the liturgical present of the congregation. Indeed, a similar “ritual theory” is apparent in numerous piyyutim that recount the biblical episode of the Binding of Isaac. Here too, they serve as an oral reenactment of a mythical sacrifice that is brought back to life in the liturgical present (Münz-​Manor 2014: 161–​6). It is worthwhile 387

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noting that the seder avodah piyyutim, the piyyutim about the Binding of Isaac and other payytanic texts that renarrated biblical sacrificial episodes, combine a historical narrative and a cultic deed in order to bolster the call for redemption. This combination is also known from the Greek polytheistic historiola, which David Frankfurter described as “the performative transmission of power from a mythic realm articulated in narrative to the human present” (Frankfurter 1995: 464). Interestingly, in that regard piyyut is also similar to contemporary Jewish mystic literature. In this tradition, known as hekhalot literature, the mystic ascends to the heavenly palaces of God and as Martha Himmelfarb has written: “No need for the mystic to ascend, for telling the story is enough. The actual performance of the acts is attributed to a mythic past, the era of the great rabbis of the Mishnah; recitation itself has become the ritual” (Himmelfarb 1993: 113). The possible connections between piyyut and Hekhalot literature will be discussed later on in this chapter. All in all, the great importance of these piyyutim is that they reflect Jewish “ritual theories” that draw differing degrees of contrast and continuity between sacrifice and prayer, blood and word, ritual and story. More broadly, this kind of ritual reenactment characterizes also contemporary Christian liturgy, most notably in Syriac and Byzantine liturgical rites as Derek Krueger had shown recently (Krueger 2014). This connection with contemporary Christian liturgical poems will also be discussed toward the end of the essay.

3.  The Performative and Spatial Aspects of Piyyut The study of late antique liturgical poetry faces from the outset a fundamental challenge: how to bridge the gap between the poems that came down to us in written form and the poems as they were performed in the synagogue. While there are some late antique accounts that describe the actual performance of piyyut, most of our knowledge derives from the poetry itself. The focus on the ritual aspect of piyyut that was discussed in the previous section relates directly to the quest to better understand its performative aspects. Piyyut was, after all, performed inside a sacred space in which there existed a constant resonance of texts, sounds, and images. Understanding piyyut entails a joint study of these media. What can be said about the connection between piyyut and its material surroundings? A good place to start is in the sonic elements of piyyut as it was sung within the walls of the synagogue. Voices and singing, we should remember, shape the soundscapes of the synagogue and create an experience that is embedded with and defined by its sonic elements. In recent years scholars began to speak about auditory communities and other spoke about the soundscape as a cosmic, invisible architecture (Arentzen and Münz-​Manor 2019). Various sounds were heard at the synagogue: the chanting of the Torah during the reading of the lectionary, the singing of the statutory prayers by the cantor, and the sound of piyyutim that often invited the congregant to participate by using refrains. Refrains became very popular in piyyut, while the cantor would sing the strophes, the refrain lent itself to participation (Lieber 2010b). The great merit of the refrain was that it allowed the audience to take part in the performance vocally. The congregation was not reduced to passive listeners, but contributed to the ritual singing. Yannai, the sixth-​century payytan, used in many of his works a one-​word refrain that repeats itself at the end of every poetic line. The pulsating rhythm that was created during the performance of Yannai’s pieces amplified and intensified the unison voices. The congregation became immersed in the word that was repeatedly sung. We can only imagine how the utterances of the refrain word echoed under the ceiling of the synagogue. The actual soundscape of late antique piyyut is almost entirely inaccessible to us, since the Jewish musical tradition from late antiquity is virtually lost. The payytanic texts might provide a meaningful gateway to this lost realm. 388

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The other relevant media in relation to the space in which piyyut was performed is art and architecture. A favorite payytanic theme is the sign of the zodiac, a theme that is paralleled in quite a few late antique Palestinian synagogues (Foerster 1985, Fine 1999, Magness 2005). The correspondence between a text and a work of art calls into attention the classical term ekphrasis. Classical rhetoric handbooks usually define ekphrasis as bringing a subject vividly before the eyes. The impact of the ekphrastic tradition on piyyut is apparent most notably in the payytanic genre of the seder avodah that was discussed above. Here one finds detailed descriptions of the vestments of the high priest, the altar, and other ritual objects in the Temple (Swartz 2002). The ekphrastic dimension of piyyut is not restricted only to the zodiac but also to other cosmic elements. The interrelation between the cosmos and the sacred place (be it the Tabernacle, the Temple, or the Synagogue) is hinted at in the Bible already. The payytanim drew a direct line between the cosmic traits of the Tabernacle and those associated with the late antique synagogue, also known as a “diminished Temple” (a term that appears for the first time as an epithet for the synagogue in a piyyut by the fifth-​century payytan Yose ben Yose). By so doing they established a direct link between the sacred space and time and the liturgical present, hence contributed to the ritual function of the piyyut as we have already seen. More specifically, the payytanim brought together the heavenly and the terrestrial realms. This connection is very similar to what Robert Ousterhout wrote about contemporary Christian ritual in its spatial context: “the interiors of the buildings are treated as microcosms in which ordinary time, as well as ordinary modes of perception, is surpassed and the past is made eternally present through images, through the structure itself, or through tangible signs of empire” (Ousterhout 1995: 76). It should be noted that the case of the zodiac signs and the piyyutim are but one example of a widespread phenomenon. Taken together, they suggest that the impact of late antique liturgical poetry was synesthetic, that is, words, sounds, and images were combined to a holistic ritual experience. In sum, in synagogues the zodiac mosaics and the liturgical poems provided a concrete connection of sacred time and space. The synagogue combined seamlessly the spatial, visual, and aural realms in order to create a timeless and at the same time very concrete ritual experience.

4.  Literary Similarities and Differences between Piyyut and Rabbinic Literature Scholars have pointed out from the outset that rabbinic and payytanic literatures are related but stressed at the same time that the latter is secondary to the former. According to this hierarchical view, rabbinic literature is the source of exegetical and homiletic traditions and the payytanim merely bring versified versions of them (Rabinowitz 1965: 50–​1). In addition, when one finds occasionally in a piyyut a unique midrashic tradition that is not attested in an extant Midrash compilation, it serves –​methodologically –​as a proof for the existence of a “lost” midrashic text (Lieberman, 1939: 145). However, in the last two decades scholars began to challenge these assumptions and exemplified that payytanim are frequently the creators of exegetical traditions and that the interplay between piyyut and rabbinic literature is more complex (Elizur 1994: 383, Hacohen 2008: 94). In reality, clear-​cut connections between piyyut and rabbinic literature only appear in relation to tannaitic texts, most notably the Mishnah (Novick 2013a). In most other cases the connections are vaguer and more open for interpretations. In some cases, a dependence can be established on the basis of a shared exegetical tradition that appears in the same order in both a piyyut and a rabbinic text. In other cases, one can argue that a piyyut reworks a rabbinic midrash if it connects the exegetical material with specific biblical verses that also appear in the same context in a midrashic 389

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text (Elizur 1994). But again, in most cases it is very hard to determine whether there is some hierarchal dependence between two similar exegetical traditions in piyyut and in a rabbinic text. The first scholarly attempt to address this question on a broader scale was carried out by Zvi Meir Rabinowitz in 1965, He assumed at the outset that the piyyutim of Yannai are dependent on rabbinic sources (Rabinowitz 1965). More recently, Tzvi Novick (Novick 2019) devoted a monograph to the subject matter and reached similar conclusions although his discussion is evidently more nuanced and complex given the major advancements in the study of piyyut in the last 50 years. It seems that the common opinion concerning the hierarchy between rabbinic literature and piyyut builds on an “epistemology” of late antique Jewish literature that presupposes the superiority or of the former over the latter. This also relates to the cultural prestige of rabbinic literature vis-​à-​vis liturgical poetry and the relatively young tradition of the academic study of piyyut. At the current state of research, the following assertion by Laura Lieber provides a more cautious and nuanced approach to the question: “It is important to understand that now-​familiar texts were still likely in a fluid state. The poet was not necessarily citing texts but may have been actively participating in—​and contributing to—​traditions of interpretation that subsequently crystallized into the now more familiar (prose) compositions” (Lieber 2010a: 187). So far, the discussion focused on the similarities between rabbinic literature and piyyut and the proper way to understand them. Now, we shall highlight a meaningful difference between the two, namely to their relation to literary models of Second Temple literature. By and large, rabbinic literature, and specifically Midrash, departed from the Second Temple literary models. In contrast, piyyut reveals affinity to these literary models, most notably to their narrative style. One of the most prominent genres of Second Temple literature is the so-​called Rewritten Bible. As Steven Fraade observed: “Today we might take for granted the commentary form as a way of interpreting a text, especially of Scripture, in post-​biblical but pre-​rabbinic varieties of Judaism, if we may judge from the extant literary evidence, it does not appear to have been the favored mode of scriptural interpretation. The majority, by far, of that interpretation (as of inner-​biblical exegesis) takes the form of what has been called rewritten Bible, which paraphrases the biblical text, whether as story or as law, in such a way as to blur the distinction between the text and its interpretation” (Fraade 2012: 54). In order to examine piyyut in light of this insightful passage, we should differentiate more clearly between Rewritten Bible and Midrash for the following reasons: (1) A work of Rewritten Bible stands on its own and does not distinguish between the biblical base-​text and the authorial voice. rabbinic literature, on the other hand, very often cites biblical prooftexts and thus distances itself from the biblical text. (2) The Rewritten Bible is focused on narrative, whereas rabbinic texts focus on commentary. (3) In the Rewritten Bible genre there is usually an author, therefore it is not possible to introduce different and contradictory interpretations of the same source and create one narrative sequence (Levinson 2005: 120). When we compare piyyut and rabbinic literature from this viewpoint, the differences are stark. Piyyut falls easily into the category of the Rewritten Bible, at least with regard to its style. Numerous piyyutim focus on the renarration of biblical stories in a continuous way without interruption by exegetical explanations or discussions. The payytan is a conscious author with his own style, technique, and point of view, an issue that will be discussed more below. The affinities between piyyut and the literary models of Second Temple literature should not surprise us. The payytanic seder avodah is one of the earliest examples of piyyut and takes its inspiration from a section in the book of Ben Sira (Swartz and Yahalom 2005: 17). Interestingly, literary characteristics that we find in piyyut from its inception gradually become part of the so-​ called late Midrashim, that is to say, midrashic texts from the late Byzantine and early Islamic 390

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periods, most notably in the Tanhuma literature. Late Midrash shows a great propensity for the retelling of scriptural stories, as opposed to the tendency to abbreviate such stories observable in early Midrashim (Elbaum 1986, Levinson 2005: 315–​8).

5.  Piyyut and Hekhalot Literature Scholars have noticed for a long time that terminology and motifs from Hekhalot literature penetrated payytanic texts and that poetic techniques from piyyut influenced Hekhalot hymns (Swartz 2011: 263–​5). Quite naturally, the study of this interaction focused on piyyutim from late antique Palestine because they were composed roughly in the same period in which Hekhalot literature emerged. Moreover, the corpora seem to be connected regionally, if indeed Hekhalot literature stemmed from Palestine, as many scholars suggest (Lieber 2010a: 227–​41). However, the instances of explicit intersection between payyetanic texts and Hekhalot literature from this period are rather few and, as a consequence, scholars have exhausted the available sources relatively quickly (Swartz 1992: 190–​207, Lieber 2010a: 235–​7). In contrast, many piyyutim composed in medieval Europe include extensive angelological sections which use vocabulary, terminology, and motifs that are reminiscent of those found in Hekhalot literature (Münz-​Manor 2013a). Terms and motifs that relate to Hekhalot literature appear in late antique piyyut exclusively in an angelological context, namely in places in the liturgy where angels appear, most notably in the qedushah prayer. It should be noted that in most cases the angelological motifs follow biblical language and imagery and thus contain no meaningful connection to Hekhalot literature. The most revealing piyyut that relates to Hekhalot literature was discovered and published only recently (Rand 2009). In this text, one can note the explicit references to the seven heavenly realms, the idea that angels guard each hekhal, and most strikingly the mention of the seals that allow access to each palace. This is remarkable for a variety of reasons. First, the payyetanic text corroborates the early dating and the Palestinian provenance of key ascension motifs of Hekhalot literature (Swartz 2011). Second, for the first time, we have definitive proof that at least some early payyetanim were familiar with Hekhalot motifs or technical terminology. Third, this piyyut suggests that they felt free to include such materials in compositions that were performed in public. The importance of this piyyut to the study of the origins of Hekhalot literature cannot be overestimated. But it is nevertheless crucial to bear in mind that it represents an exception, for most late antique piyyutim only rarely relate to Hekhalot traditions or to any other mystic or magical literature from that period.

6. The Payytan as Author In a recent survey on authorship in rabbinic literature, Martin Jaffee wrote the following on the collective nature of rabbinic literature: “As far as human authorship is concerned, there are no Yeshua b. Siras or Philos in the rabbinic literary world. Rabbis would not admit to writing formative texts for the ages out of the resources of their own imaginations until the ninth century C.E ., when political and cultural exigencies drew Rabbi Sa’adia ibn Yosef of Baghdad out of the shell of anonymity” (Jaffee 2007: 25). Similarly, Sacha Stern, who studied the idea of authorship in the Babylonian Talmud, concluded that: “In general terms, it is of highest significance to note that unlike contemporary Graeco-​Roman and Christian works, which were nearly all ascribed to their specific authors, early rabbinic works such as the Mishnah, the Talmudim, and various midrashic compilations were anonymously redacted, and hence, as whole works, basically unauthored” (Stern 1994: 49). This feature of rabbinic literary culture is not self-​evident, as authors played a major role in ancient Judaism and Christianity. Still, the rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud 391

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chose a mode of collective authorship, in which individual voices are mentioned, but this does not result in a coherent message or a unified vision. Rather, the rabbinic compilation is a celebration of multivocality, of interpretations and counter-​interpretations. Recently, Moulie Vidas suggested to refine the common view of an authorless rabbinic culture by arguing that it is only applicable to the earliest stratum of Rabbinic literature, namely tannaitic literature (Vidas 2017: 49–​61). According to Vidas, in the amoraic period (beginning with the Palestinian Talmud) rabbis began to separate between the role of rabbis as tradents and as authors and by so doing they developed a new notion of rabbinic authorship. Vidas contends that this change relates to a shift within rabbinic literature from concentration on the Torah as the source of discourse to a growing interest in the rabbinic discourse itself. This inner-​discursive turn encouraged the amoraim. According to Vidas: “Amoraic scholars routinely try to identify the rabbis behind anonymous teachings; they read Tannaitic and Amoraic statements in light of other information they know about the rabbi to whom they are attributed, implying that these statements originate with, or reflect the opinion of, that rabbi; they assume consistency among the teachings of a single rabbi; they distinguish between instances in which rabbis transmit the opinions of others and instances in which they state their own opinions” (Vidas 2017: 50). Vidas’ revised history of the development of rabbinic authorship is an important, even if contested, contribution to the study of rabbinic literature and culture, yet it seems that the payytanic mode of authorship is very different, both in scope and in essence, even from the revised rabbinic one. In order to exemplify that claim, let us consider the case Yannai, who composed his poetry sometime in the sixth century C. E . Yannai inscribed the four letters of his name in the fourth section of each one of his compositions by using the technique of the acrostic. Name acrostics, as Derek Krueger wrote in his study of the celebrated Byzantine poet Romanos the Melodist, “are a technique for attaching identity to output, linking signature to authorial identity and authorial control. Romanos’ use of his name in the genitive case asserts ownership as well as responsibility for composition” (Krueger 2004: 169). If we add to that, the fact that at least initially the poets performed their own composition in public during liturgy enhanced even more their authorial status and prestige. Furthermore, we also have external –​even if later –​evidence of the high authorial status of the payytanim. The collected poems of Yannai were copied and transmitted from early on and have reached us mainly through the Cairo Genizah. In fact, the volume containing Yannai’s poems is one of the earliest manuscripts in the Genizah, and its production is dated to the eighth or ninth centuries. The status of Yannai as a prominent individual author is also expressed in the writing of later sages who admired his work. In fact, it is precisely Sa’adia Gaon, the ninth century sage who is frequently singled out as the first Jewish author of the first millennium, who praised the early payytanim in general, and Yannai in particular (Langer 1998: 128–​30). Another prominent sage, Rabbenu Gershom Me’or Hagola, one of the icons of European-​Ashkenazi Judaism in the tenth century, wrote in one place: “We should learn from the ancient payytanim that were extremely wise. Rabbi Yannai, for example, was one of the earliest sages and he composed qerovot [a specific sort of piyyutim] to each and every seder of the year” (Rabinowitz 1985: 3). We can conclude, then, by saying that Yannai, like his fellow poets from late antique Palestine, produced an impressive corpus of liturgical poems, watermarked with their names and affiliations, which were successful in creating an ongoing poetic tradition that continued in the Middle Ages. In a previous section of this chapter we dealt with the question of the connections between piyyut and rabbinic literature and concluded that it is too early to determine the exact dynamics between the corpora. Payytanic authorship enables us to elaborate more on that question. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Yannai based his piyyutim solely on material from rabbinic literature. Even in this scenario and, as argued earlier, there is no good reason to assume that this 392

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is true, his work is still the outcome of an intense and creative literary process. First and foremost, Yannai crafted lengthy, continuous narratives that relate biblical episodes that are self-​sufficient. Moreover, he did not only sign his name in the acrostic but also erased the names of the rabbis that appear in the original rabbinic text. If we adopt Vidas’ claim about the rise of rabbinic authorship in the amoraic period, this payytanic practice would still be quite subversive, since piyyut emerged in Palestine more or less at the same time as the Palestinian Talmud was edited. Even if there is nothing “original” in the piyyutim (and anyway the notion of originality is a modern one), Yannai still omitted the names of rabbis, that is, of the original authors, as it were, and claimed authority over them. So, the point is not whether the payytanim created their own exegetical interpretations of the biblical narrative, their very act of composing a self-​contained, continuous narrative under their own name marked them as individual authors. This relates to another meaningful difference between rabbinic and payytanic texts. While the former almost always dealt with themes by discussing small hermeneutical or exegetical units, the latter tended to present sustained narratives. Furthermore, unlike many rabbinic texts that often offer multiple readings, the interpretive line of the liturgical texts is much more coherent. If we read the payytanic corpus without knowing rabbinical literature, it would be very hard to figure out that the former ever existed. The point is not that the payytanim were hostile toward the rabbis, the opposite is much closer to the truth. But at the same time, payytanim were not “singing rabbis”, who preferred verse to prose. This might also explain why some early Babylonian sages opposed piyyut on halakhic and historical grounds (Langer 1998: 110–​30). Ultimately these anti-​payytanic and anti-​Palestinian sentiments did not prevail, thanks mostly to Rav Sa’adia Gaon’s prominence and the fact that he himself was a talented payytan. At any rate, the independent authorial mode practiced by the payytanim suggests that their relationship vis-​à-​vis the rabbis was complex. This goes hand in hand with the notion that the rabbinic movement did not dominate Jewish society in that period so quickly and that there might have been other socially and culturally dominant groups that demanded their share in leadership (Schwartz 2001, Lapin 2012). In fact, in recent years some scholars suggested that the payytanim were part of a “priestly revival” that took place in the fifth and sixth centuries in the Galilee (Swartz 1999, Irshai 2004, Weiss 2012, Miller 2015). Indeed, some of the poets inscribed the word cohen in addition to their name in the acrostics. However, this does not necessarily mean that they belonged to the priestly clan. It might as well be an indication of their role as religious leaders in worship. At any rate, the question of the social context of piyyut will undoubtedly continue to attract the attention of scholars of piyyut and historians of the period in question.

7.  Piyyut and Contemporary Christian Liturgical Poetry Shared characteristics of Jewish and Christian liturgical poetry created in the Eastern Byzantine Empire in late antiquity, have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. The fact that the poetic corpora of these two cultures were composed in closely related Semitic languages, within an integrated geocultural space and within similar performative contexts, raises questions about the relationship between them. A literary analysis of poems that were composed by Jewish and Christian (and to some extent also Samaritan) poets from the fourth century onwards indicates that they share a great number of similarities –​formal, stylistic, thematic, and ritual. This fact should be seen in light of the active cultural-​religious connections that took place during this period and that were thoroughly examined in the last three decades (Hasan-​Rokem 2003, Boyarin 2004, Bowersock 2006). That said, until the beginning of the twentieth century the idea that there existed a relationship between 393

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piyyut and contemporary Christian prayers was not popular. Some even argued that the sole Jewish corpus that was not influenced by “foreign” imprint was piyyut (Fleischer 1993). As against this trend, a sizable number of studies from the last decade speak explicitly of the possibility that an active relationship existed between Jewish and Christian liturgical poetry (Yahalom 1999, Lieber 2009, 2016, Münz-​Manor 2010, van Bekkum 2014). Unfortunately, we cannot say much about the historical –​let alone social –​contexts of this cultural exchange. Our knowledge of the circumstances in which these poems were composed and performed is scant. We do not possess any manual of poetic writing or other metapoetic reference works. The only evidence for the existence of liturgical poetry is the poetry itself. The relationship between Jewish and Christian liturgical poetry from the late antique period is grounded in a similarity in poetic technique that appears across a great number of poems, with no reference to the contents of the poems or their respective liturgical functions. The poets, writing in Hebrew, Jewish and Samaritan Aramaic, Syriac, and to some extent also Greek, employed the poetic tradition of ancient Semitic poetry (mainly biblical poetry), but also introduced numerous poetic innovations. Thus, for example, the acrostic and the refrain, which were only marginal in biblical poetry, became obligatory devices in late antique liturgical poetry. Similarly, late antique poets were influenced by Graeco-​Roman models of meter and introduced new metrical and rhythmical building blocks in their poems, in stark contrast to biblical poetry. However, in a number of cases, there exist between Jewish and Christian poems thematic, hermeneutic, and philosophical –​ religious ties that go beyond a common poetic basis. Thus, for example, we find in both Hebrew and Syriac liturgical poetry disputes between the body and soul, whose roots go back to ancient Mesopotamian, particularly Sumerian and Akkadian, literature. These poems feature an alphabetic acrostic and a four-​part structural division of the lines that embraces the entire poem. They all present before the listener a dramatic dialogue between the body and soul, which in both cases is organized in accordance with a tripartite structure: an introduction, a debate, and a verdict (Münz-​Manor 2017: 596). On the one hand, the poetic disputes between the body and soul supply concrete evidence of the influence of the Ancient Near Eastern heritage on the poetic tradition that flourished in the fourth century. On the other hand, they lay bare the great powers of innovation evident in compositions from the late antique period. First and foremost, it must be noted that the late antique poets borrowed from the Ancient Near Eastern tradition only the basic format of the poetic dispute between two personified entities, but not the dispute between the body and soul specifically, as the latter is not attested in the ancient tradition. Examples of thematic links between piyyut and Christian liturgical poetry may be found also in compositions devoted to a retelling of scriptural stories. Most notable are the numerous poems that elaborate on the Binding of Isaac in Hebrew, Jewish Aramaic, Syriac, and Greek (Münz-​Manor 2014: 161–​6). Furthermore, the ritual and spatial aspects of piyyut that were discussed at the beginning of this chapter all have parallels in Christian liturgical poetry in Syriac and Greek. Thus, for example, the Byzantine anaphora (Greek, offering), has striking literary and ritual similarities to the seder avodah (Münz-​Manor 2014). Dedicatory poems for new church buildings resemble piyyutim for Hanukkah that focus on the inauguration and rededication of the Tabernacle and the Temple (Münz-​Manor 2013b). The same is true for the employment of refrains to encourage congregational participation. As more and more comparative studies of Jewish and Christian liturgical poetry are being published in the last years, our knowledge of the intense and complex connections between the corpora grows (Yahalom 1999, Lieber 2009, 2016, Münz-​Manor 2010, Van Bekkum 2014). In that respect, it is also worthwhile noting some recent treatments of connections between piyyut and apocalyptic literature in the seventh century (Novick 2013a, 394

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Newman 2017, Himmelfarb 2017). The comparative study of piyyut is undoubtedly one of the most promising scholarly projects in this field. Hopefully, it will yield results that will enable us to reconstruct as much as possible the social and cultural contexts of these poetic texts.

8. Conclusions This chapter contributes to the scholarly discourse about late antique Judaism by focusing on piyyut as an independent and influential component of Jewish culture and society. Furthermore, it sheds light on a previously unexplored ritual domain in which a shared liturgical tradition of versified religious texts linked Jews, Samaritans, and Christians in the late antique Near East. Finally, it emphasizes the unique nature of liturgical poetry vis-​à-​vis rabbinic literature. Whereas the intended audience of rabbinic literature consisted primarily of learned men, liturgical poems aimed at a much more diverse constituency. Ultimately, liturgical poetry offers scholars of Jewish religion and culture in the late antique Near East a unique gateway to some of the central matrices for individual and communal identities.

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Ophir Münz-Manor Irshai, O. (2013). “ ‘The Earthquake in the Valley of Arbel’: A Galilean Apocalyptic Tradition and its Historical-​Liturgical Context” (Hebrew), in Textures: Culture, Literature, Folklore, Festschrift for Galit Hasan-​Rokem. Jerusalem: Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, 107–​32. Jaffee, M. (2007). “Rabbinic Authorship as a Collective Enterprise,” in C. Fonrobert and M. Jaffee (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature. Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 17–​37. Krueger, D. (2004). Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Krueger, D. (2014). Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Langer, R. (1998). To Worship God Properly: Tensions Between Liturgical Custom and Halacha in Judaism. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College. Lapin, H. (2012). Rabbis as Romans. The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–​400 CE. Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Levinson, J. (2005). The Twice Told Tale: The Art of the Expanded Biblical Story in Midrash (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Lieber, L. (2009). “Portraits of Righteousness: Noah in Early Christian and Jewish Hymnography,” Zeitschrift für Religions–​und Geistesgeschichte 61: 332–​55. Lieber, L. (2010a). Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to Piyyut. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College Press. Lieber, L. (2010b). “The Rhetoric of Participation: Experiential Elements of Early Hebrew Liturgical Poetry,” Journal of Religion 90: 119–​47. Lieber, L. (2014). “Setting the Stage: The Theatricality of Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity,” Jewish Quarterly Review 104: 537–​72. Lieber, L. (2016). “On the Road with Mater Dolorosa: An Exploration of Mother-​Son Discourse Performance,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 24: 265–​91. Lieber, L. (2018). Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity: Translations and Commentaries. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Lieber, L. (2022). Classical Samaritan Poetry. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Lieberman, S. (1939). “The Poetry of Yannai” (Hebrew), Sinai 4: 221–​50. Magness, J. (2005). “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59: 1–​52. Miller, S. (2015). At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds: Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity among the Jews of Roman Galilee. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Münz-​Manor, O. (2010). “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East –​A Comparative Approach,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1: 336–​61. Münz-​Manor, O. (2011). “Carnivalesque Ambivalence and the Christian Other in Jewish Poems from Byzantine Palestine,” in R. Bonfil, O. Irshai, G. G. Stroumsa and R. Talgam (eds.), Jews of Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 831–​45. Münz-​Manor, O. (2013a). “A Prolegomenon to the Study of Hekhalot Traditions in European Piyyut,” in P. Schäfer, M. Himmelfarb and R. Boustan (eds.), Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 110–​22. Münz-​Manor, O. (2013b). “The Ritualization of Creation in Jewish and Christian Liturgical Texts from Late Antiquity,” in L. Jenott and S. Kattan-​Gribetz (eds.), Jewish and Christian Cosmogony in Late Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 271–​86. Münz-​Manor, O. (2014). “Narrating Salvation: Verbal Sacrifices in Late Antique Liturgical Poetry,” in A. Reed and N. Dohrmann (eds.), Jews, Christian, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 154–​66, 315–​9. Münz-​Manor, O. (2017). “The Parable of the Lame and the Blind in Epiphanius and its Relation to Jewish Sources: New Texts,” The Journal of Theological Studies 68: 593–​606. Newman, H. (2017). “Dating Sefer Zerubavel: Dehistoricizing and Rehistoricizing a Jewish Apocalypse of Late Antiquity,” in B. Bitton-​Ashkelony and D. Krueger (eds.), Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries. London: Routledge, 324–​36. Novick, T. (2013a). “Between First-​Century Apocalyptic and Seventh-​Century Liturgy: On 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and Qillir,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 44: 356–​78. Novick, T. (2013b). “Liturgy and Law: Approaches to Halakhic Material in Yannai’s Kedushta’ot,” Jewish Quarterly Review 103: 475–​502.

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The Liturgical Performance of Identity Novick, T. (2019). Piyyut and Midrash: Form, Genre, and History. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Ousterhout, R. (1995). “Temporal Structuring in the Chora Parekklesion,” Gesta 34: 63–​76. Rabinowitz, Z.M. (1965). Halakha and Aggada in the Liturgical Poetry of Yannai: The Sources, Language and Period of the Payyetan (Hebrew). New York, NY: Keren Aleksander Kohut. Rabinowitz, Z.M. (1985). The Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Yannai (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Press. Rand, M. (2006). Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine Palestine. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. Rand, M. (2007). “Observations on the Relationship Between JPA Poetry and the Hebrew Piyyut Tradition–​ The Case of the Kinot,” in A. Gerhards and C. Leonhard (eds.), Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into Its History and Interaction. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 127–​44. Rand, M. (2009). “More on the Seder Beriyot,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 16: 183–​209. Rand, M. (2014). “Fundamentals of the Study of Piyyut,” in C. Leonhard and H. Löhr (eds.), Literature or Liturgy? Early Christian Hymns and Prayers in Their Literary and Liturgical Context in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 107–​25. Reif, S.C. (1993). Judaism and Hebrew Prayer. New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwartz, S. (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society–​200 B.C.E to 640 C.E. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stern, S. (1994). “Attribution and Authorship in the Babylonian Talmud,” The Journal of Jewish Studies 45: 28–​51. Swartz, M. (1992). Mystical Prayer in Ancient Judaism: An Analysis of Ma‘aseh Merkavah. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Swartz, M. (1997). “Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Toward an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6: 135–​55. Swartz, M. (1999). “Sage, Priest, and Poet: Typologies of Religious Leadership in the Ancient Synagogues,” in S. Fine (ed.), Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-​Roman Period. London: Routledge,101–​17. Swartz, M. (2002). “The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments in Ancient Judaism,” in A. Baumgarten (ed.), Sacrifice in Religious Experience. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 57–​80. Swartz, M. (2011). “Piyut and Hekhalot: Recent Research and its Implications for the History of Ancient Jewish Liturgy and Mysticism,” in D. Reed Blank (ed.), The Experience of Jewish Liturgy: Studies Dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 263–​82. Swartz, M. and Yahalom, J. (2005). Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Van Bekkum, W. (2008). “The Hebrew Liturgical Poetry of Byzantine Palestine: Recent Research and New Perspectives,” Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History 28: 232–​46. Van Bekkum, W. (2014). “Jewish and Christian Hymnody in the Early Byzantine Period,” in J.K. Aitken and J. Carleton Paget (eds.), The Jewish-​ Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 261–​78. Vidas, M. (2017). “A Place of Torah,” in C.E. Fonrobert et al. (eds.), Talmudic Transgressions: Engaging the Work of Daniel Boyarin. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 23–​73. Weiss, Z. (2012). “Were Priests Communal Leaders in Late Antique Palestine? The Archeological Evidence,” in D.R. Schwartz and Z. Weiss (eds.), Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 91–​111. Yahalom, J. (1987). “Piyyut as Poetry,” in L. I. Levine (ed.), The Synagogue in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: American School of Oriental Research, 111–​26. Yahalom, J. (1999). Poetry and Society in Jewish Galilee of Late Antiquity (Hebrew), Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. Yahalom, J. (2006). “ ‘Syriac for Dirges, Hebrew for Speech’: Ancient Jewish Poetry in Aramaic and Hebrew,” in S. Safrai et al. (eds.), The Literature of the Sages, Second Part: Midrash and Targum, Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism, Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science and the Languages of Rabbinic Literature. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 375–​91.

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PART VI

Rabbinic Culture in Sasanian Persia

26 JEWISH AND PERSIAN LEADERSHIP STRUCTURES Geoffrey Herman

1. Introduction This chapter will discuss the relationship between the Sasanian royal court and the leadership of the Jews, as reflected in the contemporary rabbinic literature, mainly the Babylonian Talmud. The Jews in Sasanian Babylonia noticed the Persian leadership structures around them, such as the royal court. They sought to imitate them and adopt similar forms for themselves. This can be seen in how they describe their own reality, and in how they imagine the past, whether biblical or rabbinic (both in Palestine and Babylonia). It can be traced in the stories they told, through the institutions they developed for themselves, and by comparison with non-​Jewish sources from the Sasanian milieu. Two key Jewish leadership mechanisms are relevant here. Both emerged in Babylonia in the course of late antiquity: the exilarchate and the rabbinic academy (yeshiva/​metivta). In the way in which they developed, and in what they represented within Jewish society, both are unique to the Babylonian Jewish experience, lacking truly comparable leadership structures within Jewish society of late antique Palestine or elsewhere within the Roman world. For both we are dependent, almost exclusively, on one contemporary source –​the Babylonian Talmud. Both the exilarchate and the rabbinic academy have been the subject of considerable study over the years, and consensus on many issues relating to them is in short supply. The chronological frame of this chapter is political: the Sasanian era (224–​651 C.E .). This era begins with the defeat of the Parthian dynasty and ends with the final collapse of the Sasanians to the Arab armies and the death of the last Sasanian monarch Yazdgird III in 651 C.E . The conflict between the Sasanians and the Parthians had already begun before 224 C.E . and continued a little afterward, too. At the other end, Babylonia fell to the Arabs a few decades before the final collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The spread of our Jewish sources is not, however, equally distributed throughout this period, and establishing a precise chronology when dealing with rabbinic sources remains a major challenge for scholars. The period during which we can speak with confidence about datable rabbinic sources is considerably shorter than the span of the Sasanian era. For the rabbinic sources we are tightly bound by the chronological confines of the Babylonian Talmud, with some additional data from contemporary Palestinian rabbinic sources. Often statements in the Talmud are DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-32

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attributed to known rabbis. We are fairly familiar with when and where the more important rabbis lived, and this allows us to propose a chronological frame when discussing such sources. For many rabbinic traditions, however, we lack such chronological markers. For instance, when a statement appears anonymously. Of acute relevance for the issues to be addressed here is the date when the Babylonian Talmud was redacted, and this question has been the focus of much debate among scholars (Kalmin 2006: 840–​7). Many, but not all scholars, place its final redaction in the sixth century or later. Reference to explicit datable events or personalities concerning the Sasanian era in the Babylonian Talmud belongs almost exclusively to the third to fifth centuries, and the leadership institutions considered here are believed by most to have begun within this time frame. The Persian sources at our disposal include the material sources, specifically epigraphic sources such as monumental rock inscriptions and images, and artifacts, and literary sources from this period, composed in languages such as Persian, Aramaic, Armenian, and Greek (Wiesehöfer 1996: 153–​221). These sources mention Jews very rarely, but it is through collating the descriptions they provide, and the images they project, with the Jewish sources that allows one to study how Persian imperial themes, rhetoric, and images are reflected in the Jewish literature from this period.

2.  Encountering the Kingdom Persian rule could be seen and experienced. For the Jews of Babylonia, as subjects of the Sasanian Empire, it would invariably have been perceptible in multiple situations and contexts. First, there was the architectural opulence of the Sasanian buildings, including palaces, with their eye-​ catching dimensions (b. ‘Erub. 2b), new cities, and other structures. These constituted a tangible landmark of Persian dominion (Canepa 2009). Much of this Sasanian construction took place in Babylonia, in cities where there was a large Jewish population. In particular, the urban metropolis of the capital, Meḥoza (also known in Persian sources as Weh-​Ardashir and as Seleucia in Syriac Christian sources) and Ctesiphon, two cities separated by the Tigris, underwent major construction and expansion in this period. There was a major palace in proximity to the important Jewish community in Meḥoza [Oppenheimer 1983: 179–​235]. Here, Jews were at the epicenter of the empire, where the king frequently resided. Other areas of Jewish settlement were not far away. Major urban innovations of the Sasanian period took place along the Euphrates, including the region of Anbar, known as Peroz Shabur, close to Jewish communities in northern Babylonia, such as in Pumbedita, and in Peroz Shabur itself. The Talmud mentions changes in the channel of the Euphrates itself, engineered by the Sasanians (b. Ber. 59b). This Sasanian construction marked a major departure from the imperial initiatives of the Parthians that preceded them. In fact, the “Sasanian rupture and renovation” (Canepa 2018: 122–​44) in the field of architecture coincided with the emergence of the new era in Babylonian Jewish history with the beginning of recorded rabbinic activity there. The dawning of a new era that crystallized with the arrival of the Sasanians was also articulated in religion, literature, and other media. The coincidence of this new kingdom with the dawn of rabbinic culture in Babylonia was anything but fortuitous (Herr 2016). The Sasanian royal court, then, was never far away. One could imagine the king and his entourage passing through, visible to those in the vicinity (b. Ber. 58a). The Babylonian Talmud often thematizes its rabbinic heroes regarding royalty with a deep-​seated attitude of respect (Herman 2018: 110–​23), even as a recent study suggests that at the redactional level a more sardonic view prevailed on the topic of proximity between rabbinic and gentile leadership (Gray 2005). It brings anecdotes involving many of the leading rabbis in conversation with the king (eg b. Ber. 58a) or with other royals: thus, Samuel with Shapur I (b. Ber. 56a; b. Sukkah 53a; b. Mo’ed Qaṭ. 26a and b. Sanh. 98a); Rav Ḥama and Rav/​Mar Judah (together with Bati bar Tobi) interact with Shapur II 402

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(b. Sanh. 46b; b. Abod. Zar. 76b); or “Ifra Hormiz, the mother of King Shapur” with Rav Joseph, Rav Ami, and Rava (b. Ta‘an. 24b; b. B. Bat. 8a; b. B. Bat. 10b; b. Zebaḥ. 116b; and b. Nid. 20b). While the reality cannot be established with any certainty, and one can hardly treat such sources as anything but literary fictions rather than portraying, even in embellished form, any kind of actual conversations, some other sources inspire more confidence where rabbis are described explicitly visiting the royal palace. Indeed, two accounts portray early fifth-​century rabbis awaiting or receiving an audience with the Sasanian king Yazdgird I (399–​420 C.E .) in a palatial setting. In one case, “Amemar and Mar Zutra and Rav Ashi were sitting at the gate of the house [=​ palace] of King Yazdgird. A royal waiter was coming and going …” (b. Ketub. 61a–​b). In a second instance, an audience is described between an important fifth-​century rabbi, Huna bar Natan, and this same king, whereby the king is said to have adjusted the belt of the rabbi and recited a suitable scriptural verse. Other contemporary rabbis comment. Whatever the historical reality, it bears notice that in view of the function of a belt in Sasanian society, it probably signifies some dignity bestowed upon the said rabbi (Herman 2012: 321–​5).

3.  Persian Royal Imagery in Rabbinic Narrative Persian royal templates would leave their mark, on occasion, on the images chosen by the rabbis to embellish biblical episodes, presumably employing literary tropes that were pervasive within the Sasanian literary milieu. Thus, in one story, biblical David sets off falcon-​hunting, a sport befitting a noble of the contemporary ilk (b. Sanh. 95a; Herman 2012a); elsewhere King David displays the phenomenal skill and prowess in archery afforded Persian heroes, mythical and contemporary, including kings (b. Mo’ed Qaṭ. 16b). Solomon, in a colorful episode where the arch demon Ashmedai takes his place pretending to be him (b. Giṭ. 68a) seems to echo the more ancient account of the magus impersonating Smerdis, as related by Herodotus (History 3.68–​69; Krappe 1933). In another rabbinic exegetical account, Vashti is said to insult Ahasuerus, describing him as the stable master of the former king (b. Meg. 12b). This would seem to repeat a popular calumny, applied to contemporary monarchs, and is known from popular narratives on usurpation in Persian accounts (Herman 2005). Other images in rabbinic sources are seemingly inspired by the likeness of Sasanian kings familiar to us from contemporary art and literature, whereby the king is seated upon multiple cushions or mattresses. We find in a parodic rabbinic interpretation of a scriptural passage (Ezek 21–​25–​28) that Sanherib, having arrived at the gates of Jerusalem, is envisaged seated on a tower of cushions (b. Sanh. 95a), recalling an icon I shall consider below. Elsewhere a rabbinic account of the rise of Herod echoes a Persian narrative on the rise of Ardashir, the founding monarch of the Sasanian dynasty, in the Middle-​Persian classic Kar-​nāmag-​ī Ardašīr (Rubenstein 2014). Such images are also evoked in describing figures of the more recent past. According to b. Shabb. 113b (and b. B. Meṣi‘a 85a), Judah I is described as wealthier than King Shapur. This assertion is formulated, however, in a roundabout way. He is said to possess a stable master who is richer than the Persian king Shapur (b. Shabb. 113b). The stable master is chosen here as an example of a court affiliate with a reputation in popular culture as a particularly lowly position. Another case relates to the future –​the Messiah is foretold as arriving upon a magical mount befitting a leader, “a mule of a thousand colors”, rather than the biblically predicted lowly mule (b. Sanh. 98a). The Persian court effect would extend beyond the terrestrial world. When speaking of the divine court, it was from its contemporary terrestrial counterpart that they drew inspiration. The “earthly kingdom” (malkhuta de-​ara’a) was perceived as a reflection of the “heavenly kingdom” (makhuta de-​raqi’a) (b. Ber. 58a), and the converse was evidently true –​the Sasanian royal palace. Thus, 403

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the act of standing before the divine presence is depicted in terminology that evokes the enormous dimensions of the Persian royal palace. We encounter 18,000 righteous (benei ‘aliya) in one row (dara) before the Holy One, Blessed Be He (b. Sukkah 45a; b. Sanh. 97b). This might be an echo of the strict hierarchical rows of the dignitaries that would gather before the king. When speaking of access to the heavenly court, the Talmud distinguishes between those entering with bār that it, with “permission” (Shaked 1995: 179), and those who cannot enter with bār. This Middle-​Persian terminology, too, is borrowed from Persian court culture.

4.  The Yeshiva The institutional framework under which the rabbis of Babylonia functioned has been the focus of considerable debate among scholars. The reason for the scholarly uncertainty is that the only unambiguous and detailed descriptions of rabbinic institutions we possess were composed in the Geonic era, many centuries after the Talmud was complete. They describe established rabbinic academies, but whether they speak of circumstances in their own time or during the Sasanian era (and prior), their rendering of the situation under the Sasanians is strikingly close to their own institutional reality. Even assuming traces of continuity in practice, the assumption of such an absolute unchanging reality over so many centuries would seem unlikely. The question that has occupied scholars, then, is whether there existed established rabbinic academies also or already during the Sasanian era (Goodblatt 2006; Stern 2008). Scholars have analyzed the terminology employed in the Talmud in an effort to better describe the place of study. When one explores the references in the Babylonian Talmud for the institutions of rabbinic activity in Babylonia, be it study, adjudication, or instruction, a number of different terms are found. For the more significant fixed study settings we have bei rav (or bei rav X) and metivta –​or its Hebrew cognate, yeshiva. The exact meaning of these terms in the contemporary setting of Sasanian Babylonia has been debated (Goodblatt 1975: 63–​154). Two other terms refer to less permanent occasions of study: pirqa and kalla (Goodblatt 1975: 155–​96). The term bei rav, literally, the “house of the master”, might be understood in the limited sense as reflecting a small group of disciples studying with a master, a rabbi, perhaps at his home, as it probably did mean originally. It has been argued that the frequent use of this term points to the lack of established rabbinic academies known as the yeshiva/​metivta in this period, the latter defined as institutions which possess a corporate identity, with staff that is not dependent on the presence of any given individual teacher. The term metivta or yeshiva appears in the sources in more than one sense, sometimes with the meaning of a study session, or the unit of study covered in such a session. These sessions can be temporary, such as a special session in memory of someone, or for the purpose of returning a sick person back to health. In a few instances it would appear to relate to a school in the sense that the term acquired in later (Geonic) sources. The recent tendency among scholars has been to view the development of institutions of study to be gradual. Some scholars have proposed that references to “academies” belong to the latest stratum in the redaction history of the Talmud, whereas others have argued that they attest to the existence of established academies in amoraic times already (Rubenstein 2002). Accounts of rabbinic activity found in the Talmud mostly involve merely a handful of participants. They are nevertheless described as seated in rows hierarchically ordered one behind the other in a highly formal setting. The interaction between those present is also regimented in strict hierarchical fashion. This suggests, perhaps, an attendance that is greater than merely the few

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named students in such accounts and recalls the Geonic portrayals of large academies that also attest to the arrangement of students in rows (Gafni 1990: 190–​203).

5.  The Head of the Yeshiva “Reigns” When the Babylonian rabbis refer to their own leadership, they adopt language evoking court culture. A rabbinic leader is said, quite literally, to “reign” (malakh). Such a lexical choice is unique to the Babylonian rabbinic milieu, and not found in the literature produced by the rabbis of Palestine. In b. B. Bat. 12b, for instance, we are told that the fifth-​century Mar bar Rav Ashi hears a market fool stand and declare that “the head of the metivta who reigns in Mata Meḥasya signs [his name] Tavyomi!” When Rabbah, having become the head of the Pumbedita academy, continues to send humble Purim gifts to his fellow, he is candidly rebuked with the following folk saying: “if a farmer becomes a king, his basket does not come off his shoulder”. This Rabbah, in fact, we are told elsewhere, “reigned for 22 years”, after which, Rav Joseph “reigned for two years” (b. Hor. 14a). In response to the astrological wisdom that one born on the first day of the week, Sunday, will be incomparable in quality, whether for goodness or for malevolence, Rav Ashi states that both he himself and a certain Dimi bar Qaquzita were born on a Sunday, but he became a king, whereas Dimi bar Qaquzita became the head of thieves (b. Shabb. 156a). One might add that the connection between astrological prediction and the rise to leadership, which features in a number of accounts in the Babylonian Talmud, has parallels in Persian sources from this period and beyond (Rubenstein 2012). The Babylonian Talmud also extends this terminological idiosyncrasy to its portrayals of rabbis in Palestine, such as in its stories about R. Yoḥanan and Ilfa (b. Ta‘an. 21a) or R. Ḥanina and Rabbi (b. Shabb. 49b =​b. Ketub. 103b). In another example, symbols of royalty seen in a dream are interpreted as revealing the promise that the dreamer will reign, that is, serve in the capacity of head of the academy. When it is related that in a dream, “we saw a young ass stand before our cushion and bray” –​this is interpreted: “you shall be a king and an amora shall stand beside you” (b. Ber. 56a). This dream interpretation, echoing Persian cultural perceptions, treats the cushion as a symbol of high office. The amora here is the assistant who mediates the lecture of the head before the assembled and is a mark of distinction for him. The young ass would seem also to be a Persian reference. It symbolizes the royal mount that announces the new king and chooses him, a mythical Persian touch recalling Herodotus’ account regarding the selection of King Darius (Histories 3.84). One also finds comparisons between certain distinguished sages and Sasanian kings. For example, Samuel and Rav Huna are compared with King Shapur (b. B. Qam. 96b; b. Pesaḥ. 54a =​b. B. Bat. 115b). “Kings” appears (once) as a term for rabbis in general, and not just for the head of the academy (b. Giṭ. 62a), although the exegetical context suggests that in this instance it reflects a polemical rather than a normative use of the term (Beer 1962).

6.  Yeshiva and Royal Court If the terminology referring to the head of the rabbinic academy rings regal, certain additional factors imply an effort to portray it as particularly distinguished. The seating in the academy is one example. An anecdote relates that upon learning that Huna bar Ḥiyya was to be honored, “Rabbah and Rav Joseph and all the rabbis” believed he was now to lead the academy. In preparation they “tied 400 benches (taxtakei)” (b. Bek. 31a). Likewise in the “academy on high”, described in b. B. Meṣi‘a 85b, everyone reclines on a gāhwārag, a type of sedan chair. R. Yoḥanan, in the account we

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shall consider below (b. B. Qam. 117a), is seated at the front of the academy upon seven cushions (wistarakei). The three terms employed in these sources, taxtakei, gāhwārag, and wistarakei are all Middle-​Persian loanwords. When the Talmud employs such language borrowed from the vocabulary of the sovereign rulers, it surely seeks to endow the academy itself with an air of distinction. This particular characteristic of Babylonian rabbinic society is also evident elsewhere but does not appear in the Palestinian Talmud. Thus, the Babylonian Talmud relates that Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Eleazar b. ‘Azaria visited R. Dosa b. Hyrkanus, and they were seated upon “golden beds” (b. Yebam. 16a). The Palestinian parallel to this story, however, does not include this detail (y. Yebam. 1:3, 6a–​b). Another factor is size. The number of those present at study assemblies parallels sources on the royal court from the Persian realm. In the Babylonian account of the deposition of Rabban Gamaliel, which we shall consider below, we hear of 400 benches or, according to another opinion, 700 that were brought into the academy in the wake of the coup. The abovementioned “coronation” of Huna bar Ḥiyya (b. Bek. 31a) includes 400 pairs of sages. An interesting talmudic source reflects on the changing numbers of students attending rabbinic study sessions in the course of time. The attendance figures provided are 1200 students in the days of Rav, 800 in the years of Rav Huna. These numbers refer to those who remained behind at the academy after the sages (rabbanan) returned to their homes. It is furthermore related that “Rav Huna would lecture with the aid of 13 assistant amoraim [who would declare his lecture before the assembled]; when the rabbis rose from the academy of Rav Huna and shook their garments, the dust ascended and blocked the sunlight and they would say in the West [ie Palestine] that they had risen from the academy of Rav Huna the Babylonian” (b. Ketub. 106a). The text continues. On depicting the later generation of rabbis from the mid–​ fourth century, or, according to another version, rabbis from the mid–​fifth century, it counts 200 students remaining in the academy. Having progressed from the earlier to the later generations of rabbis of Babylonia, it depicts a steady decline in the number of students with the years. Yet, even if we consider the earlier figures fanciful nostalgia for an imagined splendor, the number 200 for the last generation mentioned, probably indicative of the time when this source was actually formulated, is still far from the handful of students belonging to a disciple circle that some scholars suggest.

7.  Persian Royal Imagery in Rabbinic Narratives Perhaps the most outstanding example of rabbis imagining their supreme institution of learning, the academy, as elevated and noble and indeed evoking the royal court is the story of Rav Kahana, who enters the yeshiva of the elderly Rabbi Yoḥanan in Palestine, where the main scene takes place (b. B. Qam. 117a). Rav Kahana is a disciple of Rav, the foremost rabbi in Babylonia in the early third century C. E . Required to flee unexpectedly from Babylonia to Palestine, he enters the academy of the elderly Rabbi Yoḥanan in Palestine. He so impressed Resh Laqish beforehand, that the latter placed him in the very front row of students. The hall had seven rows of students arranged according to their academic levels and only those in the first row were permitted and indeed expected to be in dialogue with Rabbi Yoḥanan. At the very front and facing the students was Rabbi Yoḥanan himself, seated majestically upon seven mattresses, with a silver stick at hand for lifting his drooping eyelids. Rav Kahana had sworn by oath prior to this scene not to speak to R. Yoḥanan, and his silence soon had him demoted to the back. Thus humiliated, however, he determines to break his silence. Absolving himself of his oath, he fights back, unsheathing his

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intellectual acumen as he steadily advances toward the front with each intellectual challenge that R. Yoḥanan is unable to answer. Each of Rav Kahana’s steps forward is paralleled with one of the seven pillows removed from beneath R. Yoḥanan until the latter is on the ground directly facing Rav Kahana for a final stand-​off. The seating arrangement for the students depicted here in rows, even if in slightly hyperbolic fashion, broadly fits in with the learning environment often portrayed in the Babylonian Talmud. The striking way chosen to portray Rabbi Yoḥanan, the head of the academy, however, is exceptional, as is the removal of the mattresses within this drama. Comparison with material artifacts from this period reveals that it is probably there by design, intended to evoke the manner that Persian kings are typically portrayed in Sasanian era material art and literary descriptions, such as the rock-​crystal medallion of Khusro I, kept in Paris, in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Sperber 1982). It suggests that the redactor of this story was familiar with Persian court practice. He wished us to imagine the head of the Palestinian rabbinic academy as just such a king. The removal of the mattresses symbolized an attempt to usurp the position of Rabbi Yoḥanan, evoking similar accounts of Persian background such as the Epic Histories, a fifth-​century Armenian work attributed to Pavstos Buzand, or Tabari’s chronicle, which describes in detail the usurpation of Khusro II. The silence and its dissolution recalls Zoroastrian dining customs and imbues the scene with a supplementary element of Persian associations. In sum, this episode is patterned as a court usurpation drama for which one can find parallels in other literature from the Sasanian milieu (Herman 2008). Another narrative that evokes royal themes and images is the account of the temporary deposition of Rabban Gamaliel (b. Ber. 27b–​28a). This particular story has a parallel in the Jerusalem Talmud, and comparison between the Palestinian and Babylonian versions of this story puts into sharp relief how the Babylonian Talmud introduces changes to the story to bring the yeshiva closer to the royal court. In this account, the head of the academy, Rabban Gamaliel is deposed and the rabbis invite Rabbi Eleazar b. Azariah to take his place. The deliberations between the latter and his wife, completely absent from the Jerusalem Talmud’s version of the drama, provide examples of precisely such imagery that has royal connotations. R. Eleazar b. Azariah’s wife advises him that “a man should use a cup of honour for one day even if it breaks the next”. The attainment of leadership is compared with the use of a cup of honor. The cup of royalty is a motif that dates back in the sources to the Assyrian king Assurbanipal. The representation of the king with a cup of wine in his hand is a symbol of his coronation. In the banquet scene engraved on the walls of Assurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh the king sits, cup of wine in hand. It seems that there are signs of deliberate defacement on the king’s right hand, the hand holding the cup of wine –​an act of his enemies after his downfall. This motive continued through to the era of the early Muslim califs and is also mentioned in the epic tenth-​century Persian Shahname, a work which preserves many motifs from the Sasanian era. The introduction of the motive of the cup into this story, the cup of wine, adds an image of the banquet, seemingly the royal banquet, the origins of which lie outside of the rabbinic house of study. Breaking the cup in the talmudic story is then an ancient symbol for the loss of kingship (Herman 2014). Another allusion to the regal aspect of the rabbinic leader appears in this same narrative. The Persian kings are always depicted in the contemporary material evidence, such as the rock illustrations, silver plates and coins, crowned with a special imposing hairstyle (Abka’i-​Khavari 2000: 55–​6). The hair is long, plaited, and curled. The unique style of the hair for each king points to the importance of the hairstyle for the august image of the king. The uniqueness of the kings’ hair style is also reflected in the literary accounts concerning this period. The Arabic author Tabari,

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for instance, who provides an account of the Sasanian era, points out the distinctive appearance of the last Sasanian king Yazdgird III, while the latter was fleeing from the Arabs. He is described as a “curly man”, whose curls dropped over his forehead (de Goeje 1964: 2880, 2882). Within the frame of the Rabban Gamaliel story on the adaptation of R. Eleazar b. Azariah to his new position a miracle occurs whereby, according to the version in the Babylonian Talmud, “18 rows of white hair encompassed him” (b. Ber. 27b). This portrayal would seem to indicate that the rows of hair “encompassed” his head and provided him with an air of distinction befitting his new position. R. Eleazar b. Azariah acquires here a royal coiffure in accordance with the custom of contemporary Sasanian kings and notables. In this and other rabbinic narratives the plot recalls similar literary structures in court intrigues attested in Sasanian literature of the region. The general sense is that the rabbis told fictional accounts of academy intrigue employing similar literary structures as are known from Persian narrative (Herman 2014).

8.  The Exilarchate Another Jewish leadership body is also known from Sasanian Babylonia. Rabbinic sources from the third century C.E. onwards refer to a Jewish leader called, in Aramaic, resh galuta –​“head of the exile” or exilarch. This symbolic title highlights leadership over the ancient exile, the biblical term for the Judaean exiles settled in Babylonia after the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple in 586 B.C.E. The key primary source to refer to the exilarchs is the Babylonian Talmud, with some references in other Palestinian rabbinic sources, such as the Jerusalem Talmud. The quantity of information on the exilarchate is rather limited, with it being peripheral to the concerns of the rabbinic works. Geonic literature, such as the tenth-​century chronicles, the Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon and Seder Olam Zuta (SOZ), also offer data on the talmudic exilarchate (on which see further below). While the exilarchate was invariably a Jewish leadership body whose constituency was limited to the Jewish community in Babylonia, as we shall see, in many ways it can be understood as a Jewish resonance of Persian leadership patterns adopting and mirroring expressions of leadership current within the Persian milieu. Our knowledge of the exilarchate is limited, however, in both scope and perspective. Rabbinic sources are the only contemporary sources available for the Sasanian exilarchate. We therefore see the exilarch through the prism of the rabbis. They provide us with glimpses of how the rabbis regarded the exilarchate and how it functioned within their agenda. The exilarchs were not themselves rabbis and so the subjective impressions of the rabbis must be recognized for their limitations. Indeed, even the impression of the exilarchate as a particularly Persianized form of Jewish leadership, which we shall consider below, is the result of the rabbinic view of it, a view to be evaluated critically within the context of the sociocultural reality of the Sasanian Empire.

9.  Major Issues in Scholarship Among the main issues addressed in scholarship about the exilarchate are the source of its authority; the relationship between rabbis and exilarchs; and the credibility of the Geonic data on the talmudic exilarchate. Much of the earlier scholarship saw Babylonian Jewry as dominated by all-​powerful exilarchs, often imagined as feudal princes, responsible for tax collection from the Jews. Some regarded rabbis and rabbinic academies as subordinate to the exilarchate; others saw the rabbinic academies and the exilarchate in ongoing conflict over the government of the Jewish 408

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community (Neusner 1986; Herman 2012: 5–​11). Past scholarship on the exilarch has also tended to portray the condition of Babylonian Jewish society as analogous to Palestinian Jewish society –​ as this was understood by scholars –​led by rabbis and the patriarchate, and greatly centralized. In addition, a largely positivist approach to the rabbinic sources has impacted earlier portrayals of the exilarchate and its place within Jewish society. More recent studies approach rabbinic literature critically and with a hermeneutic of suspicion. Rather than reporting, rabbinic literature is seen to advocate. The challenge for the scholar is to recognize the purpose of the rabbinic sources and to seek to establish what lies behind them. Views on the relationship between rabbis and the exilarchs vary largely on how one relates to the data provided by the Geonic sources. The latter identify many important rabbinic figures as exilarchs. These figures are not, however, described as exilarchs in the Babylonian Talmud. Scholars debate whether the data in these Geonic works are independent of the earlier rabbinic literature or not. It has recently been argued that the Geonic sources cannot be treated as credible primary testimony for the Sasanian exilarchs but as secondary sources which themselves interpret the Talmud. As a result, they construct an image of the exilarchate of their own liking (Herman 2012: 261–​336). Without these Geonic sources the exilarch portrayed in the Talmud is more distant from rabbinic society. An effort to analyze the exilarchs within the Sasanian political and administrative milieu has included the comparison of the exilarch with the catholicos, the leader of Sasanian Christianity (Herman 2012: 123–​32). The catholicos features mostly in Syriac sources from the Sasanian era, including synod proceedings, chronicles, hagiographies, and martyrdom accounts. This comparison offers the possibility to weigh the talmudic portrayal of the exilarchs and their relationship to the Sasanian kingdom against what is known about this other, parallel leadership of a religious community under the Zoroastrian rulers (Herman 2020).

10.  The Historical Exilarch When and how the exilarchate began remains unclear. The ancient sources do not deal with this question critically, since they accept its claim to descend from the Davidic dynasty in direct uninterrupted succession. Modern scholars have sought to determine when it first features in the rabbinic sources. It is not mentioned in any tannaitic sources –​ Palestinian sources dating to the first to second centuries C . E . The earliest rabbinic sources to mention the exilarchate are the two Talmuds, although it is mentioned in connection with rabbis who lived in the late second century C.E . Some recent scholars have therefore set its emergence in the second century; others in the third. It is hard to gauge precisely the formal authority of the exilarchs. From the sources we have the impression of an influential, wealthy, and well-​connected family. They possessed lands or were perhaps royal administrators over a swath of land (b. Erub. 59a). There is, however, no basis for assuming that they were involved in tax collection. They would seem to have been involved in some way with the inner-​Jewish judicial network, including the appointment or support of judges –​although this impression has been questioned recently (Gross 2022: 263–​87), and had those subordinate to them, including some rabbis. One of the important aspects related to the source of authority of the exilarchate was its location. The city most associated with the exilarchate is the major city of Meḥoza. This city functioned as a major administrative and political center and commercial hub for the entire region. It also served as the royal residence for much of the year during the period under consideration. This location alongside the royal palace enhanced the status of the exilarchate as the supreme representative address for the Jews of Babylonia as a whole. Its physical proximity to the palace of the 409

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Sasanian rulers, reinforcing its connections to the powers that be, would certainly have supported its influence and power, as this location indeed served the central leadership of Persian Christianity (Herman 2012: 152–​3).

