FOUR

Common Judaism in Greek

and Latin Authors
Shaye J. D. Cohen

The idea of “common Judaism” is one of the most felicitous sug-

gestions to have emerged from the fertile pen and brain of E. P. Sanders.
Influenced by the work of Morton Smith, Sanders proposes that:

“Normal” or “common” Judaism was what the priests and the people
agreed on. . . . In general Jews of the Greek-speaking Diaspora shared
in this normal Judaism. . . . “Normal” Judaism was, to a limited degree,
also “normative”: it established a standard by which loyalty to Israel
and to the God of Israel was measured. . . . Whatever we find to have
been “normal” was based on internal assent and “normative” only to
the degree that it was backed up by common opinion.1

In other words, common Judaism (or “normal Judaism”) is a social forma-

tion; it denotes what people known as “Jews” (Ioudaioi, Iudaei) commonly
did, in the fulfillment of what they believed to be the laws of their God.
This Judaism was not only common but also normative in the sense that it
denotes what people known as Jews were expected by society to do in the
fulfillment of what they believed to be the laws of their God.
Some scholars of Jewish antiquity have objected to the use of the term
“Judaism” in the singular on the grounds that it suggests a theological nor-
mativity not susceptible to rational inquiry and a social uniformity that never

69

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 70 Shaye J. D. Cohen

existed. These scholars have argued that there was no Judaism in antiquity,
only “Judaisms.” In the conclusion to this essay I shall return briefly to this
argument.2 Here I simply note that Sanders’s proposed common Judaism is
immune to the objections leveled against “Judaism.” Common Judaism is not
a function of theology, polemic, or anachronism. There was a country in an-
tiquity known as Ioudaea; its citizens were Iudaei, conventionally translated
“Jews.”3 We are entitled to inquire about the distinctive ways and manners
of these Iudaei just as we are entitled to inquire about the distinctive ways
and manners of the Egyptians, Syrians, Cappadocians, and Phoenicians of
antiquity, whether in their homelands or in Diaspora settings. The adjective
“common” before the noun “Judaism” makes it clear that we are in pursuit of
life as lived by real people in historical time, not some theological abstrac-
tion or some hypostatized reality that exists only in the mind.
What then was the common Judaism of the late Second Temple period?
Here is Sanders’s summary:

In many large areas of life Jews all over the world did much the same
things:
1. They worshipped God daily and weekly, saying the Shema, recalling
the Ten Commandments and praying. In Sabbaths they studied the
law by hearing it read and expounded. . . . Most Jews believed in God
and in the Bible, and they prayed to the one and studied the other.
2. Similarly they kept the Sabbath . . . as a day of rest.
3. . . . Jews circumcised their sons.
4. Some purity observations were also general. The peculiarity of the
Jewish diet was almost as famous as observance of the Sabbath.
5. . . . There was another large area where most Jews agreed: support of
the temple.4

These areas of conspicuous orthopraxy were accompanied by a “common

theology” of belief in the one God.5 Sanders is under no illusion that all
Jews everywhere in antiquity observed all of these practices or observed
them the same way. He means, of course, that most Jews in most places
observed most of these practices, and that members of Jewish communities
around the world were expected to observe these practices.

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 71

As evidence for this reconstruction, Sanders cites Josephus (including

the Roman edicts and letters cited by Josephus),6 Philo, the New Testament,
the Qumran scrolls, other Jewish writings of the Second Temple period,
and rabbinic texts. He also makes abundant use of archaeological evidence,
especially the remains of miqva’ot (immersion pools). One body of relevant
evidence that Sanders does not cite as assiduously as these others is the cor-
pus of Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism assembled and edited
with great care and erudition by the late Menahem Stern.7 Sanders cites
these texts in his footnotes from time to time,8 but not consistently or sys-
tematically; they certainly were not formative influences on his thinking.
And so, in this little essay in honor of E. P. Sanders, I would like to survey
the evidence provided by Greek and Latin writers for common Judaism.
Before I begin this exercise, I must admit a few qualifications. I have
carefully read through Stern’s anthology from Herodotus to Suetonius9
looking for evidence concerning customs and practices that these authors
claim are observed by Jews, whether in the land of Israel or outside it. I have
ignored passages about the natural features of the land of Israel and about
figures and events of Israelite and Jewish history (e.g., Abraham, Joseph,
Moses, Solomon, Herod).10 Because I am interested in Judaism as actually
practiced by the broad reaches of the Jewish populace, I have also ignored
reports about what allegedly transpired inside the Jerusalem temple. I have
also ignored generalizations about Jewish character traits (e.g., misan-
thropy, lustfulness, laziness) unless the generalizations are accompanied by
specifics about practice and custom.
I am under no illusion that the evidence provided by these texts is
transparent or unproblematic. Even if these authors are free of the polemi-
cal stance that affects so much Christian testimony about Jews and Judaism,
they of course have their own biases, prejudices, and perspectives. Indeed,
these writers should not really be treated as a single collective; they write in
different languages, settings, and genres, and they each have their own pur-
poses. Many of these writers seem confused or ill-informed about Jewish
things. We understand too that they are most likely to notice those Jewish
practices that are public or distinctive, slighting or ignoring those practices
that are private or universal. Even if we attribute great accuracy and acumen
to these Gentile writers, their collective testimony is at best only a partial

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 72 Shaye J. D. Cohen

glimpse at the public face of ancient Judaism. Nevertheless, in spite of these

and related problems, let us look at the Greek and Latin writers for evidence
about Judaism as lived and practiced in the last centuries b.c.e. and the first
century c.e. Do they support Sanders’s notion of a common Judaism, and
if they do, does the common Judaism to which they give witness resemble
that described by Sanders?

