Ritual Dynamics in Jewish and Christian Contexts (Claudia D. Bergmann, Benedikt Kranemann)

Ritual Dynamics in Jewish and Christian Contexts
Jewish and Christian

Perspectives Series
Editorial Board
Doron Bar – Marcel Poorthuis

Eyal Regev – Lieve Teugels
Advisory Board
Yehoyada Amir – Shaye Cohen – Judith Frishman

David Golinkin – Martin Goodman – Alberdina Houtman
Tamar Kadari – Clemens Leonhard – Gerard Rouwhorst
Joshua Schwartz – Vered Tohar – Israel Yuval
VOLUME 34
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jcp

Ritual Dynamics in Jewish
and Christian Contexts
Between Bible and Liturgy
Edited by
Claudia D. Bergmann
Benedikt Kranemann
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bergmann, Claudia D., editor. | Kranemann, Benedikt, editor.

Title: Ritual dynamics in Jewish and Christian contexts : between Bible and
liturgy / edited by Claudia D. Bergmann and Benedikt Kranemann.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: Jewish and Christian
perspectives series, ISSN 1388–2074 ; volume 34 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019015296 (print) | LCCN 2019019589 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004405950 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004400924 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Judaism—Liturgy—History. | Liturgics.
Classification: LCC BM660 (ebook) | LCC BM660 .R58 2019 (print) | DDC
296.4/509—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015296
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ISSN 1388-2074
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments vii

Figures ix
Abbreviations x
Contributors xviii
Introduction 1
Günter Stemberger
Part 1
Ritual Dynamics in (Holy) Jewish and Christian Texts
1 Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a Reading of Texts? 11

Stefan C. Reif
2 Ritualizing the Cleaning of the House before Passover in Medieval

Ashkenaz: Image and Text in Illuminated Haggadot 28
Katrin Kogman-Appel
3 The Ritualization of Manufacturing and Handling Holy Books by the

Hasidei Ashkenaz between Halakah and Magic 56
Annett Martini
4 Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern Liturgical Books 85

Martin Klöckener
Part 2
A Dynamic Relationship: Christian and Jewish Traces in Jewish
and Christian Texts
5 Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples 107

Clemens Leonhard
6 Conceptual and Ideological Aspects in the Mishnaic Description of

Bringing the First Fruits to Jerusalem 128
Hillel Mali
vi Contents
7 Christian Presence in Jewish Ritual 148

Yaacov Deutsch
Part 3
Comparing and Contrasting Rituals
8 Initiation by Circumcision and Water Baptism in Early Judaism and

Early Christianity 165
Gerard Rouwhorst
9 Space, Ritual, and Politics in (the Reconstruction of) the Ancient

Synagogue: An Exploration of the Historical Archive 190
Anders Runesson
Part 4
Dynamic Rituals and Innovation of Rituals in Modern Contexts
10 Olive Oil, Anointing, Ecstasy, and Ecology 215

Jonathan Schorsch
Index of Names 237

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts 240
Preface and Acknowledgments
In the past few decades, the dynamics of rituals has been a significant topic
of research. Rituals can change, can be understood in new ways, and can be
changed and reformed. This is also true for the ritual practices and liturgies of
religious communities.
From October 26–28, 2016, the international conference “Describing and
Explaining Ritual Dynamics” took place at Bildungshaus St. Ursula in Erfurt.
The conference, with participants and speakers from Israel, the United States,
Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany, was met by signifi-
cant scientific interest. It was supported by both the Bundesministerium für
Bildung und Forschung and the University of Erfurt. Many of the papers pre-
sented there developed into articles that are now united in this volume.
The conference was divided into several main themes. In general, all speakers
investigated how Jewish and/or Christian rituals are able to change, especially
in those cases when they react to changes in society or religion, or when they
come into contact with other religions and their practitioners. At the same
time, the question was asked how this dynamic of Christian and Jewish ritu-
als was interpreted by the people who experienced these changes during their
lifetimes as well as by those who ask questions of historiography and viewed
these changes from a distance in time and space. The research focus was on
antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modernity.
The volume presented here is subdivided into four main parts. In part 1,
which discusses ritual dynamics in (holy) Jewish and Christian texts, Stefan
Reif asks the question whether rabbinic prayer constitutes a liturgical form or
whether it is mainly a reading of texts embedded within a ritual framework.
Katrin Kogman-Appel moves the timeframe discussed into the Middle Ages
and investigates how rituals are shown in both the images and in the texts of
Hebrew illuminated medieval manuscripts. Annett Martini presents some of
the rituals that accompanied the production of Hebrew books in the Middle
Ages and how the medieval Christian culture of sanctification influenced this
production. Finally, Martin Klöckener discusses the concepts of history and
tradition in liturgical books.
Part 2 understands the Christian and Jewish traces in Jewish and Christian
texts as a dynamic relationship. Here, Clemens Leonhard investigates memo-
ries of the temple and of temples. Hillel Mali, who had been invited as part
of a group of five emerging scholars sponsored to speak at the conference,
talks about conceptual and ideological aspects in the Mishna. Finally, Yaakov
viii Preface and Acknowledgments
Deutsch writes about early modern examples of Christians watching or par-

ticipating in Jewish rituals.
Part 3 of this volume discusses cases in which rituals can be compared and
contrasted. Gerard Rouwhorst investigates initiation in early Judaism and early
Christianity, and emphasizes that religions do not develop in isolation, nor are
they independent of their historical contexts. Anders Runesson introduces ex-
amples from excavations of synagogues and shows how ideas of space, ritual,
and politics influenced the reconstruction of synagogues from antiquity.
Moving to dynamic rituals and innovation of rituals in modern contexts
in part 4, Jonathan Schorsch investigates the connections between olive oil,
anointing, ecstasy, and ecology.
The editors wish to thank the University of Erfurt and its institute of ad-
vanced studies, the Max-Weber-Kolleg, for housing the Research Centre
“Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity to
the Present” and for supporting it in more than one way. They also would like
to thank the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung for funding the
Research Centre as a whole, thus enabling it to bring the study of the dynamics
of Christian and Jewish rituals to Erfurt. Last but not least, the production of this
book would not have been possible without the support of Marcel Poorthuis,
who invited these contributions into the series; and Thomas R. Blanton IV, who
served as a careful and knowledgeable copy editor for the entire text.
Claudia D. Bergmann and Benedikt Kranemann

Erfurt, November of 2018
Figures
2.1 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Voller 1002/I (Leipzig Mahzor), fol. 68r,

Worms, c. 1310–20, illustration to the poem Adir dar metuhim: scalding the
dishes 34
2.2 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Voller 1002/I (Leipzig Mahzor), fol. 70r,
Worms, c. 1310–20, illustration to the poem Adir dar metuhim: baking
unleavened bread 35
2.3 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/56 (Bird’s Head Haggadah), fol. 3r, Middle
Rhine, ca. 1300, preparation of haroset 38
2.4 Cologny Genève, Fondation Martin Bodmer MS 81 (Joel ben Simeon), fol. 1r,
Italy, ca. 1450, the search for leaven 42
2.5 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50 (Yahuda Haggadah), fol. 2v, Franconia,
ca. 1460–1465, clearing the house of leaven 44
2.6 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50 (Yahuda Haggadah), fol. 3r, Franconia,
ca. 1460–1465, the search for leaven 45
2.7 London, British Library, Add. MS 27210 (Golden Haggadah), fol. 15r, Barcelona
or Lleida, ca. 1320, the dance of Miriam, distributing the matsot and haroset,
cleaning the house, and slaughtering the lamb 49
9.1 The Gamla Synagogue, looking south-west (Photograph by Anders
Runesson) 194
9.2a and b Aerial view (courtesy of the Magdala Centre) and reconstruction
(courtesy of Igor Cerda Farías, Anahuac University of Mexico, and the Magdala
Archaeological Project) of the Magdala synagogue 195
9.3a and b The so-called stone “table,” or “temple stone” (left), and the stone in the
small adjacent room, the so-called “reading stone” (Photographs by Anders
Runesson) 196
Abbreviations
Technical Abbreviations and Eras
b. ben (son of)

BCE before the Common Era
c. century
ca. circa
CE Common Era
ch(s). chapter(s)
cod. codex
d. died
dir. directed by
ed(s). editor(s), edited by, edition
e.g. exempli gratia, for example
esp. especially
etc. et cetera, and so forth, and the rest
fol(s). folio(s)
i.e. id est, that is
MS(S) manuscript(s)
no(s). number(s)
n.p. no publisher
n.s. new series
pt. part
r recto
R. Rabbi
repr. reprinted
ser. series
trans. translator, translated by
v verso
vol. volume
Biblical and Other Ancient and Medieval Texts
1 Cor 1 Corinthians
1–2 Kgs 1–2 Kings
1–3 Macc 1–3 Maccabees
1QM Milhamah (War Scroll)
Abbreviations xi
1QS Serekh ha-Yahad (Manual of Discipline)

1–2 Sam 1–2 Samuel
4Q255–264a Serekh ha-Yahada–j, z
5Q11 Serekh ha-Yahad
11QTa Temple Scrolla
Acts Thom. Acts of Thomas
Ant. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities
Avod. Zar. Avodah Zarah
b. Babylonian Talmud
Barn. Barnabas
B. Bat. Bava Batra
Ber. Berakhot
Bik. Bikkurim
B. Metz. Bava Metzi’a
C. Ap. Josephus, Contra Apionem
CD Cairo Genizah copy of the Damascus Document
Col Colossians
Dan Daniel
Dem. Aphrahat, Demonstrations
Deut Deuteronomy
Dial. Dialogue with Trypho
Did. Apost. Didascalia Apostolorum
Ed. Eduyyot
Ep. Augustine of Hippo, Epistulae
Erub. Eruvin
Exod Exodus
Ezek Ezekiel
Gen Genesis
Gen. Rab. Genesis Rabbah
Git. Gittin
Hab Habakkuk
Hist. Tacitus, Historiae
Hom. Pseudo-Clement, Homilies
Hos Hosea
Hul. Hullin
Hymns Epiph. Ephrem, Hymns for Epiphany
Isa Isaiah
Jer Jeremiah
Jub. Jubilees
Judg Judges
xii Abbreviations
J.W. Josephus, Jewish War

Ker. Kerithot
Lev Leviticus
m. Mishnah
Ma’as. Ma’aserot
Matt Matthew
Meg. Megillah
Menah. Menahot
Mid. Middot
Neh Nehemiah
n.p. no publisher
Num Numbers
par. parallel
Parah Parah
Pesah. Pesahim
Pesiq. Rab. Pesiqta Rabbati
Pesiq. Rab Kah. Pesiqta de Rab Kahana
Phaedr. Plato, Phaedrus
Prob. Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit
Prov Proverbs
Ps(s) Psalm(s)
Qidd. Qiddushin
Qod. Qodashim
Quaest. conv. Plutarch, Quaestiones Convivialum libri IX
Rec. Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions
Rom Romans
Rosh Hash. Rosh Hashanah
Sanh. Sanhedrin
SH Judah ben Samuel, Sefer Hasidim
Shabb. Shabbat
Sheqal. Sheqalim
Shev. Shevi’it
Sir Ben Sira (Sirach)
Sukkah Sukkah
t. Tosefta
Ta’an. Ta’anit
Ter. Terumot
T. Mos. Testament of Moses
Virg. Ephrem, On Virginity
Abbreviations xiii
Wis Wisdom of Solomon

y. Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud)
Yevam. Yevamot
Yoma Yoma
Zech Zechariah
Journals, Reference Volumes, Monograph Series, and Editions
AB Anchor Bible
ActaRom-4° Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Rom, Series in 4° (= Acta
Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae, Series in 4°)
ADPV Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins
AJEC Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
AJSR Association for Jewish Studies Review
ALW Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft
AOr Antiguo Oriente: Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Historia del
Antiguo Oriente
ArDB Arbeitshilfen: Deutsche Bischofskonferenz
ASH Archives de la Société d’Histoire du Canton de Fribourg, n.s.
ASSB Runesson, Anders, Donald D. Binder, and Birger Olsson. The Ancient
Synagogue from Its Origins to 200 CE: A Source Book. AJEC 72. Leiden:
Brill, 2008.
AugL Mayer, Cornelius Petrus, et al., eds. Augustinus-Lexikon. Basel:
Schwabe, 1986–.
BAIAS Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society
BetM Beth Mikra
Bib Biblica
BJGS Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies
BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
BJS Brown Judaic Studies
BNP Cancik, Hubert, Francis G. Gentry, Manfred Landfester,
Christine F. Salazar, and Helmuth Schneider, eds. Brill’s New Pauly:
Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. 22 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2006–2011.
BP Bibliothèque de la Pléiade
BSJS Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies
BSJW Brandeis Series on Jewish Women
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
BZGAK Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde
xiv Abbreviations
CCL Cambridge Companions to Literature

CEOED The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: Complete Text
Reproduced Micrographically. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1971.
CIJ Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum. Edited by Jean-Baptiste Frey. 2 vols.
Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1936–1952.
CJud Conservative Judaism
ConBNT Coniectanea Biblica: New Testament Series
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CSCO.S Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Scriptores syri
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
CSSCA Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology
DEL Rennings, Heinrich, and Martin Klöckener, eds. Dokumente zur
Erneuerung der Liturgie. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Fribourg:
Academic Press Fribourg, 1983–.
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
DRLAR Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion
EAC Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique
EBot Economic Botany
EC Early Christianity
EJJS European Journal of Jewish Studies
EJL Early Judaism and Its Literature
EL Ephemerides liturgicae
ErIsr Eretz-Israel
FJB Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge
FMSt Frühmittelalterliche Studien
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte
GdK Gottesdienst der Kirche
GLAJJ Stern, Menahem. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. 3 vols.
Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974–1984.
HAR Hebrew Annual Review
Hesperia Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
HistE Historia: Einzelschriften
Historia Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte
HR History of Religions
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
IGMR Institutio generalis Missalis Romani (The General Instruction of the
Roman Missal)
Abbreviations xv
INR Israel Numismatic Research

IS Italia sacra
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JAJSup Supplements to Journal of Ancient Judaism
JBV Journal of Beliefs and Values: Studies in Religion and Education
JCP Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series
JH Jewish History
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JJTP Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy
JMRS Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology
JRAI Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism
JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series
JSocS Jewish Social Studies
JSQ Jewish Studies Quarterly
JSt Jewish Studies
JU Judentum und Umwelt
KJV King James Version
Lieberman Lieberman, Saul. Tosefta: According to Codex Vienna, with Variants from
Codices Erfurt, Genizah Mss. and Editio Princeps (Venice 1521), Together
with References to Parallel Passages in Talmudic Literature and a Brief
Commentary. 4 vols. New York Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, 1955–1973.
LJ Liturgisches Jahrbuch
LQF Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen
LSJ Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones.
A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1996.
LTK Kasper, Walter, and Michael Buchberger, eds. Lexikon für Theologie und
Kirche. 3rd ed. 14 vols. Freiburg: Herder, 2009.
LXX Septuagint
Ma’agarim Lerer, Dorit, ed. The Academy of the Hebrew Language. Ma’agarim:
The Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. http://maagarim.
hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx.
MD Maison-Dieu
MText Materiale Textkulturen
xvi Abbreviations
NIV New International Version

NJPS Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures; The New JPS Translation according to the
Traditional Hebrew Text. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
OEANE Eric M. Meyers, ed. Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near
East. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
PAAJR Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research
ParOr Parole de l’Orient
PS Patrologia syriaca
PTRS Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
REJ Revue des études juives
Responsa Bar Ilan Responsa Project. Responsa Project: The Database for Jewish
Studies. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1972–. CD-ROM.
RICP Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris
RPen Revista El Pensador
RVV Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten
SAeth Scriptores Aethiopici
SBBL Studies in Bibliography and Booklore
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series
SC Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943–
SCRK Studien zur christlichen Religions- und Kulturgeschichte
SJ Studia Judaica
SJC Studien zu Judentum und Christentum
SMGH Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae historica
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
Soc Sociology
SpicFri Spicilegium Friburgense
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
StHum Studia humaniora
StLi Studia Liturgica
StT Studi e Testi
StTh Studia Theologica
TBN Themes in Biblical Narrative
TCJS Translations and Collections in Jewish Studies
TechC Technology and Culture
Trad Tradition
TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum
Tsion Tsion
TSJTSA Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
VC Vigiliae Christianae
VCSup Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae
Abbreviations xvii
VT Vetus Testamentum
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
Weiss Weiss, Isaac Hirsch, ed. Sifra on Leviticus. New York: Om, 1947.
WM Wormser Minhagbuch
WMS Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien
Worship Worship
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
YJS Yale Judaica Series
Contributors
Yaacov Deutsch
received his PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (2005). He is the
head of the History Department at David Yellin College and also teaches at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His research focuses on Christian-Jewish rela-
tions in the medieval and early modern periods, and especially on Christian
Hebraism.
His first book, Judaism in Christian Eyes: Ethnographic Descriptions of Jews
and Judaism in Early Modern Period, was published in 2012 by Oxford University
Press. He is also one of the editors of Religion and Knowledge in Early Modern
Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013) and of Toledot Yeshu Reconsidered (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2011). In addition, he is one of the editors of Jewish Studies, the journal
of the World Union of Jewish Studies.
Martin Klöckener
is a Roman Catholic theologian and Professor of Liturgical Studies at the
University of Fribourg/Switzerland and Director of the “Institut de Sciences
liturgiques” of this university. His research and publications focus especially
on the field of history and theology of the liturgy. He is also chief editor of the
“Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft” and of the series “Spicilegium Friburgense,”
and co-editor of the “Augustinus-Lexikon” and the “Liturgiewissenschaftliche
Quellen und Forschungen.”
Katrin Kogman-Appel
holds an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship (2015–2020), which she as-
sumed in Jewish Studies at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster.
She has published work on medieval Jewish art and is particlarly interested
in Hebrew manuscript illumination and its cultural and social contexts. She
is the author of Jewish Book Art Between Islam and Christianity (E. J. Brill,
2004), of Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain (Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2007), which won the Premio del Rey Prize of the American
Historical Association in 2009, and A Mahzor from Worms: Art and Religion in
a Medieval Jewish Community, a monograph on the Leipzig Mahzor (Harvard
University Press, 2012) which was a finalist of the National Jewish Book Award
(scholarship).
Contributors xix
Clemens Leonhard
received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1999 after studies in the-
ology, Oriental studies, and Jewish studies in Vienna, Toronto, and Jerusalem.
He completed his Habilitation in 2005 (University of Bonn). In 2006, he was
appointed Professor for Liturgical Studies at the University of Münster. He
spent the academic year 2011/2012 as a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg in
Berlin, and the spring break of studies in 2018 as a fellow of the Max-Weber-
Kolleg in Erfurt.
Hillel Mali
obtained his PhD from the University of Bar-Ilan in 2018. His dissertation,
“Descriptions of the Temple in the Mishnah,” written under the supervision of
the late Professor Aharon Shemesh, was awarded the Riklis Prize for Excellence
in Research. Dr. Mali currently serves as Lecturer of Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic
Literature at the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, and is a Visiting Scholar at
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His current research pertains to ritual
texts from Qumran and to the relation between text and practice in ancient
Jewish literature on ritual purity.
Annett Martini
received her PhD from the Freie Universität Berlin with a study on Yosef
Gikatilla’s Sefer ha-niqqud and its reception in Renaissance thought. Currently,
she is conducting a research project on the manuscripts of the “Erfurt collec-
tion” at the Institute for Jewish Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. In 2018 she
completed her Habilitation with a study on concepts of ritual writing in the
STaM (i.e., Sefer Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot) in medieval Ashkenaz on the
background of Christian book culture.
Her publications include “Arbeit des Himmels”: Jüdische Konzeptionen des
rituellen Schreibens in der europäischen Kultur des Mittelalters; Eine Studie zur
Herstellung der STaM in Frankreich und Deutschland unter Berücksichtigung
der christlichen Schreibkultur (forthcoming); Yosef Giqatilla: The Book of
Punctuation; Flavius Mithridates’ Latin Translation, the Hebrew Text, and an
English Version, edited with introduction and notes by Annett Martini (Turin,
2010); “Ritual Consecration in the Context of Writing the Holy Scrolls: Jews
in Medieval Europe between Demarcation and Acculturation,” European
Journal of Jewish Studies 11, no. 2 (2017): 174–202; “Die ‘geflüsterte’ Tradition:
Meister-Schüler-Verhältnisse in der aufblühenden spanischen Kabbala des
13. und 14. Jahrhunderts,” in Meister und Schüler / Master and Disciple: Tradition,
Transfer, Transformation, ed. Almut-Barbara Renger and Jeong-hee Lee-Kalisch
(München, 2016), 153–68.
xx Contributors
Stefan Reif
is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Hebrew Studies and Fellow of St. John’s
College in the University of Cambridge. He also holds senior research posts
at the Universities of Haifa and Tel Aviv. He was the Founding Director of the
Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library (1973–2006) He has
over four hundred publications to his name. His volumes include A Jewish
Archive from Old Cairo (2000), Problems with Prayers (2006), Jewish Prayer Texts
from the Cairo Genizah (2016) and Jews, Bible and Prayer (2017).
Gerard Rouwhorst
is Professor Emeritus of Liturgical Studies at Tilburg School of Catholic
Theology of Tilburg University (Netherlands). His research focuses on the
history of early Christian worship and in particular on the relations between
early Christian and Jewish liturgical traditions. He is the author of “Christlicher
Gottesdienst und der Gottesdienst Israels, Forschungsgeschichte, histo-
rische Interaktionen, Theologie,” in Gottesdienst im Leben der Christen, vol. 2,
pt. 2 of Gottesdienst der Kirche: Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft, ed. Martin
Klöckener et al. (Regensburg, 2008); President of the Society of Oriental Liturgy
and Editor-in-Chief of Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae (Brill).
Anders Runesson
is Professor of New Testament at the University of Oslo, Norway. He has pub-
lished extensively in the fields of synagogue studies and New Testament studies,
as well as on ancient Jewish and Christian interaction. His publications include
The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study, ConBNT 37 (Stockholm:
Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001); with Donald D. Binder and Birger
Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue from Its Origins to 200 CE: A Source Book, AJEC
72 (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew: The Narrative
World of the First Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016); “Jewish and Christian
Interaction From the First to the Fifth Centuries,” in The Early Christian World,
2nd ed., ed. Philip F. Esler (London: Routledge, 2017).
Jonathan Schorsch
serves as Professor of Jewish Religious and Intellectual History at the
University of Potsdam (Germany). The most recent of his books is The Food
Movement, Culture and Religion: A Tale of Pigs, Christians, Jews and Politics
(New York: Palgrave, 2018). Other recent publications include “Looking for an
Ecological God,” Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, ed. Martin S. Cohen, Saul Berman, and
David Birnbaum (New York: New Paradigm Publishing, 2019) and “Sabbath for
Contributors xxi
the Anthropocene Age,” One World—Many Faiths: Religious Contributions to

Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, Berliner Reihe für Mission, Ökumene
und Dialog (Berlin: Wichern, 2019). In 2016, he founded the Jewish Activism
Summer School (Berlin), which he directs.
Günter Stemberger
is Professor Emeritus, Department of Jewish Studies, University of Vienna. He
specializes in rabbinic literature and the history of Judaism in late antiquity.
His publications include Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the
Fourth Century (Edinburgh, 2000), and Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch,
9th ed. (Munich, 2011).
Introduction
Günter Stemberger
Rituals are frequently considered to be bound by tradition and repetitive, done

in a way as it “always” has been done. But a closer look at them shows that they
have a history, that they are not static, but quite open to change, dependent on
cultural and social developments, and influenced by other religions wherever
a society is not completely monolithic. Even rituals which, seen from outside,
are longstanding traditions, change over time, if not in their actual perfor-
mance, certainly in their meaning and their reception by the participants and
in the importance they have for the community.
All this is, of course, true for Jewish rituals as well. The dynamic develop-
ment and transformation of Jewish rituals over time, especially through
contact, exchange with and opposition to Christian religious ideas deserve
our close attention. They are the topic of the Research Centre “Dynamics of
Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity to the Present” in
Erfurt and have also been at the center of its first conference, “Describing and
Explaining Ritual Dynamics” (October 26–28, 2016). The proceedings of this
conference are published in this volume.
The first three contributions to this volume address various aspects of
the fundamental question as to how actions are transformed into rituals
and become ritualized. This question is central already in the first paper by
Stefan C. Reif, “Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a Reading of Texts?”
Apart from some standard, but for centuries rather flexible, prayer texts, pas-
sages from the Bible are at the center of rabbinic prayer. Can their common
recitation be considered a liturgy? In its classical meaning, the main elements
of the word “liturgy” are the public aspect and the authorized format. In
Hebrew, its nearest equivalent is the word ʿavodah, which originally designates
the formal sacrificial service of the Jerusalem Temple, conducted mainly by
priests and mostly in silence. Prayer hardly belonged to it; it was rather the
realm of the improvised private devotion of the individual, inspired above all
by the book of Psalms. At this level one can hardly speak of a ritual, even less
of a liturgy. But already before the destruction of the temple, in the Dead Sea
Scrolls, one encounters a broader notion of religious service and a wider con-
cept of liturgy, when the people behind the scrolls take their distance from
the temple and develop a highly regulated common prayer service. With the
end of the temple, its sacrifices are increasingly replaced by common prayer
and biblical reading, which become more and more standardized when, in the
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_002

2 Stemberger
geonic period, written prayer books appear for the first time; Psalms became
more important until, in the twentieth century, nearly half the Psalms were
covered in the prayer books. Prayer in the synagogue increasingly became sub-
jected to the rulings of halakic authorities; the various rites within individual
communities slowly gave ground to the approved versions of a small number
of recognized rites. All this led to a growing ritualization of elements of Jewish
worship previously not considered in this way. The rather loosely regulated
rabbinic common prayer and biblical reading of the first centuries thus finally
resulted in strictly normed forms of synagogue service, clearly ritualized, al-
though its definition as liturgy still depends on the concept of liturgy we apply.
Another aspect of growing ritualization of Jewish life is at the center of the
paper by Katrin Kogman-Appel, “Ritualizing the Cleaning of the House before
Passover in Medieval Ashkenaz: Image and Text in Illuminated Haggadot.” The
biblical commandment that during the seven days of Passover “no leaven shall
be found in your houses” (Exod 12:19) implies a cleaning of the house before
the feast, but without any special formality. It is only over the course of time
that not only the Passover meal, the Seder, became clearly structured, but also
other activities surrounding the feast were included in this development. Thus
in late antiquity the ritual meal and the ritual act of narration changed; the
crystallization of the haggadah as an individual book in the Middle Ages might
have to do with these ritualization processes. The removal of every trace of
leaven from the house on the day before Passover became an outstanding,
dynamically developing ritual, with characteristics differing from region to re-
gion, but especially emphasized in Ashkenazi communities, as Kogman-Appel
demonstrates with illustrations of haggadot since the thirteenth century. They
visualize the search and the destruction of leaven, washing the dishes, setting
the table, and so on, and accompany these images by the corresponding hala-
kot. All these acts were already the topic of a piyyut recited on the Sabbath
before Passover and thus became themselves part of the liturgy. The prepara-
tory acts were no longer considered only halakic precepts, but ritual acts to
be performed. The haggadah book became a ritual artifact, guiding its users
through the prescribed actions and making sense of them.
The growing ritualization of Jewish life made itself felt not only in the “lit-
urgy” of the synagogue and the cycle of yearly festivals, including peripheral
actions connected with them, but also in the preparation of ritual objects, as
Annett Martini shows in her contribution “The Ritualization of Manufacturing
and Handling Holy Books by the Hasidei Ashkenaz between Halakah and
Magic.” To some extent influenced by the professional monastic scriptoria and
the general Christian culture of sanctification, but even more so by their near-
ly magical attitude towards the written word of God, the Rhineland Pietists
Introduction 3
developed an increasingly ritualized approach towards the kitvei qodesh.

Already the preparation of the parchment had to be accompanied by the
correct intention that the parchment would be used for the writing of Torah
scrolls, Tefillin, and Mezuzot. Every aspect of writing became included in the
aura of holiness by a rite of sanctification. The scribe’s writing desk had to be
surrounded by a sphere of purity and holiness; all actions of the sofer were part
of recurrent procedures and thus bestowed a ritual character on the writing
act. All acts of manufacturing the holy scrolls became integrated into a sphere
of sanctification.
The following contribution also deals with holy books, but now on the
Christian side, in a later period and also with a rather different notion of rit-
ualization. Martin Klöckener, “Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern
Liturgical Books,” writes on the liturgical books of the Catholic Church, pub-
lished after the Council of Trent as Editiones typicae; they have remained the
normative ritual books until after the Second Vatican Council. The trend to-
wards unification and the growing force of tradition, seen already in Reif’s
paper on the development of rabbinic prayer, is here also at work, but much
more radically. The tradition, on which the new liturgical books were based,
derived almost exclusively from Latin, even better from Roman sources: only
the Roman and curial tradition counted; ecclesial tradition had been seriously
narrowed down. The variety of traditions that existed up until then was widely
abandoned. Ritual dynamic disappeared until it was cautiously revived in the
Second Vatican Council, which sought for a balance between “sound tradition”
and “legitimate progress.” The dynamic that was responsible for a continuous
adjustment of liturgical sources in premodern times thus turned out to be
rather modest even after Vatican II.
A second group of three papers concentrates on the dynamic relationships
between Jewish and Hellenistic rituals, Jewish and Christian rituals, and vice
versa. Clemens Leonhard, “Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples,”
starts with the rabbinic idea that the reading of the laws reminds one of the loss
of the temple, and that study and prayer effectively replace the lost temple. It
thus may astonish that rituals explicitly performed “in memory of the temple”
are very rare; this idea seems not to have been important for the rabbis. Of great-
er interest for modern researchers are parallels between aspects of the Jewish
temple, as described by the rabbis, but missing in the Bible, and Greek temples.
A good example is the system of drains for libation liquids described in the
Tosefta. It may be an accurate memory of the Jerusalem Temple, but it may also
be an example of rabbinic inventions based on the rabbis’ observations of con-
temporary Greek celebrations. A perhaps more impressive example of possible
contacts with Greek rituals may be detected in the Feast of Tabernacles. The
4 Stemberger
sukkah may be a memorial of the temple in Jerusalem; but it also recalls many
Greek temples where gentiles visited sanctuaries and held dinners sitting in
sukkot at centers of pilgrimage. Rabbinic regulations regarding the sukkah re-
call similar texts from Greek temples. Tacitus and Plutarch already mentioned
parallels between ritual performances of the cult of Dionysus and the celebra-
tion of Sukkot. The rabbis are hard pressed to explain elements of the cult, as
the lulab, in a terminology that does not sound Dionysian. The rabbis know
that similar cultic implements and ritualized acts continue to be performed
in Greek temples; they therefore have to interpret their own rituals in a clearly
different way. At the same time, they probably were convinced—as Plutarch
was—that one can reconstruct details of the liturgies in the Second Temple
based on contemporary sanctuaries. The rabbis may have reconstructed the
past of the Jerusalem Temple based on gentile practices of their time. If this is
correct, it points not only to a dynamic relationship between the performance
of rituals in the Jerusalem Temple and Greek temples, but also reveals how rab-
bis reconstructed no-longer-remembered aspects of the temple rituals on the
basis of still-operating Greek temples.
The rabbinic description of temple rituals is again at the center of the
next contribution, by Hillel Mali: “Conceptual and Ideological Aspects in
the Mishnaic Description of Bringing the First Fruits to Jerusalem.” Mali also
does not accept the rabbinic description of temple rituals at face value, but
understands his concrete example, the description of the bringing of the first
fruits to Jerusalem, as a mixture of “historical testimony” that relates directly
to the practice in the temple, and an exegetical reconstruction on the basis of
Deut 26:1–11, interwoven with halakic comments as to how the ritual should
have been carried out, not how the bikkurim were really brought to Jerusalem.
As to the “historical” narrative, Mali emphasizes parallels between the differ-
ent components of the adventus ceremony and the ceremony described in
the Mishna. It depicts a partially gentile ruler (Agrippa) who enters the city
amongst the pilgrims, advancing into Jerusalem with the basket of bikkurim on
his shoulder like the servants of the emperor in his adventus. The text depends
on the adventus as a literary model, but subverts its perception of honor in
order to express the correct power balance between the king and the priest.
The biblical ritual as performed in the temple is thus dynamically transformed
in the Mishnah: it insists on the halakically correct performance based directly
on the biblical text, but also in dynamic comparison with similar ceremonies
in the non-Jewish world.
The last paper in this section passes on to Christian-Jewish contacts in
rituals. Yaacov Deutsch, in “Christian Presence in Jewish Ritual,” argues that
Christians were interested in observing Jewish rituals, and that Jews were
Introduction 5
cognizant of this fact. This awareness shaped and sometimes even changed
the way Jewish rituals were observed. In the early modern period, Christians
published several descriptions of Jewish rituals in a kind of polemical ethnog-
raphy. Christian travelers who came to synagogues or Jewish houses in order
to observe how Jews celebrate their holidays or perform circumcisions or mar-
riages, normally were not interested in polemics; they rather described what
they saw, keeping their critical remarks to a minimum. The Jewish communi-
ties did not prevent visits of Christians to the synagogue, but tried to regulate
the behavior of the community members and to prevent behavior that they
feared would seem inappropriate in the eyes of Christian visitors. To some ex-
tent, Jews were prepared to adapt their ritual behavior to the expectations of
their visitors. The observing outsider thus also had his or her part in the ongo-
ing dynamic reform of Jewish rituals.
The third part of the collection deals with Comparing and Contrasting
Rituals. Gerard Rouwhorst, in “Initiation by Circumcision and Water Baptism
in Early Judaism and Early Christianity,” opens this part with a comparative
study of circumcision and baptism in the first Christian centuries. In Second
Temple Judaism, and to a large extent also in the rabbinic period, adult initia-
tion into Judaism was the exception. There were always Jews who did not have
their male children circumcised, as there were also Jews who wanted to make
their circumcision undone by epispasmos. More important for the comparison
with Christianity is the so-called proselyte baptism, most commonly refer-
ring to an immersion that followed circumcision. But this immersion seems
not to have been part of the rite of initiation and was not an ancient, pre-
Christian, practice. To some extent it may even depend on Christian practices.
Early Christian baptism continued Jewish ritual ablutions, but was in many
respects something new and unprecedented. It took on a function circumci-
sion had in Judaism and somehow replaced it, but was always open to men and
women. Some parts of the church still also accepted circumcision, whereas
others replaced it by prebaptismal anointing. There were always mutual influ-
ences between Judaism and Christianity in their initiation rites. This is clear
for Christianity, but also Jewish rites of initiation did not develop completely
independently from Christianity.
In the second paper in this section, “Space, Ritual, and Politics in (the
Reconstruction of) the Ancient Synagogue: An Exploration of the Historical
Archive,” Anders Runesson explores the dynamics by which synagogues slowly
developed into clearly ritual spaces, from the beginning separate for Jewish
believers in Christ and other Jews. The author prefers not to focus the attention
on prejudiced rabbinic and Christian texts, but rather to turn to archaeological
sources. Synagogues from the first century in the land of Israel seem to have
6 Stemberger
served mainly for reading and/or studying of Jewish sacred Scripture (see
the Theodotos inscription). There are no indications that communal prayer
would have been part of the activities of these public synagogues. Some of
them will have accommodated political/municipal institutions without a dif-
ferentiation between political and religious space. But in general their closest
functional parallel would be Greco-Roman voluntary associations. In the di-
aspora synagogue, buildings are architecturally again, in spite of great diversity,
closely related to those of Greco-Roman associations, less so to bouleutēria (since
there Jews were not in charge of local administration). Jesus-centered forms of
Judaism also assembled in such association buildings and not in the public syna-
gogues in which Jesus and the Pharisees interacted. Here were the institutional
origins of the later church and synagogue (as nonpolitical institutions exclu-
sively for Christians or Jews). Here Jews and Christians developed socioritual
activities separated from political institutions and practices. Synagogues as
clearly ritual space are a development of late antiquity and later periods.
The last contribution of this volume turns to dynamic rituals and innovation
of rituals in modern contexts. In his paper “Olive Oil, Anointing, Ecstasy, and
Ecology,” Jonathan Schorsch attends to historical transformations in the ritual
of anointing and its significance. He unfolds midrashic and medieval readings
of oil and anointing, but also new parallels to these earlier examples in order
to obtain new insights into what an ancient practice such as anointing with oil
might have been about and how we today might understand it. Originally part
of an agricultural theological ecology, it was soon taken over by priests who ob-
tained economic control of olive oil production and imposed on “the people”
their theological interpretation of the ritual. Pouring olive oil on the heads of
certain individuals at a moment of significant transition distills the material
agricultural productivity of the nation into human celebration of the divine
cosmos. Monotheistic motivations seem to have gradually limited the ritual
of anointing to the investiture of only the highest theopolitical functionaries,
and after the exile to Babylonia, ritual anointing seems to have disappeared.
Based on the medieval kabbalists’ strong interpretation of ancient anointing,
the author argues for a continuous rereading of the ritual in order to extend it
and its meanings. Setting ancient anointing in an ecological context makes it
ripe for plausible new interpretations.
The authors of this volume present significant examples for how original-
ly nonritual acts became rituals and how profane space became ritual. They
show how rituals changed in the course of time or might even reassume ritual
meaning after a long period of neglect. The influence of other religious tradi-
tions on the development and understanding of rituals is a dominant theme
in this volume. Judaism stays at the center of most contributions, but never
Introduction 7
in isolation, and mainly in contact and exchange with Christianity (in both
directions). Such contacts were sometimes polemical, even violent, but more
frequently part of the daily life and hardly conscious, to be uncovered only
by modern comparative study. Only a few representative examples could be
analyzed in the essays of this volume. Many areas remain untouched, as for
example the whole field of Jewish-Islamic ritual studies, but also in the much-
better-covered parallel study of Jewish and Christian rituals. Ritual studies are
a wide field and much remains to be done.
Part 1
Ritual Dynamics in (Holy) Jewish and
Christian Texts
∵
Chapter 1
Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a

Reading of Texts?
Stefan C. Reif
1 Introduction
It is often said that when Jews are asked a question, they reply not with an
answer but with another question. I fear that this applies in the case of the
question raised in the title of this paper. In order to be in a position to offer
an answer, it will first be necessary to deal with a number of other queries and
to suggest some clear definitions of the topics to be discussed. In the matter
of such definitions, I shall begin by briefly noting the existence in the ancient
pre-Jewish and even pre-Hebrew worlds of various genres of worship, and at-
tempting to trace some distinctions between liturgy, prayer, and ritual. The
subject of the subsequent section will be more specific and will deal with rab-
binic prayer, its earliest origins, the extent of its innovative approach, and the
nature of the theology that lies behind it. The Passover Haggadah will then
receive attention before the talmudic period is exchanged for the geonic pe-
riod. How precisely did those post-talmudic rabbis, primarily in Babylonia,
contribute to the evolution of rabbinic prayer, and what role was played by
scriptural texts in its overall development? The past century and a half have
seen the new availability of thousands of medieval Hebrew manuscripts, both
complete codices and fragmentary folios. Does the analysis of such materials
illuminate the process of Jewish liturgical development? The final section of
the paper will note some remarkable examples of how acts of worship have be-
come ritualized within the rabbinic prayers and will immediately be followed
by some tentative conclusions.
2 Ancient Genres
It is virtually a truism to say that the earliest civilizations testify to the fact
that worship played an important role in the activities of humanity. A walk
through the relevant sections of any museums that house the earliest inscrip-
tions and artefacts immediately presents the visitor with numerous examples

12 Reif
of the manner in which the peoples of the ancient Near East made entreaty to
their gods. Collections that I have recently viewed in Israel, Crete, and Cyprus
include items that demonstrate the lifting of hands in prayer for a sick fellow,
kneeling before a superior in an act of allegiance, representations of worship
of the heavenly bodies, and the service of a loyal subject before his king. These
are only an infinitesimal selection of an extensive range of acts, rituals, decla-
rations, and physical representations of worshipers and their gods, indicating
clearly that from the earliest times, manifestations of worship and their loca-
tions were legion and multifarious.1
If worship is the broadest term to describe the human relationship with its
deities, and prayer refers specifically to words addressed to them, what may
safely be said about the meaning of the word “liturgy”? It is of course bor-
rowed from the Greek word λειτουργία (“leitourgia”), which is defined in the
Greek-English Lexicon of Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott as follows:
“At Athens, and elsewhere … public service performed by private citizens at
their own expense.”2 Lest it be thought that the editors of the Oxford English
Dictionary were concerned only with pre-Christian Greece, it should immedi-
ately be noted that the definition just cited is only the third one that they list.
That definition states: “At Athens, a public office or duty which the richer citi-
zens discharged at their own expense.” There are two others that may be later
than the Athenian usage but are undoubtedly more familiar to the modern
reader; or, perhaps more accurately, given current levels of cultural lassitude or
plain ignorance, the contemporary listener and viewer. The first usage is that
which describes “the service of the Holy Eucharist: properly applied to the rite
of the Eastern Church.” The second, somewhat more broadly, but not entirely
of ecumenical bent, begins with a reference to “a form of public worship, es-
pecially in the Christian Church: a collection of formularies for the conduct
of Divine service.” It is, however, followed by a more general description of
“public worship conducted in accordance with a prescribed form.”3 The two
elements that appear to be indispensable for the sound definition of any act
of liturgy would then be the public aspect and the authorized format. Did the
Jewish world of the few centuries before the rise of Christianity and rabbinic
Judaism have liturgy and/or prayer as part of its means of worshiping its one
and only God?
1 The museums viewed included the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem,
the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete, and the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia.
2 L SJ, s.v. “λειτουργία.”
3 C EOED 1, s.v. “liturgy.”
Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a Reading of Texts ? 13
3 Early Jewish Worship
The Jerusalem Temple that stood from the late sixth century BCE until the
middle of the first century CE had a fairly simple structure (perhaps unlike its
predecessor), until it attracted the attentions of Herod the Great. That ruler
had ambitions to bring the Judean state into the world of Greece and Rome,
and one of the numerous projects that he successfully undertook, with the in-
tention of realizing such ambitions, was the reconstruction, expansion, and
beautification of the Jerusalem Temple.4 This was the center of formal Jewish
liturgy, not only for the Jews of Jerusalem and its environs, but also for their
coreligionists who made the trip to the nation’s capital on one of the pilgrim
festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.5 They could then make their
offerings in the temple, but it has to be stated that the formal acts associated
with such offerings were conducted by the priests on most occasions and by
the High Priest in special instances. Non-priests, women, and gentiles could
bring offerings but were limited to certain locations on the Temple Mount,
and could only in a very restricted manner participate in the liturgy. Menahem
Haran and Israel Knohl have indeed noted the view that the temple ritual itself
was by and large conducted in silence, and included in its services few formal
recitations or declarations.6
Does this therefore mean that Jewish worship at the time possessed no chan-
nel through which the ordinary folk could communicate their emotions, their
requests, and their gratitude to their God? As has been stressed by Greenberg,
there was a more democratic and egalitarian medium of worship available
to them, and that was the regular use of improvised personal prayer.7 This is
documented in hundreds of passages in the Hebrew Bible, some of them in
narratives and prophetic passages, but the richest source of them is to be found
in the book of Psalms. Such lyrical compositions—from the book of Psalms
but also independent of it—may even have been employed during the ascent
to the Temple Mount, as well as in more urbane and domestic surroundings.
The more improvised and less poetic versions of personal Jewish prayers from
4 Michael Avi-Yonah, “Jewish Art and Architecture in the Hasmonean and Herodian Periods,”
in The Herodian Period, vol. 7 of World History of the Jewish People, ed. Michael Avi-Yonah and
Zvi Baras (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1975), 254–56.
5 E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM, 1992), 45–118.
6 Menahem Haran, “Priesthood, Temple, Divine Service,” HAR 7 (1983): 131; Israel Knohl, The
Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995),
42.
7 Moshe Greenberg, Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
14 Reif
that period, by their very definition, are of course lost to us except where they
are cited in the contemporary Jewish literature, whether in Hebrew, Aramaic,
or Greek. They were tailored to specific needs and situations, and had their
parallels in the patterns of commonly used speech forms.
The nearest Hebrew equivalent to the Greek λειτουργία is the word ‫עבודה‬
(‘avodah), the basic sense of which is “service.” It will contribute to the required
clarification of the historical development of Jewish worship in the period
leading up to the axial age if some attention is now paid to the way in which
this concept of ‘avodah was understood by the Jews of that time. The linguistic
background is of course in the Hebrew Bible, which records a range of senses
from “work” and “labor” to “service” and “ritual.” This breadth of meaning is
further expanded in the Dead Sea Scrolls, while the Septuagint, for its part,
translates ‫ עבודה‬with λειτουργία only when the original is making reference to
formal temple worship. In all other contexts, the Greek translators found a va-
riety of alternative Greek words to render that Hebrew occurrence. Fortunate
as scholars often are to have the Greek version of Ben Sira’s grandson with
which to compare his grandfather’s Hebrew, they can detect that in many cases
the Hebrew follows the lead of the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls,
while the Greek prefers that of the Septuagint. We should now pause for a mo-
ment to assess the religio-historical evolution that is being documented here.
The books of the Hebrew Bible testify to an increasing tendency towards the
Jerusalem centrality of ‘avodah, while at the same time recognizing the grow-
ing importance of personal prayer in the wider Jewish environment. For the
theologies represented in the Judean Scrolls, such a centrality and everything
associated with it were rejected and exchanged for a broader notion of reli-
gious service. For the Greek-speaking Jews of the diaspora, to which group
Ben Sira’s Egyptian grandson belonged, the stress had to be on formal wor-
ship, while for the traditionalists in Jerusalem, to which group Ben Sira himself
owed allegiance, the notion of liturgy could be distinctly wider in scope.8
It is of considerable significance to note that the Christian teachers and
the early rabbinic savants ultimately chose different paths for their liturgi-
cal self-expression. The latter recorded and retained extensive remnants of
the theories and practices that they had inherited, but opted to re-evaluate
their nature and their theological prioritization. A more detailed analysis will
shortly be provided concerning the choices they made and why. The Christian
outlook is not of central concern to this discussion, but it will sharpen its focus
if a reminder is offered of precisely how that outlook came to be expressed
8 Stefan C. Reif, Jews, Bible and Prayer: Essays on Jewish Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Notions,
BZAW 498 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 196–209.
within the liturgical sphere, without detaining ourselves longer, in order to as-
sess the precise chronological sequence and the controversies that surrounded
its adoption. It is well summarized by Samuel Wells and Abigail Kocher:9
The Lord’s Supper is not just remembrance of the saving work of Jesus.
It’s an invitation to the congregation to be engulfed in the communion of
saints as it is swathed with the glory of what the Father has imagined, the
Son embodied, and the Spirit fulfilled. Every prayer should celebrate all
three aspects of this joyous drama.
4 Rabbinic Ideas
And so now to the manner in which the rabbinic scholars viewed the contin-
ued application of the principle of ‘avodah. The first passage that needs to be
addressed is in the early midrashic compilation on the books of Numbers and
Deuteronomy known as Sifre. In comments on Deut 11:13, the midrash chal-
lenges its own opening statement that ‘avodah means Torah study by arguing
for a literal meaning of ‘avodah, that is, “work,” on the basis of the verse in
Gen 2:16. That verse describes how God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden
le’ovdah uleshomrah, “to work it and look after it.” The literal interpretation is
quickly rejected on the grounds that Adam was required to undertake such
labor only later as a punishment for his disobedience, and ‘avodah is therefore
explained rather as Torah study and shemirah as observance of the precepts.
The alternative is then offered that ‘avodah refers to prayer on the grounds that
the service of God demanded by the verse is to be with all one’s heart and soul,
and that can only be by prayer. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob argues that the verse
in Deuteronomy refers to the requirement of priestly concentration during the
temple ritual. What is undoubtedly being conveyed here is an intensive, inter-
nal rabbinic controversy about how the notion of ‘avodah is to be religiously
expressed within the emerging (and even flourishing) rabbinic circles.10
9 Samuel Wells and Abigail Kocher, Eucharistic Prayers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Norwich:
Canterbury, 2016), 1–31.
10 Louis Finkelstein, ed., Siphre ad Deuteronomium H. S. Horovitzii schedis usus cum variis
lectionibus et adnotationibus [Hebrew] (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1969),
87–88, §41.
16 Reif
5 Rabbinic Texts
A few texts will suffice to exemplify the rabbinic attitudes that emerged within
the early Christian centuries.
Text 1. A good statement with which to commence is that of Simeon “the
Righteous” as cited in the mishnaic tractate Avot 1.2:11
‫ על שלושה דברים‬,‫ הוא היה אומר‬.‫שמעון הצדיק היה משיירי [אנשי] כנסת הגדולה‬
.‫ ועל גמילות החסדים‬,‫ ועל העבודה‬,‫העולם עומד—על התורה‬
Simeon the Righteous said, “The world stands on three things: on Torah,
on ‘avodah, and on doing good deeds” (condensed English version of the
Hebrew original).
Text 2. The later commentary on that tractate, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan 4 (ed-
ited in the post-talmudic period but probably containing much material from
earlier periods), records a view in the name of the leader, who is said to have
escaped Jerusalem before the destruction of the temple and to have estab-
lished his rabbinic school in Yavne on the Mediterranean coast, south of Jaffa:12
‫ והיה רבי יהושע הולך אחריו וראה‬,‫פעם אחת היה רבן יוחנן בן זכאי יוצא מירושלים‬
‫ מקום שמכפרים בו‬,‫ אוי לנו על זה שהוא חרב‬:‫ אמר רבי יהושע‬.‫בית המקדש חרב‬
,‫ יש לנו כפרה אחת שהיא כמותה‬.‫ אל ירע לך‬,‫ בני‬:‫ אמר לו‬.‫עונותיהם של ישראל‬
.)‫ו‬:‫ “כי חסד חפצתי ולא זבח” (הושע ו‬:‫ שנאמר‬.‫ואיזה? זה גמילות חסדים‬
Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai said, “The temple used to bring the Jews for-
giveness of their sins, but that is now achieved through performing good
deeds.” [condensed English version of the Hebrew original]
11 Shimon Sharvit, Tractate Avoth through the Ages: A Critical Edition, Prolegomena, and
Appendices [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004), 64; Charles Taylor, Sayings of the
Jewish Fathers: Sefer Dibre Aboth Ha-Olam; Comprising Pirque Aboth in Hebrew and English
with Critical Notes and Excurses, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1897),
12–13.
12 Menahem Kister, ed., Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan: Solomon Schechter Edition; With References
to Parallels in the Two Versions and to the Addenda in the Schechter Edition, with
Prolegomenon [Hebrew] (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997), 21;
Judah Goldin, The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan, YJS 10 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1955), 34.
Text 3. This is a remarkable report in the Babylonian Talmud in which a view

is favored that gives study a higher priority than prayer:13
‫ר' ירמיה הוה יתיב קמיה דר' זירא והוו עסקי בשמעתא נגה לצלויי והוה קא מסרהב‬
.‫ט) מסיר אזנו משמוע תורה גם תפלתו תועבה‬:‫ קרי עליה ר’ זירא (משלי כח‬,‫ר’ ירמיה‬
When R. Zera saw that his pupil R. Jeremiah was getting anxious about
leaving the class because the time for prayer had arrived, he applied to
him the verse in Prov 28:9: “He that turns away from studying Torah, his
prayer is actually an abomination.” (Condensed English version of the
Hebrew original.)
6 Passover Haggadah
The prayers, midrashim, psalms, and hymns that constitute the bulk of the
texts recited at the festive table on the first night of Passover are not only an
unusual amalgam of literary sources but also originated over many centuries
in the Jewish diaspora as well as in the homeland.14 One of the earliest texts
(whenever it was actually incorporated into the Haggadah) is a statement
that already appears in the Mishnah (m. Pesah. 10.2) and may well date from
as early as the second century. It is cited in the name of Rabban Gamaliel of
that period and makes it clear that the discussion of the Exodus from Egypt in
the domestic scene of that evening, as already prescribed in the Pentateuch,
should not be allowed to range over any subjects that take the theologi-
cal fancy of the celebrant. Perhaps there were groups at that time (such as,
perhaps, Judeo-Christians?) who saw the paschal lamb as symbolic of their
own religious doctrines, rather than those of the central rabbinic authorities.
Rabban Gamaliel is categorical in his requirement:15
13 See b. Shabb. 10a.

