(Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 94) Yair Furstenberg - Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in The Roman World (2016, Brill Academic Publishers) PDF

Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World
Ancient Judaism and

Early Christianity
Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums
und des Urchristentums
Founding Editor
Martin Hengel † (Tübingen)
Executive Editors
Cilliers Breytenbach (Berlin)

Martin Goodman (Oxford)
Editorial Board
Lutz Doering (Münster) – Pieter W. van der Horst (Utrecht)

Tal Ilan (Berlin) – Judith Lieu (Cambridge)
Tessa Rajak (Reading/Oxford ) – Daniel R. Schwartz ( Jerusalem)
Seth Schwartz (New York)
VOLUME 94
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ajec

Jewish and Christian Communal
Identities in the Roman World
Edited by
Yair Furstenberg
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Furstenberg, Yair, editor.

Title: Jewish and Christian communal identities in the Roman world / edited
by Yair Furstenberg.
Description: Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Ancient Judaism and early
Christianity, ISSN 1871-6636 ; Volume 94 | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016015133 (print) | LCCN 2016016483 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004321212 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004321694 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Identification (Religion)—History—To 1500. | Identity
(Psychology)—Religious aspects—History. | Jews—Identity—History—To
1500. | Judaism—History—Talmudic period, 10–425. | Identity
(Psychology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Church history—Primitive
and early church, ca. 30-600. | Civilization, Greco-Roman.
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Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations viii
List of Contributors xii
Introduction: The Shared Dimensions of Jewish and Christian Communal

Identities 1
Yair Furstenberg
Part I
Imperial Perspectives
The Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions of Social Categories and the

Evolution of Judean Communal Identity in Egypt 25
Sylvie Honigman
The Roman State and Jewish Diaspora Communities in the Antonine

Age 75
Martin Goodman
Part II
Community and the City
Civic Identity and Christ Groups 87

John S. Kloppenborg
Organized Charity in the Ancient World: Pagan, Jewish, Christian 116

Pieter W. van der Horst
The Fourth Book of Maccabees in a Multi-Cultural City 134

Tessa Rajak
vi Contents
Part III
Varieties of Communal Identities
Rome and Alexandria: Why was there no Jewish Politeuma in Rome? 153

Daniel R. Schwartz
From Text to Community: Methodological Problems of Reconstructing

Communities behind Texts 167
Jörg Frey
Lycaonian Christianity under Roman Rule and their Jewish-Christian

Tradition 185
Cilliers Breytenbach
Part IV
Community and Continuity
The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 CE in Light of Old and
New Papyri 203
Tal Ilan
Jewish Communities in the Roman Diaspora: Why Salo Baron Still

Matters? 225
Seth Schwartz
“You are a Chosen Stock . . .”: The Use of Israel Epithets for the Addressees
in First Peter 243
Lutz Doering
Author Index 277
General Index 282
Preface
This volume presents revised versions of lectures given in October 2013 at

a Jerusalem symposium on Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in
Antiquity. The Hebrew University’s Scholion Center for Interdisciplinary
Research in the Humanities and Jewish studies together with the editorial board
of Brill’s Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity series kindly co-sponsored the
symposium in memory of our colleague Friedrich Avemarie. His sudden pass-
ing, in the process of preparing the symposium, has been ever since a great
loss to our scholarly community and to the study of Jewish and Christian inter-
relations in antiquity. I would like to thank all of the participants in the sym-
posium, who devoted much time and effort both to the symposium itself and
to the preparation of their papers for publication. I also wish to thank John
Kloppenborg and Tessa Rajak who could not participate in the conference but
were glad to add their contributions to the volume and complement the issues
addressed herein.
The director of Scholion and AJEC editorial board member, Daniel R.
Schwartz, initiated the collaboration between the two parties, and entrusted
me, as a postdoctoral Mandel fellow at the Scholion center, to choose the
topic, organize the conference and edit this volume. I wish to express my most
sincere gratitude to him for the two blissful years I enjoyed at Scholion and
for giving me the opportunity to enhance the study of communal identity in
Antiquity through the association with this wonderful community of scholars,
who jointly created this volume. The production of the conference was a most
pleasant experience thanks to the skilled guidance and management of Maya
Sherman, the Administrative Director Scholion has been blessed with, and to
the assistance of her devoted staff. Special thanks goes to Yonatan Gan-Or for
all the effort put into ensuring a successful symposium.
I wish to extend my thanks to the executive editors of this series for their
support in carrying out the work on the volume. Cilliers Breytenbach has gen-
erously hosted me in the Theology Faculty at the Humboldt University and I
had the benefit of enjoying the wise consultation of Martin Goodman all along
the way. I am extremely grateful to the two devoted editors of the Brill Biblical
Studies, Mattie Kupier followed by Tessa Schild, for their excellent treatment
of the manuscript from its earliest stages of production to its final publication.
Yair Furstenberg
Jerusalem, January 2016
Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York:
Doubleday, 1992
AEMÖ Archaeologisch-epigraphische Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich-Ungarn
AGAJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des
Urchristentums
AM Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Athenische
Abteilung. Berlin: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, 1896–
ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson, with A. Cleveland Coxe. 1885–1896. 10 vols. Repr. Grand
Rapids, 1969–1973
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur
Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Part 2, Principat. Edited by
Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. Berlin and New York,
1974–
ANTC Abington New Testament Commentary
AsSeign Assemblées du Seigneur
BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge
BCH Bulletin de correspondance hellénique
BDAG A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early
Christian Literature, Walter Bauer and Fredrick William Danker, 3rd
edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957
BDR Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Griechisch. Friedrich Blass
and Albert Debrunner. Revised by Friedrich Rehkopf; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979
BE Bullétin épigraphique
BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
BGU Aegyptische urkunden aus den königlichen (later Sttatlichen) museen
zu berlin griechische urkunden. Berlin: Weidmann, 1895–
BIS Biblical Interpretation Series
BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentary
BTS Biblisch-theologische Schwerpunkte
BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
und die Kunde der Alteren Kirche
CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology
CBNT Commentaire biblique: Nouveau Testament
Abbreviations ix
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBR Currents in Biblical Research
CIG Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum
CIIP Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae. Edited by H. M. Cotton.
Berlin : Walter de Gruyter, 2010–
CIJ Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CJZC Corpus Jüdischer Zeugnisse aus der Cyrenaika. Edited by G. Lüdertiz.
Wiesbaden : L.Reichert, 1983
CPJ Corpus Papyrorum Judaicorum. Ed. V. A. Tcherikover, A. Fuks and
M. Stern. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1957–1964
CRAI Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres
CRIPEL Cahier de Recherches de l’Institut de Papyrologie et d’Égyptologie de
Lille
DACL Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie
DGE Dialectorum Graecarum Exempla Epigraphica Potiora. Eduard
Schwyzer. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1923
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
DNP Der Neue Pauly
ECAM Early Christianity in Asia Minor
EDNT Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament
EJ Encyclopedia Judaica
EKK Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
ETAM Ergänzungsbände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris
ExpT Expository Times
FGH Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker. Edited by Felix Jacoby.
5 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1923–1999
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen
Testaments
GLAJJ Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Edited by Menachem
Stern. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
1974–1984
GNT Grundrisse zum Neuen Testament
HTK Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
HTR Harvard Theological Review
ICC International Critical Commentary
IG Inscriptiones Graecae
IJO Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis
IK Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien
x Abbreviations
ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae

IMT Inschriften Mysia & Troas
JBL Journal of Biblical Review
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JH Jewish History
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JIGRE Jewish Inscriptions of Greco-Roman Egypt
JIWE Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman
Periods
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LNTS Library of New Testament Studies
MAMA Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua
MJSt Münsteraner Judaistische Studien
MSSNTS Society for New Testament Studies. Monograph Series
NIDB New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by K. D. Sakenfeld.
5 vols. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2006–2009
NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NTOA Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus
NTS New Testament Studies
PG Patrologia Graeca
PW Pauly Wissowa
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum: Sachwörterbuch zur
Auseinandersetzung des Christentums mit der antiken Welt.
F. J. Dölger and H. Lietzmann. Edited by T. Klauser. 32 vols. Stuttgart:
A. Hiersemann, 1950–2015
RCT Revista Catalana de Teologia
RECAM S. Mitchell. Regional Epigraphic Catalogues of Asia Minor, II:
The Ankara District. The Inscriptions of North Galatia. “British
Archaeological Reports, International Series”, 135. Oxford 1982
RevQ Revue de Qumran
SB Sammelbuch Grichiescher Urkunden aus Ägypten. Edited by
F. Preisigke and F. Bilabel. Strassburg: K. J. Trubner; Wiesbanden:
Otto Harrassowitz, 1915–
Abbreviations xi
SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

SBS Stuttgarten Bibel Studien
SCI Scripta Classica Israelica
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicorum Graecorum
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Supplement Series
SRHJ Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews. New
York: Columbia University Press. 1952–1993
Sterrett, EJ Sterrett, John Robert Sitlington. An Epigraphical Journey in Asia
Minor. “Papers of The American School of Classical Studies at
Athens”, 2, 1883/84. Boston 1888
Sterrett, WE Sterrett, John Robert Sitlington. The Wolfe Expedition to Asia
Minor [during the summer of 1885]. “Papers of The American
School of Classical Studies at Athens”, 3, 1884/85. Boston 1888
SUNT Studien zur Umwelt des NeuenTestaments
Swoboda, Swoboda, Heinrich, Josef Keil and Fritz Knoll, eds. Denkmäler
Denkmäler aus Lykaonien, Pamphylien, und Isaurien. Ergebnisse einer im
Auftrage der Gesellschaft von Julius Jüthner, Fritz Knoll, Karl
Patsch und Heinrich Swoboda durchgeführten Forschungsreise.
Deutsche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und Künste für die
Tschechoslowakische Republik in Prag. Brünn, Vienna 1935
TADAG B. Porten and A. Yardeni. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from
Ancient Egypt. 4 vols. Jerusalem: CTS, 1986–1999
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association
TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by
G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by J. T. Willis. Grand
Rapids, Mich. : W. B. Eerdmans, 1974–1975
THKNT Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament,
TSAJ Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism
TWNT Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament. Edited by
G. Kittel. 10 vols. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933–1979
UaLG Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte
UTB Uni- Taschenbücher
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
ZNW Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
List of Contributors
Prof. Dr. theol. Habil. Cilliers Breytenbach , Humoldt Universität, Berlin

Prof. Lutz Doering, University of Münster
Prof. Jörg Frey, University of Zurich
Dr. Yair Furstenberg, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva
Prof. Martin Goodman, University of Oxford
Prof. Sylvie Honigman, Tel Aviv University
Prof. Dr. Tal Ilan, Freie Universität, Berlin
Prof. John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto
Prof. (emer.) Tessa Rajak, University of Reading
Prof. Daniel R. Schwartz, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Prof. Seth Schwartz, Columbia University
Prof. (emer.) Pieter W. van der Horst, Utrecht University
Introduction: The Shared Dimensions of Jewish
and Christian Communal Identities
Yair Furstenberg
I Four Shared Dimensions
Jews and Christians under the Roman Empire shared not only Scripture, a dis-
tinct conception of the divine and an unusual set of religious practices, but
also a unique sense of community. Both groups were organized in a network of
local communities, which were set apart from their civic and cultic surround-
ings, and both resisted complete assimilation into the dominant political and
social structures. These shared circumstances generated common challenges
for the two groups. On one level, Jews, as well as Christians, aspired to main-
tain a collective group identity, unrestricted to specific localities, through a
trans-local network, a shared discourse and a separate collective designation.1
At the same time, the reality on the ground was that of great diversity among
the local synagogai and ekklesiai throughout the Empire. In particular, both
Jews and Christians were compelled to negotiate their immediate civic sur-
roundings, and the flourishing of local associations resulted in a variety of
organizational patterns within both groups. Thus, despite scholarly attempts
to posit a distinct contrast between the communal forms of Jews and Chrstians
in the Roman Empire,2 the common array of forces and tensions encountered
by both groups sets the stage, rather, for an examination of the shared commu-
nal experience of the two groups in the Roman world, alongside an acknowl-
edgement of their diverse manifestations.
Clearly, social affiliations are messy, contested, and may evade clear-cut
definitions. It is doubtful, for example, whether a Jerusalemite priest (such
as Josephus) could have classified a separatist group (such as the Essenes) as
they would have characterized themselves,3 or whether a Roman official would
1 J. M. Lieu, Christian Identities in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004).
2 Compare J. T. Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest
Christian Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) and J. M. G. Barclay,
Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 12–15.
3 D. Flusser, “ ‘The Secret Things Belong to the Lord’ (Deut 29:29): Ben Sira and the Essenes,” in
idem., Judaism of the Second Temple Period, vol. 1: Qumran and Apocalypticism (tr. A. Yadin;
Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2007), 293–298 (295).
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004321694_002

2 Furstenberg
describe a gathering of Christians in the same terms they themselves would

have used.4 The terminologies may overlap at times or, conversely, be devoid
of meaning in certain circumstances. Moreover, during a period of constant
change, the boundaries of these communities were inevitably drawn and
redrawn by both internal powers and external constraints, and some of their
members would in fact have resisted any such classification.5 Nonetheless, as
the articles in this volume demonstrate, membership in a local community
played a decisive role in mediating one’s experience as a Jew or as a Christian,
and it is therefore pertinent for any attempt to trace the trajectories of Jewish
and Christian identity formation.
A wide range of local communal experiences is represented in the volume.
The source materials ranges from documentary testimony to Jewish commu-
nities in Egypt, through epigraphic evidence of Jewish and Christian organi-
zations in Asia Minor, to the literary products of both Jews and Christians in
Antioch and other Greek-speaking communities. However, despite the local-
ized nature of these sources, an integrated consideration of these disparate
cases may best serve our over-all understanding of the forces, which shaped
Jewish and Christian communities and their respective responses to these
shared circumstances. The different sections in this volume therefore corre-
spond to the four major factors which determined communal identity. Two
of these factors relate to external political forces: [1] The legal status of the
community within the Roman order, and [2] its integration within civic cul-
ture. The latter two components reflect the inherent tension of the communal
situation: [3] Diversity and localization, on the one hand, and [4] the sense
of continuity, on the other. Scholars have regularly applied these analytical
dimensions separately to the study of Jewish diaspora communities and to
Christian groups under the Empire, but these aspects may also be useful for a
comparative study of the two groups.
Strikingly, alongside the local variations, the overall patterns of response to
the surrounding challenges differed greatly between the Jewish and Christian
communities. On the whole, they differed markedly both in their level
of assimilation into the civic fabric of the Empire and in their development of
trans-local communal networks. These differences in response seem to be
4 R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1984).
5 The fuzziness of communal boundaries and the unrelenting attempts of authoritative voices
to redraw them is underscored in H. Lapin, “Introduction: Locating Ethnicity and Religious
Community in Later Roman Palestine,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman
Palestine (ed. H. Lapin; Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 1998), 1–28.
The Shared Dimensions 3
rooted in the deepest levels of these groups’ opposing conceptions of com-

munity: while Jewish communities were established and developed within the
context of the Hellenistic diaspora, the beginnings of Christian organization
are rooted in Roman Palestine. Admittedly, the circumstances in Judaea/Syria
Palaestina during the first three centuries CE set this region apart from the rest
of the Empire and merit separate discussion. Nonetheless, as I will suggest,
various elements of the diverse communal self-perceptions among Jews and
Christians in the Roman Diaspora reflect an inherent tension between ethnic
and sectarian constructions of identity, and can be tied back to this unique
Palestinian social setting. The contrast between Palestinian Judaism of the
Second Temple period and contemporaneous Diasporic notions of commu-
nity sheds light on the converse strategies by which Jews and Christians negoti-
ated their place as minority groups within Roman civic structures.
During the late Second Temple period, major groups within Jewish society in
Palestine converted their ethnic identity into sectarian concepts of belonging.6
These groups distinguished between “insider” and “outsider” in terms of
purity—pure and impure, while at the same time blurring the prevailing con-
trast between Jew and non-Jew.7 A clear example for this position is that of the
Yahad sectarians, who imposed the same set of separation restrictions with
relation to other non-member Jews as those implemented against non-Jews.
Those outside the sect were thus considered impure with “gentile impurity”,
since the members of the Yahad sect viewed themselves alone, the “sons of
light”, as the real Israel.8 The blurring of boundaries between non-members
and non-Jews was so dominant among such groups that even the Pharisees
adopted at least partial separation from other groups, which was based on
the attitude towards gentiles. They applied the pejorative title am ha-aretz,
directed towards non-Jews in Ezra and Nehemiah’s time, to their fellow, less
6 Interestingly, in his thorough account of the transformation of “Jewishness” during the

Second Temple Period, Shaye Cohen attributes a major role to the cultural effects of
Hellenization, but at the same time neglects to take into account the role of sectarianism
in the creation of diverse positions. See S. J. D. Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries,
Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
7 Y. Furstenberg, “Outsider Impurity: Trajectories of Second Temple Separation Traditions
in Tannaitic Literature,” Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation from Second Temple
Literature through Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity, Proceedings of the Ninth
International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and
Associated Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 40–68.
8 A. Shemesh, “The Origins of the Laws of Separatism: Qumran Literature and Rabbinic
Halacha,” RevQ 70 (1997): 223–41.
4 Furstenberg
observant, Jews. Among this group too members were distinguished from non-
members on the basis of the pure/impure contrast.
As the contrast between pure and impure gained prominence in some
circles over the distinction between Jew and gentile, ethnic classification
was inevitably undermined, as we learn most clearly from Peter’s statement
in Acts 10. The first step in the inclusion of non-Jewish members in the Jesus
movement was to declare them pure as well, for “That which God had declared
pure, do not consider to be impure” (Acts 10:15). Contrary to the Jewish cus-
tom of considering gentiles as impure, Peter deemed all followers of Jesus
pure. Subsequently, gentiles too were entitled to the grace of baptism and to
the Holy Spirit. “He did not discriminate between us and them, for He puri-
fied their hearts by faith” (15:9). Such statements reveal that Qumran notions
of exclusiveness and Christian inclusiveness were in reality different sides of
the same coin, and evolved from the same conceptual framework. The begin-
nings of Christian communal identity are thus rooted in Palestinian sectar-
ian discourse, which undermined other sets of distinctions, primarily those
of ethnic nature. Furthermore, despite the consistent attempt of Jesus follow-
ers to widen their constituency, from its very beginnings this emerging com-
munity constructed membership through separatist terms and organization
(Acts 2:44–47). As such, membership in the close-knit community served to
substitute other, larger scale, networks.
Paul too, as Meeks has demonstrated in detail,9 evoked sectarian language in
order to create a separate communal identity within the Greco-Roman urban
environment. He referred to members as holy and elect; he described them as
united through baptism and belonging to one body. Paul uses the language of
separation widely, and displays a basically negative attitude towards the “out-
sider”, who is pejoratively referred to as a gentile, to the extent that Paul even
applies the contrast between the “children of light” to the “children of dark-
ness” to this distinction.10 Here too, the dichotomy is expressed in terms of
purity and impurity. Aside from the demand to maintain sexual purity within
impure surroundings,11 these categories are applied in order to mark the con-
trast between the community and the rest of the world,12 and the baptism
9 W. A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1983), 84–104.
10 1 Thess 5:4–11; Eph 5:7–14.
11 1 Cor 7:14. See N. Koltun-Fromm, Hermeneutics of Holiness: Ancient Jewish and Christian
Notions of Sexuality and Religious Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010),
89–94.
12 1 Cor 6:9–11.
singles out those who have been united with Jesus. The prohibition against
fraternization with non-members—and how could there be any association
between believer and non-believer?—echoes Qumranic sectarian discourse,
and is anchored, according to Paul, in the complete contradiction between the
holiness of the community and the impurity of the unbelievers.13
Significantly, then, it was specifically within Judean society in Palestine,
whose inhabitants shared a common ethnic identity, that non-ethnic alterna-
tives for communal identity were most prone to emerge. It is therefore note-
worthy that of all the various Jewish groups Jesus followers were those who
propagated and spread this characteristically Palestinian conceptual appara-
tus into the Diaspora.14 After all, Jewish Diaspora communities were hardly
inclined to promote alternative classifications. They strove to maintain a purely
ethnic sense of belonging, following a familiar model of ethnic dispersion,15
which also served to ensure the Jews’ communal rights. According to their colo-
nial model, all of the Jewish communities in the Empire shared a constitution
13 2 Cor 6:14–7:1. For possible reservations concerning the use of a “sectarian” paradigm in
order to understand the Pauline movement, see Barclay, Pauline Churches and Diaspora
Jews, 6–7 (n. 10). Clearly, Paul’s viewpoint is not synonymous with the social reality of his
time. See below.
14 Recently, Daniel R. Schwartz, Judeans and Jews: Four Faces of Dichotomy in Ancient Jewish
History (Toronto, Buffalo, London: Torinto University Press, 2014), has suggested charac-
terizing Diasporan Judaism in Antiquity as a “Religion of Choice”. Since the circumstances
in the Diaspora were unnatural, Jews there were aware of their choice of a legal system,
while their fellow Palestinian Judeans viewed these laws as integral to their natural, born
state. The contrast between the earlier and later writings of Josephus reflects this shift
towards a Jewishness of choice, which coincides with his move from Jerusalem to Rome.
Prima facie, this theory stands in contrast to my emphasis on the ethnic orientation of
Diaspora communities. At the same time, these features are not necessarily mutually
exclusive. First, as we shall see below, a turn toward a more religious, rather than an eth-
nic, identity is characteristic of the later Roman period, following the destruction of the
Temple. Moreover, the basic ethnic commitment to the traditions of the fore-fathers is in
any event essential to diasporic identity, while a sectarian stance converts this commit-
ment into a sense of exclusive election, such as that propagated by Christ followers.
15 Philo offers an image of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora as colonies founded by
immigrants from an overcrowded homeland. “For because of the Jews’ great numbers,
one land does not suffice them, and therefore they inhabit many of the most prosperous
lands of Europe and Asia both in the inlands and on the mainland. They think of the
holy city (where stands the sacred temple of the Most High God) as their mother-city,”
(Philo, In Flac. 45–46; Compare, Legat. 281–282). See further G. Bohak, “Ethnic Continuity
in the Jewish Diaspora in Antiquity,” in Jews in the Hellenistic and the Roman Cities
(ed. J. R. Bartlett; London: Routledge, 2002), 175–192.
6 Furstenberg
that provided the ethnos with its collective name.16 Epigraphic evidence points
to a shared self-designation of Diaspora Jews. As Tessa Rajak has pointed out,
the local communities went by a collective appellation: Judeans, people (laos),
colony (katoikia), or ethnos,17 and they regularly lacked a separate organiza-
tional designation. Accordingly, local leaders were considered leaders of the
people, ethnarches.18
It would follow from this, then, that Jewish Diaspora communities would be
more careful than their Palestinian counterparts to maintain a purely ethnic
conceptualization of community, as they sought to maintain their institutional
rights primarily on the basis of their antiquity and ethnicity. Subsequently,
they were compelled to reject sectarian-like features of communal identity
created in Palestine and spread throughout the Diaspora by Jesus followers. As
we would expect, these communities were even willing to respond violently
towards any attempt to undermine their traditional self-perception, as we see
in Paul’s description of his interaction with the Jewish Diasporic community.
Paul boasts of his devotion to the Christian message, for which he was flogged
five times by the Jews, most probably Diaspora Jews (2 Cor 11:24). Apparently,
it was not the mere conversion of gentiles which threatened the Jewish
authorities19—after all, both God-fearers and converts were an accepted, if not
encouraged, phenomenon—but rather the undermining of the communities’
privileged ethnic status by the creation of an alternative sense of belonging.
This basic contrast between Palestinian and Diasporic notions of commu-
nity may serve then as a foil for tracing the ways Jews and Christians enlisted,
remodeled or refrained from using earlier Jewish concepts about community
within their changing environments. Against the multiplicity of underlying
notions of community, the following survey of study cases in this volume offers
a rudimentary map of the different responses of Jewish and Christian commu-
nities to the shared challenge of creating a sense of uniqueness and continuity
within the Roman civic setting.
16 koinon onoma, in Philo’s terms (Legat. 194).

17 T. Rajak, “Synagogue and Community in the Graeco Roman Diaspora,” in Bartlett, Jews in
the Hellenistic and the Roman Cities, 22–38.
18 See for example the testimony of Strabo: “In Egypt, for example, territory has been set
apart for a Jewish settlement (katoikia) and in Alexandria a great part of the city has been
allocated to this ethnos. And an ethnarch of their own has been installed, who governs the
ethnos and adjudicates suits and supervises contracts and ordinances, just as if he were
the head of a sovereign state” (Josephus, Ant. 14.117.( Further see N. Sharon, “The title
‘Ethnarch’ in Second Temple period Judea,” JSJ 41 (2010): 472–493.
19 M. Goodman, “The persecution of Paul by diaspora Jews,” in The Beginnings of Christianity
(ed. J. Pastor and M. Mor; Yad ben Zvi: Jerusalem, 2005), 379–387.
II Roman and Civic Context
Given the cultural makeup of the Empire, Roman magistrates were required to
determine the legal status of both Jewish and Christian gatherings, and their
writings provide the earliest evidence for the classification of these communi-
ties within Roman categories. The right of assembly is first treated in the docu-
ments from Asia Minor collected by Josephus in book 14 of his Antiquities.20
Some decrees preserve the formulation of the local Jewish petitioners such as
those sent to Sardis (14.235; 49 BCE) or decreed by the people of the city, such
as Sardis again or Halicarnassus (14.256–261; after 47 BCE), or those initiated
by Hyrcanus (14.225–227; 43 BCE). This group of documents permits the Jews
to hold an assembly (synodon echein) in their places of prayer or to perform
their holy rites together according to their ancestral customs. At times, as in
Sardis, the right to assemble according to custom may include an explicit right
for self-jurisdiction. These decrees enabled the communities to maintain some
degree of separateness.21
Significantly, the right to assemble acquired a new form when presented by
a Roman magistrate, presumably Octavian himself (14.213–216; 42–41 BCE).22
Here too the Jews complain that they were being prevented from observing
their ancestral customs and holy rites. In response, the Roman magistrate
imposed on this situation a new and somewhat artificial framework: “It dis-
pleases me that such statutes should be made against our friends and allies
and that they are forbidden to live in accordance with their customs and to
contribute money to common meals and sacred rites.” The reference to the
gathering of monies for meals is surprising and is most probably not based
on direct knowledge of Jewish customs but rather on the standard collegia
practice. Thus, the magistrate further quotes both Caesar’s and his own edicts
concerning these associations (thiasoi), in which they exclude the Jews from
the restriction on assembly, including collecting money and communal meals:
“These people alone he did not forbid to do so, that is to assemble, or to col-
lect contributions of money or to hold common meals. I too forbid other asso-
ciations but permit these people alone to assemble and feast in accordance
with their ancestral customs and laws.”
20 M. Pucci Ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the Roman World: The Greek and Roman Documents
Quoted by Josephus Flavius (TSAJ 74; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).
21 See P. R. Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (SNTS MS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 167–172.
22 Pucci Ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the Roman World, 107–119.
8 Furstenberg
The Roman classification of communal gatherings as associational activ-

ity entailed substantial consequences. The Romans examined the restrictions
imposed upon the Jews in light of their own laws governing collegia, although
Jewish communities did not fit squarely into these terms. Amongst the Jews,
money was collected only for the Temple and communal meals are not men-
tioned in other sources. Nonetheless, this legal category provided Imperial
officials with a framework for containing Jewish communal activity. Following
Caesar’s edict, the Jews were permitted to convene as an ancient collegium,
since their traditional activity did not threaten political stability.
That this perspective was quickly adopted by some Jews is evident from the
way Philo characterizes Jewish communal activity, when he refers to Augustus’s
tolerant policy towards Jewish assembly. “(He permitted) the Jews alone to
assemble together in the synagogues; for that these assemblies were not fes-
tivities, which from drunkenness and intoxication proceeded to violence, so as
to disturb the peace, but were rather schools of temperance and justice, etc.”23
Philo compares the assemblies in the synagogues to private associations, and
he evaluates them in the same terms and with direct reference to the collegia
prohibition. No doubt the Roman policy celebrated by the Jewish apologist
was indeed tolerant. However, it was in fact based on a restrictive approach,
which ultimately served to degrade the status of the Jewish community. As
there was no established framework for the incorporation of independent and
separate institutions, the rights traditionally granted to the Jewish community
were to be tolerated only within the boundaries of the private association.
What were the implications of the new Roman classification on the Jews’
own self-perception? Did it disintegrate their ethnic identity into local, cult-
like associations subordinate to polis authorities, or did it serve to create a new
form of religious commonality among Jews in the Roman Empire? Responses
may indeed have varied, but the wealth of material from Egypt provides us
with the most comprehensive view of the changes in Jewish communal iden-
tity from the Ptolemaic to the Roman rule. In the opening paper of this volume,
Sylvie Honigman traces in detail the role of state policy and administration in
prompting the shift from an ethnic to a religious communal identity. According
to Ptolemaic definition, the Judeans formed an ethnic group within the privi-
leged class of the “Greeks” and did not constitute a separate ethnic minority
group. At the same time, as Judeans, they clung to specific identity markers and
were organized in their own politeuma as other ethnic groups were. However,
since they were not considered citizens of the poleis, the Romans degraded
23 Legat. 311–312.

their status to that of Egyptians. Claudius’ response to the riots in Alexandria

of 38 CE reflects this change of communal status most clearly. Claudius refused
to acknowledge the political status of any of the institutions of Alexandrian
Jews, and considered them merely an authorized cultic association.
According to Honigman, the degradation of communal status on the local
level was complemented by the consolidation of Jewish communities into a
minority group on the imperial level. Claudius issued an edict simultaneously
relating to the Jewish communities in several provinces, and Philo reflected
this change by shifting from the older model of a bilateral link between col-
ony and center to a Romanized model of a network of colonies populating
the oikoumenē. Vespasian’s tax, the fiscus Iudaicus, brought to completion the
process of turning the Jews into a specifically religious minority. Against this
background, Martin Goodman, in the following paper, finds the Roman pol-
icy towards the Jews in the Antonine age to be fundamentally incoherent.
Considering the deliberate marginalization of the Jews following the revolts
in Judaea, Goodman finds it hard to understand why Rome permitted Jewish
communities in the Diaspora to maintain a separate identity. He therefore sug-
gests that such an inconsistency in fact results from the tendency of govern-
ments to maintain ancient legal arrangements and favor operative tax systems.
It was in the state’s interest that Jews, in contrast to other groups, maintain
their distinctive identity and not assimilate into the civic body.
Despite the significant changes in the status of the Jewish communities in
the first two centuries CE, outlined by Honigman and Goodman, both articles
point to the common tendency of these communities to conform to domi-
nant structures, from the moment of their first establishment in the Diaspora.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the shift from Hellenistic paradigms into
Roman categories, discussed by Honigman, as well as Roman imperial inter-
ests and fiscal policy, became embedded into the organization of the Jewish
communities. Consequently, they sought to reduce their ethnic otherness
in accordance with Roman structures, while at the same time maintaining a
tolerable level of distinctiveness, one which was acceptable to all parties.
Turning now to Christian communities, they too, like their Jewish predeces-
sors, were classified by Roman officials in terms of collegia, but at the same
time created a new range of responses to this categorization. In his letter to
Trajan Pliny writes: “(after chanting and taking oaths) it has been their custom
to disperse and reassemble later to take food of an ordinary, harmless kind;
but they have given up this practice since my edict, issued on your instruc-
tions, which banned all hetaeirias.”24 Other pagan authors classified Christians
24 Pliny, Epistles 10.96.

10 Furstenberg
in terms of collegia as well. Celsus, for example, blamed Christians for forming
“associations contrary to the law,” and for being involved in “obscure and
secret societies.”25
Voluntary associations played a major role in the formation of civic space.
An extremely complex web of social connections, groups and interests, orga-
nized in voluntary associations, populated the cities. These associations, of pro-
fessional, ethnic or cultic nature, sought to provide their members with social
support through routine gatherings and shared meals, and to ensure them
proper burial. As such, these organizations participated in the creation of a
reciprocal civic system.26 Powerful patrons, both local and imperial, supported
the organizations in exchange for political support, honor and glorification.
The membership in such associations provided wider groups of lower status
with the opportunity to partake in civic munificence and to publicize their acts
of generosity. These associations improved the standing of their members and
contributed to other citizens. However, in contrast to the assimilative Jewish
response to such classification, as demonstrated in Philo’s statement above,27
and which served to assure their continued rights, Christian writers—prone,
as I suggested, to more sectarian communal models—were reluctant to iden-
tify with this civic model.28
Christian writers of the second and third centuries persistently retained
a basic oppositional stance towards the dominant civic institutions of the
Empire. They insisted that they were foreigners in the city and that they
belonged to an alternative order. The Epistle to Diognetus fleshes out this con-
sciousness: “While they live in both Greek and barbarian cities . . . and fol-
low the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same
time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly paradoxical charac-
ter of their own citizenship (politeia). They live in their own countries but
only as non-residents. They participate in everything as citizens, and endure
25 Origen, Contra Celsum 1.1 (tr. H. Chadwick [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003], 7); 8.17 (ed. Chadwick, 464).
26 R. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations: 50 BC to AD 284 (New Haven: Yale, 1974), 68–87;
J. S. Perry, “Organized Societies: Collegia,” in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in
the Roman World (ed. M. Peachin; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 499–515.
27 P. Harland, Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians: Associations, Judeans
and Cultural Minorities, New York: T&T Clark, 2009.
28 Meeks, First Urban Christians, 79. For a response to Meeks see: R. S. Ascough, “Voluntary
Associations and formation of Pauline Christian Communities: Overcoming the Objec-
tions,” in Vereine, Synagogen und Gemeinden im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien (ed. A. Gutsfeld
and D.-A. Koch; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 149–183.
everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland and every

fatherland is foreign . . . they spend their time on earth, but their citizenship is
in heaven . . . In short what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world.”29
Tertullian expresses a similar tendency. On one level, he sought to depict
Christianity as a legitimate collegium.30 Some of his arguments mirror those
of Philo, such as his claim that Christians depart from their assemblies “not to
unite in bands for murder, or to run around in gangs, or to indulge in lewdness,
but to observe the same regard for modesty and chastity as people do who have
partaken in a school of virtue rather than a banquet.”31 However, Tertullian
diverges from Philo in taking a clear oppositional stance towards the general
civic structure. Instead of asserting that Christians were a non-factional party
within the Roman state, Tertullian rejects the civic system as a whole, since it
is based on the reciprocity of honors. “As those to whom all passion in the pur-
suit of glory and honor is dead, we have no pressing inducement to take part
in your public meetings; nor is there anything more foreign to us than affairs of
state. We acknowledge one all-embracing state: the world.”32 In direct contrast
to the Roman political system, this Christian type of universalism was based
on aversion to the local civic fabric.33
The rhetoric of separation culminates with Origen. At the very beginning
of his Contra Celsum Origen blatantly admits that Christian associations were
in fact illegal, since “Christians form associations against the devil contrary to
his laws.”34 Furthermore, whereas Tertullian is reluctant to participate in civic
culture, Origen sets up a sharp contrast between the two ekklesiai. The vic-
tory of Christianity is manifest not merely in the expansion of its churches,
but primarily in the complete contradiction between its forms of organiza-
tion and the nature of non-Christian assemblies and counsels. “He made the
gospel of Jesus to be successful, and caused churches to exist in opposition
to the assemblies of superstitious, licentious and unrighteous men . . . and the
churches of God which have been taught by Christ, when compared with the
assemblies of the people where they live, are as lights in the world.”35 Although
Christianity was not an insignificant minority anymore, the separatist rhetoric
29 Diognetus 5.4–6.1.

30 Wilken, The Chrisitians as the Romans Saw Them, 45–47.
31 Tertullian, Apol. 39.19 (ANF 3.47).
32 Apol. 38.1–3 (ANF 3.45) .
33 Compare C. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000), 48.
34 Origen, Contra Celsum 1.1 (ed. Chadwick, 7).
35 Contra Celsum 3.29 (ed. Chadwick, 147).
12 Furstenberg
was maintained. Origen, for one, asserts that the two politeiai must be kept
strictly separate, so as to prevent the Christians becoming defiled (molynontai)
by the appointed human laws.36
Despite this strong rhetorical stance, the question remains as to the degree
to which this oppositional separatist rhetoric reflects the actual relationship
of the Christians communities to the civic fabric.37 On one level, we must
ask to what extent the communal organization of the Christian groups con-
formed to the institutional habits and practices of local associations, and
how distinguishable Christians were within the multiplicity of local asso-
ciations? In addition, we can examine the extent to which a comparison to
other associations advances our understanding of the Christian communal
identity. A growing body of scholarship has been dedicated, over the last two
decades, to the integration of early Christian communities into the civic cul-
ture of voluntary associations.38 As John Kloppenborg has noted, the social
category of voluntary association has been “good to think with,” not only as it
helped identify the similarities in practice, titles, and organization, but also
in providing a clearer picture of the reality these communities were negotiat-
ing and of their position in relation to it. At the heart of this scholarly project
stands the attempt to explain the tension between the Christian literary evi-
dence, which conveys a surprisingly intensive familial commitment towards
a diverse membership, and the familiar dynamics of group-formation in the
civic sphere. Various analytical strategies may be employed to respond to this
tension. The solution to it may lie in the expected gap between writers, such as
Paul, who advocated total devotion and demanded a holistic sense of religious
belonging, and the addressees, who would regularly conceive of their group in
36 Ibid. 8.75 (compare Tertullian, Idol. 17–18).

37 A clear position on this issue is expressed by É. Rebillard, Christians and Their Many
Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca; London: Cornell University
Press, 2012). Rebillard forcefully promotes the idea that Christians in general did not have
an exclusive identity. “[M]ost Christians practiced a situational selection of identities;
that is, they did not give salience to their Christianness at all times” (8).
38 The following authors offer an overview of the subject: J. S. Kloppenborg and S. G. Wilson
(eds.), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (London and New York:
Routledge, 1996); P. A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues and Congregations: Claiming
a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); R. S. Ascough,
P. H. Harland and J. S. Kloppenborg, Associations in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook
(Wako, Tex.; Baylor University Press, 2012); R. S. Ascough, “What Are They Now Saying
about Christ Groups and Association,” Currents in Biblical Research 13 (2014): 207–244.
conventional associative terms, lacking, as they were, the impulse for resocial-
ization reflected by their co-religionists.39
An alternative model for treating the ambiguous position of Christian groups
within the civic framework is offered by John Kloppenborg in the second part
of this volume, “Community and the City.” Alongside expressions of resis-
tance to the Roman order and a rhetoric of differentness, as surveyed above,
Kloppenborg underscores the role of mimicry of civic society in constructing
the group identity of Christ followers. Thus, for example, Hermas encourages
shows of extravagant philanthropy, as long as they are directed at widows and
orphans and express God’s benevolence. Benefaction, in its unique Christian
form, is also imagined by 1 Peter as a means for securing the place of Christians
in the city and silencing critics of the group. In the face of acts of benefaction,
bystanders are compelled to acknowledge that Christians are participating in
civic culture. Kloppenborg suggests that the imitation of the dominant culture
served several needs of the Christ groups in their position as foreigners in the
city. It protected their unique practices through camouflage, while at the same
time taking advantage of the cultural benefits offered by the dominant culture.
Mimicry served the resistant Christian counter-culture, allowing them to imi-
tate the dominant culture while at the same time rejecting its values. Christian
rhetoric of otherness and their practices of imitation may, then, reflect two
sides of the same alienated coin.
Against the backdrop of the suggested contrast between the Jewish accli-
mation to civic structures and the Christian resistance to them, we turn to an
examination of the role of charity in setting both communities apart from
their civic surroundings. While the peculiarities of Jewish and Christian ritu-
als would have blended well into the surrounding diversity of cults, these
two groups stood out from their civic surrounding to varied degrees with
regard to their treatment of the poor. Scholars have attempted to downplay
the contrast between pagan benefaction and Christian charity, advocated by
Bolkestein, and there is indeed some evidence for other associations providing
39 S. J. Chester, Conversion at Corinth: Perspectives of Conversion in Paul’s Theology and
the Corinthian Church (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2003), 227–266 (“Corinthian
Conversion and Voluntary Associations”). “Paul’s vision for the life of the Church sharply
diverges from the norms of the Greco-Roman society, norms which have been embodied
in the life of the associations, but he finds that his Corinthian converts are unable or
unwilling to instantiate this vision in their behavior to the degree that he desires.” (265).
14 Furstenberg
for disadvantaged members as well.40 At the same time, as Pieter van der
Horst emphasizes in his contribution to this volume, the contrast between
Greco-Roman and Jewish attitudes towards the poor and their opposing views
of reciprocal giving are embedded in the very foundations of their respec-
tive civic and religious identities.41 The possible convergences of specific ele-
ments cannot blur this distinctive contrast between the two cultures. The roots
of organized charity are somewhat shrouded in darkness, and the novelty of
Christian practices in relation to Second Temple and Rabbinic precedents is a
matter of dispute. Nonetheless, as the Emperor Julian confessed, this alterna-
tive form of solidarity continued to feature as a distinction mark of both Jews
and Christians within their civic surroundings.
Admittedly, our evidence concerning the integration of Jewish Diaspora
communities into Roman civic culture is quite scanty, characterized pri-
marily by a notable lack of any declared opposition such as the one that
Christian writers expressed. Nonetheless, Tessa Rajak has worked to uncover
positive traces of such assimilation, such as the case of the Julia Severa syna-
gogue in Asia Minor Acmonia from the second half of the first century CE.
The inscription found in the synagogue honors both Julia Severa, the founder
of the “house,” and the three honorary heads of the synagogues, the archon
and the archisynagogoi. Two basic features of this inscription seem to provide
evidence for Jewish assimilation into the social fabric and civic institutions
of the Empire. Firstly, the inscription seems to indicate Jewish participation
in the system of euergetism,42 which was integrated into the administration
of the city as a system of wheels-within-wheels. Secondly, the patronage role of
Julia Severa, a high priestess of the divine emperors, reflects this same assimi-
lation. Following the model of contemporary religious and professional asso-
ciations, the network of the Jewish community was thus reconfigured so as
to include powerful local non-Jews, and owed its existence to the city’s insti-
tutions. Rajak therefore asserts that “Judaism could be incorporated into the
40 D. J. Downs, The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological,
Cultural, and Cultic Contexts (WUNT II/248. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 105–112 (“Care
for the Poor within Associations”).
41 For a survey and analysis of responses to the dominance of institutional reciprocity in
ancient Jewish sources, see S. Schwartz, Were Jews a Mediterranean Society: Reciprocity
and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). At the
heart of the problem lies the fact that, according to Schwartz, “the Jews were heirs to a
set of strongly antireciprocal cultural imperatives” (10).
42 This holds implications for our understanding of the title archisynagogos. See
T. Rajak & D. Noy, “Archisyanagogoi: Office Title and and Social Status in the Greco-Jewish
Synagogue,” JRS 83 (1993): 75–93.
civic context through the inclusion of a synagogal community into the work-
ings of the polis.”43
In her contribution in this volume, Rajak examines another example of
Jewish integration into the local civic structure, that of 4 Maccabees, written
in Antioch in the aftermath of the Great Revolt. First, Rajak suggests that the
book is a product of the Second Sophistic sensibility, characteristic of Greek
intellectual activity in the eastern cities under Roman rule during the second
century CE. This explains the various forms of oratory found in the book and
the combination of philosophy and rhetoric, narrative and declamation. This
example of a sophistic stance, one may add, may have shared not only current
cultural and literary ideals, but also their political undertones, serving as part
of the Second Sophistic endeavor to reconstruct Greek values and heritage
under Roman dominance. Such anti-Roman sentiment, it is argued, is perti-
nent to this work’s subject matter. The treatment of martyrdom in 4 Maccabees
responds, according to Rajak, to Roman persecution, as experienced specifi-
cally in Antioch, and it reflects the local identification with the Antiochene
victims. Rajak surveys the harsh occurrences of persecution, which gener-
ated a shared discourse of martyrdom amongst both Jewish and Christian
writers in Antioch. The article thus exposes the local circumstances which
shaped the unique cultural and religious consciousness of the Antiochene
community within and against Greek culture and Roman rule, and the shared
Jewish-Christian experience in this region.44 Similarly to the ways in which the
communal institution of charity stood out against Roman practices of munifi-
cence, martyrdom traditions created a separate space for Jews and Christian
under the dominance of Roman power.
III Diversity and Continuity
Diversity, both with respect to the communities’ organizational patterns and

to their level of distinctiveness, was common to both Jews and Christians. At
the same time, there is a marked contrast between the nature of the sources
we have regarding each of the groups and this, in turn, shapes the way schol-
ars comprehend the dynamics of diversity and the formation of continu-
ity among these communities. With respect to the Jews during the Roman
43 T. Rajak, “The Synagogue within the Greco-Roman City,” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists
in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period (ed. S. Fine;
London: Routledge, 1999), 161–173 (165).
44 Compare Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, 378–380.
16 Furstenberg
period, apart from the literary work of Philo in Alexandria, the main body of
evidence we hold for communal organization (certainly after 116/7) is based
on inscriptions, papyri and archaeological remains, alongside some sporadic
historiographic information. Consequently, we know of a variety of commu-
nal institutions and positions conforming to their specific localities and social
contexts—such as ioudaioi, politeuma, katoika, synodos, synagoge, archontes,
ethnarches, archisynagogoi 45—but we lack any internal testimony to the
self-perception of Jewish community members. The material available to us
regarding the Christian communities is of an opposite nature. During the first
two centuries CE we lack substantial epigraphic sources relating to Christians
in general, while holding an abundant number of literary works directed at
specific groups and which assume distinct audiences.
These partial representations of communal reality, governed by the nature
of the source material at our disposal, largely determine the challenges schol-
ars confront in their attempts to outline the degree of diversity within each
group and to account for its roots and effects. The starting point for describ-
ing Jewish communities in the Diaspora is the presumed basic uniformity
between the different communities with respect to core elements: a shared
sense of ethnic belonging and basic distinctive practices. As John Barclay has
noted, notwithstanding local organizational variations, “the ethnic bond, the
central bond of Jewish identity, was protected and preserved in the daily habits
of Diaspora Jews (Sabbath, circumcision, separatism at meals and rejection of
alien cultic activity). . . Such internal coherence made Judaism a remarkably
durable tradition, not by total isolation from its surrounding milieu but by the
clarity of differentiation at socially decisive points.”46
Within this basic framework, local variations may seem marginal and
trivial, at most.47 Against this background, Daniel Schwartz, in part three of
this volume, suggests that the different forms of communal organization in
Rome and in Alexandria reflect distinct conceptions of a core Judaean\Jewish
45 At times, the lack of reference to a separate institutional framework in Jewish inscrip-
tions is no less revealing. See P. A. Harland, “Acculturation and Identity in the Diaspora:
A Jewish Family and ‘Pagan’ Guilds at Hierapolis,” JJS 57 (2006): 222–244.
46 J. M. C. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–
117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 443–444.
47 Exceptional in this respect are the works of A. T. Kraabel, who identified different syna-
gogues in the diaspora with separate kinds of Judaism which were “heavily influenced by
the local situation.” See A. T. Kraabel, “Unity and Diversity among Diaspora Synagogues,”
The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (ed. L. I. Levine; Philadelphia: ASOR, 1987), 49–60; idem,
“Social Systems of Six Diaspora Synagogues,” in Ancient Synagogues: The State of the
Research (ed. J. Gutmann; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 79–91.
identity. Scholars have noted the contrast between the unified organization of
Jews in Alexandria (politeuma) and the lack of any such umbrella organization
of synagogues in Rome, but they have thus far neglected to offer an explana-
tion for this discrepancy. Schwartz points to a substantial correlation between
the foundational conception of citizenship and the Jewish organizational pat-
tern in each of the cities. Citizenship in Alexandria was unique to the foreign
colonists, and therefore the Judaean population of the city identified itself as
a foreign ethnic group. Roman citizens, in contrast, were natives careful to
uphold the integrity of their customs. Therefore, seeking to confine their for-
eignness and, as we have seen, to conform to dominant political structures, the
Judaeans substituted their alternative ethnic affiliation with a restricted sense
of belonging to discrete cult associations. According to Schwartz, in Rome the
Judaeans became Jews.
In contrast to the Jewish case, the starting point for addressing the variety
of Christian communities is the multiplicity of literary works and the assumed
correlation between text and community.48 At this stage, before the creation
of a church network, the dissimilarities between different Christ groups seem
so significant that some have found it more prudent to speak of multiple
groups (“Pauline,” “Matthean,” “Johannine” Christians) than of Christianity
as a whole.49 Furthermore, in pointing out the specific social circumstances
of the multiple Christian house cult-groups, Keith Hopkins has asserted, “It is
extremely difficult for dispersed and prohibited house cult-groups and com-
munities to maintain and enforce common beliefs and common liturgical
practices, across space and time in pre-industrial conditions of communica-
tions. The frequent claims that scattered Christian communities constituted a
single church was not a description of reality in the first two centuries CE, but
a blatant yet forceful denial of reality.”50
In view of the literary evidence for communal diversity, the contribution of
Jörg Frey to this volume assesses the use of literary sources for describing and
characterizing actual historical social groups. Following a survey of scholarly
48 The tendency to picture, in the same locale, a united Jewish community but multiple
Christian groups (due to literary diversity) is demonstrated in P. Trebilco, “Jews, Christians
and the Associations in Ephesos: A Comparative Study of Group Structures,” in 100 Jahre
osterreichische Forschungen in Ephesos. Akten des Symposions Wien 1995 (B. Brandt and
K. R. Krierer; Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische
Klasse Denkschriften 260. Vienna: Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999),
325–34.
49 Lieu, Christian Identities in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World, 4.
50 K. Hopkins, “Christian Number and its Implications,” JECS 6 (1998): 185–225 (206–7).
18 Furstenberg
approaches to the reconstruction of historical information from ancient

texts, Frey addresses the specific considerations relating to the communal
provenance of early Christian texts, essential to the development of Gospel
scholarship. The scholarly attempt to uncover the message of the Gospel was
associated, from the very beginning, with the reconstruction of the spirit or
conditions of its addressees. However, as the surveys of Paul’s Epistle to the
Corinthians, the Epistle of Jude and the Johannine corpus demonstrate, this
task is virtually impossible and is fraught with methodological pitfalls. Even
in cases where the writer addresses a specific group and refers to actual cir-
cumstances, one cannot escape the danger of “mirror reading.” Our knowledge
of these communities is therefore quite hypothetical, although it is undeni-
ably crucial for our understanding of the text. Notably, the extensive treatment
of opposition and the anxiety over a splitting of the communities, shared by
all of these texts, necessitates a clear image of the contested issues, within
their peculiar social context. Rather than viewing the authors as conveying a
message to a define group, we may see them as negotiating the boundaries of
specific Christian groups.
At the conclusion of his paper, Frey notes the contribution of external
sources of information toward identifying references to specific social circum-
stances. A systematic approach of this sort finds clear expression in the proj-
ect “Expansion of Early Christianity in Asia Minor” (ECAM), headed by Cilliers
Breytenbach. In the tradition of the work of Adolf von Harnack, this series
traces Christian institutionalization and group formation among Christian
groups seeking to create space for themselves within a specific locality. The
project incorporates both literary and non-literary evidence, inscriptions
and archaeological remains, and gives special attention to the local history,
forms of community and civic traditions, suggesting a unique character to the
individual churches.51 In this vein, Breytenbach, in the last article in this sec-
tion, surveys some of the epigraphical evidence regarding Christian groups in
Lycaonia. Allusions to biblical expressions and names provide access to the
biblical traditions and the religious world-view shared by the Christians of
this locale.
In light of the inherent diversity of different communal situations, the
articles in the fourth section of this book address the capacity of both Jews
and Christians to experience a sense of continuity and connectedness within
their diasporic communal setting. A comparative look at Jewish and Christian
communities, both of which formulated their experience under Roman rule
in diasporic terms, inevitably highlights the striking contrast between the two.
51 U. Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley (tr. D. Green; ECAM 1; Brill: Leiden, 2013).
In this sense, the differing fates of these communities beyond the second and
third centuries may shed light on the relative resilience of their ideological
and organizational structures, and on their power to sustain a viable support
network.
The contributions of Tal Ilan and Seth Schwartz to this section offer differ-
ing assessments of the fragileness of Jewish existence in the Roman Diaspora,
as both respond to earlier voices in Jewish historiography. As a prolegomena
to the fourth volume of the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, Ilan calls atten-
tion to the new approach taken in this volume in terms of the choice of
materials and to the historiographic deviation from the approach of Victor
Tcherikover, editor of previous CPJ volumes. The historical picture Tcherikover
paints and his view of the Hellenized Jews, Ilan claims, have determined the
kinds of materials he chose to incorporate into the CPJ. The image he endorses
is disturbingly familiar and is one of a thoroughly assimilated Jewish commu-
nity, one which has ceased to speak the Hebrew of its ancestors and has sought
emancipation through civic rights. Tragically, however, the members of this
community could not escape antisemitism. First, their autonomy was abol-
ished, then they suffered pogroms and extermination. This was the inescap-
able fate of the Jewish diaspora. In contrast, through the inclusion of Hebrew
and Aramaic documents in the new volume, the current editors of the CPJ
uncover threads of continuity between the Jewish communities before and
after 116/7. Instead of a story of annihilation, Ilan sees one of revitalization
and continuity, leading up until the later evidence of Jewish life in the Cairo
Geniza. There is no clear indication of what, if anything, may have served to
secure the continuity of Jewish existence in a specific locale—whether it was
customs, language, communal organization or the rise of centralized Jewish
leadership—but the new material nonetheless offers a more positive view of
the possibility of a Jewish Diaspora.
The events of 116/7 closely followed the first revolt and the destruction of the
Temple. Considering the role of Jerusalem and the Temple in the consolida-
tion of Jewish identity in the pre-70 CE era, one wonders how the destruction
and the weakening of the Palestinian center affected the ability of diaspora
communities to maintain a vibrant alternative lifeform in the long run. Did
the preservation of some core practices provide the community with enough
resources to confront external constraints and pressures despite the lack of
some gravitational center, or was there also a need to create an alternative
ideological framework? In his article, Seth Schwartz points to a remarkable
fact emerging from the epigraphic and archeological remains of Jewish com-
munities. Even in areas that did not suffer from anti-Jewish hostility during the
High Empire, such as Asia Minor, there is strikingly little substantial evidence
20 Furstenberg
for the continuity of Jewish settlement or institutional stability; this evidence

is limited to a very limited number of locales. Schwartz understands this fact as
reflecting the “communities’ ineluctable tendency toward entropy”, resulting
from the unrelenting efforts at local integration. In his pessimistic account of
the feebleness of Jewish communal organization, which echoes later phases
of Jewish diasporic experiences, Schwartz is inspired by Salo Baron’s narra-
tive of Jewish failure in antiquity, regarded by him as “Incipient Medievalism”.52
Baron attributed this failure to the haphazard rush towards expansion in the
early Roman period and the impossible attempt to compete with the dominant
cultural forces. Schwarz, in contrast, draws attention to the severe constraints
placed on the Jews’ ability to develop institutions that could have helped guar-
antee their survival. He asserts that the structure and ideology of the Roman
state restricted the Jews’ ability to maintain a separate collective identity.
It would seem, however, that state pressure provides only a partial expla-
nation for the Jewish communities’ fragility, and that its impact depends
largely on the communities’ institutional and ideological resources. After all,
returning to the comparative viewpoint, under the same (if not heavier) con-
straints of the Roman state during the High Empire, we find Christian writers
enhancing cohesion through a marked experience of differentness. Possibly,
then, Roman policy may be considered to have undermined Jewish existence
so long as Jews under Rome did not choose to develop (or, following Baron,
re-develop) a consciously distinct identity, comparable to that of contempo-
rary Christian communities. It was only later that the Christianization of the
Roman state53 or the rabbinization of diasporic Judaism generated such an
ideological development.54
52 J.F. Baer, “The Origins and the Organization of the Jewish Community in the Middle Ages”,
Zion 15 (1950): 1–41 (in Hebrew), famously traces the roots of medieval communal organi-
zation back to antiquity, as he relates to the communal structure as a “living organism.”
53 S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton: Princeton
54 Towards the end of the third century we encounter the emerging authority of the
Palestinian patriarch over Diaspora communities, and he is acknowledges as the leader
of the Jewish people in fourth century Roman legislation. See L.I. Levine, “The Status
of the Patriarch in the Third and Fourth Centuries: Sources and Methodology,” JJS 47
(1996): 1–32; S. Schwartz, “The Patriarchs and the Diaspora,” JJS 50 (1999): 208–222. The
Patriarchal system of messengers may have channelled rabbinic influence on to these
communities. On the growing Hebraisation documented in diaspora epigraphy as a possi-
ble indication of the expansion of rabbinic networks in the Roman Diaspora see A. Collar,
Religious Networks in the Roman Empire: The Spread of New Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge
The concluding essay in this volume demonstrates the discursive means

by which Christ groups emulated earlier Jewish notions in order to create a
strong sense of continuity. In this paper, Lutz Doering examines the cluster of
designations 1 Peter employs for his addressees (specifically in 2:4–12), form-
ing a distinct identity construct that is rooted in earlier Jewish traditions and
which anticipates the later Christian notion of “third genos”. 1 Peter refers to
his addressees as sojourners and foreigners in the diaspora of Asia Minor. This
language echoes the Jewish experience in the Diaspora, but at the same time
1 Peter ties the condition of exile with the group’s elect status, employing con-
cepts familiar from the self-perception of Qumeranic Jews as a priestly com-
munity in exile preparing for the eschaton. The addressees are reborn through
separation from their gentile surroundings, they acquire priesthood and sanc-
tity, and their community is identified with the Temple. Finally, they are con-
sidered the chosen people. They have transitioned from being a non-people to
being God’s people. The author thus weaves together images of an elect com-
munity serving as a Temple, closely related to the priestly self-perception of
Qumran, with an ethnic construction of identity.
As noted in the first section, the blurring of group classifications served to
release ethnic language from it basic rigidness. It thus enabled the author of
1 Peter to appropriate the ethnicity of Israel and further expand it by associ-
ating this category with other overlapping concepts of election. Henceforth,
all Christ followers participated in this cluster of Israel epithets, and could
consequently become God’s people. In marked contrast to the later notion of
“third genos” as a separate and competing entity,55 1 Peter assumes some sort
of continuity with Israel, and it is not concerned with defining the relationship
between the two groups. Doering suggests that, at this stage, ethnic identity
was still tentative and in search of proper categories. These liminal circum-
stances, however, evoked a powerful dynamic through which the Christian
community acculturated a language of fixed ethnicity after charging it with
the active images of rebirth, election and Temple construction. Admittedly, the
letter leaves unresolved the question of the exact relationship between Jewish
and Christian communities. At the same time, it uncovers the power of ideas.
Notions of election and priesthood rooted in the ideological and social world
of Second Temple Judaism transformed the feebleness of the diaspora experi-
ence into a cohesive communal identity.
55 See D. K. Buell, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2005); J. M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-
Roman World, 239–68.
Part I
Imperial Perspectives
∵
The Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions of Social
Categories and the Evolution of Judean Communal
Identity in Egypt
Sylvie Honigman
Introduction
Constructivist studies of identity have established that communal identities

are never generated in a vacuum, and are therefore subject to constant evo-
lution according to their varying social environments. Furthermore, changes
may affect all aspects of communal identities with no exception, including
the composition of their constitutive elements.1 Jewish communal identity in
Antiquity is a particularly remarkable case of change, since it shifted from a
basically ethnic to a basically religious definition. However, as I argue in this
paper, this shift did not result from the formation of diaspora communities
per se—given the intensive demographic mobility that characterized the
Mediterranean in Antiquity, numerous ethnic groups had diaspora commu-
nities in this area—but from a coincidence between two structural factors.
First, Judean ethnic identity from the outset had a central cultic component.2
Second, distinctly religious identities that did not overlap any longer with the
traditional forms of social identities such as ethnicity and citizenship started
emerging in Mediterranean societies in the late second-early first century BCE.
These created the basic conditions that allowed the progressive transforma-
tion over several centuries of the Judean identity from an ethnic identity with
a prominent cultic component to a religious identity.3 Roughly speaking, the
1 F. Barth, “Introduction,” in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture
Differences (ed. Fredrik Barth; Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1969), 9–38.
2 I speak of cult and not of monotheism, because in most if not all the period covered by this
article—from Hellenistic times to 117 CE—what mattered in the communication between
the human and the divine worlds were bodily practices, and not beliefs per se. This is even
truer if we consider communal identities in interaction with each other. What mattered
in the Mediterranean societies in which Judean/Jewish diasporic communities lived was
whether or not the Judeans/Jews participated in the social activities open to all the social
groups living in the same places; it did not matter whether they believed in one and the
same God.
3 One of the earliest attested examples is the constitution of an Isiac identity among lower-class
women in Athens as documented by the iconography of funerary steles. See P. Martzavou,

26 Honigman
span of time between the late second century BCE and the second or third
centuries CE may be defined as a period of transition—partly explaining the
well-known controversy in recent scholarship as to whether the Greek Ioudaios
and the Latin Iudaeus should be translated as “Jew” or “Judean”.4 At the same
time, the pace of evolution varied according to regions—if only because the
conditions that allowed the emergence of specific religious identities in the
hosting societies were not generated everywhere at the same time.
These variations in chronology invite us to look more closely at the condi-
tions that prompted this shift from an ethnic to a religious identity, because
they suggest that it may have involved a more complex combination of factors
than one might assume at first glance. In this paper I focus on a specific factor
whose impact on the shaping and evolution of local Judean/Jewish communal
identities tends to be underestimated: state policy—and more particularly the
official, administrative definition of personal and group statuses. More pre-
cisely I investigate how the very different definitions of personal status that
were successively instituted in Egypt by the Ptolemies and the Roman imperial
authorities affected the ways in which the Judeans who lived there shaped and
reshaped their communal identity.
The Judean community, or more accurately communities of Ptolemaic and
Roman Egypt offer a privileged case study of this interaction between state
policy and communal identities thanks to the wealth of evidence available.
Chronologically, this evidence covers a timespan of over three and a half cen-
turies—running in an almost continuous way from around the mid-third
century BCE to 117 CE—and is detailed enough to allow investigating not
only the differences between the Ptolemaic and Roman periods respectively,
but also evolutions within these periods. Qualitatively, the extant evidence
is composed both of literary sources emanating from the upper-class circles
of Alexandrian Judeans, and of documentary sources (papyri, ostraca, and
inscriptions) that cast light on Judean groups of more modest—albeit not too
modest—social status that were settled in various areas of the Egyptian chora
“Priests and Priestly Roles in the Isiac Cults: The Case of Roman Athens,” in Ritual Dynamics
in the Ancient Mediterranean: Agency, Emotion, Gender, Representation (ed. A. Chaniotis;
Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2011), 61–84.
4 The controversy was launched by D. R. Schwartz, “Herodians and Ioudaioi in Flavian
Rome,” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (ed. J. Edmonson, S. Mason, and J. Rives;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 63–78, and S. Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing,
Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007), 457–512. For a
recent, albeit polemical overview, see A. Reinhartz, “The Vanishing Jews of Antiquity,”
Marginalia. Los Angeles Review of Books, June 24, 2014, http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks
.org/vanishing-jews-antiquity-adele-reinhartz/.
The Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions of Social Categories 27
(“countryside” by opposition to the territory of Alexandria). The documentary

sources offer detailed and first-hand evidence about the legal status of these
Judeans, and in this way provide the historical context against which we may
read the discourses of identity put forward in the literary sources.5 Moreover,
the documentary papyri allow us to study the Judeans in their wider social
context, providing comparative data for a wide range of topics, and at a level
of resolution that is seldom affordable in Antiquity—even though in the end
these sources raise more questions than they allow us to solve.
Based primarily on the documentary evidence, I investigate three basic
issues. First, the diachronic aspect of the change in the nature of the Judean/
Jewish communal identity in Egypt, with a double emphasis on the differ-
ences between Ptolemaic and Roman times on the one hand, and on a more
refined periodization within each period, in particular the Roman one, on
the other. Next, two notions whose interpretation, as I shall argue, directly
depends on this periodization of the evolution will be examined: the notion
that the Judeans/Jews were a minority in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, with
the view to assess whether and to which extent the afferent connotations of
this notion—for instance, weaker social status—were relevant to the period
considered; and the related notion that the Judeans/Jews were distinct from
all other social groups in whose midst they lived, with the view to explore the
extent and nature of this distinctness. As we shall see, both the notion that
Judeans/Jews were a minority and were distinct must be apprehended in a
very different way under Ptolemaic and Roman rules. Moreover, I will question
the widely accepted view that the religious specificity of the Judeans—that
is, their monotheism—is per se sufficient a factor to explain the Judeans’ dis-
tinctness, and argue that it must be considered in combination with additional
factors, in particular settlement patterns.
Before we start, some general considerations are necessary to help us situ-
ate these issues. Whereas the Roman state culture shaped a world into which
modern notions of identity translate in a relatively easy way, the study of the
Ptolemaic state culture—or that of any Greek and Hellenistic state for that
matter—requires a far greater process of estrangement. The correlated prem-
ises that Judeans/Jews formed a single community having the status of a
minority, which are currently central in the modern scholarly discourse about
ancient Judean/Jewish communal identity, may possibly be adequate in the
Roman empire, but must be qualified when it comes to Hellenistic state cul-
ture. As I show below, whereas the Roman imperial rule came to apprehend the
5 Although, of course, the interpretation of the documentary evidence is open to debate

as well.
28 Honigman
Judeans as a single community not only throughout Egypt but throughout the
empire, the notion of a universal definition of an ethnic group was thoroughly
alien to Ptolemaic state culture. As a direct consequence, under Roman rule
the Judeans of Egypt eventually came to constitute a genuine minority—irre-
spective of the question whether their identity was ethnic or religious. This
shift occurred in several stages. The decades running from the reorganization
of Egypt as a province in 27 BCE to Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrians in
41 CE may be defined as a transitional period. It was Claudius’s clarification in
this edict of the respective statuses and rights of the Alexandrian citizens and
of the politeuma of the Judeans in this city that put an end to the Alexandrian
Judeans’ aspirations to maintain their formerly privileged situation, and, as we
may presume, compelled them to redefine their self-perception in response
to this new order. The subjection of the Judeans/Jews throughout the empire to
a special tax officially aimed to rebuild the temple of the Capitol in Rome in
71 CE constituted an additional step in the Roman handling of the Judeans/
Jews as a single group, and in their transformation into a minority.
When we examine the status of the Judeans in Ptolemaic times, the pic-
ture is far more complex. First, we need to clarify what we mean by ethnic
minority. In modern studies this concept is alternately used to describe both
the situation of the Greeks themselves in Egypt, meaning a demographically
smaller group holding the position of power in an imperial setting, and that
of non-Greeks and non-Egyptians—and most particularly that of “Jews”—this
time with the implicit connotation of weakness.6 Not only is this inconsistent
use of the term a source of confusion, but the latter meaning—minorities as
non-Greeks and non-Egyptians—is a projection on Ptolemaic society of the
6 “Jews” is the nomenclature used by scholars subscribing to the view that I am critiquing
here. See C. Fischer-Bovet, “Social Unrest and Ethnic Coexistence in Ptolemaic Egypt and the
Seleucid Empire,” Past and Present 229 (2015): 3–45 (I thank the author for sending me her
paper before publication). More on the meaning of non-Greek and non-Egyptian minority in
a position of weakness, see P. Sänger, “The Politeuma in the Hellenistic World (Third to First
Century BC): A Form of Organisation to Integrate Minorities,” in Migration und Integration:
wissenschaftliche Perspektiven aus Österreich (eds. J. Dahlvik, C. Reinprecht, and W. Sievers;
Vienna: Vienna University Press, 2013), 51–68. The author argues that the Ptolemies used the
politeuma as an institution to integrate ethnic minorities, including the Judeans, in Egypt.
See additional references in the next note. For handlings of ethnic minority more attentive
to the specific social organization of Ptolemaic Egypt, see D. J. Thompson, “Ethnic Minorities
in Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age (ed. O. van
Nijf and R. Alston; Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 101–17; S. Honigman, “Ethnic Minorities Groups,”
in Blackwell Companion to Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt (ed. K. Vandorpe; Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming). See also further below.
modern way of categorizing ethnic (and religious) identities. It is thoroughly

at odds with the way social categories were officially defined by the Ptolemaic
administration, whereby all immigrants and their descendants—including,
for example, Judeans and Thracians—were “Greeks.”7 As we shall see the self-
representation of the Judeans that we find in the Letter of Aristeas definitely
matches the Ptolemaic official way of categorizing people, and not the modern
one. Moreover, given their actual legal and social status as Greeks and their
occupation as soldiers and military settlers, it is doubtful that the Judeans who
lived in Egypt under the Ptolemies perceived themselves as being in a social
position of weakness.
It may be added that the religious specificity of the Judeans was irrelevant
to their classification as Greeks in Ptolemaic society. In Ptolemaic terms, they
formed one of the numerous ethnic groups that immigrated to Egypt in early
Hellenistic times, and each group had its own specificities, including distinct
beliefs and rituals.8 All of these ethnic groups, including the Judeans, were
held as sub-ethnic groups within the overarching denomination of Greeks.
Therefore, in the context of Ptolemaic Egypt it is appropriate to speak of
“Judeans,” and not of “Jews.” Moreover, given that I see the period from 27 BCE
to 41 CE as a transitional period I will maintain down to 41 CE the nomencla-
ture that unquestionably suits Ptolemaic society, and will speak of Jews only
after this date. Admittedly, it is a question whether the shift from a primar-
ily ethnic to a primarily religious component in the communal identity of the
Ioudaioi of Egypt occurred as early as 41 CE or only after 71. However, by situat-
ing my shift in nomenclature in 41 CE I wish to emphasize that with Claudius’s
letter, the last traces of the Ptolemaic heritage in Alexandria were swept away,
and the new Roman order finally and wholly ushered in.
7 The demographic study by C. Fischer-Bovet, “Counting the Greeks in Egypt: Immigration

in the First Century of Ptolemaic Rule,” in Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New
Insights and Approaches (ed. C. Holleran and A. Pudsey; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2011), 135–54, is marred by its inconsistent use of two definitions of the “Greeks.” One
usage corresponds to the Ptolemaic definition and includes inter alia Judean and Thracian
settlers, and one corresponds to the modern definition of Greek ethnicity and excludes
Judeans, Thracians, and even Macedonians.
8 We should remember that although all the Greek had the same gods and the same set of
religious rites, and met in Panhellenic festivals, shared participation was always limited to a
specific social group of varying size, from the household, through kinship groups and civic
communities, to the Panhellenic scale. Spartans, for instance, could not share in Athenian
rites, nor could Dorians share in Ionian festivals. Therefore, the fact that the Judeans did not
share in the rites of others was not perceived as a peculiarity per se.
30 Honigman
The notion of Jewish distinctiveness is another concept central to the

modern representation of ancient Judeans (or “Jews”). To study this issue in
Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt we may choose between three strategies. Some
scholars start their inquiry from the literary sources, and use documentary
ones only for corroboration.9 In my view, this method runs the risk of merely
strengthening modern assumptions—whether founded or unfounded—
firstly because the literary sources by definition, as it were, emphasized Jewish
distinctness, and secondly because scholars who give priority to the literary
sources tend to use them as though they were representative of “the Jews of
Egypt” as a whole. In contrast, giving priority to the documentary evidence
makes it easier to contextualize the literary sources in a more precise way, that
is, as authored by members of the Judean Alexandrian elite, and as illustrat-
ing the self-perception of this specific social circle. In particular, we should
remember that in both the Greek and the Roman cultures, distinctiveness
was an aristocratic notion referencing social excellence. Therefore one must
question whether, in talking of their own specific position, the members of the
Judean Alexandrian elite who authored these works—like modern scholars—
meant ethnic distinctness, that is, ethnic separateness, whereby encompassing
all Judeans in their definition, or alternatively, like Greek elites, referred to their
distinctiveness—that is social excellence—thereby referring to a competitive
stance between their narrow social group and other (Greek) elite groups.
That said, this alternative method—starting from the documentary
sources—may easily be entangled in circularity as well. This is because papyri
and ostraca are by essence decontextualized. In contrast with historical data
drawn from literary sources, which are embedded in a narrative context that
may be submitted to critical investigation, in the case of documentary sources
the context is the very corpus of sources that the investigator himself or herself
deems to be relevant to his or her topic of study in the first place. That is, the
way the corpus of evidence is selected conditions the historical conclusions
that will be based on it.
To (partially) mitigate this problem I will not only base my investigation pri-
marily on documentary sources, using them to read literary sources afresh, but
I will also assume as my working hypothesis that the Judeans of Egypt were not
different from other social groups, unless one can positively pinpoint direct or
at least indirect clues to their difference in one or several aspects. My render-
ing of the Greek Ioudaios (Ioudaioi) as Judean (Judeans) and not Jew (or Jews),
9 This is, for example, H. Hegermann’s method in “The Diaspora in the Hellenistic Age,”
in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. 2: The Hellenistic Age (ed. W. D. Davies and
L. Finkelstein; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 115–66.
as noted above, is precisely based on this assumption. Beside its intrinsic heu-
ristic value, this assumption of non-distinctness is a knowing extreme version
of Fredrik Barth’s constructivist definition of ethnicity, whereby each ethnic
group selects a set of diacritical features that it perceives as forming the core
of its distinct identity. While making compromises about these core features
would jeopardize the continued existence of the group, all other aspects of life
may be open to external influences.10
However, the comparative approach based on documentary evidence and
combined with this assumption of non-distinctness admittedly has its flaws
as well. Because of the strictly factual content of most papyri and inscriptions,
they give us access to a set of limited, technical indicia, such as personal names
and the use of ethnic labels (ethnika), and thus we run the risk of reducing
the notion of the social groups’ distinctness to that of their formal visibility.11
Hence the need not only to complement the documentary sources with liter-
ary ones, but also in a second stage to inform the questions asked to the evi-
dence with external knowledge. For reasons that will become clear below, the
material from Ptolemaic times lends itself to a comparative inquiry far more
easily than that of Roman times.
The discussion that follows is divided along a combination of chronologi-
cal and topical lines. Chronologically, I distinguish three periods: Ptolemaic
times, the transitional period of 27 BCE to 41 CE, and later Roman times
(41–117 CE). The first section, however, is a survey of the major elements used
by the Judeans to construct their distinct communal identity throughout these
periods. My purpose is not only to establish a list of these elements but, more
crucially, to point out the structural factors explaining the preservation of a
Judean collective identity over several centuries. The second part focuses on
10 See Barth, “Introduction.”

11 Two comments on nomenclature. I borrow the term of “indicia” from Jonathan Hall, who
distinguishes between criteria and indicia of ethnicity by defining the former as “the
definitional set of attributes by which membership in an ethnic group is ultimately deter-
mined . . . The indicia, on the other hand, are the operational set of distinguishing attri-
butes which people tend to associate with particular ethnic groups once the criteria have
been established.” See J. M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 20–21. Ethnikon has become the technical term used by modern
scholars. The term found in the ancient Greek papyri, e.g. the royal edicts, is patris. On
the legal regulation of the patris, see D. J. Thompson, “Hellenistic Hellenes: The Case of
Ptolemaic Egypt,” in Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (ed. I. Malkin; Cambridge, MA,
and London: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2001), 301–22; W. Clarysse, and D. J. Thompson,
eds., Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 2:146–47.
32 Honigman
Ptolemaic times, and provides a critical examination of the notion that the
Judeans were a minority in Ptolemaic society. The third section deals with
the transitional period of 27 BCE–41 CE, and more particularly focuses on the
tensions that opposed the politeuma of the Judeans in Alexandria and the
Alexandrian citizens, and led to the outbreak of violence in 38 CE. The fourth
section investigates how the changes in the definition of social category by the
Roman administration affected Philo’s way of imagining the Judean diaspora.
Finally, the last section surveys how two imperial decisions—Claudius’s settle-
ment of 41 CE in Alexandria, and Vespasian’s establishment of the tax payable
to the fiscus Iudaicus—gradually turned the Judeans of Egypt into a minority,
and into Jews. The behavior of these Jews during the revolt of 116–117 CE is
evidence that by this date they had shifted toward perceiving themselves in
religious terms.
I Judean Distinctness in Hellenistic and Roman Times according to

the Evidence
1 Indices of Visibility: The Comparative and Diachronic Perspective

As noted above, Barth’s definition of ethnicity distinguishes between a limited
set of aspects (indicia) in a group behavior that constitutes the core of the
group’s distinct identity and which are imperatively preserved lest the group
cease existing as a group, and all other aspects of life, which are potentially
open to external influences. While literary sources representing the social world
of the Alexandrian elite emphasize Judean distinctness through literary allu-
sions to the Judean and Greek textual traditions, papyri, ostraca, and inscrip-
tions document the Judean communities that were settled in the Egyptian
chora. As such, they offer the opportunity to investigate in which aspects of
life these communities maintained some form of distinctness, and what were
the conditions that allowed them to do so. The documentary evidence mainly
casts light on material aspects disclosing external behavior, which for this rea-
son may be dubbed “indices of visibility.” These include the administrative and
informal use of ethnic labels (ethnika); the continued (or discontinued) use of
ethnically significant personal names. Names and ethnika are by far the major
research tool to identify Judeans. To these we may add distinct communal insti-
tutions (proseuchai, politeumata) and distinct customs. Through these primary
indices it is sometimes possible further to identify separate settlements, and
patterns of sociability, like associations in business transactions. Furthermore,
although this evidence offers some direct clues to immaterial aspects, such as
the subjective perception the Judeans had of themselves (in particular in the
context of legal complaints which provide forms of narrative), we may gain

some access to these aspects by means of extrapolation from the factual data,
and by cross-checking it with the literary sources.
In order to be significant, an index of visibility requires exploiting quantita-
tively, that is, in series; moreover, the data about the Judeans needs to be com-
pared to that relating to other social groups of the Ptolemaic society. When
applied to several indices together, this quantitative and comparative method
discloses a telling paradox. When we consider each index of visibility sepa-
rately, it is nearly always possible to instance other ethnic groups that behaved
in the same way as the Judeans in the same period, a fact that would seem to
undermine accepted assumptions of Judean distinctness.12 Ultimately, how-
ever, it may well be that (some form of) Judean specificity effectively emerges
from the cumulative effect of clues. That is, no other ethnic group—either
Greek13 or non-Greek according to modern ethnic categories—offers as var-
iegated and persistent hints of such characteristic behavior as the Judeans.
Moreover, the diachronic perspective offers what in my view may be seen as
the most decisive hint to (some form of) Judean distinctness. Over the centu-
ries of Ptolemaic rule the Judean communities underwent a distinct evolution,
as compared to the other groups of foreigners that settled in Egypt in early
Ptolemaic times, and this distinct evolution laid the basis for the crisis that
erupted in Alexandria in 38 CE.
In this section I survey the main indices that may be used to assess the rela-
tive visibility of the Judeans in the Egyptian society of Greco-Roman times;
where possible I will also point to other groups that displayed analogous pat-
terns of behavior. The primary scope of this comparative data is to refine our
analysis of the causes that potentially explain the distinct behavior of the
Judeans in the long run, and in particular to assess the role that the religious
specificity of the Judeans played. While this aspect was undeniably a promi-
nent factor, it remains to see how it precisely worked. How it combined with
additional structural factors—such as state policy and social structures—that
were common to the Judeans and other ethnic groups. According to Barth’s
definition of ethnicity, these structural factors constituted the specific ecologi-
cal niche in which the distinct internal dynamics of the Judean communities
unfolded, and which in turn shaped it.
12 With one possible exception: the name of their cultic places, the proseuchai. See below.
13 That is, if we do not consider the “Greeks” as a single group but break them down into
Cyreneans, Cretans, and so on. The reason why this approach is justified will become
apparent in the following discussion.
34 Honigman
2 Ethnika and Personal Names

Early in Ptolemaic times the royal administration established several catego-
ries of population for fiscal purposes. Alongside the citizens of the three cit-
ies of Egypt—Alexandria, Ptolemaïs, and Naukratis—the main distinction
was between the native Egyptian population and the immigrants who arrived
in Egypt after Alexander’s conquest and were settled in the chora, and their
descendants. These foreigners were collectively designated as “Greeks,” the
decisive criterion apparently being their common origin from outside Egypt,
and not actual Greek ethnicity. In certain types of official documents, individu-
als and groups within the category of the Greeks were required to state their
patris, that is, their specific place of origin outside Egypt. Close to 260 ethnic
labels (ethnika) cited as patris are known to date, though inconsistently refer-
ring to Greek cities and koina, and to regions and countries having both Greek
and non-Greek populations.14
This use of ethnika provides modern scholars with a very helpful research
tool to identify the ethnic affiliation of individuals, especially when all
immigrants started using Greek personal names, and the discontinuation
of this administrative practice in Roman times resulted in the loss of signifi-
cant data.15 That said, while the documentary evidence shows a high match
between ethnika and ethnically and regionally connoted (epichoric) personal
names in the third century BCE, making the different ethnic groups of for-
eigners equally conspicuous, the correlation between self-ascribed ethnicity
and official ethnika in the second and first centuries BCE became looser (see
below, section II). Moreover, while the Ptolemaic administrative requirement
of declaring ethnic labels provides us with a major research tool to identify
14 J. Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “Le statut des Hellènes dans l’Égypte lagide: Bilan et perspec-
tives de recherche,” in Statut personnel et liens de famille dans les droits de l’Antiquité
(Aldershot, Hampshire, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 1993), Article III (orig. published
in 1983); A.-E. Veïsse, “L’usage des ethniques dans l’Égypte du IIIe siècle,” in Mobilités
grecques. Mouvements, réseaux, contacts en Méditerranée de l’époque archaïque à l’époque
hellénistique (ed. L. Capdetrey, and J. Zurbach: Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2012), 57–66. A
comprehensive list of the documented ethnika is gathered in C. Łada, Foreign Ethnics in
Hellenistic Egypt (Leuven: Peeters, 2002). On the use of ethnika in the military context, see
C. Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt, 323–30 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge
15 A few ethnic labels continued to appear in informal contexts in Roman times, pointing to
the perception of the individuals and groups that were designated in this way by outsid-
ers. The label of Ioudaios/Ioudaioi is definitely attested in the Roman papyri, but because
it is usually impossible to know whether the persons concerned were long-time inhabit-
ants of the region or new immigrants, it is delicate to base conclusions on this data.
Judeans and Judean communities, precisely because it was an administrative

requirement, it is poorly informative about the effective self-perception of the
actors, and how they were perceived by outsiders. In contrast, name-giving
reflected the choice of the families themselves. Hence the interest of ethnically
significant (epichoric) personal names as identity markers.
In order properly to assess both the onomastic praxis of these Judeans
per se and its motivations, we need comparative data. Outside the new cities
of Alexandria and Ptolemaïs, a large proportion of the immigrants to Egypt
in Ptolemaic times were employed in the Ptolemaic army. In order to pro-
vide them with a stable living while avoiding unnecessary tensions with the
local population, these soldiers were settled on newly-reclaimed lands in the
Arsinoite nome16 located in the geographic depression of the Fayum, and
in neighboring nomes. Among these new immigrants, the Judeans and the
Thracians constituted the most prominent non-Greek ethnic groups, being
both numerous enough to form several ethnically homogeneous settlements
each.17 Given their parallel situation as non-Greek foreigners, and in particu-
lar their parallel use of easily identifiable epichoric names, the Thracians pro-
vide a convenient point of comparison with the Judeans.18 A few additional
communities that drew their personal names from easily identifiable stocks,
16 In Egypt a nome was an administrative district.