11.  The Exilarch and Persian Leadership The exilarchs are described as possessing a number of traits that, on the one hand, apparently set them apart from the ordinary Jews and, on the other, brought them closer to the Persian leadership. The use of the Persian language among the exilarchal circle, suggested in many sources, is one example. Their interaction with the crown would invariably have called for a good command of Persian. Their positioning within the Sasanian political center, close to the royal palace in Meḥoza, would also have been a factor, as Persian was valuable in this urban and political setting. The prevalence of Persian in exilarchal circles is hinted at in the Talmud through the frequent use of exceptional Persian loanwords in stories that feature the exilarchs or are connected to them in some way, such as “exilarchal cooks” (xwārdīgār in b. Pesaḥ. 40b) or “exilarchal waiters” (xwangār in b. Mo’ed Qaṭ. 12b). Various dramas played out in the Talmud, which involve the exilarch, often employ Persian vocabulary, sometimes with dramatic effect (b. Qidd. 70a; b. Giṭ. 14a-​b; Herman 2012: 215–​6; Gross 2018). A life of luxury typically associated with the aristocracy is often found in an exilarchal context. For instance, Rav Naḥman b. Jacob, a rabbi affiliated with the exilarchate, is described as being carried around on a gilt carriage (gāhwārag) upon which was draped a leek-​green-​colored cover (b. Giṭ. 31b). Transporting the wife of the exilarch around in public on a chair is also mentioned (y. Beṣah 1:6, 60c), as is wearing a crown (y. Soṭah 9:15, 24c; b. Giṭ. 7b), and a special belt of honor, the kamra (b. Hor. 13b-​14a). Other practices include indulging in musical entertainment, for which the exilarchs were harshly criticized by the rabbis (b. Soṭah 48a; y. Soṭah 9:12, 24b; y. Meg. 3:2, 74a; b. Giṭ. 7a). Dining customs also fit this image. They are depicted enjoying the consumption of game, dining in great luxury, eating in gardens, having servants, waiters, cooks, and hosting huge banquets with multiple courses, and preferring Persian table etiquette. They wear ostentatious clothing, including silk (Herman 2012b). Whatever authority the exilarchs may have possessed, they seem to have nurtured an image as a quasiprincely dynastic nobility over the Jewish community. This was promoted by asserting a Davidic lineage. It had a threefold function. On the one hand, it served to enhance the dignity of the exilarchs among a Jewish population that was impressed by pure lineage. Next, it elevated the exilarchs in the eyes of those brought up on the biblical narratives. They could connect with the biblical past and messianic future, vicariously basking in the glory of a physical link to the past through the person of the exilarch. Finally, it could function polemically within the inner-​Jewish competition between Babylonia and Palestine, and the prestige of these two communities. It could counter the Palestinian patriarchal claim to a similar Davidic lineage, thereby undermining the Palestinian perception of supremacy in the Jewish world, asserting, rather, a Babylonian Jewish sense of parity or hegemony. Indeed, an alternative designation for the exilarch also found in the Talmud is dĕbē nĕśī’ah –​those affiliated with the nasi. This title employs the Aramaic form of the Hebrew nasi, an ancient term designating the supreme political leader of the Jews, in analogy to the title of the Palestinian patriarch in this period. As such it supported the claim of the exilarchs that they descended from the Davidic dynasty. In the period of transition to the Geonic era, in a non-​Jewish source we find a statement on the exilarch that has no echo but is striking in its claims. The Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr, a Zoroastrian Middle-​Persian source devoted to describing the foundation of the main cities throughout the 410

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Sasanian Empire, generally dated to the early post-​Sasanian era but treating the Sasanian era, interestingly appends to the fifth-​century exilarch (rēš galūdag) the title “king of the Jews” (jahūdagān šāh) (Markwart 1931: 19, no. 47). It might possibly be reflecting a way that this position was broadly regarded at the time, or alternatively, as has been recently argued, reflects a much later take on the earlier era that emerged in the Geonic era (Gross 2021).

12.  The Exilarch and the Rabbis The power relationship between rabbis and exilarchs has been the focus of much scholarship (Herman 2012: 181–​209). The exilarch would claim judicial hegemony and exclusivity over the Jewish population and certain rabbis seem to have been employed by him, possibly as judges. Some rabbis are regularly associated with the exilarchs, including a few of considerable importance. Royal patronage, if this existed, could explain the powers maintained by the exilarchs and the apparent subordination of rabbis to their rule. A broader overview of the talmudic evidence reveals that the exilarchate’s claim to judicial power was contested (eg b. Sanh. 5a). Furthermore, it is not impossible that exilarchal power was local and limited, perhaps geographically defined. This seems to be the message underlying one vivid anecdote where a rabbi from a competing center who comes to conduct business in Meḥoza, home of the exilarchs, is put down and denied the advantages usually accorded rabbis (b. B. Bat. 22a). The attitude of rabbis to the exilarchate cannot be summed up in one sentence. Certainly, one finds quite neutral comments expressed by rabbis about the exilarchs, and even some declarations of pride and enthusiasm. More common, however, are critical and hostile comments. This criticism could be divided into four main categories: regional-​halakhic, sociocultural, religious, and ideological. Since the exilarchate was associated primarily with the city of Meḥoza, criticism often derived from regions or cities in competition with Meḥoza, such as Pumbedita in the north, Kafri in the south, or Nehardea to the west. They could associate the exilarchate with the local rabbinic authorities, such as Rav Naḥman or Rava. In such cases, the focus of the criticism is halakhic, and the objective is to delegitimize the rabbinic traditions of the locale through their association with the exilarchate. Another manner of criticism stemmed from the perceived Persianized lifestyle of the exilarchs and of their ostentatiousness. This sociocultural critique reflects a broader conflict between the rabbinic and nonrabbinic value systems. The exilarchate was the focus of such critique. Some of the rabbis attacked the exilarchs for religious misdeeds, maintaining that the exilarchs did not conform to the rabbinic lifestyle, rules, and values. They were viewed as lax in the observance of the laws, such as the dietary or Sabbath rules (b. Giṭ. 67b-​68a; b. Shabb. 48a). There was also ideological criticism that questioned at the core the exilarchs’ claim to leadership. This tendency seems to be rooted in an antirulership tradition that has biblical antecedents. It regards cynically the exilarchs’ use and abuse of power and is suspicious at any proximity to the gentile authorities. Finally, one also encounters the theological objection to the existence of a Jewish quasikingship before redemption at the end of times, believing that such “kingship” could impede redemption (b. Sanh. 38a). The fate of the exilarchate in the post-talmudic period remains unclear. Geonic chronicles speak of sporadic incidences of persecution during the late fifth century, including the death of an exilarch in 470–​71 C. E ., and Seder Olam Zutta describes in some detail a botched revolt by an exilarch called Mar Zutra. The transition to Arab domination involves another exilarchal character named Bustanay and is accompanied by legends. The historical credibility of Seder Olam Zutta has been questioned, as have the legends surrounding Bustanay (Herman 2019). For most of the other information on Jewish history in Babylonia in this period we rely on sources that are not 411

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contemporary. On the other hand, a comparison with the situation of Persian Christianity during this period, for which we do possess contemporary sources, suggests a degree of continuity in the representative leadership of the religious communities of the Sasanian Empire. Thus, they may perhaps serve as a corrective for the lachrymose Geonic narrative of Jewish history during this era.

13. Conclusions The prestige of the Persian royal court and its grandeur impacted how the Jewish leadership emerged in Babylonia and sought to be perceived during the Sasanian era. This was true for rabbis no less than for the non-rabbinic exilarchal leadership. As future scholarship delves further into this and similar questions, one can expect an increasing focus on the analysis of the redactional processes in the construction of the Talmud, and the greater impact of such research on historical questions. At the same time, the ongoing integration of Jewish studies into the study of late antiquity, and in this case the study of the Sasanian milieu, can be expected to bring a deeper understanding of the ideational developments of the rabbis within the Babylonian Talmud.

Bibliography Abka’ i-​Khavari, M. (2000). Das Bild des Königs in der Sasanidenzeit. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Beer, M. (1962). “Geniva’s Quarrel with Mar ‘Uqba,” Tarbiz 31: 281–​6. Canepa, M. (2009). Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Canepa, M. (2018). The Iranian Expanse, Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–​642 CE. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Gafni, I. (1990). The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era, A Social and Cultural History (Hebrew). Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History. Goeje M.J. de et. al. (eds.) (1964) Annales quos scripsit Abu Djafar Mohammed ibn Djarir At-​Tabari. Leiden: Brill. Goodblatt, D. (1975). Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia. Leiden: Brill. Goodblatt, D. (2006). “The History of the Babylonian Academies,” in S.T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4: The Late Roman-​Rabbinic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 821–​39. Goodblatt, D. (2012). “The Jews of the Parthian Empire: What We Don’t Know,” in B. Isaac and Y. Shahar (eds.), Judaea-​Palestine, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 263–​78. Gray, A.M. (2005). “The Power Conferred by Distance from Power. Redaction and Meaning in b. A.Z. 10a-​11a,” in J.L. Rubenstein (ed.), Creation and Composition. The Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggada. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 23–​69. Gross, S. (2018). “Rethinking Babylonian Rabbinic Acculturation in the Sasanian Empire,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 9: 280–​310. Gross, S. (2021). “The Curious Case of the Jewish Sasanian Queen Šīšīnduxt: Exilarchal Propaganda and Zoroastrians in Tenth-​to Eleventh-​Century Baghdad,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 141: 365–​80. Gross, S. (2022). “Reassessing Exilarchal Authority Between Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule,” Journal of Jewish Studies 73: 263–​87. Herman, G. (2005). “Ahasuerus, the Former Stable-​Master of Belshazzar and the Wicked Alexander of Macedon: Two Parallels between the Babylonian Talmud and Persian Sources,” AJS Review 29: 283–​97. Herman, G. (2008). “The Story of Rav Kahana (BT Baba Qamma 117a-​b) in Light of Armeno-​Persian Sources,” in S. Shaked and A. Netzer (eds.), Irano-​Judaica, vol. 6. Jerusalem: Ben-​Zvi Institute, 53–​86. Herman, G. (2012). “A Prince without a Kingdom” The Exilarch in the Sasanian Era. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Herman, G. (2012a). “One Day David Went out for the Hunt of the Falconers: Persian Themes in the Babylonian Talmud,” in S. Secunda and S. Fine (eds.), Shoshanat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 111–​36.

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Jewish and Persian Leadership Structures Herman, G. (2012b). “Table Etiquette and Persian Culture in the Babylonian Talmud” (Hebrew), Zion 77: 149–​88. Herman, G. (2014). “Insurrection in the Academy: the Babylonian Talmud and the Paikuli Inscription” (Hebrew), Zion 79: 377–​407. Herman, G. (2018). “ ‘In Honour of the House of Caesar’: Attitudes to the Kingdom in the Aggada of the Babylonian Talmud and Other Sasanian Sources,” in G. Herman and J.L. Rubenstein (eds.), The Aggada of the Babylonian Talmud and its Cultural World. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 103–​23. Herman, G. (2019). “Back to Bustanay: The History of a Legend,” in J. Rubanovich and G. Herman (eds.), Irano-​Judaica, vol. 7: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture Throughout the Ages. Jerusalem: Ben-​Zvi Institute. Herman, G. (2020). “Exilarch and Catholicos. A Paradigm for the Commonalities of the Jewish and Christians Experience under the Sasanians,” in A. M. Butts and S. Gross (eds.), Jews and Syriac Christians. Intersections across the First Millennium. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 145–​53. Herr, M.D. (2016). “A Zoroastrian-​Sasanian and a Babylonian Talmudic ‘Renaissance’ at the Beginning of the Third Century: Could This be a Mere Coincidence?” (Hebrew), in G. Herman, M. Ben Shahar and A. Oppenheimer (eds.), Between Babylonia and the Land of Israel, Studies in Honor of Isaiah M. Gafni. Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 65–​78. Kalmin, R. (2006). “The Formation and Character of the Babylonian Talmud,” in S.T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4: The Late Roman-​Rabbinic Period. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 840–​76. Krappe, A.H. (1933). “Solomon and Ashmodai,” American Journal of Philology 54: 260–​8. Markwart, J. (1931). A Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Ērānshahr. Rome: Ponitifical Biblical Institute. Neusner, J. (1986). Israel’s Politics in Sasanian Iran: Jewish Self-​Government in Talmudic Times. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Oppenheimer, A. (1983). Babylonia Judaica in the Talmudic Period. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Riechert Verlag. Rubenstein, J.L. (2002). “The Rise of the Babylonian Rabbinic Academy: A Reexamination of the Talmudic Evidence,” Jewish Studies Internet Journal 1: 55–​68. Rubenstein, J.L. (2012). “Astrology and the Head of the Academy,” in S. Secunda and S. Fine (eds.), Shoshannat Yaakov, Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 301–​21. Rubenstein, J.L. (2014). “King Herod in Ardashir’s Court: The Rabbinic Story of Herod (B. Bava Batra 3b–​ 4a) in Light of Persian Sources,” AJS Review 38: 249–​74. Shaked S. (1995). “A Persian House of Study, A King’s Secretary: Irano-​Aramaic Notes,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 48: 171–​86. Sperber, D. (1982). “On the Unfortunate Adventures of Rav Kahana: A Passage of Saboraic Polemic from Sasanian Persia,” in S. Shaked (ed.), Irano-​Judaica. Jerusalem, Ben-​Zvi Institute, 83–​100. Stern, S. (2008). “Rabbinic Academies in Late Antiquity: State of Current Research,” in H. Hugonnard-​Roche (ed.), L’Enseignement supérieur dans les mondes antiques médiévaux, aspects institutionnels, juridiques et pédagogiques. Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 221–​38. Wiesehöfer J. (1996). Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD. London and New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers.

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27 BABYLONIAN JEWISH COMMUNITIES Simcha Gross

1. Introduction In late antiquity, Jews lived throughout Babylonia, from Nisibis and Adiabene in the north to Mesene in the south. Some of these Jews no doubt migrated to Babylonia during this period, while others were the descendants of Jewish deportees from the destroyed kingdoms of Israel and Judah at the time of the Babylonian Exile. As Ezra 1–​2 attests, only some Jews took the opportunity offered by the Achaemenids to return to Judaea. Others remained, often occupying the same settlements for centuries, as evidenced by the two archives of Jewish business records discovered thus far (Pearce and Wunsch 2014). While we lack substantial reliable evidence of Jewish communities during the intervening years, especially during Parthian rule (Herman 2006; 2012b; Goodblatt 2012; Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 1; Gross 2023), Josephus and tannaitic rabbinic literature confirm that there was a substantial population of Jews there. In the absence of extensive documentary data, archaeological digs, and other types of controls, reliable population estimates for Babylonian Jews are unfeasible, and the educated guesses offered to date (Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 2: 246; Adams 1965: 71–​2) are to be eschewed (Gafni 2006: 805), as are claims that most Jews in antiquity lived in Babylonia, or even that Jews comprised a major demographic presence in Babylonia. Josephus’ often cited declaration that there were “countless myriads whose number cannot be ascertained” (A.J. 11.133, Loeb translation) is hyperbolic but instructive. Lacking reliable population estimates, the demographic significance of any Jewish group or community is difficult to assess (Schwartz 2001: 10–​2), though the eventual impact of Jewish texts and religious traditions emerging in late antique Babylonia is undeniable. The numerous Jews in this region no doubt belonged to multiple communities reflecting a variety of practices, beliefs, loyalties, alliances, kinship relationships, social structures, political interests, economic conditions, and more. Records of these communities, however, do not survive. Our primary source for Jewish communities in Babylonia in late antiquity is the Babylonian Talmud, which is principally interested in the rabbis and their affairs and teachings. It therefore provides a range of material on the rabbis, as well as some information about rabbinic perceptions of other groups. Given its biases, the Babylonian Talmud’s depiction of both rabbis and others must be scrutinized for prejudice and misrepresentation (Paz 2018, and more generally, Hayes 2007). Additionally, the Babylonian Talmud presents well-​known philological and higher critical 414

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complications. While these methodological concerns are very real, the pendulum of possible historical uses of the Bavli must swing back from its current extreme aporia, a consequence of which most studies of the Bavli focus on rabbinic culture and literature (Schwartz 2007: 89–​90). Jews are almost wholly absent from Pahlavi sources from the Sasanian period, and when they appear in later works –​which may in part date to earlier periods –​it is usually in the context of theological polemic and disputation (see Secunda in this volume). Byzantine and Syriac Christian sources can provide additional information about Babylonian Jewish communities, though these are often hostile and therefore should be used with caution (Butts and Gross 2017). The Aramaic incantation bowls are an ever-​growing resource, whose implications for the study of Babylonian Jewish communities are still not fully realized (Gross and Manekin-​Bamberger, 2022). Despite these methodological complications, it is clear that Babylonian Jewish communities were conditioned by the realities of life in the Sasanian Empire. A proper understanding of these communities therefore depends on the ways in which the Sasanian Empire had an impact on its diverse non-​Iranian/​Zoroastrian communities. This chapter critically evaluates the most prominent paradigms concerning Babylonian Jewish communities. Despite the obvious importance of the shape of Babylonian Jewish communities for understanding the place of the rabbis in Jewish society, and the importance of Babylonian Jews for the later development of Jewish history, the study of Babylonian Jewish communities has largely ossified around a number of key assumptions and models in desperate need of reassessment. By revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the state of the field, the goal of this chapter is to serve as a basis for future scholarship that further questions older paradigms and builds upon newer ones.

2.  One Community or Many? Scholars have largely treated Babylonian Jews as a single corporate communal body. The dominant paradigm to date concerning Babylonian Jewish society might be dubbed the “institutional approach”. According to the institutional approach, the Sasanian Empire granted its communities semiautonomy, a supposed product of Parthian feudalism or Sasanian decentralization (Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 2: 92–​125; Neusner 1983: 917; Gafni 2002: 227). Babylonian Jews therefore comprised a single, self-​regulating, imperially recognized, cohesive community, which possessed its own internal hierarchy, with an official leader who served as intermediary to the empire (Frye 1984: 318; Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 5: 134, 244–​5; Morony 1974: 114). According to this standard model, the intermediary at the head of the Jewish communal hierarchy was the exilarch, the most prominent Jewish figure in Sasanian Babylonia, at least according to rabbinic literature. Known in Aramaic as the resh galuta, or “head of the Diaspora”, the exilarch and his family were elite figures who claimed genealogical descent from no less than King David. Rabbinic literature contains numerous depictions of the exilarch’s lavish displays of wealth and exercise of power, though he is not mentioned in any contemporary Syriac or Persian texts (for a later Pahlavi source often mistakenly understood to reflect the reality of the Sasanian period, see Gross 2021a). This model suggests that the Sasanian government recognized the exilarchate as the representative of the Jews, to whom the government delegated communal oversight and support as a supraleadership position over a largely centralized Babylonian Jewry, with clearly demarcated divisions of power and authority (Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 2: 92–​125; vol. 5: 244–​5; idem 1966b; Gafni 2006: 801–​4; idem 1990: 98–​100; Beer 1974: 9–​10; Herman 2012a: 1, 179–​180, 259), although, to be sure, scholars allow that Jews occasionally bristled at elements of this relationship. The institutional approach to the exilarchate has, in turn, contributed to the idea that the Sasanian Empire employed a consistent approach toward its minority communities, recognizing 415

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a figurehead of a religious community who functioned as an intermediary to the empire, a precursor to the Ottoman millet system (Neusner 1970b: 453–​4). Taking this argument to an extreme, Beer and Neusner interpreted a single enigmatic source (b. Yebam. 115b) to suggest that Jewish communities in different regions possessed their own exilarch (Beer 1970: 23–​4 and Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 4: 184–​5). Scholars have therefore drawn parallels between the Jewish exilarch and the Christian catholicos, both of whom are viewed as heading imperially recognized hierarchies within their own communities (see Beer 1970: 54–​5; Herman 2012a; Herman 2020; Neusner 1970b: 453 for the alleged parallel between the exilarch and the head of “the Mazdean church”). In this institutional model, the rabbis were thought to have played a key role, deriving their authority from the exilarch (Gafni 1982; Neusner 1966b: 170; Gulak 1967: 27–​31, albeit with some strange twists). Others, like Beer, agreed that the rabbis served at the behest of the exilarch, though they allowed for more dynamism. According to Beer, the rabbis began as unofficial figures with a small following until they rose to such prominence that they enjoyed official recognition as part of the Jewish hierarchy by the exilarch and the Sasanian king himself (Beer 1974: 9–​10; Herman 2012a: 182–​7). Beer based his case on several stories of encounters between rabbis like Shmuel and Sasanian kings, which are now rightly viewed as fictional (Mokhtarian 2015: 74–​93). Earlier scholars often espoused a “conflict theory” in which the exilarch would intervene in rabbinic affairs, especially by appointing lackeys or opposing uncooperative academy heads, yet the evidence for these claims has been rightly criticized (Herman 2012a: 186–​7) and may reflect the back-​projection of Geonic era events. Some have even portrayed the relationship between rabbis and exilarchs –​taking place within a single official hierarchy –​as a zero-​sum game, such that the rise of the academies resulted in the decline of the exilarchate. Others, however, argued that the rabbis were largely left by the exilarch to their own devices (Gafni 1990a). The “institutional model” of the Jewish community under Sasanian rule requires reevaluation (Schwartz 2007: 89–​93). For one, we have little evidence that the Sasanian administration regularly appointed official intermediaries. The case of the catholicos, though amply attested, appears to be the exception rather than the rule (Gross 2021b). The Church of the East explicitly adopted an ecclesiastical hierarchy modeled on the Byzantine Empire through the mediation of the bishop Marutha of Maipherkat, an emissary from the Byzantine church. The first synod of 410 C.E . depicts the Sasanian king Yazdgird I as a new Constantine (McDonough 2008), acknowledging the specifically Christian framework for the relationship between empire and ecclesiastical hierarchy. No sources related to Sasanian administration ever mention a proto-​millet-​like policy, and it is unattested in our most important witness to Sasanian law, the Book of a Thousand Judgments (Mādayān i Hazār Dādestān). In addition, the few references formerly understood to attest direct contact between the exilarch and the Sasanian king are largely based on the back-​projection of the relationship between caliph and exilarch in medieval historiographic sources onto the classical rabbinic period. The most prominent example of this is the supposed encounter between Yazdgird I and Huna bar Nathan (b. Zebaḥ. 19a), who has been assumed since at least Sherira Gaon (d. c. 1006 C.E .) to be an exilarch because of his contact with the Sasanian king (Herman 2012a: 38 and 321–​9). Other texts that supposedly indicate exilarchal authority have often been misunderstood and their significance inflated (Gross 2022a). Though the exact role played by the exilarch cannot be explored in full here, the institutional model of the Jewish community is not strongly supported by our knowledge of Sasanian administration or rabbinic literature. Similarly, the institutional model fails to adequately address the relationship between rabbis and the exilarch, which does not appear to have been one 416

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of subservience and subordination (Herman 2012a: 195–​9). While the rabbis recognized some potential benefit of affiliation with the exilarch (b. Sanh. 5a), rabbinic courts were not dependent on him (Pomeranz 2016a; Gross 2022a). The analogy between the exilarch and the catholicos helped create the impression of a unified Sasanian policy toward minorities, but the analogy runs in almost entirely one direction. Scholars have assumed that information about the catholicos typically holds true for the exilarch. By treating the catholicos as representative of a broader Sasanian proto-​millet system, scholars have forced the exilarch into the mold of the catholicos, with problematic results (Goodblatt 1979: 249–​50; Herman 2012: 176–​80). In addition, the clearer parallels between the exilarch and catholicos under Islamic rule were retrojected onto the Sasanian period not only by medieval historiographers but by modern scholars as well. Under the institutional model, some scholars have argued that the Sasanians provided religious communities with relative autonomy, and therefore, Jews had no need or incentive to integrate with Sasanian culture (Neusner 1975: 184–​5, 190; Brody 1990, and 2016: 210–​1). As Gafni has put it, it was “precisely in this land of ancient roots, albeit imagined ones, that the Jewish community would evince the greatest degree of cultural autonomy” (Gafni 2002: 224). The supposed absence of significant Iranian traditions in the Babylonian Talmud was viewed as evidence of this model. Yet, many neighboring Syriac sources show deep knowledge of Iranian culture (Minov 2014; Payne 2015), as the Babylonian Talmud does at times (conceded by Gafni 2002 as it pertains to rabbinic demonology). The Babylonian Talmud also occasionally reflects detailed knowledge of Persian language and Sasanian law (Gross 2019). The nature of acculturation in Sasanian Babylonia was undoubtedly different than in the Roman Near East, but this does not necessarily reflect a reality of autonomous or siloed communities. More significantly, if the institutional model were correct, the relative cultural autonomy of these communities would be visible not only in the absence of Iranian motifs, but in the absence of regular contact and influence with other communities altogether. Yet regular contact between Jews and non-​Jews clearly occurred. Babylonian Jews and non-​Jews shared cityscapes, businesses, and even homes (Gafni 2002: 240–​1 for stories about interactions between Jews and non-​Jews, and Hayes 1997: 168–​70, for rabbinic laws concerning commercial endeavors with non-​Jews). Jews inhabited the populous capital city, but also many other towns and cities that were undoubtedly mixed. Some scholars cited evidence of a few Jewish majority settlements in Babylonia as confirmation of their general propensity toward insularity relative to Jews in other lands, especially Palestine (Kalmin 2006: 119). However, many of the sources cited in defense of Jewish-​only settlements in Babylonia are questionable, and Jewish majority settlements could be found in Palestine as well (Schwartz 2001: 205–​7). While we have some fairly solid evidence for less than a handful of such Jewish majority settlements (Herman 2019), cherry-​picking a few possible references to Jewish majority settlements or neighborhoods as indicative of a general Jewish preference for insularity papers over the vast majority of sources in the Talmud that attest regular and constant contact between Jews and gentiles (Neusner already objected to the idea of Jewish only towns [Goodenough 1992: xvii]). Others misunderstood non-​Jewish sources and history, for instance, by confusing the lack of a formal episcopal see with the absence of Christians in certain settlements in Babylonia (Cohen 2010). It is worth considering whether the situation in Dura Europos, where a Jewish synagogue was found alongside a church and Mithraeum, or the settlement in Nippur, where incantation bowls written in Jewish Aramaic, Syriac, and Mandaic (Montgomery 1913), sometimes for the very same clients, were found in the same city, are representative of the kinds of Jewish settlements in Babylonia (larger cities might include 417

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Jewish neighborhoods, for which we also have some evidence). One Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowl (SD34) requesting economic success from customers that include “men and women, Jews and gentiles” is particularly instructive (Levene and Bhayro 2005/​2006: 243–​4). Indeed, from the intersection of scripts, motifs, and clients of varying names, the incantation bowls further reveal the extent to which interaction between groups was a regular part of daily life for many in Sasanian Babylonia (Morony 2003). More than simply evidence for contact between Jews and non-​Jews, however, these encounters suggest that Jews were likely members of many kinds of communities that transcended and transgressed religious or ethnic lines, whether as part of guilds and professional classes, politically aligned groups, or other shared identities. While the surviving sources, largely produced and preserved by religious elites, do not readily reveal such groups, hints of them can be found, such as in Canon 17 of the Church of the East Synod of 676, which complains that: “Christian people in this place, after they receive the holy mysteries and leave the church on the days of the Eucharist, rush to the shops of Jews to drink wine … And this (happens even) when they do not lack shops of Christians by which to fulfill their desire of drinking wine according to their custom” (Chabot 1902: 225, 489). In at least one Babylonian rabbinic story (b. B. Meṣiʿa 86a), it is possible that even the rabbis acknowledge that, vis-​à-​vis the Sasanians, they and Christians faced similar challenges (Gross 2018). Finally, the institutional approach treated Babylonian rabbis as officially recognized religious and legal authorities. Accordingly, rabbis were thought to possess broad influence over Babylonian Jewish society. The spread of rabbinic influence over time, while addressed by some in passing, was treated as a feature of the institutional model rather than a separate process altogether. Eschewing the institutional approach calls for more dynamic models that recognize that there was likely no strong central administrative node around which Babylonian Jews coalesced into a single community. Formal recognition from the Sasanian government over an entire religious community was not in the offing for exilarchs, rabbis, or other Jews. Lacking a recognized authority and centralized hierarchy, Jews undoubtedly shared diverse kinds of social formations that were more local and dynamic in nature and did not revolve around a single epicenter. Positions of prominence, authority, and power were pursued, attained, and lost in an ongoing process of negotiation and competition (see, for instance, Novick 2017). Those passages that might indicate a lack of rabbinic authority over law (eg b. Shabb. 139a) or rabbinic marginality deserve greater exploration. While the institutional approach has undoubtedly had the most far-​reaching consequences, its tendency to treat Babylonian Jews monolithically is not unique. The attribution of a consistent attitude by the Sasanian Empire toward its religious minorities collapses Jews –​and Christians –​into single bodies. According to these studies, Christians were said to be the subject of regular persecution, primarily due to concerns that they represented a fifth column to the (Christian) Byzantine Empire (Brock 1982), while Jews enjoyed relative tranquility, with at worst some brief outbreaks of violence (Brody 1990). In recent years, however, scholars of Syriac Christianity have shown how the narrative of Sasanian persecution of Christians is a product of martyrological discourse rather than an unproblematic reflection of historical reality (Walker 2006; Smith 2012). They have shown that the Sasanian Empire adopted different approaches toward Christians, depending on the period, geography, and the particular subgroup in question (Payne 2015). These studies remind us of the importance of factoring geography, period, class, and social strata into the study of Babylonian Jews. A lack of sources does not grant license to construct broad generalizations about a unified Jewish community. What little evidence for Babylonian Jews exists outside the Babylonian Talmud suggests that Jews were indeed diverse, as seen from the incantation bowls, 418

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and that they occupied different social and political groups and interests, as seen from the attempt of some wealthy Jews to depose a Sasanian king at the end of the sixth century, much to their ultimate detriment (Theophylact Simocatta, History 5.7). The Sasanian Empire was also not monolithic in its approach to specific religious minorities, given its vast territory, complicated delegation of administrative duties, and its long enduring rule, nor did it adopt a unified approach to managing all of its non-​Zoroastrian inhabitants (Gross 2021b). Conflagrations in one locale might not, therefore, have had any impact on Jews elsewhere, and one king’s policies might not be imitated by others. Moreover, the supposed lack of persecution of Jews by the Sasanians may in fact be an illusion created by deliberate editing choices of the Bavli, rather than a consistent Sasanian policy (Kalmin 2006: 121–​48; Gross 2018). Acknowledging the limitations of our sources, generalizations must nevertheless be eschewed in favor of narratives that appreciate the basic contingency of community and empire.

3.  The Rabbinic “Community” If the relative centralization of the Jewish community needs revision, similar questions apply to the nature of the Babylonian rabbinic community. Scholars have investigated the social positionality of Palestinian rabbis and the nature of the network they formed (Hezser 1997), but similar work remains a desideratum for the study of Babylonian rabbis. Sporadic studies on the economic position of Babylonian rabbis (eg Newman 1932; Beer 1974; Goodblatt 1979) and the social structure of the early rabbinic movement (Goodblatt 1975) mainly ceased by the 1970s, prior to the major philological advances of the late 1970s and 1980s (eg Friedman 1977). While there may have been some earlier rabbis in Babylonia, the early third century C.E. is generally accepted as the emergence of a local Babylonian rabbinic movement of some kind (Cohen 2009). Though it was once assumed that the rabbinic movement boasted academies from its earliest days onwards (Gafni 1990a, 177–​203), scholars now realize, following the work of Goodblatt and Rubenstein, among others, that this image was shaped by the later layers of the Babylonian Talmud and medieval rabbinic historiography, which retrojected its academies into the amoraic era, in an unbroken chain of continuity (see esp. Goodblatt 1975; Rubenstein 2002; 2005, 16–​23 and passim; key sources include b. B. Qam. 117a, b. Ketub. 106a; b. B. Meṣiʿa 97a). Instead, a more incremental model of rabbinic institutionalization is now adopted, primarily occurring after the final Amoraim, though the rate of change remains in need of further investigation (Stern 2008). The amoraim appear to have largely gathered in local study circles (Goodblatt 1975; eg b. B. Meṣiʿa 20b). Despite the fact that study circles predominated throughout the amoraic period, scholars have dedicated far more attention to the nature of the full-​fledged rabbinic academies (Rubenstein 2002; 2005; Vidas 2014). The reasons for this selective interest include the assumed connection between institutionalization and the redaction of the Talmud, and a teleological interest in identifying the origins of medieval rabbinic academies, as well as an extreme aporia around isolating historical information about earlier periods in the Babylonian Talmud (a somewhat exaggerated response to the philological watershed in the 1970s–​80s, esp. Friedman 1977, and important literary studies that followed, such as Friedman 1993), favoring instead broader reflections on a largely generalized Babylonian rabbinic culture divided between early sources and later redaction. It is important to study these circles not only as evolutionary steps to academies, but on their own terms (Gross 2022c). The strength and channels of connection between these different study circles remain unclear, as, therefore, does the relative cohesiveness of this nascent rabbinic 419

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community (Kalmin 1994, 175–​212, though his argument, such as in Kalmin 1999, 12–​3, that the Babylonian rabbis were more decentralized than their Palestinian counterparts due to the general decentralized character of the Sasanian Empire is to be dismissed). A few stories suggest that scholars of one circle or locale did not recognize those of another (eg b. B. Bat. 22a). No institution capable of periodically convening the movement and promoting a sense of solidarity and identity appears to have existed at this early point. The manner in which these diffuse centers were drawn into a network, and the nature of that network, demands further attention. On the other hand, the local nature of these study circles was a reflection of and resulted in a fair amount of regional patriotism and rivalry. Denizens of cities and regions were thought to possess shared attributes, both positive and negative (b. Ḥul. 127a), to have linguistic differences (eg b. Ket. 54a and b. Beṣ. 28b–​29a), and other distinguishing features. Rabbis often esteemed their own center of learning over others (eg b. Ket. 111a). Rabbinic centers differed in terms of practice, interpretive methods, and teachings (for different practices, see b. Ket. 54a; see also Goodblatt 1977), and some scholars have attempted to discern patterns of legal theory distinct to given schools, though the desire to find consistency might produce systematicity where none existed. There was undoubtedly competition between centers, thematized in many stories. While some students may have joined the closest study circle, others would have traveled to join a particular master. This likely helped foster a sense of competition between centers. These centers also functioned quite differently from the medieval academies, lacking hereditary succession (Grossman 1985: 189). They were therefore heavily dependent on the charisma of the leading rabbi to survive. Study circles themselves appear to have varied in size, based on references to smaller, and apparently shorter-​lived rabbinic study circles (Cohen 2005). While it seems clear that there were cultural differences between rabbis and Jews of different cities, Yaakov Elman influentially argued that rabbis were also divided in their attitude to Persian culture and language more generally. According to Elman, those rabbis living in or nearest to the capital, primarily in Mehoza, were the most “accommodating”, and those living at greater distances from the capital, like in Pumbedita, were opposed to Persian culture and are aptly dubbed “resistors” (Elman 2004; 2007). Elman’s propensity to label these stances as accommodationist and resistant to an undifferentiated Persian culture fails to capture the more complicated ways in which different cultural features were (or were not) marked by the rabbis (Gross 2019). While the denizens of the capital were undoubtedly thought of as more affluent (b. B. Qam. 119a) and culturally distinct (eg with regard to their dress, b. Shabbat 112a), the features some rabbis appear to criticize are not reducible to “Persian culture” writ large, reflecting instead tensions around the performance of elite Sasanian culture which, some rabbis felt, challenged rabbinic claims for cultural supremacy. Rabbis were further subdivided. For instance, while earlier scholars like Beer assumed that the exilarch was largely rabbinized, other scholars challenge this depiction (Herman 2012a: 210–​38). It seems in fact that rabbis possessed differing stances toward the exilarch, with some residing within the exilarch’s household (see eg b. Suk. 31a) and others renouncing association (b. Giṭ. 31b). The precise relationship between rabbis and exilarchs might again not easily map onto distinct locales, as Beer suggested (Beer 1970, 104–​5; Herman 2012a, 186, 193). The ways in which connections between rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia were maintained, and the extent to which rabbis of the two regions constituted a single community, are worthy of greater study (Hezser 2011: 311–​64; Hezser 2015). That such connections existed is indisputable, as they are attested on nearly every page of the Babylonian Talmud (Dor 1971). Yet how this material traveled is not always entirely clear (Gray 2005, 8–​18; 224–​34). The rabbis known as nahote, those who went “down” to Babylonia from Palestine, may have fostered a sense of 420

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connectivity and community, though there were also many who traveled for financial reasons (Safrai and Maier 2003), and stories about these travelers serve a variety of literary and cultural purposes (Redfield 2016; Kiperwasser 2021). While Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis constituted satellites of a single titular community, competition between the two centers arose already in the rabbinic period (b. Giṭ. 6a; b. B. Qam. 80a) and would reach a fever pitch during the medieval period (see Gafni 2009), though the later polemics were more than simply the result of hostility between the centers increasing linearly over time (Gross 2022b). The tendency to reflexively interpret Babylonian rabbinic local patriotism as a reflection of their insecurity about living outside of a “homeland”, or as a power-​play against their Palestinian counterparts (especially found in the work of Gafni, for instance, Gafni 2002, 230–​2, and ironically also Boyarin 2015), must be considered. The local patriotism of the rabbis often may have less to do with a sense of inferiority vis-​à-​vis Palestine than with culturally conditioned expressions of belonging found broadly throughout the Sasanian Empire (eg Payne 2015: 127–​63).

4.  Rabbis and Other Jews Following rabbinic self-​presentation, the widespread influence and authority of the Babylonian rabbinic movement over other Jews was often taken for granted. Whereas Kraeling interpreted the frescoes in the synagogue at Dura Europos through the lens of rabbinic literature, Goodenough, a pioneering revisionist of the place of the rabbis in Palestinian society, argued that the synagogue in Dura Europos, like the synagogues in Palestine that he studied, represented a group of Jews not under the sway of the rabbis. Yet rather than follow his conclusions regarding Palestinian Jewish society, he considered the community at Dura to be an aberration from an otherwise rabbinized Jewish Babylonia (Goodenough 1992, xvii; Neusner 1970b, 441). Arguing that Goodenough overestimated rabbinic influence in Babylonia, Neusner, by contrast, suggested that as in Palestine, Babylonian rabbis lacked authority over synagogues, which likely contained pictorial images like those found in Palestinian synagogues and Dura Europos (eg b. Rosh. Hash. 24b and Abod. Zar. 43b). Neusner nevertheless posited broad rabbinic influence, which was roughly confined to a number of domains. While the rabbis did not have power over synagogue life, or to enforce halakhic and ritual matters in the private fields and homes of individuals, they nevertheless “exerted full and unchallenged authority” in matters of trade, real estate, civil law, and marriage and divorce, not to mention that they were revered, at least by some, as wonder-​workers (Neusner 1970b: 443). Neusner’s position derived in part from his belief that the rabbis functioned on behalf and at the behest of the exilarch and thus had an official legal-​ administrative function that “depended not upon popular acquiescence, though it was considerable, but upon the coercive capabilities of their courts” (Neusner 1970b: 449). Gafni felt that Neusner understated the extent of rabbinic authority and their broader integration into Jewish society, but paradoxically did so primarily on the basis of civil law cases found in the Bavli, the same evidence used by Neusner to argue for selective rabbinic authority (Pomeranz 2016a: 157–​8). To Gafni, the Jews of Babylonia generally followed rabbinic precepts even during the Parthian period (Gafni 1990a: 26). The relationship between rabbis and other Jews was maintained and reinforced through regular public lectures, especially the pirqa (Gafni 1990a: 205ff). It must be admitted that the gap between Neusner and Gafni is rather small, and that both promote the institutional approach, with the concomitant assumption that rabbis were authoritative from an early date. Given recent trends in ancient Jewish and rabbinic historiography, it remains a desideratum to explore more ambitious revisionist projects of the relationship of rabbis to broader Babylonian Jewish society. 421

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Yet, whereas both Gafni and Neusner argued that rabbis, in Neusner’s words “came out of the bosom of the folk” (Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 3: 238; Gafni 1990a: 204ff), even contrasting the place of rabbis in broader Jewish society with the isolation of monks (Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 3: 200), others saw rabbinic attitudes toward nonrabbis as indifferent or hostile, a reflection of rabbinic aloofness and insularity. Over a series of influential publications, Richard Kalmin has argued that Babylonian rabbis eschewed casual relationships with nonrabbis, preferring the company of their own. This was allegedly in contrast to Palestinian rabbis, who are depicted more regularly interacting with nonrabbis in “informal” settings. Yet rather than a sign of weakness or marginality, Kalmin argues that Babylonian rabbinic aloofness was a sign of the formal authority and financial self-​sufficiency they enjoyed from the outset of the movement (Kalmin 1999: 33). Kalmin attributed rabbinic self-​segregation and aloofness to their internalization of Persian social stratification that bordered on a caste system, dividing society into fixed and rigid groups. Along with other scholars, Kalmin argued that the Babylonian rabbis’ tenacious concern with genealogical purity, primarily on display in b. Qidd. 69a-​73a, was a manifestation of this rigid Persian social hierarchy (Kalmin 1999: 58–​9; Gafni 1990a: 126–​9; Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 3: 270–​1 made a similar point about the internalization of the stratified Persian society, but to explain Manichaean hierarchy in contrast to the rabbinic). Given how influential this argument has been, it is worth dwelling on its relative merits. The idea of a stratified Sasanian society according to a rigid caste or class system is problematic and based on an older strand of positivist scholarship that continues to dominate Sasanian studies (eg Frye 1984: 218–​21, 315–​6, 329, and 334). The very idea of a Persian caste system –​a four-​tiered scheme that is rendered differently in different sources –​appears in Iranian religious texts produced over a millennium before the Sasanian period and continues to appear in sources produced well into the Middle Ages (the Letter of Tansar, often cited in this discussion, likely dates to the late or post-​Sasanian period; Boyce 1968). These texts therefore reflect a Zoroastrian ideal and do not provide a straightforward depiction of Sasanian social life and policy (Zakeri 1995: 13–​ 22). The caste system became a trope, such that Strabo (Geography 11.501) depicts a quadripartite class system for ancient Georgia, and later Perso-​Arabic historiographic incorporate it in formulaic ways (see, for instance, the different versions of Khusro’s tax reform, in Rubin 1995). Regardless of when, where, how, and if such an ideal was translated into reality, other sources suggest that social mobility was quite possible in the Sasanian Empire. Syriac sources depict the rise and administrative responsibilities granted to Christian figures, who often did not emerge from specially guarded castes or classes (Payne 2015), and do not mention a caste system as a reality or impediment to their social advancement. Alongside references to the caste system, scholars also note the relative importance of pedigree for the Sasanians. To be sure, royal and noble pedigree was a status symbol for certain Sasanian elites, but it is difficult to see how the emphasis on high-​born lineage relates to rabbinic discussions about the geographic areas which best abided by basic Jewish laws of marriage and procreation. Elite Syriac Christians adopted aspects of Iranian jurisprudence related to marriage and inheritance (Payne 2015: 93–​126), perhaps a more productive angle to explore the potential impact of Iranian society on the structure of Babylonian Jewish communities. Indeed, the relative “zealotry” or “obsession” of Babylonian rabbinic attitudes toward genealogy (for these terms, see Kalmin 1999: 58–​60) has been called into question (Koren 2018). Rather than reduce Babylonian rabbinic views to “stringency” against Palestinian “leniency”, other concepts, especially the relationship of genealogy with geography, are operative in rabbinic discussions, and in particular in b. Qidd. 69a-​73a, a lengthy discussion about genealogical purity. This passage appears to be a further reflex of rabbinic local patriotism, reflecting the geographical chauvinism 422

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of the Babylonian rabbis against other regions where they lacked a noticeable presence (Paz 2018), as well as a claim of local patriotism over Jews in Palestine (Gafni 1990b). Other passages about proper marriage are often not about noble lineage, as some scholars suggested (Rubenstein 2005: 80–​101), but about basic genealogical purity, a concept found in the book of Ezra and in the Mishnah, and unlikely to be attributable to Sasanian influence (Koren 2018). Given the problems with the way these sources have been collected and interpreted, it is not surprising that other scholars characterized Babylonian rabbinic society as more open and meritocratic, attributing an emphasis on pedigree specifically to Palestine (eg Gafni 1987). It is also important to keep in mind the possibility that rabbinic rhetoric toward nonrabbis was largely intended for internal consumption. Thus, on source-​critical grounds, Stephen Wald argued that an extended sugya in b. Pesaḥ. 49a-​b reveals a uniquely negative and hostile attitude of the Babylonian rabbis toward amei ha-​aretz (Wald 2000: 211–​39), literally “people of the land”, a general category that approximates nonrabbinic Jews (Pomeranz 2016b argues that many of the positions are authentically Palestinian and that the gap between Babylonian and Palestinian rabbis is therefore overstated). Rubenstein noted that this material is largely confined to the latest strata of the Talmud (Rubenstein 2005: 123–​42) and suggested that rabbinic attitudes to nonrabbis may not reflect the relative (in)frequency of their social encounters but instead the attitudes of those in the academy toward nonrabbis. Syriac school canons are particularly instructive here, as some texts inveigh against associations outside of the schools or monasteries while simultaneously betraying that reality differed significantly from the ideal. Thus, brothers/​monks are not allowed to live with the people of Nisibis, but this strict rule only applies if there is insufficient room in the school (Vööbus 1962: 93). Other canons prohibit students from frequenting taverns, restaurants, and parks, presumably because some students were doing so (Vööbus 1962: 99). The gap between rhetoric and reality is perhaps best displayed by East Syrian canons urging “priests, deacons, and monks” not to marry pagan, here meaning Zoroastrian, wives (Chabot 1902: 102, 359–​60; Simonsohn 2016). Similar studies of the various references of rabbinic contacts with nonrabbis beyond the few categories explored by Kalmin would similarly reveal the gap between a rabbinic rhetoric of insularity and reality. Lastly, the argument that the alleged aloofness of early Babylonian Amoraim was an expression of their secure base of authority (see, for instance, Kalmin 1999, 45–​48) is difficult to square with historical probability. It is quite challenging to understand how rabbis would have achieved a position of power and authority that simultaneously afforded them the luxury of aloofness. If some of Kalmin’s conclusions about early rabbinic aloofness may be maintained, they likely point to rabbinic marginality rather than insularity. If rabbis were not part of a formally recognized system or widely influential at an early point, the history of Rabbinization among Babylonian Jewish communities requires reevaluation. While the question of Rabbinization has been of central importance to the study of Palestinian Jews, it is distressingly absent from the study of Babylonian Jews (Neusner 1970b: 451–​2). As scholars have grown more sensitive to the incremental shift in Babylonian rabbinic institutions and become more adept at identifying relatively late redactional units in the Talmud, gradualist models may be offered. The rise of academies certainly affected rabbinic culture and attitudes (Rubenstein 2005), but it also likely marks earlier changes in the rabbinic community that still need to be addressed: How were these institutions financed and supported? Do they suggest greater wealth and communal support? Further structural comparisons with the contemporary rise and spread of Syriac academies and schools in the region are in order (Gafni 1981, Becker 2010). Moreover, rather than elide the relationship between rabbinic academies and geonic academies, we must be sensitive to the fact that much changed between the sixth and eight centuries, when we find 423

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our first geonic references. Finally, while much philological attention –​both in terms of terminological precision and in terms of higher criticism –​has been devoted to rabbinic academies, similar attention must be dedicated to other institutions believed to be central to relations between rabbis and ordinary Jews, such as the pirqa and the kallah (Goodblatt 1975).

5.  Other Jewish Communities Given the assumption that rabbis were in a position of power and influence over Babylonian Jews, and that our primary evidence for Babylonian Jews is the Talmud, it is difficult to see Babylonia through anything but rabbinic-​tinted glasses (Neusner 1970b: 444–​5; Herman 2021). Beyond the possibility of misrepresentation, rabbis tend not to freely reveal –​and certainly not legitimize –​ aspects of Jewish identity and practice other than their own. There is accordingly a dearth of information about robust religious alternatives to rabbis in Babylonian Jewish society. Goodenough argued that the synagogue at Dura Europos represented a uniquely nonrabbinic community in Babylonia. Neusner, however, suggested that Dura was representative of the independence of synagogue life from the rabbinic ambit throughout Babylonia at the time. Since Dura is the only synagogue discovered in Babylonia to date, it is difficult to deduce broad features of Babylonian synagogue culture from it, though, as noted above, Neusner did suggest that these synagogues, as in Palestine, possessed pictorial images. Yet Neusner went further and argued that until rabbis achieved broad support in Babylonian Jewish society, communities like the one at Dura were comprised of Jews interested in mystical speculation related to Ezekiel’s prophecies about God’s chariot (Neusner 1964). Elsewhere, Neusner describes nonrabbinic Judaism in Mesopotamia as “biblical Judaism” which, before being supplanted by spreading rabbinic influence in much of Babylonia, survived for a period in Adiabene, a feeding ground for Syriac Christianity (Neusner 1965–​1970, vol. 1: 122–​77, 180–​3; cf. Gross 2020). While many scholars, both before and after Neusner (eg Koltun-​Fromm 2011), argued that Aphrahat was addressing rabbinic ideas, Neusner argued that the lack of any reference to the Oral Torah, coupled with the primary appeal to the Hebrew Bible and Israelite history to combat his Jewish opponents, marked these as “biblical Jews”. Others have argued that these Jews were in some ways “para-​ rabbinic” (Lizorkin 2012: 163–​6), though this term and the methodology used to identify figures as “para-​rabbinic” are quite problematic. More recent scholarship suggests that much, if not all, of Aphrahat’s comments reflect the construction of an “imaginary Jew” of some kind and therefore likely do not describe the practices and teachings of a historical Jewish community (Walters 2020), though the final word on this subject has not yet been spoken. While Neusner’s characterization of the community that met in the synagogue of Dura Europos, and perhaps also in other synagogues further south, as adherents of “biblical Judaism” is highly questionable, the relationship between rabbis and synagogues is worthy of further study. It is possible that the Bavli preserves traditions about the history and sanctity of synagogues that emerged from Jews other than the rabbis (Oppenheimer 1995), a suggestion strengthened by the appearance of similar claims about synagogues and communities among Jews in the Iranian Plateau, according to medieval Arabic and Persian works (Fischel 1935). Philip Alexander recently argued that the incantation bowls and other evidence suggest that many Jews in Babylonia would have accessed the Bible mainly, if not exclusively, in Aramaic Targum (Alexander 2019). Yet, Alexander fails to recognize that Hebrew is more prevalent on the bowls than Aramaic, that many of the Targum quotes appear alongside the original Hebrew, and that the importance of Targum would hardly distinguish these Jews from rabbis, or indeed Jews in Palestine, for whom Targum was unproblematic and likely a regular feature of synagogue life. Rabbinic sources may suggest that Babylonian rabbis 424

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had an evolving relationship with synagogues, both in terms of approval of them and authority in them (Pomeranz 2016a), though rabbinic sources may be engaging in wishful thinking, and the precise relationship between rabbis and synagogues is still uncertain (Gafni 2005, concerning the different functions of synagogues in Palestine versus Babylonia, is also in need of revisiting). Indeed, whereas some scholars assumed that rabbis were largely responsible for regulating synagogue liturgy, others now allow for a more dynamic model of negotiation between general Jewish practice and rabbinic sanctions (Langer 1999; Manekin-​Bamberger 2022). Overall, one struggles to find serious voices of opposition to rabbis even in rabbinic literature. Attempts to argue that minim –​the infamously ambiguous term (cf. Bar-​Asher Siegal 2019b) –​ were particularly concentrated in some cities such as Meḥoza are unconvincing (Elman 2007, 177–​9), as rabbis in other cities voice similar concerns (eg b. Sanh. 99b-​100a). Babylonian rabbis are depicted interacting with minim less frequently than Palestinian rabbis (Kalmin 1999: 68–​74), though it is not clear what to deduce from this. After all, even Babylonian stories that feature Palestinian rabbis may be colored by contacts with real opponents in Babylonia (Paz 2019). Regardless, the term minim often functions as a catch-​all for rabbinic opponents, frustrating our ability to derive more precise identifications (Hayes 1998). The invented nature of Babylonian rabbinic opponents is clear from the fact that, as Kalmin has noted, the Sadducees appear more frequently in Babylonian than in Palestinian sources, even though they did not exist in Babylonia (Kalmin 2006: 149–​67). The greater quantity of stories in the Babylonian Talmud about Palestinian rabbis confronting minim therefore constitutes a paradox. We might ask if this increased Babylonian rabbinic interest –​even if Babylonian rabbis are not protagonists in these stories –​intimates a social reality in which competition between Jews and various kinds of others was of deep concern (for a different argument, see Bar-​Asher Siegal 2019a). Indeed, other Babylonian sources suggest, for example, that even the thieves of Palestine were more respectful of rabbis than Babylonian thieves (b. Abod. Zar. 25b-​26a), offering a different perspective on the relationship of the populace to rabbis in each locale. As mentioned above, another group that rabbis do describe repeatedly, and according to some scholars with increasing hostility in the Talmud’s later layers (Wald 2000: 211–​39), are the so-​called amei ha-​aretz. While the amei ha-​aretz were at times conceived of as a distinct social group of Palestinian provenance, it is now acknowledged that they were constructs from the earliest rabbinic texts, and that this category was deployed by Babylonian rabbis. Attempts to attribute certain works or ideas to the amei ha-​aretz have therefore been rejected (Swartz 2014: 12). Notably, however, in rabbinic representation, the amei ha-​aretz are “not heretics or ideologically opposed to the rabbis so much as lax in their religious commitments” (Rubenstein 2005: 125). That is, the amei ha-​aretz are represented not as an alternative configuration of Jewish practice and tradition, but as disinterested or disengaged Jews. Rabbinic texts also refer to specific individuals (b. Abod. Zar. 76b) and households (b. Qidd. 70b) which appear to have been wealthy, influential, and not entirely liked by rabbis, though it is difficult to infer much about their broader practices from these laconic references. Some scholars have sought to identify intellectual elites who were in some ways separate from and in competition with rabbis. The group(s) responsible for Hekhalot literature have been the subject of much scholarly speculation. This discussion is particularly problematic given that the date and provenance of the Hekhalot texts are still uncertain, with estimates ranging from the amoraic to the geonic period, and from Palestine to Babylonia (Boustan 2005). While at the very least, it is clear that traditions that resonate with Hekhalot literature were known in Babylonia during late antiquity, as seen from the latest layers of the Babylonian Talmud (Schäfer 2009: 243–​ 330), and the incantation bowls (Shaked 1995b), this does not necessarily indicate that the full 425

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compositions were already in existence or known in Babylonia (Boustan 2007). Certain textual units, or macroforms, have been situated in Babylonia, especially the well-​known Sar HaTorah narrative, which adjures the “Prince of Torah” to bestow a practitioner with Torah knowledge and expertise. Scholars have ascribed this text to a community that esteemed rabbinic knowledge but lacked access to it through the traditional course of study in the academies, resorting instead to angelic aid in the instantaneous and comprehensive acquisition of Torah. However, the precise identification of the authors of the Hekhalot texts is elusive. Halperin attributed them to the amei ha-​aretz, while others viewed them as the product of a subgroup of professional memorizers –​the tannaim –​who were members of rabbinic academies (Vidas 2014: 150–​66), though the primary support for this identification dates from the late-​tenth century (Emanuel 1999). Even according to these views, however, we are still dealing with groups that were close to rabbis rather than entirely independent subsets of the Jewish community. Further conclusions depend on future research about the precise provenance of Hekhalot traditions and texts. It has similarly been suggested that priests constituted a distinct interest group in late antique Babylonia. Josephus notes that in his time, the priests in Babylonia, like those in the Land of Israel and Egypt, maintained scrupulous records of Jews of priestly descent (C. Ap. 1.6–​7). Priests were well represented among the Babylonian amoraim (Herman 1999), and thus any hard and fast distinction between rabbis and priests should be avoided. The Bavli does reveal some tension with priests of a specific town (b. Ḥul. 132b) and includes complaints about impudent priests (b. Qidd. 70b). It would be imprudent, however, to conclude from these references that priests constituted a distinct and coherent group struggling for institutional power in Babylonia (eg Irshai 2004: 80–​2). A few stories might be understood to pit priestly descent against the exilarch’s Davidic descent (Herman 1996). Later Babylonian geonim express discontent with what they consider to be fictive Aaronide lineages in Palestine (Boustan 2005), though we do not find such concerns in the Babylonian Talmud itself. There seems to be little reason to posit a cohesive priestly group or factionalism between rabbis and priests in Jewish Babylonia. If these other competing elites are at best glimpsed between the margins of the Babylonian Talmud, the Babylonian incantation bowls offer our only other definitively Babylonian Jewish literary tradition from late antiquity (for other magic produced in Babylonia, albeit likely postdating the Sasanian period, see Bohak 2019). A central puzzle of the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls is the ethnic and religious identity of the scribes and clients. Alongside Semitic names, many of the clients possess Persian and Persian theophoric names. This is particularly striking in light of the relative dearth of Jews possessing Iranian names in the Babylonian Talmud and on Jewish seals (Shaked 1995a). It is therefore difficult to ascertain whether the Persian client names reflect a reality in which Jewish scribes were particularly valued as producers of protective amulets by non-​Jews, a dynamic we find elsewhere in the ancient world (Lacerenza 2002), or whether the bowls expose a Persianized Jewish population that was either not in the rabbinic orbit or purposefully ignored by rabbis. The identity of the scribes is somewhat less difficult to ascertain. The bowls in the various dialects cite a range of Mesopotamian, Iranian, and other divinities and demons (Shaked 1985). Yet bowls of the same script type –​whether Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Syriac, or Mandaic –​share certain formulaic features (Harviainen 1995), suggesting that, on the whole, they were composed by scribes who identified with the community typically associated with the script. Collectively, the bowls expose a variety of figures and myths that Jews might invoke, including some that were Mesopotamian and Iranian in origin (Morony 2007: 419–​20), interspersing them with citations from the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish traditions. Other bowls similar provide clear proof of interreligious contact, such as the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowl mentioned 426

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above which requests that “Jews and non-​Jews” would frequent the client’s shop, the inclusion of the historiola of Rabbi Joshua ben Peraḥia in Syriac incantation bowls (Moriggi 2014: 36–​41), and perhaps, most strikingly, the appearance of Jesus and the trinity on a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowl replete with invocations of other non-​Jewish deities (Levene 1999). The bowls expose a world in which different communities were in contact in a variety of settings and challenge the idea of the autonomous and isolated nature of religious communities under Sasanian rule. At the same time, many scholars have been too quick to treat the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls as a monolith, characterizing them as reflecting “popular religion”, even treating them as corpus that represents a distinct theology with syncretistic tendencies espoused by many Jews and non-​Jews alike (Shaked 1997). At the very least, it is conventional to treat the bowls as produced by and for a group of Jews that were distinct from the scholastic elite rabbis, and no doubt many were, though the picture is hardly this simple. Jewish legal formulae, and in particular divorce formulae, are pervasive in the bowls (Manekin-​Bamberger 2015). The presence of these formulae and the technical skill necessary to compose bowls in ink suggest that the scribes likely produced other Jewish legal documents and occupied a position of religious expertise (Manekin-​Bamberger 2019). With further research and the publication of new bowls it is increasingly clear that we must be wary of a stark dichotomy between rabbis and the so-​called “popular religion” of the bowls. The Hebrew Bible and Targum are referred to in many bowls, and liturgy is invoked in a variety of ways, including the Shema and its accompanying text or other Jewish prayers (Levene et al. 2014). Historiola featuring tannaim like Joshua ben Peraḥia and, more infrequently, Ḥanina ben Dosa are striking indications of the ways in which the bowl scribes and rabbis might venerate the same figures, often through very similar stories. Perhaps most strikingly, some bowls include the verbatim citation of the Mishnah. A Mishnah from tractate Zebaḥim, cited in an incantation bowl, was also part of the standard Jewish liturgy, as attested in medieval sources (Shaked 2005, 4–​6 [=​ m. Zebaḥ. 5:3 and 5:4]). Another Mishnah (m. Shebu. 4:13) is cleverly deployed by another bowl scribe (Levene 2007; Gross and Manekin-​Bamberger 2022). Other liturgical formulae –​ such as the Shema –​are in conformity with technical rabbinic instructions, as are some legal formulae (Bhayro 2015; Manekin-​Bamberger 2015). Additional traditions from groups that were close to rabbis, such as those found in Hekhalot literature, also appear in a number of bowls (Shaked et al. 2013: 23–​7). Recently published bowls reveal that other rabbis –​apparently near-​ contemporaries of the bowl writers rather than historical rabbinic ­figures –​ are invoked for the potency of their bans, such as one “Rabbi Aḥa bar Ḥanilai” who also appears in the Babylonian Talmud and collectively “all the rabbis in the world” (Müller-​Kessler 2005: 70–​1). An additional Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowl invokes the ban “of the academy heads and the rabbis” (Gross and Manekin-​Bamberger 2022). A number of scribes responsible for multiple surviving bowls show a consistent preference for these rabbinic and rabbinic adjacent traditions, and eschew the invocation of non-​Jewish deities, suggesting not only intellectual but also perhaps social proximity to rabbis. Indeed, rabbis appear as clients in the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls (Shaked 2015). To be clear, the material that reflects veneration of rabbinic figures and teachings does not appear in all of the bowls. Therefore, much may be revealed by jettisoning an approach that reduces the bowls to a single largely undifferentiated corpus, and instead queries them for various subgroups within Babylonian Jewish society (Gross and Manekin-​Bamberger 2022). Given the fact that the bowls most likely date to the sixth to seventh centuries, based on dig sites in which they have been found and on a handful of bowls that provide explicit dates (Shaked et al. 2013: 1), the bowls may provide us with our only access to Babylonian Jewish communities during what has been dubbed a “dark age”. They reveal communities for which rabbinic traditions 427

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and prescriptions are not universally dominant but also suggest that at least some Jews did venerate rabbis and their traditions, often in a manner distinct from rabbinic literature itself. At the same time, it must be admitted that the bowls were not made to provide historical, social, political, or economic data but rather to address the needs of their clients through appeals to a particular imaginative and discursive world. They therefore do not furnish evidence on many aspects of Jewish society for which, at best, our only evidence is the Bavli. Perhaps some unpublished bowls will, however, supply unique historical information. Until then we must largely work by inference and deduction. Yet if the bowls are not a panacea, the Bavli is not as historically unworkable as it is often perceived. Stories and discussions in the Talmud about life in the Sasanian Empire are illuminated through rigorous comparison with Syriac and other sources. Such comparison, at times, reveals that various communities shared similar concerns that might have been dismissed as literary flourishes if studied in isolation (Herman 2010). The two communities did not share identical fates or structures (Gross 2021b), but together they can confirm many aspects of Sasanian rule, its effects, and the ways in which different communities negotiated them.

