TE`UDA

XII

STUDIES ON THE JEWISH DIASPORA IN THE

HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN PERIODS
 TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY
LESTER AND SALLY ENTIN FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
THE CHAIM ROSENBERG SCHOOL OF JEWISH STUDIES
THE YANIV RESEARCH FOUNDATION IN JEWISH HISTORY
AND PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board of the Series

Yaira Amit Ram Gophna

Joseph Ben Shlomo Yehuda Nini
Gabriel Cohen Ya'acov Shavit
Aron Dotan Uzi Shavit
Mordechai A. Friedman
 TE `UDA
THE MAIM ROSENBERG SCHOOL OF JEWISH STUDIES RESEARCH SERIES

.XII

STUDIES ON THE JEWISH DIASPORA

IN THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN
PERIODS

Edited by

BENJAMIN ISAAC AHARON OPPENHEIMER

TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY

RAMOT PUBLISHING, 1996

 TE'UDA
THE CHAIM ROSENBERG SCHOOL OF JEWISH STUDIES RESEARCH SERIES

Volume 1: Cairo Geniza Studies, 1980

Volume 2: Studies in Bible, 1982
Volume 3: Studies in Talmudic Literature, in Post-
Biblical Hebrew and in Biblical Exegesis,
1983
Volume 4: Studies in Judaica, 1986
Volume 5: Studies in Hebrew Literature, 1986
Volume 6: Studies in Hebrew and Arabic Languages,
1988
Volume 7: Studies in Judaica, 1991
Volume 8: Studies in the Works of Abraham Ibn Ezra,
1992
Volume 9: Studies in Hebrew Language, 1995
Volume 10: Studies in Judiaica, 1996
Volume 11: Studies in the Aggadic Midrashim, 1996
Volume 12:, The Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic
and Roman Periods, 1996

Forthcoming volumes:
Studies in Medieval Judeo-Arabic Culture
Family and the Status of Women in
Halakha and Aggada

O Tel Aviv University

Printed in Israel
 Table of Contents

Uriel Rappaport
The Jews of Eretz-Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora
During the Hellenistic and Hasmonean Periods (Hebrew)

Aryeh Kasher
Herod and the Jewish Diaspora (Hebrew) K1

Shmuel Safrai
Contacts between the Leadership of the Land of Israel and the
Hellenistic and Eastern Diasporas in the First and Second
Centuries (Hebrew) in

Asher Ovadiah
Jewish Communities in Macedonia and Thrace in Late Antiquity
(Hebrew)

Summaries I-V

Martin Goodman
Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

Tessa Rajak
Jews as Benefactors 7

Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

Jewish Rights in the Roman World: New Perspectives 39

Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom 55
A. Thomas Kraabel
Pronoia at Sardis 75

Isaiah M. Gafni
Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel:
Between Subservience and Assertiveness 97

Nicholas de Lange
The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora 111

Lee I. Levine
Diaspora Judaism of Late Antiquity and its Relationship
to Palestine: Evidence from the Ancient Synagogue 139

Alfredo M. Rabello
The Situation of the Jews in Roman Spain 160

Arie Kindler
Numismatic Evidence of a Possible Early Jewish Settlement
in North-Eastern Spain 191
 Foreword

Life in the diaspora has been a characteristic of the Jewish people

from ancient times up to the present day. It begins in the First Temple
period, growing into a significant factor by Hellenistic and Roman
times. Strabo notes that 'it would not be easy to find any place in the
settled world which has not received this people and where their
influence has not been felt'. Over time, a complex network of
relationships developed between Diaspora Jews and the Jews of the
Land of Israel. The Jews of the East, living the other side of the
Euphrates in territory that was generally outside the area of the Roman
Empire, became increasingly important. By the amoraic period Jewish
Babylonia eventually came to rival the Land of Israel. Modern Israeli
scholars specializing in the periods of the Second Temple, the Mishnah
and the Talmud have quite naturally put most of their efforts into
researching the history of the Jews in the Land of Israel. Today, now
that this research has all but reached saturation point, the time is ripe to
turn to the subject of the Jewish Diaspora, in cooperation with scholars
from abroad, who have never let the matter drop entirely.
This collection of papers is based on lectures which were given at
an international scientific conference organised by the Tel Aviv
University School of Jewish Studies, which was devoted to the subject
of the Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The
conference was held at the beginning of January 1991 under the
imminent threat of the Gulf War. Many events in Israel were cancelled
at this time, so that a special word of thanks is due to the conference
participants from abroad who came to Tel Aviv, joining in the
conference as if nothing at all untoward was happening. The
intervening years which have passed since the conference merely serve
to show the transience of the events of the present, as compared with
the enduring life assured to historical research.
It is our pleasant duty to thank all those who helped in the
organization of the conference and in the publication of the papers.
Susan Weingarten edited the papers in English and Nili Oppenheimer
edited the papers in Hebrew. Gideon Spiegel, the Secretary of the
School of Jewish Studies, put much effort into organizing the
conference in the best possible way and making all the necessary
arrangements for putting it into print. Thanks are also due to all the
lecturers and participants who broadened our knowledge and
contributed to the warm and friendly atmosphere. And lastly, we
gratefully acknowledge the generous financial help given by the Yaniv
Fund in defraying the expenses of publication.

Benjamin Isaac Aharon Oppenheimer

 SACRED SPACE IN DIASPORA JUDAISM

MARTIN GOODMAN

Many if not all diaspora Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman periods
shared the reverence felt by their Palestinian co-religionists for the
Temple in Jerusalem.1 It is highly likely, though not strictly provable,
that they also espoused explicitly or implicitly the belief to be found in a
variety of Palestinian Jewish texts that the world is divided into a series
of concentric circles in which the sanctity of places diminished with
distance from the Temple. The most sacred place on earth according to
this view was the Holy of Holies, into which no-one could enter except
the High Priest, whose own access was permitted only once a year after
elaborate precautions to avoid sacrilegious pollution. Next in sanctity
came the court of the priests, then the courts of Israel, of women, and
of gentiles. Even less sacred than any of these courts were the regions
of Jerusalem which lay outside the Temple precincts. Jerusalem, the
holy city, was more sacred than the rest of the land of Israel, but Israel
had greater sanctity than the diaspora.2 The theological explanation of
this preeminence of the Jerusalem Temple as sacred place was
straightforward. It was in the Holy of Holies that the divinity specially
dwelt: the emptiness of the innermost shrine signified not the absence of
the deity but the inability of humans to portray him. When the Romans
succeeded in capturing the Temple they did so only because its divine

1. See E.P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (1990), 283-308.
2. See J.N. Lightstone, Society, the Sacred and Scripture in Ancient Judaism: a
sociology of knowledge (1988), 36. On the protection of sacred space from
pollution, note Acts 21. 28-29 and CIJ 11 1400 on the prevention of gentiles
penetrating too far into the Temple.
Martin Goodman

resident left the building to its fate. A voice was heard in the sky above
Jerusalem proclaiming "We are departing from this place" (Jos. B.J. 6.
300).
Whether diaspora Jews who espoused such notions might be
expected to feel constantly or even occasionally concerned at their
distance from the centre of holiness is dubious,3 but it does seem hard
to imagine such Jews positing with conviction that any place in their
own vicinity could be holy in the same way that the Temple was. I
intend in this paper to discuss how it came about that, despite this
strong disincentive, some Jews in some places at some times apparently
came to see their synagogues in precisely this way.4
The main function of synagogues in antiquity was as a meeting place
where Jews could be taught the Torah: as Philo put it (Leg. 156), Jews
have "houses of prayer for training themselves on the sabbath in their
ancestral philosophy". Josephus believed that regular weekly reading of
the Law was so integral a part of Judaism that it must have been
instituted by Moses (C.Ap. 2. 175). But neither writer implied that such
a role rendered the site of this activity sacred. The Torah could be read
almost anywhere. So, for example, Ezra's legendary public reading of
the Law to all the people is said by Nehemiah to have taken place "in the
street before the water-gate" (Nehemiah 8. 1-2).
The second main function of synagogues, as the site of communal
prayer, might seem more likely to cast a holy aura upon the building or
place where it occurred. That such communal worship was a central
feature of synagogue ritual, at least in parts of the diaspora, seems fairly
certain from the standard term proseuche used for synagogues in Egypt
in the Hellenistic period. But in Israel certainly, and in the diaspora
probably, prayer did not require a designated building to be efficacious,

3. Sanders, Jewish Law, 258-271.

4. For a more extensive treatment of other aspects of the notion of sanctity in
diaspora Judaism, see the interesting study by J.N. Lightstone, The Commerce
of the Sacred (1984).

2
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

so there was no reason for such a building when it existed to be

reckoned sacred.5
Rather less directly, the permanent presence in synagogues of Torah
scrolls might perhaps be expected to import a special aura into such
buildings if I am right to argue, as I have done elsewhere, that Jews
sometimes treated such scrolls as sacred objects analogous to pagan
idols.6 Pagans could certainly treat Jews' scrolls in this way: thus the
soldier who deliberately destroyed a scroll in Judaea in the fifties C.E.
was publicly executed by the Roman governor Cumanus for the
sacrilege (Jos. B.J. 2. 228-231), and the author of the Letter of Aristeas
(which narrated in romantic form the origin of the Septuagint) invented
for his readers a striking vignette in which Ptolemy Philadelphus
greeted the arrival of the scrolls and translators from Jerusalem by
bowing down seven times before the copies of the Torah. Similar
Jewish attitudes are harder to document - unsurprisingly given Jewish
aversion to anything smacking of idolatry - but it seems to me possible
that the strange notion in rabbinic texts that scrolls of scripture when
correctly written on parchment "defile the hands" reflects the same
attitude (cf. m. Ya d a i m 4:6). In the late fourth century John
Chrysostom, bishop of Antioch, was aware of, but did not share the
notion that sacred books might sanctify the building that housed them.
He told a story in one of his bitter sermons "against the Jews" about a
Christian woman who had been forced into a synagogue by another
Christian in order to take a business oath; John remarked grumpily that
some Christians assumed wrongly that synagogues are appropriate
places for such proceedings because of the presence of sacred books
(Adv. Judaeos 1.3.3). Nothing quite so explicit can be found in Jewish

5. See M. Hengel, 'Proseuche and Synagoge', in Tradition and Glaube: Festgabe

fur KG. Kuhn (1971), 157-184. Cf. the term in CPJ 432. On liturgy,
see J. Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud (1977).
6. M. Goodman, 'Sacred scripture and "defiling the hands"', Journal of
Theological Studies 41 (1990), 99-107.

3
Martin Goodman

sources although various rabbinic texts do imply that it is indeed from

the scrolls that sanctity flows (e.g. m. Megillah 3.1).
If, despite the centrality in their world-view of the Jerusalem Temple,
sanctity thus could be ascribed to synagogue buildings by diaspora
Jews, that need not imply that sanctity was so ascribed. I intend in the
pages which follow to examine the evidence for such ascriptions. Since
it is reasonable to expect that the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem
might have made some difference in this regard, I have chosen to
present first the evidence for the period before 70 C.E. and then the
material for late antiquity, although in fact far less difference emerges
than might be predicted. Only when the evidence has been weighed will
I turn to discuss the difficult issue of why diaspora Jews espoused the
attitudes revealed.
From the period before 70 C.E. there is good evidence of impressive
synagogue structures and fine decoration in diaspora synagogues. So,
according to a reference by the second-century tanna R. Judah to a
building apparently no longer extant, the great synagogue in
Alexandria, which was shaped in the form of a double stoa "like a
basilica" was a "glory to Israel" (t. Sukkah 4.6). According to Philo
(Leg. 133) synagogues in the same city were hung with shields, gilded
crowns and inscriptions. In the main Antioch synagogue, according to
Josephus (B.J. 7.45), costly offerings were similarly displayed. Such
expenditure on buildings need not imply a belief that the building itself
is sacred, but at least in the case of the Antioch synagogue such an
attitude was explicit, for Josephus (ibid.) described the place as a
hieron, a term usually applied only to temples such as that in
Jerusalem. This terminology was not just a quirk of Josephus' Greek,
for Philo also at times implied the sanctity of synagogues by similar
terms: in his description of the Essenes, Philo wrote that when they
gather they come together to "sacred places which are called
synagogues" (Q.o.p. 81).
Such terminology suggests that the distinction between the sanctity of
the Jerusalem Temple and that of synagogues was not always precisely

4
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

observed by Jews. Josephus (A.J. 14. 260) told of the granting of a

request by the city of Sardis to the local Jews in the first century B.C.E.
after the Jews had asked to be permitted to continue to carry out
sacrifices (thusias) in their specially designated place in the city; it is
possible that this reference to sacrificial cult reflected a
misunderstanding of Jewish religious practice by the city authorities,
but, if so, it is worth noting that Josephus was not sufficiently taken
aback to comment. Nor did the Jewish historian comment on the claim
by Onias in the second century B.C.E. that the building of a new
Temple for the Jews in Leontopolis in Egypt was desirable because the
multiplicity of hiera (temples) in Egypt was contrary to Jewish customs
and it was better to build just one naos (shrine) for them; it is hard to
see what the hiera to which he referred could have been if they were
not synagogues (Jos. A.J. 13. 66-7). Jews set up inscriptions in their
proseuchai in Egypt in which the buildings might be designated as
places of asylum (CIJ 111449) and when gentiles tried to set up statues
in Egyptian synagogues this was treated by Jews as sacrilege (Philo,
Leg. 134).
All of which might seem to show beyond much doubt that some
Jews even before 70 C.E. saw their synagogues as sacred places. But a
story about an event in Caesarea Maritima in 66 C.E. may encourage
caution in jumping to such a conclusion. For this purpose Caesarea may
count as part of the diaspora, since the problem which arose came from
the position of Jews as a minority in a gentile community in a fashion
comparable to that in more strictly diaspora cities. According to
Josephus (B.J. 2. 285-91), the Jews of Caesarea tried to buy land near
the synagogue. The gentile owner of the land refused and some local
youths compounded the Jews' discomfiture by sacrificing a cock in the
alleyway in front of the building in mockery. Josephus recorded that
this act was seen by the Jews as a pollution (miasma) of the place, but
their consequent actions were curious. Rather than defend their holy
site, as they did so bravely in the Jerusalem Temple four years later, the
Caesarean Jews took up their scroll of the Torah and retreated with it to

5
Martin Goodman

a safe place some distance away. Their actions implied that for them it
was not to the place but to the object of public liturgy that prime sanctity
should be ascribed.
The evidence for the period after 70 C.E. is more extensive but
differs little in its ambiguous import. A straightforward attribution to
synagogues of the sanctity that the now defunct Jerusalem Temple had
once had might have been possible but does not seem to have happened
despite the celebrated comparison of synagogues to the "small
sanctuary" of Ezekiel 11.16 found in b. Megillah 29a. Some rites
previously confined to the Temple, such as the priestly blessing, were
now practised outside the Jerusalem sanctuary, but the rabbinic texts
which report this transfer do not presuppose any special building or
place for such practices.? The most important elements of the Temple
liturgy, libation and sacrifice, ceased altogether. It is worth recalling
that Jewish hopes that the Temple would be rebuilt were by no means
unreasonable before Constantine. Restoration of destroyed sanctuaries
was normal custom in the pagan world and it was quite possible that
later emperors might drop the special hostility to the Jewish cult which
had been adopted by the Flavian dynasty for the purposes of Roman
political propaganda.
Thus rabbinic texts are ambivalent about the sanctity of synagogues.
On the one hand synagogues are definitely not temples - so, for
instance, there is no evidence that there was ever a dedication ceremony
to mark the erection of new synagogue buildings. On the other hand
there are preserved in the Tosefta (t. Megillah 3 (2): 7) quite strict rules
for correct conduct in synagogues, and Mishnaic injunctions in the
names of R. Meir and R. Judah about the permitted uses of money
raised by selling a synagogue site presupposed that such sites are at any
rate special (m. Megillah 3: 2-3); but it is of course significant that
such a site could be sold. Such texts might in theory apply only to
rabbinic attitudes in the land of Israel, but the anonymous baraita

7. See J. Neusner, A Life of Yohanan hen Zakkai, 2nd ed. (1970), 205-210.

6
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

preserved in b. Shabbat 72b was presumably felt relevant by the

Mesopotamian sages who redacted the Babylonian Talmud. According
to this baraita, a Jew who bows down before a pagan shrine in the
mistaken belief that it is a synagogue is not committing a sin. The
significant fact here is that paying such respect to synagogues was
apparently taken for granted.
Examination of the architectural forms of extant remains of diaspora
synagogues provides no clearer indication of the sacred or profane
status of such buildings in the eyes of local Jews who may or may not
have shared the attitudes to be found in rabbinic texts. The most striking
fact about such styles is their variety.8 The hypothesis that common
elements, such as the Torah shrine and the meeting hall, were the
Jewish equivalents of the inner shrine and pronaos of a pagan temple is
plausible but unprovable.9 Whether the huge basilica in Sardis would
have looked to a contemporary observer like a religious building
depends somewhat on the date of the observation. If Helga Botermann
is right to suggest that it might have become a synagogue only in the
mid fourth century,10 this transformation of a secular builidng will have
coincided with the establishment of the basilica form as the most
appropriate style of religious architecture for Christian churches.11
Alternatively, large basilica-type buildings may have been found as
meeting-places for Jews long before they were adopted by Christians if
the tradition that this was the shape of the great Alexandrian synagogue
was correctly transmitted in the Tosefta (t. Sukkah 4:6; see above).

8. See A.T. Kraabel, 'The diaspora synagogue: archaeological and epigraphic

evidence since Sukenik', ANRW II 19 (1979), 477-510.
9. See G. Foerster in L.I. Levine, Ancient Synagogues Revealed (1981), 48.
10. H. Botermann, 'Die Synagoge von Sardes: Eine Synagoge aus dem 4.
Jahrhundert?', Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 81 (1990),
103-121.
11. J.B. Ward-Perkins, 'Constantine and the origins of the Christian basilica',
Papers of the British School in Rome 22 (1954), 69-90.

7
Martin Goodman

The clearest evidence that some Jews treated synagogues as sacred

space comes not from rabbinic discussions nor from the architecture of
the synagogue buildings, but from the inscriptions found within those
buildings. The adjective hagiotatos, "most holy", was applied to
synagogues so regularly in inscriptions from the second or third
centuries C.E. and after that it appears to have become a cliche'. The
usage is geographically widespread: it is found in Macedonia (Stobi),
Asia Minor (Philadelphia and Hyllarima) and southern Palestine
(Gaza).12 How literally to take such ascriptions of sanctity is not
entirely obvious from the Greek word alone. The meaning of many
solemn words was debased in the late-Roman world, and hagios could
be used as a polite epithet for bishops and even, in the medieval period,
for emperors.13 However, a fifth-century inscription from the
Decapolis city of Gerasa lends support to a more literal reading. From
this place comes an inscription on two pillars which reads `ayLo[TdTW]
ToTTw. 'Aµ1'jv. EEXa. TTY (Lifshitz, no. 78). The
inscription provides a useful link with a large number of Aramaic texts
from nearby synagogue sites in the land of Israel. In these inscriptions
the term atra kadisha appears as a standard cliche.14 It is asking too
much of coincidence not to see the Greek hagiotatos topos as a direct
equivalent. In that case it is likely that the Greek term was intended on
these inscriptions to convey the force of the Aramaic kadisha, which
retained its strong sense throughout antiquity.
What emerges from all this is that synagogues sites could be treated
by diaspora Jews as holy but that attitudes varied. It seems clear that
rabbinic sages lacked any coherent rationale for their attitudes; similarly

12. B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et Fondateurs dans les Synagogues Juives (Cahiers de

la Revue Biblique, 7) (1967), nos. 10, 28, 32, 73a.
13. E.A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (1990).
S.V. ayLoc.
14. J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic: the Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions from
ancient synagogues (1978), nos. 16, 26, 46, 60, 64, 65 (in Hebrew).

8
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

and all the more so, it may be surmised, non-rabbinic Jews; thus
whatever prompted the reverence revealed in the inscriptions was
probably not legislation by any central authority. There is more
evidence of attributions of sanctity in the period after 70 C.E. than in
the Hellenistic and early Roman periods, but that may reflect only the
greater survival of diaspora inscriptions from the later era than from the
earlier; thus it may be unwarranted to try to explain Jewish attitudes as a
reaction to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. The causes of the
phenomena I have described are likely to lie elsewhere, in more general,
ill-defined religious instincts which by their very nature allowed for the
ambiguity I have noted but also, precisely because such instincts often
remained unstated, cannot be proven.
A number of such religious instincts, such as a human desire to
designate as sacred some place close enough to the locus of secular
activity for ordinary people to feel that sanctity is accessible to them,
can reasonably be postulated. But in this paper I want to pursue just one
of these possible explanations, both because it is generally overlooked
and because, if I am right, the type of explanation offered may throw
some light on the history of other aspects of diaspora Judaism. The
factor on which I shall concentrate is the likely effect on diaspora Jews
of the attitude to their synagogues espoused by their gentile neighbours.
Comments about synagogues in extant Greek and Latin pagan
writings are rather sparse - a fact which, as will become clear, I think
may be significant.15 Pagans were fascinated by such Jewish
peculiarities as the sabbath and dietary laws, but Jewish houses of
worship apparently did not strike them as anything out of the ordinary.
In some cases this may have been because synagogues were just seen

15. For a collection of the evidence and many interesting suggestions, see S.J.D.
Cohen, 'Pagan and Christian evidence on the ancient synagogue', in L.I.
Levine, ed., The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (1987), pp. 159-181. My
arguments were formulated separately, but they may be seen as following on
logically from the ideas on pages 163-165 of his article.

9
Martin Goodman

as meeting places: Augustus' decree on behalf of the Jews of Asia

protected the scrolls and money they kept in their sabbateion but not
the building itself (Jos. A.J. 16. 164). But more often the reason was
that synagogues looked to pagans like a Jewish equivalent of pagan
shrines. In the Hellenistic period the Seleucid kings donated gifts to
hang on the walls of the Antioch synagogue (Jos. B.J. 7. 44) and the
Ptolemaic kings awarded to at least one synagogue in Egypt the right of
asylum (CIJ 11 1449). In a legal deposition of 218 B.C.E. by a gentile
woman whose cloak had been stolen, the guardian of the Jewish
prayer-house (proseuche) was described as a nakoros, a title usually
reserved for the warden of a religious sanctuary (CPJ 129). In the first
century C.E. anti-Jewish rioters in Alexandria attacked the synagogues
(Philo, Flacc. 41-3), an action which gentiles could see as equivalent
to desecration of a sanctuary: according to Josephus (A.J. 19. 300-3,
305), when gentile youths in the land of Israel put a statue of Gaius in
the synagogue of Dora, the Roman senator Petronius complained that
by their behaviour they had "prevented the synagogue from existing",
since "the emperor's statue would be better in his own shrine (naos)
than in someone else's". When in the early second century C.E. Tacitus
wrote that Jews have no images in their cities, nedum templis (Tac.
Hist. 5.5.4), he may have intended to refer to synagogues by the plural
templa. The right of asylum granted to an Egyptian synagogue by the
Ptolemies (CIJ II 1449; see above) was confirmed according to an
addendum in Latin by a king and queen (rex et regina); it is likely that
the monarchs in question were either the rulers of Palmyra in the mid
third century C.E. or the last Ptolemaic dynasts in the first century
B.C.E.
Christian writers from the third century onwards sometimes made
similar assumptions. Tertullian in the early third century wrote that
Jews pray by the sea shore on fast days, templis omissis (De Jejuniis
16, PL II 1028). John Chrysostom described how Christians took
oaths in synagogues (see above) and how they sometimes slept
overnight in the synagogue of Matrona at Daphne in their search for

10
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

health cures (Adversus Iudaeos) 1.3, PG XL 847-8.16 In the sixth

century Procopius described how the ancient shrine (neos) of the Jews
of Boreon in North Africa was changed into a church by Justinian (De
Aed. 6.2)
In accordance with this attitude Christian writers sometimes assumed
that synagogues were administered by priests like pagan sanctuaries.
Thus Epiphanius in the 370s told a story about events under
Constantine in which it was presupposed that synagogues were under
the immediate control of archisynagogoi, priests (hiereis), elders and
hazzanim (Pan. 30.11.4). A similar assumption is found in an imperial
enactment of 330 C.E. by which Constantine released from munera the
hiereos and archisynagogos and "all those others who administer the
synagogues" (C. Th. 16.8.4). It is possible that these priests were
simply cohanim whose public prominence was ensured simply by their
role in the priestly blessing, but it is hard to see why such a minor
function would merit tax exemption. It seems to me more likely that this
is another aspect of Roman treatment of synagogues as temples.
The same attitude explains the belief of emperors from the fifth
century onwards that synagogue buildings could easily be converted
into churches. Thus Theodosius II laid down in 423 C.E. that Jewish
communities should be granted compensation when their synagogues
had been "seized or ecclesiis vindicatae or indeed consecrated to the
venerable mysteries" (C. Th. 16.8.25). In 535 C.E., in less liberal
times, Justinian decreed that "we do not grant that their synagogues
should stand, but we wish them ad ecclesiarum figuram ... reformari"
(Novella 37); the use of the word reformari suggests that some
architectural changes were deemed necessary.
In such legal stipulations by the state gentile attitudes to synagogues
are seen at their clearest. Thus in about 370 C.E. the emperors
Valentinian and Valens told the Master of the Offices that he should
warn soldiers who occupied "synagogues of the Jewish law" in their

16. See R.L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (1983), 79-80.

11
Martin Goodman

search for lodging (hospitium) that they were required to vacate such
premises. The emperors argued that such hospitality should be enjoyed
in the houses of private people, not in "places of religions" (religionum
loca). This law, found in the Theodosian Code (C.Th 7.8.2) but
repeated, therefore presumably still reckoned valid, in the sixth-century
Justinianic Code (C.J. 1.9.4), presupposed that the state had a duty to
protect synagogues as places sacred to Jews.17 Evidence of intermittent
state hostility to synagogues, from the instructions issued by
Theodosius II to the patriarch Gamaliel to destroy all synagogues in
unoccupied places (C. Th. 16.8.22) to Justinian's demand that all
synagogues be changed into churches (see above), does not show that
this assumption was not genuinely held, only that Christian emperors
wavered in their willingness to appease or provoke Jewish religious
susceptibilities.
The attitude of gentiles in the Roman empire to Jewish religious
buildings revealed a tendency I have noted elsewhere to understand
other societies and cultures in terms of their own.18 Sacred space was a
concept of great power and importance in the religious life of most
inhabitants of the Roman world. The landscape was littered with altars
to divinities. Each altar was reckoned more or less sacrosanct and most
public religious activity consisted in processions to a sacred place or a
dramatic ritual by a priest at such a place. Gentiles who came to
Jerusalem found it quite natural to offer sacrifices to the Jewish God in
the Temple, and the obvious way to express respect for Judaism in
Rome in 139 B.C.E. was, according to Valerius Maximus (1.3.2), to

17. On this text see A.M. Rabello, "The legal condition of the Jews in the Roman
empire', ANRW II 13 (1980), 723; A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial
Legislation (1987), no. 14.
18. M. Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: the origins of the Jewish revolt
against Rome, A.D. 66-70 (1987), 35.

12
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

set up altars in honour of the foreign deity.19 For gentiles thus

predisposed, synagogue ritual might seem to fit neatly into the standard
pattern of temple rites, with chanting by crowds of worshippers in a
fine ornamented building, an object extracted from an inner sanctum
and carried in procession to a visible spot for a ritual act to be
undertaken before it was returned to its sanctum. Synagogues differed
only in that the object concerned was a scroll not an idol, and the act
performed was a reading, not a sacrifice or libation. The term hagios
topos, although not used in the inscriptions set up in their shrines in the
same formulaic way it was used by Jews in synagogues, was quite
intelligible to such pagans, and bore the clear implication that the place
in question was sacred space.20
For pagan polytheists respect for the sacred places of the cults of
other people was instinctive. The behaviour of Pliny the Younger when
governor of Bithynia and Pontus may illustrate. When the inhabitants of
a Bithynian city wanted to build on the site of a temple of the Phrygian
Great Mother, Pliny (Epp. 10.50) wrote to the emperor Trajan to
enquire whether he should prevent them. Trajan replied that there was
no restriction on such building in Roman law, but what is significant is
the fact that Pliny felt it necessary to ask. Polytheists knew that
infringing the rights of any divinity is a dangerous game. The

19. See E. Bickerman, 'The altars of gentiles', in Studies in Jewish and Christian
History, Vol. II (1980), 324-346. Note the story reported in y. Megillah
1.13, 72b about the Roman emperor "Antoninus" being helped by R. Judah
haNasi to build an altar.
20. Apart from the Jewish uses of the collocation hagios topos, the phrase
appears very occasionally in Christian inscriptions in reference to a church
(e.g. R. Merkelbach, ed., Die Inschriften von Asses (1976), number 33), but
nowhere (so far as I can discover) in pagan inscriptions. But note the use of
the phrase in the story recounted by Plutarch (Camillus 31.3.7) about the
attempts made by Roman senators to mollify the people by pointing out the
chorion hieron kai topon hagion which Romulus or Numa had consecrated.

13
Martin Goodman

ambivalence of Christian legislation about synagogues was a product of

the conflict between this instinctive pagan liberalism and the
theologically motivated anti-Judaism which pervades much of the
rhetoric of the legislation by Roman emperors of the fourth to sixth
centuries C.E.
A useful parallel to pagan attitudes to synagogues may be found in
pagan attitudes to Christian churches in the first four centuries C.E.
Christian liturgy in the early years did not require special sacred places
for its performance. Christians, much like Jews, met together to eat in
company, hear readings from the scriptures and listen to sermons. For
this purpose private houses sufficed. As congregations grew such
houses might be adapted, with enlarged interior rooms or the erection of
a platform for the clergy, and the "house of the Christians" might
become an impressive hall and a local landmark, but before Constantine
there was felt no need for a specifically religious architecture which
might mark off churches from the secular world.21 One result of this
fact was a scarcity of comments in pagan authors about churches, as
about synagogues.22 Nonetheless the pagan philosopher Porphyry in
the mid third century could refer scornfully to the "great buildings" of
the Christians which "imitate the construction of temples" (Adv.
Christianos, frag. 76). When the pagan Roman aristocracy, led by the
emperor, began from the time of Constantine onwards to demonstrate,
without much theological understanding, their adhesion to the
imperially favoured cult of Christianity, they imported such pagan
presuppositions into their disposition of their wealth in favour of the
new religion. Instead of the erection of large public temples by which
they had previously demonstrated their allegiance to the pagan gods,
Roman aristocrats began to build the grand monumental basilica

21. See now L.M. White, Building God's House in the Roman World: architectural
adaptation among pagans, Jews and Christians (1990).
22. On pagan views of Christianity in general, see R.L. Wilken, The Christians
as the Romans Saw Them (1984).

14
 Sacred Space in Diaspora Judaism

churches which quite rapidly because common despite the

inappropiateness of this architectural form for Christian liturgy.
Eusebius' description of the new church dedicated in Tyre by the young
rich bishop Paulinus in 317 C.E. explicitly compared the building to the
Jerusalem Temple in the days of Zerubbabel (Eus. H.E. 10.4.33-6):
this was God's house on earth (H.E. 10.4.1-2) and, like that of pagan
temples, its completion was celebrated with a great festival of dedication
(H.E. 10.3.1). In 431 C.E. the emperor Theodosius, granting to
churches rights of sanctuary, unselfconsciously referred to them as
"temples of the Great God" (C. Th. 9.45.4).23
At this crucial stage in the argument, when I want to suggest the
possible effect of such gentile perceptions of synagogues on the
attitudes to their religious buildings of Jews themselves, I must confess
that evidence fails. Nonetheless, some connection may plausibly be
posited. It is quite possible that Jews first elected to imitate the customs
and architecture of others and to see their buildings as holy, and that
only then did pagans come to ascribe sanctity to Jewish synagogues.
But it seems to me no less conceivable that the line of causation went in
the opposite direction. If gentiles tended to assume that synagogues
were sacred places, Jews might feel it wise to concur: on the most
cynical level, this pagan attitude evidently helped to protect the
synagogue site and to win exemption from liturgies for synagogue
officials. More insidiously, if gentile neighbours treated the synagogue
building as sacred it might become natural for Jews to copy their
reverence even when they did not have any formal, legal reason within
the Jewish religious system for such an attitude.
If there is any truth in this, it may be worth pondering similar factors
in other aspects of Jewish history in the diaspora. It is inherently
unlikely that diaspora Jews developed social or religious institutions

23. See now White, Building God's House, chapter 2 and passim. White argues (p.
136) that the church at Tyre was not a basilica but an elaborate hall with
basilica-type features.

15
Martin Goodman

entirely regardless of comments made by their gentile compatriots. But,

since it is also inherently unlikely that Jews would explicitly ascribe
changes in their society to their reactions to such comments, the
demonstration of the causal link between the development of diaspora
Jewish customs and outsiders' views about those customs will always
be formidable.

16
 JEWS AS BENEFACTORS'

TESSA RAJAK

Philo opens his tract On the Decalogue by asking why Moses gave
the laws in the desert rather than in a polis. The answer is concerned
with the evils of city-life "In cities there arises that most insidious of
foes, pride (Tt4 os), and some people admire it and bow down to empty
appearances of distinction and make it important by means of golden
crowns and purple robes." He declares that "pride is the creator of
many other evils: boastfulness, haughtiness, inequality2; and these are
the sources of war, both foreign and civil". He also makes the
fundamental claim that "pride brings divine things into contempt,
although these ought to receive the highest honour (T1In )." (de Decal.
1,4-7).
Josephus writes in similar vein in Against Apion, belittling the
award of crowns and public announcements of honours: "for those who
live by our laws, the reward is not silver or gold or a crown of olive or
of parsley or any such proclamation." (CA II, 217-8). The allusion is
surely not just to the time-honoured way of treating victors in the
Olympic and other great games of Greece, as Thackeray's note
suggests3, but rather to the modes of recognition of the powerful and

1. For the data-base and breakdowns on which this paper is based and for help of
every kind, I am indebted to Dr David Noy of the Cambridge Jewish
Inscriptions Project and Reading University.
2. Or perhaps "impiety", depending on the manuscript reading adopted (Colson
prefers dvLvoTr1Tos as in R to avoau trltoc: see Loeb Philo VII, n. ad de
Decal. I, 5.
3. Loeb Josephus, I. n. ad loc.
Tessa Rajak

the munificent in the Greek civic milieu of Josephus' own day and age.
The writer is making an ideological point, sharpening a distinction
between Jews and pagans to establish an ethical contrast between two
world views. He would not have needed, in this moralizing context, to
take account of an awkward case like that of a man from Leontopolis in
Egypt, perhaps a near contemporary of the historian. This was the most
blessed Abraham ('' A(3paµos o µaKapLaTOTaToc), who was "not
without honour" (agerastos) in his city but, in the interesting metaphor
of his verse epitaph, "wore the wreath of magistracy for the whole
people, in his wisdom. "4
Once more in Against Apion, Josephus reminds readers that Jews,
unlike Greeks, do not believe in making statues of those they like or
admire (CA II, 74). Here, of course, the second commandment is at
least as much a consideration as distrust of honours. And finally, at yet
another point in that work, in a discussion of death, it is asserted by
Josephus that "the Jewish law does not allow for expensive funerals or
the erection of conspicuous monuments." (CA II, 205). This is another
way in which the display values of the late Greek polis are undercut, at
least in theory. In fact, we may be inclined to think that the tombs of the
high priests in Jerusalem, still visible in the Kidron valley, told another
story; but it might then be suggested that, in Jerusalem, Jewish self-
differentiation from Greco-Roman values was less necessary. In any
case, we need not be wholly surprised to find practice diverging from
principle.
Visible abstention from social competition and from its various
manifestations was a way of marking out a community from its civic
environment and binding it together. This at least partly explains the
stress laid upon such ideas by another diaspora Jew, Paul of Tarsus, as
he sought to define a place in society for the developing Christian
church.5 The Epistle to the Romans (12.3) offers, appropriately

4. CPJ III 1530A.

5. I am indebted to Halvor Moxnes for suggesting connections betwen this

18
 Jews as Benefactors

enough, a particularly clear statement: "I say to everyone among you:

do not be conceited or think too highly of yourself; but think your way
to a sober estimate based on the measure of faith that God has dealt to
each of you. For just as in a single human body there are many limbs
and organs, all with different functions, so all of us, united with Christ,
form one body."
It is instructive, and also ironic, to note that these critiques are
expressed in terms indebted to Greek culture itself, even if they are
fuelled, ultimately, by a biblical sense of justice. For there is a familiar
topos favoured by writers of Stoic inclination - though not necessarily
of modest lifestyle - which bears a clear resemblance to our theme,
especially as Josephus expresses it. Plutarch, a near-contemporary, has
this topos on occasion. But particularly with Dio Chrysostom, the
second-century orator from Prusa, it is a characteristic stance to
denounce the pursuit of public popularity. For him the absurdities of
honours offer an excellent subject for satire or vituperation. So, Dio
describes how cities "led their victims about with a sprig of green, as
men lead cattle, or clapped upon their heads a crown or a ribbon" (Or.
66,2). Some men might be equipped with any number of crowns: olive,
oak, ivy, myrtle. Yet, he says, the cost of getting a purple mantle from
the dyers is less than getting it by public award. No nanny-goat would
hurl herself over a cliff for the sake of a sprig of wild olive, and no sane
person would walk around with his head bound unless he had suffered
a fracture (Or. 66, 4-5). But with Dio, the whole issue is given a Stoic
twist which is crucial to his philosophical position: to pursue Sofia,
fame, is to be the victim of a passion like any other, and thus to be at
the mercy of people and events and so unable to achieve true
happiness.6 This conclusion puts an entirely different complexion on
the matter from that in Philo and Josephus.

strand in Paul's thought, and civic patronage, in a paper given to a conference

of Aarhus University.
6. On these themes in the speeches of Dio Chrysostom, who still endorsed

19
Tessa Rajak

The various practices from which the two major Jewish-Greek

writers distance themselves are ones which, at any rate from the
Hellenistic period, were deeply ingrained in the fabric of city life around
the Greek world and in areas influenced by it. We need to define it more
closely, if we are to understand the Jewish reaction.? The bestowal of
lavish honours on those who had power, which might be manifested
through office-holding, through personal connections, through family
prominence, or, most often, through all three, and nearly always with
the accompaniment of conspicuous wealth, was one of the most visible
features in the life of a city. Those honours were the repayment for an
expenditure of a large part of that wealth within the public domain, for
supposed benefits, demonstratively conferred on the citizens. And they
were a not-too-subtle statement to the donor that he had a reputation
which could only be kept up by further benefaction.
So, those who were honoured were honoured not just for what they
were or even for what they had achieved, but by way of trade-off for
what they had done or given or were going to do or to give, for the
enhancement of the city and for the advantage of its gods or its people.
In a watered-down form, such phenomena are perfectly familiar today.
But in the Greco-Roman world, they made up a tighter structure, with
patterns that were more fixed, and they were also more crucial to the
working of the cities and to social relations. Paul Veyne regards the
unusual combination of apparently contradictory features, a sense of
constraint on the one hand, and a measure of spontaneity, as the

generosity to one's city, see C.P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom
(Cambridge, 1978), 110 ff.
7. For an excellent discussion of the system of benefaction in relation to
synagogue construction, see now L. Michael White, Building God's House in
the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews and
Christians (Baltimore and London, 1990), chap. 4.

20
 Jews as Benefactors

distinguishing mark of Greco-Roman euergetism.8 Public buildings

and works, provisioning, politics and diplomacy, entertainment and
festivals, religious life, medicine: all these a city was likely to owe to its
benefactors, who were usually prominent citizens, but occasionally
interested outsiders. The process was also, as Philo and Josephus well
appreciated, an intrinsic part of the moral formation of the pagan elites:
benefactors were praised in the highest terms, and the 4LkavOpwpia,
[ic yaao vXia and "amor civicus" which generated their actions were
deemed supreme virtues.
It is because the system was so distinctive and so central that recent
historians have found it uselful to attach a name to it: it has become
known as "euergetism", from the Greek euergetes, meaning a
benefactor. The manifestations of classical euergetism are familiar to us
largely through an extensive and increasing epigraphic record.
Euergetism went hand in hand with the "epigraphic habit", since, in the
first place, it was advantageous to donors to put their donations on
public record, while, from the other side, honours could be made
meaningful by being perpetuated in stone by a grateful recipient
community or its representatives. Thus the act of giving could be made
to serve not just the donor but his children and descendants, and the
social standing of an entire family could be enhanced.9

8. Paul Veyne, Bread and Circuses (abridged English translation, London,

1990), 103.
9. Veyne's landmark study appeared in French in 1976; Le pain et le cirque:
sociologie historique d'un pluralisme politique (Paris, 1976). Cf. A.R.
Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (London, 1968), chap. 2.
Other important studies tend to focus on individual foundations: recently, and
with bibliography, see Guy M. Rogers, "Demosthenes of Oenoanda and
Models of Euergetism", JRS 81 (1991), 91-100. See also a collection of
translated texts primarily for students of the New Testament: Frederick W.
Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament
Semantic Field (St Louis, 1982).

21
Tessa Rajak

Honorific decrees are often framed in the most lavish of terms.

Moreover, a city council's resolution that decrees should be inscribed
on a stele in a prominent place is itself sometimes listed as one of the
honours accorded to the honorand. It has been aptly pointed out that
there is a careful reciprocation in the transactions, with honours being
seen as due payment for services rendered. In fact, honours might well
be spoken of as having to be commensurate in quantity and quality with
the benefactions, as well as with the importance of the individual in
question. Honours ranged from crowns, wreaths, and titles, to front
seats at ceremonial occasions (npoESpiLa), the linking of parts of
festivals or of whole festivals to the name of the donor, statues in
precious metals, freedom from obligations, further and higher offices,
and perpetuation to eternity of some or all of these benefits.
There were evidently local and temporal variations in custom (it
would seem that honours became more elaborate as time went on), but
on the whole the system surprises us with its uniformity. One typical
instance - so typical, indeed, as to be described as "banale" by its editor
- will therefore suffice for illustration: in the decree of the city of Kyme
now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, which probably dates from the
Augustan period and which honours the prytanis Kleanax, it is on
record that this man's ancestral nobility of character (dµ.niOdXEa,
E&yEvrja[sic]) and his goodwill toward the people Eis had
made him overlook no opportunity of conferring benefit upon them.
combined with Ev66(3ELa had ensured extensive
subvention of the mysteries of Dionysus, with public banquets and, of
course, wine. His education of his son (obviously a future benefactor)
merited special comment. The imperial cult had been well served.
Altogether, an open and shut case for a gold crown. It is not clear, due
to defects in the stone, what other rewards Kleanax received. It is worth
pointing out that Kleanax does not appear to have belonged to the very
highest social stratum in Kyme.10

10. The inscription is published by Rene Hodot in Journal of the J. Paul Getty

22
 Jews as Benefactors

To get the honours right was vital in order to secure future services,
from the donor in question or from others, and sometimes the gifts
expected in the future are even spelled out in an inscription. Also, we
find a number of formulae in which the donor is described as an
example to others; and the actual inscription itself may also be explained
as being intended to inspire emulation. Indeed, it is in this light that the
various terms of praise for the generosity and the moral qualities of the
donor should be seen, especially the stress on the virtues of uko-tLµia
or fit? love of honour of glory - precisely those attributes
which Jews professed to disregard.11
An additional feature to be observed in certain inscriptions is that
there exists an opportunity for self-congratulation even for the givers-
of-thanks: to pay due acknowledgement is itself an act within the sphere
of public morality.12
It is clear that in the civic context and even more widely, on. the
regional and imperial levels, euergetism played a major economic role,
though how far it is right to analyse it ultimately in those terms is a
matter of disagreement: Paul Veyne would say rather little, stressing
that the self-gratification of the donor, and the accumulation of honour
and of power, are basic commodities in this kind of transaction, which
needs therefore to be analysed in terms of social relationships and not of
economic rationality. I shall not enter into these theoretical questions
here. What is more to the point is to notice that the same patterns of
language and behaviour operated also on a smaller scale, within the

Museum 9 (1982), 165-80; I owe my acquaintance with it to an unpublished

seminar paper given by Riet van Bremen at the Institute of Classical Studies,
London.
11. On philotimia manifested by gods when they are honoured, see the
interesting remarks of H.S. Versnel, "Religious Mentality in Ancient
Prayer", in H. Versnel (ed.), Faith, Hope and Worship: Aspects of Religious
Mentality in the Ancient World (Leiden, 1981), 51.
12. A striking example is Danker no. 15, from lasos.