14 For the general history of the Haggadah, see Shmuel Safrai and Ze’ev Safrai, Haggadah
of the Sages (Jerusalem: Carta, 2009); Joseph Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah:
Historical Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 2008).
15 Georg Beer, ed., Faksimile-Ausgabe des Mischnacodex Kaufmann A 50: Mit Genehmigung
der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Budapest (Hague: Nijhoff, 1929), 226;
Safrai and Safrai, Haggadah, 99; Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah, 208.
18 Reif
.‫ לא יצא ידי חובתו‬,‫ כל שלא אמר שלושה דברים אלו בפסח‬,‫רבן גמליאל אומר‬
‫ על‬,‫ על שפסח המקום על בתי אבותינו במצרים; מרורים‬,‫ פסח‬.‫ ומרורים‬,‫ מצה‬,‫פסח‬
.‫ על שם שנגאלו‬,‫שמררו המצריים את חיי אבותינו במצריים; מצה‬
Rabban Gamaliel says, “Anyone who has omitted these three subjects at
the Passover feast has not met his obligation: paschal lamb, unleavened
bread, bitter herbs. The paschal lamb, because God passed over the hous-
es of our ancestors in Egypt; bitter herbs, because the Egyptians embit-
tered the lives of our ancestors in Egypt; unleavened bread, because they
were redeemed [when they baked that bread].”
It emerges from the work of David Goodblatt and Jeffrey Rubenstein (among
others) that much of what was once thought to have been the achievements of
the Babylonian teachers of the third to the sixth centuries should be credited
to their successors in the latest talmudic period and the early centuries of the
geonic age.16 Robert Brody has demonstrated the degree to which the Geonim
and the Torah institutions that they led and inspired in Babylonia dominated
the Jewish world of their day in areas far beyond Mesopotamia. Robert Brody
and Lawrence Hoffman have explained how the major liturgical developments
of those centuries are a reflection of such a domination.17 Guidance as to the
authoritative form of the statutory prayers was sought by communities as far
away from Babylonia as Spain, and the result was the creation of the first writ-
ten prayer books with the stamp of rabbinic approval. Among the overriding
principles that they adopted and promoted were two liturgically significant
ones. The study and/or recitation of texts concerning the temple and its sacri-
ficial cult, now that the institution no longer existed, had become equivalent
to the original practice; and prayer had replaced temple offerings as a means
of obtaining the forgiveness of sins and divine approval.18 Among the earliest
liturgical poets of the land of Israel, there was a major interest in composing
detailed descriptions of the temple rituals, especially on Yom Kippur, as a kind
16 David M. Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden: Brill, 1975);

Jeffrey Rubenstein, The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2003).
17 Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Lawrence A. Hoffman, The Canonization of the
Synagogue Service (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).
18 Stefan C. Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 122–52.
of substitution and compensation.19 As the famous poet, Solomon ibn Gabirol,

put it in eleventh-century Andalusia:20
‫הן בהיות העבודה וכוהנים על משמרת הלא חטאת מכפרת והעולה מכשרת ואין‬
‫חטאת ואין עולה וללא חלב ויותרת ואשפוך את רינתי ואפיל תחינתי נפשי בשאלתי‬
.‫ועמי בבקשתי‬
Lo, when the service was still performed in the temple, and the priests
were set in their charges, then the sin offering atoned, and the burnt of-
fering exonerated, but now there is neither sin offering nor burnt offer-
ing, no fat and no lobe of liver; and instead I pour forth my prayer and
present my supplication; let my life be given me at my petition, and my
people at my request.
Another aspect of liturgical development during the geonic period concerned

the use of scriptural passages. One example will have to suffice in the present
context, although it has to be acknowledged that the trend was a broader one
and included more than the recitation of Psalms. It had previously been an
optional act of piety to read sections of the book of Psalms so that the worship-
ers could create within themselves the correct spiritual frame of mind with
which to approach the Almighty and commence the statutory prayers them-
selves. The new halakic regime not only reported as favorable such recitation
of chapters of Psalms but characterized this activity as an undertaking volun-
tarily entered into by the Jewish people, and even prescribed benedictions for
commencing and concluding the exercise. These, as so many similar liturgical
compositions introduced by the Geonim, had not existed in the earlier talmu-
dic period, neither in their own centers in Babylonia nor in the rival ones in the
land of Israel. The use of scriptural passages had in effect become part of the
statutory prayers.21
19 Ezra Fleischer, Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter,
1975), 175; Joseph Yahalom, Az Be’eyn Kol: Priestly Palestinian Poetry; A Narrative Liturgy for
the Day of Atonement [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996), 56; Michael D. Swartz, “Ritual
about Myth about Ritual: Towards an Understanding of the ‘Avodah’ in the Rabbinic
Period,” JJTP 6 (1997): 135–55; and Swartz, “Sage, Priest and Poet: Typologies of Religious
Leadership in the Ancient Synagogue,” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient
Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period, ed. Steven Fine (London:
Routledge, 1999), 101–17.
20 Abraham Rosenfeld, ed., The Authorised Selichot for the Whole Year, 4th ed. (London:
Labworth, 1969), 49; I have cited his translation.
21 Robert Brody, “Liturgical Uses of the Book of Psalms in the Geonic Period,” in Prayers
That Cite Scripture, ed. James L. Kugel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 61–81;
20 Reif
By the time that Maimonides was codifying Jewish law in the twelfth centu-
ry, he could describe the sections of study that precede the Psalms chapters as
a customary addition, but he had to include the chapters themselves and their
benedictions as part of the morning service.22 The author of what became the
most authoritative code of Jewish law, Joseph Caro, went further than that
when composing his Shulḥan ‘Arukh in the sixteenth century. He treated the
anthology of Psalm chapters as so much a part of the statutory liturgy that he
prescribed that there should be no interruptions during their recitation, that
particular verses should be read with special devotion, that all of them should
be recited slowly and with feeling, and that a special melody should employed
for Ps 100.23 Chief Rabbi Hertz’s revised edition of the “ authorised” [so entitled
in the original, with an s not a z] daily prayer book was published after his
death in 1946. It had been based on the edition composed by Simeon Singer for
the Orthodox communities of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British
Empire towards the end of the nineteenth century, but now it included an ap-
pendix that is of major interest to our paper. On the last page there appeared,
under the title of “Index to Psalms,” a list of all the Psalms used in the edition
then being published for wide synagogal use. By that time, almost half of all
the book of Psalms was represented in that prayer book.24
7 Medieval Manuscripts
A revolutionary development took place in about the eighth century that had
a profound impact on the form and content of rabbinic literature. While from
the first two centuries of the Christian era, the medium for the transmission of
rabbinic traditions had been primarily an oral one, the Jews in the middle of
the geonic period, possibly under Christian and/or Muslim influence, adopt-
ed the medium of the codex and began to commit most aspects of their Oral
Torah to that means of transmission. In the field of the statutory prayers, the
earliest written texts are simple ones, recorded on two, three, or four bifolia.
They were often intended as aide-mémoire, which is why the most commonly
Ruth Langer, “Biblical Texts and Jewish Prayers: Their History and Function,” in Jewish
and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into Its History and Interaction, ed. Albert
Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 63–90.
22 E. Daniel Goldschmidt, “The Oxford Ms. of Maimonides’ Book of Prayer,” in On Jewish
Liturgy: Essays on Prayer and Religious Poetry [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1978), 193.
23 Shulḥan ‘Arukh, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 51.8.
24 Joseph H. Hertz, ed., The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations
of the British Empire, rev. ed. (London: Vallentine, 1946; repr., 1963), 1120.
known and frequently recited texts of the daily shema‘ and its benedictions
and the ‘amidah were often cited only in much abbreviated forms. Other, less
familiar items, were more fully transcribed. Evidence of such trends, dating
from the tenth through the thirteen centuries, is available to us from the Cairo
Genizah materials and predates many of the more complete codices of the
high middle ages and the late medieval period.25
Towards the end of the talmudic period, and for a period of approximately
half a millennium, the composition of liturgical poems (piyyuṭim), especially
in the land of Israel, became a major literary industry. The original function
appears to have been to add variety, color, erudition, and religious data to the
synagogal service, but the appendage often threatened to replace the body of
the ritual. The statutory prayers had to fight back, and the virtual elimination
of the Palestinian Jewish communities by the invading Crusaders, the devel-
opment of the literal rather than the fanciful interpretation, and the halakic
codifiers’ antagonism towards narratives, teachings, and folklore that they eyed
with no small degree of theological suspicion assisted them in that process. It
was not, however, until the modern period that the victory of those prayers
came to be assured. That fightback entailed a greater degree of ritualization for
the statutory prayers and a weakening role for the poetic addenda.
A comparison of the Genizah fragments with the fuller codices reveals a
noteworthy process. Quires were composed with greater care and consistency,
catchwords were included, sections numerated, lines justified in a variety of
ways, folios pricked and ruled, and the mastara (ruling board) was often em-
ployed to facilitate the planning of the layout. At the same time, the content
became significantly more extensive and wide ranging. So-called prayer books
included much more than prayer. Their hundreds of folios often accommodat-
ed halakic works, mystical tracts, biblical lectionaries, and calendrical lists. As
the Hebrew manuscripts became larger and grander, they attracted to them-
selves an increased aura of authority. Just as the work of the Masoretes had
given the Jewish communities more standardized and authoritative versions
of the Hebrew Bible, so these medieval codices offered more attractive systems
of layout, attracted rubrics concerning what was to be recited and when, left
enough space around the body of the liturgical text for commentaries to be
added in the margins, and invited suitably talented artists (not necessarily of
the Jewish persuasion) to decorate their folios.
Once major codices had acquired admirable reputations, their contents
were copied, and all the options that their scribes had chosen found their way
25 Colette Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), 73–79.
22 Reif
into the prayers of many other communities. They also entered the prayer
books of those wealthy enough to commission exemplars from privately em-
ployed scribes or to purchase them on the open market. The variegated rites
and diversified customs that had once existed within individual communities
had slowly to give ground to the approved versions of recognized rites. By way
of examples, the definitions “Sefaradi” and “Ashkenazi” had once covered a
host of alternative options but had by the end of the medieval period taken
on a more uniform character. This tendency was strengthened by the inven-
tion of printing and its adoption by many Jewish communities, at first in Spain
and Portugal, but later also in Italy, Poland, and Turkey. A text that was printed
was regarded by many of the simpler Jewish folk as somehow sacrosanct, and
what appeared there was regarded as almost canonical. The few scholars of
more rational bent had their work cut out, attempting to point out that printed
volumes were only as good as their copy editors and might actually be full of
errors.26 This undoubtedly added to what may justifiably be called a process of
ritualization.
8 Artefacts
Such a process applied to the numerous artefacts associated with Jewish

prayer. The synagogal functionaries and furniture, the donning of tallit (so-
called “fringes”) and tefillin (so-called “phylacteries”), as well as the procedures
associated with beginning and ending the prayers, the role of the genders, and
reading from the pentateuchal scroll, all became progressively more ritual-
ized. The examination of all these adjustments would take us greatly beyond
the scope of this short article. One example will perhaps serve to illustrate the
point being made. If one examines the evidence uncovered by archaeologists
about the synagogues of the Holy Land in the Roman and Byzantine periods,
it is clear that there was a considerable variety of structure and layout. The
building of a permanently fixed and formal location for the pentateuchal scroll
within the synagogue was not a sine qua non for every community, and it seems
that there the earliest custom was either to store the scroll in a movable ark
and/or to bring the scroll into the main site only in order to be formally read.27
26 Stefan C. Reif, Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic
Liturgy (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 181–206.
27 Steven Fine, This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-Roman
Period (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 112; Eric M. Meyers, “Ancient
Synagogues: An Archaeological Introduction,” in Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the
The depository for the scrolls, once widely adopted, became a focal point of
worship, a kind of shrine. The retrieval and the return of the scroll to the shrine
became processional, attracted to themselves verses and rituals, and were used
to mark other special occasions. The consecration of a synagogue, the gift of a
new scroll, and the recitation of a special prayer might all require formal mark-
ing by the ceremonial use of one or more scrolls. The opening of the ark also
came to signal the need for a higher level of spiritual concentration on the part
of the congregation, but could also constitute an effort to add ritual value to
a less important part of the service and therefore to avoid its being ignored or
treated with scant respect.28
9 Rubrics, Study Texts, and Informative Announcements
Three examples may now be cited of how pragmatic matters within the history
of Jewish liturgy have been allowed to take on an almost ritual significance.
There is a passage in a late midrashic compilation, Seder Eliyahu Rabbah,
which gives some important spiritual advice, and is cited in a slightly altered
form in the introductory section of the morning prayers:29
‫לעולם יהא אדם ירא שמים בסתר [ובגלוי] ומודה על האמת ודובר אמת בלבבו‬
.‫וישכם ויאמר‬
A person should always be God-fearing in private [and in public], should

acknowledge the truth, speak the truth in his heart, rising up early and
saying….
In many editions, there is in the layout no indication whatsoever of the origi-

nal provenance of this sentence, and the fact that it is a rubric, introducing
various short pietistic prayers that follow. Instead, it is presented as it if it were
a prayer in its own right, and that is how generations of worshippers have tra-
ditionally employed it. A minor rubric has become ritualized and transformed
into a piece of liturgy.
Synagogue in the Ancient World, ed. Steven Fine (New York: Oxford University Press,
1996), 13.
28 Ruth Langer, “Sinai, Zion, and God in the Synagogue: Celebrating Torah in Ashkenaz,” in
Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Prayer, ed. Ruth Langer
and Steven Fine (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 123–42.
29 M. Friedmann, ed., Seder Eliahu Rabba und Seder Eliahu Zuta (Tanna d’be Eliahu) (Vienna:
Achiasaf, 1902), 118; Jonathan Sacks, ed., The Koren Siddur (Jerusalem: Koren, 2009), 34–35.
24 Reif
A similar development has occurred in connection with the fifth chapter

of the mishnaic tractate Zevaḥim, which comes a little later in the preparatory
part of the morning service. It describes where each of the various sacrifices
was offered in the Jerusalem Temple. Its inclusion is based on a passage in the
Babylonian Talmud promising that after the destruction of the temple, God
will credit the Jews with making the temple offerings if only they study the
relevant passages concerning such cultic activities.30 Here again, the whole
chapter is not in fact studied but recited as if it were a prayer.
Even more remarkable is the announcement of the day on which the new
moon will be celebrated in the Jewish calendar. Each month, on the Shabbat
before the new moon, after the readings from the Pentateuch and the Prophets,
the cantor announces to the whole congregation:
.‫ראש חודש [?] יהיה ביום [?] הבא עלינו ועל כל ישראל לטובה‬
The new month of [?] will occur on [?]—may it come happily to us and
all Israel.
The response of the congregation to that announcement should be, and no

doubt once was:
'‫יחדשהו הקדוש ברוך הוא עלינו ועל כל ישראל לחיים ולשלום וכו‬
May the Holy One, Blessed be He, renew the month for us and for all his
people Israel with life and with peace, etc.
Instead, it has become traditional for the congregation to follow the practice
of many other liturgical instances and repeat what the cantor has just recited,
before then reciting the correct formula just cited. The congregation is there-
fore responding to a piece of important information by repeating it aloud in
unison!31 A better example of the ritualization of the mundane could hardly
be found.
10 Conclusions
It seems justifiable to conclude that a number of important developments in

the history of Jewish worship have been demonstrated. Biblical times saw the
30 See b. Ta’an. 27b; Sacks, ed., Koren Siddur, 50–53.

31 Sacks, ed., Koren Siddur, 522–23.
existence in parallel of formal and institutionalized liturgy in the Jerusalem

Temple led by priests, as well as the personal and more democratic prayers of
ordinary individuals. Both forms of worship strengthened during the Second
Temple period, and there was some degree of mutual influence between them.
Hellenistic Judaism gave the word λειτουργία a meaning that associated it al-
most exclusively with the Jerusalem cult, while Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls,
and the earliest rabbinic traditions preferred to use the Hebrew on which it is
based, namely, ‫עבודה‬, for a broader range of activities. While early Christianity
gave λειτουργία a new theological meaning and a central significance for its
religious identity and expression, the rabbis were for some time more ambiva-
lent about what constituted ‫עבודה‬, now that the Jewish people’s central shrine
in Jerusalem had been destroyed.
Liturgical poetry made much of the temple rituals, especially relating to
Yom Kippur, in many of its earliest compositions, but then gradually allowed
the center of attention to move from that form of worship to the statutory
prayers of the synagogue. In one example of the expansion of Jewish literary
expression, the Geonim, the religious and intellectual leaders of the powerful
Jewish communities in post-talmudic Babylonia, composed, authorized, and
disseminated the first rabbinic prayer books (siddurim). During their period of
domination, the practice of including the recitation of chapters of Psalms and
other biblical passages within the prescribed synagogal liturgy was substan-
tially increased and gradually adopted on a more formal basis than hitherto. As
the medium for transcribing and transmitting rabbinic prayers evolved from
a fairly primitive set of folios to a rather grand bound volume, so the material
contained in it acquired a greater and almost canonical status. Aspects of syna-
gogue activity became sacrosanct, and items that had originally been auxiliary
elements were incorporated into, or widely regarded as, formal liturgy. Such
developments may justifiably be defined as adaptation, formalization, stan-
dardization, or canonization. It seems to me, however, that a strong case may
be made for regarding all these adjustments—or at least some of them—as
indicative of a process of ritualization of elements of Jewish worship that had
not previously attracted such a description.
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Safrai, Shmuel, and Ze’ev Safrai. Haggadah of the Sages. Jerusalem: Carta, 2009.
Sanders, E. P. Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE. London: SCM, 1992.
Sharvit, Shimon. Tractate Avoth through the Ages: A Critical Edition, Prolegomena, and
Appendices [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2004.
Sirat, Colette. Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge
Swartz, Michael D. “Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Towards an Understanding of the
‘Avodah’ in the Rabbinic Period.” JJTP 6 (1997): 135–55.
Swartz, Michael D. “Sage, Priest and Poet: Typologies of Religious Leadership in the
Ancient Synagogue.” Pages 101–17 in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient
Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period. Edited by Steven
Fine. London: Routledge, 1999.
Tabory, Joseph. JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation
and Commentary. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2008.
Taylor, Charles. Sayings of the Jewish Fathers: Sefer Dibre Aboth Ha-Olam; Comprising
Pirque Aboth in Hebrew and English with Critical Notes and Excurses. 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1897.
Wells, Samuel, and Kocher, Abigail. Eucharistic Prayers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans;
Norwich: Canterbury, 2016.
Yahalom, Joseph. Az Be‘eyn Kol: Priestly Palestinian Poetry; A Narrative Liturgy for the
Day of Atonement [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996.
Chapter 2
Ritualizing the Cleaning of the House before

Passover in Medieval Ashkenaz: Image and Text in
Illuminated Haggadot
Katrin Kogman-Appel
Until roughly the year 1300, the haggadah generally circulated as part of the
siddur, the general prayer book, but from the late thirteenth century on, hag-
gadot began to be produced as separate small books. The emergence of the
individually bound haggadah went hand in hand with the development of rich
illustration programs.1 As far as we can judge from the surviving material, il-
lustrated haggadot developed in Sefardi and Ashkenazi culture in parallel, but
independently. It was only in the fifteenth century that the two traditions met
and that there was an exchange between them.2
The Passover celebration commemorates the events that led Israel out of
pharaonic bondage into freedom and thus fulfills a biblical commandment:
“Remember this day on which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage,
how the Lord freed you from it with a mighty hand: no leavened bread shall be
eaten.”3 The commemoration ceremony entails three ritual actions prescribed
in the Bible: a sacrifice,4 a ceremonial meal,5 and the narration of the story of
the liberation: “And you shall explain to your son on that day, ‘it is because of
what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.’ ”6
1 Earlier literature on the emergence of the haggadah as individual book and its imagery in-
cludes Joseph Gutmann, “The Illuminated Medieval Passover Haggadah: Investigations and
Research Problems,” SBBL 7 (1965): 3–25; Mendel Metzger, La Haggada enluminée: Étude
iconographique et stylistique des manuscrits enluminés et decorés de la Haggada du XIIIe
au XVIe siècle (Leiden: Brill, 1973); Bezalel Narkiss, introduction to Hebrew Illuminated
Manuscripts [Hebrew], 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1984).
2 For some observations, see Katrin Kogman-Appel, “Creating a Visual Repertoire for the Late
Medieval Haggadah,” in Sephardim and Ashkenazim: Jewish-Jewish Encounters in History and
Literature, ed. Sina Rauschenbach and Kerstin Schorr (Berlin: de Gruyter, forthcoming).
3 Exod 13:3; all quotations from the Bible in English follow NJPS.
4 Exod 12:3.
5 Exod 12:6.
6 Exod 13:8.

Image and Text in Illuminated Haggadot 29
We have no knowledge about the possible reasons for the development of

the haggadah as a separate book, and undoubtedly there were several. The
recitation of the haggadah during the Passover Seder is accompanied by nu-
merous rituals, most of them related to the commemorative functions of the
foodstuff served and consumed during the meal. From its roots in antiquity as
a sacrificial meal, the Seder received a clearly structured textual component
during the early Middle Ages. Most of the symbolic foods were put on the table
in the late antique period, but how their consumption was ritualized is not
quite clear. Among other possibilities, the crystallization of the haggadah as an
individual book might have to do with these ritualization processes.
At the time the Jerusalem Temple still stood, the sacrifice, which required
the presence of a quorum, was performed in the temple courtyard, and was
thus clearly a communal ritual.7 After the sacrifice, the lamb was taken home
to be roasted and consumed in a more private setting. After the destruction of
the temple and the discontinuation of the sacrifice, the ceremony became fully
centered in the private sphere, and from that time on was concentrated on the
ritual of narration. From the consumption of a publicly slaughtered sacrificial
animal, the Passover ritual evolved into a meal that included various rituals
that involved consuming foodstuffs that are designed to enhance the com-
memorative act. Thus, throughout the late antique period, the nature of both
the ritual meal and the ritual act of narration changed. This process remained
dynamic throughout the medieval period, as the ritualistic aspect of many ac-
tions was enhanced and new ritual acts were added.
The requirement to rid the house of all leaven and to consume unleavened
bread for seven days entailed certain preparatory activities. From a set of hal-
akhic instructions formulated in the late antique period about how to go about
certain preparations, these acts were also ritualized during the Middle Ages
and eventually incorporated into books containing the liturgical text. The
present paper focuses on one of these preparatory actions in an attempt to
pinpoint its emergence as a ritual act. In parallel these activities also began
to be visualized. The preparation for the holiday consists of several different
components: ridding the house of leaven and engaging in several other actions
to render the household fit for the Passover week, such as scalding dishes, bak-
ing unleavened bread, and placing various foods that have commemorative
meaning on the table. The focus of the following discussion is on the cleaning
process.
7 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 79b.

30 Kogman-Appel
On the day before Passover, every Jewish household was and still is occupied
with removing every trace of leaven from the house. A final search is carried
out before the eve of the fifteenth of Nisan, and whatever is found is destroyed.
These acts are accompanied by a blessing. Halakhists both north of the Alps
and south of the Pyrenees taught their communities how to proceed, and these
rituals could be and were visualized in both cultures. Yet the circumstances,
reasons, and functions of these visualizations were different.
In some of the illuminated haggadah manuscripts, these images resonate
with textual elements that were introduced into the haggadah. My observa-
tions suggest that the ritualization of these preparatory acts was particularly
characteristic of Ashkenazi communities, so I first deal with the evidence from
central Europe and then take a closer look at Sefardi manuscripts by means of
comparison. I will suggest that images of preparation scenes there may have
functioned differently. In Sefarad these depictions appear as part of a broader
historiosophic scheme that the Sefardi image cycles communicate, in which
there seems to have been less concern with their ritual implications. I focus on
the Ashkenazi material, as a thorough analysis of the Sefardi examples against
the background of the halakhic law and practice goes beyond the framework
of the current study.
Tractate Pesahim of the Mishnah begins with instructions to search for
leaven:
On the evening of the fourteenth [of Nisan] a search is made for leav-
en by the light of the candle. Every place wherein leavened bread is not
taken does not require searching, then in what case did they rule, two
rows of the wine cellar [must be searched]. [Concerning] a place wherein
leaven might be taken, Beth Shammai maintain: two rows over the front
of the whole cellar; but Beth Hillel maintain: the two outer rows, which
are the uppermost. We have no fear that a rat may have dragged [leaven]
from one room to another or from one spot to another. Or if so [we must
also fear] from courtyard to courtyard and from town to town [and] the
matter is endless. Rabbi Judah said: we search on the evening of the four-
teenth, and in the morning the fourteenth, and at the time of removal.
But the Sages maintain: if he did not search in the evening of the four-
teenth, he must search on the fourteenth; if he did not search in [the
morning of] the fourteenth, he must search at the appointed time; if he
did not search at the appointed time, he must search after the appointed
time. And what he leaves over he must put away in a hidden place, so
that he should not need searching after it. Rabbi Meir said: one may eat
[leaven] the whole of the five [hours] and must burn [it] at the beginning
of the sixth. Rabbi Judah said: one may eat the whole of the four [hours].
Keep it in suspense the whole of the fifth, and must burn it at the begin-
ning of the sixth.8
The search has to be performed with the aid of a candle; one has to search
places where leaven is found throughout the year; once the leaven has been
collected there is no need to concern oneself with the possibility that rodents
would drag crumbs back into the house. The section is also concerned with
the precise timing of the search. Neither the blessing for the search nor the
formula for the annulment of leaven that had been forgotten is spelled out.
The Gemara to Pesahim in the Babylonian Talmud and later halakhic treatises
go into great detail about these mishnaic prescriptions. Maimonides’s (Moses
ben Maimon, d. 1204) halakhic codex, Mishne Torah, for example, summarizes
the instructions by basically following the Mishnah. However, Maimonides
went into much greater detail and also approached them stringently. As the
Mishnah and the Talmud, his text insists on a candle and underscores that one
is not allowed to use a torch. However, in contrast to the Mishnah, if one saw
a mouse dragging crumbs of leaven back into the house, one had to repeat the
search. Maimonides was also more explicit regarding the various locations that
have to be searched: holes, hidden places, and corners. Leftovers of leaven that
can still be eaten before the burning should be set aside in a closed container
so that no mouse can reach them. Maimonides also spelled out the blessing
for destroying the leaven and the formula for nullifying any possibly unnoticed
leaven.9
Illustrated haggadot began to appear toward the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury and, as noted, the development of this book genre coincided roughly with
the emergence of the haggadah as a separate book. For some time, however,
prayer books that included the haggadah and individual haggadot coexisted. At
some point, instructions for the search and the destruction of leaven, together
with other preparative acts, such as washing the dishes, baking unleavened
bread, and setting the table for the ceremony were embedded in the haggadah
liturgy, and these acts were also often visualized.
8 Mishnah Pesahim 1:1–4; the English version of the quotation is based on Isidore Epstein, ed.,
The Babylonian Talmud (London: Soncino, 1935–1952), with slight changes for accuracy and
clarity.
9 Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Sefer Zemanim, Hamets umatsah, ch. 2–3; for an English version,
see Moses Maimonides, The Code of Maimonides, ed. and transl. Isaac Klein (New Haven: Yale
32 Kogman-Appel
Before I discuss these images, however, I relate to another observation

that leads us to the liturgy that was performed during the musaf service on
the Great Sabbath before Passover. The Western Ashkenazi rite for holidays
included the liturgical poem (piyyut) Adir dar metuhim (“The Invincible
Dwelling on High”).10 The author of this piyyut is unknown (it is attributed to
one Menahem), and we do not know when it was first included in the musaf
service. It presents, in poetic form, a series of instructions for preparing for the
upcoming Passover during the days between the Great Sabbath and the seder
ceremony. The piyyut places particular emphasis on the washing of the dishes
and the search for leaven; the preparation of matzot is also described briefly
toward the end.11
Another poem, Elohe ruhot lekhol basar (“The Lord, Source of the Breath of
All Flesh”),12 which also discusses the preparations, was composed in the elev-
enth century by Joseph ben Samuel Tov Elem. Originally from southern France,
and thus of Sefardi background, Joseph ben Samuel was active as a scholar in
Limoges and Anjou, and his poetry impacted the French rite.
The manuscript evidence of medieval mahzorim does not enable us to pin-
point exactly when these two piyyutim began to be read on a regular basis, but
as we shall see in a moment, by the twelfth century Adir dar metuhim must
have been included in the Western Ashkenazi rite. It is likely that at the same
time Joseph ben Samuel’s poem was read in France. There is manuscript evi-
dence from the late thirteenth century onward that it was also included in the
Eastern Ashkenazi rite.13 Thus, memorizing the instructions on the Sabbath
before Passover had by then become a part of the liturgy—the act of memoriz-
ing had become ritualized. The verses follow a rhythmic structure and some
are rhymed, so it can be memorized more easily than an ordinary halakhic
prescription.
10 Israel Davidson, Thesaurus of Hebrew Poems and Liturgical Hymns from the Canonization
of Scripture to the Emancipation (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
1924), 1: no. 1082.
11 See, e.g., Adir dar metuhim [“The Invincible Dwelling on High”], in Leipzig Mahzor, Leipzig,
Universitätsbibliothek, MS Voller 1002/I, fols. 68v–70v, where some of the instructions are
also visualized; see below. For a printed version, see Mahzor keminhag q”q Ashkenazim
(Venice: Zuan di Gara, 1599), pt. 1, 151b.
12 Davidson, Thesaurus, 1: no. 4691; the title is based on Num 27:16.
13 It is included in the Nuremberg Mahzor, Zurich, private collection of David Jeselsohn and
Jemima Jeselsohn, Jes. 9, fols. 73v–75r; for a digital edition, see National Library of Israel,
Digital Library, http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/digitallibrary/pages/viewer.aspx?
&presentorid=MANUSCRIPTS&docid=PNX_MANUSCRIPTS002550585-1. I am greatly in-
debted to Elisabeth Hollender from Goethe Universität in Frankfurt for telling me about
Joseph ben Samuel’s piyyut and helping me with the manuscript reference.
Around the same time, commentaries on these piyyutim were written in both
France and Ashkenaz, which suggests that they were the subject of enhanced
scholarly interest.14 In 2006, Simhah Imanuel published a Passover sermon for
the Great Sabbath by Eleazar of Worms (d. ca. 1232),15 which elaborated on the
precepts noted in Adir dar metuhim. Imanuel argues that the sermon was to be
delivered annually and that it evolved into a formula, a fixed text to be recited
not only by Eleazar himself but also by his students and followers. Thus, not
only the preparatory acts themselves listed in the piyyut attained the status of
rituals, but even the commentating sermon became ritualized. From various
references in halakhic sources, we learn that such ritualized sermons were also
common among other late medieval Ashkenazi rabbis, including Haim ben
Moses Or Zarua in the early fourteenth century, Shalom ben Isaac of Neustadt
(d. ca. 1413), and Jacob ben Moses Levi Moelin (“Maharil,” d. 1427).16 However,
Eleazar’s sermon is the only one that has come down to us in written form.
The early history of these piyyutim, their commentaries, and Eleazar’s ser-
mon indicate clearly that by the late thirteenth century at the latest, these
preparations were considered not only halakhic precepts to be observed dur-
ing the days before Passover, but ritual acts to be performed. As I have shown
elsewhere, in the thirteenth century in Worms, and perhaps in other Ashkenazi
communities as well, some of these ritual acts, such as the scalding of the
dishes and the baking of the matzot were not performed privately within the
household, but were carried out in the communal arena. Among other reasons,
the ritualization of the preparatory acts may have been a result of this process.17
In the Leipzig Mahzor, produced in Worms around 1310–1320, the poem Adir
dar metuhim is accompanied by two images, one depicting the scalding of the
dishes to make them fit for the Passover week, and the other the baking of the
matzot in a communal oven (see figs. 2.1 and 2.2).18
14 Elisabeth Hollender, Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript

(Leiden: Brill, 2005), 101–102, lists thirteen Ashkenazi manuscript sources as well as one
from France; for a commentary on Elohe ruhot lekhol basar, see Samuel ben Solomon of
Falaise from the thirteenth century, included in Sefer or zarua, ed. Isaac ben Moses and
Ya’akov Mordekhai Hirshenzohn (Zhitomir: Shapiro Brothers, 1862), 2:114–20; I owe this
reference to Elisabeth Hollender.
15 Eleazar ben Judah, of Worms, Derashah le-Fesah, ed. Simhah Imanuel (Jerusalem: Meqitse
Nirdamim, 2006).
16 Imanuel, ed., Derasha, 43.
17 Katrin Kogman-Appel, A Mahzor from Worms: Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish
Community (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 57–59.
18 For the attribution of the Leipzig Mahzor to Worms, see Kogman-Appel, Mahzor from
Worms, 10–35.
34 Kogman-Appel
Figure 2.1 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Voller 1002/I (Leipzig Mahzor), fol. 68r,
Worms, c. 1310–20, illustration to the poem Adir dar metuhim: scalding the dishes
Figure 2.1 shows two women standing beside an enormous cauldron set over a
fire. Various metal dishes, highlighted in gold, are pictured on the cauldron to
indicate its contents. The women have other items in their hands: a bucket, not
to be scalded, but for adding water; a metal platter, likewise in gold; and a large
knife with a wooden handle. The piyyut includes precise instructions about
the kinds of dishes and implements that have to be burned or scalded in order
to become ritually clean for the festival. For example, knives have to be cleaned
carefully and then scalded. The piyyut concisely summarizes more complex
Figure 2.2 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Voller 1002/I (Leipzig Mahzor), fol. 70r,
Worms, c. 1310–20, illustration to the poem Adir dar metuhim: baking unleavened
bread
halakic issues that concern primarily the types of materials that can be made
kosher. The way the dishes are used is also a factor in how they can be rendered
kosher. Eleazar’s sermon explicates matters of scalding in great detail, whereas
the rules for burning are very short. He opens the discussion by saying:
Every vessel that came in contact with leaven by heating has to be scald-
ed. This includes cauldrons used for cooking and boiling vessels…. Our
36 Kogman-Appel
wooden bowls are to be scalded … An iron pan will be scalded in the caul-
dron…. Likewise an iron used for cutting meat, if it came in contact with
leaven, it has to be scalded…. A knife needs to be scalded.19
The image in the Leipzig Mahzor, which similarly focuses on the scalding
procedures, is somewhat ambiguous in specifying the precise nature of the dif-
ferent dishes. But the variety of utensils, some of them clearly made of metal,
indicates that it was meant as a reference to these discussions.20
Let us now turn to the evidence from illustrated manuscripts of the hagga-
dah. I suggest that like the recitation of the piyyut and its status in the western
Ashkenazi rite, the inclusion of textual and visual references to the cleaning
procedures in the haggadah is a mark of the degree to which these acts had
been ritualized. The earliest illustrated haggadah appears in a northern French
miscellany from circa 1280, now in London.21 This haggadah is part of the sid-
dur, which contains only the actual text beginning with “This is the Bread of
Distress.” There is no reference—either textual or visual—to any of the prepa-
rations, or to the kiddush, as is common in individual haggadot. It is only when
the first individual haggadah appeared as a separate book genre that we begin
to find instructions for some of the preparatory acts.
Around 1300 the earliest surviving such book, now in the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem, was produced in the Middle Rhine region.22 Owing to the fact that
most of its figures feature birds’ heads, the manuscript is commonly known as
the “Bird’s Head Haggadah.”23 At the beginning we read:
19 Imanuel, ed., Derashah, 72–76.

20 For a more detailed discussion of these images, see Kogman-Appel, Mahzor from Worms,
92–98.
21 The Northern French Miscellany, London, British Library, Add. MS 11639; British Library,
Digitised Manuscripts, http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_
11639&index=21; for a facsimile edition, see Jeremy Schonfield, ed., The North French
Hebrew Miscellany: British Library Add. Ms. 11639, (London: Facsimile Editions, 2003),
fols. 204r–207r.
22 Bird’s Head Haggadah, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/57; for a facsimile edition,
see Moshe Spitzer, ed., The Bird’s Head Haggadah of the Bezalel National Art Museum in
Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1965); for a description and scans of earlier photographs,
see Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Center for Jewish Art, The Bezalel Narkiss Index
of Jewish Art, http://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=set&id=1.
23 Bird and animal heads are quite common in Ashkenazi manuscripts produced between
ca. 1230 and 1350, and many attempts have been made to explain this feature. Here is not
the place to elaborate on this; for the most recent attempt to explain the phenomenon,
with particular focus on the Bird’s Head Haggadah, see Marc M. Epstein, The Medieval
Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2010), 19–128.
At the eve of Passover, when returning from the synagogue one brings
to the table a bowl and in it three guarded matzot for the fulfillment of
the precept; various sorts of vegetables [such as] lettuce, which is called
lituga and eppia;24 two [cooked] dishes, meat and an egg, one to com-
memorate the Passover sacrifice and the other to commemorate the ha-
gigah [“sacrifice”]; and a dish with haroset to commemorate the mortar.25
The text, which is written in the same large square script as the haggadah text
itself and covers almost the entire page, is accompanied by a small marginal
image showing a man seated and grinding haroset (see fig. 2.3).
The fact that the text is not written in cursive script, as was common for
instructions in liturgical manuscripts, but rather in large square script, shows
that this section was not considered a mere explanatory addition, but had a
status similar to that of a liturgical text.
It is not clear, however, if the Bird’s Head Haggadah was the first to include
a textual element that addresses any of these preliminary actions. Among
the hundreds of haggadah fragments discovered in the Cairo Genizah, one,
a torn sheet from a manuscript, contains parts of the haggadah on the verso
page (“our fathers were idolaters …”) and instructions in Judeo-Arabic on the
recto page. This fragment also includes the blessing for the burning of leav-
en. Neither the date nor the context of this sheet is known, and it is not clear
whether it was part of a siddur or a Geonic halakic treatise that also contained
the text of the haggadah.26 Whereas this fragment could thus serve as evidence
of an early stage of including instructions for the cleaning ritual in the actual
haggadah, the fragmentary state of the undated manuscript does not allow us
to pinpoint such an early beginning.
The Bird’s Head Haggadah and the Leipzig Mahzor were produced within
the same time span, that is, roughly between 1300 and 1320, and within the
same cultural vicinity, the Middle Rhine region. The two manuscripts were
probably written by the same scribe, one Menahem.27 Both originated from
24 In German: Lattich and Eppich; the latter is an old name for either parsley or celery.
25 Bird’s Head Haggadah, fol. 3r. Trans. of the author.
26 The fragment is kept in New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, ENA 696.8–9, and refer-
enced a few times in Shmuel Safrai and Ze’ev Safrai, Haggadah of the Sages: The Passover
Haggadah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Karta, 1998), 89, arguing that this is the earliest evidence
for the blessing within a haggadah.
27 The Bird’s Head Haggadah also includes depictions of the preparation and baking of the
matzot, fols. 26v–27r; these, however, have more of a historical than a ritual dimension,
and visualize the historical preparation of unleavened bread during the departure from
Egypt.
38 Kogman-Appel
Figure 2.3 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/56 (Bird’s Head Haggadah), fol. 3r, Middle
Rhine, ca. 1300, preparation of haroset
the celebrated Shum communities (Speyer, Worms, and Mainz), which were
famed for their scholarly traditions and their prayer rites. Of these, the Worms
rite was particularly outstanding, and the Leipzig Mahzor may well be among
its earliest surviving witnesses.
My observations thus far suggest that the Middle Rhine region, and the
community of Worms in particular, may have played a formative role in final-
izing the process of ritualizing the preparations before Passover. The poem
Adir dar metuhim was also recited elsewhere in western Ashkenaz, but it was
in Worms that Eleazar preached his sermon and made it into a formulaic text
that became part of the ritual for the Great Sabbath. Moreover, it was in Worms,
where, under the influence of Eleazar’s scholarship, the piyyut was first visual-
ized. Further, the Bird’s Head Haggadah, which is among the earliest exemplars
of individual haggadot, was produced nearby. That haggadah introduced an
instructive text that explained how to proceed in preparing for the holiday as if
it were part of the liturgy, and featured an adjacent illustration.
Later, in the fifteenth century, Ashkenazi haggadot began to include a
short paragraph that opened with the same verse as does the Mishnaic trac-
tate Pesahim: “On the evening of the fourteenth [of Nisan] a search is made
for leaven by the light of the candle.” It does not follow a fixed formula; some
manuscripts continue with the Mishnah’s next verse, whereas others include a
paraphrase of other elements from the same portion of the Mishnah. In most
manuscripts, this paragraph, which also appears in large square script, as if it
was part of the actual liturgical text, concludes with the blessing for the de-
struction of leaven and a liturgical formula to be said during the final search
for leaven to annul any leaven that may have gone unnoticed:
Blessed are You, God, our Lord, King of the universe,who has sanctified us
by His commandments and commanded us about removing the leaven.
All leaven that is in my possession, that I have seen and not seen, that
I have beheld and not beheld, that I have removed and not removed—let
it be nullified and like the dust of the earth.28
In many haggadot from the fifteenth century, this text is also illustrated.
The first manuscript to include such a text was perhaps the Hamburg
Miscellany, produced in Mainz in the 1430s. It is not an individual haggadah,
but one that is embedded in the siddur. The text “On the evening …” appears
28 The translation follows David Stern’s translation in Katrin Kogman-Appel and David
Stern, The Washington Haggadah: A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript from the Library of
Congress (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 123–61.
40 Kogman-Appel
in cursive, and only the blessings and the annulment formula are written in
square script. There are no illustrations in the margins.29 In the Erna Michael
Haggadah, produced in Bohemia on an unknown date near the middle of the
fifteenth century, the blessings for the disposal of leaven are introduced by a
brief sentence: “On the evening of the fourteenth [of Nissan] one performs the
search for leaven by the light of a candle.” That is followed by the somewhat
formulaic instructions for the head of the house as to how to set the table.
Written in square script, they are similar to those in the Bird’s Head Haggadah,
and thus again are in a way incorporated into the Passover liturgy. There are no
images on these two pages.30
Born in the Rhineland during the 1420s, Joel ben Simeon was one of the
most prolific figures in late medieval Ashkenazi book production. Having been
trained as a scribe at an early age (two illustrated haggadot from this phase of
his career are extant), he moved to northern Italy shortly before 1450. There
he signed a large group of manuscripts either as the scribe, the illuminator, or
both. His long career was to last until approximately 1490.31 As I have argued
elsewhere, Joel was a particularly original illustrator, who created a rich pic-
torial repertoire of haggadah imagery that had an important impact on the
emergence of the illustrated haggadah as a widely disseminated book genre.32
One of Joel’s early Italian works is a haggadah, now in the Fondation Martin
Bodmer in Cologny, Canton of Geneva.33 Opening the book we find a few
pages preceding the actual haggadah text: “With good fortune I shall begin to
29 Hamburg Miscellany, Hamburg, Staats- und Landesbibliothek, Cod. Heb. 37, fol. 22r; for
scans of earlier photographs, see Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bezalel Narkiss Index,
http://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=set&id=21794.
30 Erna Michael Haggadah, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 181/18, fols. 3v–4r; on fol. 1v
there is a brief explanation listing the required actions; Tal Goitein, “The Erna Michael
Haggadah: An Ashkenazi Manuscript in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem” (MA thesis,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010), 4–5; for scans of earlier photographs, see
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bezalel Narkiss Index, http://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.
php?mode=alone&id=4544.
31 For a recent discussion of Joel’s biography and his works, with numerous references to the
earlier literature, see Kogman-Appel and Stern, Washington Haggadah.
32 Katrin Kogman-Appel, “The Audiences of the Late Medieval Haggadah,” in Patronage,
Production, and Transmission of Texts in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Cultures, ed.
Jonathan Decter and Esperanza Alfonso (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 99–143.
33 For a facsimile edition, see Maurice Ruben Hayoun, ed., Haggadah de Pessah: La Pâque
juive; Manuscrit du XV e siècle copié et enluminé par Joël ben Siméon Feibusch Ashkénazi
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011); for a digital edition, see Pesach Haggadah,
Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 81, E-Codices: Virtual Manuscript
Library of Switzerland, http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/thumbs/fmb/cb-0081; for the
preparatory sections, see fols. 1r–3r.
write the seder for the destruction of leaven and in general issues that con-
cern the Passover.” What follows is not just a brief formulaic paragraph, but
a whole brief treatise. It begins with instructions—covering the first page—
regarding the way to perform the search for leaven, as well as the annulment
and the destruction of leftovers with the respective blessings. The next page
bears the heading: seder hag’ala (“seder for the cleansing [of the dishes]”). This
section covers almost the entire page, and at its end we find another heading,
seder lishat matsah (“seder for the kneading of [the dough for] the unleavened
bread”). That is followed by instructions for the eruv tavshilin, a ritual that per-
mits the preparation of food for the Sabbath during the holiday when the first
day of Passover falls on a Friday. The last section before the actual beginning
of the haggadah is a lengthy explanation of the seder pesah, the order of ritual
acts to be performed during the meal. It is only on the sixth page that we find
the text for the kiddush.
The Bodmer Haggadah was also the first Ashkenazi haggadah to include an
image of the cleaning ritual (see fig. 2.4). A small drawing inserted at the end
of the seder for the destruction of leaven shows a young man near a cupboard.
He is holding a bowl and a feather with which to wipe the upper section of
the cupboard. An adjacent banderole bears the inscription: “the burning of
leaven.”
The inclusion of a lengthy text with halakhic instructions, all entitled “seder
…”, defines them as a fixed order of acts accompanied by blessings. The ad-
dition of an image indicates that by 1450 this process of ritualization of the
preparatory actions, which began with the inclusion of the above-mentioned
piyyutim in the liturgy of the Great Sabbath, had reached a high point. The
instructions were likely to have been added at the patron’s request, and they
may very well have generated the inclusion of an image, the first of its kind in
an Ashkenazi haggadah.
The most spectacular treatment of the preparation rituals in terms of their
visualization appears in two closely related haggadot from circa 1465 produced,
most likely, in Franconia. They do not offer much as far as textual evidence
is concerned, as they include only the standard quotation of the Mishnah,
but they expand the visualization of the cleaning ritual (together with the
other preparations) into a full cycle of six to seven individual images. The two
manuscripts were copied and decorated in parallel by a team of scribes and
illustrators working together.34 One of the manuscripts, which is now in the
34 Katrin Kogman-Appel, Die zweite Nürnberger und die Jehuda Haggada: Jüdische
Illustratoren zwischen Tradition und Fortschritt, JU 69 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1999), ch. 6,
225–41.
42 Kogman-Appel
Figure 2.4 Cologny Genève, Fondation Martin Bodmer MS 81 (Joel ben Simeon), fol. 1r, Italy,
ca. 1450, the search for leaven
private collection of David Sofer in London, was housed in the Germanische

Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg until 1955, and thus became known as the
Second Nuremberg Haggadah.35 In 1955 it was transferred to the Library of the
Schocken Institute in Jerusalem, and later to the Sofer collection. The second
manuscript, known as Yahuda Haggadah, is now in the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem.36
The preparation of unleavened bread and the cleaning of the house from
leaven are visualized in these two manuscripts in a whole series of detailed
images that cover four pages in the Yahuda Haggadah and five in the Second
Nuremberg Haggadah. Elsewhere I have dealt with these images in terms of
their halakic background, posing questions about rabbinic authority and the
role the halakah played in late medieval Ashkenaz.37 The remarks that follow
build on my earlier conclusions, but, in accordance with the theme of this
volume, address a different set of questions.
As all the pictures in these books, the preparation scenes are accompanied
by rhymed captions that offer textual explanations. The images depict these
preparations action by action, while the captions point to the different halakic
precepts, recommendations, and restrictions. They go well beyond the mere
genre of illustration, and the viewer could follow them as a set of detailed in-
structions. The first series shows the preparations of matzot: from the moment
the wheat was brought to the mill to be ground to flour under careful supervi-
sion to ensure that it did not come into contact with water; to the kneading of
the dough not to be interrupted so that it would not turn into leaven; to the
piercing of the breads, and the baking in an enormous oven.38
As to the cleaning scenes, let us follow the imagery as it appears in the Yahuda
Haggadah on the margins of the instructive text and the blessing (see figs. 2.5
and 2.6). We see a large, two-story building with a basement. On the upper
floor, a man is shown searching with a candle and a bowl in a similar way to the
one we found in the Bodmer Haggadah (see fig. 2.4). On a lower floor, a woman
busies herself with a large broom; and in the wine cellar, a youth is looking for
any possible leftovers. All the captions paraphrase halakic instructions, mostly
35 Second Nürnburg Haggadah, London, David Sofer Collection; for a description and scans
of earlier photographs, see Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bezalel Narkiss Index, http://
cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=set&id=30.
36 Yahuda Haggadah, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50; for a description and scans of
earlier photographs, see Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bezalel Narkiss Index, http://
cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=set&id=11.
37 Kogman-Appel, Zweite Nürnberger, 95–106.
38 Second Nuremberg Haggadah, fols. 1v–2v; Yahuda Haggadah, fols. 1v–2r.
44 Kogman-Appel
Figure 2.5 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50 (Yahuda Haggadah), fol. 2v, Franconia,
ca. 1460–1465, clearing the house of leaven
Figure 2.6 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50 (Yahuda Haggadah), fol. 3r, Franconia,
ca. 1460–1465, the search for leaven
46 Kogman-Appel
found in tractate Pesahim:39 “By the light of a candle, and not by the light of a
torch, one has to make the search;” “in the cellar one searches the upper and
the lower rows (of wine barrels).”40 The next page shows a youth scattering
crumbs in the courtyard, where they are eaten by a raven. The caption, again
referring to halakic instructions, explains: “In the courtyard there is no need
[to perform a search], because the ravens are there.” A man is shown holding a
bowl with the leftovers and a feather, and the inscription notes that he is in the
act of reciting the blessing. A youth puts crumbs in a closable container, while
two mice eagerly await the treat: “Even though he does not know a thing, he
hides the leaven so that the mouse will not eat it.” Another caption tells us that
on the following morning, the remaining leaven, having been hidden in a her-
metic container, is burnt: “On the morrow one burns [the leaven]; and delays
[what is left] and each one annuls the burnt [leaven] in his heart.”
The instructions for performing these actions are straightforward, and in
their basic form they were spelled out as early as the late antique period. Later
halakhic codices add a few guidelines and precepts to settle matters further,
such as the requirement to keep leftovers in a closed container during the
night before the final disposal of the leaven. Late medieval minhagim books
do not add any halakic innovations; however, reading them further empha-
sizes how far these acts had been ritualized in the course of the Middle Ages.
One example is the Sefer Maharil, compiled by Jacob Moelin’s (the Maharil’s)
student Zalman of St. Goar. Jacob Moelin was born and raised in Mainz and
was first active as a rabbi there; later we find him in Worms, where he died in
1427. The discussion of the search in the Sefer Maharil is particularly lengthy
and goes into great detail. It opens by determining the precise timing for the
search after water has been brought for the preparation of the matzot. Before
one begins with the search and recites the blessing over it, one has to ritually
wash one’s hands:
One has to clean one’s hands before reciting the blessing over the search.
Everybody who recites a blessing has to [ritually] wash his hands before
[the blessing]. This is what the paytan (“composer of liturgical poetry”)
determined in the seder as it appears in Adir dar metuhin…. And when [the
head of the household] utters the blessing over the search, all the mem-
bers of his house stand by him and conclude his blessing by answering
39 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim, 7b.

40 The translations follow Bezalel Narkiss and Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, The Second Nuremberg
Haggadah: The Yahuda Haggadot, vol. 2, pt. 2–3 of Index of Jewish Art: Iconographical
Index of Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Munich: Saur, 1981).
“Amen.” Then [the members of his house] can trust the blessing and as-
sist him in the search, because even when they [people] are occupied
with one precept, one of them performs the blessing for everybody.41
The text thus does not merely state that the blessing has to be said, as required
for any precept, but it shows to what degree it had been ritualized and turned
into some sort of liturgical act. It requires the washing of hands and the atten-
dance of all the members of the household.
The same applies to the formula for the nullification of possibly overlooked
leaven. In haggadot and halakic companions, the formula appears in Aramaic.
Jacob Moelin elaborated on the importance of the nullification and offered
detailed instructions. The nullification has to be performed immediately after
the search. Those who do not know the Aramaic formula can nullify the leaven
in the “Ashkenazi language.” If a man assists a widow in nullifying the leaven
and she does not know the formula, he will utter it in her stead while she is
standing near him. Jacob Moelin emphasized that during all these acts, mun-
dane conversations are forbidden, another indicator of the degree to which the
procedures had been ritualized.42
Let me now take a brief look, by way of comparison, at how Sefardi hag-
gadot dealt visually with the preparations toward the festival. It appears that
even though the blessings and the nullification formula were the same, the
visual language in these manuscripts did not emphasize the ritualization of
the search in the same way that Ashkenazi haggadot did. The earliest surviv-
ing Sefardi haggadah, dated to circa 1280, originated in Castile and is now in
London.43 Like most other illuminated Sefardi haggadot, it includes an ex-
tensive image cycle of biblical events from the book of Exodus leading to the
departure of the Israelites from Egypt. However, the preparations that are re-
lated so prominently in works from Ashkenaz are not mentioned anywhere
in the text. The book opens with the text of the kiddush and continues imme-
diately with the haggadah. The text is decorated by numerous initial panels,
but is not accompanied by any ritual illustrations. It concludes with biblical
excerpts from Exodus, paraphrases based on Targumim, and the hagiographs
41 Bar Ilan Responsa Project, Sefer Maharil: Hilkhot bediqat hamets, 1–20, in Responsa Project:
The Database for Jewish Studies (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1972–).
42 Responsa, Sefer Maharil, 7.
43 Haggadah, London, British Library, MS Or. 2737; British Library, Digitised Manuscripts,
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?index=0&ref=Or_2737; for a recent dis-
cussion of this manuscript, contextualizing it in the history of the Jews of Toledo, see Julie
Harris, “Love in the Land of Goshen: Haggadah, History, and the Making of British Library,
MS Oriental 2737,” Gesta 52.2 (2013): 161–80.
48 Kogman-Appel
to be read during Passover; thus, again, highlighting the historical focus of the
Sefardi haggadah. The last pages of the small book are covered with biblical il-
lustrations that begin with the bondage in Egypt and terminate with the Song
of Miriam.
It is only at that point that we encounter several images visualizing some
of the acts to be performed before the ceremony can start, among them an
image of the scalding of the dishes, one of putting the dishes in the mikvah,
and one of the baking of the matzot.44 This series, however, is unique, and the
scenes generally do not recur anywhere in later Sefardi manuscripts. Moreover,
it follows the biblical cycle immediately, as if to link it to the biblical Passover
rather than to the medieval ceremonies as they were performed by the medi-
eval owners of the book. The series also contains two images that deal with the
distribution of unleavened bread and haroset to other members in the com-
munity. It concludes with a depiction of the seder meal and the roasting of the
Passover lamb. This last image is significant: it was only in antiquity, when the
temple was still standing, that an entire lamb was roasted. In the Middle Ages,
a chunk of meat was roasted rather than an entire lamb. The book concludes
with a few illustrations from the life of Abraham and Isaac, as if to further
emphasize that the ritual images are all embedded in the historical cycle of
biblical events.
Many fourteenth-century Catalan haggadot also include extensive bibli-
cal cycles. An outstanding example is the Golden Haggadah, now in London.45
There, and in several other Catalan haggadot, the biblical cycle, similar to what
can be found in BL Or. 2737, moves on to some preparatory scenes, among
which we find the cleaning of the house (see fig. 2.7) and the distribution of
foodstuff to members of the community.
I have dealt with these latter images elsewhere, arguing that they underscore
the state of communal affairs typical of late medieval Sefardi communities. I
argued that the distribution of goods, such as unleavened bread and haroset,
was apparently an act of communal supervision aimed at making sure that
matters of kosher food were observed as they should be by all.46
44 British Library, MS Or. 2737, fols. 87r–92r.