27.6 Conclusions It is difficult to offer unqualified statements about Babylonian Jewish communities and society. Our sources are limited and represent methodological difficulties that hamstring our ability to extrapolate from them. Appeals to the structure of Sasanian society have suffered from secondary reliance on outdated work or superficial parallels with other texts and communities from the Sasanian Empire, especially Syriac Christians. Other longstanding scholarly preferences for rigid social models, the presumption of continuity between the amoraic and geonic periods, and a determined effort to raise the profile of rabbis among Babylonian Jews have generated further problems. But all hope is not lost. While the methodological issues of our sources may not be entirely circumvented, a sensitive and cautious reading of rabbinic literature, the incantation bowls, and other Sasanian sources may at least offer some sketch of Babylonian Jewish communities and society. Such a sketch would benefit from adopting a creative middle ground between historical positivism and thoroughgoing skepticism in using the sources available; eschewing the problematic dichotomy between “high” rabbinic culture and “low” popular or folk religion, thereby recognizing the fluid and shifting boundaries between rabbinic and nonrabbinic cultures; appreciating the deep engagement of Babylonian Jews with their surrounding society, one not confined to demons and magic; and the more heterogeneous effects and varied nature of state policies and practices regarding the diverse religious communities in the Sasanian Empire. The result would tell us much about Babylonian rabbis, Babylonian Jewish communities, the growing prominence of Babylonian rabbis in and outside of Babylonia, and the Sasanian Empire’s varied relationship with its heterogenous communities.

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Simcha Gross Levene, D. and Bhayro, S. (2005/​2006). “‘Bring to the Gates … Upon a Good Smell and Upon Good Fragrances’: An Aramaic Incantation Bowl for Success in Business,” Archiv für Orientforschung 51: 242–​6. Levene, D., Marx, D., and Bhayro, S. (2014). “‘Gabriel is on their Right’: Angelic Protection in Jewish Magic and Babylonian Lore,” Studia Mesopotamica 1: 185–​98. Lizorkin, E. (2012). Aphrahat’s Demonstrations: A Conversation with the Jews of Mesopotamia. Leuven: Peeters. Macuch, M. (1981). Das sasanidische Rechtsbuch Mātakdān i hazār Dātistān. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Manekin-​Bamberger, A. (2015). “Jewish Legal Formulae in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls,” Aramaic Studies 13: 69–​81. Manekin-​Bamberger, A. (2019). “Who Were the Jewish ‘Magicians’ Behind the Aramaic Incantation Bowls?” Journal of Jewish Studies 71: 236–​54. Manekin-​Bamberger, A. (2022). “Healing and Protection in Rabbinic Liturgy and in the Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowls,” Meḥqerei Yerushalayim beMaḥshevet Yisrael 27: 87–​109. McCormick, A.R. (1965). Land Behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains. Chicago. IL and London: University of Chicago Press. McDonough, S. (2008). “A Second Constantine? The Sasanian King Yazdgard in Christian History and Historiography,” Journal of Late Antiquity 1: 127–​40. Minov, S. (2014). “Dynamics of Christian Acculturation in the Sasanian Empire: Some Iranian Motifs in the Cave of Treasures,” in G. Herman (ed.), Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians: Religious Dynamics in a Sasanian Context. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 149–​201. Mokhtarian, J. (2015). Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran. Oakland, CA. University of California Press. Montgomery, J. (1913). Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur. Philadelphia, PA: University Museum. Moriggi, M. (2014). A Corpus of Syriac Incantation Bowls: Syriac Magical Texts from Late-​ Antique Mesopotamia. Leiden \and Boston, MA: Brill. Morony, M. (1974). “Religious Communities in Late Sasanian and Early Muslim Iraq,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17: 113–​35. Morony, M. (2003). “Magic and Society in Late Sasanian Iraq,” in S. Noegel, J. Walker, and B. Wheeler (eds.), Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 83–​107. Morony, M. (2007). “Religion and the Aramaic Incantation Bowls,” Religion Compass 1: 414–​29. Müller-​Kessler, C. (2005). Die Zauberschalentexte in der Hilprecht-​Sammlung, Jena und weitere Nippur-​ Texte anderer Sammlungen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Neusner, J. (1964). “Judaism at Dura-​Europos,” History of Religions 4: 81–​102. Neusner, J. (1965–​1970). A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 5 vols. Leiden: Brill. Neusner, J. (1966b). “Rabbi and Magus in Third-​Century Sasanian Babylonia,” History of Religions 6: 169–​78. Neusner, J. (1970b). “Rabbis and Community in Third Century Babylonia,” in J. Neusner (ed.), Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough. Leiden: Brill. Neusner, J. (1975). “How Much Iranian in Jewish Babylonia,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95: 184–​90. Neusner, J. (1983). “Jews in Iran,” in E. Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 909–​23. Newman, J. (1932). The Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia between the Years 200 C.E. and 500 C.E. London: Oxford University Press. Novick, T. (2017). “‘I am Not a Butcher’: Authority and Expertise in Rabbinic Laws of Meat Production in Classical Rabbinic Literature,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8: 112–​44. Oppenheimer, A. (1983). Babylonia Judaica in the Talmudic Period. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert. Oppenheimer, A. (1995). “Babylonian Synagogues with Historical Associations,” Ancient Synagogues I, 40–​8. Payne, R. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. Oakland, CA. University of California Press. Paz, Y. (2018). “ ‘Meishan is Dead’: On the Historical Contexts of the Bavli’s Representations of the Jews in Southern Mesopotamia,” in G. Herman and J.L. Rubenstein (eds.), The Aggada of the Bavli and Its Cultural World. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 47–​99.

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28 BABYLONIAN JUDAISM AND ZOROASTRIANISM Shai Secunda

Judaism as we recognize it today is to a considerable extent a legacy of the Babylonian rabbis and their magnum opus, the Babylonian Talmud. The history of the rabbis who produced the Talmud coincides almost perfectly with the history of the Sasanian dynasty, which rose to power at the beginning of the amoraic period and whose capital, Ctesiphon, was centrally located within the boundaries of rabbinic Babylonia. Within this time and space, Babylonian Judaism intersected with neighboring religions, including Syriac Christianity, Manichaeism, Mandaeism, and Zoroastrianism, the ancient Iranian religion that was closely aligned with the state and whose antiquity can be traced back to the second millennium B.C.E . The impact of Zoroastrianism on Babylonian Judaism and the Talmud is an active area of research. This chapter reviews the state of the field concerning the encounter between Babylonian Judaism and Sasanian Zoroastrianism, reviewing scholarly work to date, surveying available source material, assessing methodological approaches, and suggesting future avenues of research.

1.  History of Research Scholarly interest in the relationship between Zoroastrianism and Judaism began, along with academic Jewish Studies more generally, in the nineteenth century, when it was pursued in the polemical writings of Maskilim (members of the “Jewish Enlightenment”) like Joshua Heschel Schorr and Solomon Rubin, and en passant in major lexicographical projects, such as Alexander Kohut’s and Jacob Levy’s dictionaries of rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic. For their part, historians of the period also touched upon Zoroastrians and their interactions with Jews during the talmudic era, considering, for example, the scattered evidence for Zoroastrian persecutions of Babylonian Jewry. Yet overall, during this early stage of academic Jewish Studies, the Maskilim were driven by a reformist agenda and most interested in questions of religious influence, such as whether Judaism’s angelic and demonological “superstitions” originated in Zoroastrianism and might therefore be discarded. Unsurprisingly, the ideological fervor that animated this writing had some deleterious effects on its scholarly worth. At the same time, the less ideologically motivated Talmud scholarship of the twentieth century was also less interested in matters of religious influence. Once we reach the decades immediately following the Second World War, much of Rabbinics scholarship was DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-34

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directed inward toward untangling the layers of talmudic redaction and developing source-​critical methodologies to aid this process. Still, research by historians like Jacob Neusner and Isaiah Gafni and scholars of Aramaic like Jonas Greenfield and E. S. Rosenthal kept interest in Zoroastrianism and its relationship to Babylonian Judaism alive until the turn of the twenty-​first century, when attention in Zoroastrianism’s connections to Judaism was reignited by the late Talmudist Yaakov Elman and Iranist, Shaul Shaked, ushering in a new generation of Talmudists who have now published widely on the topic (Secunda 2014: 10–​4). Several factors encouraged the turn-​of-​the-​twenty-​first century renaissance in Irano-​talmudic research, of which the study of Babylonian Judaism and its interaction with Zoroastrianism is an important part. First to mention here are the source-​critical methods that allow scholars to identify differences between Babylonian and Palestinian amoraic traditions and to better appreciate the contribution of the Babylonian Talmud’s anonymous redactors. Moreover, Talmudists have increasingly adopted the idiom of cultural history, in which the multivocality of the text is read for a dynamic Babylonian culture that can now be located within the ambient religious milieu of Sasanian Iran. Perhaps most of all, the publication of new editions and translations of Middle Persian texts, and the recent training of some Talmudists in Iranian philology, have allowed scholars to devote themselves to considering the interrelations of Sasanian Zoroastrianism and Judaism.

2.  The Sources It is critical to acknowledge that Babylonian Judaism and Sasanian Zoroastrianism are hypothetical scholarly constructs assembled from incomplete historical remains. In the case of Babylonian Judaism, these remains are almost entirely textual and produced by an intellectual elite, and the same goes for Sasanian Zoroastrianism. The Babylonian Talmud is by far the most important source for reconstructing Babylonian Judaism –​and primarily Babylonian rabbinic Judaism, as the nonrabbinic Judaism of the region is very difficult to reconstruct (Gross and Manekin-​Bamberger 2022). Unlike other late antique Jewish communities of the Levant, such as Galilean Jewry or the Jews of Dura Europos, there are virtually no surviving synagogues, mosaics, and inscriptions from Babylonian Jewry, although we do have hundreds of largely unprovenanced bowls inscribed with Babylonian Jewish Aramaic incantations, and a small handful of similarly unprovenanced stamp seals that appear to have been owned by Babylonian Jews (Secunda 2014: 15–​6). The Babylonian Talmud is not entirely a product of Babylonia, but as noted, Babylonian developments in talmudic discourse can be isolated and utilized to reconstruct the contours of Babylonian Judaism (Paz 2018). The sources for reconstructing Sasanian Zoroastrianism are somewhat more varied, though again largely textual. The most important repository of literary remains is a sizable corpus of texts composed in Zoroastrian Middle Persian (also known as Pahlavi) which were largely written down in the ninth century, transmitted by medieval scribes in India and Iran, yet undoubtedly preserve oral traditions that took shape during the Sasanian period. Some of these works are exemplars of the scholastic discourse known in Middle Persian as Zand, which translate, gloss, and discuss the Avesta –​Zoroastrianism’s most ancient corpus of texts. Others are collections of material distilled from the Zand in order to survey legal or theological themes or, as the case may be, address polemical concerns. Still other Middle Persian compositions fall into “non-​religious” genres, like wisdom literature, known as andarz, and belles lettres. Despite their supposedly “secular” interest, these texts were also transmitted by medieval Zoroastrian copyists, and they, too, have much to teach us about Sasanian Zoroastrianism. Other relevant textual remains include inscriptions –​both 436

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monumental, as in the case of the third-​century imperial inscriptions of a powerful Zoroastrian priest named Kerdīr, and less ambitious, for example, graffiti and the writing and images carved onto Zoroastrian stamp seals. Outsider reports by non-​Zoroastrians, such as Syriac martyrologies, and accounts by Roman historians such as Agathias are essential, if naturally skewed, sources for understanding Sasanian Zoroastrianism. Finally, the archaeological record has documented the material remains of fire temples and other Zoroastrian religious installations, though most of these were uncovered outside of Jewish Babylonia (Secunda 2014: 16–​28).

3.  Encounters between Jews and Imperial Iranians Zoroastrians and Jews, or at least their ancient Iranian and Judaean ancestors, did not first meet in late antiquity but encountered each other as early as the sixth century B.C.E ., when the Achaemenids came to power and ruled the Near East, including Judaean exiles in Babylonia and in the newly formed province of Judaea. Perhaps reflecting one early encounter with Iranian dualism, the sixth-​ century B.C.E . prophet Deutero-​Isaiah emphasized Yahweh’s unmatched supremacy and His role in the creation of both light and darkness, and both good and evil, in an oracle directed at Cyrus the Great (Isaiah 45:1–​7). Later Jewish texts composed from the Hellenistic period onwards articulate individual and collective eschatologies, such as a belief in postmortem reward and punishment and in a messianic age, perhaps evincing interaction with, and influence by, ancient Zoroastrianism (Hintze 2019). This is all to say that by the time late antique Babylonian Judaism came onto the scene, Jews had already interacted with Zoroastrianism for centuries (Elman and Secunda 2015: 423–​6). Judaism was one of many non-​Zoroastrian religious traditions that could be found in the Sasanian Empire. The powerful third-​century Zoroastrian priest Kerdīr claimed in inscriptions that he had commissioned that under his watch “Jews (jāhūd), Shamans, Brahmans, Nazarenes, Christians, Baptists, and Manichaeans were struck down in the empire” (MacKenzie 1989: 54). Boasting aside, there is little evidence of sustained and serious religious persecutions of Jews during this or later periods (Brody 1990). Of course, we must not ignore a few talmudic passages concerned with some policies and actions of Zoroastrian priests directed at Jews, though these seem to have occurred when the practices of minority communities like Jews and Christians happened to impinge on Zoroastrian ritual. Thus, the Talmud registers concern with Zoroastrians seizing Hanukkah candelabra –​ presumably because fire is the central focus of the Zoroastrian cult and had to be protected from non-​Zoroastrians treating this sacred element with insufficient respect (b. Shab. 45a). Likewise, a talmudic passage lists “decrees” issued by Zoroastrian priests that can be read along similar lines (b. Yebam. 63b). According to this source, kosher-​slaughtered meat was banned –​arguably because cattle is revered in Zoroastrianism and strangulation, rather than ritual slaughter, was the preferred Zoroastrian method of killing; bathhouses were closed –​presumably out of Zoroastrian respect for water which, like fire, must be kept pure; and there also was tension over Jewish burial practices, with the magi exhuming bodies to prevent the ritual contamination of the earth (Herman 2010). Again, even if disruptions of Jewish ritual did indeed take place as described in these sources, they would not have been directed specifically at Jews qua Jews.

4.  Judaism in Zoroastrian Literature and Vice Versa Nevertheless, for some Zoroastrian theologians, Judaism was more than just another “non-​Iranian” (an-​ērān) religion, or “bad law” (wattar-​dād), as they sometimes characterized it. Instead, Judaism constituted a particular type of religious problem, as it was seen as the quintessential monotheistic 437

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religion and the very opposite of the “good tradition” (weh-​dēn) that was Zoroastrian dualism. The following passage, culled from a ninth-​century Middle Persian compilation, apparently reflects an older polemic dating to the Sasanian period, when Jews were the main representatives of monotheistic belief: “The law of the Mazdaean tradition [Ahura Mazda worship, i.e. Zoroastrianism] furthers the world of living beings, while the law of the beliefs of the Jews destroys the world of living beings.” (Dēnkard 3:150) This stark view of Judaism was accompanied by an appeal to Zoroastrian believers to keep away from Jewish law (Dēnkard 3:197). Some heresiographical discussions in Middle Persian present the mythic origins of Judaism as a demonic counterhistory to the ascension of Zoroastrianism. One text describes “how [the evil dragon Dahāg] made the orayta [the Torah] the fundamental book of Judaism, and built Jerusalem in order to keep [orayta] in it; how Dahāg first came to Abraham, the priest of the Jews, and from Abraham to Moses of his lineage, whom the Jews hold as a prophet and a bringer of [their] belief, and took rest. He revealed it to Moses, and how he propagated the Jewish belief” (Dēnkard 3:227; translated in Secunda 2014: 78). Similarly, Zoroastrians were depicted in the Talmud in a uniquely negative light, suggesting that they were not unmarked “gentiles” but had specific characteristics which were reviled by Babylonian rabbis. This can be seen in one of the terms used for Zoroastrian priests, namely, ḥabbara. This word, which more generally means “incantator” in Aramaic (including in Syriac) and which was associated with an illicit incantatory practice known as ḥover ḥaver mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Deut 18:11 and Ps 58:6), specifically refers to Zoroastrian priests in a few talmudic passages (b. Yebam. 63b, b. Giṭ. 17a and b. Shab. 45a). A related depiction of Zoroastrian priestly ritual “mumblings” (b. Sotah 22a; see also the translation of Targum Onkelos to Deut 18:11) suggests a perception among Babylonian Jews that the Zoroastrian priests were involved in illicit “magical” practices (Rosenthal 1982: 71–​3). This should come as no surprise, as the very word “magic” in English and other European languages traces itself back to Greek mageia, where it was first used to describe the seemingly unusual activities of Zoroastrian magi (Mokhtarian 2015: 95–​6).

5.  Rabbinic Assessments of Zoroastrianism Aside from what we can learn from these linguistic habits, on a number of occasions Babylonian rabbis openly discussed Zoroastrian ritual and belief from the perspective of Jewish law and theology. One foundational disagreement, attributed to the first-​generation amoraim Rav and Shmuel, disputed whether “Magianism” (amgushata) –​arguably referring to Zoroastrian ritual recitation –​constitutes the halakhically prohibited acts of blasphemy or sorcery (b. Shab. 75a; Secunda 2014: 43–​50). In a similar vein, and in an adjacent talmudic discussion, the question is raised whether studying Zoroastrian religious teachings is permitted. Rav is said to have prohibited learning from the magi, again upon pain of death, while the editorial stratum of the Talmud presents an alternate view permitting such study as long as it is undertaken “in order to understand and issue halakhic rulings” (Secunda 2014: 71–​5). Another critical talmudic treatment of Zoroastrian practice consists of a list of Iranian festivals prohibited under the Mishnah’s ban on interacting with pagans during their celebrations. Two related yet variant discussions appear in the Yerushalmi (y. Abod. Zar. 1:3; 39c) and the Bavli (b. 438

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Abod. Zar. 11b). Despite extensive scholarly treatment (Neusner 1975), there is not yet a consensus on the identity of all these festivals, whose names have clearly been corrupted over the course of transmission (Bokser 1975). Since the nineteenth century, the dominant approach has been to prefer the Yerushalmi’s version (Kohut 1892). Yet closer examination reveals that both talmudic versions suffer from corruption, and in some instances better readings do in fact appear in the Bavli. Notably, both the Bavli and the Yerushalmi preserve variant local festivals, a reminder of the risks of presuming a unified “Zoroastrianism”. “R. Ba in the name Rav: Three festivals are Babylonian and three festivals are Median. Three are Babylonian: Mehori, Kanoni [?]‌, and Kanuta [?]. And three in Media: Nusardi, Tirisaki, and Mehrakana. Rav Huna in the name of Rav Naḥman bar Yaakov: Noruz on the second of Adar in Persia and the twentieth of Adar in Media” (y. Abod. Zar. 1:3, 39c). “These [pagan festivals listed in m. Abod. Zar. 1:3] are Roman. What are the Persians’ [festivals]? Nusardi, Tirisagi, Mehrakani, and Mah-​roz. These are the Persians’ [festivals]. What are the [festivals of] rural pagans’ [aramai bala –​the reading of Ḥananel ben Ḥushiel also supported by some manuscripts]? Mehrakani, Akaniyata, Kanoni [?]‌and the twentieth of Adar” (b. Abod. Zar. 11b). Taken together, the passages suggest that rabbis were familiar with the most important Zoroastrian religious celebrations. We hear of three and perhaps four major Zoroastrian holidays that punctuate the calendar year: (1) Nowsard, a springtime “new-​year” festival that was once celebrated at the equinox and, according to a medieval witness, was referred to as “big Nowruz”; (2) Tīragān, a festival originally observed during the summer month and dedicated to the god Tīr; and (3) Mehragān, the autumnal festival dedicated to Mithra; (4) another festival that can be reconstructed in the Bavli is Ahekan, best known from the Zoroastrian-​influenced Armenian calendar and related to the late winter ancient Iranian fire festival called Sade. In addition to these four festivals, our sources refer to two more holidays: (5) The well-​known Iranian holiday of Nawruz appears by this name in the Yerushalmi and as a date (“the twentieth of ‘Adar’ ” –​ie March) in the Bavli and (6) the Bavli also mentions another major holiday celebrated in proximity to Nawruz, known as Mah-​rōz. Just as we observed both strict and more flexible rabbinic assessments of the halakhic status of Zoroastrian recitation, the Talmud registers leniency regarding pagan festivals, possibly including the Zoroastrian cult. Based on earlier traditions, the Bavli rules that in the Diaspora Jews are prohibited from transacting with their gentile –​no doubt including Zoroastrian –​neighbors only on the day of the festival, and not before it (b. Abod. Zar. 11b; Hayes 1997: 127–​43). Relatedly, there are reports of Babylonian amoraim sending gifts (qorbana) to gentiles on their festivals, which is defended by claiming that the recipients are not, in practice, idolaters (b. Abod Zara 65a). Remarkably, the Talmud justifies meeting a demand of Zoroastrians for fire braziers and bellows (qavqa and damēnak), presumably for use in fire temples, based on the surprising argument that such utensils were really for personal enjoyment (b. Sanh. 74b). Similarly, the prominent amora Rav Ashi is said to have sold a forest to a fire temple (b. Ned. 62b). When challenged by his colleague Ravina, Rav Ashi claimed that firewood is normally used for regular fuel rather than cultic burning, and thus the transaction was permissible. This leniency is juxtaposed to another indulgence issued by the prominent amora Rava, in which rabbinic scholars are permitted to claim “parsonage” and avoid paying the poll tax by declaring that they are part of the estate of the fire temple (Macuch 2002). Simcha Gross has suggested that these leniencies should be understood as examples of Babylonian rabbis determining how best to operate in a society where the Zoroastrian cult was a major force in the economy and part and parcel of everyday life (Gross 2017). 439

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6.  Settings of Zoroastrian-​Jewish Interaction In studying the relationship between Babylonian Judaism and Zoroastrianism we must also consider consequences of this interchange that are more difficult to measure; where the evidence does not record explicit engagement with Zoroastrianism, yet Babylonian Jewish life still seems to reflect the results of interreligious exchange. It is thus useful to map the possible settings in which Zoroastrian ideas and practices may have been transmitted to Jews and then, perhaps, assimilated into Judaism (Secunda 2014: 37–​63). To begin with, just by living in the Sasanian Empire Jews would have regularly encountered Zoroastrian visual expressions. Sasanian coins featured on their obverse fire altars and fire worship and Sasanian documents were regularly stamped with the seal stamps of Zoroastrian functionaries, often with religiously pregnant words and images (Gyselen 2006 is a representative study). Of course, most significant forms of interaction between Jews and Zoroastrians would have taken place via verbal language. On this point we note that while the primary language of Babylonian Jewry was Babylonian Jewish Aramaic, there is evidence that at least some rabbis were proficient in Persian and used the language to easily interact with Zoroastrians in everyday encounters in the neighborhood, in the marketplace, and in bureaucratic confrontations with officials (Secunda 2014; Mokhtarian 2015). Given the prominence and deep roots of Aramaic in Mesopotamia, it is also possible that Zoroastrians living in the region were comfortable using this Semitic tongue. Indeed, some Aramaic incantation bowls include Middle Persian instructions on the outside, suggesting that clients and scribes made use of both languages. At the very least, we can say that linguistic misunderstandings between Persian-​and Aramaic-​speakers are not thematized in the Talmud. As noted previously, we might deduce from Rav’s strict ban on learning from the magi that, in fact, some Jews were encountering Zoroastrian texts directly by learning from Zoroastrian priests, thereby necessitating the heightened rhetoric that “whoever studies [even] a word from a magus is liable death” (b. Shab. 75a). Lest one wonder why non-​Zoroastrians would even want to participate in Zoroastrian religious study, there is indication that in the Sasanian Empire, Zoroastrian learning conferred status and cultural capital, even on nonpriests and non-​Zoroastrians (Payne 2015: 96). Finally, the Bavli preserves memory of a temple known as the bei abeidan, which housed among its library Jewish scrolls and seems to have been the site of events, and possibly interreligious encounters, that rabbis were expected to attend. The following passage is recorded after a discussion about the status of forbidden books like gospels (“evangelion”) and the scrolls of heretics (sifrei minim) as well as a reference to the temples of heretics which, unlike idolatrous shrines, one may not enter even in an emergency: “Yosef son of Ḥavushma asked Rabbi Abbahu: As for the scrolls of the bei abeidan, do we save them from a fire or do we not save them? Yes and no, and it [i.e., the answer] was weak in his hand. Rav would not go to the bei abeidan and a fortiori not to the bei niẓrafei; Shmuel would not go to the bei niẓrafei, yet he would go to the bei abeidan. They said to Rav: What is the reason that the master did not come to the bei abeidan? He said to them: A certain palm tree stands in the way and it is difficult for me. [They said to him:] Let us uproot it! He said to them: Its space [following excavation] is difficult for me. Mar the son of Rav Yosef said: I am one of them and I am not afraid of them. On one occasion he went [to the bei abeidan] and they wanted to harm him.” (b. Shab. 116a)

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The etymology of bei abeidan is almost certainly of Iranian origin and likely derives from an Iranian compound –​baγ-​dān, which, as in Old Persian daiva-​dāna, means “temple of the [old] gods”. Although medieval and modern Talmud commentators have been reluctant to assume that a rabbi would step into an Iranian temple, this seems to be precisely the calculation that the Talmud attributes to Shmuel. The prominent amora would never enter a bei niẓrafei –​apparently a kind of Christian site (Shaked 1995a), which would be prohibited as a temple of heretics –​yet, if need be, he would go to a bei abeidan. The Talmud never makes clear the reason why rabbis, in parallel passages, were encouraged to attend the bei abeidan. However, the supposed storage of Jewish scrolls in a temple of apparently Iranian origin, and the official pressure placed on rabbis to participate in discussions there (eg b. Shab. 152a), might echo traditions about Sasanian authorities who assembled people in order to “recover” alien wisdom that was thought to have originated in Zoroastrian learning (Secunda 2014: 51–​8). At the very least, these traditions suggest that within the Sasanian Empire there was a dynamic exchange of religious knowledge, which may have included interaction between Jews and Jewish learning and Zoroastrians and Zoroastrian learning. Finally, beyond regular conversation, more intimate exchanges may have occurred as a result of conversion and intermarriage (Secunda 2014: 40–​1).

7.  Zoroastrian Influence on Judaism Having established potential portals of interchange between Jews and Zoroastrians in the Sasanian Empire, our task is now to identify some results of these contacts. It is widely acknowledged that the search for Zoroastrian influence on Babylonian Judaism is frustrated by a vexing set of problems, including overreading, “parallelomania”, and unsophisticated models of mimesis that fail to recognize the complex dynamics of intercultural exchange (Brody 2016 and Secunda 2016). The byword is caution, to the point that some scholars have insisted that only “smoking guns” –​ in other words, instances of supposedly undeniable religious influence –​ be considered. While restraint may be a cherished quality of scholarly research, it can close off valuable paths of inquiry. Moreover, by adopting an extremely cautious approach to Irano-​Talmudica, one ultimately ends up taking a position in the question of Zoroastrianism’s influence on Babylonian Judaism, as the methodological difficulty of discerning interreligious exchange in our surviving sources is fallaciously equated with a historiographical assessment that Babylonian Judaism was largely unaffected by its encounter with Zoroastrianism. As the renewed study of Zoroastrian influence on Babylonian Judaism is still in its adolescence, it is premature to assert either pervasive or negligible Zoroastrian influence on Babylonian Judaism. What is more, “influence” has come to be seen as a problematic mode of thinking about religious interaction, including Zoroastrianism and Judaism (Secunda 2014: 111–​6). In an effort to walk between the raindrops, the following nonexhaustive discussion presents a few examples of possible Zoroastrian influence on Judaism in order to give readers a flavor of research on the topic. Personal names are an obvious place to search for Zoroastrian influence on Babylonian Jewry. It may be recalled that much of our knowledge of Judaean life in the region centuries earlier relies on the identification of Yahwistic elements in personal names, while evidence for the acculturation of these deportees has been sought in the appearance of non-​Yahwistic elements in the names of their progeny and marriage partners (Zadok 2014). If we could determine that Jews in the Sasanian Empire adopted Zoroastrian theophoric elements in their personal naming practices, then we would have evidence of some form of Zoroastrian influence on a basic aspect of Jewish identity. Indeed, late antique Syriac texts attest to the significance, in terms of religious identity,

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of name-​giving in the Sasanian Empire, as Persian converts to Christianity are shown, sometimes dramatically, shedding their Zoroastrian names and adopting new Christian monikers (Gross 2020: 166). Unfortunately, we do not have name registries of Sasanian citizens, nor surviving legal documents that might provide us with a repository of names borne by Babylonian Jews. Tal Ilan has extensively documented the personal designations borne by identifiably Jewish people preserved in the Talmud and the Aramaic incantation bowls (Ilan 2011). Her substantial research would seem to suggest that Babylonian Jews did not take Zoroastrian theophoric names. Yet, on further reflection such a conclusion is unwarranted. First, since our main repository of Babylonian Jewish names is the Babylonian Talmud, the lexicon of surviving Babylonian Jewish names as it currently stands primarily reflects the naming practices of rabbinic Jews, which likely were at some variance with name adoption among the general Jewish population. We also should not disregard how the Talmud may have originally attested Zoroastrian names among rabbinic households that were later misread by copyists. Thus, Yaakov Elman and others have convincingly argued that prior to scribal change, a talmudic story critical of the “elitist” sage Rav Nahman named a woman in his household, likely a daughter, Dēnag (b. Qidd. 70a) –​a widely attested Zoroastrian theophoric name (Gross 2018: 297). When we consider the Aramaic incantation bowls, which are more broadly reflective of the nonrabbinic Babylonian population (Gross and Manekin-​Bamberger 2022), we are faced with a circularity problem, as virtually our only way of identifying people as Jews in the record is via the Jewish elements in their names. Jews and Christians both considered the Hebrew Bible scriptural, so the occurrence of a biblical name does not guarantee that its bearer was Jewish. In fact, one of the few ways to determine whether a person named in the record is Jewish is if they bear a form of the title “Rabbi” or are related to someone bearing that title. There are currently only a small number of incantation bowls extant in which rabbis are named (Shaked 2015), yet this small batch of evidence is suggestive. There, a few Persian names appear alongside the expected biblical and Aramaic names. One incantation bowl held in the collection of Martin Schøyen (manuscript 2053/​222) references a rabbi with an Aramaic name, Maḥlefa, alongside his two brothers Zādōy, a Persian name, and a presently unidentifiable moniker, possibly of Iranian origin. Notably, their mother’s name is Khwardukh, literally, “daughter of the Sun”, ie the Zoroastrian solar deity. Thus, apart from preserving a remarkable case in which a rabbi’s mother bore a Zoroastrian name, this incantation text suggests that we should not be so quick to assume that the Zoroastrian theophoric names appearing in the Aramaic magic bowls were necessarily borne by Zoroastrians only rather than Jews, Christians, or members of other religious communities. Indeed, we might add that the Talmud itself raises the possibility of “obviously” gentile names, yet also asserts that “outside the Land of Israel, the name of most Jews [!]‌ are like the names of gentiles” (b. Git. 11a–​b). Further evidence of Zoroastrian influence might be sought in the incantation bowls inscribed in Babylonian Jewish Aramaic by Babylonian Jews. It has been argued that there is relatively little Zoroastrian –​and for that matter, Christian –​material in the bowl incantations, at least when compared with the more dominant Jewish, Mandaic, and ancient Mesopotamian motifs (Shaked 2002: 71–​2). That said, it is possible that the supposed dearth of Zoroastrian themes has been overstated, perhaps because they reflect a version of Zoroastrianism less attested in the surviving literature. Indeed, some of the Zoroastrian themes that have been identified in the bowls come to us in “non-​canonical” versions. One bowl, for example, seems to preserve a portion of the Zoroastrian myth of the Primal Man and Primal Bull unknown to us in surviving Zoroastrian texts (Shaked 1999: 311–​2). Relatedly, the Aramaic incantation bowls attest to an intriguing phenomenon of 442

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demonized Zoroastrian divinities as well as novel amalgams that include Zoroastrian gods (Herman 2019). Having invoked material culture, we should briefly consider the surviving Sasanian Jewish stamp seals, where, as noted, there is evidence of Zoroastrian influence on Jewish visual culture. Alongside popular late antique Jewish motifs like the four species and sacred temple implements, we encounter Sasanian themes, such as the seal of Aḥa b. Sumqa (Gyselen 1978: no. 70.68) with a classic design, constructed from Pahlavi characters, common among the seals of Zoroastrian priests. The seal of Yosef bar Natan (Israel Museum no. 68.43.42) is even more striking in its depiction of a man standing with outstretched arms, in a ritual posture depicted in Zoroastrian seals (Gyselen 2006: no. 10.3). While the surviving corpus of Sasanian Jewish seals is quite miniscule (Shaked 1995b), this small cache already gives us a sense of the influence Zoroastrian themes had on Jewish visual culture. Of course, our most abundant sources for tracing Zoroastrian influence on Babylonian Judaism are textual and scholastic rather than visual, magical, or prosopographical. It bears remembering that this talmudic material is by nature more ambiguous on the question of Zoroastrian influence on Judaism. Despite the difficulties, scholars have argued that in a number of cases, unexpected myths, beliefs, ideas, and other such shifts in the talmudic sources indeed reflect interaction with Zoroastrianism. As is often the case, some of these claims are stronger than others; yet in the aggregate, they suggest that Babylonian Jewish beliefs, myths, and rituals were in some considerable ways shaped by a prolonged and powerful encounter with Zoroastrianism. One area of classical Jewish thought that has been deemed a promising candidate for Zoroastrian influence concerns the afterlife (Secunda 2014: 116–​25). It has been argued that already Second Temple Judaism evinces Zoroastrian influence on ideas about life after death (Hintze 2019), and there is evidence of further reengagement on the topic in Sasanian Babylonia. Thus, the theological infrastructure present in early rabbinic texts assumes reward and punishment after death, especially within the context of the resurrection of the dead as well as the afterlife of the immortal soul in paradise. Nevertheless, some of the most vivid details of this postmortem state are only elaborated in the Bavli. Take, for example, the Talmud’s description of the punishment meted out to the Israelite spies for slandering the Promised Land: “Their tongue was elongated and fell to their navel, and there were worms issuing from it and entering their navel, and exiting from their navel and entering their tongue” (b. Sotah 35a). This frightful image looks quite similar to the detailed postmortem punishments mentioned in Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag –​a kind of Zoroastrian Divine Comedy, such as this description of the hellish torture awaiting slanderers: “I saw the soul of a man whose tongue was drawn out from his mouth and the noxious creatures were chewing it” (Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag 29). Alongside an elaborate system of postmortem punishments, another important aspect of the Zoroastrian afterlife is the belief that following death, the soul is met by an erotic hypostasis of its worldly deeds, known in Middle Persian as the dēn. Depending on one’s righteousness or wickedness in the world, this female figure is either beautiful or ugly, making the union between soul and its heavenly counterpart either blissful or baneful. Hints of the concept of the dēn, which seems to have undergone some development in Jewish discourse, appear in the Talmud. One passage presents a Zoroastrianized rereading of biblical verses in this direction, teaching that good deeds go before the deceased in the afterlife while wicked deeds cling to them forevermore (b. Sotah 3b). Memorably, an amora illustrates this idea by stating that the biblical Joseph would have entered the next world “sexually bound to [Potiphar’s wife] like a dog” if he had given into temptation and coupled with her. Yet another passage (b. Abod Zar. 65a) seems to present a related, sexualized reading of the afterlife: When Rava finds a hedonistic gentile acquaintance waited on by naked 443

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prostitutes, the gentile asks Rava whether such an afterlife awaits the good rabbi. According to the better manuscripts, Rava retorts: “better than this [one] and that [one]!” apparently pointing to the two whores. It has been suggested that the idea of the houris –​the virgins that await the righteous in paradise in Islamic belief –​grew out of the Iranian myth. The presence of related notions in the Talmud strengthens the case for a Sasanian origin of the houris. Other elements of Iranian myth show up in the Talmud, reflecting further Babylonian Jewish receptiveness to Zoroastrian ideas. This is most striking in a remarkable talmudic passage (b. B. Bat. 73–​74) recording the exploits of one Rabbah bar bar Hannah alongside a fantastic menagerie that owes something to the ancient Iranian bestiary presently preserved in the Bundahišn, a Middle Persian cosmology (Kiperwasser and Shapira 2014). On the topic of Iranian teachings about sentient life there are also talmudic echoes of Zoroastrianism’s economy of good and evil creatures, including the extermination of vermin in a report about Babylonian rabbis exterminating lice (b. Shab. 12a) and in a story about Rava gifting a “lice exterminating comb” to the Sasanian queen mother (b. Nid. 20b). Of course, rabbis did not embrace Zoroastrian dualism in which the good spirit, Ohrmazd and his divine entourage cosmically oppose the foul spirit, Ahriman and his demonic minions. Indeed, a talmudic anecdote presents the late amora Amemar deftly defeating a magus in debate about the anatomical implications of this dualistic scheme (b. San. 39a). This topic of interreligious debate is also attested in Middle Persian literature and may have affected the way Babylonian Jews approached the old problem of “two powers in heaven” (Secunda 2014: 129–​37). Arguably, it was also important in the Talmud’s understanding of the rabbinic evening service, which emphatically, perhaps polemically, attributes both light and darkness to God (b. Ber. 11a; Elman and Secunda 2015: 428). At the same time it has been argued that aspects of Zoroastrian dualism, particularly as they relate to the inability of God to undo evil dictates of astrology and fate, were absorbed by some Babylonian rabbis. This should not surprise us, given the prominence of Zoroastrian thinking on the subject in late antiquity (Elman 2018). Apart from matters of theology, scholars have identified elements of Babylonian halakhah which, they argue, developed under the influence of Zoroastrianism. In cases where halakhot seem entirely out of place in Jewish tradition while corresponding to Zoroastrian ritual, it has been argued that Jews essentially adopted parts of Zoroastrian practice. It has therefore been proposed that a talmudic prohibition against talking during mealtime (b. Tan. 5b; see Shaked 2010) and a requirement to sit during urination (b. Ber. 40b) derive from Zoroastrian ritual norms, notwithstanding the Talmud’s own attempts at justifying these somewhat unusual rules. That said, as is to be expected in a milieu in which boundaries are erected against interreligious influence, we should not expect to find many unaltered cases of Zoroastrian influence on Jewish practice. Instead, much of the research on Zoroastrian influence on Jewish ritual considers a variety of complex interreligious phenomena running from partial adaptation, shifts of emphasis, reactionary developments, and other such interreligious mutations. Geoffrey Herman has suggested that the celebration of the holiday of Hanukkah, which along with other Hasmonean festivals had been fading from Jewish practice in late antiquity, received a new lease on life among Jews in Sasanian Babylonia (Herman 2013). Again, the argument is not that Babylonian Jews embraced the Zoroastrian cult of fire but rather that, in a Zoroastrian context, Jews gained a renewed appreciation for the “holiness” of the Hanukkah lamp and came to the festivals’ ritual kindling of the fire with renewed interest and commitment (b. Shab. 21a-​23a). Similarly, Yishai Kiel has suggested that an unusual talmudic passage requiring Jewish men to always don a four-​cornered garment adorned with biblically mandated ritual tassels known as tzitzit (b. Men. 40a) emerged in an environment in which neighboring Zoroastrians were enjoined to constantly wear the kustīg –​a tasseled 444

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ritual belt (Kiel 2012). In my own research on the Jewish rules of menstrual impurity (Secunda 2020), I have found evidence of Zoroastrian influence that led to a set of unusual outcomes. I argued, for instance, that Zoroastrian interest in the management of menstrual impurity exerted pressure on the rabbis to develop a highly complex “blood science”, which ended up partially collapsing on itself. Likewise, I uncovered evidence that Babylonian rabbis seriously considered having husbands and wives sleep apart during menstrual impurity –​just as Zoroastrians did –​only to later deem such a view beyond the pale precisely because of its perceived “otherness”. One of the most exciting areas of research in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity concerns the contextualization of Jews in the Sasanian Empire alongside other religious groups, including the Zoroastrian community. We are far from reaching a definitive view of the relationship between Jews and Zoroastrians during this formative period of Jewish history and of the impact that Zoroastrianism had on Judaism. And yet already at this point in the research an image has begun to emerge of a late antique religious community whose ancient Semitic traditions were being subtly recast through contact with their new-​old Iranian neighbors in the dynamic space of the Sasanian Empire.

Bibliography Bokser, B. (1975). “Talmud Names of the Iranian Festivals,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 95: 261–​2. Brody, R. (1990). “Judaism in the Sasanian Empire: A Case Study in Religious Coexistence,” in A. Netzer and S. Shaked (eds.), Irano-​Judaica II. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 52–​61. Brody, R. (2016). “Irano-​Talmudica: The New Parallelomania?” Jewish Quarterly Review 106: 209–​32. Elman, Y. (2018). “Dualistic Elements in Babylonian Aggadah,” in G. Herman and J.L. Rubenstein (eds.), Aggadah of the Bavli and its Cultural World. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 273–​311. Elman, Y. and Secunda, S. (2015). “Judaism,” in M. Stausberg and Y. Vevaina (eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell, 423–​35. Gross, S. (2017). Empire and Neighbors: Babylonian Jewish Identity in its Local and Imperial Context. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, New Haven, CT: Yale University. Gross, S. (2018). “Rethinking Babylonian Rabbinic Acculturation in the Sasanian Empire,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 19: 280–​310. Gross, S. (2020). “The Sources of the History of ʿAbdā damšiḥā: The Creation of a Persian Martyr Act,” in A. Butts and R. Young (eds.), Syriac Christian Culture: Beginnings to Renaissance. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 149–​73. Gross, S. and Manekin-​Bamberger, A. (2022). “Babylonian Jewish Society: The Evidence of the Incantation Bowls,” Jewish Quarterly Review 112: 1–​30. Gyselen, R. (1978). Catalogue des sceaux, camées et bulles Sassanides. I. Collection Générale. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale. Gyselen, R. (2006). Sasanian Seals and Sealings in the A. Saeedi Collection. Leuven: Peeters. Hayes, C. (1997). Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Herman, G. (2010). “ ‘Bury My Coffin Deep!’: Zoroastrian Exhumation in Jewish and Christian Sources,” in J. Roth and M. Schmeltzer (eds.), Tiferet LeYisrael: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 31–​59. Herman, G. (2013). “Religious Transformation between East and West: Hanukkah in the Babylonian Talmud and Zoroastrianism,” in P. Wick and V. Rabens (eds.), Religions and Trade: Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-​Cultural Exchange between East and West. Leiden: Brill, 261–​82. Herman, G. (2019). “Jewish Identity in Babylonia in the Period of the Incantation Bowls,” in D. Katz, N. Hacham, G. Herman, and L. Sagiv (eds.), A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts. Munich: de Gruyter, 131–​52. Hintze, A. (2019), “Defeating Death: Eschatology in Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity,” in J. Rubanovich and G. Herman (eds.), Irano-​Judaica VII. Jerusalem: Ben-​Zvi Institute, 23–​72.

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Shai Secunda Ilan, T. (2011). Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, part IV: The Eastern Diaspora 330 BCE-​650 CE. Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck. Kiel, Y. (2012). “Redesigning ‘Tzitzit’ in the Babylonian Talmud in Light of Literary Depictions of the Zoroastrian Kustīg’,” in S. Secunda and S. Fine (eds.), Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 185–​202. Kiperwasser, R. and Shapira, D. (2014). “Irano-​Talmudica II: Leviathan, Behemoth and the ‘Domestication’ of Iranian Mythological Creatures in Eschatological Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud,” in S. Secunda and S. Fine (eds.), Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 203–​36. Kohut, A. (1892). “Les fêtes persanes et babyloniennes mentionnées dans les Talmuds de Babylone et de Jérusalem,” Revue des Etudes Juives 24: 256–​71. MacKenzie, D.N. (1989). “Kerdir’s Inscription,” in G. Herrmann (ed.), The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-​i Rustam: Naqsh-​i Rustam 6, The Triumph of Shapur I. Berlin: D. Reimer, 35–​72. Macuch, M. (2002). “The Talmudic Expression ‘Servant of the Fire’ in the Light of Pahlavi Legal Sources,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 26: 109–​29. Macuch, M. (2011). “Judicial and Legal Systems III, Sasanian Legal System,” in E. Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 15. New York: Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation, 181–​96. Macuch, M. (2014). “Jewish Jurisdiction within the Framework of the Sasanian Legal System,” in U. Gabbay and S. Secunda (eds.), Encounters by the Rivers of Babylonia. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 109–​29. Mokhtarian, J. (2015). Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Neusner, J. (1975). “How Much Iranian in Jewish Babylonia?” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95: 184–​90. Payne, R. (2015). A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Paz, Y. (2018). “ ‘Meishan Is Dead’: On the Historical Contexts of the Bavli’s Representations of the Jews in Southern Babylonia,” in G. Herman and J.L. Rubenstein (eds.), The Aggada of the Bavli and its Cultural World. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 47–​99. Rosenthal, E.S. (1982). “For the Talmudic Dictionary–​Talmudica Iranica” (Hebrew), in S. Shaked (ed.), Irano-​Judaica. Jerusalem: Jizhaq Ben Zvi Institute, 38–​134. Secunda, S. (2014). The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli its Sasanian Context. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Secunda, S. (2016). “‘This, but Also That’: Historical, Methodological, and Theoretical Reflections on Irano-​ Talmudica,” Jewish Quarterly Review 106: 233–​41. Secunda, S. (2018). “‘Lost Property to the King!’: The Talmudic Laws of Lost Property in the Shadow of Sasanian Bureaucracy,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 28: 45–​55. Secunda, S. (2020). The Talmud’s Red Fence: Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian Context. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Shaked, S. (1995a). “A Persian House of Study, A King’s Secretary: Irano-​Aramaic Notes,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 48: 171–​86. Shaked, S. (1995b) “Jewish Sasanian Sigillography,” in R. Gyselen (ed.), Au Carrefour des Religions: Melanges offerts a Philippe Gignoux. Bures–​sur-​Yvette: Groupe pour l’etude de la civilisation du Moyen-​ Orient, 239–​56. Shaked, S. (1999). “Jesus in the Magic Bowls: Apropos Dan Levene’s ‘… and by the Name of Jesus …’,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 6: 309–​19. Shaked, S. (2002). “Jews, Christians and Pagans in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls of the Sasanian Period,” in A. Destro and M. Pesce (eds.), Religions and Cultures. First International Conference of Mediterraneum. Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University Press, 61–​89. Shaked, S. (2010). “ ‘No Talking during a Meal’: Zoroastrian Themes in the Babylonian Talmud,” in C. Bakhos and M.R. Shayegan (eds.), The Talmud in Its Iranian Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 161–​77. Shaked, S. (2015). “Rabbis in Incantation Bowls,” in M. Geller (ed.), The Archaeology and Material Culture of the Babylonian Talmud. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 97–​120. Zadok, R. (2014). “Judeans in Babylonia–​Updating the Dossier,” in U. Gabbay and S. Secunda (eds.), Encounters by the Rivers of Babylonia. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 109–​29.

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29 REPRESENTATIONS OF PERSIA IN THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD Jason Sion Mokhtarian

1.  The State of Research on Babylonian Jewry The rabbis who created the Babylonian Talmud resided in cities along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the cultural and political heartland of the Persian-​Sasanian Empire (224–​651 C.E .). Although Jewish communities existed in Babylonia as early as the destruction of the First Temple in 587/​6 B.C.E ., when Nebuchadnezzar forced the Israelites into exile, there were only scattered remains from these communities prior to the talmudic era. Indeed, the rise of the first generation of Babylonian rabbis, such as Rav and Shmuel, marks a significant rupture in Babylonian Jewish history, at least according to the evidentiary record –​that is to say, there is a pronounced contrast in data between, on the one hand, the limited amount of materials emanating from Babylonian Jewry in the Second Temple period (539 B. C. E. –​70 C. E .) in contrast to the voluminous corpus of laws and narratives produced by rabbis in late antique Babylonia from the third century C.E . onwards. These gaps in our sources make writing a continuous history of the Jews in Babylonia almost impossible, especially when compared to the plethora of social, political, archaeological, and cultural histories that scholars have published about the Jews in the land of Israel. Recently, there have been positive trends in research on pre-​Sasanian Babylonian Jewry. For instance, scholars have argued convincingly that Babylonia was the place of provenance of some biblical works, including the book of the prophet Ezekiel, a Judaean exile who was acculturated to his Babylonian environment (Vanderhooft 2014). Still, the complex processes of transmission behind traces of Babylonian or Persian influence in early Jewish texts –​ such as Enoch’s astral sciences or Tobit’s setting in Nineveh and Media (Popović 2014; Goodblatt 2012: 264) –​remain murky and debated, in part because of the exchange of knowledge and literary motifs between the Babylonian and Greek worlds. Pending further research, works like Ezekiel and Enoch have the potential to yield more information about Jewish culture and identity in Babylonia in the Second Temple era. In addition, Assyriologists have drawn attention to cuneiform archival documents that reference Judaeans in Babylonia in the Neo-​Babylonian and Achaemenid periods (Wunsch 2013; Pearce 2016; Alstola 2017). For example, Laurie Pearce has examined administrative texts from Judah town, a “settlement in southern Babylonia … populated largely by Judaeans nearly a century after the first exilic wave (597 B. C. E. )” (Pearce 2016: 230). Other cuneiform archives include marriage DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-35

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contracts and loans whereby scholars can trace evidence of mercantilism among exiled Judaean families that were assimilated to the native culture (Bloch 2014; Pearce 2016). Yet, as fruitful as these sources may be, they are not without limitations. The studies tend to rely upon interpretations of onomastic data –​ that is to say, the identification of Judaean names in the archives –​ which is an imprecise science (see Zadok 1979; Bickerman 1984: 344 on names in the Murashu archives). Moreover, the cuneiform sources provide no testimony about the exiled Judaeans’ religious practices (Pearce 2016: 231), nor are they continuous with the early amoraic rabbis who come on the scene in the third century C. E . Exacerbating these problems, the record of Babylonian Jewry in the Parthian period between 247 B . C . E . and 224 C . E . is even less complete than it is under the Achaemenids (Goodblatt 2012). Besides Josephus and some tannaitic traditions (from 70 to 200 C . E .), there are few sources from or even about the Jews in Parthian Babylonia. It is worth noting, however, that promising new research on the “Babylonian Mishnah” and Babylonian tannaim, attested in figures such as R. Yehuda b. Bathyra and in Babylonian baraitot (Cohen 2017: 1–​8), has the potential to unlock insights into the obscure origins of the rabbinic movement in Babylonia in the late Parthian era. Although these and other sources are pieces of a larger incomplete puzzle, scholars of ancient Babylonian Jewry in search of indigenous literary and material production must rely almost exclusively upon the Babylonian Talmud. The only other major corpus produced by the Jews of Sasanian Mesopotamia is the incantation bowls, a collection of relics that are now receiving more critical attention, including with respect to their overlap with rabbinic culture (see eg Shaked 2015). Fortunately, the Bavli is an extensive resource of information regarding how the Jews of late antiquity thought about and experienced their Persian imperial and local Babylonian environments. An edited compilation of over 2,700 pages produced over the course of four centuries (ca. 200–​600 C .E .), the Bavli is a trove of traditions detailing the laws, beliefs, and practices of the rabbis who lived in the multicultural center of Sasanian Persia. In late antiquity, the two rabbinic communities –​one in Israel, one in Babylonia –​competed with one another for legal superiority. There were tensions on both sides toward the other (Oppenheimer 2010). These tensions at times get expressed in the context of rabbis’ positive or negative attitudes toward the Roman and Persian governments. In my view, these attitudes are not always reflections of these empires’ friendly or hostile policies or treatment of Jews in their realm, but rather often represent the internal contest for posterity of law and culture between the two rabbinic centers of learning. The Babylonian sages took pride in their exilic homeland, seeing themselves as part of a continuous tradition in the region going back to the Bible. (Whether or not the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia were in reality actual descendants of the exiled Israelites from centuries earlier is unknown, but presumably some were so.) However, one problem that they faced in making this claim was that in biblical thought Babylonia was considered exilic, whereas Israel, the Promised Land, was the true homeland where God’s Temple stood. The Babylonians’ inversion of this primacy of Israel and Jerusalem is illustrated in numerous texts, such as a well-​known exegesis of Genesis 10, sometimes called “The Table of Nations”, found in b. Yoma 9b-​10a, where the Bavli identifies biblical place-​names with Sasanian locales, including the imperial capital city of Ctesiphon (Mokhtarian 2015: 68–​9). In this passage, the rabbis superimpose their own map onto the Bible’s. For example, in b. Yoma 10a they interpret the city “Resen” –​which appears in Genesis 10:12’s reference to cities that Nimrod built (“and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, that is the great city”) –​as the Sasanian capital city Ctesiphon (“Resen is Ctesiphon”). For Sasanian Jews, it was in Babylonia, not in the Holy Land, that God intended for the Jewish people to live. Thus, the Babylonian sage Abaye says that God’s Divine 448

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Presence is not in Israel, but rather in the synagogues of Huza and Shef-​Weyathib, two towns in Babylonia (b. Meg. 29a). Historically, this argument was supported by the Romans’ destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C. E . Time and again, Babylonian rabbis promote and boast about their superiority over Palestinian rabbis in creative ways –​such as through exegeses of biblical texts about Zion, positive attitudes toward Achaemenid figures from the Bible such as Ezra, and genealogical claims of purity in the “area of pure lineage” (Oppenheimer 2005). The Babylonian authors and editors even cleverly ascribe pro-​Babylonian sentiments to important Palestinian rabbis in an attempt to solidify their own reputation (Kalmin 1999: 17). These are just some examples of Babylonian rabbis’ self-​serving statements that subvert the Bible’s focus on the land of Israel as the primary homeland of the Jewish people, instead replacing it with exilic Babylonia. Indeed, by the end of late antiquity, the region of Babylonia –​once the land of Ezekiel’s trauma and exile –​had become the epicenter of rabbinic halakhah and of the Geonic movement (on the latter, see Brody 1998). Given the canonical status of the Bavli up until today, it is fair to say that Babylonian rabbis came out victorious in the contest for halakhic supremacy over their Palestinian brethren who resided in the land of Israel (Gafni 2009 and 2015). Although the transition of authority from Israel to Babylonia was gradual, it is noteworthy that some key first-​generation amoraic rabbis partook in the pro-​Babylonian rhetoric. Interestingly, in what appears to be a historical accident, the rise of the rabbinic movement in Babylonia dates to the same period that the Sasanian Empire comes to power (early third century C.E .). These parallel developments invite the question of whether the emergence of a proud and self-​defined rabbinic community in Babylonia is linked to the contemporaneous geopolitical event of the establishment of the Sasanian Empire and the defeat of the Parthians. In other words, what role, if any, did the rise of the Sasanians have in the rise of the rabbis in Babylonia, as well as in their pro-​Babylonian rhetoric vis-​à-​vis their Palestinian counterparts? On the one hand, the advent of the rabbinic movement in Babylonia was clearly catalyzed by internal developments, especially the dissemination of the Mishnah and Jewish migrations from Israel to Babylonia (and vice versa) from after the Bar Kokhba revolts through the rabbinic period (Hezser 2011: 311–​64 and 2015; Kiperwasser 2021). Prior to the completion of the Mishnah, Jews who migrated from Palestine to Babylonia created study academies, a situation that planted the seeds for the longstanding tensions between the two rabbinic centers (Oppenheimer 2010: 298). These tensions were exacerbated by disagreements over other contentious issues –​ including calendars, genealogy, and ordination –​which drove a wedge between the two communities (Oppenheimer 2010: 298–​300), and presumably helped to consolidate a pro-​Babylonian ideology. In addition to these internal factors, the change in empires must have had an impact on the formation of the rabbinic movement, even if indirectly. Unfortunately, there are only snippets of data in the Jewish or Persian corpora that discuss this issue explicitly, though comparative work can illuminate the ways in which each side’s activities (ie rabbis versus Sasanians) might have affected the other. For example, while rabbis played no role in the rise to power of Sasanian rulers, over the course of late antiquity they thrived on a local level in part as a result of early Sasanian policies that encouraged localized forms of judicial autonomy among non-​Zoroastrian elites, thereby allowing rabbis to adjudicate low-​level cases between Jews (Mokhtarian 2015: 104–​11). Although Iranists debate the extent to which the Sasanians broke with Parthian policies, there are at least two talmudic anecdotes that demonstrate that the rabbis viewed the change in regimes as a significant event. For example, in b. Abod. Zar. 10b-​11a Rav acknowledges the impact. When the last Parthian king Artaban died, Rav allegedly said: “The bond is snapped!”. Rav and Artaban apparently maintained a cordial relationship, and the end of Artaban’s reign marked a decline in the 449

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political situation of the Jews in Babylonia. By most accounts, the Parthian Empire’s decentralized form of governance probably did permit the Jews to live in relative freedom. By contrast, the Sasanians centralized their rule and established authority over weightier cases, such as those involving the death penalty. Babylonian rabbis thus understood that their fate in Babylonia was tied to the policies of the Sasanians who held immense power, either to tax or to persecute them, and to literally change the topography of their cities by moving bridges (b. Ber. 59b). In light of this historical background, the rest of this essay examines the relationship between rabbinic identity in Babylonia vis-​à-​vis their attitude toward and portrayals of the Persians who ruled over them.

