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Archisynagogoi: Office, Title and Social Status in the Greco-Jewish Synagogue*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Tessa Rajak
Affiliation:
University of Reading
David Noy
Affiliation:
University of Reading

Extract

The cities of the Roman Empire were, on the whole, plural societies, which had in them significant sub-groups, ethnic, religious, or, indeed, both together — for the two categories were still only sometimes distinguishable. Such an environment carries many resonances for us and it is surprising to realize its neglect as a subject for study. The classical Greek polis had been a theoretically homogeneous institution of look-alike citizens, with outsiders excluded or enslaved. The notional Roman approach was, in the early days, to deal with outsiders by assimilating them. When we look at the cities of the Hellenistic kingdoms, we observe that they often did consist of several racial elements, though how these were accommodated has been for some time an issue for debate, and this remains an open question. But beyond that, our concern seems to stop.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Tessa Rajak and David Noy 1993. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 But see F. Millar, ‘Empire, community and culture in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs’, JJS 38 (1987), 143–64. The approach in MacMullen, R., Paganism in the Roman Empire (1981), chs 4 and 5Google Scholar, is also worth noting.

2 See J. North, ‘The development of religious pluralism’, in Lieu, North and Rajak, 174–93. A. T. Kraabel, ‘Unity and diversity among Diaspora synagogues’, in Levine ed., 53; repr. in Overman, J. A. and MacLennan, R. S. (eds), Diaspora Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor and in Dialogue with A. Thomas Kraabel (1992), 25Google Scholar, speaks in terms of a ‘need for community in a bewildering larger world’ — bewildering, apparently, because of the demise of the polis.

3 It is hoped that Lieu, North and Rajak (1992) has contributed to a new awareness. We cannot share the optimism of Seth Schwartz's review, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 3,3 (1992), 14Google Scholar, that the point is now widely grasped.

4 See Meeks, 74–5, 84–5; and, for an introduction to the sociological issues, Homans, George C., ‘The study of groups’, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, VI (1968), 258–65Google Scholar.

5 Synodos and syllogos are attested, as well as just οἱ Ἰουδαίοι. For Aphrodisias, see Reynolds and Tannenbaum, passim.

6 Hengel, M., ‘Proseuche und Synagoge’, in Gutmann, J. (ed.), The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology and Architecture (1975)Google Scholar, argues that the use of the term synagoge for a building began in first-century A.D. Palestine and gradually spread to the Diaspora.

7 See, for an introduction, Gutmann, op. cit. (n. 6) and also Levine ed.

8 S. J. D. Cohen, ‘Pagan and Christian evidence on the ancient synagogue’, in Levine ed., 50–60; Momigliano, A., ‘What Josephus did not see’, in On Pagans, Jews and Christians (1989), 108–19Google Scholar.

9 See Leon, H., The Jews of Ancient Rome (1960), 135–66Google Scholar. An unpublished inscription refers to synagogues at Salonica, and the Side synagogue is described as ‘first’ (CIJ 781). An approach to the problems is in A. T. Kraabel, ‘Social systems of six Diaspora synagogues’, in Gutmann, op. cit. (n. 6), 79–91; repr. in Overman and MacLennan, op. cit. (n. 2), 257–69.

10 Reynolds and Tannenbaum, 26–30.

11 Meeks, 80–91.

12 op. cit. (n. 2), 183–4.

13 Trebilco, 4, expresses the excellent objective of not ‘approaching the evidence with an agenda from research in the NT or in Rabbinic literature in mind’; but we may be less comfortable about the definition of the alternative goal — ‘to let the issues addressed arise from the material itself.’

14 On literary anti-Judaism in the early Church, see J. Lieu, ‘History and theology in Christian views of Judaism’, in Lieu, North and Rajak, 79–96; A. T. Kraabel, ‘Synagoga caeca: systematic distortion in Gentile interpretation of evidence for Judaism in the early Christian period’, in J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs (eds), “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity (1985), 219–46; repr. in Overman and MacLennan, op. cit. (n. 2), 35–62.