23
Tessa Rajak

clubs and associations with which the cities proliferated. These too had
their patrons, their notables and their benefactors, and they too
honoured them in a variety of ways.13 We recall Polybius'
unforgettable remarks about those wealthy families in Boeotia who had
distributed the greater part of their fortunes among the clubs, so that
many Boeotians had more dinners in the month than there were days in
the calendar (XX, 6-7). In such a context, we quite often see
individuals of moderate means acting out the roles of the good and the
great.
Thus two major questions arise, when we come to consider the
Jews. First, did they have any role to play in the civic euergetism of
their environments, or rather was their reluctance to accept its principles
a factor which contributed to marginalizing them? Second, did they take
on board any aspect of these practices within their own organizations,
and if they did, are there any signs of limits being set to their adoption?
The protests of Philo and Josephus offer a background against which to
ask these questions.
The foreground, as with the study of pagan euergetism, is
necessarily epigraphic. Diaspora Jews, and in due course those in
Palestine too, participated in the "epigraphic habit" and, as is well
known, we have a body of inscriptions concerning benefactions within
a Jewish or Judaizing context. Baruch Lifshitz14 collected the majority
of them, a total of 102. His valuable collection with its commentary is
the basis for this study and, indeed, a stimulus to it. Those rare cases
where the benefaction is not synagogue-related, or ones where the
benefactor appears not to be a Jew, as well as those in languages other
than Greek, and of course those surfacing since 1967, are not included
in the volume. In contrast to Lifshitz, I shall take into account the small
number of relevant Latin inscriptions along with the Greek, though it is
hard sometimes to avoid the shorthand "Greek inscriptions", because

13. See Hands, op. cit (n. 9), 49-53.

14. Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris, 1976).

24
 Jews as Benefactors

that is what the bulk of them are. Aramaic and Hebrew material will
appear here only peripherally.
Our theme is the Jewish Diaspora. This delimitation introduces a
certain arbitrary element when it comes to inscriptions, and indeed, to
Jewish communities, since there is no hard-and-fast distinction between
a Diaspora Greek city, a city within Palestine but with a cosmopolitan
population, like Caesarea, one on the fringes of Palestine such as
Gadara, and one a little further afield but still within the same cultural
world, for example, Beirut. One might adopt the Talmudic definitions
of what was a Jewish city, but that would not advance matters very far.
If we stop for a moment to consider Jerusalem itself, we recall that it is
the provenance of one of our most important donor inscriptions, the text
about the refurbishment by Theodotus son of Vettenus of the
synagogue founded by his forbears (Lifshitz 79; CIJ II, 1404). We also
recall that the apparently Roman name "Vettenus" has encouraged a
communis opinio that this was a family of returnees from Rome; that,
then, is where the father and grandfather will have been
archisynagogoi. It becomes arbitrary to exclude even the Theodotus
inscription. Then again, in terms of cultural patterns, Syria seems to be
closer to Palestine sometimes than to what is regarded as the Diaspora.
We shall see an example of this later. A further complication is that,
when it comes to synagogue building within Palestine, donors are
recorded in the Galilean villages of the later Roman empire, and not
only in cities and towns, so we are no longer dealing with a civic
phenomenon; these inscriptions are more often in Hebrew or Aramaic
than in Greek.
These are very real problems and I do not pretend that I can see
exactly how they should be dealt with. They affect discussion of the
Greco-Roman Diaspora over a wide range of issues, and they suggest
that the Diaspora-Palestine distinction may not always be the most
useful one with which to operate, in writing the Jewish history of this
period. Now, however, I shall better stick to my brief and keep my
subject within limits, if I not only restrict the main discussion to texts in

25
Tessa Rajak

Greek or Latin, but also direct the focus onto those which technically
originate from outside Palestine.
There survive four reasonably extended texts concerning individual
benefactions in a Jewish context, apart from the Theodotus inscription.
One (from Berenice in Cyrenaica) in fact involves a non-Jewish patron
of the Jewish community. The Aphrodisias inscription, which is the
longest known Jewish inscription, concerns two groups of contributors
to a foundation, including both Jews (among them proselytes) and
sympathizers. Significant groups of benefactors are listed in the fourth
major text, once again from Berenice. Groups also appear in a series of
small inscriptions, as contributors to a mosaic floor in late fourth
century Apamea in Syria, and at Sardis where they contribute to the
wall-paintings of the synagogue, in much the same period. In the
synagogue of Naro (Hamman Lif), the mosaic was also paved
collectively. 15 The group at Hammath Tiberias does not concern us.
A few middle-length inscriptions are of enormous interest,
especially, perhaps, that concerning a woman called Tation in Phocaea,
Ionia -- whose Jewishness has also been doubted; that of the
refurbishers of Julia Severa's synagogue at Akmonia, Phrygia, where
the builder herself had been a pagan priestess; and that of Polycharmus,
the archisynagogos at Stobi, Macedonia.
Short texts are occasionally of special note, as is the dedication of
Publius Rutilius Ioses (thus disentangled by L. Robert, from the letters
PROUTIOSES), an dpXLQVVayu yos in Teos in Ionia
(Lifshitz 16; CIJ II, 744). Often enough, we are just dealing with
scraps, perhaps a name or a couple of names and a formula. All this is,
in fact, very far from the verbose world of pagan epigraphic benefaction
and honour. It may seem surprising, then, that I should claim the
possibility of drawing any conclusions at all about Jews and
euergetism. Yet a careful study, in which the dossier is considered as a

15. See Y. Le Bohec, "Inscriptions juives et judaisantes de 1'Afrique romaine",

Antiquitds Africaines 17 (1981), 165-70.

26
 Jews as Benefactors

whole rather than as individual items, throws up some striking

possibilities.
For this purpose, a body of 94 inscriptions was studied. This
number excludes those from Palestine, which Lifshitz included, but
adds to his list several items in the categories already mentioned,
including the Aphrodisias inscription, two items from Egypt, one
Ptolemaic and one Roman, some short texts from Hammam Lif and
Utica in Africa, an inscription from Ostia, and one from Philippopolis
(Plovdiv) in Thrace. While not every one of these can receive individual
discussion here, my general observations and tentative conclusions are
based on this corpus. I have not been able to take into account material
from Sardis, beyond what was known to Lifshitz, though when all of
this is eventually published, it will obviously be of very great
importance. A pair of inscriptions from the Samaritan community on
Delos, who, as is well known, describe themselves as Israelites from
Shechem, have here to be excluded from the reckoning, though not
because they are undeserving of attention.
The overwhelming majority of inscriptions, while giving the names
and sometimes the offices of donors, do not describe honours accorded
to them. If we compare the non-Jewish epigraphy, this is already a
striking fact, even taking into account the accidents of survival. Six post
third century Syrian inscriptions might be deemed an exception in that
they confer blessings on the donors or on their memories and in one
case on their children too; this pattern is also found in nine late texts
from Palestine, but nowhere else.
What of honours proper? Is there evidence that benefactors in the
Diaspora Jewish milieu were repaid with visible honours, as was
normal in a euergetistic system, but as should have been discouraged, if
the principles of Philo and Josephus meant anything?
It does seem to be the case that Jews did not honour one another with
statues. There is one possible exception, but it is a very dubious one.
This is an Egyptian fragment now in the Hermitage (Lifshitz 98), in
which one Artemon son of Nikon, eleven times a prostates, is

27
Tessa Rajak

recorded, apparently, as having given something to a synagogue

(probably that term is to be taken in the sense of "community"). This
inscription in fact derives from a statue base, no doubt belonging to
Artemon's honorific statue (a fact seemingly unknown to Lifshitz).
However, it seems that we should probably discount altogether any
Jewish attachment. A synagoge can also be a pagan grouping in Egypt
and other places, and there are no other indicators of Jewishness, even
if both Artemon and Nikon are names used by Jews. Were this to be
taken as a Jewish inscription, it would constitute a striking exception on
existing evidence-16
We now need to consider other kinds of honours conferred on
benefactors. There are five clear-cut instances, three from Cyrenaica. It
is important to note that all five may be described as in some sense
marginal. I use the word "marginal" neutrally, without begging any
questions, and its implications will emerge in the course of discussion.
One of the inscriptions from Berenice, now in Toulouse17, is a
virtually complete decree made at the sukkoth convention (m XXoyos)
honouring a certain M. Tittius, son of Sestus, evidently a Roman
official (E TrapXoc), who has been a patron both to the Jewish
noXLtcu µa and to individual members. He is to receive an olive wreath
and a wool fillet at each assembly (avvo8os) and at each new moon,
and the archons are to have the decree itself inscribed on marble in the
most prominent position in the amphitheatre. The garlanding may well
presuppose the existence of a statue. Tittius himself is described as a

16. For arguments against the Jewishness of this inscription, see William
Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt
(Cambridge, 1992), no. 20, where it is now newly edited. Cf. no. 26, for an
even more dubious case of what may have been a statue connected with a
possibly judaizing association.
17. G. Luderitz, Corpus jiidischer Zeugnisse aus der Cyrenaika, mit einem Anhang
von Joyce M. Reynolds (Beihefte zum Tubinger Atlas des vorderen Orients
Reihe B, 53, Wiesbaden 1983), no. 71.

28
 Jews as Benefactors

man KaXos Kay aya96s, but no further praise is offered. Arguably, no

more would be expected, however, at so early a date as this: the
inscription is perhaps even as early as the first century B.C., but more
likely belongs to the first half of the first century A.D.18 In general
terms, we see here a Jewish community honouring a pagan benefactor
in the established Greek way. The question arises whether the
amphitheatre was that of the city, in which the Jews as a group could
conceivably have had a share and perhaps their own patch, or an oval
building of their own, as was already proposed by Applebaum.19
Applebaum's solution would seem to be demanded by the sister
inscription, where the amphitheatre of Berenice figures prominently.
This decree honours M. Valerius Dionysius, also a Roman citizen, as
the tria nomina indicate (though no tribe is given) and it is now to be
found in Carpentras, of all places.20 For Dionysius had surfaced the
amphitheatre's floor and decorated its walls. His rewards are
comparable, with the addition of freedom from liturgies. But since
those liturgies can only be understood as those paid to the Jewish
politeuma (such terminology can be parallelled in pagan epigraphy in
the context of clubs and associations), Dionysius is normally taken as a
member of that no? itsv µa and therefore as a Jew. I cannot see any
way round this conclusion: we otherwise have to go to the lengths of
supposing that Dionysius has refurbished the city's amphitheatre, that
he has been honoured by the city's archons for it (the largely pagan
names given for the archons might support this) and that the Jewish
noXJteu µa, being a constituent part of the city, has joined with the
archons in endorsing those honours, as part of the give-and-take

18. The identification of the dating era remains uncertain. For the early dating,
see Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky, W. Tittius Sex. F. Aem. and the Jews of
Berenice (Cyrenaica)", AJPh 108 (1987), 495-510.
19. Shimon Applebaum, Jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrene (Leiden, 1979), 164-
7.
20. CJZC 70, with bibliography.

29
Tessa Rajak

process in a highly integrated city21. If we do not accept this last, rather

strained reconstruction, then we have here a case of a Hellenized and
Romanized Jew honoured in Greek style, just possibly even with a
statue, though that, it should be stressed, is nowhere mentioned in what
survives of the text. The alternative reconstruction would show us the
Jews as a community operating freely within the Greek euergetistic
pattern, in relation to an outsider and to the affairs of the city. Both
scenarios would be remarkable and the Berenice community was
indubitably a remarkable community. But we should treat it not as a
unique case to be explained away, but as a fortunate surviving instance
of what could be possible in certain circumstances.
At Akmonia in Phrygia, an interesting mixed environment of a
different kind,22 the three first century restorers of the synagogue
earlier established by Julia Severa were honoured by the community for
their virtuous benevolence and zeal with a golden shield (Lifshitz 33;
CIJ II, 766). The honour is a familiar one; so too are the virtues; but in
the Jewish world they stand out. The donations are explained as having
been made EK T63v isiwv, from the individuals' own resources. Of the
dedicators, one is a Roman citizen, P. Turronius Cladus; he and Lucius
son of Lucius are archisynagogoi, the former for life (Su (3tov),23 and
the third individual is described as an archon. Julia Severa, the
foundress, is attested as a pagan priestess on the city's coinage, while

21. I am grateful to Joyce Reynolds for discussing this problem with me.
22. On this environment, see A.R.R. Sheppard, "Jews, Christians and Heretics in
Acmonia and Eumeneia", Anatolian Studies 29 (1979), 169-80; P. Trebilco,
Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1991), 58-84. There is much
that is still of value in W.M. Ramsay, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia
vol. 1, part 2 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1897), who perhaps over-estimates
actual Jewish involvement in the society.
23. On the significance of this title, see T. Rajak and D. Noy, "Archisynagogoi:
Office, Title and Social 'Status in the Greco-Jewish Synagogue", JRS 83
(1993), 80-98.

30
 Jews as Benefactors

the Turronii were a well-known family in pagan Akmonia. The

presumption is that this Turronius Cladus, being an archisynagogos is
attached to the Jewish community (I deliberately put it no more strongly
than this). It makes sense that in such circles, the honour system should
be firmly rooted. It is noteworthy, on the other hand, that a degree of
restraint is observable in its application: there is no statue mentioned,
and the praise is modest.
In the old Greek colony of Phocaea, in Ionia, Tation daughter of
Straton, who was the son of Empedon, was honoured by the
synagogue for favours to the Jews (Lifshitz 13; CIJ II, 738). Some
have taken this formulation to suggest that she herself was not in any
real sense Jewish, which is certainly not to be excluded24. If this were
the case, then the construction of a meeting place (iKOs) and courtyard
for which she was honoured with a gold crown and rtpoe8pi,a (a front
seat) would be another instance of Jewish involvement in the wider
honour system of the city. We would be witnessing a mutual exchange
of courtesies, with Tation appearing on occasion in the synagogue to
take up her front seat. If Tation was Jewish, which is more likely, then
the gold crown is something to be remarked on; but so, too, perhaps, is
the absence of encomium. It is worth pointing out, however, that
Jewish communities appear to have had no' difficulty about awarding
gold crowns to rulers who were benefactors, and even displaying them
in (or perhaps in the entrance to) synagogues.25

24. See Trebilco, op. cit. (n. 19), 230, n. 34. On Tation, see also Bernadette J.
Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (Brown Judaic Studies 36
Chico, California, 1982), 143-4.
25. See Philo, Legatio 133, with discussion in E. Mary Smallwood Philonis
Alexandrini Legatio ad Gaium (Leiden, 1961), n. ad. loc., 220-1. To
Smallwood's list of Jewish honours to rulers from the Roman period, add
Alexander Scheiber, Jewish Inscriptions in Hungary (Budapest, 1983), no. 3:
a soldier who seems to be an archisynagogos, for the safety of Alexander
Severus.

31
Tessa Rajak

There are also two honorific decrees of a very fragmentary nature.

One from Samos, of which three fragments survive, is apparently a
decree by the presbyters of the Jews, and its concern seems to be with
honours. We can make out here some of the characteristic language of
the conferring of honours-26 The second is a damaged Latin text from
Castel Porziano, south east of Ostia, in which the word "universitas"
has been supplemented before "Iudaeorum" and a plot of land is given
to a gerousiarch, for a family tomb; this is done presumably, though
not explicitly, as a recompense for his services (CIJ 533).
An interesting and difficult document from Tlos in Lycia (CIJ 757)
has a citizen called Ptolemaios Leukios setting up a tomb for his family,
under public protection, though at his own expense, as a consequence
of his having held office - 5TrEp dpXOVTEias TEXOUµEVES. In this
formula, the office-holder is conceived of as a euergetes, who is owed
something by the city.
Now it is a possibility which we have to acknowledge that the donors
in the bulk of our inscriptions were simply not big enough people to
receive crowns, shields or garlands: had they been wealthy enough to
give on a large scale they might, it could be argued, have done so. The
lack of awards and eulogies would then tell us more about the economic
status of Jewish communities than about their values and beliefs. And
indeed many donations seem to be moderate, consisting in portions of a
synagogue floor or wall, or perhaps an accoutrement or vessel. Perhaps
one third of donors are not specified as title-holders.
Where there are groups of donors, the cost of an operation is split,
and separate names or groups of names may be recorded, but that
record, as one among many, is the only visible honour conferred. In the
case of the Berenice group of AD 56 (CJZC 72), where sums of money
are, uniquely, given, these range from ten drachmas from each of ten
archons of the community, and from one priest, to twenty eight from

26. ETLpJ Yav TrdaEs bb q[S] For the inscription see B. Lifshitz in
CIJ I, ed. 2, Prolegomenon, 89 (731f).

32
 Jews as Benefactors

one individual without office and twenty five from each of two others.
Further names are missing. The great new Aphrodisias inscription,
which lists those responsible for a mysterious memorial, gives a large
number of names, perhaps the entire roster of the equally opaque
dekania, which may or may not have included also the sympathizers on
the second face of the stone.27
It is tempting to argue that these and other group donations are
nothing less than another strategy to minimize the impact of the donor
and his or her wealth within the Jewish community, by asserting the act
of giving as a communal and equalizing activity, not a field for display,
for the exercise of power or the accumulation of privilege. The identity
of the sums given by each and every one of the listed Berenice archons
might support this case. Office-holding in that society carried its
obligations, but was scarcely a route to outshining others. Lists of
group donations are not unique to Jewish communities,28 but they do
seem to have taken root in the Jewish environment.
Our last major inscription, a 32-line text known since 1931, suggests
another strategy for taking the donor out of the limelight, and that is to
link the donation into the sphere of religious obligation. Claudius
Tiberius Polycharmus of Stobi in Macedonia could have been no mean
donor. This is suggested both by his Roman citizenship, evidently
predating A.D. 212 and by what he owned: a property with a courtyard
in the city large enough for him to hand over a major part of it, so that
its downstairs could serve as a synagogue and a communal facility. He
has the respected position of being father of the synagogue. But he
makes over the gift EvEKa, in fulfilment of a vow. That being
so, self-advertisement is not in order, and we do not find any in the

27 J. Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, "Jews and Godfearers at Aphrodisias"

(Cambridge Philological Society, supplementary volume 12, Cambridge,
1987).
28 See Hands, op.cit. (n.9), 51, for examples of collective donations in the
Greek world.

33
Tessa Rajak

text. The detailed record of the donation appears to be designed largely

to clarify the legal position, enshrining the right of Polycharmus and his
heirs to the upper storey of the house, and securing against any change
to the arrangements by the imposition of a fine to be paid to the
patriarch (presumably a local Jewish official). More recent excavations
have established something of an archaeological context for the
inscription, though its date remains controversial. Fresco fragments in
red on white repeat Polycharmus's name, with the formula TL(3ep.os
rrai p Evx7jv.29
The vow formula is repeated in numerous small inscriptions, to be
precise, we find it in 42 of them, in one form or another. In inscriptions
that can be established as later in date, the formula uTrEp aw-ri pLas
(pro salute) tends to take over, but to have the same implications. So
standard are they that it is hard to decide whether a real vow was to be
seen as underlying the donation in every case. These votive formulae
are perfectly well-known in pagan contexts, where they are normally
associated with various smaller or larger thank-offering dedications to
deities. But the high correlation of votive formulae with essential
building projects seems to be a distinctive feature of the Jewish
epigraphy.30
Yet another such strategy is what might be called the Sardis formula,
where a contribution, instead of being described as coming from the
individual's own resources in the customary fashion, is rather specified
as the gift of God, or, more often, of the divine npbvota. This formula

29 See J. Wiseman and D. Mano-Zissi, "Excavations at Stobi", AJA 75, 1971,

395-411; Martin Hengel, "Die Synagogeninschrift von Stobi", ZNTW 57
(1966), 145-83.
30 On votive formulae, cf. Lea Roth-Gerson, "Similiarities and Differences in
Greek Synagogue Inscriptions of Eretz-Israel and the Diaspora", in
Synagogues in Antiquity, eds. A. Kasher, A. Oppenheimer, U. Rappaport
(Jerusalem, 1987), 133-46. For the pagan context, W.H.D. Rouse, Greek
Votive Offerings (Cambridge, 1902).

34
 Jews as Benefactors

appears in Lifshitz 20, where the editor adduces later Christian material;
we now know, from circulated but unpublished texts, that it was
widespread in the city. There is one parallel from Aegina (CIJ 722),
Sardian variants are, EK T63v Tfs Trpovoias BoµtTwv and EK TCi)v
8opE6v TOV TravTOKpaTOpos OEou and, more concisely, just ek ton
tes pronoias. Tom Kraabel has in this symposium associated the
formula with the cultured neo-Platonist milieu of late Roman Sardis; but
the term npbvoLa for the deity is rooted in Greek-Jewish thought,
being quite at home in Josephus.31
The ultimate strategy comes in a late inscription from Scythopolis
(Beth She'an).32 This might be thought to represent a more extreme
self-effacement than anything from the Greco-Roman Diaspora,
because here the contributors to a sixth-century mosaic floor are
anonymous and we are explicity informed that their names are known to
God. Perhaps those names were not entirely unknown to friends and
neighbours either! Such a formula has affiliations, on the one hand,
with Palestinian Aramaic synagogue dedications, with their
characteristic Semitic request that the donor be remembered for good:
there is obvious mutual influence between the Aramaic and Greek styles
in Palestinian dedications, but the directions of influence are not easy to

31 On the synagogue inscriptions, see G.M.A. Hanfmann, "The Sixth Campaign

at Sardis (1963)", BASOR 174 (1964), 3-58 (30 ff., The Synagogue, by D.G.
Mitten; cf. A.T. Kraabel, "Impact of the Discovery of the Sardis Synagogue",
in Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times. Results of the Archaeological
Exploration of Sardis 1958-75, ed. G.M.A. Hanfmann (Cambridge, Mass.,
1983), 178-90.
32 See Lea Roth-Gerson, The Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in Eretz-
Israel (5X'101' y1K2 110=1-'r1W2 rl1']11,f 111.11r r Jerusalem, 1987), no. 9;
Frowald Huttenmeister and Gottfried Reeg, Die antiken Synagogen in Israel,
vol. I (Wiesbaden, 1977), 62, no. 4.

35
Tessa Rajak

disentangle.33 On the other hand, the formula points forward to

Christian epigraphy, which takes it up: a little text from Grado in
northern Italy, for example, both gives us the name of a donor and then
solemnly says "cuius nomen deus escit". We might also compare the
wording of the Aramaic inscription from the synagogue of Severus at
Hammath Tiberias: "may peace be to all those who donated in this holy
place and who in the future will donate."34 The different strategies I
have pointed to will not have been employed with equal enthusiasm in
all communities at all times. Local patterns can be dimly discerned. Yet
it is not fanciful to detect also a certain consistency of principle, limits
beyond which Jewish communities could not allow themselves to go in
adopting local modes of giving and of honouring, limits which allow us
to suggest that somewhere in this area lay one of the defining marks
which were seen by Diaspora Jews as distinguishing them from their
neighbours. If this suggestion is right, then they will have been striking
an extremely delicate balance, doing things the Greek way up to a point,
but stopping short where it mattered to them. It is the setting of that
sticking point which constitutes the art of Diaspora living, and perhaps
the art of being an ethnic or religious minority of any kind.

33 For discussion of Greek influence on the Hebrew/Aramaic formulae, see Roth-

Gerson, op.cit (n. 30); for another angle on the formulae, Gideon Foerster,
"Ancient Synagogue Inscriptions and their Relation to Prayers and
Blessings" (,hail n:7,o "v o'noii' Sn7+11 t:,,+nyn noa -r n m=o, ;1,7nr 19
(1981), 12-46. For donation in Palestine, A. Kindler, "Donations and Taxes
in the Society of the Jewish Villages in Eretz Israel during the third to sixth
centuries C.E.", in Synagogues in Antiquity (see n. 25), 55-6; also in R.
Hachlili, ed., Ancient Synagogues in Israel. Third-Seventh Century C.E. (BAR
International Series, 499, Oxford, 1989). For Aramaic and Hebrew texts, see
J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic (n1'i2y,'11 n1'nlx;i n131m,1 :ptt1 oID'09 5y
t3lpir y7 Tel-Aviv, 1979)
34 See M. Dothan, "The Aramaic Inscription from the Synagogue of Severus at
Hamat Tiberias", Eretz Israel 8 (1967), 183-5 (Hebrew); 73-4 (English).

36
 Jews as Benefactors

We might go further, and suggest that there are some practices of

features of life in the host community which will acquire a symbolic
value. They are perceived as a danger area, standing for what is alien,
controversial, impermissible. This conscious distancing from selected
items in a culture is as significant a part of acculturation as the
corresponding, and more often remarked on, process of selective
appropriation.
Jews in the cities were not outside the framework of euergetism.
Indeed, within it they manifested a complex interaction with the society
around them. Through its agency, important political gestures were
made. A pagan woman might build a synagogue; so might a centurion
in Palestine, who sympathized with Judaism (Acts 10--11). A Roman
administrator might be honoured in an amphitheatre. There are even
possible instances of Jews making contributions to pagan cults: at
Iasos, a Jerusalemite called Niketas son of Jason, specified as a
.L towcos, contributed to the Dionysia, and two further donors are
described as Iouda (CIJ 749). At Smyrna, of Hots 'IouSaioL,
participate in honouring Hadrian, appearing in a 45-line list of donors
(CIJ 742). This last phrase is particularly intriguing.
At the same time, it is hard to believe that the absence in the Jewish
epigraphy of virtually all the language in which the transactions of
euergetism can be conducted can be no accident. To enter the Jewish
world, as a sympathizer or proselyte, would have been to learn a new
dialect of a familiar language.
For Paul Veyne, Christian society substituted charity for euergetism -
to his mind, an entirely different concept,35 involving a radical
redefinition of philanthropy. In the new version, individual self-
gratification is" no longer the leading currency of privilege. Veyne
suggests more than once that the changed concept had its roots in
Judaism; and in a general sense this must be right. But I am not sure
that this sharp dichotomy can deal adequately with a very complex

35 op. cit. (n. 9), 19-34.

37
Tessa Rajak

process of change. As far as the Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora

go, the evidence for charitable foundations is slight indeed. Still, we
can now say that if the ndttekka of the Aphrodisias inscription was
indeed a soup kitchen ('1nnn), as Reynolds and Tannenbaum, its
editors, inventively propose,36 then we would have, through that one
word, extraordinary epigraphic evidence of a real alternative to civic
pride and self-aggrandizement, set in a judaizing context, yet close to
the heart of the city, and involving even town councillors of pagan
Aphrodisias. I have to confess, however, that I have my doubts about
that ndete? a - though what it was, I cannot tell you.

36 op. cit. (n. 24), 26-8.

38
 JEWISH RIGHTS IN THE ROMAN WORLD:
NEW PERSPECTIVES

MIRIAM PUCCI BEN-ZEEV*

The subject of the rights enjoyed by the Jews in the Roman world
has been dealt with thoroughly by contemporary scholars. Most of
these rights are mentioned by Josephus, mainly in his Antiquitates;
they included the right to observe the Sabbath (Ant. XIV 227, 242;
245-6; 258; 262-4; XVI 168); the right to observe Jewish festivals
(Ant. XIV 257-8, 263; XVI 167-8); the corollary right not to have to
appear in court on Sabbath, or on the day of preparation for it (Sabbath
Eve) after the ninth hour (Ant. XVI 27 and 163; 168); the right to build
synagogues (Ant. XIV 258 and perhaps 261); the right of assembling
together in order to perform Jewish rites (Ant. XIV 241-3; 260); the
right to hold communal banquets for religious purposes (Ant. XIV
214- 216); the right to contribute annually the half shekel to the Temple
in Jerusalem (Ant. XIV 112-3; 235; 259-261; XVI 163; 166-172); the
right to follow special dietary regulations, with the corollary right of
having the oil-tax refunded to them, so that they could use their own oil
instead of that distributed by the gymnasiarchs (Ant. XII 119-120);
permission to hold a special market (Ant. XIV 259-261); exemption
from military service (Ant. XIV 223-234; 236-240; indirectly XVI 27-
57). In Judea, Jews enjoyed exemption from taxation every seven years
so as to enable them to observe the sabbatical year (Ant. XIV 200-
202).
Some of these rights are also mentioned in the Bellum (11,591) and
in the Vita (74), as well as by Philo: for example, the right to observe

* My thanks to Prof. David Asheri for reading this work and to Fay Lipshitz for
her assistance in tidying my English
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

the Sabbath, which is implied by the right to receive on Sundays the

monthly distributions of money or food when they happened to be
given out on the Sabbath (Leg. 158).
The question of Josephus' reliability has also been dealt with
thoroughly by contemporary research. Most hypotheses raised since the
beginning of this century concerning the nature of Josephus' sources
are still recognized as possibly valid by contemporary research of the
last ten years: actually, none of them can be proved to be the only true
one, but this does not create any problem, inasmuch as these
hypotheses do not actually exclude one another.
It is possible that Josephus used a collection of documents already
gathered together by Nikolaos of Damascus, which probably appeared
in books 123 and 124 of his Universal History: this hypothesis of
Niese and Viereck is still considered valid by modern scholars (see the
works of Sherk, Stern and Rajakl). This does not exclude the
possibility that Josephus also cited documents which he himself found
engraved on bronze tablets on the Capitol, as he states (Ant. XIV 188;
265-7). As to Moehring's negative evaluation of this claim of Josephus,
this has been rejected both by Saulnier and by Rajak.2 In addition,

1. R.K.Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East, Baltimore 1969, note 7,
p.6; M.Stern, "Nicolaus of Damascus as a Source for Jewish History in the
Herodian and Hasmonean Periods", Studies in Bible and Jewish History
Dedicated to the Memory of Jacob Liver, Tel Aviv 1971, 375-94 and in Greek
and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, I, Jerusalem 1974, 227-33 and T.
Rajak, "Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?", JRS 74, 1984, note 12,
p.110.
2. Against Moehering's negative view on this point [H. Moehering, "The Acta
pro Judaeis in the Antiquitates of Flavius Josephus", Christianity, Judaism,
and other Greco-Roman Cults, ed. J. Neusner, Leiden 1975,124-158] see the
works of Saulnier, who thinks that Josephus could have used the documents
restored by Vespasianus [Chr. Saulnier, "Lois romaines sur les Juifs selon
Flavius Josephe", Rev.Bib.,88,1981,n.4, p.163] and those of Tessa Rajak,
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

Josephus could also have used local archives. Rajak stresses the
importance of the natural ties between Diaspora communities, which
facilitated the effective diffusion of texts and encouraged appeal to
precedent. Josephus may well have visited Jews around the Greek
world during the time when he was writing his Antiquitates, for his
life in Rome spanned some twenty years: therefore local archives could
also have assisted him.3
It seems that a kind of consensus has been reached in these last ten
years: a mixed origin is the most likely explanation.
A similar consensus seems to have been reached about Josephus'
apologetic purposes in citing his documents, purposes which are to be
held responsible not only for the fact that he cites only documents
favourable to the Jews, omitting all documents directed against them,
but also for the fact that he concentrates on the public aspect, ignoring
evidence which might establish the details of private life among Jews in
the sphere of private law-4
Clearly, Josephus is more concerned with the general theme of
esteem for the Jews than with the details of Jewish status (Ant. XIV
187-8); he is interested in the use of the documents in political
arguments, and much less in their exact legal content.5 His political
aims were intended for a broad public, and were relevant for the period
in which he was writing. To the Roman reader, he wanted to show the
old tradition on which the Jewish rights were based. To the Greeks, he

who admits the possibility that parts of the archives somehow survived
[art.cit. 1984 in note[1], note 13, p.111; T. Rajak, "Jewish Rights in the
Greek Cities under Roman Rule: a New Approach", Approaches to Ancient
Judaism, ed.W.S.Green, vol. 5, Studies in Judaism and Its Greco-Roman
Context, Brown Judaic Studies, 32, Atlanta 1985, note 11, p.33].
3. Art.cit.1984 in n.[1] ,p.118; art.cit.1985 in n.[2], n.11,p.33.
4. A.M.Rabello, "The Legal Condition of the Jews in the Roman Empire",
ANR W, II, 13, 1980, p.682.
5. Rajak, art.cit. 1984 in n.[1], p.121.

41
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

wished to emphasize that the Jews throughout the Roman world stood
under the special protection of the Roman senate. As Rajak rightly
perceives, his work was a tool to foster peace between Jews and
Greeks, through the acceptance by pagans of the practice of the Jewish
religion among Greeks and that of paganism by Jews, as Josephus
himself states: "It was necessary for me to cite these facts, because this
version of our history is meant to go chiefly to Greeks, so as to show
them that in earlier times we were treated with every respect and were
not prevented by those in power from practising any of our ancestral
customs, but were even assisted by them in our cult and in honouring
God. And if I often mention these texts it is in order to reconcile the
nations and to eliminate the causes of hatred which have taken root in
the thoughtless among us and among them" (Ant. XVI 174-175). The
same ideas appear also in Ant. XIV 186.
To the Jews, both Judean and Diaspora Jews,6 the message was
clear: if the Romans, as the source of the Jewish freedom to follow the
law of Moses, did not revoke these rights even after they had crushed
the Judean rebellion of 66-70 CE, then clearly it would be criminal
madness ever again to endanger the peaceful relations between Rome
and the Jews.7
The insertion of documents in Josephus' narrative is not, in any
case, something new: it belongs to an established literary tradition,
which we already find in Ezra and in the first and second book of the
Maccabees; this fact, and the political aims which lay behind Josephus'
extensive use of documents, have nothing to do with the main question
which has always been asked by scholars, namely, whether or not
Josephus quotes from real existing documents. As Efron did dealing
with the revolt of the Maccabees, we, too, could write a survey of the

6. See L.Troiani,"I lettori delle Antichita giudaiche di Giuseppe: prospective e

problemi", Athenaeum 64, 1986, 343-353.
7. H.R.Moehring, "Joseph ben Matthia and Flavius Josephus: the Jewish
Prophet and Roman Josephus", ANRW, II, 21, 2, 1984, p.894.

42
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

attitude of scholars over the last two centuries towards the authenticity
of the documents cited by Josephus. In the nineteen-thirties, the well-
known article of Bikermann constituted a turning point.8 Since then, in
spite of the corruptions in the text, the order in which the documents are
arranged, and the sometimes uncertain dates, contemporary research
tends to consider the documents cited by Josephus as genuine. The
frequent errors and displacements of names and dates, some strange
intrusions and the somewhat haphazard order of the material only show
the various vicissitudes of the process of transmission. Nor does the
burning of the archives of the Capitol in Rome in 69 CE constitute
proof against the authenticity of the documents, as Rajak rightly
shows.9 Even if Josephus' claim that he himself consulted the original
documents in the Capitol is a literary device, this does not prove that the
documents he cites are not authentic. Sherk has shown also that most
Latin authors who refer to Roman decrees, such as Livy, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, Appian and Diodorus, may never have consulted the
originals at all. They were usually content with the second-hand
information they found in the works of their predecessors.10 To-day,
most scholars seem to agree that in spite of their mistakes, faults and
imprecisions, the documents mentioned by Josephus are apparently
authentic: every new investigation serves to confirm that their formal
features are correct for genre and period. It seems that Josephus does
quote real, existing documents.11 Of course, a comparison between the
documents quoted by Josephus and the Romans' grants to other

8. E. Bikermann, "Une question d'authenticite: Les privileges juifs", Annuaire

de l'Institut de Phil. et d'Hist. Orient. et Slaves, 13, 1953,11-34 = Studies in
Jewish and Christian History, Leiden 1980, 24-43.
9. Art.cit. 1984 in n.[1], p.111.
10. Op.cit. in n.[1], 5-6.
11. Rabello, art.cit, in n.[4], 682; D.Piattelli, Concezioni giuridiche e metodi
costruttivi dei giuristi orientali, Milano 1981, 37; Saulnier, art.cit. in n [2];
Rajak, art.cit. 1984. in n.[1], 109 and art.cit. 1985 in n.[2], note 3, p.33;

43
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

peoples, surviving in Greek epigraphical texts, would be very

instructive for a decisive word on the question, and this is definitely a
subject which deserves the attention of scholars in the future.12
One of the questions still open in contemporary research is that of the
significance to be given to the Jewish rights mentioned by Josephus. I
do not mean the value and importance of the Roman decrees, letters,
edicts and rescripts mentioned by Josephus. It is well known that they
were important theoretically rather than in practice. Their theoretical
importance is clear from the repeated mentions in the work of Josephus,
since they testified to the honour and respect in which the Jews were
held by the Romans. In practical life, however, they were often not
effective at all, and of little help to the Jews when a controversy arose
between them and the Eastern Greeks. Often the Roman grants in
favour of the Jews were ignored by the Greek cities, and had to be
issued again and again. This feature is in keeping with the habitual lack
of interest shown by the Roman administration towards what happened
after their decrees had been issued.13 In the case of the Jews, the non-
effectiveness of Roman support is clear from the Ilnd century BCE
onwards. The Roman letter which appears in II Maccabees 11, 34-38,
is defined by Gruen14 as expressing polite courtesies, a gesture to the
envoys rather than an index of senatorial policy. As to the cordial
response of the senate to the envoys of Jonathan in 144, the results,
again, were negligible. Fighting in Judea continued, Jonathan himself
perished, and the Romans stayed away. This is in keeping with what is

M.Hadas-Lebel, "L'image de Rome aupres des Juifs 164-70", ANRW II, 20,
1987, 789.
12. See the doubts expressed by Moehering, art.cit. in n.[2].
13. See J.S.Richardson, Roman Provincial Administration 227 BC to AD 117,
Basingstoke, Hampshire 1976, repr. 1984, p. 140 and D. Braund,
"Introduction: the Growth of the Roman Empire", in: The Administration of
the Roman Empire 241 BC- AD 193, ed. D. Braund, Exeter 1988, p.3.
14. E.S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, vol.II,1984, 746.
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

known about Romans' foedera with other minor states and cities: the
summakia with Rhodes, for example, did not in practice give Rhodes
any concrete claims on the Romans. It had a symbolic rather than a
pragmatic purpose: a gesture of Roman indulgence toward an inferior
power. The Romans' relations with Judean Jews were similar: polite
nods in the direction of their interests. Gruen calls Roman-Jewish
treaties in the IInd century BCE "ceremonial pacts".15 In the first
century BCE, the situation was very similar. Roman decrees in favour
of the Jews were sometimes not effective at all, and often had to be
issued repeatedly. This does not constitute an unicum. In the case of
Mitylene too, Rome's amicitia and societas had to be issued a number
of times during the first century BCE: similarly, the privileges granted
to Stratoniceia had also to be confirmed.16 I do not intend to deal here
either with the problem of the Greek-Jewish-Roman relationship in the
Greek cities of the Roman Diaspora, which has been thoroughly
examined by Arie Kasher and by Tessa Rajak.17
The basic question which I mean to focus upon is that of the meaning
of the Jewish rights mentioned by Josephus in the Roman legal sphere.
The commonly accepted traditional interpretation is that Josephus'
decrees testify to the existence, in Rome, of legislation regarding the
Jews, which was formulated by Caesar and came to replace the ad hoc
resolutions taken till then. This legislation, which was later confirmed
by Augustus and the emperors who came after him, had a permanent
and general character: it applied to all Jews in every part of the Roman

15. Gruen, op.cit. in n.[141,1, 46.

16. Sherk, op.cit. n.[1], n.26 "Epistulae et Senatus Consulta de Mytilenaeis",
pp.147-151 and n. 30 "Senatus Consultum de Rebus Stratonicensium", pp.
172-3.
17. A. Kasher has devoted much research to this topic: see for example "The
Rights of the Jews of Antioch on the Orontes", Am. Academy for Jewish
Research, 1982, especially 75-76, 83-84; T. Rajak, art. cit. 1985 in n.[2],
26-27.

45
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

empire, from the times of Caesar till Christian times. According to this
interpretation, Roman decrees testify to the privilegia enjoyed by the
Jews, privilegia which formed a kind of a 'Magna Carta'. Since
Niese's and Juster's times, and even more so after Bikermann
convinced contemporary scholarship of the necessity of believing in
Josephus and his decrees, virtually every scholar who has dealt with the
subject, has accepted this picture.18
And then, in the eighties, came the work of Tessa Rajak, which
brought about a revolution in the field. Tessa Rajak thought to
invalidate this theory in its entirety. In two articles which already
constitute a 'must' in scholarship, and which every university student
will have to learn by heart, Tessa Rajak showed that the grants given by
the Romans to the Jews had in fact a very narrow and limited
significance. Not only did these decrees arise from personal
connections (which imparts to them a degree of potential impermanence
or instability), and not only were they always issued on Jewish request,
but they were always, and this is the main point, geographically local
and chronologically limited. This means that every decree had value
only in a certain place and at a certain time. The fact that their
significance was extremely limited in space and time means that the
Jews were not protected by a special legal status, and no permanent and
general legislation existed for the Jews in Rome.19 This new approach
to Roman decrees in favour of the Jews, which has already been

18. E.M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, Leiden 1976, 128; Rabello,
art. cit. 1980 in n[4], 662-762; Saulnier, art.cit. n[2], 161; M. Reinhold,
Diaspora - The Jews among the Greeks and Romans, Sarasota and Toronto
1983, 74; F. Blanchetiere, "Les Juifs et l'autre: la Diaspora asiate" Etudes sur
le JudaIsme hellenistique. Congres de Strasbourg (1983), ed. R. Kuntzmann -
J. Schlosser, Lectio Divina 119, Paris 1984,50-51; Hadas-Lebel, art. cit. in
n.[11], 789-93; A.M. Rabello, Giustiniano, ebrei e samaritani alla luce delle
fonti storico-letterarie, ecclesiastiche e giuridiche, I, Milano 1987, 46.
19. See bibliographical details in n.[1] and n.[2].
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

accepted by recent scholarship,20 seems to accord with the results of

the most recent studies about Roman provincial legislation. In 1987, for
example, Galsterer arrived at the conclusion that no lex municipalis
existed in Rome which organized the local administration of provinces
or cities in a uniform way. There were only laws which dealt with
specific matters which had a purely local character.21
But the question of the existence, or non-existence of Roman
legislation concerning the Jews is not a simple one, and cannot be
answered until it can be viewed against the background of the
testimonies of the extant epigraphical sources relating to Roman policy
towards other conquered populations. Until a comparative study of this
kind is accomplished, there are some minor, and not so minor items
which demand further investigation. In fact, Tessa Rajak's new
approach to the documents mentioned by Josephus makes necessary a
revision of some topics commonly accepted by contemporary research.
One of these is the presupposition that the Romans' grants to the
Jews constituted privilegia, as we have been accustomed to think since
Juster's time. It is Josephus who gives rise to this interpretation, calling
the Jewish rights philanthropa, dedomena, synkechoremena.
According to Juster, each right was a privilegiurn, which would mean a
legal enactment concerning a specific person or case and involving an
exemption from common rules.22 Most scholars continue to use
Juster's terminology, and consider Jewish rights as privileges.23 Is this
approach still valid? In order to better evaluate the nature of the rights
given to the Jews, we should first of all ask ourselves if they are of the

20. See, for example, Troiani, art.cit. in n.[6], 348-9.

21. H. Galsterer, "La loi municipale des Romains. Chimere ou realite?", Revue
Historique de Droit francois et etranger. 65, 1987,181-203.
22. J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'empire romain, I, Paris 1914, 213; on the nature,
formation and evolution of the Jewish privileges, see pp. 213-242.
23. Reinhold, op.cit. in n.[18], 74; A.M. Rabello, A Tribute to J.Juster. The
Legal Condition of the Jews under Visigothic kings, brought up-to-date,

47
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

same kind as the privileges which the Romans usually gave to

conquered peoples. If we consult the list of privilegia commonly
granted by the Romans to Greek individuals and to Greek cities, which
Sherk derives from epigraphical documents, we find the grant of
Roman citizenship (politeia), of freedom and autonomy (eleutheria,
authonomia), inviolability (asulia), and a number of exemptions:
immunity from compulsory public service (alsitourghesia), exemption
from the payment of taxes or tribute (aneisphoria), freedom from
billeting of any kind (anepistathmeia) and freedom from military
service (astrateusia).24
Of all the grants mentioned by Josephus that were given to the Jews,
only one fits this category of privilegia with any certainty, and that is
the exemption from military service granted at Ephesus in 49 BCE to
Jews who were Roman citizens, and again in 43 BCE. The right to
send the half shekel to Jerusalem in the sixties BCE is still open to
question, as Marshall's article on Flaccus and the Jews of Asia
shows.25 The other grants given by the Romans to the Jews do not
seem to involve a deviation from common Roman law. The contrary
seems to be true. Roman grants to the Jews seem to be in keeping with
the usual Roman way of relating to conquered peoples. If we look at the
history of patterns of Roman behaviour, we find that the Roman
administration shows a considerable amount of flexibility when dealing
with local customs and traditions. A number of recent important studies
on this topic come to a similar conclusion: Roman policy was a policy

Jerusalem 1976, 220; by the same author see also art. cit.1980 in n.[4], 692
and op.cit. in n.[18], 46; Moehering, art.cit.1984 in n.[7], 896-7.
24. Sherk, op.cit. in n.[1], 193. For a later period see F.Millar, The Emperor in
the Roman World, (31 BC- AD 337) London 1977, 420-434.
25. A.J. Marshall, "Flaccus and the Jews of Asia (Cicero, ProFlacco, 28,67-69)",
Phoenix, 29, 1975, 139-154.