2.  Portrayals of Persians in the Babylonian Talmud The study of “rabbis and others” is a common approach that scholars use to examine rabbinic self-​ definition. In Palestine and Babylonia, rabbis constituted small movements within large complex societies, a fact that compelled them to create laws and tell stories about their interactions with other communities, such as Christians, pagans, Zoroastrians, and other religious and ethnic groups. For historians, rabbinic portrayals of internal and external others are key pieces of data that illustrate how they viewed themselves in relation to their gentile environments (Hayes 2007). There is no shortage of primary texts and scholarly studies on rabbis and their interlocutors, ranging from internal “others” such as Jewish-​Christian heretics (minim) and commoners (am haaretz), to external ones such as Arabs and Persians (see Bar-​Asher Siegal 2019; Stern 1994: 114–​20; Bakhos 2006; Mokhtarian 2015). Still, the question of whether these texts reflect sociohistorical realities on the ground, hypothetical situations, or imaginary tales is much debated. The best answers are usually based on close textual analysis. The Talmud contains dozens of texts that depict Persians as “others” in both a positive and a negative light. These texts are scattered throughout different tractates and appear in all sorts of legal and narrative contexts. Scholars can categorize these texts in different ways –​for example, by theme (eg persecution, law, or everyday life), or by whom they reference (eg ordinary Persians, kings, and priests). Finding such threads between all these sources is not always obvious, since the texts vary in content, genre, purpose, origin, and level of historicity. Some texts about Persians elucidate the intersections of imperial and rabbinic laws, while others narrate fictitious encounters with Sasanian kings, where topics like burial, the Messiah, and money are discussed. Elsewhere, the Talmud describes Persian cultural norms, such as horse-​riding (b. Sanh. 98a), festivals (b. Abod. Zar. 11b), sexual habits (b. Ketub. 48a: “Persians have sex in their clothes”), and rituals (b. Ber. 46b: “Persians do not talk during a meal”). Some of these texts are rabbinic ethnography done for the sake of legal reasoning. In them one can see the rabbis’ attitudes toward their Persian neighbors and rulers. Although the Talmud does not explicitly reference the official Sasanian religion of Zoroastrianism all that frequently, it does have texts about the high deity Ohrmazd (b. Sanh. 39a) and fire-​worshippers (see below). In addition to portrayals of Persians, many of the Bavli’s engagement with Zoroastrianism might get latently articulated between the lines, so to speak, including passages about rituals and laws related to impurities (Elman 2007: 180–​3; Secunda 2020). According to this model that emphasizes the comparison of talmudic and Middle Persian (Pahlavi) Zoroastrian texts, the Bavli’s own laws are often intercultural responses to analogous laws found in Persian society. Iranian loanwords in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic –​of which there are a few hundred on all sorts of everyday and technical subjects, such as food, clothing, and professions (see the list in Kwasman 2015) –​add data to the mix. These loanwords demonstrate the linguistic penetration of Iranian languages, which are not Semitic, into Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. At times the Bavli uses 450

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these words knowing that they are of Iranian origin (it has Persians, eg a king, say them). At other times they appear to have been fully assimilated into Jewish discourse, as in the case of Iranian loanwords for mundane objects like “bottle”, “chair”, and “rope”, or for foods like “meat-​dish” and “milk-​dish”. The inclusion of professional titles associated with Sasanian professionals, such as “high Persian dignitary”, “tax collector”, and “prefect”, also highlights the rabbis’ high level of familiarity with the imperial culture. In the past, scholars have tended to analyze the Babylonian Talmud’s texts about Persians as a way to find answers to the perennial questions regarding rabbinic knowledge of and acculturation to Iranian civilization. How much did the rabbis know of Persian culture, and how acculturated to it were they? Scholars’ answers to these questions swing from one extreme to the other, from Jacob Neusner’s unwarranted skepticism (Neusner 1975) to Yaakov Elman’s ambitious maximalism (Elman 2007). Over the past two decades, the basic premise that has existed among Sasanian historians for much longer, namely, that late antique Mesopotamia was a cradle of multicultural and interreligious interactions between religious and ethnic groups, has penetrated into Jewish Studies, leading Talmudists to recalibrate their own longstanding assumptions about rabbinic insularity (see Elman 2007; Secunda 2014; Mokhtarian 2015). At this point, the question is not whether Babylonian rabbis were affected by their Sasanian surroundings but rather how and how much they were affected and what the implications were. Methodologically, more research is required in order to fully flesh out the best ways to excavate these sorts of intercultural residues. One strategy that can help to circumvent the methodological conundrum surrounding comparative work is to focus on the Talmud’s explicit representation of Persians as a portal into these larger questions. The Talmud’s portrayals of Persians are often inward-​looking commentaries on rabbinic self-​ identity. In other words, talmudic texts about Persians are not always concerned with recording what rabbis know about Persians, but rather treat how the rabbis view themselves in relation to Persians and Persia. Despite this inwardness, one cannot deny that these sources illuminate the extent to which the rabbis had accurate knowledge of the culture of their Persian neighbors and Sasanian rulers. The rabbis invoke the Persians as “others” in an “us-​them” dialectic, serving as points of contrast or similarity, as a way to explore their group identity as Jews in relation to a social environment populated with Zoroastrians, Christians, Manichaeans, Gnostics, and other religious groups. More specifically, the Talmud’s texts about Persians grapple with the presence of the Sasanian imperial class who, by dint of their political power, shaped and impinged upon the rabbis’ identity. The rabbis responded to these facts of life in the best way they knew how: through laws and stories that celebrate their status in Persia and express anxieties about persecution, or by propping themselves up as more knowledgeable and righteous than the Persians.

3.  The Theme of Sasanian Persecution One theme that appears in the Talmud’s portrayals of Persians is persecution as a result of Jewish behavior that violates Persian or Zoroastrian laws (see Brody 1990; Kalmin 2006: 121–​47, with bibliography). The Talmud contains numerous texts describing the situation. For example, in a well-​known passage in b. Yebam. 63b, the Talmud says that the Persian priests decreed abusive measures against Jews, including the disinterring of corpses due to Zoroastrian laws against such practice, which they considered to cause an impurity of the earth. In b. Mo’ed Qaṭ. 25b-​26a, King Shapur is said to have murdered 12,000 Jews in Caesaera Mazaca. Historians rightly call into question the historicity of these sources. The tradition about Shapur’s murder of Jews gets contradicted later in the same text when the king states, “May evil befall me if I have ever killed Jews”. This contradiction illustrates the complexity of redaction behind these texts, which Richard 451

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Kalmin has deconstructed using the most up-​to-​date methods in the field (Kalmin 2006: 121–​47). Among one of his many brilliant insights, Kalmin argues that although it seems as if these two contradictory traditions may have originated from different sources, they are in fact “part of a seamless narrative, with Shapur’s claim not to have killed Jews an attempt on the king’s part (imagined by the rabbinic authors of the story) to improve his standing in the eyes of Shmuel” (Kalmin 2006: 143). This text is, then, another example of how the rabbis portray Persians for the purposes of rhetorical self-​aggrandizement. In a talmudic text that contains a rare reference to a Zoroastrian fire temple and fire-​worshipper, Rava, a fourth-​generation Babylonian Amora, declares that a rabbinic disciple is permitted to lie to the Sasanian authorities by saying that he is a Zoroastrian in order to avoid paying the poll tax (b. Ned. 62b; Goodblatt 1979: 280–​7). It is not surprising that this tradition comes from Rava, a Persianized rabbi (Elman 2007). As the Iranist Maria Macuch has shown in a detailed study, the talmudic term “servant of the fire”, used in reference to a Zoroastrian fire-​worshipper, is a “direct translation” of a term with equivalents in Sasanian law recorded in the seventh-​century Middle Persian work, the Book of a Thousand Judgments (Mādayān ī Hazār Dādestān) (Macuch 2002: 109–​10). Although details about Sasanian taxes in the fourth or fifth century C.E. are slim and contradictory, there is little doubt that Jews were forced to pay substantial capitation taxes twice a year at the threat of enslavement (Macuch 2002: 111; b. Yoma 77a). The text below demonstrates that the Talmud’s portrayals of Zoroastrian fire-​worshippers are used to mitigate the rabbis’ anxieties over the Persian Empire’s religion and taxation system. For Rava, one solution to the threat of persecution is to permit disciples to deceive the authorities about their Jewish identity to protect those who cannot pay the tax from enslavement. The text from b. Ned. 62b reads as follows: “Rava said: It is permitted for a rabbinic disciple to say: ‘I will not pay the poll tax’, as it is written: ‘It is not permissible to impose tribute, poll tax, or land tax on [any priest, Levite, singer, gatekeeper, temple servant, or other servant of this House of God’, [Ezra 7:24]. And Rav Yehudah said: ‘Tribute’ is the king’s portion, ‘poll tax’ is the capitation tax, and ‘land tax’ is the produce tax. Rava said: It is permitted for a rabbinic disciple to say, ‘I am a servant of the fire and do not pay the poll tax’. What is the reason? He says it to remove danger [lit. ‘to chase away a lion’] from himself.” It is not by accident that Rava’s first statement, that disciples can avoid the poll tax, is supported by a biblical prooftext from Ezra 7:24, which is an excerpt from the Persian-​Achaemenid king Artaxerxes’ letter to Ezra declaring tax exemptions for the Jews after their return from Babylonian exile. The Talmud cleverly invokes the economic pass that the Achaemenids, the Sasanians’ Persian forebears, instituted for post-​exilic Jews, as a way to argue that rabbinic scholars should be exempt from such payments like temple priests. In other words, for Rava there was indeed continuity between the biblical past and the Sasanian present. Rava thus argues that a disciple should not pay the poll tax because the Bible’s past record of Persian-​Jewish interaction says so. After Rav Yehudah’s exegesis of three tax terms in Ezra 7:24, Rava repeats his opinion, adding that the disciple may in fact tell the authorities, “I am a servant of the fire”, ie a Zoroastrian fire-​ worshipper, in order to evade taxes. The reason that Rava permits this deception, according to the editors, is to evade a dangerous situation. In sum, Rava’s traditions in b. Ned. 62b portray the Sasanian Empire as an economic threat to the livelihood and safety of rabbinic disciples, one that 452

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necessitates the radical act of deceptively renouncing one’s Jewish identity (and adopting that of a Zoroastrian) to be safe from the authorities. Immediately after the above excerpt, the Talmud tells a story about Rav Ashi selling his forest to a Zoroastrian fire temple. Bavli Nedarim 62b reads: “Rav Ashi had a forest. He sold it to a temple of a [Persian] fire cult. Ravina said to Rav Ashi: Is there not [the law], ‘[You shall not] … place a stumbling block before the blind’ [Lev. 19:14]? He said: Most of the wood is used for heating [rather than for worship]”. Here, Ravina challenges Rav Ashi’s decision based on the prohibition in Leviticus against doing an act that causes others to transgress. Rav Ashi, however, justifies the sale by stating that “most of the wood” is used to heat the temple and not for idolatrous fire-​worship. In this short story, as well as Rava’s traditions above, the Babylonian amoraim make lenient legal judgments to appease Zoroastrians. The topic of persecution is found in other talmudic sources about Sasanian kings and Zoroastrian priests (see b. Mo’ed. Qaṭ. 26a; b. Yebam 63b). For instance, in a story in b. B. Bat. 10b-​11a about Ifra Hormiz, Shapur II’s fictional mother (see Goodblatt 1976; Ilan 2011: 224), the Talmud describes Rava as willing to accept charity from the king’s mother in order to maintain peaceful relations with the government. As Alyssa M. Gray explains, the Talmud depicts Rava’s relationship with Ifra Hormiz as generally positive, but the same sage’s interactions with the king Shapur II as uneasy (Gray 2005: 65–​6). Here is the passage from b. B. Bat. 10b–​11a, where the mother of King Shapur II sends Rabbi Ammi and Rava some money as charity to be given to the poor: “Ifra Hormiz, the mother of King Shapur, sent four hundred denars to Rabbi Ammi [for charity], but he did not accept them. She sent them to Rava, and he accepted them for the sake of peace with the government. Rabbi Ammi heard [what Rava did] and got angry. He said, Does [Rava] not accept [the verse], ‘When the crown is withered, they break; women come and make fires with them’ (Isa. 27:11)? But Rava [said it was] for the sake of peace with the government. And Rabbi Ammi should have also [said that it was necessary] for the sake of peace with the government, but [he was angry] because [Rava] should have distributed the money to poor idolaters. But Rava did give it to poor idolaters, and Rabbi Ammi was angry because they did not clearly specify [what they had done] before him”. This passage records a dispute between two rabbis over accepting charity from Ifra Hormiz, the Sasanian king’s mother. At first, Rabbi Ammi rejects the idea, while Rava accepts it on the basis of maintaining peace with the regime. To resolve this debate, the Talmud explains that Rabbi Ammi was not objecting to Rava’s acceptance of the charity because he was anxious about the possibility of persecution, but rather because he thought that Rava had not distributed the charity to poor gentiles, which in reality he had. In the Talmud, Ifra Hormiz is typically portrayed as a giver of gifts to the Jews, as seen above and in a parallel story in b. B. Bat. 8a–​b, where she sends “a chest of gold coins to Rav Yosef for carrying out some really important religious precept”, such as “the redemption of captives” (cf. also b. Zebaḥ. 116b where she sends Rav an offering to make a sacrifice to honor heaven). In other texts, Ifra Hormiz saves Rava from Shapur’s punishment and praises how “their God grants them whatever they ask”, such as rain when they pray for it, “how wise the Jews are”, and how they “live in the inner chamber of one’s heart” (b. Ta‘an. 24a; b. Nid. 20b). In analyzing texts about Ifra Hormiz, it is important to remember the likely apocryphal nature of the character. While this same name appears in the Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls, 453

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eg “Khusrow son of Ifra Hormizd”, it is difficult to connect these attestations with those in the Bavli. In sum, these texts about the fictional royal matriarch contradict narratives of persecution by suggesting that if a rabbi fosters good relations with the king’s mother, then all will be well. The Babylonian Talmud also contains a number of interesting passages that portray rabbis interacting with the Sasanian monarchs Shapur I (ca. 239/​40–​270/​72 C.E.) and Shapur II (309–​79 C.E.) (for a list of sources, see Mokhtarian 2015). In many of these sources, the Talmud portrays the Sasanian kings as being interested in Jewish law or even practicing it, as in the following passage from b. Abod. Zar. 76b: ‘And the knife [from a gentile]—​one polishes it, and it becomes purified’ [m. Abod. Zar. 5:12]. Rav Huna said: One sticks it in the ground ten times. Rava said: In hard ground. Rav Kahana said: But [only for] a knife which is not serrated. Similarly, it was also taught: A knife in good condition that is not serrated–​one sticks it in the ground ten times. Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua said: [Only] to eat cold foods with it, as in the case when Rav Yehudah and Bati bar Tovi were sitting in front of King Shapur [and] a citron was brought before them. [King Shapur] cut off [a slice] and ate it. He cut off [another slice] and gave it to Bati bar Tovi. [King Shapur then] stuck the knife into the ground ten times, cut off [a slice] and gave it to Rav Yehudah. Bati bar Tovi said to [King Shapur]: And is that man [i.e., Bati bar Tovi] not a Jew? [King Shapur] said [to him]: Regarding this master, I am certain of his [nature], but regarding this master, I am uncertain of his [nature]. Others say thus–​[King Shapur] said to [Bati bar Tovi]: Remember what you did last night!” In this passage, King Shapur I is sharing a citron with Rav Yehudah and Bati bar Tovi, who is a former slave. Following the interpretation of the Mishnah regarding how to purify a gentile knife before using it, the Sasanian monarch sticks the knife he is using in the ground ten times before cutting off a slice for Rav Yehudah. The king, however, does not prepare the knife in the same way before slicing the citron for Bati bar Tovi, who protests the lack of respect. The king replies by claiming that he was uncertain whether Bati bar Tovi was a Jew. In the end, what is interesting for our purposes is the way in which Shapur I practices the Jewish law out of respect for Rav Yehudah while also deciding “who is a Jew” in the case of Bati bar Tovi. In this fictional encounter, the Talmud acknowledges that the Sasanian king participates in defining Jewish identity.

4. Persia versus Rome Another common theme in the talmudic texts about Persia is the comparison of the Roman and Persian Empires. These texts raise a number of questions about how Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis understood themselves within their respective imperial environments. Did Babylonian rabbis prefer the Romans to the Sasanians because the latter persecuted them in Babylonia? Or did their pro-​Babylonian pride make them prefer their current political situation over that of Jews living under the Romans, whose legacy of destroying the Second Temple in 70 C.E . was deeply ingrained in the rabbinic historical imagination? To answer these questions, scholars frequently cite two texts in which Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis discuss Rome and Persia (b. Yoma 9b-​10a and b. Abod. Zar. 2b; see Feldman 2000; Kalmin 2006: 122–​9; Naiweld 2016). The relevant text from b. Yoma 9b–​10a begins with an exegesis of the “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10, and then goes on to state that the Persians are descendants of Japheth by connecting biblical place names with their contemporary Sasanian locales. The following translation is based on Kalmin (2006: 122–​3) with some minor changes: 454

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A)

B)

C)

D)

E) F) G) H) I) J) K)

“Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that Rabbi said: In the future the Romans will fall into the hands of the Persians, as it is said: ‘Hear, then, the plan which the Lord has devised against Edom, and what He has purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely the young of the flock will drag them away; surely the pasture shall be aghast because of them’ [Jer 49:20]. Rabbah bar Ulla objected against [Rabbi’s opinion]: What is the basis [for the view] that ‘the young of the flock’ [refers to] Persia, as it is written, ‘The two-​horned ram that you saw [signifies] the kings of Media and Persia’ [Dan 8:20]. Say [rather that it refers to] Greece, as it is written, ‘And the buck, the he-​goat, the king of Greece’ [Dan 8:21]. When Rav Ḥaviva bar Surmaki ascended [to the land of Israel], he reported [this objection] to a certain rabbi. [The latter] said to him: One who does not know how to interpret verses objected against Rabbi? What [is the meaning of] ‘the young of the flock’? The youngest of the brothers, as Rav Yosef taught [in a baraita], ‘Tiras’ [in the verse ‘The descendants of Japeth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras’ [Gen. 10:2)], this is Persia. Rabbah bar bar Ḥanah said that R. Yoḥanan said in the name of R. Yehudah b. R. Ilai: In the future the Romans will fall into the hands of the Persians. It is an a fortiori argument: The First Temple, which was built by descendants of Shem [i.e., Jews] and destroyed by Chaldeans [i.e., Babylonians], the Chaldeans fell into the hands of the Persians; the Second Temple, which was built by Persians and destroyed by Romans, how much the more so will the Romans fall into the hands of the Persians? Rav said: In the future the Persians will fall into the hands of the Romans. Rav Kahana and Rav Asi said to Rav: Builders [will fall] into the hands of destroyers? [Rav] said to them: It is a decree of the King. There are some who [report Rav’s response to them as follows]: He said to them: They also destroy synagogues. It is also taught thus [in a baraita]: In the future the Persians will fall into the hands of the Romans. First, because they destroy synagogues, and also, it is a decree of the King that builders should fall into the hand of destroyers. For Rav Yehudah said that Rav said: The son of David [i.e., the Messiah] will not come until the kingdom of Rome extends throughout the entire world for nine months, as it is said: [‘And you, Oh Bethlehem of Ephrath, least among the clans of Judah, from you one shall come forth to rule Israel for Me…]; Truly He will leave them [helpless] until she who is to bear has borne; then the rest of his brothers shall return… For lo, he shall wax great to the ends of the earth’ [Mic 5:1–​3]”.

This lengthy passage begins with the patriarch Rabbi Yehudah’s prediction that the Romans will fall to the Persians. He bases this opinion on a reading of Jeremiah 49:20, which describes God’s punishments against “Edom”, a rabbinic term for the Roman Empire. This reading also implies that the biblical phrase “the young of the flock” is a reference to Persia, an interpretation that Rabbah ben ‘Ullah questions (section B). The matter is eventually resolved through an allusion to an earlier tradition of Rav Yosef that identifies biblical Tiras with Persia. After this, rabbis come to the same conclusion that Rome will fall to Persia using an a fortiori argument, based upon the historical precedents of which empires built and destroyed the First and Second Temple in Jerusalem: since, in the case of the First Temple, which was built by the sons of Shem, the destroyers (Chaldeans) fell into the hands of the Persians, all the more so will the Roman destroyers of the Second Temple 455

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fall into Persian hands. In short, the destroyers will lose to the builders. Babylonian rabbis are predicating the rise of Persia over Rome here, based on evidence derived from exegesis and from historical precedents. Section E goes into a different direction, with Rav stating that in fact it is Persia that will fall to Rome, despite the logic of the destroyers being overcome by the builders. Rav’s logic is threefold: first, this is what God decreed; second, the Persians were responsible for destroying synagogues, which is why God prefers Rome to Persia; and third, the Messiah will come only when the world has suffered under the evil kingdom for nine months. Rav’s anti-​Persian sentiment indicates that not all Babylonian rabbis supported their own government vis-​à-​vis Rome.

5.  The Exilarch, Persian Culture, and Authority The exilarch (resh galuta), who claimed to be from the Davidic line, was a leader of Babylonian Jews in the Sasanian period. The exilarchs were acculturated to Persian imperial society, which sometimes led to competition for authority with the rabbis, and disagreements over the proper extent of Jewish adoption of Persian customs. As Geoffrey Herman has shown in a comprehensive monograph on this institution and its relationship to the Sasanian Empire, the exilarchs were more assimilated to Persian high culture, as evident in references to Rav Naḥman b. Yaakov’s “golden chair”; the wearing of a special belt; the use of Persian loanwords; and other symbols associated with Persian nobility (Herman 2012: 216–​7). According to Herman, b. Ber. 46b shows how “the Exilarch provocatively asserts Persian ascendancy over the rabbis within the realm of ‘table etiquette’ ”, a Persian practice (Herman 2012: 245–​9, following his translation): “The exilarch said to Rav Sheshet: Even though you rabbis might be wise, the Persians know more than you about table etiquette. When there are two couches, the most important person reclines at the head and the second to him is above him. And when there are three couches, the most important person reclines in the middle, and the second to him is above him, and the third to him is below him. He said: But when he desires to converse with him, is he to straighten himself up to talk with him? He answered: The Persians are different for they converse without articulation. When does the washing of the hands before the meal commence? He answered him: from the most important person. … And is the most important person to wait with soiled hands until everyone has washed? He answered: They do not remove his table until the water has reached him”. In this passage the exilarch demonstrates intimate knowledge of Persian practices of table etiquette, and in particular their hierarchical system of seating arrangements and the washing of the hands. (It is worth mentioning that, although this passage is being read here in a Sasanian context, this text’s description of table etiquette closely resembles similar Graeco-​Roman practices [see Shimoff 1996: 446].) The Bavli here invokes an Iranian loanword, māhwāg, to indicate the ritual of “conversing without articulation” (Herman 2012: 247–​8). The exilarch’s dismissive attitude toward Rav Sheshet indicates how the exilarch used knowledge and appropriation of Persian elite culture against Babylonian sages. The exilarchate flaunted its acculturation to Persian norms as a signal of its political power over rabbis and Jewish communities. In the end, this passage puts on display Sasanian Jews’ diverse attitudes toward Persians.

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6. Conclusions The portrayals of Persians in the Bavli constitute the best data available for research into the impact of the Persian world on Jewish self-​identity in Babylonia. Although the Jews of Babylonia began as exiles in a foreign land, over time they became acculturated to Persian civilization and began to see themselves as the true heirs of biblical law, compared to their coreligionists in Roman Palestine with whom they were in competition for authority. As the texts above show, the rabbis’ pride in Babylonia was not necessarily linked to Sasanian imperial policies toward Jews. Instead, the Babylonian rabbis typically refer to Persian “others” –​kings, Zoroastrian priests, and ordinary Persians –​ to affirm the positive aspects of their own cultural identity in Babylonia in relation to Persian dominance. Although the Talmud portrays the Persians as haughty and harsh toward Jewish practices that violate Zoroastrian sensibilities, such as burying the dead, the purpose of these texts is often to demonstrate Jewish resilience or cleverness against political power. On the other hand, texts that narrate positive interactions between rabbis and Persians support the argument that Babylonia is a righteous homeland for the Jewish people to reside in. Finally, talmudic exegesis of the Bible and past events that occurred in the Achaemenid Empire, such as the building of the Second Temple, also establish continuities between the Jewish past and rabbinic Babylonia. Babylonian rabbis thus saw themselves as members of the Sasanian world but wanted to carve out a special place in it partly to depict themselves and their exilic homeland as superior to their colleagues in Roman-​Byzantine Palestine.

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PART VII

The Expansion of the Jewish Diaspora

30 JEWS IN LATE ANTIQUE ROME Samuele Rocca

1.  The Jewish Settlements in Roman Italy from the Late Republic to the Early Empire The first record of contact between the Roman Republic and the Jews is the embassy sent by Judah the Maccabee in 162 B. C. E . (1 Macc 8:23–​9; Josephus, A.J. 12.417–​9; B.J. 1.38). Yet epigraphic evidence, such as a sepulchral inscription which records the names of three liberti (manumitted slaves), Marcus Aronius Zabina, Publius Caesonius Aciba, and Publius Caesonius Stephanus (Friggeri 2003: 49, fig. 3), as well as literary evidence attesting that in 139 B.C.E . Jews were expelled by the praetor peregrinus Cneius Cornelius Hispalus, point to the presence of Jews in Rome only in the second half of the second century B.C.E . (Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium 1.3.3). The first nucleus of an organized Jewish community in Rome can be dated only to the last years of the Roman Republic, following the arrival of many Jews enslaved after Pompey and Gabinius’s campaigns in Judaea between 63 B.C.E . and 55 B.C.E . (Josephus, A.J. 14.82–​89, 97, 119–​122 and B.J. 1.160–​168, 174, 180; Philo, Legat. 155). Cicero’s Pro Flacco and Suetonius’s dramatic description of Caesar’s funeral pyre point to a Jewish community living by then in Rome and quite active in local politics, albeit organized as an informal communitarian body (Cicero, Flac. 28.66–​69; Suetonius, Jul. 1.84). Thus, Jews could associate and send their monies to Jerusalem as client groups protected by a powerful patronus, such as Pompey, Gabinius, and later Julius Caesar. Only for the Augustan period is there clear evidence of an organized Jewish community in Rome (Rocca 2022: 24–8). By the early first century C.E ., according to Josephus, the Jewish community of Rome probably numbered no less than 8,000 persons, 1% of the total population of the city (Josephus, A.J. 17.300). According to Philo, by the late Julio-​Claudian period most of the Jews of Rome, together with many other immigrants, lived in the Transtiberinum, or Regio XIV (Philo, Legat. 158). It is difficult to determinate the exact legal status of the Jewish communities. According to a much-​disputed passage of Josephus (Josephus, A.J. 14.235), Julius Caesar recognized the Jewish communities granting them various privileges, assimilating their legal status to that of the ancient guilds (collegia antiqua). In fact, various scholars such as Richardson associated this passage of Josephus to two passages of Suetonius, who narrate that Julius Caesar and later Augustus dissolved all collegia, or guilds, except for the oldest (Suetonius, Jul. 1.42; Suetonius, Aug. 2.32),

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-37

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arguing that the Jewish communities possessed the same legal status of the collegia antiqua, or the most ancient guilds (Richardson 1996: 90–​109). Yet Margaret Williams states that while Suetonius does not refer to Jewish institution, Josephus does not refer to collegia (Williams 1998: 215–​28). Besides, Josephus quotes a decree and not a law, the Lex Julia De Collegis, the latter quoted only by Suetonius. Possibly, when the Jews of Rome wanted to secure a legal recognition for their communities, Julius Caesar ruled through a decree, mentioned by Josephus, that the legal status of the Jewish communities in Rome would correspond to that of the collegia legittima. Augustus, a few years later, confirmed the decree of the dictator. Thus, the two Roman leaders viewed the Jewish proseuchai, or synagogues, as licit and legal private societies, giving them a legal status similar to that of the collegia, without being one. It seems that Augustus, as Julius Caesar before, probably recognized the Jewish communities as lawful associations, entitling the Jews to the right of association, including a place for erecting a synagogue or otherwise to assemble. The Jewish communities were also recognized as having an internal autonomy and the right of self-​taxation, which included the ability to collect money for the upkeep of the synagogue and for the annual half-​shekel tribute to the Temple (Richardson 2004: 120–​4; Pucci Ben Ze’ev 1995: 23–​42). Privileges with a specific religious character included the right to gather in the synagogue for Torah reading on the Sabbath and on holy days. The right to observe the Sabbath included the right to defer court appearances on the Sabbath and the right to collect the corn dole on any day that was not the Sabbath. Various epigraphic sources, all much later, point to the existence of at least five Jewish synagogues or collegia licita, all located in the Transtiberinum area, the Synagogue of the Augustans, the Synagogue of the Agrippesians, the Synagogue of the Volumnians, the Synagogue of the Herodians, and the Synagogue of the Hebrews (Momigliano 1931: 83–​292; Noy 1995: 539–​40). The names of these collegia mirror the close clientele relationship between Augustus, Marcus Agrippa, and the Herodian royal house as patroni, on the one hand, and the Jews of Rome as clients on the other. The heads of these Jewish communities were probably liberti (manumitted slaves) of the imperial house (Noy 1993: no. 18, pp. 32–​5; nos. 23–​24, pp. 40–​5). Josephus and epigraphic sources attest that Jews also lived outside of Rome. By then, various communities had taken root, mainly located in areas not far from Rome: at Puteoli, Ostia, and Aquileia (Josephus, A.J. 17.328; Noy 1993: no. 7, pp. 11–​13; no. 18, pp. 32–​5; nos. 23–​24, pp. 40–​ 5). From the various Roman poets of the Augustan age, it is possible to learn how Jews and Judaism were perceived by persons who did not possess detailed knowledge of Judaism but were familiar with Jews living in Rome, of whose customs they were keen observers. The most prominent feature of Judaism is the celebration of the Sabbath, mentioned by Horace, Tibullus, and Ovid. Yet each writer attributes to the Sabbath a different meaning. Thus, for Horace, the Sabbath is a day in which it is not polite to speak of business (Horace, Sermones 1.9.60–​78). For Tibullus, Sabbath is Saturni sacram diem, a day of bad omens, for which it is suggested not to travel (Tibullus, Carmina 1.3.15–​18). For Ovid, the Sabbath is a bad day for business, yet good for love (Ovid, Remedia Amoris 217–​220). The only writer, who maybe mentions conversion to Judaism and circumcision, is Horace (Horace, Sermones 1.4.139–​143; 1.5. 96–​104). In the Julio-​Claudian period, the Jewish community of Rome suffered various setbacks. In 19 C . E . under Tiberius, and twice under Claudius in 41 and 49 C.E ., part of the Jews living in Rome were possibly expelled or more probably threatened with expulsions (Josephus, A.J. 18.65–​84; Suetonius, Tib. 36; Claud. 25.4, Tacitus, Ann. 2.85.4; Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 57.18.5a; 60.6.6; Orosius, Adversus Paganos 7.6.15; Acts 18:2; Leon 1995: 16–​28). The ambiguous situation of the Jews in the Julio-​Claudian period is also reflected in the literary sources. In De Superstitione 464

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Seneca depicts the Sabbath as a day of idleness (Seneca, De Superstitione, in Augustine, De Civitate Dei 6.11). Yet his knowledge of the Sabbath was probably better than that of earlier Augustan writers. In the Epistulae Morales Seneca shows that he is aware of the custom to light lamps on Friday evening. Moreover, Seneca condemns conversion to Judaism (Seneca, Epistulae Morales 95.47). And yet the same Seneca can also be positive, as he recognizes, quite grudgingly, that in contrast to the surrounding society, Jews have a deep knowledge of their religious tradition. The poet Persius in his Saturae shows a good knowledge of the Sabbath, as he probably witnessed a Sabbath eve celebration in a Jewish home in Rome. Yet Persius looks down on the “Sabbath of the circumcised”. Moreover, Persius shows a deep concern for conversion to Judaism. He scorns the convert to Judaism as a man who enslaves himself to foreign customs and forfeits his Stoic freedom (Persius, Saturae 5.176–​184). In the Satyricon of Petronius the Jewish abhorrence of pork is transformed in no less than in the “porcine” god of the Jews. Abstinence from pork, circumcision, and the Sabbath, which is depicted as a fast day, characterize Jewish worship. Petronius also finds the occasion to scorn converts to Judaism (Petronius, Satyricon 27.66, 68.4–​8, 102.13–​14; Fragmenta no. 37). After the first Jewish war (66–​70 C.E.), many Jews arrived in Italy as slaves and as immigrants. At Rome, the only evidence of Jewish slaves, who arrived there in the wake of the Jewish war, is the poet Martial, who was active during the reign of Domitian. In his Epigrams, Martial refers to his Jewish slave, as well as to Jewish beggars (Martial, Epigrammata 7.35.3–4; 7.82; 11.94; 12.57.1–14). Evidence of Jewish slaves who arrived in Italy in the wake of the Jewish war comes mainly from the epigraphic and archaeological evidence from Campania (Noy 1993: no. 26, pp. 43–​6). From the Flavian period onwards the Jews of Rome had to pay a new tax, the fiscus Iudaicus. This was an annual tribute to the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome that took the place of the half-​shekel contributed by the Jews to the Jerusalem Temple, by now destroyed. The main difference between the half-​shekel and the fiscus Iudaicus was that the first was a voluntary contribution, while the second was an obligatory poll tax paid to the Roman state. From then onwards, payment of the fiscus Iudaicus was a condition sine qua non which defined belonging to Judaism. Goodman describes this tax as payment in exchange for relative toleration. This tax discriminated against all Jews, including those who were Roman citizens. From the Flavian period until late antiquity, the collection of the fiscus Iudaicus became one of the characteristics of Jewish life in the Diaspora, including, of course, the Jewish communities of Roman Italy, setting them apart from the other inhabitants. Thus, it can be defined as an ethnic boundary, although there were other ethne or cities that paid a similar tax (Josephus, B.J. 7.216–​218; Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 66.7.2; Cappelletti 2006: 101–​21; Goodman 1989: 40; idem 2005: 167–​77). It is probable that in Trajan’s days, when the general population of Rome reached its peak of 1,000,000 inhabitants, there were no more than 10,000 Jews living there (Robinson 1992: 8). It is quite revealing that there is no data specifically referring to Jews living in Rome except for Juvenal’s Saturae. The Jews depicted by Juvenal in his Saturae are quite a poor and unhappy lot, despised, but not hated (see Juvenal, Sat. 3.210–218, 290–296). Juvenal provides an incisive portrait of contemporary Jews seen in the streets of Rome: Jewish beggars, begging for alms near Porta Capena or near a prayer house; a Jewess telling the future to passerby (Juvenal, Sat. 2.10–​18; 3.290–​296; 6.542–​547). Yet, Juvenal can display a pungent irony while describing a Roman family that converts to Judaism (Juvenal, Sat. 14.96–​106). The fact that these episodes can be related to the last year of Domitian or more probably the early years of Trajan shows that immigration of Jews from Judaea or the Eastern Diaspora to the city of Rome was a long-​term process. 465

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2.  The Late Antique Period –​ From the Antonines to Diocletian From the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–​161 C. E .) onwards the situation of the Jews began to change for the better (Rocca 2022: 45, 122–3). Antoninus Pius revoked the ban on circumcision, enacted by his predecessor Hadrian, and probably restored most of the previous Jewish privileges concerning the legal status of the Jewish communities. Marcus Aurelius and Commodus allowed Jews who were Roman citizens to be elected to the municipal council (or decurionate) and to dispense with pagan cultic ceremonies (Justinian, Digesta 27.1.15.6; 48.8.11). The legal situation of the Jews living in Roman Italy improved even more in the Severan period (193–​235 C.E .). Cassius Dio rightly observed that the community of contemporary Jews “though often repressed has increased to a very great extent and has won its way to the right of freedom in its observances” (Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 37.15.2–​17.4). In fact, Septimius Severus and Caracalla confirmed the previous laws which regulated the participation of Jews in public offices (Justinian, Digest 50.2.3.3). Yet, Septimius Severus and successive third-​ century emperors maintained certain restrictions (Historia Augusta, Sev. 17.1). Jews still had to pay the fiscus Iudaicus, conversion to Judaism was forbidden, and slaves owned by Jews could not be circumcised. With the enactment of the Constitutio Antoniniana de Civitate, in 212 C.E ., most of the Jews living in Roman Italy who had the status of peregrini probably received Roman citizenship, improving their status. According to the Historia Augusta, Alexander Severus reconfirmed the legal privileges of the Jews (Historia Augusta, Alex. Sev. 22.4). By the end of the third century, the earliest collections of leges had a special section dealing with the Jews. The turbulent period from the death of Alexander Severus to the rise of Diocletian, the greatest of the Illyrian warlords, was uneventful for the Jews of Roman Italy. Diocletian reconfirmed all previous Jewish privileges. Thus, the collegia remained the main communitarian frameworks (Rabello 1976: 156–​97; 1980: 685–​7; 725–​9). We can try to estimate the number of Jews who lived in the city of Rome at this time. The general population of Rome decreased from 1,000,000 under Trajan to no more than 650,000 after the Antonine plague (Duncan-​Jones 1996: 108–​35). The subsequent Severan period may have seen a rise in the population which reached 750,000 then, but by the early fourth century the total population of the urbs numbered no more than 500,000 people (Robinson 1992: 8–​9; Marazzi 2005: 358–​78). According to Rutgers, following a study of the evidence from the Villa Torlonia Catacombs, it is possible to consider that the size of the Jewish community in Rome in the third and fourth centuries C. E was an average of 2000 persons (Rutgers 2006: 345–​58; Rutgers et al. 2006: 169–​84). However, if the ratio of 1% of the total population of the city was maintained, the Jewish population would have reached no more than 10,000 individuals by the end of the Severan period. A careful study of the location of the Jewish catacombs indicates that the Jewish settlement in Rome widened considerably. Thus, although Jews continued to dwell mainly in the Transtiberinum Regio XIV, Jews also settled in Regio I, along the Via Appia, and probably in Regio VI, along the Via Nomentana. This assumption is based on the hypothesis that the Jewish catacombs were located near the greatest concentrations of Jews living in the urban area. Jews probably wanted to bury their death as soon as possible and as near as possible to their dwellings. Thus, even if the catacombs were located outside the city walls or pomerium, as it was forbidden to bury inside the city, their location still stood as close as possible to the Jewish areas of settlement located inside the pomerium, and later the Aurelian walls. The main Jewish cemetery in the area, near the Transtiberinum, is the Catacombs of Monteverde, located on the Via Portuense. Although some of the brick stamps point to the first century, most scholars agree that the complex did not begin before the end of the second century C. E . and continued to be in use throughout the fourth century 466

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Yet the presence of some sarcophagi points to the third century as the main period of use. Moreover, the rareness of the nomen gentilicium (identifying the deceased as a member of the gens of) Aurelius on the sepulchral epitaphs can indicate that many persons were buried there before the full effect of the Constitutio Antoniniana was felt. Furthermore, on the one hand, the few Hebrew inscriptions suggest a third-​to fourth-​century dating; on the other hand, we must highlight the similarity with sepulchral inscriptions of Venosa, which suggest a slightly later period, well into the fourth century (Noy 1995: 1–​7). Some of the synagogues whose names are found in sepulchral inscriptions from the area date from the Augustan period. However, by the third century there are other synagogues located in the area, like the Synagogue of the Calcarensium, the Synagogue of the Tripolitani, and the Synagogue of the Vernaclensians (Noy 1995: 539–​40). The name Calcarensium may indicate that the members of the community were possibly lime burners or calcarienses. Another possibility suggested by Momigliano (1934: 151–​3) is that the name of the Synagogue of the Calcarensium refers to a locality rather than a group. Thus, Momigliano proposes the region near the Circo Flaminio known as Calcaria. Tripoli is probably the city in North Africa. According to Leon, the name of the Vernaclesians comes from verna (Leon 1995: 154–​7). It points to a group of native Jews, vernaculi, that wanted to differentiate themselves from immigrants. Momigliano argues, probably quite rightly, for the existence of another synagogue whose existence is not corroborated by the epigraphic data, the synagogue of Severus, probably founded by Jews coming from Arca in Lebanon, the birthplace of the emperor Alexander Severus. The existence of this synagogue is attested in the Middle Ages as late as the twelfth century (Momigliano 1934: 151–​3). In this period, Jews are also found in Regio I, the southernmost area of Rome, from where the huge Via Appia enters the city. Two catacombs, the catacomb of Vigna Randanini and the catacomb of Vigna Cimarra, point to a Jewish presence in the area. Jews probably settled there before the late second century. This area, rebuilt by rulers quite sympathetic to the needs of the Jewish communities as well as to other immigrants from the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, would probably have attracted Jewish settlers. It is possible that some of the well-​to-​do Jews of Rome lived in this area. This hypothesis is based on an analysis of the catacomb of Vigna Randanini. In fact, according to Noy, this catacomb would have been the best available because of the low density of burials, the width and lightening of the galleries, and the elegance of the entrance area, framed with bricks (Noy 1995: 173–​80). The catacomb was erected not before the second century and remained in use until the fourth century. Two beautifully decorated rooms, Hypogea I-​II (also called cubicula 13-​14), are dated by Rutgers to the early third century, to 220–​250 C.E ., while Hypogea III (also called cubiculum 12) and IV can be dated to the first half of the fourth century (Rutgers 1998: 45–​6, 55). The sarcophagi can be dated to the end of the third century. The catacomb of Vigna Cimarra is a small hypogeum (underground chamber), dated to the third century. The two synagogues, whose members were buried in the catacomb of Vigna Randanini, are the synagogue of the Eleans or Elesians and the synagogue of the Campesians. As the synagogue of the Eleans is mentioned only in the Vigna Cimarra catacomb, this hypogeum may have served only members of this synagogue. The name Elesians remains unclear. A suggestion that it comes from the Greek word elea, or olive, was proposed by Leon (Leon 1995: 145–​7). The location of the synagogue of the Campesians is quite problematic. Some scholars suggest that the synagogue stood in the other part of the city, the Campus Martius area. Yet this location is too far away from the catacomb of Vigna Randanini, from where most of the pertinent inscriptions come (Noy 1995: 173–​80, 332, 539–​40). The third area where Jews resided is the Regio VI, which included the Quirinalis and Viminalis areas. All along the Via Nomentana is located the Villa Torlonia catacomb (Noy 1995: 341–​6). 467

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The Villa Torlonia catacomb consists of two separate catacombs, the Upper Catacomb and the Lower Catacomb, which had independent entrances. The Upper Catacomb’s entrance is dated by Rutgers to the end of the second century (Rutgers 1998: 51, 53–​5, 61–​2). The earliest part is region A, dated to the third century, and regions B and C, which are later additions. The most impressive room is Cubiculum II, highly decorated with Jewish symbols and dated to 320–​350 C . E . (Goodenough 1953–​1968, vol. 2: 35–​40 and vol. 3, figs. 806–​817). Nearby arcosolia (arched recessed used as places of entombment), also decorated, are dated to 350–​370 C.E . The Lower Catacomb dates from the beginning of the third century, no earlier than the reign of Septimius Severus. The inscriptions found in the catacombs mention two synagogues, the synagogue of the Seceni and the synagogue of the Siburensians, probably located in the area. The origins of this name have been explained in various ways (Leon 1995: 151–​3). It may refer to Sicininum, an area in Rome, near St. Maria Maggiore, a site in Galilee near Jotapata called Sacnia, perhaps named after the Hebrew word seqenim for elders or the town of Scina in North Africa, which is also called the locus Iudaeorum Augusti in the Tabula Peutingeriana. The latter suggestion by Frey is probably the more convincing, as there was indeed a Synagogue of the Tripolitanians, also from North Africa (Frey 1930: 292). The name Siburensians suggests the word Subura, one of the most important popular neighborhoods of Rome, located southeast of the Forum. Yet Subura is never spelled with an” i” but always with “u” in all other inscriptions, coming from Rome. Moreover, the area of the Subura is quite near Regio VI. However, as the area of the Subura was dominated by public monuments, it is possible that the community shifted from its original area but preserved its name in the new location (Noy 1995: 341–​6, 539–​40). A good example of the acculturation of the Jews living in Roman Italy in the late antique period is the Collatio Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum, or just Collatio. This is a short treatise, probably incomplete, with an obvious legal character (Rabello 1967: 339–​49; Rabello 2002: 411–​22; Rutgers 1998: 237–​78). The Collatio includes 16 tituli or titles, in which individual laws taken from the Pentateuch are compared to Roman laws. Most of the Collatio discusses criminal law. The comparison consists of a comparison of Mosaic and Roman law. The introductory quotation of the law in the Pentateuch is followed by an ample range of Roman laws, which, however, deal with the topic in depth. The Roman legal text quoted follows iura, or laws, and the imperial constitutions (Rutgers 1998: 237–​42). A Jewish authorship of the Collatio had been considered possible or rather quite likely by most scholars, such as Levi, Volterra, or in the last years Rabello and Rutgers (Rutgers 1998: 242). However, views on the dating and place of composition of the Collatio vary. Various periods have been suggested, from the last years of the third century C.E . until the last decade of the fourth century or even later. Thus, the dating of the Collatio comprises more than a century. Rabello, who has dedicated various studies to the Collatio, argues that the treatise was composed by a Jew in Rome between the years 294 and 313 C.E ., under the rule of Diocletian (Rabello 1976: 156–​97). He considers the use of Latin as well as knowledge of the so-​called Vulgata Vetera, possibly the oldest translation of the Pentateuch into Latin and based on the Septuaginta, compiled for a Jewish public, the main proof that the author composed the treatise in Rome. Rutgers, however, supports a later date, arguing that one of the main purposes of the Collatio was to defend internal Jewish jurisdiction from the external interference of the Late Roman-​Christian authorities, a process that culminated at the beginning of the fifth century and is reflected in the abolition of the Jewish patriarchate in 429 C. E . (Rutgers 1998: 272–​8). A good example is Late Antique Roman laws enacted in the last decade of the fourth century C.E ., with the purpose of reducing Jewish internal jurisdiction (Codex Justinianus 1.9.7; Codex Theodosianus 2.1.10). Thus, in 393 C . E . Late Roman imperial legislation interfered with Jewish marriage customs that were respected 468

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by prior Roman law with a prohibition to contract marriages in accordance with long-​established Jewish customs, prohibiting polygamy (Codex Justinianus 1.9.7). Some years later in 398 C.E . the emperor Theodosius I enacted a law that limited Jewish juridical power to cases which were deemed strictly religious (Codex Theodosianus 2.1.10). Thus, according to Rutgers, the Collatio, composed between 394 and 398 C.E ., was probably one of the last apologetic works, written by a Jew in late antiquity, directed at a gentile, pagan and Christian public (Rutgers 1998: 235–​84). The fortuitous discovery of the Letter of Annas to Seneca, a Jewish apologetic treatise in Latin, also dated to late antiquity and possibly written around 325 C .E ., strengthens the possibility that the Collatio was composed by a Jew. The purpose of this work was to present Judaism in a favorable light to the pagan elite of Late Antique Rome, using philosophical arguments (Bischoff 1984: 1–​9; Sterk 2013: 170). Moreover, Wischmeyer has suggested that the quotation of Genesis in this work corresponds with the quotation of Genesis in the Old Vulgate, a work that was also used by the author of the Collatio (Momigliano 1985: 217–​9; Cracco-​Ruggini 1988: 301–​25).

3.  The Late Antique Period –​ From Constantine to Justinian The effect of Christianity, whose position became stronger and stronger from Constantine onwards until Theodosius I’s edict made it the official religion of the Roman Empire, was felt by the Jewish communities of Rome throughout the fourth century and especially during the fifth century through a series of discriminatory laws. The Theodosian code is a good indication of these laws, which imposed limitations on Jews with regard to slave ownership, circumcision, and conversion to Judaism. By the beginning of the fifth century Jews were barred from the municipal and imperial administration. At the same time, the Late Roman Christian state recognized Judaism as a religion that was permitted, although by now it was no longer considered a religio –​a title reserved only for Orthodox Christianity –​but a superstitio (Linder 2006: 144–​50). By now, the Jewish leadership of Roman Italy and elsewhere had to answer to the supreme authority of the Jewish patriarch, who was closely linked to the imperial authorities. As a result, the Late Roman state controlled the Jewish communitarian frameworks through their leaders, who were awarded a series of privileges. This close bond between the patriarch and the Jewish communities of Roman Italy is confirmed by an inscription from Catania, dated to 383 C.E ., which specifically refers to the patriarch (Noy 1993: no. 145, pp. 187–​92). A series of laws recognized the autonomous position of the patriarch and of the Jewish communitarian leadership in the empire, including of course Rome and Italy (Cod. Theod. 16.8.8; 16.8.11; 16.8.13; 16.8.15; 16.8.22). Even the abolition of the patriarchate in 429 C. E . did not change the autonomous status granted to the Jewish communities. The patriarch had the right to appoint or to endorse the appointment of the highest authorities in each community, such as the elders, the archisinagogoi, and the “fathers” of the Synagogue. His legal position even allowed him to impose a tax on Diaspora Jews, the aurum coronarium. This tax was collected by the apostoloi, who were the patriarch’s official messengers sent to each community (Schwartz 1999). The apostoloi are mentioned together with rabbis in an inscription from Venosa dated to the early sixth century, which records that two apostoloi and two rabbis delivered a funerary eulogy for a certain Faustina, a member of a prominent local family (Noy 1993: no. 86, pp. 114–​9). With the end of the patriarchate in 429 C.E . the collection of the aurum coronarium was transferred to the Roman state. Although the collegium remained the basic legal and communitarian framework for the Jewish community, the hierarchical organization of the Christian church, by then an important factor in imperial identity, became the ruling model for communal organizations from Constantine onwards, 469

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a shift which deeply influenced the legal status and structure of the Jewish communities of Roman Italy. Thus, the position of the Jewish communitarian leadership closely resembled, and in fact was modeled on, the burgeoning Christian clergy (Rabello 1970: 384–​92). Scholarship is still divided on the nature of the organization of the Jewish communities of late imperial Rome. Thus, while some scholars, such as Juster and Williams, argue for a central organization which presided over all communities (Juster 1914, vol. 1: 418–​24; Williams 1998: 216), other scholars, most notably Schürer or Momigliano, argue for the existence of decentralized independent congregations (Momigliano 1931: 283–​92; Leon 1995: 167–​70). The Jewish community of Rome appears to have consisted of various small congregations, each with its own synagogue, within a larger central communal organization which represented all of the congregations together. Probably at least until the termination of the patriarchate in 429 C. E ., all Jewish communities of Rome seem to have been organized around a central body that controlled and directed each community. This body, or perhaps a single person delegated by the Jewish communities or appointed by the praefectus urbis or the patriarch, coordinated the activities of the congregations, thirteen are known, of late antique Rome. Since there were various small congregations in various parts of the city a ruling body was necessary. It is difficult to establish, however, whether this ruling body was a gerousia or a single delegate who bore the title of prostates or patronus (Leon 1995: 135–​66; Rabello 1980: 662–​762; Williams 1994: 129–​41; Williams 1998: 215–​28). The hierarchy and communitarian organization of the Jewish communities in late antique Rome is documented in many funerary epitaphs from the third and fourth centuries. In Rome, all titles of Jewish community officials found in the catacombs were still inscribed in Greek during that time. The spelling of the titles varies, however, and some of these variants transliterate the Greek terms into Latin. The Greek titles used to define the position of magistrates also appear in later legal texts collected in the Codex Theodosianus and among in the Codex Justinianus and in the Novellae (Cod. Theod. 16: 8: 2; 16: 8: 4; 16: 8: 13; 16: 8: 14; Cod. Justin. 1.9.10; Justinian, Novella 146). The text of these laws, which refer to the legal status of the Jewish communities, appears in Latin but uses the same Greek titles attributed to officials of the Jewish communities of Rome evidenced by epigraphic findings. According to epigraphic evidence from the catacombs, there were various communitarian officials, such as the archisynagogus, the archon, the gerousiarches, the grammateus, the hyperetes, the phrontistes, and the prostates. Some of the titles such as the pater synagogae and the mater synagogae seem to have been merely honorary (Leon 1995: 135–​ 66). Some members of the community were priests and were referred to as hiereis, and this probably gave them an important position within the hierarchy of the community. The hierarchy of the various officials in the different Jewish communities scattered throughout Italy, mainly in Venosa, mirrors the situation in Rome itself (Leon 1995: 167–​94; Linder 1987: 132–​8, 201–​4, 215–​7, 402–​ 11; Noy 1993: 328–​9; Noy 1995: 538–​9). Very few episodes from the history of the Jews in Rome in the late fourth to sixth centuries are recorded. Yet all these episodes testify to the tense situation between Jews and Christians, with the latter still being a minority in the urbs at the beginning of the fourth century. Well-​known, albeit legendary, is the public debate between the Jews of Rome and Pope Sylvester I on various religious topics (Liber Pontificalis 34). Nevertheless, the relationship between Jews and Christians was probably not so acrimonious, since in 384 C.E . Jerome borrowed several books from a Jew, who had previously borrowed these from a synagogue (Jerome, Epist. 36.1). Less known is the destruction of a synagogue in 387 C.E . in Rome as the consequence of a disorder, fomented by Christians during the short reign of the usurper Magnus Maximus (Ambrose, Patrologia Latina 16–​17 [1845], no. 40). By the end of the fourth century the Jewish population of Rome was quite small, if we assume that

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the Jewish population stood at a ratio of 1% to the total population of the city (Robinson 1992: 8–​9), by the beginning of the fourth century roughly 5000 Jews lived in Rome. By the late fourth century, Jewish communities were scattered all over Italy. Literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence points to the presence of new Jewish communities in the whole territory of late antique Italy. However, we must keep in mind that epigraphic evidence per se is not helpful for the evaluation of the size of each community. Probably most communities were very small, revolving around a few dozen individuals. In Rome alone, the various Jewish communities amounted to more than a few thousand persons. In northern Italy, Jewish communities were located in Dertona, Genua, Milan, Brixia, Aquileia, and Ravenna. In central Italy, although Rome was the seat of the most important Jewish communities, Jewish presence was also attested in Ostia and Terracina. In southern Italy, the presence of Jewish communities is attested in Naples, Venosa, Bova Marina, Rhegium, Palermo, Syracuse, and Cagliari (Rutgers 1998: 128; Solin 1983: 725–​7). The first Jewish community that can be examined in depth is that of Mediolanum. Probably, by the end of the third century, there was already an organized Jewish community in the city, now an imperial capital. However, literary evidence is available only for the late fourth century C . E . In 388 C.E ., Ambrose, the powerful bishop of Milan, expressed his deep regret that he had not been successful in destroying the synagogue of Milano, which had been burned down by an “act of God” (Ambrose, Epistula 40.8). Did the Jews meddle in the quarrel between the Arian and Orthodox Christians, siding with the first, and pay a heavy price for that? No matter what, the presence of a synagogue testifies to the existence of an organized Jewish community in Milano. It seems that even at the end of the fourth century C.E ., Judaism was attracting fair interest from the pagan and Christian population, if Ambrose addressed young people, warning them against entering into an intimate bond with Jews. Three inscriptions dated to the early fifth century C.E . testify to the Jewish presence in the city (Noy 1993: nos. 1–​3, pp. 1–​5). Although Jewish presence is already attested for the first century B.C.E ., there is no other evidence of a Jewish settlement in Aquileia until late antiquity, with the exception of an epitaph of a Jew, born in Aquileia, who settled in Rome, dated to the third century C.E . An ancient tradition relates that the Christians set fire to the synagogue of Aquileia in the presence of Ambrose, bishop of Milan in 388 C. E . (Noy 1993: nos. 7–​8, pp. 11–​3). There is very little evidence that a Jewish settlement existed in Ravenna in the third and fourth centuries C.E . The evidence for the presence of a Jewish community in the city under the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines is, however, attested by archaeological and literary sources (Noy 1993: no. 10, pp. 17–​8). In 519 C.E ., the Christian populace, incited by the clergy, burned down the synagogue of Ravenna. Theodoric, however, ordered that those responsible for the act should pay compensation; those who refused were to be publicly flogged (Excerpts of Valesius–​Anonymi Valesiani Pars Posterior 14.81–​82). Together with Rome, in the third and fourth centuries C.E Ostia was an important Jewish community. The synagogue, although probably erected at the end of the first century C.E ., underwent alterations and enlargements during the second and third centuries and was considerably enlarged and partly rebuilt at the beginning of the fourth century. An inscription in Latin and Greek, dated to the time, mentions a certain Mindius Faustus, who erected the Ark of the Law at his own expense. The building is located between the ancient seashore and the coastal road, the Via Severiana, far from the city center. The building faces the (south)east, that is, the direction of Jerusalem. It was entered from the Via Severiana through a porch. A long vestibule or corridor A paves the way to a series of five rooms, located to the west. The main hall, aula D, is rectangular shaped and divided into three aisles, with a curved back wall on the western side, in front of which stands a podium for the reading of the Torah. The fourth-​century Torah ark, shaped as an aedicule (an opening framed

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by columns), is located at the eastern wall. It seems that the room on the right served as a miqvah or ritual bath. The building was flanked on the west by two buildings: a kitchen, which included a stove for baking matzot (unleavened bread eaten on Passover), and a large rectangular hall perhaps used as a bet midrash (study hall) or hostel, although there is no firm evidence for either (Noy 1993: no. 13, pp. 22–​6; Olsson et al. 2001). By the fourth century C.E ., various inscriptions attest to the presence of an important Jewish community in Naples. A Jewish burial ground was excavated in 1908 in Corso Malta (Galante 1913: 238–​43). The tombs date from the end of the fourth until the middle of the sixth century C. E . The Jewish community was well organized, since a rabbi, a certain Abundantius (Noy 1993, no. 36, pp. 55–​56), is mentioned together with Benjamin the prostates (Noy 1993: no. 30, pp. 49–​50). Elsewhere, this title appears only in Rome and may be synonymous with the title gerousiarch, or head of the council of the elders (Noy 1993: no. 18, pp. 32–​35; no. 23, pp. 40–​42). Thanks to inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew found in the local catacombs or scattered in their surroundings, the Jewish community of Venusia or Venosa is probably the best-​known southern Italian Jewish community at the end of the late antique period. However, we must be aware that the community was probably quite small, including only a few families, numbering no more than one hundred individuals (Noy 1993: XX–​XXI). No fewer than 74 inscriptions attest to the existence of this small Jewish community from the late fourth century to the early sixth century C . E . (Noy 1993: nos. 42–​116, pp. 61–​149). The linguistic development is quite interesting. Greek was the main language used from the end of the fourth until the beginning of the sixth century C . E . Latin appears at the end of the fourth century and is used well into the fifth. The use of both Greek and Latin in Venosa has an analogy in catacomb inscriptions from Rome, which reflect a similar relationship, although dated much earlier (Rutgers 2006: 496–​ 8, 499–​502). However, a new element present in Venosa is the massive use of Hebrew from the fifth century onwards. At least 24 inscriptions have at least a word in Hebrew; no fewer than 4 are completely in Hebrew, albeit sometimes transliterated from Greek. Thus, although Hebrew is relatively less utilized than Greek, it is more frequent than Latin. By the end of the period, Hebrew had once again become a relevant language for the Jews of Roman Italy, as the inscriptions from Venosa attest. Some community members were quite important in the local municipal hierarchy. Thus, the only dated inscription set up in 521 C . E . refers to a certain Augusta, the wife of Bonus, vir laudabilis (Noy 1993: no. 107, pp. 137–​140). Three inscriptions mention Marcellus and Auxianus, who bear the title of patronus civitatis, albeit in Greek (Noy 1993: nos. 114–​116, pp. 145–​149). A certain Faustinus, son of Isa, who was a gerousiarch of the community, was also the chief doctor of the city (Noy 1993: no. 76, pp. 100–​103). That the relationship with the surrounding gentile population was probably good is indicated by the presence of no fewer than two gentiles, who decided to join the Jewish community, Anastasius the convert and Marcus the “god-​fearer” (Noy 1993: no. 52, pp. 72–​3; no. 113, pp. 144–​5). Another Jewish community is attested in Bova Marina, where a synagogue was erected in the early fourth century and continued to be used until the sixth century, when it was transformed into a larger building (Costamagna 2003: 93–​118).