45 Golden Haggadah, London, British Library, Add. MS 27210. For a facsimile edition,
see Bezalel Narkiss, The Golden Haggadah: A Fourteenth-Century Illuminated Hebrew
Manuscript in the British Museum (London: Eugrammia, 1970); for a digitized version,
see British Library, Digitised Manuscripts, http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay
.aspx?ref=Add_MS_27210&index=23.
46 Katrin Kogman-Appel, “Another Look at the Illustrated Sephardic Haggadot: Communal
and Social Aspects of the Passover Holiday,” in Temps i espais de la Girona Jueva: Actes del
Figure 2.7 London, British Library, Add. MS 27210 (Golden Haggadah), fol. 15r, Barcelona
or Lleida, ca. 1320, the dance of Miriam, distributing the matsot and haroset,
cleaning the house, and slaughtering the lamb
© The British Library Board
50 Kogman-Appel
Further details concerning the visualization of preparatory acts in Sefardi

haggadot are beyond the scope of this essay. However, even these brief obser-
vations suggest that in Sefarad, where ritual acts were virtually the same and
the halakah was observed in a similar way, their visual rendering emphasized
different issues: it embedded these acts in the Sefardi concept of biblical his-
tory and showed that the lives of the communities were seamlessly linked to
the history of divine redemption.47 At the same time, some of these acts un-
derscored a strong communal aspect.
One last observation, finally, is telling. Among the Sefardi haggadot, a manu-
script from southern France, now in London (BL Add. 14761), is one of two
that deviate from the scheme of biblical cycles preceding or concluding the
haggadah. Instead of the biblical cycle, a series of ritual scenes in the margins
accompanies the Passover liturgy. Despite the richness of ritual elements that
these images convey in great detail, the preparations are not dealt with, as if
to tell the readers that these acts do not have the same ritual status as those
performed during the seder.48
1 Conclusions
What is a ritual? How do we define “ritualization”? How do we know when

and how an apparently practical act, such as the final cleaning of the house,
has been ritualized? Ritual theorists often emphasize that “ritual” in the eyes
of the scholar is different from “ritual” in the eyes of the participant. Rituals
are scholarly constructs, tools to come to grips with the ways fifteenth-century
Simposi Internacional celebrat a Girona, 23, 24 i 25 de març de 2009, ed. Silvia Planas Marcé
(Gerona: Patronat Municipal Call de Girona, 2011), 81–102.
47 Between the biblical cycle and the haggadah text, the Golden Haggadah in fact contains
a few pages of azharot that summarize various halakhic instructions in poetic form
(fols. 16v–23v). In a sense, they constitute a counterpart to the noted piyyutim recited in
Ashkenaz on the Great Sabbath; the focus of this section is on instruction and commen-
tary; more importantly, this text has not generated any echoes in the visualization of the
preparatory scenes.
48 Barcelona Haggadah, London, British Library, Add. MS 14761. For a facsimile edition, see
Jeremy Schonfield, Raphael Loewe, David Goldstein, and Malachi Beit-Arié, eds., The
Barcelona Haggadah: An Illuminated Passover Compendium from Fourteenth-Century
Catalonia in Facsimile (MS British Library Add. 14761) (London: Facsimile Editions, 1992);
for a digital version, see British Library, Digitised Manuscripts, http://www.bl.uk/manu
scripts/FullDisplay.aspx?index=0&ref=Add_MS_14761.
Jews in the German lands (or any other group) made sense of the world.49 By
the fifteenth century, the act of finalizing the cleaning before Passover was
termed a seder. This implies that whatever was done during the final cleaning
and search for leaven was performed according to a certain order. What we
as scholars attempt to define in anthropological or phenomenological terms
as “ritual,” fifteenth-century Jews defined as a given sequence of actions to be
performed in a prescribed manner. Another parameter anthropologists ne-
gotiated toward defining rituals is that rituals have meaning. The key to this
meaning is often grounded in myth (the precept to dispose of leaven is based
on the story of the Exodus). Any set of acts understood as rituals (especially
religious or political, thus communal rituals) are imbued with meaning under-
stood similarly by the members of a group. Over time, rituals change and so do
their meanings. The acts are accompanied by liturgical texts (the blessing, the
nullification formula), another parameter that adds a layer to the definition of
ritual. The liturgical text can relate to the myth, hence the meaning of the ritu-
al; or, as in the case of the cleaning, it establishes some sort of communication
with the divine. Finally, rituals are repeated (daily, weekly, annually) following
the same order of actions.
In short: order, meaning, the recitation of a fixed text, and repetition consti-
tute a set of parameters that lead us to define the cleaning actions as they were
performed in fifteenth-century households as rituals. Cleaning and search-
ing for crumbs are mundane acts; imbuing them with meaning, performing
them following a certain order, and repeating them the same way annually
turn them into rituals. To this we can add further features observed here: in
medieval France and Ashkenaz, preparatory acts prior to Passover were not
49 For some background on “theorizing ritual,” see Ronald L. Grimes, The Craft of Ritual
Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 165–84. Grimes deals with the definition
of ritual as delineated as early as the 1980s, proposing a terminology for the specifics of
ritualization processes; see Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies (Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1982), 35–50. The use of the term “ritualization” here and elsewhere
in my work (Kogman-Appel, Mahzor from Worms, ch. 4, 60–108) does not do justice to
Grimes’s terminology, but rather corresponds to what he calls “decorum.” Ritualization
in Grimes’s terms is a biological, natural process, whereas “decorum,” defined as “con-
ventionalized behavior,” addresses social norms. The term “liturgy” in Grimes’s concept
is reserved for defining the mode of approaching “the sacred in a reverent, ‘interrogative’
mood,” doing “necessary ritual work … waiting ‘in passive voice,’ and finally being ‘de-
clarative’ of the way things ultimately are.” He describes liturgy as “a symbolic action in
which a deep receptivity, sometimes in the form of meditative rites or contemplative ex-
ercises, is cultivated” (Grimes, Beginnings, 44). See also Edmund Leach, “Ritualization in
Man in Relation to Conceptual and Social Development,” in A Discussion on Ritualization
in Animals and Man, ed. Julian Huxley, PTRS, Ser. B, 251 (London: Royal Society, 1966),
403–408; Steven Lukes, “Political Ritual and Social Integration,” Soc 9.2 (1975): 291.
52 Kogman-Appel
only ritualized within the family setting of any given household, but they also
entered the communal liturgical setting, the synagogue service on the Great
Sabbath.
Finally, during the fifteenth century the cleaning procedures, as ritualized
acts, together with other preparatory actions, were visualized. For the modern
viewer, the individual and serialized images analyzed here are visual manifes-
tations of these ritualization processes, and thus function as historical sources.
However, they had a different purpose for the medieval user of the haggadah,
for whom they served as guidelines for performing the rituals, as annual re-
minders, and/or as commemorative tools. The haggadah is a small book used
in a very specific, focused setting. Its visual dimension goes hand in hand with
the text, and the two faces of the book should be approached as a single en-
tity. A source for the historian in the study of the cultural significance of the
Passover festival in any given setting, for its users, the haggadah was a multilay-
ered ritual artifact guiding them through certain sets of actions, and an aid in
making sense of them.
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Moses ben Maimon. The Code of Maimonides. Edited and translated by Isaac Klein.
Narkiss, Bezalel. The Golden Haggadah: A Fourteenth-Century Illuminated Hebrew
Manuscript in the British Museum. London: Eugrammia, 1970.
Narkiss, Bezalel. Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts [Hebrew]. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Keter,
1984.
Narkiss, Bezalel, Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, and Jonathan Benjamin. Iconographical Index of
Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts: Bird’s Head Haggadah, Erna Michael Haggadah,
Chantilly Haggadah, Greek Haggadah. Vol. 1 of Index of Jewish Art. Jerusalem: Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities; Paris: Institut de recherche et d’histoire des
textes, 1976.
The Northern French Miscellany. London, British Library. Add. MS 11639. British
Library, Digitised Manuscripts. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?
ref=Add_MS_11639&index=21.
Nuremberg Mahzor. Zurich, private collection of David Jeselsohn and Jemima
Jeselsohn. Folios 73v–75r in Jes. 9. National Library of Israel, Digital Library. http://
web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/digitallibrary/pages/viewer.aspx?&presentorid=
MANUSCRIPTS&docid=PNX_MANUSCRIPTS002550585–1.
Safrai, Shmuel, and Ze’ev Safrai. Haggadah of the Sages: The Passover Haggadah
[Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Karta, 1998.
Samuel ben Solomon. Commentary on Elohe ruhot lekhol basar. Pages 114–20 in vol. 2
of Sefer or zarua. Edited by Isaac ben Moses and Ya’akov Mordekhai Hirshenzohn.
Zhitomir: Shapiro Brothers, 1862.
Schonfield, Jeremy, ed. The North French Hebrew Miscellany: British Library Add. Ms.
11639. London: Facsimile Editions, 2003.
Schonfield, Jeremy, Raphael Loewe, David Goldstein, and Malachi Beit-Arié, eds.
The Barcelona Haggadah: An Illuminated Passover Compendium from Fourteenth-
Century Catalonia in Facsimile (MS British Library Add. 14761). London: Facsimile
Editions, 1992.
Second Nuremberg Haggadah. London, David Sofer Collection. Hebrew University
Spitzer, Moshe, ed. The Bird’s Head Haggadah of the Bezalel National Art Museum in
Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1965.
Yahuda Haggadah. Jerusalem, Israel Museum. MS 180/50. Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, The Center for Jewish Art. The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art.
Chapter 3
The Ritualization of Manufacturing and Handling

Holy Books by the Hasidei Ashkenaz between
Halakah and Magic
Annett Martini
Former research pointed to the fact that “Sefer Ḥasidim is the richest medieval
source of realistic information on scribal practices anywhere.”1 Indeed, the en-
cyclopedic work, which reflects the religious practice of the pious strand of
German Jews in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, gives manifold insights
not only into material but also ethical and religious issues with respect to pre-
paring, writing, and storing holy books, as well as their respectful handling.
Especially the choreography of behaviors related to sacred texts, which was
refined by the Hasidei Ashkenaz to a remarkable degree, exhibits a ritualized
character. However, to date, neither the phenomenon itself nor the reasons of
the new attitude towards the kitvei qodesh have been thoroughly examined.
The objective of this paper is to shed light on this hitherto neglected aspect
of the pious program of the Hasidei Ashkenaz. Therefore the most distinctive
aspects of writing a holy book as presented in the Sefer Hasidim—that is, the
nature of the writing material, the virtues of a scribe, and ritual aspects of
copying the Scripture and the names of God—shall be outlined in comparison
with rabbinic conceptions of manufacturing the STaM (an acronym for Sefer
Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot). It will be argued that both the magical attitude
towards the written word of God as well as the flourishing monastic culture,
with its highly professional scriptoria, were pivotal triggers for the Rhineland
Pietists to conceive an extensive canon of regulations with regard to many as-
pects of manufacturing and handling the holy texts.
1
Malachi Beit-Arié, “Ideal versus Reality: Scribal Prescriptions in Sefer Ḥasidim and
Contemporary Scribal Practices in Franco-German Manuscripts,” in Rashi 1040–1990:
Hommage á E. E. Urbach, ed. G. Sed-Rajna (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 560; see also Colette Sirat, ed.,
La conception du livre chez les piétistes ashkenazes au moyen âge (Geneva: Droz, 1996); Talya
Fishman, “The Rhineland Pietists’ Sacralization of Oral Torah,” JQR 96.1 (2006): 9–16.

The Ritualization of Manufacturing and Handling Holy Books 57
1 “The Work of Heaven”
The Babylonian Talmud presents a short but remarkable anecdote that indi-
cates the very basic attitude adopted by the Jewish tradition with respect to
copying the holy books. A scribe named R. Judah remembers the following
encounter:
When I came to Rabbi Ishmael, he said to me: “My son, what is your
occupation?” I said to him: “I am a scribe.” He said to me: “My son, be
meticulous in your work, for it is the work of heaven, and if you should
omit a single letter or add a single letter, you destroy the entire world.”2
The warning of Rabbi Ishmael from the first century could be issued with un-
changed wording by a rabbi of our time. During the past two thousand years,
nothing has changed regarding the Jewish self-perception as being the pre-
servers of the original word of God in the Holy Scripture. No letter should be
omitted or added, because otherwise the entire world—or perhaps we should
say: the entire Jewish world—would be destroyed. The responsibility adopted
for such a delicate writing act is immense, and not everyone is suited for it.
Already in ancient times, halakic authorities developed a clear conception
of the preconditions a scribe should fulfil, and—even more important—of the
requirements the scribal material has to comply with. Looking at the material
features of Torah scrolls and the small pieces of written parchment within the
mezuzot and tefillin (STaM), one immediately becomes aware of the serious
endeavor of the scribes to avoid any kind of modification. The quality of the
parchment, the color of the ink, the layout, and the forms of letters at least
since late antiquity have remained unchanged except for minimal variations.3
2 See b. Erub. 13a.

3 Ludwig Blau, Studien zum althebräischen Buchwesen und zur biblischen Litteratur- und
Textgeschichte (Strassburg: Trübner, 1902), 9–37; Emanuel Tov, Scribal Practices and
Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 31–55;
Tov, Der Text der Hebräischen Bibel: Handbuch der Textkritik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1997),
92–128, 189–241; Menachem Haran, “Scribal Workmanship in Biblical Times: The Scrolls and
the Writing Implements” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 50 (1981): 65–87; Haran, “Book-Scrolls in Israel
in Pre-Exilic Times,” JJS 33 (1982): 161–173; John B. Poole and Ronald Reed, “The Preparation
of Leather and Parchment by the Dead Sea Scrolls Community,” Technology and Culture 3
(1962): 1–26; Michael L. Ryder, “Remains Derived from Skin,” in Science and Archaeology, eds.
Don R. Brothwell and Eric S. Higgs (London: Blackwell Scientific, 1970), 539–54; Yigael Yadin,
“Tefillin (Phylacteries) from Qumran” [Hebrew], Eretz-Israel 9 (1969): 60–83; Yehudah B. Cohn,
Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World, BJS 351 (Providence: Brown University
Press, 2008); Malachi Beit-Arié, Hebrew Codicology (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences
58 Martini
Apparently, the different cultural environments of the Jewish communities

in the diaspora did not touch the world of a sofer STaM who was entrusted
with passing on the holy scrolls within very tight halakic boundaries. However,
numerous responses by Geonim, halakic discussions on scribal rules from dif-
ferent times and places of the diaspora, and a considerable number of manuals
for scribes or those who wanted to be a professional sofer show a different
picture. Here we find not only reflections of internal Jewish tensions and phil-
osophical trends or mystical movements, but also concessions with respect
to media and the realities of technical progress, which often challenged the
Jewish notion of authenticity regarding the holy scrolls.4
Rabbinic scribal literature of medieval Ashkenaz gives multifarious evi-
dence of these changes as it represents the climax of a development that
began with a new debate on almost all aspects of manufacturing the STaM by
the Tosafists. It is not the objective of this paper to give a complete picture of
all the discussions and multiple opinions of the different halakic schools and
rabbinic figures in medieval Ashkenaz and France regarding this subject. In
this context, it can only be hinted at the fact that the growing anti-Judaism
in medieval Europe, the increasing power of Christian clergy, and the subse-
quent exclusion of Jews from the traditional guilds had a remarkable impact
on the Jewish perception of how the holy books, and particularly the scrolls of
the STaM, should be manufactured and in which way a person should handle
them. Especially the potent, spiritually charged book culture within the mo-
nastic environment, as well as the almost complete dependency on Christian
parchment makers from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on, evoked an
atmosphere of mistrustfulness and suspicion. It had to be ensured that the
skins originated from kosher animals and—even more important—that they
were not destined for writing “books of idolatry” on them. To be excluded from
the manufacturing process here means the loss of control in a realm that is of
existential importance. The mitzvah of wearing tefillin, for example, cannot be
fulfilled if the parchment inside the batim is not kosher—even if the one who
wears it does not know about the flaw. This holds true all the more with respect
to reading the Torah.
and Humanities, 1981); Allan David Crown, “Studies in Samaritan Scribal Practices and
Manuscript History: III. Columnar Writing and the Samaritan Massorah,” BJRL 67 (1984):
349–381; Johann Maier, Die Tempelrolle vom Toten Meer (Munich: Reinhardt, 1978).
4 See Annett Martini, “Ritual Consecration in the Context of Writing the Holy Scrolls: Jews in
Medieval Europe between Demarcation and Acculturation,” EJJS 11.2 (2017): 174–202; Martini,
“Die Arbeit des Himmels”: Jüdische Konzeptionen des rituellen Schreibens in der europäischen
Kultur des Mittelalters; Eine Studie zur Herstellung der STaM in Frankreich und Deutschland
unter Berücksichtigung der christlichen Schreibkultur (forthcoming 2019).
In medieval France and Germany, Talmudic and post-Talmudic guidelines

such as the two minor tractates the Massekhet Sefer Torah and the Massekhet
Soferim were the point of departure for a new debate in which the ritual pu-
rity of the material as well as its sanctification during the manufacturing
were taken into focus. The European halakic authorities used the term ‘ibbud
lishmah for the process of ritual consecration. In early rabbinic literature, to
do or process something lishmah, “for the sake of,” is basically related to four
aspects: to the concept of Torah lishmah, to correctly issuing a marriage docu-
ment and a get (divorce document), to the ritual sacrifice within and outside
the Temple, and—rarely—to the manufacturing of the STaM.5 It was only in
medieval Germany and France that legal authorities and scribes established
an elaborate concept of ritual sanctification lishmah in the context of writ-
ing the scrolls for ritual use. Crucial ritual elements emerged already within
the commentaries by early French Tosafot and Talmudists. However, from the
thirteenth century on is there evidence of clearly defined frameworks of ritual
action and of obligatory formulas destined to create a borderline between the
holy and profane. In addition, it can be observed that in the course of time the
ritual consecration included an increasingly broadening spectrum of works.
Dyeing lishmah, for example, originally was discussed with respect solely to
the tzitzit of a tallit. Now, however, it was also applied to blackening the tefil-
lin. Writing the names of God, the letters, and tagin, was discussed increasingly
with regard to ritual consecration, and even the correct intention of a scribe’s
heart, which was already called for by Maimonides, became more and more
important. Thus, the Jewish community of Germany and France established
a far-reaching conception of demarcation, which precluded the holy scrolls
and almost all objects related to them from the profane world. Indeed, there
remained almost no aspect of writing that was not included in the aura of holi-
ness by a rite of sanctification.
Especially in Germany, this ritual expansion is reflected in the very spe-
cific regulations and manuals by the legal authorities. Eliezer ben Samuel of
Metz (d. ca. 1198) as well as Rabbi Isaac ‘Or Zaru’a comment upon that sub-
ject in close dependence on the Talmud and with manifold references to the
early Tosafot, giving only very limited insight into the “real” ritual practice in
their religious environment. However, subsequent German Talmud scholars
such as the famous Rabbi Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg (MaHaRaM) as well
as his students, and followers Rabbi Meir ha-Kohen of Rothenburg (d. 1293),
Rabbi Mordekhai ben Hillel (d. 1298), and Abraham ben Moses of Sinsheim
5
On the term lishmah and its usage in early rabbinic literature, see Martini, “Ritual
Consecration,” 178–84.
60 Martini
reveal much more practical and, thus, historical detail, particularly in terms of
Jewish-Christian relations and tensions with regard to manufacturing the holy
scrolls. Furthermore, the ritual character of the consecration became a more
and more elaborated conception.6
2 The Hasidic Approach to Manufacturing and Handling Holy Books
2.1 Sefarim as Synonyms for the Written and Oral Torah

Previous research repeatedly pointed to the exceptional awe and reverence the
Hasidei Ashkenaz showed with respect to the sefarim. However, what exactly
are the writings that come along with this term? Within scribal literature, hala-
kic authorities sharply distinguish between the so-called STaM—Torah scrolls,
tefillin, and mezuzot—and other writings. There are manifold writing laws
and manuals for professional scribes dealing exclusively with the replication
of those textual artefacts that are designated for ritual use and for that reason
should not be affected by modern techniques of book making. The copying of
liturgical books such as siddurim, mahzorim, haftarot, or megillot, as well as
biblical books for domestic use, is not part of the very strict canon of scribal
rules and therefore is treated as a separate subject. In contrast to the STaM,
these artefacts are broadly influenced by the respective cultural environment
and thus participate in modern book-arts as well as printing techniques.
For Torah scrolls, the rabbinic literature usually uses the term sefer, although
a sefer can also refer to a Pentateuch or generally to a book from the Bible,
and already the Talmud called for a respectful handling of these writings.7 The
Hasidei Ashkenaz, however, did not follow the traditional approach. Rather,
the term sefarim (“books”) is generally used in a much broader sense that even
includes non-biblical books, in particular the Talmud and the Mishnah. In her
outstanding study Becoming the People of the Talmud, Talya Fishman dwells
upon the Hasidic approach to sefarim and argues for an enormous revaluation
of the tradition of the oral Torah, which actually refers to a general orientation
of the European Jewish society toward the written tradition.8
6 For a detailed discussion of the rabbinic sources in France and Germany, see Martini, “Ritual
Consecration,” 184–202.
7 See Simcha Assaf, “ ‘Am ha-sefer ve-ha-sefer,” in Be-Ohole Ja’aqov (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav
Kook, 1943), 1–26; b. Ber. 19b; b. Shabb. 21b, 94b; b. Menah. 38a; b. Meg. 3b.
8 Talya Fishman, Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval
Jewish Cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 213–17. Fishman writes:
“In setting forth the rationale for expanding the domain of sacred texts, Sefer Hasidim in-
vokes a law pertaining to ritual impurity, notwithstanding the fact that laws of this sort do
The appreciation of the sefarim by the Hasidei Ashkenaz entails behavioral

standards for the treatment of sefarim that can be considered as an intensi-
fied version of Talmudic and post-Talmudic positions regarding the principle
of kevod Sefer Torah, “reverence for the Torah scroll”; kevod ha-sefer, “reverence
for the book,” and regarding the avoidance of its opposite, bizayon ha-sefer,
“disrespect for the book,” as found in the Talmud and the two minor tractates
the Massekhet Sefer Torah and the Massekhet Soferim.9 It would be worthwhile
to compare the pious modification with the ancient sources in detail. In the
context of this paper, however, it may suffice to document some evidence from
the Sefer Hasidim in order to illustrate the growing mindfulness religious books
received even in the private sphere. The oft-cited passages indeed convey the
impression that the handling of the sefarim outside the synagogue leaves much
to be desired: A sefer shall not be held as a shield against prying eyes, smoke,
or the sun (SH §§504–506). A teacher should not throw a sefer towards his dis-
ciple, nor may the disciple use a sefer as a shield (SH §§276, 662). One should
neither touch a sefer after having blown one’s nose (SH §252), nor should one
kiss it after having kissed one’s children or wife (SH §§274, 639). A sefer is no
place for storing notes (SH §499) or bills (SH §649). Whereas the Talmud
merely bans naked persons from a room with a Torah scroll (b. Shabb. 14a), the
Sefer Hasidim even interdicts to put sefarim on pillows and blankets because
of the likelihood that a naked person sat on them (SH §648). The demand for
purity is also expressed in the prohibition to deposit a sefer under an apron due
to the possibility of various inappropriate discharges (SH §§651, 654).10 For the
same reason, it is preferable to place books on the floor rather than on the
bed (SH §661). Places such as a synagogue should not have a window facing “a
not apply in the absence of the Temple. The Talmud (bT Shab.14a) had forbidden the stor-
age of sacred (scriptural) writings in the place of the terumah, the heave offering of grain
or wine or oil, lest the texts be nibbled by mice. Noting that inscriptions of Oral Torah
contain the Divine Name, Sefer Hasidim asserts that the same rule applies to texts of Oral
Torah [Sefer Hasidim (SH) §698]: ‘And even though [laws of] ritual impurity do not apply
in our time …, so, too, nowadays, one must not put books [sefarim] with foods, so that the
mice not eat them. And it says [Deut. 12:4], ‘You shall not do this to the Lord your God,’ and
in order that one not cause God’s Name to be erased [cf. bT Shab. 120b], as in [Lev. 22:21],
‘No blemish shall be upon it’—that he not cause this to happen to God’s Name” (Fishman,
Becoming the People, 201). Thus, worn-out pages from the Talmud should not be discarded
but must be deposited in a genizah like those from the Scripture because the name of God
is contained in them.
9 Fishman, Becoming the People, 199.
10 See Hanna Liss, “Vom Sefer Tora zum Sefer: Die Bedeutung von Büchern im ‘Buch der
Frommen’ des Rabbi Yehuda ben Shemu’el he-Ḥasid,” in Erscheinungsformen und
Handhabungen Heiliger Schriften, ed. Joachim Quack and Daniela Christina Luft, MText 5
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 219.
62 Martini
place of idolatry”; it is not allowed to place a sefer on a windowsill in viewing

direction of a church (SH §1353).
All these examples indicate the endeavor of the Hasidei Ashkenaz not only
to install in the hearts of the Jewish community respect for the written and the
oral Torah. The admonitions regarding the sefarim also appear as the ambition
of the (quite elitist) pious to establish a stringent (collective) consciousness
for the separation of the holy from the profane, even in the public and private
spheres.
2.2 The Magical Potency of the Material

The Maysebukh, a famous collection of Jewish tales and legends, presents a
fictitious encounter between the father of the Hasidic movement, Samuel the
Pious, and the outstanding French rabbinic authority, Jacob ben Meir Tam.
According to this legend, Samuel traveled incognito to the Tosafist school
of Rabbenu Tam, introducing himself as “Samuel the Parchment Maker.”
Consequently, the scholars did not realize that Samuel was a learned person
like them, and thus “showed him no more respect than any other guest.”11 The
story proceeds:
When R. Samuel was leaving, R. Jakob [Rabbenu Tam] and his pupils ac-
companied him for a short space, while R. Samuel went some distance
ahead with one of R. Jacob’s students. When R. Jacob had returned to the
town, R. Samuel said to the young man: “Your master asked me yesterday
what my name is and I told him that it was Samuel Parchment Maker. I
gave myself that name because of my occupation, for I know thorough-
ly the whole Torah, which is written on parchment.” With these words
R. Samuel left the young man and went on his way.12
Only then the scholar and his teacher recognized who the silent guest really
was. Ivan Marcus interpreted this story exhaustively, emphasizing “the com-
peting values of German Hasidism and of French Tosafism.”13 In the context
of the present paper, the circumstance that Samuel is introduced as a pious
craftsman whereas his French colleague figures as a learned theorist appears
11 All translations are my own unless noted otherwise.

12 Moses Gaster, Ma’aseh Book: Book of Jewish Tales and Legends, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1934), 1:317–19; also cited by Fishman, Becoming the
People, 202; Ivan G. Marcus, “History, Story, and Collective Memory: Narrativity in Early
Ashkenazic Culture,” in The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History,
ed. Michael Fishbane (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 255–79, 266–67.
13 Marcus, “History, Story and Collective Memory,” 267–68.
meaningful. Like the halakic authorities of that time, the German Pietists at-
tached great importance to all material aspects of manufacturing the sifrei
qodesh—they even exceeded the rabbinic efforts for ritually pure writing ma-
terials. Thus, Samuel’s choice of occupation in this story indicates that within
the pious circle, indeed, every single material element that was necessary for
making holy books—ink, quills, colors, and parchment—entirely remained
in Jewish hands. There is plenty evidence within the works of the Hasidei
Ashkenaz from which we can deduce their scrupulous approach to the writing
materials.
Even though the Pietists were very well acquainted with the rabbinic dis-
cussions on the proper manufacturing of the holy writings, they did not leave
a systematic treatise on that subject. Instead, numerous narratives within the
Sefer Hasidim express the ethical and even magical nature of the material due
to its usage for the sefarim. Basically, the Pietists agree with the rabbis in reject-
ing material of low quality for the sifrei qodesh. The remnants of a parchment,
for instance, or “bad ink that leads to erasement” should be excluded from
these kinds of writings. Readability, in accordance with the rabbinic tradition,
is mentioned as an absolute necessity for scriptural writings. For this reason,
the letters should be spaced with sufficient distance to each other so that
“a child who is not wise … but knows the alef beit” could easily recognize the
words.14
The Sefer Hasidim also refers to the halakic differentiation of writing instru-
ments with respect to the various text types a scribe has to copy:
Someone who writes should own several qulmusim. If the qulmus shall
slide quickly over the qelaf [the scribe] should use quills made of the
leg bones of a crane. If [a scribe] is going to write mezuzot, however, he
should write with nothing else but a reed pen, whereas the oral [law]
can be written with a qulmus made of bones. If it is about beauty, write
with a qulmus made of bones …; with an iron quill you write for eternity,
imperishably engraved.”15
This paragraph is one of the very few instances when the Sefer Hasidim ac-
tually discusses the physical aspects of writing materials. An examination of
14
S H §712; see also b. Menah. 29b.
15 S H §§732, 1753. In most cases I made use of the online edition of the manuscript Parma
3280 H from the Princeton University Sefer Hasidim Database, dir. Peter Schäfer, https://
etc.princeton.edu/sefer_hasidim. In the following, I will therefore only mention those
sources that differ from the Parma manuscript.
64 Martini
the multifarious remarks of the Pietists regarding the sefarim reveals that all
the aspects of manufacturing, which play such an enormous role in rabbinic
thought, did not find their way into this literature. Thus, we do not find recipes
for kosher ink or ritually pure parchment. Perhaps this is because the German
Hasidim used to produce all necessary writing materials by themselves and not
to purchase any ingredients from Christian dealers. Rather, they foregrounded
an element that by the legal experts was concealed to a certain degree behind
technical regulations—namely the magical potency of the material. The writ-
ing skins, the ink, all the tools, and even the waste products in the context
of writing sifrei qodesh are assigned to the realm of holiness and, accordingly,
have to be treated with the greatest respect.
A qulmus, to stay with this example, should not only consist of a certain
material. Once the quill came in contact with the divine word, the sanctity
of Scripture is indelibly transferred to it. This holds true yet for the cutting
remains:
When a scribe goes on to repair and to sharpen [the quill] in order to

write with it [holy books], he should be careful that nothing of the shav-
ings falls on the ground because everything that comes in touch with the
Holy is holy as well.16
A worn-out quill that was used for writing a holy text, for example, a Torah
scroll, should be stored away. Nobody should throw it on the floor where peo-
ple can step on it.17 Similarly, ink that was destined for writing sefarim should
not be used for profane documents such as letters or debentures. When writ-
ing the Tetragrammaton, the scribe must not use excess ink from the previous
word but always dip the quill into the ink anew. By the same token, a scribe
should not make use of ink utilized for writing God’s name to write a letter
from the following word. Generally, dejo—that is, ink—designated for writing
biblical texts due to its dignified purpose should be treated with respect and,
for example, not be wiped on the sole of a scribe’s shoe.18
Even “the Holy One” himself has exceptional use for dejo:
A zaddiq took a bath in a tub that was filled with water and his wife was
sitting next to him. And behold, there was splendor over the head of the
zaddiq [being reflected] in the water. His wife asked him: “What is this
16
S H §1757.
17 S H §1754.
18 S H §§714, 724, 725, 728.
splendor about?” He answered: “When the Holy One, may he be blessed,

writes, he wipes excess ink on the heads of those zaddiqim for whom the
time has come to pass away.” In the same week, the zaddiq died.19
The repudiation of all kinds of cooperation with non-Jews in the context of

writing sefarim does not only apply to the purchase of the writing material
but also affects different crafts related to scrolls and books. On various occa-
sions Jews unavoidably had to establish commercial relations with Christian
bookbinders. Several passages from the encyclopedic work Sefer Hasidim give
evidence of such cooperation that was excoriated by the Hasidei Ashkenaz. For
instance, an exemplary Torah binder is referred to who rejects the offer of a
monk to help him with his work.20 From other case examples of the Hasidei
Ashkenaz, we can deduce that there was a lively exchange of experiences be-
yond confessional borders. The following paragraph could be interpreted in
this way:
[A Jew] went to a monk [‫ ]גלח‬to [learn] the art of bookbinding. He asked

a sage, saying: “The monk told me to bind one of his impure books [‫ספר‬
‫ ]פסול‬before his eyes, and if he saw that I was not good, he would say to
me do it so and so.” The sage said to him: “Do not bind even one section,
and do not assist him in binding his books.”21
In the heyday of the scriptorium—when the Sefer Hasidim emerged—

Jewish-Christian cooperation in manufacturing books, and in particular a
Sefer Torah, doubtlessly was more problematic than in later centuries, when
lay workshops outside the monasteries were established in the surroundings
of urban and royal centers of power, taking over the flourishing business of
making books. There are manifold testimonies of Jewish-Christian oscilla-
tions with respect to book making in the Middle Ages. Thus, it seems probable
that the strict position of the Hasidei Ashkenaz probably does not reflect the
majority opinion. Rather, in deploring such cooperation, the Pietists gave ex-
pression to both: their magical approach to religious artefacts, which should
not be touched by improper intentions; and the hypersensitive conscious-
ness of Christians, especially of Christian clergy, who found one of their ideal
prototypes in the writing monk. This assertion can be substantiated with the
following narratives from the Sefer Hasidim.
19
S H §1059.
20 S H §680.
21 S H §681.
66 Martini
In any case an unskillful Jewish bookbinder should be preferred to a

Christian conversant with book art:
Two pious Jews had books that needed binding. There was a monk [‫]גלח‬
in town who was more proficient than Jewish [bookbinders]. One pious
Jew gave his books to the Jewish [bookbinder] for binding who was not as
proficient as the monk, because he said: “How could [the monk] touch a
book since there is written: ‘For henceforth there shall no more come into
thee the circumcised and the unclean’ [Isa 52:1]. All the more so with re-
spect to a holy book [‫]בספר‬. When a non-Jew binds, he humiliates [‫]מבזה‬
the books and remnants, for possibly he repairs with the remnants his
own unclean books.” His companion said: “Without doubt, [Christians]
are not allowed to sew a Torah scroll with sinews; everything that hinders
a public reading is not permitted such as writing and binding with sinews
[by Christians]. However, they are not forbidden to bind the remaining
[profane] books …,” and he insisted that [the Christian] did not use the
remnants for his [ecclesiastical] books.22
A parchment destined for ritual use could be degraded in different ways—first

of all by wrong intentions of Christian clerics—and thus become unsuitable
for its holy purpose. “Degrading” here quite literally means the removal of a
holy scroll from its sacred to an impure state, thus profaning or desecrating it.
This holds true even for the margins of the consecrated sheets of parchment
that could be cut and superscripted by monks. Conversely, a palimpsest cannot
be part of the holy realm. The Sefer Hasidim even considers the writing of an
ordinary letter on scraped hides from “books of monks [that were] filled with
vanities for idolism” as not appropriate:23
If there are books by monks filled with vanities for idolism and then
erased, one should not write even a letter on it. And if there are quires of
impure books, one should not bind them with the books of Israel. And
if there are the twenty-four books [of the Tanakh] written by a monk or
a priest and [even though] no idolism and no saint is mentioned within
them, one should not store them with [our holy] sefarim. “For the rod of
the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous
put forth their hands unto iniquity” [Ps 125:3 KJV]. If there is a monk who
wants to write a poem for idolatry or a non-Jew who wants to draft a song
22
S H §682.
23 S H §1348.
for [his rituals of] transgression, and he says to the Jew, “Sing a beautiful
melody for me that you praise your Lord with,” then one should not sing
anything for him [so] that he shall not use it.24
The strict position of the Rhineland Pietists with respect to the writing materi-
al differs from the halakic approach, in particular by emphasizing the spiritual
component of matter. The perception of sanctity within matter, however, had
a potent counterpart in medieval Christian religious life when books, saints,
relics, and all kinds of material objects were adored as symbols or agents of the
divine. On the other hand, the strong tendency towards a ritualization of the
handling of holy texts—even in the private realm—as well as the refusal to
utilize the expertise of Christian book makers can be read as a quest for demar-
cation with respect to a monastic community that was a serious challenge for
the self-perception of the Hasidei Ashkenaz as a morally superior religious elite.
A thorough study of all passages from the Sefer Hasidim dealing with monks
and priests in particular elucidates the depth of the impact of the Christian
and especially clerical environment on the Hasidic notion of the holy books.25
By emphasizing the holiness of everything that comes in contact with se-
farim, the Rhineland Pietists created a realm of purity and sacredness around
a scribe’s writing desk, which thus was separated from the created world of dis-
order. The sincere concern for ritual purity in the very close surrounding of the
sofer must have had consequences for the handling of the writing material and
for any actions during the working process. Indeed, the Sefer Hasidim includes
a large number of narratives from which we obtain an image of the ideal scribe
envisioned by the pious circle—an aspect almost entirely ignored by research
to date. In addition, the conception of a proper scribe involves various regula-
tions with respect to writing procedures, revealing their ritualized character.
3 The Scribe and the Intention of His Heart
It is the sofer who inscribes the seats of the decedents in the future world of
gehinnom and in the Garden of Eden.26 In the Hasidic world, scribes appear as
powerful agents between the divine and profane. They do not have to be high-
ly educated;27 rather, the focus is on the sofer’s attitude, because the Hasidei
24 S H §1348.
25 See Martini, Arbeit des Himmels.
26 S H §33.
27 S H §745.
68 Martini
Ashkenaz were convinced that the moral, emotional, and temperamental dis-
position of a scribe secretly was transferred to the writing tools and the act of
writing.
One example of this approach is the story about a pious man who used to
pray with concentration and fervor. One day he noticed that his supplications
were not answered anymore. He fasted without benefit, and then turned to a
sage and asked for the reason for that change. The sage clarifies:
“You are praying and craving from a book that was written by an evil per-
son.” The [pious man] said: “But I commissioned so-and-so, the scribe,
to write beautifully on my qelafim.” The sage answered: “When he was
writing [the prayer book] for you, his heart was filled with bitterness and
anger. For this reason, you are not responded to when praying from it. It
is the same case when a person erases the pages of an impure book and
writes on it and prays from it.28
The anecdote closes with the postulation that the remnants of an impure book
should preferably be committed to the flames. Other examples advise not to
use the qulmus or the ink of such an evil scribe. One should not even sit on his
place or use anything of his belongings.29
The personality of a scribe stands out due to humility, modesty, self-denial,
and truthfulness. He does not strive for wealth, fame, and superficial knowl-
edge. In short, he is the ideal Hasid. He should only abstain from excessive
forms of self-mortification such as heavy fasting, “since a hungry person tends
to anger”; and anger should not disturb a scribe’s intention to write a sefer.30
Due to the holiness of a sefer, the writing activity is embedded in regulations
directing the work of a sofer into recurrent procedures, and thus bestowing a
ritual character in the broadest sense on the writing act. Although the Sefer
Hasidim first of all notes all those practices that should not be done, the reader
gets a vivid image of the ritualized writing performance. To begin with, the
scribe’s desk has a specific order:
When the scribe [interrupts his work] and leaves [the writing desk], he
should not place the qulmus or the knife on the sefer so as to retrieve
them easily [when he continues to write].
28
S H §405; see also §1211 and §886.
29 S H §404.
30 S H §66.
There once was a scribe who put [empty] quires upon the sefer [from
which he copied] that he should not be mistaken regarding the line.
Thereupon his master said to him: “If it were not disrespectful to the
sefer, you should be beaten with it. It is not right to use a sefer for another
sefer in this way. Even the Talmud should not be used [as a tool for mak-
ing] a sefer.”31
The printed Bologna version from 1538 (§908) adds with respect to profane
texts: “However, when a scribe is copying, he may place [his qulmus] under the
line so that he immediately shall find the word [to continue with].”
Generally, the entire writing environment should correspond to the digni-
fied work of the scribe and should not by disorder create the impression of
irreverence towards “the work of heaven.” There are other examples giving an
expression of the “holy order” that visually structures the writing place and
invisibly separates the holy from the profane.
An observation by “a sage, who entered the house of a scribe who was en-
trusted with copying holy writings” is revealing with respect to the ritual aspect
of writing.32 He saw that
the sofer began to write a sefer and [that] at the beginning [he wrote] on
a piece of paper [the words] “for the sake of the Lord.” The sage asked:
“Why are you doing this?” [The scribe] answered: “Due to the Name, so
that he may support [the writing project].” “For the sake of the Lord is this
sefer,” [he added.] [The sage] replied: “The formula is to be read: ‘For the
sake of the Lord is this sefer,’ because it should be prayed that we will suc-
ceed and complete this sefer. However, it should not be written inside the
sefer ‘for the sake of the Lord’ [since]: ‘Add thou not unto his words, lest
he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar’ [Prov 30:6 KJV].”33
This example reveals a ritual detail that actually can be found in the rabbinic
literature in Ashkenaz as well. In the course of different working processes,
the formula spoken aloud emerges, for example, in the Sefer Terumah as the
crucial element of the performance.34 Thus, Barukh ben Isaac of Worms, with
31 S H §1748.
32 S H §731.
33 S H §52.
34 For the following examples from rabbinic sources, see Martini, “Ritual Consecration,”
184–90; with respect to theories of ritual, see Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw,
“Die rituelle Einstellung,” in Ritualtheorien: Ein einführendes Handbuch, ed. Andréa
Belliger and David J. Krieger, 4th ed. (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008),
70 Martini
regard to copying the holy text, emphasizes that due to the holiness of these
objects it was necessary
that one explicitly says: “I am writing for the purpose of Israel and its
holiness.” And if so, the one who explicitly says [the formula] does not
have to say [it] for every single letter but at the beginning [of the work
only]…; and it is not enough to do it in thoughts, but rather it has to be
spoken aloud.35
Similarly, Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne (d. 1179) noted that “when a sofer
begins to write he says: ‘See, I write for the purpose of the holiness of the Torah
of Israel.’ ”36 The names of God, he continues, should be consecrated by the
scribe “before his feather touches the parchment.” With respect to writable
skins, too, the great Talmud scholar particularly discusses their retrospective
consecration.37 He concludes that an unconsecrated skin can be clamped back
onto the frame, where it should be powdered with lime during the verbaliza-
tion of the formula.38 Menachem ben Solomon Meiri (d. 1316), who also lived
in Provence, described the procedure of consecrating the skins more precisely.
He emphasized that “even though a Jew assisted while soaking the skins in the
lime solution or in the moment when the skin is turned, there is no truthful-
ness.” Rather, a Jew
has to say a formula in the moment the skin is put into the lime, [namely]
that he puts the skins for the purpose of a Sefer Torah or for the purpose
of Tefillin or generally for the purpose of the holiness of a script into the
vessel in which it is soaked. And this has not to happen in thought only….
Concerning scribing, too, the scribe should say at the beginning of the
process that he writes leshem. With respect to the names of God, also, he
should concentrate himself on the uniqueness of the One…. Usually at
the beginning of writing, [the scribe] says that he intends to write a Torah
135–55; Roy A. Rappaport, “Ritual und performative Sprache,” in Belliger and Krieger, eds.,
Ritualtheorien, 189–208; John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford
35 Barukh b. Isaac of Worms, Sefer ha-Terumah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §192.
36 Abraham b. Isaac of Narbonne, Sefer ha-Eshkol, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §13.
37 See Hai Gaon, Teshuvot ha-Geonim, §432.
38 Abraham b. Isaac of Narbonne, Sefer ha-Eshkol, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §11.
scroll for the purpose of the Torah of Israel, and the names of God for the
purpose of the Holiness of the ineffable name.39
The Provençal Rabbi Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen (13th–14th c.) similarly de-
scribes the ritual consecration in his opus magnum Orhot Hayyim. At the
beginning of making writable skins, a formula should “pass [a Jew’s] lips,” such
as a scribe before starting his work should consecrate “through his mouth” the
holy scrolls as well as the divine names right before writing them down.40
Similarly, Asher ben Jehiel Ashkenazi (13th–14th c.), who lived and worked
in Germany and North-Spain, stated that “at the beginning of writing a Sefer
Torah [one should speak aloud]: ‘I write this Sefer Torah for the purpose of
[lishmah] the holiness of the Torah of Moses.’ ”41 The Talmudic scholar further
emphasized that a verbal declaration before writing the holy scrolls is abso-
lutely necessary. Regarding God’s name, however, he considered it sufficient
to speak in thoughts while copying it: “for the purpose of the holiness of the
name” [‫]צריך שיחשוב לשם קדושת השם‬. Nevertheless, Asher ben Jehiel assured
that although the entire procedure of writing a scroll has to be processed
lishmah, the writing of the holy name of God stands on a higher level of scribal
art, and a scroll made without sanctifying the divine name is of no worth.42
Meir ha-Kohen of Rothenburg summarizes the arguments of his predeces-
sors, emphasizing that if a non-Jew [‫ ]כותי‬does the work of preparing writable
skins, a Jew should assist him, dedicating the material “for the purpose of holi-
ness” with a verbalization spoken aloud at the beginning of the process, and
then let do the non-Jew everything else. Mordekhai ben Hillel ha-Kohen (d.
1298), too, argues in favor of verbalizing a formula, the effect of which depend-
ed on the proper intention of the scribe. A skin that was reserved for a holy
scroll should be processed lishmah by a Jew.
And it is necessary that he speaks the formula: “I give [this skin] to pro-
cessing for the sake of an object of holiness” [‫ ]לשם דבר קדושה‬and in
this way [should also be proceeded] the tzitzit. And at the beginning of
writing a Sefer Torah, it is necessary to verbalize the formula: “I write ev-
erything for the purpose of the Torah of Israel and in the names of God,
39 Menahem ha-Meiri, Qiryat Sefer, 1:2; see also Moses of Coucy, Sefer Miṣvot Gadol, §25:
‫צריך שיאמר בפירוש בתחלת הכתיבה‬.
40 Aaron b. Jacob ha-Kohen, Orhot Hayyim, §§24, 25.
41 Asher b. Jehiel, Halakhot Qetanot, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §4.
42 Asher b. Jehiel, Halakhot Qetanot, Hilkhot Tefillin, §3.
72 Martini
for the purpose of the holiness….” And it is not enough to do all this just
by thought [‫]ואין די בכל אלו במחשבה‬.43
Thus, Mordekhai also assigns the consecration of divine names to the acoustic
sphere.44
Instead of the rabbinic advice to think or speak a formula of consecration,
the Sefer Hasidim mentioned the practice of writing it down—not into the
sefer itself but on a separate piece of paper. This salient alteration can be con-
sidered as an intensification of a practice that was discussed most notably
within rabbinic sources of Ashkenaz in the thirteenth century. Needless to say
that the written word or sentence develops a much deeper impact than a spo-
ken formula or one that is merely imagined in the mind. A piece of paper can
be present throughout the entire working process by lying on the writing table
or even being carried by a person like an amulet. The impression of a magi-
cal connotation in this context is enhanced by the following passage from the
Sefer Hasidim:
A [scribe] copied from books and commentaries and first read [the text]
aloud and only then wrote it down. Everything he wrote, he first read
aloud. Someone asked him: “Why do you read it aloud before you write
it down?” He answered: “The tradition was handed down to me that
when a person reads aloud and casts out demons he will be heard and
blessed. In addition, one will remember what he is writing, as it is said
43 Mordekhai b. Hillel ha-Kohen, Halakhot Qetanot, (Menahot) chapter qomez rabbah, §966.
44 The strong emphasis on the formula was adopted by following generations with minor
variations. The most influential rabbinic work of modern times, the Shulhan Arukh (1565),
by Josef b. Efraim Caro from Toledo, adopts this tendency and incorporates the perfor-
mative declaration at the beginning of writing the scroll, copying the divine names, and
preparing the skins for their ritual purpose. The formulas for processing the skins [‫עורות‬
‫]אלו אני מעבד לשם‬, writing the Torah scrolls and tefillin [‫]אני כותב לשם קדושת‬, and
copying the names [‫ ]אני כותב לשם קדושת השם‬correspond to the models which ap-
parently emerged at the end of the 12th or at the beginning of the 13th century in France
and Germany. Despite minor variants, they became part even of modern scribal litera-
ture, such as the Sefer Benei Yonah of the Bohemian Talmudist and Sofer STaM Jonah B.
Elijah Landsofer (d. 1712); the Sefer Melekhet Shamayim, by Isaac Dov Halevi Bamberger
(d. 1879); or the Qeset ha-Sofer, by Solomon Ganzfried. In the latter treatise, Ganzfried
explains why the formula should be verbalized. He wrote: “Some say that it is necessary to
bring [the formula] over the lips …, because one cannot impact sanctity by thinking alone
[‫ ]אין הקדושה חלה במחשבה‬but by speaking, since speaking makes a greater impression
[‫]שהדיבור עושה רושם גדול‬.”
[Exod 13:9]: ‘that the LORD’s law may be in thy mouth.’ And as it is written
[e.g., Exod 12:14]: ‘for a memorial.’ ”45
This narrative explicitly affiliates the copying of scriptural texts to exorcism.

Reading aloud is a traditional mnemotechnical method of Jewish education
and sometimes the performative center of incantations. It is obvious that here
the ritual designation of a certain writing for its particular purpose as found
within rabbinic thought merged with popular forms of belief; namely in de-
mons and their exorcism. It is not surprising to find writing issues intersecting
with magical realms within the positions of the Hasidei Ashkenaz because the
pious community basically did not disapprove of all the varieties of magic.
Moreover, the inner connection between magical incantation and Holy
Scripture, especially in terms of tefillin and mezuzot, is obvious. Both artefacts
contain a short, formulaic section from the Bible and—due to their convenient
size—can easily be worn like an amulet directly on the body, or be installed
at a prominent place in and outside the house. In ancient times, the material
features of a mezuzah in comparison with similar objects of the cultural envi-
ronment suggest its earlier function as a protection of the living space against
negative powers.46 Jewish tradition also knows the power that is inherent in
the written names of God. The position of the Hasidim with respect to the
divine names in the context of writing sefarim is of particular interest since
under the influence of the Hekhalot mysticism, they attributed great impor-
tance to the names of God—and to the names of angels and demons.47
45 S H §§733, 1763.

46 Meir Bar-Ilan, “The Writing of Torah Scrolls, Tefillin, Mezuzot, and Amulets on Deer Skin”
[Hebrew], Beth Mikra 30 (1984–1985): 375–81; Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in
the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. (New York: Pantheon, 1953–1968), 2:209–10. A different
position is adopted by Martin L. Gordon in his article “Mezuzah: Protective Amulet or
Religious Symbol?,” Tradition 16 (1976–1977): 7–40. He argues against a magical function
of a mezuzah and tefillin, emphasizing that “the function of mezuzah, together with
that of tefillin, is to arouse the religious consciousness, just as diligently teaching these
words to one’s children” (Gordon, “Mezuzah,” 9). Also quoted by Catherine Hezser, Jewish
Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 213.
47 See Joseph Dan, “The Book of the Divine Name by Rabbi Eleazar of Worms,” FJB 22 (1995):
27–60; Eliot Wolfson, “The Mystical Significance of Torah Study in German Pietism,” JQR
85 (1993): 43–78.
74 Martini
4 Writing the Names of God
The two minor tractates the Massekhet Sefer Torah and the Massekhet Soferim
treated the most precarious subject of scribal literature with great diligence.48
Besides extensive discussions of how to deal with mistakes and corrections,
both treatises, however, include two paragraphs that exceed the usual rabbinic
frame. As an accompaniment of the instructions of manufacturing the most
important cult object, the following explanations might be irritating:
[The terms] merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in lov-

ing kindness, king, kings, exalted, great, Most High, righteous and up-
right, pious, perfect, mighty, may be erased. He who curses himself or
his neighbor by [any of] these incurs guilt. [If he curses] heathens or the
dead, no guilt is incurred. [If he curses] a judge or a prince, he incurs
twofold guilt; according to others he incurs threefold guilt for cursing a
prince. If a person curses his father or mother with the Tetragrammaton,
he is liable to the penalty of stoning, but if only with attributes he is liable
to a warning.49
Several sections later the reader finds the following suggestion:
If a person writes a divine name on his body, he must neither bathe nor
anoint himself nor stand in an unclean place. If he must perform an
obligatory immersion, he should wind a reed about it, descend, and per-
form an immersion. R. Jose said: He may at all times descend and perform
an immersion in the ordinary way, provided he does not rub it off.
[If one wrote a divine name] on the horn of a cow or on the legs of a
bed, he scrapes it off and stores it away. [If he wrote it] on a stone, he
detaches it and stores it away.50
How did these connotations of magical practices find their way into a hala-
chic treatise about writing the STaM? The minor tractates belong to a range of
ancient witnesses that refer to a magical use of the divine names. The power-
ful names, as a curse, could bring harm to a person or—if written on a body
48 assekhet Sefer Torah and Massekhet Soferim, chapters 4 and 5.