15 See Schrage, W. in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament VII (1971), 798841Google Scholar, for a survey of the evidence.

16 Poland, F., Geschichte des griechischen Vereinswesens (1909), 358Google Scholar, points out that Theos Hypsistos and Sabbatistes are deities close to the Jewish God.

17 We know of individuals in Italy who were both archon and archisynagogos: Appendix I, Nos 1, 6. So the titles were not generally interchangeable.

18 See Cohen, op. cit. (n. 8), 160.

19 On such realism, see F. Millar, ‘The Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora between paganism and Christianity, A.D. 312–438’, in Lieu, North and Rajak, 117.

20 For Epiphanius' view of Jewish ‘heresies’, see Lieu, J., ‘Epiphanius on the Scribes and Pharisees (Pan. 1. 1–16.4)’, JTS 39 (1988), 509–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 §10 = p. 128 in Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. R. A. Lipsius (1959).

22 See below. The unsupported patristic evidence for the patriarch's power to appoint archisynagogoi is accepted by Avi-Yonah, M., The Jews of Palestine (1976), 62Google Scholar.

23 Linder, No. 9, version B.

24 e.g. CTh XVI.8.29: primates; Nov.Just. 146.1: archipherekitai, presbyteroi or didaskaloi.

25 See Linder, 215.

26 On Alexander Severus and Judaism, see Stern, M., Greek and Latin Authors on the Jews and Judaism II (1980), 629–33Google Scholar; Momigliano, A., ‘Severo Alessandro archisynagogus. Una conferma alia Historia Augusta’, Athenaeum 12 (1934), 151–3Google Scholar.

27 See for example, A. Shinan, ‘Sermons, Targums and the reading from scriptures in the ancient synagogues’, in Levine ed., 97–110.

28 Schürer, E., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ 11 (rev. Vermes, G., Millar, F. and Black, M., 1979), 423–53Google Scholar.

29 Krauss, S., Synagogale Altertümer (1922)Google Scholar.

30 Juster, J., Les Juifs dans l'empire romain 1 (1914), 450–3Google Scholar.

31 In fact, there is no compelling reason to posit even notional patriarchal control over Diaspora synagogues until the late fourth century: A. T. Kraabel, ‘The Roman Diaspora: six questionable assumptions’, JJS 33 (1982), 454, repr. in Overman and MacLennan, op. cit. (n. 2), 10; Cohen, op. cit. (n. 8), 170–5; Millar, op. cit. (n. 19), 98. For a full study of the patriarchate, see L. I. Levine, ‘The Jewish Patriarch (Nasi) in third-century Palestine’, ANRW 11.19.2 (1979).

32 op. cit. (n. 28), 11, 435.

33 cf. Luke 7.3–5, where the word is used for the centurion who has a synagogue built.

34 On the imaginary nature of this synagogue, see S. B. Hoenig, ‘The suppositious Temple-Synagogue’, in Gutmann, op. cit. (n. 6), 55–71.

35 In fact, even the rabbinic rosh ha-kneseth is a term more varied in its application than these authors have allowed: for a convenient collection, see Marmorstein, S., ‘The inscription of Theodotus’, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1921), 24–6Google Scholar.

36 op. cit. (n. 15); van der Horst, P. W., Ancient Jewish Epitaphs: an Introductory Survey of a Millennium of Jewish Funerary Epigraphy (300 BCE–700 CE) (1991)Google Scholar.

37 Brooten, 23–4 etc.

38 Brooten, 5. In T. Rajak, ‘The Jewish community and its boundaries’, in Lieu, North and Rajak, 24, Brooten's argument is cautiously accepted.

39 Latyschev, B., Inscriptions Regni Bosporani 11 (1890), nos 19, 60–4Google Scholar; IV (1901), nos 207–8, 210–2, 469; from Tomi: Tocilescu, G. C., Arch-epig. Mitth. aus Öst. 6 (1882), 1920Google Scholar.