4.  The Barbarian Invasions By the middle of the fifth century C . E ., one city after another of north and central Italy fell to the Barbarians. Among the Roman urban centers, where the presence of a Jewish community is attested by literary and epigraphic evidence, such as Dertona, Mediolanum, Aquileia, 472

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Brixia, and Ravenna, only the last survived intact. Elsewhere, the Jewish communities disappeared from the map. After the Barbarian invasions and the Gothic wars, the population of Rome had decreased to no more than 80,000 people (Robinson 1992: 8–​9). By the middle of the sixth century, on the eve of the Gothic wars, the Jewish population of Rome numbered a few hundred individuals. The fact that from the middle of the fifth century onwards Jewish epigraphic data is entirely absent corroborates this last number. The only exception is an inscription from the catacombs of Vigna Randanini, dated to 501 C . E . (Noy 1995: 330–​2). According to Noy, the inscription could also be Christian, however, which suggests that the catacomb was briefly reused in the early sixth century C . E . (Noy 1995: 330–​1). Yet there were still Jews in 519 C . E ., when according to the Excerpta Valesiana, a synagogue was burned by the mob (Excerpts of Valesius–​Anonymi Valesiani Pars Posterior 14.80). By the end of the fifth century, when the Jewish community of Rome was just a shadow of what it had been less than one hundred years before, most of the synagogues would have been abandoned not because of Christian violence, but because the Jewish community was too small to own or use these buildings. However, according to Momigliano, at least one synagogue survived, the so-​called Synagogue of Severus (Momigliano 1934: 151–​3). Hence, it is quite possible that by the end of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the Jewish settlement of Rome, reduced to no more than a few hundred individuals, was still located in the Trastevere area. If the city of Rome and its Jewish community were shattered by the Barbarian invasions, it seems that the neighboring city of Ostia was left intact. Recent excavations show that the synagogue of Ostia ceased to be used only in the seventh century C . E . Another Jewish community near Rome was located in Terracina and still existed in 591 C . E . (Gregorius Magnus, Epistula 1.34). The Barbarian invasions did not bring urban life in southern Italy to an end. According to the Byzantine historian Procopius, in 536 C.E. the Jewish population of Naples helped the Goths, although unsuccessfully, to defend the city when it was besieged by the Byzantines (Procopius, De Bello Gothico 5.8.41; 10.24–​25). There is no evidence that Jewish life ceased in Naples after the Byzantine conquest, even if the Jews sided with the Goths. The Jewish community probably continued to exist in a diminished state. A letter of Pope Gregory the Great, dated to 602 C.E., testifies to the existence of a Jewish community at that time (Gregorius Magnus, Epistula 13). At Venosa, the fate of the Jewish settlement is far from clear. Since Venosa was at the center of fighting between the Gothic overlords and the Byzantines, it is possible that the area was destroyed between 540 and 550 C.E. Yet it may also be that the small Jewish community continued to thrive under Byzantine rule and even after the Lombards’ conquest after 570 C.E. A few inscriptions dated to the eighth century and later attest to a Jewish presence in Venosa in the early Middle Ages (Cassuto 1944: 99–​120; Cassuto 1960: 1–​20: Noy 1993: XIX–​XX). It is therefore possible that the community continued to prosper after a temporary decline until the ninth century (Colafemmina 1975: 41–​6; 1978: 369–​81; 1983: 443–​8; 1984: 197–​202; 1987: 201–​9; 1993: 411–​21). The synagogue of Bova Marina presents another example of the fate of the Jewish communities in southern Italy during and after the Barbarian invasions. The building was abandoned, probably after being burnt down, at the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century (Noy 1993: no. 140, pp. 180–​1). Sicily and Sardinia were left apparently unscathed by the Barbarian invasions. Thus, even if the transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages was characterized by war and violence brought about by the Gothic wars and the Lombard invasion, most of the Jewish communities located in southern Italy survived, albeit not untouched. 473

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Bibliography Bischoff, B. (1984). Anecdota Novissima. Texte des vierten bis sechszehntes Jahrhundert, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters. Stuttgart: Hiersemann. Cappelletti, S. (2006). The Jewish Community of Rome, From the Second Century B.C.E. to the Third Century C.E. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Cassuto, U. (1944). “The Hebrew Inscriptions Dated to the Ninth Century from Venosa” (Hebrew), Kedem 2: 99–​120. Cassuto, U. (1960). “A Tale of Two Gravestones Dated to the Ninth Century from Southern Italy” (Hebrew), in H. Beinart (ed.), Jews in Italy: Studies in Honor of One Hundred Years of the Birth of Umberto Cassuto. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1–​20. Colafemmina, C. (1975). “Nuove iscrizioni ebraiche a Venosa,” in Studi in memoria di p. Adiuto Putignani. Molfetta: Ecumenica Editrice, 41–​46. Colafemmina, C. (1978). “Nuove scoperte nella catacomba ebraica di Venosa,” Vetera Christianorum 15: 369–​81. Colafemmina, C. (1983). “Tre iscrizioni ebraiche inedite di Venosa e Potenza,” Vetera Christianorum 20: 443–​8. Colafemmina, C. (1984). “Una nuova iscrizione ebraica a Venosa,” Vetera Christianorum 21: 197–​202. Colafemmina, C. (1987). “Tre nuove iscrizioni ebraiche a Venosa,” Vetera Christianorum 24: 201–​9. Colafemmina, C. (1993). “Epigraphica Hebraica Venusina,” Vetera Christianorum 30: 411–​21. Costamagna, L. (2003). “La sinagoga di Bova Marina (secc. IV-​VI),” in M. Perani (ed.), I beni culturali ebraici in Italia, situazione attuale, problemi, prospettive e progetti per il futuro. Ravenna: Longo Editore: 93–​118. Cracco-​Ruggini, L. (1988). “La lettera di Anna a Seneca nella Roma pagana e cristiana del IV secolo,” Augustinianum 28: 301–​25. Duncan-​Jones, R.P. (1996), “The Impact of the Antonine Plague,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 9: 108–​35. Frey, J.B. (1930), “Les communautés juives à Rome aux premiers temps de l’Eglise,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 20: 267–​97. Friggeri, R. (2003). La collezione epigrafica del Museo Nazionale Romano alle Terme di Diocleziano. Milan: Mondadori Electa. Galante, G.A. (1913) “Un sepolcreto giudaico recentemente scoperto in Napoli,” Memorie della Reale Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli 2: 231–​45. Goodenough, E.R. (1953–​ 1968), Jewish Symbols in the Graeco-​ Roman Period, 13 vols. New York: Pantheon Books. Goodman, M. (1989). “Nerva, the ‘Fiscus Judaicus’ and Jewish Identity,” Journal of Roman Studies 79: 40–​4. Goodman, M. (2005). “The ‘Fiscus Iudaicus’ and Gentile Attitudes to Judaism in Flavian Rome,” in J. Edmondson et al. (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press: 167–​77. Juster, J. (1914). Les Juifs dans l’Empire Romain, leur condition juridique, économique et sociale, 2 vols. Paris: Librairie Paul Geuthner. Leon, H.J. (1995). The Jews of Ancient Rome. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. Linder, A. (1987). The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press and Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Linder, A. (2006). “The Legal Status of the Jews in the Roman Empire,” in S.T. Katz (ed.), Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4: The Late Roman–​Rabbinic Period. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 128–​74. Marazzi, F. (2005). “L’ultima Roma antica,” in A. Giardina (ed.), Roma Antica. Bari: Laterza: 358–​78. Momigliano, A. (1931). “I nomi delle prime sinagoghe romane e la condizione giuridica della comunità in Roma sotto Augusto,” La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 6: 283–​92. Momigliano, A. (1934). “Severo Alessandro Archisynagogus. Una conferma alla Historia Augusta,” Athenaeum 12: 151–​3. Momigliano, A. (1985). “The New Letter by Anna to Seneca (Ms. 17 Erzbischöfliche Bibliothek in Köln),” Athenaeum 63: 217–​19. Noy, D. (1993). Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, vol. 1: Italy excluding Rome, Spain, Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Noy, D. (1995). Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, vol. 2: The City of Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Jews in Late Antique Rome Olsson, B. et al. (2001). The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of Rome, Interdisciplinary Studies. Stockholm: Paul Astroms. Pucci Ben Ze’ev, M. (1995). “Did the Jews Enjoy a Privileged Position in the Roman World?” Revue des Études Juives 154: 23–​42. Rabello, A.M. (1967). “Sull’ebraicità dell’autore della Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum,” La Rassegna mensile di Israel 33: 339–​49. Rabello, A.M. (1970). “I privilegi dei Chierici sotto Constantino,” Labeo 16: 384–​92. Rabello, A.M. (1976). “Sui rapporti fra Diocleziano e gli Ebrei,” Atti dell’Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana, 2ndo Convegno Internazionale. Perugia: Pubblicazioni dell’Università degli Studi di Perugia, 156–​97. Rabello, A.M. (1980). “The Legal Condition of the Jews in the Roman Empire,” in H. Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.13. Berlin-​New York: de Gruyter: 662–​762. Rabello, A.M. (2002). “La datazione della Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum e il problema di una sua seconda redazione o del suo uso nel corso del quarto secolo,” in J.-​M. Carrié and R.L. Testa (eds.), Humana Sapit. Études d’Antiquité Tardive offertes à Lellia Cracco Ruggini. Turnhout: Brepols, 411–​22. Richardson, P. (1996). “Early Synagogues as Collegia in the Diaspora and Palestine,” in J.S. Kloppenborg and S.G. Wilson (eds.), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-​Roman World. London: Routledge: 90–​109. Richardson, P. (2004). Building Jewish in the Roman East. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Robinson, O.F. (1992). Ancient Rome, City Planning and Administration. London: Routledge. Rocca, Samuele (2022). In the Shadow of the Caesars: Jewish Life in Roman Italy, Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Rutgers, L.V. (1995). The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora. Leiden: Brill. Rutgers, L.V. (1998). The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism, Leiden: Brill. Rutgers, L.V. et al. (2006). “Sul problema di come datare le catacombe ebraiche di Roma,” Bulletin Antieke Beschaving 81: 169–​84. Rutgers, L.V. (2006). “The Demography of the Jewish Community of Ancient Rome,” in M. Ghilardi et al. (eds.), Les cités de l’Italie Tardo-​Antique (IVe–​Vie siècle) Institutions, économie, société, culture et religion. Rome: École Française de Rome, 345–​58. Rutgers, L.V. (2006). “The Jews of Italy, c. 235–​638,” in S.T. Katz (ed.), Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4: The Late Roman–​Rabbinic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 492–​508. Schwartz, S. (1999). “The Patriarchs and the Diaspora,” Journal of Jewish Studies 50: 208–​22. Solin, H. (1983). “Juden und Syrer im westlichen Teil der römischen Welt: Eine ethnische-​demographische Studie mit besonderer Berücksiochtigung der sprachlichen Zustände,“ in H. Temporini (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.29.2. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter: 587–​789, 1222–​49. Sterk, A.C. (2013). “The Letter of Annas to Seneca: A Late Antique Jewish Exhortation in Dialogue with Roman Paganism,” in S. Pearce (ed.), Image and Its Prohibition in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 170–​88. William, M.H. (1994). “The Structure of Roman Jewry Reconsidered–​Were the Synagogues of Ancient Rome Entirely Homogeneous?” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 104: 129–​41. Williams, M.H. (1998). “The Structure of the Jewish Community in Rome,” in M. Goodman (ed.), Jews in the Graeco-​Roman World. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 215–​28.

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31 JEWS IN LATE ANTIQUE EGYPT Rodrigo Laham Cohen

1. Introduction The history of the Jews in Late Ancient Egypt is not as well known as that of the Jewish communities of the Hellenistic period or the era of Muslim control. Nevertheless, it is a critical period to reflect on the longer development of both Diasporic and Palestinian Judaism. There are certain topics that will be presented throughout this chapter. The first is the relation between the Land of Israel and Egypt. Their geographical proximity to one another explains, at least for certain scholars, a supposed early Rabbinization in the area due to a strong Palestinian Jewish influence. Another major issue is the key role that the cities of Alexandria and Oxyrhynchus played in the history of Egyptian Jews. Undeniably, although Alexandria was of central importance to Egyptian Jewish history, its importance could have been broadly overstated given the sources that have been discovered up to this point. Regarding the city of Oxyrhynchus, its history is relatively well known to us by the fortuitous discovery of thousands of papyri. Without this discovery, the history of the Oxyrhynchan Jewish community would have been lost, as is probably the case with other Egyptian cities and villages, many of which likely contained significant Jewish communities. Finally, thanks to non-​Jewish sources, we have also gained considerable knowledge about the Jewish communities. Thus, certain events such as the supposed expulsion of Jews from Alexandria in 415 C .E . were documented by Christian writers. In general, however, these documents were not focused on Jews, and Christian writers had their own agendas. Views from outside of the Jewish community should be contrasted with perspectives from within but, unfortunately, this contrast is not always possible.

2.  Our Sources Among the various sources describing the activities of the Jews in Late Ancient Egypt, it is important to distinguish between material authored by Jews and sources written by non-​Jews. Regarding Jewish-​authored sources, Egyptian history is relatively well documented in comparison to other Diasporic regions (except for Mesopotamia) thanks to the surviving papyrological evidence. In fact, documentary and literary papyri were produced and utilized by late antique Egyptian Jews. Jewish sources produced outside of Egypt that mention Egyptian Jews are scarce.

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Although there are references in rabbinic material from the Land of Israel related to the period before the Jewish revolt under Trajan in 115 C. E . and during the revolt itself, only a few refer to late antique Egypt. As for texts produced by non-​Jews that mention Jews, most were written by Christians and should be analyzed cautiously, taking into account that they actually tell us very little about how the Jews really lived and more about Christian polemical objectives. In that sense, references to Jews in Athanasius or Cyril are generally related to the aggregation of the bishop’s power and to intra-​Christian disputes rather than to the Jews themselves. In relation to papyri written by non-​ Jews or without specific Jewish identity markers, there were, are, and will be debates about the criteria used to identify a text as Jewish or at least related to Jews. In fact, a great example of this conflict is the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (CPJ). The first three volumes, edited by a group led by Victor Tcherikover, deliberately left out, as Tal Ilan (2016 and 2021) has insisted, literary documents produced by Jews. At the same time, the volumes included many non-​Jewish texts. The first three volumes of the CPJ were, in the words of Ilan, a “not very Jewish corpus” (2016: 206). A new edition was published in 2020 by Hacham and Ilan. These volumes (CPJ vol. 4, 2020; vol. 5, 2022; vol. 6, forthcoming) are based on the great work of Isaac Fikhman and include some important changes from the old CPJ editions that reorient the profile of our imagined Egyptian Jewish community. While Hacham and Ilan were able to address certain issues, others continue to be difficult to resolve. For example, the question of a person’s name as a Jewish identity marker remains a core problem in identifying Jewish papyrological evidence. Tcherikover considered that every biblical name after 337 C. E . –​the year of Constantine’s death –​was probably a Christian name (CPJ vol. 1: xviii). Even though Roger S. Bagnall (1982) agreed that Christians used biblical names after 313 C .E ., he rejected using a fixed date like 337 C.E . because, paradoxically, it increases the number of names identified as Jewish before 337 C.E . and causes them to disappear afterward (1995: 276). Nevertheless, Bagnall (1982: 110) has argued that after the suppression of the Jewish revolt in 117 C .E . and the subsequent reduction of the Jewish population, biblical names safely attributable to Jews are rare in inscriptions and papyri. More recently, Willy Clarysse (2018) has recalibrated Bagnall’s numbers, accepting the early use of biblical names by Christians but arguing that the pace of Christianization was slower. Beyond these debates, the editors of the new CPJ consider 337 C.E . to be a limit, accepting that arbitrary decisions should be made when no other identity marker is available (CPJ vol. 4: 15). The problem with the identification of Jews is that there may be several Jews mentioned in documentary papyri but we lack tools to confirm their presence. In fact, there are certain personal letters that can only be identified as Jewish or Christian by onomastic criteria, and scholarly opinion remains divided. A key example is the fourth-​century papyrus known as the Letter of Judas (P.Oxy. 3314), in which a certain Judas wrote to his father (Joseph) and his wife (Maria) in order to ask for help because he was injured in a distant city. The letter is controversial with respect to the religious identity of the individuals mentioned in the text because names can be interpreted as either Jewish or Christian and there are no other clear identity markers present (Epp 2020: 26–​ 31). Judas was a biblical name that was not usually used by Christians, though very few Christians of the period bore that name. The case of magical papyri is very interesting because they sometimes contain a mix of languages and formulae that can be associated with different religious groups. However, they are difficult to date, and the information provided in them is very limited, except to verify the use of Hebrew and Aramaic in the region. Certainly, if a magical papyrus was completely written in Hebrew, it was probably employed by Jews. However, it should be remarked that sometimes 477

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various religious groups could have used the same papyrus written in Hebrew for an amulet or a recipe (Bohak 2003; Boustan and Sanzo 2017). In relation to archaeological sources, there are no buildings in late antique Egypt identified as Jewish or related to Jews. Amulets are, in fact, the only artifacts that have been associated with Egyptian Jews (Bohak 2008: 143–​226). But here, again, it is not always possible to determine if an amulet was manufactured, requested by, or used by Jews, Christians, or gentiles because shared beliefs about magic coexisted among these groups (Boustan and Sanzo 2017). The Jewish epigraphical panorama in Egypt is generally disappointing. In Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-​Roman Egypt, edited by William Horbury and David Noy (1993 =​JIGRE), only 20 out of 134 inscriptions were dated beyond the second century. After the publication of JIGRE, only one new Jewish Egyptian inscription from late antiquity has been discovered (Blumell 2016). Even accounting for three additional inscriptions (Schwabe 1936; Wagner 1987: 60; Sijpesteijn 1990) that were originally excluded from JIGRE (see CPJ vol. 4: 5) the panorama remains opaque. Undoubtedly, the identification of epigraphical material as Jewish is not always easy, and there may be inscriptions that belonged to Jews that we are unable to identify because they do not have distinguishable identity markers.

3.  Jews in Egypt during the Early Roman Period It is well known that violent conflicts between Jews and non-​Jews took place in Egypt, in general, and in Alexandria, in particular. However, although sources tend to focus on conflicts, daily and nonviolent interaction between Jews and non-​Jews was commonplace. Alexandria was the site of multiple outbursts of violence involving Jews. One of the most famous conflicts occurred in 38 C.E., when, after a series of events implicating Greeks and Jews as aggressors, the non-​Jewish population of Alexandria attacked the Jews of the city (Gambetti 2009). Violence reemerged in 41 and 66 C.E. (Mélezè Modrzejewski 2001: 173–​ 90). According to Josephus (B.J. 7.420–​5), the leaders of the Alexandrian Jewish community handed over to the Roman authorities the Judaean refugee rebels as well as the Egyptian Jews involved in the revolt. This incident highlights both Palestinian influence and Jewish Egyptian particularity. These violent events did not hinder the development of the Jewish community in Alexandria. As the rich papyrological record of the period attests, in other Egyptian regions, Jewish life continued to thrive. However, the luck of the Jews of Egypt changed dramatically under Trajan’s rule, when, in 115 C.E., a series of Jewish revolts broke out against the Romans that lasted almost three years. There were revolts in North Africa, Cyprus, and to a lesser extent, Mesopotamia and Palestine (Pucci Ben Zeev 2005). There is no simple explanation for these revolts, which are attested to in both Jewish (rabbinic) and non-​Jewish sources, including the writings of Appian, Cassius Dio, and Orosius, among others. Papyri not only offer testimony regarding the magnitude of the revolt in Egypt in terms of casualties and material destruction but also provide documentation of the subsequent confiscation of lands that had belonged to Jews. Following the Jewish defeat, evidence shows that the city of Oxyrhynchus continued to celebrate the Roman victory over the Jews almost 83 years later (P.Oxy. 705). Even though there are certain papyri confirming a Jewish presence in Egypt after the revolt (CPJ vol. 3; Ilan 2016: 214–​6), the majority of the existing documents refer almost exclusively to particular individuals. In fact, Jewish communities almost completely disappear from the literary, papyrological, and epigraphical records until the end of the third century.

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4.  The Third Century: New Jewish Communities or New Evidence? The papyrological silence regarding Jewish communities in Egypt changes toward the end of the third century. A well-​studied Oxyrhynchan papyrus (P.Oxy.1205 =​CPJ vol. 3: 473) dated to 291 C . E . refers to the manumission of a Jewess and her sons by the Jewish community and its authorities. We will briefly return to this document, but here it is important to remark that there was an organized Jewish community with legal entities and its own funding sources in Oxyrhynchus at that time (Kasher 1981; Epp 2020: 22–​4, among others). An earlier document (CPJ vol. 3: 467) refers to the purchase of animals by Jews for communal feasting, and this could also imply communal organization. However, the date of the document is difficult to determine (ca. second to third century C .E .), and its provenance is unknown. Was the third-​century Oxyrhynchan Jewish community newly constituted or did it merely become visible in our sources at that time? The absence of evidence from the previous period cannot be interpreted, at least not categorically, as evidence of the absence of Jews in Egypt after the revolt of 115–​117 C. E . Undoubtedly, the revolt resulted in the death of a great number of Jews and the dislocation of entire communities. However, it is probable that Jewish individuals and even Jewish communities survived the revolt and tried to go “underground” (in terms of Horsley 1983: 142) as a consequence of the fear of violence after their defeat. Papaconstantinou (2022: 83) refers to “a matter of strategy, especially for vulnerable communities”. Unfortunately, the epigraphical record does not assist us much in determining the fate of Egyptians Jews after the revolt of 115–​117 C. E . There are few inscriptions after 117 C.E ., and those inscriptions are difficult to date and very fragmentary. Furthermore, if Jews tried to make themselves invisible, this may have affected the epigraphical record as well. It is important to remark that even after the third century, when the papyrological evidence confirms the existence of Jewish communities, inscriptions that attest to Jews in Egypt are rare. Regarding Christian sources, they do not provide much help concerning Jews in third-​century Egypt, although theological references to Jews and Judaism have been found in Christian papyri. For example, P.Oxy 2070 (late third century) seems to be an anti-​Jewish dialogue similar to Justine’s Dialogue with Trypho. However, it is difficult to confirm because we have only fragments of the text (Epp 2004: 40–​2). Clement of Alexandria (died ca. 217) refers to Jews, but his references are, again, mainly theological in nature (Carleton Paget 1998). Origen (ca. 184–​253 C.E .) is a more interesting case study: although the majority of his references to Jews and Judaism concern biblical characters, some of them do not. Nicholas De Lange (1978: 39–​47) and Shaye J.D. Cohen (2010) have argued that, in De Principiis, Origen demonstrates that he knows some Jewish laws not attested to in prerabbinic sources. However, even though De Principiis would have been written in Origen’s Alexandrian period (ca. 220 C. E .), de Lange (1978: 40) has accepted that we do not know if Origen later reformulated his work in Palestine or if he acquired that knowledge during his previous trip to the Holy Land. By contrast, Cohen is certain that Origen had a rabbinic informant in Alexandria. In that sense, he argues that the Egyptian Jewish settlement disappeared in the revolt of 115–​117 C.E . but was revived by Jewish migrants who arrived from the Land of Israel (2010: 186–​9). Let us now return to P.Oxy. 1205. It is a Greek version of a typical Roman agreement (manumissio inter amicos) by which a Jewish woman and her children were freed from slavery after a considerable sum of money was paid by the “synagogue of the Jews”. The document is important not only because its existence corroborates the presence of a Jewish community but also because it offers certain clues that allow us to identify developments. For several reasons, this is

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not an easy task. For example, since P.Oxy. 1205 was a legal document, the fact that it was written in Greek does not necessarily indicate that this language was regularly employed by the Jews (in daily life and liturgically), since legal documents are usually written in Greek. It is important to highlight that the terms employed to reference Jews (Ioudaioi), their community (synagōgē), and their authorities (patros tēs synagōgēs, father of the synagogue) are not different from the previous period. Again, it is significant that since the author of P.Oxy. 1205 is unknown, we are unable to know if these terms were employed by Jews or by non-​Jews. One fact that has attracted the attention of almost all scholars who have analyzed P.Oxy. 1205 is the appearance of two Jewish community leaders who were Roman citizens. Their status as Roman citizens is acknowledged, even if debated, because of the attribution of the name Aurelius. One of them, Aurelius Justus, is presented as a bouleutēs, a member of the city council of “Ono in Syria-​Palaestina”. The presence of a city counselor from the Land of Israel suggests possible forms of Palestinian influence in Egypt. He is also called father of the synagogue, but it is difficult to determine whether he held that office in Ono or in Oxyrhynchus. In sum, P.Oxy 1205 is an important confirmation of the existence of an organized Jewish community with legal entities in Egypt at the end of the third century C.E (Figure 31.1). The document originating from Oxyrhynchus –​one of the most important provenances of late ancient papyri –​ allows us to imagine the possibility of the existence of other Jewish communities by that time.

Figure 31.1 Document from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy 1205) concerning the manumission of a Jewish slave and her children, 291 C .E . Copyright: British Library.

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5.  Jews among Christians: A Perspective from Greek Papyri and Christian Sources The editors of the new CPJ volumes argue against Tcherikover’s idea of a gradual decline of Judaism in Egypt between 337 C. E . and the seventh century. They affirm that the impression of a decline is the result of focusing on Greek papyri only (CPJ vol. 4: 15). In this section, we will address precisely those Greek papyri, but we will also extend our study to Christian literature. There is a recently discovered papyrus (P. CtYBR 760) dated to 309 C.E ., in which the Jews of Oxyrhynchus address the strategos of the nome. The document again portrays an Oxyrhynchan Jewish community with its own funds, a supposition that we can make if we follow Constantinos Balamoshev (2017), who has argued that strategoi (at least, after Diocletian) had mainly fiscal tasks. The document is very fragmentary, and the reconstruction of the word koinon –​a voluntary professional association –​as the word employed to refer to the Jewish community (as stated by Balamoshev 2017: 36–​8) is a possible rather than a certain conclusion. Another papyrus edited in recent times, P.Oxy 5364, also dated to the fourth century, attests that a “headman of the Jews” paid a sum of money to two other “headmen”. The document is, unfortunately, very fragmentary. The important issue, as Nikolaos Gonis highlights, is the title employed to refer to the supposed communal leader: kephalaiōtēs Ioudaiōn (lit. “headman”, ie leader of the Jews) (Parsons and Gonis 2018: 106). But as Gonis suggests, we do not know if this leader was directly related to the Jewish community. The other two kephalaiōtai do not seem to have a link to Judaism. According to Gonis, there is also another fourth-​century papyrus (P. Mich. Inv. 6036.2, from Karanis, unpublished) that mentions kephalaiōtēs in relation to a Jewish community (Parsons and Gonis 2018: 106). The term is also attested to in CPJ III: 506 from the early sixth century. It was frequently used to refer to the leaders of non-​Jewish professional associations. In that sense, it is important to remember that in late antique synagogues were employed titles such as archōn, gerousiarchēs, grammateus, phrontistēs, etc., which are all related to non-​Jewish associations. Even the word archisynagogos is found, albeit to a lesser extent, in connection with non-​Jewish associations. It is important to remember that there is a Jewish Alexandrian phrontistēs buried in Jaffa (Ameling 2014 =​ Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/​Palaestinae =​CIIP vol. 3: 2196, ca. third to fourth century C. E .). Therefore, the existence of kephalaiōtai cannot be automatically read as a sign of greater or lesser integration nor as a change in Jewish customs because, as in other papyri such as P.Oxy. 1205, we do not know if the Jews used the term themselves. Neither should we automatically assume that Egyptian Jewish communities functioned as voluntary professional associations (see Balamoshev 2017). Greek papyri are also important records of contact between Palestine and Egypt. Ilan (2016: 216), for instance, highlights the existence of two Greek papyri in particular, P.Oxy. 3574 (314/​8 C.E .) and P.Oxy 5119 (403 C. E .), which corroborate the presence of Jews from Eleutheropolis (Bet Guvrin) in Egypt. The presence of those Palestinian Jews in Egypt is significant, but one should not overstate its importance. After all, in almost every period of Egyptian history communication between Jews in Egypt and Palestine was common. Epigraphical materials also help to broaden the perspective: 12 inscriptions from Jaffa (some of them depending on restorations) attest to the existence of Egyptian Jews buried there (CIIP vol. 3: 37–​8). Price (2003: 227–​31; 2012: 221–​2) has suggested the possibility of the existence of a community of Egyptian Jews in Jaffa who maintained close ties to Egypt. Although there was a profusion of anti-​Jewish Christian rhetoric in this time period, certain documents indicate that in daily life Jewish and Christian interactions were nonviolent. For example, a man explicitly identified as a Jew and called “Aurelius Jose, son of Judas” rented

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rooms in a property owned by two anchorite nuns in Oxyrhynchus in 400 C.E . (P.Oxy 3203). As Epp (2020: 32) has suggested, one of the possible interpretations of the document is that the nuns acted out of mercy by renting the rooms to the Jewish tenant because of the difficult situation of Jews in those times. However, the most plausible inference is that this document acknowledges a quotidian transaction between Christians and Jews. It is interesting to remark that Aurelius Jose was also a Roman citizen (again, a fact inferred from the name Aurelius) and that the person who signed the contract on Jose’s behalf (he was probably illiterate) was named Aurelius Elias, also a Roman citizen. It is worth noting the profusion of biblical names appearing in this papyrus. There are other fourth-​ and fifth-​century documentary papyri written in Greek, but they do not provide significant data on the life of the Jews and the Jewish communities. However, these papyri confirm that daily life was marked by coexistence even though literary texts describe an anti-​Jewish atmosphere. This is not to say that violence against Jews did not happen. It is just to stress that we should not automatically project theological anti-​Judaism on the behavior of the population as a whole. Of the anti-​Jewish statements on record, some known authors include Egyptian churchmen, such as Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. 296–​373, Brakke 2001), Isidore of Pelusium (died ca. 450, Runia 1992), and Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 376–​444, Wilken 1971). According to Gennadius (De Viris Illustribus 58), Cyril wrote a specific text against the Jews entitled De Synagoge Defectu. Synesius of Cyrene (ca. 373–​414), who spent a few years living in Alexandria, also attacked the Jews in his writings. Finally, anonymous texts with anti-​Jewish references from the fourth century, such as the Dialogue of Athanasius and Zacchaeus, were probably written in Egypt (Andrist 2001). It is worth noting that the anti-​Jewish references in the abovementioned Christian texts are mostly tropes relating to Jews hermeneutically and rhetorically rather than literally (Fredriksen 2013; Kraemer 2020: 1–​42). Scholars have interpreted these references in different ways: ecclesiastical strategies to stop the interaction between Jews and Christians or intra-​Christian discourses related to the construction of Christian identities employing hermeneutical Jews. Each text, however, should be analyzed individually depending on its historical context. There are also references to supposed actions carried out by Egyptian Jews during the fourth and fifth centuries. For example, Athanasius asserted that Jews and pagans attacked churches, incited by the prefect Philagrius and the Arian bishop Gregory of Cappadocia in 339 C.E . (Ep. Encycl. 3–​4; 7). Also, Theodoret (Hist. Eccl. 4. 18–​19) refers to Jewish attacks (in complicity with pagans and Arians) against Catholic buildings in 374 C.E . Even though scholars such as Tcherikover (CPJ vol. 1: 97–​8) and Christopher Haas (1997: 126) have affirmed that there were probably certain kernels of truth to these stories, we should not discard the possibility that they could have been invented in order to denigrate Arians by associating them with pagans and Jews. We also find a reference to Egyptian Jews in Cod. Theod. 13.5.18 from 390 C.E ., a regulation that forbids the imposition of maritime transport to the entire Jewish community and establishes that only wealthy people were eligible to perform the liturgy. Beyond the debate on the significance of Jewish ship-​owners and sailors (confirmed in a letter of Synesius of Cyrene: Ep. 4. 160), this document provides concrete evidence of the existence and recognition of social hierarchies within Jewish communities in Egypt. Furthermore, Jewish and non-​Jewish documentary evidence shows that Jews held a wide range of occupations in Egypt: peasants, landowners, guards, donkey drivers, tanners, dyers, and merchants, among others. While it is true that evidence is scarce (Ilan 2021: 7–​8), the impression remains that in late antiquity Egyptian Jews were not limited to a single economic area or activity. In that sense, we cannot name any particular professions or occupations in which Jews specialized during this period.

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6.  The (Supposed) Expulsion of the Jews of Alexandria in 415 C . E . One of the most analyzed events related to Jews in Egypt is the expulsion of the Alexandrian Jews ca. 415 C.E . –​ the exact date is not easy to confirm –​ by the bishop Cyril. According to Socrates Scholasticus (Hist. Eccl. 7.13), the conflict began after the announcement of new regulations for the theater promulgated by the Roman prefect Orestes. The edict was announced publicly and Hierax, an enthusiastic supporter of Cyril, was among the attendees. When the Jews saw Hierax, they denounced him as an instigator of riots. Thus, Orestes, who had a conflicting relationship with Cyril, tortured Hierax in public. After the event, Cyril openly threatened Jewish communal leaders, making them responsible for Hierax’s punishment. Some Jews responded by planning an ambush. One night, they began to spread the false rumor that a local church was on fire. When Christians arrived at the church to put out the fire, armed Jews killed many of them. According to Socrates, the Jews were supposedly able to recognize each other in the dark because they were wearing rings that they had prepared for the attack. Why did Socrates feel the need to mention the rings? Was it simply because it was dark outside and thus difficult for any group to recognize its own members? Or, perhaps, fifth-​century Jews could not be identified otherwise by their clothing in the daytime? The answer is elusive, though the second option seems more plausible. The veracity of the reported events, including the issue of the rings, remains questionable. On the next day, Cyril gathered a crowd and expelled the Jews from the city in retaliation, allowing the Christian populace to sack their homes and destroy (or usurp) their buildings. Orestes was unable to stop them. These are the events as narrated by Socrates. The problem, however, is that we depend almost exclusively on him for historical information because the rest of the sources –​Theophanes and Cassiodorus, for ­example –​rely on Socrates. John of Nikiu (Chronicle 84. 89–​99) offers a slightly different report from the late seventh century, but his account also seems to depend, at least in part, on Socrates. It is interesting that Cyril does not mention the expulsion in his texts. Various scholars have focused on the narrative intentions of Socrates and John in recounting the expulsion. Though they do not question the existence of the historical event itself, they try to understand Socrates’s and John’s portrayals of Cyril, Orestes, and the Jews. Oded Irshai (2013), for example, has emphasized that, on the one hand, Socrates constructed an image of a Jew who, even under the protection of Roman law, did not respect his own Jewish laws and attended the theater on the Sabbath. On the other hand, Socrates presents a violent Cyril, who, instead of converting the Jews by persuasion, chose to attack them. From Irshai’s point of view, then, Socrates’s narrative is an oblique critique of Cyril’s methods. Susan Wessel (2004: 37) has suggested that Socrates’s tale reveals more about Cyril’s attempts to consolidate his leadership than about the relationship between Jews and Christians in Alexandria. As I have stated above, Cyril wrote repeatedly against the Jews. Texts such as his festal letters and homilies are abundant with anti-​Jewish tropes (Wessel 2004: 39–​45). In fact, he associated his Christian enemies –​the Eunomians and Nestorians –​explicitly with Judaism in a common rhetorical strategy employed by the fathers of the church. Concerning the Jewish expulsion of 415 C. E ., there is controversy on its scope and the continuity of Jewish settlement in Alexandria. Sources do not provide clear answers. Socrates states that the entire Jewish community was expelled, while John says that only those Jews involved in the attack were driven out. The fact that Cyril continued to write against the Jews does not prove anything, as we know that anti-​Jewish tropes were not always related to actual social realities. However, there are certain hints about the continuity of Jewish life in Alexandria, though they are ambiguous. For example, in the writings of Socrates, Damascius, and Eutychius there 483

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are references to Jews who converted to Christianity in Alexandria in the fifth century (Haas 1997: 422). A papyrus written by a non-​Jew, CPJ vol. 3: 505 (c. fifth to sixth century C.E .), speaks about a Jew who came from Alexandria. In addition, John Moschus (Pratum Spirituale 172) refers to an Alexandrian Christian named Cosmas, who, in the last part of sixth century, obsessively wrote anti-​Jewish literature and sent John out in public to rally against the Jews, whereas he himself never left his house. According to John of Nikiu, when the Muslims conquered Egypt in the seventh century C . E ., Jews were allowed to remain in Alexandria (Chron. 120.21). Information from the sixth and seventh centuries does not automatically imply the continuity of Jewish settlement after 415 C.E . However, it is difficult to accept the proposition of a complete expulsion of all Jews from Alexandria. Or, if we do accept this claim, it seems likely that Jews quickly returned to the area (Stroumsa 2012). It must also be remembered that almost all surviving information about Jewish Alexandria after Philo comes from literary and non-​Jewish sources. Our dependence on these materials could explain the silence regarding Judaism in the period.

7.  Jews among Christians: The Perspective from Aramaic and Hebrew Sources We shall now turn to the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri. The most famous example is a Jewish marriage contract from Antinoöpolis dated to 417 C.E . (Cologne inv. 5853; Figure 31.2). The ketubah states explicitly that the father of the bride was from Alexandria but lived in Antinoöpolis. The papyrus is fundamental for different reasons: it is dated according to both the Jewish and the local calendar, and it is written in both Aramaic and Greek. The contract, according to the editors, is a demonstration of the influence of rabbinic Judaism in Egypt (Sirat et al. 1986), a position that, as we will see shortly, was later challenged by certain scholars. This claim can be supported by other parallels between papyri and rabbinic texts (for example, MS. Heb. c. 57 (P ) and m Yoma 3:8–​9. See Epp 2020: 25). However, it is important to be cautious when comparing these texts to avoid the risks of “parallelomania” (Sandmel 1962). Certainly one important issue related to these papyri is the question of language. Even Tcherikover, who generally considered the Jewish community to be highly Hellenized, has affirmed that, by the fifth century, a “new type of Jewish community” had begun to emerge, and “the official tongue used in Egyptian communities was now Hebrew” (CPJ vol. 1: 101). There are also papyri that show the perseverance of Greek in Jewish life, such as the abovementioned ketubah. Furthermore, one papyrus, written in Hebrew, employed the Greek word prostatai (leaders), transcribed in Hebrew characters (prostatin, MS. Heb. d. 83 (P ), ca. fifth to sixth century C.E .). Even though copies of the Septuagint are generally attributed to Christians, certain scholars have expressed doubts about the Christian monopoly on the Septuagint throughout late antiquity (Epp 2004: 20; CPJ vol. 4: 17). In fact, Piotrkowski (2018: 149) affirms that “Jews read, used and copied their Holy Scriptures from the first century C.E . continuously until the sixth century, in Greek”. Both Epp (2020) and Ilan (2021) affirm that the aforementioned Letter of Judas (P.Oxy 3314), a personal letter written in the fourth century in Greek, was authored by a Jew. However, the Jewishness of Judas remains controversial. Beyond the continuity of Greek, it is undeniable that Hebrew was an important language of the late antique Egyptian synagogue. This can be verified by the significant number of papyri in Hebrew related to liturgy, especially but not exclusively the piyyutim (liturgical poems). There are Hebrew papyri with texts for Shavuot, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Tisha Be’av, among other festivals and observances (Piotrkowski 2018: 155). In fact, a controversy regarding the date of certain piyyutim found in Oxyrhynchus, which could be from the third century, challenges 484

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Figure 31.2  Ketubah (marriage contract) from Antinoöpolis (Cologne inv. 5853), 417 C. E . Creative Commons license. © Institute of Classical Studies at the University of Cologne.

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previous hypotheses about the origins of the piyyut (Piotrkowski 2018: 156–​7; Ilan 2021: 14–​5). Nevertheless, the dates of these papyri are difficult to establish. In summary, there is evidence that at least from the fourth century onwards certain Egyptian Jewish communities employed Hebrew in the synagogue. Beyond papyrological evidence, there are also texts written on other materials, such as a leather fragment (Cologne 5941, from Oxyrhynchus), probably a lamentation, dated to the fourth century that is written in Hebrew. The expansion of the use of Aramaic and Hebrew is also seen in documentary papyri. For example, MS Heb. d. 83 (P ), which we have previously mentioned, is a letter by Ushiah/​Oshayah written in Hebrew to the heads of the synagogue (roshei ha-​knesset). It is also addressed to the prostatai (a Greek title, which appears written in Hebrew characters). It is interesting that this papyrus, even in its fragmentary and damaged condition, shows how the Hebrew language and Hebrew terms were employed alongside Greek terms to designate community leaders. There is also a reference to Rab Jacob ben Isaac in MS Heb. d. 69 (P ), a personal letter from the fifth to sixth centuries (Mishor 1989) written in Hebrew. However, it is not easy to determine whether “Rab” appears as an honorific title here (Cohen 1981; Lapin 2011) or as a reference to a member of the rabbinic movement. Even though the papyrus was found in Egypt, it was written in Palestine, according to its last editor (Mishor 1989; Naveh 1992; Gvaryahu 2022). Jacob resided in Egypt, but we do not know if he attributed the title “Rab” to himself. The new terms used to refer to the community and its leaders also appear in other papyri. For example, MS. Heb. c. 57 (P ) from the fourth to fifth centuries mentions roshei ha-​knesset (leaders of the synagogue/​community) and also ziknei ha-​knesset (elders of the community), bnei ha-​knesset (members of the community), and qahal ha-​qadosh (the holy congregation). The document is signed by Joseph and Samuel, showing again the biblicization of the names of the Jews in Egypt. This change in naming practices is seen in personal letters as well, where the names Jacob, Reuven, Isaac, and Sarah appear. Were these changes within the Jewish community indirectly driven by the expansion of Christianity (Schwartz 2001: 179–​202; Kraemer 2020)? Was the emergence of a new Christian identity the propeller of a Judaism more focused on defining a distinctive language and onomastics? Or is this phenomenon the result of the influence of rabbinic Judaism in Egypt at that time? Should we speak of processes of Judaization (Schwartz 2001: 240–​74), re-​Judaization, or Rabbinization? I think there are no definitive answers but the various explanations can and should be complementary.

7.  Toward a Rabbinized Jewish Community Documents dating to the sixth and seventh centuries are scarce. P.Oxy 3805 mentions a Jew named Lazar who rented a building to use as a synagogue. Since the reference to the building appears in a lengthy estate account written in Greek by a non-​Jew, we do not have the full context. On the positive side, the document indicates that synagogues were allowed in Egypt. On the negative side, Jews evidently had to rent a building that could serve as a synagogue. We do not know if there were other synagogues in sixth-​century Oxyrhynchus, although I suspect they existed. The tendency toward the Biblicization of names borne by Jews in the fourth and fifth centuries is confirmed in the papyri of sixth and seventh centuries. The use of Hebrew is also well attested to in the documents of those centuries (see CPJ vol. 4: 1–​19). In relation to Jewish communal organization, we do not have much information, with the exception of a personal letter written in Hebrew, probably in the sixth century (Florence PSI [Papiri della Societa Italiana] inv. 26018 +​26019, Mishor 1991: 286–​7), signed by Rabbi Reuven (the 486

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title “Rabbi” appears in Aramaic). In the same letter we find references to a rosh ha-​knesset and to the qahal ha-​qadosh. Palestinian rabbinic texts mention two earlier Egyptian rabbis: Zakkai of Alexandria, ca. third century (y. Ketub. 4:6, 38d; y. Yebam. 67:5, 8b) and Tanhum bar Pappus, ca. fourth century (y. Qidd. 3:12, 64c). There are also references to Palestinian rabbis such as Abbahu, ca. third century (y. Erub. 3:9, 21c), who is said to have made trips to Egypt (Hezser 2011: 248). Nevertheless, we know that we should be cautious when employing rabbinic literature to reconstruct the history of the Jews in the Diaspora. Can we say that there were rabbinized Jewish communities in Egypt at the end of late antiquity? As I have previously stated, the answer is complex. As most scholars have remarked, no rabbinic text has been found among the late ancient Egyptian material except for the abovementioned possible and difficult-​to-​verify similarity between some words of a papyrus and a Mishnaic tractate. In addition to Rabbi Reuven and the problematic Rab Jacob ben Isaac mentioned in the texts discussed above, we have only the Palestinian rabbinic references to rabbis originating from or sojourning in Alexandria (Hezser 2011: 248; Ulmer 2009: 186–​93) and Origin’s knowledge of Mishnaic laws, which are difficult to relate to Egypt. There is not enough evidence to clearly indicate Rabbinization. The proliferation of Hebrew and biblical names may indicate Palestinian influence on Egyptian Jewry, a phenomenon that makes even skeptical scholars such as Edrei and Mendels (2010) assume that Egypt (and Syria) were rabbinized earlier than the rest of the Diaspora. It is important to emphasize that the use of Hebrew and the appearance of biblical names can be seen as examples of the process of Judaization which does not automatically imply Rabbinization. There is also another possibility: a resurgence of Hebrew among Egyptian Jews without Palestinian influence. However, this claim is more difficult to prove. The fundamental problem, perhaps, is that it is difficult to define and even more difficult to find rabbinic identity markers. References to rabbis in the epigraphical or papyrological material and/​or the presence of rabbinic texts would suggest rabbinized Jewish communities. However, with the exception of Babylonia, in the late antique Diaspora clear references to rabbis and rabbinic culture are absent. We do not know whether they are absent because those communities were not rabbinized or because the evidence is so scarce (Kurtzer 2008: 247). In other words, Rabbinization is not always easy to identify. Even for Roman and early Byzantine Palestine the impact of rabbis on the larger Jewish society and the synagogue is difficult to estimate. Furthermore, as Seth Schwartz has correctly stated, Rabbinization should not be seen as a process of conquest (2002: 55–​6). It should be analyzed as a gradual change that allowed for the coexistence of –​and at times tension between –​rabbinic practices and nonrabbinic practices, labeled as minhagim (customs). It is the same argument that Irshai proposes with respect to Egypt: it is better to avoid the idea of a complete replacement of Greek language and culture in favor of Hebrew in late antiquity and to think of it in terms of a “lively cultural diversity among the Egyptian communities” (2012: 58). The aforementioned ketubah of Antinoöpolis is a good example of this cultural coexistence. It was written in Aramaic and Greek and provides glimpses of both non-​Jewish Roman and Egyptian influences as well as Jewish Palestinian ones. As such, authors such as Sirat (1986: 9) saw the ketubah as proof of rabbinic (Palestinian) influence, while others such as Ross Kraemer (2020: 396–​7) emphasized local influences and openly rejected the idea of Rabbinization. Somewhere in between, Wolfert-​de Vries (2022: 182) affirms that the Ketubah shows that Jews “were constantly negotiating with their Jewish and Greek-​Egyptian surroundings”. In the same vein, Haas (1997: 121) has remarked on the cultural diversity of Egyptian Jews and Bagnall has 487

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insisted on the capacity of late antique Egyptian Jews “to maintain distinctive traditions through close contact with Palestine” (1995: 278). We know how the story ends. A rabbinized Judaism is evident in the marvelous material found in the Cairo Genizah (see the contributions in Frenkel, ed. 2021). Ilan, in fact, has recently considered that biblical texts, piyyutim, ketubbot, personal letters, and magic papyri written by Jews in late antique Egypt can be understood as forerunners of the genres that are attested in the Cairo Genizah (Ilan 2021: 12). Unfortunately, we do not know the details of the transition from Egyptian Hellenistic Judaism to Judaism in the Muslim period. When Tcherikover compiled the CPJ, he reckoned with a quick end to Greek-​based Judaism and the eruption of a Hebrew-​based Judaism in the fifth century. But nowadays, after reevaluating the historical record, scholars hold different views on the social and religious transformations that took place within Jewish communities in Egypt. Beyond the controversies regarding Palestinian and rabbinic influence in the region, we should weigh all of the evidence equally in the process of trying to reconstruct the life experience of late antique Egyptian Jews. By focusing on the preserved evidence of Jewish life in late antique Egypt, we can give these individuals and communities their own voices without projecting Jewish realities from other regions and times onto them. To conclude, I refer to a passage from the Jerusalem Talmud that tells us that when Rabbi Abbahu went to Alexandria in the later part of the third century, he tried to impose Palestinian rabbinic rules concerning festival practices onto the local Jewish population (Ulmer 2009: 186–​7; Hezser 2011: 248). When Rabbi Yose found out what had happened, he “sent and wrote to them [to the Alexandrian Jews]: ‘even though we wrote you the order of holidays, do not change the usage of your departed ancestors’ ” (y. Erub. 3:9, 21c; translation with Guggenheimer 2012: 655). Utilizing the term minhag avoteikhem to refer to the customs of their own “ancestors”, Rabbi Yose privileges local tradition over the imposition of change based on Palestinian rabbinic practices in third-​century Egypt. Our problem nowadays is that we are still far from knowing the details of the minhagim of late antique Egyptian Jews. Perhaps new discoveries will enable us to finally recover them.

Bibliography Ameling, W. et al. (eds.) (2014). Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/​Palaestinae, vol. 3: South Coast: 2161–​2648. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (=​CIIP vol. 3). Andrist, P. (2001). Le dialogue d’Athanase et Zachée: étude des sources et du contexte littéraire. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Geneva. Bagnall, R. (1982). “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early Byzantine Egypt,” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologist 19: 105–​24. Bagnall, R. (1995). Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Balamoshev, C. (2017). “The Jews of Oxyrhynchos Address the Strategos of the Nome: An Early Fourth-​ Century Document,” Journal of Juristic Papyrology 47: 27–​43. Blumell, L.H. (2016). “A New Jewish Epitaph Commemorating Care for Orphans,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 47: 310–​29. Bohak, G. (2003). “Hebrew, Hebrew Everywhere? Notes on the Interpretation of Voces Magicae,” in S. Noegel, J. Walker, and B. Wheeler (eds.), Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 69–​82. Bohak, G. (2008). Ancient Jewish Magic. A History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Boustan, R. and Sanzo, J. (2017). “Christian Magicians, Jewish Magic, and the Shared Magical Culture of Late Antiquity,” Harvard Theological Review 110: 217–​40. Brakke, D. (2001). “Jewish Flesh and Christian Spirit in Athanasius of Alexandria,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9: 453–​81.

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Jews in Late Antique Egypt Carleton Paget, J. (1998). “Clement of Alexandria and the Jews,” Scottish Journal of Theology 51: 86–​97. Clarysse, W. (2018). “Identifying Jews and Christians: The Evidence of the Papyri,” in P. Lanfranchi and J. Verheyden (eds.), Jews and Christians in Antiquity: A Regional Perspective. Leuven: Peeters, 81–​100. Cohen, S.J.D. (2010). “Sabbath Law and Mishnah Shabbat in Origen De Principiis,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 17: 160–​89. Cohen, S.J.D. (1981). “Epigraphical Rabbis,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 72: 1–​17. Edrei, A. and Mendels, D. (2010). Zweierlei Diaspora. Zur Spaltung der antiken Jüdischen Welt. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Epp, E.J. (2004). “The Oxyrhynchus New Testament Papyri: ‘Not without Honor Except in Their Hometown’?,” Journal of Biblical Literature 123: 5–​55. Epp, E.J. (2020). “The Jews and the Jewish Community in Oxyrhynchus: Socio-​Religious Context for the New Testament Papyri,” in idem, Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism, vol. 2: Collected Essays, 2006–​2017. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 3–​40. Fredriksen, P. (2013). “Roman Christianity and the Post-​Roman West: The Social Correlates of the Contra Iudaeos Tradition,” in N. Dohrmann and A.Y. Reed (eds.), Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire. The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 249–​66. Frenkel, M. (ed.) (2021). The Jews in Medieval Egypt. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press. Gambetti, S. (2009). The Alexandrian Riots of 38 C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews. A Historical Reconstruction: Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Guggenheimer, H. (ed.) (2012). The Jerusalem Talmud. Second Order: Mo’ed. Tractates Sabbat and ‘Eruvin. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Gvaryahu, A. (2022). “A Hebrew Letter on Papyrus and Its Contexts: Oxford MS Heb.d.69(P),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 65: 675–​706. Haas, C. (1997). Alexandria in Late Antiquity. Topography and Social Conflict. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hacham, N. and Ilan, T. (eds.) (2020). Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (=​CPJ vol. 4). Hacham, N. and Ilan, T. (eds.) (2022). Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 5. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (=​CPJ vol. 5). Hezser, C. (2011). Jewish Travel in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Horbury, W. and Noy, D. (eds.) (1992). Jewish Inscriptions of Greco-​Roman Egypt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (=​JIGRE). Horsley, G.H.R. (1983). New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity. A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri published in 1978, vol. 3. Sydney: Macquarie University. Ilan, T. (2016). “The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 CE in Light of Old and New Papyri,” in Y. Furstenberg (ed.), Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 201–​24. Ilan, T. (2021). “Between the Hellenistic World and the Cairo Genizah,” in M. Frenkel (ed.), The Jews in Medieval Egypt. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 1–​21. Irshai, O. (2012). “Confronting a Christian Empire: Jewish Life and Culture in the World of Early Byzantium,” in R. Bonfil et alia (eds.), Jews in Byzantium. Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 17–​64. Irshai, O. (2013). “Christian Historiographer’s Reflection on Jewish Christian Violence in Fifth-​Century Alexandria,” in N. Dohrmann and A.Y. Reed (eds.), Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire. The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 137–​53. Kasher, A. (1981). “The Jewish Community of Oxyrhynchus,” Journal of Jewish Studies 32: 151–​7. Kraemer, R. (2020). The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity. What Christianity Cost the Jews. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kurtzer, J. (2008). What Shall the Alexandrians Do? Rabbinic Judaism and the Mediterranean Diaspora. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University. Lange, N. de (1978). Origen and the Jews. Studies in Jewish Christian Relations in Third-​Century Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lapin, H. (2011). “Epigraphical Rabbis: A Reconsideration,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, 101: 311–​46. Mélèze Modrzejewski, J. (2001). The Jews of Egypt. From Ramses II to Emperor Adrian, Skokie: Varda Books. Mishor, M. (1989). “A New Edition of A Hebrew Letter: Oxford Ms. Heb. d.69 (P)” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 53: 215–​64.

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Rodrigo Laham Cohen Mishor, M. (1991). “Papyrus Fragments of Hebrew Letters” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 55: 281–​8. Naveh, J. (1992). “Hebrew Versus Aramaic in the Epigraphic Finds after the Bar Kokhba Revolt” (Hebrew), Leshonenu 57: 16–​23. Papaconstantinou, A. (2022). “Lifting the Cloak of Invisibility: Identifying the Jews of Late Antique Egypt,” in M. Brand and E. Scheerlinck (eds.), Religious Identifications in Late Antique Papyri. 3rd-​12th Century Egypt. London-​New and York: Routledge, 69–​92. Parsons, P. and Gonis, N. (2018). The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. 83. London: The Egypt Exploration Society. Piotrkowski, M. (2018). “ ‘Literary Jews’: The Jewish Community of Oxyrhynchus in Light of Non-​ Documentary Texts on Papyrus,” in M. Piotrkowski et al. (eds.), Sources and Interpretation in Ancient Judaism. Studies for Tal Ilan at Sixty. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 143–​73. Price, J. (2003). “Five Inscriptions from Jaffa,” Scripta Classica Israelica 22: 215–​31. Price, J.J. (2012). “The Necropolis at Jaffa and its Relation to Beth She’arim,” in B. Isaac and Y. Shahar (eds.), Judaea-​Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 215–​26. Pucci Ben Zeev, M. (2005). Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil, 116/​117 CE: Ancient Sources and Modern Insight. Leuven: Peeters. Runia, D. (1992). “‘Where, Tell Me, Is the Jew …?’: Basil, Philo and Isidore of Pelusium,” Vigiliae Christianae 46: 172–​89. Sandmel, S. (1962). “Parallelomania,” Journal of Biblical Literature 81: 1–​13. Schwabe, M (1936). “Three Finger Rings,” Tarbiz 7: 345–​51. Schwartz, S. (2001). Imperialism and Jewish Society. 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schwartz, S. (2002). “Rabbinization in the Sixth Century,” in P. Schäfer (ed.). The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-​Roman Culture, vol. 3. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 55–​69. Sijpesteijn, P.J. (1990). “Inscriptions from Egypt,” Chronique d’Egypte 65: 122–​5. Sirat, C. et al. (1986). La Ketouba de Cologne: Un contrat de mariage juif a Antinoopolis. Düsseldorf: Westdeutscher Verlag. Stroumsa, G. (2012). “Jewish Survival in Late Antique Alexandria,” in R. Bonfil et al. (eds.), Jews in Byzantium. Dialects of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 257–​69. Tcherikover, V. (ed.) (1957). Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. I. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (=​CPJ vol. 1). Tcherikover, V. and Fuks, A. (eds.) (1960). Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (=​CPJ vol. 2). Tcherikover, V., Fuks, A. and Stern, M. (eds.) (1964). Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 3. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (=​CPJ vol. 3). Ulmer, R. (2009). Egyptian Cultural Icons in Midrash. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Wagner, G. (1987). Les Oasis d’Egypte à l’époque grecque, romaine et byzantine d’après les documents grecs. Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire. Wessel, S. (2004). Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy. The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Wilken, R. (1971). Judaism and the Early Christian Mind. A Study of Cyril of Alexandria’s Exegesis and Theology. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wolfert-​de Vries, S. (2022). “Religious and Local Identifications in the Jewish Marriage Contract From Fifth-​ Century Antinoopolis,” in M. Brand and E. Scheerlinck (eds.), Religious Identifications in Late Antique Papyri. 3rd-​12th Century Egypt, London and New York: Routledge, 167–​90.

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32 JEWS IN LATE ANTIQUE SYRIA AND ARABIA Maurice Sartre

1. Introduction The origins of Jewish settlements in Syria lie in the distant past, but it is not until the Hellenistic period that they become visible. This penetration involves not only the older major urban centers (Tyre, Sidon, Damascus) and the new foundations by Hellenistic monarchs (Antioch, Apamea, Gerasa) but also scattered villages and towns in Syria. The emigration of Jews from Roman Palestine to Syria increased dramatically in the time between Pompey’s conquest of Jerusalem in 63 B .C.E . and Hadrian’s persecution of Jews in connection with the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–​5 C . E .). The proximity of Syria probably made it attractive to Jewish settlers, although the borders of the Land of Israel were of constant debate among rabbis (Rosenfeld 2010: 32–​40). The areas of migration considered here range from Anatolia, the Syrian provinces (including Osrhoene and Euphratensis), the Syro-​Mesopotamian Desert, Roman Arabia, and the Transjordanian part of Palestina Tertia. The Arabian Peninsula beyond the borders of the Roman Empire will be the subject of special treatment because of the creation of the Himyarite Jewish kingdom in South Arabia and its external interventions elsewhere in Arabia that provoked the persecution of Christians and created geopolitical unrest, even if lacking any direct relationship with the communities of Syria. No archaeological discovery can match the importance of the synagogue of Dura-​Europos, destroyed in 256 C . E ., in illuminating the Jewish communities of Syria and Arabia in late antiquity. A few synagogues (Apamea, Gerasa, Heraclea) have been identified, but such archaeological finds are marginal and minimal. The major traces of Jewish presence are from scattered villages in Southern Syria, consisting of chronologically ambiguous menorahs (seven-​branched candlesticks) and an occasional Torah shrine. Epigraphic discoveries provide indispensable complementary evidence, both in the cities and in the villages. The corpus of Jewish inscriptions (Frey 1952; Roth-​Gerson 2001; Noy & Bloedhorn 2004), supplemented by regional corpora (Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, 1929–​2020; Inscriptions from Palaestina Tertia, 2005, 2008, 2016), constitutes the most important epigraphic evidence. Even if definitive dates are lacking, a date in late antiquity can be assumed. By contrast, amulets with a Jewish connotation are problematic, since their popularity and use were not limited to Jewish circles alone. The inscriptions also capture the complexity of religious issues in South

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-39

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Arabia in the sixth century C. E. , thanks to the inscription from Adulis (Bowersock 2013) and the literary record of the martyrs of Najran (Beaucamp et al., 2007 and 2010). Ecclesiastical histories and chronicles provide many anecdotes, but their historical reliability must be questioned. Often there are significant contradictions between different versions of the same episode. Some texts relate to a specific moment and place, such as the eight homily Against the Jews by John Chrysostom, which are valid only for Antioch, even if they reflect a broader long-​ term concern. Rabbinic texts also provide difficulties of interpretation, as they sometimes contain schoolroom exercises arbitrarily placed into the mouth of a master of an unknown period. Even if they provide more general information, we have to distinguish between rabbis and their networks of relations, throwing some light on local Jewish communities.