M
49 Massekhet Soferim, 4.9. See also the translation of Abraham Cohen, ed., The Minor
Tractates of the Talmud: Massektoth Ketannoth; Translated into English with Notes, Glossary
and Indices (London: Soncino, 1966).
50 Massekhet Sefer Torah, 5, 12; Massekhet Soferim, 5, 12, and 13.
or a piece of furniture—could effect protection against disease, evil powers,

or an adverse fortune.51 The Jewish tradition adopted the belief in the magi-
cal potential of divine names from the cultural environment and more or less
explicitly integrated it into religious practice. Scholarship of the last decades
changed the image of magic as a folk religion52 that was a kind of atavistic
parallel universe to a superior monotheism, and showed how deeply magical
thinking is interwoven with Jewish thought.53
The magical dimension of writing the STaM, however, did not reach a new
heyday period within medieval scribal literature of France and Germany. On
the contrary, the explanations on the correct treatment of erroneous divine
names, the handling of worn out Torah scrolls, and the general distinction of
holy and profane names by the Tosafists and the rabbinic schools of Ashkenaz
prove astonishingly short in comparison to the ancient guidelines. Most rab-
binic authorities did not deal with that subject at all.54
Only the German Hasidim devote increased attention to writing the names
of God in the context of copying sefarim. The authors of the Sefer Hasidim
directly drew on the rabbinic material from ancient times, which was almost
ignored by medieval halakic authorities, and instigated an unsystematic re-
naissance, emphasizing the necessarily high quality of the writing material
due to the sanctity of God’s names. The scribes’ obligation not to disturb the
absolute perfection of the names by bad writing habits was substantiated by
the Pietists with several rules, the ritual character of which becomes evident
immediately. Thus, in accordance with rabbinic sources, the names of God
shall not be written close to a hole in the parchment and much less be per-
forated. Therefore, the scribe “should not stitch through the name but only
through the blank spaces at the gewil” when a scroll or a page of a book has to
51 Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
117–18.
52 Ludwig Blau, Das altjüdische Zauberwesen (Budapest: [n.p.], 1898), 9.
53 See Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (New
York: Atheneum, 1987); Michael D. Swartz, “Scribal Magic and Its Rhetoric: Formal Patterns
in Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah,” HTR 83
(1990): 163–80; Swartz, “Book and Tradition in Hekhalot and Magical Literatures,” JJTP 3
(1994): 189–229; Swartz, Scholastic Magic: Ritual and Revelation in Early Jewish Mysticism
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Giuseppe Veltry, “Jewish Traditions in Greek
Amulets,” BJGS 18 (1996): 33–47; Veltry, Magie und Halakhah: Ansätze zu einem empirisch-
en Wissenschaftsbegriff im spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Judentum (Tübingen:
Mohr, 1997); Peter Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” in Envisioning Magic,
ed. Peter Schäfer and Hans G. Kippenberg (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 19–44.
54 See Martini, Arbeit des Himmels, chapter: Das Schreiben der sifrei ha-qodesh zwischen
Halacha und Magie: Die Perspektive der Hasidei Ashkenaz.
76 Martini
be fixed.55 In addition, the words before and behind a divine name should be
treated with a special diligence:
A sofer who has written the name of God, but the word before it is not
readable, should again go over it with the qulmus so that the letters of the
word will become readable. However, if he already had begun to write the
name of God and not yet completed it, he must not suspend [his work
on] the letters of the name in order to mend another word.56
The writing flow corresponds to the absolute perfection of God’s name and,
thus, must not be interrupted. The Sefer Hasidim refers to the well-known
image of a scribe who does not interrupt his work, not even to respond a king’s
greeting.57 Also, the scribe must not stand up in the delicate moment of writ-
ing a divine name as an inferior person enters the writing room, asking him
a question,58 and—even more importantly—a scribe has to neglect his own
needs, such as the urge to spit out.59
With respect to ritual aspects of writing the divine names, the Sefer Hasidim
presents a remarkable writing instruction, which departs from tradition:
It is written [Exod 39:30 KJV]: [“And they made the plate of the holy
crown of pure gold,] and wrote upon it a writing, like to the engravings
of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD [‫]יהוה‬.” [The employed plural]
“and they wrote” teaches that the name should be written in the presence
of a greater number of people, meaning ten persons. Scripture says [Lev
22:32 KJV]: [“Neither shall ye profane my holy name;] but I will be hal-
lowed among the children of Israel: [I am the LORD which hallow you.”]
Thus, the rishonim, when a Sefer Torah was written, wanted the names to
be written by ten righteous. There are some who say: “It is necessary to
write [the name of God] in the presence of a quorum as a reminder that
it was written for the sake of [the divine name].” For if it was not writ-
ten for the sake of [the name,] [the scroll] should be stored in a genizah.
This holds true for every single letter…. [“And they made the plate of the
holy crown of pure gold,] and wrote upon it a writing, like to the engrav-
ings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD [‫]יהוה‬.” Why is it said “and
55 S H §697.
56 S H §715.
57 See Massekhet Soferim, 5.6; SH §722.
58 S H §723.
59 S H §719.
they wrote,” as “he wrote” was the singular form? [The plural] indicates
that not only one person is writing, and they divided [the writing act] in
earlier times. There are some people saying due to the name one should
sanctify ‫ ליהוה‬below and ‫ קדש‬above. And one wrote the name and what
was necessary for one or two lines, but not all the words. Two [scribes]
write without trembling. One writes ‫ קדש‬and the other one writes ‫ליהוה‬
so that the beginning of the name was written by one hand, and ‫ קדש‬was
written by the other hand.60
This paragraph is remarkable for two reasons: first because the author (Jehudah
he-Hasid) demands testimony of the ritual sanctification of the divine names.
A group of ten righteous shall come together for copying the Tetragrammaton
to make sure that the sanctification of the name was correctly accomplished.
The “ten righteous” arouse associations with the minyan and the story of
Sodom, which could have been rescued by the presence of only ten righteous.
A zaddiq distinguishes himself by an immaculate way of life and an intimate
relationship with God. The presence of such a righteous person, thus, not only
guarantees the holiness of the moment when God enters the world by his inef-
fable name. The presence of a zaddiq also signifies the mercy of God, who by
the righteous ensures the continuance of the world.
Secondly, the above cited paragraph contradicts the established writing
rules by the notion that certain passages, including the Tetragrammaton—the
phrase “holiness to the Lord” (‫ )קדש ליהוה‬from the verse Exod 39:40 is explicitly
mentioned—should be written by two scribes.
We do not know whether these exceptional rituals of sanctifying the divine
names in the context of copying scriptural texts really found their way into
practice. The question of how influential the movement of Hasidei Ashkenaz
actually was, is discussed controversially.61 Malachi Beit-Arié, in his article
60 S H §1762.
61 Isaak Baer, “Ha-megamah ha-datit ha-ḥevratit shel Sefer Ḥasidim,” Zion 3 (1937): 18;
Gershom Scholem, Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1980), 104–106, 113; Joseph Dan, “Rabbi Judah the Pious and Caesarius of Heisterbach:
Common Motifs in their Stories,” in Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature, ed. Joseph
Heinemann and Dov Noy (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1971), 18–27; Moritz Güdemann, Geschichte
des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden in Frankreich und Deutschland …, 2 vols.
(Wien: Hölder, 1880), 1:178–98, 281–91; Ascher Rubin, “The Concept of Repentance among
the Ḥasidey ‘Ashkenaz,” JJS 16 (1965): 161–76; Talya Fishman, “The Penitential System of
Ḥasidei Ashkenaz and the Problem of Cultural Boundaries,” JJTP 8 (1999): 201–29; Joseph
Dan, “Ashkenazi Hasidim, 1941–1991: Was There Really a Hasidic Movement in Medieval
Germany?,” in Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism 50 Years After:
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on the History of Jewish Mysticism, ed.
78 Martini
on scribal prescriptions in Sefer Hasidim, concluded that the Hasidic ideal

of manufacturing, writing, and handling holy books “did not find a receptive
audience.”62 Nevertheless, the Sefer Hasidim provides us with valuable insights
into a rather magical perception of how sifrei qodesh should be reproduced,
although its practical instruction probably reflects the radical and reformative
approach of an elitist religious group within medieval Judaism. Moreover, the
Pietists extended the manifold early rabbinic regulations with respect to the
holy text scrolls to nonscriptural writings, “pointedly stretching the domain of
sacred writings so as to encompass inscribed texts of Oral Torah [Mishnah and
Talmud].”63 The choreography of behaviors related to holy books, which “make
the zone of the sacred visible within the social arena,” too, was intensified to a
remarkable degree.64
The upgrading of almost all aspects of writing, including the copying of
names of God, involved an increased personal, mental, and ritual effort. As
a result, a sefer that was written according to this specification must have
received an enormous appreciation. A ritual object that was fabricated accord-
ing to these rules of manufacturing holy books by all means corresponds to
the elitist self-perception of the Hasidei Ashkenaz. The pious community of
the righteous wanted to stand out against all others—including the Christian
clergy—by rigorous rules of purity and impressive practices of sanctification.
The manufacturing of an immaculate sefer indeed provided a striking oppor-
tunity to demonstrate this supremacy.
However, the great weight the Hasidim attached to the holy books and their
sanctification did not come out from nowhere. Rather, it corresponded with
the general tendency towards a strongly ritualized practice of consecration
that can be observed within rabbinic literature of Ashkenaz with respect to al-
most all steps of manufacturing the STaM. The Sefer Hasidim, with its manifold
references to bookmaking, reflects this tendency and gives a new direction to
the rabbinic concept of consecration by enriching scribal issues with magical
practices. In particular, the explanations regarding the writing of the divine
names reveal the thin line between halakah and magic.
The image, however, of Jewish diasporic existence as a self-contained, se-
cluded minority with atavistic features, which preserved its identity within a
Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 87–102; for a more complete sum-
mary of the earlier discussions, see Ivan G. Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of
Medieval Germany (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 1–20.
62 Malachi Beit-Arié, “Ideal versus Reality,” 566.
63 Fishman, “Rhineland Pietists’ Sacralization,” 12.
64 Fishman, “Rhineland Pietists’ Sacralization,” 10; see also Fishman, Becoming the People,
198–213.
Christian-dominated society by rites of demarcation, appears as too simple. It

is remarkable that European scribes and halakists separated their holy scrolls
from the “intention of gentiles” by means of ritual consecration, since a con-
secratio (consecration of persons) or dedicatio (consecration of realia) played
a very important role within Christian Europe in the Middle Ages.65 In view
of this downright “inflation of sanctifications,” the question appears justified
whether this Christian fervor for ritual consecrations and benedictions might
have been adopted by Jewish religious practice, and whether the defense of the
Jewish canon was achieved by means of Christian devices.66 Considering the
research literature on Jewish rituals in medieval Europe from the last two de-
cades, the development Jewish scribal law and practice underwent in France
and Germany during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries appears to be only
a minor aspect of a more general tendency.67 In his pivotal study Rituals of
Childhood, Ivan Marcus was one of the first to challenge the view on European
Jews as a cultural and political minority that was isolated from its Christian
neighborhood. He suggested the term “inward acculturation” in order to
describe the contrast to modern Jewish acculturation, since Jews in Latin
Christianity did not assimilate or convert to Christian culture, but “adapted
Christian themes and iconography, which they saw all around them every day,
and fused them—often in inverted and parodic ways—with ancient Jewish
customs and traditions.”68 Thus the increasing effort made by Jewish halakists,
scribes, and the Hasidei Ashkenaz to include almost all parts of manufacturing
65 L TK 10, col. 1004; Adolph Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter (Freiburg:
Herder, 1909; (repr., Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1960).
66 Martini, “Ritual Consecration,” 198–201.
67 Ze’ev W. Falk, Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1966); Esther Cohen and Elliot Horowitz, “In Search of the Sacred: Jews, Christians
and Rituals of Marriage in the Later Middle Ages,” JMRS 20.2 (1990): 225–49; Israel
Yuval, “Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom
to Blood Libel Accusations” [Hebrew], Zion 58 (1993): 33–90; Ivan G. Marcus, Rituals of
Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996), 12; Fishman, “Penitential System,” 201–29; Elisheva Baumgarten, “Circumcision and
Baptism: The Development of a Jewish Ritual in Christian Europe,” in The Covenant of
Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite, ed. Elizabeth Mark (Hanover:
Brandeis University Press, 2003), 114–27; Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children:
Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004);
Fishman, “Rhineland Pietists’ Sacralisation,” 9–16; Elisheva Baumgarten, “A Tale of a
Christian Matron and Sabbath Candles: Religious Difference, Material Culture and
Gender in Thirteenth Century Germany,” JSQ 20 (2013): 83–99; Elisheva Baumgarten and
Judah D. Galinsky, ed., Jews and Christians in Thirteen-Century France (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015).
68 Marcus, Rituals of Childhood, 12.
80 Martini
the holy scrolls into a broad conception of sanctification against the backdrop
of contemporary Christian culture can also be interpreted as a response to
the Christian environment. The enormous religious and social function that
was ascribed to the holy books within Christian society,69 as well as the tre-
mendous affinity for all kinds of consecrations in Latin Europe, are only some
aspects of a complex social, religious, and political system—a system serving
as a trigger of ritual dynamics that changed the way Jews manufactured and
handled sifrei qodesh.
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Chapter 4
Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern

Liturgical Books
Martin Klöckener
This paper deals with concepts of history and tradition in modern liturgical
books.1 By addressing this topic, we run into a basic reality of every liturgi-
cal action, characteristic to all confessions: the commitment to tradition.
Nevertheless, to the question how this commitment to tradition in the liturgy
is realized, different answers can be given concerning the past, and the present
as well. A comparison in this regard between the Catholic Church, the Eastern
churches, and the churches of the Reformation is revealing. By making this
comparison, one can easily notice a certain tension between codified liturgical
laws and liturgical praxis. When in the title of this lecture I talk about “modern
liturgical books,” I primarily refer to the sources of the Roman Catholic Church,
published after the Council of Trent as Editiones typicae, and which had been
used in the Catholic Church up until the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965)
without major alterations regarding the corpus of these books.
In the first section, I would like to illustrate the permanent actuality of this
question during the centuries, by making reference to some testimonies, basi-
cally starting with the beginnings of Christianity. After this, I shall investigate
the more precise way of dealing with history and tradition in the liturgical
books of the Tridentine reform. Then I will offer a brief outlook on the liturgi-
cal books used by the Roman Catholic Church in the present, with a special
note on their constitutive view of tradition and historical attachment. My final
remarks will touch upon the subject of ritual dynamics on the basis of this
research.
1 The Attachment to History and Tradition as a General Criterion for

Liturgical Sources
1.1 Paul and the Community in Corinth (1 Cor 11:23)

In 1 Cor 11:23, Paul writes: “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to
you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had
1 This article was translated from German by Norbert Nagy, MTh (Fribourg).

86 Klöckener
given thanks …” and so on. In this most ancient presentation of the eucharistic
act of the Christians, in this case of those living in Corinth in the middle of
the first century CE, Paul—in order to solve the conflicts regarding the right
celebration of the Lord’s Supper—refers to what he “passed on” (Greek: παράδοσις
and the verb παραδίδωμι) to the community. I do not intend to enter into a
deeper exegetical analysis, but Paul emphasizes here that for the celebration of
the Lord’s Supper, what was “passed on” (the tradition) was a central category.2
Tradition means here not simply the general historicity of liturgy, and its inter-
weaving with human history and culture, but it points rather to the founding
moment and action by Jesus himself. By making recourse to the tradition, Paul
seeks closeness and faithfulness to origins. The term “tradition” will thus be-
come a theological category. This background, the effort to link liturgy with
Jesus’s action and with the apostolic era, and the re-actualization of the initial
act in the liturgy, is central for the question on the meaning of history and tra-
dition in the liturgical books. The idea of faithfulness to origins can, however,
easily come into conflict with another theologically well-founded concept:
the church has received the authority from the Spirit to continue shaping its
life—including the liturgy—at all times. When we are speaking about history
and tradition, the reference to origins should always be completed by adding
to it the necessity for development; because the church herself, in the broad
sense of communio sanctorum, has by nature a mundane (worldly) shape, and
as such is subject to history itself. So 1 Corinthians shows that the tension be-
tween tradition and change in the liturgy and in the entire life of the Church
can be observed already in the New Testament.
1.2 Augustine, Epistula 54, to Januarius

Quite precisely in the year 400, in his letter 54 to Januarius, the north-African
bishop Augustine of Hippo wrote about some binding points of reference for
the shape of the liturgy. Januarius had observed diverse liturgical practices at
different places, and he was confused about all that he had seen. Augustine
differentiates the binding nature of these liturgical customs according to their
origins. What the Holy Scripture, and most of all the New Testament, says is
of highest rank among the liturgical norms, even if this is valid—according to
Augustine—only for very few liturgical practices. In the second place, we find
liturgical customs that derive from the tradition of the church and are being
observed on the entire globe: quae non scripta sed tradita custodimus, quae
2 See, inter alia, Josip Gregur, Peter Hofmann, and Stefan Schreiber, eds., Kirchlichkeit und
Eucharistie: Intradisziplinäre Beiträge der Theologie im Anschluss an 1 Kor 11,17–34 (Regensburg:
Pustet, 2013).
Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern Liturgical Books 87
quidem toto terrarum orbe seruantur.3 In this case, Augustine assumes that
these liturgical practices can either be dated back to the time of the a postles,
or ecumenical councils laid them down.4 In this programmatic letter for the
liturgy belonging to the bishop of Hippo, the Holy Scripture and the tradition
of the church complement each other as norms for the liturgy, although the
Holy Scripture enjoys priority.5 The binding nature of tradition, which also
guarantees the church-wide communion in the liturgy, is for Augustine a basic
principle for all liturgical actions.
1.3 Theodulf of Orleans: The Preface Hucusque to the Supplementum of

the Sacramentarium Gregorianum
One of the personalities who played a crucial role in the ecclesial and cultural
reform of the Carolingian time is Theodulf of Orleans (ca. 760–ca. 820 CE).6
In the course of the Romanization of the liturgy in the Frankish Empire,
Charlemagne had asked for a Gregorian sacramentary from Rome. After he had
received it with some delay, and after it had also become evident that due to the
Carolingian dominion this sacramentary was partly useless, Theodulf added to
it further parts, which at the end made up 2/3 (two thirds) of the entire work.
He vindicates his aims and approach used at the completion and structuring
of this revised liturgical book in the preface Hucusque, which he put in front
of his Supplementum.7 Also here we can observe a certain tension between
3 E p. 54.1; Augustine of Hippo, Sancti Aurelii Augustini opera: Sectio 2, Epistulae 2,2; Ep. XXXI–
CXXIII, ed. Alois Goldbacher, CSEL 34.2 (Vienna: Gerold, 1898).
4 See full sentence: illa autem, quae non scripta sed tradita custodimus, quae quidem toto ter-
rarum orbe seruantur, datur intellegi uel ab ipsis apostolis uel plenariis conciliis, quorum est in
ecclesia saluberrima auctoritas, commendata atque statuta retineri (Ep. 54.1).
5 See Martin Klöckener, “Augustins Kriterien zu Einheit und Vielfalt in der Liturgie nach seinen
Briefen 54 und 55,” LJ 41 (1991): 24–39; see also Jochen Rexer, “Inquisitiones Ianuarii (Ad–),”
AugL 3:620–30.
6 Recently Franck Ruffiot has shown in his doctoral thesis by an examination of the prefaces
that Benedict of Aniane should no more be considered as the author of the Supplement to
the Gregorian Sacramentary, but that the best arguments are for Theodulf of Orleans. See
Franck Ruffiot, Le corpus des préfaces eucharistiques du Supplément au Sacramentarium
Gregorianum Hadrianum: Les sources du compilateur, ses motivations, son identité; Thèse de
doctorat en co-tutelle, Université de Fribourg, Faculté de Théologie and Institut Catholique de
Paris, Theologicum—Faculté de Théologie et de Sciences Religieuses, 2018, especially pages 151–
229. The study will be published in 2019 in the collection “Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen
und Forschungen.”
7 See the essential edition of Jean Deshusses, Le sacramentaire, le Supplément d’Aniane, vol. 1 of
Le sacramentaire grégorien: Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits; Édition
comparative, 3rd ed., SpicFri 16 (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires, 1992), 351–53, no. 1019a–c;
to this may be added the German translation by Martin Klöckener, “Die Vorrede ‘Hucusque’
88 Klöckener
the liturgical tradition and the newly created part of the book. Gregory the
Great (590–604 CE) stays with the liturgical tradition; the sacramentary was
circulating under his name already in the eighth century. Theodulf must have
appreciated the merits of the late pope’s supposed work, because this would
confer his work due authority. After all, Gregory the Great was considered to be
one of the most representative and authoritative figures of the Roman Church
and liturgy. Theodulf’s own innovative work cannot be regarded with the same
authority, even though the sacramentary first became useful in that part of the
continent thanks to the supplement he added to the book. Through the pref-
ace Hucusque, the early Middle Ages offer us an impressive testimony of high
esteem towards liturgical tradition by connecting liturgy to the name of Pope
Gregory the Great, who represented the apostolicity of the Roman church
going back to Peter, and who was one of the most representative figures among
the church fathers.8
1.4 Alberto da Castello’s Preface in the Roman Pontifical from 1520

As the fourth example, I am going to deal with a less well-known document:
the preface written by Alberto da Castello (Castellani; ca. 1470–after 1523) to
the Pontificale secundum Ritum sacrosancte Romane ecclesie published by him-
self in 1520. The book deals with the episcopal liturgy, and the preface written
by Castello is dedicated to Pope Leo X (1513–1521).9
In his preface, Alberto da Castello places the liturgy of the church in the larg-
er historical context of divine worship and of the cult in general.10 According to
him, cults are developing, and the Christian worship of God definitely consti-
tutes the peak of this development. He starts with the pagan Roman religion,
then turns to the Old Testament and points to the antiqui patres Abel, Noah,
zum Supplementum Anianense des gregorianischen Sakramentars ins Deutsche übertra-

gen,” ALW 46 (2004): 31–36.
8 To the liturgical work of Pope Gregory I, see the contribution of Andreas Heinz, “Papst
Gregor der Große und die römische Liturgie: Zum Gregorius-Gedenkjahr 1400 Jahre nach
seinem Tod (†604),” LJ 54 (2004): 69–84.
9 For this edition, see Marc Dykmans, Le Pontifical romain révisé au XVe siècle, StT 311
(Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1985), 134–48; Martin Klöckener, Die Liturgie
der Diözesansynode: Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des “Ordo ad Synodum” des
“Pontificale Romanum”: Mit einer Darstellung der Geschichte des Pontifikales und einem
Verzeichnis seiner Drucke, LQF 68 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1986), 22–24, 321–323, 326;
Martin Klöckener, “Das Pontifikale: Ein Liturgiebuch im Spiegel seiner Benennungen und
der Vorreden seiner Herausgeber, zugleich Würdigung und Weiterführung einer Studie
von Marc Dykmans,” ALW 28 (1986): 407–14.
10 The text is to be found in Klöckener, Liturgie der Diözesansynode, 321–23.
Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David.11 Through the priestly
ministry of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, Albert da Castello arrives at the
liturgy of the church, which he primarily understands as sacrifice and due cer-
emonies worshiping God. His criterion for revising the pontifical was primarily
the restoration of those liturgical traditions of the Roman church that in the
course of past centuries had disappeared. According to his own testimony,
Alberto da Castello made recourse only to those sources that were ordered by
prisci patres ipsique Sanctissimi Pontifices (“former fathers and holy popes”),
and to those antiquo ritu of ancient churches that had been kept alive ever
since their foundations and founding authorities.12
In Castello’s argumentation, we encounter history and tradition in two ac-
counts: on one hand, in a theological perspective in regard to the forms of
divine worship in the episcopal liturgy, whereby the Christian cult appears as
the peak of developments among other cults; on the other hand, materialiter,
when he justifies his revisions by stating that all that he added to the pontifical
descends from the tradition of the church. Of course, Castello’s main purpose
was to publish a book that was more useful than its previous editions. He adds
amendments and corrects mistakes of previous editions of the pontifical, and
uses the notion of tradition to justify his own work. What we have said about
the previous centuries is valid also for the beginning of the sixteenth century:
the legitimacy of any liturgical normalization and reform depends on the bond
to the tradition.
These four historical examples, starting with the New Testament and end-
ing with the early sixteenth century, the last one belonging already to the early
stage of the Reformation, are exemplary also for many other liturgical sources.
Revisions or more complex reforms are always done under the superior argu-
ment: the tradition of the church. This is done not only for pragmatic reasons
(i.e., where the material for the revision or reshaping of the orders of celebra-
tions and rites come from), but also for theological reasons. The fact that
according to the doctrine of the church, tradition is considered to be one of
the two sources of doctrine, also plays a crucial role in the liturgical context—
more implicitly than explicitly.13
11 Interestingly enough, Abel is called here protomartyr, a term usually applied to Stephen
in the New Testament.
12 A full list of the expanded pieces of pontificals as compared to earlier prints is to be found
at Dykmans, Pontifical, 140–46.
13 See here Martin Klöckener and Benedikt Kranemann, “Liturgiereform—Grundzug des
christlichen Gottesdienstes: Systematische Auswertung,” in Liturgiereformen seit der Mitte
des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 2 of Liturgiereformen: Historische Studien zu
einem bleibenden Grundzug des christlichen Gottesdienstes; Festschrift Angelus A. Häußling,
90 Klöckener
2 History and Tradition in the Books of the Liturgical Reform

Following the Council of Trent
To present the understanding of history and tradition of the liturgical books

following the liturgical reform promoted by the Council of Trent, I am going to
refer to the papal bulls attached to these books at their promulgation. On the
other hand, I intend to investigate how this concept has been realized in the
liturgical books themselves.14
2.1 The Concept of Tradition in the Papal Bulls quod a nobis (1568), quo
primum (1570), and ex quo in ecclesia dei (1596)
The popes who issued the bulls for the publication of the Breviarium Romanum
(1568),15 the Missale Romanum (1570),16 and the Pontificale Romanum
(1595/1596)17 stressed that the new editions of these liturgical books were in
ed. Martin Klöckener and Benedikt Kranemann, LQF 88.2 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2002),
1092–93.
14 See Winfried Haunerland, “Einheitlichkeit als Weg der Erneuerung: Das Konzil von Trient
und die nachtridentinische Reform der Liturgie,” in Biblische Modelle und Liturgiereformen
von der Frühzeit bis zur Aufklärung, vol. 1 of Klöckener and Kranemann, Liturgiereformen,
436–65; and the other older, but still relevant studies, like Hubert Jedin, “Das Konzil
von Trient und die Reform der liturgischen Bücher,” EL 59 (1945): 5–38; Amato Pietro
Frutaz, “Contributo alla storia della riforma del Messale promulgato da san Pio V nel
1570,” in Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento, IS 2 (Padua: Antenore, 1960),
187–214; Hubert Jedin, Dritte Tagungsperiode und Abschluß: Überwindung der Krise durch
Morone, Schließung und Bestätigung, vol. 4, part 2, of Geschichte des Konzils von Trient
(Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1975), 238–241. See also Martin Klöckener, “Tradition und
Erneuerung im Gottesdienst der katholischen Kirche: Oder, Liturgische Ordnungen und
ihre Verbindlichkeit,” in Liturgie und Konfession: Grundfragen der Liturgiewissenschaft im
interkonfessionellen Gespräch, ed. Birgit Jeggle-Merz and Benedikt Kranemann (Freiburg
im Breisgau: Herder, 2013), 56–61.
15 For the text of the promulgation bull with German translation and commentary, see
Alexander Zerfaß and Angelus A. Häußling, “Die Bulle ‘Quod a Nobis’ Papst Pius’ V. vom
9. Juli 1568 zur Promulgation des nachtridentinischen Breviarium Romanum: Liturgische
Quellentexte lateinisch-deutsch 3,” in Angelus A. Häußling, Tagzeitenliturgie in Geschichte
und Gegenwart: Historische und theologische Studien, ed. Martin Klöckener, 2nd ed., LQF
100 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2017), 186–205. In the following, this edition is going to be
used, including its numbering system.
16 Text with German translation and introduction: Martin Klöckener, “Die Bulle ‘Quo pri-
mum’ Papst Pius’ V. vom 14. Juli 1570 zur Promulgation des nachtridentinischen Missale
Romanum: Liturgische Quellentexte lateinisch-deutsch 2,” ALW 48 (2006): 41–51. In the
following, this edition is going to be used, including its numbering system.
17 For the text of the promulgation bull with German translation and commentary, see Martin
Klöckener, “Die Konstitution ‘Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei’ Papst Clemens’ VIII. (10.2.1596) zur
Promulgation des Pontificale Romanum: Liturgische Quellentexte lateinisch-deutsch 5,”
harmony with the will of the Council of Trent. At the last session of the council,
4 December 1563, the reform of the breviary and the missal had been decided.
The revision of other liturgical books, most of all that of the pontifical, had
been realized several decades later, but in the same spirit.18 These bulls made
clear the goals and leading criteria of the revision, prescribed the obligatory
use of these books for the entire church, abrogated the earlier editions, and
regulated some questions related to print and implementation.
The first decree among the three mentioned above was Quod a Nobis. Here
we find the most extensive presentation of the concept of liturgical tradition.
In order to justify the necessity of his reform, Pope Pius V (1566–1572) con-
sequently invoked the popes Gelasius I (492–496), Gregory the Great, and
Gregory VII (1073–1085). They were the guarantee of the tradition that had
been used for orientation in the reform of the breviary. The form of Roman
liturgy used in the times of these popes had been viewed as errorless, but the
coming epochs had partially abandoned this perfect form. Now, however, the
church had to return “to the old rule of prayer” (no. 4): ad pristinam orandi
regulam. From a historical point of view, it is not possible to detect any influ-
ence of these three popes on the development of the Roman breviary. They are
nevertheless historically idealized heroes, and Pope Pius V considered himself
to be one of them.19
Angelus Häußling remarked in his commentary on the bull Quod a Nobis
that these kinds of formulations “were part of the solid tops of how the curia
safeguarded authority.” “Invoking the holy fathers meant to ensure the tradi-
tion,” and these formulations—as we have seen—were in use even before the
sixteenth century.20 What is crucial, however, is the fact that from then on,
the lawful liturgical tradition was seen only to exist in the Roman and curial
tradition. Only this was considered in the post-Tridentine church to be the au-
thentic and normative tradition. The bull formulated a similar view, also on
the authority of the Breviarium vetus (no. 5). Only because of its age, this book
would serve as a rule for the new edition. Local churches had throughout the
centuries abandoned the recitation of the liturgy of the hours (no. 6), which
had then to be recuperated following the “old Roman custom” of prayer.
In this particular case, we can observe how arguing with the tradition fo-
cusing exclusively on the Roman liturgy took on an ecclesiological character.
ALW 54 (2012): 127–146. In the following, this edition is going to be used, including its
numbering system.
18 See Haunerland, “Einheitlichkeit als Weg der Erneuerung,” 444–56.
19 Thus Zerfaß and Häußling, “Bulle ‘Quod a Nobis,’ ” 196–97.
20 Zerfaß and Häußling, “Bulle ‘Quod a Nobis,’ ” 196–97.
92 Klöckener
Rome claims powers of authority both in matters of leadership and liturgy.

According to this view, by abandoning the Roman customs, local churches had
violated both the unity of the liturgy and the unity of the church. As a conse-
quence, the pope argued that from now on, only this breviary should be used
in the entire Church, apart from those traditions older than two hundred years.
According to the exclusivity of this principle, “the compiler of the new edi-
tion should not deviate from the venerable breviaries of the Church of the City
(Rome) and from those kept in the Vatican library” (no. 14). “In fact, however,
the compiler had access only to the testimonies of the tradition dating back to
the high Middle Ages. They were supposed to see through these documents the
genuine tradition, and not a particular tradition, which was actually the case.”21
Along the same lines is to be considered the bull written two years later by
Pius V, Quo primum, on the publishing of the revised Missale Romanum (1570).
This papal writing also offers a list of the sources used for the reform.22 Exactly
as in the case of the breviary, the recourse to the “old” manuscripts was sup-
posed to guarantee the reliability of the tradition. This time the spectrum of
the manuscripts was probably not reduced to those preserved in the Vatican
library, but other sources and commentators on the liturgy were considered
as well. Crucial, however, was the fact that only those manuscripts were taken
into account that were considered to be sources veterum … ac probatorum
auctorum. Only sources rooted in the tradition, and works of old and reliable
authors were considered to be trustworthy. This statement reaches its peak with
the proclamation that the missal “has been restored according to the original
norms and rite of the holy fathers” (no. 4). The bull actually tells us nowhere
which “holy fathers” are meant here. Although the tradition used as argument
works very powerfully, it is not impossible that the selection of sources might
have happened in a rather arbitrary way.23 The well-known norm of turning
back to “fathers” in the post-Tridentine era receives a special emphasis in the
context of the Reformation. One wanted to see in the purportedly genuine and
pure form of the liturgy of the fathers a form of the liturgy that could remain
unharmed from the attacks of the reformers, since it was much older than
the liturgical practices of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which were
21 Zerfaß and Häußling, “Bulle ‘Quod a Nobis,’ ” 200.

22 See no. 4: “They very carefully collated all their work with the ancient codices in Our
Vatican Library and with reliable, preserved or emended codices from elsewhere. Besides
this, these men consulted the works of ancient and approved authors concerning the
same sacred rites; and thus they have restored the Missal itself to the original form and
rite of the holy Fathers.”
23 On the topic, see Angelus A. Häußling, “Liturgiereform: Materialien zu einem neuen
Thema der Liturgiewissenschaft,” ALW 31 (1989): 8–12.
massively rejected by reformers. At the same time, the council used the term
“tradition” as the second source of doctrine in order to oppose the Protestant
principle of sola scriptura.
The arguments of Pope Clement VIII (1592–1605) twenty-six years later are
not very different. In his bull to the pontifical Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei, he begins
by pointing at the tradition of the church, which he considered to be the chief
norm for all efforts around the liturgy of the church:
From which many things in the Church of God have been faithfully
and wisely established, first by sacred councils and then by the Roman
Pontiffs, our Predecessors, in order to increase the glory of God and to
maintain the unity of the Catholic faith elsewhere, and the same Pontiffs,
our predecessors, had decreed that nothing is more important than that
they should bring the common rules of ecclesiastical duty back to their
proper place, after the authority of tradition had been preserved. (No. 1)24
According to this statement, the councils, presumably the Council of Trent in

the first line, and the Roman popes are the superior embodiment of the tradi-
tion. The religious ceremonies, and above all the liturgy, have to correspond
to this line of tradition. They receive their dignity on the basis of their ancient
age. Right from the beginning it is evident that the principle of history and
the tradition of the doctrine of the church as norma propria is most highly
esteemed. This argumentation by the end of the sixteenth century can also be
regarded as a defense against Protestant critiques. The goal of the reform is—
as it is stated several times in the text—to restore the older, historical shape
that is considered to be the pure and intact version of the liturgy (see no. 3:
recuperato prioris integritatis statu).25 Once again the revision is based on an
idealized version of history. Another aspect of this post-Tridentine liturgical
reform is the tension between the liturgies of the local churches and the uni-
versal church. The liturgical practices of many local churches were going to be
sacrificed on the altar of the strict Roman uniformism.
The papal bulls, as programmatic texts, show us the following understand-
ing of history and tradition in the context of liturgy:
24 No. 1: Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei multa, tum a sacris Conciliis, tum a Romanis Pontificibus …,
ad Dei gloriam augendam, et ad Catholicae fidei unitatem ubique retinendam, pie ac sapi-
enter instituta sunt, nihil magis iidem Pontifices Praedecessores nostri curandum sibi esse
statuerunt, quam ut communes Ecclesiastici muneris rationes ad propriam normam, ser-
vata antiquitatis auctoritate, revocarent.
25 See Klöckener, “Konstitution ‘Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei,’ ” 136–39.
94 Klöckener
1. As in earlier stages of the history of liturgy, so in this one, the concept of

tradition appears as an important, or even a superior norm for the liturgy
and its reform.
2. Specific to this period is also that the very high esteem for historical
models and liturgical traditions is often motivated by an anti-Protestant
approach.
3. To focus on the allegedly old and proven tradition of the church promises
a reliable and orthodox liturgy with an accurate shape and form.
4. It seems that for the revision of the liturgical books, questions about
time, its challenges and its relevance for the liturgical celebration as a
criterion for reform, played a very small role, if any. Returning to the past
and restoring old models were the true criteria for the reform.
5. Consequently, according to the Roman perspective, the understanding
of ecclesial tradition had been seriously narrowed down and was almost
exclusively equated with papal liturgy.
2.2 The Implementation of This Program in the Liturgical Books after

the Council of Trent
The liturgical books of the post-Tridentine time are—according to the pro-
gram of the papal bulls we have just investigated—strongly historical and
committed to the Roman tradition. This is true for both their structure and
content. There were, of course, a number of innovations in the details; some
texts and ritual procedures were revised, and also new elements were added.
Still, the very nature and goal of this reform gave little space for innovations:
the main goal of the council was to help the worldwide implementation of
the Roman liturgy, to standardize the liturgy according to the Roman example,
and to suppress the liturgy of the local churches and religious orders as much
as possible. The variety of traditions that existed up until this time within the
Catholic Church was widely abandoned.
For the new edition of the Tridentine pontifical from 1595/1596, for exam-
ple, one had followed the same line of tradition that went back to William
Durandus, from the end of the thirteenth century. The pontifical of Durandus
was the main source for the first printed edition, which was published by
Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini in 1485. In several reprints of this book for the
episcopal liturgy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this line of tradi-
tion was also kept alive, until these all emerged in the newly edited pontifical
following the Council of Trent.26 Although for the different editions there were
26 To these editions see Dykmans, Pontifical, 108–48; Klöckener, Liturgie der Diözesansynode,
17–25; Klöckener, “Pontifikale,” 400–402.
smaller revisions, these did not essentially change the profile of this liturgi-
cal book. In comparison with the previous edition from 1582, the Pontificale
Romanum of Pope Clement VIII (1595/1596) contains a more significant num-
ber of alterations, additions, and cuts, but still the line of tradition is the same;
there is no space for real innovation. Even some rites and texts that were abol-
ished in the previous editions due to irrelevance reappear in this edition.
In the case of the Missale Romanum, one can observe a similar faithfulness
to tradition. One can see this on the composition of the most important parts
of the book: the calendar reaches the stand of the Lateran Basilica from 1145,
with the addition of some new saints; for the Ordo Missae and the general ru-
brics at the beginning of the missal, the version belonging to the papal master
of ceremonies Johannes Burckard from 1502, the so called “silent Mass” is used,
which he had developed for the papal court; for the altered parts there were
some more serious changes, namely in the case of the prefaces and the se-
quences, which were for the Roman liturgy rather unknown, or at least shorter
in length.27 Thus we can see, both in the shape and content of the Missale
Romanum, the strong commitment to the tradition; more precisely the com-
mitment to the papal liturgy. The purpose of this narrow historical fixation was
to ensure a true liturgical reform in the Catholic Church. In addition to this, the
standardization of the liturgy and the norm of unchangeability in the liturgy
meant to fulfill the same purpose.
One could ask, of course, if there were any realistic alternatives to the old
criteria of returning to the “fathers,” whenever in the church there was a critical
situation like the one in the sixteenth century. The liturgical books of the French
Catholic Church from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century prove that
there could have been alternatives. Although they have often been pejoratively
referred to as “neogallican” liturgies, they represent another way of embracing
tradition. They embody a different ecclesiology, which did not always overlap
with the intentions of the Holy See, since Rome constantly fought against the
French diocesan liturgies. As for the divine office, the breviary composed by
Cardinal Francesco Quiñonez, published in 1535 (also named the “short bre-
viary”), was a profound and well-received innovation. This breviary broke with
the Roman tradition, reduced the breviary pensum for pastoral reasons, gave
more attention to the readings, and offered several other innovations. At the
beginning it even received papal approval, but then later was banned exactly
27 See Hans Bernhard Meyer and Irmgard Pahl, Eucharistie: Geschichte, Theologie, Pastoral,
GdK 4 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1989), 261–64.
96 Klöckener
for the reason of not being in harmony with the Roman tradition.28 The bull
on the breviary Quod a Nobis explicitly forbids the further use of this breviary
(nos. 5 and 15). These few examples prove the possibility of innovation. For
this, however, one should have distanced himself more from the historical
models and from the mandatory character of tradition, and used other reform
criteria. The ecclesiology of the time also did not favor much innovation. The
post-Reformation and post-Tridentine era, along with continuing polarization
and confessionalism, did not create a favorable atmosphere for such reforms.
This situation did not change for the coming four centuries. The strong ori-
entation towards the tradition characterized the liturgical books. Changes and
adaptations to the new circumstances often could happen only outside the
frameworks of written texts. These adaptations were not so much promoted by
the magisterium of the church or by those responsible for the liturgy. The first
steps were rather made by the just-developing liturgical scholarship, where li-
turgical sources and the interest in liturgical traditions became a central issue.
Real new insights were only brought about in the period of Enlightenment, but
still without profound changes on the long run.
There were also other kinds of tradition in several diocesan liturgies or in
the liturgy of the religious orders, but normally they, too, followed the same
principles: the appreciation of the tradition of their church, of their special
history or monastery. Even if the concrete forms of these liturgies could differ
from the Roman liturgy, they were also deeply rooted in their own local or re-
gional history and their own tradition. A certain difference consists in the fact
that such diocesan, regional, or local liturgical traditions were not character-
ized by the same rigor as the post-Tridentine liturgical books.
3 The New Understanding of Tradition in the Missale Romanum of

Pope Paul VI
The liturgy of the church will always remain attached to history and tradition.
They oblige every generation to take them into consideration as aspects of all
human, social, and ecclesial life. This does not necessarily mean, however, that
this commitment to tradition should also imply a narrow interpretation of it,
28 To this breviary, see Angelus A. Häußling, “Brevierreformen im 16. Jahrhundert: Materialien
von damals und Erwägungen für morgen,” in Rituels: Mélanges offerts à Pierre-Marie Gy,
O. P., ed. Paul De Clerck and Eric Palazzo (Paris: Cerf 1990), 295–311; see also Häußling,
Tagzeitenliturgie, 71–72, 170–72, 196–99, as well as the index under “Kreuzbrevier.”
as it happened after the Council of Trent. The modern developments in the

Catholic Church show us another possible way.
The Second Vatican Council demanded a balance between “sound tradition”
and “legitimate progress,” which means that “any new forms adopted should
in some way grow organically from forms already existing” (Sacrosanctum
Concilium 23). This position assured on one hand continuity, and on the other
opened up the way for real progress. For the fathers of the council it was clear
that every reform necessarily implies a certain discontinuity, which still does
not mean betraying the tradition.29 Proper tradition can be affected by prob-
lematic development (see also Sacrosanctum Concilium 21), which had already
been recognized by the Council of Trent. Still it did not specify what the “proper
tradition” of the Catholic Church (norma propria) actually meant. This was also
difficult, because the mere restoration of the earlier tradition could not properly
respond to a number of actual challenges in the church, theology, and doctrine.
The reform of the last council took a very different approach, which the new
edition of the missal shows. In his apostolic constitution Missale Romanum,
from 3 April 1969, Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) describes the general and profound
reform of the missal to be in total harmony with the tradition, especially with
the teaching of the Council of Trent. At the same time he argues that a retro-
grade concept of tradition was not sustainable any longer. This was due to the
new theological insights gained through the research done on the sources of
the liturgical tradition, but also due to the changes that have occurred in church
and society in the past centuries. All these changes have created a new situa-
tion and demanded also a new approach towards tradition. For Pope Paul VI,
this tradition can neither simply be identified with the curial liturgy, nor with
the Latin tradition in general. For the process of making new liturgical books,
which should also incorporate the new spiritual insights of the faithful, the
entire Eastern and Western liturgical traditions had to be taken into account.30
This profoundly modified view on what liturgical tradition could mean led the
reform to enrich the Roman Mass with the tradition of “the fathers” and of the
early church (for example, the increase of the number of eucharistic prayers,
29 See the important contribution from Andrea Grillo, “Liturgie 50 ans après Sacrosanctum
Concilium: Bilan et perspectives,” in “Die sichtbarste Frucht des Konzils”: Beiträge zur
Liturgie in der Schweiz / “Le fruit le plus visible du Concile”; Études sur la liturgie en Suisse,
ed. Martin Klöckener, Birgit Jeggle-Merz, and Peter Spichtig (Fribourg: Academic Press
Fribourg, 2015), 68–90.
30 See Heinrich Rennings and Martin Klöckener, eds., Dokumente des Apostolischen Stuhls
1963–1973 und des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils, DEL 1, vol. 1 of Dokumente zur Erneuerung
der Liturgie, 2nd ed. (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg,
2002), nos. 1362 and 1364.
98 Klöckener
the restoration of the homily and intercessions, the euchological enrichment

of the liturgical seasons, or the reintroduction of the responsorial psalm).31
The “General Instruction of the Roman Missal” (1969) goes even beyond the
words of Pope Paul VI and defines the notion of norma patrum (“norm of the
fathers”) more precisely.32 The Preface to the General Instruction (no. 9) offers
a certain definition of this notion, including a view of how the Catholic Church
understands liturgical tradition today:
For this reason, the “norm of the holy Fathers” requires not only the pres-
ervation of what our immediate forebears have passed on to us, but also
an understanding and a more profound study of the Church’s entire past
and of all the ways in which her one and only faith has been set forth
in the quite diverse human and social forms prevailing in the Semitic,
Greek, and Latin areas. Moreover, this broader view allows us to see how
the Holy Spirit endows the People of God with a marvelous fidelity in
preserving the unalterable deposit of faith, even amid a very great variety
of prayers and rites.33
The tension with the program of the Tridentine reform is unmistakably rec-
ognizable. According to this view of tradition, the doctrine transmitted in the
liturgy, the typical Roman liturgical structures, elements, and way of pray-
ing remain identical. At the same time, this tradition is going to be enriched,
“fulfilled and brought forth” (as the missal says) by the deepened theological
insights of the people and their faith experiences in the present.34
This theological concept of tradition and reform makes history indispens-
able for the future revisions of liturgical books in the Catholic Church. Crucial
31 See more extensively Klöckener, “Tradition und Erneuerung,” 63–66.

32 In the new edition of Institutio generalis Missalis Romani (IGMR) from 2002 integrated in
the consecutive numbering of the IGMR.
33 Preamble no. 9, in Rennings and Klöckener, eds., Dokumente des Apostolischen Stuhls,
1389. With a slightly different translation in Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, Grundordnung
des Römischen Messbuchs: Vorabpublikation zum Deutschen Messbuch, 3. Auflage, ArDB
215 (Bonn: Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, 2007), no. 9. English transla-
tion by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,
Missale Romanum, “General Instruction of the Roman Missal / Institutio Generalis
Missalis Romani,” http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/
rc_con_ccdds_doc_20030317_ordinamento-messale_en.html.
34 See preamble no. 15 in Rennings and Klöckener, eds., Dokumente des Apostolischen Stuhls,
1395; Deutsche Bischofskonferenz, Grundordnung, no. 15. On the concept of a dynamic
tradition in the field of liturgy, as also proposed by Pope Paul VI, see Pierre-Marie Gy,
“Tradition vivante, réforme liturgique et identité ecclésiale,” MD 178 (1989): 93–106;
Pierre-Marie Gy, “La liturgie de l’Église, la tradition vivante et Vatican II,” RICP 50 (1994):
29–37.
is, however, that the church should never stick to a certain period of history
and its tradition. She must always stay open for dynamic development, consid-
ering its primary sources, the liturgical books. By dealing with the question of
tradition in such a creative way, the church continues the heritage of the great
witnesses of faith like the apostle Paul, Augustine of Hippo, and Theodulf of
Orleans.
4 Some Final Reflections about “Ritual Dynamics”
Wherein lies a special ritual dynamic in the above depicted historical processes?
1. One can see a certain ritual dynamic in the fact that a continuous adjust-
ment of liturgical sources has been taking place. This process has been
different according to the epoch, the context, and conditions of the lit-
urgy, and has been strongly dependent on the prevailing ecclesiology of
the time. Especially in the modern era, this ritual dynamic in regard to
the liturgical resources of the universal church turned out to be rather
modest, if one can use the term “dynamic” in this context at all.
2. Ritual dynamic arises—as in the past and in our times as well—also from
the inevitable tension between the written order of service, the Ordo, the
fixed prayers and songs on one hand, and the actual performance on the
other. This difference between the order of the celebration, even if it has
a compulsory character, and the actual performance is inherent in every
liturgical action, and belongs to the characteristics of liturgical action.
3. Furthermore we can observe a ritual dynamic developing after the
Council of Trent due to the tension between the liturgy according to the
universal norms, and customs and rules on the level of the local church.
This affected the liturgies, which to some extent still exist, of dioceses and
religious orders, but also the adherence to particular customs, even when
these were not in line with the new compulsory rules. We can see this
in many places during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the
course of implementation and introduction of the new liturgical books
ordered by the Council of Trent. A large number of dioceses introduced
these new books with a significant delay, and some of the dioceses—after
a certain period of time—even turned back, entirely or partially, to their
own, older rites. Thus, ritual dynamic arises also merely from the partial
implementation of liturgical legislation and from a limited introduction
of compulsory liturgical resources.35
35
We once analyzed this issue from the perspective of Swiss dioceses; see Martin
Klöckener, “Die Liturgiereform von Trient und ihre Umsetzung in der Schweiz: Mit einem
100 Klöckener
4. Finally, a special liturgical dynamic emerges due to the contexts of lit-

urgy, which occasionally face a different development than the texts and
rites codified in liturgical books. This concerns, for example, the whole
topic of architecture and equipment of church buildings, but also the
preconditions of understanding of those who celebrate the liturgy. These
preconditions are not only influenced by theological-spiritual and eccle-
sial changes, but also by sociocultural developments. The ways and forms
of participation of those attending a liturgical celebration can therefore
differ significantly, even if the texts of the rites remain identical. The four
hundred years between the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican
Council can be considered—surprisingly enough—highly innovative in
this respect.
Regarding a possible comparison of Christian and Jewish liturgy from the
point of view of ritual dynamic, we can ask the following questions in connec-
tion with our reflections:
1. Were there any similar efforts in the modern history of Judaism, as it was
in the Catholic Church after the Council of Trent, in order to develop the
existing shape of worship?
2. What are the normative authorities for the liturgy? What are the pro-
ceedings, methods, and goals when such standardization takes place?
How can they be justified? How are they going to be received by the
worshipers?
3. Are there any similar tendencies or developments in Judaism like those
in the Catholic Church of the twentieth century under the influence of
the council, which made way for a new, wider interpretation of notions
of rite and tradition, as the result of a strong, broadly accepted, theologi-
cally solidly grounded reform?
To answer these and similar questions and to compare these processes will be
the task of further interdisciplinary research of Judaism and Christianity.
vergleichenden Ausblick auf die Liturgiereform des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils,” in

Karl Borromäus und die katholische Reform: Akten des Freiburger Symposiums zur 400.
Wiederkehr der Heiligsprechung des Schutzpatrons der katholischen Schweiz; Freiburg
Schweiz, 24.–25. April 2009, ed. Mariano Delgado and Markus Ries, SCRK 13 (Fribourg:
Academic Press Fribourg; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2010), 244–71. Especially for the colle-
giate church of St. Nikolaus in Fribourg by the end of the sixteenth century, see Klöckener,
“Die Liturgie an der Stiftskirche St. Nikolaus in Freiburg auf Grundlage des Zeremoniale
aus dem späten 16. Jahrhundert,” in Le Chapitre Saint-Nicolas de Fribourg: Foyer reli-
gieux et culturel, lieu de pouvoir; Actes du colloque, 3.–5.2.2010 / Das Kapitel St. Nikolaus
in Freiburg: Hort des Glaubens, der Kultur und der Macht; Akten des Kolloquiums, ed. Jean
Steinauer and Hubertus von Gemmingen, ASH 7 (Fribourg: Société d’histoire du Canton
de Fribourg, 2010), 409–42.
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Deshusses, Jean. Le sacramentaire, le Supplément d’Aniane. Vol. 1 of Le sacramentaire
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Dykmans, Marc. Le Pontifical romain révisé au XVe siècle. StT 311. Vatican City: Biblioteca
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Gregur, Josip, Peter Hofmann, and Stefan Schreiber, eds., Kirchlichkeit und Eucharistie:
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Gy, Pierre-Marie. “La liturgie de l’Église, la tradition vivante et Vatican II.” RICP 50
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Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2010.
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und der Vorreden seiner Herausgeber, zugleich Würdigung und Weiterführung
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Part 2
A Dynamic Relationship: Christian and Jewish
Traces in Jewish and Christian Texts
∵
Chapter 5
Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples

Clemens Leonhard
1 Introductory Observations
“Jewish Rituals are—as all rituals—nothing static. They change throughout

times and especially when they come into contact with other cultures and
contexts.”1 This statement introduces readers of the homepage of the wonder-
ful “Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity
to the Present” Research Center, in order to ask new questions and to examine
new data for the understanding of the dynamics of ritual change in Judaism
and Christianity. The following paper collects evidence that corroborates
this intuition. It also points to a potential fallacy in this approach. The idea
of changing rituals is useful for the collection of data as point of departure
for one’s studies. Nevertheless, the notion of a changing ritual implies a kind
of Platonic heavenly essence that should remain intact throughout the ages
even though its earthly shape may absorb influences from “other cultures and
contexts.” At least in certain contexts, the essential core and the external influ-
ences may be less easily discernible than this notion suggests.
How can rituals embody memories? Human bodies and objects appear in
rituals. Sacral symbolism is one of several possible (not indispensable) char-
acteristics of ritualized acts.2 The fact that symbolic acts, objects, or persons
appear in rituals makes these acts, objects, or persons meaningless, ambigu-
ous, or even overdetermined.3 It is not even obvious which actions, objects,
persons, circumstances, and so on, belong to the ritual and are hence es-
sential for its performance, and which of them are marginal or present by
1 Claudia D. Bergmann, University of Erfurt, Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwis-

senschaftliche Studien, Research Centre “Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic
Contexts from Antiquity to the Present.”
2 Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997),
chapter 5, collects characteristics of ritualized acts (as an open list): formalism, traditional-
ism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.
3 See Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992),
182–87 esp. 184.