17 For ethnic labels, see Łada, Foreign Ehtnics, 87–104 and 106–15. On the Thracians in
Ptolemaic Egypt see now D. Dana, “Les Thraces dans les armées hellénistiques: essai
d’‘histoire par les noms’,” in Pratiques et identités culturelles des armées hellénistiques du
monde méditerranéen (ed. J.-Ch. Couvenhes, S. Crouzet and S. Péré-Noguès; Bordeaux:
Ausonius and Paris: De Boccard, 2011), 87–115. On Judean names, see S. Honigman,
“Abraham in Egypt: Hebrew and Jewish-Aramaic Names in Egypt and Judaea in Hellenistic
and Early Roman Times,” ZPE 146 (2004): 279–97.
18 Łada’s list of individuals bearing the ethnikon Thrax includes a fair proportion of persons
who also bore Thracian personal names and patronymics. See C. Łada, Foreign Ethnics,
87–104. See also the older lists in F. Uebel, Die Kleruchen Ägyptens unter den ersten Sechs
Ptolemäern (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968). For the precise geographical origin of these
names, see Dana, “Les Thraces dans les armées hellénistiques.” On the Thracians in
Egypt, see also the valuable comments by S. Wackenier, Recherches sur l’administration
du nome Héracléopolite au temps des rois Lagides (Thèse de doctorat en Histoire soutenue
à l’Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2009), 138–40. On Thracians in the army,
see Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt, 91, and passim. Older studies
on the Thracians in Egypt include K. Goudriaan, “Ethnical Strategies in Graeco-Roman
Egypt,” in Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt (ed. P. Bilde et al.; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press,
1992), 74–99; and J. Bingen, “The Thracians in Ptolemaic Egypt,” in idem., Hellenistic
Egypt. Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture (edited with an introduction by R. S. Bagnall;
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007 [orig. 1983]), 83–93.
36 Honigman
such as the Idumeans of Memphis and Hermupolis Magna and Greeks speak-
ing the Dorian dialect (namely, the Cyreneans), may widen our corpus of
comparison.19 Furthermore, in order to fully understand the behavior of the
Judeans of Ptolemaic Egypt in name-giving, we also need to compare it with
the praxis of name-giving documented in Judea in Hellenistic times.20
The resulting picture is nuanced. In some respects, the onomastic practice
of the Judeans of Egypt was similar to that of the other groups. Firstly, the
frequent clustering of epichoric names in the documents attests that a high
proportion of immigrants, including ethnic Greeks, lived in ethnically homo-
geneous settlements.21 Secondly, the occurrences of epichoric names drasti-
cally declined from roughly the late third century BCE on, as these names gave
way to a stock of common Greek personal names among which dynastic names
and theophoric names invoking local deities were particularly prominent. As
Dorothy Thompson demonstrated in her study of the politeumata of Idumeans
in Memphis, this shift from epichoric to Greek names occurred over three gen-
erations, and the Greek names adopted were not chosen at random. Thus, she
points to the unusual popularity, alongside dynastic names, of theophoric
names referring to Apollo (such as Apollodoros) among these Idumeans of the
second and third generation, and concluded that Apollo was the Greek deity
with whom they assimilated the ancestral Idumean god Qos.22 In settlements
of Judeans, as well, one finds both an overwhelming switch to Greek names
over three generations and the privileged selection of Greek names equiva-
lent to epichoric ones. This is well represented in the onomastic praxis of the
Judean colony in the Maron quarter of the village of Trikomia in the Arsinoite
19 On the Idumeans, see D. J. Thompson Crawford, “The Idumaeans of Memphis and the
Ptolemaic Politeumata,” in Atti del XVII congresso Internazionale di Papirologia (Naples:
Centro internazionale per lo studio dei papyri ercolanesi, 1984), 1069–75; eadem,
Memphis under the Ptolemies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 79–80.
On names in the Dorian dialect in Ptolemaic papyri, see W. Clarysse, “Ethnic Diversity
and Dialect among the Greeks of Hellenistic Egypt,” in The Two Faces of Graeco-Roman
Egypt: Greek and Demotic and Greek-Demotic Texts and Studies presented to P. W. Pestman
(ed. A. M. F. W. Verhoogt and S. P. Vleeming; Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill, 1998), 1–13.
20 This comparison is based on T. Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity. Part I.
Palestine 330 BCE–200 CE (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002).
21 Clarysse, “Ethnic Diversity and Dialect,” studies a settlement of (Dorian-speaking)
Cyreneans in the Oxyrhinchite nome.
22 See Thompson Crawford, “The Idumeans.” The use of theophoric equivalents is well docu-
mented among Egyptians too.
nome during the mid-third century.23 Similarly, the Judeans documented in

the archive of the politeuma of the Judeans in Herakleopolis—either as mem-
bers of the politeuma, or simply as petitioners—bore Greek names in an over-
whelming proportion.24
That said, epichoric names did not disappear altogether. Two ethnic groups
descended from immigrants, in particular, retained some ethnically signifi-
cant names well after the third generation: these were the Judeans and the
Thracians. Hebrew names keep on surfacing in the papyri not only through-
out Ptolemaic times, but into Roman times up to the last generation that was
wiped out in the revolt of 115–117 CE,25 and a similar residual persistence of
Thracian names is attested in the sources down to Roman times.26 The parallel
case of the Thracians compels us to look for an explanation that may be suit-
able for both ethnic groups. The geographical location of (some of) the bearers
of Thracian names in the second and first centuries BCE points to the combi-
nation of demographic number and stable settlement as a decisive factor.
An important colony of Thracian cleruchs (military settlers) belonging to
various military units—of private (idiotai), infantrymen and cavalrymen—
lived in several villages that formed a large continuous area extending over
three nomes, the southern part of the Arsinoite, the southern Memphite, and
the northern Herakleopolite.27 This colony, which descended from veterans of
23 P. Count I, 26, cols. vii–xi, ll. 109–99, a tax roll dating to 254–231 BCE. See W. Clarysse,
“Jews in Trikomia,” in Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists,
Copenhagen 1992 (ed. A. Bülow-Jacobsen; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press,
1994), 193–203, with Honigman, “Abraham in Egypt,” 290. The Greek names of the third
generation display a typically high proportion of theophoric names including the compo-
nent theos, like Dositheos.
24 The index of personal names in J. M. S. Cowey and K. Maresch eds., Urkunden des Politeuma
der Juden von Heracleopolis (144/3–133/2 v. Chr.) (P. Polit. Iud.), (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher
Verlag, 2001), 155–56, has two bearers of Hebrew names only—one Iakoubis and one Iōna.
25 S. Honigman, “Abraham in Egypt”; eadem, “Les Juifs dans la société de l’Égypte romaine
au croisement des sources documentaires et littéraires,” in Reading New Testament Papyri
in Context (ed. C. Clivaz and J. Zumstein; Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 139–41. Admittedly not all
the Judean communities documented in the second and first centuries BCE descended
from groups that had settled in Egypt in early Ptolemaic times, but continued immigra-
tion is not the sole factor explaining this protracted visibility, and possibly not even the
main one. See below.
26 See D. Dana, “Thraces,” 91–92.
27 S. Wackenier, Recherches sur l’administration du nome Héracléopolite, 138–40, quot-
ing W. Clarysse, “Philadelphia and the Memphites in the Zenon Archive,” in Studies on
Ptolemaic Memphis (eds. D. J. Crawford, J. Quaegebeur, and W. Clarysse; Studia Hellenistica
24; Leuven 1980), 99.
38 Honigman
Alexander the Great’s army settled in Egypt by Ptolemy Soter, is documented

by papyri spanning the time from the first half of the third century BCE to
the mid-first century BCE.28 Although the overwhelming proportion of men
belonging to this colony bore Greek and Macedonian names, three Thracian
names—two as personal names, and one as a patronymic associated with
one of the latter—appear in a contract of lease dating in the mid-second cen-
tury BCE. The two contractors and all six witnesses were Thracian cleruchs
affiliated to various military units, and the context of the transaction suggests
close social links between all eight men.29 Although the number of epichoric
names is limited in absolute terms, the fact that they surface after one and a
half centuries of continued settlement in Egypt is remarkable.
Were we to consider the data from purely quantitative angle, the residual
use of ancestral names in this demographically important and geographically
stable Thracian colony might indeed have forced on us the conclusion that
the onomastic behavior of the Judeans in Ptolemaic Egypt was unexceptional,
simply resulting from their stable settlement in close-knit communities. Yet,
the specific corpus of Hebrew names documented in the Ptolemaic papyri
points to a qualitative difference with respect to Thracian ones. The names
favored by Egyptian Judeans were distinct from those in use in Judea both in
early Hellenistic times—the time when the ancestors of most of the Judeans
who lived in the Fayum arrived in Egypt—and in subsequent Hellenistic times.
The difference is marked enough to support the claim that the Hebrew names
borne by Egyptian Judeans were not merely a heritage from the generation of
immigrants, but were identity markers created in Egypt. Three features point
to this conclusion: first, the most popular name by far was Sabbataios—a name
widely in use here but scarce in Judea itself. The meaning of this name evi-
dences that the Judeans of Egypt were keen to advertise their devotion to the
Sabbath day. Secondly, the names of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob are relatively well represented in the extant corpus of Egyptian
papyri; whereas again they were far less fashionable in the Judean homeland.
Alongside the Sabbath, the Judeans of Egypt used their (so to speak) his-
torical tradition to shape their collective identity. This tradition was either
28 On the origin of the Thracians settled in Ptolemaic Egypt, see Dana, “Thraces,” 94–97. On
their continued documentation, see S. Wackenier, ibid.
29 BGU XIV 2390, of 160/159 BCE, from the Herakleopolite nome. See Łada, Foreign
Ethnics, nos. E703 and E730 (name and patronymics), and E792. Moreover, according
to Dan Dana, given that these Thracians originally came from Western Macedonia, the
Macedonian names found among them should also be considered as epichoric. See Dana,
“Thraces,” 94–97.
transmitted orally within the communities, or had possibly been reactivated

by some form of reading or of study of the Pentateuch in its Greek transla-
tion. Moreover, it is not impossible that the Judeans of Egypt started using
these names at the time when Homeric names such as Menelaos and Achilles
became fashionable in Egypt.30 If there was indeed a correlation between these
two trends, this could mean that, in adopting the names of their patriarchs, the
Judeans knowingly sought to imitate the new taste for Homeric names that
seized Ptolemaic society, and did so in a competitive mood. Thirdly, another
highly popular name among Egyptian Judeans was Joseph. In view of the (more
modest) popularity of the names of the patriarchs just mentioned, we cannot
help but assume that the families who gave this name to their sons knowingly
referred to the biblical character who in the distant past had succeeded in the
service of Pharaoh in Egypt.31
To conclude: it appears that to some extent at least, the Judeans of Egypt
knowingly used personal names as identity markers, proudly referring either
to the Sabbath day or to the Hebrew patriarchs of the Pentateuch. At the same
time, the (to some extent) parallel residual survival of Thracian names sug-
gests that the cultic and cultural specificity of the Judeans of itself falls short of
explaining this behavior: stable settlement, ensuring both the continued exis-
tence of close-knit communities and the transmission of a collective identity,
was an indispensable prerequisite. The evidence relating to cultic institutions
corroborates this conclusion.
3 Cultic Institutions: Judean Proseuchai and Shrines of Non-Greek

Deities
The notion that stability of settlement was a decisive factor in the preservation
of close-knit communities and the survival of ancestral rites may be illustrated
by several case studies. First, this pattern is precisely that of Egyptian village
communities. These frequently developed epichoric names, specific to either
30 See P. Mich. 3.182, a contract of Philadelphia in the Fayum, of 182 BCE, republished
in Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt. A Sourcebook (ed. J. Rowlandson;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 224–25, no. 164. One Thymos, son of
Megakles, a Macedonian of the ancestry, together with three other men having Greek and
Egyptian names, made an arrangement about payment on behalf of one Eirene, daughter
of Orpheus, a Macedonian. I thank Anne-Emmanuelle Veïsse for pointing this papyrus
to me. Stéphanie Wackenier suggested that Homeric names were particularly favored by
Egyptians who adopted Greek names. (Personal communications, December 2014).
31 For a detailed comparison between the onomastic stocks of Hebrew names in Judea
and Egypt respectively, see Honigman, “Abraham in Egypt,” and “Juifs dans la société de
l’Égypte romaine,” 139–41.
40 Honigman
one village or one district and linked to local cults, remained in use over time.
Secondly, a few cases of preservation of non-Greek foreign cults and rites down
the centuries are documented as well.
Two temples dedicated to the Thracian rider god Heros were built in the
Fayum, and were related with the above-mentioned Thracian colony. There
is positive evidence that the temple located in the village of Magdola was
associated with military cavalrymen and although it is first documented by
an inscription of circa 118 BCE, its construction was earlier. The cult of Heros
continued into the Roman period, although by this time Heros had become
Sarapis’s synnaos, that is, a secondary deity in the temple.32 A temple of
Astarte located in a “village of Syrians” (Syrōn Kōmē) whose original inhabit-
ants in Ptolemaic times were indeed Syrians was still active in the late sec-
ond century BCE.33 The perpetuation of an Idumean cult in Hermupolis is
even more striking. Thanks to two inscriptions of 80/79 and 78 BCE we know
that a politeuma of Idumeans was stationed in this city at the time, and we
may presume that—like the members of the Idumean politeuma of Memphis
three decades earlier—they had built a temple to Apollo, with whom these
Idumeans identified their ancestral chief-god Qos.34 A papyrus of the second
century CE shows that by this time a cultic association linked to this temple
continued celebrating rites and sacrifices that were alien to the Greek cultic
praxis, while they are familiar to us from Semitic cults, and moreover these
rites were performed in a “foreign (that is, non-Greek) language.”35 In spite of
the fact that no Idumean personal name is documented in the papyri of this
region at such a late date, we may presume that the members of this cultic
association included descendants of the old Idumean military settlement.
An official report from a strategos (military official) of the Herakleopolite
nome to the dioiketes (financial official) mentions “those who do not have
32 See M. Launey, Recherches sur les armées hellénistiques (Reprint with addenda and update
by Y. Garlan, Ph. Gauthier, and C. Orrieux; 2 vols.; Paris: de Boccard, 1987), 2:959–61,
965–66.
33 SB XXII.15539, of the late second or early third century BCE. See W. Clarysse, “Souchos and
Astarte in Syron Kome,” ZPE 140 (2002): 201–2. P. Tebt. III.933.13, of Ptolemaic times, men-
tions one Syrian woman who lived in this village.
34 É. Bernand, Inscriptions grecques d’Hermoupolis et de sa nécropole (Cairo: IFAO,
1999), nos. 5 and 6. On the Idumean politeuma of Memphis, see Thompson Crawford,
“Idumaeans.” We have evidence that two other politeumata, one of Cilicians and one of
Boeotians, had their own sanctuaries, and that a Phrygian politeuma had its own priest.
On this basis we may reasonably assume that all of them had their own sanctuaries. For
the evidence, see Sänger, “Politeuma,” 57.
35 P. Giss. 99.8–18. See Thompson Crawford, “Idumeans,” 1070–1.
the same rites as ours”.36 In all likelihood, this refers to Judeans who seem to
have been numerous in this nome. A politeuma of Judeans was located in the
harbor of this nome, close to its urban capital, and several village communi-
ties of Judeans are further documented. However, in light of the comparative
evidence just discussed, neither the performance of ancestral, non-Greek and
non-Egyptian rites, nor the response to it by outsiders, were per se remarkable.
Therefore, the correct assessment of the religious specificity of the Judeans
requires a more refined level of analysis. A noteworthy detail was their use of
a special word to name their cultic places: proseuchē, or “house of prayer.” This
word, which is found in literary sources (e.g., Philo, In Flaccum 41–53), is further
documented in several inscriptions of Hellenistic times, confirming that it was
shared by several, and most possibly all the Judean community settlements.37
Although two inscriptions in which proseuchai are associated with unusual
divine titles cast doubts on the prevalent view that the term of proseuchē
was exclusively used by Judeans, we may definitely accept that it was primar-
ily used by them, and possibly coined by them in the first place.38 Therefore,
this term may be held as a genuine identity marker that the Judeans of Egypt
knowingly—and proudly—used to emphasize their cultic distinctness.
Additional details seemingly point in the same way. A group of twenty
funerary steles excavated from a necropolis of the Herakleopolite nome, and
contemporary with the politeuma of the Judeans stationed nearby, has been
identified as belonging to Judeans, since the personal names of the deceased
displayed an unusually high proportion of Greek names favored by Judeans.39
One of the deceased women was qualified as philosemnos (in the vocative,
“you who love the veneration of the divine”), and, as noted by the editors, this
attributive adjective—which is a hapax legomenon—may have knowingly
referred to the ritual practice of these Judeans.
36 BGU VIII.1764.12.

37 JIGRE nos. 9, 13, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 116, 117, 125, and 126, ranging from the reign of Ptolemy III
(246–21) to the first century BCE.
38 JIGRE 13 (theos megalos epikoos), 37 BCE, from an Alexandrian necropolis; and JIGRE 116
(theos megas megas hypsistos), of 29 BCE, of unknown provenance. Whereas the divine
epithet epikoos is not attested elsewhere in a Judean cultic context it was very com-
mon in Syrian cults. Megas megas to the very least points to an Egyptian influence. See
Honigman, “Juifs,” 157–59.
39 A. G. Abd el-Fatah and G. Wagner, “Épitaphes grecques d’époque ptolémaïque de Sedment
el-Gebel (IIe–Ier siècles),” CRIPEL 19 (1998): 85–96. The steles date to between 140 and
80 BCE. In light of the onomastic profile of the Judeans who either were members of the
politeuma or sent petitions to their officials, the identification of these deceased persons
as Judeans is definitely plausible.
42 Honigman
Finally, based on the dates documented in the corresponding fiscal receipts

on ostraca, it was surmised that between 71 and 117 CE the Jews of Upper Egypt
avoided paying the special tax to the fiscus Iudaicus that was levied on them
(see below) on Sabbath days.40
4 The Politeuma of Judeans in Herakleopolis

We must admit that altogether these data are not particularly impressive, and
were it not for the horizon of expectation that conditions us into thinking of
the Jews as different from others, we might well have missed the significance
of these particulars. Therefore, the picture we had of the Egyptian Judeans was
dramatically modified by the publication in 2001 of an archive of twenty papyri
relating to “the politeuma of the Judeans in Herakleopolis.”41 The papyri were
dated between the 27th and the 38th year of an unknown reign, most prob-
ably that of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, that is, 144/3–133/2 BCE. Sixteen of the
documents (nos. 1–16) are complaints about violations of clauses of contracts,
in which the petitioner asks the archontes to enforce his or her rights, and four
(nos. 17–20) are items of correspondence between presbyteroi (Elders), that
is, village officials of local Jewish communities around Herakleopolis, and the
archontes of the politeuma in Herakleopolis.
The nature of the Ptolemaic politeumata remains debated, and given that
this controversy affects the question of whether the Judeans were a minority in
Ptolemaic Egypt, this issue will be dealt with in greater detail in section II below.
Suffice it to say here that the institution of the politeuma was an innovation of
the early years of Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145 BCE), within the Ptolemaic
army of Egypt.42 As Dorothy Thompson recently argued, it was a response to
the specific military needs of the dynasty in the second century BCE. Since the
time of Ptolemy Soter, the Ptolemies had secured the loyalty of their troops by
settling them on individual plots of lands, a policy made possible by wide-scale
land-reclamations. Faced with the need for new troops to ensure the defense
of the country against endemic threats of popular revolts, at a time when avail-
able lands were becoming too scarce to constitute an attractive incitement to
40 See W. Clarysse, S. Remijsen, and M. Depauw. “Observing the Sabbath in the Roman
Empire: A Case Study,” SCI 29 (2010): 51–57. The authors suggest that the tax was levied by
collectors who themselves were Jews.
41 The original publication is Cowey and Maresch, Urkunden des Politeuma. Hereafter cited
as P. Polit. Iud.
42 Politeumata are documented at an earlier date, albeit in the Ptolemaic empire and not in
Egypt. See C. Zuckerman, “Hellenistic Politeumata and the Jews: A Reconsideration,” SCI
8/9 (1985–1988): 174–75.
loyalty, Ptolemy VI devised the institution of the politeuma—or acclimated it

in Egypt. This institution substituted the traditional royal policy of land grants
with a far greater degree of internal autonomy than that enjoyed by regular
military units.43
Most of the politeumata attested in Ptolemaic Egypt were composed of eth-
nically homogeneous groups of recent immigration, and in some documented
cases civilians of the same ethnic group accompanied the members of the mil-
itary politeuma. The archives of the politeuma of the Judeans in Herakleopolis
cast light on some aspects of its internal life. Furthermore, as far as the legal
powers of its leading officials are concerned, they may be complemented with
the parallel archives of the phrourarchos Dioskourides who headed the gar-
rison that was stationed in the fortress of the harbor, and related to the years
154–145 BCE (P. Phrour. Diosk.).
In the second century BCE new, more efficient legal procedures developed
in Egypt. Rather than sending complaints to the king through the strategos—
the chief official of their nome of residence—in order to request the king
to command the relevant officials to process their petitions, plaintiffs sent
them directly to these officials. Endowed with the necessary authority and
coercive power (archē) through royal delegation, these officials dealt with
the requests that required administrative steps, whereas those requiring a
legal decision were transmitted to the local court.44 According to Stéphanie
Wackenier, who refined Hans Wolff’s pioneering study of this “administrative
justice,” the new evidence from the Herakleopolite nome—the two archives
of the phrourarchos (the head of the garrison), the politarches (head of the
politeuma) and the archontes (chief officials) of the politeuma—show that
every individual in Egypt with a particular status (e.g., policemen and mem-
bers of politeumata) took advantage of the system to advance his or her deal-
ings with the state institutions. Conversely, alongside royal officials, all persons
who enjoyed prominent positions could be addressed by their subordinates
for support in proceeding their requests.45 Thus, both the phrourarchos on the
one hand, and the politarches and the archontes of the politeuma on the other
received requests, which they either handled themselves or addressed further
to the competent authorities.
In addition—and this is the aspect of Wackenier’s discussion most relevant
to our present concern—given that these procedures were to some extent
43 Thompson, “Ethnic Minorities,” 109–10.

44 The operation of this justice of administrative officials (“Beamtenjustiz”) was studied by
H. J. Wolff, Das Justizwesen der Ptolemäer (Munich: Beck, 1971), 113–93.
45 Wackenier, Recherches sur l’administration du nome Héracléopolite, 223–24.
44 Honigman
informal, the plaintiffs could choose which of the various officials and promi-
nent men to whom they might have a privileged access they wished to send
their requests for intervention. The choice between the phrourarchos and the
politeuma officials was conditioned by ethnic self-affiliation: the Judeans who
lived in the region—and not only members of the politeuma and their kin-
spersons—sent their petitions to the heads of the politeuma, including when
the defendants were not Judeans. Persons who lived in the harbor area and
were not Judeans—and not only members of the garrison—applied to the
phrourarchos.46 In light of Wackenier’s comments, applications to the heads of
the politeuma may be seen as acts of fully assumed ethnic self-ascription, and
not as the consequence of a dictate from above.
This conclusion is all the more interesting since the legal principles that
were followed both by the heads of the politeuma and the plaintiffs were
indeed peculiar—implying that, in order to write their requests, the plaintiffs
needed the specific assistance of the scribes of the politeuma, who had the ade-
quate legal training. For our argument, the legal content of the archives may
be divided into two categories: family matters, and business transactions. As
far as business matters were concerned, the Judeans who applied to the heads
of the politeuma, including its members, followed Ptolemaic law. However, the
transactions, or at least some of them, were supported by a written oath, and in
two complaints (P. Polit. Iud. 9 and 12) a “letter of the ancestral oath” was pro-
duced alongside the legal contract that formalized the transaction to support
the plaintiff’s claims.47 In family matters, the legal praxis of these Judeans was
definitely not Greek. Despite some idiosyncratic aspects, P. Polit. Iud. 4 (a com-
plaint about the breaking of a betrothal) points to traditional Judean law, and
46 Wackenier, ibid., 212–24. Wackenier not only considers the archives of the politeuma and
those of the phrourarchos together, but she reconstructs the legal and administrative con-
text in a far more nuanced way than Hans Julius Wolff, who in the custom of his time
followed a rigid, strictly legalistic vision of the Ptolemaic state institutions. Therefore, in
my view Wackenier’s discussion should replace earlier comments on the legal powers of
the heads of the politeuma—including my own. For older discussions, see in particular
S. Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003):
61–102; and T. Kruse, “Das jüdische Politeuma von Herakleopolis in Ägypten. Zur Methode
der Integration ethnischer Gruppen in den Staat der Ptolemäer,” in Volk und Demokratie
im Altertum (ed. V. V. Dementyeva, and T. Schmitt; Göttingen: Ruprecht, 2010), 93–105.
47 See Honigman, “Jewish Politeumata in Hellenistic Egypt”, SCI 21 (2002): 251–66 (review of
P.Polit. Iud.); eadem, “Jewish Communities of Hellenistic Egypt: Diverging Responses to a
Varying Socio-Cultural Environment,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity. Studies in Memory
of Menahem Stern (ed. L. I. Levine, and D. R. Schwartz; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 129.
scholars have pointed to similarities between the legal vocabulary and phrases
employed in it and the Septuagint and the New Testament.48
5 Conclusion: The Factors that Shaped Judean Communal Identity

in Ptolemaic Egypt
The overwhelming majority of the Judeans documented in the archives of the
Herakleopolis politeuma bore Greek names. This detail combined with the fact
that the contracts of business matters they agreed upon followed contempo-
rary Ptolemaic praxis points to a complex construction of identity, which is
in line with the nuanced constructivist apprehension of this process. On the
one hand, the documentary evidence yields various elements by means of
which the Judeans of Egypt constructed and maintained their distinct com-
munal identity. These include Hebrew personal names pointing to the venera-
tion of the Sabbath day and to a privileged relation with the patriarchs of the
Judean tradition, Greek personal names referring to their deity as “theos,” and
largely avoiding references to Greek and Egyptian deities. In addition, the idio-
syncratic naming of their communal cultic places, the proseuchai, emphases
their cultic distinctness, and the coining of new words (such as philosemnos) to
describe their own piety. Finally, the use of distinct family law in Herakleopolis
in the second century, and possibly elsewhere.49
At the same time, this list never formed a coherent whole: as the archives
of the politeuma show, Judeans could have inconspicuous Greek names, make
48 See the diverging commentaries by J. Mélèze Modrzejewski, “La fiancée adultère. A
propos de la pratique matrimoniale du judaïsme hellénisé à la lumière du dossier du
politeuma juif d’Hérakléopolis (144/3–133/2 avant n.è.),” in Transferts culturels et politique
dans le monde hellénistique. Actes de la table ronde sur les identités collectives (Sorbonne,
7 février 2004) (J.-Ch. Couvenhes and B. Legras; Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne), 103–20,
esp. 14; M. Kister, “From Philotas to Hillel: ‘Betrothal’ Contracts and their Violation,” SCI 21
(2002): 57–60; and R. A. Kugler, “Dispelling an Illusion of Otherness? Juridical Practice in
the Heracleopolis Papyri,” in The “Other” in Second Temple Judaism: Essays in Honor of John
J. Collins (ed. D. C. Harlow et al.; Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, UK, 2011), 457–70.
49 P. Ent. 23 (= CPJ I 128), of 218 BCE, shows one Helladotē (whose ethnic label is unknown,
owing to a lacuna in the document) lodging a complaint against her Judean husband
Ionathas in a Greek court, apparently petitioning for a divorce and the return of her
dowry. According to Hans Julius Wolff’s conjecture on the missing data, Helladotē claims
to have been married to Ionathas “according to the ‘civic law’ of the Judeans” (ll. 2–3). See
H. J. Wolff, Plurality of Laws in Ptolemaic Egypt, RIDA, 3rd series, 7 (1960), 215, n. 63; idem,
Das Recht der griechischen Papyri Ägyptens in der Zeit der Ptolemäer und des Prinzipats,
vol. 1. Bedingungen und Triebkräfte der Rechtsentwicklung (ed. H.-A. Rupprecht; Munich:
C. H. Beck, 2002), 55.
46 Honigman
contractual agreements according to Ptolemaic law, and yet have an acute

communal identity, which they manifested by applying to the politeuma offi-
cials rather than to the phrourarchos. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of
these “invisible” Judeans go undetected to modern scholars in the papyri. Yet,
the evidence supports the conclusion that despite local and personal varia-
tions, it is justified to speak of a single Judean communal identity in Ptolemaic
Egypt. The common use of the word proseuchai and of the names of the patri-
archs, for instance, is evidence that the various Judean settlements were either
aware of each other, or at least shared the same models of self-expression.
While my list of individual elements used by the Judeans of Ptolemaic Egypt
as identity markers could certainly be extended, it is perhaps more pertinent
here to dwell on the structural factors that created the conditions for a Judean
communal identity to exist in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Ptolemaic institution of
the politeuma long fostered the view that the Judean communities of Egypt
enjoyed state support, implying that this was the main reason why they pre-
served their separate identity, and this view is still advocated in recent studies.50
However, although the politeumata were unquestionably official institu-
tions supported by the king—after all, they were military units—in my view
the claim that state support and/or the formal organization in autonomous
politeumata were decisive in the preservation of the Judean communal iden-
tity in Egypt is overstated. There are no grounds to believe that the Thracian vil-
lages of the Arsinoite, the Herakeopolite and the Memphite nomes that formed
a single settlement were ever organized as a politeuma. As it was argued above
this colony originated in Ptolemy Soter’s days and had benefited from gener-
ous land allotments, whereas the institution of the politeuma was created at
a much later date to compensate for the lack of lands. Nevertheless, they sur-
vived as a close-knit community that continued using epichoric names—if
only in a residual way—and revering its ancestral gods—even if the Thracian
rider god eventually ceded the prime of place to Sarapis. Moreover, it is a ques-
tion whether politeumata continued enjoying state support after the fall of the
Ptolemaic dynasty. Under Roman rule, they lost their military function, pri-
marily surviving as cultic institutions, although as we shall see in section III
below the politeuma of the Judeans in Alexandria retained communal insti-
tutions that point to wider social functions. And yet, there are positive hints
that forms of Judean communal life and communal identity continued to exist
in various places of Egypt, such as the Fayum and Edfu in Upper Egypt, not
50
For a cautious wording of this position, see Kruse, “Das jüdische Politeuma von
Herakleopolis;” for a more extreme one, Sänger, “Politeuma.” In contrast, Thompson,
“Ethnic Minorities,” refrains from endorsing this position.
to mention Alexandria.51 For these reasons—and more particularly based on

the comparative evidence relating to other ethnic groups—the most decisive
factor that conditioned the perpetuation of a Judean communal identity was,
in my view, the stable settlement of demographically sizable communities in
separate areas—either separate village or urban quarters.
Stable settlement was originally common to all foreign settlers, and in the
context of Ptolemaic society played a positive role in the survival of close-knit
Judean communities. However, this very element, which may have become a
distinct feature of behavior as compared to that of the other “Greeks,” was even-
tually to backfire. In a study originally published in 1973 Jean Bingen showed
that, whereas in the third century BCE the military settlers that were settled on
reclaimed lands by the first Ptolemies lived in villages close to their allotments,
by the end of the Ptolemaic period the social landscape had been reconfigured
into a quite different spatial hierarchy. The Greeks—that is, all persons who
held themselves as Greeks, irrespective of how modern scholars might wish
to classify them—had moved to the urban centers of the nomes, whereas the
villages were peopled with Egyptians. Persons who either held themselves or
were held by others as Egyptians cultivated the lands owned by the Greek set-
tlers of the cities, and which they sub-leased.52
We may speculate that the ethnic groups that were organized as politeumata,
and similarly other Judean communities that had developed a lively communal
life around their proseuchai, remained in their villages, in contrast with most
other Greeks. Following the Roman conquest, when the imperial authorities
used this spatial division between Greek urban centers and Egyptian villages
as a basis for reshuffling the social and fiscal categories of the province’s popu-
lation, the Judeans happened to be on the wrong side of the divide. However,
before we turn to Roman times one crucial issue requires examination: to
which extent, and in what sense, can we define the Judeans as a minority in
Ptolemaic Egypt.
51 For a detailed discussion, see Honigman, “Juifs.” The Judean community of Edfu
descended from an Aramaic-speaking military colony that arrived in Egypt under the
Persians. Given that the foreigners who had arrived in Egypt before Alexander seem to
have behaved differently from those arrived in early Ptolemaic times I leave this colony
outside my present discussion. See S. Honigman, “Noms sémitiques à Edfou et Thèbes,”
Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrology 40 (2003): 63–118; and Thompson, “Ethnic
Minorities.”
52 J. Bingen, “Greek Presence and the Ptolemaic Rural Setting,” in idem., Hellenistic Egypt.
Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture, 104–13.
48 Honigman
II The Notion of Ethnic Minority in Ptolemaic Times
1 Legal Definitions: Hellenes vs. Egyptians

As noted in section I.2 above, the mention of one’s ethnikon in certain types
of official documents in Ptolemaic times was an administrative requirement,
which was linked to the fact that these ethnika indicated not only actual ethnic-
ity, but also occupational and fiscal categories. When these two aspects came
to be separated, there ensued situations that bewilder the modern reader. For
instance, as military units retained their original ethnika, soldiers who moved
from one unit to another had their personal ethnikon changed accordingly.
Similarly, the same person could declare different ethnika in different social
and administrative contexts simultaneously. For these reasons, modern schol-
ars routinely describe these ethnika of administrative use as fictive, and dis-
miss their validity for the study of ethnicity in Ptolemaic society.53 Thus, the
ethnic label of Hellenes is conventionally translated as “Hellenes” when it is
used in a papyrus to designate all foreigners as opposed to native Egyptians,
scholars reserving the term “Greeks” to refer to what they see as genuine eth-
nic Greeks, thereby casting an anachronistic and essentializing definition of
ethnic categories onto the Ptolemaic praxis. Because of this modern reluc-
tance to apprehend the Ptolemaic categories in their own terms, the actual
impact of the Ptolemaic administrative way of classifying the population—in
particular, the impact on the Judean immigrants of being labeled Hellenes—is
a blind spot in modern research.
A simple way to emend this distorting distinction between allegedly genu-
ine and fictive ethnic labels could be to use the notion of multiple identities.
However, in my view an even better means of making sense of the admittedly
bewildering Ptolemaic administrative mapping of ethnic categories is to start
from the way the ancient Greeks themselves constructed ethnic identity, and
which is sometimes described as nested ethnicity.54 This construction ideally
suited the disjunction between cultural unity and atomized political structures
53 This response, which is typically underpinned by the modern, essentialist view of eth-
nicity, is questionable. For instance, we may presume that a soldier transferred to a new
military unit automatically took part in its defining cults, which in some cases at least
must have included rites in honor of the ancestral deity of the ethnic group that gave the
unit its name. In this sense, the soldier’s assimilation in his new unit was not merely an
administrative step, but involved a genuine reshaping of his personal identity, including
certain ethnic markers such as ancestral cult, and possibly also aspects of behavior and
language.
54 For a definition, see Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, xiii. See further his description
of Greek ethnicity as aggregative, ibid., 34–51.
that characterized the Greek world. Whereas the ancient Greek opposition
between Greeks and Barbarians was a powerful symbolic construction that
informed the Greek imaginary but had no practical consequences in the con-
duct of daily-life business, in the Greek world the actual boundaries between
in-group and foreigners (xenoi) were primarily if not exclusively determined
by the political structures, that is, citizenship in specific poleis and ethnē. Not
only did Athenians and Spartans feel no particular mutual solidarity because
of their common Greekness, but the participation in cultic festivals was deter-
mined by the system of nested ethnicity. Athenians took part in Athenian
civic festivals, Ionians in Ionian festivals; it was only Panhellenic festivals that
brought together all communities and individuals that saw themselves as
Greeks (and were acknowledged as such by the other Greeks).
The Ptolemaic administrative practice was shaped by this Greek cultural
heritage. The concept of nested ethnicity can help us understand how, when
the need arose, the overarching category of the Hellenes was extended to
encompass all immigrants, including Thracians, Judeans, and other groups that
would have been excluded from this category in the old Greek world. As already
noted, the common basis for inclusion in this category was implicitly modified
to connote an origin outside Egypt, nor was it any hindrance that these various
groups did not share the same cultic rites. From a Greek viewpoint, Cretans and
Macedonians did not have the same cults as Boeotians either.
Alongside this symbolic aspect—a common origin outside Egypt—practi-
cal aspects ensured that the category of the Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt was a
homogeneous one. First, language. All members of this category used Greek as
their language of communication, at least outside their immediate social group.
More tellingly, the wide-scale adoption of Greek names, and more particularly
the popularity of dynastic names among these new Greeks, so to speak, hints
in my view to the genuine desire of these foreigners to be considered as Greeks.
The Judeans were no exception.55 Second, the Greeks enjoyed fiscal privileges.
Moreover, according to Dorothy Thompson there was a correlation between
the control of the Greek language and literacy on the one hand, and fiscal
privilege on the other, which also explains how native Egyptians were able to
make their way into the privileged category of the Greeks.56 This inclusion of
native Egyptians trained in Greek literacy shows that practical considerations
prevailed, and that, as generations passed, the originally critical distinction
55 Although the Judeans retained some Hebrew names, as I showed in section I above, it
remains that they too used Greek names in an overwhelming proportion.
56 See Thompson, “Hellenistic Hellenes,” and Clarysse and Thompson, Counting the People,
2:138–47, especially 145.
50 Honigman
between descendants of immigrants and native Egyptians ceased to be rele-

vant. At the same time, the inclusion of “new Greeks” and Egyptians does not
justify the view endorsed by most scholars that Greekness in Hellenistic times
lost its ethnic nature and was founded on culture.57 First, as I argued above, this
view is underpinned by an essentialist definition of ethnicity, and moreover, it
artificially emphasizes one aspect—language—while ignoring others—such
as fiscal privilege and occupation—which point to status. Therefore, a far more
adequate description for this situation is one of multiple identities, including
multiple ethnic identities.
The third practical aspect was occupation. The Greeks were those who in
one way or another were at the service of the king, either as soldiers or civil
officials.58 Altogether, as we see, being Greek in Ptolemaic Egypt was a privi-
leged social status. The Greeks formed the imperial minority that was tied to
the king, shared his Greek culture and served his interests.
Documentary evidence and arguably also literary works provide clues that
the legal definition of ethnic categories enforced by the Ptolemaic administra-
tion influenced the self-perception of the sub-ethnic groups that made up the
Greeks, including the Judeans. Two sets of reasons may explain this correlation
between administrative and self-ascription. On the one hand, the structure of
nested ethnicity meant that each sub-group could preserve its separate iden-
tity while at the same time belonging to the Greeks, and on the other hand,
these legal categories defined social statuses, and in this way had practical
bearings on virtually all aspects of the life of individuals and groups.
In Ptolemaic Egypt, the Judeans formed a sub-group within the overarching
category of the Greeks. They were part of the privileged minority of foreigners
who served the king, and we have every reasons to believe that they perceived
themselves as an empowered group—or rather, as empowered groups. When
we consider their status within the category of the Greeks, we indeed need to
distinguish between the various groups and their respective occupations and
activities.
57 For a recent restatement of this view, see J. M. Hall, Hellenicity between Ethnicity and
Culture (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 220–26.
58 To a large extent the requirement to have access to the Greek language and—in the case
of administrative officials—Greek literacy may be seen as the natural corollary to this
basic definition. See Thompson, “Hellenistic Hellenes,” and Clarysse and Thompson,
Counting the People, 2:138–47.
2 The Military Settlers of the Chora in Ptolemaic Egypt

It seems that the majority of the Judeans who arrived in Egypt in the late
fourth and the third centuries BCE and settled in the chora as homogeneous
communities, were military settlers. We may note in passing that the colony
of Judeans that lived in the quarter of Maron in the village of Trikomia in the
Fayum in the mid-third century BCE was listed under the general heading of
Hellenes. Their actual ethnic identity is only disclosed by the high proportion
of Hebrew names and Greek names that could easily translate Hebrew names
they displayed (P. Count. I 26, cols vii–ix).59 Their designation as Greeks in this
papyrus is specifically related to its nature: a tax roll. Papyri of the early second
century BCE document the presence of military settlers who bore the ethnikon
of Ioudaioi (Judeans) in Trikomia, and the two sets of documents in all likeli-
hood referred to the same settlement, illustrating a typical case of multiple
designation.60
3 The Judean Elite of Alexandria According to the Letter of Aristeas

The Letter of Aristeas documents a quite different social milieu, the well-edu-
cated members of the Judean elite of Alexandria. A statement found in this
work has erroneously been taken to epitomize the situation of the Judeans
who lived around the Mediterranean basin in Hellenistic and Roman times
as minority groups living in close-knit communities that secluded themselves
from their “pagan” social environment so as to preserve their dietary laws and
monotheistic belief:61
Therefore the lawgiver, who was wise, contemplated each matter, being
prepared by God for knowledge of all things, and he fenced us around
with unbroken palisades and with iron walls so that we might not inter-
mingle at all with any other nations, being pure in both body and soul,
having been set free from vain opinions, revering the only and powerful
God above all of the entire creation (Ar 139).62
59 See above, n. 23.

60 See Clarysse and Thompson, Counting the People, 2:147–48.
61 See e.g. J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan
(323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), 437.
62 Translation by B. G. Wright III, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘on the
Translation of the Law of the Jews’ (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 257.
52 Honigman
As I have argued elsewhere, when this sentence is read in its original context
its intended message appears to be quite different. The “other peoples” from
whom the Judeans have fenced themselves off through their dietary laws turn
out to be Euhemerists and snake-worshippers—precisely the sort of people
all well-educated Greeks imbued with the conservative values of the standard
paideia would have avoided. Therefore, in the Letter of Aristeas at least, the
commandments of the Law the Judeans observed with regard to whom they
should or should not mingle with, ideally coincided with the social choices of
all well-educated Greek Alexandrians.63
In my view, if we wish to find an emblematic statement of how the author
of the Letter of Aristeas imagined the social and cultural position of the
Alexandrian Judeans, the following excerpt is far more pertinent than the pre-
vious one:
And the chief steward Nicanor, summoning Dorotheus who was

appointed over the translators, ordered that he complete the prepara-
tions in every particular. For thus the king established a practice that
you can see continuing even now. For however many cities have their
own customs for drink food and bedding, so many officials were assigned.
So things were prepared according to these customs whenever someone
might come before the king so that being disturbed by nothing, they
would pass the time cheerfully. This also occurred for these visitors.
(Ar 182).64
The message encapsulated in this quote may be paraphrased in the following

way: by fencing themselves off to remain pure, the Alexandrian Judeans by
no means set themselves apart. If they have their own customs (politeia), it
is only because this was true of every state (polis): the Athenians, Cyreneans,
Boeotians, Thracians, Tyrians, and all the other Greeks also had their dietary
and other customs scrupulously catered to by the royal seneschals attending
to the embassies at the Ptolemaic court. The ambassadors of every polis, be
they Judeans or Cyreneans, could perfectly adhere to their politeia while still
belonging to the community of the Greeks.
63 S. Honigman, “ ‘Jews as the Best of All Greeks’: Cultural Competition in the Literary
Works of Alexandrian Judaeans of Hellenistic Times,” in Shifting Social Imaginaries in the
Hellenistic Period: Narrations, Practices, and Images (ed. E. E. Stavrianopoulou; Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2013), 207–32, 207–8, and 219–20.
64 Translation by Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 314, modified.
When decontextualized, this statement—or my paraphrase of it—may seem

bewilderingly weird. On the contrary, when it is set in its original Ptolemaic
context, the statement makes perfect sense. Although the author’s description
of Ptolemaic court etiquette presumably lacks all factual basis, it transposes in
the court etiquette the structure of nested ethnicity that underlay the admin-
istrative definition of the Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt. If my interpretation of
this quote is correct, it means that the educated circles of the Alexandrian
Judeans appropriated the formal, state definition of their social status, and as
a consequence represented themselves in a way that was fully consistent with
it. Indeed, in the Letter of Aristeas the comparison between the law of the
Judeans and the values of Greek philosophy is implicitly depicted as a com-
petition between two groups basically belonging to the same culture—that is,
competition between insiders, and not opposition between separate groups.
The Judean law is depicted as embodying the values of Greek philosophy in an
ideal way, making the Judeans as the best of all Greeks.65
4 The Politeuma as a Means to Incorporate Ethnic Minorities in Egypt?

In a recent article Patrick Sänger contended that the politeuma served to inte-
grate “minority groups with a migrant background.” He lists as minority groups
“Thracians from the east of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as Jewish . . . immi-
grants,” as opposed to “the compatriots of the new masters, who belonged to
the Greek ethnic group from the Greek homeland, Macedonian or Asia Minor
(or alternatively from Greek town in other regions).”66 Given that Thracians
and Judeans had migrated to Egypt already under the first Ptolemies, Sänger
further argued that the politeuma existed in Egypt at an early stage of Ptolemaic
history, pointing to the politeumata of soldiers attested in Sidon in the late third
century BCE, that is, when Sidon was under Ptolemaic control.67 Although
these Sidonian politeumata had been known for quite a long time, scholars
usually emphasize the geographical and administrative distinction between
Egypt and the rest of the Ptolemaic empire, a distinction Sänger denied.68
65 For a detailed analysis, see Honigman, “Jews as the Best of All Greeks.”
66 Sänger, “Politeuma,” 51.
67 Sänger, ibid., 53, 61–62. For Dorothy Thompson’s view, see her “Idumeans,” and “Ethnic
Minorities.”
68 On the evidence from Sidon, see for instance Zuckerman, “Hellenistic Politeumata,”
174–75. Thompson, “Idumeans,” 1073–74, compares the politeumata of Egypt with the
koina of Ptolemaic mercenaries that were garrisoned in Cyprus, thereby buttressing her
claim that the scholarly “concentration on the political sense of the term politeuma”
(p. 1073) is misguided.
54 Honigman
Finally Sänger insists on the political function of the politeumata in Ptolemaic

Egypt, arguing that they were a means for the Ptolemaic government to “cop[e]
with the social challenges of its times and integrat[e] groups of people into the
administrative structure of the Ptolemaic Kingdom by means of semi-autono-
mous communities.”69
Several objections may be raised against Sänger’s view. First, if the institution
of the politeuma was devised by the first Ptolemies to ensure a semi-autono-
mous status to minority groups, it follows that the Ptolemies granted to non-
Greek minorities political privileges they denied to their Greco-Macedonian
“compatriots.” For they never acknowledged the status of autonomous poleis to
the nome capitals, not even to those whose inhabitants were overwhelmingly
Greek. As Thompson already remarked, “in the Ptolemaic state, a monarchy
administered by a bureaucracy of officials, the role of such politeumata was in
fact severely limited.”70 Secondly, as Sänger himself notes, we know of a polit-
euma of Cretans and one of Boeotians, a fact that undermines Sänger’s claim of
a linkage between politeuma and non-Greek minorities.71 Thirdly, Sänger failed
to address the question of why the Ptolemies needed to create the encompass-
ing category of Hellenes in the third century BCE, if from the outset the ethnic
minorities were distinguished from ethnic Greeks.72 Finally, given the wealth
of papyri documenting the society of the foreigners—including Thracians and
Judeans—in the Fayum in the third century BCE, we might reasonably expect
them to yield some kind of evidence about politeumata, had they existed. For
all these reasons, Dorothy Thompson’s view (endorsed in section I.4 above)
that the politeumata were created by Ptolemy VI as a means to ensure the faith-
fulness of newly-imported mercenary troops to replace the former system of
land-allotments, is far more consistent with the evidence.73
69 See Sänger, “Politeuma,” 53 (quote), and 57–62.

70 Thompson, “Idumeans,” 1073.
71 For the evidence, see Sänger, “Politeuma,” 54; Thompson, “Idumeans,” 1072, n. 17; and
Zuckerman, “Hellenistic Politeumata,” 175–77.
72 The bilingual tax-rolls of the Fayum published in P. Count show that the ethnika “Persians”
and “Arabs” could denote tax categories alongside the Hellenes, and this implies that the
fiscal use of the ethnic labels was compatible with their multiplicity. See Clarysse and
Thompson, Counting the People, vol. 2, 124–25, 157–62.
73 See note 43 above. The evidence from Sidon only proves that whereas the institution of
the politeuma was definitely known at an early date—Thompson pointed to similarities
between the Ptolemaic politeumata of the second and first centuries BCE and the for-
mal organization of the colonies of mercenaries stationed in Elephantine and Memphis
in Persian times—Ptolemy Soter’s device of settling soldiers on reclaimed lands was
deemed a far more efficient means of ensuring their loyalty. The first Ptolemies resorted
In addition, Sänger’s claim that the politeuma was a political institution

enjoying a semi-autonomous status is overstated.74 What we know of the legal
powers of the heads of the Herakleopolis politeuma points to self-adminis-
tration, but self-administration was hardly specific to politeumata, and as
we saw in section I.4 above, the legal powers of the heads of the politeuma
were paralleled by those of the phrourarchos who headed the garrison.75 Nor
was semi-autonomy required for ethnic groups to exercise their own cults
in Ptolemaic Egypt, unless we assume all religious associations in Egypt had
this status.76
Finally, the Ptolemaic institution of the politeuma may be taken to illus-
trate the impact of state policy on the shaping of Judean communal identity.
When Ptolemy VI accessed the Ptolemaic throne in 180 BCE the dynasty was
just recovering from the secession of Upper Egypt that lasted from 206 to
180 BCE, and in the subsequent decades popular troubles sporadically plagued
various regions of the country. As far as we can see the politeumata were sta-
tioned in strategic points of the country such as major urban centers,77 and
we may presume that the kings had a vital interest in keeping these mercenar-
ies secluded from the rest of the population, to avoid collusion. By attracting
new mercenaries freshly arrived from outside Egypt and actively encouraging
them to preserve their distinct identity by setting them in self-administered
politeumata, the Ptolemies of the second and first centuries primarily devised
an adequate response to their own, military needs. This interpretation, which
focuses on the royal side, and not on that of the members of the politeumata,
explains why the structure of the politeuma was equally suited for mercenaries
of Greek (Cretan and Boeotian) and non-Greek (e.g., Judeans, Idumeans, and
to the politeuma only as a second option, first outside Egypt, and from the 180s on in
Egypt itself.
74 This view was already refuted by Thompson, “Idumeans,” 1073–74. See above, n. 68.
75 See Kruse, “Das jüdische Politeuma,” 95–96, who characterizes the politeuma as a
“self-administered body” based on the very evidence adduced by Sänger to speak of
semi-autonomy.
76 For this claim, see Sänger, “Politeuma,” 57.
77 See Sänger, ibid., 57. On the strategic importance of the harbour of Herakleopolis, see
Wackenier, Recherches sur l’administration du nome Héracléopolite, 341–48; and T. Kruse,
“Die Festung in Herakleopolis und der Zwist im Ptolemäerhaus,” in Ägypten zwischen
innerem Zwist und äußerem Druck. Die Zeit Ptolemaios’ VI. bis VIII. Internationales
Symposion Heidelberg 16.–19. 9. 2007 (ed. A. Jördens and J. F. Quack; Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011), 255–67.
56 Honigman
Cilicians) extraction, and moreover why some Ptolemaic politeumata did not
have any specific ethnic identity.78
5 Conclusion
As I argued in sections 1 and 2, the notion of ethnic minorities forming a
third legal category alongside Greeks and Egyptians, and having special needs
requiring special state protection, was alien to the Ptolemaic state culture.
Indeed, the very notion of an ethnic group forming a category that was both
separate and homogeneous was inconceivable. The social categories that were
operative for administrative purposes were occupational and fiscal, and ethnic
groups were acknowledged as such only insofar as their profile coincided with
occupational ones. As we saw earlier, this was true both of the category of the
“Greeks,” and of military troops. When ethnicity and occupation were disso-
ciated, occupation prevailed in the definition of status: Judean and Thracian
military settlers were one thing, Judean and Thracian civilians were another.
In Ptolemaic Egypt, there was no reason to treat either as a single minority.79
Therefore, the suggestion that the politeumata were specially created to pro-
tect the rights of ethnic minorities by granting them a semi-autonomous polit-
ical status should be rejected, and by the same logic it comes as no surprise
that no politeuma is documented in Egypt in early Ptolemaic times. Given this,
the relation between the formal position of the various Judean communities
in Ptolemaic society and their internal dynamics deserves a far more nuanced
assessment.
Sites of worship provide a good case in point to disprove the purported link
between politeumata and ethnically marked behavior. Religious associations
that did not necessarily coincide with either a given settlement or an ethnic
community could obtain their own cultic places. This possibility was therefore
not the privilege of groups enjoying semi-autonomous status. Rather, it was
presumably conditioned on the ability of these groups—irrespective of their
internal composition—to enroll the support of powerful men. Therefore, from
the standpoint of outsiders, the fact that Judean communities built their own
proseuchai merely marked them as one group among many.
78 For non-ethnic politeumata, see the evidence listed by Thompson, “Idumeans,” 1072, n. 17;
Zuckerman, “Hellenistic Politeumata,” 177.
79 For similar reasons, as Dorothy Thompson phrased it, “the imposition of conformity on
diverse ethnic communities was never an interest of the Ptolemaic state”—some mer-
cenary groups in Egypt and in the Ptolemaic imperial dominions being organized as
politeumata, and others as koina. See Thompson, “Idumeans,” 1073.
However, some aspects discussed in sections I and II show a disjunction

between legal status and internal dynamics. Despite the fact that in legal
terms, the Judeans were not a homogeneous minority enjoying a semi-auton-
omous political status, their various communities were apparently well aware
of each other, and knowingly shared similar identity markers. For instance,
they uniformly dubbed their places of worship proseuchai, and drew from a
common stock of personal names that are notably distinct from those pop-
ular in contemporary Judea. Moreover, the heads of the politeuma of the
Judeans in Herakleopolis possibly used a copy of the Greek translation of the
Pentateuch that had been established in Alexandria at an earlier time.
The fact that the Judeans—like other ethnic communities that immigrated
to Egypt in early Ptolemaic times—were able to preserve (some aspects of)
their distinct identity may be explained by two combined factors: the instal-
lation of demographically sizeable communities in separate places, and their
protracted stability of settlement. That said, settlement in separate communi-
ties per se was presumably indicative of some special legal status, and there-
fore the impression of a disjunction between formal status and the dynamics
of identity requires some more detailed qualification. Indeed, the Judean and
Thracian communities that settled in the Fayum in early Ptolemaic times had
a formal status, and in some way enjoyed royal protection: but only inasmuch
as they were military settlers belonging to the socially privileged category of
the Greeks. They were members of the colonial minority enjoying a privileged
link with the king, and not protected ethnic minorities. Their status as Greeks
certainly contributed to strengthen their self-confidence, and hence indirectly
their willingness first to advertise—and subsequently to maintain—their dis-
tinct identity. Specific aspects of the communal behavior of the Judeans in
Ptolemaic Egypt were ostensibly related to their belonging to the socially privi-
leged category of the Greeks. One example is their adoption of Greek personal
names—rather than Egyptian ones—to translate their original Hebrew ones.
Similarly, the seemingly systematic dedication of their proseuchai to the royal
family was a blatant token of loyalty, and emulated the practice of other sub-
groups among the Greeks.
Furthermore, it would be absurd to deny all connection between the
politeuma per se and the dynamics of communal identity in Ptolemaic Egypt.
Although the Ptolemies primarily conceived the politeumata as a means of
avoiding collusion between their mercenary troops and the local popula-
tions (by which logic they were never interested in the preservation of these
groups’ identity as an end per se), the beneficiaries in general, and the Judeans
in particular naturally made the most of this institution. The politeumata may
58 Honigman
have played a positive role in two ways. First, they may have revitalized the
preexisting communities in whose proximity they were stationed. It is strik-
ing that the Judeans of the Herakleopolite nome who were not members of
the politeuma sent their petitions to the politeuma’s officials, and not to the
phrourarchos.80 Second, even though the communities of Judeans who had
arrived in the third century and were not organized as politeumata retained
certain identity markers, the format of the politeuma may have favored either
the preservation or the development of additional ones. Thus, the Judeans
of the Herakleopolis politeuma followed a separate legal tradition in family
matters. Conversely, however, as far as business transactions are concerned, the
Judeans who applied to the politeuma’s officials complied with the Ptolemaic
law, and therefore we should be cautious not to overstate the politeuma’s
impact in this matter either.81
To summarize the picture outlined in sections I and II: according to the
Greek way of constructing ethnicity—that is, nested ethnicity—the various
ethnic groups of foreigners who immigrated to Egypt could identify them-
selves simultaneously as Greeks and as Judeans, Thracians, and Cyreneans. As
Greeks, they belonged to the socially higher class of people who had privileged
ties with the king. As Judeans, Thracians, and Cyreneans, they bore Hebrew,
Thracian and Dorian names, honored their respective ancestral gods, and
built their own cultic places. The groups that from the outset possessed a
more clearly distinct identity, such as the Judeans and the Thracians, naturally
retained greater conspicuity in the papyri, and for a longer time. Even a cursory
examination of the behavior of all these Judean communities in their wider
social context shows that the modern insistence on their enjoying privileged
royal favor as some special community has poor heuristic support, not least
because the same was true of all the Greeks. Simply put, in Ptolemaic Egypt the
Judeans were a sub-group among the Greeks, and not a separate minority. This
was to change under the imperial administration.
80 See above, section I.4.

81 For the opposite view, see Robert A. Kugler’s studies, for instance R. A. Kugler, “Uncovering
Echoes of LXX Legal Norms in Hellenistic Egypt Documentary Papyri: The Case of the
Second-Century Herakleopolite Nome,” in XIV Congress of the IOSCS, Helsinki, 2010
(ed. M. K. H. Peters; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 143–53.
III Early Roman Times (27 BCE to 41 CE): Jewish Identity in Transition
1 The Roman State Culture and Administrative Changes in Roman

Egypt
Following the transformation of Egypt into a Roman province in 27 BCE, the
imperial administration imposed thorough changes in the social and admin-
istrative structures of Egypt as compared to Ptolemaic times. Particularly rel-
evant to our concern are the correlated reforms that led to the overhaul of the
civic institutions of Alexandria, the municipalization of the urban centers of
Egypt, and the revamping of the social and fiscal categories that defined per-
sonal statuses, and likewise the introduction of administrative divisions in the
urban centers.82
The Ptolemies ruled Egypt through a centralized administration, whereby
the territory was controlled through officials appointed either by the king or
by high-ranking officials, and not through self-administered cities. Whereas,
under their rule, the metropoleis—the urban centers of the nomes (territo-
rial districts)—never acquired the status of autonomous poleis, they none-
theless underwent social and cultural changes. The military cleruchs and
katoikoi (cavalry settlers) who originally were settled on land allotments,
sub-leased their plots to Egyptian farmers, and moved to the urban centers.
In late Ptolemaic times the social and ethnic landscape of the country was
characterized by a neat, albeit informal, spatial division between urban cen-
ters primarily peopled with Greek and Hellenized inhabitants, part of whom
were landowners, and villages inhabited by Egyptian peasants.83 When Egypt
was reorganized as a Roman province the imperial administration took advan-
tage of this social and cultural fabric of the metropoleis to transform them
into municipal centers able to support the local administration, as did poleis
in other imperial provinces. Consequently, their hitherto informal social struc-
tures turned into legally sanctioned categories, and they were endowed with
formal communal institutions.
This move was part of an overall revamping of the social structures of the
new province, which had effect through the institution of new tax categories.
From 24/23 BCE on at the latest, an annual poll-tax (laographia) applying to
persons aged between fourteen and sixty-two was introduced.84 While inhab-
itants of rural settlements were liable to the full tax-rate, the citizens of the
82 The present summary is based on Alan K. Bowman’s and Dominic Rathbone’s excellent
survey, “Cities and Administration in Roman Egypt,” JRS 82 (1992): 107–27.
83 See Bingen, “Greek Presence and the Ptolemaic Rural Setting.”
84 See Bowman and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration,” 112.
60 Honigman
three poleis (Alexandria, Ptolemaïs, and Naucratis) were altogether exempted,

and the metropolites paid a lower rate. Those liable to the full tax-rate came to
be labelled as “Egyptians,” regardless of their former designation in Ptolemaic
times, or of their ethnic self-ascription; moreover, all other ethnika were dis-
continued.85 In 4/5 CE lists of citizens and of metropolites respectively were
established, and with time these lists became the basis for the creation of a
hereditary status. To enjoy the privileged fiscal statuses of citizens and met-
ropolites respectively, adolescents of both sexes before their reaching the age
of fourteen had to submit a formal declaration proving that their two parents
descended from persons who had been included in the lists of 4/5.86
Gymnasia played a crucial part in the definition of the privileged statuses
both in Alexandria and in the metropoleis, highlighting the link between privi-
leged social status and Greek culture—whereas rural gymnasia were closed.87
In Alexandria citizenship was acquired through admission to the ephebate,
and it seems that the leaders of the gymnasium came to function as the rep-
resentatives of the city. Moreover the Alexandrian gymnasium occasionally
accommodated political meetings—although meetings were also held in
the theater.88 In the metropoleis gymnasial classes constituted urban elites
within the fiscally privileged class of the metropolites.89 Judging from their
names—the denomination katoikoi is documented alongside the phrase “those
of the gymnasium”—these metropolitan elites were composed of the descen-
dants of the military settlers of Ptolemaic times, who were also landowners.90
Moreover it has been plausibly suggested that in the absence of boulai (civic
councils), the metropolitan gymnasia provided the institutional framework for
85 See J. Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “Entre la cité et le fisc: le statut grec dans l’Égypte romaine,” in
Droit impérial et traditions locales dans l’Égypte romaine (1990), chapter 1; O. Montevecchi,
“Aigyptios-Hellen in età romana,” in Studi in onore di Edda Bresciani (ed. S. F. Bondi et al.;
Pisa: Giardini, 1985), 339–53.
86 See Bowman and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration,” 120, with further bibliography,
n. 70.
87 Ibid., 121.
88 On Alexandria, see ibid., 115, 118; on the issue of communal decision-making in the
metropoleis, see ibid., 124–25. On the civic role of the gymnasia, see further R. Alston,
“Philo’s ‘In Flaccum:’ Ethnicity and Social Space in Roman Alexandria,” Greece & Rome
44/2 (1997): 167–69.
89 I follow Alston’s reconstruction rather than Bowman’s and Rathbone’s. See Alston, “Philo’s
‘In Flaccum,’ ” 168–69.
90 In Ptolemaic times, the katoikoi were military settlers serving in the cavalry. Within the
privileged milieu of the military settlers they formed a social elite, enjoying larger plots of
lands than the others.
communal decision-making such as the vote of honors, the sending of peti-

tions, and the dispatch of embassies.
Finally, in the same way as Rome and Italy under Augustus were divided into
administrative quarters and districts respectively, Alexandria was divided into
five administrative districts labelled by the first five letters of the Greek alpha-
bet, and some suburban districts.91 Likewise, the metropoleis were divided in
amphoda (districts) for administrative purposes.92 Through this specific reform
the Roman administration introduced an innovative way of apprehending the
urban space in the province.
2 The Fate of the Judeans

Outside Alexandria we have no direct evidence documenting the status
of Judeans in this new constellation. The only proseuchē documented in a
metropolis in Roman times is that of Arsinoe in the Fayum in 113 BCE, and its
name—the “proseuchē of the Thebans”—hints that the organized community
was of foreign status in the Arsinoite nome, and by no means formed part of
the metropolites’ class.93 This dearth of evidence may not be coincidental. We
may surmise with due caution, that in order to preserve their communal way
of life most Judean military settlers, in contrast with other military settlers,
had refrained from moving from their original rural settlements to the nomes’
urban centers in late Ptolemaic times, because their proseuchai, around which
their communal and cultic life revolved, were located there. Consequently
many, if not all the descendants of Judean settlers must have been classified as
laographia-paying Egyptians.
That said, the politeumata may have formed an exception, in that the
collective social and fiscal demotion of their members may have been pro-
gressive. This is suggested firstly by the fact that the politeumata were not
entirely dismantled, and while they were presumably deprived of all their
military functions when Roman legions and auxiliary troops were stationed
in the country, they retained their communal institutions and cultic identity.
Secondly, the evidence relating to the politeuma of the Judeans in Alexandria
91 On Rome and Italy, see C. Nicolet, Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire
(Ann Arbor: the University of Michigan Press, 1991), 189–204. On Alexandria, see Bowman
and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration,” 114; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria (3 vols.;
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 1:34–35, 40.
92 See Bowman and Rathbone, “Cities and Administration,” 120–21.
93 P. Lond. III, 1177 (= CPJ II 432), col. III, l. 57, edited anew by W. Habermann, Zur
Wasserversorgung einer Metropole im kaiserzeitlichen Ägypten. Neuedition von P. Lond. III
1177 (Vestigia, 53; Munich, 2000), pp. 10 (text) and 11 (translation).
62 Honigman
may definitely be understood to mean that its members’ legal debasement

occurred in several stages.
3 The Alexandrian Politeuma

Thanks to a citation from Strabo preserved in Josephus (Ant. 14.117), we know
that in late Ptolemaic times the Judean politeuma was a conspicuous entity
in Alexandria’s social landscape. It was allocated its own territory like the
politeuma of Herakleopolis and seemingly that of Cyrene in Cyrenaica, and
was headed by an ethnarches, who had wide jurisdictional powers—again
reminiscent of the politarches of Herakleopolis and that of Leontopolis.94 Part
at least of this self-administration outlived the Roman conquest. An “archive
of the Judeans,” to which one Theodoros deposited his will, is documented in
13 BCE (BGU IV 1151 = CPJ II 143).95
In 10/11 CE, with the death of the head of the politeuma, whom Philo
(In Flac. 74) labeled a genarches, whereas Josephus in Ant. 14.117 and 19.283
spoke of an ethnarches, he was replaced by Augustus with a gerousia (Philo,
ibid.). We may surmise that this reform either aimed at restricting the powers
hitherto held by the ethnarches, or was accompanied by a redefinition of mem-
bership—to merge all resident Judeans into a single community?—or both.
Whatever the answer the politeuma retained institutions of its own. Its gerousia
functioned at least until the inter-ethnic clashes of 38 CE, when thirty-eight
Elders were publicly humiliated by the Greeks (In Flac. 74–75).96
94 “In Egypt, for example, territory has been set apart for a Jewish settlement, and in
Alexandria a great part of the city has been allocated to this nation. And an ethnarch of
their own has been installed, who governs the people and adjudicates suits and super-
vises contracts and ordinances, just as if he were the head of a sovereign state” (Strabo,
FGH II, A91 F7 = AJ, XIV, 117, transl. R. Marcus, LCL, vol. VII.509, modified). On Cyrene,
see Josephus, AJ 14.115. On Leontopolis, see W. Horbury and D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions
of Graeco-Roman Egypt with an index of the Jewish Inscriptions of Egypt and Cyrenaica
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), nos. 39, pp. 95–102. On these quotes, see
further Honigman, “Jewish Politeumata,” 72–76.
95 On this Jewish archive and the meaning of archeion in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
see H. J. Wolff, Das Recht der griechischen Papyri Ägyptens in der Zeit der Ptolemäer und
des Principats, vol. 2. Organisation und Kontrolle des privaten Rechtsverkehrs (Munich:
C. H. Beck, 1978), 27. The existence of this archive could be further adduced from
Josephus’ assertion that a record of priestly families was held by the Jewish community in
Alexandria (C. Ap. 1.30–33).
96 I leave aside the much-discussed petition from a certain Helenos to the prefect Turranius,
dated 5/4 BCE (BGU IV 1140 = CPJ II 151), because the lack of context hampers any
secure interpretation. This poorly preserved papyrus is a draft, which comprises an
intriguing emendation. Whereas at first Helenos introduced himself as “Alexandrian,”
he subsequently erased this word and wrote “Judean of Alexandria” in its stead (l. 2),
The outburst of violence against the Judeans that occurred in 38 CE

marked a new, seemingly decisive step in the redefinition of the status of the
politeuma, and this time, according to Richard Alston, the leading actors were
the Alexandrian citizens, and not the Roman authorities. We may retrospec-
tively infer from these events that, after membership in the Alexandrian civic
body was redefined as an exclusive and highly privileged status between 24 BCE
and 4/5 CE, the continued existence of the politeuma of the Judeans—with its
competing privileged status—became a source of tension between the two
communities. Alston convincingly argued that the core issue of the dispute
that led to the assault on the Judeans was not the latters’ legal status within the
city of Alexandria per se, but the Greek citizens’ bid to redefine the social space
of the city by enforcing a spatial separation between the various ethnic com-
munities that hitherto had shared it. The Alexandrian citizens appropriated
in their own way, as it were, the Roman administrative praxis of sequencing
the urban space in separate administrative units, through which they aimed to
clarify the social hierarchy between the various ethnic and legal communities
that coexisted in the city.97
while retaining the label “Alexandrian” in relation with his father (l. 3). Helenos further
expressed his fear of losing his patris (ll. 6–7), and complained about his being regis-
tered to pay the poll tax (ll. 17, 21). Moreover, Helenos mentions having enjoyed an “appro-
priate education” (l. 6), and makes an obscure reference to the ephebate (l. 13; however
A. Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights [Tübingen,
J. C. B. Mohr, 1985], 204, n. 59, dismissed this restoration). On this text, see S. Gambetti,
The Alexandrian Riots of 38 CE and the Persecution of the Jews: A Historical Reconstruction
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), 64. As Gambetti suggested (ibid., 65), Helenos’s new
liability to the poll tax may be linked to a revision of the tax-status of privileged catego-
ries by the prefect Gaius Turranius, who arrived in Alexandria in 7 BCE, a revision based
on the census carried out in 11/10 BCE by his predecessor. Helenos’s petition has elicited
two contrasting interpretations. According to some scholars (Gambetti, ibid., 63–65), the
document is evidence that the Judeans were being debarred from Alexandrian citizen-
ship and made liable to the poll-tax, that is, they were being reclassified as Egyptians.
According to Kasher (ibid., 204, n. 59), whose comment is partly endorsed by R. Alston
(“Philo’s ‘In Flaccum,’ ” 168, and n. 13), the petition proves that the Jews formed a distinct
politeuma. Helenos was “not trying to conceal his Jewish identity which suggests that
being an Alexandrian Jew did not automatically mean that he would have to pay the poll
tax” (R. Alston, ibid., 174, n. 13). However, supporters of either view assume that all the
Judeans of Alexandria had the same status, and consequently that Helenos’s misfortune is
representative, while this premise is far from certain, and this definitely was not the case
in Ptolemaic times. On this matter, see Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity,” 87–92.
97 Alston, “Philo’s ‘In Flaccum,’ ” 165–67, emphasizes that Philo’s account of the riots is
indeed attentive to the topography of the events, precisely naming the various build-
ings and places that the rioters used to assault and humiliate the Jews—the gymnasium,
64 Honigman
According to Alston, the disturbances of 38 were triggered by King Agrippa

of Judea’s call at the city when he was on his way to Rome. Despite Philo’s patent
efforts to downplay this episode, we may assume (after Alston) that Agrippa
was welcomed by a ceremonial reception by the elders of the politeuma of
the Judeans, presumably in the usual meeting place of the politeuma. Philo’s
insistence that Agrippa called at the city “unannounced and unnoticed”
(In Flac. 27–28, contradicted in 29–31 and 35) is so implausible that it could
be legitimately construed as evidence to the exact opposite, and his indignant
denunciation of the mocked counter-ceremony improvised by the “crowd” in
the gymnasium (In Flac. 34, 36–39) merely reinforces this impression.98
The fact that this parodying ceremony was held in the gymnasium—and as
we saw above the leaders of the gymnasium were the representatives of the
citizens, while the ephebate was narrowly associated with Alexandrian citi-
zenship—is enough to dismiss Philo’s repeated claims (e.g., In Flac. 33–34, 41)
that the rioters were individuals of low social status. Quite to the contrary, they
were Alexandrian citizens. Therefore, the welcome ceremony and the hostile
reaction it elicited may be read as a contest for status within the city. While
under the Ptolemies, the Judean politeuma of Alexandria enjoyed separate
institutions, the social status of its members was presumably close to that of
the other Greeks who lived in Alexandria but were not citizens of the city, and
hence held inferior to the Alexandrian citizens. By performing their own pub-
lic albeit separate ceremony in honor of a foreign king in 38 CE, the leaders
and members of the Judean politeuma ostentatiously asserted that their sta-
tus was equal to that of the civic body.99 Thereby, they advanced their preten-
tion to an upgraded status as compared to the status that was theirs under the
Ptolemies, and compared to the status of the citizens, which had effectively
been enhanced by the Roman reforms. In contrast, the Alexandrian citizens
were adamant to assert their exclusive status in the new Roman order. In this
contest, two clashing definitions of Greekness were confronted. By selecting
the gymnasium as their rallying place, the citizens highlighted the definition
of the Greeks that had been enforced by the Roman authorities. Greekness,
the theater, the streets, the districts, and the private houses—and either highlighting or
downplaying their symbolic significance.
98 Alston, ibid., 167.
99 Alston, ibid., 167, went further in interpreting it as “an assertion of ethnicity. It was a com-
munal celebration of a foreign dynasty to which the Jews proclaimed some ill-defined
loyalty . . . by occupying the public space of the city through this demonstration, the power
of the community was advertised, as well as its essential difference: it was non-Greek and
had foci of loyalty other than those of the Greek population.” In my view, Alston’s view
that the Jews advertised their ethnic difference must be qualified. Those who played this
card were the Greeks. See below.
both as a cultural identity and a legal status, was exclusively based on admis-
sion to the ephebate. The members of the Judean politeuma, on the other
hand, stubbornly clung to the Ptolemaic definition of Greekness that included
all the descendants of immigrants, in order to avoid their degradation to the
status of Egyptians.100
The subsequent phases of the disturbances may be read in the same line.
The rioters gathered in the theater, which served as a meeting place for the
Alexandrian demos,101 voted honors to the prefect Flaccus, and demanded
the right to erect statues of the emperors in the proseuchai (In Flac. 41). As
Alston argued,102 by this demand
the Alexandrian Greek community claimed authority over all communal

space in the city, including that which had been exclusive to the Jews.
Flaccus’ granting of this request tacitly accepted the claim of the Greek
demos to control the city, developing the policy which had placed the
gymnasial group in control of certain aspects of urban administration.
The logical complements to the Greeks’ assertion of priority in the city was for
the mob to first forcibly move the Judeans to a narrow area of the city, which
based on Josephus, seems to have been identified as the original location of
the military politeuma (Philo, In Flac. 55; Josephus, C.Ap. 2.33–37).103 Next,
they publicly humiliated the Judeans’ elders, who were arrested and dragged
through the agora to the theater and there scourged in the Egyptian manner
(In Flac. 74–75), to signify in a performative manner that the Judeans had defi-
nitely lost their last privileges, and were demoted to the status of Egyptians.104
IV Philo in Transition: Looking Back to the Ptolemaic Order, and

Making the Best of the Roman Present
1 Judeans, Greeks and “The Mob” in Philo’s In Flaccum

By focusing his attention on the use of the urban space, the symbolic signifi-
cance of its various monuments and of the deeds performed in each place,
Alston was able to analyze the positions and motivations of both the Judeans
100 My discussion here thoroughly revises Alston’s comments (“Philo’s ‘In Flaccum,’ ” 169) on
the ethnic issue.
101 See Alston, “Philo’s ‘In Flaccum,’ ” 169, quoting Josephus, War 2.491–98.
102 Ibid., 169.
103 Ibid., 170–71.
104 Ibid., 171.
66 Honigman
and the Greeks, independently of Philo’s discursive strategy in commenting

these deeds. Thanks to the distinction between the politeuma and Philo, we
can conclude that the public behavior of the politeuma, such as the recep-
tion of Agrippa (as interpreted above), and Philo’s discursive strategy in his
In Flaccum, were underpinned by the same social ideology and the same com-
munal self-perception. This means that the work in question did not represent
Philo’s idiosyncratic stance alone, but genuinely reflected the social ideology
shared by his Alexandrian Judean fellows. In a nutshell, Philo’s mapping in
In Flaccum of the social groups that were in conflict in 38 CE looked back-
ward to Ptolemaic times, that is, to the time when the Judeans were part of the
Greeks, and could act on an equal footing with other Greek communities in
the city, whereas the Egyptians were inferior to them.
In his pamphlet against Flaccus, Philo depicted the society of Alexandria
and Egypt as split between Greeks and Egyptians, and throughout refrained
from defining the Judeans’ opponents as Greeks, let alone as Alexandrian citi-
zens. His main strategy consisted in emphasizing the alleged contrast in social
status between the two parties—us vs. the “mob”—as a way to eschew explicit
ethnic and legal qualifications.105 On the one hand, both ethnicity as redefined
by the Roman provincial law and legal status were closely connected, and in a
way that did not suit Philo’s nor his fellow Alexandrian Judeans’ interests any
longer. On the other hand, both in Ptolemaic and to a greater degree in Roman
times, economic statuses had implicit ethnic connotations: people of lower
status were deemed Egyptians—ethnic Egyptians and Egyptianized persons
in Ptolemaic times, ethnic and legal Egyptians under Roman rule—whereas a
higher social status was synonymous with being Greek.
The most striking example of Philo’s wishful redrawing of the demographic
map of Egypt is his claim in In Flaccum 43 that Alexandria and Egypt were
divided in two, “us and them.” The few explicit references to ethnicity and
legal status he offered at earlier stages of his account conditioned readers to
understand “them” in this section as meaning Egyptians and non-citizens.
Thus referring to the leaders of the Judeans’ opponents in ch. 29 he speaks of
the natural grudge of the “Egyptians.” It is probably not coincidental that this
ethnic notation appears at the start of his narration of the events, thereby deci-
sively conditioning his readers’ mindset. This insinuation that the leaders of
the Judeans’ opponents were Egyptians was particularly insulting, because in
actuality there can be no doubt that these leaders were Alexandrian citizens,
as both their access to the prefect (In Flac. 30) and the Acts of the Alexandrian
Martyrs make clear. Likewise, in ch. 41 Philo explicitly opposed the rioters and
105 In Flaccum 29, 33, 34, 41–42, and passim.

the citizens. In ch. 43 he fallaciously made an equation between Greeks and

Judeans, and between citizens and Judeans. Whereas under the Ptolemies, the
author of the Letter of Aristeas could make a distinction between the Judeans
and other sub-groups of the Greeks without jeopardizing the privileged sta-
tus of the former, in Philo’s time the Roman reshuffling of the legal categories
in the province precluded this option.106 Finally, Philo’s Judeans were depicted
as the faithful supporters of Roman rule and rulers (e.g., In Flac. 48–50).
2 Roman Inflexions: Philo’s Judean Diasporas and the Roman Colonies

of Citizens
However, while Philo’s social ideology referred back to Ptolemaic times when
this suited his interests and those of his community, he clearly could not help
also being influenced by the ideology of his time, and conveniently so, wher-
ever he could use the latter profitably. It is not impossible that Philo’s pointed
description of the assaulters as a “mob” largely drew on the Roman social ide-
ology, by painting the rioters in Alexandria with the same negative connota-
tions ascribed to the plebs urbana in Rome. That said, this line of argument has
its limits, given the numerous contemptuous descriptions of the “rabble” in
Hellenistic authors as well, not least Polybius.107
Another aspect of Roman influence on Philo deserves greater consideration.
Maren Niehoff has argued that Philo’s depiction of the Judean diasporas estab-
lished an implicit parallel with the model of the Roman colonies.108 Indeed the
ways Philo in In Flaccum and the author of the Letter of Aristeas imagined
the Jewish world were strikingly divergent. In the Letter of Aristeas we find a
detailed description of Jerusalem and Judea (Ar 83–120), and the link between
this homeland—or metropolis—and the Judeans of Egypt was emphasized in
most explicit ways: the Judeans in Egypt were originally deported from Judea
(Ar. 12–14, 22–23, 35–37), and both the scroll of the Law to be translated and
the translators came from Jerusalem (Ar. 32, 38–39, 46, 173–77, 182–84, 318–19).
The focus was almost exclusively laid on this bilateral link between one center
and one colony, and moreover this link was knowingly modeled after the link
between Athens and Alexandria that was central to the Ptolemaic representa-
tion of their capital.109 Only once (38) do we find an allusion to the fact that
106 On the Letter of Aristeas, see section II.3 above.

107 See for instance Polybius’s well-known description of the population of Alexandria, a city
he visited in person (Pol. 34.14).
108 See M. Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 17–44.
109 On Jerusalem’s position vis-à-vis Alexandria equating Athens’ in the Letter of Aristeas, see
Honigman, “ ‘Jews as the Best of All Greeks,’ ” 227–28.
68 Honigman
Judeans existed across the entire world (oikoumenē), and this is to emphasize
the universal status of the Law.
In contrast, not only did Philo proudly claim that the Judeans populated
most of the finest regions of Europe and Asia—both on the continent and
the islands (In Flac. 46, cf. 49), but he depicted the fate of all Judeans every-
where as interconnected, an interconnection that was not necessarily medi-
ated by Jerusalem. Thus the desecration of the Alexandrian proseuchai by the
mob was likely to serve as a model for other peoples to perpetrate similar mis-
deeds against the Judeans’ proseuchai and ancestral customs everywhere else
(47)—Alexandria, and not Jerusalem, was here depicted as the center of the
Judean life.
While the focus on strictly bilateral links in the Letter of Aristeas was typi-
cal of the Hellenistic atomized perception of space and society, Philo’s picture
of multiple diasporas of interconnected fate was influenced not only by the
model of the Roman colonies, but also, and primarily by the way the Roman
authorities themselves treated the communities of Judeans in their empire.
The Roman policy that informed Philo’s imaginary was rooted in Claudius’s
settlement of the dispute between the Judeans and the Greeks of Alexandria
in 41 BCE.
V Towards a Jewish Identity as Minority: The Roman Invention of a

Pan-Imperial Status for the Jews in 41 CE and its Consequences
The legal demotion of the Judeans presumably took effect gradually from
24 BCE on throughout the country, and in Alexandria was only completed in
the aftermath, and as a consequence of the riots of 38 CE.110 It transformed
their social position, and in parallel most surely triggered a shift in their self-
perception as a social group. From their initial status as a sub-group within the
privileged class of the Hellenes the Judeans gradually came to be perceived—
and to perceive themselves—as a form of minority. Two separate impe-
rial measures signal the decisive stages in this shift: the first was Claudius’s
settlement of the dispute between the Judeans and the Greeks of Alexandria
in 41 BCE, and the second Vespasian’s creation of a special tax payable to the
fiscus Iudaicus in 71 CE.
110 The latest known stage was the closing of the Jewish temple at Leontopolis in 73. Josephus
connects this event with the Roman eradication of the last foci of rebels from Judea who
had sought refuge in Egypt (Josephus, J.W. 7.420–21, 433–36).
1 Claudius’s Settlement of 41 CE
The original version of Claudius’s letter to the Alexandrians is preserved in
a papyrus (P. Lond. 1912 = CPJ II 153), and may be compared with Josephus’s
highly selective version of the emperor’s decisions in Ant. 19.280–85. According
to P. Lond. 1912, Claudius firmly condemned the “war against the Judeans,” and
ordered the Alexandrians to refrain from “dishonoring any of their customs in
their worship of their god”—apparently referring to the mob forcefully erecting
statues in the proseuchai during the disturbances. He further ordered to “allow
the Judeans to keep their own ways” (coll. IV–V, ll. 73–88), while his warning
to the Alexandrian Judeans “not to bring in . . . Judeans coming from Syria or
Egypt” (col. V, ll. 96–98) alluded to the troubles the Alexandrian Judeans had
caused at Caligula’s death.111 At the same time, by forbidding the Judeans to
send embassies of their own, the emperor refused to acknowledge any politi-
cal status to their communal institutions (col. V, ll. 88–92), and by debarring
the Judeans from the gymnasial games, he further denied them equality of
status with the citizens—or perhaps access to citizenship (col. V, ll. 92–93).
Claudius’s concluding statement that the Judeans enjoyed “an abundance of
all good things” “in a city which is not their own” (ll. 93–94) left no room for
ambiguity.112 From being a privileged ethnic group under Ptolemaic rule, the
politeuma of the Judeans in Alexandria was finally turned into an authorized
cultic association. Although the politeuma retained its gerousia—we still hear
of the Elders in 73 CE (Josephus, J.W. 7.412)—this institution lost most of its
former powers.
No less significant was the fact that Claudius issued a second edict that wid-
ened the scope of application of his Alexandrian settlement (Ant. 19.287–91).113
Even though in all likelihood this second edict applied to the Greek cities in
the province of Syria alone, as Josephus implied in Ant. 19.279, and not “to the
rest of the world,” as he emphatically claimed in Ant. 19.286, the fact that
the emperor dealt with the status of Jewish communities in several provinces
simultaneously was indeed a change of scale. If, in Roman terms, Claudius’s
policy merely continued a well-established political tradition that dated back
to the times of the Republican conquests, for the Judeans of Alexandria it
111 According to Josephus, Ant. 19.278, the Judeans seized arms against the Alexandrians at
this occasion.
112 I quote from CPJ’s translation.
113 The precise tenor of this edict is hard to reconstruct. Josephus simply emphasized that it
confirmed the right for Jews to freely observe their ancestral customs. Based on his omis-
sion of all the factors that were unfavorable to the Judeans in his quoting the Alexandrian
edict, we may surmise that he truncated the second edict in the same way.
70 Honigman
was a novelty to be lumped together with other Judean communities living

in Greek poleis that were located in a distinct Roman province. Philo’s con-
ceptual reshaping of the Judean diaspora after the model of Roman colonies
(above IV.2) may be described as the earliest documented response to this
change of scale. This Roman practice was also to underpin Josephus’s system-
atic depiction in his Jewish Antiquities of the Jewish communities throughout
the Mediterranean basin as a single entity—including, anachronistically, when
talking of Hellenistic times. To mark this double shift in status, from now I will
refer to these people no longer as “Judeans” but as “Jews.”
2 The Tax to the Fiscus Iudaicus and its Repercussions

Claudius’s settlement of 41 CE did not put an end to the tensions between the
Alexandrian citizens and the Jewish community of the city.114 New distur-
bances burst out anew when Jews attempted to attend a civic meeting that was
to deal with the dispatch of an embassy to Nero in 66 CE, and as the Jews took
arms to retaliate their rebellion. These were suppressed at the governor’s order,
while the Alexandrian population joined the army in the massacre (Josephus,
J.W. 2.487, 489–98).115 Unfortunately, the significance of these events for the
self-perception of the Jews at this juncture is hard to interpret in the absence
of context. Their capacity and willingness to take up arms—some twenty-five
years after Claudius’s settlement—evidences a strong communal identity. The
entire episode may signify that the Jews of Alexandria, or some of them at
least, refused to accept their inferior legal status. The crushing of the rebel-
lion of Judea may eventually have changed this mood. When rebels from Judea
sought refuge in Alexandria in 73 the Jewish Elders handed them over to the
Roman authorities, for fear of state reprisals (Josephus, J.W. 7.409–16).116
The most decisive step of these years, for our concern, was Vespasian’s
institution in 71 of a tax of two denarii (eight drachmas) levied on all Jews
throughout the empire, to be paid to a special account, the fiscus Iudaicus
114 The continued tensions are evidenced in the so-called Acta Alexandrinorum, a group
of texts narrating in a fictionalized way the trials of Alexandrian leaders before sev-
eral Roman emperors, and which made abundant, hostile references to the Jews, who
were depicted as the Alexandrians’ enemies. On these texts, see A. Harker, Loyalty and
Dissidence in Roman Egypt. The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge: Cambridge
115 For the events of Egypt and Cyrenaica between 66 and 117 CE, my comments are
partly indebted to A. Kerkeslager, “The Jews in Egypt and Cyrenaica 66-c. 235 CE,” in
The Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. 4: The Late Roman Period (ed. Steven T. Katz;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 53–68.
116 See also above, note 110.
(Josephus, J.W. 7.218; Dio Cassius 66.7.2). In what was likely perceived as bitterly
humiliating, this tax effectively reassigned the annual contribution of one-half
shekel, formerly sent to the Jerusalem temple, for the reconstruction of the
temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome, which had burnt down the previous
year. Moreover, while the contribution to the Jerusalem temple was paid only
by men between the age of 20 and 50 on a voluntary basis, the “Jewish tax,” as
it may be dubbed, was imposed on men, women, and children alike, regard-
less of age.117 Vespasian’s tax brought to completion the process of the Jews
being turned into a homogeneous category of people throughout the empire.
Moreover, the days were long gone when the Jews as a people enjoyed impe-
rial safeguards enabling them to live according to their ancestral customs, as
this was still the case with Claudius’s edicts. In 71 CE all this changed: suddenly
they were ignominiously set apart from the rest of the empire’s population in
a way that stigmatized them as rebels, regardless of whether they had actively
taken part in the armed revolt of Judea. From this point on, throughout the
Roman empire the Jews may be neatly described as a “minority”—along with
the connotation of weakened status commonly associated with the term’s
modern usage.118
Two aspects of the new tax in particular may have fueled this evolution. First,
the economic burden it entailed: as documentary evidence shows, payments
were exacted with particular harshness.119 Thus, although it was levied for the
first time in 71/72, the tax was extended with retroactive effect to the previous
year. Moreover, double levies to make up for gaps recurred subsequently, and
in 92/93, ten years of tariffs were exacted at once, prompting a tremendous
117 Philo (Spec. Leg. 1.153–55) complained that some Jews in Egypt did not send the annual
offering to the Jerusalem temple. I borrow this reference from Kerkeslager, “The Jews in
Egypt and Cyrenaica,” 58.
118 The role played by the “universality of the tax” paid to the fiscus Iudaicus in triggering an
“impetus toward a more unified communal identity” was already stressed by Kerkeslager,
“The Jews in Egypt and Cyrenaica,” 58–59. M. Goodman, “Nerva, the Fiscus Judaicus and
Jewish Identity,” JRS 79 (1989): 40–44, argued that Nerva’s slight modification in the profil-
ing of the persons who were liable to this tax was “a significant step towards the treatment
of Jews in late antiquity more as a religion than as [an ethnic group].”
119 The payment of the tax to the fiscus Iudaicus is attested by tax-receipts on ostraca from
Edfu (collected in CPJ II 160–229), by a tax-roll of 73 CE from Arsinoe in the Fayum (CPJ II
421), and by a recapitulative roll of 92/93 CE listing persons liable to this tax from a wide
area, probably in the Fayum. See C. Salvaterra, “L’amministrazione fiscale in una soci-
età multietnica: Un esempio dall’Egitto romano sulla base di P. Carlsberg 421,” in Politics,
Administration and Society in the Hellenistic and Roman World (ed. L. Mooren; Leuven:
Peeters, 2000), 287–344, republished in SB 26.16,697.
72 Honigman
financial burden on tax-payers.120 Furthermore the payment of the special tax

was only one aspect of the economic pressures that befell Egyptian Jews in the
aftermath of the Judean revolt. In Arsinoë-Ptolemaïs, the Fayum’s capital, two
“houses of prayer” paid fees for water supply at a disproportionately high rate
(more than the baths and the brewery together), suggesting discriminatory
treatment.121 Likewise, Victor Tcherikover pointed to a list of sitologoi (officials
in charge of the state granaries) from the Fayum in 101/2 CE, which displayed
no less than six individuals bearing Hebrew personal names (CPJ II 428). In
imperial times the office of the sitologia was an annual liturgy, meaning that its
exercise was compulsory and that correlated expenses fell on its incumbents.
Although of course the appointment of six Jews as sitologoi in the same year
may be fortuitous, or might possibly reflect the high number of Jews in the
Fayum, we cannot rule out that it was disproportionate, as a way of administra-
tive harassment.
The second aspect that may have increased the negative impact of the
Jewish tax was the shift in the internal social dynamics of the Jewish communi-
ties it indirectly entailed. Allen Kerkeslager suggested that the wealthy Jewish
families of Egypt and Cyrenaica suffered a drastic decline in wealth and pres-
tige in the aftermath of the Judean rebellion of 66–73.122 Personal connections
with Roman officials—a vital asset for incorporation and advancement in the
provincial administration—were now presumably out of reach, and previous
family connections with members of the Greek elites must have been damaged
as well. According to Kerkeslager, the decline of the older elite Jewish families
led to the emergence of new leaders who were prone to endorse apocalyptic
ideas, and some of the members of the older elite families may have followed
suit, as a means to retain their earlier leadership role.123
As Kerkeslager argued, the Jewish communities of neighboring Cyrenaica
underwent a similar economic and social evolution.124 When in 116 CE Roman
troops stationed in the region were diverted to Mesopotamia to support Trajan’s
war against the Parthians, the Jews of Cyrenaica burst out in revolt, and by the
120 For the payment of arrears, see C. J. Hemer, “The Edfu Ostraka and the Jewish Tax,”
Palestine Exploration Quarterly 105 (1973): 6–12; and Salvaterra, “L’amministrazione fiscal,”
303–304, with Honigman, “Juifs dans la société de l’Égypte romaine,” 164.
121 P. Lond. III 1177, republished in W. Habermann, Zur Wasserversorgung einer Metropole im
kaiserzeitlichen Ägypten: Neuedition von P. Lond. III 1177: Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar
(Munich, Beck, 2000), 131–148. See also Honigman, “Juifs dans la société de l’Égypte
romaine,” 163.
122 Kerkeslager, “The Jews in Egypt and Cyrenaica,” 57–58.
123 Ibid., 57–58.
124 Ibid., 55–59.
late summer of 116 they were joined by their counterparts in Egypt and Cyprus.
According to a list of buildings damaged during the turmoil in and around the
city of Cyrene, the rebels attacked buildings that embodied civic and imperial
institutions as well as Greek temples, clear evidence that by this date, Jewish
identity had been redefined as primarily religious.125 The suppression of the
revolt resulted in the annihilation of all Jewish life from Egypt and Cyrenaica
for more than a century.126
Conclusion
Despite a steady stream of immigration from Judea to Egypt throughout

Hellenistic and Roman times, we may state with some confidence that the
majority of the Jewish communities who rebelled in 116–117 CE were descended
from Ptolemaic settlers, and therefore the changes these communities under-
went are all the more striking. In Ptolemaic times, the Ioudaioi were an ethnic
group which, according to the Ptolemaic definition of social categories, formed
a sub-group in the privileged class of the “Greeks.” As the Letter of Aristeas
shows, the said group readily endorsed this definition of their status, for their
own benefit. This was because being categorized as Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt
was perfectly compatible with their living in close-knit communities and
remaining faithful to their ancestral customs. In Ptolemaic Egypt therefore, the
Greek Ioudaioi should effectively be translated as “Judeans.”
The fact that these Judeans remained in their original rural settlements—
precisely in order to preserve their distinct way of life—had fateful conse-
quences in the aftermath of the Roman conquest. When in 24 CE the Roman
administration reorganized the social categories and distinguished between
citizens of the poleis (like Alexandria), the Greek inhabitants of the metropoleis
125 Ibid., 59–62.

126 The rebellion was perceived by Trajan as a crime of treason, and by this logic the Jews
were proclaimed to be “impious.” The punishment for such a crime was annihilation
and confiscation of property, and the documentary evidence indeed shows that repres-
sion was reckless. All the Jewish communities documented before the revolt summarily
vanish from the evidence, and the vast tracts of confiscated lands show that the Jewish
elite families of Alexandria had perished or been executed as well. See Kerkeslager, “The
Jews in Egypt and Cyrenaica,” 61–68; J. Mélèze-Modrzejewski, “ ‘Ioudaioi apheiremenoi’.
La fin de la communauté juive en Égypte (115–117 de n.è),” in Symposion 1985. Actes du
VI e Colloque international d’histoire du droit grec et hellénistique (Ringberg, Bavaria, May
1985), (Cologne: Böhlau, and Vienna, 1989), 176–181; and Honigman, “Juifs dans la société
de l’Égypte romaine,” 167.
74 Honigman
(the urban centers of the nomes), and the village inhabitants who were collec-
tively identified as Egyptians, most of the Judeans who lived in the countryside
were debased to the status of Egyptians. However, it seems that the politeumata
retained some of their former privileges for a few more decades. In Alexandria,
the institutions of the politeuma retained (part of) their political powers as
late as 41 CE, and its members continued to perceive themselves as being part
of the privileged class of the Greeks alongside the Alexandrian citizens to this
date, if not up until 66 CE. Claudius’s settlement in 41 CE had a dual effect: on
the one hand, it enforced the legal demotion of the Judeans in Alexandria, and
on the other, it created a linkage between the fate of the Alexandrian Ioudaioi
and those of other Greek cities in the province of Syria. Philo’s innovative
concept of the Jewish diaspora as embracing the whole Mediterranean and
as being polycentric stands in contrast with its representation in the Letter
of Aristeas, and may be seen as evidence that Philo assimilated this Roman
way of devising universal categories applying to the whole empire. Starting
with Vespasian’s institution of the tax to the fiscus Iudaicus in 71 CE, this aspect
of Roman state culture was eventually responsible for a drastic shift in the
Ioudaioi’s self-definition. Although economic distress and additional frustra-
tions fostered by administrative harassment and social stigmatizing played
a heavy part in triggering the revolt of the Ioudaioi of Cyrenaica, Egypt, and
Cyprus in 116 CE, these frustrations crystallized into religious aspirations—a
phenomenon that was to occur repeatedly from here onward. Hence, instead
of the conceptually unified ethnic diaspora reported in Philo’s writing after
41 CE, from 71 the Ioudaioi became a minority, and gradually this minority
came to define itself as a religious one. In short, between 41 and 116 CE, the
Judeans had gradually become Jews.
The Roman State and Jewish Diaspora
Communities in the Antonine Age
Martin Goodman
The treatment of the Jews of the Land of Israel by the Roman state after the
Bar Kokhba war is a familiar story. The name of the country of the Jews was
changed to Syria Palaestina and Jews were forbidden to live in the city of
Jerusalem, which the Romans knew, all too well, was central to their religious
identity.1 The reason for such draconian behaviour lay quite openly in mistrust
of a people who had rebelled, with appalling consequences, three times over
the previous seventy years, twice in the homeland and once, less than twenty
years before the Bar Kokhba revolt, in the diaspora.2
The effect was to deny to Jews in their homeland the national identity they
had so proudly proclaimed on their distinctive coinage both during the great
revolt of 66–70 and under the regime of Bar Kokhba.3 The question to be tack-
led here is why, despite this treatment of their homeland, the Romans allowed
diaspora Jews to continue to form distinctive national and religious com-
munities in diaspora cities in cities all round the empire in the two centuries
between the Bar Kokhba war and the introduction by Constantine into Roman
imperial ideology of Christian notions about Jewish identity.4
Such liberal treatment of diaspora Jews might seem to contradict my depic-
tion, in Rome and Jerusalem, of Jews after Bar Kokhba as marginalised in the
Roman world, and it has been suggested that, in light of the stories of persecu-
tion of Christians in the same period, we should view Jews as exceptionally
protected and privileged by the Roman state.5 Such a comparison is interest-
ing but not in fact as straightforward as might appear at first sight. It is not
1 M. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (London: Allen Lane,
2007), 494.
2 On the diaspora revolt, see M. Pucci Ben Zeev, Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil, 116/117 CE: Ancient
Sources and Modern Insights (Leuven: Peeters, 2005).
3 On coins and identity, see M. Goodman, “Coinage and identity: the Jewish evidence,” in
Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces (eds. C. Howgego, V. Heuchert and A. Burnett;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 163–6.
4 On the changed attitudes to Jews by the state after Constantine, see S. Schwartz, Imperialism
and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press), 186–192.
5 C. Ando, “Jewish Privilege”, review of Rome and Jerusalem, by M. Goodman, Times Literary
Supplement 5427 (6 April 2007), 6–7.