2.  Urban Communities, Rural Communities Syria’s major cities were the location of a number of Jewish communities in late antiquity, although extrapolating details from older or undated documentation is difficult. If we focus on the better-​ documented communities between the fourth and the beginning of the seventh century, the inventory is still relatively small. Antioch, the historical capital of Syria and residence of the governor of Coele Syria, had a large Jewish community and one of the most important in the empire (Hahn 2004: 140), perhaps numbering between 45,000 (Brändle 1987) and 65,000 individuals (Kraeling 1932: 136) at the end of fourth century. There were synagogues in Antioch and Daphne, only two of them attested by name (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud., 1.6; Brooten 2000: 33), although scholars estimate that there were as many as eighteen to serve the needs of the large Jewish community there (Zetterholm 2003: 38). Jews from Antioch are mentioned in inscriptions from Bet She‘arim, a necropolis used until the middle of the fourth century C. E . The homily Against the Jews written by John Chrysostom in 386–​387 C. E . provide a controversial description that should not be taken literally (Wilken 1983: XV–​XVII; Soler 2006: 93–​135). In spite of the high number of Jews who lived in Antioch in the first centuries C. E ., few local rabbis are known by name, and only two in the fourth century: Isaac Nappaha and R. Ephas (b. Ketub. 88a; Gen. Rab. 10.4; Manns 2014: 213). This suggests that Antioch was never a great rabbinic center, despite the number of Palestinian rabbis who are said to have visited the community in the fourth and fifth centuries (Kraeling 1932: 155–​6; Brooten 2000: 36; Manns 2014: 213). Elsewhere in Northern Syria, the presence of Jews at Doliche is attested only by the inscription of Maria the proselyte (Frey 1952 no. 1390; Williams 1998: no. III.43). The community of Aleppo is known only through its synagogue, of which some undated architectural fragments have been discovered (Hachlili 1998: 85). At Heraclea (Ras Bassit, north of Laodicea), a synagogue of the early sixth century has recently been identified by two inscriptions on mosaics (Beaudry 2011). In Edessa, there is a synagogue at the beginning of the fifth century, but the Jewish community is undoubtedly much older (Segal 1970: 41–​2). Some Jews are buried in a cemetery called Kirk Magara, the “Forty Caves”, where three epitaphs can be dated roughly between the first and fourth centuries, two in Hebrew and one bilingual in Greek-​Hebrew (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004, nos. Syr 78–​80). In the time of Julian (361–​3 C. E .), local Christians probably attacked the Jews of Edessa to avenge the favors which the emperor had granted to them (Bar Hebraeus, Chronography 1.62). The Doctrine of Addai, written at the beginning of the fifth century in Edessa, shows strong hostility against Jews, who also suffered forced conversions under Bishop Rabboula (Drijvers 1985). The Jewish community of Apamea on the Orontes appears in an inscription at the end of the fourth century, recording the embellishment of the local synagogue (IGLS vol. 4, nos. 1319–​37; 492

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Sorex and Noy 2013: 245–​8). Located not far from the main north-​south street of the city, the synagogue decorated with a mosaic of about 120 square meters in 392 C.E . (Hachlili 1998: 32–​4 and 198–​204), paid in part by an archisynagogos of Antioch called Ilasios (IGLS vol. 4, no. 1319; Sukenik 1950–​1), who was the husband of a Jewish woman from Apamea called Photion. According to the inscription, Ilasios financed 150 feet of the structure, while other donors, mostly women and sometimes men together with their wives, funded panels of mosaic floors of between 35 and 150 feet for a total of at least 1,200 additional feet (IGLS vol. 4, nos. 1321–​37). No information is provided on these wealthy donors’ involvement in synagogue affairs, except for Euthalis, who is called scholastikos, that is, lawyer (IGLS vol. 4, no. 1330). In Palmyra, the Jewish presence goes back to ancient times. Catacomb 4 in Bet She’arim is occupied only by Jews from Palmyra and there are many ossuaries of Palmyrene Jews in Jerusalem that date to the time before 70 CE. In Bet She‘arim, their origin is indicated by an ethnicon (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: nos. 92 and 100), or a characteristic Palmyrene name (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: no. 97), or the use of Palmyrene Aramaic (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: no. 67), but none of the inscriptions are dated. In Palmyra itself, traces of the ancient Jewish community are minimal and always before Late Antiquity. The evidence consists of only two local production lamps (fourth century) found in the temple of Allat bearing menorahs, and a very late Aramaic graffito, probably of the seventh century, found in the temple of Bel, that mentions Sadiq, priest, son of Eleazar (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 48). In addition, Palmyra provides the longest biblical quotation engraved on stone (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 44). It is tempting to assign this quotation from Deuteronomy 6:4–​9 to a synagogue, but this remains hypothetical. In the Euphrates valley, any traces of the Jewish community of Dura have disappeared and the synagogue was buried under the reinforcements of the ramparts, but there was also a Jewish community in Callinicum (Raqqa), known from the burning of a synagogue there by Christians in 388 C . E . (Ambrose, Epistle 74.6). The Jewish community of Emesa is attested in the third century by references to rabbinical activity, eg Palestinian R. Hiyya b. Abba received money for widows and orphans from the local Jews (y. Meg. 3:1, 74a), R. Yose gave instructions on rules concerning levirate marriage and proselytes (y. Yebam. 11:2, 11d), and R. Haggai answered questions on the lease of land to no-​ Jews (y. Demai 6:1, 25b; y. Abod. Zar. 1:9, 40b). In the middle of the fourth century, the bishop Eusebius wrote texts hostile to Jews (Jerome, Vir. Ill. 91; Buytaert 1949 and 1953), a phenomenon that suggests a community of some influence, if not size. The Life of Saint Symeon by Leontius of Neapolis reports the meeting of the saint with a Jewish glassblower in Emesa (Laga 1990: 177–​ 88). An Emesenian Jew is attested in an inscription from Jaffa in Palestine with the title presbeutes (Ameling et al. 2014, vol. 3: no. 2176 and perhaps no. 2177). Flavia Optata (late fourth to early fifth century), wife of a member of the Emesenian numerus, a Roman military unit, is attested by an inscription from Concordia (Venetia) (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 43), which may have a lulav (palm branch) at the bottom of the text, but there is no indication that she is herself Emesenian. The Arab historian al-​Baladhuri mentions that some Jews of Emesa helped the Arab conquerors to seize the city in 635 C. E . (Kitāb Futūḥ al-​Buldān 143). With regard to Phoenicia, some epitaphs from Bet She‘arim mention Jews of Tyre (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: no. 147), Berytus (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: nos. 148 and 164), Sidon (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: nos. 172 and 221), and Byblos (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: nos. 136–​137), but only a relative date between the middle of the third and the middle of the fourth century can be proposed. A Jewish woman from Arca in Lebanon appears in an inscription from Rome (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 33). A few inscriptions mentioning Jews date to late antiquity: in Tyre, an archisynagogos is attested for the fourth or fifth century on the lintel inscription of the Sepphoris 493

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synagogue (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 5), where there is also the epitaph of a fisherman’s wife dated to the fifth or sixth century (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 10); at Berytus, there is the epitaph of Samuel the silk-​weaver dated to the fifth or sixth century (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 24); and in Byblos, the tombstone of a certain Iosse/​Εἰόσης (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: nos. Syr 28–​29). The most explicit text stems from Byblos, a square Hebrew inscription dated to 385 or 386 C. E . (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 30) –​depending on whether we calculate the date according to the era of the destruction of the Temple –​that mentions Sanbathion the archon, and for 605/​6 C. E ., a mosaic of Khan Khalde (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 23), which uses a Jewish formular and bears the names of Iosse (=​Yose) and Benjamin. Another inscription mentions a late synagogue at Ornithopolis (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 12). In Damascene, the small town of Admedera on the road to Palmyra provides evidence of an invocation for two Jews, Tanhum and Samuel (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 41), datable to the fifth or sixth centuries. In Arabia, Bostra, capital of the province, which Palestinian rabbis located beyond the borders of the Land of Israel (Habas 1995: 375–​91; Rosenfeld 2010: 236), had a large Jewish community, which seems to have produced several rabbis in the fourth century, including R. Yonah (y. Kil 8:3, 31c; Rosenfeld 2010: 241–​3). These sages are said to have had close relations with Tiberias. The epigraphic traces at the site are sparse, however. According to one inscription, Isaias, Theodoros, and Elias jointly built an unspecified building in April or May 524 (IGLS vol. 13/​1: no. 9126), but the names do not suffice to identify them as Jews. Similarly, we find the names of Ies (IGLS vol. 14: no. 355, diminutive of Iosse/​Yose), Esaias (Isaiah), and perhaps Saul (Saolos) in inscriptions, but Jews did not have a monopoly on these biblical names (IGLS vol. 13/​2, no. 9570a). In Philippopolis, a menorah was found (IGLS vol. 15: 471) and an inscription mentions a “tomb of the Jews” (mnema Ioudaion) (IGLS vol. 15: no. 440), which appears to date from the fourth century. In Adraa (Dera‘a), another border town (Rosenfeld 2010: 236), there is an undated Aramaic inscription with an engraved menorah (IGLS vol. 14: 33). The city was famous for its rabbis (Tanhum Edreiah) and Jewish doctors (Rosenfeld 2010: 28, 243–​4, 248). In Gerasa, a synagogue is located in the western part of the city, between the precinct of the temple of Artemis and the rampart. Some fragments of mosaics bear dedicatory inscriptions in Hebrew and Greek dated to the fifth century (Welles 1938: nos. 285–​287), but the building lies beneath an older building of the third or fourth century (Kraeling 1938). The urban Jewish communities are most visible on the basis of literary evidence and monuments (synagogues), but they are not the only ones. Libanius (Oratio 47.13 =​Williams 1998: no. I.86) indicates that around 390 C. E . some Jewish peasants with whom he was in conflict had been working his lands in the plain of Antioch for four generations. Perhaps a synagogue in the district of Ulatha/​Holath, which rabbinic tradition calls Holath of Antioch (Kraeling 1932: 141–​3), a plain where rice grew according to Tosefta Demai 2:1 (Kraeling 1932: 133), catered to these rural Jews. Another Jewish community is perhaps attested for Me’ez, in the Jebel Barisha region, if the presbuteroi are members of a Jewish community (Seyrig 1958: 26–​7), but that remains uncertain. In the Roman province of Arabia, the traces are more abundant. Leaving aside the Golan region to the west of Nahr al-​Ruqqad, which was part of Palestina Secunda (Urman 1995: 373–​617; Gregg and Urman 1996), Batanea, Trachonitis, and Auranitis, considered by rabbis the hinterland of Galilee (Rosenfeld 2010: 235–​6), should be taken into account. Nawa and the surrounding villages are exempt from sabbatical (shmittah) produce and first-​fruit offerings (bikkurim), indicating that they are outside the rabbinically defined Land of Israel. These bordering regions are too well attested in the biblical tradition to be considered totally foreign: Batanea retains the biblical memory of Og, king of Bashan (Deut 3:11). 494

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The epigraphic texts related to South Syria (Hauran) are somewhat ambiguous: a goldsmith named Isakios at Ayn Mousa in Jebel al-​‘Arab may be Jewish (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. App. 12), but the name is well attested among Christians too. In Sheikh Meskin, Annanios, who is nicknamed Iouses, declares himself Ioudaeus “of the helping God” (in Greek) and built a family tomb, probably in the third or fourth century (IGLS vol. 15: no. 408). I have already mentioned a menorah in the same village. A Jew of Phaina (Mismiyeh) is buried in Bet She’arim (Schwabe and Lifshitz 1974: no. 178), two others in Rome (IGLS vol. 15: 34), and we saw in this village a candlestick engraved on a wall (unpublished). In Zorava (Ezra) there is evidence of engraved menorahs and shofars (rams horns), as well as a Torah niche with a menorah (IGLS vol. 15: 234). From Dama, on the Trachon plateau, a Rabbi Abitar is known from the end of the third century (y. Sheb. 6.1, 32c; Rosenfeld 2010: 241 confuses the two villages, Dama and Duma), whose two sons are said to have studied in Tiberias. Perhaps a Jew by the name Tobias invokes God in an inscription of the same village (IGLS vol. 15: no. 301). Noy agrees (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 38), but the name is also used by Christians. The village of Tafas (many of the inscriptions come from the neighboring city of Dion/​Tell Ashari) has a dedication inscription for a synagogue (IGLS vol. 14: no. 265), and an inscription that mentions gifts by Samuel, Jacob, and Clematius (common names in late antiquity). There is also a Makabaios (IGLS vol. 14: no. 273) and an ambiguous theosebes (IGLS vol. 14: no. 282). The main Jewish center was Nawa (Neve), mentioned by the Talmud (y. Sheb. 6.1, 32c; b. Shabb. 30a). The place is reported by Eusebius as a Jewish “city” (Onom., s.v. Nineue). The city retains lintels carved with menorahs in the mosque and at the entrance of a house, as well as columns with the symbols of the shofar and lulab in the mosque (Reifenberg 1950: 106–​10; Avi-​Yonah 1976: 82). One inscription in Hebrew mentions the construction of a synagogue (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 35) and another one provides the name of a rabbi (IGLS vol. 14: no. 439a). The village appears in the heart of a network of villages where Jews were living, villages sometimes difficult to identify, with the exception of Sahem al-​Jawlan, allegedly said to have been visited at the beginning of the fourth century by Jeremiah ben Abba (y. Meg. 3:1, 73d). Other places of Jewish settlement include Jassem, Zeizun, Dneibeh, and Da’il, where a menorah was found (IGLS vol.14: 336) and which also preserves the epitaph of a certain Ies (IGLS vol. 14: no. 355). During the persecution of Trebonianus Gallus in the middle of the third century C . E ., Yudan of Tiberias allegedly took refuge in Nawa, and Nawa’s rabbis are often referred to in the fourth and fifth centuries (Rosenfeld 2010: 29, 37 and 239–​40), when the village served as a regional center for study and teaching. In the southern part of Roman Arabia, which was attached to Palestine under the tetrarchy and became the province of Palaestina Salutaris at the end of the fourth century before being renamed Palaestina Tertia in the fifth century (Ward 2012: 289–​302), Jews were present in Zoora in the second century. It seems that they were still numerous in the fourth to sixth centuries. A Greek epitaph mentions an archisynagogue at the settlement in 345 C.E . (I.Zoora Ia, 7). These inscriptions use the era of the destruction of the Temple and the year of the sabbatical cycle (in addition to the provincial era of Arabia in the Greek text) (Stern 2001). A bilingual Greek and Aramaic epitaph dated to 358 or the beginning of 359 C. E . (I.Zoora Ia, 18) refers to Jews, although the deceased’s name Moses is also used by Christians. A further 24 inscriptions in Aramaic are dated in the same way, with a Jewish month, the year of the sabbatical cycle, and the era of the destruction of the Temple. An important Jewish community also lived in Rabbat Moab, a place whose synagogue was destroyed by Barsauma between 419 and 423 C. E . (History of Barsauma 26; Nau 1927: 188–​9). According to Procopius (De Bello Persico 1.19.4–​5), Jews lived independently on the island of Iotabe, at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, until they became subjects of the Byzantine 495

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Empire in the time of Justinian. In fact, the island had been Roman for a long time but had been controlled by the Arab phylarch Amorcesos (Imrulqays) around 473 C.E. Justinian eventually regained control of the island and established a Roman customs post there. Finally, in Hegra (Meda’in Saleh), which for a long time was the southern limit of Roman Arabia, eight inscriptions in Hebrew testify to a Jewish presence (Jaussen-​Savignac 1914: 641–​4). One of these inscriptions mentions a certain Adnûn b. Ḥûnî b. Shmu’el, head (resh) of Ḥigra, and his deceased wife, a daughter of the head (resh) of Tayma, dated 319 or 356 C.E. depending on whether one uses the era of the destruction of the Temple or the provincial era of Arabia (Altheim and Stiehl 1968: 306). Despite the sparse documentary evidence, it is obvious that Jewish communities were established in the regions east of Palestine, from the borders of Anatolia to the Arabian desert, both in cities and in the countryside in the first centuries C.E . The proximity of these regions to Palestine would have doubtlessly facilitated this dispersion, which extended to Arabia in the south.

3.  Communal Organization and Social Life Few texts provide information on the internal organization of Jewish communities but they confirm what is known from elsewhere. Each synagogue is led by an archisynagogos (head of the synagogue), attested at Antioch, Apamea, Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Zoora, and a council of elders (presbeutai at Emesa) administers it, presided over by a gerousiarch (Apamea, Antioch, Heraclea). Some synagogues also had a hazzan, for whom the Greek term “deacon” is used (IGLS vol. 4: no. 1321). There is also an archon mentioned for Byblos in an inscription from 385/​6 C.E . (Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 30), an office also attested for Rome (Monteverde catacomb), where Proclos, archon of the synagogue of Tripolitans (probably Tripolis of Lebanon), is mentioned (Noy 1993–​5: no. 166). John Chrysostom also uses this term in connection with Antioch, indicating that Jews elect their archons in September, at the beginning of the new year (Williams 1998: no. II.27). In Antioch he also mentions a prostates (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 5.3), and a patriarch (ibid. 5.5), without indicating whether the patriarch of all Jews or a local Jewish leader is meant (Kraeling 1932: 137). The occupations of Jews are rarely mentioned. We cannot trust John Chrysostom, who derides them as innkeepers and owners of brothels (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.7). In the plain of Antioch and in many villages of the Hauran, Jews would have worked as peasants and sometimes as tenant farmers, like those employed by Libanios. In Antioch, Jewish physicians seem to have been numerous (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.7). According to Chrysostom, the synagogue at Daphne practiced incubation (ibid.). Chrysostom seems to have confused medicine with magic at times. His homilies suggest that these practices overlapped in Antioch and that Jewish doctors were popular (Soler 2006: 103–​6). Other Jewish professions include a jeweler (Ayn Mousa: IGLS vol. 16: no. 387), a fisherman of purple at Tyre (but it is his wife who is Jewish: Noy and Bloedhorn 2004: no. Syr 10), a tailor (Sidon: ibid. no. Syr 14), a merchant or a silk weaver (Berytos: ibid. no. Syr 24), a lawyer (Apamea: IGLS vol. 4: no. 1330), and a glassblower (Emesa: Leontius of Neapolis, Symeon 1.163). There is no mention of a specific “Jewish quarter” anywhere in Syria. In Antioch Jews were numerous in the Kerateion district of Epiphaneia, where a synagogue was located (Soler 2006: 97–​ 8; Triebel 2006: 464–​95), but Jews would also have lived in other neighborhoods, including the wealthy suburb of Daphne. Tal Ilan’s inventory of Jewish names in the eastern territories of the Roman Empire (Ilan 2011) leads us to conclude that the Jews of Syria retained a strong onomastic attachment to their Jewish 496

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identity. The most popular names are biblical, for both men and women. Yet there were also many Jews in Syria, who had Greek or Latin names, eg at Palmyra, where names like Doros, Theodoros, Leontios, Bonus, Germanus, and Iulius are attested. The Lexicon may create an illusion because the bearers of these Greek and Latin names are not identifiable as Jews due to a lack of any distinctive ethnic sign, whereas biblical names are automatically attributed to Jews but could also belong to Christians. Thus, the generous donors mentioned in Greek mosaic inscriptions from Apamea dated to 392 C . E . mainly bear Greek names except for three biblical names (Isakios, Nemeas [Nehemiah?], Phineas). Greek names are rather common in these inscriptions, such as Theodotos, Photion, Ilasios, Alexandra, Ambrosia, Domnina, Eupithis, Diogenis, Basilidas, Thaumasis, Hesychios, and Euthalis. The mosaic, decorated with purely geometric designs, has no Jewish symbols except for a tiny menorah (Sorex and Noy 2013: 245–​8). The second commandment seems therefore seems to have been strictly applied here, but the walls that may have had images are missing. The Jews of Apamea adopted the same strictures, in a hostile environment. The bishop of Callinicum had just burned the synagogue of his city in 388 C. E . (Ambrose, Epist. 74.6). Bishop Marcellus of Apamea, minister of the prefect of the Eastern Praefectus Kynegios, who had tried unsuccessfully to destroy the temple of Belos in Apamea in 386, was killed in 389 C.E. in an attack on a temple at Aulon (Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 7.15). The embellishment of the synagogue of Apamea may reflect the donors’ confidence in a less bleak future, but the local Jewish leaders nevertheless preferred to remain discreet. Syrian Jews did not distinguish themselves from Christians or pagans by particular social behaviors. However, they seem to have practiced polygyny quite frequently, which Theodosius I outlawed in 393 C . E . (Cod. Justin. 1.19.7). The ban was renewed in 535 C . E . by Justinian’s Novella 12. Jews of Tyre obtained an exemption in 537 C . E . (Novella. 139; Satlow 2001: 189–​90). Only scarce evidence on relations between Jews and pagans exists. Libanius, who wrote a letter to the Jewish patriarch (Epistle 973]), is an exception. He tried to intercede on behalf of Philippianos, a young member of the officium of the governor of Syria-​Palaestina and his former pupil, who wished to enter the patriarch’s network of friends. Libanius wrote no less than eight letters to this patriarch, but they attest more to Libanius’ influence in Palestine than to his relations with the Jews of Antioch, apart from one letter (Epistle 914) in which he shows his compassion for Jews who were persecuted in 388 C. E. in Callinicum (Sandwell 2007: 113–​4). On the Christian side, a number of hostile writings directed against Jews in Syria exist. In Chrysostom’s homilies Against the Jews, which are addressed to so-​called judaizing Christians when he was a priest in Antioch in 386–​387 C. E ., a list of alleged seductions which Jews are said to have exercised on the Christian and pagan population of the city are mentioned. These allegations may testify to close relations between the two groups. Many Christians seem to have attended Jewish festivals, where trumpets, drums, harps, and other musical instruments were played, and where celebrants danced barefoot on the public squares (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 1.2). Moreover, Christians believed that an oath taken at a synagogue was particularly efficient, a phenomenon that corresponds with the trust in Jewish magic (Simon 1964: 339–​68) as attested by many amulets. Jews also enjoyed a high reputation as healers and doctors. Although Chrysostom maintains that synagogues are places of debauchery and hideaways of brigands, he notes that Christians were not attracted only by the festive aspects of Judaism (licentious, in his eyes). He also condemns those who observe Jewish fasting and the Sabbath, or practice circumcision (Adv. Jud. 2.2). Generally speaking, the homilies indicate that Christians, especially women, respected Jews, who seem to them more trustworthy than other ethnic groups 497

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with regard to the solidity of their oaths and the fairness of their courts (John Chrysostom, Adv. Jud. 2.3; Simon 1936). The close relationships between Jews and Christians offends John and other clerics but their fury against Jews testifies to this social proximity. There are some rare explicit mentions of solidarity, eg Jews who helped their Christian friends bury the martyr Habib of Edessa during the persecution of Diocletian (Martyrdom of Habib the Deacon 84.6–​7). The Jews of Antioch participated in the festive life of the city, especially at the race course, where they may have had a specific spectator area reserved (Cameron 1976: 79). The welcome that the chariot team of the Blues give them in 490 C.E . caused the anger of the competing team of Greens who plunder and burn the Abasinos synagogue in Antioch (Malalas, Excerpta de insidiis 166–​7; Williams 1998: no. V.29). This does not necessarily imply that the Blues were particularly favorable to Jews and the Greens hostile. The Blues only tried to increase their supporters and provoke and dominate the Greens (Cameron 1976: 150). It is important to note that Jews participated in this essential aspect of the city’s social life, the races of the racecourse, even if they were not closely attached to any particular faction, perhaps because they supported both. Antioch also preserves remnants of a Jewish presence until the end of antiquity: Titus purportedly founded the theater of Daphne with the spoils of the Jewish war (Malalas, Chron. 261), and a door in the south of the city, near the synagogue of Kerateion, was allegedly adorned with the bronze cherubim removed from the Temple of Jerusalem (Malalas, Chron. 260–​261). A tradition transmitted in the Talmud locates a meeting between Nebuchadnezzar and the Great Sanhedrin at Daphne (Kraeling 1932: 132). In addition, Syrian Jews and Christians share the memory of at least two biblical episodes that formed the basis of their festivals and pilgrimages. An Antiochian tradition concerns the remembrance of the elder Eleazar, father of the seven Maccabean brothers and their mother, martyrs under Antiochos IV (2 Macc 6:18–​7:42). Judah the Jew (Maccabee?) allegedly buried them in the time of Demetrius I at the synagogue of Kerateion, according to Malalas (Chron. 206). Our information is based on Christian sources only (Hahn 2004: 180–​5; Hahn 2012: 79–​104). This makes an assumption of the popularity and veneration of the Antiochian martyrs in the Jewish community very hypothetical (Bremmer 2014: 27–​8). The presence of a tomb in or near a synagogue cannot claim any biblical foundation and was invented under Christian influence in the Middle Ages. Was there a place of Jewish veneration at the Kerateion, or only at the place of the Maccabees’ martyrdom at Daphne, in the synagogue of the Matrona (allusion to the Mother of the Maccabees) or in a nearby cave (Vinson 1994: 181–​3; Ziadé 2007: 114–​6)? These Jewish martyrs were also very popular among Christians. This probably explains why clerics such as John Chrysostom, who never mentions their Jewishness, forfeited their worship to avoid any association with Jews, probably between 363 (the death of Julian) and 391 C. E . (Augustine’s Serm. 300; see Hahn 2012), but perhaps as early as 352 C. E . (Ziadé 2007: 134). Although Fourth Maccabees was written in Antioch between the end of the first and the middle of the second century (Rajak 2016), probably in a Christian environment (Vinson 1994), Christian worship of the Maccabees probably did not spread among Christians before the last quarter of the fourth century. It is at this time that Gregory of Nazianzus celebrates their exploits and incorporates this Jewish heritage into the Christian tradition, thereby rejecting the privileged relations that Julian attempted to establish with the Jews (Rutgers 1988; Vinson 1994: 187; Ziadé 2007). The synagogue of Kerateion was confiscated and transformed into the church of Saint Hashmunit (“the Hasmonean”) at the foot of Mount Silpios, according to the anonymous author of a medieval description of Antioch (Codex Vaticanus Arabicus 286). But Augustine of Hippo (Serm. 300.6) explicitly states, however, that the monumental sanctuary was built entirely by Christians. The 498

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inauguration festival was celebrated on August 1. The adoption of Jewish martyrs by the Christian church was aimed at diverting Christians from a popular Jewish festival and reflects the closeness between Christians and Jews in everyday practices. Southern Syria is associated with memories of Job, whose name is relatively common in Christian onomastics. Christian pilgrims visited Carneas –​probably identical to Canatha (Donceel-​ Voûte 2017) –​where his memory is preserved since the fourth century (Egeria, Peregrinatio 16.6), but we have no testimony of a Jewish celebration of Job in this region. However, there seem to have been Jewish settlements in Nawa, close to Sheikh Sa’ad, where Carneas was wrongly located and where Job’s house was believed to have existed (Eusebius, Onomasticon 112.5–​6). Christians from Antioch went there on pilgrimage. At Antioch a sanctuary dedicated to Job is mentioned that was believed to contain his relics (Nicephorus of Antioch, Life of Symeon the Younger 62).

4.  A Community under Pressure Like Jews elsewhere, the Jews of Syria suffered from the transformation of the empire into a Christian-​dominated society. The pressure on them varied over time but generally increased, even though the incidents between Jews and Christians were fewer in number in the period of 350 to 600 C .E . (Bremmer 2014). Until the end of the fourth century, Jews seemed to live in harmony with the majority of the population, Christians or Pagans, despite unfavorable imperial legislation and virulent verbal attacks by some bishops. Toward the end of the century, but especially from the beginning of the fifth century, imperial legislation became more repressive, and the anti-​Jewish rhetoric of Christian leaders resulted in marked aggression against the Jews, sometimes provoking violent reactions and their subsequent repression. The seemingly seductive effect that Judaism exerted on many Christians may explain why the Synod of Antioch forbid Christians to celebrate Easter at the same time as the Jewish Passover to avoid a disadvantageous comparison or to prevent a mingling of congregations (Rabello 1977: 554). Likewise church leaders advised to separate the Christian Sunday from the Sabbath. Christian anti-​Judaism is to some extent based on the attachment of lay Christians (and probably some clerics) to Jewish precepts (Simon 1964: 232). This attraction is reflected in the ecclesiastical practices of the Syriac tradition (Brock 1979; Rouwhorst 1997), but also in the introduction of Jewish blessings of synagogal origin in the collection known as the Apostolic Constitutions, written in Antioch around 380 C. E . (Const. Ap., 7.3–​38; Metzger 1987; Fiensy 1985; van der Horst and Newman 2008), despite the compiler’s strong condemnations of Judaism. The cultural interpenetration between Syrian Jews and Christians existed at all levels, despite the anti-​Jewish rhetoric of bishops and the imperial legislation. Imperial legislation promoted hostility between the two groups while constantly trying to apply a legal basis for restricting the rights of Jews (Nemo-​Pekelman 2011 and 2012: 5–​10). As Christians grew in number, prohibitions against Jews accumulated and aimed at cutting them off from the rest of society. Edicts forbid intermarriages, the purchase or inheritance of Christian slaves by Jews, the stoning of apostate Jews, proselytism, and conversion to Judaism. These rules encouraged bishops to harass Jews. Nevertheless, this legislation often irritated Christians because it reminded them of the legality of Judaism, the right of Jews to own their synagogues, even if an edict prohibited their construction, repair, or extension. In fact, emperors were torn between the desire to avoid public disturbance and the pressure of bishops and monks, for whom the spread of their faith was paramount. Theodosius I disapproved of the destruction of the Callinicum synagogue in 388 C.E . and threatened to charge the bishop 499

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who advocated it. The local authorities of Syria and Osrhoene were undoubtedly challenged by a constitution of the same emperor dated to September 29, 393 C.E . (Cod. Theod. 16.8.9) which condemned the prohibitions against the Jewish public meetings and synagogues, promulgated in certain cities of the East, as this disturbed the public order on the eastern frontier of the empire. Theodosius II issued three successive constitutions in 423 C.E . to bring justice to the Jews after the monks of Rabbula of Edessa destroyed their synagogues (Cod. Theod. 16.8.25). These imperial measures aroused the fury of Ambrose of Milan in 388 C.E. (Epist. 74) and of Simeon the Stylite in 423 C.E . (Evagrius, Hist. eccl. 1.13). To conclude these actions, the emperors and representatives of the high imperial administration supported the Jews and were even accused of “judaizing”. Valens’ stance was considered favorable to the Jews. He would have allowed the Jews of Antioch to celebrate their feasts in the public squares (Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 4:24; Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 7.7; Seaver 1952: 36), but his Arian sympathies contribute to forging a tale destined to blacken him. This imperial legislation did not give full satisfaction to bishops and monks whose hatred of Jews is expressed on many occasions. We have to limit ourselves to authors from Syria here and already mentioned John Chrysostom in his homilies of 386–​387 C.E ., where he expresses extreme violence –​this is customary for the rhetorical form of psogos, blame –​denouncing the alleged demonic character and debauched behavior of Jews, accusing them also to deicide, and even attacking the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Chrysostom clearly advocates hatred of Jews (Adv. Jud. 6) and even targets their suppression (Soler 2006: 107). Other Syriac Christian authors were equally hostile: Aphraat (Neusner 1990: 199–​228), Ephrem the Syrian (Ephrem, In 2 Kgs 19:1; Drijvers 1994: 141–​2), and Pseudo-​Ephrem, about 40 years later in Nisibis, as well as homilies against the Jews associated with Isaac of Antioch, a name that probably covers several authors of the fifth and sixth centuries (Kazan 1961: 30–​53). Among the frequent accusations is proselytism, which is forbidden by law (Cod. Theod. 16.8.6), perhaps as a result of an attempt to convert women working in an imperial wool workshop in Antioch (Feldman 1992: 396). It remains uncertain whether the statement John Chrysostom associates with Jews is fabricated: “we have been scattered to become doctors and teachers of all the earth” (Exp. Ps. 8:4). But the fury of the Christian fathers only confirms the proximity between Jews and Christians of Antioch in the fourth century. This official Christian Antisemitism, which is certainly not unique to the churches of Syria, only rarely finds popular expression: a late Greek graffito on a column in Palmyra reused in Qasr al-​Hayr al-​Sharqi (IGLS vol. 17: no. 399) asks God probably to act against (the verb is missing) the Hebrews. The reign of Julian (361–​363 C. E .) represents a short break for Jews. In spite of some spectacular plans (such as the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem), his policy resulted in few achievements. Nevertheless, after the death of Julian, the Jews of Antioch were accused of having participated in the martyrdom of the Christian soldiers Bonosus and Maximilianus (Seaver 1952: 16) and of having destroyed churches. According to Ambrose (Epistle 74.15), they destroyed “two [churches] in Damascus, one of which is hardly repaired now, and this at the expense of the church, not of the synagogue; the other basilica is still a coarse mass of shapeless ruins. Basilicas were burned in Gaza, at Ascalon, at Berytus, and in almost all the cities of this region”. The information is unverifiable, and it remains uncertain whether Ambrose –​ who argues against the reconstruction of the Callinicum synagogue at the expense of the local bishop (Ambrose, Epist. 74.6) –​accuses Jews of acts committed by pagans who reopened temples in Syria and Arabia at that time. In the aftermath of Julian’s death, as early as 364 C.E ., Libanius evoked a certain agitation of the Jews of Antioch “at the prospect that a wicked man would establish his authority over them” 500

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(Epist. 1251). This man, a Jew, had already held this office (but Libanius do not say what it is) and the Jews had expelled him because of his tyranny. They believed that the governor who appointed him ignored his past behavior and therefore asked Libanios to intervene. But maybe this was just an internal crisis about regaining control of the community after a confused period. Hatred against Jews could lead to a chain reaction of resistance and repression. Thus, Socrates transmits a story involving Jews (Hist. eccl. 7:16). Between 412 and 419 C.E . at Immestar (or Imma) between Antioch and Chalcis ad Belum, during the feast of Purim, Jews were accused of having attacked Christians, mocking Jesus and the crucifixion and of having walked a Christian child fastened on a cross before murdering him. Irrespective of whether this claim was trustworthy, the Jews of Immestar, like those of Antioch, would have been punished by the closing and confiscation of their synagogues. These synagogues remained closed until 423 C.E ., when Theodosius II gave the order to open them again, provoking the anger of Symeon the Stylite (Evagrius, Hist. eccl. 1.13). In 438 C. E . other measures favorable to the Jews provoked the anger of Symeon and monks associated with Barsauma, who instigated the public against the Jews (Nau 1927: 195–​7). Other incidents are imaginary (Seaver 1952: 12–​5). According to a later chronicle, in 609 C.E . the Jews of Antioch were accused of sacrilege against a statue of the virgin. In reality, everything suggests that this accusation was fabricated in accordance with a stereotypical pattern reflected in the incidents of 609–​610 C. E . (Fishman-​Duker 2012: 789). The destruction or seizure of synagogues to replace them with churches seems natural in this context of hatred. There are some reliable examples in Syria, and the reactions of the authorities vary over time. In August 388, a Christian mob burned down the synagogue of Callinicum (Raqqa). Theodosius I considered obliging Flavian, the bishop who had encouraged them, to rebuild it at his expense. This caused the indignation of Ambrose of Milan (Epist. 74.6), who refused to allow a “temple of impiety” (ibid. 10) to be built at the expense of Christians. In 397 C.E ., Arcadius reminded governors to protect synagogues (Cod. Theod. 16.8.12). In 411 C.E . this did not prevent Rabbula of Edessa from converting the synagogue of Edessa into a church dedicated to Saint Stephen (Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 6:10). In 412 C.E . Honorius’s emphasized the legality of synagogues (Cod. Theod. 16.8.20), but in 415 C. E . Theodosius II ordered the destruction of those that appeared to be abandoned or out of use, forcing the patriarch to reaffirm his rights to them, and he prohibited their repair (except in the case of immediate danger) and the construction of new ones (Cod. Theod. 16.8.22). He had no legal prerogative at his disposal to deprive the Jews of their synagogues. Nevertheless, the synagogue of Apamea, embellished in 392 C.E ., did not survive this development for long. Between 415 and 420 C. E . the so-​called “atrium church” was built on its site (Balty and Napoleone-​Lemaire 1969). In Antioch, there were probably more synagogues than the two mentioned above (Hahn 2012). An early sixth-​century mosaic panel (IGLS vol. 3: no. 770) seems to belong to a synagogue. The synagogue mentioned by John Chrysostom is undoubtedly the one called after the “Maccabees”, which was confiscated and transformed into Sancta Maccabaea church, also known as Holy Hashmunit (“Hasmonean”) (Obermann 1931; Soler 2006: 98). It was an urban synagogue destroyed and confiscated by Christians shortly before 423 C.E . Theodosius II issued several successive edicts. In February 423, he decided that neither a synagogue nor any Jewish property should be seized for the benefit of the church or burnt (Cod. Theod. 16.8.25, repeating a constitution of Theodosius I of 393 C.E ., see ibid. 16.8.9), except to provide Jews with another space in exchange. On April 9 (Cod. Theod. 16.8.26), he confirmed all previous laws against Jews, but protected them against attacks by Christians. Finally, on June 8 (Cod. Theod. 16.8.27), he forbade the construction of new synagogues while proscribing the destruction of old ones. This policy, which was intended to maintain peace in public, seemed too benevolent to 501

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the bishops and monks of Syria. Symeon the Stylite sent a furious letter to the emperor. According to Evagrius (Hist. eccl. 1.13), Theodosius eventually annulled his edict and dismissed the praetorian prefect who had supported the Jews of Antioch. The pious chronicler may have considered the Return to earlier anti-​Jewish laws a step back by the emperor. In 425 C.E ., Theodosius II finally forced Jews to respect Christian holidays, when places of entertainment were closed (Cod. Theod. 15.5.5). Finally, the Novella of January 31, 438, establishes that synagogues abandoned by Jews or confiscated by the church (because of illegal construction or enlargement) would become the property of the churches, favoring Christian manipulations. Around 490 but perhaps as early as 484 C. E . (Jarry 1968: 264–​8), after the Jews went to sit down with the chariot-​racing team of the Blues at the Hippodrome of Antioch, the supporters of furious Greens pillaged and burned a synagogue. A monk encouraged them to attack another synagogue and to dig up Jewish corpses to burn them (Malalas, Excerpta de insidiis, 166–​167; cf. Malalas, Chron. 389). In July 507, during the Olympic competitions (Malalas, Chron. 395–​398; Kraeling 1932: 159; Jarry 1968: 296), the supporters of the Greens attacked the synagogue of Daphne, pillaged it, burned it, and “killed a lot of people”. They had been encouraged by the victory of Porphyrios, a famous charioteer of their faction in Constantinople (Cameron 1973: 243–​4]), whom Malalas calls Calliopas. The synagogue was replaced by the martyrion (church built in memory of a martyr) of Saint Leontios (Malalas, Chron. 396; John of Nikiou, Chron. 371; Vinson 1994: 183). Cameron (1973: 243–​4; 1976: 152) argues, however, that the torching of the synagogue does not mark a surge of anti-​Judaism. It should rather be seen as an expression of the omnipotence of the faction that won at the racetrack and attacked Jews as well as the police, that is, the forces of order appointed by Anastasius. In fact, the attack against the Jews is only one aspect of an open conflict of extreme violence between the two factions and their supporters in the fifth and sixth centuries (Jarry 1968: 296–​8). Antioch was not the only city affected by this violence. In Gerasa, the three-​aisled synagogue embellished in the fifth century was confiscated and replaced by a church. Only the orientation of the building was changed (Michel 2001: 252–​5). A fragmentary Greek inscription indicates the dedication of the building in 530/​1 C. E . (Welles 1938: 323–​5). The most violent incident occurred at the end of the reign of the Byzantine emperor Phocas (602–​610 C .E .) in a tense international context, but the sources present irreconcilable discrepancies. The Chronicle of Zuqnin (Chabot 1895: 4) states that Phocas ordered all Jews to convert, while John of Nikiou (Chron. 415, ch. 99) attributes this measure to Domitian, cousin of the emperor Mauricius (582–​602 C. E .), at the beginning of his reign. The Jews of Antioch are said to have risen in 610 C. E . and murdered the patriarch of this city, Anastasius II, and many landowners (Theophanes, Chronographia, Anno 6101, falsely dated to 608–​9 C.E .; Ephrem the Monk, History of the Patriarchs and Kings 62–​63; Cedrenos 1939, vol. 1: 712). Phocas designated Bonosus, comes Orientis, and Kottonas, stratelates, to lead the repression but according to Theophanes, they failed and had to leave the city. But Cedrenos assumes that they killed a lot of Jews, amputated others, and expelled the rest from the city (Jarry 1968: 488–​94). The Chronicon Paschale (Dindorf ed. 699 =​Witby ed. 150), whose author lived at the time of the event, merely reports the assassination of the patriarch by soldiers in September 610 C.E ., and the arrival of Bonosus in Constantinople in October of that year. He came from Antioch, where he had committed atrocities on the order of Phocas. Jews are not mentioned in this connection. John of Nikiu (Chron. 104–​105) confirms this information, adding that the repression was caused by an illegal meeting in Antioch, probably a synod meant to carry out one or more episcopal elections (Jarry 1968: 490]). As for the “atrocities”, Bonosus allegedly strangled, burned, or drowned the “rebels”, including monks and nuns. Moreover, the Kitab al-​‘Unwan of Agapius of Hierapolis 502

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(Patrologia Orientalis 8.49) mentions a plot of the Jews against the Christians but extends the incident to all of Syria and reports that Phocas burdened the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia with heavy taxes. Bonosus would therefore have repressed the Christians, and there is nothing to indicate that the Jews played a role in these events. The historicity of the reports remains to be established. The edict of Heraclius of May 31, 632 C . E ., compelling the Jews of the Byzantine Empire to convert to Christianity, remained without effect, but it meant that there was no place for them in the empire. An increasingly cumbersome legislation, a hostile Christian rhetoric, and repeated accusations by troublemakers finally convinced the Jews of Syria to welcome the Persians, whose empire hosted their highest religious authorities (the Babylonian exilarch). In the late fourth century the Persian rulers supported the Himyar king Abîkarib’s establishment of a Jewish kingdom in Arabia (see below). Whereas the impact of this new monotheistic enclave on the communities of Syria and Arabia remains uncertain, we shall outline the main features below.

5.  Extensions in the Arabian Peninsula The existence of Jewish communities in the Arabian peninsula is well attested on the eve of Islam despite the silence of classical Jewish sources. At the beginning of the seventh century the three Jewish tribes of Yathrib (Medina) (Gil 1984; Lecker 1995: 50–​73) claim to have been established by Jews who escaped from Jerusalem at the time of Vespasian (Donner 2010: 30). There were also Jewish communities in Tabuk, Khaybar and Taymâ’, in northern Ḥedjaz, and on the eastern coast of Arabia (Robin 2004: 834). These communities were so deeply embedded in local society that few things distinguished them from their non-​Jewish neighbors. They seem to have been indifferent to doctrinal and legal debates and did not express their Jewish identity through the use of biblical scenes and Jewish symbols (thus the total absence of menorah). Some Jews seem to have married polytheistic women (Robin 2004: 865) while Jewish women married Qureshi men (Lecker 1987). Everything suggests that most of them were local-​born converts with indigenous names and strong indigenous cultural roots, which explains why their Judaism was sometimes doubted. But there are other communities further south in the peninsula. When preaching among the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ḥimyar (Gajda 2009) in the midfourth century, the Arian bishop Theophilus the Indian urged his listeners to combat “the wickedness and the usual lies of the Jews” (Philostorgius, Hist. eccl. 3.4), At that time, there evidently were Jewish missionaries or numerous Jews in the region who opposed his preaching (ibid.). The discovery of a synagogue of the fourth century in Qan’i, on the south coast of Ḥadramawt, confirms the Jewish presence in the region (Bowersock 2010: 393–​6), which is also documented by the tomb of the Ḥimyarites in the Bet She’arim necropolis (Robin 2004: 836–​7) and some inscriptions from Palestine (ibid. 838–​41). Christian writers recognized the link between this region and the Queen of Sheba and a genealogical lineage between the Jews of Yemen and Solomon. Philostorgius (Hist. eccl. 3.4) explicitly considers the Himyar people members of the Israelite family, practicing circumcision on the eighth day, although they also invoked the sun and moon. But this mythology, which was also cultivated by the Ethiopian kings of Aksum, is completely absent from Ḥimyarite documentation. At the time of the embassy sent by Constantius II, headed by Theophilus, the sovereign welcomed the missionary and authorized him to build three churches in Zafar (the capital), Aden, and further west, perhaps at Qan’i, which is not much for a kingdom that spans nearly the entire southern half of the peninsula, far beyond the Yemen of today. 503

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However, in the early 380s the kingdom of Ḥimyar adopted a strict monotheism. Judaism, or at least a “judaizing” form of monotheism (Gajda 2009: 239–​45), seems to have become the privileged religion of the local elites. The influence of Jewish rabbis and sages in the royal entourage is evident in several literary accounts. This choice can be explained either by the fact that Jews were already numerous in this region or by their desire to stand out from the negus (king) of Aksum who claims the kingdom of Himyar and has just adopted Christianity around 340 C.E. The two phenomena are not exclusive of each other. There can be no doubt about the effectiveness of the adoption of monotheism. With only one exception, none of the 120 or 130 inscriptions dated to the time between 380 and about 560 C.E . mentions an ancient polytheistic deity (Robin 2004: 857). Only monotheism was practiced: Judaism supported by the dynasty and Christianity implanted everywhere without epigraphical records. The traces of Jewish presence in the Himyar region are numerous (Robin 2004). We are not dealing with an original form of monotheistic syncretism here (Rubin 2000). The onomastic is predominantly South Arabic because many of these Jews were ethnic Ḥimyarites. The content of the texts leaves no doubt about the religious affiliation of individuals, however. This monotheistic monopoly was accompanied by a social reform that used the expression “people of Israel” in several inscriptions, inserting it after God and before the king (Robin 2004: 848). Started in the reign of Malkîkarib ca. 383–​384 C. E . (Gajda 2009: 45–​6), this political-​religious reform undoubtedly reflects the claim of King Abîkarib, who ruled Yemen from 378 to 430 C.E ., to recreate an earthly Israel on Arabian soil, when Julian’s attempts to build a third Temple in Palestine had failed and rabbis rejected the establishment of a messianic kingdom in their own time. The adoption of a kind of Judaism –​ whatever the analysis of the experts –​ not as an “official religion” but as a preferred religion of the elites was accompanied by violent phases of persecution against Christians, especially in Najran. Around 450–​475 C.E ., some rabbis judge and sentence to death Azqîr, a priest of Najran, and a further 38 Christians including “metropolitans, priests, deacons, monks, men and women” (Conti-​Rossini 1910). In October 523, many Christians in Najran died as martyrs. Their stories are preserved in a Syriac letter written by Simeon of Bet Arsham and in a Greek source, the Martyrdom of Saint Arethas (Briquel Chatonnet 2010). Horrified by the swaggering story by King Yusuf himself in a letter sent to delegates of a diplomatic conference in Ramla (Mesopotamia), Simeon summed up the contents in a letter addressed to his abbot, which was widely circulated then (Beaucamp & Detoraki 2007; Briquel Chatonnet 2010). Najran was not the only target of anti-​Christian violence. Destructions of churches happened in Zafar and al-​Makhawan (Mokka), and martyrdoms occurred in Mârib and perhaps in Shabwa. The goal of Yusuf’ (Yusuf As’ar Yath’ar), the Jewish king of Himyar between 518 and 525–​7 C.E ., was to cleanse his kingdom of all traces of Christianity. The violence of this persecution, which can be described as a real massacre –​the Martyrdom of Saint Arethas mentions that 4252 people were killed at one time, 427 were burned at another time, and 227 pious women were decapitated, in addition to the enslavement of 1297 children under the age of 15 (Beaucamp and Detoraki 2007) –​may be explained by the fact that it occurred after a brief return to power by Christian kings supported by Aksum’s ruler (518–​522 C. E .). King Yusuf, better known by his nickname of Dhu Nuwas (“he of sidelocks”), sought revenge on those who had welcomed his adversary and maintained close ties with Byzantium and the Aksumites. The conflict was political as well as religious. The existence of this Jewish kingdom of Arabia engaged all the powers of the region in a vast conflict. The Sassanid Persians supported the Jewish kingdom of Ḥimyar, while the Ethiopian rulers of Aksum, who claimed sovereignty over Yemen (which they de facto occupied in the third century) (Bowersock 2013: 55–​62), showed their support for the persecuted Christians and gained 504

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the support of the Roman emperor of Constantinople, despite his reluctance to aid these here­tical Christians. The ruler Ella Aṣbǝḥa, also called Kâlêb, launched an expedition against the kingdom of Ḥimyar in 525–​530 C. E . The region remained under Ethiopian control for approximately 50 years, until the Persians seized it in the years 575–​8 C.E . (Gajda 2009: 111–​56). The importance of the episode should not be minimized in the history of late antiquity because the creation of this Jewish kingdom at a time of Christian expansion familiarized Arabs with monotheistic practices that broke radically with the polytheisms they were used to, even if traditional practices continued in the oases of the northwest. Moreover, this form of Judaism had original features, but it derived from the traditions of Israel. Its originality probably stemmed from the fact that its adherents were not Jewish exiles from Palestine but local converts whose language, names, and social behavior reveal a perfect integration into local society, eg through intermarriage. On the other hand, ties with Palestine and rabbinical academies seem to have been scarce. Nevertheless, these communities did not consider themselves less Jewish than others. Accused of having been the accomplices of the Persians in persecuting Christians in Arabia or expelling them from Syria and Arabia, Jews were considered collectively guilty by local Christians (Laga 1990; Cameron 2002). The accusation was repeated at the time of the Islamic conquest for the benefit of the newcomers, the early Muslims. In this theological and political struggle the facts were of little importance to the polemicists. Imperial legislation, compelling Jews to convert to Christianity, failed as Byzantium lost control over Syria and much of the Levant.

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Secondary Literature Altheim, F. and Stiehl, R. (1968). Die Araber in der alten Welt, vol. V.1. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Avi-​Yonah, M. (1976). The Jews of Palestine: A Political History from the Bar Kokhba War to the Arab Conquest. Oxford: Blackwell. Balty, J.-​C. and Napoleone-​Lemaire, J. (eds.) (1969). L’église à atrium de la Grande Colonnade. Fouilles d’Apamée de Syrie, vol. I.1. Brussels: Centre Belge de Recherches Archéologiques à Apamée de Syrie. Beaucamp, J. and Detoraki, M. (2007). Le martyre de saint Aréthas et de ses compagnons. Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance. Beaucamp, J., Briquel Chatonnet, F. and Robin, C. (2010). Le massacre de Najrân: religion et politique en Arabie du Sud au VIe siècle: Le massacre de Najrân: religion et politique en Arabie du Sud au VI e siècle, 2: Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux Ve et VIe siècles: regards croisés sur les sources. Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance. Beaudry, N. (2011). “Mosaïques inédites d’une Synagogue à Ras el-​Bassit, Syrie du Nord,” in O Mosaico romano nos centros e nas periferias. Originalidades, influências e identidades, Actas do X Colóquio Internacional da AIEMA–​Conimbriga 2005. Conimbriga: 669–​78. Bowersock, G.W. (2010). “The New Greek Inscription from South Yemen,” in J.-​F. Salles and A. V. Sedov (eds.), Qāni’. Le port antique du Hadramawt entre la Méditerranée, l’Afrique et l’Inde. Preliminary Reports of the Russian Archaeological Mission in the Republic of Yemen, IV. Turnhout: Brepols, 393–​6. Bowersock, G.W. (2013). The Throne of Adulis. Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Brändle, R. (1987). “ Christen und Juden in Antiochien in den Jahren 386/​387. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte altkirchlicher Judenfeindschaft,” Judaica 43: 142–​60. Bremmer, J.N. (2014). “Religious Violence between Greeks, Romans, Christians and Jews,” in A.G. Geljon and R. Roukema (eds.), Violence in Ancient Christianity. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 8–​30. Briquel Chatonnet, F. (2010). “Recherches sur la tradition textuelle et manuscrite de la lettre de Siméon de Bet Arshan,” in J. Beaucamp et al. (2010): 123–​41. Brock, S.P. (1979). “Jewish Traditions in the Syriac Sources,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30: 212–​32. Brooten, B. (2000). “The Jews of Ancient Antioch,” in C. Kondoleon (ed.), Antioch. The Lost Ancient City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 29–​37. Buytaert, É.M. (1949). L’héritage littéraire d’Eusèbe d’Émèse: étude critique et historique, textes. Leuven: University of Leuven, Oriental Institute. Buytaert, É.M. (1953). Eusèbe d’Émèse. Discours conservés en latin. Leuven: University of Leuven, Oriental Institute. Cameron, A. (1973). Porphyrius the Charioteer. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cameron, A. (1976). Circus factions. Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cameron, A. (2002). “Blaming the Jews: The Seventh-​Century Invasions in Palestine in Context,” in Mélanges Gilbert Dagron, Travaux et Mémoires 14. Paris: Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, 57–​78. Cedrenos, G. (1939). Ioannes Scylitzae Opera, vols. 1–​2. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Chabot, J.B. (ed.) (1895). Chronique de Denys de Tell Mahré. Paris: Emile Bouillion. Conti-​Rossini, C. (1910). “Un documento sul cristianesimo nello Yemen ai tempi del re Sarāhbīl Yakkuf,” Rendiconti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, series 5, 19: 705–​50. Cureton, W. (1864). “Martyrdom of Habib the Deacon,” in idem, Ancient Syriac Documents. London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 72–​85. Donceel-​Voûte, P. (2017). “Un Haut-​Lieu négligé: le fumier de Job à Qanawat/​Kanatha/​Carnéas/​D’nabé en Syrie du Sud,” in C. Vielle, C. Cannuyer, and D. Esler (eds.), Dieux, génies, anges et démons dans les cultures orientales. Brussels: Société royale belge d’études orientales, 327–​60.

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Jews in Late Antique Syria and Arabia Donner, F.M. (2010). Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap. Drijvers, H.J.W. (1985). “Jews and Christians at Edessa,” Journal of Jewish Studies 36: 88–​102. Drijvers, H.J.W. (1994). History and Religion in Late Antique Syria. Aldershot: Ashgate. Feldman, L. H. (1992). “Jewish Proselytism,” in H.W. Attridge and G. Hata (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity and Judaism. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 372–​408. Fiensy, D.A. (1985). Prayers Alleged to Be Jewish. An Examination of the Constitutiones Apostolorum. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Fishman-​Duker, R. (2012). “Images of Jews in Byzantine Chronicles: A General Survey,” in R. Bonfil, O. Irshai, G. Stroumsa and R. Talgam (eds.), Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 777–​98. Gajda, I. (2009). Le royaume d’Himyar à l’époque monothéiste: l’histoire de l’Arabie du Sud ancienne de la fin du IVe siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l’avènement de l’islam. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-​Lettres. Gil, M. (1984). “The Origin of the Jews of Yathrib,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 4: 223–​4. Habas, E. (1995). “The Halachic Status of Bostra” (Hebrew), Zion 60: 138–​42. Hachlili, R. (1998). Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora. Leiden: Brill. Hahn, J. (2004). Gewalt und Religiöser Konflikt. Studien zu den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen, Heiden, und Juden im Osten des römischen Reiches von Konstantin bis Theodosius II. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Hahn, J. (2012). “The Veneration of the Maccabean Brothers in Fourth Century Antioch: Religious Competition, Martyrdom, and Innovation,” in G. Signori (ed.), Dying for the Faith, Killing for the Faith. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 79–​104. Horst, P.W. van der and Newman, J. H. (2008). Early Jewish Prayers in Greek. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Ilan, T. (2011). Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, vol. 4: The Eastern Diaspora (330 BCE-​650 CE). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Jarry, J. (1968). Hérésies et factions dans l’Empire byzantin du IVe au VIIe siècle. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Jaussen, A. and Savignac, R. (1914). Mission archéologique en Arabie, vol. 2: El-​‘Ela, d’Hégra à Teima, Harrah de Tebouk. Paris: Paul Geuthner. Kazan, S. (1961–​1963). “Isaac of Antioch’s Homily against the Jews,” Oriens Christianus 45: 30–​53; 46: 95–​ 8; 47: 89–​92. Kraeling, C.H. (1932). “The Jewish Community at Antioch,” Journal of Biblical Literature 51: 130–​60. Kraeling, C.H. (1938). Gerasa, City of the Decapolis. New Haven, CT: American School of Oriental Research. Laga, C. (1990). “Judaism and Jews in Maximus Confessor’s Works. Theoretical Controversy and Practical Attitude,” Byzantinoslavica 51: 177–​88. Lecker, M. (1987). “A Note on Early Marriage Links Between Qurashīs and Jewish Women,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10: 17–​39. Lecker, M. (1995). Muslims, Jews and Pagans. Studies on Early Islamic Medina. Leiden: Brill. Manns, F. (2014). Jérusalem, Antioche, Rome: Jalons pour une théologie de l’église de la circoncision. Milan: Terra Santa. Metzger, M. (1987). Les Constitutions Apostoliques. Edition critique du texte grec, introduction, traduction, notes et tables, vol. 3. Paris: Editions du Cerf. Michel, A. (2001). Les églises d’époque byzantine et umayyade de la Jordanie (provinces d’Arabie et de Palestine), Ve–​VIIIe siècle: typologie architecturale et aménagements liturgiques (avec catalogue des monuments). Turnhout: Brepols. Nau, F. (1927). “Deux épisodes de l’histoire juive sous Théodose II (423 et 438) d’après la Vie de Barsauma le Syrien,” Revue des Études Juives 83: 184–​206. Nemo-​Pekelman, C. (2011). Rome et ses citoyens juifs. IVe–​Ve siècles. Paris: Honoré Champion. Nemo-​Pekelman, C. (2012). “Le législateur chrétien a-​t-​il persécuté les juifs? Empire romain, IVe–​Ve siècles,” online publication available at https://​hal.scie​nce/​hal-​00711​056/​docum​ent (accessed 9 May 2023). Neusner, J. (1990). Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Obermann, J. (1931). “The Sepulchre of the Maccabaean Martyrs,” Journal of Biblical Literature 50: 250–​65.