108 Leonhard
coincidence.4 Symbols in rituals are thus arbitrary. Interpreters of rituals must

dispose of additional knowledge. It is not sufficient, actually also not especially
helpful to master the performance of the ritual, in order to understand it. Its
performance does not interpret itself. From an outsider’s point of view, bits of
the insiders’ interpretation of a certain ritual may be weird and far-fetched.
Conversely, scholarly interpreters of rituals assign to them social functions
and meanings that never occurred to people involved in their performance. In
rituals, one may even recite texts (or carry them around in books). These texts
become parts of the action of the ritual. They are as ambiguous or meaningless
as the other objects or acts involved in the ritual. Thus, rituals do not embody
memories. Nevertheless, they belong to a network of texts, interpreters, per-
formers, discussions, places, times, and acts that foster certain memories and
marginalize others.
Rabbinic concepts of avodah zarah (“idol worship”) try to limit the field of
unacceptable theory and/or practice by identifying these as gentile (Greek or
Roman, perhaps also as Christian) and hence as non-Jewish. Theories of avo-
dah zarah draw their importance from their power to show that customs and
rituals as parts of daily life do not carry or display their own meaning, at least
not in an unambiguous way. A modern European perspective, which includes
centuries of thought about confessional boundaries, may tend to regard litur-
gies as a natural field for the establishment of distinctions between groups.
For example, Catholics would not celebrate Reformation Day. Conversely,
Protestants would not participate in Corpus Christi processions. Rabbinic
theory follows similar lines. It discusses restrictions of commerce in the con-
text of pagan-appointed times and festivals.5 However, not all cultic practices
could be regarded as either typically Greek or Roman versus typically Jewish.
Rabbinic sources sometimes try to avoid this divide, for example, by claim-
ing that dangerous similarities between customs just reflect their common
ancestry going back to a mythic past before any division into Jewish and non-
Jewish. The narrative that Adam actually invented Hanukkah, which could be
mistaken for an imitation of Saturnalia, furnishes an example of this strategy.6
4 The problem has been addressed in a (pleasant and) masterful way at the beginning of
Jonathan Zittel Smith’s paper “The Bare Facts of Ritual,” HR 20 (1980): 112–27.
5 See m. Abod. Zar. 1.2 (3), in Codex Kaufmann, Budapest, David Kaufmann Collection, MS
Kaufmann A 50, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 166r: qalants ustarnilayya
uqartesis weyom gnesyah shellammelakhim weyom halledah weyom hammitah (“Calends,
Saturnalia, kratēsis [commemoration of the Roman conquest of the eastern countries], royal
anniversaries, birthday, day of the death”).
6 Adam (the first man) institutes the predecessor of Saturnalia based on his observation of the
winter solstice, b. Abod. Zar. 8a, Ma’agarim: MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, 1337.
Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples 109
For such reconstructions, the rabbis may lay claim to historical priority and
originality, labeling any similar concept or practice on the part of the respec-
tive others as secondary and replicated. Nevertheless, many ritual elements are
not markers of distinction. Furthermore, similarities in ritual elements pose
the danger of an outsider’s conclusion that their meanings may also be identi-
cal. Observed in isolation, a wine libation or the fact that sacrificial animals are
killed is not identifiable as Greek, Roman, or Jewish; not even typically Greek,
Roman, or Jewish. Yet, libations and sacrifices are not comparable to elements
(terms, phrases) of a language that speakers (performers) and hearers (per-
formers and spectators) can understand. Insiders may regard them as highly
different or quite similar, or as carrying no meaning at all. Thus, they may put
customs, gestures, texts, and liturgical implements in a category of confession-
al neutrality, mundane irrelevance, or well-accomplished appropriation.
2 Memories of the Temple
The Temple of Jerusalem plays a role of some importance in rabbinic conver-

sations about liturgies of the past and present.7 Thus, the Tosefta presupposes
that the basic structure of Jewish daily prayers reflects the organization of the
regular sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple.8 Other sources suggest that the read-
ing and study of the biblical texts containing the commandments to perform
the sacrifices at the temple are actually ways to fulfil these commandments.9
In this system, the study of texts (and/or prayer) replaces the performance of
sacrifices. This notion becomes engrained to such an extent that the reading
of the texts is not anymore interpreted as a mere substitute for the sacrifices
after their demise. The sages pass off their substitute as a primordial way to
perform the commandment of the sacrifice itself. Thus, Pesiqta of Rab
Kahana turns the historical development upside down. It explains the double
appearance of the law regarding the daily offering (tamid) as implying the
7 See Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Templisierung: Die Rückkehr des Tempels in die jüdische und
christliche Liturgie der Spätantike,” in Rites et croyances dans les religions du monde romain:
Huit exposés suivis de discussions; Vandoeuvres—Genève, 21–25 août 2006, ed. Corinne Bonnet
and John Scheid, EAC 53 (Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 2007), 231–78, for a wider approach to
the question. The present investigation scrutinizes certain systematic questions within this
broader framework.
8 See t. Ber. 3.1–2, Lieberman 11; see also b. Ber. 26b, Ma’agarim: MS Oxford, Bodleian Library,
366.
9 See also, for Pesach, only implicitly t. Pesah. 10.11–12, Lieberman, 198–99; see also the follow-
ing note.
110 Leonhard
commandment to perform the sacrifice and the reading of its laws.10 It is prob-
ably not accidental that this way to address the problem surfaces in Pesiqta
of Rab Kahana and not in the older tannaitic midrashim or halakic texts. The
homilist is sufficiently confident that the rabbinic liturgy of study and prayers
is here to stay. The arrangement of both of them on the same level of dignity
and necessity comes as a preference for the latter. If Israel had always been
commanded to perform sacrifices and to study their halakah, and if studying
and praying is sufficient in times when sacrifices cannot be performed, study
and payer turn out to be the fundamental principle.
The prayers of the youngest layers of the siddur elucidate the procedure.
Thus, Num 28:1–10 is read silently at the beginning of the morning prayers. It
is preceded by a petition for the rebuilding of the temple. The temple is said
to be especially desirable, because it provides the framework for the offering
of atoning sacrifices. After reading the biblical text, the worshiper prays for the
acceptance of this act of reading the laws as replacements for the performance
of the sacrifices according to these laws. In spite of their blatant contradiction,
both prayers are necessary for the understanding of the system. On the one
hand, praying for the reconstruction of the temple emphasizes its necessity.
On the other hand, acknowledging this necessity may prompt despair in the
absence of the temple. It may also prompt an abandonment of the concept,
if it should turn out that life continues without the performance of sacrifices.
Emphasizing its necessity requires a means to attain its benefits. Hence, the
reading of the laws reminds one of the loss of the irreplaceable temple, and
offers study and prayer as an effective replacement for that loss.11 The contra-
diction of the “replacement” of the “irreplaceable” highlights the necessarily
unresolved tension that comes to the fore in the juxtaposition of these ritual
texts. The importance of the liturgy is based on the importance of the temple.
It must claim to replace it, in order to inherit its importance. At the same time,
it must claim that the (metaphorical) bequeather is not dead, because his im-
mortality (and its desired rebuilding) establishes his importance. The system
tries by all means to avoid the paradigm of historical progress from predecessor
10 Pesiq. Rab Kah. 6.3; Bernard Mandelbaum, ed., Pesikta de Rav Kahana: According to an
Oxford Ms.; With Variants from All Known Mss. and Genizoth Fragm. and Parallel Passages,
2nd ed. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1987), 117–18; cf. Clemens
Leonhard, “ ‘Als ob sie vor mir ein Opfer dargebracht hätten’: Erinnerungen an den Tempel
in der Liturgie der Synagoge,” in Kontinuität und Unterbrechung: Gottesdienst und Gebet
in Judentum und Christentum, ed. Albert Gerhards and Stephan Wahle, SJC (Paderborn:
Schöningh, 2005), 117–18.
11 Leonhard, “ ‘Als ob sie vor mir ein Opfer dargebracht hätten,’ ” 108–114.
to successor—a paradigm that Christian theologians promoted extensively to

the detriment of Judaism.
Presupposing these phenomena, two sets of questions may be asked in
order to elucidate the topic of this paper. First, the performance of these
texts (together with certain gestures) may be interpreted as manifestation
of a “memory of the temple” (zekher lemiqdash) of Jerusalem in Jewish litur-
gies after its destruction in 70 CE. These questions will briefly be dealt with in
the following section. The second question asks for the identity of the temple
that should be remembered, or whose rituals or shape are being alluded to in
rabbinic texts. Both aspects enhance the understanding of memory, remem-
brance, and the sources for generating liturgical knowledge about the past in
order to shape the cult of the temple to be rebuilt in the future, and in order
to negotiate the rules governing its provisional replacements in the present.
3 A “Memorial of the Temple”
Liturgies or elements of liturgies celebrated “in memory of the temple” reflect

an ancient category of scientific metalanguage. The rabbis only rarely state
that a certain ritual element is celebrated “as a memorial of the temple” (ze-
kher le-miqdash). The Tosefta remarks that the young priests used to entertain
the high priest during the whole night that preceded the celebrations of Yom
Kippur. People used to imitate this practice “in memory of the temple” after its
destruction. Although the abbreviated style of the Tosefta leaves open several
questions, it disapproves of a practice to hold a kind of pannychis before Yom
Kippur.12 Nightly celebrations are, furthermore, not typical for the temple, the
majority of whose cultic activities was confined to the daytime.13
The Babylonian Talmud mentions a “memorial of the temple” in the context
of the counting of the Omer (i.e., the days leading up to Pentecost).14 Amemar
gives the fact that counting the Omer is (only) a memory of the temple as rea-
son for his own practice (that deviates from the custom of the other authorities
mentioned) to count only days and not weeks. As the ritual of the sheaf (which
12 See t. Yoma 1.9, Lieberman 233–34; compare b. Yoma 19b, Ma’agarim: MS München,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 6.
13 R. Moses Ben Maimon summarizes the rabbinic texts about the rules regarding sacrifices
that must be offered during the day, although their remains may continue to smolder on
the altar during the night; see Mishneh Torah, in Responsa (Bar Ilan University): halakhot
ma’aseh haqqorbanot 4.2, referring among other passages to b. Menah. 26b, in Ma’agarim:
MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, ebr. 120.
14 See b. Menah. 66a, in Ma’agarim: MS Paris Alliance Israélite Universelle H 147A.
112 Leonhard
started this count of the days until Pentecost) was discontinued after the de-
struction of the temple, the counting is performed (only) as a memorial of the
temple—that is, it is not connected to cultic practice any more. Hillel’s sand-
wich of unleavened bread and bitter herbs is likewise classed as a “memorial
of the temple”15 (only), and (hence) eaten without a blessing. The question
whether or not its performance is the fulfilment of the commandment to eat
bitter herbs and unleavened bread remains undecided. Again, the Talmud does
not recommend the custom as the normal fulfilment of a rule of halakhah lege
artis, but only as a memorial of the temple.
Originally, in the time when the temple was still functioning, it was custom-
ary to wave the lulab seven days in the temple but only one day outside of
the temple (although it is not obvious where “outside” applies exactly).16 After
the destruction of the temple, the lulab was waved seven days also outside
of the temple “in memory of the temple.” The measure is classified as a liturgi-
cal innovation. Whether or not the custom of waving the lulab really existed
in towns outside of the temple in Second Temple times, this text classifies the
expansion (perhaps even the introduction) of a temple ritual as pure bodi-
ly performance within the liturgy of the synagogue as an innovation and as
a “memorial of the temple.” In this case, the gesture is not dependent upon
whether or not anyone thinks about the temple during its performance. The
action receives its legitimation and dignity from its character as being similar
to the liturgy of the temple as well as dissimilar to the exact customs of Second
Temple times.
The classification of rituals as performed “in memory of the temple” is very
rare. “In memory of the temple” implies “just/only in memory” (of the temple).
The performance of a custom “in memory of the temple” is endowed with less
dignity than actions that fulfill a commandment or have an effect. Rabbinic
theories about Jewish liturgies do not share the modern obsession with memo-
ry as the decisive category for the analysis of societies and rituals. This does not
invalidate the category. In the surrounding culture, the creation, preservation,
and obliteration of memories was a well-known political instrument. The cate-
gory was just not important for the rabbis. They were interested in the question
15 See b. Pesah. 115a, in Ma’agarim: MS New York Jewish Theological Seminary EMC 271.
16 See m. Sukkah 3.12, MS Kaufmann A 50, 71r; (m. Rosh Hash. 4.3, MS Kaufmann A 50,
76v, Sifra emor, parashah 12/pereq 16.9, Weiss, 102d; Ma’agarim: MS Vatican, Biblioteca
Apostolica, ebr. 66). See b. Rosh Hash. 30a, in Ma’agarim: MS Jewish Theological Seminary
EMC 319 (par. b. Sukkah 41a, Ma’agarim: MS Bodleian Library e. 51 2677) infers from
Jer 30:17 that “one should inquire” (d-r-sh) after (or care for) Zion in the context of the
laws regarding the lulab. This notion comes close to a modern understanding of zekher as
“commemoration.”
of how rituals functioned as fulfilment of commandments (e.g., to offer a sac-

rifice) and as having certain effects (to procure rain in the upcoming season).
Like liturgical structures that replicate the temple cult (including the reading
of scriptural texts), rituals performed as “a memorial of the temple” do not,
furthermore, presuppose that anybody should think about the temple before,
during, or after their performance. In general, rituals do not teach the partici-
pants or visitors moral lessons or convey a world view. Likewise, they do not
express or induce belief.17 “In memory of the temple” belongs to a repertoire of
concepts that legitimize and delegitimize changes of rituals in extra-liturgical
discussions. Thus, the term “memory of the temple” is useless for the search of
collective memory. The thing in itself may be found in other contexts.
4 A Bull with Gilded Horns and Olive Wreathes
Saul Lieberman notes the nonrabbinic custom to bring a bull with gilded
horns and a wreath of olive twigs to the temple together with the first fruits.18
Naftali S. Cohn discusses this passage in his introduction to the concept of col-
lective memory.19 The remembered past is told in a narrative, because it fulfils
a function for the present. The writer’s present shapes the narrative of the past.
A modern perspective and the present context require us to ask two q uestions.
17 Cf. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, chapter 8 and succinctly Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual
and Religion in the Making of Humanity, CSSCA 110 (Cambridge: University Press, 1999),
119–124.
18 Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literature, Transmission,
Beliefs, and Manners of Palestine in the I Century BCE–IV Century CE, TSJTSA 18 (New
York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962), 144–46. Lieberman mentions an
observation by Eliezer Lipa Sukenik (145 n. 8) about a bull intended for sacrifice and
“adorned with a wreath” in the frescoes of the Dura Europos Synagogue, referring to
the image of actions surrounding the temple (panel WB 2; see also Naftali S. Cohn, The
Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis, DRLAR [Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2013], 96); but see also Elijah’s victory over the priests of Baal, where
the sacrificial animal is adorned in a similar way. Lieberman assumes that Dura Europos
postdates the state of affairs as described in the Mishnah by two centuries. If the time
of composition of the Mishnah is taken as a point of departure, the Dura Europos fres-
coes and the tannaitic literature must be regarded as representations of the same epoch.
Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods, BJS
302 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 53 n. 49, refers to m. Bik. 3.2–3, MS Kaufmann A 50, 41v;
y. Bik. 3.3 65c, Ma’agarim: MS Leiden, which remarks that a single, slothful pilgrim would
bring a kid with “horns covered with silver and a wreath of olives on its head,” while the
regular pilgrims would bring an ox with gilded horns.
19 Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 4–13.
114 Leonhard
Based on the text, one may or may not assume that some Judeans were used
to bringing bulls with gilded horns and with wreathes to the sanctuary dur-
ing their presentation of the first fruits. Lieberman assumes that the Mishnah
points to actual performances in Second Temple times—aspects of the per-
formance that the authorities tolerated, even though they understood the
permission as a concession to the people. The performance was exceptional. It
was not a normative rule. To the modern observer, Saul Lieberman, bringing a
bull with gilded horns looks dangerously pagan.
As a second layer of questions, one may ask what it meant to tell this nar-
rative in the early third century. To the rabbis of the Mishnah and potential
readers, this description must have sounded even more familiar than to the
modern interpreter. Telling a story about Judeans who bring first fruits to the
temple together with a bull (or even a sheep) with gilded horns and wreathes
may create a memory of the temple. It will definitely also evoke memories of
many other temples. Well-educated upper class Jews could furthermore know
the same descriptions of gentile sacrifices that are studied by modern histo-
rians of Greek and Roman cults. As such, Saul Lieberman and others try to
deemphasize the normative or representative value of this narrative in order
to preserve the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish worship. In the
case of the gilded horns of bulls, this may, however, be a modern rather than
an ancient concern. For an ancient observer could have thought that this detail
was entirely irrelevant20 and not tainted with allusions to paganism at all.
5 Dining in Sukkot and the Underground Drainage System for

Libations at the Temple in Jerusalem
Dining in a sukkah at the festival of Tabernacles and the system of pipes and
conduits that are designed to drain the libations poured out upon the altar
create an associational bridge between the temple of Jerusalem and other
temples.
The Tosefta describes a system of drains that allows the disposal of libation
liquids which are spilled on the altar. This system of drains is not mentioned in
the Bible.21 It may be a bit of accurate memory about the temple in Jerusalem.
20 “Irrelevant” is meant in terms of Jonathan Zittel Smith’s (“The Bare Facts of Ritual,” 116)
“background noise.”
21 See t. Sukkah 3.14–15, Lieberman, 269–70; see also Clemens Leonhard, “Das Laubhüttenfest
der Rabbinen und die Heiligung von Zeiten,” in Heilige, Heiliges und Heiligkeit in spätan-
tiken Religionskulturen, RVV 61, ed. Peter Gemeinhardt and Katharina Heyden (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2012), 267–74.
Conversely, it may also be an example of rabbinic inventions of temple pro-

cedures and installations based on the rabbis’ observations of contemporary
Greek temples. The latter assumption commends itself because of descriptions
that strain any trust in the historical accuracy of the account in the Tosefta. For
the Tosefta mentions young priests who descend every seventieth year into a
pit below the altar in order to remove the residues of the wine libations.22 This
procedure could only have been performed a few times during the history of
the Second Temple. However, Achim Lichtenberger observes that the sanctu-
ary of Artemis in Jerash/Gerasa may contain a system of tubes and a reservoir
that may have been used for the same purposes as the Tosefta describes for
the temple in Jerusalem.23 The rabbis may thus have had either an accurate
memory of the Second Temple (which resembled other sanctuaries in the
area) or good reasons to reconstruct it in this way. In any case, they remember
the temple of Jerusalem as a normal sanctuary. To be sure, the rabbis do not
perform libations. They may have recorded this feature of the architecture and
cult of the temple in order to preserve another bit of the flair of a glorious past.
However, the story is plausible, because other temples may have had similar in-
stallations. Other worshippers may also have asked themselves or others what
happened to libation liquids. This bit of a memory of the temple and its cult is
at the same time a welcome (because parallels create plausibility) and danger-
ous (because of the pagan provenance of any possible parallel). A memory of
the temple is also a memory of other temples.
Sitting and dining in a sukkah emerged as a rite that took up the custom
of pilgrims to dine, even to live for a short time within the precincts of a tem-
ple. In the case of Jerusalem, the number of pilgrims seems to have been too
large for an accommodation of all of them within the temple courts. Thus they
must have found temporary shelters all over the city of Jerusalem and perhaps
beyond. Celebrating Sukkot in this way was restricted to the temple (and to
the city of Jerusalem) as long as the temple was flourishing. Greek or Roman
observers of this epoch did not see Jews of the Diaspora sitting in a sukkah,24
22 See also Leonhard, “Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen,” 249–81, comparing elements of this
custom as a rabbinic (innovative) creation of the temple of Jerusalem in the image
of Greek temples that host celebrations of Thesmophoria. I am grateful to Achim
Lichtenberger for pointing out to me that Thesmophoria are not attested in the area. My
reconstruction is, hence, less plausible than assumed in the paper of 2012. See, however,
Leonhard, “Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen,” 257 n. 23.
23 Achim Lichtenberger, Kulte und Kultur der Dekapolis: Untersuchungen zu numismatischen,
archäologischen und epigraphischen Zeugnissen, ADPV 29 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2003), 207. I am grateful to the author for bringing this bit of evidence to my attention.
24 See Clemens Leonhard, “Tempelfeste außerhalb des Jerusalemer Tempels in der Diaspora,”
in Die Makkabäer, ed. Friedrich Avemarie, Predrag Bukovec, Stefan Krauter, and Michael
116 Leonhard
even though they knew other customs in considerable detail; for example, the
celebration of the Sabbath or the circumcision.25 When Plutarch uses Sukkot
in order to give a description of Judaism, he describes the temple festival, not
a synagogue celebration. He writes after the destruction of the temple, but he
understands the festival still as a temple-centered event.26 Sitting and dining
in the sukkah after the destruction of the temple is hence an example of a
performative memory of the temple in Jerusalem. Again, “memory” is used as a
term of secondary order here. Nobody needed to remember anything specific,
although the performance is open to many associations. Whoever remem-
bered the cult at the temple may have regarded sukkot as entirely insignificant
installations giving shade. Setting up shelters and sunshades for outdoor din-
ners was not restricted to the cult at the temple of Jerusalem. Rabbis who
analyzed their own practice were aware that gentile Greeks also visited sanc-
tuaries and held dinners sitting in sukkot at centers of pilgrimage. Specimens
from the epigraphical category of leges sacrae and pictorial testimonies attest
to these customs.27 Furthermore, the rabbinic regulations regarding the size
and quality of the sukkah recall quite similar (but much shorter) texts from
Greek temples. One may interpret the sukkah as a memorial of the temple in
Jerusalem. In that case, it is a memorial of many other temples as well. In the
absence of a sanctuary, the rabbis put up temporary shelters similar to the way
in which pilgrims would have used them, in order to celebrate a festival week
and to “(eat) in front of God” (see Lev 23:40; Deut 14:26; 16:11, 13ff.).
For everybody who knew Lev 23:42, setting up a sukkah and eating in it
(within the temple or after its destruction) could be understood as a mere
fulfilment of a biblical commandment. Yet, the biblical text of Lev 23:43 (not
the performance of its commandments) mentions the Exodus from Egypt as
raison-d’être of the commandment. In the context of this (extra-liturgical)
text, sukkot may come to be regarded as serving a didactic purpose by stag-
ing an aspect of the Exodus from Egypt. Leviticus 23:42–43 does not intend to
make celebrants remember the temple of Jerusalem or any other temple. The
fact that ancient texts wanted rituals to teach a lesson to celebrants does not
mean that rituals taught lessons to celebrants. Memories and associations may
be influenced but not controlled.
Tilly, WUNT 2/382 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 140–43, for the interpretation of texts
pointing to a celebration of Sukkot in Philo’s Alexandria.
25 Adolf Büchler, “La fête des cabanes chez Plutarque et Tacite,” REJ 37 (1898): 190, assumes
that the erection of sukkot was customary in Judaism in Plutarch’s time.
26 See Büchler, “La fête des cabanes,” 182.
27 See Leonhard, “Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen,” 256–67.
6 The Lulab and the Thyrsus
More closely connected with Sukkot, the lulab and its use in rituals has in-
duced bits of interpretation independent of any biblical background. Thus,
Tacitus mentions elements of Sukkot:28
But since their priests used to chant to the accompaniment of pipes and
drums and to wear garlands of ivy, and because a golden vine was found
in their temple, some have thought that they were devotees of Father
Liber, the conqueror of the East, in spite of the incongruity of their cus-
toms. For Liber established festive rites of a joyous nature, while the ways
of the Jews are preposterous and mean.
Although Tacitus assumes that Roman observers could not enter the sanctuary,29
the observation of musical performances and wreaths point to characteristics
of Sukkot that are also known from Jubilees (a text that does not mention ivy
leaves in particular).30 For Tacitus, the Jewish cult remotely resembles that of
Dionysus, even though it is something different. The cult of Dionysus forced
upon Israel according to 2 Macc 6:7 (see also 14:33) and the branding of Jews
with an image of the ivy leaf in 3 Macc 2:29 reconstruct a painful memory about
the relationship between the cult of Dionysus and Jewish resistance against its
performance.31 Thus, Tacitus’s rejection of an identity of the cults of Dionysus
and the God of the Bible is much less disturbing than his initial comparison.
Plutarch is more optimistic about his own capability to understand
Judaism. He also knows more about celebrations of Sukkot than Tacitus.32
28 Tacitus, Hist. 5.5.5; cited in GLAJJ 2:26–28, no. 281.

29 See Daniela Dueck, “The Feast of Tabernacles and the Cult of Dionysus: A Cross-Cultural
Dialogue” [Hebrew], Tsion 73 (2007–2008): 121, and Tacitus, Hist. 5.8.1; cited in GLAJJ 2:28,
no. 281.
30 See Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles”; and see also Jub. 16:30: “This has no temporal limit,
because it is ordained forever regarding Israel that they should celebrate it, live in tents,
place wreaths on their heads, and take leafy branches and willow branches from the
stream” (trans. James C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees, CSCO 511; SAeth 88 [Leuven:
Peeters, 1989], 101, emphasis added). Jubilees emphasizes that Abraham was the first one
to celebrate Sukkot. This text is blatantly uninterested in any Exodus memory attached to
this festival.
31 For ivy as a symbol for Dionysus, see Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 137 (who also refers to
the passages quoted above).
32 Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 121, refers to a forthcoming paper by Joseph Geiger that I
could not yet locate (esp. p. 219 in that paper; for a similarly old source of Plutarch, see
Büchler, “La fête des cabanes,” 202), who suggests that Plutarch used On the Egyptians
by Hecataeus of Abdera as a source for his knowledge of Sukkot. Hecataeus flourished
118 Leonhard
His description and interpretation is also more neutral and distanced than
Tacitus’s. Nevertheless, Plutarch mixes up biblical rules for Yom Kippur and
Sukkot.33 However, he conveys plausibly correct information, like the descrip-
tion of the high priest’s garments. His remark about the thyrsus procession is
significant in this context:34
The time and character of the greatest, most sacred holiday of the Jews
clearly befit Dionysus. When they celebrate their so-called Fast, at the
height of the vintage, they set out tables of all sorts of fruit under tents
and huts plaited for the most part of vines and ivy. They call the first of
the days of the feast Tabernacles. A few days later, they celebrate another
festival, this time identified with Bacchus not through obscure hints but
plainly by his name, a festival that is a sort of “Procession of Bacchus”
or “Thyrsus Procession,” in which they enter the temple each carrying a
thyrsus.
Plutarch infers the Dionysian character of Israelite worship from his etymo-
logical observations about the term “Levites.”35
Daniela Dueck adduces further parallels between aspects of interpretation
and ritual performances of the cult of Dionysus and the celebration of Sukkot.
Thus, Dionysus is associated with wine and water—the elements to be offered
as libations according to the earliest rabbinic texts (but not according to the
Bible).36 The god is depicted wearing an ivy wreath on his head and associated
with certain plants and animals. Ritual performances typically include autum-
nal processions and festivals. The concern for the fertility of the crops in the
in the fourth century BCE. He could have observed rituals at the temple in Jerusalem,
and he could also have read texts about it. In that case, Plutarch would just be handing
down centuries-old clichés about Judaism without any reliable connection to his present
time. The seemingly Dionysian innovations (according to Dueck) of the cult of Jerusalem
must have been introduced very early in order to be observed as established customs by
Hecataeus of Abdera.
33 Büchler, “La fête des cabanes,” 193–94, suggests that Plutarch could have mixed up Sukkot
with the Thesmophoria, which included one day called “the fast”. See n. 22 above for the
vicissitudes of the link between the Thesmophoria and Sukkot.
34 Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 4.6.2; cited in GLAJJ 1:557, no. 258.
35 Plutarch, Quaest. conv. 4.6.2: “What they do after entering we do not know, but it is prob-
able that the rite is a Bacchic revelry, for in fact they use little trumpets to invoke their god
as do the Argives at their Dionysia. Others of them advance playing harps; these players
are called in their language Levites, either from Lysios (Releaser) or, better, from Evius
(God of the Cry).” Both are epithets of Dionysus; LSJ 1066 and 717.
36 Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 123.
upcoming season also links such festivals of Dionysus with Sukkot. Both types
of festival were understood as designed to enhance the growth of the crops in
the following year.37
The most prominent feature of this comparison—already observed by
Plutarch—is the ritual use of the lulab and the thyrsus, but especially concern-
ing the custom to circle the altar carrying certain plants. Dueck assumes that
the customs to carry the lulab and to circle the altar are Hellenistic innovations
in the Jerusalem cult. Jubilees, which mentions Abraham’s circling of an altar
on the festival of Sukkot, is hence another witness to this liturgical change.
Dueck also observes that the lulab could have been appropriated for the cult in
Jerusalem, because it was generally understood as a sign of victory in classical
antiquity.38 This observation is corroborated by Gary M. Fine’s interpretation
of the coins of Bar Kochba. Fine claims that the imagery of all Bar Kochba
coins should be interpreted as allusions to Sukkot, more precisely to simhat bet
ha-shoeva—the (ceremony of the) joy of the house of water drawing.39 This al-
lusion was nothing less than a call to arms. After all, the coins bear inscriptions
saying “freedom of Zion” and “for the redemption of Zion.” In this context, one
may also reinterpret Bar Kochba’s interest in procuring the plants for the lulab
and etrogim (citrons) for his army.40 It is by no means evident that Bar Kochba
wanted to stage a standard celebration of Sukkot in the battlefield far away
from the temple. He may also have tried to celebrate a kind of replacement for
Sukkot as the festival of victory, hoping to usher in this victory by the use of the
material symbols for the Sukkot festival.
The dangerous closeness of worship at the temple in Jerusalem and cults of
Dionysus also emerges from the observation that “taking” the lulab does not
imply the same ritual procedure in the Hebrew Bible and in the descriptions
by Plutarch or later Jewish practice.41 Thus, Moshe Benovitz observes that the
biblical text rather implies that “taking” branches, twigs, and so on, of plants is
part of the commandments to build the sukkah, not to perform ritual gestures
with these objects or to carry them in a procession.42 He also observes that
37 Leonhard, “Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen,” 257 n. 16; compare Zech 14:8–9, 16–17.
39 Gary M. Fine, “Coins of Bar Kokhba: The Temple Water-Drawing Ceremony and the
Holiday of Sukkot,” INR 4 (2009): 83–93.
40 See Hayim Lapin, “Palm Fronds and Citrons: Notes on Two Letters from Bar Kosiba’s
Administration,” HUCA 64 (1993): 111–35; and Siegfried Bergler, “Jesus, Bar Kochba und das
messianische Laubhüttenfest,” JSJ 29 (1998): 143–91.
41 See Rubenstein, The History of Sukkot; 36, 54, 114–15 n. 42, 152–59, 197–203.
42 There is no way to know what botanical species Lev 23:40 refers to by means of pri ets
hadar (“the fruit of a tree of splendor”) and what role it could have played in the pilgrims’
120 Leonhard
an old conundrum of rabbinical laws about the storage of the lulabim in the
temple can be solved by looking at the history of the rite and the description
of the stoa in the Temple Scroll.43 For the scroll depicts a large architectural
structure on top of which there are beams designed to support the roofing of
the sukkot that must be installed every year. These sukkot provide shelter and
shade for the honorary guests of the festivals, the “elders of the community,
the princes,” and others who sit there during the festival, apparently in order
to “rejoice” and celebrate their meals. Benovitz even points to traces of this
structure in the Florence manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud.44 The custom
to carry around the lulab postdates the biblical laws.
Daniela Dueck suggests that Israel performed the rites of Sukkot in the
Babylonian exile using the thyrsus topped with a pine cone. The Hasmoneans
should have replaced the cone with the etrog in order to diminish the simi-
larities between the cult of Dionysus and the genuinely Israelite liturgy at the
temple in Jerusalem.45 Dueck points to 2 Macc 10:6–8, where the people are
said to have celebrated a replacement festival for Sukkot, which they had not
been able to celebrate while they were living in caves in the wilderness. For the
time being, they were not concerned with the removal or change of Dionysian
symbols in the temple cult. They celebrated their victory and the rededication
of the temple carrying around thyrsi and palm fronds.
Comparisons between the worship of Dionysus and the Israelite God were
not restricted to the Greek observers of temple customs. On the contrary,
Dueck points to Flavius Josephus, who explains the lulab to his Roman readers
as eiresiōnē, a “branch of olive or laurel wound round with wool and hung with
“rejoicing in front of” God. Note that it is not mentioned in Neh 8:15, which enumerates
plants to be used for the building of the sukkah.
43 11QTa [11Q19] 42:7–17; Emanuel Tov, “11Q19,” in Brill Online Reference Works, Dead Sea
Scrolls Electronic Library Non-Biblical Texts, https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/
entries/dead-sea-scrolls-electronic-library-non-biblical-texts/11q19-DSS_EL_NBT_11Q19;
see also Moshe Benovitz, “Booths on the Roof of the Parwar and Branches on the Roof
of the Stoa: Echoes of an Early Halakhah in the Temple Scroll and Mishnah Sukkah,” in
Halakha in Light of Epigraphy, JAJSup 3, ed. Albert I. Baumgarten, Hanan Eshel, Ranon
Katzoff, and Shani Tzoref (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 17–26; Leonhard,
“Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen,” 256–67, esp. 262.
44 Benovitz, “Booths on the Roof,” 26, quoting b. Ber. 33b according to MS Florence II-I-
7, Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmud Research of the Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, The Saul and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank, http://www.lieberman-
institute.com/: “Raḥba said in the name of Rabbi Yehudah: the Temple Mount consisted
of a double stoa. It was a stoa within a stoa, and it was roofed with sekhakh from colon-
nade to colonnade and from colonnade to the Temple Mount [wall].” (The latter part of
the statement is not preserved in the standard edition.)
fruits, dedicated to Apollo and borne about by singing boys at the Pyanopsia
and Thragēlia.”46 Likewise, Vayyiqra Rabba uses the Greek term baion as a des-
ignation for the lulabim—the signs for Israel’s eschatological victory in God’s
judgement.47 Baion also designates the branches of palm trees that are men-
tioned as objects used by the people of Jerusalem to greet Jesus at his entrance
into the city (John 12:13; compare 1 Macc 13:51). Sukkot is not the context for
this narrative. Palm branches are typical for victories and triumphs, not for
Sukkot.48
The sages did not only describe these potentially Dionysian rituals. Similar
to the way in which Dueck describes the introduction of the etrog into the rit-
ual, the Mishnah points to slight changes introduced into the liturgies.49 Thus,
“the high priest John” (an otherwise opaque figure) abolishes the office and
function of the temple functionaries who should wake up the godhead in the
morning and those who would hit the sacrificial animal on the head before
slaughtering it (the “awakeners” and “knockers”).50 The sages also mention the
order to construct a tribune in the temple courts that should help to increase
the decency of the nightly celebrations of simhat bet ha-shoeva. This measure
is called a “great amendment.”51 The terminology may have been designed
to hide the fact that the whole ceremony of water drawing, together with its
nightly festivities and libations, is an even greater amendment or innovation
of the ritual according to the Bible.
The sages depict their forebears as introducing subtle changes into a ritual
whose origins are not revealed. Gentiles compare (Tacitus) or equate (Plutarch)
the Jewish temple cult with rituals involving the god Dionysus, while Jews ex-
plain paraphernalia of the cult in a terminology that sounds no less Dionysian.
They create and configure—or remember and describe—the temple cult as
a normal procedure that has been adapted to Judaism and that has been im-
proved in certain ways. If memories are at stake here, these performances and
paraphernalia of rituals imply memories of the temple of Jerusalem as well as
memories of other temples.
46 L SJ, s.v. εἰρεσιώνη; Dueck “Feast of Tabernacles,” 128.

47 Vayyiqra Rabba 30.2, Ma’agarim: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, 149: 694–95; see also
Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 129.
48 See Rubenstein, The History of Sukkot; 61, 98.
49 See m. Sotah 9.10; MS Kaufmann A 50, 122v.
50 See n. 49 above and Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 133 n. 55, referring to Lieberman,
Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 140–43.
51 See m. Sukkah 5.2; MS Kaufman A 50, 72r; see also t. Sukkah 4.1–5, Lieberman 272–73;
y. Sukkah 5.2, 55b, Ma’agarim: MS Leiden.
122 Leonhard
7 Theorizing: Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples
The situation that emerges from these observations can be interpreted in two
different ways. First, scholars (e.g., Lieberman and Dueck) use the rabbinic
sources in order to reconstruct the history of the temple cult as it was actually
performed in the past. This approach is necessary, because historians must try
to read the rabbinic regulations against the background of actual practice in
the temple of Jerusalem. Plutarch’s construction of a Jewish cult appears as a
partly accurate description by gentile observers. Details of this description that
correspond to the Jewish traditions are regarded as corroboration of the latter,
while deviations are interpreted as the observer’s errors or as product of his
imagination. This method leaves the impression that the cult of later Second
Temple times could easily have been interpreted in (or mistaken as) Dionysian
(or other pagan) ways of worship, in spite of the fact that Jews performed it. In
actual practice, Antiochus Epiphanes’s forceful change of the temple cult did
not require too many alterations.
Modern interpreters do not deny similarities (as they were emphasized by
Plutarch). Yet, they tend to distinguish between a genuinely Jewish liturgy and
its partly erroneous, superficial, and appropriative interpretation by Greek
or Roman observers. Thus, the lulab is an element of the Jewish celebration
of Sukkot in honor of God. The foreign observer is incapable of understand-
ing the alterity of Jewish worship and tries to describe it in his own terms as
Dionysian—or, like Tacitus, as seemingly Dionysian, but just depraved and
mean in reality. Referring to parallels between Dionysian cults and the proce-
dures at the Second Temple is, hence, an ancient mistake—albeit a mistake
that is deliberately applied by Jewish authors (like Josephus) who want to ex-
plain their rituals to the respective others.
Tacitus, Plutarch, and the sages write their Roman, Greek, or Jewish descrip-
tions and explanations of Jewish liturgies after the destruction of the temple.
Plutarch blatantly ignores the fact that this cult, which he regards as typical
for Judaism, is extinct. Plutarch still regards speaking about this past cult as a
means to uncover the essence of being Jewish. The rabbis use the description
of the temple cult in order to create rules for the time when the temple will be
rebuilt. At the same time, their reconstruction of the past legitimizes the per-
formance of certain rituals in their present. Thus, a large part of the tractate of
Sukkot in the Babylonian Talmud is concerned with the quality of the sukkah
and the lulab. In addition, this legal and narrative material serves as a starting
point for the discussion of the sacred laws and functions as their fulfilment. In
this respect, the (preferably, but not necessarily) discursive commemoration
of temple procedures is the fulfilment of the commandments to perform those
procedures.52 In this sense, “memory” implies an intellectual activity that is

not ritualized. (The more this procedure is standardized, the less it is plausibly
a true commemoration.53) The creation of descriptions and commentaries of
simhat bet ha-shoeva is, for example, one kind of “memory of the temple.”
A second mode of memory is the wordless performance of certain acts,
which may be interpreted as going back to gestures and actions that were once
closely linked with the temple in Jerusalem. Thus, obtaining and waving the
lulab and celebrating meals in the sukkah can be interpreted as an embodied
memory of the temple. This interpretation is challenged by the assumption
that Jews of the diaspora were always used to performing these acts outside
of the temple. The sukkah and the lulab would hence be aspects of Judaism
as performance, not aspects of temple worship transferred to the synagogue
and the home. However, the present paper proceeds from the assumption that
diaspora Jews (including Palestinian rabbis) began to celebrate Sukkot outside
of the temple only after its destruction.54
Waving the lulab and dining in the sukkah is thus a case of embodied col-
lective memory of the temple. This does not presuppose an uninterrupted line
of practice. It just says that the rabbis managed to create the impression of
continuity by means of embodied practice. This fact only becomes apparent
in attempts at interpretation that are not necessarily part of this practice. The
gestures, postures, and the use of ritual objects are blind to their own meanings.
Hence, celebrating a meal in the sukkah may be interpreted as a memorial of
the temple, even if the performing worshiper does not remember the temple
during the action. If it is understood as a memorial of the temple, it is in any
case only a memorial of the temple—lest it might occur to somebody that this
should actually be a performance of temple worship.
52 See t. Pesah. 10.11, Lieberman, 198. Everyone must study the laws of the Pesach (sacrifice)
on Pesach. Studying alone is one of three alternatives: with one’s son, alone, and with
one’s disciple.
53 See Baruch M. Bokser’s works on Pesach, e.g., Bokser, “Ritualizing the Seder,” JAAR 56
(1988): 443–71; and Clemens Leonhard, The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian
Easter: Open Questions in Current Research, SJ 35 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006), 78–87.
54 This assumption is discussed in Clemens Leonhard, “Tempelfeste außerhalb des
Jerusalemer Tempels”; but also Leonhard, “Pesach and Eucharist,” in Old Testament, Early
Judaism, New Testament, vol. 1 of The Eucharist: Its Origins and Context; Sacred Meal,
Communal Meal, Table Fellowship in Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity,
ed. David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger, WUNT 376 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 275–
312; Leonhard, “Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen,” and Leonhard, “ ‘Herod’s Days’ and the
Development of Jewish and Christian Festivals,” in Jewish Identity and Politics between
the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba: Groups, Normativity, and Rituals, ed. Benedikt Eckhardt,
JSJSup 155 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 189–208.
124 Leonhard
The fact that a mere gesture is interpreted as a memorial of the temple also
suggests a stance that differs from that of the preceding paragraph. Taken
by itself, the performance of a procession with lulabim is neither Jewish nor
Dionysian. The forced celebration of the king’s birthday and the procession
with ivy wreathes on the day of Dionysus are understood as abominable and
foreign, although a pompē by itself (see Wis 4:2) or the carrying of a thyrsus is
neutral (2 Macc 10:7). Human beings decide and negotiate which aspects of
the cult are significant as carriers of religious identity. The modern historian’s
typically Dionysian cultic implement may have been an ancient observers’
marginal and insignificant decoration. This assumption has two consequences.
First, there is just no interpretatio Graeca of essentially Jewish symbols and
rites—not because Jews actually worshiped Dionysus, but because many of the
cultic procedures and implements are undetermined or ambiguous. Neither
Plutarch nor Josephus accomplishes a cultural translation. They just introduce
a little definiteness into the overabundance of indefiniteness.
Second, rabbinic performances “in memory of the temple” continue there-
fore the indeterminacy and ambiguity of ancient bits of practice, all the more
so, because similar cultic implements and ritualized acts continue to be per-
formed in the temples of the others. Whomever Plutarch quotes in his report
about the Jewish cult, he invites his readers to disambiguate the Jewish prac-
tice in terms of contemporary aspects of Dionysian worship. The comparison
with Jewish sources even suggests that he went too far in this enterprise. He (or
his source) constructed certain bits of Jewish worship based on underdeter-
mined cultic practice, which he determined as Dionysian. This method leads
to faulty reconstructions in the process of filling gaps of knowledge, but not to
misunderstandings.
Plutarch is not alone in this game of mutual constructions of the respective
other and of oneself at the same time. The rabbis may also have been involved
in it. One may of course regard every bit of knowledge about the Second
Temple that could not be inferred from biblical texts (as well as regulations for
temple procedures for a desired future) as resulting from extrabiblical tradi-
tions of knowledge about the past. This approach is not unwarranted, because
new finds may always show that a certain bit of rabbinic reconstruction is at-
tested in unexpected sources. However, it has been suggested above that some
rabbinic reconstructions may not be based on traditions about procedures at
the temple in Jerusalem, but on the general plausibility of what could be re-
garded as normal, widespread, evident, or the like. This implies that the rabbis
shared Plutarch’s basic convictions, namely that one can plausibly reconstruct
details of the liturgies at the Second Temple based on contemporary sanctuar-
ies. What is more, truly ancient parallels and similarities between the temple
in Jerusalem and other Greek and Roman sanctuaries and cults corroborate
the sages’ method. Plutarch and the sages rightly assume that the temple of
Jerusalem was not entirely different from other, similar institutions, despite
its grandeur, its national and theological importance, and its singularity. The
temple of Jerusalem was among other things also a temple. The sages could
infer characteristics of the Second Temple from their knowledge of contempo-
rary sanctuaries.
For as long as Greek and Roman polytheism flourished in the social world
of the rabbis, liturgies that were discussed or performed as a memorial of the
temple automatically elicited associations of other temples. Likewise, recon-
structions of historical temple procedures remained ambiguous in the eyes
of readers who knew what was going on in the rest of the world. Any mod-
ern assessment of the rabbis’ commemoration of the temple must take into
account that the rabbis may have reconstructed the past based on gentile
practices of their time. Any memory of the temple may purportedly—not only
accidentally—contain memories of distinctively other temples. Theorizing
about elements of a collective memory of the rabbis may be fallacious if it
excludes knowledge, conceptions, and opinions of the rabbis’ gentile and later
Christian contemporaries—even in matters that seem as typically and exclu-
sively Jewish as the remembrance of the temple of Jerusalem.
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Chapter 6
Conceptual and Ideological Aspects in the

Mishnaic Description of Bringing the First Fruits to
Jerusalem
Hillel Mali
Among the tractates of the Mishnah, which deal primarily with laws and halakot,
one can find several chapters and individual mishnayot that present narrative
descriptions of the various rituals that were in practice in the temple, which
appear to be of a historical, rather than halakic, nature.1 These texts, termed
ritual narrative texts, are—as Yochanan Breuer and Moshe Simon-Shoshan
have demonstrated—unique in their narrative position, which lies somewhere
in between description and commandment, history and halakah.2 This literary
liminality is the result, among other things, of the combination of “historical
testimony” that relates directly to the practice in the temple, and commentary
of a halakic nature that touches upon the manner in which the ritual should be
carried out; and of descriptions using participial forms, which lend themselves
1 For the list of Mishnaic descriptions of ritual, see Yochanan Breuer, “Perfect and Participle in
Description of Ritual in The Mishnah” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 56 (1987): 302 n. 17; Martin S. Jaffee,
“Writing and Rabbinic Oral Tradition: On Mishnaic Narrative, List and Mnemonics,” JJTP 4
(1994): 130 n. 19; and see Rosen-Zvi’s critique: Ishay Rosen-Zvi, The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual:
Temple, Gender and Midrash (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 239–40 n. 2; Naftali S. Cohn, The Memory
of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press,
2013), 136 n. 26. Moshe Simon-Shoshan characterized the descriptions of these rituals as texts
that describe rituals as they took place, take place, and will take place again and again in
the same manner (see Moshe Simon-Shoshan, Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and
the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012], 43–45).
And see the definitions in Shmuel Safrai and Ze’ev Safrai, Mishnat Eretz Israel: Tractates
Orla and Bikurim [Hebrew], Zraim 8 (Jerusalem: Lipschitz College Press, 2011), 128–46; Ishay
Rosen-Zvi, “Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric: New Directions in Mishnah Research,” AJSR 32.2
(2008): 243; Michael D. Swartz, “Ritual is with People: Sacrifice and Society in Palestinian
Yoma Tradition,” in The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present, ed. Alberdina Houtman,
Joshua Schwartz, and Marcel Poorthuis, JCP 28 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 207–208.
2 Breuer, “Perfect and Participle”; Simon-Shoshan, Stories of the Law, 42–45; David Levine,
Communal Fasts and Rabbinic Sermons: Theory and Practice in the Talmudic Period [Hebrew]
(Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibuts ha-me’uhad, 2001), 66; as well as Schwartz, “Ritual is with People,” 207–
208; Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 7–8; Günter Stemberger, “Yom Kippur in Mishnah Yoma,” in
The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. Thomas
Hieke and Tobias Nicklas, TBN 15 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 121.