E l em e n t s o f C o m m o n J u d a is m

Here again is Sanders’s list of the five elements of common Judaism

with my commentary drawn from the passages of Greek and Latin writers.

1. Jews worship God daily and weekly; they recite the Shema, the Ten
Commandments, and prayers; they study Torah in synagogues on the
Sabbath.
Greek and Latin writers know that the Jews do not worship “the Gods,”11
and that they worship their God in an unusual way—without images.12 Who
is their God? Some say that this is an unknown God.13 Others suggest that
he is Dionysos (or Liber), or Jupiter Sabazios, or the clouds or the heavens.14
But the specifics of the Jewish worship of the Jewish God—the Shema, the
Ten Commandments, prayers,15 the Sabbath, the synagogue—is unknown
to Greek and Latin authors.
Many authors know that Jews refrain from all manner of work on the
Sabbath (see below), but few know of any positive side to Sabbath obser-
vance. Only one, Agatharchides of Cnidus (mid or late second century
b.c.e.), knows of a connection between Sabbath and prayer. He writes, “The
people known as Jews, who inhabit the most strongly fortified of cities,
called by the natives Jerusalem, are accustomed to abstain from work every
seventh day and on these occasions neither to bear arms nor to engage in
farming nor to take care of any other labor, but to pray with outstretched
hands in the temples until the evening.”16 Agatharchides goes on to report
that Ptolemy I Soter took advantage of the Jews’ folly and superstition and
conquered their city on a day when they refused to defend it.
The plural “the temples” (tois hierois) is a problem.17 Perhaps Agathar-
chides thinks that Jerusalem, like any other city, has many temples, or per-

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 73

haps he is referring to what we would call “synagogues,” assimilating them

to temples.18 I see no sure way to decide between these alternatives, although
I would simply note that if the latter is seen as preferable, we must assume
that Agatharchides has learned about synagogues (places for regular public
prayer) from his stay in Egypt, where he spent a good part of his adult life.
We may be sure that Jerusalem in the second century b.c.e., let alone the
fourth century b.c.e., had few synagogues (places for regular public prayer).
In any event Agatharchides is the first Greek writer to mention rest on the
Sabbath,19 and the only one to connect Sabbath rest with prayer.20
Many writers in our corpus know that the Jews have “laws” or “cus-
toms,” but few mention that the laws are contained in a sacred book, and
none associates rest on the Sabbath with study, either of that book or of
anything else.21
What are we to make of this relative silence regarding prayer? Shall
we conclude that the daily and weekly worship of God was not in fact a
feature of the common Judaism of antiquity? Such a conclusion is possible,
of course, but not necessary. Surely a more reasonable conclusion would
be that the Jews worshipped their God with prayers and hymns, and that
Greek and Latin authors found this behavior completely unremarkable.
Synagogue buildings were still a rarity in Second Temple times, both in the
land of Israel and in the Diaspora; places for regular public prayer clearly
did not attract much attention from outsiders.

2. Jews kept the Sabbath as a day of rest.

Agatharchides, cited above, is one of the first, if not the first, Greek
writer to comment on the Jews’ abstention from work on the seventh day.
He specifically mentions that they neither bear arms nor farm.22 The re-
fusal of the Jews to bear arms or to march on the Sabbath, well attested by
many authors in our corpus after Agatharchides, has been much discussed
by modern historians but does not concern us here, since it is an aspect of
common Judaism under emergency conditions, and we are searching for
common Judaism under normal conditions.23 The Jewish refusal to work on
the seventh day is well-known.24 Many authors know that the Jews call the
seventh day, the day of Saturn, “Sabbath” and revere it as a “sacred day.”25
But few authors give us specific information about what exactly the Jews
do, and do not do, on their day of rest. Agatharchides is the only author to