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Maurice Sartre Peeters, F.E. (1998). The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam. Aldershot: Ashgate. Rabello, A.M. (1977). “La première loi de Théodose II C.Th. XVI, 8, 18 et la fête de Pourim,” Revue Historique des Droits Français et Étrangers 55: 545–​58. Rajak, T. (2016). “The Fourth Book of Maccabees in a Multi-​cultural City,” in Y. Furstenberg (ed.), Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 135–​50. Reifenberg, A. (1950). Ancient Hebrew Arts. New York: Schocken. Robin, C.-​J. (2004). “Himyar et Israël,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-​Lettres 148: 831–​908. Rosenfeld, B.-​Z. (2010). Torah Centers and Rabbinic Activity in Palestine (70–​400 CE): History and Geographic Distribution. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill. Rouwhorst, G. (1997). “Jewish Liturgical Traditions in Early Syriac Christianity,” Vigiliae Christianae 51: 72–​93. Rubin Z. (2000). “Judaism and Raḥmanite Monotheism in the Ḥimyarite Kingdom in the Fifth Century,” in T. Parfitt (ed.), Israel and Ishmael. Richmond: Curzon, 32–​51. Rutgers, L.V. (1988). “The Importance of Scripture in the Conflict Between Jews and Christians: The Example of Antioch,” in L.V. Rutgers et al. (eds.), The Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World. Leuven: Peeters, 287–​303. Sandwell, I. (2007). Religious Identity in Late Antiquity. Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Satlow, M. (2001). Jewish Marriage in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Seaver, J.E. (1952). Persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire (300–​438). Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Publications. Segal, J.B. (1970). Edessa, “the Blessed City”. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Simon, M. (1936). “La polémique anti-​juive de Jean Chrysostome et le mouvement judaïsant d’Antioche,” Mélanges Franz Cumont, Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales, 4: 403–​29. Simon, M. (1964). Verus Israel. Étude sur les relations entre chrétiens et juifs dans l’Empire romain (135–​ 425). Paris: De Boccard. Soler, E. (2006). Le sacré et le salut à Antioche au IVe siècle apr. J.-​C. Pratiques festives et comportements religieux dans le processus de christianisation de la cité. Beirut: Institut Français d’Archéologie du Proche-​Orient. Sorex, S. and Noy, D. (2013). “Many Mansions: Jews in the Greek Cities of Roman Syria and Palestine,” in R. Alston, O.M. van Nijf, and C.G. Williamson (eds.), Cults, Creeds and Identities in the Greek Cities After the Classical Age. Leuven: Peeters, 241–​60. Stern, S. (2001). Calendar and Community. A History of the Jewish Calendar, 2nd century BCE to 10th ­century CE. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sukenik, E.L. (1950–​1). “The Mosaic Inscriptions in the Synagogue at Apamea on the Oronte,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23: 541–​51. Tchalenko, G. (1958). Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord, vol. 3. Paris: Paul Geuthner. Triebel, L. (2006). “Die angebliche Synagogue der makkabäischen Märtyrer in Antiochia am Orontes,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 9: 464–​95. Urman, D. (1985). The Golan, a Profile of a Region During the Roman and Byzantine Periods. Oxford: British Archaeological Series. Vinson, M. (1994). “Gregory of Nazianze’s Homily 15 and the Genesis of the Christian Cult of the Maccabean Martyrs,” Byzantion 64: 166–​92. Ward, W.D. (2012). “In the Province Recently Called Palestine Salutaris: Provincial Changes in Palestine and Arabia in the Late Third and Fourth Centuries C.E.,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 181: 289–​302. Wilken, R.L. (1983). John Chrysostom and the Jews. Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Williams, M.H. (1998). The Jews Among the Greeks and Romans: A Diaspora Sourcebook. London: Duckworth. Zetterholm, M. (2003). The Formation of Christianity in Antioch. London: Routledge. Ziadé, R. (2007). Les martyrs Maccabées: de l’histoire juive au culte chrétien: les homélies de Grégoire de Nazianze et de Jean Chrysostome. Leiden: Brill.

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33 JEWS IN ASIA MINOR Paul Trebilco

1. Sources Our sources for Jews in Asia Minor are literary, epigraphic, and archaeological. Unfortunately, Sibylline Oracles 1–​2 is probably the only text written by a Jew in Asia Minor that has been preserved. Further information comes from Josephus, Philo, the New Testament, and some Greek and Latin authors (see Ameling 2004: 3–​5, 571–​4). Over 260 Jewish inscriptions have been found in Asia Minor, and these have been published in Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, volume 2: Kleinasien (Ameling 2004), although with some inscriptions debate about their Jewishness continues (see Bij de Vaate and van Henten 1996: 16–​28). These inscriptions show that Jews lived in at least 75 cities in Asia Minor, before and during late antiquity (see Ameling 2004: passim; van der Horst 2013: 325–​6). Several synagogues have also been discovered in the region.

2.   The Establishment of Jewish Communities in Asia Minor The foundation of the Jewish community in Asia Minor may date back to the fifth century B.C.E ., but this depends on the debated suggestion that the term “Sepharad” in Obadiah 1:20, a book commonly dated to the sixth century B.C.E ., is a reference to Sardis. Other early evidence comes from Josephus (C. Ap. 2.39; A.J. 12.119–​21, 125–​126; see Ritter 2015: 216–​25). From A.J. 12.148–​53, we learn that between 212 and 205 B.C.E ., Antiochus III gave instructions for the relocation of 2,000 Jewish families from Babylonia to Lydia and Phrygia as military settlers. The letter, which is probably authentic (see Trebilco 1991: 5–​6), shows that the settlers were allowed to use their own laws, which would have given these new Jewish communities an opportunity to become well established. Josephus and Philo record a series of documents to be dated between 49 B.C.E . and 2–​3 C.E . that relate to the Jews in Asia Minor (A.J. 12.125–​128; 14.213–​216, 223–​230, 234–​264; 16.27–​65, 160–​173; Philo, Legat. 314–​315; see also 1 Macc 15:16–​24). The general authenticity of these documents has been strongly defended by Pucci Ben Zeev (1998: 139–​290; on the documents in general see Gruen 2002: 84–​104; Ritter 2015: 198–​240). These decrees provide evidence of the maintenance of Jewish identity by the communities concerned. The documents include requests to be allowed to live in accordance with their “ancestral tradition” or “with their own laws” and to maintain their own customs, such as keeping the Sabbath and food laws, the right of assembly,

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-40

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and permission to build synagogues, being exempt from appearing in court on “their holy days” and from military service and being allowed to collect the Temple tax and send it to Jerusalem. Generally, the Jewish communities concerned took the initiative to ensure that they could follow these practices and beliefs, which shows that they maintained significant facets of Jewish identity. These documents also provide evidence of conflict between the Jewish communities and their cities. Hostility and harassment were probably caused by the export of the Temple tax to Jerusalem at times when cities in Asia were experiencing severe economic problems, by the lack of tolerance on the part of the cities toward communities that were distinctive and did not worship pagan gods, and by the difficulties caused by Jewish groups that may have refused to attend court or do business on the Sabbath, thus creating awkward situations for the cities concerned. As Barclay (1996: 271, 276) notes, these decrees also suggest that by the mid-​first century B.C.E., there were at least some sizeable and significant Jewish communities in Asia Minor, since “[s]‌uch issues could only arise if the Jewish communities were a significant presence in the cities concerned and if at least some of their members were of social and economic importance. … in general one can only explain Gentile hostility on the grounds that the Jewish community was of influence and importance–​perhaps growing importance–​within the life of the city”. These documents also show that these Jewish communities were supported by the Roman authorities. We hear of no further difficulties between Jewish communities and their cities in Asia Minor after 2 C .E . Positive evidence for good relations begins in the mid-​first century C.E. and continues through to the sixth century and beyond. We have no evidence that Jews in Asia Minor took any part in the revolts of 66–​70 or 132–​5 C. E . The Diaspora revolt of 115–​117 C.E . against the local authorities and Rome did not occur as far as we know, in Asia Minor. Although this is predominantly an argument from silence (but see Ameling 2004: no. 168 from the mid-​first century C.E .), we can suggest that after 2 C. E . Jewish communities in Asia Minor generally lived peaceably and interacted positively with their wider communities, which was one factor that enabled them to flourish and to share in the prosperity of urban life in Asia in this period (see Trebilco 1991: 173–​ 85; Barclay 1996: 279–​81). Van der Horst (1989: 106–​7) estimates that in the first century C.E . about 1 million Jews lived in Asia Minor, while Ameling (1996: 30) suggests they made up under 5% of the total population. In the following, major Jewish communities will be discussed together with themes that emerge from their study.

3. Sardis In 1962, the largest synagogue building extant from antiquity was discovered in Sardis (Figure 33.1). It was an integral part of the preexisting bath-​gymnasium complex that occupied a central position on a major thoroughfare in the city. The building was begun in the late second century C .E . and originally served as a Roman civic basilica. The date at which the building was remodeled and became a synagogue has been debated. Seager and Kraabel have suggested that the building already became a synagogue in the third century but reached its final form a decade or two before the middle of the fourth century or even a little earlier (Seager and Kraabel 1983: 173), while Botermann has suggested that it reached its final form in the mid-​fourth century (Botermann 1990: 103–​21). However, it has now been dated to the mid-​sixth century by Magness (2005: 443–​ 75), predominantly on the basis of coins found under the mosaics. This dating is accepted by Millar (2008: 125) and Horsley and Luxford (2016: 150; it is also accepted in Chaniotis et al. 2011: no. 2153; however, Rautman 2010: 53 argues for the late fourth and fifth centuries; see also Ameling 2009: 216 n. 27 and Levine 2012: 311–​4). We do not know how the Jewish community acquired this notable building. 510

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Figure 33.1 The apse of the Sardis Synagogue, with the bath-​gymnasium complex in the background. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild.

An atrium-​like forecourt, colonnaded on all four sides and with a central fountain, led into the main hall that was 59 by 18 meters and could accommodate over 1000 people. The hall contained a shrine for the Torah and another probably for a menorah, a large apse lined with semicircular benches and a large marble table flanked by Lydian stone lions in reuse. The floor was covered with elaborate mosaics (see Hachlili 1998: 218–​31) and the walls were decorated with marble revetments. The community continued to use the synagogue, probably until the destruction of the city in 616 C.E . (cf. Magness 2005: 466–​7), which testifies to the enduring vitality and standing of this Jewish community. The style of the synagogue was determined by the building’s previous history, by local architectural idioms, and by the local community. The synagogue contained over 80 inscriptions, which mainly concern donations. Five are in Hebrew, but the vast majority are in Greek. In the inscriptions, secular professions or roles are mentioned in 20 cases, with nine Jews being called city councilors, one a procurator, and another a comes, while positions in the Jewish community (elder, priest, and sophodidaskalos) are only mentioned on three occasions. Six donors are called theosebēs, that is, “God-​fearers” (Ameling 2004: nos. 67, 68, 83, 123, 125, 132), and thus probably fall into the category of gentiles who could be formally associated with the Jewish community, were involved in at least some facets of synagogue life, and adopted some Jewish practices without becoming proselytes (see Rajak 2001: 449–​50; but contrast with the caveats in Goodman 2005: 177–​203). Pronoia, “providence”, a nonbiblical term used by Jewish writers (such as Philo, Josephus and 4 Maccabees) and in contemporary philosophical debates, is found ten times in the inscriptions as a circumlocution for “God” (see Rajak 2001: 456–​61). One inscription reads (Ameling 2004: no. 131; Kroll 2001: 65), “Having found, having broken, read, observe”, which is almost certainly a reference to Torah study and observance and shows the important role of the Torah in the community’s identity (van der Horst 2006: 51). In addition, a marble fragment depicts a shrine with three scrolls staked in it, which shows the importance of the scrolls for the 511

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community (see Fine 2016: 121–​34). The fragmentary Hebrew inscriptions include the word shalom, and the names Yochanan and Severus (see Cross 2002: 3–​19). According to Millar (2008: 125), these and other Hebrew inscriptions elsewhere may “suggest the hypothesis of a resurgence of the public use of Hebrew in the Diaspora synagogue in the Late Antique period”. One incised relief found in the synagogue forecourt depicts four lions and Daniel (Rautman 2010: 47–​60). These inscriptions and the building itself reveal a large, prosperous, and influential Jewish community that had considerable social status and was active in civic and political affairs. The community seems to have been integrated into the economic, social, and political life of Sardis to a considerable degree. Yet the strength of the Jewish identity of this community is also clear from the building itself. While Sardis Jews were closely related to local non-​Jews, Rajak (2001: 461) points out that such relations had their limits, and “[c]‌lose observation allows us still to detect expressions of separation” from the wider society.

4.  Aphrodisias and the God-​Fearers A stele from Aphrodisias discovered in 1976 contains text on two faces and was published in 1987 by Reynolds and Tannenbaum (see Reynolds and Tannenbaum 1987; Figures 33.2 and 33.3). They thought the text came from one inscription, which they dated to the early third century C.E .

Figure 33.2 Face I, with the central section of the inscription listing “God-​fearers”, Aphrodisias stele. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild.

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Figure 33.3 The two inscribed sides of the Aphrodisias stele. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild.

However, subsequent discussion has shown that there were two inscriptions. The Greek inscription on what is now called Face I (originally it was called Face b) is to be dated to the fourth century, and Face II (originally Face a) to the early fifth century or later (see Chaniotis 2002: 213–​8; 2008: 247; also Ameling 2004: 77–​82; cf, Gilbert 2004: 169–​84 who dates both inscriptions to the fourth century). However, Williams (2007: 173–​97) has argued for a fifth-​or sixth-​century date for both inscriptions on the basis of the use of Hebrew forms for personal names. The top of Face I is damaged, and so any heading is lacking. The top of the stone as it is now contains a list of around 55 names; a number of these are Biblical names, and the others are known to have been used by Jews, so this list seems to be of Jews. Then there is a heading, “as many as are theosebis”, followed by a list of 52 names, none with Hebrew elements, of whom the first 9 are city councilors. This is probably a list of donors to a Jewish institution (see Koch 2006: 67–​8). Face II has an introduction that indicates that the names that follow are for members of an association “of the lovers of learning also [known as] those who wholly praise”, which probably indicates their devotion to the study of Torah and to the praise of God (see Koch 2006: 71). Then follows a list of 18 people who are members of the group, of which three are proselytes, 2 are designated theosebēs, and the other 13 are clearly Jews by birth, judging by their names. The inscription probably relates to the foundation of a collective burial place by this association (see Ameling 2004: 91–​2; Chester 2011: 413–​5). As well as providing evidence of a large and flourishing Jewish community, these two inscriptions have provided significant evidence of the God-​fearers. It seems clear that theosebēs is used as a technical term, since distinctions are made between Jews, proselytes, and God-​fearers. Also of note is that nine God-​fearers are city councilors, indicating that the community could

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attract people of this social standing. The inscriptions also show that the Jews and God-​fearers “represent a broad section of social positions and occupations” (Chaniotis 2008: 248). Other inscriptions from Asia Minor in which there is a strong probability that theosebēs designates a gentile “God-​fearer” (rather than referring to a Jew as “pious”) come from Tralles (Ameling 2004: no. 27), Sardis (Ameling 2004: nos. 67, 68, 83, 123, 125, 132), Miletus (Ameling 2004: nos. 37, 38, although the meaning of the inscription is debated, on which see Mitchell 2010: 194–​5), and perhaps Philadelphia (Ameling 2004: no. 49; see Levinskaya 1996: 60–​2). God-​fearers are most likely mentioned in Asia Minor in Acts 13:16, 26, 50 (Pisidian Antioch) and 14:1 (Iconium), although Luke uses different terms (see also Josephus, A.J. 14.110). However, Kraemer (2014: 61–​87) disputes the use of the broad category of “God-​fearers”. The existence of God-​fearers points to the attractiveness of some Jewish communities in Asia Minor to gentiles, the close and constructive relationships between Jewish communities and some non-​Jews in their cities, and the openness of Jews to the involvement of gentiles in their communities.

5.  Theos Hypsistos and the God-​Fearers Mitchell (1999: 81–​148; 2010: 167–​208) has assembled a considerable number of inscriptions in the eastern Mediterranean that refer to Theos Hypsistos –​“the Highest God” –​many of which come from Asia Minor. In the Septuagint, Pseudepigrapha, and other Jewish literature, “hypsistos” is used for the Jewish God but it is also used in classical sources for a range of deities, most often Zeus. Mitchell argues that these inscriptions relate to a specific cult of “the Most High God”, which he sees as an aspect of pagan monotheism. Further, he suggests that the followers of this cult called themselves theosebēs and that these worshippers of Theos Hypsistos are to be identified with the group that scholarship has called “the God-​fearers”. For Mitchell, they are to be thought of as groups that remained part of the non-​Jewish world and had an existence of their own as theosebeis (or Hypsistarians as they were called by others), apart from their involvement in the synagogue. But as Pleket notes (Pleket et al 1999: 617), “even if it could be shown that the theosebeis called their god Theos Hypsistos, this does not entail the conclusion that all worshippers of Theos Hypsistos were theosebeis”. Further, that all the inscriptions that mention Theos Hypsistos can be taken together and considered evidence for one cult, as Mitchell has done, is disputable.

6. Priene In Priene, a large Hellenistic house on a main street of the city, in a residential area of the city’s west quarter, was remodeled into a synagogue; there was a second building phase later (see Burkhardt and Wilson 2013: 166–​96). In the first building phase, a forecourt led into the main room that was 13 by 14 meters and about 7.5 meters in height. The main feature in the room was a rectangular niche, presumably for the Torah, in the Jerusalem-​facing wall. A relief depicting a menorah was found on the floor of the main room, as well as a graffito with another menorah and a washbasin. A third relief with a menorah was found as part of the floor pavement of the Byzantine episcopal basilica (see Fine 2012: 44–​7). Burkhardt and Wilson (2013: 181) estimate that the first building phase, which comprised a space of 187.2 square meters, could accommodate 93 to 125 people. The second building phase involved the reduction of the size of the main room and the construction of a bench and a narthex. In each building phase, there were associated rooms. Burkhardt and Wilson (2013: 178) note that “[t]‌he marble objects, the reliefs, the pavement, the bench, the interior wall plaster, the wall painting in the niche and the graffiti all constitute the rich furnishings of the synagogue’s interior”. 514

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The synagogue was in use from the fourth to the sixth or early seventh century C.E ., although Burkhardt and Wilson (2013: 174) note that Jewish use of the earlier house as a place of assembly prior to the construction of the synagogue is possible. The area around the synagogue probably continued to be inhabited while the synagogue was in use (Burkhardt and Wilson 2013: 181).

7. Andriake In 2009, a synagogue probably dating to the fifth century was discovered at Andriake, the port of Myra in Lycia (see Cevik et al, 2010: 335–​66). The synagogue was located very close to the harbor. The main hall measured 5.15 by 6.90 meters at ground level. There was an upper and lower story with a semicircular apse 3.9 meters in diameter that contained a niche. The apse was added to the building later and was accessed from the upper story. The hall was flanked with adjoining rooms on either side. The building contained three marble panels with menorahs depicted in relief. One of the marble panels is completely preserved and shows the menorah on a tripod, flanked with a shofar on one side and a lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citrus fruit) on the other. Spirals are depicted below the arms of the menorah, making the menorah similar to those found in Nicaea and Sardis that may represent a regional form (see Fine and Rutgers 1996: 1–​23). Two inscriptions have been found, both of which include the formula “May peace be on Israel” (see Cevik et al, 2010: 345–​8). The synagogue was located close to some contemporary churches but clearly continued in use as a synagogue.

8.  Synagogues in Limyra, Corycus, and Çatiören? In 2012, excavators found in Limyra in Lycia two stone slabs that were decorated with three menorahs, a shofar and a lulav. They are thought to be remnants of chancel screens (see Seyer and Lotz 2014: 142–​52). They were reused for the flooring of the building in which they were found, which was near the city’s eastern gate. Accordingly, this building, which also had a water installation, may have been a synagogue or perhaps a synagogue was located nearby (see further Pülz 2014: 162–​6; Weiss 2014: 153–​61). To date, only a small part of the building has been excavated, and further excavation is needed to determine its identity. The dating of the building remains unclear. It was definitely in existence in the fifth century C.E ., although the area of the city in which it was situated was already settled in the Roman imperial period (Seyer and Lotz 2014: 151) and so it may have been built earlier. The building was reconstructed later, probably in the seventh century C.E . We know of one Jewish inscription from Limyra (see Ameling 2004: no. 221). Based on menorahs carved on stones that seem to be door lintels and part of buildings, Fairchild has suggested that two more unexcavated synagogues existed in Asia Minor. These possible synagogues are in Corycus and Çatiören, both in Cilicia (see Fairchild 2014: 211–​3). We have a range of Jewish inscriptions from Corycus, probably to be dated from the second or third to the sixth century C .E . (see Ameling 2004: nos. 232–​43). If the building in Çatiören was a synagogue, it dates to the Hellenistic period. In both cases, we know that Jews lived in the respective cities.

9.  References to Biblical Texts in Inscriptions A number of inscriptions from Asia Minor use or refer to biblical texts (see also Stebnicka 2015: 195–​214). A Jewish inscription to be dated to the fourth to sixth century from Nicaea (Iznik) quotes Ps 135(136):25; it may follow a variant reading from Aquila rather than the Septuagint 515

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(Ameling 2004: no. 153; see Salvesen 2005: 212–​21; also van der Horst 2014: 73). The inscription also contains a menorah that is very similar to one depicted at Sardis, which suggests a regional Jewish iconographic tradition (see Fine and Rutgers 1996: 1–​23). An inscription from Acmonia, probably to be dated to the third century (Ameling 2004: no. 175), curses grave violators: “may the sickle of the curse enter his house and leave no one alive”, which refers to Zech 5:2–​4. Another inscription is very similar (Ameling 2004: no. 176; Bij de Vaate and van Henten 1996: 18–​9 think these inscriptions could be either Jewish or Christian). The writers of these inscriptions clearly used the Septuagint rather than the Greek translations by Aquila and Theodotion, which have a different reading. Two other third-​century inscriptions from Acmonia refer to “the curses that are written in Deuteronomy” (Ameling 2004: nos. 173–​174) and a third to “the curses that are written …” (Ameling 2004: no. 172). In each case, these are probably references to the curses in Deut 28 and are most likely Jewish inscriptions (see Strubbe 1994: 89–​ 92; cf. Schwartz 2016: 230). These inscriptions would have been intended to prevent grave violation by both Jews and non-​Jews. With regard to the latter, these grave curses suggest that local non-​Jews had some knowledge of Deuteronomy as a Jewish text (see van der Horst 2013: 327) and respected it or the God to whom it referred; otherwise the curses would have had no impact on potential non-​Jewish grave violators (see Ameling 2009: 207–​8). This may suggest that the Jewish community of Acmonia was respected in the city (but cf. Strubbe 1994: 100–​4). In an inscription from Laodicea anyone who opens the tomb, buries another person, and erases the inscription, is threatened with the curses of Deut 28 (Ameling 2004: no. 213). In a similar way to the inscriptions from Acmonia, this inscription would also have sought to prevent grave violation by both Jews and non-​Jews and suggests that Deuteronomy was recognized by non-​Jews in the area. Another third-​century inscription from Apamea (Ameling 2004: no. 179) says that if anyone dares to bury someone else in the tomb, “he knows the Law of the Jews”. This may suggest that there was knowledge of and respect for the Jewish Law in the wider society; otherwise this would offer no protection from non-​Jewish grave violation. This inscription can be seen alongside a unique series of coins minted in Apamea, dated from 193 to 254 C.E ., that depict Noah, his wife, and the Ark, along with the word “Noah” in Greek. Both the inscription and the coins suggest recognition of the Jewish community and its holy Scripture in the wider city. This evidence indicates the significance of the biblical text in these communities and the use of different Greek translations.

10.  Women Title Bearers in Jewish Communities Some inscriptions tell us about women who held a range of titles in Jewish communities. In the second or third century C. E . Rufina was archisynagogos in Smyrna (Ameling 2004: no. 43) and between the fourth and sixth century Theopempte held the same office in Myndos (Ameling 2004: no. 25). The title archisynagogis(s)a is also found in an inscription from Nevsehir in Cappadocia (Ameling 2004: no. 255). From one of the Aphrodisias inscriptions mentioned above we learn of Yael, who was most likely a woman (see Ilan 2004: 44–​9; Williams 2007: 188–​9), and who held the title of prostatēs, indicating she was either president or patron of a group. In Sebastopolis in Bithynia/​Pontus an inscription from the fourth century tells us that a woman by the name Sara had the title presbytis (Ameling 2004: no. 161), and another inscription of the same date concerns Lampetis, who is an archon (Ameling 2004: no. 160). At Phocaea in Ionia in the third century C.E ., a woman by the name of Tation built a synagogue for the Jewish community and was given a golden crown and the privilege of sitting in the seat of honor (Ameling 2004: no. 36). It is debated whether she was a Jew or not (see Trebilco 1991: 230 n. 34; Rajak 2001: 385, 466–​77; Chester 2011: 392–​3). 516

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Although the roles women fulfilled when holding these titles continue to be debated (see Gibson 2005: 70–​73; Duncan 2012: 37–​49), a case can be made that women had a significant degree of status, involvement in, and patronage of some of the Jewish communities in Asia Minor (see Trebilco 1991: 104–​13; Brooten 2000: 215–​23; Stebnicka 2015: 81–​94). One reason for this was probably the prominence of women as benefactors and holders of a range of civic and religious titles in the cities of Asia Minor (see Trebilco 1991: 113–​25; Bain 2014). Thus, the Jewish communities were probably influenced by their environment in their openness to the involvement of women in the synagogue.

11.  Jewish Communities in Their Cities in Asia Minor Jews and Jewish communities in Asia Minor took an active part in city life, into which they were integrated and socially assimilated to quite some degree (see Gilbert 2006: 34–​6). I have already noted that the prominent position of the Sardis synagogue and the content of its inscriptions, particularly the mention of nine Jewish city councilors, two office holders in the provincial administration (a procurator and a comes), and an assistant in the record office, suggest that relations between the city of Sardis and the Jewish community were harmonious and that the community was a respected element of the city. We know of Jews from the third century C. E . onwards who held other significant public offices (see Trebilco 1991: 47–​8, 64–​5, 173–​83). Two men from Acmonia held a range of municipal positions in the mid-​third century C. E ., including clerk of the market, supervisor of the grain supply, and civic administrator (Ameling 2004: nos. 172, 173). In Ephesus in the second or third century C .E ., a Jew was an “archiatros”, an official municipal doctor (Ameling 2004: no. 32); Ameling (1996: 53) describes him as standing “at the top of the social scale”. In Corycus in the third century, a Jew served as city councilor, and in nearby Seleucia another Jew was a procurator ducenarius (Ameling 2004: no. 236). In fifth-​century Side, two Jews were controllers of the weight of money (Ameling 2004: no. 220). In Aphrodisias, probably in the fifth century, a Jew served as a palatinus, a high-​ranking official in the imperial bureaucracy (Ameling 2004: no. 14A, line 11). These Jews were clearly very active in civic life and had high social status. We have also noted the number of city councilors who were God-​fearers in Aphrodisias, which again indicates the significant integration of that Jewish community into their city. There is also evidence of Jews being “good residents” who participated in the civic and cultural life of their cities. At Iasos in the early imperial period there were at least three Jewish ephebes, that is, young Jewish men who attended the gymnasium (Ameling 2004: no. 22). At Hypaepa at the end of the second or the third century, there was an association of Jewish ephebes who had graduated from the gymnasium while clearly retaining their identity as Jews (Ameling 2004: no. 47). At Hierapolis, in the mid-​second century C. E ., a Jew was “a frequent winner in the holy games” (see Ameling 2004: no. 189) with it being unclear whether he was an athlete or a musician. In Miletus three inscriptions show Jews (Ameling 2004: no. 39), God-​fearers (no. 38), and probably Jews and God-​fearers together (no. 37, on which see Mitchell 2010: 194–​5), who had the privilege of reserved seats in the theatre (see Jay 2013: 233–​4). These inscriptions could be from the third century, or as late as the fifth or sixth centuries (see Chester 2011: 385). In an undated inscription from Acmonia, a Jew made a donation of some sort to the city and in doing so called Acmonia his “fatherland” or “home city” (patris; see Ameling 2004: no. 169). In a second-​or third-​century C . E . inscription from Hierapolis, a Jew described their burial place in Hierapolis as “their native land” (Ameling 2004: no. 193). In Aphrodisias, inscriptions of the late fifth or early sixth century show that Jews had reserved places in the odeon of the city; one of the inscriptions shows that Jews 517

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supported the Blues (Ameling 2004: nos. 15–​16; see Jay 2013: 233–​7), one of the two significant factional groups in the city of Aphrodisias, the other one being the Greens (see Jay 2013: 233–​7). In addition, probably between 350 and 500 C. E ., the Jewish community in Aphrodisias “left the symbols of their religious belief on numerous public buildings in various parts of the city …, thus displaying a great deal of self-​confidence” (Chaniotis 2002: 226; see also 236–​9). These symbols include the menorah, shofar, ethrog, and lulab. This evidence suggests a strong sense of belonging and of feeling at home in their local cities (see Chester 2011: 386–​7). Jews also followed local customs. Inscriptions often mention fines or curses against grave violators, which are very common among non-​Jews. Similarly, at Acmonia, in the third century, a husband gave money to an association to decorate his wife’s tomb with roses annually, a well-​ known Roman ceremony called the rosalia (Ameling 2004: no. 171; see Trebilco 1991: 78–​81). With regard to the Sardis synagogue, Rajak (2001: 452) comments, “they expressed themselves in the language of the wider community and deployed the stylistic norms prevalent in the local culture”. We also know of gentiles who were involved in the Jewish community. I have already noted the existence of God-​fearers in Sardis and Aphrodisias and probably also in Tralles, Miletus, Philadelphia, Pisidian Antioch, and Iconium. In Acmonia during the reign of Nero, Julia Severa, a very prominent non-​Jewish woman in the city who was a priestess of the imperial cult and belonged to a nexus of leading families, supported the large Jewish community financially by building a synagogue (Ameling 2004: no. 168; see also Mitchell 1993: 8–​9; Rajak 2001: 463–​75; Levine 2005: 118–​20). Such support suggests good relations with gentile neighbors. This sort of support by non-​Jews, particularly by those of high social standing, indicates the significant integration of some Jewish communities into the life of their cities. There are also other indicators of good relations between Jewish communities and their cities. At Hierapolis, we have a late second–​or early third–​century Greek epitaph of a Jew, Publius Aelius Glykon Zeuxianus Aelianus, who we know was Jewish because the inscription mentions the Festival of Passover. The inscription shows that Jews adopted the local funerary practice of decorating graves with wreaths. Glykon left money to the city’s purple-​dyers and carpet-​weavers guilds, which probably included both Jews and gentiles so that they might decorate his grave on Passover and Shavuot as well as on the feast of Kalends, the Roman New Year feast. The inscription shows interesting facets of integration into civic life by Jews in Hierapolis (see Ameling 2004: no. 196; Harland 2006: 227–​39, but see Williams 2007: 178, who does not think Jewish ownership of the tomb is certain). In Hierapolis, Jews were also buried throughout the city’s cemetery (see the map in Miranda 1999: 156). The same situation occurred at Corycus in Cilicia, where in the second to third centuries C. E ., Jews were buried alongside pagans in very similar sarcophagi, with almost identical formulae being used in the epitaphs (see Ameling 2004: nos. 233, 236, 238; Williams 1994: 274–​80; Strubbe 1994: 101–​2 argues for Jewish cemeteries in some other cities, see Ameling 2004: no. 223 from Tlos). The coins from Apamea depicting Noah and his wife (see Ameling 2004: 380–​1 and no. 104) suggest that the city accepted the Jewish flood story as its own. The Jewish community seems to have been influential and respected in the city, convincing local non-​Jews of the validity of their own traditions (see Trebilco 1991: 86–​95; Hachlili 1998: 255–​6).

12.  Interactions between Jewish and Christian Communities in Asia Minor We have evidence of a range of interactions between Jewish and Christian communities in Asia Minor. The evidence suggests positive relations as well as conflicts. 518

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a)  Positive Relations between Jews and Christians and Jewish Influence on Christian Groups Between 105 and 110 C. E ., Ignatius (Phld. 6.1) writes about someone who is probably a gentile Christian who was promoting Jewish practices, including circumcision, in Philadelphia. Around 155–​160 C .E ., Justin Martyr set his Dialogue with Trypho in Ephesus (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.18.6), which indicates that he saw the city as a suitable and realistic venue for a debate between a learned Christian and a learned Jew. The Christian Quartodeciman controversy involved Christians celebrating Easter at the same time as the Jewish Passover, that is, beginning on the eve of the fourteenth of Nisan. This controversy continued for over 200 years and was mainly conducted in Asia Minor. Scholars assume that many Christians in Asia Minor celebrated Easter from the fourteenth of Nisan onwards at least in part because of the influence of local Jewish communities. Key Christian leaders who followed the Quartodeciman practice included Polycarp, Melito, Irenaeus, Apollinarius of Hierapolis, and Polycrates of Ephesus. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 5.24.2–​7), around 190 C.E . Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, described the fourteenth of Nisan as the day “when the people (ho laos) remove the leaven”. Bauckham (1993: 31–​3) notes that this cannot simply be derived from Exod 12:15 but rather reflects contemporary Jewish practice and the language that was used for that practice. The use of the term laos for the Jewish people is noteworthy here. This term is also found in Jewish inscriptions from Asia Minor (Ameling 2004: nos. 26 [Nysa], 44 [Smyrna], 181 [Appia]; 206 [Hierapolis]), and so Polycrates’ usage of the term probably reflects contemporary Jewish language. Accordingly, Bauckham (1993: 37) notes that Polycrates “can speak of things Jewish in an accurately Jewish way”. This may in part be due to Polycrates living in close proximity to the large Jewish community of Ephesus and to his being part of a church with a strongly Jewish-​Christian background. In the area of Eumeneia, a series of third-​century inscriptions have been found, which include the curse upon anyone who violates the grave that “he or she will have to reckon with [or answer to] God [estai autō pros ton theon]” (see Trebilco 2004: 66–​88 for these inscriptions). Calder called this “the Eumeneian formula” (see Calder 1939: 12–​26). While some are clearly Jewish and others clearly Christian, the majority could be either Jewish or Christian. This means that they can only be thought of as Jewish if there are other indications of Jewishness apart from this formula. But that Jews and Christians shared this formula may suggest that there were close relations between them. It may be that the two communities shared a good deal of common vocabulary and that the communities may have been less demarcated than has often been thought (see Trebilco 2004: 66–​88). The synod of Laodicea (ca.363 C. E .), which related to Christians in Asia, prohibited Christians from practicing their religion with Jews, in particular, “celebrating festivals with them”, “keeping the Sabbath”, and “eating unleavened bread” during the Passover (Canons 16, 29, 37, 38; text in Joannou 1962: 127–​55). The synod decreed that Christians should work on the Sabbath and read the Gospels as well as the Jewish Scriptures on Saturday (see Huttner 2013: 291–​314; cf. Synek 2014: 247–​8). This indicates significant Jewish influence and impact on the life of Christian communities in the mid-​fourth century, influence that the Council was seeking to combat. It also shows the attraction of Judaism to many Christians and suggests that, even in the fourth century, there was at times a blurring of the boundary lines between Jewish and Christian communities. Van der Horst (1989: 118) points to this wider significance of the Council of Laodicea: “These canons can only be explained on the assumption that keeping the sabbath, celebrating Pesach and other 519

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Jewish religious festivals, etc., were not marginal but frequently occurring and tenacious phenomena among Christians in Asia Minor in the second half of the fourth century”. As noted above, nine Jewish city councilors are named in the Sardis synagogue inscriptions. Van der Horst (2006: 49) comments: “No wonder that here, unlike elsewhere in the fifth and sixth century, the synagogue was not expropriated by the Christians in order to be converted into a church building. This basilica could have been a magnificent church, but what happened in fact was that during the fifth and sixth century the Christians in Sardis had to make do with a much smaller building than the synagogue”. The Jewish community seems to have been much more prominent in the city than the Christian community. Jews and Christians also lived and traded side-​ by-​side in shops outside the synagogue during the sixth century, which gives evidence of “reciprocal tolerance in the relations between Christians and Jews” (Crawford 1999: 197; also 190–​200) right up until 616 when the Sasanians destroyed the city and the synagogue. Furthermore, given the later dates now proposed for the Aphrodisias inscriptions, the prominence of this Jewish community in their city in the fourth and fifth centuries is significant, given that this is a period when Christianity became more dominant and some sources show the environment was more hostile toward Jewish communities (see Millar 2004: 1–​24). In a village near Tavium in Galatia, and in Seleucia in Cilicia, Jews and Christians were buried in the same cemetery (see Mitchell 1993: 36; 1999: 124). In Corycus, in the large necropolis from the fourth century onwards, Jews and Christians were buried together. Jews seem to have been influenced by the growing Christian culture of the city, for example, in the use of names and grave formulae (see Williams 1994: 280–​6; Fairchild 2014: 208–​9). In Corycus, we have a range of inscriptions that enable us to compare the Jewish community before Constantine with the one after Constantine and into the early Byzantine period. Williams (1994: 285) has argued that the Jewish community in Corycus changed as the wider society moved from paganism toward Christianity: “The values of the Greek community are less openly and enthusiastically ascribed to and there is greater emphasis on Jewish ones. To be sure, such a development is only to be expected given the challenge posed the Jews by the steady stream of discriminatory, status-​ lowering enactments against them from the time of Constantine onwards”. In an inscription from Ankara, perhaps from the early sixth century, a Montanist Christian who is called an “apostle” is said to have died “on the Sabbath day”. Mitchell (2005: 207) argues that the inscription shows that Montanists in Ankara had significant positive interactions with Jewish groups. He also notes evidence that in the fourth century, Novatians in Asia Minor celebrated Easter on the same day as Passover and attended Jewish Passover celebrations, again showing Jewish influence on Christians (ibid. 220–​1).

b)  Christians in Conflict with Jewish Communities In Rev 2:9, addressed to Christians in Smyrna, John writes: “I know the slander on the part of those who say that they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan”. Rev 3:9 to Christians in Philadelphia is similar. The interpretation of these verses is hotly disputed. In my view, it seems likely that John, in writing of people who “say that they are Jews and are not”, is referring to non-​Christian Jews who, in John’s view, have rejected Christ and now denounce his followers. In John’s eyes, they are not being true Jews. This suggests that the Jewish and Christian communities in Smyrna and Philadelphia were quite separate communities and that there were significant negative interactions and conflict between them (see Koester 2014: 274–​6; for an alternative view that the verses refer to Gentile Christians see Murray 2004: 73–​81). 520

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In Laodicea, a column has been found that was part of the lower colonnade of “Nymphaeum A”, which was located at the center of the city. It was inscribed with a menorah flanked by a lulav and a shofar; over two branches of the menorah a deeply carved cross with a round base has been superimposed at a later time (see Fine 2012: 31–​50; Şimşek 2013: 343–​6). The Nymphaeum was built in the late second century and probably remained standing until the earthquake of 494 C.E. Şimşek (2013: 346) notes that a very similar Latin cross in Hierapolis is to be dated to the fourth to fifth century. Fine (2012: 34) suggests that “this column is iconographic evidence for the process of Christianizing the physical environment of the empire, which included the destruction and appropriation of polytheistic and Jewish sacred space”. We also note that several late antique Christian writers, such as Basil of Caesarea (fourth century C.E .), expressed strongly anti-​Jewish sentiments in their works (see Lange 2014: 233–​7). In Priene, a relief with a menorah was found as part of the floor pavement of the Byzantine episcopal basilica (see Fine 2012: 44–​7). Fine notes that spolia was often incorporated into churches to point to the defeat of old religious traditions and that evidence for this is found in the basilica of Priene. He suggests the menorah “met a similar fate” (ibid. 47). In Ikaria in the fifth or sixth century, a Greek inscription on a plaque in a house or a church read: “You will never hear an honest word from a Jew” (Ameling 2004: no. 5a; see also Schwartz 2016: 234), although the stonemason had originally written “Ikarian”, which he then deleted.

c)  Debated Evidence In his sermon, Peri Pascha, Melito, bishop of Sardis in the latter part of the second century C.E ., writes harshly against “Israel”, but it has been argued (Cohick 1998: 372) that the homily “reveals little regarding Jews or Judaism in the author’s time”. The Martyrdom of Polycarp suggests that the Jews of Smyrna played a part in Polycarp’s death, sometime between 156 and 167 C. E . (see 12:2; 13:2; 17:2–​18:1). The Jews in the city are portrayed as having contacts in high places in the city and as being prepared to work with pagans against the Christians. The Martyrdom of Pionius 13–​14, set in Smyrna around 250 C.E ., portrays the Jewish community in the city as having a continuing interest in attracting Christians to Judaism and as being involved in polemics against Christians about Jesus and his resurrection. However, in both cases it has been argued that the stories do not portray social reality (see Gibson 2003: 145–​58; Gaston 2005: 21–​3; but compare Ameling 2008: 160; van der Horst 2013: 335–​6).

13.  Jewish Names Williams (2007: 173–​97) has studied all the names used by Jews in inscriptions (which are virtually all in Greek), in Hierapolis, Sardis, and Aphrodisias. She particularly notes the number of Hebrew names at Aphrodisias (where they make up around 34%), which is in strong contrast to the much lower use of such names at Hierapolis (around 3%) and their quite low use at Sardis (around 14%; see Williams 2007: 182, 186; see also Chaniotis 2002: 226–​31; 2008: 255–​9; Stebnicka 2015: 177–​95). Williams notes (2007: 174) that “during the course of several centuries and during the transition of Rome from an officially pagan to an officially Christian state (the second to the sixth century AD), there were considerable changes in Jewish naming practices in Roman Asia Minor, the most conspicuous being the growing preference in Late Antiquity for Hebrew ‘heritage’ names in an indeclinable (ie non-​Hellenized) form”. Although inscriptions may not be representative of the whole Jewish population, since they require considerable cost, this is a very noteworthy conclusion. 521

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Why is this Hebraizing trend in the Jewish onomasticon evident in the second half of the period, that is, in late antiquity? Although different communities may have had different practices with regard to names, Williams (2007: 191–​2) suggests: “If we ask what changes were taking place in the Roman world such as to induce the onomastic evolution we have witnessed, the answer must be the establishment of Christianity as a state religion, the Christianization of the inhabitants of the Roman empire, and the increasingly intolerant attitude of the Christian emperors towards people of other religions”. She suggests that in response to such changes and attitudes, and to the Christian use of the Septuagint, Jews made greater use of biblical and hence “heritage” names and of Hebrew in order to assert Jewish identity and the distinctiveness of their community (see also Ameling 2009: 218–​9). Chaniotis (2008: 249) notes that the term Hebraioi and several menorahs were erased in the odeon in Aphrodisias sometime after the fourth century, suggesting there was discrimination against Jews at this time, perhaps by Christians. Clearly such direct action may have led to a greater assertion of Jewish identity through the use of Jewish names.

14. Conclusions The strength and vitality of many of the Jewish communities in Asia Minor is clear from the evidence. The Sardis community, with its impressive synagogue, is perhaps the most revealing here. However, it seems likely that Jewish communities in Asia Minor were often quite different from each other. This diversity is demonstrated by comparing the excavated synagogues in Sardis, Priene, and Andriake, which are different from each other in size, architecture, and decoration. Clearly the three communities were different, perhaps because of a whole range of local factors including when the communities were originally founded and under what circumstances, the community’s size at the beginning and over time, its leadership, relationships with city officials and the wider community, and its local influence. However, we should not overemphasize this diversity, and we can certainly make some more general comments that seem to be valid across the communities in Asia Minor. They seem to have retained a strong sense of Jewish identity and an active attention to Jewish tradition. From the third century onwards, indications of Jewish identity include the use of biblical texts in inscriptions; the significance of the Torah and Torah shrines in synagogues; the association (or voluntary society or group), probably for the study of the Law, at Aphrodisias; the reference to reading the Torah in the inscription from Sardis; the mention of Passover and Pentecost at Hierapolis; and the Noah story at Apamea and the widespread use of the menorah (Ameling 1996: 42–​4; Rautman 2015: 431–​8; see also Ephesus, Pülz and Steskal 2004: 199–​205, and Pergamon, Japp 2004: 258–​9). However, Asia Minor is rarely mentioned in rabbinic literature, and “there is very little evidence … for rabbinic influence on the local Jewish population” in Asia Minor (Langer 2014: 261; see also ibid. 259–​69; Lange 2014: 225). Jewish communities also generally seem to have been quite integrated into the life of their cities, to have been influenced by their environment, and to have participated in local customs such as the decoration of graves and the use of grave curses. Their buildings followed local building styles and decorations. Jewish communities were part of the wider social and cultural environment. Jews contributed to their cities, whether as city councilors, through holding other offices, or, in a quite different way, through the city of Apamea adopting the Noah story as its own. They had good relations with others in their cities, were involved in city life, and in some cities attended the theatre and gymnasium. The God-​fearers indicate non-​Jews’ interest in Judaism and Jewish communities. Christians adopted some Jewish practices while at times being hostile to Jews. The now accepted later dates for the Aphrodisias inscriptions and the Sardis synagogue suggest that 522

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Jewish communities were actually more visible and had a more obvious presence in the cities of Asia Minor in late antiquity than in the first and second centuries C.E . (see Horsley and Luxford 2016: 152). Hence, Jewish communities in Asia Minor seem to have been involved in and belonged to their cities as socially significant communities while, at the same time, remaining distinctive and maintaining a cohesiveness and clearly defined identity as Jewish communities. These were not mutually exclusive options.

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34 JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN NORTH AFRICA Stéphanie É. Binder and Thomas Villey

1.  Approaches, Methodology, and Primary Sources Elaborating on the nature and activities of the Jewish Diaspora in North Africa in late antiquity can be quite a deceptive exercise. The historical narrative, soaked with legendary traditions and emotionally charged agendas, is generally the prerogative of certain groups of people and scholars. Sephardic French-​or Spanish-​speaking scholars or community leaders –​mostly expatriated to Europe or Israel –​tend to glorify the allegedly magnificent history and role of their ancestors in their native lands and to express their nostalgia for their former homelands (see, inter alia, Chouraqui 1968). Second, members of the French Catholic clergy belonging to the order of the Missionaries of Africa (commonly known as the White Fathers because of the color of their cassocks), who had been sent to missionize in the French colonial empire in Africa, and who explored, with more or less archaeological mastery, the African sites, rewrote, misunderstood, or misinterpreted the remains they found, to reveal the splendor of the African Church, on which contemporary European Christianity is based (Stern 2008: 7–​11): we can mention here the examples of Alfred-​ Louis Delattre (Delattre 1895) or Jean Ferron (Ferron 1951: 175–​224; Ferron 1956: 105–​17), who have both explored, among numerous sites, the Christian and Jewish remains of late antique Carthage. The historical narrative could be used to justify French presence on African territory, with French clergy claiming that they were the direct heirs of African Christianity. Finally, a few scholars of North-​African origin who expatriated to Europe use African history either to praise or to denigrate the European movement of colonization and to bring back to the African countries values based on their ancestral traditions (on these authors and, more generally, on historiography on African Jews elaborated in the context of French colonization see Zytnicki 2011). For example, in a recent study, Campbell (2012) deals with the alleged genetic identity of North African Jews and tries to establish the (“Oriental”) origins of the community and its history (mixing with local populations, isolation during the Christian and Muslim periods, mixing again with Jews from Spanish-​Sephardic communities at the time of the Inquisition). This use of scholarship and science to corroborate parts of modern ideological narratives fails to provide a detailed examination of historical data concerning the period under scrutiny here. Despite obscure legends about the origins of the North African Jewish community such as the oral tradition of the Jews of Djerba asserting that the first Jews would have settled on this island DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-41

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shortly after the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem (Chouraqui 1968: 8), we have no direct evidence of a Jewish presence in western North Africa prior to the end of the second century C . E . From the late second century C. E . until the Arab conquest of the Maghreb during the second half of the seventh century C. E ., four main source categories document the history of African Jewish communities: archaeology, epigraphy, literature, and Roman legal texts. As regards the archaeological evidence, the principal remains are the following: the synagogue of Naro (modern Hammam-​Lif, North-​East Tunisia), which was discovered in 1883 and whose mosaics seem to date from the sixth century C. E . (on this synagogue and its mosaics, see, inter alia, Renan 1883: 157–​63; Biebel 1936: 541–​51; Darmon 1995: 7–​29; Stern 2008: 193–​253); the synagogue of Clipea (modern Kelibia, North-​East Tunisia), which has been discovered in 2008 and has mosaics from the fifth century C. E . (Fantar 2011: 1183–​202); the necropolis of Gammarth (North-​East Tunisia), near Carthage, where some Carthaginian Jews were buried between the late second century C.E . and the late fifth century C. E . (Delattre 1895; Ferron 1951: 175–​224; Ferron 1956: 105–​17; Le Bohec 1985: 15–​6; Stern 2008: 255–​302 (passim); Stern 2011: 307–​34); and the Jewish hypogeum of Oea (modern Tripoli of Libya), which seem to date from the fourth to fifth centuries C .E . or even from the Byzantine period (Romanelli 1977: 111–​8; Stern 2008: 255–​ 302 passim). Numerous lamps bearing Jewish symbols like the menorah were also discovered in Africa, especially in Carthage (Lund 1995: 245–​62). As regards epigraphy, 81 inscriptions were considered Jewish or judaizing by Le Bohec, who edited the catalogue of the Jewish inscriptions of Roman Africa (Le Bohec 1981a: 165–​207). These inscriptions, dating from the late second century C.E . to the sixth century C.E ., come from all provinces of Roman Africa, with the majority from the province of Africa Proconsularis (North-​ East Tunisia). Most of them are epitaphs but some inscriptions mentioning donations were found in the synagogues of Naro and Clipea. This corpus was recently studied by Stern (Stern 2008: especially 99–​192; see also Villey 2015: especially 36–​123). Although no literary text produced by African Jews has been preserved, we can find information about them in the writings of African Christian writers such as Tertullian (Aziza 1977; Binder 2012, Augustine (Blumenkranz 1958: 225–​41; Blumenkranz 1973; Fredriksen 2008), and others. Finally, Roman legal texts such as the Codex Theodosianus and the Codex Iustinianus constitute an important source of information for the study of the legal and social situation of African Jews, especially in the fourth and early fifth century C. E . and during the reign of Justinian I (527 C.E .. to 565 C .E .). The aim of this chapter will be to collect and interpret the information that emerges from these primary sources.

2.  The Geography of African Jewry The period under scrutiny here is the third to seventh centuries C . E . We shall leave aside issues concerning early migration movements of Jews from the Land of Israel to Africa and ignore mythological narratives about the arrival of Hebrew-​and Aramaic-​speaking Jews from Jerusalem in earlier times (eg with the Phoenicians in the time of King Salomon or after the destruction of the First and Second Temples); discussions about the synagogue of the Ghriba in the Tunisian Djerba; and the question whether Jews came to North Africa from Egypt, Cyrenaica or Rome after 70 C . E . The first attestation of a Jewish presence in western North Africa stems from the late second century C . E . The more African Jewish history connects with the history of African Christianity the more source material becomes available. In fact, North African Jewish communities constituted both the basis of the first Christian groups and the first opposition movements to Christianity. 528

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Since Diocletian’s rule (284 C. E . to 305 C. E .), “North Africa” comprises the Libyan Tripolitania, the Tunisian Byzacena, Africa Proconsularis (North Tunisia and a part of North-​East Algeria), Numidia (North-​East Algeria), Mauretania Sitifensis (region of Setif in Algeria), Mauretania Caesariensis (North-​ Central and North-​ West Algeria), and Mauretania Tingitana (Northern Morocco). In late antiquity, the history of the Jews in Egypt and Cyrenaica was only loosely connected with the events occurring in what is called North Africa. Egyptian Jewish history will therefore not be dealt with here. In late antique and early Byzantine times, African Jews lived in important cultural and economic centers, especially in harbor cities. Thanks to archaeological, epigraphic, and literary testimonies dating to the late second to sixth centuries C.E ., Jews are well attested in the following 21 cities: the Locus Judaeorum Augusti (on this site, mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana, see especially Lassère 1985: 65–​72) and Oea in Tripolitania; Thaenae, Sullecthum, and Segermes in Byzacena; Clipea, Naro, Carthage, Utica, Thabraca, Simitthus, Thagura, and Hippo Regius in Africa Proconsularis; Cirta Constantina and Cuicul in Numidia; Sitifis in Mauretania Sitifensis; Auzia, Tipasa, and Caesarea in Mauretania Caesariensis; and Volubilis and Sala in Mauretania Tingitana. According to some scholars (see eg Chouraqui 1968: 20 and below), Jewish settlements would also be found in mountain and desert areas and in rural villages but no testimony related to such settlements is known for the late antique period.

3.  Language Use In his numerous studies Simon (1962, among others) proposed that the African Jewish community used Hebrew during the antique and late antique periods, if not in everyday life, at least in liturgical contexts. This argument is used to support his claim that the first African Jews immigrated from the Land of Israel before Aramaic became the current language of the Middle East. Simon makes a distinction between urban Jews and those in the peripheries, arguing that the latter would have been more proficient in using Hebrew because the surrounding culture had less influence on them. The problem with his view is the lack of source material concerning the Jews of the peripheries. In the cities, inscriptions found in Jewish contexts are mostly in Latin with some in Greek and only a few in Hebrew. In fact, among the Jewish inscriptions of Roman Africa edited by Le Bohec (1981a: 165–​207) or discovered after his publication (see especially Fantar 2011: 1098 and Curbera 2015: 25–​7), 43 are in Latin, 18 in Greek and 4 in Hebrew; 3 of the Hebrew inscriptions are from Carthage (Le Bohec 1981a: nos. 22, 23 and 24), and 1 from Volubilis (Le Bohec 1981a: no. 80). Some inscriptions are bilingual: Latin-​Hebrew in Thaenae (Le Bohec 1981a: no. 7), Greek-​Hebrew in Carthage (Le Bohec 1981a: no.18), and Latin-​Greek in Carthage (Le Bohec 1981a: no. 59). On the basis of these inscriptions, use of Hebrew as the commonly spoken language of North African Jews in late antiquity cannot be demonstrated. On the other hand, Augustine of Hippo refers to advice he received from Jews concerning the interpretation of the Hebrew text of the Bible (Augustine, Epistula 71). This suggests that at least some learned Jews could understand the Torah in Hebrew. According to Simon, the use of Hebrew may be considered evidence of a negative attitude toward Graeco-​Roman culture among some North African Jews (Simon 1962: 64). Other scholars have suggested that the African Church used Latin more than Greek to compete for proselytes with missionizing North African Jews, who were also using Latin (Binder 2012: 198; see also Villey 2015: 31). According to Quispel, the African Latin text of the Old Testament known as the Vetus Latina could originate from a Latin translation of the Bible elaborated by the Jews of Carthage and used by them (Quispel 2008: 392–​400), but this is merely a hypothesis. 529

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As far as the names of North African Jews appearing in inscriptions are concerned, some seem to be transcriptions of Hebrew names into Greek (eg Hanan in an epitaph of the Jewish hypogeum of Oea, see Le Bohec 1981a: no. 6) or Latin (eg Iudasus on a sarcophagus found in Segermes: Le Bohec 1981a: no. 12), though the opposite tendency exists as well: Greek and Latin names transcribed into Hebrew (eg Matrona written in Hebrew characters for the Latin name Matrona in an epitaph found in Volubilis: Le Bohec 1981a: no. 80). Some names appearing in African inscriptions, such as “Isaac” in an inscription from the synagogue of Kelibia (Fantar 2011: 1098), are of biblical origin, but they could also be the names of Christians, as was probably the case with a certain Moses who was buried in the Christian hypogeum of Sirte (Bartoccini 1928–​9: 199, no. 47 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 1). In several cases, the original language of the name does not fit the alphabet in which it appears in the inscriptions (a Latin name written in Hebrew or a Hebrew name in the Roman alphabet); in other cases, the Latin name seems to have been chosen in an inscription because it sounded like the Hebrew name of the person bearing it. The inscriptions mostly provide evidence of the Latin onomastic (Le Bohec 1981a, passim; Villey 2015: 42, 50, 59) and show how well assimilated and integrated late antique North African Jews were in the Latin culture of their Roman environment.

4.  Berbers and the Kahena Scholars who assume that late antique North African Jews spoke a Semitic language sometimes develop an elaborate theory of the existence of a syncretistic Semitic-​Judaic-​Punic religion in remote rural areas during late antiquity (see especially Simon 1962: 54–​67). They argue that North African Jews were very close to the Punic-​Berber populations linguistically and culturally. A shared hatred of the Roman and later Muslim invaders brought them even closer. Parts of the local Berber tribes are assumed to have observed Jewish customs or even fully converted to Judaism. Slouschz and Simon are the most famous representatives of this theory of a large-​scale conversion of local North African populations to Judaism (Slouschz 1908: 365–​411, especially 384; Simon 1962: 30–​87, especially 82–​84). They also assume that the African Jewish communities, especially those in rural areas, had a particular character, differing from other Jewish communities in late antiquity (see especially Simon 1962: 44–​67). The climax of this approach is that the Kahena (from the Semitic kohenet –​priestess; also called Daya), the warrior queen, was a Berber-​Jewish leader who, in Numidia, led the resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb with the support of the Jews and the j­udaizing Berbers –​converted or on their way to conversion to Judaism (see, inter alia, Slouschz 1908: 399–​411). At the basis of such accounts lay the words of the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–​1406 C . E .) who, according to the French translation of his work by de Slane (Ibn Khaldoun, 1852: 208), seems to claim that at the eve of the Muslim conquest of North Africa, Judaism would have been widespread among several Berber tribes, in particular the Jarāwa, namely the tribe of the Kahena. But new translations of this passage, especially the one by Talbi (1971: 19–​52), have shown that it was not correctly translated by de Slane, which calls into question the alleged Judaism of the Jarāwa and especially of the Kahena, who was very probably Christian or pagan rather than Jewish (Talbi 1971: 40; Fantar 1987: 169–​84; Modéran 2005: 4102–​11). Scholars such as Hirschberg (1963: 313–​39) have also critically analyzed and contextualized Ibn Khaldun’s text against Slouschz and his followers and suggested an alternative explanation of the relationship between Jews and Berbers in Roman and Byzantine times. Hirschberg

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argues against the notion of mass conversions of local populations to Judaism but reckons with some Jewish impact on Berber culture for the period after the Muslim conquest of North Africa (Hirschberg 1963: 338–​9). Other scholars (eg Lassère 2004: 3938–​51 and Hadas-​Lebel 2005: 325–​45) have shown that African Jewry can be compared to other Jewish communities of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Karen Stern bases her research on archaeological remains and stresses that African Jews, especially in Tunisia, were closer in their habits to other (non-​ Jewish) Tunisians than to other Jews, although some of them had names or used symbols that can be found in all late antique Jewish communities (Stern 2008: 142–​4, 190–​2, 251–​3, 299–​302 and passim).

5.  Relationship to the Land of Israel The relationship of African Jews to the Land of Israel also raises the question of the kind of Judaism observed in Africa. It is a question of the place of the rabbinic movement within Judaism outside of Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia in late antiquity. No Jewish writings from that period are known to have been composed in western North Africa. Some scholars (eg Monceaux 1902: 13–​4; Le Bohec 1985: 15; Le Bohec 2021: 54; Lassère 2004: 3943–​4) have argued that Jewish burial practices evident in the cemetery of Gammarth in Tunisia may suggest a rabbinic influence: the loculi carved perpendicular to the larger chambers of the burial complex would evoke the descriptions provided by the Babylonian Talmud (see eg b. B. Bat. 100b–​102b). But such an influence has been questioned by recent scholarship and especially Stern (2008: 296–​9), according to whom there is no evidence of a rabbinic influence on the laying out of the necropolis of Gammarth (see also below). Although a lack of evidence does not necessarily suggest rabbinic absence, no clear-​cut conclusions can be reached. One possible clue that may support the hypothesis of a rabbinic character of African Jewry is the mention of several rabbis pointed at as “from Carthage” in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. These rabbis are R. Hanan (b. B. Qam. 114b), R. Isaac (b. Ber. 29a and 4.7), R. Abba (y. Demai 5.2), and perhaps R. Ada (b. Ber. 5.2) and R. Aha (b. B. Qam. 114b). However, scholarship has been loquacious on the fact that these rabbis, whose respective statements were not related to Africa, might have had only remote Carthaginian connections (eg Edrei and Mendels 2007: 103; see also Hirschberg 1974: 49; Rives 1995: 220), or that they may have stemmed from the Spanish Cartagena and not from Africa (Hadas-​Lebel 2005: 331–​2; Mimouni 2012: 762). A view that takes for granted a central role of Palestinian rabbis in the Diaspora after 70 C.E . is a position that is increasingly challenged by scholars nowadays. Nevertheless, it remains possible that individual rabbis or sympathizers of rabbis traveled to Africa in late antiquity. Simon Claude Mimouni (2012: 764; see also Stern 2008: 95–​7 and 296–​ 9), who does not reckon with a predominant Diaspora role of Palestinian rabbis in amoraic times, believes that African Jewry was neither Pharisaic nor rabbinic but rather what he calls a “synagogal Judaism”. Indeed, synagogues hold a central place in all the documentation concerning African Jews, especially for the Jewish communities of Hammam-​Lif and Kelibia (North-​East Tunisia), where late antique synagogues and inscriptions related to them were found (for bibliographical references on these synagogues, see above). Some earlier scholars (eg Slouschz 1908: 343–​56; Eisenbeth 1931: 30–​7) have referred to an allegedly “primitive” African Judaism with priests, altars, and sacrifices differing both from Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism. The total lack of evidence of such practices means that this hypothesis is unfounded.