Mishnaic Description of Bringing the First Fruits to Jerusalem 129
to legal formulation, and those utilizing past tenses, which evoke a historical
impression.
Early scholars of mishnaic literature treated this combination of history and
halakah diachronically, distinguishing between the supposedly “early” narra-
tive layer of the text and the more halakic one that was appended to it at a later
stage.3 At the same time, scholars tended to see the information that appeared
in the descriptions of rituals as more or less precise “documentation” of temple
rituals as they were practiced.4 In recent decades, however, scholars have in-
creasingly come to view this combination of “historical” and “halakic,” and of
“narrative” and “legal” language in the descriptions of rituals, rather as an ex-
pression of a rhetorical process in which the “historical” layer was intended to
anchor the authority of the texts (and their authors) vis-à-vis their audiences,
and the temple narrative served as a tool for the expression of ideological and
cultural stances rooted in the lifetimes of the composers of the descriptions,
rather than the periods they describe.5 Ishay Rosen-Zvi, one of the leaders of
3 The basis for the division of Mishnaic chapters into layers is the multivocal and diverse
nature of the Mishnah, which is, in fact, a “collection” of statements, stories, and halakot
deriving from Tannaim of different generations. The Mishnah is thus the composition of
various “authors” and not the work of one “author.” Likewise, the Mishnah is rhetorically
comprised of halakot, ma’asim, and stories, which are woven together according to differing
principles (thematic and associative sequences), as succinctly summarized by Yaakov Elman:
“no one argues that the Mishnah was composed de novo” (Yaakov Elman, “Order, Sequence
and Selection: The Mishnah’s Anthological Choices,” in The Anthology in Jewish Literature,
ed. David Stern [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 54). The question is whether the
rhetorical variation necessarily bears witness to an archeological complexity in the construc-
tion of the Mishnah. Simon-Shoshan, Rosen-Zvi, and others have claimed that it does not;
see Rosen-Zvi’s comprehensive survey in “Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric.” For the traditional
stance, see Jacob Nahum Epstein, Prolegomena ad Litteras Tannaiticas: Mishnah, Tosephta
et Interpretationes Halachicas [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1957), 31, 45–46, 57,
333, among many others.
4 For example, Saul Lieberman’s interpretation on the ritual of the Bikkurim (the “First Fruit”)
views the Mishnaic chapter (following Epstein, Prolegomena, 44) as an early collection, dat-
ing to the end of the Second Temple period, and therefore documenting the popular prac-
tice of this ritual at the time (Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the
Literature Transmission, Beliefs, and Manners of Palestine in the I Century BCE–IV Century CE,
TSJTSA 18 [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962], 144–46).
5 The beginnings of this approach are rooted in the work of Jacob Neusner. See, in our context,
his analysis of Tractate Tamid, in Jacob Neusner, “Dating A Mishnah-Tractate: The Case of
Tamid,” in History, Religion and Spiritual Democracy: Essays in Honor of Joseph L. Blau, ed.
Maurice Wohlgelernter (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1980), 97–114; and preceding
him, Herman J. Blumberg, “Saul Lieberman on the Talmud of Caesarea and Louis Ginzberg on
Mishnah Tamid,” in The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill,
1970), 107–26). Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Moshe Simon-Shoshan have commented, on our topic,
that the combination between the descriptive aspect, which relates to an event routinely
130 Mali
this scholarly trend, has claimed that the archaic linguistic characteristics of
some of the descriptions of ritual should also be viewed not as witnesses to
the archeological layering of the Mishnah, but rather as an expression of its
rhetorical diversity. In other words, narrative writing composed in archaic lan-
guage and cloaked in “historical” pretense can serve a variety of literary and
ideological purposes.6
The attribution of the ritual descriptions to the Tannaim of the generations
following the two Jewish-Roman wars leading up to the destruction of the
temple (the Great Revolt of 66–70 and the Bar Kochba War of 132–135 CE),7
alongside the fundamental claim—made by Rosen-Zvi and others—that many
details included in the ritual description are imaginary, led also to a renewed
discussion regarding the purpose of Mishnaic descriptions of temple rituals in
general. For even if we are not dealing with “documentation” of temple ritu-
als, what is the source of the texts that stand before us?8 Are they merely the
expression of an aspiration toward a rebuilding of the temple and a renewal
repeated in the past and the present, and the apodictic-commanding aspect serves to anchor
the authority of the ritual. That is, since this ritual has taken place as it has (the descriptive
aspect), we learn that it should take place in that manner; see Rosen-Zvi, “Orality, Narrative,
Rhetoric,” 247. “This,” therefore, “requires us to think about ritual narrative in the Mishnah
first and foremost from a literary and rhetorical perspective” (Rosen-Zvi, “Orality, Narrative,
Rhetoric,” 245). This approach has lately led to the extreme assertion made by Naftali S. Cohn,
who claimed that the key to understanding descriptions of ritual is the attempt made by the
Tannaim to exert their authority over the Jewish society in which they lived through the ficti-
tious depiction of their predecessors (the Pharisees) as having been in positions of authority
over the priests and the temple worship (Cohn, Memory of the Temple).
6 Rosen-Zvi, “Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric,” 243, 245; Simon-Shoshan, Stories of the Law, 4, 62;
Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 57–58.
7 See above, nn. 5–6. For additional studies in the same vein, see Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, The
Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism
to the Fifth Century, WUNT 163 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 21–23. Stökl Ben Ezra suggests
several considerations in support of the idea that the description of the Seder ha-Avoda of
Yom Kippur is not based on the sages’ intimate acquaintance with the rituals undertaken in
the temple by the High Priest on this day, but rather on their interpretation of the biblical
verses that relate to it; a hypothesis that would, among other things, explain the controver-
sies surrounding several key components of the ritual. Stökl Ben Ezra’s conclusion in his
study is that “exegetical skills rather than ritual memory played a significant role in the for-
mation of Mishnah Yoma.” See also Rosen-Zvi’s discussion of the list of priestly defects found
in Mishnah Bechorot; Ishay Rosen Zvi, “Bodies and Temple: The List of Priestly Bodily Defects
in Mishnah Bekhorot, Chapter 7” [Hebrew], JSt 43 (2005–2006): 49–87.
8 Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 102; Shaye J. D. Cohen and Jacob Neusner, “Mishnah and
Counter-Rabbinics,” CJud 37 (1983): 48–63; David Charles Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in
Classical Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 53.
of temple worship?9 Or are we, in the spirit of Jacob Neusner’s studies, deal-
ing with a textual replacement for the temple? A sort of “city of refuge,” whose
textual and abstract nature protects it from the attacks of Roman soldiers, and
in which the ritual sacrifices can take place unimpeded?10 Many scholars today
attempt to answer questions regarding the ways in which the description of
ritual functioned; that is, who the target audience of the text was and what
the ideological and political aims that it served were. These hermeneutics of
suspicion should, ostensibly, come after the exegetical question; that is, the
need to understand the ways in which the description of the ritual interpreted
the “text” that preceded it. “Text” in this context can be a historical Tannaitic
text, popular memory, a biblical passage, or some other ancient source.11 In the
spirit of this approach, I will attempt, in this paper, to suggest a new interpre-
tation of parts of the description of the beautiful ritual of the “Offering of the
First Fruits” that appears in Tractate Bikkurim.
Chapter 3 of this tractate deals with bringing the bikkurim (the “first fruits”)
to Jerusalem, a process that begins with the marking of the first fruit in a per-
son’s field or orchard and ends with the recital of the Mikra Bikkurim (the
declaration set forth in Deut 26:3–10) by the temple altar. The Mishnah de-
scribes how the bearers of the bikkurim from the various towns of a ma’amad
(a geographical region corresponding to a unit of priests in the priestly rota-
tion) congregate in the “city of the ma’amad,” and after sleeping in the city
streets, rise early to the call “Let us arise and go up to Zion, into the house of the
Lord our God” (Jer 31:5) and march in procession to Jerusalem, preceded by an
ox with gilded horns. Upon their arrival at the city gates, the governors of the
city and its skilled artisans come out toward them and greet them.
The public and official nature of this description is somewhat in contradic-
tion to the biblical depiction of the bikkurim offering (Deut 26:1–11). While the
Bible directs its instructions at the individual, who is required to bring up his
own first fruits to Jerusalem, the Mishnah describes an almost national ritual.
9 See Martin Goodman, “The Temple in First Century CE Judaism,” in Temple and Worship
in Biblical Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, ed. John Day (London:
T&T Clark, 2005), 466.
10 Neusner expressed his stance in a famous article, which has since been quoted many
times; see Jacob Neusner, “Map without Territory: Mishnah’s System of Sacrifice and
Sanctuary,” HR 19.2 (1979): 113, where he described the Order of Kodashim as a map de-
picting an imaginary territory: “It describes with remarkable precision and concrete de-
tail, a perfect fantasy.”
11 In particular, I rely upon the methodology outlined by Rosen-Zvi in his introduction to his
article on the priestly defects; see Rosen-Zvi, “Bodies and Temple,” 51–60.
132 Mali
Saul Lieberman explained this difference as the result of a popular practice

inspired by the public celebrations that were marked in the Hellenistic world
(πανήγυρις).12 These influences, according to Lieberman, explain both the pub-
lic aspect of the ritual and the origin of the special motifs it includes, such
as the gilding of the ox’s horns and the decoration of his head with an olive-
branch wreath.13
The description of the bikkurim ritual in the Mishnah is, however, written
using participial forms, and is brought as a response to the question “how were
the bikkurim taken up to Jerusalem?” which has led several scholars (including
Naftali S. Cohn, Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Yochanan Breuer)14 to note that one can
see the story, which comes directly after the question regarding the taking of
the bikkurim, as a response to the question “how should one bring the bikkurim
to Jerusalem” and not (or not just) “how they were taken” in practice.15 The fact
12 Lieberman explains that the sages did not protest against these “idolatrous practices” be-
cause they viewed them as a popular practice intended to add to the glory and elegance of
the religious ritual, and because they were performed outside of the temple’s boundaries.
See Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 144
13 Accordingly, Lieberman (like his teacher, J. N. Epstein, before him) claims that the
description of the bringing of the first fruits is an “old Mishnah,” “indubitably!” (Lieberman,
Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, 144) that was created before the destruction of the Second
Temple. See also Epstein, Prolegomena, 44. Epstein notes a number of archaic expressions
in the Mishnah that, to his mind, testify to its ancient origin. See also Alan J. Avery-Peck,
Mishnah’s Division of Agriculture: A History and Theology of Seder Zeraim, BJS 79 (Chico,
CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 349–50. Scholars who followed in Lieberman’s footsteps have
expanded on the links between the Hellenistic “First Fruit” rituals and the ceremony
described in the Mishnah. See Yitzhak Baer, Yisrael ba-Amim (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute,
1955), 75–76. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony collected additional parallels and pointed to
Hellenistic Greece as the origin of the practices described in the Mishnah (Brouria
Bitton-Ashkelony, Ha-Aliya laregel be-Yisrael u-be-Yavan, PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University,
46–68, 88).
14 See Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 8–9, and the additional literature cited there.
15 This second possibility gains traction when one compares the long, detailed story told
regarding the bringing of the fruit to Jerusalem with the preceding, short description of
the setting aside of the first fruits from the field. The two stories comprise a narrative
answer to the halakic question of how one should observe the commandment of the bik-
kurim. Rabbi Simeon’s note, which appears at the end of Mishnah 2, “notwithstanding
this he must again designate them as bikkurim after they have been plucked from the
soil,” clarifies that the “story” regarding one who sets aside his individual bikkurim is actu-
ally a halakic statement that is in dispute between the sages, who believe that bikkurim
“can become acquired while still attached [to the soil]” (m. Bik. 2:4), and are therefore set
apart while they are still attached (m. Bik. 3:1); and Rabbi Simeon, who believes that there
is no requirement of bikkurim in fruits that are still attached to the ground (t. Bik. 1:7),
and that they can therefore be termed bikkurim only after they are detached from the soil
(m. Bik. 3:1). See also Tosefta Bikkurim 2:8 (Lieberman, 291); Sifrei Ba-Midbar (Korach,
117, in Menahem Kahana, Akdamot le-hotsaah hadashah shel Sifre ba-midbar, 2 vols. [PhD
diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1982], 2:348), and y. Ter. 6:6. One can, of course,
that the entire third chapter of Mishnah Bikkurim is interwoven with halakic
comments that are integrated into the story, and that the story itself is written
in halakic terminology,16 strengths the impression that the narrative descrip-
tion of the bringing of the first fruits is a sort of beit-midrashic response to the
halakic question of “how one should bring the bikkurim to Jerusalem,” and not
“how the bikkurim were brought” there historically.17 Rosen-Zvi believes that
the fact that several biblical poeticisms appear in the chapter indicates that
we should not view the supposedly archaic words that it features as testimony
to the antiquity of the collection of Mishnayoth, but rather as an expression of
the intentional rhetorical use its compilers made of older phrases.18 In addition
to the explicit use made of Jeremiah’s prophecy to describe the pilgrims’ rising
(“Let us arise and go up to Zion, into the house of the Lord our God”; Jer 31:4–5),
wonder whether the story of a man going down into his field is an ancient description of
the process of setting aside the bikkurim in the time of the temple, with Rabbi Simeon’s
words referring to it, or whether the story is a late narrative formulation of the rabbis’
opinion according to which bikkurim can be acquired while still attached to the ground.
16 For example, Mishnah 3 notes that those bringing their first fruits “decorated them,”
a subject that was under dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Simeon b. Nanas
(Mishnah 9–10). Mishnah 4 includes a historical and ostensibly factual story regarding
the way in which Agrippa brought bikkurim to Jerusalem: “even King Agrippa would take
the basket and place it on his shoulder”; but already Adolf Büchler (Büchler, The Priests
and Their Cult [Hebrew], trans. Naphtali Ginton, TCJS 18 [Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Kuk,
1966], 14; Daniel R. Schwartz, Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea [Hebrew] (Jerusalem:
Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1987), 163–68; David Goodblatt, “Agrippa I and
Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” JH 2.1 (1987) 25 n. 19) noted that the opening
word “even” and the formulation using the participle teach us that we are dealing with a
halakic ruling and not a historical description; i.e., “even [a person as important as] King
Agrippa [should] take his basket and place it on his shoulder” (similarly to the phrase in
Ber. 5:1: “Even if a king greets him [while praying], he should not answer him,” which es-
tablishes a halakic determination, and in our Mishnah the figure of Agrippa is also used in
order to make a halakic determination; and see Schwartz, Agrippa I, 178–79). In Mishnah 5
it says “the turtle-doves [tied to] the basket were [offered up as] burnt-offerings, but that
which they held in their hands they presented to the priests.” The Mishnah defines the
halakic standing of the turtle-doves: those in the basket are considered burnt-offerings,
and those brought separately (“in their hands”) belong to the priests. The Mishnah is
phrased as a historical tale (“were offered up”), and its content serves as a continuation
of the preceding Mishnah, which dealt with the “basket” on Agrippa’s shoulders, thereby
presenting a halakah that (per Safrai’s comment) is integrated as a part of the story se-
quence of the bringing of the fruits to Jerusalem.
17 A good example for this can be found in Mishnah 6, which includes Rabbi Yehuda’s opin-
ion in the story and phrases this halakah as a story; see m. Bik. 5:6 according to David
Henshke’s analysis: David Henshke, Mah Nishtannah: The Passover Night in the Sages’
Discourse [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2016), 418–19.
18 Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Introduction to the Mishnah ([n.p.], forthcoming). I would like to express
my deep gratitude to Professor Rosen-Zvi for sharing me with his article before its publi-
cation, and for his insights and advice.
134 Mali
one should, as Adolf Büchler wrote,19 view the description of the “the gover-
nors and the chiefs [of the temple]” (the pechot and the seganim) as one that
makes use of a biblical turn of phrase, and not as a concrete description of
existing officials, since there were no governors in Jerusalem in the period be-
ginning with the return to Zion in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the
temple did not boast “chiefs,” (seganim) but rather one “chief” (segen; see, e.g.,
m. Yoma 7:1, m. Sotah 7:8).20 I believe that it is additionally possible that this
explanation can be used regarding the mention of the flute that played before
the pilgrims until they reached the Temple Mount. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony
saw this description as yet another parallel between the Hellenistic practice of
accompanying processions (πομπή) with flute playing,21 but it is possible that
one need not look to the Hellenistic context to explain this phrase (“The flute
was played before them, until they reached the Temple Mount”), and can rather
see in these words a paraphrasing of the language used in Isaiah (30:29): “For
you, there shall be singing, as on a night when a festival is hallowed; there shall
be rejoicing as when they march with flute, to the Rock of Israel on the Mount
of the Lord.” Just as the description of the waking of the pilgrims is taken from
Jeremiah, so might the description of the procession to the Temple Mount, ac-
companied by the music of the flute, be a paraphrasing of Isaiah.
The fundamental question we are left with is whether our chapter is pri-
marily a historical description, into which biblical references have been
integrated. Or are even the basic components of the ceremony described in
the Mishnah (such as the gathering in the cities of the ma’amad, the bikkurim
procession, and the greeting at the gates of Jerusalem) the product of exegesis
of the Bible or of a different literary source; thus representing, as Rosen-Zvi
suggests, a “rhetorical process” and not an historical one? In my doctoral thesis,
I attempted to resolve this question through a comparison of the ceremony de-
picted in the Mishnah with sources of the Second Temple period, and through
a meticulous examination of the geographical and administrative terms used
19 This was noted already by Rabbi Akiva Eger, in his commentary on Bik. 3:3, 17; and see
Büchler, Priests and Their Cult, 86; and Daniel Tropper, “The Internal Administration of
the Second Temple at Jerusalem” (PhD diss., Yeshiva University, 1970), 71. The combi-
nation “governors and chiefs” appears seven times in the bible: in Jer 51:23, 51:28, 51:57;
Ezek 23:6, 23:12, and 23:23; and in reverse order in Dan 3:2.
20 Tropper, “Internal Administration,” 68–117.
21 On this, see Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, trans. J. Raffan
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). This practice appeared, among other places,
during the festival of Thargelia (the preharvest festival); see Bitton-Ashkelony, Ha-Aliya,
46–47, and the additional literature cited there.
in the Mishnah.22 In light of this examination, I suggested that the descrip-

tion of the bringing of the bikkurim is a special type of narrative midrash,
which uses historical-narrative language in order to express Tannaitic exegesis
of the Bible. In other words, the main sources for the ceremony described in
the Mishnah are not the realia of the end of the Second Temple period, but
rather the impressive declaration made during the Mikra Bikkurim ceremony
(Deut 26:1–11).
We will now examine the ceremony with which the pilgrims were received
at the gates of Jerusalem. Seth Schwartz has already noted that elements of this
ceremony parallel the Roman ritual of formally greeting the emperor to a city
(adventus).23 Building on this, I suggest that the parallels between the two cer-
emonies are much greater than those demonstrated by Schwartz, and in light
of this I argue that the Tannaim borrowed the ritual patterns relating to honor-
ing the emperor in order to subvert their original meaning. This allows me to
suggest a fundamentally alternative answer to the question of sovereignty over
the earth and the fruits it produces—a topic dealt with in the biblical bikkurim
declaration:
The governors and chiefs and treasurers [of the temple] went out to meet
them. According to the rank of the entrant they used to go out.
All the skilled artisans of Jerusalem would stand up before them and
greet them: “Brethren, men of such and such a place, we are delighted to
welcome you.”
The flute was playing before them till they reached the Temple Mount,
and when they reached the Temple Mount even King Agrippa would take
the basket and place it on his shoulder and walk as far as the temple
court. At the approach to the court, the Levites would sing the song: “I
will extol thee, O Lord, for Thou hast raised me up, and hast not suffered
mine enemies to rejoice over me” (m. Bik. 3:3–4).
The ceremony described in the Mishnah is anomalous. There is no biblical

source for the obligation to greet the bearers of the bikkurim, or even regular
22 See Hillel Mali, “Descriptions of the Temple in the Mishnah: History, Redaction and
Meaning,” PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2018.
23 Seth Schwartz, Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient
Judaism (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 154; Schwartz, “Rabbinic and
Roman Honor and Deference: Y. Berakhot 5.1, 9a, and Y. Bikkurim 3.3, 65c–d,” in Follow the
Wise: Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine, ed. Zeev Weiss, Oded
Irshai, Jodi Magness, and Seth Schwartz (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 51–65.
136 Mali
pilgrims, upon their arrival in Jerusalem.24 And there is no testimony in Second

Temple literature to a ceremony of this type being used to welcome pilgrims to
Jerusalem, in the context of bringing bikkurim or in any other context. The or-
ganization of the exiting party of dignitaries from Jerusalem, which was done
“according to the rank/honor of the entrant,” is also surprising: we know that
the purpose of the bikkurim ritual was to honor God, and that in the face of
this obligation, human honor is suspended (thus, “even King Agrippa would
take the basket and place it on his shoulder”). Why, therefore, is the ceremony
organized in such a hierarchical and ordered manner? Or, in the language of
the Palestinian Talmud, “Is there small and big (i.e., more and less important)
in Jerusalem?”
Seth Schwartz has noted that the reception ceremony performed by the ci-
vilian leadership of the city and by its artisans is evocative of the adventus
ceremony. According to him, the rabbis’ use of the adventus model is intended
to express the message that the honor conferred in the ceremony is bestowed
on those who are fulfilling the commandment, and not on the emperor.25 The
context for Schwartz’s discussion is not the case of bikkurim, but rather the
24 Psalm 122 describes standing at the gates of the city (“Our feet stood inside your gates, O
Jerusalem”) and a greeting directed at it (“May there be well-being within your ramparts”),
a description that can be interpreted as hinting at a ceremony similar to the one de-
scribed in the Mishnah. And indeed, the discussion in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Bik. 3:2,
65c [University Edition, 359]) links the psalm with our chapter in the Mishnah: “On the
way they would say ‘I rejoiced when they said to me we are going to the House of the Lord.’
[When they arrived] in Jerusalem they would say ‘Our feet stood,’ etc.” The possibility
that the psalm preserves a documentation of a reception held for the pilgrims, however,
seems farfetched, since the psalm does not describe a halting and a reception ceremony,
but rather the excitement of the pilgrims at sight of the city. In addition, there are no
shared expressions between the Mishnaic chapter and the psalm, and I have found no lit-
erary links between them. For more on the Psalm, see Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101–150, WBC
21 (Nashville: Nelson, 2002), 210–12; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms: Introduction, Translation
and Notes, 3 vols., AB 16–17A (New York: Doubelday, 1965–1970).
25 According to the Palestinian Talmud (tractate Bik. 3:3, 65c; University Edition, 359), the
“artisans” go out toward the pilgrims due to the obligation to honor the “fulfillers of the
commandment”; an obligation that, unlike the obligation to rise before an elder or a sage
(“You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old,” Lev 19:32), which is limited
to cases in which there is no monetary loss incurred by observing the commandment
(see b. Hul. 54b), applies also in cases when there is monetary loss involved. This is due to
the preference of “fulfillers of the commandment” over sages, or due to the uncommon-
ness of the greeting event. The anonymous voice in the Babylonian Talmud brings an
additional reason: “so that he does not cause them to offend in the future” (b. Qidd. 33a).
According to these last interpretations, we are dealing with a special ordinance regard-
ing the bikkurim. For further discussion of this topic, see also Schwartz, “Rabbinic and
Roman Honor,” 289–92.
halakic question of which people one must rise for, and the theoretical ques-
tion it seems to reflect: Who is worthy of respect? In this context, Schwartz’s
convincing claim is that the Mishnah makes use of the adventus model in order
to emphasize the rabbinic alternative, according to which one must honor the
fulfillers of the commandment in the same way in which one would honor the
emperor.
I would like to build on Schwartz’s claim, and on the connection he reveals
between the two ceremonies. I posit, however, that, due to the incidental con-
text in which he addressed the links between the two ceremonies, Schwartz
did not address some fascinating parallels between the two ceremonies that,
in my opinion, reveal the reason for the rabbis’ use of the adventus model
in describing the reception of the bikkurim-bearing pilgrims: the adventus
ceremony is a ritual that establishes the relationship between the Roman em-
peror and his subjects.26 The heart of the ceremony lies not just in the subjects
expressing respect for the emperor, but also—and even more so—in their
expressing subservience to him, recognizing his authority and, as a result,
asking for his patronage.27 In the context of the imperial cult and the ancient
sources of the adventus ceremony, it is clear that this reception ritual had
religious significance as well.28 The approaching ruler would send a delega-
tion announcing his arrival, and upon reception of this message, the citizens
of the city would decorate it in wreaths, open the temple doors and right be-
fore the ruler’s actual arrival at the city, the citizens, led by priests and other
dignitaries, would exit the city gates, dressed in festive clothing and wear-
ing wreaths, in order to bless the entering emperor/dignitary. The marchers
26 The word adventus (“arrival”) describes a ceremony of welcoming for a ruler or an-
other important personage to a city, for which the parallel Greek term is apantēsis
(“meeting”). For a definition of the term, see Christian Gizewski, “Adventus,” BNP 1:161;
Sabine G. MacCormack, “Change and Continuity in Late Antiquity: The Ceremony of
‘Adventus,’ ” Historia 21.4 (1972): 721; MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 18, 21–22.
27 MacCormack, Art and Ceremony, 17–20; MacCormack, “Change and Continuity,” 721;
Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Alexander the Great and Jaddus the High Priest according to Josephus,”
AJSR 7 (1982): 45–46; Niels Hannestad and Peter J. Crabb, Roman Art and Imperial Policy
(Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1988), 165–66. Refusal to participate in the adventus
procession was therefore interpreted as opposition to the emperor’s rule. Similarly, when
an emperor laid siege to a city and mounted a military campaign against it, holding the
adventus ceremony was a route through which the citizens of the city could accept the
emperor’s rule and thereby prevent warfare.
28 See the literature in Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 49; McCormack, “Change and Continuity,”
722; Margot Fassler, “Adventus at Chartres: Ritual Models for Major Processions,” in
Ceremonial Culture in Pre-Modern Europe, ed. Nicholas Howe (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2007), 13; Hannestad and Crabb, Roman Art, 165.
138 Mali
carried with them the city’s idols and the various signs representing the profes-
sional guilds of the various artisans. After an exchange of blessings, the guest,
accompanied by his entourage, entered the city amongst his greeters, proceed-
ed to the temple, where he would offer a sacrifice, and then met with the local
senate.29
The different motifs shared by the adventus and the ceremony described
in the Mishnah, therefore, are: (1) the sending of a delegation that announc-
es the impending arrival of the visitors to the city (“and when they arrived
close to Jerusalem they sent messengers”); (2) the reception, led by the civil-
ian leadership of the city (“the governors and chiefs and treasurers”); (3) the
greeters’ exiting of the city walls (“went out to greet them:); (4) the greeting of
“peace” offered to the entrants (“Brethren, men of such and such a place, we
are delighted to welcome you’; in Hebrew, literally, “you come in peace”); (5) the
entrants are welcomed to the city by the professional guilds, perhaps accord-
ing to a hierarchical division (“all the skilled artisans of Jerusalem would stand
up before them”).
The link between the greeting ceremony and the adventus ritual may also
explain the difficult sentence “according to the rank of the entrants they used
to go out.” (‫)לפי כבוד הנכנסים היו יוצאים‬. From the Mishnah it is unclear what
the criteria for determining the rank of the entrants were,30 for even an im-
portant man such as King Agrippa would carry his basket, as would a slave.
29 This survey was compiled according to the sources cited in the previous notes. For
descriptions of adventus ceremonies held for the Flavian emperors, see J.W. 7.63–74; see
also J.W. 7.100–103, 119–20. On these ceremonies, see Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory:
Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985), 14–16; and especially MacCormack, “Change and
Continuity,” 722; MacCormack, Art and Ceremony, 17–21; Cohen, “Alexander the Great,”
45. Schwartz cites a composition that describes the details of the adventus ceremony. The
rhetorical composition, by Menander of Laodicea (usually known a Menander Rhetor
[Μένανδρος Ῥήτωρ]), is called Περὶ ἐπιδεικτικῶν , and it includes a section that deals with
the details of the adventus ceremony (Περι Επιβατηριορ). It is printed in Leonhard von
Spengel, Rhetores Graeci (Leipzig: Teubner, 1853), 3:368–446.
30 And in the words of the Palestinian Talmud, there is no “small and big in Jerusalem.”
David Breuer writes: “the size and importance of the community procession determined
who actually came out,” but this interpretation is not only incongruent with the language
of the Mishnah, since it contradicts the erasure of rank that the Mishnah itself tells us
took place during this procession, it also contradicts the principle that appears in other
stories of pilgrimage. Thus, in 2 Samuel, the text tells us that Saul’s daughter Michal, who
attempts to protect David’s honor after he dances like a slave during the procession to
Jerusalem, is rebuked by David and is punished with infertility until her death (2 Sam 6),
and t. Sukka 4:4 tells of Rabban Shimon b. Gamliel, from the presidential family, who
danced with eight torches during Simchat Beit Ha-Sho’eva.
According to this, there are no more or less “honored” people amongst the
pilgrims. On what, therefore, does their rank depend? It is also a little diffi-
cult to understand how the exiting of the greeters from the city changed in
accordance with the rank of the entrants.31 The Palestinian Talmud suggested
that the “rank” or “honor” was measured by the number of pilgrims participat-
ing in the ceremony; but according to this interpretation, the Mishnah should
have said “according to the number of the entrants” and not according to their
“rank.”32 A comparison of the ceremony described in the Mishnah with the
adventus ceremony clarifies this sentence quite well, as Jörg Rüpke has dem-
onstrated to me: in the adventus, the distance traveled by the greeters as they
left, exiting the city toward the approaching dignitary, was determined by the
importance of the entering dignitary.33 The “exiting,” therefore, refers to the
distance walked by the greeters, which was determined by the “honoring” they
wanted to express toward the entrants—as was the practice in the adventus
31 I wonder whether one can explain the Mishnah in a similar vein based on a similar ex-
ample that appears in t. Sheqal. 2:15 (Lieberman, 211): “They all, administrators, potchim,
and treasurers come in and go out. And according to rank they would come in and go out”
(emphasis added). The similarity of the two sources apparently misled the copier of the
London manuscript of the Tosefta, who apparently used a formula identical to, and ap-
parently borrowed from, the one in our Mishnah (this is Saul Lieberman’s suggestion
in Lieberman, Tosefta ki-Feshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta, 8 vols.
(New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1955–1973), 5:694, on Moed 4). In
any event, according to this source, “honor” orders both the entry and the exiting, and
the meaning is probably that the officials entered according to an internal hierarchy (see
also t. Meg. 3:24). But in order to explain our Mishnah thus, we must correct the version
in front of us and line it up with the language of the Tosefta, claiming that the word hayu
(“they would”) was omitted. But this correction has no basis in any of the textual variants
of the Mishnah. And even were we to dare to correct the wording of the Mishnah, we
would need to question what led the Mishnah to address the rank of those who exit the
city, in a ceremony which addresses the honor of those entering it.
32 “Rather, thus the Mishnah: ‘according to the majority’ (i.e., according to number, the
number of people who were entering) ‘thus they exited’ [i.e., the number of people who
exited],” (y. Bikk. 3:3, 65c [Talmud Yerushalmi According to Ms. Or. 4720 (Scal. 3) of the
Leiden University Library, introduction by Yaacov Sussman (The Academy of the Hebrew
Language, Jerusalem 2001), 359], and see also Ber. 7:3; Pe’ah 1:2).
33 This is how Josephus describes Hadrian’s adventus (J.W. 7.68); see Josephus, The Jewish
War: Books IV–VII, trans. Henry St. J. Thackeray, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1928), 525: “Amidst such feelings of universal goodwill, those of higher rank, im-
patient of awaiting him, hastened to a great distance from Rome to be the first to greet
him”; and thus also regarding Titus’s adventus in Antioch (J.W. 7.101; Thackeray, 537): “The
people of Antioch, on hearing that Titus was at hand, through joy could not bear to re-
main within their walls, but hastened to meet him and advanced to a distance of over
thirty furlongs, not only men, but a crowd of women and children also streaming out from the
city” (emphasis added).
140 Mali
ceremony. These p arallels between the different components of the adventus

ceremony and the ceremony described in the Mishnah are, in my eyes, the
outer layers that cover the more fundamental parallel that exists between
them, which exposes the intentions of the authors of the Mishnaic description
of the bringing of the bikkurim: “Even King Agrippa would take the basket and
place it on his shoulder, and walk as far as the temple court.”
This sentence has been interpreted by some scholars as a description of a
historical anecdote; that is, a testimony regarding an occasion on which King
Agrippa (the first or the second) indeed carried his basket on his shoulder.34 It
is clear, however, that Adolf Büchler was correct in noting that it is not explic-
itly stated that the king actually participated in the celebration by carrying the
basket. The Mishnah and Tosefta are only commenting that the same obliga-
tions are required of the king as are required of simple people.35 The language
used to describe Agrippa’s act is not in the past tense, but rather is depicted
using participial forms, which expresses obligation in rabbinic language.36
And the opening word, “even,” indicates that we are dealing with a theoretical
description, and not a concrete one:37 “even [an important person such as]
King Agrippa [should] take the basket and place it on his shoulder.” The ideo-
logical message is clear: in the context of pilgrimage and standing before God,
34 For example, see Emil D. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ
(175 B.C.–A.D. 135), rev. and ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, Matthew Black, and Martin
Goodman, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1973–1987), 1:446 n. 23; and many others.
35 See Büchler, Priests and Their Cult, 14 n. 17; Schwartz, Agrippa I, 178; Goodblatt, “Agrippa I,”
25 n. 19. And it appears that already Moses Maimonides understood the Mishnah thus; see
Mishne Torah, Laws of Bikkurim 3:12, in Maimonides, Mishne Torah, ed. Avraham Yaakov
Finkel (Scranton, PA: Yeshivath Beth Moshe, 2002).
36 Shimon Sharvit, “The ‘Tense’ System of Mishnaic Hebrew,” in Studies in Hebrew and
Semitic Languages [Hebrew], ed. Gad B. Sarfatti (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press,
1980), 112, 115; and see the specific discussion of this Mishnah in Schwartz, Agrippa I, 178
n. 75.
37 See m. Ber. 5:1: “Even if a king greets him [while praying], he should not answer him;
even if a snake is wound round his heel, he should not break off.” The comparison of the
Mishnah in Bikkurim to the Mishnah in Sota demonstrates the difference between theo-
retical and concrete descriptions: “King Agrippa stood and received it [the Torah] and
read standing, for which act the sages praised him. When he reached [the verse] ‘thou
mayest not put a foreigner over thee,’ his eyes ran with tears. They said to him: ‘Fear not,
Agrippa, thou art our brother, thou art our brother!’ ” This tradition is transmitted as a
story, and not as a theoretical case, and is therefore phrased in the past tense. The content
of the story is also specifically relevant to King Agrippa, whose Judaism was in dispute.
Our Mishnah, in contrast, uses the participle, opens with the word “even,” and its content
is not particularly relevant to Agrippa specifically, but rather to any similarly important
man.
the honor of a king is cancelled out, and he must act like any other person.38
But this idea is illuminated in a particular way in the Mishnah due to its basis
in a ceremony whose entire purpose is the marking of respect toward a king
entering a city. The Mishnah, which is constructed like an adventus ceremony,
does in fact describe a ruler who enters the city amongst the pilgrims advanc-
ing into it—and not just any ruler, but a partially gentile ruler (Agrippa)! And
the bikkurim ceremony is not only structured like the ceremony of greeting for
a Roman emperor; it actually includes a Roman emperor in its midst. But the
appearance of this emperor reveals the ideological purpose of the entire text:
while in the Roman ceremony, the entrant is a ruler accompanied by his army,
who is offered a blessing of peace by the city dwellers, and who thus seek to
subjugate themselves to him, the Mishnah describes a ruler who enters the city
like any other man, with the basket of bikkurim on his shoulder—exactly like
the emperor’s accompanying servants during the adventus! The Mishnah, if so,
does indeed describe a ceremony of capitulation, but the subjugator and the
subjugated are reversed. It is not the citizens of the city who capitulate before
the emperor who is entering their city, but rather the ruler himself who enters
Jerusalem like a simple pilgrim, thus expressing his subjugation to God.
This fundamental message echoes the expressed purpose of the mikra
bikkurim, whose topic is man’s recognition of God’s ownership over man’s
supposed possessions, and over the earth itself. As Martin Buber commented,
the farmer who enters with his agricultural produce repeats the root n-t-n (“to
give”) seven times in the mikra bikkurim, and states three times that “I have en-
tered the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to assign us”; “and [He] gave us
this land”; “I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given
me” (Deut 26:3, 9, 10).39 The bikkurim ceremony, therefore, is an expression of
God’s ownership of the land and its fruits (i.e., God is the real “emperor” of the
reception ceremony), and the ceremony’s dependence on the adventus model
expresses this message through a subversion of the perception of honor and
ownership in play in the Roman world in which the rabbis operated.40 Since
38 And see the clearly halakic phrasing of the same halakah in the Tosefta: “All the way (to
Jerusalem) he may give (the basket) to his servant or his relative, until he reaches the
Temple Mount. When he reaches the Temple Mount, even King Agrippa takes the bas-
ket on his (own) shoulder and enters until he reaches the Temple court” (t. Bikk. 2:10
[Lieberman, 292]).
39 Martin Buber, On the Bible: Eighteen Studies, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York:
Schocken, 1968), 123–24, and following him, Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary:
Deuteronomy, ed. Nahum Sarna et al. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 238.
40 For further examples from rabbinic literature of an adoption and inversion of rituals
taken from the Roman world in order to subvert their original meanings, as part of a dis-
course of resistance to a ruling culture, see Y. Levinson’s article, “Athlete of Faith and Fatal
142 Mali
the bikkurim ceremony expresses the rule of the true “emperor,” the very act
of pilgrimage undertaken by the king, the “ruler” of Jerusalem, carrying the
basket of fruit on his shoulder like a slave, demonstrates that everyone—king
and plebian alike—is equal in their subjugation before God.
The use of the adventus as a literary model with the intention of subverting
its original meaning is not a Mishnaic invention. Isaiah Gafni has collected
different sources from midrashic literature that testify to a familiarity with
the adventus ceremony and its literary use,41 and Christian authors have
described Jesus entry into Jerusalem as a kind of parallel to the imperial ad-
ventus ceremony.42 Shaye Cohen has demonstrated that the author of Jewish
Antiquities (11.326–36) has described the meeting between the High Priest
Jaddus and Alexander the Great according to the adventus model, among
others:43 “God spoke oracularly to him in his sleep, telling him to take cour-
age and adorn the city with wreaths and open the gates and go out to meet
them, and that the people should be in white garments, and he himself with
the priests in the robes prescribed by law” (Ant. 11.8.4).44 As Cohen explained,
the author knowingly used the adventus ceremony as a model for the descrip-
tion, and the details of the ceremony are borrowed from the Roman one.45
Once the ceremony becomes a literary model into which new characters are
inserted (Alexander and the High Priest in Jewish Antiquities, Jesus entering
Jerusalem in the New Testament, and the pilgrims approaching the temple in
our Mishnah), the use of this literary model provides special meaning. Thus,
in the literary description of Alexander’s visit, we hear: “When he learned
Fictions,” Tarbiz 68 (1998): 61–86. See also David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish
History (New York: Schocken, 1986); Yair Furstenberg, “Idolatry Annulment” [Hebrew],
Reshit 1 (2009): 117–44.
41 See Cohen, “Alexander the Great,” 55 n. 40. And see Masekhta de-Shira, parasha 1, in
Saul Horovitz and Yisrael Rabin, eds., Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael [Hebrew], 2nd ed.
(Jerusalem: Shalem, 1997), 119; Pesiq. Rab. 21:2, in Meir Friedmann and Moritz Güdemann,
eds., Midrash Pesikta Rabbati (Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1963), 100; Vayikra Rabbah 30, in Mordecai
Margalioth, ed., Midrash Vayikra Rabbah (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1972), 704–705.
42 MacCormack, Art and Ceremony, 18. For an analysis of the Christian sources, see
MacCormack, “Change and Continuity,” 721–52; and Alexei M. Sivertsev, Judaism and
Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 93.
43 Cohen accepted and enforced Büchler’s opinion that the section describing Alexander’s
journey (Ant. 11.302–45) is composed of a number of independent sources (Cohen,
“Alexander the Great,” 42–43). But compare Jonathan A. Goldstein, “Alexander and the
Jews,” PAAJR 59 (1993): 59–101. For our purposes, the important fact is that these two schol-
ars agreed that the section describing the adventus is a story of Jewish provenance.
44 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities: Books IX–XI, trans. Ralph Marcus, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1958), 473.
45 See Cohen, “Alexander the Great,” 44–45.
that Alexander was not far from the city, he went out with the priests and the
body of citizens, and making the reception sacred in character and different
from that of other nations” (Ant. 11.329). That is, the Jews did not carry with
them “idols,” but rather “the mitre with the golden plate on it on which was
inscribed the name of God” (Ant. 11.331). The difference here is not only a dis-
tinction in the technical details of the ceremony, but rather—as Shlomit Mali
has noted—a reversal of the entire power structure in the story of the meeting
between Alexander and the Jews. The adventus story here does not end with
the subjugation of the Jerusalemite priest before Alexander, but rather with
the opposite: the king subjugates himself to the priest. The use of the adventus
model, therefore, allows the author to undermine the original essence of the
ceremony in order to express what he views as the correct power balance be-
tween the king and the priest.46
I believe that the rabbis’ subversive use of the adventus ceremony as a lit-
erary model in our Mishnah is the vehicle for a replacing of the figure of the
emperor, surrounded by his armies, with the figure of the fruit-bearing pilgrim,
thus expressing the entire purpose of the biblical mikra bikkurim passage,
which centers on man’s acceptance of God’s—and not the emperor’s—rule
over the earth and its fruit. This idea is the formative idea expressed in the
biblical mikra bikkurim: “I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O
Lord, have given me” (Deut 26:10; see also 26:1, 2, 11). The bikkurim ceremony,
if so, expresses God’s rule over the earth and its produce, and the depiction
of the ceremony according to the model of the adventus expresses this idea,
while subverting the competing model of honor and ownership espoused by
the Romans. Since the bikkurim ceremony expresses the true “emperor’s” rule,
the king and the slave are both equals in the act of pilgrimage before God, and
both enter Jerusalem carrying their baskets on their shoulders.
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Chapter 7
Christian Presence in Jewish Ritual

Yaacov Deutsch
During this time, I have seen, often with great surprise, the frequency
with which Christians rush—on the Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur], or
the Long Day—to the synagogue in order to see the Jewish service and its
customs. They may very well believe that these prayers are truly arousing,
uplifting, and solemn, for when I went along the River Main I heard those
[Christians] returning from synagogue say to each other that it is only
right not to ridicule the Jewish ceremonies because their all-day services,
the lighting in the synagogue, and their white linen outfits are all worthy
of attention. The Jews themselves are proud that there are such impor-
tant attendees from the two sexes in their synagogue, and they believe
that the Gentiles or Christians gain so much from their prayers and that
a few apostates or converts return to synagogue in order to celebrate this
festival with them once more.1
This quotation, taken from the introduction to Caspar Friedenheim’s book Das
ist der äusserliche Jud (That Is the Jew from the Outside), which was published
in 1785, twenty-two years after his conversion from Judaism to Christianity.2
Given Friedenheim’s background as a former Jew, one must ask to what extent
his description is accurate. Were there indeed Christians who wished to at-
tend the synagogue and to see Jewish prayers and rituals? And if they went to
the synagogue, were they motivated by esteem for Jewish observance, or were
there other reasons behind their actions?
In this article, I will argue that Christians were interested in observing
Jewish rituals, and that there are many examples that demonstrate Christian
1 Caspar Friedenheim, introduction to Yehudi mibakhutz: Das ist der äußerliche Jud in Ansehung
ihres dermaligen vermeintlichen Gottesdienstes und besonders in Absicht auf das ihnen so wich-
tige Stück Jom Kipur; Das ist der Versöhnungstag und dessen dermaligen Feyer und Begehung
(Würzburg: [n.p.], 1785).
2 The biographic information on Friedenheim is rather sparse. Most of what we know about
him, including his conversion date, comes from the details that he provides in the intro-
duction to his book Die Hoffnung Israel auf die Erlösung durch den Messias ist kommen und
vorhanden in Jesu von Nazareth (Würzburg: [n.p.], 1770) and from the introduction to his
book on Yom Kippur (see above, n. 1).

Christian Presence in Jewish Ritual 149
interest in Jewish customs and ceremonies. These reflect a wide range of reac-
tions and responses to Jewish rituals. In addition, I will show that Jews were
cognizant of the fact that Christians were curious to observe their rituals, and
that this awareness shaped and sometimes even changed the way Jewish ritu-
als were observed.
As I have argued elsewhere, Christian interest in the ways in which Jews
performed and celebrated their ceremonies and rituals grew dramatically after
the beginning of the sixteenth century.3 Much of this attentiveness was mani-
fested in the publication of books that systematically described Jewish rituals
and customs. Altogether from the beginning of the sixteenth century until
the last decades of the eighteenth century, almost eighty works that belong
to the genre known as Christian ethnographies of Jews and Judaism, to use
the phrase coined by Ronnie Hsia, were published.4 However, most of these
works, about two thirds, were written by converted Jews, and thus do not dis-
play a real Christian presence at or interest in Jewish rituals. Moreover, even
the works written by those who were born Christians were based in many cases
on Jewish texts, and not on actual observation of Jewish ceremonies and ritu-
als. This is the case, for example, in Johannes Buxtorf’s Synagoga Judaica, the
first comprehensive account of contemporary Jewish rituals and ceremonies
written by one who was a Christian from birth.5 The book was first printed in
1603, and since then has been translated to Latin, English, and Dutch; it was
printed in more than twenty editions during the seventeenth and eighteenth
century, and was almost certainly the most important work on Jewish customs
and ceremonies in that period.6
In a letter to a friend, Buxtorf explains the method he used when working
on that book. According to Buxtorf, he first read Simon Levi Günzburg’s Sefer
Minhagim (Book of Customs), a compendium of Jewish law written in Yiddish.
Following that book, he looked up the relevant extracts from Joseph Karo’s
legal codex, Shulhan Arukh, and finally he studied the related paragraphs of
3 Yaacov Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes: Ethnographic Descriptions of Jews and Judaism in
Early Modern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
4 Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, “Christian Ethnographies of Jews in Early Modern Germany,” in The
Expulsion of the Jews: 1492 and After, ed. Raymond B. Waddington and A. H. Williamson (New
York: Garland, 1994), 223–35.
5 See Johannes Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica: Das ist Juden Schul; Darinnen der gantz Jüdische
Glaub und Glaubens-übung mit allen Ceremonien Satzungen Sitten und Gebräuchen (Basel:
Henricpetri, 1603).
6 On Buxtorf’s book, see Stephen G. Burnett, From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies:
Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629) and Hebrew Learning in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: Brill,
1996), 54–102. For a list of the editions, see Burnett, From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies,
248–49; and also Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes, 44.
150 Deutsch
the Talmud. After gathering all the materials, he would read Günzburg’s Sefer
Minhagim once more.7 As we can see, Buxtorf mentions the Jewish sources he
was using, and as it has been shown, he also used some of the descriptions writ-
ten by converts; for example, Anthonius Margaritha’s Der gantz Judisch Glaub
from 1530, and Ernst Ferdinand Hess’s Flagellum Judaeorum / Juden Geisel from
1598.8 Nonetheless, he is not referring here to customs he observed while pres-
ent at the performance of Jewish rituals. This is not to say that he was only an
armchair ethnographer, but the cases in which he mentions what he himself
observed are very limited.9
Thus, although the ethnographic descriptions about the Jews are an impor-
tant source for understanding Christian perceptions of Jewish rituals, their
points of view reflect a limited Christian presence in Jewish rituals. Therefore,
in what follows I will focus on examples of Christians who came either to the
synagogue or to Jewish houses in order to observe how the Jews celebrate their
holidays and perform their life cycle rituals. Based on these examples, I will
argue that in most cases they reflect a different approach to Jewish rituals from
that which is found in the ethnographic descriptions of the Jews.
One of the first examples of a Christian who was present in Jewish ceremo-
nies and left a relatively detailed account of what he saw is François Tissard,
a French humanist who spent several years in Ferrara, where he also studied
with Rabbi Abraham Farissol.10 In 1508 he published a book that includes one
part entitled De Judaeorum ritibus compendium, in which he described several
customs of the Jews, and what is unique in his description is that most of it
is based on things he saw while residing in Ferrara.11 In this treatise, Tissard
7 For more on Günzburg’s book and the use Buxtorf made of it, see Burnett, From Christian
Hebraism to Jewish Studies, 64–72.
8 Anthonius Margaritha, Der gantz Jüdisch Glaub mit sampt eyner gründtlichenn vnd war-
hafftigen anzeygunge, aller satzungen, Ceremonien, gebetten, heymliche vnd öffentliche
gebreüch, deren sich die Juden halten … (Augsburg: [Steiner], 1530); Ernst Ferdinand
Hess, Flagellum Iudaeorum / Juden Geissel, das ist: Ein neuwe sehr nütze und gründliche
Erweisung, dass Jesus Christus, Gottes und der H. Jungkfrauwen Marien Sohn der wahre ver-
heissene und gesandte Messias sey (Erfurt: [n.p.], 1598).
9 In one example, he reports about a sermon he heard after a circumcision ceremony; see
Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica, 124.
10 On his connections with Farissol, see David B. Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance
Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union
College Press, 1981), 98–106.
11 François Tissard, De Judeorum ritibus compendium. The composition itself was printed,
together with several other works by the author (including studies on the Greek and
Hebrew alphabet) under the title Dialogus Prothypatris kai Phronimos: Qui videlicet pro
patria promptus est et Prudens; De Judeorum ritibus compendium; Tabula elementorum
hebraicorum … (Paris: [n.p.], 1508). For a discussion of Tissard’s account about Jewish
customs, see Nathan Porges, “Die Anfangsgründe der hebräischen und griechischen
expresses his interest in Jewish ritual very clearly: “I strongly desired to witness
their rites, to hear their singing, and to comprehend their mysteries.”12 Tissard
wrote about several holidays, among them Passover and the Day of Atonement,
although for the latter his description was wrong.13 He described the laws of
the Sabbath, a circumcision ceremony in which he was present, the synagogue,
and the reading of the Torah and dietary laws. Although from a religious per-
spective Tissard is critical of the Jews and speaks about their stubbornness and
urges them to convert, when it came to the description of particular rituals he
is less critical; and, as David Ruderman argued, “his negative evaluation is not
so blatant. One can sense a faint expression of respect and sympathy.”14
The motivation and drive to observe Jewish rites expressed by Tissard
at the beginning of the sixteenth century characterizes other descriptions from
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and, as I will show, many of them
were more sympathetic toward Jewish ceremonies and rituals. Most of these
descriptions of Jewish rituals appear in travel accounts, a genre that flourished
in the early modern period, and as a result of this they do not offer a system-
atic account of Jewish rituals but rather focus on one or two ceremonies they
observed.15 One of the rituals that many were interested in seeing was circum-
cision, as can be seen in the next few examples.
After being present at a circumcision ceremony in Istanbul, Thomas Coryate,
the English traveler, wrote: “to this mans house I say wee came, the foresaid day
about nine of the clocke in the morning to see a matter, which in my former
travells I wished to have seene, especially in Venice, but never till then had
the opportunitie to attaine unto, namely, a circumcision”.16 One reason for this
Gramatik des Franciscus Tissardus,” in Festskrift I Anledning af Professor David Simonsens

70-aarige Fødselsdag, ed. David Simonsen (Copenhagen: Hertz, 1923), 176–84.
12 Tissard, De Judeorum ritibus compendium, 17b. The English translation is taken from
Ruderman, World of a Renaissance Jew, 100–101.
13 Tissrad, De Judeorum ritibus compendium, 19b; and see Porges, “Anfangsgründe,” 178 n. 1.
14 Ruderman, World of a Renaissance Jew, 102–103.
15 There are numerous studies on travel literature in the early modern period; for a brief
overview, see, for example, William H. Sherman, “Stirrings and Searchings (1500–1720),”
The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, CCL
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 17–36. There are discussions of particular
descriptions of Jews and Judaism in travel accounts but also some attempts for a broader
perspective; see, for example, Eva Johanna Holmberg, Jews in the Early Modern English
Imagination: A Scattered Nation (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), where she discusses many dif-
ferent accounts written by English travelers.
16 Thomas Coryate, Master Thomas Coryates Travels to, and Observations in Constantinople,
and Other Places in the Way Thither, and His Journey Thence to Aleppo Damasco and
Jerusalem, cited in Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes:
Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and
Others (London: Stansby, 1625), 1824. On Coryate, especially his attitude towards the
152 Deutsch
interest in the circumcision ceremony is probably, as other travelers explained,

that circumcision is the most ancient religious ritual. Descriptions of the cir-
cumcision ceremony appear in many travel accounts; for example, in the travel
journal of Montaigne and the English traveler Fynes Morrison.17 Elsewhere I
have elaborated on these descriptions, and therefore I will focus now on de-
scriptions of other rituals.18
The English traveler Laurence Aldersey visited the synagogue in Venice in
1581 and left a short account of what he saw:
For my farther knowledge of these people, I went into their Sinagogue

upon a Satturday, which is their Sabbath day, and I founde them in their
service or prayers, very devoute. They receive the five bookes of Moses
and honour them by carrying them about their Church, as Papistes doe
their crosse.
Their Synagogue is in forme round and the people sit round about it,
and in the middest there is a place for him that readeath to the rest. As for
their apparell all of them weare a large white lawne over their garment
which reacheth from their head downe to the ground.
The psalmes they sing as we doe, having no image nor using any man-
ner of idolatrie. Their errour is that they beleeve not in Christ, nor yet
receive the New Testament.19
Jews, see Michael Strachan, The Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate (London: Oxford
University Press, 1962); Myriam Yardeni, “Descriptions of Voyages and a Change in Attitude
toward the Jews: The Case of Thomas Coryate,” in Anti-Jewish Mentalities in Early Modern
Europe (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 71–91; Richard I. Cohen, Jewish
Icons: Art and Society in Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998),
11–14; Elliott Horowitz, “A ‘Dangerous Encounter’: Thomas Coryate and the Swaggering
Jews of Venice,” JJS 52 (2001): 341–53; Eva Frojmovic, “Christian Travelers to Circumcision:
Early Modern Representations,” in The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an
Ancient Jewish Rite, ed. Elizabeth Wyner Mark, BSJW (Hanover, NH: University Press of
New England, 2003), 135–37.
17 Michel de Montaigne, Journal du voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie, par la Suisse
et l’Allemagne en 1580 et 1581 avec des notes par M. de Querlon, 2 vols. (Rome: Le Jay, 1774),
2:120–28; Fynes Moryson, Shakespeare’s Europe: Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson’s
Itinerary; Being a Survey of the Condition of Europe at the End of the 16th Century …
(London: Sherratt & Hughes, 1903), 494.
18 Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes, 164–68.
19 Laurence Aldersey, The First Voyage or Iourney, Made by Master Laurence Aldersey … in the
Year 1581, in The Principall Nauigations, Voiages and Discoueries of the English Nation Made
by Sea or ouer Land, to the Most Remote and Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth …, ed.
Richard Hakluyt (London: Bishop and Newberie, 1589), 179–80.
For Aldersey, visiting the synagogue was a way to obtain additional knowl-
edge about the Jews he had met. Part of the method he used to explain what
the Jews do is that of comparison, and he founds his explanation on a com-
parison to the Catholics. For example, he mentions that unlike them, the Jews
do not use images; and in this way, he uses his description of the Jews also as a
critique of Catholicism, a method used by other authors as well.20
As opposed to Aldersey, who was impressed by Jewish devotion (although
he does regret their error in not recognizing Christ and the New Testament),
Thomas Coryate, who was mentioned before, also visited the synagogue in
Venice, some thirty years later, but had a different experience. Coryate was
struck by the way the Torah was read, and wrote that the person who read
the Torah did it with “exceeding loud yelling, indecent roaring, and as it were
a beastly bellowing of it forth.”21 He also wrote that the Jews do not show any
kind of respect when they enter the synagogue, as they do not take off their
hats, kneel down, or perform any other gesture. Nonetheless he also men-
tioned some things that he liked:
They are very religious in two things only, and no more, in that they wor-
ship no images, and that they keep their Sabbath so strictly that upon
that day they will neither buy nor sell, nor do any secular, profane, or ir-
religious exercise (I would to God our Christians would imitate the Jews
herein).22
In Purchas his Pilgrimage, a book that is based on different travel accounts,