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 74 Shaye J. D. Cohen

comment on the abstention from farming. Meleager, a somewhat younger

contemporary of Agatharchides and the first to refer by name to “the Sab-
bath,” calls the day “cold,” presumably because Jews on that day do not light
a fire or cook.26 Some Latin poets of the Augustan age assume that Jews, and
Gentiles who affect their ways, would not talk business or embark on a new
venture on the Sabbath.27
Most remarkably, a series of authors, mostly Latin and associated with
the city of Rome, assume that the Jews observe the Sabbath by abstaining
from food; in other words, the Sabbath is a fast day.28 How to interpret these
statements is a subject of debate. Most scholars argue that these authors
are simply confused; from the fact that Jews do not work or cook on the
Sabbath, these authors incorrectly deduced that Jews also do not eat on
the Sabbath. A few scholars, however, have suggested that this testimony
should be taken seriously.29 For most Jews the Sabbath was (and is) a day
of joy and celebration, a tradition that also is attested in Greek and Latin
authors, as we shall see in a moment, and that becomes normative in rab-
binic Judaism. For some Jews, however, so runs this argument, the Sabbath
was a day of melancholy and mortification. This view is explicitly attested
in various strands of medieval Jewish piety and is implicitly attested by the
claims of Jewish fasting on the Sabbath. So what shall we do with the Latin
testimony regarding the Sabbath as a fast day? Is it a sign of confusion and
error or valuable evidence of an ill-attested Jewish practice in antiquity?
Most scholars prefer the former, but the latter cannot be ruled out.30
On the negative side, the Jews refrain from all manner of work on the
Sabbath. They do not farm; they do not bear arms or engage in military
campaigns; they do not talk business or embark on new ventures. And, per-
haps, they do not eat. So much for what Jews do not do on the Sabbath; on
the positive side, what do Jews do so as to observe the Sabbath? Agathar-
chides says that on that day the Jews “pray with outstretched hands in the
temples until the evening.” This is the public observance of the Sabbath. The
private, domestic observance of the Sabbath is the subject of the following
lines by the Roman poet Persius (first half of the first century c.e.): “But
when the day of Herod comes round; when the lamps wreathed with violets
and ranged round the greasy window-sills have vomited forth their thick
clouds of smoke; when the tail of the tuna, curled round the dishes of red

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 75

ware, swims (in the sauce) and the white jar brims with wine—you silently
twitch your lips, turning pale at the Sabbath of the circumcised.”31 The sub-
ject is a favorite one of the Roman satirists: the silly things people do as a re-
sult of their superstitions and passions. Persius here mocks the superstition
of a Roman, presumably a Gentile who “fears the Sabbath,”32 who “turns
pale” at the arrival of the Sabbath, “the day of Herod.”33 And how do the cir-
cumcised ones celebrate the Sabbath at home according to Persius? (1) They
place lighted lamps near the windows; (2) they eat a meal of tuna (in sauce);
and (3) they drink wine. Persius clearly is not one of those who believe that
the Sabbath is a fast day; on the contrary, it is a day of feasting.34
All three of these customs are attested by rabbinic sources. Rabbinic
law makes much of the lighting of lamps for the Sabbath, but as far as I
know, rabbinic sources do not mention decorating the Sabbath lamps with
violets or placing the lamps at or near windows.35 Rabbinic texts also know
the custom of eating fish on the Sabbath36 and drinking wine in honor of
the Sabbath.37 Persius is in Rome, but the Jewish piety that he is describing
would be at home in the rabbinic circles of Judea and Babylonia.
The lighting of lamps for the Sabbath is also mentioned by another
Roman writer, Seneca the philosopher, a contemporary of Persius, but he
does not add any interesting details.38 Plutarch, however, the famous essay-
ist and biographer who lived at the end of the first century c.e., has many
interesting details to add about the importance of wine in Jewish practice.
In some learned table talk reported by Plutarch, some Greek intellectuals
are discussing the identity of the God of the Jews. Moiragenes the Athenian
argues that the God of the Jews is really Dionysus. His first set of proofs,
which is full of interest but which I cannot discuss here, is the cycle of the
fall harvest festivals, the fast and the feast of Tabernacles, which are cele-
brated, argues Moiragenes, in a Dionysiac manner. The second set of proofs
is the Jewish observance of the Sabbath: “I believe that even the feast of the
Sabbath is not completely unrelated to Dionysus. . . . The Jews themselves
testify to a connection with Dionysus when they keep the Sabbath by invit-
ing each other to drink and to enjoy wine; when more important business
interferes with this custom, they regularly take at least a sip of neat wine.”39
Plutarch (Moiragenes), a Greek author living in Greece, here adds an im-
portant point to what Persius, a Latin author living in Rome, says. Not only

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do Jews drink wine on the Sabbath individually, they do so communally.

They celebrate the Sabbath by “inviting each other to drink and to enjoy
wine”; an alternative translation of the latter phrase would be “to become
drunk.”40 The Sabbath is not a fast day but a feast day!
The importance of wine to the social fabric of the community is em-
phasized by Plutarch (Moiragenes) at the close of his exposition: “To show
that what I have said is the practice of the Jews we may find no slight con-
firmation in the fact that among many penalties employed among them the
one most disliked is the exclusion of a convicted offender from the use of
wine for such a period as the sentencing judge may prescribe.”41 Plutarch
is no longer speaking of the Sabbath—in fact we are not sure what he is
speaking about. Stern suggests that this is a confused reference to the nazir,
who was of course forbidden by oath from drinking wine (Num 6:3–4),
but this seems unlikely. I wonder whether the passage is somehow an allu-
sion to the practice of the Qumran sectarians (or some similar group) who
punished wayward members through exclusion from the food and drink
of the group.42 In any case, Plutarch (Moiragenes) sees wine as an essential
component of Jewish communal life, especially on the Sabbath.