48
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

of maintaining the status quo ante, relying on local traditions.26 Much

changed in Rome between 241 BCE and 193 CE, Braund writes, yet
throughout this period the very essence of Roman administration
continued to be local self-administration. In general, local
administration continued to operate in accordance with local traditions.
For the most part, Rome was willing to tolerate the wide variety of local
structures and practices which existed within her empire, provided that
these did not conflict substantially with her twin priorities - the
maintenance of order in the broadest sense and the collection of taxes.
In all parts of the empire, local cultures continued to flourish and gained
some recognition under Roman law. Jews were not an exception. A
comparison between Roman grants to Jews mentioned by Josephus and
some details of Roman legislation about other provincial populations
would be very instructive. For the recent discovery in Spain of the Lax
Irnitana, and its publication in 1986, shows that it, too, like Josephus,
mentions the right to hold common funds, to meet expenses for
religious observance and dinners which are to be provided. We also
learn that whoever is in charge of the administration of justice is not
allowed to sit in judgement ... on the days which are regarded in that
municipium as feast-days.27
The grants given to the Jews, therefore, are not automatically to be
considered privilegia, and have to be examined separately. It is true
that the Jews had particular requirements and demands connected with
their belief and cult. We have been accustomed to think that these needs
constituted something extraordinary and special, which necessitated the
grant of privileges. We should remember, though, that there were other

26. M.W. Baldwin Bowsky, "Roman Arbitration in Central Crete. An Augustean

proconsul and a Neronian Procurator", The Classical Journal, 82, 1987, 218-
229; G. Burton, "Government and the Provinces", in: The Roman World, ed.
J. Wacher, I, London 1987, 423-439; and Braund, art.cit. in n[13].
27. K.J. Gonzales, "The Lex Irnitana: a new copy of the Flavian municipal law",
JRS, 76, 1986, 147-243.

49
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

population groups, which had special requirements and needs and with
whom the Roman empire had to cope. The Roman empire was large. It
is not necessary to assume that in each case the Romans had to grant
privilegia.
The problem of the Roman legislation about the Jews is, however,
not easily resolved. Let us take Josephus' testimony. No doubt, most
decrees in favour of the Jews mentioned in the Antiquitates were
chronologically and geographically limited. But a few of them display a
general character. There is a diatagma, for example, sent by Augustus
to Norbanus Flaccus, insisting that the Jews may follow their own
customs by transmitting money to Jerusalem (Ant. XVI 160-166).
Here, as Tessa Rajak rightly stresses, the Jews are mentioned in a
general way. Josephus' words find confirmation in Philo, whose
version of the document, though different, also speaks unambiguously
of Jews everywhere (Leg. 311-317). Similarly unambiguous is
Claudius' edict in Ant. XIX 289 reinstating the rights granted by
Augustus to the Jews, which finds confirmation in CPJ, 11,153, col.I,
1.83. Tens of times Josephus mentions, in different chronological and
geographical contexts, the fact that the Jews were allowed to follow
their ancestral laws and customs (nomoi and ethe) and if we take into
account all the edicts, rescripts, senatorial decrees, letters of provincial
governors and council resolutions mentioned by Josephus, we see that,
taken all together, and in spite of the local character of each of them,
they show consistency both in time and space. We find no
contradiction, no deviation, no innovation. The decrees are local
because the circumstances which required their issue were local. But the
Roman decisions appear always in favour of the status quo, namely in
favour of the conservation of rights traditionally enjoyed by the Jews.
From what we can judge from this material, we see that the basic rights
enjoyed by the Jews were never questioned nor withdrawn by Roman
authorities. The right to have freedom of religious practice, to build new
synagogues, to assemble for prayer and for common meals, the right to
send the holy money to Jerusalem, seem never to have been revoked by

50
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

the Romans. What happened in Asia Minor in the days of Flaccus, and
in Jerusalem and Alexandria at the time of Caligula seems to have been
exceptional. We get an impression of consistency in time (from the age
of Caesar to Josephus' time at least) and in space (Egypt, Asia Minor,
Syria, Rome itself). This consistency gives rise to an impression of
stability; the impression that somehow the Jewish cult was permitted by
the Roman laws.
The picture is apparently a contradictory one. On the one hand,
decrees about the Jews display a "here and now" character only. On the
other hand, we find patterns of constancy and consistency.
Actually, no contradiction is involved if we take into consideration a
basic distinction which existed in the Roman empire between situations
recognized de iure, by official laws, and situations recognized de
facto, which never found expression in written laws, and sometimes
not even in written sources. From the recent research cited above28 it
emerges that this distinction is of fundamental importance for the
understanding of the Romans' dealings with the peoples who lived
under their rule. A distinction of this kind between legal rights and
situations recognized de facto can also be useful for the understanding
of the Jews' legal condition in the Roman world, as Marshall's work
shows.
It is not altogether impossible, therefore, against the background of a
generally accepted de facto situation, namely, Jewish freedom of cult
and a kind of jurisdictional autonomy, that from time to time, on special
occasions and always on Jewish initiative, the Romans could specify
and give public recognition to particular rights traditionally enjoyed by
the Jews. These rights could have been engraved, on Jewish request,
on bronze tablets, both in the Capitol, as Josephus claims (Ant. XIV
188, 265-7) and in Eastern Greek cities. In other words, we could have
a situation fluctuating between a general de facto recognition of
freedom of cult - in accordance with the Romans' general granting of

28. Burton's, Baldwin Bowsky's and Braund's works cited in n.[13] and n.[26].

51
Miriam Pucci Ben-Zeev

freedom to local cultures and traditions - and specific rights legally and
officially granted to the Jews of a certain place at a certain time. An
undefined situation of this kind could give, both to the Greek cities and
to the Jews (and to Josephus) the possibility of playing things as they
wanted.
But it is not impossible that general legislation did exist. A brief
investigation of the local charters given by the Romans to other
population groups suggests the necessity of further research. In the case
of other such local charters, for example, doubts have been cast upon
their legal value. Frederiksen was one of the first scholars to express a
different view, showing that often local charters, in spite of their faults
and mistakes, do in fact reflect acts of legislation in Rome. Local
charters were often engraved on bronze tablets, which have survived.
The wooden copy deposited in the aerarium in Rome did not survive.
That is why in many cases only the copies sent to the provinces are
extant to-day.29 Galsterer seems to be of the same opinion. One copy
of the law, he writes, given by the Romans to a specific population
group, either on papyrus or wax, remained in the archives of that city.
Maybe another copy was made. Then the law was engraved on bronze
tablets in the same city. If another copy arrived at Rome, it is not
known to us and can only be hypothetical. The fact that the original
copy in Rome did not survive should not therefore be considered as
proof that the so-called local charters, like the Lex Tarentina and the
Spanish inscriptions, had no legal value.30
It also happened that decrees were issued by Roman governors and
only later were ratified by the senate. In the case of the grants given by
Caesar, for instance, Frederiksen maintains that the lex Antonia de
actis Caesaris confirmandis, issued in June 44 BCE and mentioned by
Cicero (quae statuisset, decrevisset, egisset: Att.16, 16 c, 11) could

29. M.W. Frederiksen, "The Republican Municipal Laws: Errors and Drafts" JRS,
55, 1965, 183-198.
30. Galsterer, art.cit. in n.[21].

52
 Jewish Rights in the Roman World

have included some decisions whose final ratification was still wanting,
like the senatusconsultum on the Jews mentioned by Josephus (Ant.
XIV 221).31 Thus we can not completely rule out the possibility that
Jewish rights were not only recognized de facto, but also by a Roman
legislation whose records did not survive: the matter surely requires
further investigation.

31. Frederiksen, art.cit. in n.[29], 194.

53
 JEWS AND JEWISH NAMES IN THE
BOSPORAN KINGDOM

IRINA A. LEVINSKAYA
and SERGEI R. TOKHTAS'YEV

It is generally accepted that Jews came to the Bosporan kingdom in

the Ist century A.D. It is from this time that their presence is testified by
the inscriptions - manumissions, mentioning the Jewish community
(ovvaywyr) -rc3v 'Iou6aE wv) and the Jewish prayer house
(npo(yEVA)1 . But some scholars have expressed the opinion that this
date needs correction. For instance, M.I. Rostovtzeff considered that it
was through the initiative of Mithridates that Jews appeared in this
area2. Though he did not produce arguments in support of his
proposition, he was obviously thinking of the change in the ethnic
composition of the Bosporan kingdom at the time of Mithridates
Eupator. At this period a great number of immigrants from Thrace and
Asia Minor first appear in the Bosporan kingdom. So it would be
reasonable to conclude that some Jews also came to the Bosporus at that
time. B. Nadel also wrote that he was absolutely sure that the date had
to be changed for an earlier one, but he found difficulties in fixing upon
the correct one.3
The epigraphical evidence for a Jewish presence in this region covers
the period from the Ist to the early Vth century. This period was very

1 CIRB 70, 71, 72 (= CU I2, N 683, 683a, 683b), cf. CIRB 985 (= CIJ I2 N
691) with the unconvincing restoration 'Anoa[hwvL).
2 M. Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (Oxford, 1922) 150.
3 B.I. Nadel, Bosporskiye manumissii (Diss. Leningrad, 1947), 146f.
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

important for religious life in the Bosporan kingdom.

Greeks appeared in the territory of the Cimmerian Bosporus at the
beginning of the Vlth century B.C. They brought with them from their
homeland a ready-made religious system. Their contacts with the local
population and the fact that representatives of the local inhabitants took
part in the life of Greek poleis, had some sort of influence on the
Bosporan religion. However, from the extant religious monuments and
inscriptions it is clear that among the Greek-speaking population the
cults of Greek origin or oriental cults long ago adopted by Greeks (such
as that of Cybele for instance) were widespread. In other words the
Bosporan cults can be regarded as a part of traditional pagan Greek
religion. This situation continued till the beginning of the Ist century
A.D. which means that important changes in the religious life of the
Mediterranean, characteristic of the Hellenistic period, did not have
much effect on the Bosporan kingdom. The reasons for this were the
great distance between the state and the main centres of the
Mediterranean, and its complete isolation from the global military and
political events of the IVth - IIIrd cent. B.C. There was also a
considerable reduction in foreign contacts and in the traditional Greco-
barbarian symbiosis. There were no great waves of immigrants
although there were still continual small migrations.4 To sum up, the
ethno-cultural situation inside the state was stable till the Ist century
B.C.
The real changes in the religious situation of the Bosporan kingdom
took place only in the Ist century A.D. These changes were stimulated
by the changes in the demographical and political situation in the state.
After the Mithridatic wars, the Bosporan kingdom became involved in
the political life of the Mediterranean world and became a vassal state of
Rome. The number of immigrants from Asia Minor and Thrace grew
rapidly, Sarmatians infiltrated the state and thus the whole ethno-

4 S.R. Tokhtas'yev "Trakische Personennamen am Kimmerischen Bosporos",

Studies in honor of Prof. G. Mihailov (Sofia, in print).

56
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

cultural situation was destabilized. The population of the kingdom

became better acquainted with the cultural and religious traditions of the
newcomers. It is not by chance that at this period a large number of
private societies (thiasoi), which were widespread in the Mediterranean
from the Hellenistic period, appeared in the Bosporus. In the conditions
of ethno-cultural destabilization in the Bosporus it was particularly easy
for new religious ideas to be introduced. At the same time as the cult of
the Roman emperors, which, of course, had an openly political
character, a new cult gained popularity and soon became the most
widespread of all the Bosporan cults. It was the cult of the Most High
God (OEOs'"' Y4laT09).The analysis of the sources shows that the cult of
the Most High God appeared in the Bosporan kingdom under strong
Jewish influence, and that the local adherents were a kind of God-
fearers organised in their own associations.5 Thus the Bosporan
population adopted (in accordance with the general tendency of the
period6) the most developed and consistent form of monotheism.
Taking into consideration the importance of the Jewish impact on the
religious situation in the Bosporan kingdom, it would be quite natural to
suppose that the Jewish population there was rather large. But the
fragmentary character of our sources stands in the way of a decisive

5 For connections of the cult of the Most High God with Judaism see, for
instance, E. Schiirer, "Die Juden im Bosporanischen Reiche and die
Genossenschaften der aePf LEvoL OEdv l5 L(TOV ebendaselbst", SAW, XII-XIII
(1897), 220-225; F. Cumont,"YJLaTOS, RE IX, 444-450; E.R. Goodenough,
"The Bosporus Inscriptions to the Most High God", JQR 47 (1957), 221-
245; B. Nadel, op. cit, Idem, Vestnik drevnei istorii 4 (1948), 203-206;
Idem, Archiv Orientalni 28, 1 (1960), 55-66; Idem, Listy Filologicke 89, 1
(1966), 13-24; I. A. Levinskaya, Kul't Theos Hypsistos kak istochnik po
etnokul'turnoj istorii Bospora v I-IV vv. n.e. Diss. (Leningrad, 1988); Idem,
Avtoreferat dissertatsii (Leningrad, 1988).
6 M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, Bd. II (Miinchen,
1961), 572.

57
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

judgement. In this situation the analysis of onomastic material can

provide us with some additional information. Of course the fact that
Jews used to have Roman and Greek names makes it impossible to
estimate even the approximate figure of their presence in the Bosporan
kingdom. However, the number of Jewish names can help us in
understanding some geographical and chronological tendencies.
It is well known that Greek transcriptions of non-Greek names do
not allow us to make a trustworthy identification of their ethno-
linguistical provenance. Sometimes interpretations turn out to be sheer
misunderstandings. For instance, V.I. Abaev in his historico-
etymological dictionary of the Ossetian language explained the personal
name aTpayopas as deriving from the Iranian root *atr-, which
means "fire" and Ossetian agur, which means "to search for".7
Formally, this etymology is acceptable. The problem is that
'IaTpayopas is a well known Greek name.
In order to avoid such frustrating mistakes it is essential to take as the
basis of our analysis the following principles which conform to our
material: 1. The supposed Jewish name must have a complete or partial
equivalent in the Jewish tradition. 2. The Greek form of the supposed
Jewish name must, in its main features, coincide with the Greek form
of the Jewish name as testified by sources (epigraphical, papyri, LXX,
etc.). 3. The whole context of the inscription, containing the supposed
Jewish name, must be taken into consideration. For instance, if we find
the supposed Jewish name in the inscriptions of thiasoi of the Most
High God, we consider this to be an additional argument in favour of
Jewish provenance of the name.
We shall start discussing the onomastic material from the names
whose Jewish origin is beyond any doubt.
1. 'A(apiwv, Tanais, 244 A.D. N 1287, 23; 220 A.D. N1278, 20

7 V.I. Abaev, Istoriko-etimologicheskij slovar' osetinskogo yazyka (Moskva-

Leningrad, 1958), s.v. art.

58
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

('A?a[ptwv] ?)8 in the inscriptions of the thiasoi of the Most High

God; cf. Biblical `azaryd(hu), LXX, one of the most
popular of Jewish personal names;9 formed with Greek suffix -Lwwv 10;
identified as Jewish by Schiirer.11 Iranian etymology was suggested by
V.F. Miller (to Avestan hazaiira-);, his idea was supported by M.
Fasmer, V.I. Abaev and L. Zgusta;12 Zgusta regards it as
hypokoristikon to Iranian personal names of Middle Persian
Hazaravuxt type. But as far as we know the personal names with *
hazar- at the beginning exist only in Middle and Modern Persian,13
they seem to be unknown in Ossetian, because otherwise Abaev would
have given corresponding examples. F. Justi also does not mention the

8 Here and below the numbers of the inscriptions are given according to CIRB.
9 M. Ohana, M. Heltzer, The Extra-Biblical Tradition of Hebrew Personal
Names (Haifa, 1978), 62 (in Hebrew); W. Kornfeld, Onomastica aramaica aus
Agypten (Wien, 1978), 66; H. Wuthnow, Die semitischen Menschennamen
in griechischen Inschriften and Papyrus des Vorderen Orients (Leipzig,
1930), 13.
10 On this form see: D. Foraboschi, Onomasticon alterum papyrologicum
(Milano-Varese, 1971), 20: PapOslo III 113, belongs to a Christian. V.
Tcherikover seems to consider that the element - yahu hides itself under -Lwv:
The Jews in Egypt in the Hellenistic-Roman Age in the Light of the Papyri
(Jerusalem, 1963), 199 (in Hebrew). It is possible that here and elsewhere
c _
Greek and semitic suffixes can coincide; for example: Azari-on, cf. Noth, 38.
11 E. Schurer, op. cit. (see n. 5), 218.
12 V.F. Miller, "Epigraficheskie sledy iranstva na yuge Rossii", Zhurnal
Ministerstva narodnogo prosvesheniya, Otd. klass. filologii (1886,
Octyabr'), 245; M. Vasmer, Untersuchungen fiber die altesten Wohnsitze der
Slaven, I (Leipzig, 1923), 30; V.I. Abaev, Osetinsky yazyk i fol'klor, I
(Moskva-Leningrad, 1949), 168; Zgusta, Pers, §44.
13 F. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch (Marburg, 1985), 127f.; the date of fixation
of the name Xalapos (CPJ I N 36, 4, 240 B.C.: Justi, ibid.) makes the
Iranian etymology rather doubtful.

59
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

hypocoristic forms. On balance it would seem that the Jewish

etymology is more firmly based than the Iranian in all respects.
2. IaµpazLwv, Gorgippia, the second half of the Ilnd century A.D,
N 1142, 15; Tanais, 236 A.D. N 1250, 13; in the inscriptions of the
associations of the Most High God from near Krasnodar14 (N 1231, B
12) and from Tanais (N 1278, 16, 24, 29 - three different people!);
1279, 15; 1280, 28; 1282, 19). In N 1278, 20 we probably also have
Azarion (see above). According to Yajlenko, who compared the names
in N 1231 with the names in 1242, the latter can also be a list of
adherents of the Most High God-15 The same name (or hypokoristikon
Iaµ(3Lwv) is written in abbreviated form on amphorae of the first half
of the IIIrd century A.D. from Tanais: IAMB (?) and (from another
house) IAM (?).16 Iaµ[(3'twv] or Iaµ[(3aiiwv] is preserved in the
list of names of the IIIrd century from Cape Zyuk, the Azov shore of
the Kerch Peninsula (N 898).
The ethno-cultural nature of the name Iaµ13aii-wv has been much
discussed.17 In the long run Iaµpatiwv doubtless derives from
western Semitic or even exclusively18 Hebrew Sabbatay (also

14 Accoding to Yajlenko, the stone most probably comes from Gorgippia:

"Materialy po bosporskoj epigrafike", Nadpisi i yazyki drevnej Maloj Azii,
Kipra i antichnogo Severnogo Prichernomor'ya (Moskva, 1987), 135, N209.
15 V. Yajlenko, op. cit., 129, N 189, 135f., N209.
16 D.B. Shelov, "Lichnye imena na amforach iz Tanaisa", Numizmatika i
epigrafica, XII (1978), 48f; Id. "Dipinti na amforach iz tanaisskich
kompleksov", ibid. XV (1989), 103, 108.
17 For discussion see: E. Sch0rer, The History of the Jewish people in the age of
Jesus Christ (revised English version) III, 1 (1986), 625, n. 183.
18 Cf. J. Teixidor, Bull. dp. semit. (1971) N 37; J. T. Milik, Dedicaces faites par
des dieux (Palmyra, Hatra, Tyr) et des thiases semitiques a 1'epoque romaine
(Paris, 1972), 67; M.D. Coogan, West Semitic Personal names in the Mura"su
Documents (Missoula, 1976), 84, 124

60
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

*Sabbatj19), formed according to the same pattern as 'AlapEwv (cf.

above n. 10) and identical with EaµPdT1os, Za13(3aTaios etc. The
wide diffusion of this name (in different forms) in the Mediterranean20
is connected with the spread of Jewish communities21 and pagan
reverence for the Sabbath.22 L. Zgusta considered that this name "ist
zwar zweifellos jUdischen Ursprungs, hat sich aber auch in andere
Kreise verbreitet",23 but on balance it seems that the name was still
disseminated among Sabbath-observers (cf n. 29).

19 J.T. Milik, op. cit., 67.

20 In Egypt and the Near East the name is known from the Achemenid age; W.
Kornfeld, op. cit. (see n. 9), 72; M.D. Coogan, ibid.; CPJ III, 189-191; G.
Delling, "Biblisch-jiidische Namen in hellenistisch-romischen Agypten",
Bull. de la Soc. d'archeol. Copte, XXII, 1974-1975 (1976), 22-27; E.
Schiirer, op. cit. (see n. 17), 625, n. 185.; Zgusta, Pers. § 740.
21 In the late Roman period it was also popular among Christians, see, for
instance: J. Kajanto, Onomastic Studies in the Early Christian Inscriptions of
Rome and Karthago (Helsinki, 1963), 106f. It can be explained partly by
tradition and partly by the fact that Sabbath-observance was practised by
some Christian groups: M. Simon, Verus Israel (Oxford, 1986), 310f., 323;
V. Tcherikover, CPJ III, 52.
22 V. Tcherikover, "The Sambathions", Scripta Hierosolymitana, I (1954), 94;
CPJ I, 95; III, 53; G. Delling, op. cit., 23.
23 Zgusta, Pers. § 740. The popularity of this name is witnessed by the fact that
later it returns to Jews in Hellenising form: smbty[wn], inscription of 384
A.D. from Byblos, CIJ II, 859; cf. Milik, op. cit., 67f; smpty: C. Sirat et all.,
La Ketuba de Cologne. Un contrat de marriage juif a Antinoopolis (Opladen,
1986), about 417 A.D. (non vidimus, cf. N.R.M. de Lange, JSJ, 19/1 (1988),
128).

61
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

Among the Bosporan names we frequently24 meet a form of

hypocoristic Ea i 3a-ri wv2S, namely EaµP(wv (Ea13(3(wv,
Zaf3t(Ov).26 This name as well as the hypokoristikon 2:aµ43ds which
was popular in Egypt has only very distant phonetic associations with
"Sabbath"27 and can not be evidence for the religious interests of its
bearers or their parents. Comparing the names Eaµ(3a6(wv and
Eaµ43ds, Tcherikover came to the conclusion that while the former
gradually lost its power, the letter became more and more frequent and

24 CIRB Index, 896; V. Yajlenko, op. cit., 120-123 (N 179), 141f. (N 219, 4).
25 See Zgusta. Pers. § 740, who adds also XaPety, N 407 (so Zgusta), cf.,
however, Eaptc, fem., Zgusta, KPN § 1341-1, Phrygia. W. Schulze
("Samstag", Kleine Schriften (Gottingen, 19662), 289, n. 10) and after him
G. Klaffenbach (Die Grabstelen der einstigen Sammlung Roma in Zakynthos
(Berlin, 1964), 15 N 25) erroneously ascribe the name Ea j 3iwv to the tribes
living along the North Coast of the Black Sea; it is registered from the In d
century B.C. in the Mediterranean (Klaffenbach, ibid.; J. and L. Robert, Bull.
ep. (1953) N 205) and also as a Jewish personal name (Josephus, Ant. XV.
47). According to 0. Masson (who in his turn refers to A. Caquot and M.
Sznycer ("Quelques noms semitiques en transcription grecque", Hommages a
A. Dupont-Sommer (Paris, 1971), 71) the assertion that Ea43iwv and XaPPsts
are hypocoristic forms of Eal313azaioc "ne nous semble pas recevable, car elle
ne rend pas compte de la disparition du t radical". But similar hypokoristika
are well known in the Jewish onomastikon (see M. Noth, Die Israelitischen
Personennamen, 38). The father of a certain EaPPd6tov was called Eap(3aios
(CPJ I, 47, 7, mentioned by 0. Masson), which means that both names have
the same root. The Hebrew go-bay, with which Caquot (ibid.) compares
XctppLwv is not to the point.
26 These forms are witnessed even earlier than Xaj3a-tLwv (for instance, N 316,
416, Panticapaeum) in the Ist century B.C.E.-Ist century A.D. They could
either have been acquired from another part of the Mediterranean or taken
directly from the local pct t atLwv.
27 V. Tcherikover, The Sambathions, 98, n. 39; CPJ III, 55.

62
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

obtained the rank of a regular Egyptian name.28 Prosopographical

analysis of the Bosporan bearers of the name Ea1(3(wv seems to allow
us to maintain that the fate of it was similar to that of Eaµ(3ac in Egypt:
both became ordinary names, deprived of any specific ethnic or
religious character. It is worthwhile to stress the fact, that nearly all
Sambations were members of thiasoi of the Most High God.29
3. QVLas, Hermonassa (?), the first half of the Ist century A.D., N.
1076 = (CIJ I N 691, Proleg, 69f.); there are parallels and full
correspondence, particularly in papyri from Egypt. It was identified as
Jewish by V.V. Shkorpil,30 who compared it with the name QvELas in
an inscription from Rome, which was defined as Jewish by B. de

28 M. Nagel doubted Tcherikover's interpretation "Un Samaritain dans .

l'ArsinoIte au IIe siecle apres J.C. (a propos du nom Sambas). Chr. d'Egypte,
49 N98 (1974), 356-365. He came to the conclusion that the fate of both
names was the same: "ils coexistent, puis ils declinent a peu pres a la meme
epoque". His objections are based on the statistical analysis of the frequency
of the name Ea 43ds in the papyri from 130 A.D. to 230 A.D., which shows a
certain reduction in the numbers of the bearers of this name from the year 180
to the year 230. Only by the end of the Vth century did the name Sambas
again become popular, but as Nagel stresses 'dans un autre contexte
onomastique" The fact that Nagel does not mention the total quantity of
documents surviving from each decade and the number of names in each
document detracts from the value of his statistical analysis. The absence of
dated papyri between 221 and 487 (p 362, n. 1) makes his conclusions
unreliable.
29 Cf. V. Tcherikover (CPJ III, 53): "The Sambathions of Tanais were influenced
by Judaism, and their name, derived from Sabbath, demonstrates obviously
their veneration for the Sabbath"; cf. also: E. Schiirer, op. cit. (see n. 7), 625,
n. 183.
30 V.V. Shkorpil, Izvestiya Archeologicheskoj Komissii, 27 (1908), 48f. N6.

63
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

Montfaucon.31 Cf hnyh, hwny, Aramaic papyri from Egypt, Biblical

Honyo, Honi, Talmudic hwny hwnyn.32 Cf. also N 14 below.
4. Gorgippia, Ilnd-IIIrd century A.D., N. 1179, 34:
Biblical Sapat, Ea4at LXX,33 Ea4ar% Josephus. Arbitrary addition
of the suffix -as or -os to the consonantal Auslaut of a Semitic name is
not uncommon.34 According to Yajlenko (see above, n. 15) N 1179
(list of names) could belong to the adherents of the Most High God.
5. lct[twv, Panticapaeum, the end of the IInd_IIlydcentury A.D., N
724; a menorah on the stone makes it completely clear35 that we have
there the widespread Greek form of the popular Jewish name
gim`on.36
6. Iowa, dipinto of the first half of the IIIrd century A.D. on the
amphora from Tanais.37
7. ['Iaa]dKLOc, Greek-Hebrew quasi-bilingual epitaph from
Panticapaeum, IIIrd-IVth cent. A.D., N 736.

31 B. de Montfaucon, Antiquite expliquee et representee en figures, V, 1 (Paris,

1719), 69: "iudaicum videtur esse nomen"; CIG III 6406 = L. Moretti,
Inscriptiones gracae urbis Romae, III (Roma, 1979), N1268; see also H.
Solin, Juden and Syrer im westlichen Teil der romischen Welt, ANRW II, 29,
2 (1983), 647.
32 Kornfeld, op. cit. (see n. 9), 50.
33 Identified by S. Segert, see Zgusta, Pers. § 756.
34 For instance: 'A4 Epas, Ao68as, ZLaEVVas, Xov66tS, '08ri8a5 (Schalit,
NWB s.vv.) and others; cf. 1w-ad4aToc and Yahosapat (Schalit, NWB s. v.).
35 V. Shkorpil, Zapiski odesskogo obshchestva istorii i drevnostej, XXI
(1989), 210; Zgusta, Pers, § 757.
36 F. Vattioni, "I semiti nell' epigrafia cirenaica", SCO, XXXII, (1987), 541.
37 D.B. Shelov, Lichnye imena, 48f.; cf. idem, Tanais i Nizhny Don v pervye
veka nashej ery (Moskva, 1972), 160; idem, Dipinti, 114; it is difficult to
determine whether this is in the genitive case (cf. F. Blass., A. Debrunner, F.
Rehkopf, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechish (Gottingen, 198416
§ 35a) or the nominative (cf. F. Vattioni, op. cit., 534).

64
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

8. EaµorjX, N 743, with a menorah on the stone; Eaµovr [X]ov, N

777, also with a menorah, both tombstones from the IVth century
Panticapaeum.38
Now we shall turn to those names whose Jewish origin can be
disputed, for instance, some of them may be etymologically Aramaic -
which does not in fact prevent us from identifying their bearers as Jews
or Jewish sympathizers.39
9. EµtEL, vocative, feminine, Panticapaeum, the first half of the Ist
century B.C. N 122 (epitaph). From Segert's point of view (Zgusta
Pers.. § 755), this name is Semitic: "cf. Hebrew names with
`am-" (more correct is `ammi-: `Ammihud etc40); but as far as we
know, with the exception of EµLou8 LXX, Greeks always rendered
personal names with camm by A41, though in general the variation a: E
is rather typical.42 But on the whole this fact does not make Segert's
interpretation more reliable. The comparison can also be made with
Hebrew * 'Imml (?) or Syriac * 'Em(m)i (Lat. Emae)43 or AµµEL,

38 N 777 was found on the site of the ancient Jewish cemetery, cf. CIRB, comm.
ad loc.
39 Personal names of Aramaic origin were widespread among Jews from a very
early period: Noth, IPN, 63; M.H. Silverman, "Aramaean Name Types in the
Elephantine Documents", JAOS, LXXXIX (1969), 691-709; idem, "Hebrew
Name Types in the Elephantine Documents", Orientalia, XXXIX (1970), 485.
40 Noth, op. cit. (see n. 9), 253.
41 See, for instance, Murtonen, op. cit., 304f.; AµµLa, AµµLas; Lidzbarski,
Ephemeris II, 195f.; CIJ I N 296, 297, 537.
42 ESvaas, LXX; 'ESvatos, Josephus; < `adna; E. Bronno, Studien fiber
hebraische Morphologic and Vokalismus auf Grundlage der Mercatischen
Fragmente der 2. Kol. der Hexapla des Origenes (Leipzig, 1943), 269, 296f.
43 Th. Noldeke, Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft (Strassburg,
1904), 93, 95; for Aramaic personal names with 'emm: Eµµa f3ou, Ap-

65
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

Aqua (from Asia Minor), etc.44

10. Ta8ag, Panticapaeum (?), the first half of the Ist century A.D. N
372; a tombstone; the name has no patronymic (freedman?). Vasmer
and Zgusta made a hypothetical comparison of this name with Iranian
appellatives and personal names without gaining any convincing
identifications.45 This name has good formal correspondences in
Semitic languages, though it is too short for reliable interpretations. The
following variants can be suggested:
1) This is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew or Aramaic
hypokoristikon of one of the composita made with gad, Gad46 TvXrj
Ti X1, i.e. *Gadda.47 The transition dd > d may have taken place

EµµIc etc. see: Milik, op. cit., 66, 324-327, 331. Hebrew i>e: E86L, LXX,
"E6rs, Josephus: < 'lttay; Bronno, op. cit., 262ff.
44 Zgusta, KPN §57 (especially §57-17, n. 128; §57-19; 57-23, 24; for a:E cf.
§ 333-4.
45 M. Vasmer, op. cit., 36; Zgusta, Pers. § 91 (his comparison with Old Persian
Fabazas cannot possibly be correct, cf. M. Mayrhofer, Onomastica
Persepolitana (Wien, 1973), 282.
46 Of the Biblical type Gaddi`el, see Noth, op. cit., 240; Ohana, Heltzer, op. cit.
(see n. 9), 38f; Silverman, Aramaean Name Types, 698; A. Caquot, "Sur
l'onomastique religieuse de Palmyre", Syria, 39/2 (1962), 242; J. K. Stark,
Personal Names in Palmyrene Inscriptions (Oxford, 1971), 13, 81; F.
Vattioni, Inscrizioni di Hatra (Napoli, 1981), N 13, 2; 229b, 2; J. Cantineau,
Le nabatden, 2 (Paris, 1932), 76f. For conservation of such pagan names
among Jews, see: G. Kerber, Die religionsgeschichtliche Bedeutung der
hebraischen Eigennamen des Alten Testaments (Freiburg i. Br., 1897), 67.
47 Gd', as a Jewish name see: J. Levy, Worterbuch fiber die Talmudim and
Midraschim (Berlin-Wien, 1924), 299, s.v. gad cf. Lidzbarski, Ephemeris II,
9; Ohana, Heltzer, op. cit., 39, 180, cf. also p. 38 s.v. gd' (?); in Aramaic
(Palmyra, Hatra) see Caquot, op. cit., 252; Vattioni, Iscrizioni, N 240, 1;
246, 1; Aramaic (?) I'aSou (see Lidzbarski, Ephemeris II, 337), if the
nominative was f abac, cf. below; Ulp. Gaddas (Romische Inschriften

66
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

already in the Hebrew (Aramaic) original, with compensatory

lengthening of a in the first syllable (*Gad5).48 But as usual, we must
take into consideration the possibility that a foreign name was simply
rendered inaccurately, especially if we remember the tendency towands
the simplification of doubled sounds, which was characteristic of the
koine.49

Ungarns, (Budapest, 1976), Lief. 2 N 356) was probably a Syrian.

48 Cf. Biblical Gaddi and Gadi (from Gaddi'el and similar, Noth op. cit., 126f.),
gentilic name Gad, descendants of Gad, son of Jacob; Brono, op. cit., 378., 399;
E.A. Speiser, The Pronunciation of Hebrew based chiefly on the Transliterations
in the Hexapla:, JQR, 23/3 (1933), 259-265; C. Siegfried, "Die Aussprache des
Hebraischen bei Hieronymos", ZAW (1884), 73; V. Christian,
Untersuchungen zur Laut- and Formenlehre des Hebraischen (Wien, 1953),
28-31.
49 This is the explanation of changes from Bapya88as to Bapya8a5 (SEG VII
460 a, c, Dura-Europos) < Aramaic *Bar-gadda; cf. Schwyzer, op. cit., 230f.;
A Thumb, Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus (Strassburg,
1901), 23f. Cf. also the Greek rendering of Semitic personal names in papyri:
Iapa9Ls etc. (CPJ III, 189), in inscriptions: AvL[va?, Avgkos, parallel
with AvvrlXoc (Lidzbarski, Ephemeris I, 336, 337), by Josephus: 'AyiOr),
"EAig (EBOL, LXX), Ma6as (MatOav, LXX) Ia(3L5, -rls etc. (Schalit, NWB s
vv.) It is difficult to decide which explanation is better for the following
Kurznamen of personal names with *gadd: Aramaic (Nabatean) rabovc
(IGLS XIII 1. 9281: < *Gad(d)u/o, cf. Lidzbarski, Ephemeris II, 85; idem,
Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigrafik (Weimar, 1989), 248; gdw:
Cantineau, op. cit. II, 76, s.v. gd:) or ra88os (Lidzbarski, Ephemeris I, 336;
< *Gaddo?); rabava(S), IGLS I, 230, 5; <*Gad(d)on(a) (cf. Lidzbarski,
Ephemeris II, 18f.); raoava (masculine, IGLS IV 1881; < *Gad(d)an(a), cf.
Gdn': Thesaurus Syriacus, ed. R. Payne Smith, I (Oxford, 1879), 658, IGLS I,
ad 230, 5); ra8aLog (?) = ELoS (?) (IGLS III, 1. 453, 454; < *Gad(d)ay, cf.
Jastrow, op. cit., 210, s.v. Gadday; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris II, 16 GD3 y) or
raSSatoc (Hebr.?): CPJ I, 37, 1; Ohana, Helzer, op. cit., 39

67
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

2) This is a rendering of *Gad(d)an (cf. n. 41); Semitic names in -an

when Graecised quite often received the ending -ac.50
3) The name is formed according to the "Menschennamen aus
Heroennamen" type: -as was added arbitrarily to the name of the
prophet Gad Josephus Ant. VII 13. 2 etc.51 cf. fa8as, Gad)52
However, besides the name of the prophet, Gad as a personal name
seems to be unknown. The only exception is probably raoou
(genitive, Christian inscription from the Negeb), the interpretation of
which is problematic.53
4) The name is taken from the root gdh (qatal out "hoedus,
catulus": Aramaic gdh (*gade),54 gadya Syriac gdy; Hebrew gads,
feminine gadiyya; the most widespread form is Gadya, Gadya; 55 if
we take into consideration Aramaic *gade Hebrew gads, we can
assume the corresponding forms of a personal name.56 But in this case
I'a8ig, Ta8t - and similar would be more natural, so this etymology

50 Blass, Debrunner, Rehkopf, op. cit. § 53. 3 c; Josephus: B a k d S a s,

'IouKtag, KaLvds, MdOas, NdOag.
51 So B. Nadel, Listy Filologicke, 91/3 (1968), 271, who also ascribes N 11
(ra&cLc) here.
52 The name of the tribe of Gad in Josephus (Fa&, LXX); see also above n.
53 Arabic 1add?; nomnative Fa&rlg < *Gade; *Gad(d)o/u (cf. n. 49); cf.
Lidzbarski. Ephemeris II, 337: "Gad or Cadd "; cf. ibid., 351.
54 J.A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (Rome, 1967), 85 (comm.);
cf. Christian, op. cit., 130.
55 Noldeke, op. cit., 82f.; Lidzbarski, Handbuch, 248f.; idem, Ephemeris I, 142,
II, 12, n. 1, 79, 122f, 333; Ohana, Heltzer, op. cit., 39; Vattioni, Inscritioni,
N71; 230, 2; Cantineau, op. cit. II, I, 76f.; Jastrow, op. cit., 211; Schalit,
NWB, 30 (Fa&ias); CPJ I, 510, 535 (ra&Lac), Solin, op. cit., 677,
729, 730, 742, Annee ep. (1985), N74 (Gadia).
56 Some Greek and Latin documents (see bibliography in n. 66) supply forms in
-e, -i; -a/-a, as, os, quite often join the arbitrary Semitic stem, cf. above, n.
32.

68
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

suits N 11 better.
11. Fd&ELg, masc., Gorgippia, 59 A.D., N 1124, 4, in the form of
patronymic 17aoELOs. For -ELS < Hebr. - i cf. 'HXE'Lg A ouE'Ls,
ILµovELg, bapELS (Schalit, NWB s. vv.), Palmyra MapELS, 9by57 etc.
We do not know any example of -ELg <e, but in view of itacism (-r': -
L5: - E LS) such an interpretation is not impossible. Rendering of §awa
mobile in the first syllable by a is quite normal.58 The name can
represent either Hebrew Gaddi 59 or Hebrew or Aramaic
*Gad(d)e.60 Ta8ELg in the form of patronymic (raBEL) is also
witnessed in Olbia in the dedication to 'AXLXXEf,s Ilovrd pxIj5.61 This
fact does not contradict the interpretation of the name as Semitic: 1) the
name belongs not to the dedicator but to his father, 2) the Jewish
presence in O1bia is testified by the erection in the city of a Jewish
prayer house (npoorEux1l).62
12. BoXopou, Gorgippia, IInd cent. A.D., N77, 1136, probably also
in two other inscriptions from Gorgippia of the same time.63 The name
was identified with a Semitic name from the root bkr by Segert, who
correctly added that the name is not necessarily Jewish, referring to the

57 Stark, op. cit., 50.

58 Cf. rabtag (above, n. 55), Aa6dvr)S, AakdXrl (LXX Dalila), Zaxaptas
(Schalit, NWB, s vv.); lakw .ithv (Blass, Debrunner, Rehkopf, op. cit., § 53,
n. 3; Wuthnow, op. cit., 103, 111; Bronno, op. cit., 320ff.
59 Cf. LXX raML, raooei, ra8Sr15 (Schalit, NWB, 66) LXX rao&.
60 Latin rendering (Aramaic): Gaddes, Gadde (a simple transcription!): The
Excavations of Dura-Europos. Final Report, I (New Haven, 1959), N 98 I 8,
100 XXXIV etc.
61 Nadpisi O1'vii (Leningrad, 1968), 81, N 88, 5.
62 IPE I2 176, see R. L. Erlich, DAN-B N6 (1928), 124-127, A. Kocevalov,
"Beitrage zu den euxeinischen Inschriften", WUrzburger Jahrbiicher, 3 (1948),
163-174.
63 N 1130; I. T. Kruglikova, Vestnik drevnej istorii N 2 (1967), 193 N8;
Kalashnik, op. cit., 150.
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

Syriac Boxopos.64
13. Ias, masculine, Gorgippia, IInd-IIIrd century A.D., N 1140, 3;
1179, 57; 25 (also la4atas, see N4); 1180 (the inscriptions of
thiasoi?). A strange interpretation was given by L. Zgusta (Pers. §
1030), who considered this name to be Greek. This puzzled him,
though the only reason was his own interpretation! "Was uns an dem
Namen iiberraschen muss, ist der Umstand, dass eine feminine Form
fur einen Mannsnamen gebraucht wird".65 With the exception of the
Bosporan kingdom, the name is known only in the Near East and
Egypt, but it is too short for trustworthy etymology and even
ethno-linguistic attribution (Arabic or Northern Semitic?).66 The
following forms are undeniably Jewish: ELas (due to itacism67), hyy'
(*Hiyya);68 Ias, LXX (Masoretic Yaho'ag)69 < Yo'ag is probably
possible to compare our lag with ELas from Phrygia, Bithynia and

64 Zgusta, Pers. § 754. Bibl. -Masor. Bakar, LXX BoXop; Bikri, LXX
BoXop(E)L, Josephus Boxop'as; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris III, 30; Noth, IPN,
239; Murtonen, op. cit., 227. Aramaic (Palmyrene, Syriac, Nabatean) bkrw:
Noldeke, op. cit., 82; Stark, op. cit., 9; Canteneau, op. cit., II, 71; Teixidor,
Bull. ep. sem. (1970), N 92.
65 ' I av and 'Ids as personal names: F. Bechtel, Die historischen
Personennamen des Griechischen (Halle a.d.S., 1977), 539, 545.
66 Wuthnow, op. cit., 151; E. Littmann in Preisigke, Namenbuch
F.
(Heidelberg, 1922), 509, 522. Indisputably Arabic (*Ilyas): Excavations at
Nessana, 3 Non-Literary Papyri, ed. by C.J. Kraemer (Princeton, 1958) N98.
8 (?), 18, 39; cf. 352.
67 Or graphical substitution for -iyy group?
68 Greek-Hebrew bilingual 'inscription: Lidzbarski, Ephemeris I, 189, 350,
interpretation of T. Noldeke (differently - Ephemeris II, 8); cf. hyh: Kornfeld,
op. cit., 50; Late Hebrew hyyh: Holscher, op. cit., 154; Murtonen, op. cit.,
249.
69 IV Reg. 14. 8 (A); Hatch, Redpath, op. cit., 75; cf. "Iaa-os Schalit, NWB,
57: Yo) as.