40 e.g. Chios: G. Dunst, APF 16 (1958), 172–7. Egypt: JIGRE no. 26.

41 Lucian, Peregr. 11. Delos: G. Fougères, BCH 11 (1887), 256. Istria near Tomi, A.D. 138: SEG 1.330. Moesia, second century: SEG XXIV. 1055. Cilicia, Augustan period or soon after: OGIS 573, a decree of ‘the companions and Sabbatistai of the theos Sabbatistes’, includes the crowning of Aithibelios (?) the synagogeus.

42 cf. above, pp. 78–9, and Brooten, 15.

43 Horsley, G. H. R., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, vol. IV 1979 (1987), 214–17Google Scholar.

44 cf. L.. M. White, Building God's House in the Roman World (1990), ch. 4. However, the hazzan referred to by Epiphanius, above, and paralleled in a Greek inscription, CIJ 805 from Apamea, is a real example of a loanword in Greek and of a post whose point of origin would seem to lie in Palestine.

45 For this phenomenon already in a classical Athenian context, see R. Osborne, ‘The demos and its divisions in Classical Athens’, in S. Price and O. Murray (eds), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (1990), 265–95.

46 See especially, Meeks, 32–40. It does not follow, however, from manifestations such as the Jewish archonships, that Jewish communities had the special formal status of politeumata, operating as legal cities within cities, a view maintained in, e.g. Smallwood, E. M., The Jews under Roman Rule (1976), 359–60Google Scholar.

47 cf. Saller, R., Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (1982), 94ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on merit in relation to imperial appointments.

48 e.g. from Cyzicus (SEG XXXIII.1056): ‘When the Emperor Hadrian was hipparchos for the second time…’.

49 Evidence for Asia Minor is collected by Trebilco, 116–26.

50 e.g. Pleket, H., Epigraphica 2, no. 34Google Scholar, first century A.D.: ‘The city of Epidaurus honoured Cn. Cornelius Pulcher, son of Gnaeus, aged 4, former gymnasiarch, former agoranomos at the sacred festivals, for his virtue and goodwill towards the city.’

51 Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century after Christ (1950), 470, 515, 650, 839 n. 24, 1508n. 34Google Scholar.

52 The issues are well set out by Horsley, op. cit. (n. 43), 48ff.

53 This excludes the following very fragmentary texts where either there is no clear evidence of Jewish connections, or restoration is very dubious, or only a single word is preserved: CIJ 638, 759; BE (1980), 230.30; BS 11.212. Also excluded is the fragmentary honorific inscription from Alexandria mentioned above, JIGRE no. 18.

54 See Leon, op. cit. (n. 9), ch. 2.

55 G. Lüderitz, Corpus jüdischer Zeugnisse aus Cyrenaika (1983), nos 70–2.

56 The existence of other Jewish honorands for life should also be noted, either simply displaying the formula διὰ βίου in some form (CIJ 266, 398, 416, 417, 503 (Rome); 533 (Ostia); 575, 589 (?) (Venosa)), or carrying the formula attached to another title: 561 (Puteoli, gerousiarch); 720 (Mantinea, πατὴϱ λαοῦ)

57 In addition to the instances below, and the officers ‘for life’, note CIJ 85, 216, 324, 337 from Rome: archons πάσης τιμῆς.

58 At Beth She'arim (No. 13), place of origin is indicated because the dead were buried far from their home countries. See M. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth She'arim 11 (English edn, 1974). Cf. also the affiliations in Nos 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 26.

59 Notably R. Vincent, ‘La découverte de la synagogue des affranchis à Jérusalem’, RB 30 (1921), 247–77, who sought to identify the synagogue with the ‘synagogue of the Libertines’ in Acts 6.9.