76 Goodman
clear to what extent Christians really did live under the threat of persecution
throughout these centuries. If they had really felt themselves wholly margin-
alised, the apologists would not have addressed appeals for understanding to
emperors or called in imperial aid for their side in the internal struggles of the
Church in particular communities.6 It has been argued with some justification
that Christian texts of this period may reflect more a culture of martyrology, in
which suffering for the sake of Christ was put to good use in exhortation of the
faithful, than an environment in which persecution was really a constant fear.7
Moreover, even if individual Jews would not expect to be threatened by the
state for keeping Sabbath and kashrut laws, it would be an error to underplay
the outrage to Jewish national and religious sensibilities caused by the refusal
of the state to permit Jews to worship with sacrifices and other offerings in
their temple, despite this form of worship being the most familiar to ordinary
Greeks and Romans of all the Jews’ customs, and despite the clear stipulations
in the Jews’ sacred texts for offerings “in a place which the Lord your God shall
choose”.8
Nonetheless, the comparison highlights a puzzle. In light of the tendency
of other peoples, living as minorities in the cities of the Roman world to lose
their distinctive identities over time, not least in the mélange of populations in
the city of Rome itself, it is curious that the Roman state permitted, and indeed
enabled, communities of Jews to maintain theirs.9 The reason cannot lie in
ignorance of what had happened in the Jewish homeland, about which aware-
ness seems to have been widespread across the Roman world, despite the pau-
city of imperial propaganda about the defeat of Bar Kokhba in 13510 compared
to the extraordinary state publicity which had accompanied the Flavian vic-
tory in 70 CE.11
6 Justin Martyr, 2 Apol. 1.1; F. Millar, “Paul of Samosata, Zenobia and Aurelian: the Church,
local culture and political allegiance in third-century Syria,” JRS 61 (1971): 1–17.
7 C. Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom
(New York: Harper One, 2013).
8 Deut 12:11.
9 D. Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers (London: Duckworth, 2000) notes how
unusual Jews were in retaining their distinctive communal identity.
10 G. W. Bowersock, “A Roman perspective on the Bar Kochba War,” in Approaches to Ancient
Judaism (ed. W. S. Green; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1980), 2:131–41.
11 J. M. Rives, “Flavian Religious Policy and the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple,” in
Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (eds. J. Edmondson, S. Mason and J. M. Rives; Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005), 145–66.
The Roman State and Jewish Diaspora Communities 77
The name “Judaea” had not been wholly removed from usage: towards the
end of the second century, the medical writer Galen wrote of a “Judaean stone”
used for dealing with bladder and kidney stones that is called “the Judaean”
after the land in which it is produced. But Galen also noted that this land was
called “Palestinian Syria”,12 and this new name of the province had rapidly
become standard. Around the same time as Galen, the poet Oppian wrote
about balsam as the “perfume of Palestine”,13 and Alexander of Aphrodisias,
in his commentary on meteorological phenomena, described the Dead Sea as
“situated among the Palestinians”.14 Earlier in the second century, Pausanias
tended to substitute the term “Hebrew” for “Jew”, referring to the “Hebrews
beyond Syria” who rebelled against Hadrian15 and the “Hebrews” said to have in
Jerusalem the remarkable grave of Helena (the queen of Adiabene, described
inaccurately by Pausanias as having been a native woman).16
In referring to Helena’s tomb, Pausanias noted that Jerusalem had been
“razed to the ground” by the Roman emperor,17 and the total destruction of
the city was a commonplace also to be found in many other writers. In the
third century Philostratus imagined a speech in which the sage Apollonius
of Tyana berated Vespasian for wasting his energy on attacking the city of
a people so intrinsically in rebellion against all humanity because of their
“unmixed life” that it would have been better not to have got involved with
them in the first place.18
Such a connection between the city which had been destroyed and the reli-
gious lives of Jews in his own day was explicit in the account of the destruction
by Philostratus’s contemporary, the historian Cassius Dio, who noted that it
had occurred “on the very day of Saturn, the day which even now the Jews rev-
erence most”.19 According to Dio, diaspora Jews had been much implicated in
the Judean uprising against Rome in 66–70 since he stated explicitly that the
local Jews “were assisted . . . by many who professed the same customs not only
from the Roman empire but from beyond the Euphrates”.20 This picture may
have been incorrect, since it does not fit well with the assertion, attributed by
12 Galen, De Simplicium Medicamentorum Temperamentis 9.2.5 (GLAJJ 383).

13 Oppian, Cynegetica 1.338–41 (GLAJJ 399).
14 Alexander of Aphrodisias, In Aristotelis Meteorologicum Libros Commentaria, Book II,
p.359a (GLAJJ 400).
15 Pausanias, Graecia Descriptio 1.5.5 (GLAJJ 353).
16 Pausanias, Graecia Descriptio 8.16.5 (GLAJJ 358).
17 Ibid.
18 Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 5.33 (GLAJJ 403).
19 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 66.7.2(A) (GLAJJ 430).
20 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 66.4.3 (ibid).
78 Goodman
Josephus soon after the war to the Herodian king Agrippa, that Judean rebels
in 66 would hope in vain for such help from their diaspora compatriots from
beyond the Euphrates. Neither does it fit with Josephus’ failure to mention the
Jews of the diaspora within the Roman Empire except as potential victims of
Roman retaliation.21 Whatever the truth, it is significant that evidently at least
one intelligent Roman, Cassius Dio, believed in the early third century that
diaspora Jews had been involved in the Judaean war.
Dio was also well aware of the potential dangers of a mass diaspora upris-
ing, since he is one of the few historians known to have described in any detail
the terrible consequences of the tumultus in Cyrene, Egypt and Cyprus in the
last years of Trajan, which, according to his account, involved horrific savagery
and resulted in the deaths of nearly half a million people.22 Dio believed that
the diaspora Jews had been caught up in the start of the Bar Kokhba revolt in
132 CE, when “the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were
gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans”.23 If
other Romans shared this belief, why did the diaspora Jews apparently retain
their privileges unscathed as protected communities in the years that followed
Bar Kokhba’s defeat?
Dio himself may indicate some awareness of the anomaly in the account
of the Jews which accompanies his narrative of the capture of Jerusalem by
Pompey in 63 BCE, when he remarks that “the genos (of the Jews), despite fre-
quent repression, has nonetheless greatly increased to the extent that it has
won its way to the right of freedom in its observances”.24 The same passage
reveals an assumption that the Jews are a nation, stating that the whole people
(ethnos) from Phoenicia to Egypt have been called from old “Palestine” but that
they have also acquired another name: “the country has been called ‘Judaea’
and they themselves ‘Jews’ ”.25 Dio professed ignorance as to where the name
originated, but noted that “it applies also to other men who are enthusiastic for
their customs despite being of a different people”.26
That Jews could be described as an ethnos was implicit also in the descrip-
tion of the unofficial power wielded by the ethnarch in Galilee according to
the Christian Origen. In his letter to Julius Africanus in 248 CE he refers to the
plausibility of the story of Susanna in the Greek text of the book of Daniel: “We
21 Josephus, J.W. 2.388–9, 398–9.

22 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 68.32.1–3 (GLAJJ 437) .
23 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 69.13.1 (GLAJJ 440).
25 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 37.16.5 .
26 Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 37.17.1.
who have experienced it know that he (the ethnarch) differs in no way from
a king of a nation (ethnos). . . . And this we learned in the land of this nation
(ethnos) where we spent much time and were fully convinced”.27 A pagan con-
temporary of Origen who composed the Sententiae attributed wrongly to the
earlier third century jurist Julius Paulus Prudentissimus evidently also thought
of the Jews as a people, since he recorded a prohibition on Jews circumcising
male slaves “of another nation” (alienae nationis).28
At the same time, other Romans defined Jews by their religion. According to
the Digest, the jurist Modestinus recorded a transcript of Antoninus Pius that if
anyone circumcises someone “not of the same religion (religio)”, he shall suffer
the punishment of a castrator’.29 In the eyes of outsiders, it was their religious
fanaticism, which marked out Jews. In Numidia the writer Apuleius, pithily
characterising the people to the east of the Mediterranean, singles out the Jews
as superstitiosi.30 If the Digest preserves the original wording in the version
recorded in the name of the third-century jurist Ulpian, superstitio was the
term used by the emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla to refer to Judaism
when taking up offices and liturgies.31 However, the use of threskeia in the
Greek version of the same ruling cited by his contemporary Modestinus sug-
gests that Ulpian’s wording may have been adapted by a Byzantine editor.32 In
any case, derogatory remarks about Jewish beliefs as impious were a common-
place. The orator Aelius Aristides, himself an intense devotee of the healing
god Asclepius,33 clarified for his readers the characteristics of self-abasement
and stubbornness by saying that it was similar to the nature of “the impious
who live in Palestine”, for whom “the mark of impiety is that they do not recog-
nise their betters” (that is, believe in the gods).34
It is hard to know how much any of these authors knew about Jewish reli-
gious practice beyond circumcision, the sabbath, and food taboos. The lack of
references in pagan authors of the high Roman Empire to synagogues, which
27 Origen, Epistula ad Africanum 14. See The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translation of the Writings
of the Fathers down to AD 325 (ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson; vol. 4; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 392.
28 Paulus, Sententiae 5.22.4; A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, Mich.:
Wayne State University Press; Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
1987), 117–120.
29 Digest 48.8.11 (Linder, Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, 100).
30 Apuleius, Florida 6 (GLAJJ 362).
31 Digest 50.2.3.3 (Linder, Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, 104).
32 Modestinus ap. Digest 27.1.15:6 (Linder, 112).
33 See C. A. Behr, Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1968).
34 Aelius Aristides, Or. 46, de Quattuorviris, 309 (GLAJJ 371).
80 Goodman
in retrospect appear as one of the most distinctive Jewish innovations in the

history of religious practice, is remarkable.35 But even more remarkable is
the reference in the late third century by the orator Menander from Laodicea
(probably in Asia Minor), to the pilgrim festivals in Jerusalem, still in his day
the most impressive example of mass pilgrimage:
For the glory of the festival is enhanced when those who proclaim the
gathering are themselves of high repute, as well as when those who
assemble are either very great in number or of the highest repute. An
example of the last kind are those who go to Olympia, for the more
renowned meet there; while the largest multitudes are to be found at the
festival of the Hebrews living in Syria Palaestina, as they are gathered in
very large numbers from most nations.36
It is astonishing that this comment was apparently written down some two
centuries after the Jerusalem Temple has ceased to exist. Herod’s superb build-
ing evidently remained a powerful memory, and it should not surprise that it
dominated Cassius Dio’s description of the religious customs of the Jews:
They are distinguished from the rest of mankind in practically every

detail of life, and especially by the fact that they do not honour any of the
usual gods, but show extreme reverence for one particular divinity. They
never had any statue of him even in Jerusalem itself, but believing him
to be unnamable and invisible, they worship him in the most extravagant
fashion on earth. They built to him a temple that was extremely large
and beautiful, except in so far as it was open and roofless, and likewise
dedicated to him the day called the day of Saturn, on which, among many
other most peculiar observances, they undertake no serious occupation.37
All of which deepens the puzzle. If Romans believed that Jews were a people
fanatically dedicated to their religious practices, and that the central focus of
their practice lay in the Jerusalem Temple, and that Rome was deliberately
preventing Jews from worshipping in the temple by frustrating any possibil-
ity it could be rebuilt, why did they court disaster by continuing to recognise
Jewish communities in the diaspora as distinctive ethnic and religious groups?
35 S. J. D. Cohen, “Pagan and Christian evidence on the ancient synagogue,” in The Synagogue
in Late Antiquity (ed. L. I. Levine; Philadelphia: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 159–81.
36 Menander of Laodicea, Epidictica (in Spengel, Rhet.Graec., 3.366; GLAJJ 446).
37 Cassius Dio 37.17.2 (GLAJJ 406).
To expect a single answer would be unreasonably optimistic, but a number of

possibilities may be worth suggesting. All are predicated, in different ways, on
the power of inertia.
Perhaps the Roman state simply hoped that by doing nothing it would avoid
stirring up trouble. If Jews had for centuries been seen as separate commu-
nities in diaspora cities (and their separation was a common theme in non-
Jewish comments about them),38 it may have seemed imprudent to upset the
status quo. That Jews themselves wished to organise themselves into separate
communities seems clear from the inscriptions which recorded both their
burial sites and their institutions, with their references to the “people” (laos)39
and the synagogue where they practised their politeia.40 It would be naïve to
imagine that such small groups could by themselves be a real threat to the state
(although the combined mass uprising in the last years of Trajan’s rule had
inflicted real damage), but the Romans in this period set the bar high in their
expectations for peace and security in the provinces, at least within cities.41
At the same time, the state may have felt more formally bound by its own
procedures to continue recognition of Jewish communities. Romans laid
great store by precedent and antiquity, and any claim to privileges in the past
could expect to be taken seriously. Much has been written about the series of
decrees relating to diaspora Jews (mostly in Asia Minor) listed by Josephus in
his Antiquities,42 but the discussion has rarely focused on the purpose of his
citation of these rulings in the eighties and nineties CE. They seem to receive
disproportionate attention if they are simply seen as part of Josephus’ histor-
ical narrative. It seems likely that Josephus was making an implicit plea for
diaspora Jews in his own time when he quoted at length from such documents
as the edict sent to “the rest of the world” by Claudius as the conclusion of a
dispute about the rights of the Jews of Alexandria in the forties CE. In this edict
the emperor is recorded as affirming that “the Jews through the whole world
under our sway should also observe the customs of their fathers without let
or hindrance”.43 Since Josephus himself had told his readers in the last book
38 Tacitus, Hist. 5.5.2 (GLAJJ 281).

39 D. Noy, A. Panayotov and H. Bloedhorn (eds), Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2004), Vol. 1 (Eastern Europe), Ach. 3.
40 Ibid., Vol. 1 (Eastern Europe), Mac. 1.
41 M. Goodman, The Roman World, 44 BC–AD 180, (second edition; Abingdon and New York:
Routledge, 2012), 109–22.
42 M. Pucci Ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the Roman World: The Greek and Roman Documents
Quoted by Josephus Flavius (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).
43 Josephus, Ant. 19. 286–91.
82 Goodman
of the Jewish War about an attempt by the leaders of Antioch, another great
city of the eastern part of the empire with a large Jewish presence, to do away
altogether with such privileges immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem
in 70 CE, and the protection of the Antiochene Jews by the Roman state,44
such reassertion of the legal basis of Jewish communal rights was evidently
not at all redundant in the eighties and nineties CE when the Antiquities were
composed. Privileges could of course be withdrawn, but if such appeals were
considered worthwhile by Josephus in his time, they were presumably also of
potential value for Jews after 135 CE.
Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the state perhaps the strongest reason
to allow diaspora Jews to retain their distinctive communal identities was the
inertia of the tax system and the collection of the special Jewish tax. It is a
commonplace that once a tax has been imposed, it is hard to abolish, even
if it was originally intended only as a temporary levy for a specific purpose.
Income tax was introduced in Britain in 1799 as a temporary measure to cover
the cost of the Napoleonic Wars and still has to be renewed each year as a pro-
vision in the annual Finance Bill. The special tax on Jews levied after 70 CE was
originally intended, it seems, to pay for the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus in Rome, which had been destroyed in the civil strife of 69 CE,45
but the tax continued once the temple of Jupiter had been rebuilt, operating as,
in effect, war reparations for the damage inflicted on Roman forces in Judaea
from 66 to 70.46 It was anomalous that the impost fell not just on those who
had participated in the war but also on the Jews of the diaspora.47 References
to the tax in Suetonius’ biography of Domitian,48 and on the coins of Nerva,49
suggest that the collection of the tax was widely resented, at least among the
plebs in the city of Rome in the last quarter of the first century. Such resent-
ment did not prevent the continued collection of the tax down to at least the
first half of the third century, when Cassius Dio recorded that it was decreed
that “from that time forth (i.e. 70 CE) the Jews who continued to observe their
ancestral customs should pay an annual tribute to Jupiter Capitolinus”.50
44 Josephus, J.W. 7. 100–111.

45 Josephus, J.W. 7. 218.
46 Full discussion of the operation of the tax in M. Heemstra, The Fiscus Judaicus and the
Parting of the Ways (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
47 Josephus, J.W. 7.218 (See further Sylvie Honigman’s contribution in this volume).
48 Suetonius, Dom. 12.2 (GLAJJ 320).
49 H. Mattingly and E. A. Sydenham (eds.), The Roman Imperial Coinage, vol. 2: Vespasian to
Hadrian (London, Spink and Son, 1926), nos. 66 and 67.
For Tertullian, a Christian contemporary of Cassius Dio, the tax was the price
that Jews paid for freedom not to take part in pagan worship, a privilege he
explicitly contrasted to the potentially dangerous consequences to Christians
of opting out of civic religion.51 Quite how much money the tax brought in
to the Roman state, and quite how, and by whom, Jews were defined by the
state and marked down as required to pay the tax, is not known. However,
the fiscus operating it must have been a separate division within the tax-
collecting bureaucracy of the Roman state already in the time of Nerva, when
the calumnia relating to its collection was mentioned on imperial coins.52 Still
in the mid third century it was a fact evidently familiar both to Origen and his
correspondent Julius Africanus that one of the conditions of contemporary rule
by Roman emperors is that “the Jews pay the two drachmas to them”.53 It would
therefore be unsurprising if Roman bureaucrats were reluctant to give up a
source of revenue so easily collected, and if the process required the taxpayers
to be identified as members of separate groups in the cities of the empire, that
might seem a price well worth paying.
51 Tertullian, Apol. 18.

52 See note 48 above.
53 Origen, Epistula ad Africanum 14 (above n. 27).
Part II
Community and the City
∵
Civic Identity and Christ Groups
John S. Kloppenborg
In the fourth century CE, an occupational guild of fullers in Flaviopolis in

Cilicia commissioned a well-formed mosaic inscription to be placed on the
floor of a room, probably a church.1 The language of the dedication indicates
clearly that this was a Christian guild: not only does the inscription use the
self-deprecating term “the worthless guild of fullers” in place of the more usual
superlatives σεμνοτάτη (“most august”) or ἱερώτατος, “most sacred” expected in
the self-referential language of pagan occupational guilds,2 but lines 6–7 spe-
cifically invoke Luke 17:10:
ὑπὲρ σωτηρίας τοῦ εὐ-

τελοῦς συνεργίου τῶν
γναφέων τὴν μετρίαν
ἡμῶν ταύτην καρποφο-
5 ρίαν δέχου, δέσπο-
τα, παρὰ τῶν ἀχρίων σ-
οῦ δούλων, παρέχω-
ν ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν
ταῖς ἡμετέραις ψυχαῖς
10 καὶ καλὴν ἀπολογίαν.
1 Published by E. L. Hicks, “Inscriptions from Eastern Cilicia,” JHS 11 (1890): 236–54, 236–37
(no. 1); I. Dittmann-Schöne, Der Berufsvereine in den Städten des kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasiens
(Theorie und Forschung 690; Geschichte 10; Regensburg: S. Roderer, 2001), 243 (no. VI.8.1);
P. A. Harland, North Coast of the Black Sea, Asia Minor, Greco-Roman Associations: Texts,
Translations, and Commentary II, (BZNW 204; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2014),
434–41 (no. 153) (hereafter, GRA II). The inscription was discovered in a tiled pavement in a
cottage in modern Kadirli (= Kars-Bazaar) on the river Pyramos. Hicks describes the inscrip-
tion as “a very handsome tessellated pavement” found in a cottage, but probably from the
floor of a church. Hicks described the inscription as “not later than the third century” but
Dittman-Schöne is probably right that it is fourth or fifth century CE.
2 E.g., Alt.v.Hierapolis 40 (undated); 41 (III CE); Alt.v.Hierapolis 42 (Imperial period); IG II2 1088
[restored]; IG II2 1090; IG II2 1369.31 (ca. 100 CE); IG II2 3625; IMiletos 358 (Miletos, Imperial
period); Alt.v.Hierapolis 40.1–3 (Hierapolis, imperial period); 42.5–7 (Hierapolis, Imperial
period); BCH 2 (1878) 593,1A.5–7 (Lycia).

88 Kloppenborg
For the well-being of the worthless occupational guild (synergion) of full-

ers, receive O Lord, this measure of our fruitfulness from your “unprof-
itable slaves” and grant us forgiveness of sins for our souls and a good
defence.
The inscription is of interest in several respects. First, it displays continuities

with pagan occupational associations in the use of συνέργιον (or συνεργασία)3
as a self-designation and the formula “for the well being of . . .”; and it displays
notable idiosyncrasies of Christian groups in its self-deprecating designation,
its call for forgiveness, and in its appeal to the Christian scriptures.4 Second, in
the moral vernacular of fourth century Christ-groups, the terms εὐτελής and
ἀχρεῖος had become honorific terms for Christians, as they would continue to be
in succeeding centuries.5 Had they in fact been as self-effacing and “worthless”
and “unprofitable” as the inscription avers, there would have been no inscrip-
tion at all. Third, in dedicating an inscription in a church, these handworkers
represented themselves, to adapt Sandra Joshel’s description, not as fullers
“collecting urine from the public latrines, stomping about in [their] tubs, [and]
cleaning other people’s soiled clothes,” but as a publicly-minded collegium that
demonstrated its liberality by contributing to a building project.6 That is, the
3 Συνέργιον: ICiliciaDF 46.4 = SEG 37:1350 (Cilicia, I–II CE); SEG 27:947 (Tarsos, III CE): συνέργιον
τῶν ἐν τῇ σειτικ[ῇ] ὠμοφόρων, “guild of porters in the wheat-market”; SEG 26:1457 (Tarsos,
II–III CE); ISide 109.9–9 (Side, undated); IGBulg II 703 (Nicopolis ad Istrum); IGBulg III/1
1401(2) (Philippopolis = Plovdiv, undated). Συνεργασία: ISmyrna 721 (Smyrna): ἡ συνεργασία
τῶν ἀργυροκόπων καὶ χρυσοχόων, “guild of the silver and gold smiths,” and many other
instances.
4 Other (later) occupational guilds comprised of Christian workers are attested, usually identi-
fied as Christian through the presence of a staurogram (⳨). E.g., MAMA III 770 = IKilikiaHW
151 (an association [systēma] of linen-sellers [linopōloi]). Harland (GRA II, 440) has argued
that IPerinthos 167–168 (Perinthos, Macedonia; after 212 CE), grave inscriptions that use chi-
rhos (☧) after the names of the deceased and which refer to the adelphoi as those who guar-
antee the inviolability of the grave are referring to a group designated as “the brothers.”
5 See later, IG II2 13526 (Anavyssos, Attica, V/VI CE) = SEG 37:195; E. Sironen, The late Roman
and early Byzantine inscriptions of Athens and Attica: An edition with appendices on scripts,
sepulchral formulae, and occupations (Helsinki: Hakapaino Oy 1997), 268 (no. 234): ☩☩☩
|κοιμητίριον Στεφά|νου κ(αὶ) Παύλου κ(αὶ) Ἀκτέ|ωνος κ(αὶ) τῆς μητρὸς || αὐτῶν, οἱ εὐτελῖς
κλη|ρηκοί· ☩ ἔχι δὲ τὸ ἀ|νάθεμα, ἴ τις ἄλλον | {ΕΘ} ☩ ὧδε θῇ. ☩ |, grave of Stephanos and Paulos
and Aktemon and their mother, worthless klerouchoi. He will be cursed if somone else is
buried here; SEG 48:1256(5) (Palermo, Sicilia, 1080/1081 CE): δι’ ‹συν›δρομῆς {ἐπιδρομῆς} καὶ
παραστάσεως Νικολάου τοῦ εὐτελεστάτου πρεσβυτ(έρου).
6 The comments are adapted from S. R. Joshel, Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study
of the Occupational Inscriptions (Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 11; Norman: University
dedication relocates the fullers within the imagined space of the city from the
stigmatized social location of base manual labour, to the honored locale of
public benefaction. Finally, the materiality of the inscription—a profession-
ally executed mosaic inscription—points to an association that was willing to
use its resources not only to engage in the usual activities of an association—
no doubt monthly or more frequent dining and the burial of members—but
also to have an expensive mosaic inscription made.
The social practices exemplified in this inscription belong more gener-
ally to the suite of euergetic practices that were part of the lexicon of civic
identity. Arjan Zuiderhoek has recently described the euergetic practices of
elite benefactors in Roman Asia Minor. The gifts of the elite to the polis in the
form of the mounting of games and the construction of public buildings or
parts or buildings were not disinterested, altruistic practices. Such practices
inevitably elicited announcements in the assembly and honorific stelae that
declared these actions to be evidence of εὔνοια, καλοκαγαθία, εὐσέβεια, ἀρετή,
μεγαλοψυχία, φιλοτιμία and the like,7 and which recognized the élite as καλοὶ
καὶ ἀγαθοὶ ἄνδρες, exemplary individuals, with a host of terms such as σωτῆρες
(“saviours”), ἀριστεῖς (“excellent”), and τροφεῖς (“nourishers”). In this way, elite
benefaction was aligned with the lexicon of the principal Greek virtues.8
In the increasingly oligarchic situation of the second century Roman Asia,
Zuiderhoek argues,
the exchange of gifts for honours between the ruling elite and the non-
elite citizenry generated an elaborate discourse of praise, centred on the
notion of elite moral excellence, which was rooted deeply in ancient
Greek ideas of good and just behaviour of the rich man towards his
community. According to these ideas, the morally excellent rich man
was someone who used (part of) his wealth for the benefit of the whole
community. Such men might justifiably claim, and were accorded, social
and political influence. Publicly generous members of the ordo used the
of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 115, commenting on CIL VI 268, a list of magistri fontani (masters of
the fuller’s collegium) in Rome. On fullers ( fullones), see now M. Flohr, The World of the Fullo:
Work, Economy, and Society in Roman Italy (Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy; Oxford
and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
7 See the indices s.v. “virtues and vices” in J. S. Kloppenborg and R. S. Ascough, Attica, Cen-
tral Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Com-
mentary I (BZNW 181; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2011) (hereafter, GRA I) and
Harland, GRA II.
8 D. Whitehead, “Cardinal Virtues: The Language of Public Approbation in Democratic Athens,”
Classica et Mediaevelia 44 (1993): 37–75.
90 Kloppenborg
discourse based on this notion of the good rich to portray themselves in

honorific inscriptions as the ideal, i.e., natural-born, leaders of society.9
That is, the wealthy amassed social capital through their munificence and
through the discourse of praise secured their privileged positions within the
city.10
The exchange of honours for generosity and the resulting legitimization of
the place of the elite in the moral economy of the city was not limited to the
highest ranks of Graeco-Roman cities. This discourse was exported downward
along the social and economic ladder through mimicry. Associations that were
not in a position to erect their honorific decrees honouring benefactors in pub-
lic space, nonetheless made declarations of thanks in their meetings, erected
stelae in their temples and clubhouses and sometimes even affixed honorific
plaques to the houses of their benefactors.11 Such actions had a public face to
them, as Onno van Nijf has observed:
This practice was helping to raise [the association’s] own standing in

society. By showing that they cared about the city’s wider interests, and
not merely about their own narrow ones, they were able to manifest their
solidarity with the city’s essential values and with its social and politi-
cal order. More importantly, however, the honorific inscriptions that
recorded their names alongside those of their benefactors offered an
9 A. J. Zuiderhoek, The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites, and
Benefactors in Asia Minor (Greek Culture in the Roman World; Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), 151–52.
10 See also O. Van Nijf, The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch
Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 17; Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1997),
116–20 (119): “The exchanges between benefactors and clients were less disinterested
than they may have seemed: honorific epigraphy was instrumental in the gradual process
whereby the wealthy classes of the later Greek cities established their social superior-
ity, and re-invented themselves as a ruling order of honestiores, a process that may be
describe as ‘ordo-making’.”
11 E.g., CIL 11.2702.20–24 (Volsinii, Etruria; 224 CE): cooptemus statuamque ei aeream | in
schola collegi(i) n(ostri) iuxta eundem Laberium Gallum maritum | suum ponamus ut eius
erga{a} nos pietas et nostra erga eam vo|luntas publica etiam visione{m} conspiciatur tab-
ulam quo|que patrocinalem in domo eius adfigi, “(that) we should erect a bronze statue
of her in the clubhouse (schola) of our collegium beside that of her husband, Laberius
Gallus, so that her goodwill, her devotion towards us and our goodwill towards her will
be visible for all in the public view, and also that a patron’s plaque (tabula patronatus) be
attached to a wall in her house.”
opportunity to stake out a claim to public recognition, a chance to carve

out a place for themselves in civic memory.12
In addition to honouring patrons, associations mimicked civic benefactors by

making their own contributions to the costs of games,13 buildings, and archi-
tectural elements of buildings,14 and by advertising those benefactions, often
alongside the names of donors who had contributed funds to the project. In
this way even a modest association of Christian fullers could represent itself as
a publicly-minded benefactor. Of course, they did not have the resources avail-
able to those of the bouletic classes, but by pooling resources they could still
have an impact on the face of the city. They became visible to themselves and
to others as benefactors, however modest their resources.
Rhetoric of Otherness and Civic Mimicry
Πάροικοι καὶ Παρεπίδημοι

If by the fourth century CE, and especially during the following centuries, Christ
groups could represent themselves as part of the fabric of the city, how did ear-
lier Christ groups position themselves in relation to the city? From that earlier
period, we have no honorific or dedicatory inscriptions comparable to those of
the associations mentioned above—or at least, if there are such inscriptions,
their “Christian” character would be invisible to us without the paralinguistic
marks (e.g., chi-rhos, crosses) and onomastic indicators that help us to identify
Christian inscriptions in a later period.15 In addressing the question of how
second and third century Christ groups related to the city, I am interested not
only in how Christ-followers described themselves to themselves, but also in
12 Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 121.

13 P.Oslo III 144 (Oxyrhynchus, 272–275 CE), probably in reference to the Capitoline games,
which came to Oxyrhynchus in 274 or 275 CE for the first time.
14 E.g., CJZC 72 (Bernikē [Benghazi], 54/55 CE); IEph 20 (Ephesus, 54–59 CE) = GRA I 127.
15 On the identification of letters from Christians on the basis of monograms, names and
other features, see L. Blumell, Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique
Oxyrhynchus (New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 39; Leiden and Boston:
Brill, 2012), 27–88. Of the approximately 800 letters provenanced at Oxyrhynchus from
the mid-first century to the seventh century, Blumell identified 191 Christian letters: none
from the first, first/second, second, or second/third centuries. Only six could be identified
as Christian from the third century and only six from the third/fourth centuries. This, of
course, is not because Christians were not writing letters prior to the third century, but
because those letters are invisible to us because of lack of distinguishing features.
92 Kloppenborg
the practices in which they engaged, that is, how they appeared in the land-
scape of the ancient city.
One of the common tropes that appears in the literature of Christ-followers
of the second and following centuries is that of the “self-as-other,”16 or per-
haps better, the “group as other.” That is, many Christ groups used language
that constructed themselves as not part of the city, as aliens belonging to an
alien polity. This trope is epitomized in the terms πάροικοι (resident non-
citizens), παρεπίδημοι (visitors) and ξένοι (strangers), which appear widely in
early Christian literature.17 Yet it is not always clear what the terms signify. Do
they denote legal status vis à vis the city and merely signal the fact that few
if any Christ-followers had citizen status in Greek cities? Or do they function
metaphorically to signal that Christ-followers, regardless of their civic status,
thought of themselves as transient in the world, either by virtue of their apoca-
lyptic expectations or by their baptism and now belonged to a different realm?
And what forms of political behaviour were entailed in these terms? Eventually
πάροικοι and παροικία became stereotyped terms used to describe churches in
various locations where they appear to have neither legal nor metaphorical
meaning. “The ekklēsia that ‘sojourns’ in Gortyn” seems to mean nothing more
than “the ekklēsia that happens to be located in Gortyn.”18
16 The term has been used extensively by B. H. Dunning, “Strangers and Aliens No Longer:
Negotiating Identity and Difference in Ephesians 2,” HTR 99 (2006): 4; idem., Aliens and
Sojourners: Self as Other in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2009), 6.
17 πάροικος, παροικία: Eph 2:19; 1 Pet 1:1, 17; 2:11; 1 Clem. 1.1; 2 Clem. 5.1; Polycarp, Phil. 5.1; Mart.
Poly. 1.1; Diogn. 5.1–6; 6.8; Apoc. Sedrach 11: καὶ ἄρτι πάροικοι γίνεσθε τοῦ κόσμου τούτου;
Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.12.85; Strom. 4.26. For παρεπίδημοι, παρεπιδημέω, see
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.14: ὡς ξένοι καὶ παρεπιδημοῦντες πολιτεύεσθαι ὀφείλομεν,
“we must conduct ourselves politically as foreigners and visitors”; Tertullian, De
Exhortatione Castitatis 12.1 (arguing against second marriages): Non et nos peregrinantes
in isto saeculo sumus? Cur autem ita dispositus es, o christiane, ut sine uxore non possis?
Are not we also wanderers in this world? Why moreover, Christian, are you so condi-
tioned, that you cannot (travel) without a wife? See J. Roldanus, “Références patristiques
au «chétien-estranger» dans les trois premier siècles,” in Lectures Anciennes de la Bible
(Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 1; Strasbourg: Centre d’analyse et de documentation patris-
tiques, 1987), 27–52.
18 The terms appear to have become a stereotypical way of referring to a church, especially
in Eusebius and the earlier letters he cites: Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.23.5: τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ δὲ τῇ
παροικούσῃ Γόρτυναν ἅμα ταῖς λοιπαῖς κατὰ Κρήτην παροικίαις ἐπιστείλας; 5.1.3: οἱ ἐν Βιέννῃ καὶ
Λουγδούνῳ τῆς Γαλλίας παροικοῦντες δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ; 5.22.1:τῶν κατ’ Ἀλεξάνδρειαν παροικιῶν;
5.23.3: τῶν κατὰ Γαλλίαν δὲ παροικιῶν; 5.24.15: οἱ πρὸ σοῦ πρεσβύτεροι τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν παροικιῶν
τηροῦσιν ἔπεμπον εὐχαριστίαν; 6.2.2: τῶν δ’ αὐτόθι παροικιῶν; 7.26.3: τῶν κατὰ τὴν Πεντάπολιν
παροικιῶν; 7.28.1: Γρηγόριος δὲ καὶ Ἀθηνόδωρος ἀδελφοὶ τῶν κατὰ Πόντον παροικιῶν ποιμένες
The notion of “alienness” is perhaps ultimately indebted to Abraham’s self-

description as a resident non-citizen and a visitor (πάροικος καὶ παρεπίδημος
ἐγώ εἰμι μεθ’ ὑμῶν, Gen 23:4; cf. Ps 38[39]:13) and the frequent representation of
the heroes of Israel’s history as resident aliens in Canaan, Egypt and Babylonia.19
Whatever their ultimate source, however, it is clear that these terms had wide-
spread appeal in the construction of the identity of Christ-followers in the late
first and early second century.
Clement of Alexandria
In the third century Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 4.26.165–167) used the
terms πάροικος, παρεπίδημος and ἐπιξενουμένη several times in his discussion
of the proper relation of the soul to the body. There he records that Basilides,
taking his cue from Gen 23:4, claimed that the gnostic was a resident alien and
a visitor and was in fact was different by nature (φύσει) from others, since he
was by nature supramundane (ὑπερκόσμιον). Clement objected to this on the
ontological grounds that the Basilidean gnostic could not have a nature differ-
ent from others, since the cosmos and all that is in it are of the same (created)
nature. Nevertheless, Clement agreed that the true “gnostic” is a foreigner: “the
elect person conducts himself politically (πολιτεύεται) like a foreigner (ξένος),
knowing that all things are to be possessed and disposed of.”20
In spite of his declarations of “alienness,” Clement’s ethical posture does not
suggest that he encouraged practices that sharply differentiated the Christ-
follower from others. To be sure, Clement treated the Stoic virtue of ἀπάθεια
as cardinal and his ethics was strongly influenced by Middle Platonism and an
καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις Ἕλενος τῆς ἐν Ταρσῷ παροικίας; 8.13.7: οἳ πρὸς τῶν κατὰ χώραν καὶ τόπον
παροικιῶν μνημονεύονται, etc. R. Feldmeier (“The ‘Nation’ of Strangers: Social Contempt
and Its Theological Interpretation in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity,” in Ethnicity
and the Bible [ed. M. G. Brett; Biblical Interpretation Series 19; Leiden and New York: Brill,
1996], 264) notes that in the third and fourth centuries, παροικία came to mean “parish.”
19 See the compilation of texts in J. H. Elliott, 1 Peter (AB 37B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 477.
20 See also Protrept. 10.108.4: Ὁ μὲν οὖν Ἀθηναῖος τοῖς Σόλωνος ἑπέσθω νόμοις καὶ ὁ Ἀργεῖος τοῖς
Φορωνέως καὶ ὁ Σπαρτιάτης τοῖς Λυκούργου, εἰ δὲ σεαυτὸν ἀναγράφεις τοῦ θεοῦ, οὐρανὸς μέν
σοι ἡ πατρίς, ὁ δὲ θεὸς νομοθέτης. Clement also articulates the notion of Christians as a
“third race”: Strom 6.5.41: καθὼς ὁ κύριος λέγει· «ἰδοὺ διατίθεμαι ὑμῖν καινὴν διαθήκην, οὐχ ὡς
διεθέμην τοῖς πατράσιν ὑμῶν ἐν ὄρει Χωρήβ.» νέαν ἡμῖν διέθετο· τὰ γὰρ Ἑλλήνων καὶ Ἰουδαίων
παλαιά, ἡμεῖς δὲ οἱ καινῶς αὐτὸν τρίτῳ γένει σεβόμενοι Χριστιανοί, “The Lord says, ‘Behold I am
making with you a new covenant, not as I had made with your fathers on Mount Horeb’.
He made with us a new covenant; for what pertains to the Greeks and the Judaeans are
old; but we are Christians who worship him in a new way and in a third form.” See further,
W. Schäfke, “Frühchristlicher Widerstand,” ANRW 23, no. 1 (1979): 624–27.
94 Kloppenborg
eclectic mixture of Stoic, Platonic and Aristotelian elements.21 He advocated

a frugal existence, declaring διὰ τοῦτό τοι πατρίδα ἐπὶ γῆς οὐκ ἔχομεν, “there
fore we have on earth no native country” (Paed. 3.8.41). But simultaneously
he counselled conventional behaviour: the moderate use of the public baths
(Paed. 3.9) and exercise in the gymnasium; and although he discouraged the
use of make-up, earrings and nose rings, he saw nothing problematic about
finger rings (Paed. 3.11). His description of the “gnostic” as one who ὡς ξένος
πολιτεύεται22 seems to imply nothing very different from the conduct of Stoics,
who eschewed displays of luxury and who adopted a simple and restrained
lifestyle. Stoics were not known as political nonconformists.23
Diognetus
Writing sometime in the second century, the author of the letter of Diognetus,
like Clement, also employed the terms “resident non-citizen” and “foreigner.”
Diognetus, however, states that to be a Χριστιανός was to be empirically
indistinguishable from others in language, dress, and customs. Nonetheless he
insists that “Christians” are πάροικοι and ξένοι:
For Christians are neither distinguished from the rest of humanity by

land, nor by language, nor by customs, for neither do they dwell in cities
of their own, nor do they use some peculiar language, nor practice a dis-
tinguishing way of life. The teaching that they are engaged in is not found
in some human teaching and does not come through some idea or inten-
tion of idle people as is the case for some; but dwelling in both Greek and
barbarian cities, just as is the lot of each one, and observing the indig-
enous customs in dress and in food and in conduct and in other parts
of life, they display a marvelous and admittedly puzzling state of their
citizenship. Living in their own countries, but as resident non-citizen
(ὡς πάροικοι), they participate in all things just like citizens, and remain
altogether as foreigners (ὡς ξένοι). Every foreign land is their country and
every country is a foreign land. They marry, as everyone, produce chil-
dren, but they do not expose the children that are born. (Diognetus 5.1–6).
21 See S. R. C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 60–117.
22 See also Strom. 3.14: ὡς ξένοι καὶ παρεπιδημοῦντες πολιτεύεσθαι ὀφείλομεν, “we must conduct
ourselves politically as foreigners and visitors.”
23 See B. D. Shaw, “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 64 (1985): 16–54.
Abstinence from child-exposure seems to be the sole differentia. Later on, the
notion of “alienness” is further clarified:
The soul is immortal dwelling in a mortal tent, and Christians are resident
aliens in corruptible (bodies), expecting incorruptibility in the heavens.
(Diognetus 6.8)24
Diognetus here invokes legal terminology—πάροικοι and πολῖται—but treats

them as metaphors for the Christ-follower’s posture toward life in general
rather than one’s legal status vis à vis the city. Here, the notion of being a “res-
ident alien” comes close to the Philonic idea that the soul of the wise is an
alien and foreigner on earth, but properly belongs in the heavens.25 In spite
of this claim, Diognetus’ description of the conduct of the Christ-follower
suggests that she or he is indistinguishable from other inhabitants of the city.
Dunning urges that although Diognetus frames the identity of Christ-followers
in assimilationist terms, there is nonetheless a “struggle with the dominant
Roman order” and resistance to that order.26 Yet if there is “resistance” here, it
is not articulated in a set of social practices that would made such resistance
visible. To use Bryan Wilson’s typology of sects, Diognetus appears to represent
a “manipulationist sect,” which claims the possession of a distinctive knowl-
edge beneficial to the attainment of worthy cultural goals, but which accepts
the goals of the outside world and provides their members with new methods
for attaining them.27 To the outside observer, this type of sect is hardly distin-
guishable from others in society.
Hermas
The author of Hermas, like Clement and Diognetus, invokes the vocabulary of
civic membership, to claim that he Christ-follower belongs elsewhere:
24 ἀθάνατος ἡ ψυχὴ ἐν θνητῷ σκηνώματι κατοικεῖ καὶ Χριστιανοὶ παροικοῦσιν ἐν φθαρτοῖς τὴν ἐν
οὐρανοῖς ἀφθαρσίαν προσδεχόμενοι.
25 Philo, Agr. 65: τῷ γὰρ ὄντι πᾶσα ψυχὴ σοφοῦ πατρίδα μὲν οὐρανόν, ξένην δὲ γῆν ἔλαχε, καὶ
νομίζει τὸν μὲν σοφίας οἶκον ἴδιον, τὸν δὲ σώματος ὀθνεῖον, ᾧ καὶ παρεπιδημεῖν οἴεται. Similarly,
Philo, Cher. 121; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata. 4.26 §165.3; 7.12 §78.3. See T. Seland,
Strangers in the Light: Philonic Perspectives on Christian Identity in 1 Peter (Biblical
Interpretation Series 76; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), esp. 117–28.
26 Dunning, Aliens and Sojourners, 64–77.
27 B. R. Wilson, “A Typology of Sects,” in Sociology of Religion (ed. R. Robertson; Baltimore:
Penguin, 1969), 361–83 (367).
96 Kloppenborg
You know, he said, that as slaves of God you are dwelling in a foreign land
(ἐπὶ ξένης κατοικεῖτε); for your city is far from this city. Therefore, if you
know, he said, the city in which you are going to dwell, why are you pre-
paring fields here, and making expensive arrangements, and buildings,
and pointless rooms? For whoever prepares these for this city is not able
to return to his own city. Foolish and double-minded and miserable one!
Don’t you know that all of these things are foreign (ἀλλότρια), and under
someone else’s control? For the ruler of this city will say, “I do not wish
you to dwell in my city; go away from this city, because you are not living
by my laws.” Therefore, you who have fields and houses and many other
possessions, when he throws you out, what will you do with the field
and house and the other things that you have prepared for yourself?. . . .
So take care: you are dwelling as in a foreign land; do not prepare much
except what gives you adequate self-sufficiency (τὴν αὐτάρκειαν τὴν
ἀρκετήν), and be prepared so that when the ruler of this city expels you
because you have set yourself against his law, you might come out of his
city and depart to your city and observe your law, joyfully and suffering
no abuse (Hermas, Sim. 1.1–3, 6).
As Dibelius pointed out, there are affinities with Philo’s sentiments in Cher. 120
where under Platonic influences he describes the sage as a stranger and resi-
dent non-citizen on earth.28 Yet Hermas’ characterization of the Christ-follower
seems also to imply a social posture. Osiek comments that the “emphasis of
[Hermas’s] argument is not on the evil of this city but on the contingency of
Christians’ existence in it and the greater allegiance they owe to another city.”29
For Hermas this allegiance is not simply a matter of imagining oneself as part
of an alien polity, but of adopting certain concrete practices:
28 See M. Dibelius, Der Hirt des Hermas (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Ergänzungsband:
Die apostolischen Väter 4; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923), 550, citing Philo, Agr. 65: “For
in reality every soul of a sage has heaven for its country, and looks upon earth as a foreign
land, and considers the house of wisdom his own home; but the house of the body, a
lodging-house, on which it proposes to visit (παρεπιδημεῖν) for a while”; Cher. 120: “for
God, [the wise] are strangers and resident aliens (ἐπηλύται καὶ πάροικοι); for each of us
comes into the world as to a foreign city, in which he has no share before his birth, and
coming there dwells as a resident alien (παροικεῖ) until he has exhausted the period of life
that has been assigned.”
29 C. Osiek, Shepherd of Hermas: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress
Press, 1999), 158.
Instead of fields, therefore, purchase souls that are afflicted, as each is

able, and look after widows and orphans and do not overlook them;
and expend your wealth and all your arrangements on those “fields” and
“houses”, which you have received from God. . . . This is extravagance
(πολυτέλεια), honourable and gracious (ἱλαρά). Do not be grieved or
fearful but have joy. Do not practice the extravagance of the pagans for
these are unprofitable for you as slaves of God; but practice your own
kind of extravagance (τὴν δὲ ἰδίαν πολυτέλειαν) by which you are able to be
happy. . . . Do your own work, and you will be saved. (Sim. 1.8, 10).
Osiek has made a good case that Hermas’ addressees are among the wealthy
social-climbing class of Roman freedmen.30 Non-participation in the life of
the city, for Hermas, amounts to eschewing the acquisitiveness that may have
characterized freedmen, who could use their peculia to acquire land.31 Instead,
what Hermas counsels amounts to mimicry of the euergetic practices of civic
elites, who thereby gain visibility within the fabric of the city as καλοὶ καὶ ἀγαθοὶ
ἄνδρες. This mimicry is underscored by the parable of the vine and the elm
tree in Similitude 2, where the “Shepherd” explains that when the rich (Christ-
follower) assist the poor, “the poor, being provided for by the rich person,
appeals to God, giving thanks to him for the one who gave to him” (Sim. 2.1.6).
Civic munificence, as Zuiderhoek stresses,32 often took the form of expen-
ditures directed at public games, public banquets, and building projects. It was
not directly intended to alleviate the plight of the poor. Hermas advocates a
form of euergetism that directly benefited “the poor.” Notwithstanding Peter
Brown’s observation that one of the critical transformations of the fourth cen-
tury CE was the reconfiguration of the ideal of generosity from “love of the
city”—civic benefactions, which benefitted citizens, many of whom were far
from poor—to “love of the poor” and support of the church in the form of
almsgiving,33 Hermas’ kind of euergetism in fact finds analogies in the philo-
sophical criticism of the extravagant practices of civic benefactors.
30 C. Osiek, Rich and Poor in the Shepherd of Hermas: An Exegetical-Social Investigation
(CBQMS 15; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983), 127–32.
31 See Nicholas Purcell, “Wine and Wealth in Ancient Italy,” JRS 75 (1985): 1–19, who observes
that viticulture, which was profitable but risky, was prior to the time of Vespasian the
domain of freedmen, municipal elites, and others of middling rank rather than that of
patricians.
32 Zuiderhoek, Politics of Munificence, 34.
33 P. Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of
Christianity in the West, 350–550 AD (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press,
2012), chaps 3–4. Earlier: idem., Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire
98 Kloppenborg
Cicero himself disapproved of extravagance (prodigi) directed at the public

banquets, distributions of meat, gladiatorial shows, magnificent games, and
wild-beast fights (De officiis 2.16.56) on the grounds that such displays were fleet-
ing and appealed mainly to the rabble.34 He recommended instead ransom-
ing captives from bandits, paying the debts of friends, assisting with dowries,
and helping them acquire property—that is, being of service to one’s friends
(2.15.56). Although Cicero admits that on occasion he too underwrote the cost
of the games, he preferred benefactions in the form of public works that were
of enduring service to the community (2.17.59). But he also insists that distri-
bution of money to the poor (indigentibus) was a worthy means to gain glory
(ad gloriam adipiscendam), although he cautions that this must be done with
discretion and moderation in order to avoid bankruptcy (De officiis 2.15.54).
By “poor” (indigentes, tenuiores) it is not clear whether Cicero was speak-
ing of the poor citizens of Rome in general or of persons in his network of
friends and allies who had fallen into poverty, although I think that the latter is
the more probable. A century later, however, Pliny clearly meant the latter: he
characterized the truly “liberal” man as one who assisted his country, his kin,
and his friends, “I mean friends who are poor” (affinibus amicis, sed amicis dico
pauperibus) (Ep. 9.30.1).35 Pliny too engaged in the more extravagant forms of
euergetism, underwriting the costs of a public bath, a yearly civic banquet, and
funding a library in his home town of Comum. But he also made a gift of land,
the rent from which went to support the freeborn boys and girls of his own
town, Comum.36 Even these kinds of euergetism, it must be said, were likely
not designed to support the poor in general. As Greg Woolf has shown, Pliny’s
benefaction should be seen in the context of the alimentary schemes that were
promoted in the late first century CE and which were not directed at those who
lived near the subsistence level, but instead were part of the system of imperial
and elite patronage aimed at children who were deemed eligible by virtue of
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002), 8: “To put it bluntly: in a sense, it
was the Christian bishops who invented the poor. They rose to leadership in late Roman
society by bringing the poor into ever-sharper focus.”
34 Similarly, Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae reipublicae 821F–822B; Pliny, Ep. 1.8.
35 See much earlier, an Athenian example cited in Lysias 19.56, on which see M. R. Christ,
“Helping Behavior in Classical Athens,” Phoenix 64 (2010): 254–290.
36 Pliny, Ep. 7.18: quae in alimenta ingenuorum ingenuarumque promiseram; CIL V 5262.13–14:
dedit in aliment(a) pueror(um) | et puellar(um) pleb(is) urban(ae) HS [D(milia), “he gave
HS 500,000 for the maintenance of boys and girls of the city.” See S. Dixon, “Gracious
Patrons and Vulgar Success Stories in Roman Public Media,” Memoirs of the American
Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volume 7: Role Models in the Roman World. Identity
and Assimilation (2008): 57–68.
their legal status or their privileged place of residence.37 Such benefaction was
routinely recognized and reciprocated with honorific decrees erected by the
recipients of this largesse.38
Lower down the ladder of economic achievement, Graeco-Roman associa-
tions likewise provide evidence of the practice of wealthier members assist-
ing poorer members in distress. For example, IG II2 1327 (Piraeus, 178/7 BCE)
records an honorific decree for the treasurer of a group of orgeōnes of the Great
Mother, who has shown himself to be generous to the group as a whole and to
members individually, “generously paying for [the sacrifices], often from his
own resources; and also for some who had died, when the treasury had no
money, he paid for the tomb so that they might be treated decently even in
death” (ll. 9–12).39 This is not charity directed at all the urban poor, but only
at disadvantaged members of the group. Much later, the νόμος of an Egyptian
association required members to assist other members who were “in distress”
(τινὰ ἐν ἀηδίᾳ) and imposed fines on those who refused, also insisting that the
association was required to stand surety for a member who was arrested on a
private debt, for up to 100 drachmae.40
Seen in this context, Hermas’ advice for Christ-followers to direct their
“extravagance” (πολυτέλεια = prodigi) to widows and orphans and to “purchase
souls that are afflicted” can be seen as a local version of what, in the public
sphere, was embraced as a normal form of euergetism. As Hermas’ Sim. 2 makes
clear, the extravagance shown to widows and orphans is not meant to include
those outside the group, but is directed inward, to members of the group, eli-
gible, presumably, by virtue of their baptism. In exchange, these would give
thanks to God for the wealthy benefactor and the piety of the poor recipient
would benefit the wealthy (Sim. 2.1.6).
37 G. Woolf, “Food, Poverty and Patronage: The Significance of the Epigraphy of the Roman
Alimentary Schemes in Early Imperial Italy,” Proceedings of the British School at Rome 58
(1990): 197–228 (227): “We do not know how the recipients of the alimenta were selected,
but all the evidence suggests that they were eligible by virtue of their privileged status,
either as citizens and inhabitants of a privileged area—Italy—or just possibly as mem-
bers of a more elevated group within the Italian communities.”
38 E.g., the decree of citizens of Comum, recognizing Pliny’s benefactions: CIL V 5262 = ILS
2927.
39 GRA I, 175–79 (no. 35). See also Christ, “Helping Behavior” for Athenian examples of
wealthy citizens providing food and burial expenses for poorer Athenians (in their family
networks).
40 P.Mich. V 243.6, 8–9: ἐάν τις παρίδῃ τινὰ ἐν ἀηδίᾳ καὶ μὴ συνεπισχύσῃ ἐπὶ τὸ συλλῦσαι αὐτὸν
τῆς ἀηδίας, δότω (δρ.) η’. . . . ἐάν τις πρὸς ἰδιωτικ(ὸν) | παραδοθῇ, ἐγγυάσθωσαν αὐτὸν ἕως
ἀργ(υρίου) (δρ.) ἑκατὸν π̣ ρὸ̣ ̣ς� ̣ ἡμέρ(ας) λ’, ἐν αἷς ἀπευλυτήσει τοὺς ἄνδρας.
100 Kloppenborg
Although it is often supposed that Christ groups did not engage in the hon-
ouring of benefactors,41 this in fact is not far from what Hermas imagines.
Hermas promises a reciprocal exchange, in which the poor Christ-follower
receives support from the rich, and in turn the poor “gives thanks to God” for
that gift (τῷ θεῷ εὐχαριστῶν αὐτῷ ὑπὲρ τοῦ διδόντος αὐτῷ, 2.1:6).42 It is important
to understand the dynamics of this exchange: “giving thanks” is not a private
mental act on the part of the poor; it is a public declaration. Typical of the
honorific decrees of associations is that the honorand was publicly honoured
and acclaimed in the group. Although a stele was often erected to record the
associations’ decree, the initial and critical honorific practice was the public
acknowledgement of largesse in the group’s meeting. IG II2 1325.27–30 (Piraeus,
185/4 BCE) makes this point clearly:
It was resolved by the orgeōnes to commend (ἐπαινέσαι) Dionysios son of

Agathokles of Marathon and to crown him with an ivy wreath in accor-
dance with the law on account of his excellence and benefactions and
the goodwill that he has shown to them, and to announce (ἀναγορεῦ]σαι)
this wreath after the libations have been made when the sacred rites have
been completed by the orgeōnes in their first meeting.43
One need not assume that in Hermas’ group the wealthy donor was crowned or
that a formal decree was issued; but Hermas imagines a dynamic whereby the
41 L. William Countryman, “Patrons and Officers in Club and Church,” in Society of Biblical
Literature 1977 Seminar Papers (ed. P. J. Achtemeier; SBLSP 11; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars
Press, 1977), 135–43.
42 See also Sim. 2.1.7: “Therefore both complete a work: Now the poor works by the interces-
sion in which he is rich, which he received from the Lord; this he repays (ἀποδίδωσι) to the
Lord who helps him. And the rich man, similarly, unhesitatingly offers the wealth that he
received from the Lord to the poor. And this is a great work, and acceptable before God,
because he knows about his wealth and has given to the poor from the gifts of the Lord,
and rightly completed his service (διακονία) to him.” Here the use of διακονία suggests
that the actions of the rich amount to an officium. Compare Woolf, “Food, Poverty and
Patronage,” 217: “The good citizen’s officium was to use his good fortune for the benefit of
communities to which he had responsibilities. But the relationship was one of reciprocity,
not of altruism: in return for his beneficia the benefactor wins status and gratia.”
43 The public proclamation of the crowning of a member or benefactor is widely attested,
both in associations (e.g., ΑΜ 66 228 no. 4 (138/7 BCE); IG II2 1263.37, 43–45 [11] (300/299
BCE); IG II2 1273AB.17 [18] (265/4 BCE); IG II2 1277.24 [15] (278/7 BCE); IG II2 1292.14 [26]
(215/4 BCE)); IG II2 1297.14 [24] (236/5 BCE); IG II2 1314.20–21 [28] (213/2 BCE); IG II2
1315.25 [29] (211/0 BCE); IG II2 1325.29 [33] (185/4 BCE) and in the polis (IG II2 212.29;
555.16, 21–22; 654.44, etc.). The GRA I numbers are in bold.
identity of the donor is made known by the thankful recipient. Even though
Hermas conceives the reciprocal exchange as indirect—the recipient thanks
God for the gift that God has supplied through the rich, and the rich makes use
of the resources with which God has furnished him—there is hardly any doubt
that the donor’s reputation as a καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθὸς ἄνηρ would be recognized
by all.44
Hence, notwithstanding Hermas’ declarations that membership in a Christ-
group entails belonging to an alien polity that observes different “laws” than
those of the host city, the practices that Hermas encourages at least in this
respect mimic those of civic society.
1 Peter
1 Peter famously describes his addressees with the rather oxymoronic term,
ἐκλεκτοί παρεπίδημοι, “chosen visitors” (1:1) and later as πάροικος καὶ παρεπίδημοι
(2:11). John Elliott has argued that at least for 1 Peter the terms are not meta-
phorical but connote the civic statuses of persons who are not citizens but
resident non-citizens in one of the cities of Roman Asia or visitors to those cit-
ies.45 He characterizes the position of such persons as marginal, “vulnerable,”
“tenuous” and estranged.46
Although Elliott is correct that the terms have to do with legal status
vis à vis the polis, they are not necessarily terms of disapprobation.47 Of course,
πάροικος καὶ παρεπίδημοι no doubt sought the status πολῖται and the various
44 That “charity” in the ancient worlds always expected reciprocation (and therefore was
rarely directed outside one’s network) is underscored by A. R. Hands, Charities and Social
Aid in Greece and Rome (London: Thames & Hudson, 1968), 30–31: “The essential point
is that there remains basic to the discussion the assumption that the gifts, benefits, or
favours in question are to be conferred upon somebody who can make a return, so that
return, even though it may no longer decently be asked for, is confidently expected”
(emphasis original). Only much later does not idea emerge of giving gifts to one who is
incapable of reciprocation.
45 Elliott, 1 Peter, 476–83. See also J. H. Elliott, A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis
of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 33–49, who notes
how various bible translations of 1 Pet 1:17 and 2:1 gratuitously offer such translations
as “visitors and pilgrims,” “strangers and refugees in this world” or “earthly pilgrimage”
(39–41).
46 Compare the treatment of 1 Peter and his notion of “elect strangers” in the contribution of
Lutz Doering in this volume.
47 Similarly, S. R. Bechtler, Following in His Steps: Suffering, Community, and Christology in 1
Peter (SBLDS 162; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1998), 17: “πάροικος bore a decidedly negative
connotation; the stranger, whether called πάροικος or παρεπίδημος, was from the stand-
point of society a second-class person,” citing R. Feldmeier, Die Christen als Fremde: die
102 Kloppenborg
privileges and obligations that accompanied this status. Philo reports the
injury suffered by Alexandrian Jews who were demoted from being πολῖται to
the status of “foreigners and aliens” (Flacc. 54).48 There is, however, plenty of
evidence that πάροικος καὶ παρεπίδημοι was used in the more positive sense
of persons whose legal status fell short of citizenship, but who were nonethe-
less expected to contribute to the life of the city.
Elliott claims that the largest number of πάροικοι were found among the rural
populace and accordingly supposes that the addressees of 1 Peter are mainly
rural folk.49 Thus for Elliott, πάροικοι tends to slide from being a designation of
legal status to one of ethnic dislocation and displacement.50 Indeed, accord-
ing to Stephen Mitchell the rural population of Anatolia was “often described
as perioikoi, paroikoi, katoikoi, non-citizen komētai, or simply as the common
people, the laos.”51 This, however, hardly means that persons who were called
πάροικοι were necessarily rural. Greek cities has significant populations of non-
citizen traders, craftsmen, and others. The more important feature of the term
πάροικος is its legal significance: the term πάροικος, whether in reference to
a person in countryside or in a city, did not enjoy the status of a citizen.52 But
a critical characteristic of πάροικοι was that they were either freeborn, or freed,
Metapher der Fremde in der antiken Welt, im Urchristentum und im 1. Petrusbrief (WUNT 2.
Reihe 64; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 21.
48 Flacc. 54: “[Flaccus] issued a proclamation in which he denounced us foreigners and
aliens (ξένους καὶ ἐπήλυδας) and gave us no right of pleading our case, but condemned us
as unjudged” (transl. LCL). Whether Judeans living in Alexandria were in fact citizens (or
at least some of them) is controverted. Josephus (Ant. 19.281) claims that Judeans living
in Alexandria were called Ἀλεξανδρεῖς (“Alexandrians”) and that they had obtained ἴσης
πολιτείας in contrast to Flaccus’ claim. On this see M. Pucci Ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the
Roman World (TSAJ 74; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 296–301.
49 Elliott, Home for the Homeless, 68–69 Elliott acknowledged that 1 Peter was also addressed
to Christ-followers in cities.
50 Idem, 24.
51 S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993), 1:176.
52 H. Schäfer, “Παροικοι,” PW 18, no. 4 (1949): 1695–1700 (1698): Paroikoi are “die nicht dem
Vollbürgertum zugerechtnet wird, aber auch nicht zu den Fremden gehört, sondern
zwischen diesen beiden Gegensätzen in der Mitte steht. Das Bedeutsamste am Wesen
der Paroikie ist, daß sie ovn dem einzelnen Staat als Instituion anerkannt wird. Man wird
unter die Paroiken der einzelnen Gemeinden aufgenommen, sei es, daß man als Fremder
sich nach mehre oder weniger langer Anwesenheit darum beworben hat, sei es, daß der
Staat Sklaven, Freigelassenen und anderen minderberechtiguen Bevölkerungsklassen die
Zugehörigkeit zur Paroikiegewährt, um diese zu verflichten”; similarly, Bechtler, Following
in His Steps, 71–73.
not slaves. This point can be illustrated by numerous inscriptions that distin-
guish between citizens, visitors, paroikoi and slaves as separate and distinct
categories. For example:
I.Stratonikeia 172.7–11 (Sanctuary of Zeus Panamaros Stratonikeia, Roman

period)
ἐδείπνισ[εν]
δὶς ἑξῆς ἐν μὲν τῷ Κομυρίωι τοὺς πολείτας πάντας καὶ Ῥ[ωμαί]-
ους καὶ ξένους καὶ παροίκους καὶ δούλους πλείστους, ἐν δ[ὲ τῷι]
ἱερῶι τὰς πολείτιδας πάσας καὶ Ῥωμαίας καὶ ξένας καὶ π[αροί]-
10 κους καὶ δούλας πλείστας, ἀποκατέστησεν δὲ καὶ τὰς [ἑστιάσεις]
καὶ δημοθοινίας καταλελυμένας . . .
. . . he twice and successively banqueted all of the citizens (of Stratonikeia)
and the Romans and visitors and paroikoi and most of the slaves in the
Komyrion, and then he also re-established the banquets and the public
feasts . . .
I.Stratonikeia 210.7–8 (Sanctuary of Zeus Panamaros Stratonikeia, Roman

period)
7 διπνίσας δὲ [κ]αὶ τοὺς πολείτα[ς πάντας καὶ τοὺς Ῥωμαίους]
[καὶ τοὺς ξένους καὶ παροίκους καὶ δ]ούλους
. . . having banqueted both all the citizens and the Romans and the visi-
tors and the paroikoi and the slaves. . . .
I.AphrodArchive 2.b.1–5 (= SEG 32:1097) (Aphrodisias 88 BCE)53

ἐπεὶ Κόϊντος ̣ Ὄππιος Κοΐντου υἱὸς στρατηγὸς ἀνθύπατος Ῥω[μαίω]ν πέπομφεν
πολιορκεῖσθαι Λαοδίκηάν τε καὶ�̣
ἑαυτὸν ὁ δε δῆμος ἔκρεινεν βοηθεῖν κατὰ πλῆθος συνεκπορεύεσθαι δὲ καὶ τοὺς
παροίκους καὶ τοὺς δούλους, εἵλατο δὲ ἐπὶ
τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ ἄνδρα τὸν ἡγησάμενον v ἀνανκαῖον δέ ἐστιν ἐξαποστεῖλαι
καὶ πρεσβευτὰς τοὺς ἐνφανιοῦντας τῷ ἀνθυ-
πάτῳ περί τε τῆς αἱρέσεως ἧς ἔχει ὁ δῆμος ἡμῶν πρὸς Ῥωμαίους ὄντας σωτῆρας
καὶ εὐεργέτας καὶ ἐάν τι ὁ στρ‹ατ›ηγὸς ἐπι-
53
Text and translation: J. M. Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome: Documents from the
Excavation of the Theatre at Aphrodisias Conducted by Professor Kenan T. Erim, Together
with Some Related Texts (Journal of Roman Studies Monographs 1; London: Society for the
Promotion of Roman Studies, 1982), 11–16.
104 Kloppenborg
5 τάσσῃ καὶ ἕτερον τῇ πόλει, διαταξαμένους ὥστε διασαφηθῆναι καὶ γενέσθαι·
Whereas Quintus Oppius son of Quintus (Oppius), Roman praetor with

proconsul power, has sent (a message) that Laodicea and he himself are
under siege, and since the People decided that they should help him in
force and that the paroikoi and slaves should march out with them and
has also chosen in the assembly a man for their leader and it is neces-
sary to dispatch ambassadors too, to inform the proconsul of the policy
of our People towards the Roman who are saviours and benefactors, and,
if the governor gives any other instruction for the city, to arrange that it is
passed one clearly and carried out. . . .
I.Priene 113.81–84 (Priene, 84–81 BCE)

81 παραστήσας τὴν εἰθισμένη[ν] γείνεσθαι τῶι Διὶ
τῶι Κεραυνίωι θυσίαν μετέδωκεν μὲν τῶν ἱερῶν τοῖ[ς] τε πολίταις καὶ παροί-
κοις καὶ κατοίκοις καὶ ξέν̣οις καὶ Ῥωμαίοις καὶ δούλοις, τοὺς δε β[ο]υ̣λευτὰς
καὶ τὰς συναρχί-
ας καὶ ἐδείπνισεν ἐν τῷ [τ]οῦ θεοῦ τόπωι·
. . . offering the customary sacrifice to Zeus Keraunos he gave a portion

of the victims to the citizens and the paroikoi and the inhabitants and
the visitors and the Romans and the slaves, and he banqueted those who
wished and the magistracy in the temple of the god.
These inscriptions illustrate three important points: first, πάροικοι in some cit-
ies, while not citizens, were intentionally included in certain aspects of civic life
and were expect to contribute to civic life.54 Second, it is not at all obvious that
54 See D. Whitehead, “Immigrant Communities in the Classical Polis: Some Principles for a
Synoptic Treatment,” L’Antiquité Classique 53 (1984): 47–59 and D. Demetriou, Negotiating
Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean: The Archaic and Classical Greek Multiethnic Emporia
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Metics in Athens (likely the
equivalent of πάροικοι elsewhere) existed in significant numbers in Attica (mainly in the
Piraeus), could not hold office or land (except by a grant of enktesis for those who showed
themselves to be loyal to Athens, Xenophon, De vectigalibus 2.5–6), but contributed to
taxes through the metoikion and were expected to contribute to civic life. They could
participate in civic rituals through the mediation of a proxenos but had their own rituals
that were observed by Athenian population. A ξένος did not have the rights of a metic, but
one who had remained in Athens for an unknown amount of time was required to find a
prostates and enlist in an Athenian deme as a metic. Athens set up special courts to deal
with the legal cases of metics and visitors, many of whom were commercial traders, and
the term πάροικοι was a term connoting estrangement, a tenuous existence, or

disapprobation; on the contrary, there is good reason to think that Hellenistic
and early Imperial cities were interested in integrating non-citizen residents
into the life of the city.55 And third, and more important for an understand-
ing of 1 Peter is the fact that πάροικοι and δοῦλοι are distinct categories. Since
1 Peter 2:11 addresses the letter recipients as πάροικοι καὶ παρεπίδημοι and only
seven verses later addresses house-slaves (οἰκέται), the interpreter would be
faced with two options: either to suppose, with Elliott, that while most of
the letter is addressed to freeborn (or freed) non-citizen residents, 2:18–25
turns to slaves, who fell outside this category; or to suppose that πάροικοι καὶ
παρεπίδημοι are, like those terms in Diognetus, being used metaphorically in
order to construct an identity as “other.” The latter is clearly the less awkward
solution.
1 Peter surrounds the identity of the πάροικοι καὶ παρεπίδημοι with multiple
important metaphors: they are chosen through divine foreknowledge and are
sanctified by the spirit (1:2); they have been given a new birth (1:3, 23) and
inheritance (1:4); they are holy (ἅγιοι, 1:15) and a priesthood (ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον,
2:5) and indeed an elect stock, a royal residence, a priesthood, and a holy com-
pany (γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον, ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, 2:9).56 All of these meta-
phors contribute to the construction of the addressees as special, privileged,
and distinct. At the same time, however, the author encourages technolo-
gies of the self that eliminate vice (2:1) and ἐπιθυμία (2:11) comparable to the
Clement’s stoicizing ethic. Even more importantly is the fact that 1 Peter 2:12
imagines that onlookers who may have been hostile to Christ-followers will
while they could not avail themselves of Athenian privileges, required expeditious resolu-
tion of lawsuits, etc.
55 Compare, e.g., M.-F. Baslez, “Les communautes d’orientaux dans la cite grecque: Formes
de sociabilité ed modèles associatifs,” in L’Etranger dans le monde grec: Actes du collo-
que organisé par l’Institut d’études anciennes, Nancy, mai 1987 (ed. R. Lonis; Travaux et
Mémoires. Études Anciennes 4; Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1988), 149: “les
conditions propres au milieu grec ont marqué le développement de ces communautés
qui expriment une réelle volonté d’intégration. Elle se traduit dans l’utilisation de la ter-
mindogie et du langage politique de la cite. Elle révèle surtout la connaissance et la pra-
tique du droit attique dont ces étrangers reprennent les catégories: celle religieuse des
‘dieux ancestraux’; celle, judiciaire et administrative, des ‘gens de mer’; celle, financiere,
des associations de cotisants de type ‘érane’ ou ‘synode’. Tout cela semble surtout résulter
de leur expérience de gens de métier, acquise dans l’emporion. À Athènes, ils y vivaieni
protiégés—par un droit favorable, en symbiose avec des citoyens et d’autres étrangers,
libres de s’associer à eux en de multiples occasions et sous de multiples formes.”
56 See Elliott, 1 Peter, 435–38 for a discussion of the translation of this phrase.
106 Kloppenborg
watch (ἐποπτεύοντες) the honourable deeds of Christ-followers and will praise

God (δοξάσωσιν τὸν θεόν) on that account, that is, they will honour the hon-
ourable deeds of Christ-followers. 1 Peter even imagines that civic leaders will
also engage in the commendation of benefactors (ἔπαινον δὲ ἀγαθοποιῶν, 2:14),
declaring that God’s intention is that being benefactors (ἀγαθοποιοῦντας) will
serve to silence critics of the Christ group (2:15).57 In short, 1 Peter imagines
and encourages an open mimicry of the civic practice of benefaction, and
expressly maintains that this is a means by which Christ-followers will secure
their place in the city.
Another aspect of the ambivalence of 1 Peter toward civic identity is seen in
the contrast between assertions of “differentness” and the embrace of rather
conventional household ethics. This embrace has been stressed by David Balch,
who argued that 1 Peter’s use of conventional domestic codes for the manage-
ment of the household was apologetic, “to reduce the social-political tension
between society and the churches.”58 This strategy has sometimes been cast
as a matter of assimilation and acculturation,59 but such a characterization is
in sharp contrast to the language of alienness that pervades the letter. Rather
than assuming a binary decision between resistance and alienness on the one
hand, and assimilation on the other, 1 Peter calls for a more nuanced model of
mimicry and ambivalence (see below).
A final noteworthy aspect of 1 Peter is the injunction to honour the emperor
(τὸν βασιλέα τιμᾶτε, 2:17). It is usual for exegetes not to take this imperative at
face value and instead seek to mitigate the force of the injunction, usually by
arguing that 2:17 subtly relativizes the role of the emperor.60 Nevertheless, one
57 See B. W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (First-
Century Christians in the Graeco-Roman World; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Carlisle: Wm. B.
Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1994), 39: “The picture emerges of a positive rôle being taken
by rich Christians for the well-being of the community at large and the appropriateness
and importance of due recognition by ruling authorities for their contributions. The
Christians in Greek cities in the East were exhorted to undertake the same benefactions
as did their secular counterparts.”
58 D. L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter (SBLMS 26; Chico, Calif.:
Scholars Press, 1981), 81.
59 D. L. Balch, “Hellenization/Acculturation in 1 Peter,” in Perspectives on First Peter (ed.
C. H. Talbert; National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion. Special Studies Series
No. 9; Macon: Mercer University Press, 1986), 79–101.
60 Elliott, 1 Peter, 501, based on the lack of a warrant analogous to Rom 13:1–7 in the letter.
P. J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1996), 188 thinks that the “repetition of the verb τιμάω rather than φοβέομαι in
relation to the emperor . . . represents a different, and devalued understanding of impe-
should ask, what would honouring the emperor look like? Whatever equivoca-
tions the author had in mind, honouring the emperor, like virtually all other
honorific activities, had a visual, empirical aspect, as is made clear in the
immediate context with the reference to “watching” the honourable deeds of
Christ-followers (2:12). Honouring was not a private mental act but a public or
semi-public one.
Philip Harland has detailed the range of participation in “honouring the
emperor” in Graeco-Roman associations—from direct participation in cel-
ebrations of the emperor by hymnodoi and the performing of sacrifices, to
less direct forms of participation, including attendance at processions or
games, the dedication of buildings to the emperor, decrees of a club that
mention the imperial house, or even the naming of the club as a collegium
salutare.61 Whatever constituted the “honouring” of the emperor for 1 Peter,
it was undoubtedly a visible practice. Warren Carter has even made a cred-
ible case that “honouring the emperor” meant participating in sacrifices to the
emperor:
It is surprising that a text that “fairly teems with OT references, approx-

imately forty-six quotations and allusions in all”,62 does not quote any
scriptural prohibitions against idolatry. Such a quotation would certainly
clinch the writer’s argument—if that were the writer’s point. Is such an
obvious rhetorical strategy absent because “everyone knows” that idola-
rial authority.” Similarly, L. Goppelt, A Commentary on 1 Peter (trans. John E. Alsup;

ed. Ferdinand Hahn; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993), 190. Most recently David
Horrell (“Between Conformity and Resistance: Beyond the Balch-Elliott Debate Towards
a Postcolonial Reading of First Peter,” in Reading First Peter with New Eyes [ed. R. L. Webb
and B. Bauman-Martin; Library of New Testament Studies 364; London and New York:
T. & T. Clark International, 2007], 135) suggests that the author subsumes the role of the
emperor under πάσῃ ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει of 2:13, which implies that he “implicitly denies any
claim that the emperor is θεῖος.”
61 P. A. Harland, “Honours and Worship: Emperors, Imperial Cults and Associations at
Ephesus (First to Third Centuries CE),” Studies in Religion 25 (1996): 319–34 (esp. 326–28).
From the time of Augustus onward, Roman collegia used the term collegia salutare, which,
as Andreas Bendlin (“Associations, Funerals, Sociality, and Roman Law The Collegium of
Diana and Antinous in Lanuvium [CIL 14.2112] Reconsidered,” in Aposteldekret und antikes
Vereinswesen [ed. Markus Öhler; WUNT 280; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 216–23 [222])
has shown, reflects “an expression of loyalty to the imperial centre, inseparable from the
concept of Salus Augusti, which since the first century was established as a central ele-
ment of imperial propaganda but reached an apex in the Antonine period.”
62 The citation is of W. L. Schutter, Hermeneutic and Composition in First Peter (WUNT 2/30;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 43.
108 Kloppenborg
try belongs to a former way of life . . . and is forbidden to Christians? Or

is it because 1 Peter makes no such prohibition, perhaps because some,
including the author, regarded idolatrous practices as meaningless for
those who fear God (2.17) and /or perhaps because such an injunction
would contradict the letter’s advocacy of Christian social participation?63
We might add that the author in fact saw no reason to treat this practice as
“idolatrous.” After all, the Egyptian Judaeans evidently saw no difficulty in
including in their dedications of prayer houses the mention of members of
the Ptolemaic house, who, they must have known, were represented in royal
propaganda as divine. E.g., IJudEg 27 (Athribis [Delta], II/I BCE)
ὑπὲρ βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου

καὶ βασιλίσσης Κλεοπάτρας
Πτολεμαῖος Ἐπικύδου
ὁ ἐπιστάτης τῶν φυλακιτῶν
5 καὶ οἱ ἐν Ἀθρίβει Ἰουδαῖοι
τὴν προσευχὴν
θεῷ Ὑψίστῳ.
Ptolemaios son of Epikydes, the commander of the guards and the

Judaeans who are in Athribis (dedicated) this prayer house (proseuchē) to
the most high god, on behalf 64 of King Ptolemaios and Queen Kleopatra.
In the early imperial period Philo complains of the destruction of Alexandrian

synagogues, which held gilded crowns (ἀσπίδες καὶ στέφανοι ἐπίχρυσοι) and ste-
lai and inscriptions in honour of the emperor (Leg. 1.133). These data indicate
that it is likely a mistake to assume that our view of theologically consistent
practices corresponded to ancient Judaean views of consistent and acceptable
practices.
63 W. Carter, “Going All the Way? Honoring the Emperor and Sacrificing Wives and
Slaves: 1 Peter 2:13–3.6,” in A Feminist Companion to the Catholic Epistles and Hebrews
(ed. A.-J. Levine and M. M. Robbins; London and New York: T. & T. Clark International,
2004), 25.
64 ὑπέρ formulae in Egyptian dedications appear to have the force of “for the well being” or
“for the good fortune” of. E.g., André Bernand, Pan du désert (Leiden: Brill, 1977), no. 38
(Claudianus Mons = Gebel Fatīra, 98–117 CE): Διὶ Ἡλίῳ μεγάλῳ | Σαράπιδι | ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ
κυρίου | Καίσαρος Τραιανοῦ || τύχης, ἐπὶ Ἐνκολπίῳ | ἐπιτρόπῳ καὶ Κουίντῳ | Ἀκκίῳ Ὀπτάτῳ
(ἑκατοντά)ρχ(ῳ), Ἀπολλώ|νιος Ἀμμωνίου Ἀλε|ξανδρεὺς ἀρχιτέκτων || ἀνέθηκεν ὑπὲρ τῆς
σωτη|ρίας αὑτοῦ πάντων ἔργων.
Irrespective of what honorific practices the author of 1 Peter had in mind—

whether they included sacrifices, participation in processions or acclamations
of the Emperor—the point is that such practices linked the groups addressed
by 1 Peter to other groups in the city, notwithstanding the rhetoric of different-
ness that also characterizes the letter.
Becoming Visible in the City
The foregoing has focused especially on the visual practices of Christ groups.
These include support of poorer Christ-followers by wealthier members,
and the commendation of those practices that were expected by Hermas,
1 Peter’s encouragement of “honourable deeds” that are to be seen and com-
mended by others, the adoption of (rather high-minded) ethical practices that
mimic stoicizing ethics (Clement; 1 Peter), and some form of participation in
imperial honours.
As long as one approaches “alienness” only as a matter of theological dis-
course, one is left with a contradiction between assertions of alienness and
practices that appear to be “assimilationist.” But this is too simplistic an
approach. Current anthropology has faced such seeming contradictions
between mimicry and alterity and seen in them several cultural strategies.
James Ferguson relates a distressing story of two dead Guinean boys found
in the landing gear of an airplane that landed in Brussels in 1998. On their bod-
ies was found a letter, written in elaborately polite French, detailing the plight
of Africans, including African children, and appealing to “Your Excellencies,
members, and officials of Europe,” to come to their assistance. The letter ended,
And if you find that we have sacrificed our lives, it is because we suffer too
much in Africa. We need your help to struggle against poverty and to put
an end to war in Africa. Our greatest wish, though, is to study, and we ask
that you help us to study to become like you in Africa.65
The letter, both in its elegant style and in its appeal to “help us to study to
become like you,” illustrates the phenomenon of mimicry in colonialist set-
tings. In such settings, there is a pressure—often subtle but sometimes overt—
to conform to the norms and practices of the dominant culture: “colonists want
indigenes to be like them (it would make them easier to deal with), but not too
65 J. G. Ferguson, “Of Mimicry and Membership: Africans and the ‘New World Society’,”
Cultural Anthropology 17 (2002): 551–52.
110 Kloppenborg
like them, as that would have implications for entitlements.”66 The reproduc-
tion of dominant cultural forms is inevitably imperfect, so that, in the words
of Homi Bhabha, mimicry by the subaltern subject produces forms that are
“almost the same, but not quite.”67
The imitation of the forms of the dominant culture can have several func-
tions: camouflage (“a form of resemblance that differs from or defends presence
by displaying it in part, metonymically”),68 adaptation (efforts to “fit in” and to
take advantage of the cultural benefits offered by the dominant culture), or
even parody (the evocation of dominant forms as a means of defending indig-
enous practices, where the outer form of the object or practice belongs to the
dominant culture, but the inner form is stubbornly indigenous).69 Since mim-
icry is always imperfect, there is always a “gap” between the dominant cultural
forms and those of the subaltern group. It is this gap that creates room for the
group to articulate its own micro-identity in the face of the dominant culture.
Mimicry in the groups that are represented by Clement of Alexandria,
Diognetus, Hermas and 1 Peter can be seen in the imitation of dominant moral
and practical forms—euergetism, technologies of the self, and honorific prac-
tices. The “gap” is created (inter alia) by the persistent declarations of Christ
groups of their alienness, in spite of the fact that empirically they seem not
to have looked much different from many other subaltern groups in the city.
This mimicry may have served several broader aims: it underscores the distinc-
tive and special nature of the group, thus strengthening the internal cohesion
of the group; it advertised to the host polis—in a virtually apologetic way—
its adherence to their broader norms and, hence, declared its willingness to
cooperate with structures of governance and benefaction; and it constructs a
set of practices that function metonymically in the post-Augustan setting of
a “worldwide” empire.
66 J. Mageo, “Zones of Ambiguity and Identity Politics in Samoa,” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 14 (2008): 61.
67 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 89.
68 Idem., The Location of Culture, 90. This appears to be the interpretation that Bernard
Magubane (“A Critical Look at Indices Used in the Study of Social Change in Colonial
Africa,” Current Anthropology 12, no. 4/5 [1971]: 419–45) offers for the phenomenon of
black Africans imitating European dress—doing what is necessary to survive in a repres-
sive colonial regime.
69 M. T. Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (London and New
York: Routledge, 1993).
A Chosen Stock, A New Polis

It is obvious that the use of the vocabulary of the self-as-alien or community-
as-alien functions positively as a means of constructing and reinforcing iden-
tity. The irony of this usage, however, is that it is a good example of mimesis.
In the highly hierarchized social structures of the early Imperial period, the
optimi distinguished themselves from others by their dress, names, deport-
ment, social practices, and social alliances. They modeled in themselves the
premium placed on being “special” and in fact, being the “best.” A host of prac-
tices existed by which other individuals could identify themselves with elites:
for example, in Ptolemaic Egypt calling oneself a “kinsman” (that is, of the
king) when no such blood relation existed70 or in the Imperial period being a
“friend to Caesar.” The practice of identifying one’s group as special, normally
with superlatives, became a common way of asserting special status, mim-
icking the distinctions claimed by the elite. Thus, for example, the Iobakchoi
of Athens in 164/65 CE, upon the election of a new priest, Herodes Atticus,
acclaimed themselves:
26 νῦν εὐτυχεῖς, νῦν πάντων πρῶτοι

τῶν Βακχείων
Now (we) are the best of all Bacchic societies. (IG II2 1368.26–27 = GRA I 51)
Although the Iobakchoi of Athens represent an association of Athenian citi-

zens, other groups much lower on the latter of status adopted the same kind
of naming practices. Thus we hear of the “most holy synedrion of fullers,”71 the
“worldwide and most august synedrion of linen-workers,”72 “the most august
ergasia of wool cleaners,”73 “the most august ergasia of purple-dyers,”74 “the
sacred synod of the world-wide sacred wreath-crowned victorious Artists
associated with Dionysos and the Emperor, Caesar son of Trajan, grandson of
70 E.g., I.Delta I 446.5 (Berenike [Western Lower Delta], 67–64 BCE): ὁ συγγενής; P.Rainer
Cent. 51 (Onouphis [Delta], early I BCE): [Ἀ]πολλων[ίωι συγγ]ε̣ν̣εῖ καὶ [στρα]τ̣η̣ [γ]ῶι.
71 IMT Kyz Kapu Dağ 1801.5–8 (Kyzikene = Kapu Dağ [Mysia]): ὃς δ’ ἂν [τολ]||[μήσῃ] ἕτερον
καταθέσθαι ν[εκρὸν], | [δώσει τῷ ἱε]ρωτάτῳ συνεδρίῳ τῶν | [γ]ναφέων (δην.) ,αφ*.
72 O. Rayet, “Inscriptions inédites trouvée à Milet, Didymes, et Héraclée du Latmos,” Revue
Archéologique 28 (1874): 112–13, ll. 11–13: τὸ οἰκουμενικὸν καὶ σεμνότα|τον συνέδριον τῶν
λινουρ|γῶν.
73 Alt.v.Hierapolis 40.1–3 (Hierapolis, n.d.) ἡ σεμνοτάτη | ἐργασία τῶν | ἐριοπλυτῶν.
74 Alt.v.Hierapolis 41.1–3 (Hierapolis, n.d.): [ἡ σεμνοτάτη] | ἐργα[σία τῶν] | πορφ[υραβάφων].
112 Kloppenborg
Nerva, Traianus Hadrianus Augustus,”75 and even “the most august synergasia
of leather-workers.”76 While we might smile at such grandiose self-descrip-
tions, they should be seen as means of claiming for the group a special and
distinguished place and a level of excellence in the context of a cultural setting
in which excellence and distinction was a cultural imperative.
The assertion of special—virtually unique—status was simply part of the
vernacular of associative behaviour. Seen in this context, the self-represen
tation of Christ groups as belonging to an alien polity is a variation on this
theme. There is clear mimicry of the practice of identifying one’s group as
distinctive and unparalleled. As with mimicry in other subaltern situations,
the claim of alterity creates room for the distinctive sub-identity of the group
within civic space.
Fitting in: Group Behaviour and Civic Munificience

Numerous groups of non-citizen residents were present in many—perhaps
most—of the cities of the Mediterranean. Naturally, they brought with them
their customs, divinities, clothing, and cultural practices. Yet at the same time
there was a strong tendency to accommodate themselves to their new homes.
Thus, for example, at least twenty-one sanctuaries of “oriental” deities are
found on Delos, including divinities from Egypt, Beirut, Ascalon, Samaria, and
other parts of Syria.
Monica Trümper notes a propos of the Poseidoniastai of Beirut that in spite
of their origins in the East, the thirty-three decrees from this group are com-
posed in “flawless Greek” and modelled on the form of Athenian decrees.77
There were a few “un-Greek” aspects to the Poseidoniastai—although the
Poseidoniastai imitated Greek institutions, the existence of a permanent
priesthood is not typically Greek.78 But the membership profile of the group
75 J.-P. Rey-Coquais, “Inscriptions grecques d’Apamée,” Annales archéologiques arabes syri-
ennes 23 (1973): 41–84, 47–48 (no. 10): [ἡ] ἱερὰ σύνοδος τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς | οἰκουμένης περὶ τὸν
Διόνυσον καὶ αὐτο|κράτορα Καίσαρα, Τραιανοῦ υἱὸν, θε|οῦ Νερούα υἱωνὸν, Τραιανὸν Ἁδρι||ανὸν
Σεβαστὸ‹ν› τεχνειτῶν ἱερονει|κῶν στεφανειτῶν.
76 IK Kibyra 63.5–7 = BCH 2 (1878): 593,1A (Kibyratis [= Gölhisar-Horzum], Lycia, mid II CE):
ἡ σεμνοτάτη | συνεργασία τῶν σκυτοβυρσέ|ων.
77 M. Trümper, “Negotiating Religious and Ethnic Identity: The Case of Clubhouses in Late
Hellenistic Delos,” in Zwischen Kult und Gesellschaft. Kosmopolitische Zentren des antiken
Mittelmeerraums als Aktionsraum von Kultvereinen und Religionsgemeinschaften. Akten
eines Symposiums des Archäeologischen Instituts der Universität Hamburg (12.-14. Oktober
2005) (ed. Nielsen Inge; Hephaistos 24; Augsburg: Camelion, 2007), 115.
78 M.-F. Baslez, Recherches sur les conditions de pénétration et de diffusion des religions orien-
tales à Delos (II e–I er s. avant notre ère) (Collection de l’Ecole normale superieure de jeunes
was certainly unexceptional by Greek standards: it consisted exclusively of

free males, no women or slaves (unlike other Delian associations).79 Moreover,
Trümper observes that their sanctuary had nothing “oriental” about it; it was
indistinguishable from other Greek sanctuaries. Moreover,
[t]he location of the clubhouse at the southern border of a residential

quarter, in close proximity to the main sanctuary of Delos and the main
port, shows that the Poseidoniasts were well received and integrated into
the city and that their religious preferences obviously did not require that
their clubhouse be located in a marginal urban position.80
The arrangement of the atrium, filled with honorific inscriptions from the
benefactors of the Poseidoniastai, served as a virtual “business card”: everyone
visiting the sanctuary would see the record of the club’s benefactors and their
plaques and shields honouring those benefactors.81
In other words, while the Beirut Poseidonists were unabashedly foreign (and
could not be otherwise), they looked Greek. The Poseidoniastai of Delos, then,
offer a good example of the “almost the same, but not quite” form of mim-
icry described by Bhabha. To the visitor, the Poseidoniastai looked Greek and
advertised the degree to which they “fit in” to the fabric of Delos. Nevertheless,
they retained some indigenous features that harkened back to their origins
in Beirut.
It is a commonplace that participation in shared rituals, including proces-
sions, sacrifices, recognizing euregetism, communal meals, and other collec-
tive activities creates solidarity. But as Arnaoutoglou notes, the practice of
corporate decision-making also replicated the democratic ideals of Athens,
even in an age when democracy was on the wane:
Collective identity was built through the structure and the activities of
these groups. Religious activities such as rituals, festivals, sacrifices, feasts,
filles, no. 9; Paris: [Ecole normale superieure de jeunes filles], 1977), 233: “[C]ette imitation
ne fut jamais systématique, non plus que l’organisation de l’adminstration; c’est au con-
traire la fonction qui crée l’organe au cours d’un développement progressif sans rupture
aves les modèles originaux. Il faut souligner surtout le maintien d’une authorité perman-
ente à caractère personnel, celle du prêtre: c’est une idée étrangère à la cité grecque et une
survivance plus ou moins des théocraties orientales.”
79 Trümper, “Negotiating Religious and Ethnic Identity,” 116.
80 Eadem., 118.
81 Eadem., 119.
114 Kloppenborg
celebrations, reunions forge a feeling of belonging for the participant and

simultaneously they project an image to the wider population of who
these fellows are . . . assemblies replicating the mechanics of the polis and
its discourse demonstrate not only a sort of allegiance to the polis but also
display the corporate spirit in the decision-making process of the group.
Collective identity was cemented through practices of collegial solidarity,
such as provision of money for burial or participation in the mourning.82
When one turns to Christ groups, the repertoire of activities likely differed in
some regards from what might be expected in many Graeco-Roman associa-
tions. Whether early Christ groups participated in the funerals of members is
unknown (though likely), but the care of Christian dead certainly came to be
part of the activities of Christ groups in the second and following centuries.83
But like associations, Christ groups adopted the practice of regular com-
mon meals and like associations, practiced communal decision-making.84
82 I. Arnaoutoglou, “ ‘Ils étaient dans la ville, mais tout à fait en dehors de la cité’: Status
and identity in private religious associations in Hellenistic Athens,” in Political Culture in
the Greek City After the Classical Age (ed. O. M. van Nijf and R. Alston; Groningen-Royal
Holloway Studies on the Greek City After the Classical Age 2; Leuven: Peeters, 2011),
43–44.
83 É. Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity (trans. E. Trapnell Rawlings and
J. Toutier-Pucci; Cornell Studies in Classical Philology; Ithaca and London: Cornell
84 Compare V. Gabrielsen, “Brotherhoods of Faith and Providence: The Non-Public
Associations of the Greek World,” in Greek and Roman Networks in the Mediterranean
(ed. I. Malkin, C. Constantakopoulou, and K. Panagopoulou; London and New York:
Routledge, 2009), 187: “The members of brotherhoods, meaning also the members of
different brotherhoods all over the Greek-speaking world, had acquired now a common
language that enrolled them into one (almost universally valid) political culture, a uni-
form way of thinking, articulating their wishes and acting within well-defined collectives.
Their issuing of decrees, their cult workshop, their obsession with receiving benefactions
and granting honours, their statues, crowns, and other kinds of dedicatory objects, all this
and more besides united all those who were members of small, private units under one
world view and under a single mode of social expression—a harmonizing, or one should
rather say homogenizing trend that customarily was, and is, dear to imperial powers. Yet
the basic values they fostered were apparently also dear to everybody else, since all broth-
erhoods practices an undemanding, ground-level conviviality that embodied notions of
equality, freedom, participation, and all else that has the sweet scent of demokratia. As
receptacles of personal networks, associations contributed to altering the image of their
home political communities, making them look more egalitarian, socially more porous
and juridically less secluded. In short, a principal part of the transformation I am describ-
Martin Ebner has drawn attention to 2 Cor 2:6 as evidence of voting in the
Corinthian group and 2 Cor 8:9—χειροτονηθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν—gives good
evidence of the practice of electing representatives of the group.85 Recently
Richard Last has argued that Corinthian leaders were also elected, mimicking
the practices of other associations.86 Finally, the imperatives prescribing finan-
cial assistance to the poor found in Hermas and the encouragement to display
honourable deeds publicly in 1 Peter are good examples of the mimicry of elite
benefactors. Of course the members of Christ groups did not have access to the
resources that we at the disposal of the elite. But they could, nevertheless, per-
form their identity as the agents of largesse and thus assert a social privilege
and gain social capital.
To continue with the model of mimicry, we need not suppose that Christ
groups offered a perfect mimesis of either Greek or Roman culture. Clearly
they did not, and their discourse claimed that they were different. To the out-
side observer, however, they were in many ways like other subalterns groups
that dotted the urban landscape, “fitting in” in certain ways.
Conclusion
This paper has explored the tension between the discourse of early Christ
groups in the second century and their practices, with special attention to the
question of how Christ groups located themselves in civic space. Although they
frequently adopted the trope of alienness, their practices connected them with
the culture of euergetism and civic responsibility, and, perhaps ironically, the
very claim of alienness placed them alongside a host of other subaltern groups
that claimed exemplary status and the excellence that were fundamental to
identity in the ancient world.
ing consisted precisely of this intrusion of civic and, indeed, democratic ideals, culture,
and modes of expression into regularly held, private gatherings.”
85 M. Ebner, Die Stadt als Lebensraum der ersten Christen (Das Urchristentum in seiner
Umvelt. Das Neue testament Deutsche—Ergänzungsreihe 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2012), 86.
86 R. Last, “The Election of Officers in the Corinthian Christ-Group,” NTS 59 (2012): 365–81.
Organized Charity in the Ancient World:
Pagan, Jewish, Christian
Pieter W. van der Horst
I Graeco-Roman Views on Philanthropy
In the early sixties of the 4th century CE, the Emperor Julian wrote in a let-
ter to Arsacius, one of his pagan high priests in Asia Minor, that considerable
amounts of corn and wine should be distributed to the inhabitants of Galatia,
that one-fifth of it should be given to the poor (tous penêtas) and the rest to
strangers and beggars (tois xenois kai tois metaitousin). And then he adds: “For
it is a shame that, when no Jew ever has to beg (metaitei) and the impious
Galilaeans [=Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well, all
men can see that our people lack aid from us.”1 If a person who is so well at
home in both the pagan and the non-pagan world of late antiquity as Julian
makes such a statement, there is every reason to investigate whether there was
indeed a major difference between polytheists and monotheists as far as orga-
nized care for the poor is concerned. It should not surprise us if he is found to
be right.
It is 75 years ago that my fellow-countryman, the Utrecht professor of ancient
history Hendrik Bolkestein, published his magisterial study Wohltätigkeit und
Armenpflege im vorchristlichen Altertum.2 In this influential work, he offers a
penetrating analysis of the ancient Greek and Roman views on poverty and
charity, and he also studies how these views influenced the practice of daily
life. In the short sketch that follows, I am much indebted to Bolkestein’s work,
even though sometimes I disagree with him. He argues that there is a funda-
mental difference between the position of the poor in Graeco-Roman culture,
both in theory and in practice, and their position in ancient Israel and early
Judaism.3
1 Ep. 22, 430C–D. This letter is quoted by Sozomenus, Hist. Eccl. 5.16.5–9; text with commentary
also in GLAJJ 2:549–551, no. 482. In other letters Julian returns to the same matter.
2 H. Bolkestein, Wohltätigkeit und Armenpflege im vorchristlichen Altertum (Utrecht: Oosthoek,
1939; repr. New York: Arno Press, 1979).
3 For a similar view see P. Veyne, Le pain et le cirque: sociologie historique d’un pluralisme
politique (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 44–50.