70
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

Cilicia,70 though as far as we know there are no examples of this name

from Asia Minor (perhaps with the exception of Ia (feminine71) in
itacised form.72
14. BoOvXig, the son of QvLag (see above N3); there seems to be no
other example of this name. Taking into consideration the Jewish
patronymic, semitic etymology is rather tempting, but there are no
suitable Jewish names besides the Biblica173 Betu' el, LXX
BaOov(rl)X,74 Josephus BaOoU',9%og, the son of Nahor, Abraham's
brother (Gen. 22, 22-23). Formally such a comparison is quite
possible: for the Sawa mobile > o (like a) cf. lo? oµuiv, Eo oµa
(LXX, Josephus); for -ouTl- > - ou- cf. 'IovA,o5 and 'Iovrixog <
variations between -ou- and -v- are very common in the
Roman period;76 above all there is the Graecised productive model with
the hypocoristic suffix -v?,(%)os.77
15. Foµapta, feminine, Panticapaeum, Ist century B.C., N 292
(tombstone), cf. in the masculine) Biblical gamarya, LXX FaµapLa,

70 Zgusta, KPN, § 319-2, cf. EIA,; 319-1; P. Lombardi, "Inscritioni greche

extra-urbane del Museo Nazionale Romano", Tituli, 2 (1980), 184f, N 3 (ELa,
Eia, Heius).
71 As a less common variant for Eta (see n. 70), Zgusta, KPN § 447-1 and his
remarks to § 319-4.
72 This spelling seems to be supported by the diphthong in the original form.
cf. Old Phrygian Eies from Gordion: Cl. Brixhe, M. Lejeune, Corpus des
inscriptions paleo-phrygiennes, I (Paris, 1984), 102, N G-108.
73 Aramaic provenance (?), see Noth, IPN, 89; cf. W.W. Baudussin "El Bet-El",
Vom Alten Testament, 3.
74 Cf. Murtonen, op. cit., 232f.
75 Schalit, NWB, s. vv. Similar contraction see: ibid., s. vv. MaOouoaXag 1.2,
"IaXos, "laooc (cf. above N 13).
76 Thumb, op. cit., 193f.
77 Schwyzer, op. cit., 485; F. Dornseiff, B. Hansen, Rucklaufiges Worterbuch
der griechischen Eigennamen (Berlin, 1957), 256, 192.

71
Irina A. Levinskaya and Sergei R. Tokhtas'yev

gmryh from Egypt.78

16. MapLa, Panticapaeum, IVth century A.D., N 759 (tombstone).
The name derives from the Biblical Miryam; Greek and Latin texts
rendered this Jewish name using MapLaµ as MapLa.79 The editors of
CIRB did not exclude the possibility of a Christian provenance for this
tombstone; there are no Christian symbols on the stone to support this
contention.
Among dipinti on amphorae of the IIIrd century A.D. from Tanais
there are a number of abbreviated personal names, which could be
Jewish:
17. ZAX,80 cf. Biblical Z-karya(hu), Zaxapiag LXX, etc.
18. ZA, ZADO, from the same house as Iovba (N6).81 The name
can be compared with Biblical Sadoq and other names with the same
root: e.g. Zabo(Koc). The usual rendering of s in Greek and Latin is a,
s,82 but Z is also possible: cf. b`lsdq Josephus).83
Omikron instead of omega is quite usual in the Roman period.
The Jewish presence in Panticapaeum and Gorgippia is attested by
inscriptions, whereas for Tanais it is not directly witnessed either by
inscriptions, or archaeologically. It is worth mentioning that the main
features of the distribution of Jewish names in the Bosporan kingdom
coincide with the spread of the dedications to the Most High God. So

78 Kornfeld, op. cit. (see n. 9), 46.

79 See, for instance, Blass, Debrunner, Rehkopf, op. cit., § 53, n. 12; Map La as
a Jewish name: CPJ III1 184; CIJ I 1, 137, 374 etc. (cf. Solin, op. cit., 678);
Vattioni, I semiti, 538, Josephus B.J. VI, 201; about Maria from the gens
Maria see: New Doc. 1979 (1987), 230, N 115.
80 Shelov, Dipinti, 110.
81 Shelov, Lichnye imena, 52; idem, Dipinti, 115, 120, 123.
82 Hatch, Redpath, op. cit., 131ff., (in particular EaSoSK, EaSSoSK, Xa8(8)ovK,
Xa8o8x); Murtonen, op. cit., 315-319; Schalit, NWB, 140, 143.
83 Also: Zdapa (LXX Zrly(op), Zo4wvcas: Schalit, NWB, 50; Blass,
Debrunner, Rehkopf, op. cit. § 39, n. 8.

72
 Jews and Jewish Names in the Bosporan Kingdom

taking into consideration the outstanding position of this cult in

Tanais,84 the concentration of Jewish names here is not surprising. It is
impossible to say whether all bearers of Jewish names in Tanais were
Jews or God-fearers. On balance it is quite tempting to consider
Sambations (or their sons) to be God-fearers, and IovSa to be a Jew.
But, of course, this can not be proved.
The wide diffusion of monotheistic ideas in the Bosporan kingdom in
the first centuries A.D. is very important for the reconstruction of the
cultural and historical process of the first millenium A.D. both in the
Bosporus and elsewhere (the Crimea, the Northern Caucasus, the Don
region and the Lower Volga region). A long monotheistic tradition
could could the rapid spread of Christianity in this region. On the other
hand, it has been suggested that the destroyed levels of the Bosporan
towns, which had been dated to the end of the IVth century, should be
dated to a later period, and that consequently there was demographic
and cultural continuity at least during the migration period.85 If this
hypothesis is correct, then the question of the role played by the
Bosporus area in the diffusion of Judaism among the Khazars becomes
very topical.

84 85% of all the dedications to the gods found in Tanais were made to the Most
High God, while if we take into consideration private dedications only, the
figure is even more impressive - 100%. The number of members of thiasoi in
Tanais shows that nearly all the male population of the city in the 111rd

century were adherents of the Most High God.

85 E. Ya. Nikolaeva, Bospor posle gunnskogo nashestivya, Avtoreferat
dissertatsii (Moskva, 1984); A.V. Sazanov, Yu. F. Ivashchenko, "K voprosu
o datirovkakh pozdneantichnykh sloev gorodov Bospora", Sovetskaya
arkheologiya, N1 (1989), 84-102.

73
 PRONOIA AT SARDIS

A. THOMAS KRAABEL

The Harvard/Cornell excavations at Sardis in ancient Lydia, now

western Turkey, have produced rich new evidence and some real
surprises for the student of ancient Mediterranean religions,1 but
nothing more astonishing than the monumental Sardis synagogue,
begun perhaps as early as the second century CE, and abandoned
finally with the destruction of the city by Sassanian Persian troops in
616. This building, the largest synagogue ever excavated anywhere,
was the last and grandest of at least four controlled by a Jewish
community which had existed for a thousand years there before this last
Persian attack.2
Living among their gentile neighbors for centuries, generations of
Jews had become a respected and quite powerful segment of the Sardis
population, and a permanent part of the city's political and economic
life. Local institutions of education for the young played an important
role in the integration of young Jews into Sardis society. At the same

1. Generally on Sardis and the excavations, G.M.A. Hanfmann et al., Sardis

from Prehistoric to Roman Times, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1983), hereafter SPRT. The publishers E.J. Brill plan a volume on Sardis and
Lydia in their new series, Religion in the Later Roman World.
2. Preliminary studies for this paper were read by Fergus Millar (Oxford) and
John Dillon (Dublin). During the 1990-91 academic year later versions were
presented as lectures or seminars at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge,
Durham and Minnesota, at Kings College London, and at the Kirchliche
Hochschule in Berlin. In this way its arguments were tested and strengthened
by many colleagues; its remaining weaknesses are my reponsibility.
A. Thomas Kraabel

time these Jews never lost track of their tradition and identity as Jews.
Their synagogue above all bears witness to a marvellous mixture of the
heritage of Judaism and the urban life and culture of the gentile world
under the Roman Empire.3
The architecture and the art of the synagogue, and the professions
and other self-designations of its donors as revealed in their dedicatory
inscriptions, all are evidence of this integration. Specific examples
abound, such as the largest of some nineteen menoroth discovered in
the excavations; made of marble and intended to be free-standing, it
bears the name of its donor in large letters: Ec2KPATHE.4
But in my judgment the most fascinating example of the kind of
Diaspora Judaism Sardis represents is the utilization of the term
pronoia, which is attested or is the most likely restoration in eleven of
the synagogue donor inscriptions.5 These are printed next, with
explanatory notes following and a full translation of no. 20 exempli
gratia. The texts are as numbered by epigrapher John H. Kroll, who is
responsible for their final publication.6

3. A collection and critical review of a number of my writings on Sardis Jews are

now available in Diaspora Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor of, and in
Dialogue with, A. Thomas Kraabel, edd. J. Overman and R. MacLennan (South
Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, 41: Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992),
hereafter Diaspora Jews.
4. SPRT, page 190 and fig. 268.
5. For a recent study which goes beyond its title, see "Divine Providence in a
letter of Judas", in G. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early
Christianity. A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1978
(North Ryde NSW: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, 1983)
141-48, hereafter NewDocs.
6. In A.R. Seager, I. Rabinowitz, J.H. Kroll and A.T. Kraabel, The Synagogue
and Its Setting (Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, Report 4; Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming). The texts are reproduced by
permission of Prof. Kroll and the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis.

76
 Pronoia at Sardis

12 ---] iK z[wv Tic rlpovoiac

16 [A]up. E64p6auvoc 0' EapO. [3[o]uXX.

&K rwv <twv> [T]jc npovoi as EiK[OUTXWOa.]

17 Aup. Ei 4poouvoc [0' Eapb. Oou)a. To lreptµaaxaXov

tK rwv I [IIpovoia]S LaKOUTXW[aa.)

19 - - - &K rwv Ttjc Ilp)ovoin[S Eu]Rdµevoc

20 Kag4 b [aUTOC - - - EK) TWV rf r, [Ilpovo]lgc EU [d]µevoc, Eo[KOUTXWQEV.]

21 K&pe 0 a[UTbS - - - pET& TTI{ ou1v ou a&106 Karl] T(WV [Ti1CV]WV EK

TWV <V> npoVOla[c] SoudTW[v l]7roLinQev.

22 Ae6VT(o4; OEOOFPhC,, 61K

TCOV Tfjc npovoiac boµa-

TWV Tb btaXuipov uaep eu--
XAC laxo5TXWOa.

23 Kai µat 6 avroc Ae6vrtOq

K TWV 5OJ..IdTWV
[T)ic npovoias broigaev.

24 [ - - - - - -E)apb. 0o11A.]
[EK TWV Ilpov]oias Tb [bta-]
[Xaipov EolcouTX]WOa.

58 lK T]wV Tlic, npovokzc bop&r V

KE TWV YOVIICWV Ap(*)V xapaiTWV.

77
A. Thomas Kraabel

Aup.
66
Eppoye-
vql EapS.
Btoge
Oic 6K

TwV Ti
TlpovoiaS
Evapc
VOS TO E-
1rTaµir-
7tov E'-
70 1r1 va.

16 G3' = "the second." Sard[ianos] = "citizen of Sardis."

Boul[eutes] = "member of the city council." eskoutlosa = "I
paid for the skoutlosis-decoration." Skoutlosis is a form of
Late Antique ornamentation in which surfaces are covered with
small, thin, shaped pieces of marble and colored stone.
17 Aperimaschalon is the "surround" of one of the seven bays of
the main hall of the building.
20 "And me too the [same donor], having made a pledge,
decorated-with-skoutlosis [which was paid for] from the [gifts]
of Providence."
21 This inscription is all on one line; the others are reproduced
here as they are in the original, line-for-line.
22 theosebes = "God-fearer [?], pious one," the most debated of

78
 Pronoia at Sardis

all terms in the Sardis synagogue inscriptions.? A diachoron is

a cross-wall.
23 Here alone in these texts is the basic formula fully spelled out:
"...from the gifts of Providence..."
58 The only variation on the formula: "...from the gifts of
Providence and our family's labors."
66 A heptamuxion, literally a "seven-wick-er," is a seven-
branched lamp or menorah. This long, narrow text is inscribed
on a small base, probably supporting the heptamuxion itself.

Pronoia in these texts is best translated "Providence," and refers to

the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. This is suggested by the 'more
traditional language of no. 29, where a donation is made EK Twv
8wpEC5v TOD rravTOKpcTOpoc OEoD, "...from the gifts of God
Almighty."8 But this is a rare usage of pronoia in the Greco-Roman
world, where most frequently the word means human forethought,
oversight, planning, as for example in the phrase Xp d v o L a v
3toLELO6a1, common in inscriptions, papyri and literary texts.9 But
references to "the pronoia of God" may have the same meaning, that is,
God's concern or careful treatment or protecting care.10
A clear example of a more philosophical or religious usage is the

7. See, for example, the discussion sparked by my 1981 article, "The

Disappearance of the 'God-Fearers'," reprinted now in Diaspora Jews, pages
119-130; also, NewDocs 54-56; more recently, my "The God-fearers Meet
the Beloved Disciple," The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of
Helmut Koester (ed. B.A. Pearson, A.T. Kraabel, G.W.E. Nickelsburg, N.R.
Petersen: Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 276-84.
8. B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et Fondateurs dans les Synagogues Juives (Cahiers de
la RB, 7; Paris: Gabalda, 1967) [hereafter Lifshitz, Donateurs] 28f., no. 20.
9. On the formula npbvoLav notit,oOat in gentile inscriptions, see OGIS index
699, SIG index 534, etc.
10. For example, Philo, Spec. 1.309, 310, 318, etc.

79
A. Thomas Kraabel

phrase 6ELa np6voLa; it occurs in Christian, Jewish and pagan texts

alike, and in others where the author's religious allegiance is not
completely clear. And the meaning is by no means uniform. I begin
with some examples from the papyri. In official documents such as
proclamations and petitions it is "clearly a conventional public
formula."11 In private letters the phrase is used in closing phrases such
as "May 6E(a Trp6vota keep you safe ...... 12 and in opening formulae
where the term approaches being a synonym for "the god" or "God."
Thus, "...praying to 6Eta np6voLa for your health ...... 13 but also "I
pray to the Highest God and to the 6EEa Trp6voia of our Lord Jesus
Christ...14
The same vagueness in terminology occurs elsewhere, and often the
grammar is imprecise as well. For example, the dative case may be
used without a preposition and with nothing in the syntax which
specifies exactly what is meant. Thus in the Jewish philosopher Philo it
is 6E( a Trp6voia that Moses becomes v6µos E p 4vXos TE Kai
XoyIK6c (Mos. 1.162), and that misfortune strikes Flaccus, enemy of the
Alexandrian Jews (Flac. 125).
According to Diogenes Laertius 3.24, it was Plato who first
introduced the term 6Eov Trp6voia into philosophical discussion.15
But in classical times pronoia was usually the cosmic, largely
impersonal Providence of the Stoics.16 It is in this sense that Cicero
uses the word nine times, written either in Greek letters or in
transliteration. Of the nine occurrences, six are in De Natura

11. NewDocs 143.

12. PLon 6.1929.19, mid-fourth century.
13. PAlbin 10.5-6, betw. 340-351.
14. PVindob G 39838, beginning of the fourth century.
15. See e.g. Timaeus 30c, 44c.
16. On the fundamental importance of "Providence" in Stoicism, see the
handbooks and the index volume (1924) of Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta,
ed. J. von Arnim (Lepizig: Teubner).
 Pronoia at Sardis

Deorum,17 where the concept is articulated on behalf of the Stoics by

Lucilius Balbus.
But by the time of the early Empire the idea had passed beyond
philosophical discussions to become more widely known.18 Here are
two examples of a more popular usage:
The first is from the Life of Aesop, written in the first century CE.
Aesop is the famous source of maxims and fables, and he is usually
assigned to the sixth century BCE. In this biography he is the slave of
a man called Xanthus, who is a philosopher, an arrogant philosopher.
In one story Xanthus and Aesop are out doing the shopping, and
Xanthus tries to buy some vegetables from a farmer. But the farmer
refuses Xanthus' money. Instead he wants some of Xanthus' wisdom
on a problem. Xanthus protests that he is a philosopher and doesn't deal

17. ND 1.18.7; 20.8; 22.2; 2.58.12; 73.8; 160.7. Rep 4.14.3 Att. 173.2.15;
313.1.6. Providentia appears some 29 times, and in ND 2.58.11 is glossed
Graece... Trp6voia dicitur.
18. This is not the place to demonstrate the importance and the many-sidedness
of pronoia and of the idea of "Providence" generally in Hellenistic and later
philosophy; that would be to prove the obvious, as a review of the standard
reference works would make clear. Indeed it sometimes appears that idea is so
firmly embedded that it often need not be explicated in detail unless perhaps it
is central to a particular debate, e.g. the question of theodicy or the
understanding of history. And the next two examples in the text are clear
evidence that familiarity with the conception was not restricted to the
intellectual stratosphere. For general background I have found the following
helpful: J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism, 80 B.C. to A.D.
220 (London: Duckworth, 1977), hereafter Dillon, Middle Platonists: R.T.
Wallis, Neoplatonism (London: Duckworth, 1972); E.V. Arnold, Roman
Stoicism (New York: Humanities Press, 1958 [1911]); and the indices in C. de
Vogel, Greek Philosophy III, The Hellenistic-Roman Period (2nd ed; Leiden:
Brill, 1964) and E. Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen, index volume
(Leipzig: O.R. Reisland, 1882).

81
A. Thomas Kraabel

in agricultural advice; but then he realizes that he has a chance to get the
vegetables without paying cash for them, and so he agrees. The farmer
continues:" Sir, you'll be doing me a great favor [if you can answer this
question]...I keep puzzling and asking myself why it is that when I put
plants in the ground and then hoe and water them and give them all
kinds of attention, the weeds still show up before the things I've
planted."
Xanthus is stumped by the question! He can't come up with a direct
answer. But he is a philosopher, and he has made an agreement! -- and
so he gives a ponderous and philosophical response: TravTa -r OEia
Trpovoia &LOLKEITat --" All things are ordered by divine providence."
(The same vague dative construction without a preposition). Aesop
begins to laugh at him, and in the dialogue which follows it becomes
clear that such exalted language about pronoia is a commonplace. That
much is evident even to farmers and slaves.19
The other example is from the next century, from the satirist Lucian.
In Jupiter Tragoedus Lucian has the gods planning to "rig" a debate
between two philosophers, the Epicurean -Damis and the Stoic
Timocles. At the opening Zeus declares that all the gods' interests are
staked on Timocles; there will be no sacrifices for them to enjoy if
Damis proves his case and calls their existence into question. They
hope to bring about the victory of the Stoic, who is arguing for the
existence of divine pronoia.20
The link with Stoicism is still present in many instances, but the idea
has clearly gone beyond the boundaries of the debates of the
philosophers and is becoming an item of popular vocabulary.
At the same time, the academic discussion continued and broadened.
Actual treatises TrEpi Trpovoias or de providentia were written by
Seneca and Philo in the first century, in the second by Epictetus and

19. Vita Aesopi 35.12, in B.E. Perry, Aesopica, vol. 1 (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1952), 48.
20. J.Tr. § 4, cf. 20.17; 21.10; 37.7; 38.15, 25; 39.5; 43.3.

82
 Pronoia at Sardis

Aelian of Praeneste, in the third by Alexander of Aphrodisias and

Plotinus, and in the fifth by Hierocles and Proclus - to name some
which are well attested.21 The concept in several permutations is
influential in the writings of a variety of other authors from the
Hellenistic period on: the poet Aratus, Plutarch, Josephus, and in the
second century Marcus Aurelius, Apuleius, Maximus of Tyre, Arrian,

21. Seneca, De providentia = Dialogue 1. Philo, ed. M. Hadas-Lebel (SC 35;

Paris, 1973). Epictetus, 1.6, 16; 3.17. Aelian, cf. Kleine Pauly s.v. Ailianos

83
A. Thomas Kraabel

Galen and the middle platonist Atticus.22

I will return to the gentile uses of pronoia in the last section of this
paper. But before going further we need to take a closer look at the
Jewish sources. These are after all synagogue inscriptions. Pronoia
occurs in the LXX, but less frequently than in the inscriptions of this
one excavation! - only nine times in all. It is probably not accidental

2. Alexander, De fato, cf. quaestiones I, ch. 25; II, ch. 21, ed. I. Bruns
(Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, suppl. 2.2; Berlin: Reimer, 1892).
Plotinus, TrEp( Trpovo(ac = Enneades 2.2-3. Hierocles, TrEpi Trp6voias,
fragments in Photius, Bibl. 214, 251. Proclus, De decem dubitationibus circa
providentiam and De providentia et fato, fragments of the Greek text and
William of Moerbeke's Latin translation in H. Boese, Procli Diadochi tria
opiscula (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1960). This list and the next include non-
philosophers in order to show the broad interest in or acquaintance with this
idea; they omit some obvious Stoic sources for the same reason. Parma,
defining terms more narrowly, argues that before Plotinus there are no
monographs in Greek or Latin on this idea, Ch. Parma, Pronoia and
Providentia: Der Vorsehungsbegriff Plotins and Augustins (Leiden: Brill,
1971) 14.
22. Aratus, see the Proem (lines 1-18) with the comments of M. Erren, Die
Phainomena des Aratos von Soloi (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1967) 9-31, and his
final statement, 300. Plutarch, from many examples see De fac. 927A-928D,
cf Dillon, Middle Platonists 208-11. Marcus Aurelius, see 2.11.3 P.A. Brunt,
"Marcus Aurelius in His Meditations,: JRS 64 (1974) 14-18. Josephus, see
among others G. Delling, "Josephus and das Wunderbare," NT 2 (1958) 291-
309. Apuleius, see De Plat. 12, De mundo 24, cf. Dillon 320-326. Maximus
of Tyre, Orat. 13 ed H. Hobein (Maximi Tyrii Philosophumena. Leipzig:
Teubner, 1910), cf. Dillon 399f. Arrian is included on the basis of G.
Schepens, "Arrian's View of His Task as Alexander Historian," AncSoc 2
(1971) 154-168, espically 267 and his frequent reference to Arrian 7.30.3
Galen, De usu partium 3.10 and all of book 17, cf. the notes in the
translation of M.T. May (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1968). Atticus,

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 Pronoia at Sardis

that those nine instances are found only in LXX passages composed
originally in Greek.23 Greco-Roman "Providence" was too abstract and
impersonal an idea to translate the Israelite conception of Yahweh.
With the philosopher Philo the situation was different. He uses
pronoia some 67 times in the corpus represented in TLG,24 which does
not include fragmentary works. In addition it occurs five times, for
example, in the preserved Greek sections of De Providentia. Philo
shows the same range of meanings we have already observed in other
sources. For example, the word appears just twice in De Opificio
Mundi. Once it indicates God's care and oversight which, when
manifested in the world, acts as a powerful stimulus to true piety (Opif.
9); and once it means human "(malice) aforethought" (Opif. 128).
There are also just two occurrences in De Decalogo. In Decal. 58 it is
again in that ambiguous construction, the dative singular without a
preposition: the pronoia of the Creator. Decal. 141 describes a
human action EK Trpovo'as, a common phrase with adverbial meaning:
intentionally, deliberately. Similarly, of two occurrences in De
Virtutibus, in the one instance it is God's pronoia (Virt.215). In the
other (Virt. 135), Trpovoia TLV( (the same vague dative without a
preposition) is close to "with the proviso that..."
Philo was fully aware of the philosophical debates on the existence
or non-existence of Providence (see, e.g. Ebr. 1.99 and Conf. 114-15)
and toward the end of his life he wrote his own TIEpi HpovoLas,
known by its Latin title De providentia. But apparently he felt no need
to restrict this particular word to a single meaning, religious-
philosophical or otherwise.
The historian Josephus uses the noun some 160 times, in the same

23. Wis 14:3; 17:2. Dan 6:18 (19) LXX. 2 Macc 4:6. 3 Macc 4:21; 5:30. 4 Macc
9:24; 13 :19; 17: 22.
24. For access to the resources of Thesaurus Linguae Graecae on CD-Rom, with
the requisite hardware, I am indebted to Oxford's Faculty of Classics and the
staff of the Classics Reading Room, Bodleian Library.

85
A. Thomas Kraabel

range of meanings we have already seen. In the Antiquities, for

example, God can talk to Moses of "my pronoia" (1.46), but the word
is also used of Joseph's "oversight" of Pharaoh's household (2.39).
Moses calls upon God to send an earthquake to discomfit his enemies:
"Prove now that once again all things are ordered by your pronoia"
(4.47). But later in the same book Moses- uses the term to mean the
oversight or concern of the leaders who will succeed him (4.184).
Samson is born according to God's pronoia (5.277), and his life
thereafter was in harmony with it -- at least until he met Delilah (5.312).
Josephus himself was providentially saved from a shipwreck (Vita
15), and many times delivered from his enemies "by God's pronoia"
(Vita 425). Indeed, in one instance the illness and death of an enemy is
a proof of God's pronoia (BJ 7.453).
Josephus can tell the same story with (BJ 1.593) and without (AJ
17.71) a reference to God's pronoia. Religious charlatans try to
demonstrate that they act KaTd TTqV TOD 8EOV TrpovoLav (AJ 20.168).
Josephus can affirm that Herod the Great escaped assassination "in
accordance with God's pronoia" (AJ 14.463). The emperor Vespasian
is represented as being able to recognize God's pronoia (BJ 3.144) but
he can also believe himself being aided by 8alµ6vloc TrpovOia (BJ
4.622). And, in an instance beyond the usual range of meanings,
Josephus can suggest that a terrible massacre of Jews seemed to occur
WaTTEp EK 8aiµoviov Trpovoias (BJ 2.457).
But to a degree all these examples are exceptional. Josephus' usual
use of the term too is to refer to human planning, care, concern,
oversight. While pronoia occurs a dozen times in his autobiography,
and with some frequency in his retelling of the biblical story in the early
books of the Antiquities, most instances in both texts lack specific
religious or philosophical loading. For Josephus, for Philo and for
other Greek-speaking Jews, the term had not taken on the specificity it
appears to carry for Sardis Jews in a later age.
Pronoia occurs only four times in synagogue inscriptions outside

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 Pronoia at Sardis

Sardis. In CIJ 682 = Lifshitz no. 11,25 from O1bia on the Black Sea,
it indicates the "prudent foresight" of the donors themselves.26 In the
three instances from the recently discovered synagogue at Philippopolis
(Plovdiv) in Bulgaria the formula is similar to that at Sardis: EK T63V
Tr rrpovolas.27 In the other major group of Jewish inscriptions, the
epitaphs, it is found only once, in CIJ 123, from the Via Appia
catacomb in Rome; there it means human prudence or thoughtfulness.28
I conclude that the sources behind the use of this term in the Sardis
synagogue were probably not Jewish. The reasoning here needs to be
made very clear. There are essentially two arguments against assuming
that Jewish texts such as the LXX, Philo, Josephus are behind this use
of pronoia by the Jews of this city. The first is that in none of the
Jewish sources does the word carry the singleness of meaning which it
has in these inscriptions. Sardis uses pronoia narrowly and
formulaicly; the earlier Jewish texts offer a wide range of meanings.
To that argument from specificity add the other, that from frequency.
If, say, the LXX, Philo or Josephus - or all of them together - are
where the Sardis term originates, then the influence of these texts
should have been seen in other synagogues besides Sardis. If the word
in the Sardis inscriptions is taken from texts supposedly available to all

25. Lifshitz, Donateurs.

26. On the common formula npovoiav noLELoOaL in gentile inscriptions, see
OGIS index 699, SIG index 534, etc.
27. See E. Kesjakova, "The Ancient Synagogue of Philippopolis." Archeologia
[Sofia] 1 (1989) 20-33, in Bulgarian with French summary. While the
mosaics with inscriptions were preserved, the building no longer exists. I
owe this information to Dr. Gideon Foerster of the Hebrew University.
28. See the translation in P.W. van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs
(Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology, 2; Kampen, The
Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1991), 144f., no. 1. My thanks to Dr. David Noy
of The Jewish Inscriptions Project of the Divinity School of the University
of Cambridge for the computer search which verified these results.

87
 A. Thomas Kraabel

Jews, then some other synagogue community should also have picked
it up. Other Jews should have taken up this idea which Sardis is so
enthusiastic about, if its source is Jewish. But that did not happen.
.
Sardis and Plovdiv are the only two examples known.
As the examples given at the beginning of this paper make clear, the
term was both familiar and popular in the Sardis synagogue. And it may
have an absolute meaning in the Sardis inscriptions which is not evident
elsewhere, in Jewish or gentile sources, in inscriptions or in written
texts. Where did it come from, and what does its presence tell us about
this Jewish community? Is Christianity a possibility?
It is well known that Christians in the post-apostolic period rapidly
took over a conceptual vocabulary from the non-Christian world. They
did this first for missionary purposes, but then also to be able to
express themselves to new Christians whose thought world was not at
all that of the Hebrew Bible, and at times far from the New Testament
as well. Christian theology in these times uses pronoia frequently.29
According to TLG, there are some 910 occurances just in John
Chrysostom. (But then he is TLG's most voluminous author, with
450,000 words in his sermons on the Gospel of Matthew alone.)
One Christian whose usage of pronoia is close to that of the Sardis
inscriptions is the Emperor Constantine. He had sound political reasons
for utilizing abstract terms at times in his writings and speeches, rather
than specific divine names. He found pronoia a particularly congenial
idea and employed the idea frequently.30 It is tempting to see in the
synagogue inscriptions a reflection of Constantinian vocabulary, but
given the dynamics of the religious situation at Sardis, Christians are a
most unlikely source.
In other Greco-Roman religions, Greco-Roman paganism if you

29. Note the references e.g. in one recent study, A. Scott, Origen and the Life of
the Stars. A History of an Idea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).
30. Dorries, Das Selbstzeugnis Kaiser Konstantins Abhandlungen der Akadamie
der Wissenschaften in Gottingen, Phil. Hst. Klasse, 3 Folge 34 (Gottingen,

88
 Pronoia at Sardis

will, the term is encountered quite frequently; indeed it was so common

that it may have been avoided deliberately in the LXX and the New
Testament as a result.31 Here, however, pronoia rarely means "divine
providence" in the sense of the Sardis inscriptions. It is rather the
epithet of a particular deity, Athena or Isis for example, or the proper
name of a goddess, Pronoia, a kind of deified abstraction32. In coins
and inscriptions associated with ruler cult it usually means the "divine
prudence and foresight" of the emperor, less commonly the divine
pronoia which has bestowed the emperor on his subjects.33
There is one source remaining, by far the most likely one, at least
for an academic dean: Greco-Roman "higher education." It is to that
possibility that we finally must turn.
These inscriptions make it all but certain that pronoia was an idea "in
the air" at Sardis in the fourth century, a subject of discussion in leading
Jewish circles. Other sources strongly suggest that the idea would also
have figured in the education provided to young men there. As a late
antique "metropolis" Sardis was eligible for state subsidy for her

1954) 352-56, cf. R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Knopf,
1987) 627-62.
31. IDB s.v. "Providence."
32. RL s.v. pronoia (1907), cf. RE Supp. 14 (1974) s.v. providentia. In the
second-century Dreambook of Artemidorus it is assumed that the figures of
Pronoia, Physis and Heimarmene could appear in one's dreams, see
Artemidori Daldiani Onirocriticon Libri V., ed. R. Pack (Leipzig: Teubner,
1963) 176.8.
33. See RE s.v. pronoia (1957) 747, and M. Charlesworth, "Providentia and
Aeternitas." HTR 29 (1936) 106-22.

89
A. Thomas Kraabel

teachers.34 In this period particularly in Asia Minor philosophy and

rhetoric were subjects widely taught.35 For Sardis there is quite a bit of
information about the long careers of two pagan intellectuals,
Chrysanthius and Eunapius, and so I will take them as examples.36
Their teaching may well have taken place in that baths-gymnasium
complex in one unit of which the synagogue itself was located.37 The
social situation in Sardis which the archaeological evidence reveals was
such that some Jewish young men, particularly those from leading
families, would have participated in the kind of education which
Chrysanthius and Eunapius offered.
Chrysanthius (ca. 310 - ca. 390) first taught in Pergamum and
Ephesus, where the future ruler Julian became one of his most devoted
pupils.38 Then Chrysanthius returned to Sardis. When Julian became

34. C. Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis Archaelogical Exploration of Sardis,

Monograph 5 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1976) 22, hereafter
Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis; to the references there add S. Bonner,
Education in Ancient Rome (London: Methuen, 1977) 156-62, hereafter
Bonner, Education.
35. Sardis had also produced a philosopher earlier, in the second century BCE,
lollas the Academic, C. Habicht, "Der Akademiker lollas von Sardes, "ZPE 74
(1988) 215-18; SPRT 114, 115, 135-37.
36. Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis, 20-28; generally R. Penella, Greek
Philosophers and Sophists in the Fourth century AD. Studies in Eunapius of
Sardis ARCA, v. 28 (Leeds: Francis Cairns, 1990), hereafter Penella, Greek
Philosophers.
37. See SPRT, 148-61, F. Yegul, The Bath-Gymnasium Complex at Sardis.
Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, report 3, (Cambridge MA: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1986); Bonner, Education, chap. 10, "The Problem of
Accommodation," pages 115-25; RAC s.vv. "Eunapios" (1966),
"Hochschule" (1990).
38. Julian's religious and philosophical view were eclectic; nevertheless it is
clear from Eunapius how important Chrysanthius and his ideas were to Julian,

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 Pronoia at Sardis

Augustus, he twice summoned Chrysanthius to court to be one of his

close advisors.. Chrysanthius twice refused, saying each time that the
omens indicated that the gods wanted him to remain in Sardis.
Whereupon Julian appointed Chrysanthius high priest of Lydia.39
Chrysanthius was from one of the leading families of Sardis; some
of his relatives would have been members of the city council, as were
some leading Jews during his lifetime. A contemporary of the
philosopher, bearing the same name, is known from our excavations.
Flavius Chrysanthius died sometime after the middle of the fourth
century, and his richly decorated tomb was discovered in 1976. A
painted text in the tomb indicates that this Chrysanthius was a
Christian.40
Chrysanthius the teacher left no written texts, but we have a
biography of him by his fellow townsman Eunapius with some good
evidence for Chrysanthius' philosophical ideas and educational style.
Two other sources add details to the picture of the intellectual world of
which Chrysanthius and Eunapius were a part. These are the writings
of Julian's close associate the philosopher Sallustius41 and those of
the Emperor himself.42 The brief text called On the Gods and the

not only when the latter was "in school," but right to the end of his life.
39. The importance of education as a conveyor of Hellenism, and the
transformation of Hellenism itself into a syllabus, a subject for teaching, are
themes important in Julian's writings and in his political program, see P.
Athanassiadi-Fowden, Julian and Hellenism. An Intellectual Biography
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), hereafter Julian.
40. SPRT 208.
41. On Sallustius, see Athanassiadi-Fowden, Julian, 68-70, cf. 154-60.
42. Julian can use the word as an epithet on occasion, for Athena (Helios 149B-
150A) or the Mother of the Gods (Mother of the Gods 166B); elsewhere it is
the pronoia of Helios, e.g. Helios 132C, Letter 11 (425B) He can also use
pronoia interchangeably with prometheia on occasion, in Letter 11 contrast
425B with 425C; both nouns appear in Mother of the Gods 166B. But

91
A. Thomas Kraabel

Universe, by Sallustius, also shows the importance of this idea to

Julian's contemporaries. It contains an extended discussion of pronoia
in chapter 9, where the word itself is used seven times, usually as "the
pronoia of the gods. "43
For the thought of Eunapius (ca. 345 - ca. 420) we may consult his
Lives of the Philosophers and the Sophists and the fragments of his
History. In addition there is the New History of another pagan
historian, Zosimus, written in the early sixth century and based heavily
on Eunapius.
Pronoia in these writers is not the impersonal Providence of the
Stoics. It is very much tied up with traditional religion and is often "the
pronoia of the gods." Thus Eunapius can say that the death of the
villain Ablabius demonstrates that "pronoia had not abandoned
humankind" (VS 464). He tells us that Julian had been preserved from
death "by the pronoia of the gods, against everyone's expectation" (VS
476). The career of a philosopher called Prohaeresius was governed by
"some divine pronoia" or "by the pronoia of some deity" - OE OD
Twos TrpovoLag is deliberately ambiguous here (VS 486) because
Prohaeresius, Eunapius' revered teacher, was a Christian.44
Zosimus' assumptions are obvious in his first chapter: "the

these deities, particularly Helios, are understood on the broadest terms; it is

likely that Sallustius and Julian actually differed very little on the subject, not
particularly Helios 132C-34A and Julian's use of pronoia in an epistolary
formula, e.g. the closing lines of letters 13 and 30. Generally on the close
ties between the thought of the two, G. Rochefort, "Le Peri Theon kai kosmou
de Saloustios et l'empereur Julian," REG 69 (1956) 50-66, and "La
demonologie de Saloustios et ses rapports avec celle de 1'empereur Julien,"
BAGB, ser. 4, 16 (1957) 53-61.
43. 16.12, 16, 22, 24, 29; 17.1., 27; the phrase also appears at 28.10 and 34.1
Sallustius, Concerning the Gods and the Universe, ed. A.D. Nock (Cambridge
UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1926).
44. Penella, Greek Philosophers 79-99.

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 Pronoia at Sardis

administration of human affairs, [he says,] is in the hands of a divine

pronoia, so that when it guides souls there is prosperity, but if it is not
present the affairs of state are brought to their present sorry
condition."45 For Zosimus, cosmic pronoia clearly had taken a
negative turn; for him "divine pronoia...abandoned mankind when the
Romans [turned to Christianity and] ceased to worship the gods
according the prescribed traditional religious ritual."46
Zosimus here is continuing and intensifying a theme in his source,
Eunapius. Indeed, one of the major issues between pagan and Christian
historians in the fourth century and thereafter is just this point.
Christians would say that Providence is under the control of the God of
the Christians, and that the truth of Christianity is proved by their
providentially ordered triumph over unbelief. But Eunapius and
especially Zosimus point to the ills of the Empire. They argue that the
Romans in particular are paying for their rejection of their traditional
gods. For Zosimus, the "pronoia of the gods" shows itself now as
punishment: in strife within the government, in the troubles and
degeneration of society, and in the threats from external enemies.
I am not for a minute implying that all of this (or even much of it) is
loaded into these inscriptions. Nor is it necessary that Chrysanthius or
Eunapius have influenced the Sardis Jews directly, though that is surely
a possibility. The young men of Sardis had other teachers than the two
of them and before the two of them. My intent is to recreate a context to
explain the inscriptions, to give the story behind them.
This is that story. I suggest that in the cultured atmosphere of.the
Sardis baths-gymnasium-teaching complex, early in the fourth century
if not before, the general conception of a cosmic Pronoia came to the
attention of Sardis Jews. They took it up because it was a term which
made sense philosophically and religiously to them, to their children

45. Translation revised from W. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Decline of Rome
(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968) 111], hereafter Kaegi, Byzantium.
46. Kaegi, Byzantium 111.

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A. Thomas Kraabel

and to their gentile neighbors. In particular it reflected the universality

of the Jewish tradition as they would have understood it - not tied to the
Holy Land any longer in any exclusive sense, but world-wide. If Philo
could do something similar four centuries before, why not the Jews of
Sardis?47
If this seems unlikely in the Judaism of late antiquity, recall the
background of these particular Jews. At Sardis in particular they
represented a Jewish tradition which had been a part of the Greek world
for nearly a thousand years. At Sardis in particular they were
descendents of Jews who had come to Anatolia not from the Holy
Land directly, but from an eastern diaspora in Babylonia. Educated
Sardis Jews in particular would want to talk about their tradition in a
more expansive, global language.
Recall that Jews in this community had been speaking Greek and
thinking in Greek for nearly 900 years. For a very long time Greek had
provided the formative vocabulary of their thinking. It had become
much more than just a tool for getting along in daily life. It was the
language by means of which their world-view was articulated.
The synagogue inscriptions indicate that Sardis Jews were ready to
appropriate or even invent terms in Greek and to incorporate them

47. In the second century BCE another Alexandrian Jew, called Ezekiel, had turned
the central story of Jewish history, the Passover/Exodus, into a drama in the
style of Euripides, see H. Jacobson, The Exagoge of Ezekiel (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983); P.W. van der Horst, "Some Notes on the
Exagoge of Ezekiel," Mnemosyne 37 (1984) 354-75; and E. Schurer, The
History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised and edited by G.
Vermes, F. Millar et al. [hereafter Schurer-Vermes-Miller] III (Edinburgh: T. &
T. Clark, 1986) 563-66. Both he and Philo had written as committed Jews.
Both had been trying to express central Jewish stories and ideas in the
language and conceptions which their Hellenistic educations had provided
them. Both had thus already done, much more elaborately, something like
what the Sardis Jews were attempting in these inscriptions.

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 Pronoia at Sardis

creatively into community vocabulary: nomophulakion, heptamuxion,

sophodidaskalos, pantokrator and probably theosebes. So too with
pronoia. At some time in the fourth century this term suggested itself
as an up-market variation or replacement of the more traditional
language of, e.g. inscription no. 29, cited in the first section of this
essay. It became accepted in the synagogue community as part of its
religious vocabulary. Finally, it became so familiar, and appeared so
appropriate to wealthier members of the community, that they began to
use it in this formula in their donation inscriptions. They took over an
important gentile word in the same way that they had appropriated
gentile sculpture, hauling Roman eagles and Lydian lions into their
building to adorn it, boldly making them Jewish in the process. Or so I
would suggest.
It is possible to carry the story of these inscriptions one step further,
by looking beyond the noun pronoia to the formula which contains it,
and doing a comparison with other donor inscriptions. Gentiles were
usually matter-of-fact in designating the source of the funds for their
benefactions. One common phrase is EK -rwv tS&wv, "from my / our
own resources." If the pronoia inscriptions and the related no. 29 were
a deliberate variation on such formulae, then the intent of the Jewish
version was most likely a theological one. No. 29 is a clear statement of
monotheism in that case, and the pronoia texts should be understood in
similar fashion. These well-prepared Jews were using the common
language of the educated person in Late Antiquity, but the tradition they
made that language carry would be their own. Then these texts would
mean: There is [but] one God, and he is the source of our prosperity.48

48. I have Cilliers Breytenbach to thank for the ideas in this paragraph. Both
inrip and several variations of the "from the gifts of God" formula
will occur in Christian inscriptions later. Studies in DACL attribute both
concepts to Judaism, citing Jewish inscriptions and tracing the original idea
back to I Chron 29:14, DACL 4:1507-10, 7:689, see also R. van Bremen,
"Women and Wealth," in Images of Women in Antiquity, edd. A. Cameron and

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A. Thomas Kraabel

Whatever its meaning for a given individual at Sardis, pronoia was

now a Jewish word. Its importance in this context is unique in the
Diaspora Judaism of this period, as far as we know. No other
Mediterranean Jewish community had such a term so embedded in its
common vocabulary.
That uniqueness is not the result of a community drifting away from
its traditions. Sardis Jews would endure too long, and overcome their
competition too convincingly, for that to have been true. Nor is the idea
the product of a single individual's philosophical system, some great
mind in Sardis, a fourth-century Philo, as it were. For that there is no
evidence whatsoever. Rather, as far as we can tell, it grew naturally
out of the cultural and religious life of a 900-year-old community of
Jews, many of them educated now, all of them fully at home in their
Lydian surroundings and at the same time fully loyal to their ancient
traditions as they understood and expressed them.