60 Brooten, ch. 1. There is also epigraphic attestation of a small number of women who hold other offices in the community: Brooten, chs 2–4. Trebilco, ch. 5, brings together the Jewish and pagan evidence for Asia Minor.

61 cf. R. Kraemer, ‘On the meaning of the term “Jew” in Greco-Roman inscriptions’, HTR 82 (1989), 35–54; repr. in Overman and MacLennen, op. cit. (n. 2), 311–30 for the possible meanings of this term, which may designate here and elsewhere a gentile adherent to Judaism.

62 cf. the case of the twelve-year-old grammateus and mellarchon from Rome, CIJ 284.

63 See van Bremen, R., ‘Women and wealth’, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (eds), Images of Women in Antiquity (1983), 233–42Google Scholar. For Pompeii: CIL X.846; White, op. cit. (n.44), 31, makes the interesting suggestion that preferment not open to the freedman father was available to the son.

64 See Lewis, N. (ed.), The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri (1989)Google Scholar.

65 On this point, see Rajak, op. cit. (n. 38), 23–5; also White, op. cit. (n. 44), 179, n. 50.

66 Van Bremen, op. cit. (n. 63), 236.

67 With the possible exception of the Aphrodisias inscription, where the editors tentatively identify a ‘soupkitchen’ (Reynolds and Tannenbaum, 26–8); see T. Rajak, ‘Jewish benefactors’, forthcoming proceedings of a conference held at Tel-Aviv University.

68 Most of the other apparently Jewish individual or family donors of whole buildings are named without titles: Alypus in Egypt (JIGRE no. 13, probably 37 B.C.); Papous in Egypt (JIGRE no. 126, first century A.D.); Tation at Phocaea (Lifshitz no. 13, probably third century); two brothers and their father at Tafas in Syria (Lifshitz no. 63, probably fourth century). There is one case of the holder of another title donating a whole building: Ti. Claudius Polycharmos the πατὴϱ τῆς … συναγωγῆς at Stobi in Macedonia (Lifshitz no. 10, probably third century). In Cyprus, a presbyter and his son restored a whole synagogue (Lifshitz no. 82, probably fourth century).

69 Julia Severa, who originally erected the building, is known to have been active in the 50s and 60s. The inscription records the restoration of the building, and while this might have happened as early as the 80s or 90s, as is usually assumed, it could have been considerably later. White, op. cit. (n. 44), 81, suggests that the renovations were what made the house into a synagogue. On Julia Severa's connections and on the improbability of her being in any real sense a Jew, see Trebilco, 58–60; Sheppard, A. R. R., ‘Jews, Christians and heretics in Acmonia and Eumeneia’, Anatolian Studies 29 (1979), 169–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ramsay, W., Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (1897), 639, 650–1, 673Google Scholar, curiously reconstructed the whole family as Jewish.

70 The milieu is nicely characterized by Sheppard, op. cit. (n. 69).

71 op. cit. (n. 26). He cites an inscription from Rome (CIJ 501) apparently referring to a woman ἀπο ἀπο τῆς συναγ(ωγῆς) Ἂϱϰ[ου Δι]βανου, which was Alexander's birthplace.

72 Accepted dates are given for the inscriptions in most cases. A number of the texts given here have been reedited for Noy's, D. forthcoming Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, 1 (1993)Google Scholar, cited below as JIWE 1, under the auspices of the Jewish Inscriptions Project, University of Cambridge.

73 Lifshitz gives this word the unparalleled meaning ‘spent’.

74 The interpretation of the name was made by Robert, L., Hellenica 1 (1940), 27–8Google Scholar.

75 Schrage, op. cit. (n. 15), 844, suggests first century B.C.

76 IG X.ii.i no. 299 is very fragmentary but seems to follow the same formula:

77 From Ph. Petsas, Arch. Deltion 24 (1969), Chron. 300–1.

78 Following A. Romiopolou, Arch. Delt. 28 (1973), Chron. 439.

79 Discussed by Horsley, G., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 11 (1977), 2671Google Scholar.