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6.  African Jewish Communities in Late Antiquity a)  Internal Organization As regards the internal organization of the African Jewish communities, scholars have often paid little attention to this matter in the studies devoted to North African Jews, despite some exceptions (see eg Cappelletti 2008: 1341–​9; Villey 2015: 124–​60). Yet African Jewish documentation is taken into account in studies with a larger geographical scope, the most detailed of these being Levine’s book on the ancient synagogue (Levine 2005: 412–​53). This documentation is less abundant than for other communities of the Diaspora such as Alexandria, Rome, or Berenice in Cyrenaica. Six African inscriptions are related to individuals bearing Jewish communal titles like archisynagogus or pater synagogae, but none of these inscriptions describes the functioning of the community itself. We can only suppose that the various Jewish communities would have formed in their respective cities private religious associations centered on a synagogue. The specific case of the Jewish community of Carthage is debated: according to Mimouni (2012: 767), all the Jews of Carthage would have formed a single private religious association, but for Rives (1995: 222) it is likely that several independent congregations existed, as was probably the case in Rome. On the other hand, Chouraqui’s assumption (1968: 60–​1), based on the works of Juster (1914, vol. 1: 402–​5), that all the Jews of North Africa were under the authority of a provincial Jewish dignitary called “little patriarch” seems highly unlikely and cannot be proved (see Villey 2015: 133–​5). The titles borne by African Jewish communal officials are better known. One inscription found in the Jewish hypogeum discovered by Romanelli in Oea (modern Tripoli in Libya, see Romanelli 1977: 113, no. 2; Le Bohec 1981a: no. 4) mentions a woman bearing the Greek title of presbytera/​ presbeteressa, that is to say, a female elder, a title well attested in other Jewish communities in the Mediterranean world, eg for women in Venosa (see JIWE vol. 1, nos. 59, 6271), Kastelli Kissamou (Crete: see IJO vol. 1: Cre3), Bizye (Thracia: see IJO vol. 1: Thr3), Sebastopolis (Asia minor: see IJO vol. 2: no. 161), and Malta (see JIWE vol. 1: no. 163). The elders might have constituted a kind of council. Their role was either to manage the accounts of the community or to serve as judges or even to lead parts of the cult. The title might have been honorific only (on the role of elders see Levine 2005: 432–​4; Villey 2015: 136–​41). Another inscription (CIL vol. 8: no. 1205 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 65), found in Utica (modern Tunisia), mentions an archon, a title well attested in a Jewish context in Rome and in Cyrenaica (see the three famous Jewish inscriptions of Berenice), as well as in Spain, Italy, Egypt, Greece, Syria, Cyprus, and Asia Minor. The archon might have belonged to the executive body of his community with various administrative functions (see Levine 2005: 427–​8; Villey 2015: 142–​5). Two archisynagogues are attested in Africa: the first one –​ Rusticus –​ in Hammam-​Lif (Tunisia), where his son Asterius contributed to the decoration of the local synagogue (see the inscription CIL vol. 8: no. 12457b =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 14); the second one –​Budarius –​in Caesarea of Mauretania (modern Cherchel in Algeria), according to a Christian literary source, the Acta Marcianae 4–​6. The specific functions of the archisynagogue have been the subject of much debate (see eg Levine 1998: 195–​213; Rajak-​Noy 2001: 393–​429; Levine 2005: 415–​27; Villey 2015: 145–​50), which is related to the fact that the numerous sources (inscriptions, Roman laws, and Christian texts) mentioning this Jewish official cannot be homogenized. The archisynagogue may have had a religious function, maybe a liturgical one as well, maybe his name suggests a leading role and communal functions, or perhaps it only points to honorary functions rather than real ones (Rajak-​Noy 2001). It seems likely that the archisynagogue would mainly have had a representative function and perhaps also responsibilities for the welfare of the members of his community. The

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title was based on the wealth and reputation of the bearer, and women, probably wealthy widows, could also bear the title of archisynagogissa (see especially Rajak-​Noy 2001: 393–​429; on women leaders, see also Brooten 1982; Kraemer 1985: 431–​8; Levine 2005: 513–​6). Another title attested in African Jewish communities is the pater synagogae. It appears in inscriptions from Sitifis in Algeria (see CIL vol. 8: no. 8499 =​ Le Bohec 1981a: no. 74; and Cappelleti 2008: 1341–​9 for a study of this inscription) and from Volubilis in Morocco (Année épigraphique 1969–​1970: no. 748 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 79). In other regions the mater synagogae appears as well. This title is not very widespread in Jewish epigraphy, but it is attested in Rome, Brescia (Italy), Stobi (Macedonia), and Egypt. It is probable that the title pater pateron which appears in one epitaph from Cuicul (modern Djemila, Algeria; on this inscription see Curbera 2015: 25–​7; Année épigraphique 2015: no. 1851) and is also attested in the Jewish catacombs of Venosa (see JIWE vol. 1: nos. 114, 68, 85, 90), is a variant of the title of pater synagogae. The role of these titleholders is not obvious (see, inter alia, Harland 2007: 57–​79; Levine 2005: 429–​32; Cappelletti 2008: 1341–​9; Villey 2015: 151–​3). The title is often viewed as essentially honorific, rewarding donors in the community. But it is possible that it could also imply real tasks. Finally, the title of protopolites appears only in Volubilis (in connection with the title of pater synagogae: see Année épigraphique 1969–​1970: no. 748; Le Bohec 1981a: no. 79) and in Hebron (see Rahmani 1972: 113–​6). Several scholars (Frezouls 1971: 289–​90; Vattioni 1977: 23–​9; Cappelletti 2008: 1345–​6) have proposed hypotheses about the functions of the protopolites but his role remains obscure (Villey 2015: 154–​6). More generally, even if the roles associated with a particular title vary from one location in the Diaspora to the next, the fact that the same title is used at various locations seems to point to a relatively similar organization of Jewish communities in Africa as in the rest of the empire. The euergetism of community leaders is well documented in inscriptions of two late antique synagogues in Africa, namely those of Hammam-​Lif (see, inter alia, Stern 2008: 193–​253) and Kelibia (see Fantar 2011: 1083–​1102). This euergetism seems to have allowed the good functioning of African Jewish communities. The importance of euergetism as well as the fact that some Jewish titles such as pater synagogae could have been inspired by institutional models that were not specifically Jewish (see Levine 2005: 451–​2; Villey 2015: 157–​8), suggest a certain openness of African Jews to their non-​Jewish environment.

b)  Jewish Religious Life We are better informed about the religious practices and conceptions of the African Jews, despite the absence of any African Jewish literary source dating from late antiquity. As regards the religious practices of the African Jews, the texts of the African Christian authors provide the main accounts available. When using their writings, one must be aware that a part of the descriptions relates to biblical –​and not real contemporaneous –​Jews, a part is polemical, and a part responds to attacks from heretical Christians who, as Marcionites and Manicheans, tend to deny any link between Christianity and Judaism. But these authors also provide evidence about their contemporaneous Jewish neighbors’ religious practices. Tertullian (on Tertullian and the Jews, see, inter alia, Aziza 1977; Binder 2012) and Augustine (on Augustine and the Jews, see, inter alia, Blumenkranz 1958: 225–​41; Blumenkranz 1973; Fredriksen 2008; Massie 2011; Villey 2015: passim, and especially 390–​436) are the most prolific writers on Jews and Judaism. The Sabbath observance of African Jews is well documented, especially thanks to them (on Augustine and the Sabbath, see Raveaux 1982: 213–​24). Tertullian mentions the lighting of the candles (Ad Nationes [To the Heathen] 1.13.4), the festive meal on 533

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the Friday evening (ibid.; Aduersus Marcionem [Against Marcion] 5.4.5: the Latin term is cena pura, an expression also known by Augustine) and the public reading of the Torah (Apologeticum [Apology] 18.7–​9). Augustine often evokes the prohibitions related to the Jewish Sabbath (eg Contra Faustum [Against Faustus] 6.4; Sermo 125A, 1; In Iohannis euangelium tractatus [Tractate on the Gospel of John] 3.19) and the festive activities of his Jewish neighbors on that day (eg Sermo 9.3; for more examples, see Raveaux 1982: 213–​24; Villey 2015: 169–​72). The observance of the Neomenia is also attested by two authors: Commodian (Carmen de duobus populis [Poem about Two Peoples] v. 695–​696), who probably lived in Africa around 260 C.E ., and Augustine (Enarratio in psalmum [Expositions on the Psalms] 80, Sermo 6). Among the main annual Jewish festivals, African Jews observed at least Passover and Sukkot. Augustine provides some details on how his Jewish neighbors celebrated these festivals (for Pessah, see especially Sermo 229C (=​Sermo Wilmart 8), 1; for Sukkot, see Sermo 133.1). They celebrated Shavuot (Augustine, Sermo 272 B Augm. 2 and 4) and probably also the Day of Atonement, according to a widespread interpretation of Tertullian, De Ieiuniis (On Fasting) 1.16.6 (on this interpretation, see eg Stökl Ben Ezra 2003: 71–​3). However, we have no testimony related to the celebration of the other main Jewish annual festivals (Rosh Hashanah, Ḥanukkah, Purim) in Africa. We also do not know whether African Jews had more local festivals, as was the case for Jews of Alexandria, who celebrated festivals specific to them. Among other Jewish religious customs attested in Africa, one can mention circumcision (eg Augustine, Enarratio in psalmum [Expositions on the Psalms] 58, Sermo 1, 21; for more references see Villey 2015: 186–​ 9), the dietary laws (eg Augustine, Sermo 160.7), and the practice of ritual ablutions (eg Tertullian, De oratione [On the Prayer] 14; De baptismo [On the Baptism] 15.3; Augustine, Contra litteras Petiliani [Answer to the Letters of Petilian] 2.33.77). Archaeological and epigraphic documentation provides other information about the religious conceptions, representations, and symbols of African Jews. An inscription on the mosaic of the synagogue of Hammam-​Lif, which designates the place of worship as sancta sinagoga (CIL vol. 8: no. 12457a =​Le Bohec 1981a: no.13; Année épigraphique 2008: no. 1614), shows that African Jews considered their synagogues “sacred” (Stern 2008: 232; Villey 2015: 195–​7; on the sanctity of the late antique synagogue, see in particular Fine 1998). The female donor, called (God’s) servant for her contribution to the payment for the mosaic, believed that her donation would contribute to her salvation (Stern 2008: 235–​6; Villey 2015: 197). In another dedication from the synagogue of Kelibia (Fantar 2011: 1096–​8; Année épigraphique 2009: no. 1757), the donation serves to ask God for a favor or to thank God for the accomplishment of the wish. In this way, people hoped to create a direct and privileged link to God. Some epitaphs use the expression “rest in peace” in Hebrew, Latin, or Greek, but it is quite difficult to establish the meaning of the formula. Certain scholars see in it an allusion to the afterlife or the resurrection of the dead (Goodenough 1953: 127–​35; Hadas-​Lebel 2005: 338), others only a call for a quiet rest of the body in its sepulcher (Cavallin 1974: 166–​9). Some scholars apprehend a kind of intertextuality with current formulas appearing in Jewish liturgy (Dinkler 1974: 131; Rutgers 1998: 166). It is interesting to note that some Jews used current Latin religious formulas (“consecrated to the Manes” especially) on their epitaphs, disregarding the pagan meaning of the terms because they seemed to fit the context (Stern 2008: 269). The traditional Jewish symbols of late antiquity, such as the menorah (Hachlili 2001; Fine 2016), the lulav, the etrog, and the shofar are well attested in North African Jewish contexts. These representations appear in the decoration of the synagogues of Hammam-​Lif and Kelibia, on epitaphs, especially in Oea (Le Bohec 1981a: nos. 3–​5) and Carthage (eg CIL vol. 8: no. 14191 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 16; CIL

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vol. 8: no. 1091 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 20; Le Bohec 1981a: no. 22; Le Bohec 1981a: no. 23; Le Bohec 1981a: no. 24), as well as on artifacts such as lamps (see, inter alia, Lund 1995: 245–​62). The menorah became a marker of Judaism and Jewish identity after the destruction of the Second Temple (Hachlili 2001: 206–​7, 280; Fine 2005: 155). All four symbols indicate a person’s belonging to Judaism. The mosaic pavements of the synagogues of Hammam-​Lif and Kelibia also show figurative scenes with animals. Several scholars (eg Biebel 1936: 551; Leveen 1944: 65; Darmon 1995: 21–​5) have tried to assign a very precise religious significance to the iconographic program of the synagogue of Hammam-​Lif. The fact that this mosaic is mostly composed of common iconographic motives (peacocks, fountains, birds, palm trees) that also appear on African mosaics from the fifth and sixth centuries C. E . –​in particular on mosaic pavements of churches –​ suggests caution (Stern 2008: 218–​25; Villey 2015: 212–​7). It is interesting to note that African synagogues were decorated with representations of living creatures despite the biblical commandment against such images. In contrast to the time of the Second Temple, figurative art was used in numerous late antique Jewish communities, before the strict observation of the injunction returned. However, some synagogues avoided representing living beings (eg the synagogue of Bova Marina in Italy), whereas others represented everything including human beings (eg synagogue of Bet Alpha in Israel). The fact that only animals appear on the mosaic pavements of the African synagogues might suggest that the African Jewish interpretation of the biblical law occupied a middle position between rigorism and liberalism (Hadas-​ Lebel 2005: 338; Villey 2015: 222; idem 2022: 79). The scholarly debate regarding the kind of Judaism that was practiced by African Jews has already been mentioned above. A close examination of the available sources argues against Slouschz’s (1908: 343–​56) and Eisenbeth’s hypothesis (1931: 30–​7) of a “primitive Judaism” in North Africa, characterized by its altars, temples, and priests. The second hypothesis, held by the majority of historians interested in African Jews (eg Hirschberg 1974: 75–​9; Aziza 1977: 15–​43; Lassère 1977: 414–​20; Le Bohec 1985: 24; Solin 1991: 616, 622–​3), that African Judaism was very close to the Pharisaic movement and then to rabbinic Judaism as early as the second and third centuries C.E. is also hard to prove. None of the practices and beliefs of African Jews that allegedly conformed to rabbinic prescriptions (eg Aziza 1977: 26–​31; Raveaux 1982: 216) is in fact typically rabbinic: one can find evidence of practices such as the faithful observance of the Sabbath and Jewish dietary laws and the use of ablutions in non-​rabbinic forms of Judaism as well. The so-​called “rabbinic character” of the necropolis of Gammarth, whose structure is described by some scholars (Monceaux 1902: 13–​4; Le Bohec 1985: 15; Lassère 2004: 3943–​4) as conforming to the descriptions of the burial places in the treatise Babah Bathra of the Mishnah (see m. B. Bat. 6.8) as well as in the Babylonian Talmud (see b. B. Bat. 100b–​102b), is highly unlikely. Recent scholarship has emphasized that the dead buried in Gammarth were probably not all Jewish (Ilan 2008: 47; Stern 2008: 296; Stern 2011: 311–​2) and that the way of burying the dead was closer to African non-​Jewish funerary customs than to Palestinian Jewish ones (Stern 2008: 284–​94). In fact, since all the manifestations of the African Jewish religiosity have analogies elsewhere it is more appropriate to talk about a common Judaism. This concept is borrowed from Sanders (Sanders 1992) and has been adapted for late antiquity by Fine (Fine 1998: 8–​9; Fine 2005: 124–​5) and Levine (Levine 2008: 31–​8; on the common Judaism, see also Binder 2012: 13). It focuses on the commonalities in the ways in which Jewish communities of the late antique Mediterranean world practiced their religion. At the same time, this concept makes room for diversity, which is naturally related to the plurality of the local

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contexts in which Jews lived. If the kind of Judaism practiced in Africa is “common” because it participates in a Mediterranean Jewish koine, it expresses itself according to a “grammar” that shows its integration into the African cultural environment. The synagogues of Hammam-​Lif and Kelibia constitute a good example of this phenomenon. In these places of worship located in the province of Africa Proconsularis the Jewish character of the buildings is emphasized by the use of Jewish symbols or concepts such as the sanctity of the synagogue that were part of common Judaism. On the other hand, the language used to commemorate the donations is not Hebrew or Greek but Latin, which was linguistically dominant in this province. Most of the iconography used in synagogue mosaic floors can also be found in local private houses and churches built at that time (Villey 2015: 243–​5).

c)  Social and Economic Status The social and economic status of the African Jews remains quite obscure. Only a few scholars have been interested in this theme: for instance, Lassère, Le Bohec, and Gebbia (Lassère 1977: 422; Le Bohec 1981a: 169–​70; Le Bohec 1981b: 216–​9, 228–​9; Gebbia 2010: 881–​8; see also Villey 2015: 246–​85). The economic activities of African Jews are hardly known. Thanks to Augustine, we know that some Jews living in the vicinity of Hippo Regius were farmers (eg Augustine, Sermo 1.6 and 9.3; Enarratio in Psalmum 2, 32, and 91.2; In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus 3.19; and Contra Faustum 6.4). He also refers to a Jewish magician living in Uzalis, Carthage, or Utica (Augustine, De Civitate Dei 22.8.22). We lack evidence of an involvement of African Jews in commercial activities prior to the seventh century. The first mention of Jewish traders in North Africa comes from the Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati, where two of the main characters of this Adversos Judaeos (Against the Jews) text are Jewish traders (on the historical value of this text, written at the end of the 630s or at the beginning of the 640s, see Dagron-​Déroche 2010). Of course, it is probable that some African Jews were involved in trade before that date, but it is impossible to confirm. Lassère (1977: 422) has based his argument on Jewish settlement in harbor area (Thaenae, Sullecthum, Carthage, Thabraca, Hippo Regius, Caesarea, Tipasa) and in cities with well-​developed commercial activities (Cirta, Sitifis, Auzia, Volubilis) and maintains that trade was the main economic activity of African Jews (for a refutation of Lassère’s argument, see Solin 1991: 621; Villey 2015: 252). It is also likely that some Jews were involved in craftsmanship, but once again there is a lack of evidence. The menorah lamps produced in North Africa were not necessarily the work of Jewish craftsmen, contrary to what is suggested by Le Bohec and Gebbia (Le Bohec 1981a: 196; Gebbia 2010: 886; Le Bohec 2021: 45). Lastly, one cannot exclude that some African Jews could have held public offices. Two laws expelling them from public offices were sent to Africa: the first one (16.8.24) was given by Honorius in 418 C . E ., and the second one (Constitutio Sirmondiana 6) was given in the name of Valentinian III in 425 C . E . This second law also prevented the Jews from being lawyers. The socioeconomic situation of African Jews is not much better known. Some scholars, especially Le Bohec (1981a: 169–​70; 1981b: 216–​9, 228–​9), have tried to determine the percentage of wealthy and poor people among African Jews, relying on onomastics and funerary archaeology. He assumes that those with tria or duo nomina (three or two names) –​an onomastic system which indicates Roman citizenship –​could have been wealthy, whereas those with only one name could have been poor. The modest appearance of most funerary inscriptions containing Jewish names, which are far more often painted than carved in stone, has led Le Bohec to assume that a majority of African Jews were poor (Le Bohec 1981b: 229). 536

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The argument is not convincing (Villey 2015: 262–​ 5). The majority of African Jewish inscriptions are probably from the fourth century C.E . and later (Stern 2008: 107), that is, a period where most Roman citizens had only one name. The epitaph of the deceased Mazauzala found at Oea (Romanelli 1977: 113, no. 2 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 4) contradicts the argument above. This epitaph and the grave of Mazauzala are very simple, whereas the deceased woman was one of the community leaders or was married to one of them (Villey 2015: 262–​3). As a matter of fact, the most detailed information the sources provide on the social situation of African Jews concerns the community leaders. These leaders played an important role within their communities, especially by exercising different functions necessary for its good functioning and by funding the construction and the decoration of the synagogue. However, we do not know if at least some of these community leaders were also municipal notables and belonged to the social milieu of decurions. In any case, Roman imperial legislation (see below), as well as the letter sent by Augustine to bishop Victor (Epistula 8*), show that there were African Jews sufficiently wealthy to own land or slaves (Villey 2015: 274–​84).

7.  Jews and Non-​Jews in Africa during the Roman Period a)  Imperial Legislation Concerning African Jews Between the end of the second century C. E ., when African Jews begin to appear in epigraphic and literary sources, and the conquest of Africa by vandals from 429 C.E . onwards, African Jews were subjected to Roman rule and legislation. The analysis of imperial Roman legislation concerning the Jews has generated numerous and important studies, like those of Juster (Juster 1914), Linder (Linder 1987; 2006: 128–​73), Rabello (eg 2000; 2009), de Bonfils (eg 1992; 1998), and Nemo-​ Pekelman (2010). On the other hand, very few studies (Linder 1985: 57–​64; Villey 2015: 286–​ 376) have tried to determine what part of this legislation was effectively sent to Africa and applied to African Jews. In fact, it is often uneasy to establish whether a certain law was valid in the whole empire or only within a delimited part of it. As regards the third century C.E ., when North Africa was ruled by pagan emperors, our documentation is very scarce. Thanks to Tertullian, we know that Judaism was in Africa a religio licita (a permitted religion; Tertullian, Apologeticum 21.1–​2). A law given by Septimius Severus and Caracalla, known by an extract of Ulpian’s De Officio Proconsularis (On the Function of the Proconsul) included in Justinian’s Digest (50.2.3.3), stipulated that Jews who were Roman citizens could enter the curiae of their cities and fulfill all the duties which did not contradict their religion. On the other hand, African Jews did not have the right to circumcise non-​Jews, including slaves. This prohibition, established by a rescript of Antoninus Pius (Digest 48.8.11), was still in force at the end of the third century, according to Pseudo-​Paulus’ Sententiae (5.22.3–​4), a textbook of Roman law probably composed in Africa around 295 C .E . Thanks to the important collections of Roman imperial legislation produced during the reigns of Theodosius II (Codex Theodosianus) and Justinian (Codex Justinianus), legal sources regarding the Jews are better conserved from the period beginning with the reign of Constantine, who was the first Roman emperor converted to Christianity. From the time when Constantine began to have authority in Africa (312 C. E .) to the death of Theodosius I (395 C.E .), we know seven laws regarding Jews which were probably sent to Africa. Three laws deal with the enrollment of wealthy Jews in the curiae of their cities (Cod.Theod.16.8.2, Constantine, 321 C.E .; Cod.Theod.12.1.99 +​Cod. Theod.12.1.100, Gratian, 383 C. E .) or with the exemptions of Jewish community leaders from certain tasks generally incumbent upon official representatives (Cod.Theod.16.8.4, Constantine, 331 537

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Three laws deal with the prohibition to circumcise a non-​Jewish slave (Cod.Theod.16.9.1 and Constitutio Sirmondiana 4, Constantine, 335) or to convert Christians to Judaism (Cod. Theod.16.8.7, Constantius II, 353 C. E .; Cod.Theod.16.7.3 and Cod. Justin. 1.7.2, Gratian, 383 C . E .). Another law concerns the protection of Christian converts against the hostility of their former coreligionists (Cod.Theod.16.8.5 and Constitutio Sirmondiana 4, Constantine, 335 C.E .). A last law (Cod. Justin. 1.9.7, Theodosius I, 393 C.E .) prohibits polygamy and other matrimonial customs accepted by rabbinic but not by Roman law. Our analysis of this legislation indicates that at the time of the death of Theodosius I in 395 C.E ., the legal situation of African Jews was not fundamentally different from that before Constantine. African Jews could continue to practice their religion and to have a community organization. They could enter the curiae of their cities and hold a public office. On the other hand, there were very strong constraints aimed at preventing the spread of Judaism. African Jews could only circumcise their own sons but not non-​Jews, including their slaves. Nevertheless, it seems that the most stringent laws issued by Christian Roman emperors against the Jews during the period of 312–​395 C. E . were not sent to Africa. This is probably the case with a law given by Constantine in 329 C. E . (Cod.Theod.16.8.1), which concerned the Jews of the eastern regions of the Roman Empire and threatened to be punished with the death penalty Jews who attacked Christian converts from Judaism (Villey 2015: 296–​300). It is also very likely the case with two laws regarding the possession of non-​Jewish slaves by Jews. The first one (Cod. Theod.16.9.2), which prohibited Jews from buying non-​Jewish slaves, was possibly given by Constantius II in 339 C. E ., at a time when he only ruled over the eastern part of the Roman Empire (Villey 2015: 306–​15). The second one (Cod.Theod.3.1.5), which prevented Jews from owning or circumcising Christian slaves, was issued by Theodosius I in 384 C.E . and addressed to the Praetorian Prefect of the East (Villey 2015: 325–​7). In fact, the real turning point in the legal situation of African Jews was the reigns of the emperors Honorius and Valentinian III. As regards Honorius’s legislation concerning the Jews, eleven laws were probably sent to Africa. One law mainly deals with the enrollment of Jews within the curiae of their cities and the exemptions from curial duties granted to some of them (Cod.Theod.12.1.157 +​Cod.Theod.12.1.158, Honorius, 398 C. E .). Two other laws concern the collection of the aurum coronarium in Jewish communities of the western part of the Roman Empire and its benefits for the Jewish patriarch: the first one (Cod.Theod.16.8.4, Honorius, 399 C.E .) forbids it, and the second one (Cod.Theod.16.8.17, Honorius, 404 C. E .) allows it. Three other laws are quite favorable toward the Jews. The first one (Cod.Theod.16.8.20 +​ Cod.Theod.2.8.26 +​ Cod.Theod.8.8.8, Honorius, 412 C.E .) which was with certainty sent to Africa (Villey 2015: 352–​7), aimed to protect synagogues against any attack or occupation by non-​Jews and prohibited the summons of Jews to court on Sabbaths and holidays. The other two decrees, which were very probably sent to Africa (Villey 2015: 363–​7), recognized the Jewish right to possess Christian slaves as long as they were not converted to Judaism (Cod.Theod.16.9.3, Honorius, 415 C.E .) and that of Jewish converts to Christianity to return to Judaism (Cod.Theod.16.8.23, Honorius, 416 C.E .). The rest of Honorius’s legislation concerning Jews is more discriminatory. This is the case with a group of three laws sent to Africa between November 408 and April 409. The law of November 408 (Cod.Theod.16.5.44) asked the proconsular governor of Africa Proconsularis to take measures against heretics, pagans, and Jews, who allegedly perturbed Christian religious ceremonies. The law of January 409 (Constitutio Sirmondiana 14), given in the same context of religious conflicts in Africa, reiterated anti-​Jewish rules among other measures directed against heretics (especially Donatists) and pagans. Lastly, the law of April 409 (Cod.Theod.16.8.19) forbade Jews to convert

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Christians to Judaism in very insulting terms. For the first time in Roman-​Byzantine legislation, Judaism is called “a foreign perversity to the Roman Empire (perversitatem iudaicam et alienam Romano impero)”. The main change in the legal status of the Jews under Honorius’s reign was introduced by a law given in 418 (Cod.Theod.16.8.24). For the first time, Jews were forbidden access to the militia, namely the civil and military public offices, whereas they retained the right to serve in the curiae of their cities. This law, which was sent to Africa, introduced the exclusion of Jews from a number of public functions. This policy was continued and amplified by Valentinian III or, more precisely, by his mother Galla Placidia. A law given in 425 C.E . in the name of Valentinian III, who was six years old at that time, confirmed the exclusion of the Jews from the militia, among other measures against heretics and pagan (Constitutio Sirmondiana 6). This law also prohibited Jews from being lawyers and deprived them of the right to possess Christian slaves. A further law, issued in 426 in the name of Valentinian III, restricted their rights in testamentary matters (Cod.Theod.16.8.28 +​ Cod.Theod.16.7.7). These repeated attacks on Jewish rights stand in contrast to the situation at the death of Theodosius I. At the beginning of the fifth century C.E . Christian Roman emperors became more and more intolerant toward anyone who was not Catholic and discriminated against Jews, pagans, and heretics at an equal level. Nevertheless, unlike polytheistic religions and Christian communities deemed heretical, Jews still had the right to public religious worship at the eve of the Vandal conquest of North Africa.

b)  Relations between Jews and Non-​Jews Living in a region ruled by a non-​Jewish political power, Jews constituted a religious minority in North Africa, surrounded by pagans and Christians who became more and more numerous and powerful from the fourth century C. E . onwards. As mentioned above, African Jews seem to have been well integrated culturally in their non-​Jewish environment. Jewish monotheism and religious practices seem to have attracted a number of African pagans at the end of the second and during the third century C.E . In his tractate Ad Nationes (To the Heathen) Tertullian mentions the existence of pagan Judaizers, who kept the Sabbath and celebrated Jewish festivals (1.13). African pagan Judaizers, who were torn between the pagan temple and the Jewish synagogue, also appear in two works of the Christian poet Commodian, namely the Carmen Apologeticum (Song with Narrative v. 677–​706) and the Instructiones (1.37). At the time of our earliest evidence about African Jews, namely at the end of the second century C.E ., the parting of ways had already begun: Jews and Christians already belonged to separate communities. The most important insights concerning the relations between Jews and Christians in Carthage at this time stem from the writings of Tertullian, who was the first Christian author who wrote in Latin. Among his texts, we can find his Adversus Judaeos (Against the Jews). The hostile tone with which Tertullian refers to Jews has led scholars like Frend (1978: 185–​95) to describe the relationships between Jews and Christians in Carthage as fundamentally bad during the third century C. E . Other scholars such as Aziza (1977) are more optimistic and think that these relationships were mostly acceptable. Despite attempts by Christian and Jewish community leaders to build boundaries between Christians and Jews, it seems that the proximity between the religions remained palpable for a long time. African Christian writers after Tertullian continued to polemicize against Jews. During the third century, this controversy took place in a context in which African Christians could be persecuted by Roman Emperors. This was the case at the time of Cyprian, who was bishop of Carthage from

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249 to 258 C .E . (on Cyprian’s polemic against Jews, see Bobertz 1991: 1–​15). From the reign of Constantine onwards the Roman Empire became much more favorable to African Christians, despite the Donatist schism that divided the African church. This division did not prevent African Christian writers, especially Catholic bishops, from continuing their polemics against Jews. The best example of such Christian polemics is Augustine of Hippo (354–​430 C.E .), who often mentions Jews in his work and whose attitude toward Jews and Judaism has received diverse interpretations from scholars. Scholars such as Isaac (1956: 163–​8) have attributed to Augustine a major role in the development of Christian Antisemitism. Others such as Fredriksen (2008) consider him a defender of Judaism, by focusing on his anti-​Manichaean writings in which he draws a favorable picture of the Jews of the Old Testament. It seems that Augustine’s attitude toward contemporary Jews was characterized by real anti-​ Judaism. Certainly, Augustine often spoke favorably of the Jews of the Old Testament and mentioned the numerous conversions of Jews at the time of Jesus and his apostles. But he severely criticized the Jews of his own time, whose lack of belief in Christ he found fault with. Their lack of faith made them the heirs of first-​century Jews who rejected Jesus’s divinity. It appears, though, that Augustine’s anti-​Judaism was not stronger than his hostility against pagans and the numerous categories of heretics. All of them were considered the enemies of Catholic Christians. The tendency to homogenize Jews, pagans, and heretics is also evident in the canon laws produced in Africa at the time of Augustine. A canon law adopted by a council of Carthage in 419 C.E . and reiterated by the council of Hippo in 427 C. E . prohibited Jews, pagans, and heretics, who were all designated as “infamous people” (infamae personae), from bringing accusations in cases in which there were not directly involved before ecclesiastical courts (on these canon laws, see Castritius 1993: 19–​32; Villey 2019–​2020: 68–​71). The hostile attitude of the African Church toward Jews and Judaism was probably not without consequences in the daily life of Jews and Christians in Africa. Several of Augustine’s sermons (see Sermones 5, 9, and 62), which were probably preached during the first years of the fifth century C . E . (Villey 2015: 444–​53), as well as four martyrdom texts (Passio sanctae Salsae [The Passion of Saint Salsa], Acta Marcianae [Acts of Marciana], Passio Sanctae Marcianae [The Passion of Saint Marciana] and Passio Victoris [The Passion of Victor]) produced in the same region of Mauretania Caesariensis (Villey 2015: 453–​73; Villey 2014: 587–​604) indicate high tensions between Jews and Christians in some African cities. These tensions could sometimes lead to violent clashes, as was probably the case at Tipasa, where the synagogue was destroyed or converted into a church at the beginning of the fifth century C. E . (Passio Sanctae Salsae 3). Some scholars (eg Rachmuth 1906: 43–​4; Simon 1962: 76–​81; Nemo-​Pekelman 2010: 183–​8) have claimed that African Jews had better relationships with Donatist Christians than with Catholic Christians, but such a hypothesis cannot be proven. In fact, Donatist writings despise Jews as much as the church fathers did (Villey 2015: 509–​13). Nevertheless, more positive relationships between Jews and Christians are also attested in Africa. Just as in the third century C. E ., Judaism seems to have remained attractive during the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries C. E . Several imperial laws regarding the conversion of Christians to Judaism were probably sent to Africa (eg Cod.Theod.16.8.7, Constantius II, 353 C . E .; Cod.Theod.16.7.3, Gratian, 383 C. E .) It remains uncertain whether these laws were motivated by cases of conversion in this region. The existence of Christian Judaizers in Africa is attested for the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries C.E . thanks to Augustine (see especially Epistula 196, which concerns a group of Christian Judaizers established in the region of Tusuros, modern Tozeur, in Tunisia, and led by a certain Aptus). The hypothesis that another

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religious group, known as the sect of the Caelicolae (Heaven-​Fearers), would have consisted of pagan or Christian Judaizers has been defended by scholars such as Monceaux (1902: 9 and 24), Simon (1962: 57–​63) and more recently Nemo-​Pekelman (2010: 186–​8), and Shaw (2011: 277–​9). Nevertheless, a careful examination of the available sources (Augustine, Epistula 44; Constitutio Sirmondiana 12, Honorius, 407 C. E .; Cod.Theod.16.8.19, Honorius, 409) prevents clear-​ cut solutions (Bardy 1953: 108; Villey 2015: 488–​500). On the other hand, the conversion of African Jews to Christianity during the fourth and fifth centuries C.E . is attested both by epigraphy (CIL vol. 8: no. 8640 =​no. 20354 =​Le Bohec 1981a: no. 75) and the writings of Augustine (Villey 2015b: 1127–​33), whereas several laws regarding the protection of Jewish converted to Christianity were sent to Africa (eg Constitutio Sirmondiana 4, Constantine, 335 C.E .; Cod.Theod.16.8.28, Valentinian III, 426 C. E .).

8.  Jews in North Africa During the Vandal and Byzantine Periods The history of North African Jews during the Vandal (429–​533 C.E.) and Byzantine (533–​711 C.E.) periods has rarely been studied. Some scholars, such as Rachmuth (1906: 44) and Simon (1962: 80–​1), have claimed that Jews would have welcomed the Vandals when they arrived in Africa in 429 C.E. They would also have fought alongside the Vandals against the Byzantine army in 533 C.E. This bond between Jews and Vandals would have explained the particularly harsh character of a law of Justinian issued in 535 C.E., which for the first time denied the legal character of Judaism in Africa, by forbidding Jews to possess places of worship and by ordering the conversion of synagogues into churches (Justinian, Novella 37.5–​8). The Vandal period might have been a happy interlude in African Jewish history of degradation, which began at the beginning of the fifth century and became more severe under Justinian. But the hypothesis that Vandal kings were more favorably inclined toward Jews than Honorius or Valentinian III remains controversial. In fact, we know nothing about Vandal legislation regarding the Jews and the hypothesis that Vandal kings, like Arian Christians, would have been kinder toward Jews than Christian Roman emperors cannot be proven. On the contrary, there is no evidence of a collusion of interests or good relationship between African Jews and Vandals. Anti-​Jewish sermons were not only produced by Catholic Christians such as Quodvultdeus of Carthage (see especially Adversus Quinque Haereses and Contra Iudaeos, Paganos et Arrianos). An Arian treatise against the Jews known as the Contra Iudaeos of the Collectio Ariana Veronensis was probably written in Africa during the Vandal period and is still extant. In this context, the hypothesis that Arian Vandals were more tolerant toward Jews than African Catholics must be viewed with caution. There is no doubt that the Byzantine period was marked by a real degradation of the legal status of African Jews. We have already mentioned Justinian’s Novel 37, which forbade African Jews to possess synagogues and reiterated the prohibition to have Christian slaves. Scholars such as Lassère (2004: 3947) and Hadas-​Lebel (2005: 345) consider the conversion of the synagogue of Borion into a church under Justinian’s reign, mentioned by Prokopios of Caesarea (De Aedificiis [On Buildings], 6.2.21–​22), an example of the application of this law, but Borion was situated in the province of Cyrenaica, which was not included in the Novel 37. In any case, it is probable that the decree concerning synagogues was at least partially applied in Africa. Yet the example of the synagogue of Hammam-​Lif, where the main figurative mosaic was probably created after the Byzantine reconquest of Africa, shows that this law was not enforced in all African cities or, at least, not for a long time. Some scholars such as Hirschberg (1974: 57), Lassère (2004: 3947), and Hadas-​Lebel (2005: 345) have dated the cancellation of the synagogue

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legislation to the reign of the emperor Maurice (582–​602). Others such as Juster (1914, vol. 2: 251) and Browe date this process earlier, namely, to Justinian’s reign (Browe 1935: 126). This hypothesis seems plausible. In fact, none of Justinian’s laws regarding Jews after 535 C.E . have tried to negate their right to practice their religion. Moreover, the measure of Novel 37, depriving African Jews of their synagogues, does not appear in three digests of Justinian’s Novels written during the second half of the sixth century C. E . (Juster 1914, vol. 2: 251): the Collectio Tripartita, the work of an anonymous compiler completed immediately after Justinian’s reign; the Epitome of the Novels, composed by Athanasios of Emesa between 572 and 577 C.E .; and the Abridgment of Justinian’s Novels written by Theodoros Hermopolitanus between 572 and 602 C.E . (on these works, see Linder 1997: 27–​59). All these works contain abstracts of Novel 37. Whereas they mention the prohibition against possessing Christian slaves, they lack references to the provision concerning synagogues. Perhaps the antisynagogue rule was no longer applied at that time. Since this measure stood in contradiction to the rest of Justinian’s legislation regarding Jews, the lawyers who created these compilations probably preferred not to reproduce this law, which constituted a kind of anomaly. After Justinian’s reign, evidence about African Jews is becoming increasingly scarce. Nevertheless, a dramatic event occurring during the seventh century is well known: the forced conversion of African Jews to Christianity in 632 C.E., in response to a decree of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, who had ordered that all Jews and Samaritans of his empire should be baptized. The application of this decree in Africa is documented by two literary sources: a letter of Maximos the Confessor, who lived near Carthage when this happened, and the Doctrina Jacobi Nuper Baptizati, an Adversus Judaeos dialogue about the forced baptism of a group of Carthaginian Jews. Nevertheless, we do not know to what extent this decree was applied in other African cities with the same severity as in Carthage, and whether the authorities prevented forced converts to return to Judaism, as was the case in Visigothic Spain. In any case, these are the last literary sources mentioning African Jews before the Muslim conquest of North Africa.

9. Conclusions From the earliest stages of their attested presence in Africa at the end of the second century C . E . Jews were well integrated in their surrounding society. Most of them adapted to the Romanization of Africa that included the Latin language, Roman institutions, law, and culture. The phenomenon of the Christianization of the Roman Empire changed the rules of the game and had a great influence on the way non-​Jews related to the African Jewish communities. The situation evolved gradually but toward the fifth century –​especially from the times of Honorius and Valentinian III onwards –​Christian literature and laws indicate that the atmosphere became more and more hostile to Jews. In 425–​426 C . E ., African Jews’ rights diminished drastically, although, in contrast to Christian heretics and pagans, the legitimacy of their religious practice was never questioned or reevaluated during the time preceding the Vandal conquest of North Africa. If we ignore the legal situation of African Jews during the Vandal period, the reconquest of North Africa by the Byzantine army in 533–​534 C . E . seems to have been followed by a degradation of their status. Indeed, Justinian’s Novel 37 (535 C . E .) denied African Jews the right to possess synagogues. Whereas this measure was probably not applied for a long time, another imperial decree issued roughly one century later was particularly harsh for African Jewish communities: the forced baptism of Jews and Samaritans of the Byzantine Empire decreed by Heraclius in 632 C . E . 542

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List of Abbreviations CIL IJO 1

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Noy D., Panayotov A. and Bloedhorn H. (eds.) (2004). Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, vol. 1 Eastern Europe. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. IJO 2 Ameling W. (2004). Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, vol. 2: Kleinasien. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. JIWE 1 Noy, D. (1993). Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, vol. 1: Italy (excluding the City of Rome), Spain and Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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INDEX

abortion 224–5, 313 Abraham 17, 23, 53, 99–100, 129, 222, 229, 231, 237, 295–6, 298–301, 379–80, 387, 438 adjudication 63, 186–9, 192, 195–6, 404 Adversus Judaeos (literature) 297, 536, 539, 542 aging 217, 223 Alexander (the Great) 317 allegory/​allegorical 129, 132, 137, 148, 209, 291, 293–4, 297, 299–300, 302–3, 380 am ha-​aretz 36 amulet 40, 346, 426, 478, 491, 497 aniconism 1, 326, 341 animal 84, 162, 216, 221–2, 241, 327, 339, 341–3, 357, 358–62, 373, 377–8, 386, 479, 535 anti-​Judaism 146, 150, 482, 499–502, 540 antisemitism 143, 150, 500, 540 antoninus 7, 60, 78–9, 217, 311, 466, 537 aphrodisias 512, 516–18, 520–2 apologetic 102–3, 143–4, 146, 148–9, 150, 250, 302, 469 apostles (apostoloi) 36, 61, 67, 159, 161, 222, 297, 311, 469, 540 apostolē 159, 311 apotheosis 79, 89 appointment 113, 159, 175, 189, 196–7, 409, 469 Aqedah (Binding of Isaac) 4, 222, 344–7, 375, 378–9, 387–8, 394 Arab 17, 42, 37, 49, 348, 401, 411, 493–6, 528, 530 arbitration 63, 178, 189, 196, 198 archisynagogos, -​oi, archisynagogissa 113–15, 158, 481, 493, 496, 516, 533 aristocracy 30, 60, 64, 154, 161, 197, 346, 410 army 55, 541–2; see also military ascetic, asceticism 19–22, 174, 206, 209, 216, 219 aurum coronarium 469, 538

Babatha (archive) 188, 191–2 Baghdad 137, 391 Barbarian invasion 473 Bar Kokhba revolt 17, 35, 41, 43, 96, 185, 309, 345, 449, 491 bathhouse 6, 209, 216, 224, 332–4, 437 bema 358–60, 363–4 Berber 530–1 blood 221–2, 296, 311, 375, 388, 445 boule, bouleutēs 197, 480 burial 7–8, 67, 314, 343, 363, 437, 450, 467, 472, 513, 517, 531, 535 Caesarea 6, 16, 17, 21, 41–3, 49, 53–5, 80, 82, 96–7, 101, 105–7, 115, 131, 136, 142–3, 147, 176, 180, 258, 269, 280, 301–3, 313, 334, 521, 529, 532, 536, 541 Cairo Genizah 69, 198, 253, 283, 294, 345–6, 386, 392, 488 calendar 7, 20, 81, 89–90, 142, 188, 195, 310, 374, 381–3, 439, 449, 484 calends 80, 84 Callinicum 5, 63, 65, 493, 497, 499–501 canon/​canonical 24, 95, 144, 150, 255, 263, 270, 278, 423, 442, 449, 519, 540 captivity/​captive 17, 237, 238–40, 242, 453 Caracalla 4, 6–7, 158, 191, 466, 537 catacomb 67, 157, 206, 343, 371, 376–80, 466–8, 470–3, 493, 496, 533 cemetery 344, 466, 492, 518, 520, 531 charismatic 203 charity 119, 453 chastity 224, 301 Chrestos 97, 98 Church of the East 416–18

547

Index circumcision 5, 38, 62, 99–101, 144, 206, 222, 301, 465–6, 469, 497, 503, 519, 534 citizenship 4, 6, 81, 179, 191, 466, 536 Claudius’ Edict 97–8, 100, 105 climate 6, 33, 35 clothing 20, 180, 219, 224, 410, 450, 483 codex, -​ices (pl.) 181, 254–5, 257–9, 276–7 coinage 35, 80, 84, 343 Collatio Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum 468 collegium, collegia 464, 466, 469 colonization, colonialism 17, 234, 527 competition 1–4, 7, 59, 61, 96, 98, 160, 173, 174, 232, 259, 270, 295, 297, 302, 410, 411, 418, 420–1, 425, 456–7, 502 confiscation 195, 478, 501 Constantine 2, 15–17, 19–22, 31, 59, 60–2, 77–8, 83–90, 95–6, 140, 143, 148, 158–9, 233, 282, 416, 469–72, 477, 520, 537–8, 540–1 Constantinople 52, 84–8, 122, 132, 141, 282, 302, 345, 374, 502, 505 Constitutio Antoniniana 4, 466–7 convert/​conversion 5, 18, 40–2, 55, 59–62, 64–7, 95–6, 133, 155, 203, 221–2, 342, 441–2, 464–6, 469, 472, 499–500, 502–3, 505, 530, 538–42 coptic 141, 143–4 court 16–18, 63, 160, 176, 180, 185, 187–9, 191–2, 196–7, 256, 279, 310, 401–8, 412, 464, 510, 538; see also sanhedrin cross 25, 38, 55, 61, 82–4, 86, 119, 133, 134, 137, 141, 294, 344, 371, 374, 501, 521 crown 79, 84, 159, 338, 410, 453, 516 Daniel 85, 310, 344, 360, 377–8, 380, 512 Dead Sea Scrolls 203, 205, 283 demon/​demonic/​demonological 208, 403, 435, 438, 444, 500 desert fathers/​monks 141, 143–5, 174–5, 178, 219, 263–5 destruction (of synagogues) 53, 63, 65, 346, 367, 470, 499–501, 511, 521 deuterosis, -​eis 63, 144, 255–6 Diocletian 81, 466–8, 481, 498 disability 224 disciple circle 174, 406 dispersion 1, 237, 240, 496; see also exile donation 18, 54, 117, 154, 351, 511, 517, 534–6 dualistic, dualism 437–8, 444 earthquake 21–3, 521 Easter 55, 84, 142, 499, 519–20 Ebionites 36–8 Edict of Milan 60 education 2, 4, 15, 60, 105, 140, 171–3, 175, 190, 195, 255, 263, 282, 313, 328

elite 7, 122, 169, 171–2, 179–80, 187, 190, 193–7, 219, 348, 415–18, 420, 422, 425–7, 436, 449, 456, 469, 504 Epicurean 130, 156 epigraphical rabbis 112–14 Esau 230, 291, 295, 297–8 eschatology/​eschatological 156, 162, 206, 437 essenes 155, 185, 217, 342 ethics 173, 176–9, 220, 223–4 euergetism 533 euthanasia 224–5 exilarch/​exilarchate 7, 154, 157–9, 161, 163, 401, 408–12, 415–18, 420–1, 456, 503 exile 17, 20, 237–42, 408, 414, 437, 447–9, 452, 457, 505; see also dispersion expulsion 98, 300, 476, 483–4 family 7, 69, 103, 113, 119–22, 127, 134–6, 159, 161, 173, 188, 242, 255–6, 269, 296, 299, 301, 315, 342, 378, 409, 415, 465, 469, 495, 503 fast/​fasting 20, 134, 141, 149, 206, 223–4, 254, 301, 465, 497, 534 festival 5, 7, 24, 66, 79–81, 223, 301, 309, 330, 438–9, 444, 450, 484, 488, 497–9, 518–20, 534, 539 feticide 224 fire cult, temple, worship 440, 437, 439, 450, 452–3 fiscus Iudaicus 465–6 food 24, 35, 217, 219, 240, 450–1, 454, 509 fundraising 159, 161, 163, 311 Gaza 18–19, 23–5, 35, 54–5, 115, 176, 353, 358, 375, 380, 500 gnostic 42, 100, 130, 141, 150, 293, 300, 451 god-​fearer 472, 511, 513–14, 517–18, 522 governor 19–21, 64, 131, 189–91, 310, 313, 315, 492, 497, 501, 538 guild 255, 418, 463–4, 518 Hadrian 16–17, 19, 25, 35, 43, 61, 76, 80, 190, 222–3, 345, 466, 491 Hagar 218, 296, 298–301 hairstyle 407 Hanina ben Dosa 207–8, 210, 212–13, 427 hatred 53, 500–1, 530 hazzan 114, 364, 496 healer/​healing 4, 107, 130–1, 134, 137, 156, 212, 497 health 172, 216–17, 223–4, 309, 314, 404 heavenly court 404 Hekhalot 69, 161–2, 346, 348, 388, 391, 425–7 Helios 123, 343–8, 381–2 Heraclius (edict) 55, 503, 542 heretic 142, 147, 259; see also minim homily 69, 141–2, 296, 521

548

Index homosexuality/​homosexual 216, 220 hostility 1, 61, 222, 342, 345, 421, 425, 492, 499, 510, 538, 540 icon 77, 166, 236, 403 idolatry 24, 76–8, 80–1, 83, 85–9, 129–30, 132–4, 137, 242, 317, 342 immortality 157, 217, 317 impurity 204, 209, 220–2, 259, 330, 445, 451; see also purity incantation bowl 427, 442 incense 81, 84, 87–8, 331, 346, 357, 360, 371–3 inn/​innkeeper 230–1 insularity 417, 422–3, 451 intermarriage 441, 505 intertextuality 5, 292, 534 Islam 1–2, 126, 297, 301, 303, 503 Islamic conquest 42, 505 Ishmael 296–8, 300–1 itinerary 229, 234 ius respondendi 190 Jonah 344, 347, 360, 377, 380 Judaeo-​Christians 38 judge 114, 131, 134–6, 180, 189, 192, 196–7, 256, 310, 313, 409, 411, 532 Justinian 16, 47, 53–5, 63–4, 67, 190, 222, 264–6, 276–8, 281–2, 294, 496, 528, 537, 541–2 kidnapping 238 lamentation 486 Latin 3, 8, 16, 18, 33, 112, 117–19, 128, 140–1, 143, 145–6, 149, 161, 179–80, 206, 212, 222, 280–1, 293, 297, 302–3, 314, 317–18, 382–3, 468–72, 497, 509, 521, 529–30, 534, 536, 539, 542 lawyer 189, 493, 496, 536, 539, 542 Levite 119, 159, 161, 332, 452 Libanius 60, 149, 174–5, 312, 318, 494, 497, 500–1 library 147, 256, 258, 267–8, 282, 317, 440 light 22, 296, 353, 364–6, 371, 373–4, 437, 444 loanword 316, 318, 406, 410, 450–1, 456 Maccabees 498, 501 Madaba mosaic map 33 magic/​magical/​magician 69, 103–4, 130–1, 156, 162, 203, 210, 213, 242–3, 346, 348, 391, 403, 426, 428, 438, 442–3, 477–8, 488, 496–7, 536 magistrate 190–1, 197, 314, 470 magus/​magi (pl.) 403, 437–8, 440, 444 Mandaeism 435 Manichaeism 2, 435 manumission 479 Marcion, Marcionite 142, 533

marriage 147, 160, 187–9, 218–19, 224, 301, 313, 421–3, 441, 447, 468, 484, 493 martyr/​martyrdom 5, 18, 36, 81–2, 87, 142, 162, 216, 223, 409, 492, 498–500, 502, 504, 540 matrilineal 155 medicine 224, 496 memorization 68, 254, 257, 329, 387 menorah 4, 36, 38, 40, 52, 161, 241, 343–4, 357–8, 360, 366, 371–4, 494–5, 497, 503, 511, 514–16, 518, 521–2, 528, 534–6 messiah/​messianic 22–3, 25, 38, 41, 98, 104, 130, 135, 161–2, 234, 332, 375, 403, 410, 437, 450, 455–6, 504 migration/​emigration 229, 449, 465, 491, 528 military 8, 15–16, 31, 33, 42, 62, 80–1, 84, 219, 221, 225, 375, 493, 509–10, 539; see also army minim/​minut 4, 39, 88, 129–32, 135–7, 156–7, 163, 259, 425, 450; see also heretic miqvah, -​ot (pl.) 221, 472 miracle 18, 21, 89, 103, 131, 203, 206–8, 210–11, 408; see also wonder worker mobility 1, 232, 422; see also travel modesty 224 money 7, 15, 61, 103, 132, 159, 196, 314–16, 333, 450, 453, 464, 479, 481, 493, 517–18 monk/​monasticism 4–7, 15, 17, 20–4, 36, 42, 51, 53, 65, 143–4, 148, 171, 173–5, 177–8, 216, 219, 225, 237, 263, 265, 267, 422–3, 499–502, 504 Moses 23, 102, 155–6, 162, 177, 189, 194, 211, 234, 236–7, 279, 294, 377, 380, 438 mourning 22, 376 multilingualism 116, 309 music/​musical 388, 410, 497 Muslim conquest 55, 308, 530–1, 542 mural 355, 362 mythology 343, 503 nahote 161, 420 network 7, 18, 25, 59, 66–7, 69, 121–2, 157, 159–61, 163, 172, 175–6, 180, 186, 232, 235, 266, 311–12, 409, 419–20, 492, 495, 497 Nicaea/​Nicene 39, 59, 62, 140, 143, 145, 155, 222, 515 Noah 344, 347, 375, 378, 380, 516, 518, 522 nomikoi 187, 190 oration 180 Ostia 354, 464, 471, 473 oxyrhynchus 315–17, 476, 478–82, 484–6 paideia 4, 7, 60, 172, 175 parable 5, 217, 237, 268, 292, 294 Passover 40, 55, 133–4, 142, 144, 301, 312, 472, 499, 518–20, 522, 534

549

Index patriarch/​patriarchate 6–7, 16, 25, 52–3, 63, 132, 149, 154, 157–61, 180, 185–6, 193, 196–7, 206, 217, 235, 250, 265, 299, 310–12, 318, 331, 343, 346, 363, 409–10, 455, 468–70, 496–7, 501–2, 532, 538 patron/​patronage 17, 60, 62, 66, 113, 154, 174, 187, 235, 312, 314, 317, 346, 358, 366, 411, 516–17 (per)ambulatio 176–7, 332 persecution 52, 60, 65, 143, 162, 223, 296–7, 300, 313, 345, 411, 418–19, 435, 437, 450–4, 491, 495, 498, 504 petition/​petitioner 19–20, 314–15 Pharisee, Pharisaic 36, 100, 104, 129, 155–7, 185, 187–8, 312, 342, 531, 535 Philo (of Alexandria) 99, 101–4, 137, 156, 233, 299–300, 463, 484, 509, 511 physicality 217, 221 piety 17–19, 22, 63, 162, 206–8, 212, 224, 235–6 pilgrim/​pilgrimage 17, 19–23, 30, 51, 54, 61, 154, 203, 223, 232–7, 241, 327, 330–1, 373, 498–9 pikuach nefesh 225 pinax 254–5, 259 pirqa 404, 421, 424 plague 23, 42, 62, 466 polemic 4–5, 85–8, 97, 136–7, 144, 149, 159, 222, 253, 302, 318, 347, 415, 421, 438, 521, 540 polytheism/​polytheistic 2, 16, 18, 334, 388, 503–5, 521, 539 poverty 54, 60, 210 Praetor’s Edict 190, 279, 282 procreation 216, 218, 220, 225, 301, 422 property 23, 30, 33, 42, 53, 63, 189, 195, 198, 269, 313, 482, 501–2 prophet/​prophesy 53, 104, 106, 203, 213, 254–5, 292–4, 300, 437–8, 447 proselytism 499–500 prostitution 66, 129, 220, 224 purity/​purification 36, 40, 142, 160, 187, 195, 203–4, 206, 209, 216–17, 220–1, 330, 341, 422–3, 449; see also impurity relic 18, 42, 61, 65–6, 223, 241, 448, 499 religio licita 60, 537 responsa 190, 197, 308, 314, 318 resurrection 54, 63, 130, 156–7, 217, 293, 378, 443, 521, 534 Rewritten Bible 390 rhetor/​rhetoric 16, 19, 24, 65–6, 69, 97, 106–7, 141, 146, 157, 172, 195, 211, 269, 296, 303, 311–12, 386, 389, 402, 423, 440, 449, 481, 499, 503 ritual 3–4, 8, 22, 78–9, 83, 158–9, 161, 187–9, 192, 195, 206, 216–17, 220–1, 233, 259, 330–2, 342, 360–3, 366, 371–4, 381, 387–9, 393–5, 421, 437–8, 443–5, 456, 472, 534 road (building) 2, 16, 18, 53, 230–2, 471, 494 role model 173

Roman law 4, 6, 62–3, 65, 155, 158, 178, 186, 191, 193, 218, 222, 264, 270, 276, 278–9, 281–2, 468–9, 483, 537–8 Sabbath 38, 64, 134, 144, 187, 206, 223, 238, 254, 259, 301, 314, 316, 332, 411, 464–5, 483, 497, 499, 509–10, 519–20, 533–5, 539 sacred/​sacredness 23, 40, 65–6, 77, 156, 203–5, 213, 232–8, 241–2, 257–8, 290–1, 293, 303, 327, 330–4, 387–9, 437, 443, 521, 534 sacrifice 40, 62, 77, 79–84, 88, 161, 221–2, 225, 254, 297, 312, 330, 332, 379–80, 386–8, 453 salutation 309–10, 313–17 Samaritan 19, 36, 40–2, 49, 55, 65, 121, 147, 209, 300, 345–7, 373, 387, 393–4 Samson 8, 344, 347, 375–6 sanhedrin 134, 185, 187–9, 498; see also court Saturnalia 81 scholastikos 493 scribe/​scribal 23, 98, 134, 137, 187, 209, 253–5, 257, 266, 311, 314–16, 426–7, 436, 440, 442 Second Sophistic 174, 179, 194–5, 235, 264 sect/​sectarian 36, 38, 42, 61, 95, 97, 160, 185–7, 205, 254, 342, 377, 541 semikhah 159 Septuagint 468 sermon 4–6, 25, 54, 116, 146, 148, 173, 180–1, 271, 293, 300–1, 303, 521, 540–1 sexuality/​sexual 103, 131, 136, 206, 216–20, 224, 231, 239, 301, 333, 450 slave 17, 174, 218, 281, 294, 311, 316, 454, 465, 469, 538 shekhinah 235–6, 331–2 Shimon bar Yohai 209–13, 387 sol invictus 84, 87 sophist/​sophistic 4, 6, 171, 174–6, 179–80, 194–5, 235, 264–5 soul 216–17, 225, 240, 303, 317, 329, 378, 380, 394, 443 statue 6, 16, 76, 80, 82–8, 172, 325, 327, 332–4, 338, 357, 501 Stoic/​Stoicism 173, 175–8, 211, 317–18, 465 supersession 142–3, 234–5 Syriac 33, 36, 65, 96, 132, 141, 143–7, 162, 206, 212, 221, 293, 295, 388, 394, 402, 409, 415–18, 422–8, 435, 437–8, 441, 499–500, 504 Tabula Peutingeriana 468, 529 targum, -​im (pl.) 137, 162, 255, 348, 424, 427, 438 tax/​taxation 16, 52, 60, 85, 159, 311, 405–6, 408–9, 422, 439, 450–2, 464, 469, 503, 510 Teacher of Righteousness 203, 206 Testimonium Flavianum 98

550

Index theatre 517, 522 theios anēr 211–12 Toledot Yeshu 96, 128–9, 137 Torah ark/​shrine 71, 119, 158, 346, 354, 357, 362–4, 366, 373, 378, 472, 491, 522 trade 24, 103, 314, 421, 536 Trajan (revolt) 314, 477 travel 7, 17–18, 23, 229–43, 464; see also mobility tribunal 159, 190 typology 38, 291, 294 utopia 238 Vandal 30, 537, 539, 541–2 veneration 53, 80, 82–5, 134, 155, 216, 223, 317, 330, 332–3, 427, 498

violence/​violent 5, 21, 42, 52–3, 59, 61, 64–7, 85, 154, 160, 193, 220, 238, 367, 418, 473, 478–9, 481–3, 499–500, 502, 504, 450 virtue 15, 160, 297 Vulgate 468 wine 22, 24, 41, 314–15, 317, 407, 418 women 17–18, 61, 113, 136, 144, 207, 216, 218, 221, 224, 294, 299, 381–2, 418, 453, 497, 500, 503–4, 516–17, 532–3 wonder-​worker 212; see also miracle Yavneh 185, 188 yeshiva 159, 175–6, 401, 404–7 zodiac 71, 343–4, 346–7, 358–62, 381–3, 389

551