Another inscription from the same period provides a final

illustration. It is the epitaph of a man of Antioch in Pisidia, east of
Sardis:
Gaius Calpurnius Collega Macedo, member of the city council, a
man most worthy, Who dwelt in every virtue, as the ancient [poet]
says, An orator [as accomplished as] the ten best of Athens, A
philosopher [of the school] of Plato and Socrates, A senior
physician, [following] Hippocrates in word and deed. Who lived
among men thirty years and [twelve] days, Who by the pronoia of
God went from among men to heaven, in the company of holy
angels, leaving his parents more quickly than was right, Putting off
the mantle of clay (to consign it) to this place. I, [his father,] Gaius
Calpurnius Macedo, [honor him,] having prepared a hero's tomb
for my most wonderful, sorely missed son.49

A. Kuhrt (London: Croom Helm, 1983) 223-42.

49. SEG 32 (1982) 1302, translation my own.

96
This paragraph which follows the inscription quoted on page 96
(footnote 49) has been erroneously ommitted:

Gaius Calpurnius Collega Macedo provides another example of

the sort of blend of philosophy, culture and liberal education
which I see at Sardis. It is that tradition which is central to this
epitaph, not any particular religion. Despite the use of ronoia in a
now familiar way in the epitaph, nothing suggests that father or
son was Jewish or, for that matter, Christian.
-Some - among the Jews of Sardis may well have been the
intellectual equals of this senior physician from Antioch; in any
case they participated with him in that same culture, like fish
swimming in the same deep pond. And even as they retained a
firm grasp on their Jewish identity, they also reflected that
thought-world in the formula we have been discussing. That at
least is my hypothesis to explain these eleven texts.
 TALMUDIC BABYLONIA AND THE LAND
OF ISRAEL: BETWEEN SUBSERVIENCE
AND ASSERTIVENESS

ISAIAH M. GAFNI

The status of the Jewish diaspora and its ongoing relationship with
the center in Eretz Israel during the Second Temple and post-Temple
period has yet to be systematically examined.1 It is a complex issue, for
it encompasses the self-perception of the various golah communities on
the one hand, while on the other hand it must take into consideration
the attitudes expressed in Eretz Israel not only towards specific
communities, but in general towards the very phenomenon of a
diaspora. Did diaspora communities really maintain a feeling of
subservience towards the Judaean center, and if so - was this a constant
factor? Conversely, did the Jews of Israel attach a certain stigma to the
very existence of Jews in the diaspora in the face of a thriving center in

1. For surveys of the Jewish diaspora in the Second Temple period see: M. Stern,
"The Jewish Diaspora", in: S. Safrai and M. Stern, eds., The Jewish People in
the First Century, vol. 1, Assen 1974, pp. 117-183; E. Schiirer, The History
of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C. - A.D. 135), vol. III
pt. 1, ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Goodman, Edinburgh 1986, pp. 1-176;
see also E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, Leiden 19812, pp.
120-143, 220-255, 356-388, 507-525; on the relations between Eretz Israel
and the diaspora cf. S. Safrai, "Relations between the Diaspora and the Land
of Israel", in: S. Safrai and M. Stern, eds., The Jewish People in the First
Century, vol. 1, Assen 1974, pp. 184-215.
Isaiah M. Gafni

the Land of Israel?2 Put in modern terms, was there a "Zionist"

movement - or "Zionist" ideology - as far back as the Second Temple
Period, an ideology that would have related to the phenomenon of
diaspora not merely in theological or philosophical terms, but that might
also have interpreted its ideas into practical expressions of what it
deemed incumbent upon Jews? And if so, how did the various diaspora
communities react in the face of such pressures? The following study
will take up one specific aspect of this relationship, an aspect that
presented itself most acutely in the post-Temple period, when diaspora
communities either strove - or were forced by the political consequences
of a series of Jewish military defeats in Judaea - to set up frameworks
of Jewish communal life independent of authority structures once firmly
situated in the Land of Israel. Our study will focus on the problems of
"breaking away" encountered by one Jewish community in particular -
the Jews of Talmudic Babylonia; their dilemma will in many ways serve
as a prototype for similar processes in post-Talmudic Jewish history,
processes no less traumatic than the original weaning of a Jewish
community from its ties to the ultimate 'mother-country'.
The Babylonian Talmud (=BT), Pesahim 51a, records the following
anecdote:

2. Needless to say, the stigma could derive from the basic Biblical perception of
dispersion as a consequence of Israel's sins, and indeed as divine punishment
for those transgressions (e.g. Deut. 28:64-68; Jer. 9:16; Ezek. 20:23-24).
While the members of Jewish diaspora communities during the Second
Temple period were obviously not responsible for the misdeeds of their
ancestors, the perpetuation of the diaspora might nevertheless serve as a
constant reminder of past sins. Elsewhere I have posited that the formulation
and expressions of anti-diaspora sentiment on the part of the sages of Eretz
Israel can be identified only in the aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba debacle, cf. I.
Gafni. "The Status of Eretz Israel in Reality and in Jewish Consciousness
following the Bar-Kokhva Uprising", in: A. Oppenheimer and U. Rappaport,
eds., The Bar-Kokhva Revolt, Jerusalem 1984, pp. 224-232.
 Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel

"When Rabbah b. bar Hannah came (to Babylonia) he ate the fat of
the stomach." (An animal's stomach, in rabbinic eyes, was considered
to be partly curved like a bow, and the fat of the straight part - the
bow's string - was deemed permissible by the sages of Eretz Israel but
forbidden in Babylonia). Whereupon the Talmud asks: "Does Rabbah
b. bar Hannah dispute the principle we have learnt, that a person should
assume both the restrictions of the place whence he departed as well as
those of the place to which he has gone? Said Abaye: This applies only
when travelling from one place to another within Babylonia or within
Eretz Israel, or from Babylonia to Eretz Israel, but from Eretz Israel to
Babylonia it does not apply - for since we (i.e. in Babylonia)
are subservient to them (in Israel) we behave as they do"
Ow"rni 13.,aray th 13a.7 1"D).3

Interestingly, the Tosafists (ad loc.) already noted that this principle
would appear to clash with the thrust of a lengthy discussion in BT
Sanhedrin 5a regarding the relative power of court systems in the two
lands, and which suggests that those judges recognized by the
Babylonian Exilarch took precedence over the appointees of the
Patriarch in Eretz Israel. Rabbenu Tam's answer, however, correctly
distinguishes between the discussion in Sanhedrin, which alludes to a
superior practical strength of the Babylonian court system in monetary

3. The concluding statement does not quite fit our story, which describes a man
coming to Babylonia from Eretz Israel and nevertheless retaining his
Palestinian custom, and not the opposite, i.e. a Babylonian conforming to
Palestinian custom (1;iv'n11Z The tosafists (ad loc.) note that the
particular phrase has its origins in a parallel story unfolding in the opposite
direction, wherein R. Zera goes from Babylonia to Eretz Israel and embraces
the custom of the latter, foregoing the restrictions of his Babylonian
homeland (BT Hullin 18b). More interesting, however, is the fact that the
phrase "1,5 p1v,1Y" is employed elsewhere in BT (Horayot 11b) in just the
opposite sense, alluding to the primacy of the Babylonian Exilarch over the
Palestinian Patriarch.

99
Isaiah M. Gafni

matters, backed as it was by a powerful Exilarch, and our discussion,

which centers on issues of halakhic disputes, where Eretz Israel takes
precedence "for there they study Torah in public, and we have learnt
that the air of the Land of Israel makes people wise" (' xnm' ynxn Kr1K
OlDnn).4
Indeed, the sentiment noted above, that Eretz Israel maintains a
certain precedence in matters of halakhah and halakhic behavior, and
that Babylonia accedes to that precedence - is expressed in numerous -
and varied - talmudic sources. In a story alluding to R. Zera's travel in
the opposite direction, from Babylonia to Eretz Israel, we are told that
upon arrival in the Land he ate from an animal slaughtered in a manner
that was regarded as a deflection, and thus forbidden, by the sages of
Babylonia - both Rav and Shmuel. Again the Talmud asks - should he
not have also adhered to the restrictions of the land he left (i.e.
Babylonia), and again Abaye explains that this does not apply when
journeying from Babylonia to Eretz Israel, "for we are subservient to
them and do as they do" (BT Hullin 18b).
This sentiment, suggesting a supremacy in halakhic authority enjoyed
by the sages of Eretz Israel, is expressed explicitly in numerous other
sources throughout the Bavli, many of which evolve from the principle
- apparently embraced throughout the talmudic era and even into geonic
times - that ordination can only be carried out in the Land of Israel. The
statement to that effect is quoted outright in BT Sanhedrin 14a - ; rrno t')K

4. It is noteworthy, however, that whereas Rabbenu Tam links the relative

supremacy of the sages of Eretz Israel to their superior learning and wisdom,
i.e. the fruits of a merit-oriented hierarchy, Rashi (ad loc.) suggests a purely
formal advantage: the sages of Eretz Israel are ordained c'v'no) whereas the
Babylonians are not, for ordination was not practiced outside the Land (see
below). This difference in defining criteria for halakhic precedence and
communal authority might have played a central role in the tension between
Eretz Israel and Babylonia, with the latter obviously interested in stressing a
meritocracy (cf. below, n. 9).

100
 Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel

"1nn - there is no ordination outside the Land",5 and the consequence

of this limitation is that a whole corpus of legal activity, defined by the
rabbis as 111b]7 'n'`I, penalties (that is - the imposition of fines either in
fixed sums or not commensurate to the damage inflicted) - is thereby
precluded from the jurisdiction of the Babylonians. One well known
incident has Rav Hisda inquiring of Rav Nahman regarding precisely
such penalties, only to be scolded by the latter: "Hisda, Hisda, are you
imposing fines in Babylonia"?! (BT B.K. 27b). Yet another case, in
which a certain Yirmiyahu apparently inflicted some unspeakable deed
upon Ukban the Babylonian (one commentator interprets this as
castration), finds its way before a Babylonian court, only to be referred
to a tribunal in Tiberias. Rav Ashi explains that "this was a case of
penalties, and these are not adjudicated in Babylonia" (BT Sanh. 31b).
The preferential status of Eretz Israel in these cases, however, is not
presented anywhere as being the result of that land's superior rabbinic
knowledge of the Torah (Rabbenu Tam's above-quoted words
notwithstanding), but rather the consequence of an authority structure
that raises the Land of Israel to an unassailable hierarchal position
among Jewish communities.6 This standing might assert itself in a
variety of halakhic issues in which the application of ultimate and
unquestioned authority was deemed necessary, and recognized as such
even by the Babylonians. The classic example of this would be the
intercalation of the calendar, arguably the most prevalent example used
by the rabbis when elaborating on a wide variety of authority structures:
Sages acceding to Patriarchal authority7, Babylonians to Palestinians

5. cf. PT Bikkurim 3, 65d for the parallel Palestinian discussion on the

prohibition of ordination in the diaspora.
6. No scriptural proof is cited in connection with the Bavli's statement
forbidding ordination outside the Land. The prooftexts cited in the PT
discussion (previous note) are clearly of a secondary, supportive nature
(K11=0K) rather than the source for the custom.
7. Mishna Rosh Ha-Shanah 2:8-9.

101
Isaiah M. Gafni

(see below), and even God himself acceding to rabbinic authority8. The
famous Hananiah incident, wherein a sage in Babylonia unsuccessfully
attempts usurpation of the exclusively Palestinian function of
intercalation, is couched in terms that suggest Palestinian supremacy
not based on superior knowledge, but rather on an accepted - and even
scripturally imposed - hierarchy: "For out of Zion shall come forth
Torah" (Isaiah 2:3) - declare the Israeli messengers, and not out of
Babylonia; otherwise the feasts will be "the feasts of Hananiah nephew
of R. Joshua" and not the feasts of God (PT Sanhedrin 1,19a).
Interestingly, this unassailable hierarchy is the main argument in the PT
version of the story, whereas in the BT Hananiah tries to argue - for
one slight moment - that there is no equivalent to him in the Land
of Israel, only to be rebuffed on that point as well (1 7i nnrv ovi"m
o'm" ?1).9 But there too the story reverts back to the underlying theme,
that usurpation of Palestinian authority is tantamount to heresy; 'and

8. PT Rosh Ha-Shana 1, 57a; Pesikta deRav Kahana, Ha-Hodesh 13 (ed.

Mandelbaum p. 102-103).
9. The phrase n'm+"rn IV Y3 nninm ("the kids you left behind have grown to
become wethers") appears - without any elaboration - as the text of the second
of three letters sent to Hananiah according to the version in PT. In the
Babylonian version, however, the phrase is part of a longer give-and-take
between Hananiah and the Palestinian messengers, from which it would
appear that the Babylonian recounter of the tale might in fact be willing to
consider relative rabbinic erudition as a factor in determining the balance of
power between the two communities. Also noteworthy is the different sitz-
im-leben for the two versions of Hananiah's clash with the messengers from
Eretz Israel. The PT recounting of the tale places it within the confines of
synagogue activity (one sage read from the Torah, another from the
Prophets), while the BT version suggests some sort of learning environment,
wherein the messengers purposely clash with Hananiah over matters of
halakha, after initially proclaiming that they have come "to study Torah"
(13K3 nlln

102
 Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel

why so extreme, because it is written "For out of Zion shall come forth
Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem"' (BT Berakhot 63b).
The precedence and authority of Palestinian Torah, of course, was
made implicit by the very fact that it was Judah the Patriarch's Mishnah
that served, in the final analysis, as the basis for all amoraic activity,
including that of the Babylonians. Not only could this enhance the
perception of Palestinian centrality, but it would also explain the
recurring allusions to sages arriving in Babylonia from Eretz Israel with
some authoritative information, seemingly closer to the source, on some
aspect of the halakhah (17 K 4315D ' 1,nN 'n; "when Rabbi X arrived- in
Babylonia - he said..."). As noted by Gedaliah Alon,10 this flow of
information is predominantly projected as one directional, from Eretz
Israel to Babylonia, as are the various letters, xrri K, sent from the Land
of Israel to Babylonia, and this notwithstanding the fact that rabbis were
obviously going back and forth on their journeys between the two
communities.
Nowhere does the Bavli attempt to deny the legitimacy, per se, of
this Palestinian superiority, but this in itself could not prevent the
raising of questions regarding not only the relative state of learning and
knowledge within the two rabbinic societies, but more importantly - the
growing need that must have been felt in Babylonia to establish a
viable, self-sufficient community, capable of dealing with all aspects of
communal life, including an all-embracing judicial system. Indeed, for
such a system to perform its duties while prevented from dealing with a
broad spectrum of legal sanctions such as the penalization of offenders
is unthinkable, and thus the Babylonians found themselves in the
difficult position of adhering - in principle - to the idea of subservience
to Eretz Israel, while concurrently creating an independent communal
structure that might assert itself to its fullest potential.
This process, it appears, followed several directions. While in certain

10. G. Alon, The Jews in their Land in the Talmudic Age, vol. 1, Jerusalem 1980,
pp. 10-12.

103
Isaiah M. Gafni

cases it seems to have addressed the technical limitations imposed upon

Babylonia vis-a-vis Eretz Israel, it also appears to have laid the
groundwork for a more comprehensive formula which essentially
effected a redefinition of the role of Babylonia within the framework of
the entire Jewish world.
The simple solution might have been the one that emerges from a
court-case recorded in BT Bava Kamma 84a. An ox once chewed the
hand of a child. Raba proclaimed the manner in which the sheriffs of
the court were to assess the damages to be paid, a decision to which the
students present at the court objected, observing that this was in fact a
case of penal justice, in which the presence of ordained Palestinian
judges was required. A long and detailed discussion ensues, in the
course of which it is stated that, lack of judges notwithstanding, we in
Babylonia can nevertheless deal in certain matters of damages, because
"we serve as their agents" (i.e. agents of the judges in Eretz Israel;
1ai~rzy Kp it rvirnn' v).
This notion of agency, of course, was the ideal solution. It formally
recognizes the priority of Palestinian authority, while at the same time
removes the shackles from the hands of Babylonian judges, and in fact
affords them a large degree of practical independence.
But alongside this practical lip-service, which in any case seems to
have been used sparingly in Talmudic discussions, there emerges a far
more developed ideology that would also serve to legitimize Babylonian
sovereignty, while concurrently not disputing the central role of the
Land of Israel. In collecting all the attributes of the Babylonian Jewish
community as laid out in the Babylonian Talmud, a very interesting
picture suggests itself.
Let us begin by taking up the office of Exilarch. Numerous talmudic
statements compare the relative status of the two offices of political
prominence in late Jewish antiquity: the Patriarch in Eretz Israel and the
Exilarch in Babylonia.11 Whatever their relative strengths regarding

11. PT Kila'im 9, 32b; PT Ketubot 12, 35a; Gen. Rabbah 33:3 (ed. Theodor-

104
 Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel

appointment of judges and the like, one fact is not disputed: The
Babylonians have in their midst a direct descendant of the House of
David, who derives his authority in no small measure from that fact,
rather than from any pretensions at halakhic erudition, the latter clearly
being the case regarding at least the origins of the Palestinian
patriachate.12 In later, Geonic times, attempts will be made to
reconstruct the lineage linking the Exilarchs with the last kings of
Judah,13 but in the talmudic period such a list was not even necessary,
for the Exilarch's pedigree was above reproach. Moreover, at least one
source claims that his Davidic pedigree is even superior to that of the
Patriarch, coming at it does via the patrilineal route rather than the
matrilineal one. 14
The Babylonians also developed the idea of continuity with the
ancient Land of Israel through the phenomenon of synagogues, as has
been noted by A. Oppenheimer.15 It was in the ancient synagogues of
Huzal and Shaf ve-Yativ that the Shekhinah resided, after being exiled

Albeck p. 305); BT Horayot 11b; BT Sanhedrin 5a; see also BT Hulin 92a; BT
Sanhedrin 38a. For a comparison of the two offices as models of Jewish
leadership cf. I. Gafni, "'Shevet u-Mehokek" - On New Models of Leadership
in the Talmudic Period in Eretz Israel and Babylonia' (Hebrew), in: I. Gafni
and G. Motzkin, eds., Priesthood and Monarchy, Jerusalem 1987, pp. 79-92.
12. Hence the distinction between the Babylonian Exilarchs who "rule Israel with
a staff", and the Patriarchs - "the descendents of Hillel who teach Torah in
public"; BT Sanhedrin 5a; BT Horayot 11b; Gen Rabbah 97 (p. 1219; cf.
Gafni (prey. note) p. 80 n. 10.
13. The famous attempt is that of the 9th century Babylonian chronicle Seder
Olam Zuta, cf. A. Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, vol. 2, Oxford
1895, pp. 73-75; cf. also Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ed. Lewin, p. 73-74
14. PT Kil'aim 9, 32b; PT Ketubot 12, 35a; Gen. Rabbah 33:3 (p. 305).
15. A. Oppenheimer, "Synagogues with a Historic Association in Talmudic
Babylonia" (Hebrew), in: A. Kasher et al., eds, Synagogues in Antiquity,
Jerusalem 1987, pp. 147-154.

105
Isaiah M. Gafni

together with the people of Israel to Babylonia.16 Indeed, geonic

sources would even claim that the rubble of the first Temple was
removed to Babylonia, serving as the building blocks for the local
synagogues.17 But even in Talmudic times, the idea will develop that
the synagogues of Babylonia are the "minor sanctuaries", taking the
place of the destroyed Temple. As noted by Oppenheimer and myself
elsewhere, the BT frequently alludes to Babylonian synagogues within
the context of discussions over the Temple. 18
But if until now we have noted continuity - if not supersession -
from the Land of Israel through institutions, the Babylonians in fact
went further. The idea of a Jewish pedigree superior to that of all other
Jews, Eretz Israel included,19 required that one know precisely from
where to accept prospective mates for marriage. To designate which
communities were in fact part of the "purer" Babylonia, the rabbis were
forced to pose the question: "How far does Babylonia extend" (p'r r
K'7; BT Kiddushin 71b). What ensues are sweeping geographical
delineations: how far on the upper Euphrates river, and how far south;
and similarly how far on the upper Tigris, and how far south. And so,
just as Eretz Israel requires a precise geographical demarcation for the
fulfillment of certain commandments, now the physical Land of
Babylonia also required a similar demarcation. Thus emerges an
ideology linked to the Land of Bavel as a unique religious entity:
"Both Rabbah and Rav Joseph said: Just as the fit persons (ti'7mo) of
Babylonia are received (that is, may be buried) in the Land of Israel; so
the fit ones of other lands may be received by Babylonia" (BT Ketubot
111a). Note only do we encounter statements such as "He who dwells

16. BT Megillah 29a.

17. Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ed. Lewin, p. 72-73.
18. e.g. BT Bava Bathra 3b; BT Yoma 10a; cf. I Gafni, "Synagogues in Talmudic
Babylonia: Traditions and Reality", in: Synagogues in Antiquity (above n.
15), p. 162.
19. BT Kiddushin 69b; ibid 71b; BT Ketubot 111a.

106
 Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel

in Babylonia - it is as if he dwells in the Land of Israel (BT Ketubot

ibid.), which might still be interpreted as stressing life within a proper
spiritual and social environment, but we also find: "He who is buried in
Babylonia - it is as though he were buried in the Land of Israel" !20 To
all this, of course, we might add the historical prominence enjoyed by
the 'Land of Babylonia', for it might even be perceived in Jewish eyes
as being the cradle of their own tribal history: Why - the rabbis would
ask - were the people of Israel exiled to Babylonia (following the
destruction of the First Temple) rather than all other lands? 'Because the
house of Abraham is from there. To what may this be likened? To a
man angered at his wife, where does he send her - not to her mother's
house?! (BT Pesahim 87b).21
In sum, there emerges over the years a Babylonia enjoying all the
attributes of the historically central Land of Israel: A powerful
descendant of the House of David, remnants of Jerusalem's Temple
within which the Shekhinah resides, ancient links with the patriarchs of
Israel, and even hallowed earth and sacred boundaries. Indeed, the
statement attributed to a late third century Babylonian sage, "We have
made ourselves in Babylonia the equivalent of Eretz Israel from the day

20. Avot de-Rabbi Nathan chap. 26 (ed. Schechter, p. 82; Eng. ed., J. Goldin, p.
111); On burial in Babylonia cf. A. Oppenheimer and M. Lecker, 'Burial West
of the Euphrates and its Significance' (Hebrew), in: Milet vol. 1 (Tel-Aviv
1983), ed. S. Ettinger et. at., pp. 157-163.
21. The prominence of Babylonia in Jewish eyes would also be enhanced by the
possible links between sites existing in Talmudic times and various locations
mentioned in the Bible; indeed, the sages of Babylonia would even claim that
the earth of Babylonia was a major component in the creation of Adam (BT
Sanhedrin 38a-b); for all this, and in general for expressions of Jewish
attachment to Babylonia, cf. I. Gafni, "Expressions and Types of 'Local
Patriotism' among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia", in: S. Shaked and A.
Netzer, eds., Irano-Judaica vol. 2 (Jerusalem 1990) pp. 63-71.

107
Isaiah M. Gafni

that Rav came to Babylonia" (BT Gitin 6a, BK 80a)22 - takes on a new
and more radical meaning than just equality in the knowledge of laws of
divorce. In fact, "from the day Rav came to Babylonia" was deemed
such a watershed in the history of Jewish Babylonia, that the date of his
arrival was one of the only dates of Talmudic history preserved in
Babylonia and recorded by Rav Sherira that was not linked to the death
of a rabbi or some persecution.23 If indeed Babylonian Jews
considered themselves the agents, shelihim, of the sages of Eretz
Israel, what we seem to see before us is a very literal rendering of the
well known halakhic principle: inns o o7K 5m in*v; that is the agent has
rendered himself literally a clone or exact copy of the original Land of
Israel. In thus asserting its own independence from the Land of Israel,
the Babylonian community did not propose a re-evaluation of the
historical role of that land in Jewish communal life. It was, instead,
Babylonia itself that underwent a reappraisal, and the consequences of
that examination would be to render Babylonia on a par with Eretz
Israel, inasmuch as all the criteria for the historical centrality of the Holy
Land could now be located in Jewish Babylonia as well. The process,
of course, would repeat itself time and again in subsequent Jewish
history. New communities would rise up and assert themselves vis-a-
vis their mother communities, and this 'breaking away' would be

22. cf. H.N. Strickman, "A Note on the Text of Babylonian Talmud Git. 6a", JQR
66(1975-1976) pp. 173-175.
23. Iggeret, p. 78; cf. I. Gafni, "On the Talmudic Chronology in Iggeret Rav
Sherira Gaon"; Zion 52 (1987) pp. 15-16 (= idem, The Jews of Babylonia in
the Talmudic Era, Jerusalem 1990, pp. 255-256) for a discussion on this date
in Sherira's Iggeret.

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 Talmudic Babylonia and the Land of Israel

traumatic for both centers.24 If the process described above was

special, it was only due to the unique nature and historical significance
of the particular 'mother-community' towards which Babylonia was
ultimately required to assert its independence.

24. This ongoing process, wherein new communities assume the attributes of the
mother community as part of the process of self-assertion, may be akin to the
translatio scientiae that R. Bonfil identifies in the transmission of modes of
learning and culture from Babylonia to Italy; cf. R. Bonfil, "Myth, Rhetoric,
History? A Study in the Chronicle of Ahima'az", in: M. Ben-Sasson et al.,
eds., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry, Studies Dedicated in the Memory
of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Jerusalem 1989, p. 103. See also R. Bonfil,
"Between Eretz Israel and Babylonia" Shalem 5 (1987) pp. 1-30; on p. 11
Bonfil discusses the motif of the hero who is forced to leave the old center,
removes to the new one, and creates a new reality there. Interestingly,
Hananiah also conforms to this motif. He too was advised by his uncle R.
Joshua to leave Eretz Israel after unfortunate circumstances (the minnim of
Capernaum cast a spell on him and he was discovered riding a donkey on the
Sabbath), cf. Koheleth Rabbah 1:8, and see: M. Hirshman, Midrash Qohelet
Rabbah (Dissertation, JTS) New York 1983, part 2, commentaries, pp. 60-
61; Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia (above, n. 23) p. 80 and notes 111-112.

109
 THE HEBREW LANGUAGE IN THE
EUROPEAN DIASPORA

NICHOLAS DE LANGE

INTRODUCTORY
The early history of the Hebrew language in Europe is a tantalisingly
difficult subject of investigation, on account of an acute shortage of
evidence. A complete picture can certainly not be painted. Yet it is such
an important aspect of Jewish cultural history that it cannot be simply
brushed to one side. It is a fundamental factor in questions concerning
the character of Jewish society and culture, as well as relations between
Jews and gentiles and relations between Jews in different countries.
Consequently even a partial or fragmentary account can be of value.
The purpose of this essay is to survey the current state of our
knowledge of the question, and to try to map out the limits of what can
be known about it.
The history of Hebrew is of course an integral part of the broader
question of Jewish linguistic history. The scarcity of sources does not
only affect our understanding of the history of Hebrew; we know far
too little also about the use of other languages by Jews, notably Greek
and Latin. Indeed, the questions about the different languages are inter-
related. To give just one obvious example, in places where the liturgical
language of the Jews was Greek, there would be a relatively limited
scope for the use of Hebrew. But were there such places, and can we
identify them? And what happened in such places if the decision was
taken to replace the use of Greek in the liturgy by the use of Hebrew, or
to employ both languages side by side? Or again, where we find a
Jewish epitaph inscribed in all three languages, Hebrew, Greek and
Latin, is it possible for us to draw any inferences about the use of the
Nicholas de Lange

various languages: the purposes for which each was used, the place of
each in Jewish education, the social implications of each? If we knew
more about the use of Greek or Latin among the Jews of Europe, we
would certainly know more about their use of Hebrew; unfortunately a
similar darkness surrounds all three questions.
It is perhaps worth emphasising from the outset one point which
ought to be obvious: in the very fragmentary state of the evidence,
nothing is to be taken for granted. No general assumptions are possible
about the use of various languages for various purposes. The
discussion must begin from the evidence, and it is only with the utmost
caution that we can advance beyond it. We cannot assume, for
example, that the situation prevailing in one place also prevailed
elsewhere. Nor can we assume that the history we are concerned with
is a history of gradual development or evolution in one direction or
another. Still less can we assume that there is a 'natural' situation from
which any deviation is abnormal, for example that Jews naturally speak
Hebrew, or that they naturally pray in Hebrew, or that they naturally
use two or more languages side by side. Such unwarranted
assumptions are more likely to lead to a deformation than to a correct
understanding of the facts.
With this preamble in mind, we may proceed cautiously to the
formulation of a few uncontroversial generalisations which will serve
as a preliminary sketch-map of the terrain, and which will also help us
to define the main problems.
First of all, there is no hard evidence for the use of Hebrew as a
spoken language in normal use in Europe at any time.1 Whether in the
very earliest days of the European diaspora (whenever that may have
been) there were some Jews who had Hebrew as their mother tongue is
a question that lies far beyond the scope of the surviving evidence. By

1 See B. Blumenkranz, Juifs et chretiens dans le Monde Occidental 430-1096

(Etudes Juives, 2) (Paris/The Hague 1960), p. 4.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

the time we begin to have information about the European diaspora it

seems to be predominantly Greek-speaking, although the use of other
local languages cannot be ruled out. From the first century CE until
modern times we can be reasonably confident in saying that Hebrew
was only spoken by foreign immigrants or travellers, or in other
exceptional situations.
On the other hand, from the eleventh century on we have abundant
and reliable evidence from many different parts of Europe that Hebrew
was used as a language - perhaps even the only language - of 'high'
culture among Jews. It was the language of literary compositions,
ranging from the intricate secular and sacred poetry of Samuel ben
Nagrela and Solomon Ibn Gabirol in Spain to the biblical commentaries
of Rashi in Troyes or Tobias ben Eliezer in Thessalonica, and
embracing also the more ostensibly linguistic work of a lexicographer
such as Nathan ben Yehiel in Rome or a translator like Tobias ben
Moses in Constantinople. By this time it would seem that Hebrew was
the only language that Jews normally learned to read and write, and it
would be reasonable to assume that it was the usual language of
synagogue worship and Bible reading in most if not all European
Jewish communities.2 Its use was thus in many ways analogous to that
of Latin by western Christians.
These secure and relatively uncontroversial propositions may be
taken as our starting point: they indicate, as it were, the solid ice on
which we may skate in safety. But when we try to go any further the
ice soon becomes decidedly thin and dangerous. For example, we have
some European works written in Hebrew which may be dated to the
tenth and even perhaps the ninth century. But the regions which
produced them seem to be very strictly limited: they are essentially
confined to Spain (where interest in Hebrew first surfaces explicitly
among Arabic-speakers such as Menahem Ibn Saruq and Dunash ben

2 On vernacular worship in the middle ages see the intereting article of H. Peri
(Pflaum) in Tarbiz 24 (5715 A.M.) 426-440.

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Nicholas de Lange

Labrat in the later tenth century) and to southern Italy (where against a
mixed Greek and Latin background we find a wide range of Hebrew
writing, including the medical works of Shabbetai Donnolo in the tenth
century, the historical text know as the Josephon, which dates from the
tenth or perhaps the ninth century, and Hebrew hymns by various
liturgical poets of the tenth and ninth centuries, such as Zevadia and
Silano). How should this interesting but limited evidence be
interpreted? Should we adopt a 'minimalist' interpretation, ascribing
this Hebrew-writing activity to strictly local factors, or is it legitimate to
extrapolate to other, less well-documented, periods and places? In the
case of Spain we may well feel that the Muslim conquest in the early
eighth century marks a crucial watershed in the history of Jewish
culture (although there is some evidence for a knowledge of Hebrew
before this time); in the case of Byzantine south Italy there is no such
obvious external factor, and the claims of a continuous tradition may
seem to be stronger.
In surveying the evidence we shall endeavour to respect the
following principles, the neglect of which has led to confusion or error
in the past:
1. Sweeping generalisations are to be avoided; the severe limitations
of the available evidence are to be respected.
2. Care must be taken to eliminate anachronistic assumptions (for
example about the extent of Jewish literacy, about the use of
Hebrew in the synagogue service, or about its use as a spoken
language).
3. Evidence from the eastern diaspora, including the Babylonian
Talmud, is not directly relevant; evidence fron the eastern
Mediterranean area (mainly Israel and Egypt) must be used with
extreme care, as the circumstances there are very different from
those prevailing in Europe.
4. It is important to keep in mind the different uses to which a
language may be put: it may be a mother-tongue or a second
spoken language, written but not spoken, confined to an educated

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

elite, used in worship (alone or with another languiage); it may

even be used in a religious context without being widely
understood.
5. Other things being equal, priority is to be given to dated or
securely datable sources. It is risky to build on the foundation of
sources that cannot be dated.
The sources available to us are of two basic types: literary and non-
literary. The Jewish literary sources are not very helpful for our quest.
As we have already remarked, Jewish writing in Hebrew is a
phenomenon that is not attested in Europe before the ninth century; its
appearance at this time marks a turning-point in European Jewish
culture and constitutes therefore an important point of reference for our
investigation. Whether European Jews wrote in other languages, and
whether any such writings are extant, are questions that have hardly
been investigated at all. A Latin epistle published in 1984 from a ninth-
century manuscript3 has been held to be a Jewish apologetic work of
around the fourth century addressed to potential proselytes from
paganism. Another, longer, apologetic epistle, purporting to have been
written originally in Greek by the Jew Mardochaeus and sent to
Alexander the Great to persuade him to abandon the worship of idols
and acknowledge the Most High God, is preserved in one version of
the Latin Alexander Romance.4 Such texts (and there may well be
others) provide some useful evidence of the use of other languages by
Jews, but the value for our enquiry of apologetic texts, addressed by
their nature to gentiles, is clearly very limited. We shall make use,

3 First published in Bernhard Bischoff, Anecdota Novissima, Texte des vierten

bis sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 1984. See A.D. Momigliano, 'The
New Letter by "Anna" to "Seneca"', Athenaeum NS 63 (1985) 217-219,
reprinted in his On Pagans, Jews and Christians (1987) pp. 202-205.
4 Karl Steffens, Die Historia de preliis Alexandri Magni Rezension J3
(Beitraege zur klassischen Philologie, 73) (Meisenheim am Glan 1975), pp.
208-218.

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Nicholas de Lange

however, of some references to Jews and to the Hebrew language in

the abundant Christian literature from the relevant period.
The non-literary evidence is mainly epigraphic. We have substantial
numbers of Jewish tombstones from various European sites from late
antiquity and the early middle ages. Very few of them are dated, but
even the undated ones can supply us with some approximate
information; less tendentious than the Christian literary sources, they
are also frustratingly inarticulate about the matter in hand. We shall also
look at an important Greek legal source directly concerned with the
language question and dated to the mid-sixth century. The rabbinic legal
sources bearing on the language question are interesting but will not be
considered because they do not explicitly address themselves to the
situation in Europe.

CHRISTIAN LITERARY SOURCES

It is perhaps worth underlining from the outset the general fact that the
early Christian literature consistently takes it for granted that language is
not a barrier between Christians and Jews: in other words Jews
everywhere, in the period that interests us, spoke the same languages as
their Christian neighbours.5 This is not to say, of course, that Jews
may not have had certain expressions which only they used (as indeed
the Christians did). But the phenomena of peculiarly Jewish dialects
and of Jewish communities using different languages from the
surrounding population (e.g. Spanish in the Ottoman Empire) belong to
a later and very different historical situation. The only question in our
period which deserves further investigation is whether in some places
in the Latin West Jews continued to speak Greek after its use was
abandoned by Christians. It is possible that this question will never be
satisfactorily answered with the tools at our disposal.
It would be a useless labour to cite many witnesses to support this
general picture. Let one stand for the rest; Gregory of Tours in the sixth

5 See Blumenkranz, Juifs et chrcftiens, p.4.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

century refers frequently in his writings to contacts of various kinds

between Jews and Christians.6 Language is apparently never an issue,
except once: when king Gontrand entered Orleans in 585, there were
many Jews among the crowds that acclaimed him, and they called out
in their own language: 'Let all peoples bend the knee before thee, let all
be subject to thee'.7 But, as Blumenkranz justly points out, this
acclamation, which is based on a biblical text, even if it was
pronounced in Hebrew, tell us nothing about the Jews' everyday
language.8
On the other hand we have a specific reference to language in a letter
written by Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, in 822, concerning the
problem of pagan slaves owned by Jews and wishing to be baptized9: it
seems that these slaves have learned the language of the land from their
Jewish masters, a clear indication that even at this late date the Jews
spoke the local vernacular.
If the Jews of Orleans really did salute the king in Hebrew in 585
this would be an indication that there was some use of Hebrew as a
language of prayer at this time. There is an earlier indication that points
in the same direction in the description of the funeral of Hilary of Arles
(d. 449) compiled by one of his disciples, whose name is uncertain: in
the large crowd of Christians present there were also many Jews who
chanted psalms in Hebrew.10 It is hard to know how much force to
give to these testimonies, which may boil down to nothing more than a

6 See the texts collected in B. Blumenkranz, Les Auteurs chritiens latins du

Moyen Age sur les Juifs et le judaisme (Etudes Juives, 4) (Paris/The Hague
1963), pp. 67-73.
7 Historia Francorum 8.1, Blumenkranz, ibid., no. 62.
8 Juifs et chrdtiens, p. 4; cf. S. Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish
Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul (Cambridge, Mass. 1937), pp. 61f.
9 Blumenkranz, ibid.
10 Katz, The Jews, p. 61; Blumenkranz, Auteurs, p. 67.

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Nicholas de Lange

'literary cliche'.11
So far as homilies in the synagogue are concerned, we have no
indication that they were delivered in any other language than the local
vernacular. Indeed we have some direct evidence of this as late as the
early ninth century, in the accusation that some ignorant Christians
claim that Jewish sermons are superior to Christian ones.12 Surely such
sermons must have been in a language they could understand.
What of Jewish literacy and literature: is there any indication of the
languages Jews could read and write? We have already seen evidence
that some Jews could write in Hebrew from as early as the ninth
century in the specific and very localised milieu of Byzantine South
Italy, although the earliest extant Hebrew sources, such as the
Josephon and the medical writings of Shabbetai Donnolo, testify also to
a reading knowledge of Latin and Greek. Elsewhere in Europe such
direct evidence is lacking, but there are some hints in Christian sources.
Interestingly, nothing of any substance is found before the beginning of
the ninth century: a reference in the epistle of Severus of Minorca to a
Spanish Jew who was 'educated not only in Latin but also in Greek
literature'13 is too isolated and too uncertain to be of much help to us.14
It is only in the first half of the ninth century, the period of the
Carolingian renaissance with its revival of interest in the Hebrew Bible,
that we do at last find scattered but substantial references to Jewish

11 Blumenkranz, Auteurs, p. 67.

12 The charge is found in Agobard, see Blumenkranz, Auteurs, p. 162, and again
in Amulo, see ibid., p. 199.
13 'Latinis sed etiam Graecis litteris eruditum'. See Katz, The Jews, p. 62.
1.4 This encyclical letter concerning the mass conversion of the Jews of Minorca
to Christianity at the beginning of the 5th century is categorised by
Blumenkranz, Auteurs, pp. 106f., as a forgery written in the 7th century. No
such doubts are entertained by E.D. Hunt, 'St. Stephen in Minorca. An episode
in Jewish-Christian relations in the early 5th century A.D.', JTS NS 33
(1982) 106-123.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

writings and also, at the same time, to the knowledge of Hebrew.

To give one example, Agobard, who became archbishop of Lyons
in 816, displays a knowledge of Jewish polemic about the life of Jesus,
of the kind that we find in the Hebrew Toldot Yeshu. He is also
familiar with ideas which are found in the Midrash, in the Shiur Komah
and in the Sefer Yetsira, including, significantly, the belief that the
letters of the Hebrew alphabet existed before the creation of the world
and are themselves endowed with a supernatural power. He also knows
the Hebrew names for two of the heavens.15 How did he arrive at all
this knowledge: from written sources in Latin, or by personal contact
with Jews, perhaps Jews converted to Christianity? We cannot know.
But at any rate there is a significant Hebrew component which suggests
a knowledge of Hebrew language and of Hebrew literature among the
Jews of Lyons at this time.
In the writing of his younger contemporary, the Benedictine
Paschasius Radbertus, we find many passing references to Hebrew
words, which he tends to attribute to Jews of his acquaintance. It is not
certain, however, that we can trust him on this point.16
We must mention at this point the interesting case of the Jew
Eleazar, formerly a Christian deacon at the court of the emperor Louis
the Pious by the name of Bodo. After fleeing to Spain and adopting the
Jewish faith, he apparently composed polemical tracts against
Christianity in an attempt to persuade others to follow his example. His
works are almost entirely lost, but we have some fragments of his
letters and summaries of his arguments in the collection of letters of a
Spanish Christain who corresponded with him and tried to refute
him.17 From what survives it seems clear that Bodo-Eleazar learned
some Hebrew: at any rate he can refer to the original Hebrew in citing

15 For references see Blumenkranz, Auteurs, p. 165.

16 Blumenkranz, ibid., p. 193 and n. 11.
17 See B. Blumenkranz in Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 34
(1954) 401-413, and Auteurs, pp. 184-191.

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Nicholas de Lange

certain biblical texts commonly exploited in polemical debate, such as

Genesis 49.10 or Isaiah 7.14. On the other hand we should note that
the words in question, particularly Isaiah's 'almah, were well
established in the Christian literature in their Hebrew form since the
time of Origen and Jerome. Bodo-Eleazar's Christian correspondent
even shows himself capable of basing an argument on the Hebrew text,
arguing that the word lo in Isaiah 49.5 is written with an aleph, not a
waw: it means 'no', not 'to him'. This argument, however, is
borrowed from Jerome, and in general we must beware of mistaking
arguments taken from Jerome, who knew some Hebrew from living in
Israel, for evidence of a direct acquaintance with the Hebrew language.
This thought leads us directly to another important and intriguing
text from this period, the Hebrew Questions on the Books of Kings
falsely attributed to Jerome and actually composed in the early ninth
century. This Latin commentary refers freely to the Hebrew text and
makes use of Hebrew etymologies and Jewish traditions based on
Hebrew words. It is presumably the work of a Jew converted to
Christianity, and the latest editor of the text, Avrom Saltman, has
argued that the same man is responsible for the marginal annotations in
an important Latin Bible manuscript of the Carolingian period, the St
Germain Bible.18 This Bible is one of a group of Bibles associated with
the name of the great theologian and poet Theodulf, bishop of Orleans,
which are notable for their scholarship and for the respect they pay to
the Hebrew original. The annotations in the St Germain Bible are based
on a Hebrew text of the Bible. The Hebrew Questions have also been
identified as the source of the comments based on the Hebrew which
are given by the great Christian scholar of the period Rabanus Maurus,
abbot of Fulda and later archbishop of Mainz, and attributed by him to
'a modern Jew' (hebraeus moderni temporis).19 According to who

18 A. Saltman, ed., Pseudo-Jerome, Quaestiones on the Book of Samuel (Kings)

(Studia Post-Biblica, 26), Leyden, 1975. See especially pp. 3-29.
19 See Blumenkranz, Auteurs, p. 174 f., Saltman, ibid. pp. 23-5.

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has made a close study of all the available material, the author of the
Hebrew Questions was a man brought up as a Jew, but not in one of
the great centres of Jewish scholarship. (Saltman suggests he may have
come from Narbonne.) 'Obviously he knew Hebrew and he had
probably absorbed a fair amount of Rabbinic exegesis naturally current
in the local Jewish community.20
Cautiously surveying these disparate items of evidence we can
surely conclude that there is some confirmation from the Carolingian
empire of the phenomenon directly attested in South Italy at this time,
namely a use of Hebrew by Jews for scholarly purposes. We might add
that it is also at this period that a biographer of St Amandus the Apostle
of Flanders (d. c.675) attributes to him a knowledge of Hebrew. The
claim itself rests on very flimsy foundations,21 but the biographer's
interest in Hebrew reflects a preoccupation of the period in which he
was writing. Looking further afield, we have an interesting Byzantine
reference in the Life of Constantine, the apostle of the Slavs (better
known by his later religious name, Cyril): it reports that in 860 he
studied Hebrew at Cherson in the Crimea in preparation for his mission
to the Jewish Khazars, and that he even debated in Hebrew with Jewish
scholars in the presence of the Khazar ruler. Is this a mere literary
conceit, or was Hebrew really, as is sometimes claimed, the official
language of the Khazar court? At any rate, the reference to Hebrew fits
chronologically into the pattern we have discerned in western Europe. It
remains to be seen whether we can carry the story of Hebrew in Europe
back any earlier than the ninth century, and whether we can discern any
further details, whether by distinguishing different uses of the language
or by drawing any geographical distinctions. For this we must turn
now to the epigraphic evidence.

20 Saltman, ibid., p. 19.

21 Blumenkranz, Auteurs, p. 183.

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Nicholas de Lange

JEWISH INSCRIPTIONS
In surveying the inscriptions of the Jews of Europe in the period that
interests us we are fortunate in having at our disposal the Corpus of
Jean-Baptiste Frey, containing well over seven hundred inscriptions,
ably brought up to date by Baruch Lifshitz.22 Some new discoveries
have been made in the years since Lifshitz's Prolegomenon was
published, but the Corpus provides us with an excellent basis for
reviewing the epigraphical evidence.
Three fundamental points stand out clearly from even a superficial
glance at the Corpus. One is the acute shortage of dated inscriptions.
Another is the very limited amount of Hebrew: only a handful of the
inscriptions are in Hebrew, and a number more include a stereotyped
Hebrew word or phrase, such as shalom or shalom 'al yisrael. The
vast majority of the inscriptions are in Greek or Latin. And thirdly a
considerable majority - well over two-thirds -- of the inscriptions are
from Rome, and Europe outside Italy is very poorly represented
indeed.
Bearing in mind this last point, we shall begin by looking at the
evidence from Rome, which has been subjected to a careful analysis by
Harry J. Leon.23 Out of 534 inscriptions from Rome, Leon counted
only three as being in Hebrew. Two of them, from the Monteverde
catacomb, consist of the conventional formula shalom or shalom 'al
yisrael, and Leon considers (p. 76 n.1) that they are 'probably in each
case the concluding formulas of an inscription in Greek or Latin'. The
third, from the Nomentana catacomb, is only two lines long; it is
indistinctly scratched in stucco, but the second line is almost certainly

22 Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum. Recueil des inscriptions juives qui vont du

Iffe siecle avant Jesus-Christ au Me siecle de notre are, vol. I. Europe, Vatican
City 1936, reprinted with a Prolegomenon by Baruch Lifshitz, New York
1975.
23 The Jews of Ancient Rome, Philadelphia 1960/5721, esp. pp. 75-92.