Samuel Purchas also paid attention to the sound of the prayers and wrote:
Thus haue we seene the Iewish Mattins, which they chaunt (saith ano-
her) in a strange wilde hallowing tune, imitating sometimes trumpets
and one ecchoing to the other, and winding vp by degrees from a soft and
silent whispering, to the highest and loudest Notes, that their voices will
beare, with much varietie of gesture: kneeling they vse none, no more
then doe the Graecians: they burne Lampes: but for shew of Deuotion or
Eleuation of spirit, that yet in Iewes could I neuer diseerne: for they are
20 Thomas Coryate, whom I discuss in the following lines, is but one example of that.
21 Thomas Coryate, Coryats Crudities Hastily Gobled Vp in Five Moneths Trauells in France,
Sauoy, Italy, Rhetia Co[m]monly Called the Grisons Country, Heluetia Aliàs Switzerland,
Some Parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands … (London: S[tanesby], 1611), 231.
22 Coryate, Coryats Crudities, 233.
154 Deutsch
reuerend in their Synagogues, as Grammar boyes are at schoole, when

their Maister is absent.23
Similarly, Georg Sandys, in his travel journal wrote of the Jews: “They reade
(the Torah), in savage tones, and sing in tunes that have no affinity with mu-
sicke: ioyning voyces at the severall closes.”24
One relatively famous description of the Jewish prayer appears in the diary of
Samuel Pepys, who visited the Sephardic synagogue in London on October 14,
1663: “But Lord, to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but
confusion in all their service, more like Brutes then people knowing the true
God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more.”25 Pepys, who was
clearly shocked by what he saw, was unaware of the fact that he had witnessed
part of the traditional celebrations on the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah (“the
Joy of the Torah”) and that this was not how the Jews ordinarily conduct their
rites.
The last five examples were from the writings of English travelers, but
the English were not alone. Hans-Joachim Schoeps collected descriptions of
Swedish travelers from the seventeenth and eighteenth century who wrote on
Jews, and in their accounts we can also find descriptions of the Jewish ser-
vice in the synagogue, as well as descriptions of other rituals.26 For example,
Petrus Salanus, who traveled in Germany, reported in his travel journal from
1651 about a wedding ceremony that he attended, as well as a circumcision
ceremony.27 Mathias Edenberg visited Amsterdam in 1658, and on August 7 vis-
23 Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrimage: Or, Relations of the World and the Religions
Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation unto This Present (London:
Stansby, 1613), 165.
24 Georg Sandys, A Relation of a Iourney Begun An. Dom. 1610: Foure Bookes, Containing a
Description of the Turkish Empire, of Aegypt, of the Holy Land, of the Remote Parts of Italy,
and Ilands Adioyning (London: [Field], 1615), 146. On Sandys, and especially on his travel to
the East, see Richard B. Davis, George Sandys, Poet Adventurer: A Study in Anglo-American
Culture in the Seventeenth Century (London: Bodley Head, 1955), 44–90. For Christian
descriptions of Jewish noise, see also Elisheva Carlebach, Divided Souls: Converts from
Judaism in Germany, 1500–1750 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 157–58.
25 Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews,
4 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 4:335.
26 In addition, there are other testimonies that reveal the interest of Christians in visiting the
synagogue; see Yosef Kaplan, “For Whom Did de Witte Paint the Sephardi Synagogue?,”
in An Alternative Path to Modernity: The Sephardi Diaspora in Western Europe, BSJS 28
(Leiden: Brill, 2000), 32–37; and see also Joseph Kalir, “The Jewish Service in the Eyes of
Christian and Baptized Jews in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” JQR 56 (1966): 51–80.
27 Petrus Salanus, Reisejournal, in Philosemitismus im Barock: Religions- und Geistesgeschich-
tliche Untersuchungen, ed. Hans-Joachim Schoeps (Tübingen: Mohr, 1952), 173–74.
ited the synagogue. He wrote that he was surprised to see that the people wore
sacks.28 He did not know, however, that this was the eve of the ninth of Av, the
day commemorating the destruction of the temple, when Jews observe special
mourning customs. Edenberg also wrote that he wanted to see a circumcision
ceremony; but, unfortunately, they did not celebrate one while he was there.
The last example I will mention here is Andres Nilson, who visited Hamburg
in 1661 and wrote about a visit to the synagogue as well as a wedding ceremony
that he saw while he was there.29
I cannot go into a detailed analysis of these last three descriptions, or of
the many others that appear in Schoeps’s book; however, a few remarks are in
order. First, we can see that many travelers were motivated to observe the Jews
performing their rites. In addition, in all cases their descriptions are limited
to one or two ceremonies, and never give a comprehensive account of Jewish
rituals. Moreover, most of the descriptions that Schoeps brings are factual and
not judgmental. There is a big difference between the ethnographic literature,
which, in my opinion, is better defined as polemical ethnography; and the
travelers’ reports, which tend to be more descriptive and contain a minimal
amount of critical remarks.30 Moreover, the travel accounts do not aim to offer
a comprehensive and inclusive account of Jewish rituals. In this way they are
very different from the systematic accounts written by the “polemical ethnog-
raphers” like Margaritha and Buxtorf.
So far, I have referred to Christian encounters with Jewish ritual that took
place because Christians sought ways to be present at these celebrations.
However, it is noteworthy that some Jewish rituals were performed outside
of the synagogue or the private houses of Jews, and took place in the public
sphere, thus making them visible to almost every Christian living in the vicin-
ity. One such example is the marriage ceremony. At least part of it took place
in the area near the synagogue. In addition, in many cases the bride and groom
were led to the synagogue in a procession that also was held in the public
sphere of the city.31 Similarly, during the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews built
sukkot, or booths, that commemorated the booths that the Israelites used
28 Mathias Edenberg, Tagebuch der Reisen in Deutschland und Italien, in Schoeps,

Philosemitismus im Barock, 175–76.
29 Andres Nilson, Norcopensis, geadekt Nordenhielm, in Schoeps, Philosemitismus im Barock,
176–77.
30 Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes, 164–68.
31 For a description of Jewish weddings in early modern Germany, see, for example, the
account of Jousep Schammes, who lived in Worms during the seventeenth century, in
Schammes, Minhagim de-Kehilat Kodesh Vermaisa [Hebrew], ed. Benjamin Hamburger
and Erich Zimmer, 2 vols., WM (Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 1988–1992), 2:1–54.
156 Deutsch
when they fled from Egypt. These two rituals, and perhaps some others like
slaughtering or burial as well, made Christians, at least to some extent, regular
observers of Jewish rituals.
These rituals, which were performed in public space, along with Christian
comments pertaining to them, can shed light on yet another aspect of the
Christian presence in and reaction to Jewish rituals. One such example that
I found took place in Amsterdam in 1645, when Reverend Wachtendorp com-
plained to his colleagues that he noticed “while walking in the street that the
streets and the bridges were decorated with large branches in honor of the
Jewish ceremony for the Feast of Booths.”32 The participants in the meeting
agreed that indeed this was very un-Christian, and therefore decided to pro-
test to the mayor. The mayor promised to look into the matter and put things
in order, but before he made up his mind and decided what to do, the Feast
of Tabernacles was over. A more general complaint about the public celebra-
tion of Jewish holidays within the Christian sphere appeared in Johannes
Müller’s book Judaismus oder Judenthumb, which was published in 1644. In
his book, Müller discussed the question whether the Jews were permitted to
live in Christian cities, and writes that when Jews live in Christian cities, the
Christians need to hear their blubbering and to see them celebrate their holi-
days; for example, the Feast of Tabernacles and Passover.33 These two examples
show that some Christians took offense and were not happy with Jewish rituals
taking place in the public sphere, and thus being visible to the entire commu-
nity against their will.
So far, I have discussed the Christian side of the encounter between
Christians and Jewish ritual, but what do we know about the Jewish reaction
to this encounter? We have some examples of Jews who invited Christians to
participate in their religious celebrations, be it the celebration of a certain
holiday or a life cycle ritual. One such example is the circumcision of the son
of Abraham Braunschweig, a Jew who worked with Johannes Buxtorf in his
32 The details about this incident appear in Herbert I. Bloom, The Economic Activities of the
Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Williamsport, PA: Bayard,
1937), 27 n. 120.
33 Johannes Müller, Judaismus oder Jüdenthumb: Das ist Außführlicher Bericht von des
Jüdischen Volckes Unglauben, Blindheit und Verstockung (Hamburg: Hertel, 1644), 1387.
On Müller, see Jutta Braden, Hamburger Judenpolitik im Zeitalter lutherischer Orthodoxie:
1590–1710 (Hamburg: Christians, 2001), esp. 187–97; Braden, “ ‘The Jews’ Residence’:
Orthodox Lutheran Attitudes towards the Coexistence of Jews and Christians,” in Key
Documents of German-Jewish History: A Digital Source Edition, Institut für die Geschichte
der deutschen Juden, https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:article-63.en.v1.
Hebrew printing house in Basel.34 Other examples are recorded in etchings

and paintings such as the 1675 etching of Romeyn de Hoogh of the synagogue
in Amsterdam showing Christians present in the synagogue, or the etching
showing Bernard Picart celebrating Passover in Amsterdam.35 Immanuel de
Witte’s paintings are also an example of this phenomenon.36
In addition, some takanot, or regulations, from the Spanish Portuguese com-
munity in Amsterdam show Jewish awareness and acceptance of Christian
presence in the synagogue. Thus, for example, a regulation from August 1640
mandated that no one would rise to welcome a non-Jew into the synagogue
without the consent of the leaders of the community. A month later, after the
members of the community did not oblige, another decision was made, and
this time it stated that people who sat at the back of the synagogue could wel-
come the visitors on condition that they would not disturb the other people
attending the synagogue. Thus it is clear that the community did not try to
prevent visits of non-Jews to the synagogue, but only to make sure that they
would not harm the order in the synagogue.37
Other regulations, however, show not only that the leaders of the commu-
nity did not want to prohibit or to stop visits of non-Jews to the synagogue, but
that they also tried to regulate the behavior of the community members and
to prevent behavior that they feared would seem inappropriate in the eyes of
Christian visitors. As a result, in a regulation from 1640 the leaders of the com-
munity banned the use of hammers on Purim. These hammers were used to
make noise during the reading of the scroll of Esther, a practice that took place
each time the name of Haman was read (the practice of making noise by vari-
ous means dates at least to the thirteenth century and is customary until today
in most Jewish communities).38 The reason for this ban was that communal
officials believed such behavior fit the customs of barbarous people but not
that of civilized people.
Five years later, the leaders of the community denounced those who left
the synagogue during the reading of the weekly Torah portion or during the
34 See Stephen Burnett, “Johannes Buxtorf I and the Circumcision Incident of 1619,” BZGAK
89 (1989): 135–44.
35 Bernard Picart, Ceremonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, 8 vols.,
(Amsterdam : Bernard, 1723–1743), 1:120.
36 Kaplan, “For Whom Did de Witte Paint,” 30.
37 On these regulations, see Kaplan, “For Whom Did de Witte Paint,” 35–36.
38 Alexander Patschovsky, Der Passauer Anonymus: Ein Sammelwerk über Ketzer, Juden,
Antichrist aus der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts, SMGH 22 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1968),
180; see also Daniel Sperber, The Customs of Israel [Hebrew], 8 vols. (Jerusalem, 1994),
3:156–59.
158 Deutsch
sermon of the rabbi, and the reason given for this was that in addition to that,
that their deeds lessen religious piety and harm the worship of God, they
also raise outcry among us and among the non-Jews. A regulation from 1655
prohibited taking tobacco from the Polish Jews in order to smell it in the syna-
gogue, because such behavior aroused uproar not only among the Jews but
also among the non-Jews who were present in the synagogue. According to
the regulation, the non-Jews would whisper about this and about other deeds
that are a desecration of God’s name. Similarly, a later regulation from 1698
tried to resolve the chaos caused by different people who used to stand in the
synagogue, while all other members of the community were sitting, something
that caused complaints among the non-Jewish visitors.39
All these regulations are evidence that the leaders of the Jewish community
in Amsterdam were aware of a Christian presence in the synagogue and that
they did not try to prohibit it, rather they tried to change Jewish behavior in
order to make it more appealing to the Christians. From this perspective, the
Jewish community of Amsterdam shaped some of its norms of behavior as a
result of the watching eyes of the Christian visitors. But is this a unique case?
Was it only in Amsterdam, where Jews enjoyed religious freedom and were
proud to expose and show their religious rites and ceremonies to the non-Jews,
that such a non-Jewish presence in the synagogue was found? As far as I know,
regulations of other Jewish communities in Western Europe do not indicate a
Christian presence in the synagogue and do not use Christians and their reac-
tions to Jewish practices in order to support or to rule out certain behaviors.
Nonetheless, there are several examples that show that Jewish awareness of
Christian criticism of Jewish deeds and Jewish texts led to Jewish censorship
of such practices, and here I mainly refer to the erasing of anti-Christian texts
from the liturgy.40
Based on these examples, I would argue that non-Jewish reactions, and es-
pecially criticism of Jewish rituals, played a significant role in shaping Jewish
ritual behavior, especially during the early modern period; and that this topic
still awaits more nuanced and detailed studies that will show how and to what
extent one can find examples of such a mechanism.
In conclusion, I wish to offer three directions for further reflection. As I
have demonstrated, there are many examples of travelers who describe Jewish
39 Kaplan, “For Whom Did de Witte Paint,” 36.

40 A good example for this is Leon Modena’s work Historia de gli riti Hebraici … (Paris: [n.p.],
1637), which was published as a response to Buxtorf’s Synagoga Judaica. Modena censored
and omitted some of the customs that he thought were superstitious; see Mark R. Cohen,
“Leone da Modena’s Riti: A Seventeenth-Century Plea for Social Toleration of Jews,” JSocS
34 (1972): 287–319.
ceremonies. However, to the best my knowledge there is no study that lists

all these texts, and of course no real attempt to analyze them. I believe that
future research that will collect these texts will allow an opportunity to better
understand how Christians perceived Jewish rituals and ceremonies, as well as
on the way Jews performed their ceremonies. Moreover, it will enable a more
extensive comparison between travelers belonging to different religious or na-
tional groups; for example, between Protestants, Catholics, or Anglicans.
We have also seen that Christian descriptions of Jewish rituals can shed light
on the inner-religious debates of Christians in the early modern period. As I
indicated, some of the reports about Jewish ceremonies also mention the prac-
tices of opponent Christian groups in passing. A careful study of these notes
can contribute to the study of the place of ritual in the religious debates of the
early modern period in general. Finally, in light of the last part of the article
in which I described Jewish reactions to a Christian presence, it is notewor-
thy that today it is widely accepted that Jewish rituals have been shaped not
only by internal traditions but also by the practices of non-Jews. Nonetheless,
I think that scholars have paid little attention to the connection between non-
Jewish criticism of Jewish practices and changes in these practices, and this
too is a fruitful direction for further research.
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Part 3
Comparing and Contrasting Rituals
∵
Chapter 8
Initiation by Circumcision and Water Baptism in

Early Judaism and Early Christianity
Gerard Rouwhorst
1 The Dynamics of Rituals
One of the major results of the study of rituals that has been conducted for at
least a century by liturgical scholars, church historians, scholars in religious
studies, and social scientists is the increasing awareness of their dynamism.1
This also clearly emerges from the titles of the Erfurt research program
“Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity
to the Present” and of the conference “Describing and Explaining Ritual
Dynamics” (Oct 26–28, 2016). But what do we exactly mean by terms like dy-
namics and dynamism?
The word dynamics first of all means that rituals are not static or immu-
table. Contrary to the aura of immutability and antiquity surrounding many
rituals—which is mostly cherished by people who perform them or take
part in them—rituals are changing from the very moment of their existence.
Whether the changes are rapid and drastic, or whether they develop slowly
and smoothly, organically, even imperceptibly, rituals do change all the time.
No less importantly, ritual changes always imply interaction with cultural,
social, and religious environments. This, again, runs counter to the tendencies
of many believers to emphasize the uniqueness of their own ritual traditions
and to believe that they developed in a splendid isolation from their historical
environment, and especially from other religious traditions. Varying strate-
gies may be used to uphold this claim. Some people will try simply denying or
challenging the facts. A more sophisticated solution consists of making a dis-
tinction between a sort of invariant essence and variable and changing forms
by which this essence is expressed. Admittedly, the very fact that people who
practice the rituals believe in their unchangeable character, and often do their
best to preserve them without adapting them to changing circumstances, con-
tributes to their relative invariance and ensures that they change only slowly.
1 Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997);
see the entire work, but especially ch. 7, 210–52.

166 Rouwhorst
Nonetheless, these traditions change, and they are not immune to external
influences. This even holds for those elements that are believed to be most
unchangeable, to have originated in a foundational (biblical, early Christian,
rabbinic) period, to go back to the time of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, or the first
apostles.
The other side of the coin is that communities often defend their communal
identities and demarcate their boundaries by means of rituals—this is empha-
sized in particular by scholars who follow a functionalist approach, in the wake
of Emile Durkheim—and that for that reason, rituals often constitute a major
source of conflicts and rivalry.2 Conflicts about social, cultural, and religious
issues are not rarely fueled by or focused upon ritual topics. It will suffice here
to mention the Protestant Reformation, for which one may adduce multiple
explanations related to long-term historical processes that took place in late
medieval Christianity, but that was ultimately triggered by a conflict about
indulgences and the sacrificial character of the Mass.3 On the other hand, ritu-
als may also function as important catalysts for social, cultural, and religious
changes. One of the major reasons why, for instance, in the United States “wor-
ship wars” are waged (ample information available via Google), is that they
function as identity markers par excellence and play a pivotal role in the ways
in which communities and groups of people demarcate their boundaries.
Third, ritual dynamism means diversity: a variety of ritual practices. When
it is true that rituals are closely connected and interwoven with continuously
changing social, cultural, and religious contexts, this means that the ritual
practices are no less diverse than these contexts.
These observations apply to all the phases in the historical development of
rituals, but in particular to the periods in which these rituals come into exis-
tence, which usually coincide with historical turning points, with periods of
accelerated social and cultural transformation, and frequently with formative
periods in the history of religious traditions. One of the best known examples
is provided by the complicated ritual interactions that took place between
Christianity and Judaism in a formative phase of their development; that is,
the period in which Christianity came into existence and Judaism underwent
a profound and far-reaching transformation, for a considerable part as a result
of the destruction of the Second Temple.
The ritual interactions between both religions are apparent in several of the
rituals in early Christianity and early Judaism that are somehow historically
2 Bell, Ritual, 23–60.

3 Patrick Collinson, “The Late Medieval Church and Its Reformation,” in The Oxford Illustrated
History of Christianity, ed. John McManners (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 196–232.
Initiation by Circumcision and Water Baptism 167
related to each other—for instance in the development of Jewish Pesach and

Christian Easter, and in the communal meals—but they also become par-
ticularly visible in the rites of initiation, especially in the most central ritual
actions that are part of it, namely circumcision and water baptism.4
Let us start with initiation in Judaism in the centuries that preceded the rise
of Christianity, the destruction of the temple, and the gradual rise of rabbinic
Judaism.
2 Initiation into Judaism in the Second Temple Period
While dealing with initiation in Judaism, one should start by what may seem
to be stating the obvious, but nonetheless is not always sufficiently taken into
account in studies dealing with the relationship between Jewish and Christian
initiation rituals: Judaism has never been a missionary religion, at least not
in the same active way as Christianity and Islam have been throughout the
centuries.5 Although it is possible for non-Jews to convert to Judaism, and in
certain periods Jews may have been active in winning proselytes,6 the over-
whelming majority of the Jews have always been born from Jewish parents,
more precisely a Jewish mother. Initiation as an adult was the exception, and
initiation of newborn children the rule.
In the period with which we are concerned, the most central rite of initiation
was circumcision. We remain in the dark about the origins and the develop-
ment of this rite in the preexilic period. A comparison with ethnographic data
derived from other, especially African, societies where circumcision is prac-
ticed strongly suggests that it might originally have been related with the age
of puberty, more precisely with the initiation of a boy into manhood, rather
4 Gerhard Rouwhorst, “Christliche und jüdische Theologie: Christlicher Gottesdienst und

der Gottesdienst Israels; Forschungsgeschichte, historische Interaktionen, Theologie,”
in Gottesdienst im Leben der Christen, vol. 2 of Theologie des Gottesdienstes: Handbuch der
Liturgiewissenschaft, ed. Martin Klöckener, Angelus Häussling, and Reinhard Messner,
GdK 2.2 (Regensburg: Pustet, 2008), 493–572.
5 See, for the period of Antiquity: Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing
in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994); Goodman, “Jewish
Proselytizing in the First Century A.D.,” in Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman
Empire, ed. Tessa Rajak, Judith Lieu, and John North (Methuen: London, 1992), 53–78.
6 This is for he Hellenistic and Roman periods emphasized by Louis Feldman. See in particular
his book Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to
Justinian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
168 Rouwhorst
than to birth.7 Furthermore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish which

symbolic meanings were associated with circumcision in the preexilic period
and which functions it fulfilled at that time. We have more information about
the postexilic period, which is of more direct relevance for the topic with
which we are concerned here, the relationship between Jewish and Christian
rites of initiation. With regard to this period, two major observations are in
order.8 Biblical passages that probably date of this period, but in any case were
somehow considered as providing a foundation and model for actual ritual
practices, especially Gen 17, make clear that circumcision was usually—that
is, with the exception of conversions of adult men—performed soon after the
birth (on the eighth day). Moreover, probably due to priestly influences, it was
considered as a sign of belonging to the Jewish people and of the covenant that
was established between God and Abraham (Gen 17). It may be added that no
ritual counterpart for the initiation of newborn girls is attested. The underlying
idea was that the covenant between God and the Jewish people was carried by
male Jews.9
This being said, it may naturally be asked how widely and strictly the bibli-
cal commandment to circumcise newborn boys—and equally adult male who
converted to Judaism—was observed. Actually, a large number of sources,
both Jewish and Christian, suggest that by far the most, if not all male Jews,
were circumcised, and this is what one also can read in publications about
early Christian liturgy that sketch an overall picture of Jewish ritual traditions
around the beginning of the Common Era. Actually, the situation turns out to
be more complicated. There are indeed sources dating of the period preced-
ing and following the beginning of the Christian era that aimed at imposing
circumcision on every Jew or even on every person living in the land (of Israel)
(see especially Jub. 15:25–34; 30:7–14).10 But the very fact that these hardliners
insist on the absolute necessity of circumcision makes it unlikely that every-
body was equally strict. In fact, there is rather ample historical evidence of
Jews who did not circumcise their male children at all or circumcised them
incompletely, so that the effects were not clearly visible. Moreover, several
sources attest that Jews, when they visited public baths or gymnasia, tried to
7 Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage Mind: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and

Ancient Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 144.
8 Lawrence Hoffman, Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 27–48; Simon Mimouni, La circoncision dans
le monde judéen aux époques grecque et romaine (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 13–112.
9 Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 44–45.
10 For these and some other passages of the period under consideration, see Mimouni,
Circoncision, 47–96.
hide their circumcision or that they even had their foreskin repaired by a spe-
cial surgical technique called epispasmos so that it was not visible that they
had once been circumcised (see especially 1 Macc 1:15; T. Mos. 8:3; 1 Cor. 7:18;
Gen. Rab. 46:13).11 It was precisely these practices that, at least in part, account
for the vehement tone used by the hardliners mentioned. Nonetheless, other
authoritative persons and sources adopted a more moderate position. Though
being much in favor of circumcision, they did not impose it on people who did
not want to circumcise their male children or have themselves circumcised.12
A much-debated question concerns the origins and development of another
rite that is connected with the conversion to Judaism, namely, so-called pros-
elyte baptism. This term is quite commonly used to designate an immersion
that followed circumcision and is referred to by a number of rabbinic sources
(m. Pesah. 8:8; m. Ed. 5:2; b. Yevam. 46a/b; 47 a/b; b. Abod. Zar. 59a; y. Qidd. 64d,
44–55). This practice gives rise to two major questions that are indirectly re-
lated to the origins and early history of early Christian baptism: (1) Since when
was this immersion part of the rite of initiation? (2) What role did it play in the
rite for admission of converts to Judaism? Was it just an essential or rather a
marginal element?
As for the first question, the sources mentioned refer to discussions about
the necessity and importance of immersion into water for the admission of
converts to Judaism.13 The earliest rabbis who according to these sources were
engaged in these discussions belonged to the first generation of the Tannaim
(m. Pesah. 8:8; m. Ed. 5:2: House of Hillel and House of Shammai; b. Yevam. 46b
and y. Qidd. 64d, 44–55: Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua), but it also emerges
that at the beginning of the third century, a general agreement had not yet
been reached, since b. Yevam. 46a // b. Abod. Zar. 59a and y. Qod. 64d, 44–55
describe discussion about the same topic between rabbis belonging to the
third generation of Tannaim (third century). This means that in the second
half of the first century CE at the latest, some sort of immersion must have
been practiced, at least in some Jewish milieus. At the same time, the fact that
its necessity and meaning remained a matter of debate for such a long time
raises the question as to how widely this practice was known. Furthermore, it
11 See Mimouni, Circoncision, 114–32.

12 Mimouni, Circoncision, 96.
13 See Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 218–25; Mimouni, Circoncision, 334–44;
Gerard Rouwhorst, “A Remarkable Case of Religious Interaction: Water Baptisms in
Judaism and Christianity,” in Interactions between Judaism and Christianity in History,
Religion, Art and Literature, ed. Marcel Poorthuis, Joshua Schwartz, and Joseph Turner
(Leiden: Brill, 2009), 108–11.
170 Rouwhorst
also speaks against its high antiquity and makes it unlikely that its origin can
be traced back to a much earlier time than the end of the first century CE.
Further, the sources themselves do not tell us very much about the role and
meaning of the immersion and the importance that was attached to it. The
major issue of debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua was whether
both circumcision and immersion or whether only one of these rites was re-
quired for initiation. According to two passages of the Bavli (b. Yevam. 46 a–b
and b. Avod. Zar. 59), Rabbi Eliezer had held the position that it would suf-
fice to be circumcised, whereas Rabbi Joshua defended the opinion that only
immersion was a prerequisite for becoming a proselyte. The interpretation of
these passages is not without relevance for the question of the antiquity and
the importance of what is commonly called “proselyte baptism.” If the po-
sition of Rabbi Joshua as described by the Bavli reflects a practice and view
that existed for a certain period, at least in some circles, this would be very
remarkable. It would of course have implications for the origins of that rite
and be considered as an argument in favor of its antiquity and importance.
However, there are serious reasons to call into doubt the historical reliability of
this representation of the position of Rabbi Joshua. First of all, the Yerushalmi
contains a different version of the debate between the two rabbis. Here they
both agree that circumcision is essential for conversion, but Rabbi Eliezer is of
the opinion that it will not be necessary to be immersed to become a convert,
whereas Rabbi Joshua says that immersion is no less essential to conversion
than circumcision (y. Qidd. 64d).14 Furthermore, Shaye Cohen has pointed to
the fact that neither the Bavli nor the Yerushalmi makes mention of any single
case of a convert who has been immersed but not circumcised. This has led
him to call into doubt the very existence of this practice and to consider it as
an invention by a late redactor.15
From the third century, the majority view—the view of the sages—became
that to become a Jew, a man had to first be circumcised and afterwards perform
an ablution, immersion. This view forms the basis of the conversion rite that
is described in b. Yevam. 47a–b, and of which one finds a more developed ver-
sion in the post-Talmudic tractate Gerim.16 It is, however, important to realize
that this ritual was the result of a long process that took place more or less
synchronically with the development of the early Christian baptismal ritual.
14 See Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 219; Rouwhorst, “Remarkable Case,” 110–11.

15 Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 220–21.
16 Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness.
3 Baptism and Circumcision in Early Christianity
The emergence and spread of Christianity was closely connected with—and

itself played an influential role in—far-reaching processes of transformation
that took place in antiquity, and had a profound impact upon the entire soci-
ety, including phenomena that are nowadays commonly labeled as “religious.”17
The character of these processes becomes clearly visible in the way in which in
early Christianity Christians—usually adults—were initiated into communi-
ties that ideally and theoretically were not based on ethnicity or belonging to a
specific people or gender, but on “belief” in Jesus as the Savior, Messiah, Son of
God, and a way of life that was in conformity with that belief.
The early Christian rites of initiation were essentially different from those
current in Greco-Roman society, including Judaism. However, this does not
mean that they were totally new and came out of the blue. As is usually the
case with rituals that are presented as new, they were the result of a transfor-
mation and reinterpretation of existing traditions that, as far as the earliest
period is concerned, were for the most part derived from Judaism. It is precise-
ly this complicated dynamic between early Jewish and early Christian ritual
traditions that has often not sufficiently been taken into account in research
on the origins and early history of Christian baptism. One may recognize in
this research a twofold trend. On the one hand, there has often been a strong
focus on continuity between early Christian baptism and Jewish rituals, which
appears especially from the search for its Jewish roots and antecedents. On
the other hand, it is commonly claimed that in early Christianity, circumci-
sion was replaced with baptism and that, with the exception of some marginal
Jewish-Christian sects, circumcision was abolished and left no traces in com-
munities belonging to “mainstream” Christianity. There is certainly a lot
of truth in both of these approaches, and there is no reason to categorically
reject them as false. Nonetheless, a critical reconsideration of the available
source material leads to a more differentiated and dynamic picture of, on the
one hand, the change Jewish ritual baths and immersions underwent in early
Christianity and, on the other hand, of the survival of some aspects of circum-
cision in at least some early Christian traditions. I will be rather brief about the
first issue and deal more extensively with the second one.
17 See, for instance, Johann Arnason, Shmuel Eisenstadt, and Björn Wittrock, eds., Axial
Civilizations and World History (Leiden: Brill, 2005); Guy Stroumsa, La fin du sacrifice: Les
mutations religieuses dans l’Antiquité tardive (Paris: Jacob, 2005); Robert Bellah and Hans
Joas, eds., The Axial Age and Its Consequences (Cambridge: Belknap, 2012).
172 Rouwhorst
3.1 Water Baptism as the Central Initiation Rite in Early Christianity

Much has been speculated and written about the origins of the last-mentioned
ritual. In search of its provenance, the authors of the relevant publications have
pointed to the existence of numerous ablutions, immersions, and ritual wash-
ings that existed in Judaism and might have been at the root of early Christian
baptism.18 There can be little doubt that the ritual act of immersing a person
into water must have been derived from Jewish tradition, and that ideas and
motifs connected with Jewish immersions and purifications, for instance with
the baptism of John the Baptist, have played a role in the development of early
Christian baptismal practices. Nonetheless, early Christian baptism itself was
the result of a profound transformation of these purifications and immersions
and thereby in many respects something new and unprecedented. Assuming
that Jewish “proselyte baptism” had not yet become common practice in the
period when Christianity emerged, the conclusion must be that what made
early Christian baptism unique and distinct from its Jewish (possible) ante-
cedents was that it was a rite of initiation by which someone, be it a gentile
or a Jew, became a member of a new community, that of Christ-believers.
This meant that baptism took on a function that circumcision already had in
Judaism. In that respect, circumcision was indeed replaced with baptism.
The very fact that baptism instead of circumcision became the central rite
of admission or initiation had another implication that often goes unnoted,
but should not remain unmentioned. Contrary to circumcision, baptism was
gender inclusive. Both men and women were initiated by the same ritual, by
being immersed into water with the invocation of the name of Jesus or of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Finally, even if the centrality of water baptism is beyond doubt, this fact
should be put into perspective. As we shall show further on in more detail,
there were early Christian communities that cannot simply be labeled as
heterodox or marginal, and in which water baptism appears to have played at
best a minor role (see 3.2.2.1).
18 For overviews of the ablutions, baths, and immersions that have been adduced in this
connection, see Georg Kretschmar, “Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes in der
alten Kirche,” in Der Taufgottesdienst, vol. 5 of Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen
Gottesdienstes, ed. Karl F. Müller (Kassel: Staudia, 1970), 8–16; Adela Yarbro Collins, “The
Origins of Christian Baptism,” StLi 19 (1989): 28–46; Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early
Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2009), 60–96; Rouwhorst, “Remarkable Case,” 122.
3.2 Early Christian Attitudes to Circumcision

It emerges from Acts 15 (see esp. 15:1–5) that in an early phase of Christianity,
a fierce debate arose about the question as to whether people of non-Jewish
descent who wanted to become members of (originally Jewish) communities
who believed in Jesus as the Lord, the Messiah, should have themselves circum-
cised and that it was decided that circumcision was not required for Christians
of non-Jewish descent. Furthermore, it is clear that especially Paul engaged in
very fierce polemics with Christians—of Jewish or perhaps also of non-Jewish
descent—who thought otherwise.19 Moreover, in several of his writings, Paul
minimized and relativized the importance of physical, carnal circumcision as
such and therefore—at least implicitly—also the meaning it had for Jews (see,
e.g., Gal 6:5–16; 1 Cor 7:19; Rom 2:25–29; 3:1–2; Col 2:11–13) and one may clearly
discern in the letters of Paul a tendency to spiritualize the ritual of circum-
cision and to emphasize instead spiritual circumcision, circumcision of the
heart. Furthermore, it is undeniable that one finds in several early Christian
writings dating from the post-New Testament period examples of a more out-
spoken negative attitude towards circumcision, even of an outright rejection of
circumcision for Jews and Christians, both of Jewish and non-Jewish descent
(see esp. Barn. 9). Finally, one may note a marked tendency to interpret Old
Testament passages dealing with circumcision in a typological or allegorical
way (see esp. Justin Dial. 38:4–39:1; 41:4; 43:2–4; 113:6–7; Barn. 9) and to claim
that carnal circumcision had been replaced by a spiritual circumcision which
is received at baptism (Justin, Dial. 29:1; 43:2; 114:4).20
3.2.1 The Need for Differentiation

Do all these well established facts mean that there was no trace left of cir-
cumcision in early Christianity? At first sight, this might seem to be the case.
However, at closer inspection, this proves to be a simplification.
To begin, it is important to interpret the facts correctly and to see them in
the right perspective. First, neither Acts 15 nor the relevant passages from the
letters of Paul call into question the validity of the commandment of circumci-
sion for the Jewish members of the Christian communities. Actually, also in the
post-New Testament period, there were several groups of Christians of Jewish
descent (such as the Ebionites, the Nazoreans) who continued observing the
19 For an overview of the relevant passages and their interpretation, see Mimouni, Circonci-
sion, 214–43.
20 Cf. for the relation between circumcision in the works of Justin and other early Christian
authors: Jean Daniélou, “Circoncision et baptême,” in Theologie und Gegenwart: Michael
Schmaus zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, ed. Johann Auer and Hermann Volk (Munich: Zink,
1957), 755–76.
174 Rouwhorst
Jewish law, including circumcision,21 a practice which appears to have been

tolerated, though somewhat reluctantly, by Justin.22 Second, one should be
cautious about generalizing the polemical picture that emerges from the
often-cited writings of authors like Justin and Pseudo-Barnabas, and to con-
sider them as representative of second or third century Christianity as a whole.
More in particular, it is important to keep in mind that these radical ideas were
related to or at least inspired by the views voiced by Paul—or at least attribut-
ed to him—and found adherents in Christian communities that were strongly
influenced by Pauline traditions. But the influence of Pauline ideas did not
reach down to all the regions where Christians lived.
3.2.2 Circumcision and Immersion in the Regions East of Antioch

To arrive at a more complete and nuanced picture of what happened with cir-
cumcision in early Christianity, it will be necessary to have a closer look at
the development of the rites of Christian initiation in a region that is mostly
not taken into consideration in overviews of the early Christian rejection of
circumcision, namely the eastern parts of the Mediterranean basin, more in
particular in the regions east of Antioch, where besides Greek, Syriac was spo-
ken by Christians. One of the things that makes these regions interesting for
our purpose is that Paul never visited them and that, in line with this, the im-
pact of Pauline influences in many of the Christian communities seems for
a long period to have been very limited. Some Christian groups, for instance
those whose ideas were at the basis of the so-called Pseudo-Clementine
writings, or at least of sources that have been incorporated in these texts,
are outright hostile to Paul.23 It is also interesting that one of the earliest
sources that provide information about the liturgical reading of the Bible of
the Syriac-speaking churches, the Doctrine of the Apostles, makes apparent
21 See for the Ebionites: Irenaeus, adv. haer. I, 26, 2; Tertullian, de praescript. haer 33:11; Origen,
Hom. in Gen. 3:5; Epiphanius, Pan. XXX, 2,2; 17,5;26,1–3; Jerome, Comm. Ez. 44, 6; Comm.
in Gal, 5,3 (cf. Oskar Skarsaune, “The Ebionites”, in Jewish Believers in Jesus, ed. Oskar
Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007), 419–462,
esp. 440–441. 451. See for the Nazoraens; Epiphanius, Pan. XXIX, 5,4; 7,5; Augustine, Bapt.
7,11; c. Faust. 19,4.7 ; c. Crescon. I,31,36; ep. 116,16 (cf. Wolfram Kinzig, “The Nazoraens”, in
Jewish Believers in Jesus, 463–487, esp. 472); for texts and translations of the relevant pa-
tristic testimonies, see A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish Christian
Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973).
22 See Justin, Dial. 46:1; 47:1–5. Cf. Mimouni , Circoncision, 265; Idem, Le judéo-christianisme
ancien. Essais historiques, Patrimoines (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1998), 117–122.
23 See in particular Georg Strecker, Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen, 2nd ed.
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1981), 187–96.
mention of the reading of the Torah, the Gospels, and the Acts, but not of the
Epistles of Paul(!).24 Further, even the fourth century Christian church father
Ephrem the Syrian cites the writings of Paul relatively rarely.25 It will be inter-
esting to see what happened with circumcision and ritual immersion in this
region.
It is interesting to note that we find in this area different types of rites of
initiation, each of which is characterized by its own structural pattern and
theological focus. Some of them will be more and some will be less familiar to
us, depending on the degree to which they conform to the pattern that from
the fourth century onwards will become common in Eastern and Western li-
turgical traditions. Globally speaking, in the period up to the end of the fourth
century, we may distinguish three basic patterns.
3.2.2.1 Prebaptismal Anointing as Identity Marker

We find the first type of ritual of initiation in particular in the apocryphal Acts
of Thomas,26 but also in the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum.27 The most re-
markable characteristic feature of this rite is that it contains two basic ritual
elements, namely (1) an anointing of the head that is called in Syriac rushma,
in Greek is designated by the term σφραγίς, and among liturgical scholars is
known as the “pre-baptismal” anointing; and (2) an immersion in water.28 The
most surprising ritual element is the anointing. It is remarkable for more than
one reason.
24 For the text, see William Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents: Relative to the Earliest
Establishment of Christianity (Piscataway: Gorgias, 2005), 27; for discussion, see Gerard
Rouwhorst, “The Liturgical Reading of the Bible in Early Eastern Christianity: The
Protohistory of the Byzantine lectionary,” in Challenges and Perspectives: Collected Papers,
Resulting from the Expert Meeting of the Catalogue of Byzantine Manuscripts Programme
Held at the PTHU in Kampen, the Netherlands on 6th–7th November 2009, ed. Klaas Spronk,
Gerard Rouwhorst, and Stefan Royé (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 163–64.
25 Jean Gribomont, “Le triomphe de Pâques d’après Saint Ephrem,” ParOr 4 (1973): 188–89.
26 Edition of the Greek version: R.A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha II,
2 (Leipzig 1903), 99–291. Syriac version: William Wright, Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
(London 1871; Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1968), vol. 1, 171–333 (English translation: vol. 2,
146–298). Wright’s English translation has been printed in A. F.J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas.
Introduction—Tekst—Commentary, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 5 (Leiden:
Brill, 1962; second revised edition: Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009).
27 Edition of the Syriac text and English translation: Arthur Vööbus, The Didascalia
Apostolorum in Syriac, CSCO 401/402 and 407/408 (Leuven: Peeters, 1979).
28 See Kretschmar, “Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes,” 116–36; Maxwell Johnson, The Rites
of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 1999), 41–47; Ferguson, Baptism, 429–40.
176 Rouwhorst
First, one gets the impression that it constitutes the most central element of
the ritual of initiation. In some passages, it is followed by an anointing of the
entire body, but this appears to be of less importance than that of the head.
Even more remarkably, this anointing of the head is even more central than
the bath, the immersion in water. In the Greek version of the Acts, which cer-
tainly is the oldest one, one sometimes gets the impression that the immersion
can even be lacking.29 Also strikingly, the name by which this ritual act is des-
ignated, namely rushma or σφραγίς, is used for the entire ritual. Further, there
has been a debate about the precise meaning of this ritual act. In particular,
Gabriele Winkler has argued that early Syriac Christianity would have shaped
its baptismal liturgy after the model of Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan, and that
the prebaptismal anointing of the head would have been associated with the
messianic anointing that would have taken place after that baptism, as well as
with the anointing of Old Testament kings and priests.30 According to Winkler,
it would have been only from the fourth century onwards—when gradually
an anointing after the immersion would have been introduced—that the pre-
baptismal anointing would have received a new and “negative,” cathartic and
exorcistic meaning, being understood as a protection against demons and a
purification from sin.
However, this explanation, which in the last few decades has been very in-
fluential, gives rise to some difficulties.31 One of the problems is that the New
Testament descriptions of Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan do not explicitly refer
to such an anointing (it is only mentioned in Acts 10:38, where it is, moreover,
understood in a metaphorical manner). In addition, the prebaptismal anoint-
ing does not take place after, but before water baptism. Even more importantly,
this explanation does not fit in either with the Syriac and Greek terminology by
which this anointing is designated, or with its interpretation that is provided
29 See Susan Myers, “Initiation by Anointing in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity,” StLi 31

(2001): 150–70.
30 Gabriele Winkler, “The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing and Its
Implications,” Worship 52 (1978): 24–45; Winkler, Das armenische Initiationsrituale:
Entwicklungsgeschichtliche und liturgievergleichende Untersuchung der Quellen des 3. bis
10. Jahrhunderts (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1982), 442–47.
31 For the traditional view, see, for instance, the widely used work of Johnson, Rites of
Christian Initiation, 41–47; for criticisms, see Bryan Spinks, Early and Medieval Rituals and
Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent (Farnham: Ashgate,
2013), 23–24; Gerard Rouwhorst, “Liturgical Mimesis or Liturgical Identity Markers? The
Initiation of Christians and the Baptism of Christ in Early Syriac Christianity,” in Studies
in Oriental Liturgy: Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of the Society of Oriental
Liturgy, New York, 10–15 June 2014, ed. Bert Groen, Daniel Galadza, Nina Glibetic, and
Gabriel Radle (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming).
by the relevant sources themselves. The basic meaning of the word rushma is
“marking,” “signing,” or even “engraving,” or, if one would like, placing a tattoo.32
The primary meaning of the Greek term σφραγίς is “seal,” imprint of a seal, and
evokes very similar connotations.33
The texts of the sources, especially the prayer texts, point in the same di-
rection. Admittedly, a link is established between the act of anointing with
oil and the fact that Jesus was the Anointed One, the Messiah (Acts Thom. 27
and 132). Very remarkably, however, this act is never explicitly associated with
an anointing of Jesus after his baptism, and the unction of kings and priests
is referred to only very rarely (see Did. Apost. 16).34 Instead, two other major
themes stand out: on the one hand, that of belonging to a group, a herd; that is,
the community of Christians; and that of protection. By being marked with the
sign of Christ, one is incorporated into the Christian herd (Acts Thom. 26) and
one receives protection against the enemy of the herd, the devil (this theme
already appears in the Acts of Thomas (chs. 25 and 67) and not only in sources
that date from the fourth century or a later period). Finally, at least for Ephrem
the Syrian, the fact of being marked with oil also means “separation,” that is,
separation from the old way of life (Hymns Virg, 7.7: “oil of separation”)35 and
from the non-Christian, pagan or Jewish environment (Hymns Epiph. 3.4).36 If
this interpretation is correct, it means that the prebaptismal anointing fulfilled
a function that is reminiscent of that of Jewish circumcision. What both ritu-
als have in common is that they are identity markers, the function of which
is to establish and reinforce communal boundaries, either between Jews and
gentiles or between Christians and non-Christians, whether gentile or Jewish.
One may adduce additional arguments to substantiate this view. First, it may
be noted that the word rushma was one of the Syriac terms that could be used
32 See Sebastian Brock, The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition (Piscataway: Gorgias,
2008), 117–26, 167–68.
33 See Franz Dölger, Sphragis: Eine altchristliche Taufbezeichnung in ihren Beziehungen
zur profanen und religiösen Kultur des Altertums (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1911); Joseph
Ysebaert, Greek Baptismal Terminology: Its Origin and Early Development (Nijmegen:
Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1962), 204–26.
34 For the interpretation of this passage, see Rouwhorst, Salbung, 349.
35 Syriac text and German translation: Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers
Hymnen de Virginitate, 2 vols., CSCO 223–224 (Leuven: Peeters, 1962), 26 (26). See for the
meaning of “separation” (Syriac: puršānā): 2: 26 n. 10.
36 Edition of the Syriac text and German translation: Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem
des Syrers Hymne de Nativitate (Epiphania), 2 vols., CSCO 186–187 (Leuven: Peeters, 1959),
147 (135). See for the question of the authenticity of the hymns On Epiphany: Gerard
Rouwhorst, “Le noyau le plus ancient des hymnes de la collection ‘Sur l’Epiphanie’ et la
question de leur authenticité,” VC 66 (2012): 139–59.
178 Rouwhorst
to designate circumcision. In particular, the fourth century writer Aphrahat

does this several times in his Demonstrations, and he consciously exploits the
fact that the basic connotation of this term is “marking,” describing it as a sign
that “marks” the progeny of Abraham and the Jewish people as separated from
the peoples (Dem. 11.6). Moreover, it was precisely the similarity between both
rites that made it possible to consider the prebaptismal ritual as an alternative
to circumcision. Aphrahat himself does not do so, but other Syriac authors like
Ephrem (see Hymns Epiph. 3.4) and Jacob of Sarug exploit this possibility in
their anti-Jewish polemics. Thus in the passage already cited of his madrasha
On Epiphany, the former explicitly contrasts the prebaptismal anointing with
circumcision, while writing that once circumcision had separated the (Jewish)
people from the (pagan) peoples, and that now the anointing separated that
people from the nations who had converted to Christianity.37
It has to be admitted that neither in the Acts of Thomas nor in the Didascalia
is circumcision a major issue. Contrary to the writings of Ephrem and Jacob of
Sarug, there are very few traces of polemics against circumcision. It appears
only in two passages of the Didascalia, which reject its necessity for Christians
(Did. Apost. 24 and 26). It is, however, not unlikely that the prebaptismal
anointing functioned very early—and perhaps originated—as an alternative
to circumcision as the rite of admission for Christians coming from the gen-
tiles, even to the point of relativizing the importance of water baptism.
3.2.2.2 Purification by Immersion

We encounter a remarkably different pattern in the so-called Pseudo-Clementine
Recognitions and Homilies.38 It is difficult to determine the exact provenance
and background of these fourth century writings, but it is widely accepted that
they are reworkings of an older source that we designate the Basic Writing,
which had the character of a novel that bore the title Periodoi Petrou, the Circuits
of Peter. The exact reconstruction of this novel—let alone of the sources upon
which it is presumed by some scholars to have been based—remains a matter
37 For Jacob of Sarug, see Sebastian Brock, “Baptismal Themes in the Writings of Jacob
of Serugh,” in Symposium Syriacum 1976: Célébré du 13 au 17 septembre 1976 au Centre
Culturel “Les Fontaines” de Chantilly, France (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium
Studiorum, 1978), 338–39.
38 Editions of the Greek text of the Homilies: Bernhard Rehm and Georg Strecker, Die
Pseudoklementinen I: Homilien, 3rd ed., GCS 42 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992). Latin
text of the Recognitions: Bernhard Rehm and Georg Strecker, Die Pseudoklementinen II,
2nd ed., GCS 51 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994). French translation of the Homilies and
Recognitions with introductions and footnotes in vol. 2 of Écrits apocryphes chrétiens,
ed. Pierre Geoltrain and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, BP 516 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2005),
1173–2003.
of speculation, but it at least contained the passages the Recognitions and the
Homilies have in common. There is a wide consensus that the Basic Writing
originated in the first half of the third century in a Syrian Jewish-Christian mi-
lieu, and reflected the way of life and views of Christians of Jewish descent
who continued observing the Jewish law, and were very hostile to Paul and to
a Pauline type of Christianity.39 By contrast, the Homilies and especially the
Recognitions have been adapted to the practices and ideas that were current in
mainstream fourth century Christianity.40
While reading the passages that belong to the Basic Writing and deal with
rites of initiation, one is struck by the following facts.41
1. At first sight somewhat surprisingly, none of the passages of the
Pseudo-Clementine sources that can be assumed to belong to the Basic Writing
make mention of circumcision. The sole (rare) references to this theme are to
be found in the Recognitions (Rec. 1.33.5; 5.34.2; 8.53.2; 9.28) and in a document
called Adjuration (or Diamartyria), ch. 1, which is attached to the Homilies. In
the Basic Writing, the theme itself it is completely lacking, being neither pre-
scribed or recommended, nor rejected.
Disagreeing with scholars like Hans Joachim Schoeps, who held that cir-
cumcision would have been required for converts by the Jewish-Christian
circles from whom the Pseudo-Clementine writing had originated, as also was
the case with the Ebionites, Einar Molland has argued that in these circles,
circumcision would have been replaced by baptism at a very early date.42 Both
views are problematic. Molland is certainly right when he states that there is
not any evidence in any of the Pseudo-Clementine writing that circumcision
is required for Gentile converts. It should, however, be added that no traces are
39 So Stanley Jones, “Jewish Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines,” in A Companion to

Second Century “Heretics,” ed. Annti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen (Leiden-Boston: Brill,
2005), 315–34.
40 See Strecker, Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen; Jones, “Jewish Christianity of
the Pseudo-Clementines,” 315–34; Geoltrain and Kaestli, eds., Écrits apocryphes chrétiens,
2: 1175–87 (Pierre Geoltrain); 1593–621 (Luigi Cirillo and André Schneider).
41 For the place and interpretation of baptism in the Pseudo-Clementine writings,
see Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 248–63; and especially Jürgen Wehnert,
“Taufvorstellungen in den Pseudoklementinen,” in vol. 2 of Ablution, Initiation, and
Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity / Waschungen, Initiation und
Taufe: Spätantike, frühes Judentum und frühes Christentum, ed. David Hellholm, Tor Vegge,
Øyvind Norderval, and Christer Hellholm (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 1071–114.
42 Hans Joachim Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen: Mohr,
1949), 115; Einar Molland, “La circoncision, le baptême et l’autorité du décret apostolique
(Actes XV, 28 sq.) dans les milieux judéo-chrétiens des Pseudo-Clémentines,” StTh 9
(1955): 1–39.
180 Rouwhorst
to be found of a rejection or even a negative view of circumcision. This holds

even for the Recognitions that have reworked the older source(s) most thor-
oughly. Likewise remarkable in this regard is the fact that the passage from the
Diamartyria presents a clearly positive picture of circumcision since, accord-
ing to this passage, the apostle James relates that Peter had ordered that his
books (homilies) should only be transmitted to a faithful (Christian) who had
been circumcised. This as well might reflect a positive view of circumcision
(for Jews). Taking into account these facts, the more plausible solution seems
to be that circumcision was taken for granted for Jewish Christians, but that for
gentile Christians only baptism was required.43 The use of the word “replace” is
therefore misleading. In so far as it is justified, this only applies to the initiation
of gentile Christians. Needless to say that this solution fits in well with a Jewish
Christian perspective of the Apostle’s Decree of Acts 15:28–29, which does not
advocate the abolition of circumcision for Jews.
2. The central rite of initiation—for gentiles who wanted to become
Christian—was immersion in water. This rite is performed by a baptizer,
in “living water”; that is, in a river, a fountain, or in the sea (Hom. 9.19; 11.36;
14.1; Rec. 4.32; 6.15; 7.38); and with the invocation of the triune divine name
(Hom. 9.19.23; 11.26; 13.4; Rec. 4.32; 6.9; 7.29).
The immersion is primarily a rite of purification. It realizes the remission of
sins and more specifically liberates from the influence of demons; that is, the
pagan gods venerated by sacrifices (Hom. 13.5; Rec. 7.30); as well as from the fire
of concupiscence, sexual desire, which is quenched by the water of immersion
(see esp. Hom. 11.26–27; Rec. 9.7;).44 Once being purified, the baptized gentile
starts a new life without idolatry, in conformity with God’s commandments,
which include the regulations of the Apostles’ Decree of Acts 15:20; that is, ab-
staining from blood offered to idols and touching blood (Hom. 7.4, 8; Rec. 4.36;
see also Hom. 13.4 and Rec. 7.29) and also following certain purity rules, such
as not having intercourse with a woman during her menstruation (Hom. 11.30;
Rec. 6.10). Further, baptismal immersion is a prerequisite for taking part in
the communal meals during which the bread, called Eucharist, is broken
(Hom. 13.4; Rec. 7.29).45 It may be added that the baptismal immersion is not
43 Thus also Wehnert, “Taufvorstellungen in den Pseudoklementinen,” 1111.