3. Jews circumcised their sons.

Numerous Greek and Latin writers mention the circumcision of the
Jews. Although the Jews are not the only people in the Hellenistic east to
observe this custom, for Greek and Roman authors circumcision is quintes-
sentially a Jewish practice. A circumcised male is presumed to be a Jewish
male.43 The geographer Strabo, who flourished near the end of the first cen-
tury b.c.e., reports that Jewish women are excised, but this report is unique
and unconfirmed; in all likelihood it is in error.44

4. Purity rules and peculiarity of diet.

Jewish abstention from pork is “almost as famous,” as Sanders says, as
the abstention from work on the seventh day and, I might add, circumci-
sion. Numerous authors refer to it.45 As we have seen, Petronius suggests
that the Jews worship a “pig-god,” and indeed Plutarch, in another report
of learned table talk, wonders whether the Jews abstain from pork because
they revere the pig or abhor it.46

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 77

What is striking here is what the Greek and Latin authors do not say.
They do not comment on the Jewish aversion to the meat of various other
animals, fish, and birds. Nor do they comment on the prohibition of eat-
ing animal blood. They also do not connect the Jewish aversion to pork
with Jewish antisocial behavior; that is, many authors accuse the Jews of
misanthropy and social segregation, including separation at table (“they sit
apart at meals,” Tacitus says47), but these antisocial tendencies are not said
to explain, or to be explained by, the Jewish refusal to eat pork.
As for the rest of the purity requirements of the Torah (purification
before entering the temple after contacting a corpse, a dead impure animal,
a menstruant, etc.) that Sanders suggests were also part of common Juda-
ism, at least for Jews about to enter the temple or contact sacrificial meats,
Greek and Latin authors know nothing. No doubt their silence here is to be
explained by the fact that Jewish behavior in this respect is not unusual or
distinctive. All peoples in antiquity purified themselves before entering a
temple or other sacred space. As the emperor Julian comments, “Jews agree
with the Gentiles except that they believe in only one God. That is indeed
peculiar to them and strange to us, since all the rest we have in a manner in
common with them—temples, sanctuaries, altars, purifications, and certain
precepts.”48 The observance of purity rules and dietary taboos did not in
and of themselves make the Jews distinctive in the ancient world.

5. Support of the Jerusalem temple.

Numerous Greek and Latin authors in our corpus know of the temple
in Jerusalem, beginning with one of the first, Hecataeus of Abdera (circa
300 b.c.e.).49 The historian Polybius (mid second century b.c.e.) explains
that the Jews (Judeans) are those “who live around the temple called ‘Jeru-
salem.’ ”50 Polybius goes on to comment about this temple’s “renown.” Both
Cicero and Tacitus denounce the contributions sent by Jews and sympa-
thizers around the world to (the temple of) Jerusalem.51 Numerous histo-
rians speak of the temple of Jerusalem in wartime, and numerous authors
purport to describe the rituals that take place within.52 None of the authors
in our corpus comments on the multitudes who thronged to the temple for
the pilgrimage festivals,53 but the importance of the Jerusalem temple to the
Jews is well-known.

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P e t r o n iu s a n d J u v e n a l o n C o m m o n Jud a i sm

Two poems in our corpus, both written in Latin within a century of

each other, apparently in Rome, are practically textbook illustrations of
Sanders’s idea of common Judaism. The first is a remarkable epigram, prob-
ably but not certainly by the satirist Petronius (mid first century c.e.), which
highlights the importance of circumcision in the Jewish community:54

The Jew may worship his pig-god,

And clamor in the ears of high heaven,
But unless he also cuts back with a knife the region of the groin,
And unless he looses artfully the knotted head—
Cast forth from the people he shall migrate from a Greek city
And shall not tremble at the fasts of Sabbath imposed by the law.

Much is obscure in this little poem, but much is clear. Here is a prose para-
phrase: even if a Jew abstains from pork55 and prays mightily to his God,56
nevertheless, unless he also is circumcised, he is not part of his people and
has no need to fast on the Sabbath.57 In other words, circumcision is es-
sential to membership in the Jewish community and to full participation in
Jewish religious life. The epigram gives a good concise sketch of common
Judaism: abstention from pork, prayer to the one God, circumcision, and
Sabbath. Four of the five elements of Sanders’s common Judaism are pres-
ent; the Diaspora setting no doubt explains the absence of the Jerusalem
temple. Of the four items listed, circumcision is stated by the poet to be the
most important for maintaining status within the community. We can only
speculate as to the social realia, if any, that inspired this epigram—and its
contemporary, Paul’s letter to the Romans.58
Two lines of the poem, the fourth and the fifth, are obscure. The fourth
line, “unless he looses artfully the knotted head,” can be construed as a refer-
ence to either a haircut or circumcision. If the former, Petronius is saying
that if a Jew keeps his hair knotted in a certain way he will be ejected from
his people. He must let the knots out; he must let his hair down. If this be the
meaning, I have no idea what Petronius is talking about. Rabbinic law and
lore are familiar with a certain type of haircut that in their estimation was
non-Jewish and quintessentially Gentile59—is this what Petronius is refer-