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the common formula shalom 'al yisrael.' In respect of each of the

catacombs concerned, these Hebrew inscriptions represent just over
1 per cent of all the inscriptions (Greek accounting for nearly eighty per
cent of those in the Monteverde catacomb and well over ninety per cent
of those in the Nomentana). In addition to these three inscriptions,
Leon lists24 five or six further inscriptions which are basically in Greek
but conclude with a Hebrew formula, usually shalom, occasionally
shalom 'al yisrael or simply yisrael. All these inscriptions originated
in the Monteverde catacomb. Leon concludes (p. 78): 'we may infer
that an acquaintance with Hebrew was kept alive, albeit in feeble
fashion, among this group alone', and he argues elsewhere (p. 243)
that the group in question is the most conservative of the Jewish
communities of Rome, situated in a district with a high proportion of
immigrants. There is no reason to disagree with Leon's arguments, but
we should observe that in the absence of dated material all the
inscriptions containing Hebrew words may belong to a very specific
context, perhaps to the influence of one or two people. Moreover,
inscriptions may copy from one another: it is not necessary to suppose
that the authors of all these inscriptions knew some Hebrew. Leon also
considers the question of the liturgical language(s) of the Roman Jews
(p. 246): 'From the scarcity of Hebrew on the tomb inscriptions we
may assume that little, if any, Hebrew was used even in the synagogue
and that the service was conducted in Greek, the language of the
community... The Torah readings also were probably in Greek, as we
may infer from the fact that the very few biblical quotations found in the
epitaphs appear in a Greek translation.' These conclusions are
supported by Lifshitz,25 although he adds (referring in general to the
synagogues of Palestine and the Diaspora): 'But we cannot exclude the
possibility of the use of Hebrew as a language of worship even in
Hellenized Jewish communities.'

24 p. 76 n.2, p. 134 n.1, addendum.

25 Prolegomenon, p. 24.

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Nicholas de Lange

Looking now beyond the confines of Rome, we find that the picture
is essentially similar. Where Hebrew occurs, it is generally confined to
a conventional formula. Interestingly, we have three dated inscriptions
which help to provide a valuable chronological framework. They are all
Latin epitaphs with a short Hebrew formula. The first, found in Catania
in Sicily, records the acquisition of a tomb by Aurelius Samuel for
himself and his wife, Lassia Irena.26 The date of the wife's death is
stated with great precision: Friday the twelfth day of the Kalends of
November, the eighth day of the lunar month, in the consular year
corresponding to 383 A.D. Above the Latin text is a roughly incised
line of Hebrew: shalom 'al yisrael amen amen shalom shemuel. It is
by no means certain that this line of Hebrew forms part of the original
inscription: it could as well have been added at a later date. But even if
it is original, it hardly testifies to an active knowledge or use of
Hebrew. The second dated inscription comes from Venosa, ancient
Venusia in south Italy. It is the epitaph of Augusta, the wife of Bonus,
and it bears a consular date corresponding to 521.27 After the formal
Latin epitaph comes the Hebrew phrase 'Peace be upon Augusta's rest,
Amen!' The third inscription comes from Narbonne, in Septimania, and
is dated to the second year of the Visigothic king Egica, who came to
the throne in November 687.28 It records the death of three children of

26 Frey no. 650, and see Prolegomenon, p. 51.

27 See C. Colafemmina, 'Insediamenti e condizione degli ebrei nell' Italia
meridionale e insulare', in Gli Ebrei nell' Alto Medioevo vol.1 (Settimani di
Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull' Alto Medioevo, 26) (Spoleto, 1980),
pp. 197-227: text p. 206, photograph p1.3.
28 Frey no. 670. To the bibliography given by Frey, add Katz, The Jews, pp.
148-151; A.M. Rabello, 'Le iscripzioni ebraiche della Spagna romana e
visigotica', in Studi in Onore di Cesare Sanfilippo vol. 6 (Milan 1985), pp.
666-670 (text, bibliography and discussion); and G. Nahon, Inscriptions
hdbraiques et juives de France medidvale (Paris, 1986), pp. 350-353, with
further bibliography.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

Paragorius son of Sapaudus, who all died in that year. (The cause of
death is not given; the ages of the deceased range from nine to thirty
years.) Just after the names of the children and before the date is carved
the Hebrew formula shalom 'al [yi]srael. Taken together, these three
dated inscriptions from very different localities testify to a trend which,
while not common, is widespread both in place and in time. We may
safely assume that many of the other similar inscriptions were carved
during these three centuries; some are no doubt earlier or later. They are
found mainly in various parts of Italy, and also in neighbouring
regions-29
The remaining Hebrew inscriptions reproduced by Frey are undated,
and all attempts to date them even approximately must be regarded with
the deepest suspicion, suspicion which is borne out by the fact that
expert opinions often range over a century or more for the same
inscription.30 However, some of the inscriptions are bilingual, or even
trilingual, and it is often argued31 that the presence of Latin or Greek
on an inscription is a guarantee of a relatively early date (assuming we
can be certain that the Hebrew was not added later). But how early?
The problem is that we simply do not know when the use of Latin was
abandoned. Frey's statement32 that there is no example of a Jewish
inscription in Latin from southern Italy later than the seventh century
must be regarded as purely subjective.
Let us now survey briefly the small minority of inscriptions in the
Corpus that contain more than a conventional word or phrase of
Hebrew. From a geographical point of view, the evidence is notably

29 In addition to those from Rome, cf. Frey nos 552 (Fondi), 558 (Naples), 635
(Oria), 644 (Milan), and 671 (Auch).
30 E.g. no. 666 (Vienne): 6th century or late 6th century (Blumenkranz, Baron
Jubilee Vol. I. p. 231, puts it in the 10th century); no. 668 (Arles): 7th, 8th or
early 9th century.
31 E.g. Frey p. 453.
32 Ibid.

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Nicholas de Lange

concentrated in the west. A stone from Panticapaeum (Kertch in the

Crimea) on which traces of three lines of Hebrew survive above a
Greek epitaph33 is an isolated oddity. The other Jewish inscriptions
from this region are all in Greek.34 The inscription is dated confidently
by Frey to the 4th century.35 Its uniqueness raises the possibility of
exceptional circumstances, perhaps with some influence from Syria or
Palestine; it is impossible to base any generalisation on it. The same
must also be said of the Samaritan inscription from Thessalonica36
which has been also dated to the fourth century.37 Most of the
inscription is in Greek, and it is in two parts. A Greek version of
biblical pericope of the priestly blessing (Numbers 6.22-27) occupies
13 lines. It is framed with two lines of Hebrew in Samaritan characters.
The line above reads 'Blessed be our God for ever', and that below
'Blessed be his name for ever'. These phrases may be taken as the
liturgical equivalent of such epitaphic formulae as 'Peace be upon
Israel' or 'The memory of the righteous is a blessing'; consequently
they operate against rather than in favour of the current use of Hebrew
as a liturgical language by the Samaritans of Thessalonica. Indeed the
biblical text in Greek appears to be taken from a Greek translation of the
Bible that was probably used for liturgical readings. The Samaritan
letters are very roughly formed, and it has been suggested38 that they
may have been copied from older manuscripts, having fallen out of use
locally. The remaining four lines of the inscription consist of a pious

33 Frey no. 688.

34 See the paper in this volume by Irina Levinskaya and Sergei Tokhtas'yev
Jews and Jewish names in the Bosporan Kingdom.
35 But see Lifshitz, Prolegomenon, p. 66.
36 No. 693a in the Corpus, pp. 70-75 of the Prolegomenon.
37 More recently it has been situated more cautiously by J.D. Purvis in the 4th to
6th century: see R. Pummer in A.D. Crown, ed., The Samaritans (Tiibingen
1989), p. 149.
38 Ibid.

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dedication in Greek.
As has been remarked already, however, most of the Hebrew
material comes from the West, and more specifically from north-eastern
Spain, southern France and southern Italy.
From Spain we have in fact two intriguing trilingual inscriptions in
Greek, Latin and Hebrew. One is an epitaph from Tortosa, in memory
of Meliosa daughter of Judah and Maria or Miriam.39 The content of
the three inscriptions is essentially the same, and all the languages are
used with equal fluency. The only clue to the spoken language of the
author is that the mother is referred to with the Greek title Kyra, a
usage which, according to Katz, 'seems to show that this woman was
originally from a country where Greek was commonly spoken, and
where such a surname would usually be attached to the name'. He
suggests she may have come from Sicily or Constantinople, 'or more
likely, from the cosmopolitan Marseilles' (p. 144). The inscription has
been generally dated in the late 6th century, although it has been placed
by some as early as the first or second.40 The other trilingual
inscription is on a hollowed out block of marble found in Tarragona,
which may have served as an ablution basin.41 The Hebrew
inscription, which is the longest, reads shalom 'al Yisrael/ ve'aleinu
ve'al baneinu amen (Peace be upon Israel and upon us and upon our
children, amen); the Latin reads simply PAX FIDES (Peace, faith);
while the Greek consists of a series of letters of unknown meaning.
This inscription, too, has generally been dated in the sixth century.
From Arles we have two of the very rare epitaphs in the Corpus that

39 Frey no. 661, cf. Prolegomenon p. 57. Add to the biblography Katz, The
Jews, pp. 141-144, Rabello, 'Iscrizoni ebraiche', pp. 656-659.
40 See Rabello, ibid., p. 659. Rabello himself gives some weight to H. Beinart's
view that this inscription is to be dated to the late fourth or early fifth
century.
41 Corpus, no. 660c, Prolegomenon pp. 55 f.; Rabello, ibid., pp. 651-653.

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Nicholas de Lange

are entirely in Hebrew.42 Both commence with the formula 'This is the
tomb of...'. The same opening fornula is reported on three more
Hebrew epitaphs from Arles, now lost.43 Frey mentions various
datings in the late 7th, 8th or early 9th century for one of the
inscriptions. In truth there is no evidence that any of these inscriptions
is older than the ninth century.
The richest area for early Hebrew inscriptions is southern Italy. This
is a significant region because, as we have already emphasised, it is the
home of the earliest European Hebrew literature, in the 9th and 10th
centuries. Frey publishes (No. 634) an interesting bilingual inscription
from Oria, comprising a brief and functional epitaph in Latin, and a
rhyming epitaph in Hebrew. Now, we have a number of all-Hebrew
inscriptions from various sites in southern Italy, and some of them are
in verse (piyyut) form; many of them are dated, and they belong clearly
to the early ninth century,44 which is the period when the earliest
surviving European Hebrew poems were written.45 Frey, however,
insists that this bilingual inscription must be dated earlier than the 8th
century, because of the presence of Latin. In the present state of our
evidence such a sweeping generalisation, based on an unprovable
negative proposition, must seem somewhat reckless.
From Taranto Frey gives no fewer than seven all-Hebrew

42 Nos 668, 669. Cf. Nahon, Inscriptions hebraiques nos 305, 306.
43 See Nahon, ibid, pp. 370-375 (nos 307-313) for the lost inscriptions.
44 See the documentation given in S. Simonsohn, 'The Hebrew revival among
early medieval European Jews', in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume,
English Section, Vol. II (Jerusalem 1974), p. 853. See also Colafemmina,
'Insediamenti', passim, and especially p. 220, an epitaph from Brindisi
bearing a contemporary dirge by the poet Amittai of Oria.
45 See for example the poems of Zevadiah of Oria in J. Schirmann, New Poems
from the Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem 5727 A.M.), pp. 421-424; Iona David,
'Iozer lehatan, inno di R. Zevadia', Michael 1 (1972) 214-222.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

inscriptions, and two bilingual ones.46 We have no means of dating the

all-Hebrew ones; it is interesting that in the one case that any
biographical detail is given, there is a mention of an immigrant from
Melos (No. 621). Of the two bilingual inscriptions, one is basically a
Latin epitaph, with some pious biblical quotations in Hebrew together
with the name of the deceased, Anatoli. In the other case the Latin and
Hebrew texts are identical: 'Here lies in good memory Samuel son of
Silano with Ezekiel his father's brother, who lived 42 years. Peace be
upon their rest. Amen.' Frey mentions an opinion that this inscription is
to be dated no earlier than the 11th or 12th century, but dismisses it for
the reason already mentioned in the case of the Oria inscription.
Venosa47 offers us important remains of underground Jewish
burials, which are less extensive than those at Rome, but still very
valuable. In particular, the inscriptions betray a far more extensive use
of Hebrew than we found in the catacombs of Rome. Our search must,
however, begin in a cemetery at ground level, which has given us all

46 Nos. 620-626; 629 and 630. See also C. Colafemmina, 'Gli ebrei a Taranto
nella documentazione epigrafica', in C.D. Fonseca, ed., La Chiesa di Taranto,
vol. 1 (Galatina 1977) 109-127, and the brief summary in his 'Insediamenti',
pp. 198-202. Colafemmina dates the Hebrew inscriptions to the 6th to 10th
centuries.
47 Frey pp. 420-443. Much has been published subsequently about the Jewish
inscriptions of Venosa. See, for example, Harry J. Leon, 'The Jews of
Venusia', JQR NS 44 (1953-54) 267-284; Gian Piero Bognetti, 'Les
Inscriptions juives de Venosa et he problime des rapports entre les Lombards
et l'orient', Comptes Rendus de l Acaddmie des Inscriptions 1954, pp. 193-
203, and note the corrections by B. Lifshitz, 'Les Juifs A Venosa' in Rivista di
Filologia e di Istruzione Classica NS 40 (1962) 367-371; Colafemmina,
'Insediamenti', pp. 202-216 and his other articles quoted there.

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Nicholas de Lange

bar one of our dated inscriptions from Venosa.48 They are all in
Hebrew, and testify to a sound knowledge of the language, and the
dates all fall within the first half the ninth century (more precisely
between 808 and 848). This important series of inscriptions provides
valuable epigraphic confirmation of the phenomenon we have already
seen attested in the literary sources, both in southern Italy and in other
places: an established use of Hebrew among Jews from the ninth
century.
The catacomb inscriptions, by contrast, are undated (with one
exception, already mentioned), and they are written in a variety of
languages: Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and various combinations thereof.
Theodor Mommsen, who visited Venosa, was of the opinion that these
inscriptions were from the sixth century; in fact it would seem that
some of the Venosa inscriptions are much earlier, perhaps from the late
fourth century, while others have been dated to the seventh or eighth
century.49
The Hebrew component in the Venosa inscriptions ranges
from a simple formula, most commonly shalom, to an
epitaph exclusively in Hebrew (Frey no. 569):
n' iy / ('}'n' / inbmi / m9] / / nrt O11m / In / nn' gym / 1Z7V
T1

(Resting place of Vita son of Faustina. May the repose of his spirit-soul
be for everlasting life). This inscription is a particularly interesting
one, as (leaving aside the Latin names of the deceased and his mother or
father) it seems to suggest a fully Hebraised background. And yet the
immediately adjoining epitaph (no. 570), which appears to be that of

48 See U. Cassuto, 'Nuove iscrizioni ebraiche a Venosa', Archivio Storico per la

Calabria e la Lucania 4 (1934) 1-9, 5 (1935) 179-184; 'Hebrew inscriptions
of the ninth century in Venosa' (Hebrew], Qedem 2 (1944) 99-120; cf. C.
Colafemmina, 'Un' iscrizione venosina inedita dell' 822' Rassegna Mensile di
Israel 43 (1977) 261-263, and Giancarlo Laceranza, 'L'Epitaffio di Abigail de
Venosa', Henoch 11 (1989) 319-325.
49 See Bognetti, op. cit., pp. 193-194.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

this same Vita's daughter, is in both Hebrew and Latin, and the
daughter bears the Latin name of Pretiosa. Further along the same side-
gallery of the catacomb we find the epitaphs of Vita's son, Faustinus,
and granddaughter, Faustina (nos 613, 611). Both epitaphs are in
Latin, with a conventional appendage in Hebrew. Another Faustinus
has a short inscription entirely in Latin (no. 612). Clearly, then, we
cannot speak of a linear progression from one language to another,
even within successive generations of a single family.
The family in question is evidently a leading one. Both the Faustini
bear the title Pater, and the epitaph of the young Faustina (she was
fourteen when she died) describes her grandparents and perhaps also
her great-grandfather Faustinus as MAIVRES CIBITATIS, 'elders of
the city'. We are told that the whole city wept at her death. Also present
at her burial were two emissaries (APOSTVLI) and two rabbis
(REBBITES), who recited dirges (TRHNVS) in her memory. This
may have been regarded as a signal honour: at any rate no similar detail
is found on the epitaphs of any of the other grandees buried in the
catacomb. It is interesting to note the use of the Greek word threnos,
'dirge', an indication probably that Greek is still the liturgical language
of the Jews of Venosa. The date of the inscription cannot be fixed
definitely: opinions have ranges from the 4th to the 8th century.50
One more inscription from the Venosa catacombs deserves particular
mention (Frey no. 595). It was found in a small side-gallery on its
own, and it is in a mixture of Hebrew and Greek. The Hebrew is a
conventional formula (Innnv / in "v oft, 'Peace be upon his resting
place'). The Greek text text has been read, not entirely convincingly, as
taphos sekoundinou presbyterou kai materina(s) eton ogdoenta,
'Tomb of Secundinus the Presbyter and of Materina, (aged) eighty
years'. What is remarkable about this Greek inscription is that it is
written in Hebrew characters. In fact it is the only European inscription

50 See Bognetti, ibid., pp. 198f. Cf. Colafemmina, 'Insediamenti', pp. 211-
214. An early 6th century date seems most likely.

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Nicholas de Lange

of this kind. Generally speaking, the use of a particular alphabet points

to educational practice: Jews in the Middle Ages used the Hebrew
alphabet for writing Greek and other languages because their education
was based on Hebrew grammar and the study of the Hebrew Bible.
(Similarly seventeen of the Roman inscriptions are in Latin written in
Greek characters; conversely there are also three Greek inscriptions in
Latin characters, testifying presumably to a shift in educational goals.
In one Greek epitaph from Venosa (no. 575) the concluding formula
shalom is written in Greek.) This stray inscription from Venosa may
well be the clearest indication we have of the early stages of Hebrew-
based education in Europe. It is impossible, however to rule out an
alternative explanation: that the use of the Hebrew alphabet by Greek-
speaking Jews is due to a desire to exhibit some Hebrew knowledge for
reasons of national or religious sentiment. This would tie in well with
the presence of odd Hebrew phrases on this and so many other
inscriptions, a phenomenon which requires explanation.
Interestingly enough, a recently-published document from Egypt
also uses the Hebrew alphabet to write Greek: it is a marriage deed
written in Antinoopolis in November 417 according to the Greek
consular date.51 Now, Bognetti has argued (p. 195) for an Egyptian
origin of some of the Venosa Jews, on the basis of an opening formula
(taphos plus a name in the genitive) which is found both at Venosa and
in Egypt, and also on account of some Greek personal names which are
found in both places. The use of Hebrew letters to write Greek may
support his view, although it is by no means conclusive proof.

A LEGAL TEXT
One more piece of evidence must detain us before we proceed to a final
discussion. It is the celebrated Novella 146 'On the Jews' of Justinian,

51 See C. Sirat et al., La Ketouba de Cologne: un contrat de mariage juif a

Antinoopolis, Opladen, 1986.

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

dated 8 February 553.52 The emperor writes to Areobindos, Praetorian

Prefect of the East, as follows:

Whereas the Hebrews, in hearing the sacred books, ought not to

cling to the bare letters but have regard to the prophecies contained
in them... they give themselves up to senseless interpretations and
stray to this day from the true belief. Nevertheless, when we
learned that their own opinions were divided, we could not endure
to abandon them to unresolved confusion. We learned from the
very petitions that were addressed to us that, whereas some cling
to the Hebrew language alone and want to use it for the reading of
the sacred books, others deem it right to allow Greek as well (kai
ten hellenida). They have been divided among themselves over
this now for a long time. We, having learned about this, judged in
favour of those who wish to allow the Greek language for the
reading of the sacred books, or indeed whatever language the
locality renders more appropriate and more familiar to the
hearers...

There is a good deal more to the Novella than this section, which is
only a preamble. But it contains the essence of what concerns the use of
Hebrew, and in particular it records, what we do not know from any
other source, a long-drawn-out and acrimonious dispute about the
language of scriptural readings. Where did this dispute take place?
Presumably Constantinople, although the text does not specify. The

52 The most important recent discussions of this document and its implications
are: V. Colorni, 'L'uso del greco nella liturgia del giudaismo ellenistico e la
Novella 146 di Giustiniano', Annali di Storia del Diritto 8 (1964) 19-80;
A.M. Rabello, Giustiniano, Ebrei e Samaritani alla luce delle fonti storico-
letterarie, eccesiastiche e giuridiche vol. 2 (Milan 1988), pp. 814-828; A.
Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit/Jerusalem 1987), pp.
402-411.

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Nicholas de Lange

wording of the Greek suggests that one side in the dispute wanted to
use Hebrew alone for the reading, while the other side wanted to insert
a reading in Greek as well. Historically, however, this is highly
implausible: as we have seen, there is no evidence whatever to support
the idea of scriptural readings in Hebrew in Constantinople or any other
European centre at this time, and even in Israel, where it is natural to
suppose that there was most support for Hebrew, there is little evidence
of its use in synagogues at this date. Moreover, in everything that
follows, the text of the Novella speaks of Greek and other languages,
without mentioning a reading in Hebrew. Consequently, it seems best
to take kai as strengthening ten hellenida (meaning something like
'indeed'), rather than as meaning 'also'. One side, then, wanted the
reading to be in Hebrew (alone), whole the other side wanted it to be in
Greek.
It is also clear from the other evidence we have considered that,
whether such was his intention or not, the emperor came down on the
side of tradition. The partisans of Hebrew in attempting to supplant the
Greek reading (based on Aquila or some other version) were
endeavouring to overturn ancient custom. Eventually, as we know,
they succeeded. The controversy recorded in the Novella can be seen as
a step on the road leading towards the replacement of Greek by Hebrew
in the synagogues. In 553 Justinian says the dispute has been going on
for a long time. Months? Years? We do not know. But at least the
Novella gives us firm evidence about a deliberate attempt to introduce
Hebrew at a relatively early date.

CONCLUSIONS
What emerges from this survey? Surely the first and most important
point is how very little solid information we have about the use of
Hebrew before the ninth century. Then, quite suddenly, from around
800 we have the first evidence of a real familiarity with the Hebrew
language and Hebrew literature in certain places. But even then caution
requires that we stress how very limited that evidence is, both in its

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 The Hebrew Language in the European Diaspora

scope and in its location.

So far as spoken Hebrew is concerned, the evidence supports the
claim (which has never, in any case, been seriously contested) that
Hebrew was neither a mother tongue nor a regular medium of speech in
Europe during the period in question.
What of written Hebrew? There is no evidence before 800 either of
composition of literary or other work in Hebrew or of familiarity with
imported Hebrew writings. From the ninth century, and more widely
from the tenth century, we do have evidence of both.
This phenomenon is to be distinguished from the interest in Hebrew
attested on some Jewish tombstones from as early as the late fourth
century in Sicily, and manifested in the addition of a pious exclamation,
such as 'Peace!' or 'Peace be upon Israel!', to epitaphs in other
languages. This practice seems to be unrelated to the use of Hebrew as
a main written language. It is tempting to see it as spreading northwards
through Italy from Sicily to arrive in southern Gaul and Spain in the late
seventh century, although it should be pointed out that Frey's minute
study of the stamps on bricks and tiles found in the Monteverde
catacomb in Rome, where a few such inscriptions have been recorded,
revealed none later than the time of Diocletian (late 3rd/early 4th
century). The practice may be due, conceivably, to immigration from
lands where Hebrew was more widely used; but it is also possible that,
in some cases at least, these mottos were employed by people with no
real knowledge of Hebrew, who copied the Hebrew formulae from
written talismans or from other tombstones.
Regarding the use of Hebrew for the synagogue liturgy and for
Bible readings, it must be said that the datable evidence is very sparse
indeed until the ninth century. The only firm contrary indication is in
the Novella of Justinian, which records an unsuccessful attempt to
introduce Hebrew into the synagogues as the language of Bible reading
(there is no mention of Hebrew worship) around the middle of the sixth
century. The firm imperial decision in favour of the vernacular must
have effectively nipped this movement in the bud, because we hear no

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Nicholas de Lange

more about it for centuries.

If only we could date the bilingual inscriptions of southern Italy
more closely we would be able to tell a good deal more about the arrival
of Hebrew in that corner of Europe. The assumption that the catacomb
of Venosa was abandoned some time before the cemetery with its dated
inscriptions in Hebrew came into use at the beginning of the ninth
century seems plausible but has not been proved. It is also reasonable
to suppose that this was one of the first parts of Europe where Hebrew
was established, probably by immigration from Egypt or elsewhere.
Bognetti has advanced the interesting and important argument that
Jewish immigration to Venosa in particular was due, in part at least, to
the anti-catholic and anti-Byzantine stance of the Arian Lombard rulers
in the early seventh century.53 This is around the time, we should
remember, that the Byzantine emperor Heraclius decreed the forced
baptism of the Jews of the empire. Some emigration of Jews at that
time is to be expected. That Heraclius asked the Visigothic and
Frankish kings in the west to implement the same policy may be an
indication, as Bognetti suggests, that Byzantine Jews were emigrating
there, although there may be a quite different explanation.
The use of Hebrew is well attested in some non-European Jewish
communities which were under Byzantine rule at that time, but Bognetti
further argues that it was the exilarch in Babylon who exploited anti-
Byzantine sentiment to establish and extend his influence in this corner
of Europe. And here we are at the crux of the question of possible
sources of pro-Hebrew pressure in Europe: did it emanate from the
Jewish authorities in the Land of Israel or in Babylonia? Either scenario
is inherently possible, and indeed the one does not really exclude the
other. We have evidence in the Chronicle of Ahimaatz of close
contacts between south Italy and Israel.54 The rabbis and apostuli

53 Colafemmina, 'Insediamenti', pp. 211, expresses disagreement with Bogetti's

argument.
54 B. Klar, ed., Megillat Ahimaatz (Jerusalem 5734 A.M.), pp. 16f.

136
 The Hebrew Language in the, European Diaspora

mentioned on the epitaph of the young Faustina from Venosa could

easily have come from Israel rather than from Babylon, as Bognetti
supposes.55
Once the Hebrew liturgy is introduced into Europe, it is the
Palestinian, not the Babylonian rite that prevails in Byzantium and Italy,
and indeed in western Europe with exception of Spain, which was by
that time under Arab rule. The rabbininc legal practices, too, seem to
follow Palestinian rather than Babylonian models. It is instructive in
this respect to observe the similarities between the Egyptian marriage
deed dated 417, mentioned above, and a Byzantine marriage deed dated
1022 from Maustaura in Asia Minor.56 All this, however, belongs to a
much later date, and some Babylonian influence in the early days
cannot be ruled out, even if there is little evidence to support it. The few
indications we have support the idea of deliberate religious interference
from Israel coupled with some immigration from Egypt.

55 On the institution of the Palestinian apostolate see the classic work of

Avraham Yaari, Shiluhei Eretz Yisrael (Jerusalem 5711 A.M.); although it is
very sketchy on the ancient period, the book does establish the early origins
of the institution. Simhah Assaf, Tequfat hageonim vesifrutah (Jerusalem
5715/1955) pp. 102-110, suggests that the Babylonian and Palestinian
leadership had an agreement to divide the world between themselves, with
Egypt, Byzantium and Italy being under Palestinian influence. But Assaf does
point out the growing Babylonian influence on Palestine itself. Assaf s
account is very sweeping, is not well documented, and is suspect at several
points.
56 J. Mann, Jews in Egypt and Palestine vol. 2 (Oxford 1922) p. 93f.; see N. de
Lange, Greek Jewish Texts from the Cairo Genizah (Tubingen, forthcoming).

137
DIASPORA JUDAISM OF LATE ANTIQUITY
AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO PALESTINE:
EVIDENCE FROM THE ANCIENT
SYNAGOGUE*

LEE I. LEVINE

Modern scholarship has contributed much in the last generation to

our knowledge and understanding of Diaspora Judaism in the
Hellenistic-Roman world. Some studies have focused on communities
in a number of locales, others on broader issues touching upon all or
part of Diaspora Jewry. Over the years, a number of competing theories
have come to the fore regarding the nature of Diaspora Judaism in late
antiquity and how it compared to that of Palestinian Judaism.
A once-popular theory posits that there were two antithetical
Judaisms, that of the Diaspora which was heavily influenced by
Hellenistic religious and cultural currents, and that of Palestine which
was basically Pharisaic-rabbinic in orientation.1 A second theory
assumes that Diaspora religious affairs were controlled by Palestinian
sages. Such influence, it is suggested, was exercised directly by
individual rabbis or through central Palestinian institutions, such as the
Sanhedrin and the Patriachate.2 More recently, a third theory has been

* This article is a revised version of the lecture delivered at the conference on

Diaspora Jewry held at Tel-Aviv University in January, 1991.
1 N. Bentwich, Hellenism, Philadelphia 1919, pp. 24-25.
2 G. Alon, Jews, Judaism and the Classical World, Jerusalem 1977, p. 22 and n.
11, p. 33; S. Safrai, 'Relations between the Diaspora and the Land of Israel',
Lee I. Levine

advanced, namely, that a variety of Judaisms existed in both the

Diaspora and Palestine, where diverse social groupings in different
geographical areas developed distinct ideologies and practices reflecting
a wide range of religious attitudes, beliefs, and rituals.3 A fourth
theory, also of recent vintage, seeks to identify a common underlying
feature or features in Judaism - either of the Diaspora or Palestinian
variety.4
It is clear, however, that the assumption of a radical break between
Diaspora and Palestinian Jewry is no longer tenable. While differences
between the two did, in fact, exist, they appear to have been more in
measure that in kind. We will deal with this issue more extensively later
on.
The question of unity and diversity among the Jewish communities
of the Greco-Roman world may be addressed in a number of ways -
either by examining a specific source or group of sources or by
focusing on a particular region or time frame. We will confine our study
to epigraphical, archeological, and scattered literary evidence for the
Diaspora synagogue. Such a limited focus has certain advantages: it
keeps the evidence at hand to reasonable proportions; it incorporates
material spanning diverse parts of the Diaspora as well as a number of
centuries; it reveals attitudes prevalent throughout the Diaspora, not of
one writer or group but rather of public institutions representing the
tastes, proclivities, and "consensus" of particular communities or at
least of the leading citizens who founded and sustained the synagogues
there; finally, it offers us a basis for comparison of various dimensions

in: The Jewish People in the First Century, S. Safrai and M. Stern (eds.), 2
vols.; Assen 1974-76, I, pp. 204, 214.
3 S.J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Philadelphia 1987, pp.
24-26.
4 See E.P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah, London 1990, pp.
359-360, n. 6 and bibliography cited there.

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 Diaspora Judaism of Late Antiquity

of Palestinian and Diaspora Jewry.

However, there are also drawbacks to such a limited focus. Evidence
for the Diaspora synagogue, while not negligible, is far from copious.
The number of synagogues is defined and the data they offer regarding
the Judaism of a community are similarly circumscribed. Given the
expanse of the Diaspora and the undoubted diversity from one locale to
the next, the evidence at hand appears sparse, at best. These
drawbacks, of course, are endemic to any study of antiquity and are of
the variety that scholars of any and every field in the Greco-Roman
period encounter regularly.
A word is in order regarding the scope of the evidence and the
methodological challenges to be addressed. On the one hand, while data
regarding the Diaspora synagogue span close to a thousand years -
from the Hellenistic period through late antiquity - most of the
archeological data derive from the third century onward and, in the
main, from some ten synagogue buildings - from Dura Europos (Syria)
in the east to Naro (Hamman Lif, North Africa) and Ostia (Italy) in the
west. Between these geographical extremities, archeological remains
have been found at Apamea in Syria, Sardis, and Priene in Asia Minor,
Delos in the Aegean, Aegina in Greece, and Stobi in Macedonia.5

5 Convenient summaries of Diaspora remains are to be found in: E.L. Sukenik,

Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, London 1934, pp. 37-45; E.
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols.; New York
1953-1968, II, pp. 70-100; A.T. Kraabel, 'The Diaspora Synagogue:
Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence since Sukenik', in: Aufstieg and
Niedergang der romischen Welt, II, 19.1, W. Haase and H. Temporini (eds.),
Berlin 1979, pp. 477-510; G. Foerster, L. Levine, A. Seager, M. Avi-Yonah,
in: Ancient Synagogues Revealed, L.I. Levine (ed.), Jerusalem 1981, pp.
164-190; L.M. White, Building God's House in the Roman World:
Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews and Christians, Baltimore
1990, pp. 60-101.
Excluded from this list are the Miletus and Mopsuestia remains, whose

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Lee I. Levine

Moreover, synagogue inscriptions have been found in several score

locations, particularly in western Asia Minor.6 On the other hand,
references to the ancient synagogue of the Diaspora in the writings of
Josephus, Philo, the New Testament, and pagan authors almost all date
from the Hellenistic and early Roman eras, i.e., from a period much
earlier that that of most of the archeological remains.? Thus, there is a
significant chronological gap between the literary and archeological
sources, and reconciling these two corpora of information presents a
formidable challenge.

Diversity within the Diaspora

The diversity of Diaspora Judaism owes much to the influence of the
immediate social and religious environment as well as architectural
features of. each locale on its Jewish communities. First of all, there
were marked distinctions between the architectural styles of the
Diaspora synagogues; the monumental public building at Sardis was a
far cry from the modest private home that was later transformed into a
synagogue at Dura Europos; the architectural plan of the synagogue at
Ostia was quite different from that of Naro.8

identification as synagogues is problematic. See above references to

Goodenough (p. 78), Kraabel (pp. 488-489). Foerster (p. 165), and Avi-
Yonah (pp. 186-190).
6 See, for example, B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues
juives, Paris 1967.
7 E. Schiirer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised
edition, G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman (eds.), 3 vols.; Edinburgh
1973-87, 11I/1, pp. lff.; J. Juster, Les juifs dans l'empire romaine, 2 vols;
Paris 1914, I, pp. 456-472.
8 See above, n. 5, as well as A. Seager, 'The Architecture of the Dura and Sardis
Synagogues', in: The Dura-Europos Synagogue, J. Gutmann (ed.), Missoula
1973, pp. 79-116.

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 Diaspora Judaism of Late Antiquity

Secondly, the attitude toward figural art in the synagogues varied

markedly from one Diaspora community to the next. One synagogue
may have exhibited a full range of figural representation (Dura); another
may have been more modest, featuring animals and fish only (Naro);
and still others may have been completely devoid of figural art
(Apamea, Stobi, and Ostia).9 The synagogue at Sardis seems to have
been a synthesis of sorts. Its mosaic floors display only geometric
patterns, yet the appearance of statues of two pairs of lions as well as
stone table supports bearing carved eagles indicates that this community
apparently had no objection to figural art-10
The quantity and nature of epigraphical evidence also vary for the
Diaspora synagogues. Although Aramaic and Hebrew were spoken,
Greek was clearly predominant in the Jewish communities of the east,
Greek and Latin in the west. Moreover, the titles and offices of
synagogue leadership and governing bodies differed from synagogue to
synagogue.11
The location of a synagogue was another factor contributing to the
diversity among Diaspora synagogues. For example, the building at
Sardis was located in the very heart of the city, on its main
thoroughfare, while that of Dura was located on the town's periphery,
fronting its western wall.12
The larger social, cultural, and religious contexts of each Jewish

9 See above, n. 5.
10 A. Seager and A.T. Kraabel, 'The Synagogue and the Jewish Community', in:
Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times, G.M.A. Hanfmann (ed.), Cambridge,
MA 1983, pp. 169-176.
11 J.-B. Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, vol. I: Rome 1936, reprint:
New York 1975; vol. II: Rome 1952, I, pp. LXVIIIff.; H. Leon, The Jews of
Ancient Rome, Philadelphia 1960, pp. 167-194; L. Kant, 'Jewish
Inscriptions in Greek and Latin', Aufstieg and Niedergang der romischen
Welt, II, 20.2, W. Haase and H. Temporini (eds.), Berlin 1987, pp. 692-698.
12 Seager (above, n. 8), pp. 80-82.

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Lee I. Levine

community appear to have been not insignificant factors in shaping a

synagogue's artistic and architectural features as well as its functions
and practices. In Hellenistic Egypt, for example, pagan temple models
and practices may well have had an influence on the nature of the local
synagogue, such as its function as a place of asylum, its location next to
a grove of trees, its sometimes elaborate water installations, and the
titles of officials heading the congregation. Moreover, the popular
custom among the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt of dedicating a synagogue
to the ruling family was almost never repeated elsewhere in. the
Diaspora and is a reflection of widespread pagan practices in the
Ptolemaic era.13 The salient representation of women in synagogue
affairs in Asia Minor, especially in its western parts, may also have
been influenced by the unusual prominence and high degree of female
participation in pagan and Christian ritual in these areas.14
Similar contextual influence is evident in the synagogue at Dura as
well.15 The synagogue building, particularly its second phase, adopted
and adapted local models of pagan shrines:16 the synagogue hall and its
outer courtyard are reminiscent of a number of Dura temples, as is the

13 P.E. Dion, 'Synagogues et temples dans 1'Egypte hellenistique', Science et

Esprit, XXIX (1977), pp. 45-75.
14 A.T. Kraabel, Judaism in Western Asia Minor under the Roman Empire with a
Preliminary Study of the Jewish Community at Sardis, Lydia, doctoral thesis,
Harvard University; Cambridge, MA 1968; P. Trebilco, Jewish Communities
in Asia Minor, Cambridge, Eng. 1991, pp. 104-126. Cf. also B. Brooten,
Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue, Chico 1982; R.S. Kraemer, 'A New
Inscription from Malta and the Question of Women Elders in the Diaspora
Jewish Communities', Harvard Theological Review, LXXVIII (1986), pp.
431-438.
15 C. Kraeling, The Excavations at Dura-Europos: The Synagogue, New Haven
1956, pp. 366ff.
16 Goodenough (above, n. 5), IX, pp. 29-30; A. Perkins, The Art of Dura-
Europos, Oxford 1973, pp. 33-69.

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series of rooms attached to the complex; the synagogue aedicula was a

close approximation of local temple aediculae, however the former is
distinguished by containing a Torah scroll and not an idol. Moreover,
the famous paintings of the Dura synagogue are organized in panels
similar to those appearing in other Dura shrines and in the local church.
Their story - the mighty feats of the God of Israel - is well-documented
mutatis mutandis in other Dura contexts as well.

Unity within the Diaspora

In contrast to the above-noted diversity, Diaspora synagogues held
much in common. The very centrality of the synagogue throughout
these far-flung Diaspora communities is a clear indication of their
shared recognition of the institution's preeminence. In fact, the
synagogue is the only Jewish communal building mentioned in the
extant literary, archeological or epigraphical evidence. Thus, there can
be little doubt that it was the focal institution of every Jewish
community, serving as a place for religious worship as well as for a
myriad of other communal functions.
The Diaspora synagogue appears to have been recognized first and
foremost, by Jews and non-Jews alike, as a religious institution, just as
the Jewish community was recognized as a religious as well as ethnic
group. Thus, one may find from almost the very beginning of the
Diaspora Jewish experience a recognition of the sanctity of the
synagogue building. Philo and Josephus call the synagogue a holy
place or a "temple" already in the first century,17 and at one point the
latter attributes such a reference to Onias IV who, in writing to Ptolemy
in the second century B.C.E. regarding the building of a temple at
Leontopolis, notes that Jews had many such "temples" (iEpa) This
undoubtedly refers to synagogues.18 Also several inscriptions from

17 Philo, Every Good Man is Free, 81 (Loeb Classical Library, IX, p. 57);
Josephus, War, VII, 3, 3, 45.
18 Josephus, Antiquities, XIII, 3, 1, 66.

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Lee I. Levine

Hellenistic Egypt indicate the "holy" status accorded local synagogues;

some apparently served as "asylums," others as sacred precincts or
courtyards-19 Agatharchides and Tacitus likewise refer to synagogues
as temples:
The people known as Jews... pray with outstretched hands in the
temples (-roil iEpois) until the evening.20
Therefore they set up no statues in their cities, still less in their
temples.21
A number of inscriptions,22 as well as references made by John
Chrysostom23 and Procopius,24 bear witness that the "holy" status of
the Diaspora synagogue continued down through late antiquity.
Inasmuch as this sacred status seems to have originated early on (even
without the permanent presence of a Torah shrine - at Delos, for
example), it is probable that it was not due to the presence of Torah
scrolls per se, which were perceived by many to be the Jewish
equivalent of the statue of a pagan deity.25 Rather, this holiness may

19 A. Kasher, 'Synagogues in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt as Community

Centers', in: Synagogues in Antiquity, A. Kasher et al. (eds.), Jerusalem
1987, pp. 119-132 (Hebrew).
20 Josephus, Against Apion, I, 209; M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews
and Judaism, 3 vols.; Jerusalem 1974-84, I, p. 107.
21 Tacitus, Histories, V, 4; Stern (above, n. 20), II, pp. 26, 43.
22 Lifshitz (above, n. 6), p. 18, no. 10 (Stobi); p. 31, no. 28 (Philadelphia); p.
34, no. 32 (Hyllarima); p. 70, no. 78 (Gerasa).
23 Adversus Iudaeos 1, 3, Patrologia Graeca, XLVIII, 847-848; R.L. Wilken,
John Chrysostom and the Jews, Berkeley 1983, pp. 79-80.
24 Buildings 6#2.
25 See V. Tcherikover, A. Fuks and M. Stern, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, 3
vols.; Cambridge, MA 1957-64, 11, pp. 82-85 and p. 86, line 18 (no. 157),
John Chrysostom, Adversus Iudaeos 1, 5, Patrologia Graeca, XLVIII, p.
450; W.A. Meeks and R.L. Wilken, Jews and Christians in Antioch, Missoula
1978, pp. 94-95.

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have been related to various religious functions conducted within the

synagogue, such as prayer, Torah-reading, and study, and, as noted, to
the recognition of the Jewish community as a religious and ethnic
entity.
Diaspora synagogues were also concerned with purity rites. Already
in the latter half of the second century B.C.E., the letter of Aristeas
made it very clear that there was a close connection between washing
the hands and prayer.
At the first hour of the day they attended the court daily, and after
offering salutations to the king, retired to their own quarters.
Following the custom of all the Jews, they washed their hands in the
sea in the course of their prayers to God, and then proceeded to the
reading and explication of each point. I asked this question: "What is
their purpose in washing their hands while saying prayers?" They
explained that it is evidence that they have done no evil, for all
activity takes place by means of the hands.26
Many Diaspora synagogues had basins or lavers in their courtyards
(e.g., Priene and Sardis) or the synagogues themselves were located
near bodies of water.27 The reasons for the emphasis on purification
are unclear; Aristeas offers one explanation, parallel pagan practices
offer another.28

26 Letter of Aristeas 304-306, following R.J.H. Shutt, in: The Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha, J. Charlesworth (ed.), 2 vols.; Garden City 1983-85, II, p.
33.
27 Sanders (above, n. 4), p. 259; L.I. Levine, 'From Community Center to
"Lesser Sanctuary": The Furnishings and Interior of the Ancient Synagogue',
Cathedra, LX (1991), pp. 39-41 (Hebrew). See also Josephus, Antiquities,
XII, 2, 13, 106.
28 Sanders (above, n. 4), pp. 262-263. On the tradition that in Egypt God spoke
with Moses and Aaron outside the cities because the latter contained idolatry
and abominations, see Mekilta d'R. Ishmael, Bo, 1, Horowitz-Rabin (eds.),
p. 2.