Organized Charity In The Ancient World 117
However great the role of euergetism (euergesia, eupoiia)4 in Greek culture

may have been, the well-to-do were never expected to support and help the
poor. As Bolkestein says, “Niemals wird der Begriff “Wohltun” mit dem Objekt
“Arme” verbunden.”5 And the verbs eu poiein and euergetein (Latin benefacere,
to do good, to be beneficent) never mean “almsgiving.” The highest of Greek
virtues, dikaiosynê, meant justice in the sense of suum cuique, but never mer-
cifulness towards the poor, unlike Hebrew tsedaqa. The Greek word philan-
thrôpia never has the sense of our modern philanthropy; one is philanthrôpos
towards one’s own people, parents and other family members, and guests or
strangers, not towards the poor.6 And eleêmosynê in the sense of showing pity
or mercy for someone never has the poor as its primary object; the semantic
development in which it takes on the meaning of “alms” is a strictly Jewish
and Christian usage.7 For exhortations to give alms to the poor one looks in
vain in Greek and Roman literature. Greek moralists do not admonish people
to concern themselves about the fate of the poor, except incidentally when
someone had been unexpectedly hit by a great catastrophe. To be sure, gener-
osity (eleutheriotês) was praised as a virtue, but the poor were never singled out
as its object, it was always directed to humans in general, provided that they
deserved it, that they were axioi. “Niemals wird als wichtige Pflicht der Reichen
dargestellt, die Hungernden zu speisen, die Dürstenden zu laben, die Nackten
zu kleiden oder auch Witwen und Waisen zu helfen.”8
When Greek literature speaks about the joy of giving to others, it has noth-
ing to do with altruism but only with the desired effect of giving, namely
honour, prestige, fame, status. Honour is the driving motive behind most of
Greek beneficence,9 and it is for that reason that the Greek word philotimia
(love of honour, also philodoxia) could develop the meaning of “generosity,
beneficence,”10 not directed towards the poor but to fellow humans in general,
4 On the terminology see F. W. Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and
New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis: Clayton Publishing House, 1982), 317–493.
5 Bolkestein, Wohltätigkeit 101.
6 See now esp. K. Berthelot, Philanthrôpia judaica: Le débat autour de la “misanthropie” des
lois juives dans l’Antiquité (JSJS 76; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 17–78.
7 The Stoics even frowned upon mercy as being a pathos.
8 Bolkestein, Wohltätigkeit 150.
9 See, e.g., Xenophon, Mem. 3.12.4; Oec. 11.8; Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 8.8 (1159a14–15);
Rhet. 1.5 (1361a27–30: “Honour is the token of a man’s being famous for doing good”). See
B. W. Longenecker, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 67–74.
10 See, e.g., the honorary inscription from Boeotia in IG VII, 2712, 53–54: “He devoted himself
to the love of fame [to philodoxon] . . . through continual expenditure.”
118 van der Horst
especially those from whom one could reasonably expect a gift in return. These
were the axioi, because these acknowledged and respected the principle of
reciprocity, charis anti charitos, one of the main pillars of Greek social life.11 It
is stated in all its simplicity by Hesiod: “Give to him who gives, but do not give
to him who does not give (in return)” (Erga 354). Even though occasionally
some ancient moralists said that the best form of beneficence is the one in
which one does not expect anything in return form the beneficiary, the perva-
sive view was that a donor should be reimbursed one way or another, prefer-
ably with a greater gift than he himself had given.12
Religion was not of much help for the poor; they simply were not the
favourites of the gods. There was a Zeus Xenios, there was a Zeus Hiketêsios,
but there was no Zeus Ptôchios (or any other god with an epithet indicating
concern for the needy). It was rather the rich who were seen as the favourites
of the divine world, their wealth being the visible proof of that favour. “God
loves the poor” would have been a bizarre statement in ancient Greece.13 The
poor could not pray for help from the gods because they were poor for their
poverty was a disadvantage in their contact with the gods. At the background
here is the common view that the poor are morally inferior to the rich, they
were often regarded as more readily inclined to do evil;14 for that reason their
poverty was commonly seen as their own fault—it was “selbstverschuldet.” No
11 See, e.g., Xenophon, Mem. 4.4.24: “Is not the duty of requiting benefits (anteuergetein)
universally recognized by law?” More references in P. W. van der Horst, The Sentences of
Pseudo-Phocylides (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 169. See further the collection of essays in Ch. Gill,
N. Postlethwaite and R. Seaford (eds.), Reciprocity in Ancient Greece, (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1998).
12 It is important to keep in mind that expecting something back from the poor is not as
strange as it may seem at first sight. The Greek words for “poor,” penês and ptôchos, usu-
ally have rather different connotations: Penêtes were not destitute but people who did
not have enough wealth to live from (unlike the rich) and for that reason had to work
with their hands; they were peasants, manual labourers and the like, and they formed
the bulk of the common people. (The elite often expressed contempt for manual labour.)
Ptôchoi, however, were the really destitute (“Bettelarme”) who depended wholly on others
for their living. Not in every Greek author, however, there is such a hard and fast distinc-
tion between the two terms; see Longenecker, Remember the Poor 37–38.
13 See H. Gülzow, “Soziale Gegebenheiten der altkirchlichen Mission,” in Kirchengeschichte
als Missionsgeschichte, Band I: Die alte Kirche (ed. H. Frohnes & U. W. Knorr; München:
Kaiser, 1974), 191; R. Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997), 88,
211. Longenecker, Remember the Poor 96–104, maintains that among Greeks and Romans
there were religiously motivated gestures for the needy, but his evidence is very meager.
14 J. Hahn, “Armut,” DNP 2 (1997): 18. The Cynics had a much more positive view of poverty,
but they were marginal and it should be kept in mind that “the Cynic obsession with
wonder that they were not seen as the axioi, those who deserve help, and that
no organized charity developed in ancient Greece and Rome. In such societ-
ies, giving alms to the poor could not be seen as a virtue. Care for the poor was
often seen as a waste of resources.
The mutual support the poor received in their clubs and associations can
hardly be called organized charity because the money came partly from their
own pocket, i.e., from the regular contributions that members were obliged
to pay. Also the distributions of corn and oil to the population by city states
or emperors in times of need cannot pass for organized charity because the
corn was either given to all citizens in equal measure, not only the poor, or
only to those who had citizenship. The poor did not get more than the rich;
even “the poorest class of society was never singled out for specially favour-
able treatment.”15 Grosso modo all this applies to the Romans no less than to
the Greeks. When a Roman is generous towards others, it is not because these
are poor but because he expects to get something in return and because it con-
fers honour and status upon him. Beneficia are for fellow citizens, not for the
poor who were often regarded as morally inferior and inclined to crime.
Although there were rare birds who criticized the principle of reciprocity,
this criticism “never reaches the obvious conclusion, namely that the surest
way to avoid any suggestion of giving with a view to a return is to confer one’s
gift on someone who is incapable of giving in return.”16 That the beneficiary
was usually expected to give something in return, sometimes made the bene-
faction feel for him like a burden.17 But the idea of charis anti charitos was
deeply ingrained in ancient society and giving remained one of the chief ways
of acquiring honour and status within the social or political group. Neither
Greek nor Roman shrank from admitting that striving after honour and fame
was the decisive motive for generosity. As Cicero says, “most people are gener-
ous in their gifts not so much by natural inclination as by the lure of honour”
(Off. 1.14.44), and Pliny the Younger pithily says, sequi . . . gloria . . . debet,
“honour must be the consequence,” namely of generosity (Ep. 1.8.14).
There was a rather widespread lack of sympathy for beggars, who did
not deserve gifts because from the penniless one could not expect anything
the value of poverty would be completely lost on the irrevocably poor”; thus R. Knapp,
Invisible Romans (London: Profile Books, 2011), 106.
15 A. R. Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1968), 89.
16 Hands, Charities and Social Aid 31.
17 For that reason Menander says, “There are some who even hate their benefactors”
(Monostichoi 244, ed. Jaekel 46).
120 van der Horst
in return, unless it was political support that could be expected from them
and could also lead to an accrual of honour. Often even pity was seen as “an
attitude to be adopted on an essentially quid-pro-quo basis,”18 well illustrated
by Thucydides when he makes Cleon say: “Pity is appropriately given on an
exchange basis to men of like character, and not to those who are not going to
show pity in return” (Hist. 3.40.3). There is no indication that any private donor
discriminated in favour of the lower classes nor has there been any tendency
to regard public distributions as doles instituted primarily to aid the desti-
tute. Organized charity in the sense of institutionalized care for the poor was
unknown in Graeco-Roman antiquity.19 “Pagans did not notice the very poor at
all except when they became politically threatening.”20
II Care for the Poor in Early Judaism
All this is in marked contrast to what we find in biblical and early post-biblical
Jewish and Christian sources. Whereas care for the poor, let alone organized
charity, was a non-item in Graeco-Roman antiquity, it is a central concern in
the Jewish Bible. It is not only in the Torah, but also in the Prophets and in the
Writings, that care for the poor is seen as a major duty and virtue in ancient
Israel. This is so well known that it hardly needs illustration. Some passages
must suffice.21 First, and most significantly, God is seen as the protector of the
poor, the rescuer of the needy (Isa 25:4; Jer 20:13; Amos 2:6; Hab 3:14; Ps 9:12;
40:17; 70:5; 72:12–13; Job 5:15); they are his favourites and objects of his mercy.
They are regarded as humble before God and therefore often as pious and righ-
teous (frequently in the Psalms).22 Often “it is difficult to determine to what
18 Hands, Charities and Social Aid 80. Longenecker, Remember the Poor 75–77, rightly
remarks that not all ancient Greek and Romans thought negatively of pity and gives some
examples that illustrate the contrary. Very illustrative is Seneca, De clementia 2.5.1–4. See
also A. Parkin, “ ‘You Do Him No Service’: An Exploration of Pagan Almsgiving,” in Poverty
in the Roman World (ed. M. Atkins & R. Osborne; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 60–82, esp. 62–64.
19 Hahn, “Armut” 18, speaks of “die mitleidlose Härte im Umgang mit Armen”.
20 M. Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome AD
66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 65.
21 See, e.g., E. Bammel, Ptôchos, TWNT 6:888–915; J. D. Pleins, “Poor, Poverty,” ABD 5:402–414;
L. J. Hoppe, “Poor,” NIDB 4:563–564; also the latter’s There Shall Be No Poor among You:
Poverty in the Bible (Nashville: Abingdom Press, 2004).
22 Sometimes Hebrew terms for “poor” such as ‘ani and ’evyon even seem to be used as titles
of honour, as was certainly the case among the Qumran sectarians who used “poor” as
extent the language has moved away from concrete cases of poverty to a more
spiritualized level.”23 That is not to say that here we find a positive evaluation
of poverty; the poor are “righteous” only insofar as they are the innocent vic-
tims of injustice, and poverty does not automatically translate into piety, but
it does seem to make one closer to God. Unlike an ancient Greek, who could
invoke his opponent’s poverty in a courtroom in order to cast a dubious light
on him, a biblical Israelite could not do so—it would not have worked in his
favour. The Torah urges Israel to be kind and generous towards the poor in
their midst (Lev 19:15; Deut 15:7–8; 24:14–15). The prophets and also some of
the authors of Wisdom literature24 warn time and again against oppressing the
poor and the needy (Ezek 16:49; Amos 2:6; 4:1; Prov 31:9; cf. Ps 37:14).
Helping the needy is a way to honour God (Prov 14:31) and Sodom was
destroyed because it withheld food from the needy (Ezek 16:49). A “day accept-
able to the Lord” is the day on which the people share their bread with the
hungry, bring the poor into their house, and clothe the naked (Isa 58:7). And
a capable wife is she who stretches out her hands to the needy (Prov 31:20).
In the book of Job, the protagonist’s efforts to help and defend the poor are
emphasized as highly laudable. Interest was not to be exacted from the poor
(Exod 22:25; Lev 25:35–36). They were to be allowed to glean the borders or
corners of the fields and vineyards (Lev 19:9–10; 23:22; Deut 24:19–20; cf. Ruth).
The tithe of the third year was for the benefit of the poor and the needy
(Deut 14:28–29). The sabbatical year was instituted in order that the poor of
the people might eat (Exod 23:11). And so one could go on ad libitum. In short,
he biblical adagium “Open your hand to the poor” summarizes the spirit of
Tanakh as far as charity is concerned.
It is striking that this positive attitude towards the poor stood side by side
with the strong belief that piety was usually rewarded with wealth, which cre-
ated a tension that was never really resolved. Further, in spite of the fact that
there is much concern for the poor in all these biblical books, there still is no
organized charity. Of course, some of the just mentioned commandments are
a honorific self-designation. Probably also some Christian groups did so; see Rom 15:26;
Gal 2:10; and cf. the early Judaeo-Christian Ebionites, with the remarks of I. R. Tantlevskij,
“Ebionites,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. L. H. Schiffman & J. C. VanderKam;
2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1:225–226. For a discussion of this semantic
development, see G. Hamel, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries
CE (Berkeley etc.: University of California Press, 1990), 177–188.
23 Pleins, “Poor, Poverty” 403.
24 The Wisdom literature in general, esp. Proverbs, shows less outrage at the oppression of
the poor than do the Prophets, probably due to its mainly upper class provenance.
122 van der Horst
in a sense collective measures, but it is still left to the individual whether or not
to implement them and there is no central organization to oversee its imple-
mentation. Such an institutionalization is a development that takes place only
in the postbiblical period, as we will see now.25
The fact that in postbiblical parlance a word that originally and in bibli-
cal usage meant righteousness or justice, tsedaqah, developed the meaning
of charity “reveals a basic attitude, namely, that of the donor’s obligation and
the poor’s right.”26 And, as far as we know, the rabbis were the first to recog-
nize that charity is not a favor and that for that reason one had to organize
charity as a public concern and a communal duty. Not that in the centuries
between the Bible and the rise of the rabbinic movement concern for the poor
was absent or even waning in Jewish circles, on the contrary. Let me exemplify
this by the Greek poem of my old friend, the Jewish wisdom poet that goes by
the name of Pseudo-Phocylides, who lived around the turn of the era.27 In his
poem of 230 hexameters, several verses deal with the poor and with charity—
care for the poor is actually one of its main topics. Already in the opening sec-
tion of his poem, the author says: “Do not cast out [or: oppress]28 a poor man
unjustly, do not judge him by his appearance” (10),29 a sentiment repeated in
v. 19: “Give a labourer his pay; do not oppress a poor man ( penêta).” Vv. 22–23
state: “Give to a beggar ( ptôchôi) at once and do not tell him to come tomorrow.
Fill your hand and give alms (eleon) to the needy (chrêizonti).” V. 28–29: “When
you have wealth, stretch out your hand to the poor ( penêteuousin). From what
God has given you provide for those in need (chrêizousin).”And so one could
go on quoting (see also vv. 40, 83, 109). When in the first 30 lines of his poem
the poet turns five times to the importance of taking care of the poor, it is
25 In a remarkable passage, Josephus claims, undoubtedly with exaggeration, that many
Greeks “try to imitate our concord among ourselves and the distributions of our posses-
sions [= money]” (C.Ap. 2.282).
26 Hamel, Poverty and Charity 216. On the semantic shift of tsedaqah see also R. Posner,
“Charity,” EJ 5 (1972) 340.
27 See van der Horst, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides; now also W. T. Wilson, The
Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2005). Of course the same senti-
ments are expressed in other Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha as well, e.g., Tobit and Ben
Sira; see A. van Iterson, Armenzorg bij de Joden in Palestina, 100 v.Chr.–200 n.Chr. (Leiden:
Eduard Ijdo, 1911), 59–61.
28 Depending upon whether one reads rhipsêis or thlipsêis.
29 For “poor man” the Greek text has peniên, poverty, here an abstractum pro concreto, just as
in v. 62 ploutos means plousioi.
evident how much value he attaches to this part of his message.30 The utterly
un-Greek motif of love of the poor is one of his main concerns, even though
proper sexual behaviour takes pride of place in this poem. But again, as in the
biblical texts, we observe that it is all about private not communal or organized
charity.31
III Roots of Jewish and Christian Organized Charity
It is only in the early rabbinic period, esp. the second cent. CE, that we have con-
crete indications for institutional charity organized by the local synagogues.32
There were two such institutions: the quppah (chest or box) and the tamhuy
(plate or dish). The quppah was the weekly money chest to support the local
poor, who received a weekly allotment; the tamhuy was the soup kitchen that
was open at a daily basis to any poor person in need of a meal, including strang-
ers. The administrators or managers of the synagogues appointed officers,
charity wardens (gabba’ey tsedaqah), who collected money every Friday, and
others for the daily food collection and distribution.33 These officers were even
30 It is also in early Jewish (and Christian) circles that the new adjectives philopenês and
philoptôchos (loving the poor) are coined as well as the noun philoptôchia (love of the
poor); cf. the expression pauperum amator in Latin Christian epitaphs. About a Jewish
epitaph from Rome in which the deceased is praised as philopenês ( JIWE II 240), Ramsay
MacMullen exclaims: “[W]ho outside that tradition [sc. Judaism] in the ancient world
would have been recorded on his tombstone as ‘a lover of the poor’?” (Christianizing
the Roman Empire, AD 100–400 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984], 54). Gregory of
Nazianze even wrote an oration entitled Peri philoptôchias.
31 All the Greek imperatives are in the singular. It is very striking that in this undoubtedly
Jewish poem we find also the utterly Greek charis anti charitos principle expressed in line
80: “It is fitting to outdo your benefactors with still greater benefactions”!
32 S. Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie (3 vols.; Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1912), 3:67: “Während
jedoch nach der Bibel die Armengesetze von Privaten ausgeführt werden, wurde die
Armenpflege unserer [sc. rabbinischer] Zeit wesentlich in die Verwaltung der Gemeinde
übernommen.”
33 For references see Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie, 3:63–74; [H. L. Strack &] P. Billerbeck,
Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (5 vols.; München: Beck,
1924), 2:641–647 (on Acts 6:3); G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era
(2 vols.; Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), 2:162–179; E. Schürer, The History
of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (ed. and rev. by G. Vermes et al.; Edinburgh:
Clark, 1979), 2:347 with notes; L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years
(New Haven – London: Yale University Press, 2000), 372–374. Supporting the poor was of
course not the only form of charity; the ransoming of captives was seen as a n ecessary
124 van der Horst
allowed to exert some pressure on the members of the community in order to

make sure that there would be enough to meet all needs. So one could be com-
pelled to give charity. In order to prevent voluntary impoverishment, however,
a rule was laid down that nobody should donate more than one-fifth of his
property. Gentiles and foreigners have a place in this charity system, but fellow
Jews have a prior claim. It is significant that in the famous saying of Simon the
Just in m. Avoth 1.2., gemiluth chasadim (doing deeds of lovingkindness)34 is
one of the three pillars upon which the world is based, a remarkably un-Greek
idea, and that elsewhere deeds of lovingkindness are said to be equal to all the
commandments of the Torah.35 The motive for doing deeds of lovingkindness
often was the expectation of being rewarded by God, esp. in the hereafter.
For our purposes it is important to notice that in rabbinic literature it is
stated repeatedly that the best way of giving to the poor is by doing it in such a
way that nobody sees it happen or sees how much is being given. “A gift to the
poor must be made privately, with no one else present; and as an illustration
reference is made to a chamber in the temple of Jerusalem where peculiarly
scrupulous persons deposited their charitable donations in secrecy, while with
equal privacy the impoverished members of good families drew from this fund
their sustenance.”36 A person who gives alms in secret is greater than Moses,
says R. Eleazar (b. BB 9b), and a little further R. Eliezer adds that the gentiles
only give alms for reasons of self-aggrandizement (b. BB 10b).37 A clearer
countermove to the unabashed Greek self-glorification (philotimia) is hardly
thinkable.
Whether everyone lived up to this ideal is questionable in light of what
Matthew has Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount: “So whenever you give
alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues
act of charity as well; see Y. Rotman, “Captives and Redeeming Captives: the Law and the
Community,” in Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity (ed. B. Isaac &
Y. Shahar; TSAJ 147; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 227–247. I have not been able to con-
sult G. E. Gardner, “Charity Wounds: Gifts to the Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism,” in The
Gift in Antiquity, The Ancient World: Comparative Perspectives (ed. M. L. Satlow; Malden
MA – Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 173–188. See now also G. E. Gardner, The Origins of
Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
34 On gemiluth chasadim see Moore, Judaism 2.172–174.
35 See, e.g., y. Peah 15b–c; t. Peah 4.19; b.BB 9a. Cf. b. Sukk. 49b: Charity is greater than all the
sacrifices.
36 Moore, Judaism 2.167, with reference to m. Sheq. 5.6 and t. Sheq. 2.16. Krauss, Talmudische
Archäologie 3.64, with reference to b. Ketub. 66b–67a.
37 In b. BB 10a, one rabbi says that one who does not give alms should be regarded as a wor-
shipper of idols.
and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they
have received their award. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand
know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret;
and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt 6:2–4). Whatever
one thinks about the authenticity of this saying, its critical note must reflect
some form of reality; there must have been “concrete practices which made
Matt 6:2–4 quite relevant.”38 And in a sense one could say that the many honor-
ary donor inscriptions from ancient synagogues prove that the Jews were not
immune from the honorific “epigraphic habit,”39 although they are of a later
date and do not concern alms but gifts for the community at large.40 But the
sentiment expressed by Jesus in Matt. 6 reflects the same mood as the one we
find in rabbinic literature.41 And as if the rules laid down by the rabbis were
a description of daily reality, Krauss somewhat naively and laconically states:
“In Wirklichkeit hatte es der Arme in der jüdischen Gesellschaft gar nicht
schlecht.”42 But admittedly, it sounds like a paraphrase of the Emperor Julian’s
words, “No Jew ever has to beg.”
It is hard to say from when on these poor relief systems were in force because
the sources that inform us about them are mostly late, that is, rabbinic.43 But
it is highly likely that it was the large scale impoverishment caused by the two
great wars with Rome (66–74 and 132–135 CE) that was the most important
trigger to produce this systematic care for the poor. It cannot be excluded how-
ever that some form of this system was already operative before 70 CE, even
38 Thus W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; ICC;
Edinburgh: Clark, 1988), 1:580.
39 R. MacMullen, “The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire,” American Journal of
Philology 103 (1982): 233–246. As Tessa Rajak remarks in this context, “we need not be
wholly surprised to find practice diverging from principle,” in “Benefactors in the Greco-
Jewish Diaspora,” in her The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (AGAJU 48; Leiden:
Brill, 2001), 374. But later on she adds that the Jewish evidence “is very far from the verbose
world of pagan epigraphic benefaction and honour” (380).
40 For an outdated but illustrative collection see B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les
synagogues juives (Paris: Gabalda, 1967). See nos. 13 and 33 for the use of timan, to honour.
41 A long series of rabbinic sayings about charity can be found in b. BB 8a-11a. In several of
these sayings, biblical verses containing the word tsedaqah (meaning “righteousness”) are
interpreted as meaning “alms, charity,” e.g., Prov 10:2, “Righteousness delivers from death”
is taken to mean “Almsgiving delivers from death” (b. BB 10a).
42 Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie 3.71. For doubts about whether it were the rabbis who
organized this charity see S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 227–230.
43 See D. Secombe, “Was There Organized Charity in Jerusalem before the Christians?”
JTS 29 (1978): 140–143.
126 van der Horst
though we have no sources that explicitly say so (but absence of evidence is no

evidence of absence).
Aharon Oppenheimer, for instance, has argued on the basis of rabbinic
sources that charitable institutions were active in Jerusalem already before the
destruction of the temple in 70 CE, which would make it a pre-rabbinic devel-
opment.44 He suggests that the Pharisees created it. But against that position it
has been argued that the New Testament indicates quite clearly that Christians
created a system of poor relief right from the start, claiming to follow rules
laid down by Jesus. In the earliest phase, when the Church was still a Jewish
movement (the early thirties), we see that the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem
appointed from among themselves seven men to oversee the daily distribution
of food among the widows in their community (Acts 6:1–6). And not much later
(perhaps 15 years or so), the Jerusalem apostles and Paul agreed that the latter
would organize a large scale collection of money for the poor of the Christian
community of Jerusalem (called “the saints” by him), and that is what he did as
several of his letters testify (see Rom 15:25–29; Gal 2:10; 1 Cor 16:1–4; 2 Cor 8–9).45
To be true, there is a theological dimension to this enterprise. “By contrib-
uting to the collection, the Gentiles acknowledge their debt to the Jewish
Christians, but by accepting the collection the Jerusalem saints tacitly
acknowledge the validity of the Gentile mission.”46 It was “an ecumenical act.”47
But that does not detract from the fact that this initiative was also meant to
meet the economic needs of the poor among the Jerusalem Christians. But
these Christian initiatives cannot be regarded as a proof that Jewish organized
charity was already fully developed by the first half of the first century CE, for
“[I]f, in fact, there already existed a system of public relief for the poor, there
would have been little point in the Christians duplicating it.”48 If there was a
Jewish system of poor relief in the period when all Christians were still Jewish
and remained within the fold of Judaism, a separate system was unnecessary
44 A. Oppenheimer, “Benevolent Societies in Jerusalem,” in Jerusalem in the Second Temple
Period: Abraham Schalit Memorial Volume (ed. A. Oppenheimer, U. Rappaport, M. Stern;
Jerusalem: Yad Izhaq Ben Zvi, 1980), 178–190 [Hebrew].
45 D. Georgi, Die Geschichte der Kollekte des Paulus für Jerusalem (Hamburg: Reich, 1965);
J. M. Bassler, God and Mammon: Asking for Money in the New Testament (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1991), 89–116; V. P. Furnish, II Corinthians (AB 32A; Garden City: Doubleday,
1984), 409–413. R. P. Martin, 2 Corinthians (WBC 40; Waco: Word Books, 1986), 256–259.
Further bibliography in A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans – Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000), 1317.
46 Bassler, God and Mammon 94.
47 Furnish, II Corinthians 412.
48 Secombe, “Was There Organized Charity in Jerusalem?” 140.
because the poor followers of Jesus would be supported by the Jewish system.
Otherwise one would have to assume that a “parting of the ways” was already
taking place right from the start, which is very unlikely. Therefore, it would
seem that organized charity was a Christian proprium from the beginning. On
the other hand, however, it is very hard to imagine that the Jews of the early
Jesus movement spontaneously created ab ovo a system of care for the poor
without any precedent. I am inclined to think that they must have followed a
Jewish paradigm, a system that was already in force in the thirties and forties of
the first century CE. Unfortunately we do not know anything about it.49
That the Jewish ethos of non-reciprocity was shared by Jesus and his fol-
lowers is clear from several passages in the New Testament, e.g., Luke 14:12–14:
“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your broth-
ers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return
and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the
crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot
repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”50 It is
this spirit of willingness to share one’s possessions without expecting anything
back that made it possible that, as Luke says of the earliest Christian com-
munity in Jerusalem, “there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34).
Nevertheless, the Hellenistic widows among them complained that they were
being neglected in the daily food distribution (Acts 6:1). We need not go here
into the complicated question of what exactly the “Hellenists” and “Hebrews”
of Acts 6 were; what is of importance is that in a very early stage of the devel-
opment of Christianity, when it was still fully within the fold of Judaism, it cre-
ated a system of care for the poor, esp. the widows, that may, or may not, have
been patterned upon a Jewish model.51
Be that as it may, it is important to emphasize that in ancient Judaism and
early Christianity, in contrast to Graeco-Roman culture, care for the poor had
49 Secombe, “Was There Organized Charity in Jerusalem?” 142, rightly points out that Queen
Helena’s distribution of grain in Jerusalem in a situation of food shortage (Josephus,
Ant. 20.51–53) was an individual initiative that creates the impression that there was no
organized care for the needy in that time.
50 In Luke’s Gospel the emphasis on the obligation to support the poor is stronger than in
any other NT writing except the Epistle of James.
51 When Josephus speaks about the sacred money of the synagogues in Asia Minor in the
time of Augustus (Ant. 16.163–4), he may refer to the money collected for poor relief,
but it is much more probable that the temple tax is meant here. See Levine, The Ancient
Synagogue 373.
128 van der Horst
a strong religious foundation and motivation.52 Bolkestein argued that the

differences between these two cultural spheres as far as the care for the poor
is concerned had little or nothing to do with the differences between their
respective religions; the contrast should be explained, he says, as a result of
the very different socio-economic position of the poor in these cultures. To
put it simply, Bolkestein states that the degree of dependence upon the rich
and the lack of rights were much higher for the poor in Israel than for those
in Greece and Rome.53 But whether or not that is correct, in my view there is
no reason not to take seriously the Jewish and Christian claim that charity is a
divine commandment and the poor have to be regarded as God’s protégés. The
religious motivation of charity, the strong association of love for God with aid
for the needy, is so omnipresent in all the Jewish and Christian evidence that
it would be irresponsible to belittle or ignore it. To give a random example,
in the book of Tobit the protagonists states right from the start that his care for
the poor is the most obvious mark of his Jewishness and that almsgiving is an
excellent offering in the presence of the Most High.54 Nowhere is that religious
principle stated more forcefully than in the words of Jesus in the famous chap-
ter Matthew 25, where he has the heavenly Son of Man say to those who fed
the hungry and clothed the naked: “You did it to me” (Mt 25:40). A similar senti-
ment is expressed in those rabbinic sayings where deeds of lovingkindness are
said to be equal to all God’s commandments in the Torah.55
In the church it was initially the main task of the deacons (diakonoi) to orga-
nize charity, but from the fourth century onwards, efforts to assist the poor
became more and more an organized part of monastic communities. As to the
deacons, the first time they are mentioned in the NT as church functionaries
is in Phil 1:1, where the fact that Paul lists them after the episkopoi strongly
suggests that they belong to the officials of the church, and that at a very early
date (the Letter to the Philippians is from the fifties) there was already a simple
form of hierarchy. The fact that pseudo-Paul in 1 Tim 3:8 says that diakonoi
52 A. Nissen, Gott und der Nächste im antiken Judentum: Untersuchungen zum Doppelgebot
der Liebe (WUNT 15; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1974), 267–272; also van Iterson, Armenzorg
70–77.
53 Bolkestein, Wohltätigkeit und Armenpflege, 438–484.
54 Tob 1:3 and 4:11, with the comments of Longenecker, Remember the Poor 110.
55 See above note 35. It might seem counter-intuitive when Josephus, who wants the Essenes
to look good in the eyes of his pagan readers ( J.W. 2.119–166), describes them as taking
care of the poor. But one should bear in mind that the focus is not on helping the poor in
general, but only members of their own group.
should not be greedy for money suggests that they were involved in matters
of a financial nature, most probably the collection and distribution of alms.56
Although the nomenclature is Hellenistic57 (diakonos is not a Jewish des-
ignation of a religious official), it seems clear that the function of the deacon
is patterned upon that of the Jewish gabba’ey tsedaqah. For even though the
NT texts do not give us a clear description of the tasks of a diakonos and also
Christian evidence from the second century is not as helpful as we might wish
in this respect, that much is certain that care for the poor was among these tasks
and that money from the community chest was used for that purpose (e.g.,
Justin, Apol. I 67.6; Tertullian, Apol. 39.5–6; Cyprian, Epist. 2.2; 5.1). For instance,
the Shepherd of Hermas receives the following explanation of a vision: “The
ones with the spots are deacons who carried out their ministry badly and plun-
dered the livelihood of widows and orphans, and profited themselves from the
ministry which they received to carry out” (Similitude 9.26.2). This passage, but
also many later texts, which stress that diakonoi should be aphilargyroi (not
infected by love for money), leave no doubt about the moral dangers of this
ministry in which they were in charge of the charity box.58 Apparently, not
every deacon could withstand the enticements that came with it.59
IV Communal Care for the Sick
For reasons of space, I now skip a discussion of developments in second and

third century Christianity60 and turn briefly to an important and interesting
new form of Christian charity in the fourth century, the care for the sick and
the creation of hospitals.61 In the Hebrew Bible there is little or no interest
56 See Th. Klauser, “Diakon,” RAC 3:888.

57 See H. Lietzmann, “Zur altchristlichen Verfassungsgeschichte,” in idem., Kleine Schriften I
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1958), 141–185, esp. 148–153.
58 Abundant materials in Klauser, “Diakon” 892–897.
59 We are not very well informed about the rules according to which charity was (or rather,
had to be) organized in the early church, at least less so than in the case of the synagogue.
60 On the organization of alms in these centuries, see the succinct but good survey in
R. M. Grant, Early Christianity and Society (London: Collins, 1978), 128–134; on its role
in the Christianization of the Roman Empire see MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman
Empire, 52–58, esp. 54.
61 See H. Leclercq, “Hôpitaux, hospices,” DACL VI/2:2748–2770; M. Wacht, “Krankenfürsorge,”
RAC 21 (2006): 826–882; O. Hiltbrunner, “Krankenhaus,” RAC 21 (2006): 882–914; A. Crislip,
From Monastery to Hospital: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health
Care (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). For architectural features see, e.g.,
130 van der Horst
in medical science (unlike in Egypt, Babylon, and Greece), which had as its
background the idea that God not only causes diseases, usually as punishment
for sin, but also is the only healer (Ex 15:26: “I am the Lord who heals you”).
Even though the Jewish attitude towards scientific medicine began to change
in the post-biblical period62—there were even quite some Jewish physicians in
the Roman Empire63—a system of generally accessible care for the ill was not
developed in early Judaism. It would seem that such a system is a Christian
innovation, for it cannot be regarded as a part of the Graeco-Roman heritage
in early Christianity either. To be true, in the Roman Empire we do find on a
small scale health centers (valetudinaria, infirmaries) for specific groups, for
instance courtiers, soldiers, or gladiators,64 but no hospitals with health care
for everyone, including the poor and the destitute. Also the Asclepieia with
their incubation facilities (in Epidauros, Pergamon, and elsewhere) can at best
be regarded as a very modest Vorstufe of what would become the Christian
hospitals.65 As a rule, it can be said that we have no evidence from Graeco-
Roman antiquity of any institutionalized care for the sick, let alone the sick
who were poor. It was the family or household that was the main locus of
health care in pagan antiquity. For the poor in need of health care there were
very few options beyond the family. In this respect, it is important to notice
that from the beginning Christian communities (including monastic commu-
nities) regarded themselves as surrogate families.
The first hospitals in the full sense of the word came into being in the fourth
century when Christian pilgrim hostelries (xenodocheia) opened their doors
also for poor and ill pilgrims for free treatment. But what began as mixed
institutions, for healthy and ill alike, was soon transformed into more special-
ized institutions for treatment of health problems (nosokomeia66), with doc-
tors and nurses, although this development took place mainly in the Eastern
part of the Empire, especially in Egypt and Asia Minor, only much later in the
Y. Hirschfeld, The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period (New Haven: Yale
62 See S. J. Noorda, “Illness and Sin, Forgiving and Healing: The Connection of Medical
Treatment and Religious Beliefs in Ben Sira 38, 1–15,” in Studies in Hellenistic Religions (ed.
M. J. Vermaseren; Leiden: Brill, 1979), 215–224.
63 F. Kudlien, “Jüdische Ärzte im Römischen Reich,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 20 (1985):
36–57.
64 See Wacht, “Krankenfürsorge” 836; Hiltbrunner, “Krankenhaus” 890.
65 Hiltbrunner, “Krankenhaus,” 884–893, esp. 886–7.
66 Significantly, they were often called ptôcheia, houses for the poor, or ptôchotropheia,
houses for feeding the poor; both treatment and food were for free.
West.67 Since pilgrim hostelries were usually buildings under the supervision
of abbots or bishops, it was most often clergymen who helped to create, or
who initiated this new form of health care.68 Most often hospitals were part
of a monastery (complex). The reason for this is simple. “The monastic health
care system, as a social system, by definition entails the actions and interac-
tions of participants in a social organization.”69 And the emergence of the
monastic health care system was not only important in terms of the influence
of the monastic movement but “it also fundamentally transformed the health
care system of Late Antiquity by providing the template for the late antique
hospital, which emerged in the 370s.”70 One could say that the hospital is “the
institutional extension of the monastic health care system.”71 What began at a
modest scale in the fourth century developed into a large world-wide network
of Christian hospitals, a development of which we can still see the heritage up
till the p
resent day.72
After an inner-coenobitic start (only for sick monks and nuns), in a somewhat
later stage monastic medicine offered health care also to pilgrims and other
outsiders, even non-Christians, under the supervision of trained health care
providers, including a nursing staff and doctors (see Palladius, Hist. Laus. 7.4);
and it was offered for free, which was unprecedented in the ancient world. It
was a most remarkable achievement indeed. Moreover, apart from the inpa-
tient treatment, this medical care was provided also on an outpatient or ambu-
latory basis.73 Also new was the phenomenon of professional nurses, nuns who
were “a trained corpse of health care providers distinct from both physicians
67 Leclercq, “Hôpitaux,” 2750–2765.

68 We even hear about a bishop who also was a physician (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 9.32.23).
There were also non-clerical founders of hospitals such as emperors and other mag-
nates. Hiltbrunner, “Krankenhaus,” 895–901, gives a good survey of all known Christian
hospitals.
69 Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital, 3.
70 Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital, 8. The first full-blown and large-scale hospital was the
one founded by Basil the Great in Cappadocian Caesarea in the 370s. Basil himself called
it a ptôchotropheion, a place to provide aid and food to the destitute (including orphans,
lepers, the elderly, strangers, and of course the poor and the sick).
71 Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital 100.
72 The hospital in the town where I live (Zeist) is still called “Diakonessenhuis” (House of the
Deaconesses)!
73 Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital, 12. This latter form of health care was of course of
great importance in the lavra type of monasticism, the type halfway between hermitic
and coenobitic life. See also the observations in J. Patrich, Sabas, Leader of Palestinian
132 van der Horst
and lay caregivers.”74 Of course, one should not expect these nurses (nor the
doctors for that matter) to have a high level of medical knowledge; and non-
medical treatment of supposedly demonic illnesses (such as faith healing) was
regarded as respectable.75 But that is irrelevant—the point is that here charity
was organized in such a way as to create a system of health care not only for the
monastics themselves but also for others, especially the poor. And all this took
place exactly in the period in which the emperor Julian complained that “the
impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well.”76
These brief remarks about this striking development in late antique
Christianity must suffice for the moment and we have to draw some provi-
sional conclusions. Much of what has been presented in the preceding pages
is about theory, about how it should be, which is not necessarily as it was in
reality. We have to distinguish between what Bolkestein called “die gepredigte
Moral” and “die gelebte Moral.”77 And unfortunately we know much more
about the “gepredigte” theory than about the “gelebte” practice. That implies,
among other things, that as far as care for the poor is concerned, the reality
may have been worse, even much worse, than the theory. When we see how
often and how vehemently the Hebrew prophets fulminate against oppression
and exploitation of the poor, it is clear that quite often the theory, “die gepre-
digte Moral,” was not brought into practice. On the other hand, it is also pos-
sible that in Graeco-Roman societies, in spite of the indifference towards the
poor that one finds so often expressed, in the practice of daily life there was
much more compassion for them and much more genuine humanitarian con-
cern than one would expect.78 But we simply do not know. However, in spite of
such relativizing observations, it remains an indisputable fact that organized
charity in the sense of a communal obligation towards the needy, which was
Monasticism: Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh centuries

(Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 1995), 183–185.
74 Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital, 16.
75 In the famous Cappadocian monasteries of Basil of Caesarea there was even a consider-
able controversy over whether or not to use secular medicine in the monastery hospitals,
even though Basil himself was in favour of this use (see his Longer Rules 55).
76 When Julian, as a pagan, promotes the idea of helping the poor, one should not forget
that he had had a Christian upbringing. And, apart from that, a certain opportunism in
his struggle against Christianity cannot be excluded.
77 Veyne, Le pain et le cirque 49, calls it “éthique professée” and “éthique pratiquée.”
78 Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 77–85, lists some examples of sincere charitable initia-
tives in the Graeco-Roman world and warns against drawing too stark black-and-white
pictures. For several other examples see also the fine study by Parkin, “You Do Him No
Service”, 61–74.
unknown in Graeco-Roman culture, was created by the Jews and expanded by

the Christians. One can hardly deny that these developments were inspired
by the sincere conviction that humankind should imitate God’s special con-
cern for the most vulnerable among humans, the poor.79 Here, Athens had
little to do with Jerusalem.80
79 The difficult question of why ancient polytheism did not entail the notion of the gods’
protection of and care for the poor and the destitute is a matter that deserves further
investigation.
80 I owe thanks to Daniel Schwartz and Yair Furstenberg for their helpful comments on the
first version of this paper.
The Fourth Book of Maccabees in a
Multi-Cultural City
Tessa Rajak
Introduction
There are those for whom the Fourth Book of Maccabees sits comfortably as
a minor book of the Bible, or at least an adjunct, belonging to the wider bib-
lical corpus, among them, naturally enough, experts on the Septuagint and
related fields. But such a categorization is really only meaningful in the con-
tingent sense that 4 Maccabees figures in two of the great Septuagint codices,
Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus (of the fourth and fifth centuries respectively). It
is probably not an advantageous approach if we seek to give this extraordinary
little tract its due, and if we aspire to explore it without preconceptions, and to
locate its context.
True, the work was loved by the early Church; but even so, it is worth
pointing out, very few Christian denominations have allowed it apocryphal
or deuterocanonical status.1 This book is patently a pious and yet highly rhe-
torical literary and philosophical composition in dialogue form; a product of
the Graeco-Jewish Diaspora of the Roman period. We cannot absolutely rule
out that what we have received through a complicated manuscript tradition
(which is of course wholly Christian) is an original production of the early
Church, posing as an authentic pre-Christian, Jewish discourse, a contribution
to the appropriation of the Maccabean heritage by the “new Israel”. I shall pro-
ceed here, however, as has been done almost universally, on the assumption
that this is not the case, and that what we see is what we get, a rare example of
late Jewish-Greek writing: in fact, our only full-length ancient Jewish-Greek (or
largely Jewish) martyrology.
The eighteen chapters are a rhetorical and philosophical elaboration on the
narrative of the deaths in the persecution of the early 160s BCE conducted by
the Seleucid monarch Antiochus (IV Epiphanes) of nine Jewish martyrs: an
aged priest, Eleazar (in 2 Maccabees the martyr is a scribe), followed by seven
sons and then their mother. Antiochus seeks to force Eleazar, and then each
of the sons in turn to deny Judaism by publicly eating sacrificial pork. One by
1 In most academic collections 4 Macc appears in the category of Pseudepigrapha.

The Fourth Book Of Maccabees In A Multi-cultural City 135
one, brutally terrorized, the boys refuse to eat the forbidden meat or even to
pretend to do so as a device for saving the King’s honour. Each declares that
he prefers extreme torture and agonizing death, in the knowledge that he has
been loyal to the Law of his people, and in the certainty expectation of imme-
diate access to heaven. Each son in turn personally confronts the enthroned
tyrant, utters words of defiance and contempt, and gladly pays the price. They
are encouraged and pressed by their elderly, widowed mother, whose exem-
plary constancy wins the author’s special praise, and who herself dies last and
untouched, by leaping into the flames.
The narrative of our book is an expansion of the much briefer account of
the same incident in a stirring, and equally gruesome digression within the
late Hellenistic Second Book of Maccabees, chapters 6 (18–31)-7. There, the
event was represented as taking place during the Maccabean revolt (167–164
BCE), as part of the persecution that culminated in the desecration of the
Temple through the installation of a pagan cult. In 4 Maccabees the loca-
tion of the martyrdoms is not clearly identified, but there are dim echoes of
a distant c onflict.2 The dependence of the 4 Maccabees version on the sec-
ond Maccabean book is completely clear, even though 4 Maccabees is a very
different kind of work in terms of genre, style and focus. There appears to be
no added information in the latter; rather some of the background informa-
tion derived from the earlier book seems to have become garbled; notably, in
the preliminary scene setting, the name of the Seleucid commander repelled
by an angel from the Temple is given as Apollonius instead of Heliodorus
(4 Macc 4:10; cf 2 Macc 3:31–5).
A proposed localization to a city of Roman Asia, quite recently put forward,
is not compelling when set against the more familiar association with the
great city of Antioch in Syria, as we shall shortly see. In what follows, I shall
reflect upon the Antiochene connection from a new angle by exploring how
4 Maccabees might fit into what we can piece together of the history of the
Jews of Antioch. I shall go on to view the position of 4 Maccabees between
Greek thought and Jewish values, and between Judaism and Christianity,
against the background of that mixed, sometimes conflicted, sometimes
harmonious city.
2 Perhaps, however, the concluding mention of the King’s abject departure from Jerusalem
after failing to get its people to change their identity and abandon the customs of their
fathers (18:5) suggests that this was the location of the specific episode that has just been
discussed.
136 Rajak
I Cultural Provenance of 4 Maccabees: Age of Second Sophistic
The 4 Maccabees expansion of the 2 Maccabees martyrology is presented as

an extended demonstration of the author’s opening philosophical claim that
reasoning (logismos) driven by piety (eusebeia) can surmount every emotion
and passion. These include, he specifically insists, both those connected with
pleasure and equally those connected with pain (1:20–27); both the internal
and the external, and among these fear, love of children, and love of life. It is
evident that these particular experiences are relevant to one section or another
of the group of martyrs.
The presentation of case and story are embedded in an intricate, but not
always successful, mix of rhetoric with philosophy, dramatic narrative and
exempla from the past. Stoicism and Platonic echoes come together with a
particular Hellenistic-Jewish theology that emphasizes salvation of the nation
and loyalty to the ancestral nomos as supreme virtue. This touches more than
once on the potency of vicarious death coupled with an individual heavenly
afterlife for such heroes. Biblical ideal types and exempla are brought up in the
speeches and in the repeated exhortations and eulogies. Yet the moral teach-
ings they convey, through the paradigms of episodes in the lives of Joseph,
Moses and David that drew upon reserves of temperance and self-control, are
such as could strike a chord with Greek non-Jewish readers. Indeed the theme
might equally well have been illustrated from Greek mythology. The model of
the biblical patriarch Abraham is repeatedly invoked.
The concluding eighteenth chapter, which may well be a later addition, looks
back at the mother, educating her sons before she had gone to her death, with
series of such biblical exempla. It concludes with a series of appropriate and
presumably well-known quotations, slightly adapted: “Shall these dry bones
live?” (from Ezekiel 37:3), with “dry” added; and two formulae familiar from the
later Jewish liturgy: “He is a tree of life to them that do his will” (adapted from
Proverbs 3:18); “I kill and I make alive, for that is thy life and the end of thy days”
(Deut 32:39, followed by Deut 30:20). The entire work ends with brief liturgi-
cal praise, sometimes described as a “doxology”. This is expressed in Jewish
Septuagintal language, but Greek literary imagery makes its appearance: “the
children of Abraham. . . have been gathered into the chorus of their fathers,
having received souls that are holy and immortal from God, to whom is the
glory for all eternity. Amen” (18:23–4).
The date of the work is one of its many uncertainties. The claims of a mid-
first century CE dating are upheld by the authority of their originator, Elias
Bickerman, and they have not yet lost their hold.3 I find myself, however,
less and less convinced by them. Arguments have been coming from various
directions pointing towards a later date, roughly between the late first and
the mid-second century CE.4 These are both negative and positive, the latter
built first and foremost upon cultural atmosphere and generic and linguistic
affinities. Most significant of the former are the flaws in Bickerman’s superfi-
cially appealing reasons for assigning the book to a demarcated window in the
mid-first century, between 20 and 54 CE. These dates he derives, with his cus-
tomary ingenuity, from a single geographical specification in the text. “Syria,
Phoenicia, and Cilicia” is given as the name of the governor Apollonius’ area
of control (4 Macc 4:2), while in the parallel passage at 2 Maccabees 3:5, Cilicia
is not mentioned. From the nomenclature in two passages in Tacitus’ Annals,
Bickerman has inferred that a Roman province combining Syria and Cilicia
could not have existed as early as used to be thought, and equally that it con-
tinued no later than 54 CE (rather than to 72 or 73).5
However, it is clear that this passing phrase by no means permits any firm
conclusion. Sir Ronald Syme, who can still illuminate for us the historical geog-
raphy of the Eastern Roman provinces, explained already in 1939 that: “the
Roman province of Cilicia is an elusive entity . . .” He goes on to explain: “Cilicia
is the most ambiguous of terms; and Cilicians can dispute with Phrygians
3 E. J. Bickerman, “The Date of Fourth Maccabees,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, 2 vols.
(New York: The American Academy of Jewish Research, 1945), 1:105–12. Republished in
E. J. Bickerman, Studies in Jewish and Christian History: A New Edition in English including
The God of the Maccabees (ed. A. Tropper; 2 vols.; Leiden : Brill, 2007), 1:266–71. M. Hadas,
The Third and Fourth Books of Maccabees, Jewish Apocryphal Literature (New York: Dropsie
College/Harper, 1953), 95 and 162, takes Bickerman’s case as proven.
4 See D. A. deSilva, 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex
Sinaiticus (Septuagint Commentary Series; Leiden: Brill, 2006), xv–xvii, for the tilt in opin-
ion towards a later dating. In support of the later date, see D. A. Campbell, “The Date of
4 Maccabees,” in idem., The Rhetoric of Righteousness in Romans 3.21–26 (JSNTSup 65; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), Appendix 3, 219–28, and, already, A. Dupont-Sommer, Le
quatrième livre des Machabées: introduction, traduction et notes (Paris: H. Champion, 1939),
78–81 (Hadrianic). J. W. Van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People:
A Study of 2 and 4 Maccabees (JSJSup 57; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 73–81, offers a good overview,
recognizing that Bickerman’s widely-accepted assertion is flawed.
5 Tacitus Ann. 2.58, on the removal of the Parthian pretender Vonones from Antioch in Syria to
Soli, described as in Cilicia; Ann. 13.8, on Q. Ummidius Quadratus transferring his troops from
Syria to Aegae in Cilicia, to thwart Corbulo.
138 Rajak
the claim to widest extension among the peoples of Asia Minor. In the loose
language of geography or of ethnography, Cilicia can denote both the coast
eastwards from Pamphylia in the direction of Syria and the interior to the
north, covering parts of Pisidia, Lycaonia and even Cappadocia.”6 Bickerman’s
reconstruction (first published six years after Syme’s observations), was based
on passages that may do no more than reflect the apparent boundaries of the
provinciae of legates in exceptional and controversial situations. In any case,
the author more likely seeks to convey a sense of broad regional designation
than any precise administrative demarcation. Cilicia Pedias, round the corner
as it were, was often understood as part of Syria; indeed the legions of Syria
were often quartered for the winter in one of its towns. And even if precision in
relation to contemporary circumstances was intended, how up-to-date might a
provincial be expected to be about boundary changes? Finally, this is an author
who works miscellaneous realia into his text, and he no doubt wishes to con-
vey a grandiose impression of the extent of Apollonius’ power. Not only 54, but
even 72 CE, when Cilicia was annexed by Rome, have no standing as termini
ante quem.
4 Maccabees reflects in a number of ways the atmosphere and taste of the
“Second Sophistic” in the cities of the eastern Roman Empire.7 That cultural
turn, in which interest among classicists has been very high during the past
twenty years, belongs broadly to the first two centuries CE (its starting point
is debatable). It gained traction in the second century with the stellar, multi-
centre careers of celebrated, often extremely well connected and highly the-
atrical display-orators, such as Dio Chrysostom, Maximus of Tyre, Polemo of
Cilicia and Favorinus of Arles, whose careers were later brought together and
chronicled by Flavius Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists. Some of these
performers presented themselves also as philosophers—in spite of the great
difference in garb and style between these two erstwhile contradictory roles.
The doctor and medical writer Galen, too, operated, not so much later, as a high
profile and theatrical demonstrator of experiments and as a public speaker,
and he has been well understood as one of the later sophists.
In 4 Maccabees, the deployment of different genres of oratory both through
the authorial voice and in a range of internal orations, albeit on a modest
6 R. Syme, “Observations on the Province of Cilicia,” in Anatolian Studies Presented to William
Hepburn Buckler (ed. W. M. Calder and J. Keil; Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1939), 299–332.
7 As Dupont-Sommer already suggested, see n. 4 above. For an enlightening introduction to
the Second Sophistic, see T. Whitmarsh, The Second Sophistic (Oxford: Oxford University
Press/Classical Association, 2005), with further bibliography.
scale, caters to the taste of the age. All the more so, the inextricable odd com-
bination of philosophical with rhetorical presentation embedded both in the
framework and in the working out of the leading proposition and its exempli-
fication. This intellectual background helps make sense for us of the striking
authorial switches in the work: the martyrs are boldly introduced as exemplars
of a philosophical principle that has to be proved; but also as subjects whose
virtues it behoves the author to praise (1.10).8 The striking interest shown by
4 Maccabees in the process of the growth of the embryo in the maternal womb
and in pregnancy and birth, biological as well as literary, is also perhaps appro-
priate to the age (13:19 ff; 16:5 ff).
A wide range of inventive rhetorical techniques is deployed by the author:
direct observation, reported speech, speech that was never made but might
have been, dialogue in which two opposing cases are presented, apostro-
phe, address to the readers (or hearers), even, as we shall see, a hypothetical
tombstone.
Following the assertion of the philosophical premise, the rest of the book,
from 3:19 to the end, does indeed constitute a demonstration of a kind of this
premise, but it soon exceeds the bounds of what is strictly needed to illustrate
the point, and discourse turns to narration and exclamation, sliding in and out
of dramatic, epideictic, eulogistic, lamenting or sententious mode. It is worth
adding in passing, however, that there is a marked disparity in linguistic reg-
ister between the somewhat pretentious philosophical-rhetorical framework
and the simple language of the reported exchanges that seems not to have
been noticed by commentators. These alterations of register deserve further
study as a possibly self-conscious attempt to reflect the martyrs’ resistance to
the prevailing display values of civic society. In that case, paradoxically, our
author also reflects his own participation in those values by his very ability to
represent them and also subvert them when he wants to. Septuagint language
is notably scarce, outside the clusterings of biblical citations and allusions.
Equally of their time are the expression of the work’s philosophical content
through its dialogic features, in the exchanges between tyrant and boys as to
the logic and value of their immutable moral choice. To this we may add the
unmistakable Socratic modelling, which I have looked at in the past.9 While
8 See G. W. Bowersock, “Philosophy in the Second Sophistic,” in Philosophy and Power in The
Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin (ed. G. Clark and T. Rajak; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 157–170, on these twisted strands in the self-representations of the
great sophists (down to matters of dress and depilation).
9 The Socratic modelling in the portrayal of Eleazar, visible in both 2 and 4 Maccabees is
pursued in T. Rajak, “Dying for the Law: The Martyr’s Portrait in Jewish-Greek Literature,”
140 Rajak
the death of Socrates was the paradigm in many quarters of a noble death, it
is perhaps significant that this model was cherished at Rome by the senatorial
opposition to the principate, above all during the Flavian era. Again, the depic-
tion of the monstrosities perpetrated by the “tyrant of the Greeks”, the drama
of the confrontation between tyrant and martyrs, and the bloodthirstiness of
the inflicted tortures and their effects, which are described in graphic detail—
the rack, the wheel, the catapult, the iron claws, the fire, flayed skulls, ampu-
tated limbs and tongues cut out, flesh in shreds, and entrails dripping with
blood, seem to cater to the thirst for excitement among readers of Greek novels
of the era.
Classical Greek drama too, is indirectly evoked, and especially the ever pop-
ular Euripides. The rupturing of the mother-child bond, by external or internal
constraints, is represented in Greek literature on the one hand in the experi-
ence of Hecuba, a victim of war, on the other hand by Euripides’ partly sym-
pathetic portrayal of the deserted Medea, the woman-sorceress driven by fury
and desperation to the murder of her own children. The Maccabean mother,
egging her sons on to their deaths, might be said to be a transformed Medea,
with actions as virtuous as those of the sorceress were appalling—though the
encouragement to self-immolation might in its own way strike us as disturbing
and horrible. The very language of Greek tragedy is evoked in the lament that
the “three times wretched mother” refrained from uttering: “Having given birth
to seven sons but being now the mother of none . . . a woman left on her own,
engulfed in solitary lamentation”, now without a single son to bury her when
she will die (16:6–11).
It is hard to tell if the work as it stands could ever have been delivered in
a public or community setting, in market place, lecture hall, school or syna-
gogue; or if, rather, like many an ancient speech writer, the author had an eye
to the individual reader or hearer, in study circle or home. I wish we could
know. Educated Greek interest in this quite elaborately wrought composition
seems to me not unlikely. Such an audience would miss out on the biblical
intertexts, but on the other hand the deployment of recondite literary allusion
was the stock in trade of sophistic oration. They would perhaps sit up—yet
perhaps not—at the conclusion of the prologue: “I shall begin with the state-
ment of my case (hypothesis) as I am wont to do, and then I shall turn to their
story [the martyrs], while giving glory to God the All-Wise” (1:12). This is not to
say that such a non-Jewish following need be inferred from the elaboration of
in Portraits: Biographical Representation in Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire
(ed. M. J. Edwards and S. Swain; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 58–60. Also published in
T. Rajak, The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 99–133.
style, for our very limited evidence from the Jewish diaspora of the time points
to a level of participation in the common paideia that would have allowed a
Jewish community to share in the sophistic climate and to use its forms for its
own internal needs and for the purpose of its own self-expression (rather as
Philo had done with the philosophical discourse of his own Alexandria). Tim
Whitmarsh has even gone so far as to suggest that “it makes sense to speak of
a Jewish Sophistic”.10
It is that climate and its educational values that concerns us here. We get the
sense of an author stepping out of a culture that was already fully-fledged and
in full swing; no doubt as a mere small town and marginal imitator of its great
literati, and with a very different agenda, but still with many of its tricks up his
sleeve. His protagonists are depicted as standing out against the onslaughts of
Hellenism, yet in Greek terms, “simultaneously within and against the Greek
culture” in the words of Whitmarsh.11 Our author, be it noted, remains anony-
mous, as no sophist would have done. A date after 70 CE, and perhaps even
after 100, seems to me preferable on these grounds, and this chimes in well
with the possibilities of contextualization on the Jewish side, as we shall see.
II Locating 4 Maccabees in Antioch
4 Maccabees may be presumed to have originated in the Greek-speaking

Jewish world, but the exact place of origin of this composition remains a topic
of conjecture. The great city of Antioch in Syria has been the favoured loca-
tion. The even larger city of Alexandria, where much of the Greek literature of
the Jewish Diaspora probably originated, has been an occasional contender.
Scarpat in his commentary has brought claim for the city of Rome to the fore.12
J. W. van Henten13 has intriguingly argued for an origin in one of the Greek
cities of Asia Minor, on the grounds of the wording of the imaginary epitaph
conjured up for the martyrs. The unusual compound verb in the formula,
entautha . . . enkekêdeuntai (17:9, “here . . . lie buried”) echoed in the non-Jewish
10 See T. Whitmarsh, Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 247 (discussing Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish epic poet).
11 Ibid.
12 G. Scarpat (ed.), Quarto libro dei Maccabei, translation, introduction and comment by
Giuseppe Scarpat; Historical note by Giulio Firpo (Brescia: Paideia, 2006), 49–66.
13 J. W. van Henten, “A Jewish Epitaph in a Literary Text: 4 Macc 17:8–10,” in Studies in Early
Jewish Epigraphy (ed. J. W. van Henten and P. W. van der Horst; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 44–69.
142 Rajak
epigraphy of Ionia, Galatia, Lycaonia, Lycia, and Phrygia; the formula also fig-
ures in the Jewish epitaphs from Hierapolis in Phrygia.
Precise and compelling though this seems, the findings may well be illusory.
First, the geographical range, covering just about all of modern Turkey, except
the Black Sea coast, is so vast as to be hardly describable as a distinct region;
rather this choice of words can be seen as an option within the standard epi-
graphic repertoire of the period. Second, the epigraphic record from Roman
Syria is so very much slimmer than that which is available in the major corpora
from Asia Minor that no conclusions can be drawn from silence; the deficiency
is even more acute in the case of the Jewish epigraphy. Third, Syrian Antioch,
the third city of the Roman Empire, with a long-standing Jewish community,
was a powerful magnet; even if we do continue to regard the localization of the
formula as significant, we cannot exclude the possibility of our author origi-
nating from outside Antioch and bringing this language with him. Finally, it
hardly needs saying that it would be desirable, twenty years on, to see if a new
trawl with tools now available does not throw up further examples.
By contrast, the claims of Antioch, while not conclusive, remain compelling.
The essential reason for the Antiochene linkage is the history of the book and
of its martyrs among Christians. The devotion with which the martyrs came
to be treasured in both Eastern and Western Christianity is well known. Their
place of burial was supposedly Syrian Antioch and there their relics came to
venerated; their day was August 1st. In the late fourth century, they would be
eulogized in their supposed city by John Chrysostom, and elsewhere in the
East by Gregory of Nazianzus, by the Syriac poet Ephrem, and by Severus,
the monophysite Patriarch of Antioch (whose Greek writings survive largely in
Syriac), while in the West, Ambrose and Augustine wrote and delivered homi-
lies for the saints’ day.14
14 On the Christian reception: R. B. Townshend, “The Fourth Book of Maccabees,” in
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (ed. R. H. Charles; 2 vols.; Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1913), 2:658–62; J. Obermann, “The Sepulchre of the Maccabaean
Martyrs,” JBL 50 (1931): 250–65; M. Schatkin, “The Maccabean Martyrs,” Vigiliae Christianae
28 (1974): 98–208; M. Vinson, “Gregory Nazianzen’s Homily 15 and the Genesis of the
Christian Cult of the Maccabean Martyrs,” Byzantion 64 (1994): 166–95; L. Triebel, “Das
angebliche Synagoge der makkabäischen Märtyrer in Antiochia am Orontes,” Zeitschrift
für Antikes Christentum 9 (2005): 464–95; L. F. Pizzolato, I sette fratelli Maccabei nella Chiesa
antica d’Occidente (Milan: V&P, 2005); R. Ziadé, Les martyrs maccabeés: de l’histoire juive
au culte chrétien. Les homélies de Grégoire de Nazianze et de Jean Chrysostom (VC Supp 80;
Leiden: Brill, 1997); D. Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Christian Memories of the Maccabean Martyrs
(Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
The martyrs are sometimes treated as though they were already Christians,
but more often, and even in one and the same work as offers the Christian iden-
tification, they earn the highest praise for achieving what they did without the
benefit of being able to know Christ. All the more did they deserve immortal
life for their perfect piety, their supreme endurance, and their devotion to that
Law to which their obedience was owed, wrote Augustine. Translations and
adaptations of our work abounded, including a widely read early Latin version
and a Syriac version subsumed into the Peshitta, which is for us an important
textual witness.15 The martyrs’ remains, having travelled from Jerusalem to
Antioch, passed thence to Constantinople, to Cologne and to Rome, where a
casket containing the bones of the seven sons, together, apparently, with both
their parents (presumably taking Eleazar as their father) and with inumera-
bilium aliorum sanctorum, now lies in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli. We
know of the cult of these martyrs as a Christian and not a Jewish manifesta-
tion, and Christians were those who venerated their relics.16
An effective claim of Jewish origins validated this prominent cult. Stories
were told about those beginnings. The local Syrian historian John Malalas
maintained that no less a figure than Antiochus IV brought the remains
of the martyrs to Antioch and that later Judas (sic) was given them by King
Demetrius and buried them in the Kerateion quarter, beside the “ever-weeping
mountain.”17 These pre-Christian martyrs were thus in a sense understood as
preserving Judaism itself in readiness for the Christian dispensation to come.
They were essential to salvation history, and the treasured Jewish bones, in
their supposed passage from Jewish to Christian hands, symbolized the course
of that history. By Chrysostom’s time, Christians owned the site (Homily 1.1),
and indeed Augustine says unequivocally that the basilica built over the tomb
15 For the Latin, see H. Dörrie, ed., Passio SS. Machabaeorum: die antike lateinische überset-
zung des IV. Makkabäerbuches (Göttinegen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1938). The Syriac
was published, together with related texts and English translations, by R. L. Bensly and
W. E. Barnes, The Fourth Book of Maccabees and Kindred Documents in Syriac (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1895).
16 See Schatkin, “Maccabean Martyrs.” For the initial exploration, which remains influential
and which did much to promote the study of the material remains, see M. Rampolla del
Tindaro, “Martyre et sépulture des Machabés,” Revue de l’Art Chrétien 48 (1899): 290–305;
377–92; 457–65.
17 Malalas Chron. 8.264 (ed. L. Dindorf, [Bonn: Weber, 1831], 206–7). English version in
E. Jeffreys, M. Jeffreys, and R. Scott with B. Croke, trans., The Chronicle of Malalas,
Byzantina Australiensia 4 (Melbourne: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies,
1986), 108–109.
144 Rajak
was, and had always been, a purely Christian enterprise, “owned by Christians
and built by Christians.”18
In fact, no evidence at all exists for a Jewish precursor to the Christian cult,
still less for any Jewish tomb for them in Antioch, as has now been exhaustively
shown by Triebel.19 Nor are there parallels in the period for such a cult: if we
choose to accept that one existed, then we have to admit this case as unique.20
4 Maccabees does indeed offer us a would-be epitaph for the martyrs, but the
lines are offered as an imaginative fantasy, as the author signals that these are
the words that “it would be proper to inscribe upon their grave”;21 an artistic
flourish matched by the adjacent idea of a hypothetical painter’s depiction of
the scene. The words of the epitaph should be a reminder to the nation: “ ‘Here
lie buried an aged priest, an old woman and her seven sons, through the vio-
lence of a tyrant bent on destroying the politeia of the Hebrews. They vindi-
cated their people, staying faithful to God and enduring torments to death’ ”
(17:8–10).
The special connection with Antioch is therefore not straightforward. If not
out of previous Jewish veneration of a tomb, we have to ask how it happened
that the Christian cult evolved in this place. Augustine’s simple observation
that the Seleucid capital was a particularly appropriate location for celebration
of the victims does not read as though intended to be a causal statement, and it
scarcely satisfies.22 A Jewish tradition of some kind, but not a cult, is still nec-
essary if we are to make sense of the emergence of a Christian cult of Jewish
martyrs.
In fact, the Jews of Antioch did evince a strong sense of affinity with the vic-
tims of Antiochus’ all too real persecution in Judaea, as we shall see. And this
leads us back to 4 Maccabees. For we can indeed understand the work not as a
product of the real existence of Jewish sanctification of the bones, nor indeed
of any bones, but rather as the product of proven interest in the Maccabees
18 Augustine, Sermo 300.6.

19 Triebel, “Die angebliche Synagoge” (above n. 14).
20 As does Bickerman, “The Maccabees of Malalas,” in Studies in Jewish and Christian History,
vol. 1:477–80. To the concern that no other known late antique synagogue was a shrine to
the dead and that this is scarcely surprising in view of the Jewish understanding of corpse
uncleanness, it is always possible to respond that these were unusual Jews with a very dif-
ferent interpretation of the question of impurity imparted by bones.
21 ep’autou tou epitaphiou seems to be the right reading, though its meaning is not unambig-
uous. For a suitable hypothetical epitaph, proposed ironically by a dramatic protagonist,
see Hecuba’s speech in Euripides, Troades 1190–1192.
22 Even if one historian of Antioch is willing to leave matters there: see G. Downey, A History
of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1961), 111.
and the Maccabean martyrs on the part of the Jews of Antioch. The martyrs’
story took root there. It was but a short step for their bones to be discovered
by Christian recipients of the work who had a special interest in validating the
tradition.
III Jewish Existence in Antioch
The later dating I have promoted puts the work firmly in the era of the three
Jewish revolts against Rome, a deeply troubled period for Jews everywhere,
running from the 60s to the 130s CE. My intention is not, however, to propose
a precise connection between a set of events and the writing of 4 Maccabees.
Such propositions are likely fallacious, because reflection, writing, and circula-
tion of news about oppression or suffering may take place in a period of qui-
eter, if still uneasy, recuperation, echoing initial reactions, memorializing, and
serving both past and present purposes. I envisage more loosely drawn, yet
still indispensable, links between event and literature. Even less would a tight
association be expected in the case of 4 Maccabees, a text in which—at least in
the form in which it has come down to us—more than one layer is detectable.
Throughout antiquity, Antiochene Jewish existence—more than that of
most other Greek-speaking diaspora cities—seems to have been characterized
by sharply contrasting fortunes: on the one hand, highly permeable religious
boundaries open to renegotiation and implying close interaction with neigh-
bours, and on the other, the periodic development of situations of extreme
conflict and of violent confrontation. This led to a seesaw existence, to say
the least, one that seems to find its counterpart in the contradictions in the
relationship of 4 Maccabees with Greek culture. For the great paradox of
the Antiochene story is that, even while antagonism and conflict were often
constructed as a battle between Jews and Greeks, the Jewish resistance to
“Hellenism” was actually remarkably selective, targeted on certain symbols or
physical realities. Greek language and culture were at the same time constant
and dominating forces in such Diaspora Jewish lives
According to Josephus, the Jews were particularly numerous in Antioch, and
he also claims that they had been granted equal rights with the Greek citizens
at the foundation of the city by Seleucus I Nicator (C. Apion 2.39). This proud
community expressed itself by making costly offerings to its synagogue, which
was one of unusual splendour ( J.W. 7.44),23 as indeed befitted a city renowned,
23 Surely not sent to the Temple, as generally translated: hieron, sacred place, refers naturally
to the synagogue just mentioned.
146 Rajak
or notorious, for its love of luxury.24 Herod’s many visits and benefactions must
have been a further trigger for a sense of self-importance.
In the summer of 66, when Syrians and Greeks in various mixed towns and
cities in Syria, including Damascus, had been hit by racial violence, Antioch
had been one of the few places where there were no attacks on Jewish resi-
dents. The city is singled out by Josephus for special praise, along with Apamea
and Sidon ( J.W. 2.479)—somewhat ironically we may think, in light of what
would very soon happen. For none of those affinities stood in the way of an
enraged populace, less than a year later, setting upon their fellow Jews with
extreme brutality, following an arson charge. An individual who had been born
a Jew, interestingly and appropriately named Antiochus, charged his fellow
Jews, with plotting to incinerate the entire city in one night ( J.W. 7.47). Among
the charged was his own father, who was the community’s archon, and he also
dragged into his accusation a number of Jews from elsewhere (perhaps from
Judaea?). At the time, insurrection had already broken out in Jerusalem, and
the Roman legate of Syria was in the front line of responsibility. The conse-
quences of the trumped-up charge were dire. After those identified as the chief
culprits, apparently all outsiders, had been dragged into the theatre and there
burned to death, the rest were set upon, and the fury of the mob satisfied by
making the Jews worship the local gods by the application of a sacrifice test—
a device, implemented, Josephus suggests, by that ruthless traitor, Antiochus.
The procedure matches precisely by what we read of the treatment of the early
Christians a little later, and it becomes the staple of many martyrologies.25
Nor were the immediate consequences of this shocking incident confined
to Antioch. Apparently, still under the influence of Antiochus, Sabbath obser-
vance was banned, just as it had been by King Antiochus during the Maccabean
persecution, according to the account of 2 Maccabees (6:6). Now the ban
applied not only to this city but also to other Syrian centres; and it is likely that
the Sabbath was simply singled out in the report as the most important of the
observances under attack ( J.W. 7:52–53).
24 P. Brown, “Charmed Lives”, New York Review of Books, April 12th, 2001, 43–5; 48–49 gives a
lively description of the good life at Antioch, as does the exhibition catalogue there under
review: Antioch: The Lost City (ed. C. Kondoleon; Princeton: Princeton University Press/
Worcester Art Museum, 2001). The famous series of second to fifth-century mythological
mosaics from Daphne is the leading witness as to its culture. Cf. also I. Sandwell and
J. Huskisson, eds., Culture and Society in Roman Antioch (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2004).
25 Pliny, Letter 96 and 97 offer early attestation. Given the early and visible presence of
Christians at Antioch, perhaps such tests had already been applied to them there. Might
Christian-Jewish rivalry have something to do with these poisonous events?
In the grim period after the destruction of the Temple, another horrific epi-
sode, in which Jews apparently went to their deaths in large numbers, comes
to our attention. When the revolt was finally subdued and Jerusalem and its
Temple in ashes, Vespasian hastened to Rome to assume the imperial pow-
ers, while Titus made a triumphal progress through various cities of the East,
holding triumphal games which involved the mass torment and slaughter of
recently-captured prisoners, most of them apparently Jewish ( J.W. 7.23–4;
37–40). In this atmosphere, Antioch flared up again, and when another fire
broke out and destroyed many of the public buildings, the Jews were once again
assumed to be guilty of arson; once more they were at the mercy of the mob,
to be rescued only by the acting governor, who imposed restraint and tracked
down the guilty parties ( J.W. 7.55–62). By contrast, the Antiochenes demanded
the expulsion of the “remnant” (τῶν ʼΙουδαίων ὑπολειπομένοις, J.W. 7.41) of the
Jewish population, now more than ever vulnerable, for, as Josephus has Titus
say, they belonged nowhere and had no place to go to, their home city being
in ruins. Titus, says Josephus (who of course was particularly well disposed to
the prince), reflected on the matter, and he supposedly refused demands for
banishment and for the remove of the Jewish privileges, inscribed by decree
on a bronze tablet ( J.W. 7.100–11; Ant. 12.120–3).26
A distinctive feature of Antiochene Jewry was a commonality of destiny with
the Jews of Palestine, a special tie to the Judaea and to Galilee and to events in
Jerusalem, explicable in part in terms of geographical accessibility. That acces-
sibility enabled Aidesios, a gerousiarch of the Antiochene Jewish community,
to achieve a desirable burial in the Galilee, close to rabbinic tombs, as attested
by an epitaph from the necropolis at Beth She’arim.27 Behind this connection
lies quite a long history. When Antiochus IV entered the Temple he allegedly
took back with him “to his own country” the precious objects, and much valu-
able material besides, out of the inner shrine, which he presumably deposited
at Antioch (I Macc 1:22–4). Josephus tells us that this King’s successors pre-
sented brass items taken from the Temple to the Jews of Antioch, earmarked as
votive offerings for their synagogue ( J.W. 7.44).
26 These crises of extreme violence and terror show the limitations of that political and
social integration between Jews and Greeks at the civic level emphasized in the now cur-
rent narratives and first explored by Thomas Kraabel. See Rajak, Jewish Dialogue, 447–462.
27 M. Schwabe and B. Lifschitz, Beth She’arim, vol. 2, The Greek Inscriptions (in Hebrew,
Jerusalem: Society for the Exploration of the Land of Israel and Its Antiquities, 1967; repr.
New Brunswick, 1974), nos. 141–3. For discussion of the meaning of such burial, see Rajak,
Jewish Dialogue, 479–499.
148 Rajak
Furthermore, Antioch reflects in more than one immediate way the after-
math of the Great Revolt. The visit during which Titus stood firm against
attacks on the Jews directly precedes Josephus’ account of his returning to con-
template the ruins of Jerusalem ( J.W. 7:112–115). In addition, the local historian
John Malalas announces, though Josephus does not, that Titus set up on one
of the western gateways of Antioch, the cherubim removed from the Temple
before its destruction.28 While this historian’s information is often extraordi-
narily garbled, here he is, after all, on his home territory.29 Malalas adds that
a theatre was (at some point) built on the site of the Daphne synagogue bear-
ing the inscription “from the booty of Judaea”—ex praeda iudaeae. In John
Chrysostom’s day, a synagogue apparently still stood there, in which healing
by incubation took place.30 We owe to an eleventh century Arabic writer from
North Africa, Nissim ibn Shahin of Cairouan, information on the existence,
at some moment, of an Antiochene synagogue supposedly called Shmonit
(or Sheminit), said to be the first built after the destruction of the Temple. It
is hard not to suppose that the name is an abbreviation of Hashmonit—i.e.
Hasmonean or Maccabean, in which case the institution will have been under-
stood as commemorating the Maccabean martyrs, thus bringing together
in the public consciousness the tragedies of the Maccabean persecution and
the catastrophe of the failed first revolt against Rome and its aftermath in
Jerusalem and Antioch alike.31
IV Jewish and Christian Martyrological Discourse
4 Maccabees then would have been composed in circumstances where the

Maccabean martyrs could be—were perhaps needed as—inspiration; and
where 2 Maccabees, or at least its martyrology, will have been not only read but
particularly valued. The production of a fresh, more “modern” account reveals
a continuing interest in these deaths. This would mean, then, ascribing the first
28 Malalas Chron. 10.337–338 (ed. Dindorf, 264); English version: Jeffreys, Jeffreys and Scott,
138.
29 One could, however, argue that this is a twisted doublet of the information given us by
Josephus about the brass vessels.
30 John Chrysostom Adv. Iud. Hom. 1 (PG 48, 852, 1–3).
31 For Nissim, see Obermann, “The Sepulchre of the Maccabaean Martyrs,” 254–9; Bickerman,
“The Maccabees of Malalas,” 474; Downey, History of Antioch, 110, n. 116. The mediaeval
historian was apparently prepared to believe that there were authentic martyrs’ tombs
beneath the synagogue.
stage at least of the composition of 4 Maccabees to a moment when the impact

of the crisis of 70 in the city of Antioch had been absorbed but was still fresh.
The Temple, which in itself figures hardly at all in our work, will have fallen.
Dating 4 Maccabees to between the late first and mid-second century CE (in
preference to the ascription to the mid-first century), allows an extra dimen-
sion to the clear signs that we find of 4 Maccabees interacting with the newly
emergent Christian martyrological discourse.32 The Abrahamic referencing,
which pervades the book, with allusions at key moments of high drama, would
make good sense as a bid for ground common to Jews and Christians. It is not
hard to justify thematically the prominence given to Abraham who was ready
to immolate his son Isaac, an episode which is indeed mentioned or alluded to
several times (13.12; 15.28; 16.20). But the first patriarch also fills a separate and
even larger role in 4 Maccabees as progenitor of the martyred sons, waiting to
receive them into his bosom according to the final words of the book, and as
the revered father of the people. In this role, he is the standard-bearer of the
biblical past that the “new Israel” had in common with the “old Israel”, a role he
plays also in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and in Hebrews, as well as in other
New Testament books.
Looking outside the text, the Christian connections are expressed in
commonalities with the first of the Christian acta, especially in relation to the
role of the mother,33 and in a few lexical and thematic affinities with the let-
ters of Ignatius of Antioch, notably in the idea of the deaths as antipsychon, an
explicit substitution of life for life (twice in 4 Maccabees, 4 times in Ignatius’
Letters). Perler,34 who did a short word study that awaits development, and
more recently DeSilva35 believe Ignatius to have known 4 Maccabees; but
recent interrogation of the patchy process of the “parting of the ways” now
32 For parallels, see A. Hilhorst, “Fourth Maccabees in Christian Martyrdom Texts,” in Ultima
Aetas: Time, Tense, and Transience in the Ancient World. Studies in Honour of Jan den Boeft,
(ed. C. Kroon and D. Hengst; Amsterdam: VU Press, 2000), 107–21. These crises of extreme
violence and horror show up the limitations of that political and social integration
between Jews and Greeks at the civic level emphasized in the now current narratives and
first explored by Thomas Kraabel.
33 See J. W. van Henten, “The Martyrs as Heroes of the Christian People: Some Remarks on
the Continuity of Jewish and Christian Martyrology, with Pagan Analogy,” in Martyrium
in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Memorial Louis Reekmans, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum
Theologicarum Lovaniensium 117 (ed. M. Lamberigts and P. van Deun; Leuven: Peeters,
1995), 304–22; Hillhorst, “Fourth Maccabees”.
34 O. Perler, “Das vierte Makkabäerbuch, Ignatius von Antiochien, und die ältesten
Märtyrerberichte,” Revista di Archeologia Cristiana 25 (1949): 47–72.
35 DeSilva, 4 Maccabees, xxxiv–v.
150 Rajak
make participation in a common milieu at least equally likely. Rabbinic ver-

sions of the legend reveal unexpected traces of 4 Maccabees, but that is for
another discussion. These are echoes that could even have come back into
Judaism through Jewish contact with Christian commemoration; on the other
hand, it is not impossible that the traditions were quietly kept in circulation
among Jews.
It is even conceivable that 4 Maccabees followed in time the first Christian
acta, and that it was itself influenced by Christian conceptions. But it may
be enough to ascribe our hybrid work to a shared world, indeed one that was
shared three ways, for we should not allow the powerful pagan-Greek city cul-
ture to drop out of the picture. For both Jews and Christians, this was the air
that they breathed.
I want to end by leaping over the centuries, to a rather new project from that
same world that consciously revives the ancient conversation. It is not often
these days that one comes across any glimmer of hope from the Turkish-Syrian
border. But the best side of the spirit of Antakya has lived on through the mil-
lennia, in song. Here is a brief account of a choir that featured on BBC News
last year, and hopefully has not gone under:
The many diverse civilizations and religions that have resided in the
Anatolian peninsula throughout centuries have always been a source of inspi-
ration in Turkey. With its Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities living in
peaceful unity, the city of Antakya, in particular, has been a symbol of reli-
gious and cultural harmony. The Civilizations Choir of Antakya, composed
of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish members, who
are priests, imams, nuns, teachers, students and seniors, came into existence
building on this tradition of tolerance and coexistence . . . The members of
the Civilizations Choir have come together around one challenging but time-
less mission: to create harmonious dialogue between different civilizations by
using the universal language of music. The Choir, singing songs in six differ-
ent languages, has given over 100 concerts in Turkey and abroad . . . since its
inception in 2007. Having been nominated for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, the
group is hopeful . . . “What we really want to do if we win the prize is to merge
a church, synagogue and mosque under the one roof in Antakya. That way we
can show the world how people of different beliefs can really unite.”
Community relations in ancient Antioch were often far from harmonious,
as we have learnt. But one way or another, the communities achieved not only
a long co-existence, but a great deal of common ground.
Part III
Varieties of Communal Identities
∵
Rome and Alexandria: Why was there no Jewish
Politeuma in Rome?
Daniel R. Schwartz
Concerning the internal organization of Jewish communities in the Greco-

Roman world, we find the following in the new Schürer:
The internal structures of the communites of course varied greatly in dif-

ferent times and places. The different external situations and the greater
or more limited political rights of the communities were bound to exer-
cise their influence on their internal structures. Two extremes are repre-
sented by Alexandria and Rome. In the former a united corporation of
Jews, numbering many thousands, with significant political power, in the
latter, in spite of considerable numbers, only isolated private associations
without special political rights. These two cosmopolitan cities are inci-
dentally the only ones about whose Jewish population we are informed
in any detail. In these cases alone a more detailed analysis of their struc-
ture can be attempted.1
The same contrast reappears a few pages later as well:
From the Roman inscriptions it becomes immediately clear that the Jews
in Rome formed a large number of individual, independently-organized
communities (synagogai), each with its own synagogue, its own gerou-
sia and its own community officials. Of a union of all the Roman Jewish
groups under one gerousia there is no trace. While by contrast the Jews
in Alexandria formed a single major political corporation, here in Rome
they had to be content with the more modest situation of individual reli-
gious associations.2
1 E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC–AD 135) (new
English ed. by G. Vermes et al.; 3 vols. in 4; Edinburgh: Clark, 1973–1987), 3.1:91.
2 Ibid., 95–96.