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 79

ring to? Alternatively, and I think more likely, the line refers to circumcision.
“Head” is “penis,” so “the knotted head” is the foreskinned penis; hence the
line means “unless he skillfully removes the foreskin from the penis.”60 The
problem with this explanation is how to understand the relationship between
the third line and fourth line, since they both refer to circumcision. Is the
poet simply repeating himself? Or, perhaps, this may be the earliest refer-
ence to the two stages of circumcision known in rabbinic parlance as milah,
the excision of the foreskin, and periah, the removal of the membrane under
the foreskin. No other prerabbinic document refers to periah, so if this is the
correct interpretation, this epigram’s importance is even further enhanced.61
The fifth line is more obscure than the fourth. The text as it has been
transmitted, “cast forth from the people he shall migrate from a Greek city,”
clearly makes no sense. Migrating from a Greek city would not seem to have
any logical connection with expulsion or removal from the Jewish people.
Numerous emendations have been proposed: “he shall migrate from his
ancestral city,” “he shall migrate from the sacred city,” or “he shall migrate
to Greek cities.”62 In any case, as a consequence of the failure to be circum-
cised, a Jew is separated from his people both physically (he migrates) and
religiously (he no longer observes the Sabbath).
Another Latin poem, this one by Juvenal the satirist (early decades of
the second century c.e.), highlights the same four elements that appear in
Petronius’s poem: Sabbath, prayer to the one God, abstention from pork,
and circumcision. Like Petronius, Juvenal highlights the importance of cir-
cumcision for full integration into the Jewish community:63

Some, who have had a father who reveres the Sabbath,

Worship nothing but the clouds and the divinity of the heavens,
And see no difference between eating human flesh and swine,
(4) From which their father abstained; soon they have their foreskin
removed.
Having been wont to flout the laws of Rome,
They learn and practice and revere the Jewish law,
Whatever Moses handed down in his secret scroll:
(8) Not to point the way to anyone except the one worshipping the
same rites,
And to lead none but the circumcised to the desired fountain.

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 80 Shaye J. D. Cohen

For all this the father is to blame, he for whom every seventh day was
Idle, not touching any part of life.

This passage has been much discussed for the information that it may pro-
vide about “God-Fearers,” a topic that does not concern me here. Juvenal
depicts a Roman father who reveres the Sabbath (lines 1, 10–11) and does
not eat pork (4); as a result of his father’s baneful influence, the son is worse
than the father. The son worships only the Jewish God (line 2) and has him-
self circumcised (line 4). The son is given over completely to the antisocial
tendencies of the Jews: to flout the laws of Rome, to observe only the Jewish
laws handed down by Moses, and to show the way only to his coreligionists,
those who have been circumcised (lines 5–9). The father is a “sympathizer”
or a “God-Fearer,” while the son is a convert to Judaism.
Like Petronius, Juvenal thinks that circumcision is essential for full
membership in the Jewish community. For both poets Jewish observance
(Judaism) consists not only of circumcision but also of Sabbath, abstention
from pork, and worship of the imageless God. Juvenal adds two things to
his account of Judaism that are missing from that of Petronius. First, Ju-
venal is hostile to Jews and Judaism, while Petronius is not. For Juvenal, as
for Tacitus, Judaism is a sinister and dangerous antisocial force. The specific
reference of lines 8–9 (“Not to point the way to anyone except the one wor-
shipping the same rites, And to lead none but the circumcised to the desired
fountain”) is most obscure and has been much debated, but the general point
is clear: Jews are hostile to all but their own. Second, Juvenal emphasizes
that Jews study the law of Moses, a point omitted by Petronius. If we ignore
Juvenal’s reference to the scroll’s secrecy (line 7), which is simply part of his
“conspiracy” view of Judaism, what remains coheres nicely with Sanders’s
“common Judaism”: Jews, and those who join them, are expected to “learn
and practice and revere” the law that Moses handed down in his scroll.

F i v e C o n c lu s io n s

First, Sanders’s conception of common Judaism, and his identifica-

tion of its five constituent elements, receive strong support from the corpus

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 81

of Greek and Latin authors on Jews and Judaism assembled by Menahem

Stern. Sanders did not base his thesis on the testimony of these authors, so
the confirmation that they provide is important.
Second, these authors know little of living Judaism beyond these five
points. For example, Plutarch is the only author in our corpus to mention
the festival of tents (Tabernacles, Skēnē), Tacitus the festival of unleavened
bread.64 In the land of Israel these two festivals were widely celebrated in
the late Second Temple period, but Greek and Latin authors paid them little
heed (perhaps because their celebration in the Diaspora was more muted).
Other isolated details are mentioned by one author or another, but they do
not amount to much;65 the five elements of Sanders’s common Judaism ac-
count for almost everything that appears in the description of Judaism of
these authors.
Third, these authors are primarily interested in Jewish difference, not
necessarily because these authors are anti-Jewish but because it is the con-
vention of Greek ethnography to focus on difference. For example, one of
the earliest authors in our corpus comments about the Jews that “their mar-
riage and burial customs differ from those of other nations”—what their
marriage and burial customs are he does not say, since he has already said
the essential, that they are different.66 He also comments that they are re-
quired to rear all their children, a point that struck two later observers as
well, since this policy contrasts with that of the Greeks and Romans, who
regularly exposed unwanted children.67 The philosopher Epictetus puts the
Jewish aversion for pork in the context of food taboos: almost every nation
and group has foods that it will eat and foods that it won’t, and therefore,
he says, there is nothing unusual about the Jewish abstention from pork.68
Most Greek and Latin authors, however, ignored this ethnographic truism
and focused on Jewish difference: how odd of the Jews not to eat pork.
This emphasis on Jewish difference, inherited from the Greek ethno-
graphic tradition, perhaps explains some of the omissions from our corpus.
As I have already noted, Greek and Latin authors know that the Jews worship
their peculiar God, but they have almost nothing to say about Jewish prayers
and hymns, probably because worshipping a God through prayers and
hymns was thoroughly typical of the ancient world. Similarly, our authors
are familiar with the Jewish abstention from pork but mention nothing of the