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Lee I. Levine

A feature common to later Diaspora synagogues was the prominence

of the Torah shrine. Most synagogues known to us to date had a
permanent Torah shrine in the main hall, the only possible exception
having been at Naro. However, even there, inscriptions found in a
room adjacent to the main hall seem to indicate that the room served as a
storage place for holy objects (instrumenta) - undoubtedly a reference
to the Torah scrolls.29
The orientation of the building toward Jerusalem is another
characteristic common to Diaspora synagogues, and the centrality of
Jerusalem - as a memory of the past, hope for the future, or both -
undoubtedly played a role in the Jewish liturgy performed therein. It is
interesting to note that Diaspora Jewry's geographical focus on
Jerusalem has been paralleled by the Diaspora Samaritan community's
relationship to Mt. Gerizim. Two Samaritan inscriptions from the
Hellenistic period found a decade ago on Delos emphasize this tie
explicitly.30
Finally, Diaspora synagogues bore similarity to one another in the
kinds of symbols they displayed, the most prominent among them
having been the menorah. While certainly ubiquitous throughout the
Diaspora, Jewish symbols were never a dominant feature in synagogue
decoration. Extensive use of Jewish symbols, particularly of the
menorah, has also been found at Diaspora burial sites, especially in the
catacombs of Rome dating from the third to the fifth centuries.31

29 Goodenough (above, n. 5), II, pp. 89-92.

30 P. Bruneau, "'Les Israelites de D61os" et la juiverie delienne', Bulletin de
Correspondence Helldnistique, CVI (1982), pp. 475-479; A.T. Kraabel,
'New Evidence of the Samaritan Diaspora has been Found on Delos', Biblical
Archaeologist, XLVII/1 (1984), pp. 44-46; L.M. White, 'The Delos
Synagogue Revisited - Recent Fieldwork in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora',
Harvard Theological Review, LXXX/2 (1987), pp. 141-147.
31 Leon (above, n. 11), pp. 196-198; L.V. Rutgers, 'The Jewish Catacombs of
Rome Reconsidered', in: Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish

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Diaspora Judaism - as reflected in its synagogues from antiquity -

may thus be characterized by its notable diversity and, at the same time,
by its shared features. It should be noted that this dichotomy is likewise
discernible at Jewish burial sites in the Diaspora. There are major
differences between the burial sites in North Africa, Rome, and
Palestine, yet certain basic features - the use of certain symbols, the
avoidance of specific representations, etc. - are common to all.32

Diaspora and Palestinian Jewry: Implications

What, then, are some of the implications of these characteristics for
our understanding of Judaism and Jewish society of the Diaspora in late
antiquity? First of all, it would seem that Diaspora Judaism was not
radically different from that of Palestine.33 A consensus has emerged of

Studies, Division B, Volume II, Jerusalem 1990, pp. 29-36.

32 Ibid.; Goodenough (above, n. 5), II, pp. 3-69.
33 Here I would seek to balance somewhat the engaging thesis offered by A.T.
Kraabel, 'Unity and Diversity among Diaspora Synagogues', in: The
Synagogue in Late Antiquity, L.I. Levine (ed.), Philadelphia 1987, pp. 49-
60:

Let me state the thesis at the outset: The Judaism of the synagogue
communities of the Roman Diaspora is best understood, on the basis of
the present evidence, as the grafting of a transformed biblical "exile"
ideology onto a Greco-Roman form of social organization (p. 49).
Without negating possible biblical influences, there seems to be no question
that the Diaspora synagogue must be viewed primarily within a horizontal,
i.e., Greco-Roman, context, not only with regard to its non-Jewish
components but also with regard to its Jewish dimension as well. Second -
Temple Judaism and its post-70 development affected Jewish communities
both in Palestine and throughout the Diaspora. Any 'biblical' influences were
mediated through contemporary Jewish frameworks - institutional as well as
ideological.

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Lee I. Levine

late that the difference between the Hellenization of the Diaspora and
that of Palestine was one of degree only and not necessarily qualitative
in nature. As noted, it had been almost universally assumed previously
that the Diaspora was much more heavily influenced by the Greco-
Roman world than was Palestine. However, two pieces of evidence
from the latter - one literary and one archeological - should make us
rethink this assumption. In at least one of Caesarea's synagogues,
around the year 300, the congregation recited the most basic of prayers
- the Shema' - in Greek and undoubtedly also read the Torah in Greek,
or at least had it translated into that language for the benefit of its
congregants.34 Moreover, the appearance of zodiac signs and the image
of Helios in a number of synagogues throughout Palestine reflects a
significant penetration of Hellenistic artistic motifs into the synagogue
in particular and into Jewish cultural life generally.35
The Torah shrine was a prominent feature in almost all the
synagogues in Palestine and the Diaspora of late antiquity and may have
been located in a niche (as at Miletus and Eshtemoa), an apse (as at
Ostia and Beth Alpha) or an aedicula (as at Dura and Nabratein).36
Scriptures were read, expounded, and studied with awe and sanctity
throughout the entire Jewish world,37 and remains of the above

34 J Sotah 7, 1, 21b.
35 R. Hachlili, 'The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Art: Representation and
Significance', Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 228
(1977), pp. 61-77; idem, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of
Israel, Leiden 1988, pp. 301-309; Goodenough (above, n. 5), VIII, pp. 167-
218.
36 Kraabel (above, n. 5); Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art (above, n. 35), pp. 166-
182; Levine (above, n. 27), pp. 70-74.
37 I. Elbogen, Jewish Prayer in its Historical Development, Tel-Aviv 1972, pp.
117-131 (Hebrew); C. Perrot, La lecture de la Bible, Hildesheim 1973; J.
Heinemann, Studies in Jewish Liturgy2, Jerusalem 1983, pp. 22-27
(Hebrew).

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architectural elements reinforce the centrality of the Torah to Jewish

liturgy in antiquity.
Purity was likewise a widespread concern of Jews everywhere.38
Remains of installations for the washing of hands (and feet?) and
possibly also for body immersion were found in Palestine as well as in
the Diaspora, and our literary and epigraphic sources confirm their
existence.39 Synagogues,located in coastal cities were often situated
near the shore, as in Gaza and Caesarea, or in Delos, Priene, and
Ostia.40
As regards the synagogue building generally, we find that the same
features characteristic of the Diaspora buildings also held true for those
of Palestine. Monumental synagogues and small ones were built in
Palestine and the Diaspora, as well as synagogues remodelled from
private homes and separate structures built initially to serve as
community centers. Simple buildings stood in Khirbet Shema' and
Aegina, more monumental edifices in Capernaum, Marus, and
Sardis.41 Moreover, there was no fixed location for the synagogue in
Palestine or the Diaspora: some were situated within the city or village
(Chorazin, Hammath Tiberias), some outside of it (Beth Shean, Gush

38 See Sanders (above, n. 4), pp. 255-271, as well as the classic studies of A.
BUchler, 'The Levitical Impurity of the Gentile Cities in Palestine before the
Year 70', Jewish Quarterly Review, XVII (1926-27), pp. 1-81; and Alon
(above, n. 2), pp. 146-234.
39 Levine (above, n. 27), pp. 39-41.
40 See above, n. 27.
41 G. Foerster, 'The Ancient Synagogues of the Galilee', in: The Galilee in Late
Antiquity, L.I. Levine (ed.), Atlanta 1992, pp. 289-319; Goodenough
(above, n. 5), II, pp. 75-76; Seager and Kraabel (above, n. 10), pp. 168-
175.

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Lee I. Levine

Halav), and others, as noted, near the sea (Caesarea, Gaza).42

Another feature common to both Diaspora and Palestinian
synagogues is the language that was used there. The primary languages
of the synagogues in Palestine were those spoken throughout that
region, i.e., Greek and Aramaic.43 Hebrew played a distinctly minor
role, as is evident from the inscriptions found in Palestine; it played an
even smaller role in the Diaspora. Greek was the lingua franca of the
Diaspora; Aramaic was also spoken in the East just as Latin was in the
West.44
Moreover, there appears to have been as wide a discrepancy in
attitudes toward art and figural representation among the Jewish
communities of Palestine and the Diaspora, ranging from a more
conservative approach, as in the synagogues at Ein Gedi and Rehov, to
a more liberal, Hellenized one, as in the synagogues at Hammath
Tiberias and Beth Alpha. For example, the signs of the zodiac and the
image of Helios are not mentioned at all, or only by name, in the
former, yet they are given full figural expression in the latter.45 The
same range of attitudes towards figural representation may be found in
the Diaspora, as, for example, from the strictly aniconic mosaic floors
in the synagogue of Apamea to the full-blown biblical cycles depicted at
Dura.46
The emphasis on local traditions, abundantly evident in the Diaspora
synagogue buildings at Dura, Sardis, and Ostia, was a significant factor

42 Cf. above, n. 12 and The New Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Excavations

in the Holy Land, E. Stern (ed.), 4 vols.; Jerusalem 1993, passim.
43 For collections of these inscriptions, see J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic: The
Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues, Jerusalem 1978
(Hebrew); L. Roth-Gerson, The Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in
Eretz-Israel, Jerusalem 1987 (Hebrew).
44 Kant (above, n. 11), p. 673.
45 See Hachlili (above, n. 35); Levine (above, n. 27), pp. 63-70.
46 Cf. above, nn. 5 and 10.

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in Palestine as well. Each region left an indelible stamp on the nature,

decoration, and plan of its local synagogue: the Galilean-type
synagogue has long been recognized;47 more recently, we have become
aware of synagogues of the Golan-type as well as of those bearing
architectural features unique to southern Judea.48

The recognition of local influence on the synagogue does not

preclude the fact that there may have been a great deal of diversity
among synagogues within any one region, particularly those situated in
an urban setting. On the basis of catacomb inscriptions from third- to
fifth-century Rome, it appears that, in terms of the social composition,
economic status, and ethnic origins of its members, synagogues of very
different types existed in the city.49 The same was probably true for
Palestinian settings as well. In the Beth Shean area, we have evidence
of five different synagogues dating to the sixth century, each differing
dramatically from the next in architectural plan as well as in attitude
toward figural representation and in the language and content of the

47 Even within the Galilee, significant differences have been noted between the
synagogues of the Upper and Lower Galilees. See E.M. Meyers. 'Galilean
Regionalism as a Factor in Historical Reconstruction', Bulletin of the
American Schools of Oriental Research 221 (1976), pp. 93-101.
48 Z. Ma'oz, 'The Art and Architecture of the Synagogues of the Golan', Ancient
Synagogues Revealed, L.I. Levine (ed.), Jerusalem 1981, pp. 98-115; idem,
'Ancient Synagogues of the Golan', Biblical Archaeologist, LI (June, 1988),
pp. 116-128. Regarding southern Judea, see D, Amit and Z. Ilan, 'The
Ancient Synagogue at Ma'on in Judah', Qadmoniot XXIII/91-92 (1990), pp.
115-125 (Hebrew); Levine (above, n. 27), p. 41.
49 Leon (above, n. 11), pp. 135-166.

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Lee I. Levine

inscriptions found there.50

Thus, the picture that emerges regarding diversity within Palestine is
not unlike that which we have described for the Diaspora. Morton
Smith noted this diversity in passing some thirty-five years ago:
But the different parts of the country [i.e., Israel] were so different,
such gulfs of feeling and practice separated Idumea, Judea, Caesarea,
and Galilee, that even on this level there was probably no more
agreement between them than between any one of them in a similar
area in the Diaspora.51
Another implication reinforcing the similarity between Diaspora and
Palestinian synagogues relates to the explanations that have been
offered for the use of Jewish symbols and motifs in the synagogues. It
has been claimed that the extensive use of Jewish symbols in Diaspora
synagogues reflects a mentality among these Jews of alienation from the
surrounding pagan culture, a phenomenon specifically associated with
Jewish minority status in the Diaspora.52 Yet we find that these very
same symbols were introduced into Palestine at roughly the same time,
even in areas where the Jews were clearly the majority. Moreover, no
uniquely Jewish symbols have been preserved in the remains of any
Second-Temple synagogues, neither on Delos and throughout Egypt

50 M. Chiat, 'Synagogues and Churches in Byzantine Bet Shean', Journal of

Jewish Art, VII (1980), pp. 6-24; J. Raynor, Social and Cultural
Relationships in Scythopolis/Beth Shean in the Roman and Byzantine
Periods, doctoral dissertation, Duke University; Durham 1982, pp. 74-129.
51 M. Smith, 'Palestinian Judaism in the First Century', in: Israel: Its Role in
Civilization, M. Davies (ed.), New York 1956, pp. 67-81 (quote from p. 81).
52 H. Krauss, 'Jewish Art as a Minority Problem', Journal of Jewish Sociology,
II (1960), pp. 147-171; S. Fine, 'The Menorah as Symbol of Jewish
Minority Status', in: Fusion in the Hellenistic East, S. Fine (ed.), Los Angeles
1985, pp. 24-31.

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nor at Masada and Gamla.53 Only in the third and fourth centuries C.E.
do we find evidence of these symbols, and their appearance then is not
confined to any one locale. Thus, while the factor of alienation may
indeed have been of some significance, we ought to look elsewhere for
an explanation of this phenomenon. It may go well beyond the religious
and social proclivities of any specific community or region; it may be an
expression of Judaism's reaction to the impact of Christianity's
ascendancy in late antiquity and its subsequent influence on various
facets of Jewish society.54

Differences between the Diaspora and Palestine

Interestingly, it is precisely with regard to artistic motifs that some
fascinating differences emerge between Palestinian and Diaspora
practices, and in rather unexpected ways! The intensive use of Jewish
symbols in the synagogue - on mosaic floors or stone mouldings - was
much greater in Palestine than in the Diaspora. Symbols such as the
Torah shrine, menorah, shofar, lulav, ethrog, and incense shovel (on
the mosaic floors of the synagogues at Hammath Tiberias, Beth Alpha,
Huseifa, Na'aran, and Susiya, for example55) never appear in a similar
concentration in any of the preserved Diaspora synagogues. The closest
parallel to this Palestinian phenomenon may be found in the third-fifth-
century Jewish catacombs of Rome, particularly on fragments of gold

53 See Kraabel (above, n. 5), and articles on the Second Temple period
synagogue, in: Ancient Synagogues Revealed, L.I. Levine (ed.), Jerusalem
1981, pp. 19-41. The attempt by Ma'oz to identify a rosette and date palms
on the Gamla lintel as Jewish symbols that "may provide a clue to identify
synagogues of this period" is unconvincing (ibid., p. 39). See also Hachlili,
Ancient Jewish Art (above, n. 35), pp. 84-88, 235.
54 See my forthcoming Ancient Synagogue; Y. Tsafrir, 'The Byzantine Setting
and Its Influence on Ancient Synagogues', in: The Synagogue in Late
Antiquity, L.I. Levine (ed.), Philadelphia 1987, pp. 147-157.
55 Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art (above, n. 35), pp. 347-365.

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glass.56
Moreover, these same Palestinian synagogues show a grater
proclivity than their Diaspora counterparts to featuring figural
representations with distinctly pagan motifs. Dura, of course, is the
classic example of extensive figural art, but even there we find biblical
scenes only; no Diaspora synagogue can parallel the Hellenistic
depictions of zodiac signs and Helios found in a number of Palestinian
settings. Amazing as it may appear, Diaspora synagogues, far from
being more syncretistic and Hellenized in this regard, were by and large
more conservative than their Palestinian counterparts. Perhaps the
security of living in their land, in the midst of a largely Jewish
population, allowed some Palestinian Jewish communities to indulge in
artistic expressions that their Diaspora counterparts might have found
objectionable, unsavory or problematic.
The sacred status accorded the synagogue also differed from the
Diaspora to Palestine. From its inception, perhaps - and certainly early
on - the synagogue in the Diaspora was considered holy.57 The
Palestinian synagogue appears to have acquired a similar status
relatively late - from the third century onward.58 This added dimension
of sanctity in no way threatened the community-center aspect of the
Palestinian synagogue, as this element was central to the institution
from its inception and continued to function as such throughout
antiquity.

Leadership within the Ancient Synagogue

An interesting implication of the above comparison between Diaspora
and Palestinian synagogues involves the religious leadership of these
institutions. We know of no rabbis who functioned in the synagogues
of the Roman Diaspora. When mention is made of religious leaders -

56 Goodenough (above, n. 5), II, pp. 108-119.

57 See Kasher (above, n. 19).
58 Levine (above, n. 27), pp. 79-84.

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and this has occurred on rare occasion only - it is usually of a priest,

didaskalos or sophos.59 Nor does rabbinic literature make mention of
academies or permanent rabbinic figures in the Roman Diaspora - with
the single exception of R. Mattea b. Heresh, who appears to have
founded an institution in Rome in the early second century.60 Any
rabbinic figures known to us from Palestinian literature who ventured
out to the Roman Diaspora did so for short visits only. The case of R.
Meir, who fled to Asia Minor toward the end of his life and
subsequently died there, is an exception.61
If indeed Diaspora synagogues functioned primarily as communal
institutions without "rabbinic" leadership, and given the overall
similarity between Diaspora and Palestinian synagogues, the question
arises as to the place and function of the sage in the latter. And if the
synagogues throughout the Roman world held much in common, in
many respects reflecting similar practices, then the influence of the
rabbis on the ancient synagogue must have been limited, at best.62

59 Sardis - Seager and Kraabel (above, n. 10), p. 170 (priest, sophodidaskalos);

Rome - Frey (above, n. 11), I, pp. 371-372, no. 508 (student of the sages,
µa01-ri s ibid., pp. 261-262, no. 333 ibid., II, p.
211, no. 1158 (Beth Shearim - 8LSda[xaXoc]; ibid., I, p. 140, no. 201
(voµ(o)6[L6aaKcaX6)...]); Athens - ibid., B. Lifshitz, 'Prolegomenon', p. 83,
no. 715b (np6cKo? os); Argos - ibid., pp. 518-519, no. 719 (oo(pxiv). The
title 'rabbi' appears in several Latin inscriptions from Italy - although its
significance remains elusive - ibid., pp. 418 and 438, nos. 568 and 611,
respectively.
60 E. Toaff, 'Matia ben Cheresh e la sua accademia rabbinica di Roma', Annuario
di Studi Ebraici, II (1964), pp. 69-80. See also B. Bokser, 'Todos and
Rabbinic Authority in Rome', in: New Perspectives in Ancient Judaism, J,
Neusner (ed.), London 1987, pp. 117-129.
61 J Kilaim 9, 4, 32c. See also G. Alon, The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic
Age, 2 vols.; Jerusalem 1984, II, pp. 670-673.
62 This point is argued more fully by L. Levine, 'The Sages and the Synagogue in

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Lee I. Levine

This, of course, is not a view derived from rabbinic literature. Although

there is a tendency to assume that if rabbinic literature refers to
synagogues or mentions rabbis who functioned in synagogues then this
must have been the norm, an increased sophistication in our use of that
literature - in addition to the archeological and epigraphical evidence -
suggests a somewhat different picture. Rabbinic influence on
synagogue affairs was limited; rabbinic control would make significant
gains eventually, but this would happen only centuries later, some time
toward the end of late antiquity or in the early Middle Ages, and in a
different historical setting.

How do we account for the similarity and commonality in Jewish

expression in synagogues throughout antiquity? It would seem that
there must have been a common thread of Judaism which affected and
influenced Jews everywhere, an inheritance of the past that was shaped
and preserved by experiences common to Jews throughout the Greco-
Roman world despite varying and ever-changing historical and social
contexts. Modern critical scholarship by its very nature has spent much
time analyzing and dissecting, differentiating and distinguishing.
Perhaps the time has come to balance such an analysis by also focusing
on the common and the unifying, by defining the nature of this shared
continuum - vertically (in time) and horizontally (cross-cultural context)
- in order to attain as comprehensive an understanding of ancient
Judaism as possible.63

Late Antiquity: The Evidence of the Galilee', in: The Galilee in Late Antiquity,
L.I. Levine (ed.), Atlanta 1992, pp. 201-222.
63 Cf. D. Schwartz, 'Qumran between Priestliness and Christianity', in: The
Scrolls of the Judaean Desert - Forty Years of Research, M. Broshi et al.
(eds), Jerusalem 1992, p. 181 (Hebrew).

158
 0,0

A O -

aJlaeC
T tea''
G

T.. it 7.0.S,4 v

.Baeficy
.

Fig. 1: Spain at the end of the IVth century

THE SITUATION OF THE JEWS IN ROMAN
SPAIN

ALFREDO M. RABELLO

To VITTORE COLORNI
Scholar and Friend

1) The Beginning
Many legends are told about the beginning of Jewish settlement in
Spain. Some of these attribute the beginning of this diaspora to the days
of Nebuchadnezzar. There were families who claimed that they could
trace their genealogy to the families Titus brought from Iudaea captal

1. E.g. the Aibalia family has a tradition that one of their ancestors, Baruch -
who had a post in the Temple of Jerusalem - accepted an invitation to visit
Spain at the time of Titus; see especially A. De Castro, The History of the Jews
in Spain, London, 1857 (repr. 1972); S. Applebaum, "The Diaspora of the
Mediterranean coast in the Hellenistic - Roman age" (in Hebrew), in The
Mediterranean: its place in the History and Culture of the Jews and other
nations, Jerusalem, 1970, p. 54.
 The Jews in Roman Spain

after the conquest. It is obvious that we cannot verify these legends

which were partly spread in order to "purify" families of Jews and
Marranos from the suspicion that their ancestors were associated with
the killing of Jesus. There were some who tried to explain the great
wisdom of the Sefardic Jews by the tradition according to which the
tribe of Judah was exiled to Spain after the destruction of the First
Temple.2 It is probable that a Jewish settlement already existed there at
the end of the Second Temple period or immediately after the
destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans
says:
" I shall come to you on my way to Spain...." (15.24), and
" I shall cross your land to get to Spain" (15.28).
Even if scholars today believe that Paul never reached Spain, it may
be deduced from his intention to visit there that Jewish communities
existed in Spain, and that it was in those communities that Paul wished
to preach Christianity.3
In the Talmudic sources we find several references to Spain
(Aspamia), and even if these sometimes point to a distant place and no
more, it would seem that the Sages referred to Ispamia as a land in

In general on the Jews in Roman Spain see: L. Garcia Iglesias, "Los Judios en
la Espafla Romana" , Hispania Antiqua, 3, 1973, pp. 331 ff: J. Juster, The
Legal Condition of the Jews under the Visigothic Kings (brought up-to-date
with a Tribute by A.M. Rabello) Jerusalem, 1976.
2. J.F. Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. 1, Philadelphia,
1961, p.3 ff. ; see also: H. Beinart, "Two Shalom al Israel inscriptions from
Spain", Eretz Israel, 8, 1967, pp. 298 ff. (In Hebrew; English summary p.
78).
3. S. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. 1. New York, 1952,
p. 170, vol. III,p. 33 f. ; H. Beinart, "Cuando llegaron los Judios a Espana",
Estudios del Instituto Central de Relaciones culturales Israel-Iberoamerica,
Espana Y Portugal, III, 1961, 1, ff.; M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman
Rule, Leiden, 1976, p.122.

161
Alfredo M. Rabello

which Jews lived. In the Mishnah (Bava Batra, 3,2,) we read:

"R. Judah said: They have prescribed a limit of three years only that
if the owner was in Spain (Ispamia) ..." and in the Babylonian
Talmud, (Yevamot 63a):
"Even vessels which come from Gallia to Ispamia are not blessed
but for the sake of Israel..."; and again, Bab. Talmud Nidda, 30, b):
"A man sleeps here and sees a dream in Aspamia. "
Finally, in Midrash Vayikra Rabbah (3, 6) we read:
"He brought his offering from Gallia and from Ispamia... "4. And
again: "God said to him : "Do not fear my servant Jacob, and do not let
Israel fear becouse I am going to save you from far away (Jeremiah,
30, 10): from Gallia and from Ispamia and from her friends."
In the book of Ovadiah it is written:
"....and the diaspora of Jerusalem which is in Sefarad5 will inherit
the towns of the Negev" (1, 20);
in the Targum Yonatan they interpret Sefarad as Spain.

4. It is clear that we cannot determine from these quotations whether in the name
Aspamia the sages referred to Spain or perhaps to other nearer places, such as
Apamia in Syria. On this issue see especially: A. Neubauer, La Geographie du
Talmud. Paris, 1868, p. 304, 417; P. Neeman, Encyclopedia of the
Geography of the Talmud. Tel-Aviv, 1972 (1), p. 118 ff. (in Hebrew), and
also notes of the editor in 'Aruch Hashalem, entry Aspamia, on what the
Midrash says in Vayikra Rabbah.
Nevertheless, it seems quite clear that sometimes the name Aspamia refers to
Spain itself. See M. Margaliot's note concerning Vayikra Rabbah, 70, 68-69,
in which he emphasizes that the names Aspamia and Gallia actually refer to
present day Spain and France, and not to other places nearer to Israel, "for the
main aim of the Midrash is to stress the great trouble and pain endured in
travelling a long distance in order to bring a sacrifice".
5. Sefarad is the name generally used in Hebrew for Spain, see S. Krauss, "The
names Ashkenaz and Sefarad", Tarbitz 3, 1932, pp. 423 ff. (in Hebrew), and
also I.N. Epstein's important note in "On the name Spain", ibid, p. 435.

162
 The Jews in Roman Spain

We may note here that the status of the Spanish Jews was generally
no different from the status of Jews elsewhere in the Roman Empire,
especially in the western part of the Empire.
Judaism was considered religio licita, a nation with its own
privileges permitting the free exercise of the Jewish cult and exemption
from public duties in conflict with the monotheistic faith of the Jews. It
is especially important to point out that after the grant of Roman
citizenship to all the inhabitants of the Empire by Antoninus Caracalla
(Constitutio Antoniniana de Civitate) in 212, all the Jews of Spain
became Roman citizens. Thus on the one hand we see that the Jews
enjoyed Roman citizenship and everything that it involved, and on the
other hand it enables us to understand the continuity of the Roman laws
which relate to the Jews.6
2) The council of Elvira and the Jews
The first reference of the Catholic Church to the Jews of Spain is
found at the Council of Elvira. It was the first Church Council in the
world to regulate the relationship between Christians and Jews.
Elvira is the name of a place, or more precisely, the name of two
towns in Spain: One in the province of Narbona and the other in the
Baetic province, today Andalusia, not far from the present site of
Gerona. It is most probable that it was in this latter town that the
Bishops' council took place. In the opinion of some scholars, the
council was held between the years 300-303; others say it took place
between 306-312.7

6. This is not the place to give a full bibliographic list. It is sufficient to refer
the reader to: J. Juster, Les Juifs dans 1'Empire Romain, Paris, 1914; L. Garcia
Iglesias, "Los Judios en la Espana Romana", Hispania Antiqua, 3, 1973, pp.
331 ff.; A.M. Rabello, The Legal Condition of the Jews in the Roman
Empire, ANRW,II, 15, 1980, pp. 662-762; A.M. Rabello, The Jews in
Visigothic Spain in the Light of the Legislation (in Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1983.
7. On the Elvira Council see: C.I. Hefele - H.Leclerq, Histoire des Conciles
d'apres les documents originaux, II, Paris, 1908; G. Bareille, "Elvire",

163
Alfredo M. Rabello

From the decisions taken at the council which concerned Jews, at a

time of syncretism for the Spaniards, we may learrn about the influence
the Jews had on the Christians (there was probably influence in the
other direction too !). The Spanish Church, like other churches, was
afraid of too much contact between Jews and Christians. It decided not
to permit mixed marriages (Can. 16),8 and to forbid adultery with a
Jewish woman (Can. 78),9 which presumably meant a prohibition on
taking a Jewish concubine. It also prohibited dining with Jews (Can.

Dictionnaire de thgologie catholique, 4,2, 2378-2392; A.M. Rabello,

Giustiniano, Ebrei e Samaritani alle luce delle fonti storico-letterarie,
ecclesiastiche e giuridiche, vol. II, Milano, 1988, pp. 497 ff. In general, see:
A. Momigliano, The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the
Fourth Century, Oxford, 1962.
8. Can. 16: "Women believers are forbidden to marry non-believers.
If heretics refuse to join the Catholic Church, it shall be prohibited to give
them Catholic girls. The reason for prohibiting an attachment with Jews or
heretics is that there cannot be any kind of a partnership between a believer
and a non-believer. If parents will not follow this prohibition they will be
excluded for five years from the communio". Cf. P. Lombardia, "Los
matrimonios mixtos en el Concilio de Elvira (a. 303 ?)", A.H.D.E., 24, 1954,
pp. 543 ff.; A.M. Rabello, 11 problema dei matrimoni fra Ebrei e Cristiani
nella legislazione imperiale e in quella della Chiesa (IV-VI secolo), in Atti
della Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana, VII, Napoli, 1988, pp. 213 ff.
9. Can. 78: 'About the loyal married men who commit adultery with a Jewish or a
Pagan woman. If any believer who has a wife commits adultery with a Jewish
or a Pagan woman, he shall be expelled from the communio; if someone else
catches him in the act (and accuses him), he shall be allowed to return to the
holy communio after five years of penitence" (poenitentia).
The aim of the Canon forbidding the possession of Jewish or Pagan
mistresses is, to prevent the believer from being influenced by foreign
customs. The Canon does not relate to non-married men, but the issue will be
dealt with by the non-religious legislation.

164
 The Jews in Roman Spain

5O).10
Canon 49, which states that a Christian must not ask a Jew to bless
his crop, shows that the Jews were landowners at the time and that they
enjoyed good relations with their neighbours.11
Canon 26, prevents the Christians from keeping Saturday as a holy
day (Exodus, 20, 8; Deut. 5, 12)12. At that period and also for some

10. Can. 50: "About the Christians who dine with the Jews.
If anyone from the clergy or a believer eats his food in the company of a Jew,
a decision will be taken to suspend him from the communio so that he can
repent". see B. Blumenkranz, "Judaeorum convivia: a propos du Concile de
Vannes (465), c. 12, in Etudes du droit canonique dediees a Gabriel Le Bras,
II, Paris, 1965, pp. 1055 ff. (=Juifs et Chretiens. Patristique et Moyen Age,
London, 1977, n. XX)
11. Can. 49: "That the Jews shall not bless the fruit of the believers. We think
landowners ought to be warned not to let Jews bless their fruit, fruit which is a
gift from God, so that our blessing will not seem a false and unimportant
blessing. If anyone continues in this way after the prohibition, he shall be
expelled from the Church".
12. Can. 26: "That they shall fast every Saturday. Whoever wishes to make amends
for a sin, must keep all the fasts which were established every Saturday".
It seems that the aim is to prevent the Christians from keeping Saturday as a
day of joy. It should not be forgotten that for a long period of time there were
Christians who continued keeping Saturday as a holiday and a rest day, while
there were other Christians who used to keep two days as a holiday, both
Saturday and Sunday. On the concurrence between Saturday and Sunday in the
Church, see: J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'Empire Romain, I, p.280; P. Cotton,
From Sabbath to Sunday, Bethlehem, 1993; M. Simon, Verus Israel: Etude
sur les relations entre chretiens et Juifs dans L'Empire Romain (135-425),
Paris, 1948 pp. 374 ff., 383, 422., S. Bacchiocchi, A Historical
investigation of the Rise of Sunday observance in Early Christianity, Roma,
1977,; A. Weiss, "The Sabbath-observance of Gentiles", Bar-Ilan Anuual
1963, pp. 143 ff. (Hebrew); Y.D. Gilat, "On Fasting on the Sabbath",

165
Alfredo M. Rabello

time afterwards, there were many Christians influenced by the Bible

and by the Jews who wanted to keep Saturday as a day of solemn rest,
or both days (Saturday and Sunday) combined.
Canon 3613, at a later period of time, was the cause of very strong
controversy, and until this very day Christian theologians differ in their
opinions about its precise meaning. This Canon forbade pictures in
Church. Some assume that by taking this action, the council wanted to
prevent the contempt and mockery of the Jews, but it would logical to
think that the conference was aiming at a ritual of a more spiritual
nature.14
Finally, another item, Canon 61, is aimed at preventing Christians

Tarbiz, 52,1,1982. pp. 1 ff. (Hebrew); R. Bonfil, "Tra due mondi: prospettive
di ricerca sulla storia culturale degli Ebrei nell'alto medioevo", Italia Judaica,
Roma, 1983, pp. 135 ff.; A.M. Rabello, "L'observance des fetes hebraiques
dans l'Empire Romain", ANRW II, 21, 2, Berlin-New York, 1983, pp. 1288 ff.
13. Can. 36: "That there will be no pictures in church. The decision to forbid any
kind of picture in church was taken in order that what is to be worshipped and
honoured should not be painted on the walls." On the prohibition of pictures
in church see also E.E. Urbach, "The Rabbinical Laws of Idolatry in the
Second and Third Centuries in the Light of Archaeological and Historical
Facts", Israel Exploration Journal, 9, 1959, pp. 149 ff. More generally see:
E.J.Martin, A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy, London, 1930.
14. Can. 61: "That a man shall not marry two sisters. If a man, after the death of
his wife, marries her sister, and even if she is a believer, it has been decided
that they shall be excluded from the communio for five years unless, in case
of a disease, it will be necessary to ease their conscience at an earlier stage
and enable them to return to the communio before the five years are over". See
Babylonian Talmud, Mo'ed Qatan (tractate on intermediate days of a festival),
23a: Jerusalem Talmud. Yevamot, 84, 11, and Masekhet Semahot (tractate on
mourning laws and manners), 87. See also discussion on this issue: R. Yaron,
"Duabus sororibus coniunctio". Revue Internationale des Droits de
l'Antiquitd, 10, 1963, pp. 115 ff.

166
 The Jews in Roman Spain

Finally, another item, Canon 61, is aimed at preventing Christians

from adhering to the Jewish custom by which the unmarried sister of a
deceased woman was expected to marry her brother-in-law and take
care of the sister's little orphans. In any case, Judaism did not consider
this kind of marriage as defective.
From these Canons we can learn that Spanish Jews were considered
by the local Church to be of great importance in the area, thus the
Church passed laws against them in order to limit their influence on
Christians.
3) The Incident of Minorca
In this discussion of the relations between Jews and Christians in
Spain it is important to mention an incident which occured in Minorca,
one of the Balearic islands. In an epistle from the year 418, Epistula de
Judaeis, Severus, the bishop of Majorca and Minorca, gives us a
report on Christianity's victory over the Jews on the island, and tells us
about their conversion.15

15. Severus Majoricensis, Epistula de Judaeis (=Migne, P.L.,20, 731 ff.) 41,
822, ff.; G.G. Segni Vidal, La carta enciclica del Obispo Severo. Estudio
critico de su autenticidad e integritad con un bosqueio Historica del
cristianismo balear anterior al siglo VIII, Palma de Mallorca, 1936. In this
study the author sets out to prove the authenticity of the document. He argues
with scholars who do not accept his theory.
Blumenkranz has since claimed that the epistula attributed to Severus reflects
the reality of the seventh century and not the fifth. This claim is based on
literary grounds: B.Blumenkranz, Les auteurs Chrdtiens latins de Moyen age
sur les Juifs et le Judaisme, Paris, 1963, p. 106, ff.: Blumenkranz, Juifs et
Chretiens dans le monde occidental (430-1096) , Paris, 1963. p. 76 n. 34,
pp. 263-284, but his claim does not seem fully proven.
Among the many scholars who accept Severus' letter as an historic document
are: Juster, Juifs, 1, 464, nt. 3, 500; 2, 200-201, 253, 261-262; Baer, A
History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 1, 17, 382, n. 2; Garcia, Judios, 17
ff., 20 ff., 32 ff.; Baron, Social and Religious History, I, 370 and III, 33 ff.

167
Alfredo M. Rabello

then in 415 Orosius brought over the bones of Stephan, a saint of

Church. He had been put to death by the Jews in the Land of Israel.
The act of bringing over his bones inflamed the Christians who wanted
to take vengeance on the Jews of the island. 16 Riots erupted. The Jews,
headed by their leader Theodorus, gathered at the synagogue. The
Christians were convinced that the Jews were armed and ready for
battle. Therefore, they asked for a debate to take place.
Here we find of of the first examples of a theological debate in
Spain, one of those debates in which our forefathers proved the might
of their wisdom in spite of the obstacles facing them. And so also here,
Theodorus "spoke with great wisdom about the Torah until he made a
total mockery of all the objections he confronted." When' the Christians
realised they could not win this debate, they asked for a miracle from
heaven. But Severus could not hide his treacherous activities: even
while saying how ugly it is to have a war between brothers, he was
trying to find out how much truth there was in the rumours that the
Jews were carrying weapons. Once he became aware that there was no
reason to doubt that the Jews were in fact unarmed, he himself
organized the treacherous attack: "Even the Jews, taking their example
from the period of the Maccabees, wished for the deaths of their
relatives." The women, in particular, were willing to sacrifice their lives
for the sake of martyrdom; the synagogue was burnt, but in the end,
five hundred and forty Jews converted to Christianity in four days.17
This story mentions several Jewish characters who held public
positions, such as Lectorius for example, who was the governor of the

16. G. Rinaldi, "Stefano", Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, col. 1928 f.; G.
Madoz, "Severo di Minorca", Enc. Cattolica, XI, col 465f.; "Saint Stephan"',
Hebrew Encyclopedia, (in Hebrew) vol. 25, p. 722 ff.
17. See E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (ed.
by J.B. Bury), London, 1909, vol. 3, p. 224 n. 91.

168
 The Jews in Roman Spain

Balearic islands,18 and Caecilianus, considered "an honest man, not

only in the eyes of the Jews, but also in the city where until now he
occupied a leading position, so that he had just been elected defender of
the town (the civilians).... (defensor civitatis)".19 Theodorus is also
described as knowledgable in the Torah, and a landowner who was
greatly respected by both Jews and Christians, and who officiated as
mayor of the town Mahon in Minorca.

18. Arthemisia siquidem, Lectorii, qui nuper hanc provinciam rexit et nunc comes
esse, dicitur, filia... (cap. 17), Migne, Patrologia Latina, 20, 744; cf. Juster,
Juifs 2, pp. 250, 261 ff. The position of comes occupied by a Jew is also
mentioned in an inscription from Sepphoris dated to the first half of the
fourth century. See the context of the inscription and discussion about it in:
Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, 2, 1991; B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et
fondateurs dans les Synagogues Juives, Paris, 1967, n. 74.
19. Ibid, chapter 14; Attention should be paid to the fact that in the year 409
anyone who was not a Christian was forbidden to hold the position of
defender of the town (defensor civitatis). This position was considered very
important, especially in the Land of Israel (Codex Justinianus 1.55.8).
Parkes considers that an explanation can be found in the fact that the
command did not reach the island for nine years, or that the facts are not true,
and this is simply an example of the literary tradition of telling about the
wonders of heroes of a particular story (J. Parkes, The Conflict of the Church
and the Synagogue, Cleveland, 1961, p. 204). In my opinion, it is possible
that in places where good relations were achieved between Jews and
Christians, the law was ignored. It is also important to note that Caecilianus
probably held the position after his conversion to Christianity, and that
Theodorus also held other positions, so that it is not clear whether he was the
defensor after 409. That the Jews were prohibited from holding this position
may be understood from the third Novella of Theodosius 11 (436) and from the
constitution of Justinian C.J.1.9.18.

169
Alfredo M. Rabello

We do not intend to go into further details on this epistle.20

The main facts to be deduced from this document are as follows: in
the island of Minorca, at the beginning of the fifth century there were
many Jews who maintained good relations with the Christians of the
island. Among the Jews there were some who managed to reach high
public positions. The Jews had a synagogue and among them there
were learned people, but it seems that the women had stronger faith.
The relations between Jews and Christians started to crumble following
the hostile activities of the Catholic Church on the island.

4) The Epigraphic evidence: The Jewish inscriptions from

Spain.
Attention must be paid to the Jewish inscriptions which come from
Spain.21 These inscriptions tell us about the community life of the Jews
in Spain, and this is very important since most of the information

20. For more particulars see: A.M.Rabello, "Gli Ebrei nella Spagna romana e
ariana-visigotica", Atti dell'Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana, 40,
Perugia, 1981, pp. 807 If. ; idem, The Jews in Visigothic Spain in the light of
the Legislation. (in Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1983.
21. Bibliography and main abbreviations: Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones = F.
Cantera-Burgos-Millas, Les Inscripciones hebraicas de Espana, Madrid,
1956;
Ferrua, Inscripciones = A. Ferrua, "Inscripciones griecas y judias", in J.
Vives, Inscripciones cristianas de la Espana Romana y visigoda, Barcelona,
1942, 2e ed., 1969;
Frey, C.I.J. = J.B. Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum. Recueil des
inscriptions juives qui vont du We siecle avant J.C. au VII siecle, vol. I,
Europe, Citta del Vaticano, 1936 (reproduction with Prolegomenon by B.
Lifshitz, New York, 1975);
Garcia, Judios = L. Garcia Iglesias, "Los judios en la Espana romana, "
Hispania Antiqua, 3, 1972, pp. 331 ff.;

170
 The Jews in Roman Spain

we have about the Jews in that time comes from laws passed against
them.22
From these inscriptions we learn that the Jews settled mainly in
coastal towns, such as Tarragona, Tortosa, Elche and Adra.
Nevertheless, there is also evidence that Jews lived inland, for instance,
in the town of Merida "a town which resembled Rome more than any of
the big cities of Spain".23
The inscriptions are written in the following languages: Hebrew,
Latin, Greek,24 and sometimes there are even expressions taken from
the Jewish liturgy: among the typical Jewish symbols we find the
Menorah, the Star of David (Magen David) and the palm-branch
(lulav). Among the community roles which appear in the inscriptions
we find the Archisynagogus.25 The use of Latin and Greek in Spain
shows that the Jews who spoke those languages came from
distinguished and highly cultured families.
We shall discuss the inscriptions in geographical order: Hispania
Tarraconesis; Hispania Carthaginesis; Hispania Baetica; Hispania
Lusitanesis. (Fig. 1).

Goodenough, Jewish Symbols = E Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-

Roman Period, New York, 1953-1968;
Hubner - Mommsen, CIL = Th. Mommsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum,
vol. 2, Inscriptiones Hispaniae Latinae, ed, A. Hubner, 1869;
B. Lifshitz, Prolegomenon = B. Lifshitz, "Prolegomenon" to Frey, CIJ.
22. J. Juster, The legal Condition of the Jews under the Visigothic Kings, (brought
up to date by A.M. Rabello), Jerusalem Israel Law Review, 1976.
23. Albertini, "Les strangers residents en Espagne a 1'epoque romaine", Melanges
Cagnat, Paris, 1912, p. 313
24. See: V. Colorni, "L'uso del greco nella liturgia del Giudaismo ellenistico e la
Novella 146 di Giustiniano", Annali di Storia del Diritto, 8, 1964. pp. 15 ff.
with special attention to Jewish inscriptions from Spain.
25. See below, inscription N.1, nt.3.

171
Alfredo M. Rabello

HISPANIA TARRACONENSIS
This is the name of the region in the north-east of the Spanish
peninsula: to its east lies the Mediterranean sea and to the north - the
Pyrenees. The capital was Tarragona (Tarraco), a port about one
hundred kilometers south of Barcelona. The town was also important
economically on account of the linen and wine trades. It would seem
that there was a Jewish settlement in Tarragona already in the Roman
era.
In 1955 an inscription was found in Tarragona (Fig. 2), which was
later published by Cantera Burgos.26. The inscription is written in three
languages: Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The dating of this inscription is
very similar to the dating of the three-language inscriptions from
Tortosa: either the sixth century or, at least, the seventh.27 It is possible
that this could be a dedicatory inscription in a synagogue. In Hebrew
we read:
(1V''Y Oft
pox 1]'37 * 13ft1
"Shalom al Israel ve-aleinu ve-al baneinu amen."
["May there be peace on Israel and on us and on our sons, amen"]
There are pictures of a Menorah and of the tree (the tree of life ?) ,
and of a shofar and two peacocks. These may present the idea of
resurrection. In Latin we read: Pax Fides.
The expression pax is an attempt at translating the expression shalom
into Latin. The second expression, fides - "faith" is not common in
either Jewish or Christian inscriptions, and may be used here to
emphasize that the place is dedicated to the faith of Israel.
In Greek there are a number of signs which are not comprehensible:

26. F. Cantera-Burgos, "Nueva inscripcion trilingue tarraconense?, Sefarad, XV,

1955, pp. 151-156.
27. This is the opinion of Cantera-Millas; but Beinart and others think it might
belong to the 11nd Century: "Two Shalom al Israel Inscriptions from Spain",
Eretz Israel, 8, 1967, p. 298 f.