154 Schwartz
However, while Schürer’s discussion3 gives in detail the data pertaining to the
Jewish communities in Rome and Alexandrian, no attempt is made to explain
what generated the difference between them. Although Schürer suggests, in the
statements quoted above, that this difference reflects the difference between
external situations and differential political rights, he makes no attempt to
substantiate that. Nor did he do much more in his special monograph of 1879
on the subject. There his only comment on the difference between Alexandria
and Rome was the claim that although the Jews of Alexandria were very
numerous they were able to achieve centralized organization because their
role was from the outset much more dominant than was that of the Jews of
Rome—who, although they too numbered in the thousands, had to settle for
the modest status of religious societies (collegia) rather than a tight and uni-
fied organization.4 If I understand Schürer correctly, he seems to assume that
there is something potentially threatening about a centralized Jewish organi-
zation, and so Jews who settle in a city after it has established itself would
not be allowed to form one, or would not dare to think about forming one.
However, the eventual existence of centralized Jewish communities in cities
and towns all around Europe and elsewhere shows that this explanation does
not explain much. Rather, I assume that this part of Schürer’s study, which
appeared in the year that saw the founding of the Antisemiten-Liga and the
eruption of the Berliner Antisemitismusstreit, is more relevant to the study of
modern German history than ancient Jewish communities.
3 In both passages cited, the new English version adheres quite closely to Schürer’s last German
version: Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, III (3 vols.; 3rd–4th ed.;
Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1901–9), 3:75–6, 81.
4 E. Schürer, Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom in der Kaiserzeit (Leipzig: Hinrichs,
1879),15: “Obwohl diese [the Jewish community of Alexandria] noch viel zahlreicher war, als
die römische, war sie doch durchaus einheitlich organisirt; in der früheren Zeit mit einem
ἐθνάρχης an der Spitze (Strabo bei Jos. Antt. XIV, 7, 2), später unter einer γερουσία (Philo
in Flacc. § 10). Das war eben in Alexandria möglich, wo die Juden seit der Gründung der
Stadt einen sehr wesentlichen und ansehnlichen Bruchtheil der Bevölkerung bildeten und
von vornherein eine viel dominirendere Stellung einnahmem als in Rom. In Rom konnte
nicht daran gedacht werden, der nach Tausenden zählenden Judenschaft eine so straffe
Organisation zu gestatten. Hier mussten sie sich mit der bescheideneren Stellung einzelner
religiöser Genossenschaften (collegia) begnügen.”
Rome And Alexandria 155
Similarly, although such scholars as Frey,5 Leon,6 Momigliano,7 Stern,8 van

der Horst,9 and Lichtenberger,10 have all agreed that there was no general orga-
nization of the Jews of Rome, and it is quite routine for scholars to remark on
the contrast with the situation in Alexandria, they have offered no explanation
for it, and I have found next to nothing elsewhere. In the present study I will
address this question.
There has been quite a bit of controversy about Jewish politeumata in the
Graeco-Roman world. The late Aryeh Kasher built his doctoral dissertation, on
the struggle of the Jews of Egypt and elsewhere for equal rights, on the notion
that what they wanted was not recognition as individuals but, rather, recogni-
tion of their politeumata as corporate bodies of a status equal to that of the cit-
ies in which they were found.11 In response, Kasher’s numerous critics doubted
that such entities as Jewish politeumata existed, or that, even if they did, Jews
who struggled for equal rights were thinking of such corporate bodies.12 These
are, however, two very different issues.
Denial of the existence of Jewish politeumata was difficult from the outset,
given explicit references to them in the Letter of Aristeas (310) and some inscrip-
tions from Berenice in Cyrenaica.13 True, one could get around those data,
interpreting the passage in Aristeas some other way and isolating the Berenice
5 J.-B. Frey, CIJ 1:cv–cix.

6 H. J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (updated ed.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995),
168–70.
7 Sesto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (2 vols.; Storia e lettera-
tura 149; Rome: Storia e letteratura, 1980), 2:581 (review of Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome).
8 In “The Jewish Community and Its Institutions,” in The Diaspora in the Hellenistic-Roman
World, ed. M. Stern and Z. Baras (Jerusalem: Peli, 1982/3), 183 (in Hebrew): “There is no
hint that the Jews of Rome had any umbrella organization for the communities and syna-
gogues of the city, similar to the organization familiar to us from Alexandria” (my transla-
tion, DRS).
9 P. van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs (CBET 2; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1991), 85.
10 H. Lichtenberger, “Organisationsformen und Ämter in den jüdischen Gemeinden im anti-
ken Griechenland und Italien,” in Jüdische Gemeinden und Organisationsformen von der
Antike bis zur Gegenwart (ed. R. Jütte and A. P. Kustermann; Aschkenas, Beiheft 3; Weimar:
Böhlau, 1996), 20–1.
11 A. Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights (TSAJ 7;
Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1985).
12 For Kasher’s most extreme critic, see C. Zuckerman, “Hellenistic politeumata and the
Jews: A Reconsideration,” Scripta Classica Israelica 8/9 (1985–1988): 171–85. This review of
Kasher’s volume basically governed the field for a decade and a half; see below, n. 14.
13 See Schürer, History of the Jewish People, 3.1:94–95.
156 Schwartz
evidence as a special case.14 At least in retrospect it seems, however, that most

of the opposition to Kasher derived from the debate about the second issue
(what Jews wanted when they sought equal rights), and that denials that the
politeumata ever existed were just overkill. In any case, with the 2001 publi-
cation of papyri recording the doings of a Jewish politeuma in Herakleopolis,
around 100 km. south of Cairo,15 such denials became impossible;16 and if there
was a politeuma in such a hole in the wall as Herakleopolis, it is reasonable to
assume that the institution was indeed quite widespread. But the argument
about equal rights can go on: Were the Jews seeking equal rights for them-
selves as individuals, or rather corporately, for their politeuma? Or perhaps for
both?17 I shall return to that question. For the moment, however, it is enough
to register the fact that the very existence of Jewish politeumata can no longer
be doubted.
Now let us turn to another point, namely, that there is also no room for
doubt that the Jews of Alexandria, who, according to the Letter of Aristeas had
a politeuma, also had a plurality of synagogues. That is shown most explicitly
by Philo’s Legatio and In Flaccum, but there is a good bit of other evidence
14 For these options, see Zuckerman, “Hellenistic politeumata,” 179, 181–4, and esp. G. Lüderitz,
“What is the Politeuma?” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, ed. J. W. van Henten and
P. W. van der Horst (AGAJU 21; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 204–8 and 210–22. The very end of
Lüderitz’s study (p. 222), which contrasts the meager ancient evidence for politeumata to
their popularity in modern scholarship, is quite reminiscent of Zuckerman’s. Zuckerman
and Lüderitz are both echoed, in general skepticism about politeumata, by J. M. G. Barclay,
Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Hellenistic
Culture and Society 33; Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1996), 43–4, n. 73; 65.
15 J. M. S. Cowey and K. Maresch, Urkunden des Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis
(144/3–133/2 v. Chr) (P. Polit. Iud.) (Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften: Papyrologica Coloniensia 29; Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag,
2001).
16 For Kasher’s triumphant response to the publication of the Herakleopolis papyri, see his
review of Cowey-Maresh in JQR 93 (2002/3): 257–68. See also S. Honigman, “Politeumata
and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 61–102, at n. 37.
17 For a balanced discussion of the issue, see Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora,
65–71. In this connection, note that a major thrust of Honigman’s study (cited in the pre-
ceding note) is to underline the originally military background of politeumata, and so
to argue that the Jewish politeumata too were, originally, composed of Jewish soldiers.
However that may be, she agrees that by the Roman period, which our study addresses,
that orientation disappeared, and that the term remained in use to denote a type of com-
munal organization.
for it as well.18 But the Jews of Rome too had numerous synagogues, as early
as the first century CE.19 That was, of course, because there were numerous
Jews in Rome; whatever we think about the evidence for the second century
BCE, all would agree that by the mid-first century BCE the community was
large and growing. Philo reports that most of the Jews of Rome in his day were
descendants of prisoners who had been brought there (Legatio 155), proba-
bly beginning in the sixties of the first century BCE, after Pompey’s conquest
of Judea; indeed, by the fifties Cicero was complaining about the “multitude” of
Jews who exert pressure in public assemblies and Suetonius would note their
frequent presence at Julius Caesar’s funeral proceedings a decade or so later.20
Again, from Josephus we hear that, around the end of that century, more than
eight thousand Roman Jews demonstrated in support of a Judean embassy
that appealed for “autonomy” after Herod’s death (Ant. 17.300), although “great
crowds” of Roman Jews also came out to welcome a pretender who claimed
to be a son of Herod the Great (Ant. 17.331). If by 19 CE Roman Jewry included
at least four thousand men of military age,21 the community as a whole must
have counted tens of thousands. Accordingly, it is not surprising that of the ten
or more synagogues known to us from imperial Rome (see n. 19), at least three
or four, and perhaps more, were likely in existence already in the first century.
What is interesting in the present context is the assumption that the
Jews of Rome came mostly from the Greek East. This is indicated by various
pieces of evidence, including Philo’s testimony about their origin (Legatio 155)
and, especially, the fact that, as their inscriptions show, their language was pri-
marily Greek;22 indeed, the name of at least one of their synagogues, “of the
Tripolitans,” points directly to some part of the Greek East, and perhaps, as
Frey argues, the names of a few other synagogues do too.23 Where else could
they have come from, if not from the Greek East? But that means that they
came from a world where, it now seems, it was common for the Jews of a city
18 See esp. Legatio 132 (there were many synagogues in every section of Alexandria) and
In Flaccum 41–52 (on their desecration), also L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue (2nd ed.;
New Haven: Yale, 2005), 82–96.
19 For surveys, see Levine, ibid., 105–107, also Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 135–66 and
P. Richardson, “Augustan-Era Synagogues in Rome,” in Judaism and Christianity in First-
Century Rome (ed. K. P. Donfried and P. Richardson; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans,
1998), 17–29.
20 See Cicero, Pro Flacco 28.67 (GLAJJ 1, no. 68) and Suetonius, Divus Iulius 84:5 (ibid., 1,
no. 302).
21 Josephus, Ant. 18.84; Tacitus, Annales 2.85.4 (GLAJJ 2, no. 284).
22 See van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs, 22.
23 See below, n. 31.
158 Schwartz
to organize themselves as a politeuma—but we do not find any evidence for

a politeuma of the Jews of Rome. We only find synagogues. Indeed, it seems
there was no umbrella organization of the Jews of Rome.
True, there has been discussion of this point, and some earlier scholars,
such as Juster and Krauss, held that, indeed, such an organization did exist.
However, their arguments were based on a combination of assumptions about
what simply must have been, on the one hand, and some forced interpretation
of a very few pieces of evidence, on the other.24 Suffice it to say that, as noted
above, the consensus of modern scholarship is that there was no such central
organization. Indeed, we shall see that one of the last discussions of the ques-
tion that argued there was one in fact directed most of its argument, in this
connection, to underlining that the Roman Jewish community was, neverthe-
less, nowhere near as centralized as was that of Alexandria.25
If, then we revert to the question Schürer begged and ask why politeumata
should have been common in the Hellenistic world but not in Rome, three
responses suggest themselves. One was offered in 1927, but has not received
much attention because it came in the course of an argument that pulled in
the opposite direction. The other two seem not yet to have been offered, but
they seem more basic to me.
In the course of his 1927 study of foreign groups in Rome, George La Piana
basically postulates that there was a central organization of all the Jews of
Rome. He does point to a bit of evidence, but only hesitantly,26 and his main
argument is simply analogy:
On general grounds a central organ of government coördinating the

activities of the several synagogues, supervising the general administa-
tion, and having definite authority in financial and juridical matters, can
not have been lacking in Rome. Such an institution was in keeping with
the general system of Jewish community-organization in the Graeco-
Roman world.27
24 See esp. the discussions of Frey and Leon (above, nn. 5–6).
25 G. La Piana, “Foreign Groups in Rome during the First Centuries of the Empire,” HTR 20
(1927): 361–363.
26 Although La Piana writes that “the evidence of the inscriptions leaves no doubt of the
existence imperial times of officers for the whole Jewish community” (“Foreign Groups,”
361–362), his n. 36 (ibid.) consists only of references to a few epitaphs that might be inter-
preted as referring to upper-level archons, along with “may have,” “is not clear” and “very
doubtful.” See Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 176–8, 188–90.
27 La Piana, “Foreign Groups,” 362.
That, of course, is simply petitio principii. What is more interesting is the

immediate continuation: after pointing to the evidence for a Jewish “ethn-
arch” (Strabo, apud Josephus, Ant. 14.117) or “genarch” (Philo, In Flaccum 74)
in Alexandria, La Piana insists that nothing similar appeared in Rome, and
attempts to explain why that was so.28 His first explanation is that “govern-
ment by council was more in keeping with the tradition of the diaspora” and
that “political prudence, and not improbably the disapproval of the imperial
government, made it inadvisable to put supreme power in the community into
the hands of an individual”—and that all explains nothing, because it does not
explain why such considerations apply to Rome but not to Alexandria. But La
Piana’s second explanation is better:
The actual character of the Jewish community would have made impos-
sible the concentration of power in one hand. As has been stated above,
the Roman Jewry was by no means a homogeneous body; it included
immigrants from various cities of the diaspora as well as a large number
of Jews from Palestine or of recent Palestinian origin. Conflicting tenden-
cies and interpretations of law and traditon, and rivalries of groups, had
a surer guarantee under the government of a representative council than
under a personal power.29
As we have seen, La Piana offers this as an explanation for why the central
government of the Jews of Rome did not move beyond a central council to any-
thing similar to a monarchy—and we have doubted there was such a central
council. But La Piana’s explanation works just as well as an explanation of that.
Namely, in a metropolis which included Jews from all over the East, some of
them even organized in synagogues according to their community of origin, it
may not be postulated that the fragmented Jewish population of the city would
desire unification within a common framework, or that, even if the Jews of the
city did desire it, that they would easily achieve it. Anyone who wants to under-
stand this explanation need do no more than read the literature on the multi-
plicity of synagogues and congregations of Jews in New York City of the early
twentieth century, all organized according to their places of origin in Europe.
That same literature tells very well the story of the—consequent—failure
28 In this connection, note that it is indeed possible that a charismatic rabbi or other indi-
vidual might gain broad influence, but this is not the same as a centralized institutional
structure. Cf. A. M. Rabello, “The Legal Condition of the Jews in the Roman Empire,”
ANRW II/13 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 720–721.
29 La Piana, “Foreign Groups,” 362–3.
160 Schwartz
of attempts to organize an umbrella organization, a Kehillah, for the Jews of

the city.30
This explanation points, already, to a major distinction between the Ioudaioi
of Rome and those of Alexandria—certainly those of the early Hellenistic
period, when their settlement in Alexandria began. If we had to translate
that term into English, we would have no problems doing so for the Ioudaioi
of Alexandria: they were, to begin with, Judeans, namely, exiles or immi-
grants from Judea. That is what is indicated by the literary sources we have
for the founding of the community, including the Letter of Aristeas, Pseudo-
Hecataeus, and Josephus, and I think we would be hard put to point, among
the Jews of Alexandria, to Jews from any other part of the Diaspora. In Rome, in
contrast, the Ioudaioi came from numerous places around the Mediterranean,
some seem to have been proud of their respective places of origin,31 and there-
fore “Jews,” an English word that refers to descent and/or religion but not to
geography, is the term we should use of them. In my opinion, when using a lan-
guage like English that offers us both “Jews” and “Judeans” there is no good rea-
son to refer to something as anomalous or even self-contradictory as “Judeans
from Tripoli” (for example) when we could use “Jews from Tripoli.”
This point, that the Ioudaioi of Alexandria were denoted by a term that
referred to a country, Judea, is very important for an understanding of the Jewish
politeuma of the city. This is for two reasons. The first is that it places their polit-
euma in the same league as other typical politeumata—groups organized by
their common place of origin. Thus, for example, the epigraphic record from
Egypt bears witness to politeumata of Boetians, Idumeans, Cilicians, Cretans,
Lycians, and Phrygians.32 A politeuma of Judeans would fit right in alongside
them. But if the Ioudaioi of Rome did not come from the same place and some
even emphasized that they came from different places,33 a politeuma, which
would point to their common origin in Judea, would not be something appro-
priate for them to organize.
30 A. A. Goren, New York Jews and the Quest for Community: The Kehillah Experiment,
1908–1922 (New York: Columbia University, 1970); H. P. Gastwirt, Fraud, Corruption, and
Holiness: The Controversy over the Supervision of Jewish Dietary Practice in New York City
1881–1940 (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1974).
31 For synagogues named after place of origin in the East, see Frey, CIJ I, lxxvii–lxxxi, also
Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 145–147 (“Synagogue of the Elea”), 149–51 (“Synagogue of the
Secenians”), and 153–4 (“Synagogue of the Tripolitans”), and van der Horst, Ancient Jewish
Epitaphs, 87.
32 See Lüderitz, “What is the Politeuma?,” 200–201; Cowey and Maresch, Urkunden, 6–7.
33 Or, instead, that they were of local, Roman, origin. That seems to be the import of the
name of the “Synagogue of the Vernaclesians” (Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 154–157).
However, it seems that this consideration should not, by itself, be given

too much weight. That is not only because it seems that several of the Jewish
communities of Rome were not organized by place of origin. Rather, even if
most were, it is difficult to imagine that they made, or could maintain over
time, such claims upon their members as to preclude the establishment of
a common organization. The experience of the Judeans in Persia, who over
time did not maintain their links to particular towns in Judea,34 or of Jewish
Landsmannschaften in New York, which virtually all died out after a generation
or two, is enough to show that it was not allegiance to particular geographical
origins that made the Jews of Rome abstain from forming a central organiza-
tion. Indeed, we know that the Jews of Rome were capable of coming together;
thus, for example, when we hear of thousands who demonstrated about this
or that in the late first century BCE there is no reason to assume that they
were all of one particular community, or when “the heads of the Jews there”
met Paul in Rome a few decades later, according to Acts 28:17, they may well
have come from different communities. If, nevertheless, they did not create
a central politeuma to unite them all, there must have been something more
basic that distinguished their situation from that of the Ioudaioi of Alexandria.
To approach this, let us ask, apart from why there was no Jewish politeuma
in Rome, another question: Why were there no expulsions of Jews from other
cities, but the Jews of Rome were expelled more than once? There is, of course,
well known evidence for three or four expulsions of Jews from Rome: one in
139 BCE, one in 19 CE, and one or two in the days of Claudius, in the begin-
ning and/or the end of the forties of the first century. Although the evidence
for the first of these, and for the last two, is not without its problems, it is not
at all negligible, and the evidence for the second expulsion, in 19 CE, is quite
impressive: the dossier for that first-century event includes the testimony of
Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio.35 But the first century also saw
a surge of anti-Jewish feeling and events in the Hellenistic world, and so the
question arises: Why we do not hear of Jews being expelled from any city apart
from Rome?
I would suggest that both questions (why no Jewish politeuma in Rome?
why no expulsions of Jews apart from Rome?) have everything to do with
34 Note the absence of Judean toponyms used in identifying returnees in the list in Ezra 8 as
opposed to the one in Ezra 2, along with D. R. Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Background
of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1992), 8.
35 On these expulsions see Stern, GLAJJ, 1:357–60; 2:68–73, 113–7; L. V. Rutgers, The Hidden
Heritage of Diaspora Judaism (CBET 20; Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 171–97; and Barclay, Jews in
the Mediterranean Diaspora, 285–6, 298–306.
162 Schwartz
the difference between the way the Romans viewed Rome and the Greeks
of the Hellenistic cities of the East viewed their cities. Understanding this may
contribute, in turn, to the question I raised at the outset, namely, how Jews
understood the relationship of their politeumata to the poleis in which they
were found.
Let us start with an historical point and move to a linguistic one. The histori-
cal point is that the Romans were natives of Rome but the Greeks of Hellenistic
cities of the East, for which our prime example remains Alexandria, were not
natives in their cities. On the contrary: the natives, the laoi, were less respect-
able than the Greek population of Alexandria. The Greeks were colonizers, and
the city they established in Egypt, Alexandria, was a foreign implant. When the
Greeks of Alexandria wanted to denigrate the Jews, they argued that “they
are not of the same nature as the Alexandrians, and are rather similar to the
Egyptians; are they not on the same level as those who pay the [poll-]tax?”
(CPJ II, no. 156c). And the poll-tax was called laographia—a tax imposed upon
the “natives.” The Greeks of Alexandria, in contrast to the natives, were called
by a name, Greeks, Hellenes, that pointed to another place, just as the name of
their city, Alexandria, pointed to an eponymous hero and founder who came
from another place. And they were organized as a polis; without that organiza-
tion, they would not be, in fact, in Alexandria, for Alexandria was a matter of
law, not geography. Egypt existed naturally, but Alexandria was created, con-
sciously and artificially, by people who organized themselves as a corporation
and gave it rules and institutions.
Rome was nothing like that. Rome was a place, which was Rome just as
naturally as Egypt was Egypt. One can imagine someone telling us that once
upon a time Rome was a small village but it grew and grew and eventually
grew into a city of huge dimensions, without such a story-teller having to say
anything about anything formal, but one cannot imagine any such story about
Alexandria. Indeed, Rome had various political forms in its history, moving—
according to its own narrative—from some primitive state to a monarchy,
to a republic, to the Principate, but nevertheless it was always Rome, and it
belonged to the Romans. If Alexandria were ever to become something other
than a polis, we would wonder if it was still Alexandria.
This distinction explains, first of all, why it made sense to expel foreigners
from Rome, but not to expel them from Alexandria. Expelling Jews from Rome
expressed the notion that, as Cicero put it, “There is a religion for each and
every city, and our (religion) is for us (Sua cuique civitati religio . . . est, nostra
nobis), and even when Jerusalem was standing and the Jews at peace (with us),
their religious rites deviated from the dignity of our name and the institutions
of our ancestors” (Pro Flacco 28:69; GLAJJ no. 68); note the easy passage from
“city” to “us” and from “us” to “our ancestors.”36 Certainly, therefore, when the
Jews in Rome were suspected of undermining the city’s religion and institutions
by spreading their own, as we read concerning the events under Tiberius and
Claudius, it was all the more appropriate to expel them. In Alexandria, in con-
trast, there was no such easy passage from the city to “us” and “our ancestors,”
no such assumption that the place, its norms, and its inhabitants go together
in any natural or binding way, à la “when in Rome, do like the Romans.” That
is, Rome was the type of place that if the Jews did not fit in, it made sense for
them to be thrown out; Alexandria was the type of corporation that if the Jews
did not fit in, they should not be allowed membership, and should rather be
left where they were but as outsiders, along with the natives.
I assume that, as a rule, it was important for Ioudaioi, whether they resided
in Alexandria or in Rome, to be thought respectable. And I also assume that, in
both cities, the standards of what amounts to respectable will have been set
by the upper class. That means, however, that in Alexandria it was respectable
to be a foreign colonist and in Rome it was respectable to be a native. For the
Jews of Alexandria to be respectable, they had to distance themselves from
the natives as far as possible. For the Jews of Rome to be respectable, they had
to assimilate themselves to the natives as much as possible. That meant, how-
ever, that they had to limit the differences between them and the natives, as
best they could, to aspects of life that had no geographical implications, and so
did not imply that they were not at home in Rome.
Accordingly, my first hypothesis is that the politeuma of the Ioudaioi
of Egypt was understood, to begin with, basically as parallel to the polis of
Alexandria: the latter was a Greek city which emphasized by its very existence
that its politai, its citizens were foreigners, from Hellas, not Egyptians, and the
former, the politeuma of the Ioudaioi, emphasized by its very existence that
its politai, as they were called,37 were foreigners, from Judaea, not Egyptians.
Such an organization of the Ioudaioi in Alexandria made perfect sense when
it was founded, probably early in the Ptolemaic period (as is indeed indi-
cated by the Letter of Aristeas 310, which mentions it in the days of Ptolemy
Philadelphus)—a period when the community was created by a massive influx
of Judeans, whether voluntary or involuntary. In Rome, however, it would have
been counterproductive for the Ioudaioi to underline their foreign origin, and
better to limit the import of their differentness by confining it to a particular
36 I used L. E. Lord’s LCL translation, but revised the first half of the statement to make it
more literal.
37 See See Cowey and Maresch, Urkunden, 22–23, and D. R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees (CEJL;
Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 50–1.
164 Schwartz
realm of life which need not have geographic implications—religion. Indeed,

it seems likely that the earliest community of Ioudaioi in Rome in fact called
themselves not Ioudaioi (which would have been taken as meaning “Judeans”)
but Hebraioi; as scholars have noted, if there were already a second synagogue,
it would not have made sense to call a new one “synagogue of the Hebrews.”38
But even if they were called Ioudaioi, I suspect that, by and large, they would
have preferred us to render that as “Jews,” not “Judeans.”
True, it is the case that the earliest sense of Ioudaios was geographic, and that
just such an explanation of it is ascribed by Josephus to Aristotle, via Clearchus
(Ag. Ap. 1.179). And that sense continued to function for a long time, just as, I
have suggested, it is bespoken by the identification of the Alexandrian commu-
nity as a politeuma. But it is also the case that antiquity saw the development
of Ioudaios into a term that could lose its geographical meaning and, as “Jew,”
refer more to religion (or culture), Ioudaïsmos. That happened in the course of
the Hellenistic and Roman period, whether generally as a result the life in the
Diaspora and of Hellenization or, more specifically, as Shaye Cohen urged, as
a result of processes that concerned the expansion of the Hasmonean state.39
One way or the other, what is important is that these processes transpired well
after the establishment of the Jewish community of Alexandria very early in
the Hellenistic period, but were well under way by the time of the establish-
ment of the Ioudaioi’s community in Rome.
I would suggest, therefore, that when Ioudaioi settled in Rome and turned
to organizing themselves, it was not only the case that due to their diversity it
was difficult or threatening to think about organizing centrally. It was also the
case that their legacy as Jews from the Hellenistic East supplied them with one
particular model of how to organize themselves, namely, as a politeuma, and
that the Ioudaioi of Rome had two good reasons not to build according to that
model: (1) as indicated above, a politeuma bespeaks geographical foreigness,40
and if in Alexandria that was a status-granting asset, in Rome that was counter-
productive; (2) the Ioudaioi who founded the community in Rome were getting
used to the idea that to be a Ioudaios was a matter of religion, not geography,
38 See Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 147–149, and Stern, “The Jews of Italy,” in The Diaspora
in the Hellenistic-Roman World (above, n. 8), 144–145. For the logic of the argument, note
that the Washington Hebrew Congregation and the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation are,
respectively, the oldest synagogues in those two cities.
39 See S. J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness (Hellenistic Culture and Society 31;
Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1999), 109–39, and my Judeans and Jews: Four Faces of
Dichotomy in Ancient Jewish History (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2014).
40 It can express other types of special self-definition as well, but a “Judean” one points,
primarily, to geography.
and therefore it was not only counterproductive, but also inappropriate, to

think about organizing themselves geographically.
Now let us add to this mix an important linguistic point made by Émile
Benveniste. In his essay, “Deux modèles linguistiques de la cité,” Benveniste
pointed out the interesting fact, that whereas in the Greek lexicon polis is pri-
mary and politēs is derivative, in Latin it is the reverse: civis is primary and
civitas is derived from it.41 In Greek, that is, as in English, the term for “citi-
zen” derives from the term for a city; without the city, there is no commonality
among those who, when and if the city does come into being, then become its
bearers and members—its citizens. For the Romans, however, it is the com-
monality among the citizens that is primary, and their common institution, the
city, is a product of that.
As Benveniste notes, this fact about the derivation of the terms entails a
logical implication: while in Latin it is perfectly logical and acceptable to call
someone “civis meus,” in Greek is quite rare to use politēs to refer to someone
as one’s “fellow citizen.”42 That makes sense, for according to the Greek notion
one is a politēs of a city, not of another person. Indeed, a glance at Liddell-
Scott-Jones confirms Benveniste’s observation: politēs in the sense of “citizen”
comes in clearly in first, while “fellow-citizen” is a poor second, with only
limited documentation. In Greek, that is, a politēs is a citizen of a city, not of
another citizen.
However, the fact is that in the Greek of the Jews of Egypt, use of politēs in
the sense of “fellow citizen” is quite common: it is in evidence in 2 Maccabees
and 3 Maccabees, in the Letter of Aristeas, in Philo, in the new papyri from
Herakleopolis, and elsewhere.43 That is, for the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt, as
for Romans, the use of “political” terminology implied a commonality among
them that does not derive from sharing a city.
Such commonality was something that the Jews could live with well in
Alexandria, when they founded their politeuma. Its existence was indeed
taken to bespeak a pre-existing commonality: they were Judeans, and, as
such, they founded a politeuma of Judeans that could function like the city of
Hellenes—just as foreign and just as respectable. But in Rome, for the Jews to
call themselves politai would have been to trumpet a commonality that was
parallel with the commonality among Romans and therefore competed with
41 É. Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale (2 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1966–74),
2:272–280.
42 “Concitoyen” is a “sens peu frequent en grec” (ibid., 275, n. 2); “Parfois, mais très rarement,
polítēs se dit du “concitoyen”. Normalement, politēs ne se prête pas à la construction avec
un pronom de personne” (ibid., 277, n. 2).
166 Schwartz
it and excluded it; one could not be a Judean and a Roman the way one could
be a Judean and an Alexandrian. In our English, that is, a Ioudaios could be a
Roman only if he was a Jew, not a Judean—and a politeuma of Judeans would,
accordingly, have countered their needs.
In concluding I would, however, restrict the breadth of my thesis. I have argued
that having a politeuma in Rome would have identified the Ioudaioi of Rome as
Judeans just as it did in Alexandria, but that would have been just as counter-
productive in Rome as it once was useful in Alexandria.44 That does not mean,
however, that any central or umbrella organization would have been coun-
terproductive for the Jews of Rome. Indeed, in time, the Jews of the Diaspora
would learn to set up communities, kehilloth, that did not relate them to Judea,
but rather to Judaism. My point is only that, given the origin of the Jewish com-
munity of Rome in the Hellenistic East, the model that was available to them,
a politeuma of Judeans, and so was most to be expected, was one that would
have been counterproductive, and so we should not be surprised that they did
not constitute one in Rome. To the extent the term politeuma would survive for
them, in the Roman world, it would only be as a problem to be overcome—such
as by asserting that our politeuma is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), or that our
politeuma is not any state of any usual type but, rather, a “theocracy” (Josephus,
Ag. Ap. 2.165). The fact that Paul and Josephus felt the need to use the term that
way bespeaks their recognition of the fact that a Judean politeuma could have
no place, in its real sense, in the Roman world.
44 Here I would briefly note that what was once an asset in Alexandria, when the Greeks
ruled Alexandria and it was important for the Judeans to compare themselves to the
Greeks, could become a liability, in the Roman period, when the issue, in the changed cir-
cumstances, became “who is an Alexandrian?”; the coveted category now being one that
is local and geographic, like “Roman” in Rome. The Alexandrian Ioudaioi who were inter-
ested in asserting they were Alexandrians may well have preferred some other name for
themselves and their politeuma, just as they would certainly prefer that we regard them
as “Jews” rather than “Judeans,” for “Judeans” clearly identifies them as non-Alexandrians.
For similar dynamics, note the frontispiece of my Judeans and Jews, which illustrates
how what was once the community of “Israelites” in Rhodes chose to present itself as
“Jews” and “Hebrews” once the State of Israel was founded. So too in the modern German-
speaking world, in which “Israelitische Gemeinde” was once the typical and respectable
name for a local Jewish community: those that were destroyed during the Holocaust and
refounded when the State of Israel existed frequently changed their name to “Jüdische
Gemeinde,” but those in Switzerland remain “stuck” with “Israelitische Gemeinde,” with
all the foreignness that now seems to imply. For another articulation of the changing cir-
cumstances for Jews in Alexandria from the Ptolemaic to Roman rule, see the contribu-
tion of Sylvie Honigman above in this volume.
From Text to Community: Methodological
Problems of Reconstructing Communities
behind Texts
Jörg Frey*
The present paper focuses on methodology rather than on the identity of early
Christian communities. Based on three texts that present different challenges
and therefore different limitations in the reconstruction of the underlying his-
torical circumstances, we will (1) consider how to transition from the textual
data to the historical background, and (2) acknowledge how little we can actu-
ally know about the ancient communities reflected in those texts. After a brief
introduction on methodology and the history of research, I will (3) consider
(a) the reconstruction of Paul’s community in Corinth, (b) the community
addressed by the Epistle of Jude and (c) the so-called Johannine community. It
would be tempting to widen the scope by highlighting the severe methodologi-
cal problems involved in a reconstruction of the so-called “Qumran commu-
nity,” but this would certainly exceed the limits of a conference paper.
I Text and History—Literary vs. Historical Approaches
Reconstructing historical circumstances from ancient texts of various genres

is one of the most difficult enterprises of Biblical Scholarship.1 In such an
endeavour the struggle between historical scepticism and historical opti-
mism is unavoidable, in part due to differing religious presuppositions that
lead some interpreters to more optimistic readings of the sources and other
interpreters to take a more sceptical stance. Intense debates arose in scholar-
ship when the historicity of biblical figures such as Moses, David, and even
Ezra was questioned, when the historical value of the relevant sources was
* The author is grateful to Andrew Bowden for language corrections and editorial support.
1 A recent example of a careful yet insightful historical interpretation of ancient non-biblical
sources is provided by D. R. Schwartz, Reading the First Century. On Reading Josephus and
Studying Jewish History of the First Century (WUNT 300; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013). In
this text a brief but illuminating essay by the great Jewish historian Arnaldo Momigliano is
presented for the first time in English: A. Momigliano, “The Rules of the Game in the Study of
Ancient History,” in Reading the First Century (ed. D. R. Schwartz), 182–89.

168 Frey
c ritically discussed, and when the historicity of the events of “sacred history”
was disputed, such as the exodus story, the narrative of the book of Joshua,
the miracles of Jesus, and the narrative of Acts. The hermeneutical circle is
inescapable and religious presuppositions have always affected interpreters’
stances toward the ancient testimonies, their willingness to accept or reject
the credibility of the texts, and their reasons for questioning (or not question-
ing) the texts’ historical (and, often together with that, their religious) value.
In addition to religious presuppositions, the influence of particular textual
theories affects the feasibility and the extent to which it is possible to move
from the texts at hand to the “history” or historical situation behind them.
Texts are, to a certain degree, “objective” data, whereas historical reason-
ing is necessarily somewhat “subjective” and hypothetical. Thus, one scholarly
perspective considers it “safer” to stick to the texts at hand, analysing their lan-
guage and structure, rather than speculating about things “behind” the texts.
The “anti-historical” tendencies in biblical interpretation in the last third of
the 20th century were not only spurred on by traditional conservative attitudes
toward the biblical text but also by the influence of structuralism and linguis-
tics, which biblical scholars adopted with the goal of providing their schol-
arship with more “scientific” and “objective” reasoning. Thus, synchrony was
preferred to diachrony, and language analysis to historical reasoning, at least
partly with the idea of avoiding some of the impasses and uncertainties of his-
torical hypotheses.
The historical-critical method in its classic form deliberately entered the
field of hypothetical reasoning not only about the literary history of a text and
its sources or redactions but also about the information to be drawn from a
text (in relation to other sources) about the world behind it, the author and
addressees, the situation addressed, the circumstances reflected in the text,
and—ultimately—about the “historicity” of the narrated events. The results,
however, were often contradictory, not only in biblical scholarship but in any
field of ancient history. This demonstrates the degree of hypothetical reason-
ing involved in historical reconstruction and the influence of subjectivity in
weighing the evidence and in describing the world behind the texts.
Other methodological approaches try to avoid these potential pitfalls.
Linguistic structuralism, for example, in its pure form limited its focus to the
structures of texts without taking into consideration the world outside the text.
Reader-oriented literary criticism, which became fashionable in the 1980s,
primarily focused on the world of the present readers and their reception or
response, which can be studied without speculating about the readings and
“responses” of ancient first-readers and their world. Although structuralistic
and reception-theoretical works also lead to diverging views and cannot
From Text To Community 169
provide any kind of “objectivity,” there is no doubt that these synchronic

approaches have produced valuable insights. However, because of focusing on
matters other than history, they cannot sufficiently interpret ancient texts that
come from a different world, and especially texts that (more or less) claim to
narrate “history,” such as the Gospels and Acts, and also the historical books in
the Hebrew Bible.
In modern literary theory, therefore, the pendulum has swung once again
in the other direction—scholars call this the “historical turn” and the “cultural
turn”—implying that information about the historical situation of the text and
the “frames” that shape the mind of the author and his first readers are now
included in narratology.2 As a result, narrative approaches today are less anti-
historical than their forerunners from two or three decades ago.
If a given text was composed in a specific culture and world and the data in
the text is not a mere fiction, then the challenge of identifying that world and
reconstructing it as far as possible remains. But the methodological difficul-
ties and uncertainties are quite numerous, and the question is still: To what
extent is this reconstruction possible? Uncertainties are also present when we
try to gather data about the community behind a given text or to perform a
sociological analysis of the community reflected in the text. Quite often such
an analysis examines dimensions about which ancient authors were either
unconscious or—at least—unwilling to tell their readers.3
II Communities behind the Texts
A clear example of the dependence of interpretation on particular scholarly

presuppositions can be seen in the history of Gospel research. Scholarly inter-
est in the addressees of the Gospels or in the communities of the respective
authors is a rather recent phenomenon. Liberal Protestant interpretation
during the 19th century was mainly interested in drawing information about
2 See the most thorough methodological reflection of the integration of historical aspects in
narratological exegetical methods in the work of my doctoral student S. Finnern, Narratologie
und Biblische Exegese (WUNT II/285; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
3 This is reflected in Gerd Theissen’s pioneering essays “Die soziologische Auswertung religiöser
Überlieferungen. Ihre methodologischen Probleme am Beispiel des Urchristentums,” in
idem, Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristentums (WUNT 19; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1979),
35–54, and “Theoretische Probleme religionssoziologischer Forschung und die Analyse des
Urchristentums,” ibid., 55–76.
170 Frey
the historical Jesus from the text, not in the communities that composed or
transmitted the texts, because—according to the paradigm of the time—most
scholars regarded the early Christian authors (and also the biblical prophets)
as religious individuals or personalities.
The situation changed radically with classical form criticism in about 1920
when a collective and “romantic” understanding of literature arose. The pio-
neer of Form Criticism, Martin Dibelius,4 supposed that all the literary forms
and genres in the Synoptic Gospels (conversations, miracle stories, and leg-
endary tales) were embedded in the social situations of early Christian com-
munities, predominantly in preaching,5 but also in catechesis, apologetics, and
the cult. The Gospel traditions were thus considered mirrors of the commu-
nity situations that had shaped them, and consequently of the Sitz im Leben
where the traditions presumably served as useful works and legitimizing tales.
According to Dibelius and his contemporary Rudolf Bultmann,6 most of the
Gospel traditions were not only utilized but even created within those con-
texts in order to serve the needs of early communities. The idea that the early
communities were creative groups and that the narrative pieces were mostly
invented for practical and legitimizing purposes certainly represents a presup-
position rather than a safe historical assumption.7
This interpretive approach developed from a particular theory of literature
inspired from German Romanticism, namely, a view of the Gospels as pieces of
popular low-class literature, shaped not by distinct authors and authorities but
rather by anonymous groups in a predominantly oral culture. The Form Critical
school operated on the presupposition, not the demonstration, that as writ-
ten documents the texts carry forth developments from the earlier, oral level
of transmission. Only on the basis of this presupposition could the fathers of
4 M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (3rd. ed., with additions by G. Iber; Tübingen:
Mohr: 1919, 1959); English tranlation: From Tradition to Gospel (trans. Bertram Lee Woolf;
Scribner Library; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, n.d.). On Dibelius see also W. Baird,
History of New Testament Research. Volume 2: From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 273–79. Cf. also the critical analysis in K. Berger, Einführung in
die Formgeschichte (UB 1444; Tübingen: Francke, 1987), 241–55.
5 This amply demonstrates how Dibelius’s Protestant background shaped his imagination of
early Christianity.
6 R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (FRLANT 29; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht), 1921; 10th edition, with additions by Gerd Theissen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1995); English translation: The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh;
New York: Harper & Row, 1963).
7 For a critical introduction and analysis of the presuppositions of classical form criticism, see
Berger, Einführung in die Formgeschichte, esp. 241–54.
form criticism draw conclusions from the written text about the earlier periods
of oral development, or even about issues of authenticity and historicity of the
Synoptic sayings of Jesus.
With the decline of classical form criticism, two other perspectives arose that
had a very different impact on the issue of “communities” behind the texts. On
the one side, Redaction Criticism sparked a new interest in the authors of the
Gospels, who were now considered redactors collecting traditions and shaping
them according to their own theological views and in response to the problems
of their communities.8 Yet again, the preaching interests of the authors were in
the focus rather than the community; information about the community viz.
the first readers was largely drawn from the alleged preaching intention of the
authors. By some kind of mirror reading, scholars tried to reconstruct the prob-
lems to which the Gospel authors were responding. Mirror reading, however,
is always problematic, not only with regard to early Christian letters9 but even
more with narrative texts such as the Gospels. Within Redaction Criticism only
some rather imprecise ideas about the communities addressed and a limited
number of the addressees’ alleged problems, could be developed.
Even less could be established by authors who, under the influence of mod-
ern linguistic theories, fundamentally challenged the continuity between the
oral and the written level10 and thus denied the possibility of drawing any
conclusions about the earlier development (and historical validity) of the text.
One consequence was that the Gospels were to be read like novels—as autho-
rial works of a more or less fictional character. But this approach was tied to a
particular literary theory and methodology. There is no conclusive way to dem-
onstrate that a work is merely fictive.
8 Among the pioneering works, see the study on Luke by H. Conzelmann, Die Mitte der
Zeit. Studien zur Theologie des Lukas (Tübingen: Mohr, 1954); on Mark by W. Marxsen,
Der Evangelist Markus. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956); on Matthew by G. Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit.
Untersuchung zur Theologie des Matthäus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962).
9 J. M. G. Barclay, “Mirror-Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case,” JSNT 31
(1987): 73–93, mentions in this important article the following problems (79–82): “undue
selectivity,” “over-interpretation,” “mishandling problems,” “taking sides in the debate,”
and “latching onto particular words and phrases as direct echoes of the opponents’ vocab-
ulary and then hanging a whole thesis on those flimsy pegs.”
10 Cf. programmatically W. H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of
Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1983).
172 Frey
Quite the opposite kind of scholarly interest was developed in the con-
text of sociological or socio-historical inquiry of early Christian texts. Very
subtle and comprehensive methodological considerations can be found in
Gerd Theissen’s works on the sociological aspects of Pauline epistles.11 Once
again, the community was back in focus, but with different presuppositions
and research interests than those of classical Form Criticism and in marked
contrast to the kerygmatic approach of Redaction History.12 Admittedly, such
an analysis of ancient religious texts examines aspects that neither the texts
nor their authors intended to communicate. Texts are investigated contrary to
their intention (but this is quite similar in the classical historical method). And
of course, this method depends on the historical validity of the textual data.
In his methodological essay, Theissen utilizes prosopographical notes, that
is, the analytical utilization of narrated events, norms and symbols, and the
interpretation from analogies.13 He clearly admits that such an interpretation
is only possible if the data given (e.g., the prosopographical data) is, to a cer-
tain degree, historically reliable. But can we really conclude from the more
remarkable events in the texts that the “normal” situation was different? Or
can we conclude based on the narrated norms and rules that the communities
of addressees did not actually follow these norms, making it necessary for an
author to communicate them? Such conclusions from the texts always run the
danger of “mirror reading.”
III Textual Data and Historical Reconstruction
How can we, then, draw conclusions from texts about the communities behind
the texts? What are the presuppositions and what data can be used? In the fol-
lowing I will briefly look at a few texts or groups of texts with different textual
problems to demonstrate both the validity and the problem of criteria, and—
finally—the uncertainties we encounter.14
11 Above note 4.

12 See G. Theissen, “Zur forschungsgeschichtlichen Einordnung der soziologischen Fra-
gestellung,” in Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristentums, 3–34 (11.13).
13 G. Theissen, “Die soziologische Auswertung religiöser Überlieferungen,” in Studien zur
Soziologie des Urchristentums, 35–54.
14 It is not the aim of the present paper to give a full discussion of the problems of the
respective texts; therefore, I limit myself to a few selected scholarly works.
1 The Pauline Community in Corinth

Let me start with an example where we have a very broad source basis, namely
the early Christian community in Corinth addressed by Paul. Perhaps more
than any other community in the New Testament, we know the most about
the one in Corinth. Nevertheless, we shall see that our knowledge is still very
limited and hypothetical.
Such an analysis first requires a sound decision about the textual basis:
What are the sources, and how are they related to each other? Do they address
or reflect the same situation or different stages of it? As a textual basis, it is rea-
sonable to take 1 and 2 Corinthians and probably also some information from
Romans 16 (written in Corinth).15 Some information from Acts 16 might pos-
sibly be added as well, although Acts is a later source with a different authorial
viewpoint. But even if 1 and 2 Corinthians are both considered authentic, they
probably reflect different situations. Furthermore, there are numerous theo-
ries, especially about whether 2 Cor was composed as different letters in dif-
ferent situations.16 For a sociological analysis this may be of minor relevance,
but for the reconstruction of the community’s situation or of the opponents
a decision on these aspects is fundamental. However, even if we do not sub-
scribe to composition theories regarding 1 and 2 Corinthians,17 we have to
decide whether to reconstruct the situations Paul has in view when writing
1 and 2 Corinthians (or parts of it). I mention this to show how many literary
presuppositions are made for any reconstruction of a community-situation,
even in a case where we have many sources.
When focusing of 1 Corinthians, what are the facts and the problems? First,
Paul explicitly addresses a community; if this and other details in the letters are
not mere fiction, we can assume that there actually was such a group that Paul
could address as a community of God in Corinth, sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called holy ones, who call the name of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 1:1–2)—a commu-
nity with a clearly Jesus-related, or may we say “Christian,” identity. From the
letter we know that Paul claims to have founded the community and that he
was engaged in a rather lively interaction, probably answering a letter from the
community (or some leading members) with particular questions (1 Cor 7:1),
15 See H. Merklein, Der erste Brief an die Korinther. Kapitel 1–4 (ÖTBK 7,1; Gütersloh/
Würzburg: Gerd Mohn/Echter, 1992), 31–41.
16 See U. Schnelle, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (UTB 1830; 7th ed., Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 75–83.
17 See the plea for reading 2 Corinthians as a unity in the most recent commentary by
T. Schmeller, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther: Teilband 1:2 Kor 1,1–7,4 (EKK 8,1: Neukirchen-
Vluyn/Ostfildern: Neukirchener/ Patmos, 2010), 19–38.
174 Frey
but also drawing on some further oral information (1 Cor 1:11). Especially in
Paul’s reference to his encounter with the Corinthians, his personal situation
there, etc. (1 Cor 2:1–4), he seems quite reliable because the addressees them-
selves knew and could reject unsubstantiated claims. This means that the
image we get from the text, primarily 1 Cor, might be based on reliable infor-
mation, although this does not exclude misunderstandings and inadequacies
in Paul’s description of the problems.
A major problem, however, is the one-sidedness of our source: Although
there are probably some quotes or slogans of “the” Corinthians,18 the letter
only represents one side of a bipartite communication—the Pauline view. The
way Paul describes the problems is his perception, which may be inadequate
or incomplete in some parts. His characterization of the community in the
prescript and later is his terminology. The “holy” and the “elect” are his terms
and represent the way Paul himself intends to shape the self-understanding of
the community. This means, in the end, that we have only limited knowledge
about whether the addressees actually shared this kind of self-definition or
whether they phrased their identity differently and not in a uniform manner.
The most telling data we have are prosopographical data drawn from the
fourteen names of members mentioned in 1–2 Cor and Rom 16.19 From the anal-
ysis of the names we can develop the image of a community with some Jewish
members but with a greater number of Gentiles who were especially influ-
enced by Roman culture. Names and added remarks provide hints about some
members’ social statuses: some may have possessed houses, held public office,
had particular skills, lived as slaves or freedmen, and possibly even as Roman
citizens—although many details can only be hypothetically decoded by means
of onomastic parallels. If we consider that “important” community members
or those of higher status are more likely mentioned by name, the social com-
position of the community can be nicely reconstructed; further information
about ancient Corinth can help to contextualize the reconstruction.
The situation is much more difficult regarding the factions or sub-
groups within the community. Paul explicitly addresses various conflicts in
18 Here we may further consider which Corinthian faction, that is, which part of the
Corinthian community authored the letter to Paul with the questions quoted in 1 Cor 7:1;
8:1; 12:1, etc. It is striking that the urgent problem of factionalism (1 Cor 1:11f.), the ethical
problems (1 Cor 5–6), and the denial of the resurrection (1 Cor 15) were probably left
unmentioned in the letter of the Corinthian community or its leading group.
19 Merklein, Brief, 36–41.
1 Corinthians:20 In ch. 1 he mentions different factions who claim to adhere to

him, to Apollos, to Peter, and—whatever it may mean—to Christ. Especially
the “Christ party” has always been a “Pandora’s box” in scholarship21 in which
all kinds of viewpoints could be found, including Gnostics (F. C. Baur),
Enthusiasts (W. Lütgert),22 or relatives of the earthly Jesus; another option is
that this term does not denote a fourth real faction but rhetorically demon-
strates how odd it is to form factions in the community.23 However, identifying
the views of those who held Paul or Peter as their “hero” is not easy, since these
factions did not necessarily understand the views of their “heroes.”
Even more difficult is the question about how the different issues discussed
in the letter—love of wisdom and rhetoric, sexual libertinism, ascetic views
toward marriage, different opinions about food offered to idols, pneumatic
phenomena such as glossolalia and the rejection of the resurrection—can be
linked with the factions mentioned in ch. 1. It is possible that the divisions
over the issue of libertinism or resurrection were completely different matters
from the factions in chapter 1. In any case, we can see that Paul’s addressees
were divided on numerous issues and that there was not a single “Corinthian
heresy,” as earlier scholarship had supposed, but a community with mem-
bers of various ethnic and social backgrounds in discussion about different
issues. Paul, however, addresses the Corinthians as a single community and not
separately as different groups, although particular parts of the epistle may be
addressed primarily to the one or the other subgroup.24
In certain parts of the letter we can even identify some quotes or slogans
that Paul adopted from the Corinthians, but the precise phrases he actually
adopted from them is a matter of dispute.25 We can therefore get some of their
views from their own words, although this may also be the viewpoint of a
20 The problems in 2 Cor should be kept distinct from a reconstruction of the situation in
1 Cor.
21 For further information, see W. Schrage, Der 1. Brief an die Korinther: 1. Teilband: 1 Kor 1,
1–6,11 (EKK 7,1: Zürich/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger/Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), 146–48.
22 W. Lütgert, Freiheitspredigt und Schwarmgeister in Korinth: Ein Beitrag zur Charakteristic
der Christuspartei (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1908).
23 Thus the view by Ernst Käsemann, introduction to Ferdinand Christian Baur’s in
Ausgewählte Werke in Einzelausgaben. Vol. 1: Historisch- kritische Untersuchungen zum
Neuen Testament (ed. Klaus Scholder; Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann, 1963), VIII–XXV (X),
quoted and adopted in W. Schrage, Brief 1, 148.
24 The earlier view of a particular “Corinthian theology” is still held by Schrage, Brief 1,
38–63, but see the more subtle analysis by Merklein, Brief 1, 115–52.
25 Especially in 1 Cor 8:1–8 there is an open discussion about which phrases are quotations
from the letter of the community or sayings from (a particular group of) the Corinthians.
176 Frey
subgroup of the community, e.g., of those who write to ask Paul (and who are
able to write), while the viewpoint of others was possibly not represented in
the letter.
However, by a cautious consideration of the different debates in 1 Corinthians
we can obtain a good deal of information about that community and its parts,
although the precise explanation of their views, e.g., the precise reason for
the denial of resurrection or the background of the wisdom-oriented faction,
remains somewhat unclear.
In light of these factors, we know quite a lot about Paul’s addressees, the
Corinthian community, at the moment of 1 Corinthians. More questions are
raised, however, in the reconstruction of the events between 1 and 2 Corinthians:
What happened during Paul’s visit there? Who were the new opponents Paul
struggled with in 2 Corinthians? (And of course, are the apology in the first
part of the letter and the polemics against the “hyperapostles” in chs. 10–13
aimed at the same group?). Therefore, in spite of the quite numerous sources
for the community at the time when 1 Corinthians was composed, the actual
views of the community’s subgroups and the community’s development are
much more difficult to interpret. The greatest challenge is that we only have a
first-hand testimony from one side of the communication; the viewpoints of
the other side are referred to indirectly and must be tentatively reconstructed
from Paul’s text by means of further information from the Greco-Roman world.
2 The Community Addressed by the Epistle of Jude

The situation is much more difficult with other NT epistles. Whereas Paul
directly interacts with his addressees so that his writing clearly relates to their
present situation, things are more complicated in letters by other authors,
especially in pseudonymous epistles. For some time the debate about pseude-
pigraphy only focused on the issue of authorship. But we must consider that an
authorial fiction implies that the image of the addressees, certain opponents,
and the community situation are also fictional to some degree. This is especially
the case if the writing’s fictive author is presumably no longer alive at the time
of composition.26
There are various ways of portraying time in a pseudonymous letter.
According to one pattern, the author is portrayed as having written during his
lifetime to a contemporary addressee or audience, implying that the real audi-
ence differs from the fictional audience. For example, in the Pastoral Epistles
26 See J. Frey et al., eds., Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen.
[Pseudepigraphy and Fictive Authorship in Early Christian Letters] (WUNT 246; Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2009).
the fiction is that Paul addresses his disciples Timothy and Titus during his life-
time, thus writing to relatively young disciples. In all likelihood, however, the
epistles are composed in a later time for communities and office bearers who
can envision themselves in the footsteps of Timothy and Titus, and thus also in
the footsteps of Paul. In such cases, the real audience is somehow included—
by representation or historical continuation or discipleship—in the fictive
audience,27 and there is always the hermeneutical need to relate things dis-
cussed in a fictive earlier setting to the present reality of the real readers in
later times. A second pattern is that the fictive author explicitly addresses later
generations after his death, such as, e.g., in 2 Peter where “Peter” expresses the
desire that after his death the communities should remember his words and be
informed about the scoffers in the end times (2 Pet 1:15 and 3:17).
In many pseudonymous letters the description of the situation, or even the
image of opponents, is more open or conventional, thus enabling a larger audi-
ence to feel addressed and to relate the problems to their precise s ituation.
Ephesians, for example, is much more general than any authentic Pauline
letter. The same is true for 1 Peter, which can be characterized as a kind of
“encyclical” or “diaspora letter.”28 Based on such a general image, it is quite dif-
ficult to reconstruct any precise situation other than a more general picture
of the problems of a certain time (e.g., in Ephesians, that Jewish and Gentile
Christians are now together in one community), or of the doctrinal discus-
sions with some heretics (such as the people denying the hope of Parousia in
2 Peter). Unlike the authentic letters of Paul, written to single communities,
such an “encyclical” or “catholic” letter can only offer limited insight into com-
munities’ specific problems. Instead, they reflect rather general problems of
the respective time in the view of the author.
A unique example is the Epistle of Jude, an oft-neglected text among the
Catholic Epistles29 that is neither “catholic” nor “general,” but apparently
addressed to a single community. The authorial fiction of the epistle is espe-
cially remarkable: The epistle claims to be written by Jude, brother of James.
Since in all likelihood this James is the “brother of the Lord” who had a central
27 We also see this in texts like the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, where the audience
in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism can see itself represented by the sons of the patriarchs.
28 See most recently L. Doering, Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian
Epistolography (WUNT 298; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 434–52, and this author’s con-
tribution in this volume.
29 On the authorial fiction see J. Frey, “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild im Judasbrief und im
Zweiten Petrusbrief,” in Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen
(eds. J. Frey et al.; WUNT 246; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 683–732 (686–702).
178 Frey
role in the Palestinian Jesus movement (and is the fictional author of an epis-
tle), we can wonder why Jude is not called “brother of the Lord.” Although
this has often been interpreted as an element of modesty, it might also imply
a claim in the authority of James “the Just,” the brother of the Lord and the
central figure for later Jewish Christianity.30 Moreover, Jude’s literary design
suggests that the letter actually draws on the Epistle of James, that is, on the
literary James rather than the historical James.31 In a sense, therefore, Jude is
a second letter of James. The addressees are not specified locally but as fellow
Christians who share the same faith (v. 3). It is remarkable, however, that there
is no further description of the relationship between author and addressees.
Should we view them as communities founded or influenced by Jude and his
mission? In this case, we would expect an indication of such a relationship
in the text, but there is no hint of a close relationship between Jude and the
addressees. This is quite a strong argument against the letter’s authenticity.
But what time frame is suggested by the letter? Based on the beginning of
the letter, the reader might assume that the author is still alive and directly
addressing a contemporary outbreak of the heresy that had been foretold.
However, in Jude 18 the author reminds the readers about the apostles’ proph-
ecy foretelling the coming of scoffers in the end time. Such a slip of language
shows that the author is actually writing in post-apostolic times. By looking
back at the earlier teaching of the apostles, the author temporarily abandons
the fiction of being their contemporary. The explanation that author could
have survived the apostles or certain apostles is implausible. The pseudony-
mous author thus remains unknown, cloaked under the mantle of an earlier
figure, namely the “second James.”
What about the communities addressed and the opponents? Jude’s polemic
against “godless” people whose condemnation is already written (Jude 4) explic-
itly refers to the Enochic announcement of the final judgment (Jude 14–15).
But if we take into account that numerous elements of his polemics, e.g., the
charge of sexual sins or dishonesty, are rather topical, the most prominent view
of the “heretics” appears to be their disrespect for angelic powers.32 This means
30 Cf. Eusebius, H.E. 2.23.4 and other sources.

31 J. Frey, “The Epistle of Jude between Judaism and Hellenism,” The Catholic Epistles and
the Apostolic Tradition (eds. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Robert Wall; Waco, Tex.: Baylor
University Press, 2009), 309–30 and 463–75.
32 See discussion in J. Frey, “Disparagement as Argument. The Polemical Use of Moral
Language in 2 Peter,” in Moral Language in the New Testament (eds. J. G. van der Watt
and R. Zimmermann, with Susanne Luther; WUNT 2/296; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010),
275–310.
that we can only use a selection of the accusations to reconstruct the actual
views of the opponents and to locate them within the history of early Christian
theology. But even such a reconstruction runs the danger of mirror reading. We
cannot assume that the opponents rejected everything the epistle demands.
Nor can we assume that the community or its majority considered the topic of
angels to be as important as the author did. Jude 12, however, seems to suggest
that the community was still undivided, with the “scoffers” even participating
in the community meals. It is the author who tries to convince (a part of) the
community that those people are dangerous so that the “orthodox” members
of the community might distance themselves from them. Jude thus seeks to
cause a split in the community between the addressees who should keep the
faith and the “godless” scoffers who are destined to death. However, the actual
situation of the community remains obscure due to the very topical polemic,
the danger of mirror reading, and the very few precise remarks in this epistle.
This example demonstrates that the reconstruction of a community situ-
ation is much more difficult in the case of pseudonymous texts. The identity
and character of the communities addressed can only be vaguely described;
their historical context can only be tentatively determined from consider-
ations about the general development of post-Pauline traditions, or in the
present case, in opposition to this tradition, e.g., the denial of the power of
angelic powers in Colossians.33
3 The Johannine Community

A different set of challenges is presented by “the Johannine community.” This
label is actually an artificial one because its definition is far from clear. It is usu-
ally defined as the community or group of communities in which the Gospel
of John and the Johannine Epistles originate. This however creates a host of
issues, including primarily literary questions: How are the Gospel and Epistles
related? Are they addressing the same situation or ones that differ in years
or (one or two) decades? Do the three epistles address the same community?
Apparently, 3 John addresses a very particular situation in one particular com-
munity, and 2 John seems to be addressed to a different community. 1 John is
even more enigmatic and is probably not addressed to one particular local com-
munity but is an encyclical to a wider circle of communities. Should the wider
circle of communities addressed by the author of the epistles (if indeed there
is one author) be called “the Johannine community”? Scholars also use the term
“Johannine school”—a somewhat artificial difference, which Udo Schnelle, for
example, explains as follows: the persons occupied with theological debate
33 Cf. the argument in Frey, “The Epistle of Jude between Judaism and Hellenism.”
180 Frey
and work belong to the school, whereas the community is a wider circle (i.e.,
including those not involved in writing or discussion, the “normal” community
members).34
Only on the basis of these literary decisions and definitions can we try to
reconstruct the situation and problems of the communities, using similar
methodological questions as discussed with regard to 1 Corinthians and Jude.
3 John presents three names35 with Gentile backgrounds (Gaius, Demetrios,
Diotrephes), and the information that wandering missionaries do not take
shelter and food from Pagans, so that they need to be hosted by the community,
which shows traces of a Diaspora Jewish ethos adopted by the communities or
at least by the wandering messengers. The author is apparently well informed,
has personal relationships with some of the addressees, acts as an authoritar-
ian figure (addressing the readers as “children,” giving harsh orders), etc.
Although a split in the communities is explicitly mentioned in 1 John 2:18ff.
and probably also reflected in 2 John, it is difficult to identify the theological
reason of the split and its ethical and social implications. The confession for-
mulae, however, introduced in 1 John 2:22; 4:2 and 2 John 7 are opaque. What
does it mean that the secessionists do not accept that “Jesus is the Christ”?
Is this a Jewish position that denies the Messiahship of Jesus, as some schol-
ars, who see the secessionists as Jewish Christians returning to the synagogue,
claim? Alternatively, does the phrase in 1 John 4:2 that Jesus Christ came (or
2 John 7: comes) in the flesh point to a proto-docetic view that questioned
whether the divine Christ really appeared and suffered in the flesh. Yet again,
drawing a conclusion about the opponents from the author’s confession for-
mula is problematic, and our image of the community or the debates within
the communities is quite hypothetical. The decision between the different
options is usually made with additional reference to other early Christian
texts, such as the letters of Ignatius in which—only a few years later—similar
“anti-docetic” phrases appear and the position of those who were (later) called
“docetists” may get somewhat clearer.
The issue of the Johannine community is especially complicated since we
have sources of a different type and genre: epistles and gospel. Whereas the
Epistles are directly addressed to communities so that we have clear evidence
34 U. Schnelle, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (THKNT 4; 4th ed.; Leipzig: Evangelische
Verlagsanstalt, 2009), 3.
35 The other two Johannine epistles do not mention a single personal name. So the three
names are the only “real” persons we know from the Johannine communities, apart from
the author who is “hidden” under his eponym viz. the title “the elder.”
of a community of addressees, the narrative text of the Gospel is not addressed

directly to a community. Only at a very late point, in John 20:30–31, are the
readers directly addressed: “so that you may believe . . .” But who is the “you”
group addressed here—a precise community or “the readers” in general?
Fundamental issues concerning the Gospels are involved in this question, and
so are literary presuppositions:
Whereas earlier scholarship read John as a theological text, a text of a par-
ticular author and witness, or even as a source for the life of Jesus, Rudolf
Bultmann focused on a particular religious milieu from which the Gospel or
rather some of its sources were thought to originate.36 Here the attention was
drawn to particular religious language and then identified with Gnostic or
proto-Gnostic groups. Although Bultmann’s source-theory as well as the gnos-
tic contextualization could not be maintained in subsequent scholarship, the
attention to the particular language of the Fourth Gospel (compared with other
early Christian writings) and the Johannine Epistles was further reflected and
interpreted as an argument for a particular circle or community behind those
works. The community was seen as largely separated from other early Christian
communities and independent of other (e.g. Synoptic) traditions, or even as a
“Johannine sect,” more or less remote from other early Christian groups. Based
on further source-critical or redaction-critical distinctions, scholars even tried
to reconstruct a history of such a group, from an earlier phase with more con-
nections to the outside world through a sectarian “narrowing” (in the work of
the evangelist or a later redaction) and possibly the split or even dissolution or
disappearance of the school/community as documented in the Epistles.37 The
view, however, that the language could be a clue to a sectarian existence in
separation has been challenged in scholarship, and today the Johannine lan-
guage, even with its dualistic elements, is viewed more as a particular didactic
means of proclamation than a mirror of a sectarian isolation.
Other scholars have more generally questioned the presupposition that the
Gospels (including Mark, Luke, Matthew, and even Q) reflect and address only
a particular community milieu without reckoning with the possibility that
other communities might also get hold of, read, and transmit such a work. Are
36 R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (21th ed.; KEK 2, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1984).
37 Thus especially J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (2nd ed.; Nashville:
Westminster John Knox, 1979), and R. E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (2 vols.;
AB 29/1–2, New York: Doubleday, 1966–70).
182 Frey
the Gospels not written “for all Christians”—as Richard Bauckham asked?38
Especially in the later Gospels that draw from earlier works, such awareness
should be taken into consideration. And if John is not totally independent
from other traditions, but indirectly or rather directly draws on Mark and rein-
terprets the earlier traditions, then the Gospel author or redactors also envi-
sioned a wider audience of readers of Mark.39
If this is true, we may still assume that the gospel traditions were developed
in particular community circles on the basis of particular traditions and by
using a specific language of proclamation, which in some manner transforms
the earlier language of the Jesus tradition (as we have it in the Synoptics).
However, the assumption that the Gospel of John simply grew as an in-group
text, reflecting internal discussions or developments, is highly questionable
and undervalues the authorial or redactional composition, with its didactic and
explaining tendencies. Even if there is a community group behind the Gospel
(probably identical with the communities behind the Epistles) reflected in the
mention of the “brethren” in John 21:22f. and their rumour about the Beloved
Disciple, and even if the edition of the Gospel was published in a distinct circle
of communities, the editors might have had a wider audience in view, as is
suggested by its introduction in the very “beginning” (1:1) and its conclusion
with the world of books (21:25). The Gospel is definitely a literary work and,
therefore, not simply an in-group text for self-confirmation, contrary to earlier
scholarly assumptions that were influenced by Form Criticism and other liter-
ary paradigms.
But can the Gospel disclose anything about its underlying community? John
is a narrative text, telling the story of the earthly Jesus. How far is that narration
a treatment of aspects of the past history of Jesus, and how far is it open for
later or even contemporary issues. The most far-reaching theory was phrased
by J. Louis Martyn, who interpreted the Gospel, esp. ch. 9, as a “drama on two
levels,” i.e., a kind of allegorical tale of events that had actually occurred in the
Johannine community.40 According to this view, the Jews as opponents of Jesus
in the story are interpreted as mirroring the Jews in the world of and conflicts
with the Johannine community. Although such a construction explains some
of the elements in the narration, especially the idea of an “exclusion from the
Synagogue” (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2) and some other terms and circumstances
which cannot be located on the level of the story of Jesus, it is problematic to
interpret everything on both levels and to transfer the whole narrated world of
38 R. J. Bauckham, ed., The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
39 Thus R. J. Bauckham, “John for Readers of Mark,” in The Gospels for All Christians, 147–72.
40 Cf. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel.
Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries to the time of the Johannine community
or even to Ephesus.41 John is clearly speaking of the High Priests in Jerusalem,
not of High Priests in Ephesus.
The question then is how these two levels—the story of Jesus and the level
of the narrator’s present (and perhaps also the levels in between)—can be dis-
cerned. The main issue is: How far is John’s narration of Jesus’ conflict with “the
Jews” part of the present world of the author and his community? A second
issue is: How can these results be linked with the insights about the commu-
nity in the Epistles. Is the community still dominated by a Jewish Synogogal
context (as the “Jewish” interpretation of 1 John 2:22 may assume), or is it more
of a “mixed” or even predominantly Gentile context (as the “Docetic” interpre-
tation of 1 John 4:2 suggests)? And can the situation portrayed in the Epistles
be linked with the hypothetical ones in the Gospel, or do the Epistles address a
later, more developed situation? Given the small window of time between the
edited Gospel and the Epistles, the situation should be kept together rather
than assuming a dramatic development or a total change from a conflict with
the Jews to a conflict with Gentile-Christian Docetists.
In my own analysis of the time frame in the Gospel, its melting of tempo-
ral horizons, and the transparency of its narrated story,42 I have particularly
pointed to the farewell discourses, where the Gospel narration about the later
situation of the community of disciples is more transparent than in other parts
of the Gospel. In the Farewell Discourses the encounter with the “world” is
the dominant theme while “the Jews” are less prominent than in John 2–12
and, of course, in the Passion narrative. This leads to the assumption that the
world of the Johannine author and editors is a mixed world, but already one
with a strong Gentile or Pagan influence.43 This is also confirmed by the names
in 3 John and the warning about idols at the end of 1 John. Many—probably
the majority—of the community members are already Gentile Christians
(as 3 John confirms), although there is still a debate with the contemporary
Synagogue, which some of the Johannine community members had previously
been associated with and had perhaps been excluded from. This is the r eason
why I also prefer the proto-“docetic” interpretation for 1 John and 2 John,
41 Thus, the reading experiment in S. van Tilborg, Reading John in Ephesus (Leiden: Brill,
1996).
42 J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie: Vol. 2: Das johanneische Zeitverständnis (WUNT 110;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).
43 J. Frey, “Heiden—Griechen—Gotteskinder: Zu Gestalt und Funktion der Rede von den
Heiden in 4. Evangelium,” in Die Heiden: Juden, Christen und das Problem des Fremden
(eds. R. Feldmeier and U. Heckel; WUNT 70; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 228–68.
184 Frey
because the “Jewish” interpretation of the secessionists would still presuppose

a very Jewish-dominated context for the Gospel.
We can leave things more open here and return to the issue of methodology.
The example of the Johannine community is certainly the most complicated
of the three. Here we have to consider the literary and historical issues of the
Gospel, redactional layers and internal history, the problem of the narration
possibly mirroring some (but not all) elements of the contemporary situation,
and the extent to which language (a unique style, dualistic elements, particular
terms) can be taken as a basis for reconstructing social realities of the com-
munity, or if it should rather be taken as an author’s deliberate choice. The
problems of the community reconstruction from the Gospel (faced similarly
in the interpretation of Mark or Matthew), are also linked with the problems
of the literary history and the precise situations referred to in the Epistles. Here
we have (a) some prosopographical information, (b) the rather vague issues as
known from general letters written to various local communities, and (c) the
unspecified reference of confession formulae and the danger of mirror reading.
IV Concluding Perspectives
It is not necessary to systematize the methodological issues discussed. The sug-

gested problems are quite different in the three fields discussed, and the diffi-
culties arise from the respective complexity of the source situation. Our ability
to reconstruct a community of addressees is affected by the number of sources
we have—whether one or many. If the sources represent one genre or a larger
number of different genres also impacts our reconstruction. The situation is
more complicated, but perhaps also more promising, if we can adduce sources
from outside the biblical tradition—classical, archaeological, or epigraphic
sources—but these should be used with equal criticism, and the combination
of different genres and texts to a common historical event is again a very dif-
ficult task.
The intention of the present paper was to remind us that our knowledge
about early Christian communities addressed by NT texts is quite hypothetical.
Of course, in some cases we know a good deal. This is true with Corinthians,
but even here we face many open or disputed questions. In in other cases
we know much less and should recognize that our ideas of the communities
addressed depend on numerous presuppositions from literary theory, intro-
ductory issues, and decisions about the precise reference of the textual data.
This does not mean that a historical reconstruction from the preserved data is
impossible, but that the uncertainties are considerable.
Lycaonian Christianity under Roman Rule
and their Jewish-Christian Tradition*
Cilliers Breytenbach
I Roman Rule in Lycaonia
With “Lycaonia” I focus on the traditional Lycaonian area, eastern Pisidia and
parts of south-eastern Phrygia, which were all included in the province of
Galatia founded by Augustus in 25 BCE.1 The area was dominated by Roman vet-
eran colonies in Antioch on the Pisidian border, in Iconium, where it coexisted
next to the ancient city Iconium dominating central Anatolia, and in Lystra
southwest of Iconium. For more than one generation the Romans had one or
perhaps even two legions here. After their departure in the first century CE
auxiliary forces secured the colonies and routes between them and Laranda,
the gateway to Isauria, and Philomelium on the route into Phrygia. At both
locations the Romans had stationarii to secure the roads across Asia Minor.
As long as the area was part of the province of Galatia or of Vespasian’s
Galatia-Cappadocia, it was probably governed from Antioch. Trajan (98–117 CE)
separated Galatia from Cappadocia, taking southern Lycaonia to Cappadocia;
under Hadrian (117–138) western Lycaonia was still part of Galatia. From
Antoninus Pius (138–161) on, Lycaonia (without Iconium) including the tradi-
tional Isaurian cities was detached from Cappadocia and became an ἐπαρχία,
a separate administrative region of a province. It was part of the threefold
government (τρεῖς ἐπαρχίαι) of Cilicia (Isauria, Lycaonia, Cilicia), each gov-
erned by a legatus Augusti pro praetore, Lycaonia from Laranda. The north-
ern Lycaonian cities Lystra, Iconium, Perta, Kinna, Laodicea Combusta and
Gdanmaa remained part of Galatia. Diocletian (284–305) divided Lycaonia.
Iconium, Amblada, possibly Mistea and Vasada became part of Pisidia.
The southern cities Uamanada (the traditional area of the mountain tribe of
* The research for this paper was done with the support of the Excellence Cluster 264 Topoi:
The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations (www
.topoi.org). For additional abbreviations of epigraphic editions (including journals), cf. The
Packard Humanities Institute, Searchable Greek Inscriptions: A Scholarly Tool in Progress
(Cornell University/Ohio State University), http://epigraphy.packhum.org.
1 For more detail, cf. C. Breytenbach and C. Zimmermann, Early Christianity in Lycaonia and
Adjacent Areas (AJEC/ECAM; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), ch. 2.2.1.

186 Breytenbach
the Homonadeis?), Ilistra, Laranda and Barata became part of the province
Isauria, founded already by Gordian III (238–244).
We thus concentrate on an area that was initially part of Galatia, became
part of Lycaonia and was later divided between Pisidia and Isauria. It is not
necessary to discuss the structure of Roman administration of the area in
detail, since there is no evidence that it had specific implications for Jews or
Christians in the area.
II Jews in Lycaonia
This section can be very brief. In contrast to Aphrodisias in Caria, Sardis in

Lydia and particularly Acmonia and Hierapolis in Phrygia, there is almost no
evidence for Jews in the area under discussion during the early or the later
Roman Empire. Apart from the New Testament, there are no literary sources.
Five inscriptions document the presence of Jews, but beyond names, only little
information can be deducted from them. We could say that in the 3rd century or
later, a Joseph lived in Gdanmaa, and a tombstone of another Joseph was found
in Zazadin Han.2 From Gdanmaa we also know the “pure Levite” Sophronius,
brother in law of a man called Aurelius John.3 In Laodicea Combusta Aurelius
Philopapus warned those who would dare to desecrate his dear father’s grave
against the wrath of the imperishable God.4 Walter Ameling registered one
possible Jewish inscription in Iconium,5 and two in Gdanmaa.6 Due to the use
of the family name Aurelius, three of these monuments could be dated shortly
after Caracalla (211–217) and his constitutio Antoniniana,7 but it is also possible
that these five monuments all belong in the 4th century or even later. This
number of Jewish inscriptions from what we roughly call “Lycaonia” is very
modest, if one compares it to the hundreds of Christian inscriptions from the
same area. The question arises, if these Christian inscriptions shared in Jewish
tradition.
2 Cf. W. Ameling, ed., Kleinasien, vol. 2 of Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis (TSAJ 99; Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2004) [= IJO ii], nos. 225 and 228.
3 Cf. IJO ii no. 224: ἐνθάδ[ε] | κατάκῖτα[ι] | Σωφρόν[ι]|ος Λευίτ||ης ἁγνός· | Αὐρ. Ἰωάν[ης] | τῷ ἰδίῳ
γυνε[καδ-]| [έλφῳ] μνή|[μης χάριν].
4 Cf. IJO ii no. 277,13–16: . . . εἰ δέ τις αὐ|τὴν σείνετε ἀθανά||τοιο θεοῦ μήν<ι>μα | λάβοιτο.
5 I JO ii no. 226.
6 I JO ii nos. 224–225; cf. Ameling, IJO ii, pp. 484–491.
7 By this decree, Caracalla, who was adopted into the gens Aurelia in 195 ce (cf. Cassius Dio
78.9.4−5), extended citizenship to almost all free men of the Empire. For the name Aurelius,
cf. IJO ii nos. 224, 225, 227 and 228.
Lycaonian Christianity Under Roman Rule 187
III Biblical Tradition on Christian monuments from Lycaonia
1 Introduction
In the area under discussion, the evidence is mainly epigraphic, in a few cases
iconographic. Sometimes the language of the inscription itself documents
such influence. On an inscription from Iconium from the 3rd or 4th century
for example, the initial epithet ὁ θε(ὸς) τῶν φ<υλ>ῶν τοῦ Ἰσραήλ reveals the
Jewish background of the Christians who buried the sensible Paul, a deacon.8
The nominative θεός can be used as vocative and God is probably invoked. He
is called “the God of the tribes of Israel.” Those who pray to him are still part
of Israel. According to Genesis, Abraham made his servant swear “by the Lord,
the God of heaven and the God of earth.”9 Similarly, in the final line of the
inscription, the man who put up the monument adjures the God of the tribes
of Israel against grave desecrators. Using typical Greek terminology from the
realm of hegemony,10 he calls him τὸν παντ[ο]κράτο<ρ>α θ(εὸ)ν,11 the regent
over everything, the Almighty, thus underlining the conviction that God has
unlimited authority. Although God is often called the Almighty in Christian
inscriptions from Lycaonia,12 one might think the inscription is Jewish.13 But
it marked the place where the bones of Paul, the deacon were interred. Taking
the epigraphic evidence from the region into account, it is notable that there
is no other Jew documented who is called Paul, and Paul is the most popular
name in the area. Furthermore, amongst all the other inscriptions mentioning
8 IJO ii no. 226: ὁ θε(ὸς) <τ>ῶν φωτῶν τοῦ Ἰστρα|ήλ. ἔνθα κεῖντε ὀστέα | τοῦ σώφρονος Παύλου |
διακόνου. ἐνορκιζόμ[ε]θ[α] || τὸν παντ[ο]κράτο<ρ>α θ(εὸ)ν ΠΑ | — — —. Ameling dates 4th
cent. and later.
9 GenLXX 24:3 (trans. A. Pietersma and B. Wright, eds., A New English Translation of the
Septuagint and Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title [New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007] [= NETS]): ἐξορκιῶ σε κύριον τὸν θεὸν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ
τὸν θεὸν τῆς γῆς.
10 Cf. C. Zimmermann, Die Namen des Vaters: Studien zu ausgewählten neutestamentlichen
Gottesbezeichnungen vor ihrem jüdischen und paganen Sprachhintergrund (AJEC 69;
Leiden: Brill, 2007), 233–255.
11 Such warnings against the unauthorized re-use of graves are not uncommon; cf. SEG 30
no. 1060 (Naxos); SEG 44 no. 765 (Katane); J. Strubbe, ed., Arai epitymbioi: Imprecations
against Desecrators of the Grave in the Greek Epitaphs of Asia Minor (Die Inschriften
griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien 52; Bonn: Habelt, 1997), 151 (Akroinos).
12 Cf. B. H. McLean, Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Konya Archaeological Museum
(Regional Epigraphic Catalogues of Asia Minor 4; London: British Institute of Archaeology
at Ankara, 2002) [= IKonya], no. 179 (Iconium); MAMA i no. 170 (Laodicea); MAMA xi
no. 356 (Kana); BE 89 (1976), 556 no. 675 (Akroinos in Phrygia).
13 Cf. Ameling, IJO ii, p. 486.
188 Breytenbach
deacons, there is no other deacon from the area, who could be Jewish. It is
thus plausible to take the monument as evidence for a group of Christians,
who still held onto the identity between the Almighty in whom they put their
trust and the God of the tribes of Israel. There is no evidence from Lycaonian
Christianity that this belief inherited from Judaism changed.
There are other short expressions in inscriptions from a wide area, which
confirm the impression that Lycaonian Christianity adhered to epithets for
God traditionally used by Greek speaking Jews. Expressions like “the great God”
(ὁ θέος ὁ μέγαλος),14 “the greatest God” (ὁ μέγιστος θέος),15 “the imperishable
God” (θεὸς ἄφθιτος),16 and the phrase “the living God” (ζῶντος θεός)17 are firmly
rooted in Biblical tradition. The evidence goes beyond these names for God.
West of Isauropolis “amen” (ἀμήν) or “peace” (εἰρήνη) at the end of two inscrip-
tions indicates the unbroken influence of Jewish tradition.18 On monuments
north of Laodicea Combusta and in Phrygia, “amen” ends more inscriptions.19
The expression “bosom of Abraham” (κόλπος Ἀβραάμ) is used to refer to the
life hereafter.20 This phrase is Biblical (cf. Gen 16:5) and resounds in Jewish
and Christian documents.21 The material surveyed below will illustrate that
Christians in Lycaonia and adjacent areas shared in Jewish tradition via the
influence of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible in their communi-
ties. Since its very beginnings, Christianity adhered to Jewish traditions that
were part of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. From the 2nd to the
5th centuries, the Septuagint still influenced language and thought patterns
of Christians, albeit in combination with its reception in the New Testament.
2 Phrases from and Allusions to the Greek Bible

It is well known that early Christians also took over the Jewish practice to
refer to the legal stipulations of Deuteronomy to prevent unauthorized use
14 Cf. JHS 22 (1902): 361–362 no. 125; MAMA viii no. 320, and 2 Esd 5:6; 3 Macc 7:2; Dan 4:23;
cf. also Deut 10:17; Ps 85:10; 94:3; 134:5; Dan 2:45; 9:4; Exod 18:11.
15 Cf. MAMA i no. 306, and 2 Macc 3:36; 3 Macc 1:9, 16; 3:11; 4:16; 5:25; 7:22; cf. also Esth 8:12(17).
16 Cf. MAMA i no. 235; Sib. Or. 1:158; 2:330–331. For ὁ ἀθάνατος θεός, cf. IJO ii no. 186 (Eumeneia);
Sib. Or. 1:56, 122, 331; 3:56, 276, 600.
17 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 27 no. 54; MAMA vii no. 587; MAMA iv no. 359.
18 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 62 no. 130 and 76 no. 158.
19 Cf. MAMA vii no. 565; TAPA 57 (1926): 204 no. 14, and T. Ritti, Guida epigrafica a Hierapolis
di Frigia (Pamukkale) (Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 2006), 105–107 no. 19.
20 Cf. MAMA vii no. 587 (Kolu Kısa). For the use beyond our area, cf. W. M. Ramsay, Cities and
Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), 742 no. 679; S. Mitchell, Anatolia:
Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 2.106.
21 Cf. Luke 16:22–23; Jub. frg. 7; T. Ab. A. 20:14; Apoc. Sedrach 14:6.
of graves,22 for example in neighbouring Phrygia.23 In Lycaonia warnings of

Christians against grave robbers and other desecrators alluded to other pas-
sages of the Greek Bible. An inscription on a marble slab which the curialis
Aurelius Anicetus, son of Paul, and his wife Septimia Pomponia Magna, with
their son Dionysius put up for themselves ends with the lines, “If anyone inters
another after my descendants or lays a wicked hand on this memorial, he shall
have to reckon with the outstretched arm and the coming judgement.”24 As
in the speech of the Lukan Paul in Antioch (Acts 13:17), the phrase “the out-
stretched arm” (τὸν βραχίονα τὸν ὑψηλόν) recalls the Exodus.25 The words the
Lord spoke to Moses, especially the phrase “with an uplifted arm” (ἐν βραχίονι
ὑψηλῷ) is used there in the context of the redemption from slavery in Egypt,
especially of the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea. This phrase com-
memorates the foundational event for the people of God26 and is intertwined
with the Ten Commandments and other instruction in Deuteronomy.27 No
wonder it also echoes through Scripture.28 For the prophet Ezekiel, God will
reign over his people “with strong hand, a raised arm” (ἐν χειρὶ κραταιᾷ καὶ ἐν
βραχίονι ὑψηλῷ) and pour out wrath (EzekLXX 20:33–34). Those who put up
the stone in Laodicea clearly were acquainted with the Biblical tradition of
God’s raised arm protecting his chosen and his future condemnation of their
opponents.
The last line of the text of an inscription of Leontis the πρόοικος (“butler”)
erected around 400 for his children in Claneus, ends with a relative clause in
which Leontis describes himself as someone “on whom God poured all favours”
22 Cf. L. Robert, “Malédictions funéraires grecques,” CRAI (1978): 241–289, 246–249; P. Trebilco,
Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991), 60–69; J. H. M. Strubbe, “Curses Against Violation of the Grave in Jewish Epitaphs
from Asia Minor,” in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (ed. J. W. van Henten and P. W. van
der Horst; AGAJU 21; Leiden, 1994), 70–128; Strubbe, Arai epitymbioi, nos. 228–229.
23 Cf. the inscriptions on an early sarcophagus from Laodicea ad Lycum (IK Laodikeia am
Lykos no. 111) and on 3rd cent. bomoi from Acmonia (IJO ii nos. 172–174).
24 Trans. MAMA xi no. 271: εἴ τις] μ̣ ετὰ τὰ ἔγο|νά μου ἕτε[ρον ἐπεν]βάλι ἢ χῖρα | κακὴν προσ[οίσει
τού]τ̣ῳ τῷ μνιμίῳ, | ἠσχήσι π[ρὸς τὸ]ν βραχίονα τ|ὸν ὑψηλ[ὸν] vacat || κὲ τὴν κ̣ [ρίσιν τὴν]
ἐρχομέν|ην.
25 ExodLXX 6:1 “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharao. For by a mighty hand (ἐν γὰρ χειρὶ
κραταιᾷ) he will send them away, and by a raised arm (ἐν βραχίονι ὑψηλῷ) he will drive
them out of his land. . . (6) . . . I will redeem you by a raised arm and great judgement
(ἐν βραχίονι ὑψηλῷ καὶ κρίσει μεγάλῃ)” (trans. NETS).
26 Cf. also ExodLXX 32:11; DeutLXX 3:24; 4:34.
27 Cf. DeutLXX 5:15; 6:21; 7:8, 19; 9:26, 29; 11:2; 26:8; 33:27.
28 Cf. PsLXX 135:11–12; Isa 63:12; Jer 39:21; Bar 2:11; Dan 9:15.
190 Breytenbach
(ᾧ πᾶσαν χάριτας θεὸς κατέχεσε).29 From the same location and roughly the
same time is a memorial erected by the προικός Damas, “on whom God poured
all favours upon sight” (ᾧ πάσας χάριτας θεὸς κατέχευσε πρὸς ὠπῇ).30 The phrase
“God poured all favours on”31 reminds one of Genesis 39:21: “The Lord was with
Joseph and poured down mercy upon him and gave him favour (κατέχεεν αὐτοῦ
ἔλεος καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ χάριν) before the chief jailer.”32 Presbyter Menander from
Laodicea and Papas from Gdanmaa are “famous sprouts from good roots.”33 The
phrase “famous sprout” (ἔρνος κλυτόν) is not uncommon on tombstones,34 also
among Christians in Lycaonia.35 The expression “from a good root” (ἐξ ἀγαθῆς
ῥίσζης) reflects Biblical tradition, derived from Isaiah 11:1, 11.36
Christians were formulating prayers in the traditional language of the
Psalms from the Greek Bible. The text of a 4th or 5th century inscription from
Iconium invokes at its beginning the phrase “by mercy, that of God.”37 The
use of the dative ἐλεέι ὅ θεοῦ38 suggests the influence of the Greek Psalms.39
But how does this phrase fit into the text where it is followed by the name of
the dedicator? In a similar and contemporary inscription the presbyter Papas
put up for his daughter Matrone northeast of Vetissus, ἐλέη is placed after
the name of the dedicator: “Papas, by the grace of God presbyter (Π̣ απας ἐλέη
θεοῦ [πρ]εσβύτερος), erected (the tombstone) of my child Matrone for memo-
ry’s sake.”40 The inscription from Iconium should be understood in a similar
way. “Menneas, the son of Lucius, by the grace of God presbyter (ἐλέϊ ὅ θεοῦ
Μεν[ν(?)]|έας πρεσβύτε|ρος υἱὸς Λουκί|ου), and my wife Patronine, we erected
29 Cf. MAMA vii no. 240.