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 82 Shaye J. D. Cohen

other impurities avoided by Jews or the purifications practiced by them be-

fore entering the temple. Our authors are familiar with the importance of the
temple of Jerusalem but mention nothing about pilgrimage. In these cases,
too, we may assume that the Greek and Latin authors did not comment on
what seemed to them to be “normal” or universal practice.
Fourth, in spite of what I have just written in the third conclusion,
some of the omissions from our corpus may be significant and may sug-
gest that we need to moderate some of Sanders’s conclusions. For example,
the recitation of the Shema; communal study of the Torah; the sacred book
of Moses; communal prayer; the avoidance of nonkosher foods aside from
pork, including the prohibition of consuming animal blood—the complete
or nearly complete failure of our authors to comment on these markers of
Jewish distinctiveness may suggest that these markers were not yet in place
everywhere in the common Judaism of the late Second Temple period.
Similarly, the Greek and Latin authors testify to two very different ways of
observing the Sabbath: either a day of lights, feasting, and wine or a day of
fasting and abstinence. The first of these will become normative in rabbinic
Judaism, the second will not.
Fifth, the collective testimony of the Greek and Latin authors surveyed
here not only confirms the plausibility of Sanders’s reconstruction of the
common Judaism of the late Second Temple period and the utility of com-
mon Judaism as a heuristic category, it also confirms the plausibility and
utility of the concept of Judaism in the singular. Of course there was variety
in ancient Judaism, but these Greek and Latin authors do not know it;69 of
course there were diverse Jewish schools and movements, but these authors
pay them little heed;70 of course we need to distinguish in certain contexts
the Judaism of the land of Israel from the Judaism of the Diaspora,71 the
Judaism of learned elites from the Judaism of the unlettered, the Judaism of
pietists from the Judaism of plain folk, etc.—but none of these necessary dis-
tinctions calls into question or weakens the concept of the singular Judaism.
The word “Judaism” does not appear in our corpus, but the concept surely
does.72 “Judaism” denotes the ways and manners of the Ioudaioi, the people
who worship the God whose temple is in Jerusalem. The ways and manners
of these Jews/Judeans cluster around five points, and these constitute not
only common Judaism but also Judaism, simple and singular. The existence

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 83

of Judaism in the singular is perhaps the most important yield from this brief
survey of Greek and Latin authors, and perhaps the most important implica-
tion of the common Judaism thesis promoted by E. P. Sanders.

Notes

1. E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 b.c.e.–66 c.e. (London/Phila-

delphia: SCM/Trinity Press International, 1992), 47. Sanders develops his common
Judaism thesis in E. P. Sanders, “The Dead Sea Sect and Other Jews: Commonalities,
Overlaps and Differences,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context (ed.
Timothy H. Lim et al.; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000), 7–43.
2. The most prominent exponent of the notion of “Judaisms” is, of course,
Jacob Neusner. See for example, Jacob Neusner, “From Judaism to Judaisms,” in
Ancient Judaism: Debates and Disputes, Second Series (South Florida Studies in the
History of Judaism 5; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 181–221. For a full and rich
assessment of Neusner’s conception see James Pasto, “Who Owns the Jewish Past?
Judaism, Judaisms, and the Writing of Jewish History” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell Uni-
versity, 1999).
3. Following Sanders and common practice, in this essay I use “Jew(s)” to
translate Greek Ioudaios/Ioudaioi and Latin Iudaeus/Iudaei. A more accurate trans-
lation would be “Judaean(s),” as I discuss in Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewish-
ness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California, 1999),
69–106, but I do not wish to be distracted here from my main point.
4. Sanders, Judaism, 236–37.
5. Ibid., 241–78.
6. See esp. ibid., 212.
7. Menahem Stern, ed., Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (3 vols.;
Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974–1984). I cite Stern’s
English translations, which are usually those of the Loeb Classical Library, but I have
modified them when necessary. In the footnotes below I do not give the original
source for each citation; I content myself with Stern’s numeration. If the excerpt is
long, I provide additional information (e.g. line number, paragraph number) in pa-
rentheses. For example, the citation “Posidonius 44 (79)” is short hand for “Posido-
nius in Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, no. 44, para. 79.” Any reference to a text in
Stern’s anthology is also a tacit reference to Stern’s commentary. I omit from my
corpus the testimony of Theophrastus (Stern no. 4) and ps.-Hecataeus (Stern no. 12).
I omit Theophrastus because the reference to Ioudaioi in the first line is almost cer-
tainly a gloss; see Jean Bouffartigue and Michel Patillon, eds., Prophyre de l’abstinence
Tome II: Livres II et III (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1979), 58–67. I omit ps.-Hecataeus