172
 The Jews in Roman Spain

"TAH" or "rAHE" (according to the reading suggested by Cantera):

some other letters in Latin and Greek can not be read. The expression
ve-aleinu ve-al baneinu amen - "and on us and on our sons, amen"28
reminds us of similar expressions we find in the book of Psalms, 115,
14: "G-d will add to you, to you and to your sons" as in prayers like the
"Kaddish": "On Israel and on its teachers and on their pupils and on all
the pupils of the pupils... "29
H. Beinart thought that it was likely that this inscription was
engraved on a sarcophagus: "the only Jewish sarcophagus ever found
in Spain and outside the Land of Israel up till now";30 however, in my
humble opinion, it is more probable that the inscription was engraved
on a laver-basin which was placed at the entrance to the synagogue in
Tarragona, as Cantera-Burgos suggested.31

28. "Which seems uncommon in Jewish inscriptions" says Cantera-Burgos ( "que

nos parece exceptional en lapidas hebraicas"). On the expression ''37 D1'?tU
'7KIm' - "shalom al Israel" - "peace on Israel " see discussion below on the
trilingual inscription from Tortosa.
29. On this see now M. Weinfeld, "The Inscriptions of the Synagogues and the
Jewish Liturgy", An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, IV,
1980, pp. 288 ff. (in Hebrew); J. Yahalom , "Synagogue Inscriptions in
Palestine - A Stylistic Classification" Immanuel, 10, 1980, pp. 47 ff.
30. H. Beinart, op. cit
31. Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones, n. 243, pp. 350-354 with a drawing and three
photographs. This opinion is shared by B. Lifshitz, Prolegomenon, n. 650
c., p. 55 f.; J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic. The Aramaic and Hebrew
Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues, Jerusalem, 1978, n. 111. p. 148 (in
Hebrew).
For other dedicatory inscriptions' engraved on layer-basins see
Frey, CIJ, 2, 754; B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dons les Synagogues
Juives, Paris, 1967, p. 31, n. 28; M. Ben Dov, "Fragmentary Synagogue
Inscriptions from Tiberias", Qadmoniot, 9, 1967, p. 79 f. (in Hebrew); L.

173
Alfredo M. Rabello

Fig. 2: Tri-lingual inscription on a laver - basin from Tarragona

An inscription from Tarragona in Latin and Greek probably

dating back to the fourth century32

IN NOMINE [DOMI 10 TOY KY?? [??

NI REQVIESCI[T IN IS APXH:4YN[Ar1roY
TA INQVISIO[NE RAB KYZIIIiE [NOY
LASIES S. NEIPOS ? ?) AHKEQ [Z
5 DIDASCALI R[EQVIES (?) rHANH [A
CIT CVM PAC[E 15 KEY AQ [BHC
ENOA KATAK[EITAI KEYPHE
PAB AATOYE[Y 11A TEONE
PA TOY MAKA[PIl

Roth-Gerson, "On the Donation of a Laver-Basin to a Synagogue",

Qadmoniot, 10, 1977, p, 79 (in Hebrew).
32. J.M. Millas Vallicrosa, "Una nueva inscripcion judaica bilingue en

174
 The Jews in Roman Spain

[In the name of G-d - in this grave rests Rab Lasies, the grandson of
the teacher (?) rests in peace [Greek text] here rests Rab Latoyes, by the
pious Archisynagogus. He was from Cysicus, a righteous.... from Hell
(will keep him ?) will rest in peace (in ?) G-d].
The inscription is written in Latin and Greek. Its style resembles the
inscription in three languages from Tortosa which is nearby. It ought to
be mentioned that the Latin always appears first. Many Jews from that
area came from the east and spoke more than one language, and this is
also the reason for their lack of fluency in all the languages and
especially Latin; for instance, they use the term inquisio (= incisio)
instead of tumba.
The above is an inscription concerning a Rabbi or a sage by the
name of Lasies (or Latoyes) who came from Cysicus which is in Asia
Minor.33 It seems that this is the correct interpretation of the inscription
since it is not logical that the head of the congregation, who laid the
stone, would mention his own place of origin. The position of
Archisynagogus was well known in the Jewish congregations of the
Roman empire.34 Thus we have evidence that the Jewish congregations
in Spain were organized similarly to other Jewish congregations

Tarragona", Sefarad, 17, 1957, p. 3 f. (from which the text of the inscription
is taken); Garcia, Judlos, p. 13 f., 35.
33. J. Juster, Les Juifs Bans l'Empire Romain, Paris, 1914, I. p.190; M. Stern,
"The Jewish Diaspora", Compendia Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum
Testamentum, Sect. I: The Jewish People in the First Century, vol. I (ed. S.
Safrai and M. Stern), Assen, 1974, p. 120 f., 143 ff.
34. This title usually indicated the head of the Jewish congregation . See: J.
Juster, Les Juifs dans l'Empire Romain, Paris, 1914, I, 450 ff.; H.J. Leon, The
Jews of Ancient Rome, Philadelphia, 1960, p. 171 ff. : M. Floriani
Squarciapino, "Plotius Fortunatus Archisynagogus", Scritti Milano, La
Rassegna Mensile di Israel, 1970, p. 184 ff.; S. Applebaum, "The
Organisation of the Jewish Communities in the Diaspora", Compendia Rerum
Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, ed. Stern-Safrai, I, 1, pp. 429 ff.

175
Alfredo M. Rabello

elsewhere in the empire. As mentioned above, the writer knew Greek

better than Latin. Here we have remnants of evidence about the life of
the large Jewish congregation at Tarragona.
This congregation was probably founded by immigrants from east
of the Mediterranean sea. Arab historians called Tarragona Madinat-il-
Yahud which means the town of the Jews.35 36

Another inscription, which is currently to be found in the

Archeological Museum of Tarragona, was found in Pallaresos (Fig. 3),
not far from Tortosa.37 In the opinion of several scholars, it belongs to
the first century, but others think that the Latin which is used in the
inscription suits the style of the third century. Nevertheless, it seems
that it is apparently from the sixth century, a time in which the important
families in the area spoke both Latin and Greek.38 The father holds a
Jewish name, the mother a Greek name and the daughter's name is in
Latin:

35. Cfr. J.M.Milla Vallicrosa, "Els textes d'historiadorors musulmans referents a

la Catalunyas carolingia". Quaderns d'Estudi, 14, 1922, pp. 125 ff.
36. On the short form "Ku" instead of "Kuriou" see below, inscription N. 4, nt. 9;
alas, we cannot be sure that this is also a shortened form.
37. See: Ferrua, Inscripciones, n. 430; A. Ferrua, "Addenda et corrigenda al
Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum ", Epigraphica, 3, 1941. pp. 30 ff.;
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols: Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones, n. 290; B.
Lifshitz, Prolegomenon, n. 660 d (from which the text of the inscription is
taken).
38. Goodenough thinks the lettering is excellent and appropriate to the first
century; but the use of bone instead of bonae seems to Hendrikson ( quoted by
Goodenough) a sign that we are in the third century, so Goodenough himself
is prepared to compromise: "Though it might have been written in the second
century".

176
 The Jews in Roman Spain

HI CEST
MEMORIA BONE RE
CORDATIONIS ISID
ORA FILIA BENE ME
MORII IONATI ET AX
IAES PAVSET ANI
MA EIVS IN PACE CV
M OMNE ISRAEL
[AM] EN AMEN AMEN

[This is the grave of Isidora, of blessed memory, the daughter of

Jonathan, of blessed memory, and Axia: rest her soul in peace with all
Israel amen, amen, amen.]
At the top of the inscription there are two lamps and three palm-tree
branches, which could either be Lulavim or a reference to the Psalms:
n7M' inns 7'-rY39. The name Isidora40 was given to both Jews and
Christians, and it probably tells of some Byzantine influence. The name
Jonati is the genitive of Jonatus (Jonathan) according to the paradigma
Juda - Judanti, Cantera reads: Jonati et Axiaes; Ferrua does not agree
and suggests: Jonatie Taxiaea. In Cantera's opinio, it is the mother of
Isidora who carries a Greek name. Ferrua claims that the expression
cum omne Israel (with all Israel) is "new", but it is a well known
expression in the Jewish liturgy .41

39. Psalms, 92, 13: "The Righteous will blossom like a palm-tree".
40. On this name see M. Cassuto Saltzman, "Greek Names among the Jews " Eretz
Israel, 3, 1954, pp. 1 f.; on Jewish names in general, see N.G. Cohen's Ph.D.
thesis, Jewish Names and their significance in the Hellenistic and Roman
Periods in Asia Minor, Jerusalem, 1969.
41. See e.g. the text of the Kaddish. Cf. L. Zunz, Zur Geschichte and Literatur,
Cap. 4: "Das Godaechtniss des Gerechten" pp. 304 ff.; M. Weinfeld, "The
inscriptions of the Synagogues and the Jewish Liturgy", An Annual for
Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (in Hebrew) IV, 1980, pp. 280 ff.

177
Alfredo M. Rabello

Fig. 3: A burial inscription from Pallaresos

I to

Nl.
i0B 0 N:v t I

1/\ 1:-,SP'A`>I
I A E I V-5) Ni PIV' I. (1)

From Tortosa (Dertosa) , another town in the north-east, south of

Tarragona, a very interesting inscription has come down to us, written
in three languages: Hebrew, Latin and Greek. At the beginning of the
Hebrew there is a five-pointed star or what may be "Solomon's seal"
at the end there is a Menorah and the same star appears.42 /

42. See Fig. 4. On this inscription see: Fret', CIJ, n.661; Goodenough, Jewish
Symbols, 2, p. 58 f. ; Ferrua, Inscripciones, n. 428; H. Beinart, "Cuando
Ilegaron los judios a Espana ?", Estudios del Institute Central de Relaciones
culturales Israel - Iberoamerica, Espana y Portugal, III, n. 3, 1962, p. 19 ff.;
Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones, p. 198; Garcia, Judios, p. 13. ; V. Colorni,
"L'uso del greco nella Liturgic del Giudaismo Ellenistico e la Novella 146 di
Giustiniano" Annali di Storia del Diritto, 8, 1964, p. 19 f. We have quoted
the inscription following Ferrua's reading which is similar to Frey's. The
reading is identical.

178
 The Jews in Roman Spain

5K117' }Y 0151
44 43KI71
113 '55t 5m 11,1 1 71
46,1n
1]11D1 450'1?: K1' ' ?1 T`f11-I'
47K.1
t* 7-1 "n',111=1
48]nK
0"n1 11133 11U03
bft

IN NOMINI AOMINI
HIC EST MEM[O]RIA VBT RE
QVIESCIT BENEMEMORIA
MELIOSA FILIA IVpANTT 8 ET
CYR[I]A 10 MARIES VIXIT AN [NOS]
[VIGI}NTI ET QUATTOUR
CUM PACE AMEN

[iv] Wvw [µx]. K(upf o)u . I Cojae iatrv µe l'µv [eio]v anon
avdl c[au]aav raµµvj'j[atoC a]a'Iovaavtl6[oC xai xopiaC
1;>7a[aaa I1tq sltxoot] tI3(o)epa(C). hv I [eip1q.
a}L v].

43. Cantera-Millas read XVX57'?2

44. Cantera-Millas read 1 1111 instead of ns. The use of Aramaic is odd in a
inscription which is written wholly in Hebrew.
45. Cantera-Millas read 13'1KT] or 0'1K77. This reading is interesting since it suits
the Latin writing of the name (scriptio plena).
46. Cantera-Millas read 31171Y [1D1]
47. Cantera-Millas read 1111n
48. On the expression 0"111 111YI, see the book of Samuel I, 25, 29. See also
this expression in an inscription from Merida, of the Visigothic period, in
A.M. Rabello, The Jews in Visigothic Spain in the Light of the Legislation,
Jerusalem, 1983 (in Hebrew), p.120. no. 30, nt. 3.

179
Alfredo M. Rabello

Fig 4.A three language inscription (Hebrew, Latin, Greek) from Tortosa

180
 The Jews in Roman Spain

[In the name of G-d. Here lies the memory in which Meliosa rests,
may her memory be blessed, the daughter of Juda49 and Lady50 Maria.
She lived twenty-four years in peace, amen]
(The Greek translation is identical to the Latin)
The inscription is clearly a Jewish one. The Hebrew text is typical of
Jewish grave inscriptions. The star is "Solomon's seal" which was
common among the Jews of Persia in the fifth and fourth centuries
B.C.E..51 Can we detect a reference to the days of Solomon, with
which the Jews of Spain were trying to find a connection? Finally,
beside another star appears the menorah with five branches.52
The expression *1w' 537 w5m "Peace on Israel" appears very often

49. On the name Judas in the Jewish and Christian world see: A.M.Rabello, "Sui
rapporti fra Diocleziano e gli Ebrei", Atti della Accademia Romanistica
Costantiniana, Perugia, 1976, pp. 186 ff. See also the remarks of Cantera-
Millas, above.
50. Ferrua reads Quira. Cantera-Millas read cursor cuira. This name which
means "lady" appears in several other Jewish inscriptions: see B. Lifshitz,
Donateurs, 70. On the shortened form Ku instead of Kuria see Beinart, "Two
inscriptions", pp. 302 ff.
51. On "Solomon's seal" see: N. Avigad, "Seal", Biblical Encyclopedia, 3, 81,
ff.; "Star of David", Hebrew Encyclopedia, 22, pp. 149 ff (in Hebrew).
52. Probably according to the Talmudic tradition which forbids the making of a
Menorah with seven branches, like the one which was placed in the Temple:
"Said Abaye: The Torah forbade the making of ritual articles that can be made
identical .... a Menorah opposed to a Menorah: the making of a Menorah
with five, six or eight branches is permitted, but not seven..." (Babylonian
Talmud, Rosh Hashana, 24a-b; see also Menahot, 28b, and Avoda Zara, 43a).
The prohibition was interpreted with reference to a three dimensional
Menorah, so that we usually find a seven-branched Menorah in inscriptions.
Nevertheless, there are other examples of Menorot with five branches, e.g. in

181
Alfredo M. Rabello

in Jewish inscriptions.53 Here it is used to show the loyalty of the

family to the tradition of their forefathers. The blessing "Peace on
Israel" can be interpreted as an expression of prayer and a wish
concerning the fate of the nation following the death of the deceased,
rather than a hint about the afterworld or the words of the deceased! The
feeling of leavetaking from the deceased is combined with a prayer for
the welfare of the small community of which the deceased was a
member, and for all Israel.
The inscription was found in the town of Tortosa, in 1771. As to
date of inscription, some scholars consider it goes back to the second or
third century; most scholars think it belongs to the sixth century, and
maybe Beinart was right in fixing the date at the end of the fourth
century or beginning of the fifth. It should be noted that the family
compiled the inscription in the vernacular, so as to be understood by the
Christian families in the neighbourhood, while using the Hebrew
language to give expression to its faith.

HISPANIA CARTHAGINENSIS
In the south-east region of Spain, an area which includes Toledo,
three inscriptions belonging to the same building were found in the

inscriptions from Narbona, or the house of Kyrios Leontis in Scythopolis (VI

century) ; See: Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, IV, pp. 71 ff. ; N. Zori, "The
House of Kyrios Leonthis, Israel Exploration Journal, 19, 1966, p. 130 and
nt. 15. Alas, it is possible that sometimes it occurs not from loyalty to the
Talmud, but as the result of ignorance on the part of the artist. This
assumption is brought forward by A. Negev, "The Chronology of the Seven-
Branched Menorah". Eretz Israel, 8, 1967, p. 196 nt. 55.
53. On the expression 5WIV' 7Y 01'm see Psalms, 125, 5, and 128, 6; the
expression often appears in inscriptions found in Israel and in the diaspora,
as can be seen in Frey's Corpus. In the Monteverde catacomb in Rome, the
expression appears with alef mater lectionis after the shin in 015NW See
A.M.Rabello, "Catacombs", Enc. Judaica, 5, 1971, pp. 294 ff.

182
 The Jews in Roman Spain

town of Elche (Alicante), not far from the sea. At first, scholars
assumed that they relate to a Christian basilica, but later most of them
were conviced that they are Jewish inscriptions. Albertini even
published a second article in which he withdrew from his first
assumption, and explained that the text of these inscriptions does relate
to a synagogue (Fig. 5). In any case, even if we accept the assumption
that the inscriptions do belong to a synagogue and to the Jews, this
does not rule out the possibility that the synagogue was later turned into
a church. This was Schlunk's assumption. The inscriptions date to the
fourth and fifth centuries, the time of Byzantine rule in the area, and the
sixth century when the Visigoths ruled. But in Melida's opinion, the art
seems to be Decadent-Roman.
The three inscriptions are written in Greek:54
The first is written in black letters on a white background:
np[ocr ] Evxf A.ao[v]
(Frey) which means "the Synagogue of the people of...." or
"the Synagogue of L........" The name npooe'u i together with
is the most common expression for a synagogue or a
Community.
The leaf design, in the eyes of Frey, seems to be a citron (ethrog), a
motif which was popular on inscriptions from the ancient period.

54. On these inscriptions see: Juster, Juifs, 1, p. 183; 446 nt. 1; Hubner, CIL, 2,
515; Frey, CIJ, nn. 662-664; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, 7, p. 177;
Ferrua, Inscripciones, nn. 431-433; Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones, nn. 284-
286; Garcia Iglesias, Judios, pp. 11, 16 f.,pp 34, VI, 36; B. Lifshitz,
Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives, Paris, 1967, n. 101.
On the synagogue of Elche see: F. Cantera Burgos, Sinagogas Espanolas,
Madrid, 1955, pp. 212 ff.; Don E. Halperin, The Ancient Synagogues of the
Iberian Peninsula, U. of Florida 1969. p. 27; Garcia Iglesias, Judios, pp. 11,
34.

183
Alfredo M. Rabello

Fig. 5: The Synagogue of Elche: Sketch by Ibarra

184
 The Jews in Roman Spain

The second inscription is placed at the north of the Synagogue and it

reads:
XPOXOVTOV (Xg16X0VT(0V)KE TrpEI3UTEpWV (Ibarra)
'ap]X6VTWV (?) KE TrpE[a]3UTEpWV (Albertini, Ferrua)
It tells of the members of the committee, some who were
Presbyteri and other special members who were Archontes.

The third inscription may be read like this:

EVTryOta(P) 0 auyX[[P-1Q0V 'E[Lfj] Evxii

(Ferrua ( a pleasant voyage ..... )55 56 57 58 59 60 61

55. The word npoacuxvjj to indicate a synagogue appears early on and is used
continuously. See, for example, inscriptions from the middle of the third
century B.C.E. in Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, ed. W.
Dittenberger, Leipzig, 1903, v. i, p. 96, v. 2, p. 726; Frey, CIJ, No. 683)
from the first century B.C. (and No. 684; Lifshitz, Prolegomenon No. 683b
from the second century. On this matter see S. Krauss, Synagogale
Altertumer, Berlin-Vienna, 1922, pp. 11 ff. ; Lifshitz, Donateurs, index, p.
91.
56. H. Schlunk, "El arte de la 6poca paleocristiana en el sudeste espailol. La
Sinagoga de Elche y el 'martyrium' de la Alberca", Cronica del III Congreso
Arquelogico del Sudeste Espan"ol, Murcia, 1947, pp. 335 ff.
57. J. Ramon Melida, "El arte romano cristiano", in R. Menendez Pidal, Historia
de Espana, vol. II, Espaiia Romana, Madrid, 1935, p. 721 f.
58. On this term see: J Juster, Les Juifs dans 1'Empire'Romain, I, pp. 413 ff.; A.M.
Rabello, The Legal Condition of the Jews in the Roman Empire, op. cit., p.
720, nt. 214.
59. H.J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome , Philadelphia, 1960, p. 196.
60. J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'Empire Romain, pp. 440 ff.
61. See Schlunk, op. cit.; see also Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones, p. 409.

185
Alfredo M. Rabello

Albertini62 is almost certain that it tells of a metaphorical voyage,

which means that it is either a voyage in our present world (on earth) or
a voyage of the soul to the afterworld. In my opinion, Frey is right in
suggesting that the subject in question is expressing gratitude (maybe in
the dedication of the synagogue itself ?) following a successful voyage,
or even perhaps expressing a wish for a successful voyage. In this
matter many speculations can be made, and maybe we can detect a hint
that some of the Jews of the congregation earned their living though
trade, and therefore used to travel to countries across the sea.
We must not forget that the town was close to the sea, and that it
was not very far from Africa.63 Schlunk reckons that underneath the
inscription there must have been a drawing with marine elements but
that the drawing was damaged when the inscription was revealed.

HISPANIA BAETICA
Another inscription which was found in Adra (or Abdera) in Baetic
Spain brings us back to the beginning of the third century (Fig. 6). This
inscription is one of the most ancient pieces of evidence about the Jews
of Spain. Baetic Spain is the name of the most southerly province of the
peninsula. The name was derived from the name of the river Baetis
which crosses the land. The use of Latin was widespread all over Baetic
Spain as were many Roman customs. The area was known as very
rich, and this was one of the reasons many merchants settled there. The
inscription which was found in the area reads
[AN]NIA SALO
[MO]NVLA AN I
MENS IIII DIE I
IVDAEA

62. E. Albertini, "Rapport sommaire sur les fouilles d'Elche (Espagne), Comptes
rendus de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 1905, pp. 619 ff.
6 3. See, in general, H.Z. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, vol. I,
From Antiquity to the Sixteenth Century, London, 1974.

186
 The Jews in Roman Spain

[Annia (or Yunia or Licinia) Salo(mo)nola one year, four months,

one day (old). Jewish].64
It is possible that the girl's name was Hanna, and it is interesting to
see that in such a small inscription (which suits a little girl) her religious
identity is mentioned in the bottom line: Iudaea (Jewish). Adding
Iudaeus to the name was very common, especially in a period in which
Christians also used Jewish names.65 According to Garcia Bellido, the
name Salomonula indicated a maidservant.66
Fita reckons that at the beginning of the inscription there was a
drawing of a menorah. This view is shared by Cantera-Millas.
In the first, second and third lines of the inscription there are three
leaves (perhaps a sign that the little girl passed away like a leaf?) or,
according to another interpretation, three citrons.67

64. T. Mommsen, CIL, 2, n. 1932; J.B. Frey, CIJ, n. 665; Ferrua, Inscripciones,
n. 429; Cantera-Millas, Inscripciones, n. 283, (pp. 405-406); F. Fita,
"Epigraphos romanos de la cividad de Adra" , BRAH, LXXX, 1917, pp. 142-
144.
65. On the custom of writing IUDAEUS in inscriptions next to the name, see J.
Juster, Les Juifs dans I'Empire Romain, 1, p. 172 ff.; II, p. 233 f. To Ferrua the
matter seems "very rare" in Hebrew inscriptions.
66 A. Garcia, Y. Bellido, "El elemento forestero en Hispania Romana" BRAH,
144, 1959, p. 142; Garcia-Iglesias, Judios p. 35.
67. The citron was a Jewish symbol, used together with the lulav at the festival of
Succot.

187
Alfredo M. Rabello

Fig. 6: An inscription from Adra with the reconstruction by Cantera

HISPANIA LUSITANENSIS
Lusitania is in the south-east region of the Iberian peninsula. Its
capital, founded by Augustus in the year 25 B.C.E. was called Emerita
Augusta. The area was not directly influenced by Roman culture. The
river which crosses the town and reaches the sea had a significant
importance for trade, since the town was already known as an important
agricultural centre. This is the reason many foreigners settled there, and
among them there were also many Jews.68 From Emerita Augusta we
have a number of inscriptions. The most ancient one is probably the
inscription of Justinus which is from the second century.69
IVSTINUS. MENANDRI. FILIUS
FLAVIVUS. NEAPOLITANVS. ANNO

68. E. De Ruggiero, "Hispania", Dizionario Epigrafico; E. Albertini, Les

divisions administratives de 1 `Espagne Romaine, Paris, 1923.
69. Hubner, CIL, 2, 525; Garcia, Judios, p. 11, 34 (from which the text of the
inscription is taken).

188
 The Jews in Roman Spain

LVI.H.S.E.T.T.L.70 SABINA. MARITO

OPTIMO. ET.MERENTISSIMO.ET
MENANDER FILIVS CVM.SERORIBVS
SVIS.RECEPTA.ET. SALVINA
PATRI PIISIMO [
p[71
[Justinus, son of Menander, Flavius Neapolitanus in his forty sixth
year. This is where he was buried. May the earth be light for you.
Sabina (a tombstone) was placed for the fine and highly privileged
husband, and Menander, the son, with his sisters Recepta and Salvina
for the very pius father].
In order to identify this inscription as a Jewish one, it ought to be
mentioned that the name Justinus which comes from Iustus (Zaddok) is
a name which often appears in Jewish inscriptions from the Roman era.
Stating the place of origin is also typical of Jews. Flavius Neapolitanus
means from the town of Nablus (Flavia Neapolis, the Jewish
Shkhem):72 in this place there was also a strong Samaritan group....

5. Conclusions
In this article we have discussed the special conditions of the Jews
in Roman Spain as reflected in general historical sources, Church
sources and Jewish inscriptions.73
The picture we get is of a society which leads a good way of life.

70. Hic Sepultus Est (=is buried here) ; Sit Terra Tibi Levis (=may the earth be
light for you).
This version, like 170 1315V "peace on your ashes" appears sometimes on
tombstones. Compare, for example, with the tombstone of Clandia, CIL, 12
1211.
71. Posuerunt (_ [they] placed).
72. A. Garcia, Y. Bellido, "El elemento forestero en Hispania Romana", BRAH,
144, 1959, p. 142
73. The numismatic sources will be checked by Dr. Kindler in the appendix.

189
Alfredo M. Rabello

This society is loyal to the forefathers' traditions, but also has good
relations with its Spanish neighbours, also Christians. Because of this
good relationship between the Jews and the Christians the Church
became worried and held its first conference relating to the Jews in
Spain, in order to separate Jews and Christians.
Realisation of these intentions took place in Spain when Christianity
ruled in the Roman Empire (303). As a result, the Jews' legal status
worsened, even though at the beginning Imperial legislation passed
against the Jews was not applied with full rigor in distant provinces.
However, the basic tenets of the Theodosian Code (438) towards the
Jews were applied in Spain.74
Two chapters of the Codex Theodosianus deal particularly with the
Jews: Book XVI. chapter 8: "On Jews, Caelicolae and Samaritans" ,
and chapter 9: "A Jew may not own a Christian slave". Chapter 8
contains twenty-nine statutes: chapter 9 - four. Laws relating to Jews,
sixteen in number, are, however, found also in other chapters, while in
other places mention is made of statutes which have not come down to
us. Alas, it is important to note that the Code was applied not only in
Spain but also in other parts of the Roman Empire, and from a legal
point of view, the status of the Jews in. Spain was no different from
their status elsewhere in the Empire.
The Theodosian Code was cancelled in the year 506 in favour of the
Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum,75 but this
takes us away from Roman Spain to Visigothic Spain.76

74. Cf. L. De Giovanni, Chiesa e Stato nel Codice Teodosiano, Saggio sul libro
XVI, Napoli, 1980; A. Linder, Roman Imperial Legislation on the Jews,
Jerusalem, 1983.
75. J. Juster, The Legal Condition of the Jews under the Visigothic kings (brought
up-to-date with a Tribute by A.M. Rabello) Jerusalem 1976.
76 For more on this subject, see A.M. Rabello, The Jews in Visigothic Spain in
the light of the Legislation (in Hebrew), The Zalman Shazar Centre for the
Furtherance of the Study of Jewish History, Jerusalem, 1983.

190
 NUMISMATIC EVIDENCE OF A POSSIBLE
EARLY JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN
NORTH-EASTERN SPAIN

ARIE KINDLER

In 1978 and 1979 respectively the discovery of 21 Judaean coins

from the period of the early principate found during excavations
conducted on three sites in North-Eastern Spain, namely in Emporiae,
Iluro and Lerida (see map on Fig. 1) was reported by Eduardo Ripoll,
Jose Maria Nuix and Leandro Villarongal by Francisco Gusi Gener2
and by Anna M. Balaguer.3
We are lucky that all these coins, (except one of type 6 below)
originate from properly conducted excavations and not from clandestine
amateur finds, thus verifying their provenance. We are able to name
three sites where the coins were discovered. These are namely
Emporiae, the most important city in the region under discussion,
present-day Ampurias some 120 km north of Barcino, present-day
Barcelona and Iluro, present-day Mataro some 30 km north of Barcino
and Ilerda (Lerida) 180 km north-west of Barcino.

1. Eduardo Ripoll, Jose Maria Nuix and Leandro Villaronga, Monedas de los
judios halladas en las excavaciones de Emporiae, Numisma, Aft o XXVI (nos.
138 - 143 (1976) pp. 3 - 10.
2. Francisco Gusi Gener, Hallazgo de dos monedas de los Procuradores de Judea
en Iluro (Mataro, Barcelona), Numisma, Ado XXVI, nos. 138 - 143 (1976)
pp. 67 - 69.
3. Anna B. Balaguer, Hallazgo de seis cobres judios y de tres fulus orientales en
el Castillo de Balaguer ( Lerida), Symposium Numismatic de Barcelona, 1979,
vol. II
Arie Kindler

List of coin-types found.

(all coins are of bronze)
Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE) (Plate, no. 1)
1. Obverse: Star surrounded by dotted border. Legend around
(in Aramaic and Square-Hebrew letters): w'n orrmoo5K
,n nsm (= king Alexander year 25 (= 78 BCE).
Reverse: Anchor surrounded by circle. Legend around from right
above: BALI AEQ2; AAE-ZANOPOY (= from the king
Alexander)
Provenance: 5 specimens from Ilerda: 1.92 grs., 1.72 grs., 1.35
grs., 1.32 grs., 1.29 grs., (ref. Balaguer [3])
Herod I (37 - 4 BCE) (Plate, no. 2)
2. Obverse: Anchor; border of dots. Legend around from left below:
BACI HPW (=king Herod).
Reverse: Double cornuacopiae, between the horns caduceus;
border of dots. No legend.
Provenance: a. 1 specimen from Emporiae 2.05 grs ., 15 mm. (ref.
Villaronga [1]) p. 3, no. 2).
b. 1 specimen from Ilerda 1.23 grs.(ref. Balaguer [3])
Herod Archelaus (4 BCE - 6 CE) (Plate, no. 3)
3. Obverse: Bunch of grapes. border of dots. Legend in semicircle
from above to right: HPWAOY (= from Herod).
Reverse: Helmet en face decorated with horse-tail hairs and two
cheek pieces; on left below small caduceus; border of
dots. Legend below, reading inwards: EONAPXOY (=
the ethnarch).
Provenance: 1 specimen from Emporiae 1.86 grs., 15 mm.
(ref. Villaronga [1]) p. 3 no. 2).
Annius Rufus, Roman procurator of Judaea under Augustus
(12 - 15 CE) (Plate., no. 4)
4. Obverse: Ear of barley; border of dots. Legend around from left
below: KAICAPOC (=Caesar, referring to Augustus).
Reverse: Palm-tree;. with two bunches of dates, border of dots.

192
 Numismatic Evidence from Spain

Legend in field left and right of palm-tree: Date of issue:

L MA = year 41 of Augustus (= 13/14 CE).
Provenance: a. 1
specimen from Iluro 1.77 grs., 11 mm. (ref. Gener [2]
p. 68, no. 1).
b. 1 specimen from Iluro 1.96 grs., 15 mm. with
unclear date (ref. Gener [2] p. 68. no. 2)
c. 1 specimen from Emporiae 1.39 grs., 17 mm. with
wrong description of date: L(X)B should be: LAO =
year 39 of Augustus (=11/12 CE). (ref. Villaronga [1]
p. 4, no 3).
b. could therefore have been issued by one of the
Roman procurators of Judaea serving under Augustus,
namely either Coponius (6-9 CE), or Marcus Ambibulus
(9-12 CE) or Annius Rufus (12-15 CE) as all three
issued the same coin-type with just the relevant dates of
issue referring to their years of office.
a. and b. were discovered in the Ilnd stratum at Iluro
referring to the end of the Ist cent. CE (ref. Gener, [2]
p. 67). They might well have been handed over from
grandfather to grandson and kept in the family as
tokens of the traditional connections with the Judaean
homeland.
Valerius Gratus Roman procurator of Judaea under Tiberius (15 - 26
CE) (Plate, no. 5)
5. Obverse: Wreath surrounding a legend of two lines: IOY/ IA
(= Julia Livia) the mother of Tiberius.
Reverse: Olive branch upright; border of dots. Legend on both
sides of the olive branch, date of issue: L B = year 2 of
the reign of Tiberius (15/16 CE).
Provenance: 2 specimens from Emporiae 1.59 grs., 1.29 grs., 16
mm. (ref. Villaronga [1] p. 4, nos 4-5).
6. Obverse: Double cornuacopiae, caduceus between the horns;

193
Arie Kindler

border of dots. (Plate no. 6) Legend above: TIBEPIOY

(= from Tiberius); below, flanking the double
cornuacopiae, date of issue:
L = year 3 of the reign of Tiberius (=16/17 CE).
Reverse: Wreath surrounding a legend in two lines: KAI/CAP
Caesar, referring to Tiberius).
Provenance: a. 1 specimen from Emporiae 1.16 grs., 15 mm. (ref.
Villaronga [1] p. 4, no. 6).
b. 1 specimen from Emporiae, probably surface find.
(ref. Villaronga [1] p. 3 note 1).
7. Obverse: Wreath surrounding a legend in two lines: IOY/ IA (-
Julia (Livia) the mother of Tiberius).
Reverse: Three lilies upright; border of dots. Legend below in
field flanking the lilies, date of issue: L = year. 3 of the
reign of Tiberius (16/17 CE). (Plate, no. 7)
Provenance: a. 4 specimens from Emporiae 2.72 grs.;
2.22 grs., ; 1.69 grs.,; 1.66 grs.; 15-16 mm. (ref.
Villaronga [1]) p. 4, no. 7-10.
b. 2 further specimens from Emporiae 1.62 grs., 1.14
grs., (ref. Villaronga [1] p. 10).

Summary table
Excavation Alexander Herod I Herod Annius Valerius
site Jannaeus 37-4 B CE Archelaus Rufus Gratus 15-26 CE
103-76 BCE 4 BCE - 12-15 CE procurator
6CE procurator under
under Tiberius;
Augus- dates of issue
tus; dates 15/16 and
of issue: 16/17 CE
11/12 and
13114 CE
Emporiae 1 1 1 10
Ilerda 5 1
Iluro 2
5 2 1 3 10 = 21

194
 Numismatic Evidence from Spain

The summary table gives a clear picture of the material found. The
maximum range of the coinage according to its dates of issue is from 78
BCE to 16/17 CE, i.e. about 95 years. However, 3/4 of the coins
belong to a short period of 4 years, namely 13/14 - 16/17 CE. The five
coins of Alexander Jannaeus are of a type widely spread in ancient
Palestine and remained in circulation up the time of the Jewish War (66-
70 CE).
Taking into consideration the terminus post quem of 16/17 CE which
is given on 8 specimens out of a total of 21 coins, it is likely that all the
coins registered above reached Spain in about 17/18 CE.
In order to emphasize the importance of the finds of Judaean coins
during the excavations at Emporiae, Villaronga [1] offers on p. 5 the
following table of coin-finds from the period of the emperors Augustus
and Tiberius:

Roma Gallia Hispania Emporiae Judaea

not Emporian
issues

Augustus Nimes Augustus from the be Augustus

and 20-10 BCE and ginning of e- and
Tiberius Tiberius mission 10 Tiberius
and restrikings

21 18 15 142 10

10% 8.8% 7.3% 69% 4.9%

The question arises, as to who brought these tiny coins of minimal

purchasing power from as far away as Judaea to Spain under the
emperor Tiberius. The scholars who reported these finds faced the same
problem.'Three possibilities were mentioned by them:
a. Do these coins give evidence of commercial connections between

195
Arie Kindler

Judaea and Hispania during the early pricipate ?

b. Were these coins carried by members of military units stationed
in Judaea and thereafter transferred to Hispania ?
c. Do these coins give evidence that early settlements of Jews,
probably of freed slaves, were established in North-Eastern Spain with
its centre in Emporiae ?
a. Because of their small purchasing power, I do not believe that
these coins can serve as evidence for commercial connections between
Judaea and Hispania. They were on the other hand only the local
currency of Judaea. What goods could these coins buy in Hispania to
be exported to Judaea ? The chances that these coins reached Hispania
by way of commercial interaction are therefore very small indeed
especially as these coins were not only found in the important sea port
Emporiae where Judaean coins might by chance have been accepted by
local money changers as means of payment for certain goods, but also
in a city such as Ilerda situated some 180 km inland from the coast.
b. Unfortunately we know very little about military movements in
and around Judaea in the first quarter of the first century CE, a fact
which does not enable us to state that certain military detachments of
legions, such as cohorts or centuries of legions or even auxiliary forces
were transferred during those years from Judaea to Hispania. We are
therefore unable to point at any military factor which might possibly
have brought these coins from Judaea to Hispania in or around 17/18
CE.
c. The final possibility would thus be that Jews coming from Judaea
settled in Hispania around 17/18 CE. One reason for their emigration
from Judaea might have been the oppressive taxation imposed on the
province Syria and its sub-province Judaea in 17 CE and the complaints
thereof by the inhabitants.4
The listed Judaean coins come from sites such as Emporiae, which

4. Tacitus, Annales ii 42: provinciae Syria atque Iudaea, fessae oneribus,

deminutionem tributi orabant.

196
 Numismatic Evidence from Spain

may be considered as the main city of the region and from two other
towns about 100 km from Emporiae. This would seem to suggest that
people from Judaea may have settled spread over this region. It must
also be taken into consideration that these sites have not been
completely excavated so far and further Judaean coins might still come
to light in the area. There are indeed other historical sites in the region
which have not yet been touched by the archaeological spade. We may
therefore consider the quantity of coins discovered may be only the
beginning of evidence of the possible presence of people from Judaea in
North-Eastern Spain during the early principate. Paul's intention to visit
Spain5 may also point to the existence of at least one Jewish community
there, but again there is no proof that he realized his intention.6
Based on the probability, which is rendered by the evidence of the
above mentioned Judaean coins, (which fortunately bear dates of issue
and give us the terminus post quern of 16/17 CE), that people from
Judaea, most probably Jews, settled in North-Eastern Spain, these
coins could well serve as a terminus ante quem for the dating of the
earliest establishment of Jewish communities on Hispanian territories.
There is so far no other conclusive evidence but the coins on which we
can rely in our attempt to show a possible Jewish presence in Spain as
early as the first quarter of the first century CE.

5. Paul's letters to the Romans XV, 24 and 28, which most probably were not
written by him at all.
6. Joseph Klausner, Von Jesus zu Paulus, Jerusalem 1950, p. 389.

197
Arie Kindler

2 3

4 7

Fig. 1: Judaean coin-types, such as found in Emporiae, Ilerda and Iluro

198
SUMMARIES
THE JEWS OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND THE JEWS OF
THE DIASPORA DURING THE HELLENISTIC AND
HASMONEAN PERIODS

Uriel Rappaport

Throughout the Second Temple period the relations between the

Jews of Eretz Israel and Diaspora Jewry played a major role in the
history of the Jewish People. A comparison between the Persian and
the Hellenistic periods shows that certain changes occurred in these
relations during the course of these two periods. Thus, for example,
there is a change of direction in the movements of population in each of
the afore-mentioned periods, and the centre of decision-making actually
changes; the source of inspiration and influence, as well as social and
cultural initiative, moves from Babylonia to Judea. These changes are
the result of the growing independence of the Jewish community of
Eretz Israel, vis a vis the Babylonian centre.
The self-assertion of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel reaches its
peak under Hasmonean rule, as can also be seen from the changing
structure of the relationships with Diaspora Jewry. Initiatives
originating in Eretz Israel and directed towards the Jews of the
Diaspora, both on a national and a religious level, and possibly even in
the fields of politics and finance, can be noted.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze this pattern of relations. The
author investigates whether it was affected by similar patterns common
in the Hellenistic world, such as the relations of the metropolis with its
daughter-cities and the influence of nepotism in diplomacy. The fields
of culture and literature are also examined.
 HEROD AND THE JEWISH DIASPORA

Aryeh Kasher

In direct contrast to the enmity and active hatred which characterized

the relations between King Herod and his Jewish subjects in Judea, his
attitude towards the Jews of the Hellenistic-Roman Diaspora was very
positive. He did his best to encourage good relations and improve all
sorts of connections with them. In practice, his 'Diaspora policy' (if we
may call it this) manifested itself in three major spheres of activity: a.
the nomination of High Priests (in Jerusalem), chosen from priestly
families living in the Diaspora; b. the encouragement of the settlement
of Diaspora Jews in his realm of Judea, and their integration into its
social, military and economic framework; c. the supply of royal
assistance in the defence of Jewish rights in the Diaspora. The most
important rights included the privilege of pilgrimage; the contribution of
the half-sheqel and other donations to the Temple in Jerusalem;
exemption from military service for those who were Roman citizens;
permission to observe ancestral laws and customs; the exclusive
political and juridical dependency of Diaspora Jewish communities on
the Roman authorities as opposed to the Greek poleis. The Herodian
'Diaspora policy' was aimed either to counterbalance national
opposition to his rule, or simply as a means of increasing economic
profit and boosting the monarch's own personal prestige.

II
CONTACTS BETWEEN THE LEADERSHIP OF THE
LAND OF ISRAEL AND THE HELLENISTIC
AND EASTERN DIASPORAS IN THE FIRST
AND SECOND CENTURIES

Shmuel Safrai

In the last days of the Second Temple there are many reports of the
contacts between the leadership of the Land of Israel and the Jewish
diaspora. These reports are to be found in Josephus, in Talmudic
sources from Second Temple times and in the New Testament. There is
also epigraphic evidence to supplement that found in the literary
sources.
With the establishment of the Jewish leadership at Yavneh in the
days of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai, and, even more so in the days of
Rabban Gamliel, with the fall of the Flavian dynasty at the end of the
first century and the beginning of the second, we find evidence once
more of contacts between the leadership and the Jewish diaspora.
Evidence for this is to be found mainly in the Tannaitic literature, but
also in early Christian sources. As in the time of the Temple, the major
part of this evidence is of the contacts with the Jewish Hellenistic
diaspora. Both in the time of the Temple, and in the time of Rabban
Gamliel, we find reports of contacts with the eastern Parthian diaspora,
but they are extremely sparse in comparison with the reports of contacts
with the Hellenistic diaspora.
The reports of contacts with the Hellenistic diaspora are far more
frequent than reports of contacts with the eastern diaspora, that known
as Babylonian Jewry. It is true that R. Akiva visited Nehardea, and
Ginzaq in Media, but the vast majority of information about his
journeys is connected to the Hellenistic diaspora: Rome, Africa,
Antioch, Zifrin, Gaul etc. The journeys of the group of sages in Rabban
Gamliel's generation, both with and without Rabban Gamliel himself,
are connected to Rome.

III
 R. Akiva's pupils from the diaspora come from Egypt and
Alexandria, and we do not find any sages from Babylonia at Yavneh in
these generations. This picture changes in the period after the Trajanic
revolt in the years 115-7, and particularly after the Bar Kokhba revolt,
from 135 onwards.
The centre of gravity of diaspora Jewry moves, as it were, from the
Hellenistic West to the East. The contacts with diaspora Jewry, as we
find them expressed in Tannaitic sources, are mostly contacts with
Babylonian Jewry. Messengers are sent to Babylonia to report the
establishment of the new centre at Ushah. The people from the diaspora
who are active in the centre in the Land of Israel are men from
Babylonia like R. Nathan the Babylonian, son of the Exilarch, and after
,him R. Hiyya, in the days of R. Judah HaNasi. There were two main
causes for this phenomenon:
a. The main creative centre of Hellenistic Judaism, the Jewish
community of Egypt, and especially Alexandria, was physically
destroyed in the revolt in the time of Trajan.
b. In the period after the Bar Kokhba war, the importance of the
Jews of Babylonia as a creative spiritual force increases, and the
contacts in the following generations of the Tannaim and in the days of
.the Amoraim were mostly with this Jewish community.
There are reports of connections with the Jewish community in the
Hellenistic diaspora: sages visit various centres in these Jewish
communities, and pupils and ordinary people also come to the Land of
Israel from centres in the Hellenistic diaspora - but these reports are
few in comparison with the abundant reports of the various different
contacts with Babylonian Jewry.

IV
 JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN MACEDONIA AND
THRACE IN LATE ANTIQUITY

Asher Ovadiah

Historical, archaeological and epigraphic evidence testify to the

existence of Jewish communities in Macedonia and Thrace during the
Roman and early Byzantine periods.
The Acts of the Apostles mention Jewish communities and their
synagogues in Philippi, Thessaloniki and Veroia.,
An ancient Jewish tomb found in Thessaloniki, decorated with a
menorah (seven-branched candlestick), and the synagogue of Claudius
Tiberius Polycharmos at Stobi add archaeological evidence to the
historical sources.
The discovery of Jewish inscriptions written in Greek (including
burial inscriptions) at Bizye in Thrace, in Thessaloniki, in Dion and in
the ancient synagogue at Stobi, enables us to assume that these
communities preserved their religious independence and enjoyed a
secure social and economic status.
Although the historical sources, the epigraphic material and the
archaeological finds are scant, it would seem that additional Jewish
communities existed in these regions and in other parts of Greece.
These undoubtedly formed the nucleus of the Jewry of Greece of the
present time.