30 Cf. JHS 19 (1899): 283 no. 174.
31 For this meaning of καταχέω with dative, cf. LSJ, s.v.
32 Trans. NETS.
33 Cf. MAMA vii nos. 93 and 559.
34 Cf. SEG 30 no. 1054; IG ii² no. 3754; JÖAI 46 (1961/63) Bbl., 8; IG iii no. 1331. Cf. also Quintus,
Posthomerica 14.200; Anthologiae Graecae Appendix, Epigrammata dedicatoria 174,
Epigrammata sepulcralia 214.
35 Cf. CIG no. 3989m.
36 Cf. Tob 5:14; Philo, Praem. 71.
37 G. Laminger-Pascher, Beiträge zu den griechischen Inschriften Lykaoniens (Ergänzungs-
bände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 11; Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaf-
ten, 1984) [= ETAM 11], no. 173 (edited): ἐλέϊ ὅ θεοῦ Μεν[ν(?)]|έας πρεσβύτε|ρος υἱὸς Λουκί|ου
καὶ τῇ συν||βίῳ μου Πατρο|ινῇ ἀνεστήσα|μεν [— — —]τῃ | μνήμης χ|άριν.
38 Note that ἐλέϊ is itacistic for ἐλέει.
39 Cf. PsLXX 12:6; 20:8; 30:8, 17; 102:4; 113:9; 137:2; 140:5; 142:12.
40 MAMA vii no. 491: [+] Π̣ απας ἐλέη θεοῦ | [πρ]εσβύτερος ἀνέσ|[τη]σα τέκνου μου | Ματρώνης
μνή||μης χάριν +.
(the tombstone) in memory of . . .” In good Pauline fashion, who understood

his mission as apostle as a God-given favour or God’s mercy towards him,41
both elders qualify their office with a phrase from the Greek Psalms as given
“by the mercy of God.”
By the 5th or 6th century, a very notable (περίφρων) priest named Paul from
Savatra called upon God in his sorrow for the loss of his beloved brother: θε(ὸς)
βοήθι . . .42 This phrase from the Psalms at the beginning of the inscription
should help the priest to overcome the deep sorrow at the grave of his brother.
God or the Lord can be called on for help against danger also in Iconium.43 On
a lintel for the villagers of Kapoumais even the archangel was called upon.44 By
this time, various inscriptions were introduced or closed with phrases adapted
from the Psalms: θεέ, κύριε or Χρίστε βοήθι with a dative of the person who
calls for help.45 In petitions on behalf of individuals from Lystra,46 Laodicea,47
Vetissus48 and Sidemaria,49 where God’s, the Lord’s or Christ’s help is invoked,
it is clear that God’s mercy is called upon. In the case of some funerary
inscriptions, the bereaved entrusted the eternal fate of the deceased with this
formula to God or to Christ.50 The phrase expressing God’s eternal p rotection
41 Using language of benevolence and benefaction, Paul formulates that he received the
gift to be an apostle (e.g., Rom 1:5: ἐλάβομεν χάριν καὶ ἀποστολήν), that the “pillars” in
Jerusalem recognised the favour that God gave him (e.g., Gal 2:9: τὴν χάριν τὴν δοθεῖσάν
μοι). But Paul could also express in Biblical terms that he was granted mercy (e.g., 2 Cor
4:1: τὴν διακονίαν ταύτην καθὼς ἠλεήθημεν). On this aspect of Paul’s use of χάρις and ἔλεος/
ἐλεέω, cf. C. Breytenbach, “ ‘Charis’ and ‘Eleos’ in Paul’s Letter to the Romans,” in Grace,
Reconciliation, Concord: The Death of Christ in Graeco-Roman Metaphors (NovTSup 135;
Leiden: Brill, 2010), 207–238, 237. See also J. M. G. Barclay, “By the Grace of God I Am What
I Am: Grace and Agency in Philo and Paul,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His
Cultural Environment (ed. J. M. G. Barclay and S. J. Gathercole; London: T&T Clark, 2007),
140–157, 151–156.
42 Cf. IKonya no. 206.
43 Cf. ETAM 11 no. 175.
44 Cf. Byzantion 6 (1931): 21.
45 Cf. PsLXX 53:6 (ἰδοὺ γὰρ ὁ θεὸς βοηθεῖ μοι); 69:6 (ὁ θεός, βοήθησόν μοι); 78:9 (βοήθησον ἡμῖν, ὁ
θεὸς ὁ σωτὴρ ἡμῶν); 93:18 (κύριε, βοηθεῖ μοι); 108:26 (βοήθησόν μοι, κύριε ὁ θεός μου, σῶσόν με
κατὰ τὸ ἔλεός σου); 118:86 (βοήθησόν μοι), 117 (βοήθησόν μοι, καὶ σωθήσομαι).
46 Cf. MAMA viii no. 51: . . . Κορτερίῳ + Κύριε βοήθι τοῦ πρε(—) Διωφά�̣ντῳ. From Akören on
Lystra’s territory in the 5th cent., KILyk i no. 287: . . . αὐτοῦ | . . . κὲ τῇ σινόδ[ῳ] | Κύρ]ιε βοή�̣ θ̣ει̣
Π[—.
47 Cf. ETAM 11 no. 21 (Kadınhanı).
48 MAMA vii no. 473: θ(ε)ὲ βοήθι. | Ἀππια|νὸς πρε|σβ{β}ύτερ(ος), || εὕδις σύν|[βιε(?)].
49 Cf. KILyk i no. 143.
50 Cf. MAMA vii nos. 567 (Gdanmaa), 517 (from Kandil north of Vetissus).
192 Breytenbach
for ancient Kindyreou (ἥνπερ θεὸς εἰς ἐῶνα φυλάττει),51 is reminiscent of

the Psalms.52
Such allusions to the Greek Psalms were widespread amongst Christians.
Beyond the area under discussion, petitions for help alluding to or quoting
from the Psalms were used on rock faces, or gateways of working places, lin-
tels of churches’ entrances, in churches, on amulets, bracelets, and funerary
inscriptions,53 making the Psalms the book from the Old and New Testament
most used in Christian inscriptions. The Psalms were used with a protective
function; they document Christian practice to trust God for help in order to
overcome danger and fear in various locations, even at the grave.
In a few instances the citation of or allusion to the Biblical pretext is com-
bined with a drawing on the monument itself. In such cases, it is better to speak
of ekphrasis.54 Selecting important traits of the Biblical pretext, the inscription
mediates between the iconic representation and the commonly known narra-
tive it refers to.
The book of Isaiah for example expects that animals that are natural ene-
mies will live peacefully together (Isa 11:6–9). That this expectation was cher-
ished amongst Jews in the 2nd century CE is aptly illustrated by the third book
of the Sibylline Oracles.55 From the 2nd century onwards Christian theologians
were aware of the symbolical meaning of the animals,56 applying Isaiah 11:6–8
to the eschatological peace brought about by Christ and shared by those
who through faith and baptism follow the Christian way.57 Similar expecta-
tion is expressed in material culture of 5th century Christianity in Cilicia and
51 ETAM 11 no. 32.

52 Cf. PsLXX 11:8 (σύ κύριε φυλάξεις ἡμᾶς καὶ διατηρήσεις ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς ταύτης καὶ εἰς τὸν
αἰῶνα); 36:28 (ὅτι κύριος ἀγαπᾷ κρίσιν καὶ οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψει τοὺς ὁσίους αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα
φυλαχθήσονται ἄνομοι); 120:8 (κύριος φυλάξει τὴν εἴσοδόν σου καὶ τὴν ἔξοδόν σου ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν
καὶ ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος); 145:6 (τὸν φυλάσσοντα [sc. ὁ θεὸς] ἀλήθειαν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα).
53 For the references, cf. C. Breytenbach, “PsalmsLXX and the Christian Definition of
Space: Examples Based on Inscriptions from Central Asia Minor,” in Text-Critical and
Hermeneutical Studies in the Septuagint (ed. J. Cook and H.-J. Stipp; VTSup 157; Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 381–394, 393–394.
54 On ekphrasis, cf. A. Joubert, “Memory Embroidered: Craft Art as Intermedial Space of
Expression,” Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien 17 (2009): 97–126, 105–107.
55 Cf. Sib. Or. 3:788–793.
56 Cf. John Chrysostom, Comm. Isa. 2.2; Tertullian, Herm. 11; Origen, Princ. 4.2.1; Eusebius,
Comm. Isa. 62 (on Isa 11:6 and 8–9).
57 Cf. V. Buchheit, “Tierfriede bei Hieronymus und seinen Vorgängern,” RAC 33 (1990): 21–35,
21–22. Buchheit also refers to Paulinus of Nola and Prudentius (cf. ibid., 26).
Syria-Palestine.58 For Lycaonia, this use of Isaiah is not attested. The phenom-
enon of ekphrasis is however used on the remarkable Jonah-monument from
Çukurkavak.59 Not only there and since the outgoing 1st century, through the
2nd to the 4th centuries, the core of the Jonah narrative, his deliverance from
drowning by the fish and that he was spat out alive after three days, was clearly
used to illustrate the burial and resurrection of Christ, and to confirm Christian
hope in resurrection of the body.60
3 Biblical Names
Biblical tradition is of course also detectable onomastically by the use of
names, which were originally Jewish.61 A Jewish name in Greek does not attest
that the name bearer was Christian. As mentioned above a Joseph lived in 3rd
century Gdanmaa and a tombstone of another Joseph was found in Zazadin
Han.62 There is no indication of Christianity and both persons might have been
Jewish without being Christian. It is important to note which Jewish names
occur on the monuments. Jewish names given to Christians are confined to
that of the patriarch Abraham, who is defined as a servant of God,63 to Moses
and then to names used in the New Testament. Names of other figures from
the Greek Bible (Old Testament) are rarely used, a Samuel of the 4th century
Vasada being the exception.64 A closer look at the names used more frequently
is needed.
58 The material is discussed by C. Breytenbach, “ ‘Metaphorical’ Redefinition of Church Space

through LXX Texts on Christian Monuments from Asia Minor,” in The Metaphorical Use
of Language in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature: Deuterocanonical and Cognate
Literature Yearbook 2013 (ed. M. Witte; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 471–486.
59 IKonya no. 212; for a description and discussion, cf. Breytenbach and Zimmermann,
Lycaonia, ch. 4.4.3.
60 Cf. e.g. Irenaeus, Haer. 5.5.2: “If, however, any one imagine it impossible that men should
survive for such a length of time, . . . let him consider that Jonah, when he had been cast
into the deep, and swallowed down into the whale’s belly, was by the command of God
again thrown out safe upon the land” (trans. ANF).
61 For decisions on which names are Jewish names, I have followed T. Ilan, The Western
Diaspora 330 BCE–650 CE, vol. 3 of Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity (TSAJ 126;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).
62 Cf. IJO ii nos. 225 and 228. On the transliteration of the name, frequent amongst Jews in
the western Diaspora, cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v.
64 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 28 no. 56. The name is frequently used amongst Jews in the
western Diaspora; cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v.
194 Breytenbach
Beyond Egypt, Jews did not use Abraham as a proper name,65 and during
the Roman rule the name Moses is rarely used by Jews beyond North Africa.66
When used by Christians, the transliteration of the name varies.67 An inscrip-
tion from Isaura nova, not earlier than the 3rd century, draws on the Jewish
notion that a thrice blessed Moses (Μωυσῆς) was a mediator,68 represent-
ing Israel before God and vice versa.69 A Christian deacon from Isauropolis
called Moses (Mωσῆς) is mentioned in a late inscription on a pillar now in the
Alaeddin Mosque in Konya,70 and in Savatra a father called Mouses (Mουσῆς)
put up a stele for his dear daughter Zoē.71
A Christian monument from Atlantı north of Kadınhanı (region of Laodicea
Combusta), mentions a commander of the spear carrying unit man named
Sambatius.72 Acquiescent he engraved on the tombstone that his son Konon
65 Cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v., Thessalonica, Rome and the Crimea being the rare excep-
tions, CIJ i nos. 693, 733e and D. Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe: Vol. 2, The City
of Rome (Cambridge: University Press, 1995), no. 562.
66 Cf. T. Derda, “Did the Jews Use the Name of Moses in Antiquity,” ZPE 115 (1997): 257–
260; id., “The Jews and the Name of Moses in Antiquity—A Reply,” ZPE 124 (1999): 210;
Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v. nos. 6–9, notes 4th cent. use of [Μ]ωσῖ in Corycus and on the
Bosporus (CIJ ii no. 973 and Noy, Western Europe, App. 6) and 5th cent. use of Μυσῆς,
Μωσέως or Μωσῖ in Athens, on Crete and in Cilicia (CIJ i nos. 713–714; CIJ ii no. 79). The
reading Μω[ϋσῆς] Moses on an inscription from Termessos (cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, 137
no. 13) is unlikely; cf. Ameling, IJO ii, p. 455 n. 27.
67 Μωϋσῆς for ‫מׁשה‬ ֶ , Mȏšeh, the derivation and meaning is uncertain. ‫מׁשה‬ ֶ has been trans-
literated in Greek as Μωϋσῆς, spoken as diphthong Μωυσῆς (cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 78
no. 171) or simply as Μωσῆς (cf. JHS 38 [1918], 151 no. 8); cf. BDAG, s.v. The Christian man-
uscripts of the Bible write Μωυσης and Μωσης (cf. BDR § 38,34). Christian inscriptions
from Asia Minor used both forms. The form Μουσῆς also occur in Christian inscriptions
(cf. MAMA i no. 361; Swoboda, Denkmäler, 85 no. 216 [85–86 no. 217 found in a church]
and MAMA xi no. 347). For the indigenous name Μουσ-, cf. L. Zgusta, Kleinasiatische
Personennamen (Prague: Tschechoslowakische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1964), s.v.
68 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 78 no. 171.
69 Cf. Exod 32:30–34; Philo, Mos. 2.166; Josephus, Ant. 3.315.
70 Cf. JHS 38 (1918): 151 no. 8.
71 Cf. MAMA xi no. 347. It is disputed whether this Μουσης is Jewish or indigenous (cf.
P. Thonemann on MAMA xi, nos. 347 and 349). In analogy to the writing of Ζόῃ—a fre-
quent name amongst Christians—one should read Μουσης as Μωυσης—unusual for the
indigenous Μουσ-group (cf. Zgusta, Personennamen, §§ 987a–988–7).
72 The names Σαμβάτιος, Σαμβαθαῖος, Σανβάτιος, Σαββάτιος, Σαββάταιος, Σαββαθαῖος etc.
(from σάββατον, ‫ ַׁש ָּבת‬, šabbāt) were often used for Jews (cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v., and
p. 52; IJO ii nos. 14, 18, 151) and also for Christians. In the region under discussion, cf. Αὐρ.
Σανβάθειος (from Zivarik [region of Laodicea Combusta], JHS 19 [1899]: 281 no. 166), Αὐρ.
Σαββατίς (from Cleanus [Turgut], MAMA vii no. 222), Σάνβατος (from Ankyra, cf. Bosch,
Quellen Ankara, 405 no. 356).
died “by the will of the greatest, above all distinguished (μέγιστος, πανυπέροχος)
God.”73 A Christian mother from Laodicea Combusta put up a memorial for
her beloved son who served in unit of the lanciarii iuniores. He had the Jewish
name Sanbatius.74
At Zazadin Han, perhaps as early as the late 2nd century, the father of two
women with the local names Papas and Tatis was called Cephas,75 the Aramaic
cognomen behind the name Peter.76 The Christian name Peter is attested
across the whole area. Perhaps from the late 2nd century onwards south of the
Çarşamba river in Isaura nova, Isauropolis and Elmassun,77 from the 3rd cen-
tury onwards at Karakaya, east of Iconium,78 during the same period very fre-
quent in Laodicea Combusta,79 and up north to Vetissus.80 Along the road to
the east the name is attested at Perta,81 in the 4th century in Sidemaria,82 and
in the 5th or 6th century in Barata and Hyde.83
After Thecla, Mary84 is the female name most used by Christians in the region.
Fourth century monuments from Obruk confirm it as name of the mother of
Christ, who is called Mary’s son.85 Being the name of the mother of Christ, it
was in use in the customary form of the New Testament manuscripts (Μαρία) as
a Christian female name since the 3rd century, as monuments from Isaura nova,86
from Iconium,87 Laodicea Combusta and territory,88 Gdanmaa and Zengen,89
Savatra and Perta90 show. These women were not Jewish as the indigenous and
73 Cf. MAMA i no. 306.

75 JHS 22 (1902): 365 no. 135: [Αὐρ. Π]ω̣ |λίων Κε|φᾶς πα|τρὶ καὶ ἀ||δελφῇ | Παπαδι | κὲ Τατι |
ἀνέστη|σα μνή||μ̣ ν(ης) χάρ|ιν.
76 BDAG, s.v.: “Κηφᾶς, ᾶ, ὁ (‫יפא‬ָ ‫‘ ֵּכ‬rock’) Cephas, . . . the Gk. form of the surname is Πέτρος.”
77 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 88 no. 235; KILyk i nos. 400, 402 and 20.
78 Cf. MAMA xi no. 303.
79 Cf. MAMA i nos. 186, 190, 312, 242; MAMA vii no. 69.
81 Cf. MAMA viii no. 271.
83 Cf. KILyk i no. 104; SEG 36 no. 1235.
84 Μαρία or Μαριάμ, from ‫מרים‬, Marîām (Aram.) or Mīryām (Hebr.). The derivation and
meaning is uncertain.
85 Cf. MAMA viii nos. 274, 275, 279.
86 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 84 no. 211. The monument could be later.
87 Cf. JHS 22 (1902): 349 no. 89, and 354 no. 99.
88 Cf. MAMA i nos. 188, 228, 268, 315.
89 Cf. MAMA vii no. 484; MAMA i nos. 375 and 377a.
90 Cf. SERP, 161 no. 13; MAMA xi no. 334.
196 Breytenbach
Greek names of their parents and siblings indicate.91 The exception Aurelia
Maria from a village near Laodicea, daughter of John, who named her son after
his grandfather, confirms the trend.92 When the Hebrew mêm is not dropped,
the Greeks needed to add an eta, thus Μαριάμη. This might be the form closer to
the Hebrew, but it is far less frequent.93 By the 4th century the name Μαρία was
normal, used for the wife of an augustalius or an ordinarius campiductores, both
in Laodicea Combusta,94 or for the daughter of a comes, a femina clarissiama in
Sidemaria.95 The spread of the name is rather north of Iconium than south of it.
This also applies to the Jewish name Susanna, in Attic declension Susanne.96
It was used by Christians north and northeast of Iconium from the 3rd to the
5th centuries.97 The use of the name Susanne amongst Christians, which unlike
John, Mary, Moses and Peter occurs only once in the New Testament (Luke 8:3),
is probably due to the novelistic additions to the book of Daniel in the Greek
translations of the Bible.
After Paul, John98 is the most widely used male name amongst Christians
in our area.99 From ancient Gdanmaa there is even a 4th century inscription
91 Cf. MAMA vii no. 484 (Aurelia Maria, mother of Aemiliane and Hoplon), MAMA i nos. 228
(sister of Leonticus and Trophimus), 375 (daughter of Alexander), 377a (mother of Prokle
and Antiochus).
93 For Μαριάμη, cf. MAMA vii no. 98 (Loadicea) and MAMA xi no. 334 (Mernek, west of
Obruk). For the genitive Μαριάμμις, cf. KILyk i no. 325 (Yenisu at the Çarşamba). The
transliteration varies; cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v. (Μαριαμός, no. 3; Μαριάμ, nos. 7–8;
Μαριάμη, nos. 9, 10, 42 und 45; Μαριέμη, no. 48).
94 Cf. MAMA i nos. 168 and 169.
95 Cf. KILyk i no. 142. The monument could also be later.
96 Σουσάννα/-η, for ‫ׁשֹוׁשּנָ ה‬
ַ , Šôšannā (“lilly”). The transliteration varies: Σουσάνα (MAMA
i no. 200), Σουσάννη (CIG no. 3998; MAMA xi no. 350), Σωσάννα (MAMA xi no. 351) and
Σωσάννη (ETAM 11 no. 94).
97 Cf. MAMA i no. 200 (Kınık); ETAM 11 no. 94 (Laodicea), and MAMA xi no. 350–351 (Savatra).
98 The LXX transcribes Ἰωαναν or Ἰωναν for ‫יֹוחנָ ן‬
ָ , Yôḥānān (“The Lord had been gracious”).
Normally the Hebrew ‫נָ ן‬- is Hellenized with -ης (cf. § 534; but see Luke 3:27) but it can
be dropped (for ’Ιωάνν or ’Ιωάννη, cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v. nos. 13, 19–21) and in the
manuscripts of the New Testament, the name is written ’Ιωάννης or ’Ιωάνης (cf. BDR § 402).
In Christian inscriptions from Lycaonia, the name is often abbreviated as nomen sacrum,
but both ’Ιωάννης (e.g., CIG no. 4001b; MAMA vii no. 574) and ’Ιωάνης (e.g., MAMA i no. 327;
MAMA vii no. 540) as well as ’Ειωάνης (MAMA i nos. 204 and 363; MAMA vii nos. 85, 104c and
551; MAMA xi no. 352) and (late) ’Ειωάννης (Sterrett, EJ, no. 89) occur. Apart from Lycaonia,
the name is also used by Christians in Pisidia in Seleukia Sidera (Sterrett, WE, no. 465), in
Phrygia in Synnada (MAMA iv no. 95), Dorylaion (MAMA v nos. 116 and 165), and in Isauria-
Cilicia (passim). The name can also be transliterated ’Ιοάνη, (cf. Ilan, Western Diaspora, s.v.
nos. 23–25, 28, 31; cf. nos. 30 and 32).
99 E.g., MAMA i nos. 186, 312, 365; MAMA vii nos. 102, 574, 593; KILyk i no. 143.
of a Jew called John, the brother in law of Sophronius, the unblemished

Levite.100 In the 5th or 6th century, the area 30 kilometres east of Karapınar
is marked as “boundaries of the holy John the Baptist.”101 A boundary stone of
church property at Kana marked the “boundaries of (the church of) the glo-
rious Saint John the Baptist.”102 But long before churches were named after
John the Baptist, the name John became also popular amongst Christians. It
is again monuments from the area north of Iconium, especially from the site
of ancient Laodicea Combusta and surroundings,103 but also from Gdanmaa104
and Congussus,105 which document the use of the name from the 3rd to the
5th centuries. In Iconium itself the name is attested as from the 3rd century
onwards,106 east of the Boz Dağ in Savatra, Kana, Comitanassus and Sidemaria
from the 4th to the 6th centuries.107 As in the case of Peter and Mary, the area
around Lystra and south of the Çarşamba show little evidence apart from John,
a domesticus in Laranda,108 and not before the 4th century. Nevertheless, the
use of the name John does not mean that the families were Jewish. The par-
ents, siblings and children of those who were called John, carried Greek, Latin
or indigenous names, making it impossible to decide if they were Jewish or
not.109 Nevertheless, amongst Christians in Lycaonia the tradition of using
Biblical names was cherished.
Bishop Thomas of Derbe110 had a Jewish name,111 which is not attested epi-
graphically in Lycaonia, but frequently in Isauria and Cilicia112 and from the
100 Cf. IJO ii no. 224.

101 J RS 2 (1912) no. 264: [+] δύναμις | θ(εο)ῦ καὶ χῖρ | βασιλέως· | ὅροι τοῦ ἀγί||ου Ἰωάννου | τοῦ
Βαπτισ|τοῦ, ἀμήν.
102 Trans. MAMA xi no. 357.
103 Cf. MAMA i nos. 186, 188, 195, 365 and 327; JHS 19 (1899), 291–292 no. 200 (all with the
Aurelius family name mentioned in the text).
104 Cf. MAMA i no. 363; MAMA vii nos. 551 and 574 (all with the Aurelius family name men-
tioned in the text).
105 Cf. MAMA vii no. 104c; MAMA i no. 204; W. M. Ramsay, Luke the Physician and Other Studies
in the History of Religion (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908), 366; MAMA v no. 4.
106 Cf. CIG no. 4001b; IKonya no. 199; ETAM 11 no. 58.
107 Cf. MAMA xi no. 352 (Savatra); MAMA viii no. 224 (Kana), AEMÖ 19 (1896), 33 no. 15
(Comitanassus), KILyk i no. 143 (Sidemaria).
109 Cf. e.g. MAMA i nos. 363 (children Timothy and Eugenius), 327 (parents Aurelius Alexander
and Eugenis), IKonya no. 181 (brothers Aurelius Paulus and Gaius).
110 Cf. S. Destephen, Prosopographie du Diocese d’Asie (325–641), vol. 3. of Prosopographie
chrétienne du Bas-Empire (Paris: Association des amis du Centre d’histoire et civilisation
de Byzance, 2008), 924.
111 Θωμᾶς for (Aram.) ‫אֹומא‬ ָ ‫ ְּת‬, T’ômā’ (“twin”), coincides with the Greek name Θωμᾶς. Cf.
BDAG, s.v.
112 Cf. MAMA iii nos. 129a, 137a–145, 150, 151, 175, 187, 420–424 and 704.
198 Breytenbach
6th century on in Phrygia.113 The name of the archangel Michael,114 which a

later bishop of Derbe carried,115 is also attested for two individuals in the region
of Iconium116 and in the 5th or 6th century amongst the ruins of a church
in Madenşehir, probably referring to the archangel.117 In adjacent Phrygia118
and Galatia119 the name is attested frequently. Apart from being a name for
lay Christians120 and bishops in Phrygia,121 the archangel Michael played an
important role,122 several Byzantine churches dedicated to him.123
The use of Jewish-Christian names fits into the pattern of the rise of early
Christianity. John, Maria, Thomas and the Christian name Peter (ter) are names
of the followers of Jesus. Although there are the odd reference to Susanne
(Luke 8:3), to Michael the archangel (Jude 9; Rev 12:7) and many to Moses in
the New Testament, there are other factors for the use of these names. In the
light of the role of Moses in Jewish-Christian tradition, the use of his name
under Christians needs no further explanation. The name Susanna/-e probably
became popular through the novelettes added to the Greek translation, a genre
which also became popular with the authors of the Acts of Paul and Thecla.
The occasional use of Michael, like Thomas, for a bishop from Derbe and later
for others, is probably due to the popularity of the names Michael and Thomas
in the areas adjacent to traditional Lycaonia.
The general impression is that the use of traditional Biblical names is more
frequent north of Iconium along the king’s road, be it to Cappadocia or to
Cilicia. At Laodicea Combusta the Jewish term ἀρχιερεύς (“highpriest”) was
113 Cf. MAMA vi nos. 36 (Akroinos), 135 (Tatarlı, c.35 km northeast of Dinar).
114 Μιχαήλ for ‫יכ ֵאל‬ָ ‫ ִמ‬, Mikā’ēl (“who is like God?”), archangel; cf. Dan 12:1; 10:13, 21; Rev 12:7;
Jude 9. Cf. the 5th cent. depiction of Michael from Iconium in IKonya no. 200.
116 Cf. MAMA viii no. 324 (Zazadin Han, 6th cent.). Perhaps also JHS 22 (1902), 341 no. 62: ΙΙ
— — — | Μι[χαὴ]λ | λα[τύπο]ς | ἀν[έστ]η̣ σα || τῇ γλυκυτά|τῃ μου συμ|βίῳ Αὐρ. Δό|μνῃ
μνή|μης χάριν. (Barata, after the 7th cent.).
118 On the role of the archangel Michael at Chonai near ancient Colossae, cf. U. Huttner,
Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley (AJEC 85/ECAM 1; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 372–382.
119 Cf. S. Mitchell and D. H. French, From Augustus to the End of the Third Century AD, vol. 1 of
The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of Ankara (Ancyra) (Vestigia 62; Munich: Beck, 2012).
120 Cf. MAMA x no. 350; Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 541 no. 404.
121 Cf. MAMA iv nos. 312 and 323.
122 Cf. also MAMA iv no. 307; Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 741–742 no. 678.
123 Cf. MAMA ix nos. 552 and 557; RECAM 2 nos. 207–208.
taken over by Christians.124 In comparison, the cities of the Beyşehir valley,

on the southern rim of the Çarşamba basin, on the hills between Isauropolis
and Laranda give far less proof of the influence of Jewish-Christian tradition
on name giving in Christian families. The concentration of names in Isaura
nova and the few other attestations125 should remind one that the Acts of the
Apostles explicitly mentions the presence of Jews in the region between Derbe
and Lystra and that Timothy’s mother was a Jewess.126 In Vasada the name
Samuel, the office of a reader and the phrase “the living God” resound Jewish-
Christian influence.127
IV Summary and Conclusion
It is notable that two Christian lanciarii from Laodicea Combusta had the
Jewish name Sam(n)batius. The other names Christians gave their children
are Biblical and have been mediated via Christian tradition, for example Mary
the name of Jesus’ mother and John as one of the leading figures from the
original circle of the twelve. The name John has an underlying god-trusting
meaning (John → Ἰωαναν/Ἰωναν → Yôḥānān, “The Lord had been gracious”).
Inscriptions document the reliance on God’s mercy128 and the call for his help.129
The certitude that his protection goes beyond the death of the individual is
founded upon the conviction that God is alive,130 imperishable,131 the ruler
over everything,132 the greatest God,133 and the final judge.134 In the language
124 Cf. MAMA i no. 208. Perhaps as early as the 3rd cent. The Christian use of ἀρχιερεύς is ear-
lier; cf. 1 Clem. 40:5; Did. 13:3.
125 Maria and Moses in Isaura nova, John in Laranda, Michael and Thomas, bishops in Derbe.
The cognomen Πέτρος, which is a translation of kêpā’, not a transliteration, was used
twice in both Isaura nova and Isauropolis (nearby Elmassun included).
126 Cf. Acts 16:1–3.
127 Cf. Swoboda, Denkmäler, 27 no. 54; 28 no. 56; Sterrett, WE, 173–174 no. 283.
128 Cf. MAMA vii no. 491; ETAM 11 no. 173; KILyk i no. 158; IK Arykanda no. 310.
129 Cf. MAMA vii no. 567; ETAM 11 nos. 21 and 175; IKonya no. 206; KILyk i nos. 143, 287; ETAM
11 no. 21.
130 Cf. MAMA vii no. 587 and Swoboda, Denkmäler, 27 no. 54.
131 Cf. MAMA i no. 235.
132 Cf. IKonya no. 179; MAMA i no. 170; MAMA xi no. 356.
133 Cf. MAMA i no. 306; JHS 22 (1902): 361–362 no. 125; MAMA viii no. 320.
134 Cf. E. Schwertheim, “Anhang: Die Inschriften,” in Die kaiserzeitlichen Sarkophage in Konya
und Umgebung (ed. R. Özgan; Asia Minor Studien 46; Bonn: Habelt, 2003), 85–92 nos. 4 and
7; IKonya nos. 68 and 219; Epigr. Anat. 36 (2003), 94; MAMA vii nos. 66, 93; MAMA xi no. 271;
200 Breytenbach
of the Psalms it is expressed that he grants protection,135 even against vilifica-

tion by enemies,136 and that his Spirit empowers the water at baptism.137 The
pattern of devotion is not monotheistic, rather monolatrous. Some monu-
ments document Christian binary theology, the devotion to Christ being added
to traditional trust in God.
Biblical tradition in Christian inscriptions reflects the trust individuals,
families and church communities put in God. Even if there is little evidence on
Judaism in Lycaonia during the later Roman Empire and no evidence on Jewish
Christian relations from that area after the Acts of the Apostles, it is clear that
on its way to Trinitarian theology Christianity in northern Lycaonia integrated
basic Jewish(-Christian) beliefs and traditions mediated by the Greek Bible.138
L. Jonnes, Philomelion, Thymbrion/Hadrianopolis, Tyraion (Die Inschriften griechischer

Städte aus Kleinasien 62; Bonn: Habelt, 1972), nos. 50 and 95.
135 Cf. MAMA viii no. 256 (PsLXX 120:5).
136 Cf. W. Blümel and R. Merkelbach, eds., Die Inschriften von Priene (Die Inschriften
griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien 69; Bonn: Habelt, 2014), no. 109 (PsLXX 34:1 and 108:1–2).
137 Cf. S. Mitchell/M. Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch: The Site and Its Monuments (London:
Duckworth, 1998), 215 pl. 143; MAMA iv no. 41 (PsLXX 28:3).
138 For untypical ascetic tendencies, cf. Breytenbach and Zimmermann, Lycaonia, ch. 5.5.
Part IV
Community and Continuity
∵
The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after
117 CE in Light of Old and New Papyri
Tal Ilan
This paper is a programmatic vision of some of the anticipated results of a

new Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum1 (henceforth CPJ), which Noah Hacham
of the Department of Jewish History at the Hebrew University and myself are
editing. A CPJ IV is a scholarly desideratum since, aside from the 520 entries in
the present CPJ, at least an additional 150 documentary papyri have been pub-
lished since 1964 (the year of publication of the last volume of CPJ) that touch
on Jewish issues. Fifty years after, it is high time to continue the good work of
our predecessors and break the canon-like status of CPJ, indicating to schol-
ars of Jewish history and culture that the CPJ collection now represents only
part of what papyri can tell us about the Jews of Egypt. In this paper I would
like to present our vision of how the new volume (or should we say “volumes”),
will look like and what it will tell us especially about the Jewish community
that emerged in Egypt after the catastrophe of 117 CE.
I attempt here to answer three questions: [1] How Jewish CPJ is. [2] How
useful are papyri in speaking about the Jewish community that was founded
in Egypt after (if I may borrow a term from another time and another place)
the holocaust of 115–7 CE. [3] What additional light on the Jewish communal
organization in Egypt do the new papyri throw? The first two questions help
answer the third one.
I How Jewish is CPJ?
In their Introduction, the editors of CPJ described their project as “the first
attempt to collect all published papyri and ostraka from Egypt that concern
Jews and Judaism.”2 Yet further down in the same Introduction they them-
selves admitted that this was not so, for they write: “No literary papyri (e.g. bib-
lical texts) have been included in C.P.Jud., and only the last section gives some
semi-literary papyri (such as magical texts) whose importance for the Jewish
1 V. Tcherikover, A. Fuchs and M. Stern, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (3 vols.; Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, 1957–1964).
2 C PJ I, xvii.

204 Ilan
influence on religious life in Egypt is considerable.”3 Tcherikover had obviously

planned to do this because in his Prolegomena to the entire work he wrote that
“this curious literature of religious spells and exorcisms . . . is strongly imbued
with Jewish elements which are closely mingled with elements of the pagan and
Christian religions. In section XV an attempt has been made to select from the
large number of magic papyri those revealing the closest affinity with Jewish
beliefs and ideas.”4 This description is incorrect, for even though this may have
been the original intention of the editor-in-chief of CPJ—Victor Tcherikover—
the last volume of CPJ was published after his death and this promise has not
been fulfilled. CPJ III includes only two literary papyrus—no. 519, designated
“A fragment of a discourse on athletics and theatrical performances”, and 520
designated “A fragment of Greco-Roman prophecy bearing on Jews.” Notably,
these are anti-Jewish document composed by non-Jews. In the first document
a “Jewish burden” is mentioned followed by laughter.5 The second document
voices the opinion, nay hope that some unspecified force will “go against the
Jews . . . your city become desolate . . . cast out from Egypt by the anger of Isis.”6
In fact, including these anti-Jewish literary documents in an otherwise
non-literary corpus is typical of the editors’ approach to literary papyri, since
despite their protestations, they did include one unique literary genre in their
collection—the genre that came to be known as the “Acts of Alexandrian
Martyrs.” These “martyrs” were, in the words of the editors: “sentenced to death
by Roman emperors and executed by Roman hangmen as representatives of
Alexandria, and their tragic death was the result of their intrepid defense
of the rights of Alexandrian Greeks before the Caesars.”7 So, what has this lit-
erature got to do with a corpus of Jewish papyri? The answer the editors give is
that “the authors of these fragments were, of course, anti-Semites,”8 and thus
wrote many falsehoods about Alexandrian Jews, making them the “bad guys”
and collaborators with the authorities in their struggle with Rome. Evidently,
the editors were very interested in what anti-Semites had to say about Jews.
I have accentuated this aspect of the collection because it helps answer the
question I asked at the beginning of this section—how Jewish is CPJ? It is,
3 C PJ I, p. xx.
4 C PJ I, 110.
5 C PJ III, 116–7, identifies this burden as some object identified as Jewish, but for its iden-
tification as circumcision see A. Kerkeslager, “Maintaining Jewish Identity in the Greek
Gymnasium: A ‘Jewish Load’ in CPJ 3.519 (=P. Schub. 37 = P. Berol. 13406),” JSJ 28 (1997): 12–33.
6 C PJ III, 120–1.
7 C PJ II, 55.
8 C PJ II, 56.
The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 CE 205
however, important to emphasize that while anti-Semitism is a great problem

for Jews, the study of anti-Semites is not the study of Jews. What anti-Semites
write and think is not what Jews write and think. A corpus of anti-Semitic
writings is not a Jewish corpus.9
Of course, the anti-Semitic texts at the end of CPJ III and the Acts of the
Alexandrian martyrs are not the only documents that comprise CPJ. They are,
in fact, a very small part of it. The question raised by their inclusion is actually,
how Jewish are the other documents collected in this corpus? Let us put this
to the test. Are lists of farmers in the Fayum in the Ptolemaic period, some
of them bearing biblical names, some of them actually designated Ioudaioi,10
Jewish document? Not really. Hundreds of ostraca that record the payment of
the Jewish tax in Edfu between 70 CE, when it was imposed by Vespasian, and
116, the outbreak of the Jewish revolt,11 are immensely important for the docu-
mentation and understanding of Jewish history, but they too are not Jewish
documents. Even a document that mentions the depositing of stolen property
in a synagogue (or rather proseuche, as the institution was called in Egypt of
the Ptolemaic and early Roman periods) in 218 BCE in the Fayum,12 or a docu-
ment tracing the territory of a city and noting the presence of a proseuche by
its canal from the 2nd C BCE,13 or payment for water by a proseuche in the
year 113,14 both from Arsinoe, are not Jewish documents.
Some (though not many) documents in CPJ are written by Jews: The Zenon
archive includes two letters written by Jews to this royal administrator.15 We
know they are Jews because they are called Somoelis and Ismaelos. They do
not declare their Jewishness and they do not write to him about Jewish issues.
Some documents record contracts signed by two Jews.16 These, however, show
no Jewish characteristics and one of them (CPJ 20) is one in a number of con-
tracts listed on the same papyrus, the others all being signed between non-
Jews. Obviously, all these documents were drawn up in non-Jewish courts of
9 See for example the publications of the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin:
http://www.tu-berlin.de/fakultaet_i/zentrum_fuer_antisemitismusforschung/menue/
publikationen/ publikationsreihen_des_zfa/#502959.
10 See CPJ I no. 28 (pp. 171–3), no. 29 (pp. 173–5), no. 30 (pp. 175–6).
11 CPJ II, nos. 160–374 (pp. 119–67).
12 CPJ I, no. 129 (pp. 239–41).
13 CPJ I, no. 134 (pp. 247–9).
14 CPJ II, no. 432 (pp. 220–4).
15 CPJ I, no. 12 (pp. 138–40) and no. 13 (pp. 140–1).
16 CPJ I, no. 18 (pp. 148–51), no. 19 (pp. 151–6), no. 20 (pp. 156–7), no. 23 (pp. 162–4), no. 24
(pp. 164–7).
206 Ilan
law. Even lawsuits between two Jews17 were drawn up in non-Jewish law courts.
Or in Tcherikover’s words: “The documents dealing with Jews are drawn up in
the usual manner of Hellenistic documents . . . When the document is drawn
up in an office, it is not the office of a Jewish community . . . When Jews have
legal disputes to settle they bring their claims before the government authori-
ties . . . The laws and regulations forming the legal basis for the business life of
the Jews are the common laws of the Greek in Egypt.”18 Thus Tcherikover con-
cludes: “From all these items it appears that Jews made great use of Hellenistic
law. . . If the contract, the office and the court were Greek, so were the laws and
regulations, and thus we are faced with the likelihood that Egyptian Jews lived
not according to the precepts of the Bible but according to the principles of
Hellenistic common law.”19
Only very few documents, like CPJ no. 10 from the third century BCE, in which
a person who delivers bricks declares the Sabbath as a reason for not supplying
them,20 or CPJ no. 452a from the second century CE, an account written by a
certain Ismaelos and specifically mentioning Sukkot,21 can be considered as
contributing something to the questions of Jewish life and communal identity
in Hellenistic-Roman Egypt, and they are few and far between in this corpus.
Thus, it seems to me that the answer to the question, how Jewish is CPJ has
to be answered with the words “not very Jewish.” I think, however, that the
main reason for this is the other large group of papyri that was not included in
CPJ, namely those in Hebrew and Aramaic. The reason for the decision not to
include these papyri in CPJ is primarily technical, namely that Tchrikover and
his colleagues, Alexander Fuchs and Menahem Stern, saw themselves as clas-
sicists, and may not have felt comfortable dealing with Hebrew and Aramaic.
This is indicated particularly with regard to CPJ no. 503. This document, dis-
covered in Oxyrhnchus, was probably written in Greek. In any case, only the
signatures on it have survived, the first signature being in Greek while the oth-
ers are in Hebrew.22 CPJ published only the Greek signature.23
There may have been, however, other reasons why the editors chose to
ignore the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri. Thus, in the Prolegomenon to the
17 CPJ I, no. 133 (pp. 246–7) and II, no.144—a divorce suit (pp. 10–2).
18 CPJ I, 33.
19 Ibid.
20 CPJ I, 136–7.
21 CPJ III, 5–6.
22 See A. E. Cowley, “Notes on Hebrew Papyrus Fragments from Oxyrhynchus,” Journal of
Egyptian Archaeology 2 (1915): 212.
23 CPJ III, 90.
Ptolemaic period Tcherikover wrote: “Another important item in the process

of Hellenization was the substitution of Greek for the mother tongue . . . Since
Aramaic was not the national language of the Jews, nor the language of the Holy
Scriptures, its replacement by Greek did not affect the national foundations of
Jewish life, though it certainly changed its external aspect, and diminished the
differences between the Jewish and Greek modes of life.”24 Tcherikover knew
of course of the existence of Aramaic documents in Egypt from the third and
second centuries BCE for he wrote: “During the entire third century, and per-
haps the first half of the second, Egyptian Jews continued to speak Aramaic,
as is shown by papyri and ostraca in that language. And then, for many centu-
ries, no Aramaic documents were found.”25 The documents Tcherikover speaks
about here were later published in the corpus of Aramaic documents from
Egypt edited by Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni.26 One usually (and mistak-
enly) takes for granted that all the documents they published were written in
the Persian period. Yet a cursory perusal of the corpus they produced reveals
at least 20 documents that are indeed dated to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE.27
This is not a negligible collection and cannot be off-handedly ignored.
Tcherikover was no less aware of the Hebrew and Aramaic documents which
are usually dated to the late Roman and Byzantine period, for he wrote about
them: “In 1905 some scraps of Hebrew-written papyri were found by Grenfell
and Hunt in Oxyrhynchos, and Cowley, who edited them, dates them about
AD 400.”28 However, Tcherikover complains that “the contents of the Hebrew
24 CPJ I, 30–1.

25 CPJ I, 30.
26 B. Porten and A. Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt (4 vols.;
Jerusalem: CTS, 1986–1999). (Henceforth TADAG).
27 TADAG (1) III, no. C 3.28 (pp. 258–67); (2) no. C 3.29 (pp. 268–9); (3) IV, no. D 1.17 (pp. 36–7);
(4) no. D 7.55 (p. 190); (5) no. D 7.56 (p. 191); (6) no. D 7.57 (p. 192); (7) no. D 8.3 (p. 196);
(8) no. D 8.4 (pp. 197–8); (9) no. D 8.5 (p. 198); (10) no. D 8.6 (p. 199); (11) no. D 8.7 (p. 200);
(12) no. D 8.8 (p. 201); (13) no. D 8.9 (pp. 202–3); (14) no. D 8.10 (p. 203); (15) no. D 8.11
(p. 204); (16) no. D 8.12 (p. 205); (17) no. D 8.13 (p. 205); (18) no. D9.15 (p. 211); (19) no. D 11.26
(p. 223). See also (20): B. Porten and A. Yardeni, “Two Aramaic Salt-tax Receipts by the
Scribe Joseph,” Enchoria 29 (2004/5): 55–9 a bilingual Aramaic-Demotic ostracon. For the
demotic text see G. Mattha, Demotic Ostraca from the Collections at Oxford, Paris, Berlin,
Vienna and Cairo (Le Caire: Impremerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale,
1945): 131–2. I am grateful to Zsuzsanna Szántó of Budapest, who is also working with us
on the new CPJ for drawing my attention to this text. What we see here is how slowly the
old administrative languages died out, and how slowly Greek replaced them. This is not
the only Demotic document that is of interest to us in this corpus and we will also be col-
lecting these in the new CPJ (with the assistance of Zsuzsanna Szántó).
28 CPJ I, 101.
208 Ilan
papyri are not rich enough to give us a clear picture of the inner structure of
the Jewish community in Egypt during this period,”29 as though the Greek
papyri of the previous periods do give us answers to such questions.
It thus seems to me, that the immanent reason why Tcherikover and his
colleagues decided to ignore the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri of the beginning
of the period and of its end, was because these papyri may draw the readers’
attention away from the historical picture the editors wished to present (and
on which I and my generation grew up and were educated). The picture is one
of a thoroughly assimilated Jewish community, who has ceased to speak the
Hebrew of its ancestors. “The Jews of Alexandria” writes Tcherikover, “naturally
came under the influence of Greek life and thought. As early as the third cen-
tury BC we hear of a Jew who abandoned the Jewish community, renounced
the Jewish faith and pursued a successful career at the court of the Ptolemies.”30
Tcherikover is obviously referring here to Dositheos son of Drimylos, mentioned
both in 3rd Maccabees and in old papyri collected in CPJ, and in new papyri
we will adding to our new collection.31 Tcherikover continues: “The Septuagint
laid the foundation for the structure of Hellenistic literature written by Jews,
and especially Alexandrian Jews . . . Greek literature and philosophy were no
doubt carefully studied by Alexandrian Jews . . .”32 Tcherikover goes on to state
that “Doubtless many Jews were anxious to give their sons Greek education
so that they might obtain civic rights . . . The acquisition of civic rights was the
expression of the Jewish tendency towards emancipation (to use a nineteenth-
century term).”33 Tcherikover himself is hinting in this sentence to the source
of inspiration for his reconstruction of the lives of the Jews in Egypt.
Yet the Jews, so Tcherikover continues, had a double loyalty: “Writers like
Aristeas had no sympathy with the Hasmoneans; it is even likely that he had in
mind this type of Palestinian Jew when speaking about the ‘harsh and barbar-
ian traits’ of Jewish character. Yet, almost at the same time as the publication
of Aristeas’ pamphlet, preaching an entente cordiale between Greeks and Jews,
another Jewish writer of the dispersion, Jason of Cyrene, wrote a history in
29 CPJ I, 102.

30 CPJ I, 37.
31 CPJ I, nos. 127a–e (pp. 230–7); W. H. M. Liesker and A. M. Tromp, “Zwei ptolemäische
Papyri aus der Wiener Papyrussammlung,” ZPE 66 (1986): 82–9; S. Daris, L. Criscuolo and
C. Salvaterra, “Papiri inediti della Collezione dell’Università Cattolica di Milano,” Aegyptus
70 (1990): 8–11. Also in Demotic: E. Révillout, “La suite d’un dossier,” Revue Égyptologique
4 (1885): 152–6.
32 CPJ I, 37.
33 CPJ I, 40–1.
five books on the national movement in Palestine, warmly praising its leader
Judas Maccabaeus and depicting the Greeks and their Jewish followers as cruel
tyrants and wicked traitors.”34
This double loyalty was seen as a major problem by non-Jews. Anti-
Semitism, was, in Tcherikover’s mind, just around the corner: “This hatred for
Greeks . . . clashed with corresponding hatred of Greeks for Jews, and this con-
flict drew its vigor from the rapidly deteriorating political conditions of the
Ptolemaic state and from the fervent patriotism of the Alexandrians.”35 Things
went from bad to worse under Roman rule. When describing the events of
38 CE Tchrikover writes: “All Jews were shut up in one quarter to prevent any
contagion to Greeks from this barbarous people; when Jews were forced by
scarcity of food to leave their quarter and to appear in the marketplace, they
were pursued and slaughtered. . . Members of the Jewish gerousia were flogged
with whips in the theatre before all the world . . . thus Jewish autonomy was
wholly abolished and with unremitting severity the Jews were driven out of
the Greek city and shut away in a ghetto. Such was the first pogrom in Jewish
history.”36 Note the use of terminology—ghetto, pogrom.
Tcherikover continues in this vein: “Modern scholars have proclaimed
Claudius (the emperor who ruled after this pogrom and attempted to lower
the flames of the conflict T. I.37) a philo-Semite. I cannot share this view . . .”38
He assumes that the anti-Semitic stance of the Alexandrians was gradually
adopted by the mildest of Roman rulers and was further mitigated by the
fall of Jerusalem under Vespasian, and the imposition of the Jewish tax. This
action brought the Roman emperors into an alliance with the anti-Semites
of Alexandria. The Jewish Revolt was just a matter of time. “It was the irony
of fate,” continues Tcherikover, “that Egyptian Jewry, so anxious, for so many
centuries to be on good terms with its heathen neighbors, should take a lead-
ing position in this movement of extreme national significance. Yet it is not
mere chance . . . certain gradual changes in external political and social condi-
tions . . .” brought this about. And “the results” continues Tcherikover “could
easily be foreseen: they amounted to the total extermination of the Egyptian
Jews . . . We are fairly safe in assuming that in many places the Jewish popula-
tion was totally annihilated.”39
34 CPJ I, 47.

35 Ibid.
36 CPJ I, 66.
37 On the papyrological evidence for Claudius’ attempts, see CPJ II, no. 153 (pp. 36–55).
38 CPJ I, 73.
39 CPJ I, 92–3.
210 Ilan
This, I think is the story Tcherikover and his colleagues wanted to tell us.
The terminology and its association with the Holocaust of World War II can-
not be coincidental: the hope for integration and emancipation; the dangers
of assimilation and lose of national identity; the ravages of anti-Semitism; the
rise of “Zionism”; the Jews accused always of double loyalty; pogroms; ghettos;
total annihilation; the irony and the pity of it all. This is where in the 1950s,
when Tcherikover and his colleagues wrote their commentary on this corpus,
they thought the story should end. Thus, they were really not very interested
in telling us the rest of the story. For them there was no possibility for a Jewish
revival on Egyptian soil. Which leads us to my next question:
II How Useful is CPJ for the Study of Jews in Egypt after 117 CE?
Tcherikover and his co-editors used the papyri of the third volume mainly as
negative evidence. In the prolegomena Tcherikover wrote: “In section XII the
reader will find various papyrological documents covering the period between
AD 117 and AD 337. The general impression is that of a complete breakdown of
Jewish life in Egypt, at any rate at the beginning of this period.”40 If this last
clause may be understood as arguing that things changed after 337, this qualifi-
cation is disregarded later on. In the introduction to Section XIV of the Corpus
the editors write: “This section contains various documents of the Byzantine
period from AD 337 to the sixth or seventh century . . . The small number of
documents in this section, extending over about 300 years, may serve as a good
indication of the gradually declining importance of the Egyptian Jewry in the
Byzantine period.”41 Some of the evidence the editors bring to support this
contention, directly rely on papyrological finds, and is decisive: “In Karanis,”
Tcherikover writes, “a village in the Fayum numbering in the middle of the sec-
ond century AD over 1,000 adult males, only one Jew is recorded.”42 Tcherikover
is here referring to CPJ no. 460,43 which is a list of taxes paid in Karanis in
145 CE, and in which only one person pays the Jewish tax. The importance of
this document for the assessment of how long the Jewish tax continued to be
levied cannot be overestimated.44 However, this is not the topic of this paper.
40 CPJ I, 94.

41 CPJ III, 88.
42 CPJ I, 94.
43 CPJ III, 17–8.
44 More on this with reference to papyri published after CPJ, see C. Salvaterra,
“L’amministrazione fiscale in una società multietnica,” in Politics, Administration and
Society in the Hellenistic and Roman World (ed. L. Mooren; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 287–348.
I return to Tcherikover, who further states: “Twice during the second century
‘Jewish quarters’ are mentioned in the papyri; once in Oxyrhynchus (CPJ 454)
and once in Hermoupolis (CPJ 468); in both cases the owners of the property
in these quarters are non-Jews and it is possible that the property of the Jews in
the metropoleis had been confiscated by the government and handed over to
natives.”45
But it is not only the absence that Tcherikover wished to emphasize in this
last part of his study. He also wished to bewail the loss of Hellenistic Judaism:
“The striving of the Egyptian Jews toward Hellenism” he wrote, “had van-
ished. Philo was the last Jewish author in Alexandrian literature; some occa-
sional attempts to compose in Greek made by the Alexandrian Jews of the
late Roman period are too insignificant both in style and content to be worth
comment.”46 And indeed he makes no further comment, but the reader, who is
left wondering, what is this insignificant contribution, may find in the footnote
to this comment a reference to the fourth and fifth Sibylline oracles. I do not
doubt Tcherikover’s judgment of the Greek style and content of these compo-
sitions, but relegating them to a footnote does not completely erase them from
the historical record. Even though most scholars date them to before 117 CE,47
the suggestion made here, that they may be later should have been more widely
elucidated. Especially since they are mentioned in a discussion of Jewish life
in Egypt after 117, where—according to Tcherikover himself—every scrap of
information helps, and where the character of this new community is at stake.
When reconstructing Jewish life in Egypt after 117, Tcherikover is forced
to make use first and foremost of the writings of the Church fathers. Again,
anti-Semitism is the focus of Tcherikover’s observations, for he writes: “Many
of the earlier anti-Semitic arguments were remodeled by the Christians . . .”48
This emphasis results in Tcherikover’s description concentrating on disputes,
clashes and finally persecutions of Jews, rather than on their social and reli-
gious organization. In 335, he tells us, the Jews plundered churches, according
to an account of the Athenaios Bishop of Alexandria (Epist. Encycl. 3) and were
duly punished.49 In 415, so Socrates’ Church History (7:13–14), the Jews attacked
churches and were therefore expelled by Kyrillos the Bishop of Alexandria
45 CPJ I, 94.

46 CPJ I, 109.
47 For a definitive study of this issue, see J. J. Collins, “The Development of the Sibylline
Tradition,” in ANRW II/20.1 (ed. W. Haase; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987), 421–59. On the dating
of these oracles see pp. 427–9; 436–8.
48 CPJ I, 96.
49 CPJ I, 97–8.
212 Ilan
from the city.50 Jewish collaboration with Persian rule in the beginning of the
7th century is also described by church fathers (Eutychios, alias Ibn Batrik,
Annals 2.245–7).51 The use of church fathers’ writings, with their strong anti-
Jewish bias, as a major source of information on Jewish history is of course
new in this book, because for the period before 117 Tcherikover had based his
historical reconstruction, aside from the Greek papyri collected in CPJ, also
on the rich Hellenistic Jewish literature of Philo, Aristeas, Third Maccabees,
Josephus and a great many others, whose work has survived in fragments.
Tcherikover and others rightly identify these writings as internal evidence of
the Jews themselves, as opposed to the writings of the church fathers, which
are not. This indeed results in a description of a viable, prolific, active Jewish
community in the last two centuries BCE and the early years of the first cen-
tury CE. It should however be pointed out that the only reason that Hellenistic-
Jewish literature has survived for historians is because it was preserved by
the Christian church. This is especially true for the fragments of Hellenistic-
Jewish writers whose work was copied and preserved in Eusebius’ Preperatio
Evangelica.
The use of that literature to reconstruct Jewish life in Hellenistic Egypt is
to use the same libraries that also preserved the harsh description of antag-
onism between Jews and Christians in post-117 Egypt—Christian libraries.
For the description of this period, which forms the Jewish background of
Christianity, the Christian church relied heavily on Jewish literature. However,
once Christianity was born, and rejected by Jews, their literature was no lon-
ger of interest to the church, and thus not preserved. They adopted Josephus,
with his deep interest in Jewish-Egyptian history, because his outlook, espe-
cially in his Jewish War closely coincided with Christian theology and point-
edly described the destruction of the Temple as punishment for the sins of the
Jews, but beyond that time in history, what the Jews did or wrote interested
them not, aside from possible points of conflict with the church. Thus, not-
withstanding the fact that Tcherikover is interested in portraying the period
after 117 CE as dull in creative literary production and descriptions of Jewish
life, he admits that even previously, “the political history of the Egyptian Jews
from AD 70 till AD 115 is almost a blank.”52 Thus, the break in Jewish life in Egypt
should of course be physically dated to 117 CE, but from a literary perspective it
happened earlier, and does not necessarily reflect a decline in Jewish c reativity,
50 CPJ I, 98–9.

51 CPJ I, 100.
52 CPJ I, 85.
but is rather intimately connected with the Christian interest or disinterest in

Judaism, and certainly not with the existence or absence of Jewish papyri.
Let us note, however, that, once we reach p. 101 in the Prolegomena, where
Tchrikover attempts to reconstruct the post-117 Jewish community, itself, sud-
denly a new phenomenon becomes evident to the reader. Hebrew abounds
on pp. 101 and 102. This is because a major source for the reconstruction of
the Jewish community itself, less hostile and more reliable than the writing
of the Church fathers, turns out to be those insignificant Hebrew papyri that
Cowley had published in 1915.53 These papyri, unlike the vast majority of the
papyri in CPJ, were written by Jews for Jews rather than by non-Jews about
Jews. They indicate the use of Hebrew and Aramaic as languages of correspon-
dence in this post-117 era, they indicate the extent of Greek loan words54 as well
as the extent of the loyalty of the Jews who composed them to their Judaism.55
Tcherikover of course could and does use the documents collected in CPJ to
reconstruct the Jewish community of the time. Thus, concerning CPJ no. 473,56
a manumission document in which the Jewish community of Oxyrhynchus
redeems Jewish slaves, he writes: “here the Jewish community appears as a
legal body authorized to act as a contracting party and having sums of money
at its disposal.”57 However, this is but one document, compared to which the
authentic Hebrew papyri can produce much more information.
I have concentrated on this point in order to emphasize how the decision
not to include the Hebrew and Aramaic documents in CPJ has both made it
less of a Jewish corpus and deprived the reader of the means to reconstruct for
him/herself the new Jewish community that emerged and developed in Egypt
after 117. Notably, this community is the forerunner of the community that
eventually produced the Cairo Genizah and in the last section of this article
I will indicated just how similar the newly-founded Egyptian Jewish commu-
nity was to its illustrious offspring.
53 See above, n. 22, and also A. E. Cowley, “Hebrew and Aramaic Papyri,” JQR (O.S.) 16 (1904):
1–8; M. Steinschneider, “Hebräische Papyrus-Fragmente aus der Fajjum,” Magazin für
Wissenschaft des Judenthums 6 (1879): 250–4.
54 See for example—‫—פרוסטטין‬on CPJ I, 101, referring to Cowley, “Notes,” 212.
55 Reference there to the holy community (‫)קהל קדוש‬.
56 CPJ III, 33–6.
57 CPJ I, 100.
214 Ilan
III Additional Insights on Jewish Presence in Egypt from the

New Papyri
I want to begin this last part of the presentation by some statistics. From CPJ
we know of the presence of Jews in various locations in Egypt in the last half
century before the outbreak of the Jewish revolt from 12 papyri.58 The addi-
tional papyri collected for our new projects, add but one more papyrus, from
114 in Arsinoite nome in the Fayum.59 This shows that whatever Tchreikover
and his team had claimed about this period cannot be substantially altered by
new papyri.
I now move on to the revolt itself. Here too, the papyri we have collected
add next to nothing to the papyri found in CPJ. It is true that most of our papy-
rological information on this rebellion derives from the archive of Apollonius
the strategos of the Apollinopolite Nome, which consists of various letters
he received from his mother and wife,60 and that additional letters from the
archive have meanwhile been published,61 but they do not add additional vital
information about the Jews in this revolt.62 I note here ostraca from Mons
Claudianus in the eastern Desert, dated to the years of the revolt but oblivious
58 These include only papyri that are dated and securely located: (1) CPJ II, no. 417
(pp. 186–8) from Babylon, 59 CE (mentioning three Jews); (2) CPJ II, no. 422 (pp. 209–10)
from Oxyrhynchus, 77 CE (a Iakoubos); (3) CPJ II, no. 423 (p. 211) from Oxyrhynchus, 85 CE
(mentioning a Jewish quarter); (4) CPJ II, no. 424 (pp. 210–2) from Ptolemais Hermeiou,
87 CE (Ioanne); (5) CPJ II, no. 425 (p. 212); from Oxyrhynchus, 93 CE (Iako[bos]);
(6) CPJ II, no. 426 (p. 213) from the Fayum, 94 CE (Isakis); (7) CPJ II, no. 427 (pp. 213–4)
from Apollonias in the Fayum, 101 CE (Iosepos; Sarra); (8) CPJ II, no. 428 (pp. 215–6) from the
Fayum, 101/2 CE (Jewish sitologoi—Ioses, Isak; Elea[zaros], Abrami[os], Iskis, Iakoubos);
(9) CPJ II, no. 429 (p. 216) from Bacchias in the Fayum, 114 CE (Ioanos); (10) CPJ II, no. 430
(pp. 216–8); from Arsinoe in the Fayum, 105 CE (Iesous); (11) CPJ II, no. 431 (pp. 218–20)
from the Fayum, 110 CE (Theophilos the Jew); (12) CPJ II, no. 432 (pp. 220–4) from Arsinoe
in the Fayum, 113 CE (Jewish archons of the proseuche of Thebeians).
59 PSI Congr XVII 22 (M. Manfredi, Trenta testi greci da papiri letterari e documentari editi in
occasione del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia [Florence: Istituto papirologico
G. Vitelli, 1983], 73–82).
60 CPJ II, nos. 436–9 (pp. 233–40); nos. 442–444 (pp. 244–51); no. 446 (pp. 453–4).
61 P.Giss 22, 47 (M. Kortus, Briefe des Apollonios-Archiv aus der Sammlung Papyri Gissenes:
Edition, Übersetzungund Kommentar [Gissen: Universitätsbibliotek, 1999], 72–5; 96–101);
P.Alex. Giss 58–60 (J. Schwartz, Papyri Variae Alexandrinae et Gissenses [Bruxelles:
Fondation egyptologique reine Elisabeth, 1969], 77–81).
62 For an up-to-date discussion, with a list of all papyri—new and old—see M. Pucci
Ben Zeev, Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil, 116/117 CE: Ancient Sources and Modern Insights
(Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 15–76.
of it, and mentioning several Jews: a camel-driver by the name of Ioannes,

workers by the name of Iesous and Iouden.63 Mons Claudianis was a stone
quarry in Egypt’s eastern desert, somewhere between the Nile and the Red
Sea. It was active in the Emperor Trajan’s days. What these documents show is
that in that remote place stone quarrying was going on, with Jews participating
in the enterprise, oblivious of the dramatic events taking place elsewhere in
Egypt at the same time.
The picture is somewhat different with respect to property confiscation after
the revolt. CPJ records such official actions in two papyri that are roughly dated
and whose provenance is known.64 Several additional papyri65 indicate the
extent and magnitude of this phenomenon, adding support to Tcherikover’s
assumptions on the finality of the revolt.
As the team of CPJ noted, the evidence for Jews in the first two centuries
after the revolt is scant, and they are only recognizable by their names.66 One
papyrus, which I had already mentioned, from 145 CE mentions the Jewish
tax,67 but aside from this, things Jewish are not mentioned in these documents.
63 For Joannes see O.Claud I, 32 (J. Bingen, A. Bülow-Jacobsen, W. E. H. Cockle, H. Cuvigny,
L. Rubinstein and W. Van Rengen, Mons Claudianus: Ostraca Graeca et Latina I [O. Claud.
1 à 190] (Cairo: Institut Français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1992], 51).Until we began
this project I had misgivings about this ostracon. It is true that until the middle of the
third century one cannot talk of Christianity in Egypt, because it was not yet visible, but
the name Ioannes became very soon so closely associated with Christians, that I began
to have second thoughts about using this ostracon as an indication of Jewishness even in
the first half of the second century. Recently, more ostraca from Mons Claudianis have
been published and among them we found the two most revealing Jewish names: Jesus
and Judah were names never used by Christians—Jesus because it was too hallowed and
Judas because it was too infamous. See O.Claud IV, 751; 872 (A. Bülow-Jacobsen, Mons
Claudianus: Ostraca Graeca et Latina IV [O. Claud. 632–896] [Cairo: Institut Français
d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 2005], 96, 206–7).
64 CPJ II, no. 445 (pp. 251–2) in Kynopolis and Lykopolis in 117/8 CE; no. 448 (pp. 255–7) in
the Athribis Nome in Oxyrhnchus in 130 CE. And perhaps also CPJ III, no. 458 (p. 16), see
Pucci-Ben Zeev, Diaspora Judaism, 69.
65 See especially the large and well preserved P. Berol. Inv. 8143 and inv. 7440 (A. Świderek,
“Ιουδαϊκός Λόγος,” The Journal of Juristic Papyrology 16/17 [1971]: 45–62) but also P. Köln II
97 (B. Kramer and D. Hagedorn, Kölner Papyri [P. Köln] Band 2 [Papyrologica Coloniensia
7; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1978], 132–4).
66 I document here only four dated and provenanced papyri. (1) CPJ III, no. 453 (pp. 8–10)
from Hermopolis, 132 CE (Onias); (2) CPJ III, no. 455 (pp. 12–3) from Theadelphia, 137
CE (Isakous; female); (3) CPJ III, no. 459 (pp. 16–7) from the Fayum, 149 CE (Samouelis;
female); (4) CPJ III, 461 (pp. 18–9); from Bacchias in the Fayum 185 CE (Iasepis).
67 CPJ III, no. 460, see above, n. 43.
216 Ilan
The two additional papyri we have collected do not add or drastically alter
this picture, although one Jew is mentioned in a document from Ptolemaius
Hormo from 186 CE,68 adding to our information on the geographical spread of
the Jews in this period.
In the fourth century our evidence is still scant, but something begins
to happen in the field of an emerging Jewish community. A papyrus from
Oxyrhynchus from 291 CE records the Jewish Synagogue which manumits a
Jewish slave woman and her children.69 The manumission is supervised and
encouraged by a Jew from Ono in Palestine. This shows a close relationship
between this new Jewish community and its metropolis in Palestine. New
papyri for this period are also not numerous, but at least one, from 314 CE
also from Oxyrhynchus records the presence of a Jew from Palestine—more
exactly from Eleutheropolis, or as we know it better today—Beit Govrin.70 A
very recently published papyrus from Oxyrhynchus from the year 403 CE, also
mentions a Jew from Eleutheropolis.71 What this might be saying about the
relationship between Jews in Oxyrhynchus and Eleutheropolis is hard to say.
A dramatic change in the sort of information new papyri provide is evi-
dent in the 5th to 7th centuries. In CPJ Jews are evidenced from this period
in seven papyri from five locations.72 Our new collection adds another nine
papyri from three of the previous locations and from two new ones.73 This
68 The two papyri are (1) BGU XIII 2319 from the Fayum, 126 CE mentioning Ioudas
(W. M. Brashear, Greek Papyri from Roman Egypt [Ägyptische Urkunden aus den
Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin 13; Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz
1976], 145); (2) P. Petaus 126 from Ptolemaius Hormo, 186 CE mentioning Maria daugh-
ter of Iosepos (Ursula and Ddieter Hagedorn, Louise and Herbert Youtie, Das Archiv des
Petaus [P.Petaus] [Papyrologica Coloniensia 4; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1969],
371–6).
69 CPJ III, no. 473, see above, n. 56.
70 P. Oxy L, 3574 (A. K. Bowman et al. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri L [London: Egypt Exploration
Society, 1983], 183–7).
71 P. Oxy LXXVII, 5119 (A. Benaissa, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri LXXVII [London: Egypt
Exploration Society, 2011], 127–9).
72 (1) CPJ III, no. 505 (pp. 91–3 Jew from Alexandria); (2) CPJ III, no. 506 (pp. 93–4) from
Hermoupolis (head of the Jews); (3) CPJ III, no. 508 (pp. 95–8) from Antinoopolis, 542 CE
(Iosephios a Jew); (4) CPJ no. 509 (p. 98) from Oxyrhynchus (Enoch the Jew); (5) CPJ no. 510
(p. 99) from Oxyrhynchus (Jews); (6) CPJ no. 512 (p. 101–2) from Antinoopolis (Peret the
Hebrew/Jew); (7) CPJ no. 513 (pp. 102–4) from the Fayum (Abraham the Hebrew).
73 (1) P. Ant III 189 from Antinoopolis mentioning Patkos the Hebrew (J. W. B. Barns and
H. Zilliacus, The Antinoopolis Papyri III [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1967], 160–1);
(2) P. Brooklyn 15 mentioning Senuphei the Hebrew (J. C. Shelton, Greek and Latin Papyri,
Ostraca and Wooden Tablets in the Collection of the Brooklyn Museum [Papyrologica
of course makes the spread of Jewish communities in Egypt in the Byzantine

period much broader. If, in addition, we assume, with most conservative schol-
ars, that this is also the time of the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri, an assumption
that is confirmed at least in one dated case—the Ketubbah of Cologne from
417 CE74—and add to our map those of the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri whose
provenance is confirmed, the intensity of the Jewish presence in Egypt at this
time is magnified.
This is perhaps the opportunity to add a short aside. The assumption that
all these papyri are late is based on rather superficial paleographic assump-
tions. I say superficial because in order to have a firmer basis for paleographic
assessments, a much broader range of documents from the period has to be
available. However, between Qumran and the Genizah, our documents are the
only specimen that can be consulted in order to create a paleographic map,
and since they are in most cases not dated, a circular argument about their
paleography develops. Nevertheless, at least with relation to one of these docu-
ments from Oxyrhynchus, a letter written by a woman to her brother,75 the
Florentina 22; Firenze: Gonnelli, 1992], 25–6); (3) BGU XII 2161 from Hermupolis mention-
ing a Jew (H. Maehler, Papyri aus Hermupolis [Ägyptische Urkunden aus den Staatlichen
Museen zu Berlin 12; Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1974], 51–2);
(4) P. Herm Rees 52 from Hermopolis, 399 CE mentioning Hana son of Ioses, a Jew
(B. R. Rees, Papyri from Hermopolis and other Documents of the Byzantine Period [London:
Egypt Exploration Society, 1964], 89); (5) P. Oxy XLIV 3203 from Oxyrhynchus, 400 CE men-
tioning Iouda the Jew (A. K. Bowman, M. W. Haslam, J. C. Shelton and J. D. Thomas, The
Oxyrhynchus Papyri XLIV [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1976], 182–4.); (6) P. Oxy
3805 from Oxyrhynchus, 566 CE mentioning Eleazar the Jew (J. R. Rea, The Oxyrhynchus
Papyri LV [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1988], 144–8); (7) P. Sijp 36 from the Arsinoite
nome mentioning Levi and Abraham, Hebrews (J. Diethart, “Griechische Zahlungsliste
aus früharabischer Zeit,” Papyri in Memory of P. J. Sijpesteijn [P. Sijp] [ed. A. J. B. Sirks and
K. A. Worp; Oakville: The American Society of Papyrologists, 2007], 239–47); (8–9) Stud.
Pap. 8 and 10 from the Fayum mentioning Iakob, Moses and Orbi, Hebrews (C. Wessely,
Studien zur Palaeographie und Papyrusurkunden VIII [Leipzig: E. Avenarius, 1908], 141; X
[Leipzig: E. Avenarius, 1910] 105).
74 C. Sirat, P. Cauderlier, M. Dukan, and M. A. Friedman, Le Ketouba de Cologne (Papyrologica
Coloniensia 12; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag,1984).
75 See M. Mishor, “MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Pap. Heb e.120,” Lěšonénu 63 (2000–1): 51–9
(Hebrew). More on this document, see T. Ilan, “Learned Jewish Women in Antiquity” in
Religiöses Lernen in der biblischen, frühjüdischen und frühchristlichen Überlieferung, eds.
B. Ego and H. Merkel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 175–90.
218 Ilan
paleographist Ada Yardeni, suggested that the documents should be dated as

early as the third century.76
Dating aside, the broad range of additional papyri of the Byzantine period
allows us a new view of the Jewish presence in Egypt at the time. Let me quickly
point out the most obvious of these phenomena.
1. Hebrews: The term Hebraios to describe Jews makes its first appearance in
CPJ in three papyri dated to the 6th–7th century, one from Antinoopolis and
two from the Fayum (CPJ III, nos. 507; 511; 512).77 The editors made little of this
because it did not seem to mark a completely new phenomenon, especially in
light of the fact that in CPJ III, no. 511, the same person is described both as Jew
(Ioudaios) and Hebrew. Had Tcherikover and his team been less meticulous
about meeting dates and defining boundaries, they would have included two
further papyri in their corpus, which would have doubled their inventory of
“Hebrews.” The papyri to which I refer were published one in 1908 and one in
1910 by Carl Wessely, and both mention men designated Hebraios.78 The first
papyrus, which records three Hebrews, was discarded by the CPJ editors because
it includes in it people designated Abdallah (2) and Abdelahmed (1) and on its
verso an Arabic text is found. The second was rejected because this list too
mentions a certain Abdallah, obviously an Arab. If we assume, however, that
these papyri were produced very near the Arab conquest, we may safely con-
clude that they certainly represent the same cultural phenomenon that CPJ III,
nos. 507, 511 and 512 represent, namely the new preference of Jews to be known
as Hebrews.79
The use of the term Hebrew is an important phenomenon to note, because
it touches on some of the most fundamental questions raised in this paper.
The title Ioudaios was used extensively in the Ptolemaic period in official and
legal documents, as were other ethnic designations.80 CPJ I contains nineteen
76 See Mishor, ibid., n. 5. For another dating suggestion see E. Engel, “A Palaeographic Study
of Oxford Ms. Heb d.69 (P),” Lĕšonénu 53 (1989): 265–86 (Hebrew).
77 Pp. 94–5; 99–102.
79 In our corpus we have decided to include all papyri that record Jews in Greek, under the
assumption that, with the Arab conquest, and soon after it the invention of paper, Greek,
together with papyri quickly went out of use.
80 I do not intend here to enter the debate of whether it should be translated as Jew or Judaean,
on which see D. R. Schwartz, “ ‘Judaean’ or ‘Jew’? How Should We Translate Ioudaios in
Josephus?” in Jewish Identitiy in the Greco-Roman World (eds. J. Frey, D. R. Schwartz and
S. Gripentrog; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 3–27; on the term in the Ptolemaic papyri, with the
argument that it should be translated as “Judean” see S. J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of
recurrences of the designation from Ptolemaic Egypt.81 However, the use of

this term all but died out with the arrival of Rome in Egypt. The deliberate
and probably voluntary use of this designation has become even more pro-
nounced now that it is attested fifteen more times in Ptolemaic documents
published since 1964.82 Thus we have so far altogether 34 instances of this title
in Ptolemaic papyri. That the term went out of use in the Roman period is well
attested in the CPJ, which records only four instances of its use as a personal
designation over a time-span of 550 years,83 and we have come across it only
twice in papyri published since 1964.84
Jewishness: Boundaries Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1999), 99–104. I merely follow the old CPJ in my translation.
81 CPJ I, nos. 8 and 9 (pp. 133–5); nos. 18–26 (pp. 148–70), no. 30 (pp. 175–6), no. 33 (pp. 179–80);
no. 38 (pp. 185–6); no. 43 (pp. 188–9); no. 46 (pp. 190–2); no. 125 (p. 225); no. 128 (pp. 236–8);
and no. 130 (pp. 241–3).
82 (1) P.Köln III 144 (B. Kramer, M. Erler, D. Hagedorn and R. Hübner, Kölner Papyri
[P. Köln] Band 3 [Papyrologica Coloniensia 7; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1980],
86–94); (2–7) P.Polit.Iud. 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 (J. M. S. Cowey and K. Maresch, Urkunden des
Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis [144/3–133/2 v. Chr.], [Papyrologica Coloniensia
29; Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001], 80–4, 93–111, 117–26); (8–11) CPR 18:7, 8, 9, 11
(B. Kramer, Corpus Papyrorum Raineri Archeducis Austriae (Bd. XVIII; Wien: Verlag Brüder
Hollinek, 1991), 145–60); (12) BGU XIV, 2381 (W. M. Brashear, Ptolemäische Urkunden aus
Mumienkartonage [Ägyptische Urkunden aus den Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin XIV;
Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1980] 39–40); (13) P.Heid. VIII, 417
(D. Kaltsas, Dokumentarische Papyri des 2 Jh. v. Chr. aus dem Herakleopolites [P. Heid VIII]
[Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2001], 187–8); (14) P.Mich. XVIII 781 (J. Dillery,
“A List of Ptolemaic Cleruchs,” in P. Michigan Koenen [=P. Mich. XVIII]: Michigan Texts
Published in Honor of Ludwig Koenen [ed. C. E. Romer; Amsterdam: Gieben, 1996],
167–89); (15) C. Armoni, “Drei ptolemäische Papyri der Heidelberger Sammlung,” ZPE 132
(2000): 237.
83 (1) CPJ II, no. 151 (pp. 29–33); (2–3) nos. 415, 417 (pp. 185–8); (4) no. 431 (pp. 218–20). The
voluntary use of the designation Ioudaios may have died out in the Roman period once it
received legal implications, in addition to religious and ethnic ones, such as the liability
to the poll-tax, from which the citizens of Alexandria were exempt. This is suggested by
the interlinear correction of a petitioner’s self-description as Alexandreus (i.e. a citizen of
Alexandria) to “Ioudaios, a resident of Alexandria,” in CPJ no. 151 (pp. 29–33) from 4 BCE,
notwithstanding the fact that his father was an Alexandreus.
84 (1) P. van Minnen, “P. Hawara 208 Revised,” ZPE 93 (1992): 206 and (2) E. A. Hanson,
“Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Arabes and Ioudaioi in the First Century AD Tax Archive
from Philadelphia: P. Mich. Inv. Nr. 880 Recto and P. Princ. III 152 Revised,” in Life in a
Multicultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond (ed. J. H. Johnson;
Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1992), 133–48.
220 Ilan
In any case, in the early Roman period, Jewish papyri could still be identified
based on biblical names. However, once Christians begin to make extensive
use of these names, the possibility to distinguish between Jew and Christian
becomes almost impossible. This could well be another reason why there are
so few recognizable Jewish papyri in Greek once Christianity sets in. The use
of a new term, which Jews use to designate themselves, is a great help in iden-
tifying them in the crowd. “Hebrew,” it seems, did not carry for Jews such a
negative connotation as Jew (Ioudaios) did.85 In any case, our collection of
additional papyri boasts three more Hebrews from the 6th-7th centuries.86
2. Samaritans: CPJ did not intentionally ignore Samaritans, but the only
document that it records in which Samaritans play any role are CPJ III, 513,87
a divorce document between Samaritans from 586 in Hermoupolis. On this
document, the editors comment that it is “the first example afforded by the
papyri of individual Samaritans living in Byzantine Egypt.” Note that unlike
the Cologne ketubbah, which indicates the Jews moving toward a religious
autonomy, at least as far as personal law is concerned (since that document
is in Aramaic, like other Jewish marriage contracts in other locations), this
document shows the Samaritans behaving like pre-117 Jews, and accepting the
legal norms of Byzantine Egypt. What could one think of one Samaritan in
the ocean of Byzantine Egypt? Was the couple mentioned in this divorce docu-
ment alone? Did they have connections with Jews or Christians? Our collection
of additional papyri more than doubles the information on Samaritans. First, it
adds another three Samaritan documents to sixth century Hermoupolis.88 One
of these papyri, now housed in Heidelberg, is Samaritan because its author
swears by “my Har Gerizim” (ma ton Argerizin).89 Our new collection also
85 For such a theory see G. Harvey, “Synagogues of the Hebrews: ‘Good Jews’ in the Diaspora,”
in S. Jones and S. Pearce, Jewish Local Patriotism and Self Identification in the Greco-Roman
Period (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1998), 132–47.
86 (1) P. Ant III 189 from Antinoopolis mentioning Patkos the Hebrew; (2) P. Brooklyn 15
mentioning Senuphei the Hebrew; (3) P. Sijp 36 from the Arsinoite nome mentioning Levi
and Abraham, Hebrews, see above, n. 73.
87 Pp. 102–4. See also CPJ III, 514 (p. 105), which is a papyrus not from Egypt at all, but rather
from Nessana in the Negev. On the Nesanna papyri see C. J. Kraemer, Excavations at
Nessana vol. III: Non-Literary Papyri (Princeton: University Press, 1958).
88 P. Herm Rees 40 from Hermopolis (B. R. Rees, Papyri from Hermopolis and other Documents
of the Byzantine Period [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1964], 80–1); P. Sorb. II 69
also from Hermopolis, 618–34 CE (J. Gascou, Un Codex Fiscal Hermopolite [P. Sorb. II 69]
[Atlanta GA: Scholars Press, 1994], col. 111, l. 5).
89 P. Heid IV 333 (B. Kramer and D. Hagedorn, Griechische Texte der Heidelberger Papyrus-
Sammlung [P. Heid IV] [Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1986], 225–36).
adds two Samaritans to the Fayum in the second century, perhaps suggesting
a Samaritan community in this location at an earlier date.90 This does not yet
make the Samaritans a meaningful minority in Egypt, but it certainly makes
the history of the Samaritan diaspora richer.
3. Moving on to the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri of this period, I wish to
indicate the various genres that manifest themselves in them. Each of these
genres indicates, in its own way, how these papyri are the forerunners of the
Genizah, and consequently, why we should consider the Jews of Byzantine
Egypt as the forefathers of the important Jewish community that produced
the Genizah.
a. Marriage Documents: In one respect, the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri are not
different from the Greek documentary papyri of CPJ. They include correspon-
dences between Jews, and legal documents. However, something has changed.
The Ketubbah of Cologne, which originates in Antinoopolis, shows Jews
producing legal documents in a specific Jewish milieu.91 This document, from
the year 417 CE, while written in Aramaic, includes large sections (especially
the date) in Greek, written in Hebrew characters.92 It is the only extant ketub-
bah specimen between those written on papyrus of the Judean Desert from
first-second century Palestine and the ketubbot found in the Cairo Genizah,
written on paper, in Egypt, which were collected and published by Mordechai
Akiva Friedman,93 and it forms a nice missing link.
b. Biblical texts: Tcherikover claims in his Prolegomena that, with the trans-
lation of the Bible into Greek, the Jews ceased to use the Hebrew Bible in
Egypt. This is not quite true. Among the Hebrew papyri found in Egypt, one
cannot ignore the famous Nash papyrus, allegedly from the Fayum, dated to
the 2nd century BCE.94 This is an indication, I believe, that the Hebrew Bible
90 P. Mich I 224 from Karanis in the Fayum, 172–3 CE (H. C. Youtie, V. B. Schuman and
O. M. Pearl, Tax Rolls from Karanis [Michigan Papyri 4; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1936], 235); P. Strass IX 866 from Euhemeria in the Fayum, 165 CE (J. Schwartz,
Papyrus Grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg vol. IX-4
[Strasbourg: Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, 1988], 106).
92 ‫הופאטיאס הונוריאו אוגאוסטאו טוא הנדאקאטון קאי פלואיאו קונסטאנטיאו קומיסוס טוא‬
‫מגאלוא פריפסטאטאו פאטריקיאו‬.
93 M. A. Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine: A Cairo Geniza Study vol. II: The Ketubba
Texts (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1981).
94 For a summation of the issue and bibliography see E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew
Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 111–2.
222 Ilan
did not die out in Egypt the day the Septuagint was produced, and the picture
of Hellenistic Judaism should be presented in a more nuanced way.
Papyrological evidence for the existence of the Septuagint abounds, but
early manuscripts, that can rightly be classified as having been composed by
Jews and for Jews are rare. Collecting them could reveal interesting aspects
such as the following: In 2011 an Oxyrhynchus papyrus of a Psalms scroll
was published, dated by the editors to the 1st–2nd century CE.95 It is defi-
nitely Jewish, not just because of the alleged date, which makes it too early
to be Christian, but also because the tetragrammaton is written in it in the
Old Hebrew script. A similar phenomenon is known from the Hebrew bibli-
cal scrolls from Qumran,96 and also from the one Greek scroll from the Nahal
Hever, with the text of the Minor-Prophets.97 Jewish papyri of the Septuagint
are another issue we would like to explore in our project.
The Nash papyrus is universally dated to the 2nd century BCE, but frag-
ments of biblical papyri in Hebrew have been discovered from the period
which we are exploring, like a section of a scroll with 1 Kings 22 on it, now in
the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.98 The text is from Antinoopolis, like the
ketubbah just mentioned, and can be dated to the 5th–7th century. This scroll
of Kings is palaeographically very different from the Nash papyrus, but is quite
similar to its Genizah counterparts, as documented in the catalogue of Hebrew
Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah.99
c. Piyyut: Ancient piyyutim were known from collections of Jewish prayers
in medieval manuscripts but next to nothing is known about the time or biog-
raphies of their authors. Dating piyyut to Byzantine Palestine is based on one
vague paragraph of Saadya Gaon in his Egron, which he wrote in the year 902,100
95 P. Oxy LXXVII, 5101 (A. Benaissa, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri LXXVII [London: Egypt
Exploration Society, 2011], 1–11 and pl. I).
96 See e.g. E. Ulrich, The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants (Leiden:
Brill, 2010), 694–726=11QPsalms.
97 E. Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr) (DJD VIII; Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990); e.g. pp. 29–33 (Jonah); 38–43 (Micah) etc.
98 See C. H. Roberts, The Antinoopolis Papyri (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1950), no. 47
and other fragments there, and now in C. Sirat, Les papyrus en charactères Hébraïques
trouvés en Égypte (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1985),
36–38 and there around other fragments of biblical scrolls.
99 M. C. Davis (with B. Outhwaite), Hebrew Bible Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah
Collections, vols. 1–4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Library/Press, 1978–2003).
100 The reference is to be found in N. Allony, Ha-Egron: Kitāb ’Uṣūl al-Shi‘r al-‘Ibrānī by
Rav Sě‘adya Ga’on: Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: The
namely several centuries after these poets were supposed to have lived.101 The
Cairo Genizah enriched our inventory of piyyutim in many ways,102 but it had
only pushed back the dates of these compositions to the time of the Genizah
itself, namely the ninth and tenth centuries. Papyri containing piyyutim, found
in Oxyrhynchus and the Fayum, and dated to the fifth-seventh century push
their date back much more decisively, for they are documents that are con-
temporary with the poets themselves. In 1978 Joseph Yahalom published a
piyyut in Aramaic known as “ezel Moshe” (Moshe went) from a papyrus from
the Fayum (Saadya Gaon’s region of birth), which is now housed in Berlin.103
It is an acrostichon, relating an encounter between Moses and the Sea, and
is famous in various medieval versions and also a Cairo Genizah manuscript.
Yahalom was able to reconstruct the papyrus text based on these other, later
versions. The inclusion of piyyutim among the Hebrew and Aramaic papyri of
the Byzantine period also makes them forerunners of the Cairo Genizah.
d. Magic: Jewish magic, as mentioned in the beginning of this presentation,
is a well-known phenomenon. It inspired non-Jewish practice, and an enor-
mous repository of Jewish themes is found in Greek papyri. These too, as we
now know, were not collected by CPJ. Now, several papyri in Hebrew charac-
ters from Oxyrhynchus and elsewhere have been published.104 For example, in
Academy of Hebrew Language, 1969), 23; for the text on the early payytanim, see p. 155
(in Hebrew and Jewish Arabic—Yosi ben Yosi, Yannai, Eleazar and Joshua and Phineas).
101 All the sources describing the genesis of piyyut are much later than the phenomenon
itself, see in the historical introduction of A. M. Haberman, A History of Hebrew Liturgical
and Secular Poetry: Eretz Israel, Babylonian, Spain and the Countries of the Sefardi Diaspora
(Ramat Gan: Masada, 1970), 15–20 (Hebrew).
102 See the editions of the works of the ancient poets (some of them mentioned by Saadya
Gaon) based on Genizah fragments which appeared in print in Israel in the 1980s.
J. Yahalom, Liturgical Poems of Šim‘on Megas: Critical Edition with Commentary and
Introduction (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1982) (Hebrew);
Z. M. Rabinovitz, The Liturgical Poems according to the Tyerrenial Cycle of the Pentateuch
and the Holidays (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1985–7) (Hebrew); S. Elizur, The Piyyutim
of Rabbi El‘azar Birabbi Qillar (Jerusalem: Magnes Press; 1988) (Hebrew); W. J. Van Bekkum,
The Qedushta’ot of Yehudah according to Genizah Manuscripts (Groningen: Gorter b.v.
te Steenwijk, 1988); and somewhat later, S. Elizur, The Liturgical Poems of Rabbi Pinḥas
Ha-Kohen: Critical Edition, Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: World Union of
Jewish Studies, 2004) (Hebrew).
103 J. Yahalom, “ ‘Ezel Moshe’—According to the Berlin Papyrus,” Tarbiz 48 (1978): 173–84
(Hebrew).
104 See e.g. F. Klein-Franka, “Eine Aramäische Tabella Devotionis (T. Colon. Inv. nr. 6),” ZPE 7
(1971): 47–52; R. Kotansky and J. Naveh, “A Greek-Aramaic Silver Amulet from Egypt in the
Ashmolean Museum,” Le Muséon 105 (1992): 5–24.
224 Ilan
1985 Markham Geller published one such papyrus.105 It is fragmentary and the
beginning is missing but because of line 6 (“for a dog that injures”) and line 11
(“for an acquaintance”), it seems to be a list of magical recipes in Aramaic. We
know well that thousands of magical papyri, including such recipes, mostly
in Aramaic were found in the Cairo Genizah, and that a project that was con-
ducted in Berlin under the supervision of Peter Schäfer produced three vol-
umes of these texts.106 Thus, we can see again that the magical papyri of the
5th–7th century are truly forerunners of the Genizah collection.
This presentation has not exhausted the innovations that can be deduced
from an additional volume to CPJ, even regarding the Byzantine period. I have
not even touched on alchemist literary papyri that mention Jews,107 or on the
first ever Jewish women as correspondents in letters written in Hebrew on
papyri.108 All this will have to wait for the publication of CPJ IV.
105 M. Geller, “An Aramaic Incantation from Oxyrhynchus,” ZPE 58 (1985): 96–8. Actually an
earlier attempt to publish this amulet was made by Cowley, (above, n. 22), 212.
106 P. Schäfer and S. Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza (3 vols; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1994–9). For such recipes see e.g. vol. 1, pp. 85–88; 135–9. For other examples of
such texts see also L. H. Schiffman and M. D. Swartz, Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation
Texts from the Cairo Genizah: Selected Texts from Taylor-Schechter Box K1 (Sheffield:
Academic Press, 1992); J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1993), 147–242; idem, Amulets and Magic Bowls (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,
1998), 216–40.
107 The issue is badly published and badly documented. For now see R. Patai, The Jewish
Alchemists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 56–7.
108 See above, n. 75 for one of the relevant papyri.
Jewish Communities in the Roman Diaspora:
Why Salo Baron Still Matters?
Seth Schwartz
Introduction
I would like to offer—briefly here, to be fleshed out in the future—a highly

pessimistic account of Jewish life in the High Imperial Roman diaspora. I
would like to suggest that the Jews’ experience was inherently tension-filled
and that there were severe constraints on the Jews’ ability to develop insti-
tutions that could help guarantee their survival. This was because even such
ostensibly highly functional institutions as the local community were in the
final analysis fragile: the Jews’ corporate agency was limited by the fact that
they could fall victim to even the slightest shifts in the bureaucratic tide,
among other catastrophes. This is something that everyone knows, as it were,
but that almost everyone brackets when thinking historically about the Roman
Jewish diaspora. In a way it points backwards, toward an old notion of Jewish
history as primarily a narrative of victimhood, or, at best, as a story of people
who strive to attain “agency”, or control over their own fate, but always end up
failing, even if they accomplish interesting things on the way to failure.
This notion, of course, is a translation into contemporary theoretical lan-
guage of the notorious “lachrymose view of Jewish history”, allegedly rejected
and refuted by Salo Baron. In reality Baron did not advance the impossible
argument that Jewish history lacked a tragic element, that the Jews were not
subjected to limitations and persecutions, and that, at the same time, they did
not invest much of their cultural capital in the production of Talmud and Bible
commentary, philosophical theology, poetry, and so on—the classic empha-
ses of Wissenschaft des Judentums. But he did emphasize that violence and
instability were facts of life for everyone, Jew and gentile, in pre-modernity,
that in some respects Jews were better off than peasants, and that Jewish insti-
tutions often did function to provide a measure of stability to pre-modern
Jewish life. He also argued that nineteenth century scholars’ commitment to
the values of the Enlightenment and the struggle for emancipation blinded
them to the price the Jews were constrained to pay for those attainments.1 But
1 S. Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation: Shall We Revise the Traditional View?” Menorah Journal
14.6 (1928): 515–26. See the important analysis of D. Engel, “Crisis and Lachrymosity: on Salo