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 84 Shaye J. D. Cohen

because it is almost certainly the work of a Jewish writer; see Bezalel Bar-Kochva,
Pseudo-Hecataeus “On the Jews” (Berkeley: University of California, 1996).
8. Sanders, Judaism, 211; 213, n. 2; 214, n. 6; 216; 239, n. 43.
9. In other words, all of Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, vol. 1 and vol. 2,
1–131. I end with Suetonius (Stern no. 320) because by the mid second century c.e.
the Greek and Latin testimony concerning Judaism is being affected by testimony
concerning Christianity. When I refer to “our corpus of Greek and Latin writers,” I
mean this subset (Herodotus to Suetonius) of Stern’s entire corpus.
10. I am aware that passages about Israelite/Jewish history may be implicit
commentaries on Jewish manners and practices, and I will cite such passages below
only when there is clear evidence that Greek and Latin authors knew those manners
and practices. There is some uncertainty here, to be sure.
11. Jews do not worship “the Gods”: Posidonius 44 (79) and Apollonius Molon
48 (79); Nicolas of Damascus 86 (in the name of the Ionians); Apion 169 and 170;
Tacitus 281 (5.2). See Manetho 21; Lysimachus 158 (309). On this theme see Peter
Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1997), 34–65.
12. Jews worship without images: Hecataeus 11; Varro 72a; Tacitus 281 (5.4
and 9.1); Juvenal 301; see Strabo 115 (35).
13. Unknown God: Livy 133 and 134; Lucan 191.
14. Dionysos: Plutarch 258 (6.2). Liber: Tacitus 281 (5.5). Jupiter Sabazios:
Valerius Maximus 147b. Heaven: Hecataeus 11 (4); Strabo 115 (35). Clouds or
heaven: Juvenal 301.
15. References to Jewish prayer: Petronius 195; Juvenal 301.
16. Agatharchides 30a (209).
17. Shaye Cohen, “Pagan and Christian Evidence on the Ancient Synagogue,”
in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (ed. Lee Levine; New York: Jewish Theological
Seminary, 1987), 159–81; esp. 161–62.
18. See Stern’s comment on Tacitus 281 (5.4); Cohen, “Pagan and Christian
Evidence,” 161–65. Other writers who mention synagogues: Apion 164 (see Cohen,
“Pagan and Christian Evidence,” 162–63); Juvenal 297.
19. The word “Sabbath” appears for the first time in Meleager of Gadara 43 (a
younger contemporary of Agatharchides).
20. For prayer with outstretched hands, see commentaries on 1 Tim 2:8.
21. Holy books: Diodorus 63 (4). Secret book: Juvenal 301 (see below). The
Roman decree cited by Josephus, A.J. 16.164, proscribes the theft of “sacred books”
(tas hierous biblous) from a Jewish “Sabbath house” (sabbateion), that is, a syna-
gogue. No other pagan source associates so closely the synagogue, the Sabbath, and
the Torah book.
22. I understand Agatharchides’ first clause (“they are accustomed to abstain
from work every seventh day”) as synonymous with the fourth (“nor to take care

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 85

of any other labor”), with the two clauses in between (“neither to bear arms nor to
engage in farming”) providing specific illustration of the generalizations. The noun
leitourgia, which I have translated “labor,” is ambiguous; it may refer to public ser-
vice (or corvée), or to any kind of menial labor. Thackeray (followed by Stern) takes
it in the former sense (“nor engage in other form of public service”), the editors of
the Josephus concordance in the latter; see K. H. Rengstorf, ed., A Complete Concor-
dance to Flavius Josephus (4 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1973–1983), 3:26. On the Sabbath in
Greek and Latin authors, see Schäfer, Judeophobia, 82–92.
23. See Nicolas of Damascus 88; Strabo 115 (40); Frontinus 229; Plutarch 256;
cf. Apion 165 (21) (no marching on the Sabbath). For full discussion and bibliog-
raphy, see Lutz Doering, Schabbat: Sabbathalacha und -Praxis im antiken Judentum
(TS 78; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 537–65.
24. Seneca 186; Tacitus 281 (4.3); Juvenal 301.
25. Some form of the word “Sabbath” appears in Meleager 43; Horace 129;
Pompeius Trogus 137 (2.14); Ovid 143; Petronius 195; Pliny the Elder 222; Mar-
tial 239; Plutarch 255; Juvenal 298 and 301; Suetonius 303. The seventh day, day of
Saturn: Tibullus 126; Ovid 141 and 142; Tacitus 281 (4.3–4). The Jews hold it sacred:
Ovid 141; see Tibullus 126.
26. Meleager 43. Stern refers to two much later texts for elucidation, the Scho-
lia on Virgil 537c and Rutilius Namatianus 542 (389).
27. Tibullus 126; Horace 129; Ovid 142.
28. Pompeius Trogus 137 (14); Petronius 195; Martial 239; Suetonius 303; per-
haps also Strabo 104 (66) and 115 (40); Lysimachus 158 (308); and Tacitus 281 (4.3).
29. The classic exposition of this view is Yitzhak Gilat, “Fasting on the Sab-
bath,” in Studies in the Development of the Halakha (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University
Press, 1992), 109–22.
30. For example, both Schäfer, Judeophobia, 90 (245), n. 63, and Doering,
Schabbat, 288, n. 29, think that the testimony about fasting is an error.
31. Persius 190.
32. Juvenal 301, metuentem Sabbata.
33. For brief discussion of this phrase, see Stern’s commentary in Greek and
Latin Authors. For full discussion see William Horbury, “Herod’s Temple and
‘Herod’s Days,’ ” in Templum Amicitiae: Essays on the Second Temple Presented to
Ernst Bammel (ed. William Horbury; JSNTSup 48; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 103–49;
esp. 123–34.
34. Similarly, if Juvenal’s references to baskets and hay have been correctly ex-
plained (the Jews use baskets and hay to keep their food warm on the Sabbath), he too
does not believe that the Sabbath is a fast day. See Juvenal 296 (14) and 299 (543).
35. Hanukkah lamps, under certain circumstances, should be placed at the
window (b. Śabb. 21b).
36. See Stern’s commentary on Persius 190 (183).