226 Schwartz
Baron’s account of the Jews’ experience in the Hellenistic and Roman dias-
pora is not merely lachrymose; it is a tragic drama in the high style. The Jews
brazenly seized agency in the Hellenistic period, but this doomed them in the
Roman period. Although hardly any contemporary anti-lachrymose historians
of the ancient Jewish diaspora claim Baron as part of their intellectual lineage
(unlike the proudly “neo-Baronian” Jewish historians of later periods), Baron
himself certainly did not share their optimism and I agree with him, though I
will express things differently.
The debate about the general character of the Jews’ experience in antiq-
uity is so obviously structurally identical to the debate between neo-Baroni-
ans and their predecessors that the nearly total absence of Baron’s name, the
ostensibly complete unawareness of so many scholars of ancient Judaism that
they are engaged in problems which have been a central concern of modern
Jewish historiography more generally, seems to me diagnostic. The condition
this obliviousness diagnoses is a construction of the field in which Jewish
antiquity is regarded as separate from the rest of Jewish history. This condi-
tion is not, it should be stressed, endemic: Jewish history departments in Israel
always include antiquity. In the era of the generalists, which began before
Graetz and ended with Baron, antiquity was accorded a prominent place as
well.2 Yet medieval and modern Judaists were strongly influenced by Baron
whereas ancient Judaists ignored him. Correspondingly, in the generation
following Baron, even those scholars relatively prone to sweeping analyses
of the Jewish experience—Y. H. Yerushalmi, G. D. Cohen, A. Funkenstein, I.
Twersky—tended to marginalize or exclude antiquity. This cannot have been
only for lack of evidence since it would be hard to argue that there is less of it
for first century Palestine than for pre-Crusade Ashkenaz, for example.
The many factors that conspired in this mutual alienation I will not attempt
to describe, but will note that one of my purposes in this paper is to argue
for the reintegration of the ancient Jews into Jewish history. That is the point
of discussing Baron: however problematic we must now regard the details of
his accounts of the ancient Jewish diaspora, by viewing it as an essential part
of a specifically Jewish history he has able to ask big, important questions
and point us toward better answers than he himself had the tools to provide.
We should be prepared to pay him the same respect as our medievalist and
modernist colleagues do. Paying respect to, even in a limited way practicing, a
Baron, Neobaronianism and the Study of Modern European Jewish History,” JH 20 (2006):
243–64.
2 Antiquity receives ample coverage also in the neo-Baronian D. Biale, Power and Powerlessness
in Jewish History (New York: Schocken), 1986.
Jewish Communities In The Roman Diaspora 227
moderately internalist version of Jewish history does not, of course, preclude

the sorts of contextualizing approaches that ancient Judaists have long consid-
ered best practice in the field. Indeed, they are mutually beneficial, as I hope to
exemplify in what follows.
I Diasporic Dysfunction
Egypt
I begin on the microhistorians’ own turf, with brief discussions of two impor-
tant bodies of evidence from important centers of Jewish life in antiquity,
Egypt and Asia Minor. In fact, my eyes were opened to the dysfunctionality of
Jewish life in the Roman diaspora by a recent very brief paper on tax receipts
from Edfu (Apollinopolis Magna), Egypt, cautious analysis of which appeared
to demonstrate that the Jews of Edfu from 70 to 115 refrained from paying the
Jewish tax on the Sabbath, but paid all their other taxes seven days a week.3
To me this said a lot about the sorts of pressures diaspora Jewish communi-
ties experienced from local governments, especially if they lacked clout, or had
no one to intervene on their behalf. In its “natural” state the Roman govern-
ment gave no consideration to the religious sensitivities of the Jews. It took for
granted that they were subjects/citizens like all others and would meet their
obligations in the conventional ways. The Jews probably felt it best to conform
with these expectations. The non-payment of the Jewish tax on the Sabbath
almost certainly demonstrates that collection of the tax was entrusted to local
Jews. Their manifest respect for the Jews’ religious preferences demonstrates
(against a potential argument that the Jews of Edfu did not necessarily follow
normative Jewish practice through their own choice) that they had them, that
left to their own devices most Jews preferred not to conduct business on the
Sabbath.
The Apollinopolite Jews thus introduce us to a mode of diasporic Jewish
experience that has little presence in contemporary scholarship, a lifestyle
shaped by the competition between Jewish norms and state expectations (not
even to speak of rules), a competition in which Jewish norms had simply to
be allowed to lapse. This puts Josephus’s claims about the rights Jews enjoyed
in Roman cities in a new perspective: that these rights were normal was, pre-
cisely, Josephus’s argument; in practice, they could not be taken for granted but
were achieved through political agitation.
3 W. Clarysse, S. Remijsen and M. DePauw, “Observing the Sabbath in the Roman Empire:
A Case Study,” SCI 29 (2010): 51–7.
228 Schwartz
A possible critique of the SCI paper might consist in trying to separate the
ioudaikon telesma ostraka from the rest. The basis for such a separation would
be the argument that the Franco-Polish excavators of the “delta” quarter of
Edfu in the 1930s were mistaken to think that the quarter was in effect the
town’s ghetto, so that all the ostraka they discovered there concerned Jews.4
Only texts that fit the typical criteria for Jewishness (either because they are
receipts for the Jewish tax or because they contain unambiguously Jewish
names) should be counted and such a rigorous pruning of the evidentiary base
might eliminate the conclusion that the Jews paid their regular taxes on the
Sabbath.5 Tzarikh ‘iyyun: it is my impression that the case for regarding all but
the CPJ’s final group of ostraka as a discrete corpus is reasonably solid (they
seem to consist of the records of a small number of families and the general tax
receipts contain a large number of Jewish names). But even if on closer exami-
nation this proves not to be the case, I would insist that the larger point is likely
to stand, along with the line of thought inspired by it: examined as an aggrega-
tion of local phenomena, Jewish life in the diaspora was extremely fragile and
evanescent. The argument is easily made: disaggregate evidence for the Jewish
diaspora and it turns out that there is evidence for continuous Jewish life in
surprisingly few places. The Jews survived into the Middle Ages less because
of their successful accommodation to their environments than because of the
accident of their dispersion.
Asia Minor
Let me illustrate this through a brief discussion of the evidence for Jewish life
in ancient Asia Minor. This is not an arbitrary choice: the discovery of the “God-
fearers inscription” at Aphrodisias and the synagogue of Sardis and several
other items have made Asia exhibit A for those who argue for the Jews’ untram-
meled integration into the life of the high and late Roman city. Furthermore,
Asia is the richest source of Jewish epigraphical texts after Palestine and Italy,
composed mainly between the second/third and sixth centuries. By a stroke
of luck the inscriptions are collected in one of the finest Jewish epigraphi-
cal publications available, and its editor, Walter Ameling, was careful to list
4 See, B. Bruyère, et al., eds., Fouilles Franco-Polonaises: Rapports I: Tell Edfou 1937 (Cairo:
Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1937), 145–72.
5 Clarysse et al. already eliminated CPJ II 375–403 from the corpus, following the convincing
contention of Jacques Schwartz (reported in CPJ II, p. 118) that there is no evidence for their
Jewishness: they were discovered in “delta”, but post-date 117 CE, contain no definite Jewish
names, and name no individuals with a convincing family connection to anyone named on
the earlier receipts.
comprehensively and discuss non-epigraphical evidence, too.6 Thanks to

Cicero’s defense of Asia’s corrupt governor Lucius Valerius Flaccus (62 BCE,
tried in 59 BCE), and to Josephus’ preservation of documents produced by or
addressed to the city councils of Asia Minor, we have some information about
the location and condition of Asian Jewish communities in the late Roman
Republic. Acts of the Apostles adds a bit of occasionally plausible detail for the
later first century CE.7
It should therefore be easy to trace continuities in many places, even if only
in the High and Later Empire. In point of fact, though, we cannot demonstrate
meaningful continuity of Jewish settlement, let alone institutional stability, in
any but a handful of cities—indeed, only at Sardis are the chronological spread
and density of the evidence sufficient to demonstrate long term continuity of
Jewish settlement, from the Hellenistic period (or earlier) to the Late Empire.8
A number of sites provide evidence for synagogues or other Jewish institutions,
which indicates at least a measure of significant presence, but in most cases
we have no idea how long the synagogues might have lasted, how large they
were, or anything else about them. Their presence thus proves something but
not much. There are to be sure some exceptions. At Aphrodisias, in addition
to the “God-fearers” inscription, which attests to the existence of some sort
of Jewish communal institution, though not a synagogue, as also to the suc-
cess of the local Jews at winning distinguished pagan friends and supporters,
there are scattered graffiti of biblical and other Jewish names, bits of Jewish
iconography, and the sort of inscription surprisingly common in late impe-
rial Asian cities, marking a section or row of seats in the theater as the topos
Hebraion (elsewhere, Ioudaion).9 Little of this material is datable with preci-
sion but it would not be controversial to say that there was a Jewish presence at
Aphrodisias during some or all of its High and Late Imperial florescence, and
for at least some of that time, the Jews were numerous and organized.
There is slender but suggestive evidence for some Jewish institutional conti-
nuity in the Phrygian city of Akmoneia: sometime in the second century local
Jews who had Roman citizenship restored a synagogue that had been built in
6 W. Ameling, ed., Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, Band II: Kleinasien (TSAJ 99; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck), 2004 (=IJO ii).
7 For this earlier period see J. M. G. Barclay, The Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from
Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 259–81. In general, see the
somewhat selective treatment of P. Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991).
8 I JO ii, nos. 53–145.
9 I JO ii, nos. 12–19.
230 Schwartz
the early first century thanks to the gift of a distinguished pagan woman of the
city; a substantial corpus of funerary texts dated to the mid-third century explic-
itly mention the book of Deuteronomy in their curse formulas—this suggests
the Jewishness of the deceased but does not prove it since the texts contain
no other Jewish—or indeed Christian—elements;10 but here at least we can
plausibly speculate about a Jewish community that persisted for two or three
centuries.11 Several cities had synagogues (whether in the sense of a structure
or in the sense of communal organization) attested by a single inscription, or
by a small number from a single period: Hyllarima (one dedicatory inscription,
third century or later),12 Myndos (a tiny column dedicated by archisynagogue,
fifth/sixth centuries),13 Nysa (dedicatory inscription probably from a first cen-
tury BCE synagogue),14 Tralles (third century donation to synagogue by pagan
woman; fragment possibly mentioning an archisynagogue),15 Kyme/Phokaia
(the Jewish community honors a donor, date uncertain),16 Priene (small
archaeological synagogue, anepigraphic, fifth/sixth centuries),17 Smyrna (late
antique synagogue, plus some tombstones),18 Teos (an archisynagogue with
Roman citizenship, third century),19 Philadelphia (in Lydia, fourth century
donation to the “synagogue of the Hebrews” by a theosebes), Nicomedia (sev-
eral tombstones perhaps of mid-third century ordering fines for grave robbery
or disturbance to paid to the “synagoge”),20 Synnada (undateable fragment
10 P. Trebilco, Jewish Communities of Asia Minor, 60–9, assumes the Jewishness of these
inscriptions.
11 IJO ii, nos. 168–78.
12 IJO ii, no. 20.
13 IJO ii, no. 25.
14 IJO ii ,no. 26.
15 IJO ii, nos. 28–9.
16 IJO ii, no. 36.
17 See, in addition to Ameling, IJO, 172–174, L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First
Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 249. Levine prefers a somewhat
earlier date for the transformation of the building into a synagogue.
18 IJO ii, nos. 41–45. Smyrna’s Jewish history is more complex: some Jewish presence is
attested in 1 Macc, and a notorious list of donors to the Hadrianic basilica records the gift
of 10,000 denarii made by “the former Jews”—hoi pote Ioudaioi. Despite objections to this
translation there is no better way to understand it. They may be compared to the Ioudaioi
neoteroi on a gymnasial or ephebic list from high imperial Hypaipa—a group that has
clearly let important Jewish practices and scruples lapse but retains some residual corpo-
rate identity (IJO ii, no. 47).
19 IJO ii, no. 46.
20 IJO ii, no. 154–9.
perhaps mentioning archisynagogue),21 Side (two fifth/sixth century dedica-

tions to a synagogue).22
In a few places, there are several pieces of evidence for Jewish presence
but little or none for any institutional or corporate organization, at least not
of a religious nature—in two places craft guilds serve either as objects of
Jewish benefaction (Hierapolis, Phrygia),23 or as markers of identity (Korykos,
Cilicia),24 and in two places Jewish corporate existence is attested only in con-
nection to theater-seating (Miletus)25 or gymnasial affiliation (Hypaipa).26
Hierapolis and Korykos deserve special notice because the evidence from
these places is so unusual:27 The abundant funerary texts of the second, third
and early fourth centuries from Hierapolis attest to the prosperity of the local
Jews, and to their integration into municipal life and the Roman system. Many
had Roman citizenship before 212.
Jewish communal organizations play almost no role in the inscriptions and
it seems worth suggesting that the one or two which do mention such institu-
tions are the very latest Jewish inscriptions from the town. The most famous of
the texts, the epitaph of Publius Aelius Glycon Zeuxianus Aelianus, records his
bequests to local textile guilds (so while his name might be thought to imply
archaic landed aristocracy, his patronage attests to a fortune, probably not—
given the modest size of his bequests—a large one despite the pompous ver-
bosity, made in the rag trade) and ordains the distribution of the funds’ interest
as gifts to the members on Passover, Shavuot, and the Kalends of January(!);
in return, the guilds assume the responsibility of crowning Glycon’s grave on
those days. Several other epitaphs of the Hierapolitan city elites record similar
arrangements with local trade guilds or other organizations, but none mention
Jewish holidays. Here, then, a high measure of integration did not preclude
preservation of some Jewish festivals—at least as opportunities for bestowal
of gifts on tradesmen who were demonstrably not all Jewish.28 But integration
21 IJO ii, no. 214.

22 IJO ii, nos. 219–20.
23 IJO ii, no. 196.
24 IJO ii, no. 232–42.
25 IJO ii, no. 37–9.
26 IJO ii, no. 47.
27 IJO ii, no. 187–209.
28 On this and other points discussed here see the fundamental P. Harland, “Acculturation
and Identity in the Diaspora: A Jewish Family and ‘Pagan’ Guilds at Hierapolis,” JJS 57
(2006): 222–44. Harland considers it remotely possible that Glycon was a “God-fearer”:
his is the only “Jewish” epitaph that does not identify the decedent as ioudaios (though
the mention of Jewish festivals may have made such an identification unnecessary).
232 Schwartz
entailed commemoration of a festival that the rabbis, at any rate, regarded as

exemplarily pagan! The sixth century sarcophagi of Korykos also tell a story
of preservation of separate identity modified by a high level of social and
economic integration, in which, as in Hierapolis much earlier, there is no evi-
dence for any sort of Jewish communal structure, and good evidence that what
Jews thought was important about themselves was their membership in local
trade guilds.29
No fewer than twenty-two sites in Asia have yielded one or two inscriptions,
invariably funerary, providing the only or nearly the only evidence for Jewish
presence.30 It is obvious that the evidence does not tell the entire story in every
case. For example, epigraphical evidence for Jews at Tarsus is limited to a dubi-
ously Jewish sixth century epitaph,31 and the epitaphs of two Jews of Tarsian
origin found in late antique burials in Palestine. The authentic Pauline epistles
provide no information about their author’s native city. If in this one case we
accept the testimony of Acts, then we learn of the presence there of one mod-
erately prosperous and acculturated Jewish family in the early first century.
While we cannot assume the existence of a Jewish community at Tarsus at any
period, let alone one in continuous existence for five centuries, we are at least
effectively warned that there may have been more to Jewish life than meets
the eye.
But how much more? The acculturated Jews of Hierapolis moved gradually
towards normative communal organization but evidence for them disappears
in the fourth century. The only things we know about the Jews of Hypaipa is
that c. 200 they were enrolled as ephebes, but a few centuries later one of them
Harland 224–7 discussed the slender and eccentric evidence for communal organization
at Hierapolis: the earliest texts lack all mention; texts of the mid-third century (IJO ii,
nos. 205–6) speak of the “laos”, a slightly unusual formulation, and of the katoikia ton
ioudaion, a formulation which, notwithstanding its old-fashioned ring, remained in use
in Hierapolis into the High Empire for other ethnic corporations, too. Only in a fourth
century text does the term synagoge appear. So we may posit a development from no
organization, to non-standard organization, to standardized organization.
29 On Korykos see M. H. Williams, “The Jews of Corycus—A Neglected Diasporan
Community from Roman Times,” JSJ 25 (1994): 274–86.
30 Chios (IJO ii, no. 4), Samos (no. 5), Magnesia ad Sipylum (no. 48), Cyzicus (no. 147),
Amastris (no. 149), Kalchedon (nos. 150–1), Klaudioupolis (no. 152), Nikaia (no. 153),
Aizanoi (no. 167), Apollonia (no. 180), Diokleia (no. 182), Dokimeion (no. 183), Laodikeia ad
Lycum (no. 213), Termessos (no. 216), Limyra (no. 221), Tlos (no. 223), Gdanmaa, Lykaonia
(nos. 224–5), Ikonion (no. 226), Diokaisareia, Cilicia (no. 231), Selinous (no. 247), Tarsos
(nos. 248–50), Tyana (no. 258).
31 IJO ii, no. 250.
was a donor to the synagogue of Sardis.32 Was young Debbora of Antioch, mar-
ried into a pagan family in Apollonia, Phrygia, the core of a Jewish community,
or an isolate?33 And what about the mysterious ioudaia, daughter of an appar-
ently pagan family of third century Termessos?
Scholars of sunny disposition have preferred Asia Minor as a topic of study
because in some cities and in some periods the Jews did manifestly succeed in
finding ways to adapt while maintaining some form of continuous presence;
the persistence of Sardian Jewry or even Akmoneian Jewry for several centu-
ries is an impressive feat by world-historical standards. In a few places in Asia
the Jews persisted by cultivating decidedly non-standard types of corporate
organization, something other than the synagogue-based synagoge/qahal that
emerged as the late antique and medieval norm, though it had existed earlier.
In Aphrodisias and elsewhere—presumably especially in places where a seg-
ment of the Jewish population was well-off and well-integrated economically
into the life of the city—such organizations might incorporate friendly pagans.
Unlike in Egypt and Syria, in some cities of high and later imperial Asia Minor
the Jews were not regarded with automatic disdain—there was no extended
history of competition, hostility and rebellion, as far as we are aware. Yet even
here there is amazingly little evidence that Jewish settlement had much stabil-
ity or durability.
The tendency of the evidence in most Asian settlements to “clump” chrono-
logically strongly suggests that in most places Jewish communities/corpora-
tions/settlements did not last, even if we suppose that their duration exceeded
the chronological limits of the evidentiary clumps. In some cases we can see
corporate dissolution in progress: Before “the former Jews” of Hadrianic Smyrna
were former Jews they were plain Jews. How long could their new organization
have lasted? The Jewish and “God-fearing” donors to the Aphrodisian “patella”,
whatever precisely it may have been, probably lived at a time when their city
was beginning to become Christian. What can have happened to their organi-
zation when that process was completed and “God-fearing” was no longer a
plausible—or a legal—option?
Even before Christianization we cannot know how Jews subjectively expe-
rienced the compromises required by the acculturative process. To be sure,
no one forced P. Aelius Glykon to fund the celebration of the Kalends, along-
side Pesah and Shavuot. But we lack for high and later imperial Asia the sort
of evidence Josephus provides for the Late Republic and Early Empire that
shows that Asian Jews had to struggle for recognition, and for exemption from
32 IJO ii, nos. 47, 95.

33 IJO ii, no. 180, first/second century CE.
234 Schwartz
municipal expectations that they would not fully observe their laws. Had the
compromising Jews of the High and Later Empire won the battle and learned
to relax, or had they merely resigned themselves to their defeat and come, in
the best cases, to embrace and enjoy their compromises? The proudest expres-
sions of public acculturation derive of course from the wealthiest and socially
best-positioned Jews. What about the rest?
I have argued elsewhere that Christianization tended to standardize Jewish
communal organization while setting new obstacles on the path of Jewish
social integration.34 Some Asian communities adapted to these changes with
great success—Sardis is the prime example. Harland35 demonstrated that
the Jews of Hierapolis, too, evolved into a synagogue-based community but
the evidence for them fails after the one document that shows the transition.
Aphrodisian Jewry, too, may not have survived long into the Late Empire.
Except at Korykos, evidence for Jews in late antique Asia is both much more
modest and much more normative: in most places Christianization had had
its usual impact. One of its more unattractive effects was to normalize the
open expression of hostility: a house or a church in late antique Ikaria was
decorated with a plaque bearing the edifying proverb: “You will never hear an
honest word from a Jew”;36 amusingly, the stonemason had initially written
“Ikarian” and deleted it.
II Baron’s “Expansion of Judaism” and “Incipient Medievalism”
What do the previous two exercises in highly technical, local-evidence-based,

ancient historical speculation have to learn from the sweeping narratives of
Baron? I believe that Baron has much to teach us despite the manifest inva-
lidity of his account. Specifically, we can learn from him how to think more
productively about the big questions the meager evidence raises about the
precise contours of the Jews’ attempts at local integration, the prices that the
Jews were constrained to pay to achieve it, and the communities’ ineluctable
tendency toward entropy. Jewish history as Baron and his followers understood
it is essentially a diasporic rather than a national history, and Jewish diasporas
in most places and times, including the Mediterranean basin in Hellenistic and
Roman antiquity, have indubitably had enough structural commonalities that
34 S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton: Princeton
35 Above note 28.
36 IJO ii, no. 5a.
ancient Judaists’ emphasis on context to the exclusion of structure and conti-

nuity must be a serious intellectual error.
There are good and bad reasons not to take Baron seriously: there are deep
flaws with his account of the ancient diaspora, which will be discussed in more
detail below, though even these flaws are instructive and thought-provoking.
Among the bad reasons ancient Judaists avoid Baron is that whatever his faults
Baron was one of the first Judaic scholars writing in English who thought and
wrote like a professional academic social-sciences tinged historian (cf. the
slightly younger Jacob Katz, among Hebraeophones—a far more “professional”
figure in some ways) and this is simply not a language that ancient Judaists—
with a few exceptions—whether their background is in theology or rabbinics
(or, in rare cases, classics), completely “get”. One of the points of taking Baron’s
story seriously is to try to get ancient Judaists and “mainstream” Jewish histori-
ans to rethink their mutual alienation and begin to see the benefits of regard-
ing ancient Judaism as a component of Jewish history in general.
The second edition of Salo Baron’s Social and Religious History of the Jews
contains two remarkable chapters on the ancient diaspora. The first of these,
which had appeared also in the first edition, is called “The Expansion of
Judaism”.37 Writing about the growth of the diaspora in the period before the
high imperial revolts, Baron produced an image of strong dynamism, galloping
growth, of a Jewish world turned outwards, bent on expansion in full-throttle
competition with Greeks and with Hellenism, presenting a powerfully attrac-
tive message to deracinated urban pagans both rich and poor; diaspora Jews in
this period engaged always and everywhere in intensive propaganda aimed to
win the friendship but especially the adherence of their neighbors. The result
was a flood—not a trickle—of converts; Baron’s main contemporary followers
on this point are Louis Feldman and Shlomo Sand, a very odd couple indeed.38
Baron’s late Hellenistic/early Roman diaspora, though, was dysfunctional
and so, unstable. In its avid outwardness lay the seeds of its destruction,
because it was engaged in a competition with the hegemonic culture it could
not win, in the final analysis. Judaism won converts when what it needed was
friends. Diaspora Judaism turned out to be a polarizing force, and its enemies
won. And so Baron’s second chapter on the ancient diaspora, the famous
37 S. W. Baron, Social and Religious History of the Jews (18 vols.; New York: Columbia University
Press, 1952), 1:165–211.
38 L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from
Alexander to Justinian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); S. Sand, The Invention
of the Jewish People (London/New York: Verso, 2010).
236 Schwartz
“Incipient Medievalism”,39 is disenchanted, even gloomy: after 117, but espe-

cially after 312, the Jews understood that their focus could no longer be on
competition and expansion; the most they could hope for was stability and
survival. So the Jews turned inward and developed the sorts of social and
political institutions, in particular the local community, which allowed them
to endure into and through the Middle Ages. But just barely, given the constant
threat of Christianization.
It is worth pausing to consider this account. Not too many people in our era
of methodological caution and restraint would express their positivism so exu-
berantly, a fact which may obstruct our appreciation of Baron’s story. But the
account has an important feature which distinguishes it from the equally dra-
matic tales told by the scholars of Wissenschaft des Judentums: Baron adduces
evidence, but his account is not pieced together from inductive analyses of
primary sources. While most Judaic scholars at the time, and most ancient
Judaists even now, were and remain committed to arguing from evidence,
Baron worked in this instance by subordinating evidence to a hypothesis about
demographic change. In this sense, he anticipated what, in my view, is some of
the best and most sophisticated historiography of the following generation. But
there is a fundamental problem. What drives Baron’s account is his embrace
of the population number provided in the Arabic version of the Chronicle of
thirteenth century Syrian bishop Gregorius Bar-Hebraeus. Bar-Hebraeus wrote
that there were just under 7 million Jews in the Roman Empire in the reign of
Claudius.40 Given Karl Julius Beloch’s estimate of the population of the Roman
Empire as a whole as between 50 and 60 million at the death of Augustus in
14 CE, a few decades before the reign of Claudius (reaching as much as 80–120
million by the later second century),41 and given that few Jews lived in the west
outside of central Italy at such an early date, if we accept Bar-Hebraeus’s num-
ber, then we have to conclude, as Baron does, that the Jews constituted well
over 20%—probably closer to 30–35%—of the population of the east.
39 Baron, SRHJ, 2:172–214.

40 The figure is unsalvageable, since it reflects a census, which counted Roman citizens,
not Jews. See B. McGing, “Population and Proselytism: How Many Jews were there in
the Ancient World,” in Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (ed. J. Bartlett; New York:
Routledge, 2002), 88–106.
41 For the figure for the early Principate see J. Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der Griechisch-
Römischen Welt (Leipzig: Duncker u. Humblot, 1886), 502. The High Imperial estimates
were made in later works and have had less impact, except among E. Lo Cascio and his
followers. The figures are discussed by W. Scheidel, Debating Roman Demography (Leiden:
Brill, 2001), 63.
Baron understood that both percentages and gross numbers are meaningful
and that they necessitate in this case first of all a lot of converts (because how
else could there have been so many Jews), and second of all a kind of dense and
complex imbrication both among Jews and between Jews and their environ-
ments, which would not have been possible otherwise if the number had been
smaller. The eastern Empire was thus much more Jewish than the late Czarist
Pale of Settlement (according to the Russian Imperial census of 1897—about
11%), much more Jewish than the New York metropolitan area c. 1960 (about
14%).42 Indeed, if we accept Beloch’s figure and remember the much higher
“carrying capacity” of the Roman west and just how densely urbanized and
populous provinces like Gaul and Spain were, then we would have to conclude
that the eastern Roman Empire as a whole was almost as Jewish as Baron’s
native Galician town of Tarnów (c. 40% in 1897).43
Baron was able to support elements of his account with evidence: the “out-
wardness” of Hellenistic and early Roman imperial period Jews in the dias-
pora is a reasonable and commonplace inference from the “Hellenism” and
apologetic character of much of the literature they produced. Ptolemaic
Egyptian papyri pointed in the same direction and so did some of same dia-
sporic archaeology and epigraphy adduced above, especially since two genera-
tions ago much of the corpus was conventionally dated much earlier than it
is now. Evidence for the second part of the account consisted mainly of the
disappearance of the evidence which had supported the first part—no more
Greco-Jewish literature, little further archaeological and epigraphical evidence
for Jewish expansion and integration, the apparently declining status of the
Jews in Roman law, and the growing influence of the inward-turning and pres-
ervationist rabbis.
Yet some features of Baron’s account are simply extrapolated from his
hypothesis and have no evidentiary foundation: the intensity of their neigh-
bors’ love and hatred, connected to the avidity of the Jews’ missionizing, to
take the most important example. On the other hand, some elements of the
account are baffling, for example the idea that Jews accompanied Phoenicians
in their colonization of North Africa, and that their respective trade networks
were closely linked. There is no evidence for this at all; presumably it is meant
to explain the very existence of the Jewish trade networks Baron is rather inex-
plicably committed to hypothesizing, but it also seems to be an echo of some
42 See “Population,” EJ 13, 890 and 898.

43 On the higher population of the Roman West—perhaps as high as 12 million in Gaul
alone, see Scheidel, Debating, 64. For the population of Tarnów before World War I, see
A. Polonsky, “Tarnów”, www.yivoencyclopedia.org.
238 Schwartz
sort of romantic racialism—the Semites all sticking together because they

spoke similar languages or had a shared Canaanite heritage, the sort of specu-
lation which one would have expected to become less common in the course
of the twentieth century with the de-legitimation of racialist thought among
professional historians.
The vitality and dynamism of diaspora Judaism before the revolts, in Baron’s
account, make the Jews’ aspiration to mere stability in the revolts’ aftermath
seem like the abandonment of a heroic quest. Indeed, in Baron’s view the
post-revolt diaspora experience was a failure: even mere stability was not
achieved. Baron, having posited so vast a Jewish population, in effect gets rid
of it (given that he regarded the medieval Jewish population as tiny) by mak-
ing it Christian. The Jews, who had at one time given the Greeks a run for their
money, now succumbed to their rebellious child.
Baron was always interested in population figures. He was, to be sure, not
above presenting unfounded demographic speculation as fact. Furthermore,
although he was an expert at drawing out the political, economic, social and
cultural implications of population figures, his method of calculating the fig-
ures was backwards: he simply took at face value the numbers he found in
his sources, including the manifestly unreliable Chronicle of Bar-Hebraeus.
Though in methodological-theoretical terms he may have been light-years
ahead of the text-based positivistic tradition of German historiography, he
agreed with it in failing to absorb the implications of the pioneering deductive
and model-based demography of Beloch.44 Baron was also strongly influenced
by his immediate environment of old-style—positivistic and inductive—pre-
scriptive Anglo-American field sociology (here, too, he compares unfavorably
to Jacob Katz, who worked in the “higher”, continental, theory-driven tradition
of Max Weber). So Baron was in good company in ignoring scholars like Beloch
and Weber. Furthermore, the first volumes of the second edition of the Social
and Religious History, written soon after the Second World War, predated the
advances in historical demography associated with figures like Peter Laslett
and, for antiquity, Keith Hopkins (both active from the 1960s). Still, Baron
understood the importance of elementary demographic data like population
figures as generators of historical interpretation.45
Why did Baron choose to extrapolate his account from such an obviously
problematic population figure? Many scholars were skeptical about the figure
44 See Scheidel, Debating, 49–72.

45 On Baron’s commitment to empiricistic sociology and love of population figures, see
R. Liberles, Salo Wittmayer Baron: Architect of Jewish History (New York: NYU Press,
1995), 42.
even before Baron wrote the first edition of SRHJ; indeed Baron pleads with
his readers to accept the number despite its implausibility and makes some
very unkind and dismissive comments about Victor Tcherikover’s skepticism,
but Tcherikover probably already spoke for the majority of competent schol-
ars in dismissing the figure. I do not know enough about Baron to know why
he had a quasi-religious commitment to believing a fact, which is so unlikely
in itself and starts to seem absurd when you notice just how little impact the
Jews had on the historical record of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. I
would speculate that he felt the need to start his book with a heroic narrative,
with which Bar-Hebraeus unintentionally provided him, as a way of setting
the stage for the prosaic history of the Jews’ muddling through which follows.
It may not be accidental that the heroic narrative is set precisely in the dias-
pora, and not in Judaea: for his Zionist counterparts the great heroic story was
that of the Judaean revolts, and the recession into functional institution-build-
ing was the work of the rabbis, so Baron was arguably supplying a diasporist
counter-history.
Be this as it may, it would actually be a worthwhile effort—now that the
historical demography of antiquity has become so methodologically and theo-
retically refined due largely to the efforts of Walter Scheidel building on the
work of the late Keith Hopkins—to try to do this project correctly, by working
out a set of broad parametric models and testing our evidence, critically ana-
lyzed, against them. This is not a project for innumerates, like me, but it is one
of fundamental historical importance—this is one of the lessons we can learn
from Baron’s efforts. Though in itself hypothetical, such a project would add
richness and depth to projects like the one I began to outline above of trying
to produce a broad, though evidence-respecting and detail-rich, characteriza-
tion of Jewish life in the Roman diaspora, the more so since, though Baron was
wrong, there was a change for the Jews midway through classical antiquity,
their numbers did drop, if not as much as Baron thought, and this fact did have
various impacts. Baron gets the credit for having been the first to try to think
the issues through and juxtapose them with the sources.
By contrast, the best scholarship in the decades since Baron wrote “Incipient
Medievalism” has tended to be “microhistorical”, focusing on specific places in
specific periods, and has been firmly committed to the precise interpretation
of small corpora of evidence in their local contexts. Even in books that cover
more ground, like John Barclay’s Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From
Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE),46 or John Collins’s Between Athens and
46 Above note 7.

240 Schwartz
Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora,47 the grand récit has been
jettisoned in favor of somewhat de-politicized (and de-narrativized) focus on
questions of identity, acculturation and integration. Barclay himself noted
the epistemological “humility” of much of the more recent scholarship.48 A
Mediterranean Jewish story that closes in 117 CE is bound to be as optimistic a
story of successful integration as a European Jewish one that closes in 1945 CE.49
Yet most of the microhistories are neo-Baronian, to use David Engel’s term,
almost always unconsciously so: their fundamental assumptions are happy
ones: the Jews maintained a sense of difference while retaining friendly social
ties with their neighbors and embracing them culturally; the benefits were
reciprocal.
This is no doubt a reasonable way of understanding some assemblages of
evidence from high and later Roman Asia Minor.50 Superficially it might seem
to work for Hellenistic Egypt, too, especially the rural settlements known from
the papyri, although we know enough about the extremely complex cultural
and political dynamics of that country—shaped by relations between emper-
ors, army, civil administration, a rich mosaic of immigrant groups and native
Egyptians, not to mention an already venerable and fraught history of rela-
tions between Judaeans and Egyptians—to warn us against simplistic char-
acterizations of the Jewish experience there. Neo-Baronianism is indubitably
misplaced in the relatively few recent scholarly books that aspire to com-
prehensive assessment, most notably Erich Gruen’s Diaspora: Jews Amongst
Greeks and Romans,51 and the first chapters of Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and
the Jews.52
47 J. J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New
York: Crossroads, 1983).
48 Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, 4–9.
49 More on this historiographic parallel see in Tal Ilan’s contribution in this volume.
50 Though the truth is that even here the handful of monuments tells us very little about
the subjectivity-shaping mess of irreducibly complex quotidian lived experience. In other
words, the social and political history behind the monuments are concealed or totally
lost, so even plausible conjecture about the generally eirenic nature of Jewish life in High
Imperial Asia is only that.
51 E. S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard
52 P. Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 3–102. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, is
unusual in citing Baron, frequently (see listing on p. 673). Feldman tends to accept Baron’s
population figure, characterizing von Harnack’s estimate of four million as a “minimum”,
without any discussion (293). Feldman adduces the numbers to support an argument for
III Conclusion
The experience of the Jews in the Roman diaspora can be profitably considered
as structurally similar, in important respects, to their experiences in the (often)
better-attested historical circumstances of the medieval and early modern
periods. The immediate objection to this is that in the later periods the Jews
lived in regimes dominated by monotheistic religions genetically related to
Judaism, so the Jews were not simply a minority but the bearers of a religious
tradition weighted down with meaning for their hosts. By contrast, the high
Roman Empire was pagan and even the late empire was Christianizing rather
than fully Christian. These differences indubitably mattered to the experience
of the Jews. It could even be argued that the Jews’ experience in the Roman
Empire is comparable to the experiences of the small and isolated communi-
ties in medieval and modern India and China, living as they did in states where
Judaism carried no ideological freight. Such communities were barely noticed
by host states, and had neither privileges nor disabilities.53 They were readily
integrated in urban environments and in some cases disappeared completely
before modernity.
But matters are not so simple: Judaism did carry ideological freight even
in the pre-Constantinian Roman world. Jews were obviously not as numerous
or conspicuous as Baron would have us believe, but they were long familiar
and widely diffused. If nothing else, their failed rebellions were well known.54
Unlike the medieval and early modern states in which the Jews lived, the
Roman state was not initially dominated by a monotheistic religion ideologi-
cally committed to its supersession or degradation. Nevertheless, it had total-
izing aspirations that, as I have argued elsewhere, had the potential to make
life very uncomfortable for Jews committed to separate corporate existence.55
In this way it anticipated medieval and early modern states and differed from
earlier Mediterranean and Near Eastern empires.
a Jewish “mission”, which even Baron did not believe in, but otherwise shows little interest
in their implications.
53 Bernard Lewis notes the different fates of Jewish communities in Christian/Islamic envi-
ronments, on the one hand, and in south and east Asian environments, on the other. To
be sure, he simplifies, since the size of the communities and their distance from large
centers mattered. Did the Jewish experience in Afghanistan resemble that in Iraq more
than that in India? Still there is a general validity to Lewis’s comments. See B. Lewis, The
Jews of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), ix–xi.
54 For further references, see the contribution of Martin Goodman above in this volume.
55 S. Schwartz, Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient
Judaism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), especially 107–9.
242 Schwartz
So the treatment of the ancient Jews, especially those of the diaspora, who
fulfilled one of the tacit criteria of legitimacy in the professional field of Jewish
history—living in the diaspora—in isolation from Jewish history, for all the
benefits the emphasis on diachronic context has bestowed especially on those
working in the microhistorical mode, has also exacted costs. The microhisto-
rians’ evidence is skewed when it is not completely mute—it favors evidence
for Jews who retained some separation from their environment (and so are dis-
cernible as Jews) while enjoying episodic success at integration, which allowed
them to participate in a specifically Roman culture of monumental commem-
oration and construction, yielding inscriptions and occasionally synagogue
buildings. Anyone who argues for communal failure is automatically open to
the accusation of arguing from silence. The temptation to aggregate the evi-
dence, but not the silences, into a synthetic picture is overwhelming. Bringing
Jewish history—precisely of the hardheaded type pioneered by Baron, where
the implications of the data and their limitations are confronted without
squeamishness or sentimentality—to bear on the study of Jewish antiquity
can introduce an important and bracing note of pessimism.
“You are a Chosen Stock . . .”: The Use of Israel
Epithets for the Addressees in First Peter*
Lutz Doering
For Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr on his sixtieth birthday
I Introduction
1 Peter is a circular letter to Christians in parts of Asia Minor that is closely

related to Jewish Diaspora letters in both form and motifs.1 Before entering
the discussion about the issues addressed in this chapter, I would like to dis-
close a few assumptions I am making about this text, including some ideas
about introductory questions. Weighing all the evidence, I deem it probable
that the letter is pseudonymous. The likely allusion of “Babylon” in 1 Peter 5:13
to Rome points to the time following the destruction of the Second Temple,
since Rome is here referenced as the power responsible for this destruction, as
Babylon was for that of the first.2 This would imply that the earliest plausible
* The present chapter is a thoroughly reworked version of L. Doering, “Gottes Volk: Die
Adressaten als ‘Israel’ im Ersten Petrusbrief,” Bedrängnis und Identität: Studien zu Situation,
Kommunikation und Theologie des 1. Petrusbriefs (ed. D. S. du Toit, collaboration by T. Jantsch;
BZNW 200; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 81–114.
1 This has been argued in L. Doering, Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian
Epistolography (WUNT 298; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 434–52; cf. already idem, “First
Peter as Early Christian Diaspora Letter,” in The Catholic Epistles and Apostolic Tradition: A
New Perspective on James and the Catholic Letter Collection (ed. K.-W. Niebuhr and R. W. Wall;
Waco, TX: Baylors University Press, 2009), 215–36, 441–57. Cf., with a different emphasis,
T. Klein, Bewährung in Anfechtung: Der Jakobusbrief und der Erste Petrusbrief als christliche
Diasporabriefe (NET 18; Tübingen: Francke, 2011), 225–74.
2 Cf. C.-H. Hunzinger, “Babylon als Deckname für Rom und die Datierung des 1. Petrusbriefes,”
in Gottes Wort und Gottes Land: FS H.-W. Hertzberg (ed. H. G. Reventlow; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), 67–77. This has recently been questioned by A. D. Baum,
“ ‘Babylon’ als Ortsnamenmetapher in 1 Petr 5,13 auf dem Hintergrund der antiken Literatur,”
in Petrus und Paulus in Rom: Eine interdisziplinäre Debatte (ed. S. Heid; Freiburg: Herder, 2011),
180–220, who argues that “Babylon” may refer to a number of issues, especially the place of
exile. “Als Datierungshilfe für den ersten Petrusbrief fällt die Ortsnamenmetapher ‘Babylon’
daher aus” (219, there italics). However, Baum justly affirms the connection of the meta-
phor with Rome, and this link is best explained when we allow for the more specific tertium

244 Doering
date would be the last third of the first century, but anything more specific
than that is very difficult.
A clear terminus ad quem would be provided by Polycarp’s letter to the
Philippians, which obviously takes up and weaves in phrases from 1 Peter,3
without designating Peter as the author of these phrases. Yet, the date of this
letter is debated; because of the martyrdom of Ignatius that is presupposed in
Pol. Phil. 1:1; 9:1, which is likely to be dated under Trajan or Hadrian, we shall
arrive at the period between 110 and 135.4 Further dating criteria are uncer-
tain. 2 Peter appears to presuppose 1 Peter (2 Pet 3:1), but its own dating is
again contentious.5 Eusebius mentions that Papias used “testimonies” from 1
Peter (H.E. 3.39.13); but more than some chronological proximity to the letter
of Polycarp, whose companion Papias was according to Irenaeus (Adv. Haer.
5.33.4), cannot be derived from this. In particular, the role that Pliny’s letter to
Trajan about the Christians might have for dating 1 Peter is very much debat-
ed.6 This matter cannot be discussed in detail here; I wish to limit myself to
comparationis of both Babylon and Rome as powers responsible for destructing a Jerusalem
temple and thereby causing suffering and dispersion. Baum’s own attempt to construct the link
as one between Babylon as “Hauptstadt des Exils” and Rome as “Hauptstadt der irdischen
Fremde” (215, there italics) is much less compelling: while Babylon is the capital of exile pre-
cisely by virtue of its violent destruction of Jerusalem, including the temple, and deportation
of the Judeans, Rome, on this view, degenerates to a mere symbol of the Christians’ home-
lessness. On the link between Babylon and Rome see M. Durst, “Babylon gleich Rom in der
jüdischen Apokalyptik und im frühen Christentum: Zur Auslegung von 1 Petr 5,13,” in: Heid,
Petrus und Paulus in Rom, 422–43. See further below, § II.
3 This was noticed by Eusebius, H.E. 4.14.9. Cf. also J. B. Bauer, Die Polykarpbriefe (KAV 5;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 21; P. Hartog, Polycarp and the New Testament
(WUNT II/134; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 189. Some caution as to the extent of Polycarp’s
engagement with 1 Peter is voiced by P. J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter
(Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1996), 44–46.
4 For the dates of Ignatius’ life see P. Foster, “The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The
Writings of the Apostolic Fathers (ed. P. Foster; London: Continuum, 2007), 81–107.
5 Overly confident is T. B. Williams, Persecution in 1 Peter: Differentiating and Contextualizing
Early Christian Suffering (NTSup 145; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 28, who dates 2 Peter to “ca.
80–90 CE,” following Richard Bauckham. See the brief discussion in U. Schnelle, Einleitung in
das Neue Testament (UTB 1830; 8th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 503–04.
6 The most recent discussion, at least in German scholarship, has been started by A. Reichert,
“Durchdachte Konfusion: Plinius, Trajan und das Christentum,” ZNW 93 (2002): 227–50, who
argues that the epistolary exchange between Pliny and the emperor first established a prac-
tice of punishing Christians merely for being Christians. This view has been affirmed by
K. Thraede, “Noch einmal: Plinius d. J. und die Christen,” ZNW 95 (2004): 102–28. The oppo-
site view, that a corresponding practice had already been initiated before Pliny, has repeat-
edly been argued by Johannes Molthagen, latterly in idem, “ ‘Cognitionibus de Christianis
interfui numquam’: Das Nichtwissen des Plinius und die Anfänge der Christenprozesse,”
“ You Are A Chosen Stock ” 245
the following remarks: the expression “(to suffer) ὡς Χριστιανός” in 1 Pet 4:16
appears to reflect defamation “as Christian” and can therefore justly be seen in
connection with the nomen ipsum in Pliny’s letter.7 However, Pliny’s remark,
“cognitionibus de Christianis interfui numquam,”8 can be read in such a way
as to allow for such cognitiones to have happened already before Pliny’s term
as governor.9 If this is correct, then this testimony casts light on the wider
period in which 1 Peter was written and does not mark a strict terminus a
quo. Additional pointers for dating 1 Peter seem to vanish in recent discussion
(thus, the assumed date for 1 Clement, 96 CE, has been criticized from different
angles).10 In short, it seems advisable to me to leave room for a dating window
of about 40 years from the 70s of the first century CE onwards.
As to the implied addressees, I take it that they are construed as native
Gentiles. This is suggested by passages such as 1 Pet 1:14 (“the desires that you
formerly held in your ignorance”), 1:18 (“the futile ways inherited from your
ancestors”), and 4:2–4 (the “sufficient time” spent according to “the will of
the Gentiles” and “joined” in “the same excess”). In all likelihood, this is more
than a “Jewish-Christian” critique of (Jewish) ancestors, as some have argued.11
Rather, such a textual strategy makes most sense if also the first real addressees
were native Gentiles,12 at least in their majority.13 Turning now to the main
in idem, Christen in der nichtchristlichen Welt des Römischen Reiches der Kaiserzeit (1.–3.
Jahrhundert n. Chr.): Ausgewählte Beiträge aus Wissenschaft und freikirchlicher Praxis
(Pharos 19; St. Katharinen: Scripta-Mercaturae-Verlag, 2005), 116–45.
7 Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96.2. Cf. D. G. Horrell, “The Label Χριστιανός: 1 Peter 4:16 and the
Formation of Christian Identity,” JBL 126 (2007): 361–81, esp. 370–76. Contra e.g. J. H. Elliott,
1 Peter: A New Translation and Commentary (AB 37B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 99–100,
792–94.
8 Pliny, Ep. 10.96.1.
9 Thus Molthagen, “Nichtwissen,” 118–19; Horrell, “Label,” 375. Contrast Thraede, “Noch ein-
mal,” 113–14.
10 See A. Gregory, “1 Clement: An Introduction,” in Foster, The Writings of the Apostolic
Fathers, 21–31, who suggests the range of 70–140 CE (28). According to Gregory, it cannot
be shown that 1 Clement depends literarily on 1 Peter (30).
11 E.g. B. Witherington, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, vol. 2: A Socio-
Rhetorical Commentary on 1–2 Peter (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 22–37
(with the variant that what is criticized is Jewish demeanor before the coming of Christ).
Against this see Williams, Persecution, 92–95.
12 See the survey by M. Dubis, “Research on 1 Peter: A Survey of Scholarly Literature Since
1985,” CBR 4 (2006): 199–239 (204–05).
13 With this differentiation and quantification: Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 50–51; cf. C. Stenschke,
“ ‘. . . das auserwählte Geschlecht, die königliche Priesterschaft, das heilige Volk (1 Petr 2,9):
Funktion und Bedeutung der Ehrenbezeichnungen Israels im 1. Petrusbrief,” in Christen,
Juden und die Zukunft Israels: Beiträge zur Israellehre aus Geschichte und Theologie
246 Doering
thrust of my paper, I shall ask how, why and with what implications the
addressees of this letter are addressed with epithets that in Biblical-Jewish tra-
dition belong to Israel.14
II The Addressees as “Elect Strangers” of the “Diaspora” in Asia Minor
1 Peter deploys an application of Israel-related terms already in the address

within the epistolary prescript: “to the elect strangers of the Diaspora
(ἐκλεκτοῖς παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς) of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and
Bithynia” (1 Pet 1:1). This characterization of the addressees as “strangers”
recurs in prominent position in the introduction to the second part of the
letter (2:11–4:11): “Beloved ones, I exhort you as resident aliens and strang-
ers” (ὡς παροίκους καὶ παρεπιδήμους; 2:11). As Reinhard Feldmeier has shown,
1 Peter thereby takes up “a narrowly attested Biblical and Jewish tradition,”
by which it interprets Christian identity from the “negative experiences of
non-identity.” By twice using the rare word παρεπίδημος, which emphasizes
the instability of sojourn, this letter underlines “the preliminary character
of Christian existence.”15 This tradition is attested in the Hebrew and Greek
Bible in texts dealing with the “alien” (ger), with the sojourn of the Patriarchs,
(ed. B. Schwarz and H. Stadelmann; Edition Israelogie 1; Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2009),
97–116 (98–103).
14 This essay therefore provides no comprehensive “ecclesiology” of 1 Peter though it is
intended as preliminary work towards such a study. On this topic, see J. H. Elliott, The
Elect and the Holy. An Exegetical Examination of I Peter 2:4–10 and the Phrase βασίλειον
ἱεράτευμα (NTSup 12; Leiden: Brill, 1966); H. Goldstein, Paulinische Gemeinde im Ersten
Petrusbrief (SBS 80; Stuttgart: Kath. Bibelwerk, 1975); F. Schröger, Gemeinde im 1.
Petrusbrief: Untersuchungen zum Selbstverständnis einer christlichen Gemeinde an der
Wende vom 1. zum 2. Jahrhundert (Passau: Passavia Universitätsverlag, 1981); H. Giesen,
“Kirche als erwähltes Volk: Zum Gemeindeverständnis von 1 Petr 2,4–10 [1986],” in idem,
Jesu Heilsbotschaft und die Kirche: Studien zur Eschatologie und Ekklesiologie bei den
Synoptikern und im ersten Petrusbrief (BETL 179; Leuven: Leuven University Press, Peeters,
2004), 353–64; I. Hiršs, Ein Volk aus Juden und Heiden: Der ekklesiologische Beitrag des ersten
Petrusbriefes zum christlich-jüdischen Gespräch (MJSt 15; Münster: LIT, 2003); G. Hotze,
“Königliche Priesterschaft in Bedrängnis: Zur Ekklesiologie des Ersten Petrusbriefes,” in
Hoffnung in Bedrängnis: Studien zum Ersten Petrusbrief (ed. T. Söding; SBS 216; Stuttgart:
Kath. Bibelwerk, 2009), 105–29.
15 R. Feldmeier, Die Christen als Fremde: Die Metapher der Fremde in der antiken Welt, im
Urchristentum und im 1. Petrusbrief (WUNT 64; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 104 (first
quote), 21 (second quote; trans. LD). For a contemporary civic context of these terms see
the contribution of John Kloppenborg in this volume.
and with m etaphorical designations for the entire people of Israel or for pious
individuals.16 It is further attested in texts from Qumran, especially in CD 4:4–6
with the reference to exile in the “land of Damascus” and in 1QM 1:2–3 with the
use of gôlah for the yaḥad (gôlat ha-midbar; gôlat bǝne ’ôr). Finally, and most
clearly, it is attested in the works of Philo of Alexandria, who portrays the wise
as stranger in the world.17
In addition, 1 Peter interprets the existence as strangers with the term
“Diaspora.” The addressees are styled “elect strangers of the Diaspora” of
named territories in Asia Minor. As Leonhard Goppelt noted, the reference to
Diaspora “is applied here to the Church . . . without any noticeable polemic.”18
The term “Diaspora” implies a particular perception of the addressees that
has its experiential background in Jewish Diaspora existence. To be sure, it is
debated what precisely “Diaspora” means here. Is it used in a purely territorial
way, so that the letter would be directed to Christians in designated areas of
the Jewish Diaspora of Asia Minor? However, comparison with the Diaspora
address in James—where it is not used in a partitive way: “to the twelve tribes
in the Diaspora” (Jas 1:1)—suggests a qualitative use of the term instead: the
addressees live in the world and yet, at the same time, in a foreign land. 1 Peter
does not express this with the concept of heavenly citizenship, as do Paul in
Phil 3:20 and then, with different emphasis, Hermas Sim. 1:1–6 and Diogn. 5:5,
9. Rather, 1 Peter expects that the addressees, during their sojourn, being chal-
lenged by their pagan neighbors (1 Pet 2:12; 3:13–17; 4:3–4), conduct their lives in
reverent fear (1:17) while moving towards their heritage that is kept in heaven
for them (1:4).
How does 1 Peter deal with the challenge of suffering? First, in terms of the
structure of communication, the apostolic author demonstrates profound soli-
darity. As the letter closing shows, the author writes from “Babylon,” whence
he delivers greetings of the “co-elect” (i.e. community) in this place (5:13).19
16 See e.g. Lev 25:23 “for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants (gerîm
wǝ-tôšābîm / προσήλυτοι καὶ πάροικοι)”; or David’s thanksgiving prayer in 1 Chr 29:15 “For
we are aliens and transients (gerîm . . . wǝ-tôšābîm / πάροικοι . . . καὶ παροικοῦντες) before
you, as were all our ancestors.”
17 Philo, Cher. 121: vis-à-vis God as the only “full citizen”; Conf. 75–82; QG. 4:39. Cf. Feldmeier,
Christen als Fremde, 60–63.
18 L. Goppelt, A Commentary on I Peter (trans. J. E. Alsup; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1993), 64.
19 In a recent study, Otto Zwierlein has suggested that “Babylon” does not refer to “Rome”
but stands metaphorically for Christian existence in foreign lands (Petrus und Paulus in
Jerusalem und Rom: Vom Neuen Testament zu den apokryphen Apostelakten [UaLG 109;
Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012], 7–14 [10]); a similar view was espoused earlier by K. Heussi,
248 Doering
Thus, not only do the addressees live in a “Diaspora,” but by the reference to
“Babylon” the addressor too shares the situation of dispersion that is qualified
by an experience of exile.20 A similar aim towards solidarity can be seen in the
self-stylization of the addressor as “co-elder and witness of the sufferings of
Christ” (5:1), which makes the letter writer accessible to the elders and at the
same time interprets his apostolic ministry (1:1) in terms of being an elder for
the entire network of churches. In addition, it refers to his own experience of
suffering, of which historical readers around the turn of the centuries might
have already known that it ended with Peter’s death. I have discussed these
questions in another contribution and will therefore not go into details here.21
Die römische Petrustradition in kritischer Sicht (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1955), 36–41. This
view, however, overstates the—otherwise apposite—point of drawing a correspondence
between “Babylon” (1 Pet 5:13) and the “elect strangers of the Diaspora of . . .” (1:1) by over-
looking that the reference to “Babylon” requires a locality (at least an imagined one) whence
the “co-elect” is sending her greetings. “Babylon” therefore must metaphorically refer to
a place, not simply to a mode of existence. To be sure, Zwierlein tacitly assumes such
a place: he claims that Peter is writing “selbstverständlich aus seiner Heimatgemeinde
Jerusalem” (Petrus und Paulus, 10). Such a location has briefly been suggested by A. von
Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius, II: Die Chronologie, vol. 1
(Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1897), 459, albeit in the form of an identification of “Babylon” with
Jerusalem. However, that Peter would write “selbstverständlich” from Jerusalem is by
no means clear. Peter was replaced as leader of the Jerusalem church, as reflected in
Acts 12:17, and was later known as a traveling apostle (1 Cor 1:12; 9:5). This suggests that an
enduring connection with Jerusalem was not associated with Peter (in contrast to James
the brother of the Lord). Both Harnack and Zwierlein point to similarities between the
roles of Silvanus in 1 Pet 5:12 that of Silas in Acts 15:22, where he is involved in carrying
the letter with the Apostolic Decree from Jerusalem. However, these similarities seem
to point towards the claim of a primary connection between Peter and Sil(v)a(nu)s that
precedes the latter’s association with Paul. See L. Doering, “Apostle, Co-Elder, and Witness
of Suffering: Author Construction and Peter Image in First Peter,” in Pseudepigraphie und
Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen / Pseudepigraphy and Author Fiction in Early
Christian Letters (ed. J. Frey et al.; WUNT 246; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 645–81
(662–67). It does not require that Peter in 1 Peter be situated in Jerusalem.
20 Durst, “Babylon gleich Rom,” 437–38, apparently wishes to exclude the notion of the
experience of exile and dispersion from the reference to “Babylon,” since the only use
of this reference the readers would have understood was that of a codename for Rome.
But this rigidity seems unwarranted in view of the bookend position of the references to
“Diaspora” and “Babylon” as well as the overall topic of alienation in the letter. The issue is
not merely, as Durst claims, one of precise parallels to individual expressions but also the
functioning of these expressions in their literary co-text.
21 Cf. Doering, “Apostle, Co-Elder, and Witness of Suffering,” 652–62.
Second, materially, the letter addresses the challenge of suffering with a triad
of statements about election, the requirement of holiness and e schatological
promises. There are parallels with all three elements in Jewish literature
addressing the Diaspora situation.22 Since the first two of these strategies
address specifically the corporate status of Israel and closely correspond to
Jewish self-perception in the Diaspora,23 I shall focus on them comparatively
for the present purpose.
Election is foundational in 1 Peter. It is already mentioned in the prescript: the
strangers here addressed are “elect” (ἐκλεκτοῖς; 1:1). This is picked up later with
the phrase γένος ἐκλεκτόν (2:9)—more on this anon—and corroborated chris-
tologically with reference to the “elect stone / cornerstone” (2:4, 6). Moreover,
there is the neat correspondence between the letter opening and closing in
the reference to the “co-elect” (συνεκλεκτή, sc. community) in Babylon (5:13),
already mentioned before. In addition, in the further course of the prescript,
election is explicated with the following triad: “according to (κατά) the pre-
science of God the father, through (ἐν) the sanctification of the spirit and for
(εἰς) obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ” (1:2). The first statement
signals that election is grounded in God’s plan.24 “Sanctification of the spirit”
probably ought to be taken as a subjective or auctorial genitive: as sanctifica-
tion by the spirit, through which election happens.25 The following expression
22 See the texts discussed in K.-W. Niebuhr, “Der Jakobusbrief im Licht frühjüdischer
Diasporabriefe,” NTS 44 (1998): 420–43 (432–40). As to eschatological promises, we
find particularly the expectation of an ingathering of the dispersed; see e.g. Ep Jer 2;
2 Macc 1:27, 29; 2:7–8, 18; 2 Bar 78:8; 85:4.
23 On the prominence of these two strategies see Doering, Letters, 433–34 (with nn.
21–23); and the “sketch” of Jewish identity in the Diaspora by J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the
Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1996), 399–444. Cf. also G. Delling, “Die Bewältigung der Diasporasituation durch
das hellenistische Judentum [1987],” in idem, Studien zum Frühjudentum: Gesammelte
Aufsätze 1971–1987 (ed. C. Breytenbach and K.-W. Niebuhr; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2000), 23–121 (36–45).
24 See Goppelt, I Peter, 73 (“predetermination, which is effective as election”); Achtemeier,
1 Peter, 86; Elliott, 1 Peter, 318.
25 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 86: “[The expression] gives the means by which that election occurred:
it is through the setting apart (ἁγιασμῷ—instrumental dative) accomplished by the Spirit
(πνεύματος—subjective genitive).” Cf. Elliott, 1 Peter, 318–19; J. R. Michaels, 1 Peter (WBC
49; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 11. According to K. H. Schelkle, Die Petrusbriefe. Der
Judasbrief (HTK 13/2; Freiburg: Herder, 1961), 22, and R. Feldmeier, The First Letter of Peter:
A Commentary on the Greek Text (trans. P. H. Davids; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,
2008), 58, πνεύματος is genitivus auctoris, according to Goppelt, I Peter, 73 n. 47, “subjective
genitive or genitive of author.” Cf. also 2 Thess 2:13.
250 Doering
is more difficult; in my view, it consists of two units and is altogether to be

taken with final meaning: the election happens for obedience (that is, of the
elect) and for sprinkling with the blood of Christ (thus, objective genitive).26
With the last phrase, the text probably alludes to the sprinkling of the people
with the blood of the covenant according to Exod 24:8 in the context of the cov-
enant ceremony Exod 24:3–8.27 However, there, the verb κατασκεδάννυμι (MT:
root zrq), not ῥαντίζω is used. This evidence is explained variously. Either one
assumes that the stem ῥαντισ- sometime in early Christian tradition became
attached to the motif of the covenantal blood (cf. Heb 12:24 [and 9:18–21]; also
Barn. 5:1), whence 1 Peter would have adopted it.28 Or, alternatively, one may
ask whether in 1 Pet 1:2 the only other passage in which ῥαντίζω is used in the
Greek scriptures might not be evoked: Exod 29:20–21, the sprinkling of Aaron
and his sons at their consecration as priests.29 In my view, it is possible that
the author of 1 Peter has sensed the tertium comparationis between the sprin-
kling of the people and that of the priests and already here anticipates the
coincidence of people and priesthood according to 1 Pet 2:5, 9, which we will
address later.
Crucial for a proper understanding of Primopetrine soteriology is the idea
of rebegetting or rebirth. It is mentioned in both the introductory eulogy
(1 Pet 1:3–12) and at the beginning of the first, foundational part of the letter
26 Similarly Michaels, 1 Peter, 11–12; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 88; Feldmeier, First Letter, 58–59;
J. Schlosser, La première épître de Pierre (CBNT 21; Paris: Cerf, 2011), 53. Contrast Elliott,
1 Peter, 319–20, who follows the suggestion by F. H. Agnew, “1 Peter 1:2—An Alternative
Translation,” CBQ 45 (1983): 68–73, to take εἰς with causal force. However, Achtemeier, 1
Peter, 87, justly points out that this view is problematic because “in the immediately fol-
lowing verses 3–5, εἰς is used three times with its normal telic force, indicating the likeli-
hood that the author also meant it to have that force in this phrase.”
27 Cf. N. Brox, Der erste Petrusbrief (EKK 21; 4th ed.; Zürich: Benzinger, Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1993), 57–58; Michaels, 1 Peter, 12–13; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 88–89 (and authors
mentioned there, 89 n. 124); Elliott, 1 Peter, 320; Feldmeier, First Letter, 58; K. H. Jobes,
1 Peter (BECNT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 71–72; Schlosser, La première épître,
53–54, 57. In contrast, Goppelt, I Peter, 70–75, perceives some similarity with 1QS 3:6–8,
where sprinkling with water of purification is mentioned in the context of covenant
renewal, and therefore interprets 1 Pet 1:2 with respect to baptism. This is hardly apposite
since the transition from blood to water of baptism is not really explained.
28 Cf. e.g. Goppelt, I Peter, 74–75.
29 See Exod 29:21: wǝ-hizzetā, ῥανεῖς. Cf. F. E. A. Sieffert, “Die Heilsbedeutung des Leidens und
Sterbens Christi nach dem ersten Briefe des Petrus,” Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie 20
(1875): 371–440 (379–83), who adds the sprinkling of priests in Lev 8:30 (here, προσραίνω)
and the purification of the leper in Lev 14:1–7 (here, περιρραίνω) and identifies sanctifica-
tion as the common denominator of all these rituals.
body (1:13–2:3).30As the seed language shows (1:23), it is primarily expressed as

“male” divine rebegetting (ἀναγεννάω, 1:3, 23), while the “female” counterpart of
rebirth is implied in the metaphorical designation of the addressees as “new-
born babes” (ὡς31 ἀρτιγέννητα βρέφη, 2:2). It is precisely this act of rebegetting /
rebirth that is the material reason for the Diaspora situation of the address-
ees. Unlike native Israelites, Christians do not get into their Diaspora by birth
abroad, by migration or by deportation, but rather by rebirth or rebegetting.
On the Jewish side, one might compare proselytes and their change of status,
as has been suggested by Torrey Seland.32
In close correspondence with election and rebegetting, 1 Peter mentions
the demand to be holy. It is prepared in the statement about obedience men-
tioned earlier (1:2) and is directly articulated in the reciprocal relation accord-
ing to Lev 19:2 (cf. 11:44–45), “You shall be holy for I am holy,” which is cited in
1 Pet 1:15–16. This demand is directly connected to the requirement of good
conduct (see ἀναστράφητε) in the period of sojourn (1:17). Furthermore, it
becomes clear from the renewed address to the recipients as “resident aliens and
strangers” in 2:11–12 that being strangers comes with a specific ethos. First of all,
the exhortation calls for abstention from “sarcic desires” (2:11). This is further
developed by the participle phrase τὴν ἀναστροφὴν ὑμῶν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἔχοντες
καλήν “keep your conduct amongst the nations good” (2:12). Good conduct and
good works here are crucial implications of sojourn as strangers in an envi-
ronment causing suffering.33 A similar distance from the surrounding pagan
30 Cf. Feldmeier, The First Letter, 23–25, 60–65, 96–99, 127–30, and idem, “Wiedergeburt
im 1. Petrusbrief,” in Wiedergeburt (ed. R. Feldmeier; BTS 25; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2005), 75–100. The issue here (1 Pet 1:3–12) is thus not immediately baptism
(thus however J. Roloff, Die Kirche im Neuen Testament [GNT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1993], 271), which is explicitly addressed only in the (difficult) verse 1 Pet 3:21.
Rebegetting / rebirth precedes baptism; cf. J. Herzer, Petrus oder Paulus? Studien über das
Verhältnis des Ersten Petrusbriefes zur paulinischen Tradition (WUNT 103; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1998), 216–23.
31 With Goppelt, I Peter, 122, 128; Feldmeier, The First Letter, 125–126, I take ὡς to mean “as”
here.
32 T. Seland, Strangers in the Light: Philonic Perspectives on Christian Identity in 1 Peter (BIS 76;
Leiden: Brill, 2005), 39–78. However, 1 Pet 2:9 (τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε) τοῦ ἐκ σκότους ὑμᾶς
καλέσαντος εἰς τὸ θαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ φῶς is the only passage in this letter for which really
pertinent passages on conversion in Jewish Diaspora literature can be adduced; see esp.
Philo, Agr. 81; Virt. 221; Abr. 70; and Jos. Asen. 8:9–10.
33 This much is clear, although scholars debate the temporal and material details of the
ensuing purpose, “so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honor-
able deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge” (2:12, NRSV). See the discussion in
Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 177–78; Elliott, 1 Peter, 468–71.
252 Doering
world in ethos and lifestyle is evident in much of the literature of Diaspora

Judaism. To be sure, 1 Peter neither builds its discourse around a sustained
reference to Torah commandments nor does it deploy the “Torah paraenesis”
characteristic of some Jewish Diaspora letters and also of the Letter of James;34
instead, it emphasizes christological and soteriological motifs in its paraensis.
Given this tendency in 1 Peter, however, the explicit orientation towards the
Holiness Code for the demand of holy conduct is particularly striking. Since
this demand will play a role in 2:4–10 as well, we shall come back to it later.
This interpretation of the situation of the addressees as Diaspora situation
has recently been questioned in Kelly Liebengood’s 2014 monograph based
on his PhD thesis submitted to the University of St Andrews.35 According to
Liebengood, Zech 9–14, with its themes of ingathering of the dispersed / new
Exodus, purification by fire and the Davidic shepherd, marks the eschatologi-
cal program of 1 Peter. For Liebengood, this does not fit the notion of an ongo-
ing Diaspora. He decides in favor of a radical solution: in the phrase ἐκλεκτοῖς
παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς, he claims, διασπορᾶς is an “ablative genitive,” meaning
“(called) out of the Diaspora.”36 But this radical solution is forced. Although
ablative genitive—more precisely: genitivus separationis—occasionally occurs
in 1 Peter,37 an interpretation in this sense here faces severe difficulties. It
does not seem plausible to me to understand “election” as “separation from
the Diaspora”; there are no convincing traditio-historical examples for such a
notion.38 In addition, on the account of Liebengood’s explanation it remains
puzzling why 1 Peter should mention “Diaspora” in connection with very spe-
cific areas in Asia Minor. This would be redundant if the emphasis was merely
the call out of any Diaspora. In addition, this view overlooks the close con-
nection in traditions and motifs between 1 Peter and the Letter of James, on
the one hand, and Jewish Diaspora letters, on the other. In all of these, letters
provide guidance for life in a Diaspora. 1 Peter should be interpreted similarly.
The problem with Liebengood’s approach is that he presses 1 Peter into the
Procrustean bed of an interpretation based on the eschatological program of
34 For Torah paraenesis in Jewish Diaspora letters and James, cf. Niebuhr, “Jakobusbrief,”
440–43.
35 K. D. Liebengood, The Eschatology of 1 Peter: Considering the Influence of Zechariah 9–14
(MSSNTS 157; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
36 Liebengood, Eschatology, 156–63.
37 On genitivus separationis see BDR § 180. Cf. 1 Pet 4:1: πέπαυται ἁμαρτίας.
38 Liebengood, Eschatology, 158, refers to Jdt 5:19, but this passage hardly proves the point:
the issue here is the return from dispersion (ἀνέβησαν ἐκ τῆς διασπορᾶς; notice: ἐκ), not
election.
Zech 9–14.39 Because “Diaspora” in this letter, due to the idea of rebegetting, is
not locally connoted, 1 Peter can draw from the diverse metaphorical worlds of
sojourn (as demonstrated), second Exodus,40 and return from exile.41
III The Addressees as Elect Nation and Priesthood
A massive transfer of Israel epithets is found in 1 Pet 2:4–10. This section

appears at the end of the first part of the letter body (1:13–2:10), in which the
foundational connection between election and the requirement of holiness
is developed. The section immediately preceding (1:13–2:3), as mentioned,
is dominated by the connection between rebegetting / rebirth and holiness.
However, syntactically we find a new start already in 2:1: ἀποθέμενοι οὖν. The
verses 2:1–3 initially continue the image field of rebegetting—birth—growth
and in verse 3 provide the phrase ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ κύριος, taken from Ps 33:9 LXX.
The christological verse 4 is then joined by relatival connection. The role of
the reference to Ps 33:9 LXX is probably enhanced by the similarity in sound
between χρηστός and Χριστός,42 as well as the notion of “coming to him” (Ps 33:6
LXX προσέλθατε).43 This ensures a close attuning to the preceding section
while the image field is changing. The ecclesiological implications of rebirth
are, on the one hand, christologically grounded in the statements about the
“living stone” and “corner stone” and, on the other hand, made concrete in the
remarks about the community.
The structure of text is dominated by two clusters of metaphorical motifs:
first, the motif of the “stone,” second, the motif of the “holy people of God.”
39 A text that, nota bene, is never quoted in this otherwise scripturally saturated letter!
40 See esp. 1 Pet 1:13 “gird up the loins of your minds”; 1:18–19 “you were ransomed . . . with
the precious blood of Christ, as that of an unblemished and spotless lamb”; and the refer-
ence to Isa 40:6–8, a passage typically taken to refer to the second Exodus, in 1 Pet 1:24–25,
centering on the “word of the Lord.” See Liebengood, Eschatology, 182–83.
41 One might compare the references to suffering for “only a little while” (1 Pet 5:10), to the
“imperishable heritance . . . kept in heaven” (1:4) and to the future glory (1:5, 8–9; 4:13; 5:10)
with the hope for an ingathering of the dispersed in Jewish Diaspora letters. Cf. Goppelt,
I Peter, 66: “And the ingathering is . . . described . . . as a future gathering around the Lord,
when faith becomes vision (I Pet 1:8).”
42 F. W. Beare, The First Epistle of Peter (3rd ed., rev. and enlarged; Oxford: Blackwell, 1970),
116; Michaels, 1 Peter, 90; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 148.
43 Goppelt, I Peter, 139; Jobes, 1 Peter, 145; cautiously Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 153, who prefers
this explanation for the transition from 2:1–3 to 2:4–10 but admits: “Yet even it remains
somewhat speculative.”
254 Doering
Both are correlated in verses 4 and 5: verse 4 speaks of the approach to “the
living stone” Christ, while verse 5 says of the addressees that they, as “living
stones” in the form of a “spiritual house” will be built up into a “holy priest-
hood.” Thus, it is structurally clear that ecclesiology grounds in christology
here. Subsequently, we find two clusters of verses with dense scriptural con-
nection that continue both aspects; it seems as if verses 4 and 5 are proleptic
summaries of these two clusters.44 In detail, verses 6–8, built around a λίθος
florilegium that combines Isa 28:16, Ps 117:22 LXX, and Isa 8:14, continue the
christological focus of verse 4, while verses 9–10 with their ecclesiological
emphasis link with verse 5. In the following, we shall limit ourselves largely to
verse 5 as well as verses 9–10.
I suggest that the form οἰκοδομεῖσθε in verse 5 is to be taken as an indicative in
the medio-passive, because verse 3 speaks of the experience of the Lord’s good-
ness and verses 9–10 are largely in the indicative mode.45 This suggests a close
material connection: by coming to the “living stone” (verse 4), the addressees,
too, are built up as “living stones”; as the present tense indicates, being “built
up” is an ongoing process. Moreover, the deployment of ζάω and related terms
in 1 Peter suggests that the image of the “living stone” refers to Jesus’ resurrec-
tion that is reflected, on the part of the addressees, in their being rebegotten to
a “living hope” through the “living word” of God.46 Keeping with the image, the
building thus formed is initially called a “spiritual house” (οἶκος πνευματικός).
44 Brox, Petrusbrief, 95: It is the “vorweggenommene Interpretation und Quintessenz” of

verses 6–8 und 9–10. Similarly Schröger, Gemeinde, 93; Giesen, “Kirche,” 354; Feldmeier,
First Letter, 132; Hiršs, Volk, 96–98. However, it is misleading to regard verses 4–5 as
“midrash” preparing the later verse (so however Elliott, Elect, 20). Michaels, 1 Peter, 100–101,
justly criticizes this view: “Although these verses [9–10, LD] draw heavily on biblical lan-
guage, they in no way constitute a ‘text’ which Peter can be regarded as interpreting.” Cf.
already E. Best, “I Peter ii 4–10—A Reconsideration,” NovT 11 (1969): 270–93 (275–77, 293);
followed by Schlosser, La première épître, 120.
45 With e.g. E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes
and Essays (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1947), 159; J. N. D. Kelly, The Epistles of Peter and
Jude (BNTC; London: A&C Black, 1969), 89; A. Puig Tàrrech, “Le milieu de la première
épître de Pierre,” RCT 5 (1980): 95–129, 331–403 (348); Michaels, 1 Peter, 97; Achtemeier,
1 Peter, 153–54; Elliott, 1 Peter, 413; Giesen, “Kirche,” 354–55; Schlosser, La première épître,
122. Against e.g. Schelkle, Petrusbriefe, 57; Goppelt, I Peter, 137, 140; Schröger, Gemeinde, 46;
Brox, Petrusbrief, 94, 97; Feldmeier, First Letter, 134. Similarly, προσερχόμενοι in verse 4 is to
be taken as an indicative.
46 1 Pet 1:3, 23; 3:18, 21–22 (baptism); cf. 4:6. Further, cf. Luke 24:5, 23; Acts 1:3; Rev 1:18. Cf.
Elliott, Elect, 34; Puig Tàrrech, “Le milieu,” 348; V. Gäckle, Allgemeines Priestertum: Zur
Metaphorisierung des Priestertitels im Frühjudentum und Neuen Testament (WUNT 331;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 413 with n. 130.
This phrase should be taken as predicative together with οἰκοδομεῖσθε: “you

are built up as a spiritual house”; alternatively, an understanding as appositive
would be possible too: “you are built up, a spiritual house.”47
Despite the high-profile contestation by John Elliott and Norbert Brox,48
this alludes, at least inter alia, to the (Jerusalem) temple.49 Although the
Pauline corpus and Revelation, as far as they refer to the community as temple
(see below), use ναός,50 there is wide deployment of οἶκος for the Jerusalem
temple in the Septuagint, in particular in tandem with the verb οἰκοδομεῖν,51
and further in the Synoptic tradition, with which 1 Peter has numerous points
of contact.52 This usage points to some independence in 1 Peter as to the devel-
opment of the tradition of the community as temple in early Christianity. In
addition, the term οἶκος perhaps furthers the oscillation in meaning between
a building and a group of people, which is otherwise prominent in 1 Peter.
While 1 Pet 4:17 might contain a reference to the temple, a group of people is
at least connoted,53 and also in the present passage, as I shall argue, there is
47 This predicative or appositional force assumed here (the alternatives are correctly
named but insufficiently appreciated in Elliott, Elect, 163–64) of οἶκος πνευματικός is not
harmed by Elliott’s claim (e.g. 1 Peter, 412) that οἶκος πνευματικός cannot be the “object” of
οἰκοδομεῖσθε: neither suggestion deems it to be an “object.”
48 Elliott, Elect, 156–59; idem, A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of I Peter, its
Situation and Strategy (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1981 [= London: SCM, 1982]), 200–07;
idem, 1 Peter, 414–18; Brox, Petrusbrief, 97–98. Similarly, Puig Tàrrech, “Le milieu,” 381–83.
49 See e.g. Best, “I Peter ii 4–10,” 280; Michaels, 1 Peter, 100; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 158–59;
Feldmeier, First Letter, 135 (and idem, Christen als Fremde, 204–10, for a general critique
of Elliott’s privileging of a “house” metaphor independent from the temple); Schlosser, La
première épître, 136.
50 1 Cor 3:16–17; 6:19–20; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21–22; Rev 3:12.
51 For οἶκος + reference to God in either a genitive or a dative construct, cf. e.g. Exod 34:26;
Deut 23:19; 2 Kgdms 12:20; Ps 68 [69]:10; Isa 56:7. Of special interest is the combination
with οἰκοδομεῖν, e.g. 2 Kgdms 7:5, 7, 13; 3 Kgdms 5:17, 19; 6:2, 7, 9; 8:1; 16–20, 27, 43–44, 48,
53a, 65; 9:1, 3, 10; 1 Chr 5:36; 6:17; 2 Chr 35:3; 36:23; 1 Esdr 1:3; 2:2–3; 5:67; 6:2; Ezra 1:2–3, 5,
etc. See already Best, “I Peter ii 4–10,” 280; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 156, 159; also Hiršs, Volk, 31.
In Eupolemus, Frag. 2 (16), ναός alternates with οἶκος.
52 See also John 2:14–22, where οἶκος (2:16–17) is used alongside ἱερόν (2:14–15) and ναός
(2:19–21).
53 According to Michaels, 1 Peter, 271, the Jerusalem Temple here remains “the operative
metaphor”; but both Goppelt, I Peter, 329, and Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 316, concede that on
account of the connection between temple and people of God in 1 Pet 2:5, 9, the latter is
in view here as well. According to E. M. Boring, 1 Peter (ANTC; Nashville, TN: Abingdon,
1999), 159, and Schlosser, La première épître, 265–66, the metaphors of both “temple” and
“household” are in view in 1 Pet 4:17. R. Metzner, Die Rezeption des Matthäusevangeliums
256 Doering
some blending of the concepts of a building and a group of people.54 At any

rate, Elliott and Brox’s one-sided explanation as “household” in 2:5 does not do
justice to the image field: a household does not consist of stones, either dead or
living. Further, the qualification “spiritual house” corresponds to the designa-
tion of the stones as “living”: the temple is held together by the one who pro-
vides life to the stones.55 In addition, as we shall see below, the christological
foundation deployed in verse 4—“the living stone”—reflects temple imagery
as well. This is also true for the notion of the cornerstone within the λίθος flori-
legium, in verse 6 derived from Isa 28:16, which reinforces the connection with
the Jerusalem temple on account of its connection with Zion.56
According to verse 5, the addressees transform “into a holy priesthood”
(εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον). Thus, the metaphors of temple and priesthood conflate
here. This affords already a glimpse at verse 9. For the time being, the focus
is on the function of bringing “spiritual sacrifices.” The text does not clarify
what is meant by these. One can only speculate that they might entail both
praise of God and the good conduct57 so much emphasized in 1 Peter. Verse 9
speaks of announcing the “great deeds of God” (τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε), which
some would want to refer to missionary preaching,58 though, as David Balch
has shown, ἐξαγγέλλειν may also refer to the praise of God, in particular in the
Psalms.59 However, I suggest that here, too, one might also think of good con-
duct, which can be observed by others (1 Pet 2:12; 3:16; 4:4).60
im 1. Petrusbrief: Studien zum traditionsgeschichtlichen und theologischen Einfluss des 1.

Evangeliums auf den 1. Petrusbrief (WUNT II/74; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 177 n. 149,
suggests that 1 Pet 4:17 alludes to Ezek 9:6, which would additionally point to the notion
of οἶκος as temple here.
54 See also Jobes, 1 Peter, 150: “The double meaning of oikos suggests a metonymy that allows
an easy shift from the temple image to the community it houses, ‘a holy priesthood’ (2:9)
and ‘the people of God’ (2:10).”
55 It is possible that “spiritual” and “living” implies a critique of the temple of stones in
Jerusalem, as suggested by G. Klinzing, Die Umdeutung des Kultus in der Qumrangemeinde
und im Neuen Testament (SUNT 7; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 194–95.
However, such a critique would not be the main issue since these qualifications are devel-
oped, as has been demonstrated, from the notion of Christ as the “living stone.”
56 On the temple-relatedness of the “living stone” and “cornerstone” cf. Gäckle, Priestertum,
405–14.
57 From among the Pauline letters, Rom 12:1 may be compared.
58 Elliott, Elect, 42–43 (but see the following note); Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 166–67.
59 So in LXX Ps 9:15; 78:13 etc. On this see D. L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic
Code in I Peter (SBLMS 26; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 132–36; Michaels, 1 Peter, 110–11.
Elliott, 1 Peter, 439–40, now assumes both praise and preaching.
60 Schlosser, La première épître, 131, argues that because of the connection between 1 Pet 2:5
and 9 the issue is “la louange adressé à Dieu lui-même ‘par la voix et par la vie’ ” (the latter
Here we need to devote a brief discussion to the wider Christian traditions

about the community as temple. As is well known, this notion is already pres-
ent in Paul’s letters, who assumes it as familiar with his readers in Corinth (οὐκ
οἴδατε; 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19), perhaps because he mentioned it in his initial instruc-
tion of the community.61 In 1 Cor 3:16–17, he uses this notion to declare that
party strife implies infringement of God’s realm.62 In 2 Cor 6:16 the theme is
the incommensurability between community and idols.63 And in 1 Cor 6:19,
we find an application to the body of the individual community member as a
“temple of the holy spirit” in the context of a discourse on fornication.64 Only
in 1 Cor 3 do we find metaphors of construction and building, when Paul (in
verses 9–15) speaks of the community as God’s building, whose foundation—
Jesus Christ—has been laid by the apostles and preachers. Already before
Paul, the designation of James, Cephas, and John as “pillars” (στῦλοι), referred
to by Paul without disclosing whether he fully endorsed it (Gal 2:9 “who were
reputed to be pillars”), suggests a connection with temple architecture and
therefore perhaps the presence of the notion of the community as (eschato-
logical) temple,65 although the contours of this notion remain unclear.66
Among the Deutero-Pauline letters, we ought to mention Eph 2:20–22, where
the foundation of the apostles and prophets is distinguished from Christ as the
following Holzmeister). Without argumentation, Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 166, here excludes

deeds: “The telling forth of God’s acts in 1 Peter is to be done both by act and by word, and
the latter is surely the intention here.” Why only the latter?
61 Cf. C. Böttrich, “ ‘Ihr seid der Tempel Gottes.’ Tempelmetaphorik und Gemeinde bei
Paulus,” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel / Community without Temple (ed. B. Ego, A. Lange and
P. Pilhofer; WUNT 118; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 411–25, who suggests an allusion
to a “Topos der gemeindegründenden Predigt” (415); further M. Vahrenhorst, Kultische
Sprache in den Paulusbriefen (WUNT 230; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 145–46.
62 Böttrich, “Tempel,” 417. Scholars have compared the threat Paul utters against those who
“corrupt” God’s temple (1 Cor 3:17) with that against the infringement of the Jerusalem
temple’s sacred realm by Gentiles as expressed in the warning inscriptions of the
Herodian temple precinct (CIIP 2; cf. Josephus, J.W. 5:194; Ant. 15:417). See Vahrenhorst,
Kultische Sprache, 152–54.
63 Böttrich, “Tempel,” 419: “Als ‘Tempel des lebendigen Gottes’ lebt sie aus einer Bindung, die
andere Bindungen nicht duldet.”
64 See Böttrich, “Tempel,” 419–20.
65 Cf. J. D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; London: A&C Black, 1993), 109–10.
66 Further elements of metaphors of construction and building are found in 1 Tim 3:15,
“the pillar and bulwark of truth” (στῦλος καὶ ἑδραίωμα τῆς ἀληθείας—what this refers to is
debated), and Rev 3:12, “the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of
my God” (στῦλον ἐν τῷ ναῷ τοῦ θεοῦ μου). It has been argued that John 14:2, too, views the
community as temple: M. L. Coloe, God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth
Gospel (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001), 157–78.
258 Doering
cornerstone mentioned in Isa 28:16, in whom the whole building (οἰκοδομή) is

held together and grows “into a holy temple” (εἰς ναὸν ἅγιον). Here, the address-
ees are said to be “co-built into a residence for God in the spirit” (καὶ ὑμεῖς
συνοικοδομεῖσθε εἰς κατοικητήριον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν πνεύματι). There are striking simi-
larities between this text and 1 Pet 2:4–6 in the use of Isa 28:16 and the notion
of the addressees’ being built up into a spirit-related residence; however, we
should also note clear differences, such as the absence of the image of “living
stone(s)” and of any details of priestly service in Eph 2:20–22. Subsequently,
the focus on the addressees is taken further in Ign. Eph. 9:1: “for you are stones
for the temple of the Father,” where however, in a novel image, Christ as the lift-
ing machine is said to lift up the stones with the Holy Spirit as a “rope.” Finally,
Hermas Vis. 3:5–8 and Sim. 9 speak of fitting and non-fitting stones for God’s
οἰκοδομή.
In terms of tradition history, I would like to remark that among all these pas-
sages 1 Pet 2 shows the closest proximity, both materially and exegetically, to
texts from Qumran.67 I can refer to the relevant texts only briefly here, focusing
on terms and concepts that lend themselves for comparison with 1 Peter:
(a) 4Q174 (4QFlor) 1+2+21 i 6–7 with the notion of a “temple of men / man/
Adam” (miqdaš ’ādām), which they are to “build for God, so that they
bring in it smoke offerings for him, works of thanksgiving.”68
(b) 1QS 9:3–6 about the community as “a foundation of the holy spirit for
eternal truth, to atone for the guilt of transgression and the treachery of
sin, for an acceptable (offering) in favor of the land/earth, beyond the
flesh of burnt-offerings and fat.” The passage further likens the “heave-
offering of the lips” to “a pleasant odor of justice” and the “perfection of
conduct” to “a freewill-offering of delight,” and applies temple and build-
ing terminology to the yaḥad: “At this time the men of the yaḥad shall
67 Thus especially Goppelt, I Peter, 135–36; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 151 (“a similarity greater in the
case of this letter than of any other NT writing”). See further B. Gärtner, The Temple and
the Community in Qumran and in the New Testament (MSSNTS 1; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1965), 16–46, 71–88; Klinzing, Umdeutung, 50–92, 191–96.
68 This text is beset with a number of interpretative problems, which cannot be discussed
in the confines of this article. For an interpretation of miqdaš ’ādām close to my own,
see G. J. Brooke, “Miqdash Adam, Eden and the Qumran Community,” in: Ego, Lange and
Pilhofer, Gemeinde ohne Tempel, 285–302. Cf. L. Doering, “Urzeit-Endzeit Correlation in the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Pseudepigrapha,” in Eschatologie—Eschatology: The Sixth Durham-
Tübingen Research Symposium (ed. H.-J. Eckstein, C. Landmesser and H. Lichtenberger;
WUNT 272; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 19–58 (31–47). For a different view of this text,
see D. R. Schwartz, “The Three Temples of 4QFlorilegium,” RevQ 10 (1979): 83–91.
separate a holy house for Aaron (bêt qôdeš lǝ-’ahărôn), to unite as a holy
of holies (lǝ-hiww/yyaḥēd qôdeš qôdāšîm), and a house of yaḥad for Israel
(bêt yaḥad lǝ-yiśrā’ēl), who walk in perfection.”69
(c) 1QS 5:4–7, pointing to the establishment of a “true foundation for Israel
(môsad ’emet lǝ-yiśrā’ēl), for a yaḥad of an eternal covenant, to atone for
all volunteers for holiness in Aaron and for the true house in Israel (u-lǝ-
bêt ha-emet bǝ-yiśrā’ēl) and those joining them in the yaḥad.”70
(d) 1QS 11:7–9, stating that God “has made them heirs in the legacy of holy
ones, and with sons of heaven he has united their assembly (sôdām), for
a council of the yaḥad, and a foundation of a holy building (wǝ-sôd miḇnît
qôdeš), for an eternal planting (lǝ-maṭa‘at ‘ôlām) throughout all ages that
will be.” The yaḥad is here connected with the heavenly council, but is
equally perceived as a holy building and eternal planting.71
69 See the parallel in 4QSd (4Q258) vii 4–9, with a significant variant (lines 6–7): “At this time
they shall be separated (as) house of Aaron (bêt ’ahărôn) for holiness (lǝ-qôdeš) for all
○[. . .]’l | [. . . Is]rael, who walk in perfection.” There is no mention of the men of the yaḥad,
although they might be implicit in the verb: “they will be separated” (nifal) as a “house of
Aaron” rather than as a house for Aaron (but see below); and the separation will be “for
holiness” rather than for a holy of holies, though qôdeš may also designate the “holy place”
(cf. e.g. Exod 29:30; 31:11). This is followed by some further specification, now largely lost
in a lacuna. See P. Alexander and G. Vermes, Qumran Cave 4. XIX: Serekh ha-Yaḥad and
Two Related Texts (DJD 26; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 113–14, for a rather specula-
tive reconstruction and arguing that bêt ’ahărôn should be taken as “house for Aaron.”
E. Qimron, mgylwt mdbr yhwdh: hḥybwrym h‘bryym (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2010–
2013), 1:227, reconstructs the lacuna as follows: “for all the com[munity of Isra]el, [as a
yaḥad for Is]rael, who walk in perfection.” If this is correct, we may see here a twofold
separation: as a house of Aaron (cf. Ps 115:10, 12; 118:3; 135:19; or: for Aaron?) for holiness/a
holy place, and as a yaḥad for Israel marked out by perfect conduct. The notion of com-
munity as temple is not as clear here as in the 1QS parallel, though it is not incompatible
with such a notion and might be an older variant thereof.
70 Cf. parallels in 4QSb (4Q256) ix 4–6; 4QSd (4Q258) i 4–6. Note the reference to Mi 6:8,
preceding the text quoted above in 1QS 5:4, a passages that contrasts “to do justice and to
love kindness and to walk humbly with your God” (1QS 5:4: “to walk humbly in all their
ways”) with sacrifices and gifts brought before the Lord.
71 Only the first two Hebrew words of this section are partially preserved in 4QSd (4Q258) xii
4. There are problems with the phrase wǝ-sôd miḇnît qôdeš, in particular in view of the use
of sôd, probably in the sense of “assembly,” in the co-text. However, the lexeme can take
both meanings; cf. H. Muszyński, Fundament, Bild und Metapher in den Handschriften aus
Qumran: Studie zur Vorgeschichte des ntl. Begriffs ΘΕΜΕΛΙΟΣ (AnBib 61; Rome: Biblical
Institute Press, 1975), 63–65. See further J. Licht, mgylt hsrkym mmgylwt mdbr yhwdh
(Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1965), 230, who also affirms that the reference here is to the
sanctuary; similarly P. Swarup, The Self-Understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls Community:
260 Doering
(e) 1QS 8:4–11, mentioning a different group of 15 men (12 Israelites and three
priests [8:1]), established “as an eternal planting (lǝ-maṭa‘at ‘ôlām), a holy
house for Israel (bêt qôdeš lǝ-yiśrā’ēl) and a foundation of a holy of holies for
Aaron (we-sôd qôdeš qôdāšîm lǝ-’ahărôn” (8:5–6). They are “chosen ones by
(divine) will, to atone for the land/earth and to repay the wicked their
reward” (8:6–7). Moreover, “this is the tested wall (ḥômat ha-boḥan), the
precious cornerstone (pinat yǝqār; cf. Isa 28:16)—neither will its founda-
tions shake nor cede from their place (8:6–7).” Additional building, temple,
sacrificial, and covenantal language is used for the group: “a most holy
dwelling (mā‘ôn qôdeš qôdāšîm) for Aaron, with all-encompassing knowl-
edge of the covenant of justice and in order to offer a pleasing odor, and a
house of perfection and truth (bêt tāmîm wǝ-emet) in Israel to establish a
covenant according to eternal statutes” (8:8–10). That this might refer to an
elite group72 is suggested in lines 10–11: “When these remain steadfast in
perfect conduct in the foundation of the yaḥad for two years, they shall be
set apart as holy in the midst of the council of the men of the yaḥad.”73
There are further occurrences of the image field “stone”/“foundation” in the

Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran relating to both individuals and the community,
which may be taken as further examples of temple-related imagery.74 Recent
scholarship has suggested a more measured and contoured picture as to the
An Eternal Planting, A House of Holiness (LSTS 59; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 68–70
(though reading yǝsôd). Pace J. Maier, “Bausymbolik, Heiligtum und Gemeinde in den
Qumrantexten,” Volk Gottes als Tempel (ed. A. Vonach & R. Meßner; Vienna: LIT, 2008)
49–106 (75), who denies that wǝ-sôd miḇnît qôdeš refers to a “Tempelgebäude.”
72 See J. J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 69–75. Collins argues that the context of lines
10–11 suggests that the two years are not the time of probation that every member of the
yaḥad has to undergo (72, taking issue with Sarianna Metso). A group of 15 is also men-
tioned in 4Q265 7 7–10.
73 Cf. parallels in 4QSd (4Q258) vi 1–5; 4QSe (4Q259) ii 13–iii 2. While mā‘ôn (1QS 8:8) is
attested by 4QSd, 4QSe might read mā‘ôz, although it can hardly be deemed original; see
Alexander and Vermes, DJD 26, 144; note that Qimron, mgylwt mdbr yhwdh, 1:225, prefers
the reading mā‘ôn for 4QSe as well. See also 4Q511 35 2–4: “Among those purified seven
times and among the holy ones, he will sancti[fy] for himself (some) for an eternal sanc-
tuary (lǝ-miqdaš ‘ôlāmîm), and (there will be) purity among the purged. And they will be
priests, his righteous people, his army, ministers, his glorious angels. They shall praise him
in wondrous awe.” Cf. Swarup, Self-Understanding, 141–42, for connection of the motifs of
the community as sanctuary and the community with angels.
74 E.g. 1QSa 1:12; 4Q164 (4QpJesd) 1 3; 1QHa 14:28–30 [olim 6:25–27]; 15:11–12 [olim 7:8–9], the
latter two passages echoing Isa 28:16. See Muszyński, Fundament, 174–215; Swarup, Self-
Understanding, 186–92, 200.
deployment of the notion of community as temple75 in the Dead Sea Scrolls.76

Thus, the interim character of the community as temple is emphasized,
together with the retention of the expectation of an eschatological, physical
temple,77 according to some texts (especially 4QFlor), as a restitution of the
primordial temple, that is, Eden.78 Further, the connection of the notion of the
community as temple with the heavenly sanctuary is more clearly perceived.
In addition, the rhetorical import of the metaphor is highlighted: borrow-
ing terminology from Jacob Licht’s earlier study, it is seen more as a “slogan”
related to other slogans such as that of the community as planting, rather than
as a defining description of the community.
In commenting on this slogan, Licht suggested that the persistent differenti-
ation into a “house for Aaron,” often expressed with the phrase “holy of holies,”
and a “house for Israel,” once designated as “holy” and at other times qualified as
“house of (perfection and) truth,” should be taken as a collocation of d ifferent
levels of holiness associated with priests79 and Israelites as represented in the
community rather than a strict reference to the components of hēkal and dǝbîr
that together form the temple building.80 While this may indeed be the origin
of the bipartite formulations that we find in the texts above, it would, how-
ever, be remiss to overlook the allusions to the varying degrees of holiness of
the temple building, especially since the texts listed above consistently evoke
75 According to Klinzing, Umdeutung, 75–80 (cf. 130–32), CD 3:18–4:10 also reflects the notion
of the community as temple. However, CD 3:19 alludes to the expression bêt ne’emān of
1 Sam 2:35, which therefore should be taken to refer to a priestly dynasty and its relation-
ship to the temple. See D. R. Schwartz, “ ‘To join oneself to the House of Judah’ (Damascus
Document IV, 11),” RevQ 10 (1979–81): 435–46; P. R. Davies, “The Ideology of the Temple in
the Damascus Document”, JJS 33 (1982): 287–301 (290–91).
76 An example is J. Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism
in the Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 164–68.
77 See, with differences in detail, 1Q174 (4QFlor) 1+2+21 i 1–5; 11QTa 29:9–10; 11Q18 13 1–7; 20
1–7; 1QM 2:1–6; cf. 4Q171 iii 10–11 (the poor will inherit the “lofty mount of Isr[ael” and
“enjoy his holy” [sc. height]). Cf. Klawans, Purity, 163–64, who concludes “that to what-
ever extent the sectarians saw their community as a stand-in for the temple, it was surely
understood as a provisional situation” (164). In addition, it is possible to view the temple
that God orders the Israelites to build according to the Temple Scroll as a man-made
eschatological sanctuary preceding the divinely founded temple of 11QTa 29:9–10; cf.
Klawans, Purity, 159–60. Contra Klinzing, Umdeutung, 92, who assumes that the yaḥad
would have permanently replaced any non-metaphorical temple and any “real” sacrifices.
78 For details see Brooke, “Miqdash Adam”; Doering, “Urzeit-Endzeit Correlation,” 31–47.
79 See 1 Chr 23:13 “And Aaron was separated that he should sanctify the most holy things
(qôdeš qôdašîm), he and his sons, forever.”
80 Cf. Licht, mgylt hsrkym, 171–75. Cf. also Maier, “Bausymbolik,” 81.
262 Doering
architectural imagery.81 In sum, allowing for the necessary refinement, there

are still good grounds for the view that the yaḥad developed a notion of com-
munity as temple.82
In comparison with 1 Pet 2:4–8, I see the following similarities: (a) a met-
aphorical application of temple terminology, including building elements
(“house,” “living stones;” cf. “house,” “dwelling,” “building” in the Scrolls), to
the community; (b) the qualification of the community as “holy”; (c) a meta-
phorical application of priestly service (“sacrifices,” qualified as “spiritual” in
1 Pet 2:5; cf. terms for various offerings in the Scrolls) to the community, in both
instances probably comprising (at least) praise of God and good conduct; and
(d) intertextually, the adoption of the cornerstone saying Isa 28:16.
To be sure, there are also clear differences, such as the christological anchor-
ing of the argumentation in 1 Peter, the maintenance of a distinction between
Aaronites and Israelites within the community as temple in the Scrolls over
against the designation of the entire community as ἱεράτευμα in 1 Peter,83 an
explicit reference to atonement in some of the Scrolls, and the expectation of
an eschatological temple,84 for which there is no correlate in 1 Peter. Against
the assumption of scholars like David Flusser,85 direct dependence of 1 Peter
on the texts from Qumran is unlikely. Yet, on the other hand, the remaining
correspondences are so significant that one ought to assume either—to stay
within the image—similar building on the same foundation, that is, a similar
reconfiguration of biblical and traditional motifs, or perhaps side-influence
81 While M. Bockmuehl, “Redaction and Ideology in the Rule of the Community (1QS/4QS),”
RevQ 18 (1998): 541–57 (555), is correct to point out that “biblical references to the Temple’s
inner sanctuary tend to use the article,” Swarup, Self-Understanding, 136 (cf. 169 n. 11),
has justly retorted that, although in the Scrolls “the phrase never occurs with the article,”
there are at least four relatively clear references of anarthrous qôdeš qôdāšîm to the inner
sanctum of the temple (4Q400 i 10; 4Q405 14–15 i 4, 7; 19 4). One should therefore not
exclude the possibility that the term was recognized by first readers of the texts discussed
above to allude to the inner sanctuary.
82 Against the overreaching claim by Maier, “Bausymbolik,” 106 (cf. 62) that while we find the
designation of individuals as “temple,” “die Gesamtheit der so ‘geheiligten’ Einzelnen, die
‘Gemeinde’, stellt . . . nach diesen Traditionen keinen Tempel dar, sondern das Gottesvolk.”
83 In tandem with the claim that CD 3:19–4:4 speak of the community as temple (on the
problems of which see above, n. 75) it has been argued that this text transfers terms for
cult personnel to the community (“the priests and the Levites and the sons of Zadok”). Cf.
Klinzing, Umdeutung, 130–42, for the argumentation and inherent problems.
85 D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” in Aspects of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; ScrHie 4; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1958), 215–66 (235),
cautiously endorsed by Licht, mgylt hsrkym, 171 (“Flusser might be right”).
of oral tradition on 1 Peter. That 1 Peter received Jewish traditions has been
suggested at least for the Enoch-related material in 1 Pet 3:19–20,86 and in the
current climate of reintegrating the yaḥadic texts from Qumran into the wider
context of Palestinian Judaism87 it is not unthinkable to find individual con-
tacts with traditions deriving from them.88
Moreover, 1 Pet 2:9 applies a series of Israel epithets to its addressees: ὑμεῖς
δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν. The first
and last epithet—“a chosen stock,”89 “a people for possession”—are taken from
Isa 43:20–21, where God originally tells the people returning from exile that
he will “create new things.” However, these framing titles ought to be viewed
together with the two epithets in the middle, which derive from Exod 19:6 LXX90
and thus connect with Israel’s obligation to keep the covenant at Sinai: βασίλειον
ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον. As is well known, there is dispute about whether the first
phrase should be taken as a noun with adjective, “royal priesthood,”91 or as
86 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, vol. 1: Chapter 1–36,
81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 86, argues for familiarity of 1 Pet
3:18–20 (perhaps also 3:3) with traditions from the Book of Watchers (here: 1 En. 8–10);
cf. 560, where he lists further similarities with the appended chapter 1 En. 108, which
“could indicate that something like the text of 1 Enoch 108 was part of ‘Peter’s’ theo-
logical repertoire.” In support of this see K. Coblentz Bautch, “Peter and the Patriarch:
A Confluence of Traditions?,” With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early
Jewish Apocalypticsm, Magic and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior (ed. D. V. Arbel and
A. A. Orlov; Ekstasis 2; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 13–27 (19–21).
87 See for example Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community, passim.
88 W. Strack, Kultische Terminologie in ekklesiologischen Kontexten in den Briefen des Paulus
(BBB 92; Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum, 1994), 365, wishes to distinguish between “Rezeption
ähnlicher Traditionsstränge,” which he affirms for 1 Peter, and “traditionsgeschichtliche
Abhängigkeit,” which he denies. This is affirmatively quoted by C. G. Müller, “ ‘Umgürtet
die Hüften eurer Gesinnung!’ (1 Petr 1,13): Das Zusammenspiel von metaphorischer
Rede und nicht-metaphorischer Begrifflicheit im Ersten Petrusbrief,” in Bedrängnis
und Identität: Studien zu Situation, Kommunikation und Theologie des 1. Petrusbriefs (ed.
D. S. du Toit; BZNW 200; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 143–66 (159). I am not sure how the two
can be distinguished. Against direct contact (“direkter Bezug zu Qumran”) also Gäckle,
Priestertum, 438–39, highlighting the differences.
89 For the reasons I prefer translating γένος with “stock” (cf. “Geschlecht” in the revised
Luther translation of 1984) rather than “race” (so e.g. NRSV), see below, n. 118.
90 Cf. also Exod 23:22 LXX.
91 Thus e.g. Beare, Epistle, 129–31; Michaels, 1 Peter, 108; Goppelt, I Peter, 149 with n. 65 (who
however asserts that “no major difference results”); P. H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter
(NIC; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 91–92 with n. 30; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 164–65;
Schlosser, La première épître, 128–29, 139–40.
264 Doering
two nouns, “kingdom (or: royal palace), priesthood.”92 This ambivalence is also
present in the versions of Exod 19:6 and in ancient Jewish and early Christian
texts reflecting this passage. The background to the problem is different ways
of understanding the construct mamleket kohănîm.93 It is difficult to decide in
1 Pet 2:9. In my view, the synchronic and structural evidence speaks in favor of
taking βασίλειον in an attributive sense:94 all the other epithets are composed
of a noun and an attribute (in the final example as prepositional phrase). That
the word order is inverted, i.e. that the attribute precedes the noun, is owed
to the wording of Exod 19:6 in Greek. Similarly, ἱεράτευμα is accompanied by
an adjective in 2:5 as well (ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον); I would see some correspondence
between the two adjectives.95 This priesthood is “royal” because it belongs to
God.96 It is “priesthood” only in the collective sense, so that the point here is
not the endowment of the individual members of the community with priestly
92 The latter is argued, inter alia, by Elliott, Elect, 149–54; 1 Peter, 435–37 (“royal residence”),
with the thesis that the οἶκος in 2:5 (taken as “household”) should be identified with the
royal residence in 2:9. Cf. already Selwyn, Epistle, 165–66; Kelly, Epistles, 96–97; further,
Best, “I Peter ii 4–10,” 288–91 (with the unusual meaning “body of kings”); Brox, Petrusbrief,
98 n. 326, 103–05 (“Einwohnerschaft des ‘Königshauses’ [nicht der Bau]” [104]).
93 Cf. Exod 19:6 Peshitta (“kingdom and priests”), Frg. Tg. and Tg. Neof. (“kings and priests”),
Tg. Onq. (“kings, priests”), also Tg. Ps.-J. (“kings wearing the crown and officiating
priests”), σ´ θ´ according to Syrohexapla ed. Lagarde (regnum sacerdotes [mlkwt’ khn’]),
Sahidic (“kingdom and priesthood”), and Armenian (in regnum et in sacerdotium), on
the one hand, with Vetus Latina (regnum sacratissimum), Bohairic (regnum sanctum),
and Vulgate (regnum sacerdotale), also α´ σ´ θ´ according to the hexaplaric notes in Vat.
Gr. 330 = ms. 108 Rahlfs (βασιλεία ἱερέων), as well as α´ according to Syrohexapla (mlkwt’
dkhn’]), and the Syrohexapla itself (“priests royal” [kwhn’ mlky’]), on the other; cf. further
Jub. 16:18 (mangešta wa-kehnata) with 33:20 (wa-mangešta kehnat; and see below); 2 Macc
2:17 (ἀποδοὺς . . . καὶ τὸ βασίλειον καὶ τὸ ἱεράτευμα . . .); Philo, Sobr. 66; Abr. 56 (βασίλειον καὶ
ἱεράτευμα); Rev 1:6 (ἐποίησεν ἡμᾶς βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς τῷ θεῷ); 5:10 (βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς, καὶ
βασιλεύσουσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς); 20:6 (ἔσονται ἱερεῖς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν
μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ). See the comprehensive discussion in Elliott, Elect, 50–128 (though the details
for α´ σ´ θ´ and Syrohexpla ibid., 78 n. 1 should be corrected according to Göttingen LXX
and Syrohexapla ed. Lagarde and ed. Võõbus). Whether ALD 67 [= 11:6] (ἔσονται ἀρχὴ
βασιλέων, ἱεράτευμα τῷ Ἰσραήλ [Greek ms. E, not in Aram.]) is based on Exod 19:6, is
debated. Cf. H. Drawnel, An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: A New Interpretation
of the Levi Document (JSJSup 86; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 148–49, who presupposes that the
translator was familiar with Exod 19:6 LXX but does not assume textual dependence here.
94 With a similar result Gäckle, Priestertum, 441–44.
95 Schlosser, La première épître, 140.
96 Davids, Epistle, 91–92. More specific is Goppelt, I Peter, 149: “because they [sc. the
Christians, LD] have been taken into the βασιλεία of God, into his eschatological saving
reign, and are thereby empowered to serve.”
functions (thus the Reformers).97 The communal sense is heightened in the

Greek tradition and reworking of Exod 19:6 over against the Hebrew through
the collective noun ἱεράτευμα. Thus, we might translate the two epithets taken
from Exod 19:6 as “a royal priestly community,98 a holy nation.”
The conclusion to this section is provided by 1 Pet 2:10, where Hos 2:25 is
taken up: “You, who once (were) non-people, (are) now God’s people; you,
who once (had) no mercy, (have) now found mercy.” The application of this
verse suggests that the addressees were in their majority of Gentile, not Jewish
milieus. As already mentioned above, passages such as 1 Pet 1:14 (ταῖς πρότερον
ἐν τῇ ἀγνοίᾳ ὑμῶν ἐπιθυμίαις), 1:18 (ἐλυτρώθητε ἐκ τῆς ματαίας ὑμῶν ἀναστροφῆς
πατροπαραδότου) or 4:3–4 (ἀρκετὸς γὰρ ὁ παρεληλυθὼς χρόνος τὸ βούλημα τῶν
ἐθνῶν κατειργάσθαι κτλ.) corroborate this suggestion. This is a point to which
we shall come back in the final section.
The reference to Exod 19:6 in 1 Pet 2:9 is important. It is sometimes claimed
that Exod 19:6 was relatively unimportant in ancient Judaism.99 However, there
are some qualitatively significant references.100 Particular mention deserves
the book of Jubilees. In Jub. 16:17–18, Abraham is told that one of the sons of
Isaac will become “holy seed” (le-zar’ qedus) and will not be reckoned “among
the nations” (wa-westa ’aḥzāb-ni); his offspring would become a “people of
possession from all peoples” (ḥezba ṭerit [mss.: tersit = ornament] ’em-kwellu
ḥezb), a “kingdom and priesthood” (mangešta wa-kehnata) and “a holy people”
(wa-ḥezba qedusa). According to Jub. 33:20, Israel’s obligation to refrain from
97 That 1 Pet 2:5, 9 does not address this issue is summarily shown by Elliott, 1 Peter, 449–55
(with further literature); cf. Gäckle, Priestertum, 451.
98 Following Elliott, 1 Peter, 437; cf. idem, Elect, 197 (“a body of priests”).
99 M. Himmelfarb, A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism (Philadelphia,
Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 1: “the phrase itself does not receive a great
deal of attention in the literature of the Second Temple.” However, she deems “the idea
that it expresses and the tensions it hints at” as central for the Judaism of the time. Cf. also
D. R. Schwartz, “ ‘Kingdom of Priests’—a Pharisaic Slogan?” in idem, Studies in the Jewish
Background of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 57–66, summariz-
ing, “This harvest is very unimpressive.” However, Schwartz’s question is whether there
is evidence for the “usage of Exodus 19:6 as a slogan requiring that non-Aaronite Jews
act as or be considered priests” (63), whereas the issue here is about the entire people
as “priesthood.” A positive assessment is provided by Schlosser, La première épître, 140:
“l’importance de Ex 19,6 est considerable.” .
100 Esp. 2 Macc 2:17–18 (τὸ βασίλειον καὶ τὸ ἱεράτευμα καὶ τὸν ἁγιασμόν), on which see Elliott,
Elect, 96: the reference to Exod 19:6 “was adduced as a sign of the restoration of Israel’s
honor as the People of God and the terms served as notae essentiae λαοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ.”
See further Philo, Sobr. 66; Abr. 56, for which see Elliott, Elect, 98–101; and also 4Q504
(4QDibHama) 4 10, in a prayer dealing with knowledge, election, and forgiveness.
266 Doering
sexual transgression is given the reason that she is a holy people (ḥezb qedus)
for the Lord”, “a people of inheritance (wa-ḥezba rest) and a priestly kingdom
(wa-mangešta kehnat)“—(God’s) “property” (wa-ṭerit). By this, Jubilees sharp-
ens the idea of the people of God by transferring standards to all of Israel that
according to the Holiness Code (H) are required of priests.101 This happens
while the principal difference between priests and regular Israelites is main-
tained: what is emphasized is priestly standards of conduct required of the
entire people. The holiness thus qualified is understood, like in H, as a cor-
respondence with God’s holiness; therefore, Jub 16:26 cites Lev 19:2, “You shall
be holy because I am holy.” I see at least structural similarities in 1 Peter in
its connection between the Biblical traditions of the royal priesthood and the
requirement of holiness.
IV The Ethnic Construction of the Community and the Lack of

ἐκκλησία
The Israel epithets in 1 Pet 2:9 and the adoption of Hos 2:25 evoke ethnic iden-
tity construction, the implications of which require clarification. In addition,
the word ἐκκλησία, which is elsewhere in the NT the dominant ecclesiologi-
cal term,102 is conspicuously103 absent from 1 Peter.104 Let me therefore begin
this section with a few comments on ἐκκλησία. Often, this term has been
derived from either Septuagint terminology for Israel or the use of qahal in
texts from Qumran.105 With differences in detail, both Wolfgang Schrage and
101 The issues here are abstention from idolatry (Lev 20:1–5), forbidden sexual relations
(Lev 18:20), and the shedding of blood (Num 35:33–34).
102 The following number of references occurs in the various parts of the NT (in parenthe-
ses): Math (3), Acts (23), Gnesio-Paulines (44), Eph-Col-2 Thess-1 Tim (18), Heb (3), Jas (1),
3 John (3), and Rev (19).
103 According to Hotze, “Ekklesiologie,” 114, the absence remains “rätselhaft.” However, the
term is equally absent from Mark, Luke, John, 2 Tim, Tit, 2 Pet, 1–2 John, and Jude. This
suggests that we should ask individually for its aptitude or the lack thereof.
104 The insertion of the word in 1 Pet 5:13 (“the co-elect church in Babylon”) in some manu-
scripts and versions (e.g. ‫ א‬syp) is text-historically secondary. See further below, n. 116.
105 The former is argued e.g. by Hiršs, Volk, 52; the latter, especially derivation from the phrase
qehal ’êl, is held by J. Roloff, “ἐκκλησία,” EDNT 1, 410–15 (411). However, it is now agreed that
qehal ’êl, within the Scrolls, is only attested by 1QM 4:10, without special emphasis in a
series of units of the eschatological army. Cf. [Heinz-Josef] Fabry, “‫ קהל‬V–VII,” TDOT 12,
559–61, who, on the one hand, argues that qahal was “not a theologically significant term
for the Qumran authors” (559) and, on the other, questions a connection between the NT
use of ἐκκλησία and the LXX rendition of qahal (561).
Paul Trebilco have claimed that the term was first used by the “Hellenists” in
distinction from the Jewish συναγωγή,106 and one could argue that it is this
distinction from Israel that 1 Peter wishes to avoid.107 However, the link with
the “Hellenists” is tenuous at best, and it is more likely that the use devel-
oped within Paul’s mission.108 In this respect, George van Kooten has strongly
argued for a derivation from Greco-Roman civic assemblies.109 There is some
supporting evidence for this thesis, especially the observation that Paul was
initially looking for an appropriate styling of the community addressed; thus,
in the phrase ἐκκλησία Θεσσαλονικέων in the address of 1 Thess (1:1), the politi-
cal connotations (“the assembly of the Thessalonians”) might still be heard.
On the other hand, however, Ralph Korner has mounted a number of argu-
ments in favor of the view that Paul had also recourse to the use of ἐκκλησία
terminology for Jewish synagogue communities; according to Korner, Paul’s
designation of his communities as ἐκκλησίαι “makes them perceivable as intra
muros Jewish synagogue communities as well as Greco-Roman voluntary asso-
ciations, whose civic ideology is pro-dēmokratia and counter-oligarchic.”110
More important for our present purpose than the precise localization of
the designation in Paul’s socio-religious context is the observation that Paul
almost exclusively uses ἐκκλησία for the local community: he deploys the p lural
106 W. Schrage, “ ‘Ekklesia’ und ‘Synagoge’: Zum Ursprung des urchristlichen Kirchenbegriffs,”
ZTK 60 (1963): 178–202; P. Trebilco, “Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves
ἡ ἐκκλησία?” NTS 57 (2011): 440–60. Schrage’s derivation was criticized by Roloff,
EDNT 1, 412.
107 Cf. M.-A. Chevallier, “Israël et l’église selon la première épître de Pierre,” Paganisme, juda-
ïsme, christianisme: Influences et affrontements dans le monde antique: Mélanges offert à
Marcel Simon (ed. A. Benoit, M. Philonenko and C. Vogel; Paris: Boccard, 1978), 117–30
(118–19).
108 Cf. R. J. Korner, “Before ‘Church’: Political, Ethno-religious, and Theological Implications
of the Collective Designation of Pauline Christ-followers as ekklēsiai” (PhD diss., McMaster
University, Hamilton, 2014), 175–83. See further van Kooten’s article in the following note.
109 G. H. van Kooten, “Ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ: The ‘Church of God’ and the Civic Assemblies
(ἐκκλησίαι) of the Greek Cities in the Roman Empire: A Response to Paul Trebilco and
Richard A. Horsley,” NTS 58 (2012): 522–48.
110 Korner, “Before ‘Church,’ ” 194; similarly, 239. Korner argues that Philo, Virt. 108 attests to
a local Jewish “socio-religious sub-group, one which either self-designates as ekklēsia or,
at the very least, designates its public or semi-public meeting as an ekklēsia” (150). He
further argues that in Deus 111, Philo refers to a Jewish synagogue assembly (156–62), and
that Paul’s wording in Gal 1:22, “the ἐκκλησίαι of Judea in Christ Jesus,” and 1 Thess 2:14,
“the ἐκκλησίαι of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea,” may suggest that Paul knew of
ἐκκλησίαι in Judea that were not “in Christ Jesus,” thus, were Jewish voluntary associations
(162–64).
268 Doering
for the churches of a region111 or a qualified constituency,112 and the singular

for a house church (Phlm 2) and for “the church of God” at a specific place.113
While it is possible that the phrase “the church of God which is (τῇ οὔσῃ) in . . .”
implicitly attests to the development of a notion of a (trans-regional) church
locally instantiated, it is nonetheless this local instantiation that is referred to
here. Korner argues that, within the Gnesio-Paulines, only 1 Cor 12:27–28 might
refer to the “church” in a universal sense; but even here it cannot be excluded
that the reference is merely to the Corinthian church.114 Importantly, Rev 1–3
labels each of the seven communities ἐκκλησία, although they are intercon-
nected. Only the Deutero-Pauline letters and probably Matthew “expressly use
ekklēsia in a universal sense.”115
I therefore suggest that the lack of ἐκκλησία in 1 Peter is best explained by
the fact that this letter, in terms of its modalities of communication, does not
have one single church or a number of individual churches in view.116 Rather,
it speaks of the totality of Christ-believers, initially in the regions addressed,
but—as 5:9 shows—expendable to “the brotherhood in the entire world.” Given
the predominance in Pauline letters of the localized sense that is, for Asia, still
reflected in Revelation, the author of 1 Peter found ἐκκλησία unsuitable for his
purposes. He strikingly differs from Matthew here, with which 1 Peter other-
wise has some affinities.117 Instead, for his designation of the trans-local social
body he addresses, the author turns to the terminology of the “people of God.”
1 Pet 2:9 applies, in a way that is unique in the New Testament, ethnic terms
to the addressees.118 We find the three most important words in Greek, which
111 Gal 1:2 ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Γαλατίας.

112 Rom 16:4 πᾶσαι αἱ ἐκκλησίαι τῶν ἐθνῶν.
113 1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1 τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ οὔσῃ ἐν Κορίνθῳ; cf. Rom 16:1. The use in 1 Clem. is
similar; here, the church at a given place is here qualified as “sojourning” (1 Clem. inscrip-
tion; cf. also 47:6).
114 Korner, “Before ‘Church,’ ” 265–66, 301.
115 Korner, “Before ‘Church,’ ” 290. These are eight references in Eph (1:22; 3:10, 21; 5:23–24,
25, 27, 29, 32); twice in Col (1:18b, 24); perhaps in 1 Tim 3:15 (ibid., 264–65); probably in
Matt 16:18, although this needs to be read together with Matt 18:17 (ibid., 274–75).
116 Even where a localized church is mentioned as sending greetings, the preference is for a
term highlighting the interconnectedness of the elect (συνεκλεκτή “co-elect,” 1 Pet 5:13; see
above) rather than ἐκκλησία, although some textual witnesses added the term (see above,
n. 104); cf. Elliott, 1 Peter, 881–82, who, in contrast, thinks that the implied female term
qualified by συνεκλεκτή is ἀδελφότης. It is impossible to decide this issue with confidence.
117 Cf. Metzner, Rezeption, passim. On the lack of ἐκκλησία see ibid., 161–62.
118 On the role of ethnically construed identity in early Christianity see D. K. Buell, Why This
New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press,
2005); J. M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 239–68; with respect to 1 Peter: D. G. Horrell, “ ‘Race,’ ‘Nation,’
are also used in relevant contexts in the Septuagint: γένος, ἔθνος and λαός. In
Isa 43:20–21 and Exod 19:6 LXX, they clearly refer to Israel. As David Horrell
has shown, the concentrated use of ethnic terms in 1 Pet 2:9 is important for
our understanding of processes of construction and development of early
Christian identity.119 Only here and in the less pronounced passage Matt 21:43,
the term ἔθνος appears in reference to the community of Christ-believers; only
here do we find ἔθνος ἅγιον, and only here the word γένος, the term with the
strongest “genealogical” implications.120
The importance of 1 Peter for the development of early Christian identity
arises also from the use of Χριστιανός. As is well known, this is a label that has
been applied to Christians from the outside;121 but here it is appropriated by the
author in the perspective of a theology of suffering: “If one suffers as Christian,
he should not be ashamed but glorify God in this name” (4:16).122 In 1 Peter, the
appropriation of the label “Christian” is positively accompanied by the adoption
‘People’: Ethnic Identity-Construction in 1 Peter 2.9,” NTS 58 (2012): 123–43.—The deploy-

ment of the term “race” in studies of Christian identity, especially with respect to Paul, has
recently been criticized by K. Ehrensperger, “Paulus, sein Volk und die Rasseterminologie:
Kritische Anfragen an den ‘Race’-Diskurs in neuerer englischsprachiger Paulus-
Forschung,” KuI 27 (2012): 119–33. According to Ehrensperger, the concept of “race” can-
not be separated from modern “racism,” which arose in the 17th or 18th century. I concur
that the term “race,” due to its modern connotations, is problematic in its deployment for
antiquity (see B. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity [Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2004], 25–38; caution is also expressed by J. M. Hall, Hellenicity: Between
Ethnicity and Culture [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002] 13–15). I therefore do
not use it in this study. However, kinship (either biological or putative) plays a more
important role in ancient γένος discourse than Ehrensperger is ready to admit. When I use
the terms “stock” or “ethnic reasoning” here, the malleability of these concepts, including
putative and fictive kinship, should therefore be borne in mind. However, to render γένος
by “ ‘Art’, ‘Sorte’,” as Ehrensperger suggests (130), is unsatisfactory in cases where the term
does refer to kinship (either biological or putative), although, of course, it does not only
refer to kinship (see below, n. 137).
119 Horrell, “ ‘Race,’ ‘Nation,’ ‘People’.”
120 On ethnic construction of identity as “recognition of a putative shared ancestry,” cf.
J. M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997), 25, who points to Max Weber for this view.
121 On this see Horrell, “Label,” 364–66 (with literature), who maintains the assignment of
the name in Antioch, perhaps by the Roman administration. See Acts 11:26; 26:28; Tacitus,
Ann. 15.44; Suetonius, Nero 16.2; Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96–97.
122 E CM and NA28 here privilege the reading μέρει “in this part,” provided by P 307. 642. 1448.
1735 Byz. It might be the lectio difficilior, but then it would be difficult to explain why this
reading “could have left no trace in the textual record prior to the solidification of the
Byzantine text-type” (Williams, Persecution, 283). Therefore, the priority of the reading
ὀνόματι (read by P72 ‫ א‬A B Ψ 5. 33. 1739 etc. latt sy co) should be considered.
270 Doering
of the Israel epithets. Clearly, they are meant to strengthen the addressees in
their situation of duress. In doing so, they mediate a putative ethnic notion of
community, which is at first demarcating over against the surrounding world,
but nevertheless remains permeable, because the author reckons with conver-
sions following the observation of Christian good conduct (3:1–2).
Ethnic construction in terms of putative kinship is also indicated by the
term ἀδελφότης, which occurs twice in 1 Peter (2:17; 5:9) and only here within
the entire New Testament. It is found in 1 and 4 Maccabees but is only sparsely
attested in ancient Greek documentary and literary texts.123 Indicative are the
two occurrences in the letter by the high priest Jonathan and the ethnos of the
Judeans to the Spartans (1 Macc 12:10, 17), where the issue is the confirmation
of putative kinship between the two ethne.124 One may compare the notion of
inner-Jewish cohesion that is entertained in the styling of the addressees or
the addressors as “brothers” in letters between Jerusalem and the Diaspora.125
In the martyrdom of the seven brothers in 4 Maccabees, ἀδελφότης, first of all,
expresses the obliging character of family ties;126 in two instances, however,
it might be taken as a designation for the group of brothers itself.127 Among
early Christian texts, 1 Clem. 2:4 deploys the term ἀδελφότης for the trans-
regional community of believers or elect.128 As is well known, early Christians
123 So far, the earliest evidence is in an inscription from Aphrodisias from 167 BCE: SEG 32.1097
= Aphrodisias Inscriptions 179 [see http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/ accessed
23 Dec 2014]. In ancient Greek literature, apart from Jewish and Christian texts (on which
see presently), it is only attested in Dio Chrysostom, Or. 38.15.45, Vettius Valens, Anth. 1,1
(bis), Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 2.108. The term oscillates between the statement of a quality
(“fraternal relation[ship],” e.g. between human beings or between animals and humans;
see DGE 1, 47: “I [1980], 47: „I 1 hermandad, relación fraterna”) and the designation of a
group of people (“a community of brothers”; see DGE ibid.: “[I] 2 hermandad, cofradía,
comunidad”). See further L. Doering, “ἀδελφός κτλ.,” in Historical and Theological Lexicon
of the Septuagint 1 (ed. E. Bons and J. Joosten; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming).
124 The letter, in turn, draws on the letter of Areios (Areus) King of Sparta to the high priest
Onias, according to which Judeans and Spartans “are brothers and are from the family of
Abraham” (1 Macc 12:21 ἀδελφοὶ καὶ . . . ἐκ γένους Αβρααμ).
125 See e.g. 2 Macc 1:1; 2 Bar. 78:2; t. San. 2:6. See further Doering, Letters, index s.v. “Brother(s)
(address).”
126 4 Macc 9:23; 10:3, 15 [= DGE meaning I 1].
127 4 Macc 13:19, 27: τὰ τῆς ἀδελφότητος φίλτρα “the loving affection of [or: for?] brothers”
[= DGE meaning I 2?], though NETS translates “the bonds of brotherhood,” apparently
taking ἀδελφότης as a quality.
128 See also the Letter of the Martyrs of Lyon and Vienne, Mart. Lugd. 1.32. In Hermas
mand. 8:10, ἀδελφότητα συντηρεῖν “preserving the bond of (the?) brotherhood” is men-
tioned among the “works of the good things.”
addressed one another as “brothers,”129 and already Paul prepared a conse-

quent notion of putative kinship by speaking of “adoption” (υἱοθεσία) of the
believers,130 of Christ as the “firstborn among many brothers” (πρωτότοκον ἐν
πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖς),131 and of the “free woman” (i.e., Sarah), corresponding to “the
Jerusalem above,” as “our mother.”132
In 1 Peter, this consequent notion of putative kinship is considerably devel-
oped, yielding a quasi-realist notion of kinship. As we have seen, the act of
“rebegetting” or “rebirth” plays an important role; rebegetting occurs “from
imperishable seed through the constant word of the living God” (1:23) and now
enables the addressees to call God “Father” (1:17). That 1 Pet 3:6 tells female
addressees that they “have become” Sarah’s “children” (ἧς ἐγενήθητε τέκνα) is best
related to their being rebegotten / reborn133 as well.134 While rebegetting and
129 On which see R. Aasgaard, “My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!”: Christian Siblingship in Paul
(JSNTSup 265; London: T&T Clark, 2004). Despite noting that, compared with Greek and
Roman sources, sibling terminology “occurs far more often in a Jewish context” (112),
Aasgaard downplays the importance of the Jewish evidence for the adoption of sibling
terminology in Paul; for a brief critique see Doering, Letters, 397 with n. 97.
130 Rom 8:14–17; Gal 4:5–7.
131 Rom 8:29.
132 Gal 4:26; cf. 4:31 “we are children . . . of the free woman.” Cf. Horrell, “Race,” 130. One
might add 1 Cor 10:1, where Paul speaks of “our forefathers” with respect to Israel’s desert
generation (οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν) despite the non-Jewish descent of many of his addressees.
L. L. Sechrest, A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race (LNTS 410; London: T&T Clark,
2009) argues that already Paul speaks of Christ-believers as “members of a new racial
entity” (164), thereby de facto anticipating the notion of the Christians as the “third race”
(see below, n. 137). In my view, Sechrest is too quick to draw firm boundaries along Paul’s
nuanced rhetoric of kinship—putative or otherwise—partly due to her privileging “reli-
gion” over kinship in ancient constructions of race. Even 1 Peter lacks the concept of the
“third race,” and scholars debate whether the letter views its addressees as set off against
Israel; see presently.
133 Cf. Elliott, 1 Peter, 573 (giving “conversion” as the moment); Goppelt, I Peter, 224–25
(“through baptism . . . and thereby through the summons to hope”). The participles in
the continuation, “doing good and not fearing anything terrifying” (ἀγαθοποιοῦσαι καὶ
μὴ φοβούμεναι μηδεμίαν πτόησιν) are best taken as circumstantial or relatival qualifiers
of τέκνα and not as having conditional force (cf. Goppelt, 224, who speaks of a “demon-
stration of this relationship to Sarah”; and cf. Elliott, ibid., rendering “now doing what
is right . . .”). Contra Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 216, who misses the connection of this change
of status with the motifs of rebegetting / rebirth and takes the participles “as attendant
circumstance” of the aorist ἐγενήθητε: “you became her children . . . when you did what is
good. . . .” Despite the occurrence of imperatival participles in 1 Peter, it seems unwarranted
to assume these participles have imperatival force here; contra Michaels, 1 Peter, 166–67.
134 In contrast, N. Brox, “ ‘Sara zum Beispiel. . . .’ Israel im 1. Petrusbrief,” in Kontinuität und
Einheit: FS Franz Mußner (ed. P. G. Müller et al.; Freiburg i.Br.: Herder, 1981), 484–93, misses
272 Doering
rebirth vertically set the addressees into a new relationship with God (and the
Matriarch), on the horizontal level, they lead to the establishment of the people
of God (2:10), interpreted by the classical predicates of honor for Israel (2:9) and
conceived of as newly-established kinship between the addressees. Thus, one
aspect of the new conduct is “unfeigned brotherly love” (φιλαδελφία; 1,22). In 2:17,
the love commandment is applied to the “brotherhood” (ἀδελφότης).
In view of the thoroughgoing adoption of Israel epithets, it is significant
that 1 Peter does not deploy any form of the term ᾽Ισραήλ for the addressees.135
While they take on the status, role, and function of Israel, the addressees do
not become Israel—as either an accrual to the people of Israel, a “new” Israel,
or even the “Israel of God” (cf. Gal 6:16). Neither, however, are they explicitly
likened to Israel, which would expressly distinguish them from Israel. “Israel”
simply does not feature in this letter. It seems that the constitution of the new
people through divine rebegetting would not be appropriately expressed by
reference to “Israel.” Similarly, this mode of constitution as people appears to
prevent the application of any Ἰουδαῖος-related terminology to the addressees.136
If not “Israel” or “Jews,” what else are the addressees? Apart from applying
Israel epithets to the new people constituted by divine rebegetting, the letter
does not give us an answer.
As is well known, ethnic identity construction plays an important role in
Christianity from the second century onward, increasingly setting Christians
apart as a “new” or “third genos” from Jews and Gentiles.137 While a poten-
this rationale for the female addressees’ “having become” Sarah’s children and speaks of
Sarah “einfach als Exempel” (490).
135 See Stenschke, “Ehrenbezeichnungen,” 110. In this respect, the subtitle of the earlier
German version of the present paper (above, n. *), even with scare quotes around the
term “Israel,” seems infelicitous.
136 Stenschke, “Ehrenbezeichnungen,” 110.
137 E.g. Aristides, Apol. 2.2 Greek; 2.3–6 Syriac; Diogn. 1; Mart. Pol. 3:2; 14:1; Melito, Peri Pascha,
Frgm. 1 = Eusebius, H.E. 4.26.5; Tertullian, Nat. 1.8.1; 20.4; Scorp. 10.10; Ps.-Cyprian, De
Pascha computus, 17. Cf. also Justin, Dial. 116. See Lieu, Christian Identity, 239–68; Buell,
Why This New Race; M. Wolter, “ ‘Ein neues “Geschlecht” ’? Das frühe Christentum auf der
Suche nach seiner Identität,” in Ein neues Geschlecht? Entwicklung des frühchristlichen
Selbstbewusstseins (ed. M. Lang; NTOA 105; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014)
282–98. Sechrest, Former Jew, 16, suggests taking the reference in Kerygma Petrou (apud
Clement, Strom. 6.5.41) ὑμεῖς δὲ οἱ καινῶς αὐτὸν τρίτῳ γένει σεβόμενοι Χριστιανοί in the sense
of: “But you who worship him anew in the third race are Christians.” But “worshipping
in” (dative), not “as the third race,” would be odd, and “in a third manner” is clearly the
preferable understanding of this phrase, as Adolf von Harnack recognized long ago:
Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (4th ed.;
Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1924), 264–65; and see now Wolter, “Geschlecht,” 282–85.
tial impact of 1 Peter on relevant texts would have to be considered on a case

by case basis,138 it is generally clear that this letter marks out, in exceptional
intensity, an aspect of Christian identity that will be further developed in the
second and third centuries, but that in the letter itself, as it were, has not yet
come to terms.
V The “Chosen Stock” and Israel—Signaling a Hermeneutical

Problem
Let us briefly summarize: 1 Peter extensively applies categories of Israel to its

addressees. As this paper has argued, this can be seen in the application of
the Diaspora metaphor and the motif of being “strangers.” In addition, the
addressees’ identity is strengthened with epithets originally belonging to the
people of Israel. Some details show surprising structural and material similari-
ties to the Qumran texts and the book of Jubilees: the community as temple,
as priesthood, and as holy people is subject to a requirement of holiness that
applies the standards for priests according to H to all the people. The author of
the letter has clearly taken some elements of this cluster of motifs from early
Christian tradition, as is shown by the evidence of Paul and especially Eph 2.
However, he has enriched these elements by specific aspects, which may have
been adopted from oral tradition or, perhaps, developed independently from
concrete Jewish traditions, though in a similar direction.
The markedly kinship-orientated identity construction underlying 1 Pet 2:9
is conspicuous. It can be placed within the development of an “ethnic” self-
understanding of Christians at the beginning of the second century. While
predicates of Israel are deployed for this group, the latter is neither called
“Israel” nor explicitly likened with Israel; at the same time, there is no term
indicating that it was distinct from Israel, as the later concept of the “third
race” would have it. Ethnic identity construction is still tentative and in search
of the proper categories.
What follows from this for the relation of the addressees as “chosen stock,
royal priesthood, holy nation, and people for possession” with historical Israel?
1 Peter does not address this question directly. A range of possible relations
138 E.g. Justin, Dial. 116, is a possible echo of 1 Pet 2:9; cf. Elliott, 1 Peter, 145, according to whom
this passage is a “possible exception” to the overall impression that Justin’s similarities to
1 Peter might “reflect no more than the influence of Christian tradition.” Similarly, Melito,
Peri Pascha 68, seems to reflect 1 Pet 2:9; cf. Elliott, 1 Peter, 145–46. Tertullian, Scorp. 12.2–3;
14.3, cites from 1 Pet 2:21; 4:12–16 and 2:17; cf. Elliott, 1 Peter, 146.
274 Doering
has been suggested: de facto replacement of Israel by the church (without

direct recurrence to Israel),139 fulfillment,140 reenactment,141 eschatological
completion,142 or continuation / integration.143
Some scholars think that the letter’s silence indicates that the church has
replaced Israel, not polemically but in a way that makes Israel obsolete. Thus,
according to Jürgen Roloff, Israel plays “no role anymore in 1 Peter—neither
as the people of God, in which the church would ground and in whose story
with God she entered, nor as the polemical opposite, whose denial of faith in
Christ would become a threatening opposite.”144 Similarly, Norbert Brox views
1 Peter “on the path of a theological forgetfulness about Israel in Christianity,
without any polemics and without any interest.”145 Indeed, it is remarkable
that the author of our letter, different from other New Testament appropria-
tions, does not turn the “cornerstone” into a stone of stumbling for Israel in par-
139 Cf. Brox, “Sara,” 492: the Israel epithets have not been transferred typologically from
Israel to the church (“nicht typologisch von Israel auf die Kirche übertragen”) but were
originally said about the Christian community and about no one else (“von vornherein
von der christlichen Gemeinde und von niemand sonst”). Similarly, J. Roloff, Kirche im
Neuen Testament, 275, 319; Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 69–70 (and cf. 167: how the author under-
stood “the present status [of Israel, LD] remains unknown”). Cf. J. Blinzler, “ΙΕΡΑΤΕΥΜΑ:
Zur Exegese von 1 Petr 2, 5 u. 9,” Episcopus: Studien über das Bischofsamt. FS M. Kardinal
von Faulhaber (Regensburg: Gregorius-Verlag ehem. Pustet, 1949), 49–65 (58), claiming
that “indirekt, wenn auch deutlich genug, gesagt ist, daß keine dieser Auszeichnungen
mehr für das Judentum gilt.” However, Blinzler views the transfer also as fulfillment of
the Old Testament program in the New and thus might be reckoned with the following
approach.
140 See Alan Stibbs, in A. M. Stibbs and A. F. Walls, First Epistle General of Peter (London:
Tyndale Press, 1959), 105: “what is typically and prophetically anticipated in Old Testament
history finds its fulfilment in the Christian community. The Church of Christ . . . is the true
Israel of God.” Similarly, Schelkle, Petrusbriefe, 64; A. Vanhoye, “L’Épître (1 P 2,1–10): La
maison spirituelle,” AsSeign 43 (1964): 16–29 (27); Chevallier, “Israël,” 118–27.
141 Michaels, 1 Peter, 112: “In their transformation from οὐ λαός to λαὸς θεοῦ, these gentile
Christians of Asia Minor are reenacting a chapter of Israel’s own history.”
142 Witherington, 1–2 Peter, 119 (assuming a predominantly Jewish-Christian audience):
“. . . Peter’s view is that the one people of God has kept going all along, only now the true
expression of them is found in Jew and Gentile united in Christ. This is more of an escha-
tological completionist schema than a replacement schema.”
143 Elliott, 1 Peter, 443: “through the mercy of God and their belief in Jesus Christ, the believ-
ers are incorporated into God’s ancient covenant people and share the heritage of
ancient Israel”; 447: “The believers are not said to constitute a ‘new people’ but, rather,
are declared the eschatological realization of Israel as God’s elect and holy people”; cf.
Metzner, Rezeption, 161–62; Jobes, 1 Peter, 164; Stenschke, “Ehrenbezeichnungen,” 106.
144 Roloff, Kirche, 275 (trans. LD).
145 Brox, “Sara,” 493 (trans. LD).
ticular. Instead, the opposition in 1 Peter is between πιστεύουσιν and ἀπιστοῦσιν

(1 Pet 2:7), which may include, but is not explicitly focused on, Jews. But then it
needs to be asked whether the letter really takes the posture of a replacement
of Israel tout court by the church. Equally, it cannot be demonstrated from 1 Pet
2:10 that before Christ everything had been non-people.146
As shown in this article, the statements in 1 Pet 2:10 relate to the rebegotten-
ness of the addressees; on the assumption of addressees predominantly from
among the Gentiles, nothing would be said about Israel.147 Similarly, one can
hardly argue from 1 Pet 1:10–12 that the Christian church stands in radical dis-
continuity to Israel.148 To be sure, the prophets, in their anticipation, relate only
to the present time of the letter, but the issue here is eschatological salvation,
which becomes available only now, through the preaching of the gospel to the
addressees. Thus, here too, the explicit situation mentioned in the letter ought
to be kept in view. The passage does not suggest that Israel had previously not
been God’s people.149 To the contrary, the claimed presence of Christ in the
Israelite prophets contributes to some unity in God’s deeds within Israel and
in the church.150 The assumption of de facto replacement of Israel has insuf-
ficient regard for the small number of salvation-historical connections that the
letter maintains and for the mechanics of rebegottenness / rebirth that bring
the addressees into a situation analogous to Israel. It also has some difficulty in
finding an explanation for the saturation of the letter with Jewish traditions.151
There is therefore some justification for theories that see some form of
continuity with Israel in the new societal entity. Thus one might indeed say
with Thomas Söding, “the letter anchors the Christians in salvation history,
146 M. Karrer, “Petrus im paulinischen Gemeindekreis,” ZNW 80 (1989): 210–231: “Jedes
Vorrecht des alten Heilsvolks erlischt. Ausschließlich Nicht-Volk, Nicht-Erbarmte gab es
einst, wie 2,10 Hos 1,6.9 radikalisiert” (225).
147 Even if we assume a certain percentage of native Jews, one could read the contrast “once
non-people, now God’s people” (Hos 2:25) as relating to the presumed majority of non-
Jews or perhaps the mixed new entity of Jews and non-Jews in the community, and not as
qualifying Jews generally as “non-people” prior to their rebegottenness.
148 Contra B. Sargent, “The Narrative Substructure of 1 Peter,” ExpT 124 (2013): 485–490.
149 This appears to be implied in Sargent’s argumentation: extrapolating from the specific
message of the prophets to the validity of Israel’s Ehrentitel, he asks, apparently expecting
a negative answer: “Whilst it is clear that 1 Peter applies scriptural titles for Israel to the
communities, is there any evidence that these titles are understood as applying to both
Israel in the past as well as the communities in the present?” (“Substructure,” 487).
150 I see no justification for the mere assertion by Brox, “Sara,” 489: “Die Propheten sind nicht
Repräsentanten Israels, sondern vorzeitliche Seher in einem abstrakten Sinn.”
151 Noted, but hardly satisfactorily explained, by Brox, “Sara,” 493.
276 Doering
whose direction towards Christ was recognized by the prophets.”152 That the
addressed women have become daughters of Sarah (1 Pet 3:6) allows for the
existence of other, earlier children of Sarah and, by extension, Abraham; at
the very least, the letter does not make any effort to dispute Israel’s descent
from these noted foreparents. Indeed, it might be claimed, with the Latvian
scholar Ilmars Hiršs, that 1 Peter displays a remarkable way of interrelating the
Christian church and Israel.153 Israel is appropriated without being expropri-
ated. The confirmation to the addressees to be an elect people of God is car-
ried out without a corresponding announcement of the rejection of the “first”
people. The addressees somehow stand in connection with Israel. However,
the precise relation to Israel of those addressed as elect remains open pre-
cisely because of the situative focus of the letter that is entirely concentrated
on strengthening the addressees in distress.
This openness of the question makes it extremely difficult to draw on 1 Peter
successfully for Christian-Jewish dialogue, and here I think people like Hiršs,
who wish to bring in the voice of this letter, need to tacitly fill in further argu-
ments that are not explicitly found in the text.154 In short, the situativity of
1 Peter poses severe hermeneutical questions. In this regard, the letter remains
an ambiguous witness. In our present-day situation, interested in Christian-
Jewish conversation, we may want to develop creatively the ecclesiology
grounded in this letter, but we should be aware that this requires us to fill in
aspects not actually covered by the situative focus of the text, or at least to read
the text alongside other New Testament witnesses that are more explicit on the
matter.155 Conversely, however, we also would have to engage critically with the
Wirkungsgeschichte of ethnic identity construction in Christianity—an iden-
tity construction that in the longer term set Christians, as a genus of its own,
apart from Jews and Gentiles and that, with some justification, can be seen
as being prepared by the “Israel-formity” claimed for the addressees in 1 Peter.
152 T. Söding, “Grüße aus Rom. Die Stellung des Ersten Petrusbriefes in der Geschichte des
Urchristentums und im Kanon,” in Hoffnung in Bedrängnis: Studien zum Ersten Petrusbrief
(ed. T. Söding ; SBS 216; Stuttgart: Kath. Bibelwerk, 2009), 11–45 (42).
153 Hiršs, Volk, passim.
154 Thus e.g. F. Siegert, “Christus, der ‘Eckstein,’ und sein Unterbau: Eine Entdeckung an 1 Petr
2.6f.,” NTS 49 (2004): 139–46. If Siegert’s interpretation of the cornerstone as an “Aufsatz”
on a substructure (= Israel) were apposite, the connection between the two, as well as the
connection between the “spiritual house” and the substructure would be merely implicit
in 1 Peter.
155 Thus, Gäckle, Priestertum, 457–58, fills the gaps in 1 Peter with a recourse to the position-
ing of the “community” vis-à-vis Israel in two witnesses he says are closely related to the
letter, Paul and Matthew.
Author Index
Aasgaard, Reidar 271 Böttrich, Christfried 257

Abd el-Fatah, A. Galal 41 Bowersock, Glen 76, 139
Achtemeier Paul J. 106, 244, 249–256, 258, Bowman, Alan K. 59–61
263, 271, 274 Breytenbach, Cilliers 185, 191, 192, 193
Agnew Francis H. 250 Brook, George J. 258, 261
Allony, Nehemya 222 Brown, Peter 97, 146
Alston, Richard 60, 63–65 Brown, Raymond E. 181
Amelig, Walter 228 Brox, Nobert 250, 254, 255, 264, 271, 274, 275
Ando, Clifford 11, 75 Buchheit, Vinzenz 192
Arnaoutoglou, Ilias 113 Buell, Denise K. 21, 272
Ascough, Richard S. 10, 12, 89 Bultmann, Rudolf 170, 181
Burtchaell, James 1
Baer, Yitzhak 20
Baird, William 170 Campbell, Douglas A. 137
Balch, David L. 106, 256 Carter, Warren 107, 108
Bammel, Ernst 120 Chester, Stephen J. 13
Barclay, John M. G. 1, 5, 15, 16, 51, 156, 161, 171, Chevallier, Max-Alain 267
191, 239–240, 249 Clarysse, Willy 31, 36–37, 40, 42, 49–51, 54,
Baron, Salo 20, 225–242 227
Barth, Fredrik 25, 31–33 Coblentz, Bautch K. 263
Baslez, Marie-Francoise 105, 112 Cohen, Shaye J. D. 3, 80, 164, 218
Bassler, Jouette M. 126 Collar, Anna 20
Bauckham, Richard 182 Collins, John J. 211, 239–240, 260, 263
Baum, Armin D. 243 Coloe, Mary L. 257
Baur, Ferdinand C. 175 Conzelmann, Hans 171
Beare, Francis W. 253, 263 Countryman, L. William 100
Bechtler, Steven R. 101 Cowey, James M. S. 37, 42, 156, 163
Behr, Charles A. 79 Cowley, Arthur E. 206, 213
Bekkum Wouter J. van 223 Criscuolo, Lucia 208
Beloch, Karl-Julius 236–7, 238 Crislip, Andrew T. 129, 131
Bendlin, Andreas 107
Benveniste, Émile 165 Dana, Dan 35, 37, 38
Berger, Klaus 170 Danker, Fredrick W. 117
Berthelot, Katell 117 Daris, Sergio 208
Best, Ernest 254, 264 Davids, Peter H. 263, 264
Bhabha, Homi 110 Davies, Philip R. 261
Biale, David 226 Delling, Gerhard 249
Bickerman, Elias 136–137, 144, 148 Demetriou, Denise 104
Bingen, Jean 35, 47, 59 DePauw, Mark 42, 227
Blinzler, Joseph 274 Derda, Tomasz 194
Blumell, Lincoln H. 91 DeSilva, David A. 137, 149
Bockmuehl, Markus 262 Destephen, Sylvain 197
Bohak, Gideon 5 Dibelius, Martin 96, 170
Bolkestein, Hendrik 13, 116–117, 128, 132 Dittmann-Schöne, Imogen 87
Boring, M. Eugene 255 Dixon, Suzanne 98
278 Author Index
Doering, Lutz 177, 243, 248, 258, 261, 270, 271 Grant, Robert M. 129
Downey, Glanville 144, 148 Gruen, Erich 240
Downs, David J. 14 Gülzow, Henneke 118
Drawnel, Henryk 264
Dubis, Mark 245 Haberman, Avraham M. 223
Dunn, James D. G. 257 Hacham, Noah 203
Dunning, Benjamin H. 92, 95 Hadas, Moses 137
Dupont-Sommer, André 137 Hahn, Johannes 118, 120
Durst, Michael 244, 248 Hall, Jonathan M. 31, 48, 50, 269
Hamel, Gildas 121–122
Ebner, Martin 115 Hands, Arthur R. 101, 119–120
Ehrensperger, Kathy 269 Hanson, Ann E. 219
Elizur, Shulamit 223 Harker, Andrew 70
Elliott, John H. 93, 101, 102, 245, 246, 249–251, Harland, Philip A. 10, 12, 16, 87, 107, 231, 234
255, 256, 264, 265, 267, 271, 273, 274 Harnack Adolph von 18, 248, 272
Engel, David 225–226, 240 Hartog, Paul 244
Engel, Edna 218 Harvey, Graham 220
Heemstra, Marius 82
Fabry, Heinz-Josef 266 Hegermann, Harald 30
Feldman, Louis H. 235 Hemer, Colin J. 72
Feldmeier, Reinhard 101, 246, 247, 249, 251, Henten, Jan Willem van 137, 141, 149
254, 255 Herzer, Jens 251
Ferguson, James 109 Heussi, Karl 247
Finnern, Sönke 169 Hicks, Edward L. 87
Fischer-Bovet, Christelle 28, 29, 34 Hilhorst, Antonius 149
Flohr, Miko 89 Hiltbrunner, Otto 129–131
Flusser, David 1, 262 Himmelfarb Martha 265
Foster, Paul 244 Hirschfeld, Yizhar 130
Fraser, Peter M. 61 Hiršs, Ilmars 246, 254, 255, 266, 276
Fredriksen, Paula 240 Honigman, Sylvie 28, 35, 37, 44, 47, 52, 63,
Frey, Jörg 155, 157, 160, 176–178, 183–184 67, 73, 156
Friedman, Mordechai A. 221 Hopkins, Keith 17, 238, 239
Fuchs, Alexander 203 Hoppe, Leslie J. 120
Furnish, Victor P. 126 Horrell, David G. 107, 245, 268, 269, 271
Furstenberg, Yair 3 Horst, Pieter W. van der 118, 155, 157, 160
Hotze, Gerhard 246, 266
Gabrielse, Vincent 114 Hunzinger, Claus-Hunno 243
Gäckle, Volker 254, 256, 263, 264, 276 Huttner, Ulrich 18, 198
Gambetti, Sandra 63
Gardner, Greg 124 Ilan, Tal 36, 193, 217
Gärtner Bertil 258 Iterson, Aart van 122
Geller, Markham 224
Georgi, Dieter 126 Jobes, Karen H. 250, 253, 256, 274
Giesen, Heinz 246, 254 Joshel, Sandra 88
Goldstein, Horst 246 Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Daniel 142
Goodman, Martin 6, 71, 75, 120 Joubert, Annekie 192
Goppelt, Leonhard 247, 249–251, 253–255,
258, 263, 264, 271 Karrer, Martin 275
Goren, Arthur A. 160 Käsemann, Ernst 175
Goudriaan, Koen 35 Kasher, Aryeh 63, 155–156
Author Index 279
Kelber, Werner H. 171 Martzavou, Paraskevi 25

Kelly, John N. D. 254, 264 Marxsen, Willi 171
Kerkeslager, Allen 70–73, 204 Mason, Steve 26
Kister, Menahem 45 Mattha, Girgis 207
Klauser, Theodor 129 McGing, Brian 236
Klawans, Jonathan 261 Meeks, Wayne 4, 10
Klein, Thorsten 243 Mélèze-Modrzejewski, Joseph 34, 45,
Klein-Franka, F. 223 60, 73
Klinzing, Georg 256, 258, 261, 262 Merklein, Helmut 172
Kloppenborg, John 12–13, 89, 246 Metzner, Rainer 255, 267, 274
Knapp, Robert 119 Michaels, J. Ramsey 249, 250, 253–256, 263,
Koltun-Fromm, Naomi 4 271, 274
Kooten, George H. van 267 Millar, Fergus 76
Korner, Ralph J. 267, 268 Minnen, P. van 219
Kotansky, Roy 223 Mishor, Menachem 217
Kraabel, A. Thomas 16 Mitchell, Stephen 102, 188
Krauss, Samuel 123–125 Molthagen, Johennes 244, 245
Kruse, Thomas 44, 46, 55 Momigliano, Arnoldo 155, 167
Kudlien, Fridolf 130 Montevecchi, Orsolina 60
Kugler, Robert A. 45, 58 Moore, George F. 123
Moss, Candida 76
La Piana, George 158–159 Müller, Christoph G. 263
Łada, Csaba A. 34–35 Muszyński, Henryk 259
Lapin, Hayim 2
Laslett, Peter 238 Naveh, Joseph 223–224
Last, Richard 115 Nickelsburg George W. E. 263
Launey, Marcel 40 Nicolet, Claude 61
Leclercq, H. 129, 131 Niebuhr Karl-Wilhelm 249, 252
Leon, Harry J. 155, 157, 160, 164 Niehoff, Maren 67
Levine, Lee I. 20, 123, 127, 157, 230 Nijf, Onno van 90
Lewis, Bernard 241 Nissen, Andreas 128
Liberles, Robert 238 Noorda, Sijbolt J. 130
Licht, Jacob 259, 261, 262 Noy, David 14, 76, 194
Lichtenberger, Hermann 155
Liebengood, Kelly D. 252, 253 Oberman, Julian 142, 148
Liesker, W. H. M. 208 Oppenheimer, Aharon 126
Lietzmann, Hans 129 Osiek, Carolyn 96–97
Lieu, Judith 1, 17, 21, 269, 272
Lilla, Salvatore R. C. 94 Parkin, Anneliese 120
Linder, Amnon 79 Patai, Raphael 224
Longenecker, Bruce W. 117, 120 Patrich, Joseph 131
Lüderitz, Gert 156, 160 Perler, Othmar 149
Lütgert, Wilhelm 175 Perry, Jonathan S. 10
Pizzolato, Luigi F. 142
MacMullen, Ramsey 10, 123, 125 Pleins, J. David 120
Mageo, Jeannette 110 Porten, Bezalel 207
Maier, Johann 260, 261 Posner, Raphael 122
Maresch, Klaus 37, 42, 156, 163 Pucci Ben Zeev, Miriam 7, 75, 81, 214–215
Martin, Ralph P. 126 Purcell, Nicholas 97
Martyn, J. Louis 181–182 Puig Tàrrech, Armand 254, 255
280 Author Index
Qimron Elisha 259, 260 Shaw, Brent D. 94

Shemesh, Aharon 3
Rabello, Alfredo M. 159 Sieffert, Friedrich E. A. 250
Rabinovitz, Zvi M. 223 Siegert, Folker 276
Rajak, Tessa 6, 14–15, 125, 139–140, 147 Söding, Thomas 276
Rampolla del Tindaro, Mariano 143 Stark, Rodney 118
Ramsay, William M. 188, 197–198 Steinschneider, Moritz 213
Rathbone, Dominic 59–61 Stenschke, Christoph W. 245, 272, 274
Rebillard, Éric 12, 114 Stern, Menahem 155, 164, 203
Reichert, Angelika 244 Stibbs, Alan 274
Reinhartz, Adele 26 Strack Wolfram 263
Remijsen, Sofie 42, 227 Strecker, Georg 171
Reynolds Joyce M. 103 Strubbe, Johan H. M. 187, 189
Rives, James M. 76 Swartz, Michael D. 224
Robert, Louis 189 Swarup, Paul 259, 260, 262
Roberts, Colin H. 222 Syme, Ronald 137, 138
Roldanus, Johannes 92
Roloff, Jürgen 266, 274 Tantlevskij, Igor R. 121
Rotman, Yuval 124 Taussig, Michael T. 110
Rutgers, Leonard V. 161 Tcherikover, Victor 19, 72, 203–212, 221, 239
Theissen, Gerd 169, 172
Salvaterra, Carla 71–72, 208, 211 Thiselton, Anthony C. 126
Sand, Shlomo 235 Thompson Crawford, Dorothy J. 28, 31, 36,
Sänger, Patrick 28, 40, 53–55 40, 42, 49–51, 53–56
Sargent, Benjamin 275 Thraede, Klaus 244, 245
Scarpat, Giuseppe 141 Tilborg, Sjef van 183
Schäfer, Hans 102 Tov, Emanuel 221, 222
Schäfer, Peter 224 Townshend, Richard B. 142
Schatkin, Margaret 142–143 Trebilco, Paul 7, 17, 189, 229, 267
Scheidel, Walter 239 Triebel, Lothar 142, 144
Schelkle, Karl H. 249, 274 Tromp, A. M. 208
Schiffman, Lawrence H. 224 Trümper, Monica 112
Schlosser, Jacques 250, 254–256, 263, 264
Schmeller, Thomas 173 Uebel, Fritz 35
Schnelle, Udo 173, 179 Ulrich, Eugene 222
Schrage, Wolfgang 175, 267
Schröger, Friedrich 246, 254 Vahrenhorst, Martin 257
Schürer, Émil 123, 153–154 Vanhoye, Albert 274
Schutter, William L. 107 Veïsse, Anne-Emmanuelle 34
Schwartz, Daniel R. 5, 26, 161, 163, 167, 218, Veyne, Paul 116
258, 261, 265 Vinson, Martha 142
Schwartz, Seth 14, 20, 75, 234, 241
Sechrest, Love L. 271, 272 Wacht, Manfred 129–130
Secombe, David 125, 127 Wackenier, Stephanie 35, 37, 43–44, 55
Seland, Torrey 95, 251 Wagner, Guy 41
Selwyn, Edward G. 254, 264 Weber, Max 238
Shaked, Shaul 224 Whitehead, David 89, 104
Sharon, Nadav 6 Whitmarsh, Tim 138, 141
Author Index 281
Wilken, Robert L. 2, 11 Yahalom, Joseph 223

Williams, Margaret H. 232 Yardeni, Ada 207, 218
Williams, Travis B. 244, 245, 269
Wilson, Bryan 95 Ziadé, Raphaëlle 142
Wilson, Walter T. 122 Zimmermann, Christiane 185, 187, 193,
Winter, Bruce W. 106 200
Witherington, Ben 245, 274 Zuckerman, Constantine 42, 53–54, 56,
Wolff, Hans J. 43, 45, 62 155–156
Wolter, Michael 272 Zuiderhoek, Arjan 89, 97
Woolf, Greg 98–100 Zwierlein, Otto 247
General Index
Abraham 38, 93, 136, 149, 187, 188, 193–194 Basil the Great 131–132
acculturation 21, 106, 231, 232, 240 benefaction see philanthropy
Acmonia (in Phrygia) 14, 186, 189, 229–30,
233 Cairo Geniza 19, 213, 221–224
Acts of the Alexandrian Martyrs 66, Caracalla 79, 186
204–205 Cassius Dio 71, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 161
Acts of the Apostles 199–200, 229 Celsus 10–11
Aelius Aristides 79 charis anti charitos 117–120
Aelius Glycon Zeuxianus Aelianus, Publius charity 13–15, 99, 101, 116–133
231 Christianization 20, 233–234, 236, 241
agathopoiountes 106, 271 Christians, treatment by Rome 10–11, 75–76
Agrippa I 64, 66 Christology 200, 249, 252–254, 256, 262
Agrippa II 78 Church fathers 211–212, 213
Alexander of Aphrodisias 77 Cicero 98, 119, 157, 162, 229
Alexandria citizenship 10–11, 17, 25, 49, 60, 64, 69, 94,
Judean community 47, 51, 61–67, 69–70, 102, 119, 165, 229–231, 247
141, 153–166, 204, 208, 211, 219 civic identity 106, 165
riots in 38 CE 32, 33, 62–64, 66, 81, 102, civis, civitas 165
108 Claudius 9, 28–29, 32, 68–70, 74, 81, 161, 163,
aliens (non-citizen residents) 10, 92–96, 209, 236
101–102, 106, 109, 111, 115, 246, 251 Clement of Alexandria 93–94, 105
almsgiving 97–98, 117, 128 collegium, collegia 7–9, 11, 88, 107, 154
anti-Judaism 19, 154, 205, 209–212 colonization 5, 6, 9, 36–40, 51, 57, 67–68,
Antioch 2, 15, 82, 135–136, 141–148, 185, 189, 162–163, 185, 237
233, 269 communal organization 1, 4, 6, 11–12, 16,
anti-semitism see anti-Judaism 153–166, 203, 230–234
Aphrodisias 103, 186, 228–229, 233, 270 Community Rule (1QS) 258–260
Apollonius of Tyana 77 conduct (good conduct) 93–94, 247, 251,
Apuleius 79 256, 260, 262, 270, 272
Aramaic 35, 47, 195, 206–8, 213, 217, 220, 221, Constantine 75
223, 224 conversion (to Judaism) 6, 235–7
archisynagogoi 14, 16, 230–231 Corinth, Christian community in 13, 115,
aretē 89 173–176, 257, 268
Asclepius, Asclepieia 79, 130 cornerstone 249, 256, 258, 260, 262, 274
Asia Minor 2, 7, 14, 18, 21, 53, 80, 81, 89, 116, covenant, covenant ceremony 250, 259–260
130, 138, 141–142, 185, 228–234, 240, 243, cult of martyrs 142–144
246–247 Cynics 118
assimilation 1, 9–10, 14, 95, 106, 109, 163, 208, Cyprian 129
210
associations see voluntary associations decrees relating to diaspora Jews 7–8, 11, 69,
Athenaios of Alexandria 211 81
demography 28–29, 37, 47, 236–239
Babylon 93, 243, 247–249 diakonoi (deacons) 128–129, 187–188, 194
Bar Kokhba 75–76 Diaspora, Jewish
Baron, Salo 225–227, 234–239 fragility of 19–20, 225, 228–229, 241
General Index 283
Hellenistic 3, 48–51, 160–162, 226, 234 freedmen 97

microhistories of 239–40 fullers 87, 88, 90, 111
Roman policy toward it 75, 81–83, 241 funerary inscriptions 41, 185–200, 230–232
Diasporic discourse 246–253
Diognetus 10, 94–95, 105 gabba’ey tsedaqah 123–124
distinctness Galatia 116, 142, 185–186, 198, 246
in Ptolemaic Egypt 27, 29–31, 32–47, 58, Galen 77, 138
70 Gaul 237
among Christians 1, 10–12, 15, 20, 110 gemiluth chasadim 124
Docetism 180, 183 genarch 62, 159
Dositheus son of Drimylos 208 Genizah 213, 217, 221–4
genos 21, 105, 249, 263, 269, 272
ecclesiology 246, 253–254, 266–268, 276 gerousia 62, 69, 147, 153, 209
Edfu 46, 205, 227 Ghetto 209–10, 225, 228
Egypt 8, 25–74, 78, 99, 108, 111, 155, 160, 162, Gnostics 93–94, 175, 181
165, 189, 194, 203–224, 227–228, 237, 240 God epithets 118, 187–188
ekklesia 11, 92, 101–109, 177, 266–273 God-fearers (theosebeis) 6, 228, 230, 233
elect, election 4, 21, 105, 174, 246–253, 276 Gregorius Bar-Hebraeus 236, 238, 239
Emperor worship, honouring the emperor
65, 106–109 handworkers 88
enthusiasts 175 health care 129–132
Ephesus 183, 232 Hebrew (Hebraioi, title for “Jew”) 77, 80, 127,
epithymia 105 144, 164, 166, 218, 220, 230
Essenes 1, 128 Hebrew language 19, 206–208, 213, 217,
ethnarch 6, 16, 62, 78–79, 159 221–224
ethnic identity 3–6, 16–17, 21, 26–29, 31–33, Hebrew names 37–39, 45, 51, 57–58, 72
44–45, 48–50, 56, 102, 218, 266–273, 276 Helena (of Adiabene) 77, 127
ethnika 31, 32, 34, 35, 48, 51, 60 Hellenism 141, 145, 211, 235, 237
ethnos 6, 78–79, 270 Herakleopolis 37, 42–45, 55, 58, 62, 156, 165
euergetism see philanthropy Herod 80, 146, 157
eunoia 89 Hesiod 118
eusebeia 89 hetaeiria 9
Eusebius 92, 178, 212, 244 Hierapolis (Phrygia) 142, 186, 231, 232, 234
Eutychios/Ibn Batrik 212 historical-critical method 168, 172
Exile 160, 247–248, 263 historiography 19, 226, 236–238
expulsion holiness, Holiness Code 105, 173–174,
of Jews 147, 161–163, 211 251–254, 259, 261, 266
of Christians 96 Holocaust 203, 210
Holy of holies 259–261
factionalism 174–176
Fayum 35, 38, 40, 46, 51, 54, 57, 61, 72, 205, identity, according to Ptolemaic state policy
210, 214–218, 221, 223 27, 29, 34–35, 48–51, 53, 56–58
fiction 171, 176–178 according to Roman state policy 27, 32,
First Peter 13, 21, 243–276 59–61, 66–74
fiscus Iudaicus 9, 32, 42, 68, 70–73, 82–83, Ignatius of Antioch 149, 180, 244
227 see also tax inscriptions 14, 40–41, 81, 87–91, 103–104,
Form Criticism 170–172, 182 113, 125, 148, 153, 185–200, 228–232,
Fourth Maccabees 134–150, 270 270
284 General Index
Ioudaios, Ioudaioi 16, 26, 29, 30, 34 51, 73, Letter of Aristeas 29, 51–53, 67, 73, 74,
160–161, 163–164, 166, 205, 218, 220 155–156, 160, 163, 165, 208, 212
Israel epithets 21, 243–276 linen-workers 111
Italy 61, 228, 236 literary criticism 167–172, 184
literary evidence 12, 17–18, 26–27, 30–31, 160,
James, Epistle of 178, 247, 252 186, 203–204, 212
Jason of Cyrene 208 Lycaonia 18, 138, 142, 185–200
Jesus 124–128, 170, 171, 175, 180–183
Jew vs. Judean 28, 29, 30, 70, 74, 160–161 magic papyri 203–4, 223–4
as Egyptians (in Roman Egypt) 47, 59, 61, martyrdom 66, 76, 134–150, 204, 244, 270
62, 65, 66, 68, 74 megalopsychia 89
as Greeks (in Ptolemaic Egypt) 29, 29n7, Menander of Laodicea 80, 119, 190
34, 47, 48–51, 52–53, 57, 58, 73 methodology 30–32, 167–184, 236, 238
as Greeks (in Philo) 66, 67 mimicry 13, 90–91, 97, 106, 109–111, 113, 115
Jewish civic rights 7–8, 10, 19, 28, 78, 81, 145, minority 27–29, 32, 42, 46–47, 48–58, 68–74,
153, 155–156, 208, 227, 229 221, 241
Jewish quarter 211, 214 mirror reading 18, 170–172, 179, 184
Jewish revolts 9, 15, 19, 32, 71–74, 75–76, 78, Modestinus 79
82, 125, 145, 147–148, 203, 205, 209–215, monasteries 130–132
220, 236, 238–240 monotheism 26, 27, 51
Jewish tax see tax, fiscus Iudaicus Moses 124, 136, 189, 193–194, 198, 223
Johannine school 17, 179–184 munificence 90, 97
John Chrysostom 143, 148
John Malalas 143, 148 names, personal 31, 32, 34–39, 45–46, 49,
Josephus 1, 7, 62, 69–70, 81–82, 145–148, 164, 49n55, 51, 57, 72, 174, 180, 183, 186,
166, 212, 227, 229 193–199, 205, 215, 220, 229
Jubilees, Book of 265–266, 273 Nerva 71, 82–83
Judaea (name of province) 77–78
Jude, Epistle of 176–179 occupational guild (synergion) 87–88,
Judean see Jew 231–232
Julia Severa 14 onomastics see names, personal
Julian the Emperor 116, 125, 132 Oppian 77
Julius Africanus 78, 83 orality 39, 170–171, 263, 273
Julius Paulus Prudentissimus 79 Origen 11–12, 78–79, 83
Jupiter 71, 82 ostraca 30, 42, 71, 205, 207, 214
Justin Martyr 129 Oxyrhynchus 206–207, 211, 213–217, 222–223
Kalends 231–233 Palestine 3, 5, 77–79, 147, 159, 208, 216, 221,

kalokagathia 89 222, 228
Karanis 210, 221 Palladius 131
kehillah 160, 166 papyri 25–32, 37–38, 42–45, 156, 165,
Korykos (Cilicia) 231–232, 234 203–224, 237
Kyrillos of Alexandria 211 paraenesis 252
parepidēmos 92, 93, 102, 105
Lachrymosity 225–226 paroikos 92, 93, 94–95, 102, 102, 105, 246
Landsmannschaften 161 Paul the Apostle 5–6, 12, 126, 161, 166,
laos 6, 81, 102, 162, 232 173–179, 191, 232, 267, 271
leather-workers 112 Pausanias 77
General Index 285
People of God 189, 253, 266, 268, 272, 276 rhetoric 11–13, 91, 107, 134, 136–139, 175, 261
Pharisees 3, 126 Romanticism 170, 238
philanthropy (benefaction; euergetism) Rome, Jews of 16–17, 141, 153–166
13–14, 89–91, 97–100, 110, 113–115, Russian Empire 237
116–120, 231
Philo of Alexandria 5, 8–11, 16, 32, 64–70, 74, Sabbath 16, 38–39, 42, 45, 76, 79, 146, 206,
95–96, 102, 108, 141, 156–157, 211–212, 247 227–228
philodoxia see philotimia Samaritans 220–1
Philostratus 72, 138 Sardis 7, 186, 228, 229, 233
philotimia 89, 117–118, 124 Second Sophistic 15, 136–141
Phrygia 137, 142, 185–186, 188–189, 198, 229, sectarianism 3–5, 95, 181, 260–261
231, 233 self-as-other 92
pillar (as metaphor) 124, 191, 257 separate settlement 32, 35, 36–38, 39–42,
Platonism 93–94, 96, 136 42–47, 51, 57, 61, 73
Pliny the younger 9, 98, 119, 146, 244–245 Septimius Severus 79
Pogrom 208–10 Septuagint 45, 134, 136, 139, 188, 208, 222,
polis, poleis 8, 49, 52, 59–60, 89, 101, 110, 114, 255, 266, 269
162–163, 165 Shepherd of Hermas 13, 95–101, 109, 115, 129,
politeia 10–11, 52, 81, 144 247, 258
politēs 95, 165 Sibylline oracles 192, 211
politeuma 8, 16–17, 28, 32, 36–37, 40–47, Simon the Just 124
53–56, 62–65, 74, 153–166 Smyrna 233
Pompey 78, 157 social capital 90
poor 13–14, 97–100, 115, 116–133 Socrates, Church History 211
priesthood 21, 105, 198, 253–266 Spain 237
proseuchē 32, 39, 41, 45, 46, 47, 56, 57, 61, 65, spirit, Holy Spirit 4, 105, 200, 249, 257–258
69, 72, 108, 205 Stoicism 93–94, 105, 109, 136
Psalms 120, 190–192, 222, 256 stone (metaphor) 249, 253–254, 256, 258,
pseudonymity 176–179, 243 260, 262
Pseudo-Phocylides 122 Structuralism 168
Ptolemaic period 25–58, 108, 111, 163, Sukkot 206
205–209, 218, 219, 237 synagogue 8, 14–15, 78–80, 123–124, 145,
purity, impurity 3–5, 144, 260 147–148, 153, 156–158, 164, 182–183, 205,
purple-dyers 111 216, 228–230, 234, 267
synodos 7, 16
qahal 233, 266 Syria 69, 74, 137, 142–144, 146, 233
Qumran 4, 21, 120, 167, 217, 222, 247, 258, Syria Palaestina 75, 77
260, 262–263, 273
quppah 123 tamhuy 123
Tarsus 232
Rabbinic movement 14, 20, 122–127, 150 tax 28, 32, 51, 59–60, 70–73, 82–83, 162, 205,
rebegetting, rebirth 21, 250–251, 253, 209–210, 227–228
271–272, 275 telesma ioudaikon see fiscus iudaicus
reciprocity 11, 14, 100, 118–119, 127 Temple (in Jerusalem) 8, 19, 21, 78, 80, 124,
Redaction Criticism 171–172, 181–182, 184 135, 147, 255–262
religious identity 5n14, 25, 26, 29, 39–42, 45, community as 21, 255–263
51–52, 55, 56, 63, 73–74, 75, 79–80, 162, destruction of 19, 77, 82, 126, 147–148,
164 212, 243
286 General Index
Tertullian 11, 83, 129 voluntary associations 7–8, 10–13, 87, 91, 97,

Theaters 60, 65, 229, 230, 231 100, 107, 114–115, 153, 267
thiasoi 7 voting 115
Third Maccabees 208, 212
third race 21, 93, 271–273 widows 97, 99, 126–127
Thucydides 120 Wissenschaft des Judentums 225, 236
Trajan 9, 72, 78, 185, 215, 244 wool cleaners 111
tsedaqah 117, 122
Xenophon 118
Ulpian 79 xenos 49, 92–94, 103–104, 106, 130
Valerius Flaccus, Lucius 229 Zionism 209

Vespasian 32, 70, 77, 147, 205, 209

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Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World

Ancient Judaism and

Martin Hengel † (Tübingen)

Cilliers Breytenbach (Berlin)

Lutz Doering (Münster) – Pieter W. van der Horst (Utrecht)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ajec

Names: Furstenberg, Yair, editor.

Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Introduction: The Shared Dimensions of Jewish and Christian Communal

The Ptolemaic and Roman Definitions of Social Categories and the

The Roman State and Jewish Diaspora Communities in the Antonine

Civic Identity and Christ Groups 87

Organized Charity in the Ancient World: Pagan, Jewish, Christian 116

The Fourth Book of Maccabees in a Multi-Cultural City 134

Rome and Alexandria: Why was there no Jewish Politeuma in Rome? 153

From Text to Community: Methodological Problems of Reconstructing

Lycaonian Christianity under Roman Rule and their Jewish-Christian

Jewish Communities in the Roman Diaspora: Why Salo Baron Still

This volume presents revised versions of lectures given in October 2013 at

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae

SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

Prof. Dr. theol. Habil. Cilliers Breytenbach , Humoldt Universität, Berlin

I Four Shared Dimensions

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004321694_002

describe a gathering of Christians in the same terms they themselves would

rooted in the deepest levels of these groups’ opposing conceptions of com-

6 Interestingly, in his thorough account of the transformation of “Jewishness” during the

16 koinon onoma, in Philo’s terms (Legat. 194).

II Roman and Civic Context

The Roman classification of communal gatherings as associational activ-

23 Legat. 311–312.

their status to that of Egyptians. Claudius’ response to the riots in Alexandria

24 Pliny, Epistles 10.96.

everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland and every

29 Diognetus 5.4–6.1.

36 Ibid. 8.75 (compare Tertullian, Idol. 17–18).

III Diversity and Continuity

Diversity, both with respect to the communities’ organizational patterns and

approaches to the reconstruction of historical information from ancient

for the continuity of Jewish settlement or institutional stability; this evidence

The concluding essay in this volume demonstrates the discursive means

Constructivist studies of identity have established that communal identities

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004321694_003

(“countryside” by opposition to the territory of Alexandria). The documentary

5 Although, of course, the interpretation of the documentary evidence is open to debate

modern way of categorizing ethnic (and religious) identities. It is thoroughly

7 The demographic study by C. Fischer-Bovet, “Counting the Greeks in Egypt: Immigration

The notion of Jewish distinctiveness is another concept central to the

10 See Barth, “Introduction.”

I Judean Distinctness in Hellenistic and Roman Times according to

1 Indices of Visibility: The Comparative and Diachronic Perspective

context of legal complaints which provide forms of narrative), we may gain

2 Ethnika and Personal Names

Judeans and Judean communities, precisely because it was an administrative

16 In Egypt a nome was an administrative district.

nome during the mid-third century.23 Similarly, the Judeans documented in

Alexander the Great’s army settled in Egypt by Ptolemy Soter, is documented

transmitted orally within the communities, or had possibly been reactivated

3 Cultic Institutions: Judean Proseuchai and Shrines of Non-Greek

36 BGU VIII.1764.12.

Finally, based on the dates documented in the corresponding fiscal receipts

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6 Interestingly, in his thorough account of the transformation of “Jewishness” during the

16 koinon onoma, in Philo’s terms (Legat. 194).

23 Legat. 311–312.

24 Pliny, Epistles 10.96.

29 Diognetus 5.4–6.1.

36 Ibid. 8.75 (compare Tertullian, Idol. 17–18).

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5 Although, of course, the interpretation of the documentary evidence is open to debate

7 The demographic study by C. Fischer-Bovet, “Counting the Greeks in Egypt: Immigration

10 See Barth, “Introduction.”

16 In Egypt a nome was an administrative district.

36 BGU VIII.1764.12.

43 Thompson, “Ethnic Minorities,” 109–10.

59 See above, n. 23.

69 See Sänger, “Politeuma,” 53 (quote), and 57–62.

80 See above, section I.4.

105 In Flaccum 29, 33, 34, 41–42, and passim.

106 On the Letter of Aristeas, see section II.3 above.

125 Ibid., 59–62.

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12 Galen, De Simplicium Medicamentorum Temperamentis 9.2.5 (GLAJJ 383).

21 Josephus, J.W. 2.388–9, 398–9.

38 Tacitus, Hist. 5.5.2 (GLAJJ 281).

44 Josephus, J.W. 7. 100–111.

51 Tertullian, Apol. 18.

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The inscription is of interest in several respects. First, it displays continuities

12 Van Nijf, Professional Associations, 121.