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 86 Shaye J. D. Cohen

37. m. Ber. 8.1; b. Pesah ̣ 106a.

38. “Let us forbid lamps to be lighted on [for?] the Sabbath,” Seneca 188. The
lighting of Sabbath lamps may be lurking behind Lysimachus 158 (308).
39. Plutarch 258 (6.2, 672A).
40. As Schäfer, Judeophobia, 91, notes, “[the phrase “enjoy wine”] may also
allude to much more colorful drinking habits on the Sabbath than we would expect
from our knowledge of contemporary Jewish literature.”
41. Plutarch 258 (6.2, 672B).
42. See, for example, The Community Rule, 1QS 7.20.
43. Diodorus 55, 57; Timagenes 81; Strabo 100, 115 (37), 118, 124; Horace
129; Ptolemy 146; Apion 176; Persius 190; Petronius 193, 194, 195; Martial 240, 241
(perhaps) and 245; Juvenal 301; Tacitus 281 (5.2); Suetonius 320. For discussion see
Schäfer, Judeophobia, 93–105; Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 39–49,110–29, 207,
225–28, and 351–57.
44. Strabo 115 (37), 118, 124. For full discussion, see Shaye Cohen, Why Aren’t
Jewish Women Circumcised? Gender, Jewishness, and the Covenant (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California, 2005), 55–66.
45. Apion 176; Petronius 195; Erotianus 196; Epictetus 252, 253; Plutarch 258
(5), 263; Tacitus 281 (4.2); Juvenal 298, 301. Strabo 115 (37) mentions abstinence
from foods. On this theme, see Schäfer, Judeophobia, 66–81.
46. Plutarch 258 (5).
47. Tacitus 281 (5.2).
48. Julian 481a (306 B).
49. Hecataeus 11 (3).
50. Polybius 32 (136).
51. Cicero 68 (67); Tacitus 281 (5.1).
52. See Stern’s index for the list of passages.
53. I am not persuaded by Stern’s commentary on Menander of Laodicea 446.
54. Petronius 195. Stern accidentally omits the translation of the fourth line.
55. “Worship his pig-god.” See Plutarch 258 and next section.
56. See note 15.
57. On Sabbath fasting, see discussion under point 2, “Jews kept the Sabbath
as a day of rest.” The manuscript reading of the last line is “And the Sabbath fast,
imposed by law, shall not oppress him.”
58. If the epigram is indeed by Petronius it will be almost exactly contem-
porary with Paul’s letter to the Romans, and I am puzzled that the epigram has
attracted so little scholarly attention.
59. t. Śabb. 6.1 (Saul Lieberman, ed., The Tosefta [3 vols.; New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary, 1955–1973], 22) and b. Me’il. 17a. See Cohen, Beginnings of
Jewishness, 28, n. 11.

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 Common Judaism in Greek and Latin Authors 87

60. In favor of this interpretation, see Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 40,

n. 54.
61. On periah, see Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 225, n. 66; Shaye Cohen,
“Between Judaism and Christianity: The Semicircumcision of Christians accord-
ing to Bernard Gui, His Sources, and R. Eliezer of Metz,” HTR 94 (2001): 285–321;
Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised? 3–54.
62. See E. Courtney, The Poems of Petronius (American Classical Studies;
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 70.
63. Juvenal 301 (I have numbered the lines of the excerpt). Schäfer, Judeo-
phobia, 79, comments on the closeness of the two poems.
64. Plutarch 258; Tacitus 281 (4.2).
65. Perhaps the strangest of these practices are those recorded by Hermippus
25 in the name of Pythagoras.
66. Hecataeus of Abdera 11.
67. Ibid.; Strabo 124; Tacitus 281 (5.3). For discussion, see Adele Reinhartz,
“Philo on Infanticide,” SPhilo 4 (1992): 42–58.
68. Epictetus 252, 253; cf. Sextus Empiricus 334; Porphyry 454.
69. In fact, the much repeated statements of Jewish misanthropy and social
segregation imply strong unity and concord within the fold.
70. Essenes are mentioned by Pliny 204 and by Dio Chrysostom 251.
71. Even though not a single author in our corpus does so.
72. On the word “Judaism,” see Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 109–39.

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 Redefining
FIRST-CENTURY
JEWISH
and
CHRISTIAN IDENTITIES

Essays in Honor of

ED PAR IS H S AN D ER S

Edited by
FABIAN E. UDOH
with Susannah Heschel, Mark Chancey, and Gregory Tatum

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

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