44 See Luigi Cirillo, “Le baptême, remède à la concupiscence, selon la catéchèse ps.-
clémentine de Pierre: Hom. XI 26 (Réc. VI,9; IX,7),” in Text and Testimony: Essays in Honour
of A. F. J. Klijn, ed. Titze Baarda, A. Hilhorst, G. P. Luttikhuizen, and A. S. van der Woude
(Kampen: Kok, 1988), 79–90.
45 See also Gerard Rouwhorst,”Table Community in Early Christianity,” in A Holy People:
Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Religious Communal Identity, ed. Marcel Poorthuis
and Joshua Schwartz, JCP 12 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 69–84, esp.79.
the only purifying immersion practiced by Christians. Once being baptized,

they will have to wash themselves after sexual intercourse (Hom. 7.8; 11.30).
Women will have to purify themselves after menstruation (Hom. 11.30). These
practices are strongly reminiscent of the Christians—probably with a Jewish
Christian background—who are combated in chapter 26 of the Didascalia,
and continue practicing Jewish ritual ablutions and immersions that are part
of the so-called “second legislation” (deuterosis), which more or less coincides
with the “ceremonial law.”46
It is remarkable that, apart from the invocation of the triune divine name,
the person of Jesus hardly plays a role in the baptismal theology of the
Pseudo-Clementine writings. Whereas it is not surprising that the specifically
Pauline theme of being buried and raised from the dead (Rom 6) is lacking, it is
at least remarkable that no reference is made to another New Testament scene
that has often served as the foundation of early Christian baptism, namely that
of Jesus’s descent into the waters of the river Jordan.
3. In the entire Pseudo-Clementine literature, there is only one passage that,
in contrast to the parallel passage in Hom. 3.73, explicitly makes mention of a
prebaptismal anointing, namely Rec. 3.67. The fact that this ritual act features
here—and perhaps is indirectly alluded to in a longer passage about the True
Prophet as the Anointed One, and the anointing of priests and kings (Rec. 44–
48)—is doubtless the result of an adaptation of the Basic Writing to fourth
century Syrian liturgical practice.47 It will not have been part of the ritual with
which the author/redactor of the Basic Writing was familiar.
3.2.2.3 The Fourth Century: Immersion Preceded by Anointing as a

Generally Accepted Pattern
As was the case with other early Christian rituals, the middle of the fourth
century marked the end of various forms of liturgical variety that had existed
in the preceding centuries, and the more or less universal acceptance of com-
mon patterns that were accepted by the various Eastern and Western Churches
(even if this did not imply a rigid uniformity or exclude the emergence of new
varieties). Among the various factors that contributed to the spread of these
patterns, a prominent role was played by narrative traditions derived from
46 Vööbus, The Didascalia Apostolorum, 2: 407, 241–65 (223–48); see also Georg Strecker, “On
the Problem of Jewish Christianity,” in Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed.
Walter Bauer (London: SCM, 1972), 244–57.
47 See also Luigi Cirillo and André Schneider, Roman pseudo-clémentin: Reconnaissances,
1784–85.
182 Rouwhorst
both the Old and the New Testament that served both as their foundation and
their model.
This also happened with Christian initiation, and more specifically also in
the Christian communities who lived in Antioch and its surroundings, and
in the regions further east of this city.48 Certain practices that had existed
before—initiation by anointing or immersion only, which appear to have oc-
curred in certain circles—were no longer considered acceptable and went out
of use. Instead, immersion, preceded by one or two anointings, one of the head
or forehead and one of the entire body, became everywhere the norm.49 At the
same time, this basic pattern further developed by the addition of new ele-
ments, such as exorcism and a post-baptismal anointing after the immersion,
which gave rise to new regional varieties. Two narratives derived from the New
Testament played a crucial role in the shaping and the legitimization of these
patterns: the story about Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan and the Pauline concept
of dying and being resurrected with Christ. In the interpretation of the former
narrative, special emphasis is laid upon the fact that Jesus descended into the
waters of the Jordan in order to sanctify them, and thereby also the baptismal
water in which Christians were baptized. This theme is developed especially
by the fourth century author Ephrem the Syrian and frequently appears in
other Syriac authors.50 The Pauline model is little developed by Ephrem in his
voluminous oeuvre, but plays a more important role in the works of another
fourth century Syriac author, namely Aphrahat51 (see especially his twelfth
demonstration, On Passover; Dem. 12.10.13; see also 21.18). Incidentally, one may
note another remarkable difference between the two writers with regard to
their interpretation of Christian initiation. As already mentioned, Ephrem
considers the prebaptismal anointing as a Christian counterpart to Jewish cir-
cumcision. This idea is lacking in the work of Aphrahat. For him, circumcision
is not replaced by the rushma of prebaptismal anointing, with which he is very
well familiar, but by baptism itself; that is, the immersion (see Dem. 11.11–12).
48 Johnson, Rites of Christian Initiation, 99–116; Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 489–
563, 700–708; Nathan Witkamp, Tradition and Innovation: Baptismal Rite and Mystagogy
in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Narsai of Nisibi, VCSup 149 (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
49 Rouwhorst, “Liturgical Mimesis” and “Salbung”, 354–364.
50 Georges Saber, La théologie de Saint Ephrem: Essai de théologie historique (Kaslik:
Université de Saint-Esprit, 1974), 69–82; Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 502–5.
51 Syriac text and Latin translation: J. Parisot, Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes,
2 vols., PS (Paris: Didot, 1894–1907), 2: 1–489: French translation with introduction and
footnotes: Marie-Joseph Pierre, Aphraate le Sage Persan: Les Exposés, 2 vols., SC 349, 359
(Paris: Cerf, 1988–1989).
3.2.2.4 Variety in Its Historical Context

It has become clear from the preceding sections that even in a single one of the
various regions in which Christianity took root in the first three centuries, one
finds a remarkable variety of liturgical practices. This variety even did not dis-
appear in the fourth century when a common basic pattern received general
acceptance. Evidence is provided by the different views Ephrem and Aphrahat
have of both Christian baptism and, indirectly, Jewish circumcision (the one
claiming that it had been replaced by the prebaptismal anointing; and the
other, by baptism by immersion).
Several factors may have played a role in the development of this variety.
Thus, the fact that Ephrem and Aphrahat place different accents in their
interpretation of Christian initiation is doubtless related to more general dif-
ferences in theology. However, of perhaps even greater importance are the
character of the various Christian groups and their historical settings; more in
particular, the relations they had with Judaism and with Jewish communities.
One may note here a big difference between the communities from which the
Pseudo-Clementine sources and, more specifically, the Basic Writing originat-
ed, and the milieus from which the other sources (Acts of Thomas, Didascalia,
but also Ephrem and Aphrahat) derived. For the former types of communi-
ties, that consisted of Christians of Jewish descent who already had been
circumcised, the absence of circumcision as a rite of admission for gentiles
posed a problem, because they remained concerned with purity issues. This
accounts for the fact that they placed all the more emphasis upon immersion
as a purification rite for gentiles. Even if it does not seem correct to claim that
circumcision was replaced by baptism, the role of purifying immersion was at
least upgraded, which will have been due both to influences from the gospels
(Matt 28:19–20; John 3:5–6)—and of course not from Paul—and a need for
purity, which was believed to be endangered by the absence of circumcision.
However, the majority of the Christians belonging to the other communities
living in the regions east of Antioch were not of Jewish, but of gentile descent,
and rather tried to distinguish themselves from Jewish and Jewish Christian
groups. Circumcision was not just considered superfluous for gentiles who
converted to Christianity, but outright rejected for both Jews and gentiles who
wanted to become Christians. This explains, for instance, the fierce polemics
of Ephrem against circumcision (see in particular his third sermon, On Faith,52
which was written in Nisibis, where a large Jewish community was living).
52 Syriac text and German translation: Edmund Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers
Sermones de Fide, 2 vols., CSCO 212–213 (Leuven: Peeters, 1961), 23–32 (33–45), esp. for
circumcision: 26–29 (38–42).
184 Rouwhorst
It should be furthermore kept in mind that at least some of these commu-

nities may not have been very familiar with the writings and ideas of Paul,
who had propagated immersion baptism as an alternative to circumcision.
I would therefore formulate the hypothesis that the prebaptismal anointing
not only occasionally functioned as a Christian alternative for circumcision,
but that here even lies the very origin of this rite: it came into existence as a
Christian ritual identity marker. This explains why it sometimes could make up
for the lack of “living water,” for immersion in water, but also why it was lacking
in the Jewish Christian communities whose ideas and practices are reflected
in the Basic Writing of the Pseudo-Clementine sources. Finally, in the fourth
century, the combination of the prebaptismal anointing and immersion be-
came the norm, with the emphasis being placed on the immersion as the most
central rite.
What all these communities had in common, was that circumcision—in
the case of gentiles—was replaced by a ritual, be it prebaptismal anointing or
immersion, that was gender-neutral and appropriate for both male and female
Christians.
4 Circumcision and Immersion in Rabbinic Judaism
But how did initiation rites develop in Judaism in this period, which was so
crucial to the formation of commonly accepted ritual patterns in the churches
east of Antioch (as also elsewhere in the Christian world at that time, for that
matter)? Here as well, we meet with ritual dynamics and, remarkably, it ap-
pears not entirely unrelated to what was going on in Christianity, especially
in the regions we have dealt with. For that matter, one should keep in mind
that it was precisely there that the forms of Judaism lying at the basis of the
Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds found their shape.
To begin, it should be observed that in the same period in which the com-
mon patterns in Christianity came into existence, the discussion about the
question as to whether circumcision or immersion—or both—for admis-
sion to Judaism was settled. The redactor of the passage of the Bavli asserts
that the majority of the rabbis are of the opinion that both rites are required
(b. Yevam. 46a). That this actually became—or would become—the norma-
tive practice emerges from the fact we find in the Bavli a detailed description
of the Jewish ritual of admission of proselytes (b. Yevam. 47 a–b) that includes
both circumcision and immersion. This being the case, it is at least very re-
markable that Jewish and Christian communities more or less simultaneously
were dealing with a similar question, which was to decide which rituals were
essential for admitting someone as a member of their communities. One

might ask whether this was just coincidence, and assume that just comparable
processes were going on in both communities, or whether there was a sort of
relationship between these processes. One can at least imagine that rivalry and
competition between Jews and Christians stimulated not only Christians, but
also Jews to more clearly define and homogenize their rites of initiation. It
remains hard to prove because the Jewish sources are by far not as unequivo-
cally anti-Christian as the Christian ones are anti-Jewish, but the idea should
certainly not too rashly be discarded.
Whatever position one may take with regard to this issue, that the Jewish
rites of initiation did not develop completely independently from Christianity
clearly emerges from another important source for the development of Jewish
conversion ritual, that is the post-Talmudic tractate Gerim, where we find a
more elaborate version of the ritual found in the tractate Yevamot of the Bavli.
Elsewhere I have argued that the additions provided by this tractate contain a
reaction to the rise of Christianity.53 This is most clearly the case in two pas-
sages. First, it is said that Jews are slaughtered for observing circumcision,
immersion, and the other precepts of the Torah, and cannot hold up their heads
like other people (Gerim 1) . In earlier publications that assumed that every-
thing found in the Talmud must be very old, it was argued that this would refer
to the situation after the revolt of Bar Kokhba. But is it not much more likely
that the author/editor of this passage had rather in mind the Christians, who in
the time when the tractate was composed, formed a majority in a society that
often was oppressive towards the Jewish minorities? I think this interpretation
is confirmed by another passage, which states that the world was only created
for the sake of Israel, and only Israel was called “sons of God” and “beloved”
(Gerim 5). Against whom could this claim of exclusiveness be directed other
than the Christians? Who else claimed to be the “true Israel”? This being the
case, one might ask whether the development of proselyte baptism after the
third—fourth century CE attested by this source can be viewed independently
from the crucial role that baptism played in Christianity? Was it not in part a
response to the centrality of baptism in Christian tradition?
5 Conclusion
It would be intriguing to further follow the development of Christian baptism

and Jewish proselyte baptism, but also circumcision, during the Middle Ages
53 Rouwhorst, “Remarkable Case,” 122–23.

186 Rouwhorst
and even in later periods. Did Jewish and Christian initiation rites develop
completely independently from each other? Were there just polemics? Even
if this would be the case, this would not exclude the possibility of mutual in-
fluences and interreligious ritual interactions. I just want to mention here an
interesting example mentioned by Shaye Cohen, who has pointed to the fact
that in the Zohar, which was written in the thirteenth century Spain—a region
well known for its many contacts between Jews, Christians, and Muslims—the
ritual of circumcision is described in terms that are reminiscent of and cer-
tainly influenced by a Christian theology of sacraments. Thus, circumcision is
depicted as a ritual that imprints an “indelible character” on the soul.54 Is this
just an exceptional example?
Whatsoever, there can hardly be any doubt that at least in late antiquity,
the ways of Jews and Christians often parted but also frequently crossed. Clear
evidence of this is provided by the complicated and dynamic development of
Jewish and Christian initiation rites.
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Chapter 9
Space, Ritual, and Politics in (the Reconstruction

of) the Ancient Synagogue: An Exploration of the
Historical Archive
Anders Runesson
1 Reconstructing Ancient Settings for Ritual Enactment: An Exercise
Engaging in describing and explaining ritual dynamics in ancient Judaism,

at least in communal settings, most scholars would immediately think of the
synagogue as one of the most significant institutions, alongside the Jerusalem
Temple, within which liturgical enactments of religio-political convictions
would have taken place.1 The claim that we would need to know something
about the institutional context, and the space, within which people formed
and performed liturgical patterns in order to understand those patterns is ba-
sically sound and, arguably, a sine qua non for any informed understanding of
said rituals.
A problem that may undermine such an aim at historical understanding
of ritual from an institutional perspective is, however, that our perception
of the institution in question, which still exists today, is either anachronistic
or anatopistic, or both; the issues involved in the contextual understanding
of phenomena based on an appropriate appreciation of the time and place
where the phenomena occurred is common to all historical research. It fol-
lows, therefore, that if we want to understand dynamics of ancient Jewish
rituals as performed in institutions we call “synagogues,” we need first to un-
derstand the institutions themselves, which in turn requires that we embed
them in their own historical, political, religious, architectural, and social
1 Of course, the Jerusalem Temple was not the only Jewish temple in antiquity. The more fa-
mous ones outside Jerusalem are both located in Egypt: the temple at Elephantine, evidenced
in Aramaic papyri dating to the fifth century BCE; and the Leontopolis temple, constructed
ca. 164 BCE and discussed both by Josephus and the later rabbis, the latter of which accorded
it some level of (minimal) legitimacy. There are, however, several other examples under-
mining the myth of a fully successful cult-centralization project, from King Josiah onwards.
For sources and discussion, see Anders Runesson, Donald D. Binder, and Birger Olsson, The
Ancient Synagogue from Its Origins to 200 CE: A Source Book, AJEC 72 (Leiden: Brill, 2008),
274–94, nos. T1–12. The volume will henceforth be abbreviated ASSB.

Space, Ritual, and Politics in the Ancient Synagogue 191
contexts. This, in a nutshell, is what the present study aims to do, in the hope
of contributing to our understanding of the formation and development of
Jewish liturgy.
The method applied here to open up the ancient institutional landscapes
is construed as an exercise, meant to dismantle, as far as it is possible, the in-
fluence of modern normative discourses on our examination of the ancient
world. The idea of “synagogue” is, after all, in Jewish as well as in Christian nar-
ratives, intertwined with ideas not only about separate Jewish and Christian
religious identities and forms of worship, but also with the very notion of “re-
ligion” as something requiring institutional separation from other spheres of
society to be ritually enacted. We need, therefore, to deconstruct the way we
think and speak of both “synagogue” and “religion” if our aim is a historical
understanding of this institution and the rituals performed within it.
Even a quick glance at the history of research on ancient synagogues2 re-
veals that until very recently, ideas about this institution were frequently almost
copied from rabbinic literature.3 This is true especially regarding synagogue
liturgy, not least communal prayer, about which other sources have very little
to say. Archaeology did not really come into the picture until the twentieth
century, and even then, theories on what went on in buildings identified as
synagogues were formed mainly on the basis of what the rabbis wrote in the
fifth or sixth centuries; the interpretation of architecture was forced into
a rabbinic matrix. More careful study of rabbinic literature and its views on
synagogues, however, reveals that the early rabbis were not at all that inter-
ested in the synagogue, but favoured their own institution, the beth midrash.
According to the rabbis themselves, thus, it was not until the third century and
later that they saw the synagogue as an important venue for their activities.4
At that time, but not before, they claimed authority over the institution.5 From
this time onward, descriptions of the synagogue and its activities are colored
2 For a comprehensive discussion of the history of research on ancient synagogues from Philo
to Lee Levine, see Anders Runesson, The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study,
ConBNT 37 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001), 67–168.
3 See, e.g., Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society, 1913; repr., 1993). The fact that the book was republished eighty years
after it first appeared indicates its impact within the scholarly community, which is still felt
today.
4 So, e.g., Günter Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 2000);
Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2005).
5 See Shaye Cohen, “Were Pharisees and Rabbis the Leaders of Communal Prayer and Torah
Study in Antiquity? The Evidence of the New Testament, Josephus, and the Early Church
Fathers,” in Evolution of the Synagogue: Problems and Progress, ed. Howard C. Kee and
192 Runesson
by their views of how things should be (and should have been), rather than
necessarily how things were.
Now, if we, as an exercise in understanding the impact of certain sources on
a specific topic, remove from the historical archive the rabbis and the literature
they produced and transmitted, what would be left? And what would those
sources say about the synagogue and its activities? To a large degree, we would
then have sources produced and transmitted by Christ-believers, both Jewish
and non-Jewish. But these texts are also problematic. In Christian tradition,
the concept of “synagogue” soon became a metaphor for “the other,” that which
is not “Christian,” that which opposed Jesus and his followers. This Christian
invention of the “synagogue” as “the other” has significantly influenced mod-
ern research on the synagogue as an institution. Even today, the synagogue
is often portrayed as a place where Jesus’s followers—termed “Christians”—
did not belong. These “Christians” therefore developed—in opposition to the
synagogue—another institution called “the church,” a word that is, in my view,
incorrectly used to translate ekklēsia, mentioned already in the New Testament
itself.6
This powerful construct controls much of historical synagogue research
even today, conducted both by Christian and Jewish scholars, most likely since
such constructs mirror, maintain, and reinforce the separate identity of both
religious communities in our own time. If we, however, remove the sources
produced and transmitted by Christians as well as by rabbinic Judaism, this
normative reception history is silenced, and other types of sources surface as
dominant; sources that may challenge both Jewish and Christian contempo-
rary narratives.
In the present exercise we shall, therefore, remove the (normative) voices of
two religious traditions with invested interests in the topic—rabbinic Judaism
and Christianity—and refocus our attention on sources with no immediate
connection to either tradition and their sacred Scriptures. This means also
removing Jewish texts like Philo and Josephus, which were transmitted by
Christians. Remaining for us to investigate are archaeological sources, inscrip-
tions, and papyri from the land of Israel and the diaspora. Interestingly, the
Lynn H. Cohick (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1999), 89–105; Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish
Society: 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
6 On the translation of ekklēsia, see Anders Runesson, “The Question of Terminology: The
Architecture of Contemporary Discussions on Paul,” in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the
First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2015), 53–77. For a full discussion of this term, including its use for what we call
“synagogues,” see now the comprehensive study by Ralph J. Korner, The Origin and Meaning
of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement, AJEC 98 (Brill: Leiden, 2017).
earliest architectural remains of the land outnumber the buildings discovered

in the diaspora, but inscriptions and papyri found outside Palestine in turn
outnumber those of the land.7 As we shall see, this material not only leads
us to conclusions that may illuminate in significant ways our reading of both
rabbinic and Christian sources, but also challenge the concept of “religion” as
such, as we understand it today, as related to these ancient institutions. In the
following discussion, we shall focus especially on questions relating to the na-
ture and function of the earliest “synagogues.” This, it is hoped, may provide
material for further studies on the ritual and other activities that were associ-
ated with these spaces, and how they developed through the centuries.
2 Architecture and Its (Functional) Implications
2.1 The Land

If we look at the archaeological remains of buildings identified as synagogues
in the Galilee, Golan, and Judaea, a certain pattern unfolds.8 The Gamla syna-
gogue on the Golan Heights may serve as a good example.
An important feature in this type of building is the stepped benches lining
the walls of the central hall. Between the empty space in the center and the
benches, we find rows of columns, the corner ones being heart-shaped. Not
seen in the photograph, but located at the far (north) end of the building from
where the picture is taken, is an additional, much smaller room. This room, too,
has benches, but along two sides only. Also, to the south of the building and
across from the main entrance, as a separate construction, we find a stepped
pool (miqweh), very likely used for ritual purification purposes.
In the Galilee, the Magdala synagogue, excavated in 2009, displays similar
architectural patterns: stepped benches surrounding the empty central space
of the main hall, with columns in the corners of the room, and then a separate
smaller room with benches along four walls.9
7 For sources, see ASSB. For an overview of distribution and type of sources, see the foldout
map in that volume.
8 See discussion in James F. Strange, “Archaeology and Ancient Synagogues up to about 200
CE,” in The Ancient Synagogue: From the Beginning to about 200 CE; Papers Presented at the
International Conference at Lund University, October 14–17, 2001, ConBNT 39, ed. Birger Olsson
and Magnus Zetterholm (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003), 37–62.
9 Apart from various shorter notes in popular media, publications discussing this syna-
gogue include, so far, e.g., Jürgen K. Zangenberg, “Archaeological News from Galilee:
Tiberias, Magdala, and Rural Galilee,” EC 1 (2010): 471–84; a preliminary report by the ex-
cavator, Dina Avshalom-Gorni, and Arfan Najar, “Migdal: Preliminary Report,” Hadashot
Arkheologiot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 125 (2013), Israel Antiquities Authority,
194 Runesson
Figure 9.1 The Gamla Synagogue, looking south-west

Photograph by Anders Runesson
While this certainly connects the Magdala and the Gamla buildings function-
ally, the Madgala remains also include some unique features, which have so
far resisted explanations. The aisles of the main hall were paved with a mosaic
floor, the only such floor ever found in a first-century synagogue. More impor-
tantly, however, in the main hall, the excavators found a richly decorated stone
“table,” including the only depiction of a Menorah in a synagogue dating from
before the fall of the Jerusalem temple. In addition, a unique type of stone was
http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=2304&mag_id=120. On the stepped

pools in Magdala, see also Ronny Reich and Marcela Zapata Meza, “A Preliminary Report on
the Miqwa’ot of Migdal,” IEJ 64.1 (2014): 63–71. For a summary and overview of findings at the
Magdala excavations, including excellent photographs and plans, see Juan María Solana and
Marcela Zapata Meza, eds., El Proyecto arqueológico Magdala: Interpretaciones preliminaires
bajo una perspectiva interdisciplinar, special issue, RPen 5.1 (October 2013), https://issuu.
com/revistaelpensador/docs/el_pensador_n___5. The study on the synagogue is authored by
Jordan Ryan and published in English; see Ryan, “Public and Semi-Public Synagogues of the
Land of Israel during the Second Temple Period,” in Solana and Zapata Meza, eds., El Proyecto
arqueológico Magdala, 32–39, https://issuu.com/revistaelpensador/docs/el_pensador_n___5.
See also discussion in Richard Bauckham and Stefano De Luca, “Magdala as We Know it,” EC
6 (2015): 91–118. The synagogue is discussed on pp. 106–111.
Figures 9.2a and b Aerial view (courtesy of the Magdala Centre) and reconstruction
(courtesy of Igor Cerda Farías, Anahuac University of Mexico, and
the Magdala Archaeological Project) of the Magdala synagogue
196 Runesson
Figures 9.3a and b The so-called stone “table,” or “temple stone”

(left), and the stone in the small adjacent room,
the so-called “reading stone”
Photographs by Anders Runesson
found in the centre of the smaller room, with grooves on its sides.10 No earlier
or later comparative material exists regarding either the so-called stone “table”
(or temple stone; see further below) or this stone in the centre of the smaller
room.
My preliminary interpretation of the stone in the smaller adjacent room is
that it could have been used as a “table” for reading scrolls, probably for teach-
ing purposes. This suggested interpretation is based on two main features:
(1) The two grooves provide convenient support for the two handles of a scroll,
and the flat surface between the grooves offers a smooth surface for the part of
the scroll being read. (2) The location of the stone suggests that it served a spe-
cial purpose in the room. It was found, in situ, within a stone frame and facing
stepped benches. This indicates that the stone was related functionally to an
activity requiring an audience. If we add these two observations together, we
may have found support here for an interpretation of this room—and possibly
similar smaller rooms in other synagogues—as study rooms, perhaps used by
scribes for various educational and other purposes, possibly even judicial pro-
ceedings, an activity well documented as taking place in ancient synagogues.11
The decorated stone, which is the more famous of the two Magdala stones,
seems to be, according to most scholars, a miniature copy of the Jerusalem
temple. A full discussion of this unique and extremely interesting artefact can-
not be given here.12 Scholars have suggested a range of functions for it, none
of which I have found persuasive. While this artefact deserves further study,
my own preliminary interpretation is that its meaning and use may relate to
the function of miniature temples in the Greco-Roman world.13 Placing such
an object in a certain space (for example in domestic settings) would signal a
transferal of the benefits associated with the worship of the god in question
to that space (and its owners). If this is correct, this artefact may tell us a
10 An identical stone was also found in the south-eastern corner of the main hall, behind a
column, probably in secondary use.
11 On education of children in the laws of Israel, see Josephus, C. Ap. 2.204 (now removed
from the reduced historical archive).
12 The best discussion published so far is that by Donald D. Binder, “The Mystery of the
Magdala Stone,” in A City Set on a Hill: Essays in Honor of James F. Strange, ed. Daniel
Warner and Donald D. Binder (Mountain Home, AR: BorderStone, 2014), 17–48.
13 For brief discussion, see, e.g., David Frankfurter, “Traditional Cult,” in A Companion to the
Roman Empire, ed. David S. Potter (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010), 551. As Frankfurter writes,
keeping such an object, in this case in domestic space, “reinforced the sense that the ob-
ject of household devotion ‘contained’ the power of the temple god.” This dialectic rela-
tionship, as it were, between domestic and public cult may, then, provide a frame of refer-
ence when we aim at understanding the function of the Magdala “temple stone,” found in
a public architectural setting and activating a connection to the cult in Jerusalem.
198 Runesson
something about the nature of the activities that went on in synagogue space
and the relationship between synagogue and temple, as well as about larger
political issues and the relationship between Galilee and Judea at this time.
As for the overall architectural form, buildings discovered in Judaea indicate
the same pattern. In the Masada building, the excavators found fragments of
Deuteronomy and Ezekiel in the smaller additional room. The excavations at
Qiryat Sefer yielded a similar structure, with a main hall and a smaller room.14
The architectural pattern of these and other similar buildings is clear. The ques-
tion is which type of institution such buildings may have housed. Although no
exact architectural parallel exists, the closest comparison would be, as argued
also by Yigael Yadin and Zvi Ma‛oz,15 with the Greco-Roman bouleutēria and
ekklēsiastēria; that is, with political architecture used by the council or the
popular assembly of a polis,16 here culturally adapted by Judeans.17
14 For plans and brief discussion, see respective entry in ASSB. See the structures at
Capernaum, Herodion, Modiin, and Horvat Etri. For the late first/early second cen-
tury, see also Cana; and note the recent discussion in C. Thomas McCollough, “Khirbet
Qana,” in The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages, vol. 2 of Galilee in
the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, ed. James R. Strange and David A. Fiensy
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 127–45.
15 Yigael Yadin, “The Synagogue at Masada,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed, ed. Lee I. Levine
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 20 n. 1; Zvi Ma‛oz, “The Synagogue of Gamla
and the Typology of Second-Temple Synagogues,” in Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues
Revealed, 41.
16 See the similarity between some such buildings and the classical theatre; note, in this
regard, that “amphitheatron” was used as one of many Greek terms for what we trans-
late as “synagogue”; evidence for this exists in two Diaspora inscriptions (ASSB, nos. 131,
132). On the polis and the bouleutēria and ekklēsiastēria as “monumental political ar-
chitecture,” see Rune Frederiksen, “The Greek Theatre: A Typical Building in the Urban
Centre of the Polis?,” in Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis, ed. Thomas Heine
Nielsen (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), 82 n. 88. See also M. H. Hansen and T. Fischer-Hansen,
“Monumental Political Architecture in Archaic and Classical Greek Poleis: Evidence and
Historical Significance,” in From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for
the Ancient Greek Polis, ed. David Whitehead, HistE 87 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994), 23–90.
For the placement of columns between the benches and the empty space in the center
of the main hall of synagogues, a topic of debate that has led some scholars to posit a
relationship between public synagogues and the Jerusalem Temple courts rather than the
bouleutēria, see the old bouleutērion in Athens, which had precisely such a spatial arrange-
ment of columns; plan and discussion in Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture: Settings
and Rituals, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 146–47, 151. For an empha-
sis on the architectural diversity of spaces housing ekklēsiai in Hellenistic and Roman
contexts, see now most recently Andrew R. Krause, Synagogues in the Works of Flavius
Josephus: Rhetoric, Spatiality, and First-Century Jewish Institutions, AJEC 97 (Leiden: Brill,
2017), 136–38.
17 The political nature of public synagogue buildings is further strengthened if we trace
the origins of this institution back to the (political-institutional) activities carried out
in the Iron Age city gates of the land, a setting that should be considered to have been
On the basis of the fragments of Deuteronomy and Ezekiel unearthed at

Masada, the presence of the additional, benched rooms in several of these
structures, and perhaps also the so-called “reading-stone” in Magdala, we may
conclude that, in addition to political meetings—a conclusion based on the
comparison (form and function) with the bouleutēria and ekklēsiastēria—one
of the activities carried out when people assembled in these structures had to
do with the reading and/or studying of Jewish sacred Scripture. Regarding the
question of who attended these meetings, based on the size and political na-
ture of the buildings, assemblies would have involved, in most cases, only parts
of the population of a town at any given single occasion.18 Since what we call
“religious” activities (rituals) were part of the activities of the ekklēsiastēria,
and no features found in Jewish versions of these institutions relate to sac-
rifices, we may suggest that reading of sacred Scripture, possibly embedded
between blessings,19 could have fulfilled the ritual role otherwise associated
with prayers and sacrifices in Greco-Roman political settings. The discovery
of the Magdala “temple stone” discussed above may shed further light on such
practices and how they may have been perceived in relation to the Jerusalem
temple. There are no indications, however, architectural or otherwise, that
(fixed forms of) communal prayer, similar to later synagogue liturgies, would
have been part of the activities of these public synagogues.
Interestingly, we have one inscription dating to the first century and found
in Jerusalem just south of the Temple Mount, outlining precisely these activi-
ties and associating them with an institution designated by the Greek term
synagōgē: the Theodotos inscription.20 However, there are details in the
description of the building given in this inscription that makes this space
structurally, and therefore also functionally, different from the institutions
we have just discussed. While it says here that Theodotos, a priest and an
archisynagōgos, completed the construction of the synagōgē that his father
and grandfather had begun, “for the reading of the law and the teaching of
the commandments,” the inscription also lists architectural features of the
building, such as a guest chamber, upper rooms, and water installations. These
the precursor of this type of synagogue; so Levine, Ancient Synagogue; Runesson, Origins;
Donald D. Binder, Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple
Period, SBLDS 169 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999).
18 On seating capacity in ancient synagogues, see especially Chad S. Spigel, Ancient
Synagogue Seating Capacities: Methodology, Analysis and Limits, TSAJ 149 (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2012).
19 Although we have removed from the archive texts transmitted by Christians and Jews,
the liturgical pattern in the city gate described in Neh 8 could reflect basic forms of such
reading rituals. See discussion in Runesson, Origins, 237–400.
20 For text and translation, see ASSB, no. 26 (CIJ 1404). The best extensive discussion of this
inscription is found in John S. Kloppenborg, “Dating Theodotos,” JJS 51.2 (2000): 243–80.
200 Runesson
features were added, Theodotos says, “for accommodating those needing them
from abroad.”
Such architectural features do not belong in the sphere of political institu-
tions, and we do not find them in connection with the other buildings just
discussed. A possible exception could be the water installations, which we actu-
ally do find adjacent to some of the public buildings. However, as Susan Haber
has argued, it is unlikely that those stepped pools were related institutionally to
the synagogue. Rather, they were placed adjacent to such institutions because
this was part of the public space in a town. People would use these pools for all
sorts of impurities, as they, inevitably, occurred on a regular basis.21 Regarding
the water installations mentioned in the Theodotos inscription, their purpose
most likely related to the temple, not the synagogue, as pilgrims from abroad
arrived to make sacrifices and pray there, and had to purify themselves be-
fore entering sacred space.22 We should also note that the Jerusalem temple
was the public center of Jerusalem, where leaders and the people gathered.
This reinforces the need to interpret the Theodotos synagogue in ways that
differ from the public institutions previously discussed. Indeed, the closest
(architectural and) functional parallel to Theodotos’s synagogue would be the
Greco-Roman associations.23
If we move beyond Jerusalem and focus on the remains at Qumran, this ar-
chitectural and functional parallel is strengthened. There are two rooms here
that attract our attention: rooms 4 and 77. Room 4 is rather small with benches
lining four of its walls. This is the only such room in Qumran. The room was
likely a kind of council room for the leaders of the movement,24 as opposed to
the larger room 77, which functioned as an assembly room and dining hall, but
21 Susan Haber, “They shall Purify Themselves”: Essays on Purity in Early Judaism, ed. Adele
Reinhartz, EJL 24 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 161–79. Note, however, the
existence of a smaller basin inside the Gamla synagogue, fed by the same water channel
that feeds the stepped pool (miqweh); this smaller basin was possibly used for ritual wash-
ings of hands in relation to activities taking place within the building. If so, this feature of
the building may support the assumption that at least some activities taking place in this
space were perceived as “religious.” It is not impossible that the handling of Torah scrolls
required such washings. In any case, as noted above, Greco-Roman political institutions
also included what we would call “religious” activities, such as sacrifices.
22 Such an interpretation also makes better sense of the additional rooms, constructed for
the benefit of travelers coming to Jerusalem.
23 On synagogues as associations, see Peter Richardson, Building Jewish in the Roman East
(Waco: Baylor University Press, 2004); and Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues,
and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2003). If we glance at the part of the historical archive we have excluded, the
Synagogue of the Freedmen in Acts 6:9 would be another example of this type of institu-
tion, also existing in Jerusalem.
24 See discussion above on the bouleutēria.
without fixed benches. If we connect at least some of the scrolls found in adja-
cent caves to the community which lived here, especially the Community Rule,25
it seems to me rather clear that the closest analogy to this organizational form
is the Greco-Roman association. This has been suggested by scholars before.26
In terms of synagogue terminology, we would, further, expect that especially
room 77 would have been talked about using such terms, just as Theodotos
calls his institution a synagōgē. It is therefore interesting to note that some
terms used in the scrolls may be relevant here: bet haTorah27 and bet mo’ed,28
the latter translating well into Greek as synagōgē.29
Similarly, it is possible, in my opinion, to interpret the recently excavated
building in Jericho, not far from Qumran, as an association-type synagogue,
perhaps a guild for the workers at the nearby palace.30 It, too, included a tri-
clinium and water installations. Finally, it may be interesting at this point
to add a brief note on Galilee, where the excavators, Virgilio C. Corbo and
Stanislao Loffreda, found a room modified for assemblies underneath the fifth
century octagonal church in Capernaum. The earliest phase of this room was
an integral but modified part of a Hellenistic house just about thirty meters
25 See 1QS; 4Q255–264a; 5Q11; see Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, and Edward M. Cook, The
Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996), 123–26, ch. 5:
“Charter of a Jewish Sectarian Association.”
26 The most recent and comprehensive discussion is Yonder Moynihan Gillihan, Civic
Ideology, Organization, and Law in the Rule Scrolls: A Comparative Study of the Covenanters’
Sect and Contemporary Voluntary Associations in Political Context, STDJ 97 (Leiden: Brill,
2012).
27 C D 20.2, 10–13; note that this may be metaphorical use too, for the community. “Bet” can
denote both building and assembly, just as “synagōgē” in one of the three synagogue in-
scriptions from Berenice (ASSB, no. 133).
28 1QM 3.3–4; the use of this term, “meeting house,” in the War Scroll may be the earliest
evidence of a Hebrew synagogue term. Note that it may translate into Greek as synagōgē.
It may be that, since synagōgē is evidenced beyond the community, bet mo’ed was also
used by other Jewish groups, and about public, political institutions. See Philo on this; ac-
cording to him, Essenes gathered in a synagōgē (Prob. 80–83). Regarding the term bet hish-
tahavot, “house of prostration,” this was most likely not used for any building at Qumran
but rather referred to the Jerusalem Temple, as argued by Daniel Falk, Daily, Sabbath,
and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls, STDJ 27 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 243–45; see also
Runesson, Origins, 334–35.
29 In the Qumran case, this association would have been for members only. The Theodotos
association would have had a special focus, too, although less restrictive in terms of who
was allowed to be present.
30 See Anders Runesson, “The Nature and Origins of the First-Century Synagogue,” in Bible
and Interpretation (2004), http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2004/07/run288001.
shtml. For reports by the excavator, see Ehud Netzer, “A Synagogue from the Hasmonean
Period Recently Exposed in the Western Plain of Jericho,” IEJ (1999): 203–21; Netzer,
Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho, vol. 2 of Final Reports of the 1973–1987
Excavations (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2004).
202 Runesson
south of the public synagogue. The identification of the room as an assembly

room for Jesus-followers is based on (1) the modification of the room (plas-
ter) and graffiti dating to the late first/early second century; (2) the fact that
Capernaum was, at this time, a Jewish town; and (3) continuity with later
renovations of this building into what has usually been called a domus eccle-
sia (“house-church”) in the fourth century. Subsequently, all earlier structures
were destroyed and replaced by the Byzantine octagonal church in the fifth
century; this latest building, however, had its center exactly above the original,
modified first-century room.31
In sum, then, it appears from this survey as if the sources we have discussed
so far indicate two types of institution, both of which could be referred to as
“synagogues,”32 but which were quite different: a public political/municipal in-
stitution on the one hand, and a voluntary association type of institution on
the other. Interestingly, the latter institutional type is quite similar to what we
find in the diaspora archive, to which we now turn for a brief overview.
2.2 The Diaspora

The earliest archaeological material related to our quest is from Delos33 and
Ostia.34 From the late second and early third century CE, structures of interest
31 For the graffiti, see Emmanuele Testa, Cafarnao IV: I Graffiti della casa di S. Pietro (Jerusalem:
Franciscan Printing Press, 1972), esp. 183–85. Languages: Greek (151), Syriac (Estrangela: 13),
Aramaic (9), Latin (2). The excavation report is published in Virgilio C. Corbo, Cafarnao I:
Gli edifici della citta (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1975), 26–106. The ceramics are
analyzed in Stanisalo Loffreda, Cafarnao II: La Ceramica (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing
Press, 1974). Coins found in the insula sacra are listed in Augusto Spijkerman, Cafarnao III:
Le Monete della Città (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1975), 102–7. See also Stanislao
Loffreda, Recovering Capharnaum, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1997),
50–67. For the development of the town and its intra- and interreligious relations from
the first to the sixth century, see Anders Runesson, “Architecture, Conflict, and Identity
Formation: Jews and Christians in Capernaum from the 1st to the 6th Century,” in The
Ancient Galilee in Interaction: Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity, ed. Jürgen Zangenberg,
Harold W. Attridge, and Dale Martin (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 231–57.
32 Note that this term is only in evidence explicitly for the Theodotos inscription in the land,
but the nature of the public buildings invites the designation synagōgē, assembly/assem-
bly building, as much as ekklēsia is connected to ekklēsiastērion.
33 A SSB, no. 102. The recent attempt by Lidia Matassa (“Unravelling the Myth of the
Synagogue on Delos,” BAIAS 25 [2007]: 81–115) to reinterpret this building suggesting that
it was in fact not a synagogue is, in my view, unconvincing. Monica Trümper’s analysis
remains the most thorough discussion and reconstruction to date (“The Oldest Original
Synagogue Building in the Diaspora: The Delos Synagogue Reconsidered,” Hesperia 73
[2004]: 513–98). See also Binder, Into the Temple Courts, 297–317.
34 A SSB, no. 179. L. Michael White has recently done extensive work on this site together
with his team, but has not yet published any reports. Until such reports are produced, I
refer to Anders Runesson, “The Synagogue at Ancient Ostia: The Building and Its History
include Priene (Asia Minor) and Dura Europos (Mesopotamia/Syria), both

of which have some important features in common with the building men-
tioned in the Stobi inscription from Macedonia, dating to roughly the same
time period.35 If we are correct that some synagogue buildings in the land
housed public political institutions, it goes without saying that such Jewish
institutions could only exist in places where Jews were in control of local ad-
ministration. This means that if we look for synagogues outside of the land, we
should expect to find buildings architecturally more related to Greco-Roman
voluntary associations than to the bouleutēria or ekklēsiastēria. And this is, in
fact, precisely what we find, as has been argued by Peter Richardson.36
The Delos synagogue is quite closely related to the nearby building owned
by the association of the Poseidoniasts.37 In the same way, the Ostia synagogue
resembles other buildings used by associations in that city, containing a main
hall, a triclinium, and other related rooms. Interestingly, both the Delos and
the Ostia synagogue were constructed for association use, and were not adapt-
ed from private architecture. The Priene, the Dura, and the Stobi synagogues,
however, were all originally private houses that were later adapted to accom-
modate Jewish assemblies. As such, these structures may well have provided
cooking and dining facilities, which would have been useful for a Jewish asso-
ciation, including those Messianic associations that practiced rituals involving
meals (the Eucharist/“agape meal”). The Stobi inscription mentions explicitly
the presence of a triclinium, which the owner, Tiberios Polycharmos, the patēr
tēs synagōgēs in Stobi, donated to the Jewish community together with other
rooms on the first floor of his house. No such remains of dining facilities have
been uncovered in the buildings from the land that we discussed above and
identified as representing public political architecture.
The oldest sources from the diaspora, however, come in the form of inscrip-
tions and papyri from Egypt.38 The Jewish institutions mentioned in these
sources were often called proseuchai, a term first used by Jews as referring to
Jewish temples in Jerusalem and elsewhere.39 Indeed, judging from the use of
from the First to the Fifth Century,” in The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of
Rome: Interdisciplinary Studies, ed. Birger Olsson, Dieter Mitternacht, and Olof Brandt,
ActaRom-4° 57 (Stockholm: Åström, 2001), 29–99; this study represents the most ex-
tensive discussion of the building published so far. (The study can be accessed here:
http://www.andersrunesson.com/articles.html).
35 A SSB, nos. 112, 189, 187.
36 Richardson, Building Jewish, 207–21.
37 See the discussion in Binder, Into the Temple Courts, esp. 308–11, and plans on 312.
38 For sources, see ASSB, nos. 135–72.
39 See Isa 56:7 LXX: “These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my
house of prayer [en tō oikō tēs proseuchēs mou]; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
204 Runesson
this temple term, and from the fact that such institutions were sometimes ex-
plicitly described as sacred,40 it is quite likely that they are to be understood, at
least in the third century BCE, as some sort of Jewish temples.41 There is no evi-
dence of Torah reading associated with these institutions at this time.42 From
the Bosporan inscriptions, we also know that manumissions of slaves took
place in such proseuchai institutions, just as was the custom in Greco-Roman
temples.43
If we focus our interest on people interested in these and similar Jewish
institutions, we have evidence from Asia Minor that not only Jews, but also
non-Jews, were involved. No less a person than the first-century high priest-
ess of the city of Acmonia in Asia Minor, Julia Severa, is said to have donated
See also 1 Macc 7:37: “You chose this house to be called by your name, and to be for your
people a house of prayer [oikon proseuchēs] and supplication”; 1 Macc 3:46: “Then they
gathered together and went to Mizpah, opposite Jerusalem, because Israel formerly had
a place of prayer [topos proseuchēs] in Mizpah.” See also Mark 11:17; Matt 21:13; Luke 19:46;
see also 3 Macc 7:20: “Then, after inscribing them as holy on a pillar and dedicating a place
of prayer [topon proseuchēs] at the site of the festival, they departed unharmed, free, and
overjoyed, since at the king’s command they had all of them been brought safely by land
and sea and river to their own homes.” For proseuchē as a temple term, see Runesson,
Origins, 429–36.
40 See ASSB, nos. 143 (hieros peribolos); 144; 147 (the proseuchē served as place of asylum, like
other Egyptian temples); 148 (proseuchē built on sacred land, leasing its sacred garden to
a certain individual); 149 (note that the water consumption related to this Jewish building
is twice as high as the nearby bath house, suggesting ritual washings were practiced); 150;
151; 152.
41 We should note here that Jewish cult centralization did not succeed until the Persian
period, and then only in areas within Yehud. It was not until the Hasmonean period that
we see full implementation of this ideology, as the state is expanded geographically; and
then, in a third stage, as the reading of Torah in diaspora settings meant the gradual ac-
ceptance of such ideology. Important information on this process is found in the part
of the archive that we have removed in this study, which include Philo and Josephus.
Note, however, the destruction of what were most likely Jewish temples in Beersheva and
Lachish by the time the Hasmoneans expanded their rule beyond the Persian period bor-
ders of Yehud (ASSB, nos. T8, T9). We also have, of course, the well-known Jewish temple
at Elephantine, Egypt, evidenced in the Persian period Aramaic papyri from the same
location (ASSB, nos. T2–4). The Leontopolis temple (ASSB, no. T5), if we disregard the
archaeological evidence, belongs to the archival material that we have removed for the
purposes of this exercise (Josephus and rabbinic literature).
42 It is, in fact, not until Philo in the first century CE that we hear of Torah reading in institu-
tions called proseuchai; but this source, centuries younger than the earliest inscriptions,
we have excluded from the present exercise in historical reconstruction. For a reconstruc-
tion of the development of the Egyptian proseuchai, see Runesson, Origins, 401–76.
43 See, e.g., manumissions performed in the Pythian Apollo temple at Delphi.
a synagogue building to the Jewish community.44 Such acts of benefaction

point to a general picture of Jewish communities as being well integrated in
Greco-Roman society, a situation we know began to change in late antiquity
and the medieval period, when Christianity became politically empowered.45
Slightly later than the Julia Severa inscription, we have fourth to fifth-century
evidence from Aphrodisias of non-Jews involved in synagogues under the des-
ignation “god-fearers” (theosebēs);46 the same designation was present already
in the first-century Bosporan inscriptions.47
The diaspora, then, displays another type of diversity than the land, one that
depends heavily on the regional and cultural factors present at the locations
where Jews happened to live. It seems, however, as if there is some consisten-
cy in that, from early on, ritual washings, otherwise associated with temples,
were likely required as Jews entered what we call diaspora synagogues. Perhaps
diaspora synagogues are best described, using Philip Harland’s categories,48
as associations based on cult or temple network connections, but also on
networks associated with other types of groups, such as neighborhood asso-
ciations or various forms of guilds, all of which involved a cultic component.
Such an identification allows for variation in customs while still maintaining
ethnicity as an important, but not exclusive, membership criterion.49
44 A SSB, no. 103. See also discussion in Paul Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor,
SNTSMS 69 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 58–60.
45 From the reign of Theodosius I and onwards, climaxing in the Middle Ages. One should
note, however, that intensified anti-Jewish legislation appeared not directly with
Theodosius I, who largely followed earlier Roman legislative traditions, but rather in the
beginning of the fifth century. For documents and discussion, see Amnon Linder, The Jews
in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987).
46 The Aphrodisias inscription was originally dated to the third century CE; see
Margaret H. Williams, “The Jews and Godfearers Inscription from Aphrodisias: A Case
of Patriarchal Interference in Early 3rd Century Caria?,” Historia 41.3 (1992): 297–310;
Louis H. Feldman and Meyer Reinhold, Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 142–43. For discussion, see Levine, Ancient Synagogue,
293–94. In defense of the designation “god-fearer,” see most recently Paula Fredriksen, “ ‘If
It Looks Like a Duck, and It Quacks Like a Duck …’: On Not Giving Up the Godfearers,”
in A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer, ed. Susan Ashbrook
Harvey, et al., BJS 358 (Providence: Brown University, 2015), 25–33.
47 A SSB, nos. 123–24.
48 Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations, 28–53.
49 On Jewish neighborhood associations as a context for interaction between believ-
ers in Jesus and other Jews and non-Jews, see Anders Runesson, “Jewish and Christian
Interaction from the First to the Fifth Centuries,” in The Early Christian World, ed. Philip
Esler, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2017), 253–54.
206 Runesson
3 Restoring the Archive and Seeing Anew
Reconstructing early synagogue institutions without rabbis or Christians has

led us to an interesting scenario. In the land, we found two types of buildings
indicating different institutional uses: the political, housing “democratic-like”
assemblies; and the association buildings, accommodating specific Jewish
groups. In the diaspora, there is great diversity, but these institutions should
still be categorized as associations alongside other Greco-Roman associations;
inclusive institutions based on ethnoreligious identity as well as neighborhood
and other types of connections, and cultic practices.
The time periods discussed in this essay precede the rise of rabbinic forms of
Judaism. The earliest Jesus movement, however, was an integral part of Jewish
society, and was formed, after Jesus’s death, as a Jewish association.50 As we
enter the fourth and fifth centuries, we see an increase in archaeological evi-
dence of synagogues as well as what are appropriately called churches. Many of
these remains can be related to rabbinic Judaism and non-Jewish Christianity,
the mothers of modern forms of Judaism and Christianity. If we, at this point,
reintroduce the parts of the archive previously removed, sources transmitted
by rabbis and Christians, we find an overall situation that is quite different
from the earlier period. In late antiquity/the medieval period, the Jews had lost
administrative control in many places in the land, and synagogues were now
mostly run by the rabbis without formal political power. Jesus-centered forms
of Judaism, as well as other Second Temple forms of Judaism, while still pres-
ent as late as in the fourth century, had largely disappeared, and non-Jews had
claimed an empire-backed Jesus as their Christus salvator.
As for the interpretation of the New Testament, whose texts belong to the
earlier period, this means that we will have to reread them with a different
understanding of “synagogue” in mind. Such readings will produce a very dif-
ferent, and more complex, narrative than the traditional Christian idea of
“church” and “synagogue” as distinct spatial and communal entities opposing
one another. The institutional origins of the modern church and synagogue (as
nonpolitical institutions exclusively for Christians and Jews, respectively) lie
thus in the institutional pattern of the Greco-Roman associations, not in the
public synagogues in which, for example, Jesus and the Pharisees interacted.
50 Since the New Testament texts were removed from the archive, the suggested exis-
tence of messianic, Jesus-oriented associations was based on archaeological remains in
Capernaum, dating to the late first/early second century. This building, a modified private
house, was located no more than thirty meters south of the then political, or municipal,
synagogue institution.
These associations, in which the word-pair “Jews and Christians” was born,
were independent of each other from the beginning, and thus never experi-
enced a parting-of-the-ways process.
The rise of Judaism and Christianity in these types of associations, therefore,
also leads to the rise of the idea of “religion” as we tend to refer to this concept
in the Western world today, as socio-ritual activities separated from political
institutions and practices. The discrepancy between modern and ancient or-
ganizational forms highlights a key problem in historical reconstruction, since
many of the terms used in the first century, such as “synagogue,” are still used
in late antiquity and today. This invites anachronistic understandings of these
institutions based on unsubstantiated assumptions related to functional sta-
bility, ritual and otherwise, as intertwined with terminological continuity.
A final note is in order. The fact that the rabbis succeeded in taking over and
defining “synagogue” in late antiquity does not mean they were alone on the
scene even then. Synagogue remains from this period, especially the fifth and
sixth centuries, include buildings decorated with the zodiac sign as well as, more
generally, images of living creatures.51 The excavation of these synagogues, dis-
playing art that could hardly have originated in institutions controlled by the
rabbis, may indeed have brought to light—and life—evidence of a previously
unknown late-antique (possibly priestly52) form of Judaism.53 The very fact
that this group was never included in any known “archive,” rabbinic, Christian
or other, forces us to recognize how very little it is we actually know, and how
dependent we are as historians on the victors in history—and thus on those in
power—who hand to us on silver platters their own universalizing narratives
in which they and they alone are in control of neatly defined spatial and ritual
51 For discussion and contextualization of this evidence, see Lee I. Levine, Visual Judaism:
Historical Contexts of Jewish Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), esp. 317–36.
52 See Jodi Magness, “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,”
in Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their
Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina, ed. William G. Dever and
Seymour Gitin (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 363–89. See also her longer ver-
sion of the article: Magness, “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient
Palestinian Synagogues,” DOP 59 (2005): 1–52.
53 Note that the earliest synagogue mosaic, which may have included a zodiac (as indicated
by possible remains of a circle at its center) was uncovered at Khirbet Wadi Hamam in
Galilee, close to Magdala; it dates, according to the excavator, to the third century CE.
See Uzi Leibner, “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam (Lower Galilee): The Synagogue
and the Settlement,” JRA 23 (2010): 220–63, including Uzi Leibner and Shulamit Miller,
“Appendix: A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam,” JRA (2010): 238–
63. Unfortunately, the remains are so fragmentary that it is impossible to determine the
exact nature of the motif in the central circle.
208 Runesson
categories. Who knows what will be unearthed and given voice tomorrow, not
only challenging our master narratives, but also inviting us to consider critique
of power to be an integral part of all historical reconstruction?
In this essay, I have aimed to deconstruct common assumptions about an-
cient synagogues as ritual space, and point to the very different nature of the
various types of institutions designated by synagogue terms in antiquity. In
the earliest period, we do not see a differentiation between political and re-
ligious space in the way we find it in late antiquity and subsequent periods;
neither do we find among those attending most of these institutions sharp
distinctions between Jews and non-Jews, nor between Jesus-oriented Judaism
and other forms of Judaism. Any understanding of the development of Jewish
ritual dynamics related to synagogues need to take this into account in order to
avoid anachronistic reconstructions, which, while (perhaps unwittingly) em-
phasizing continuity with modern Jewish liturgy, in the end tend to create the
historical other in our own image. The present study is not meant as the final
word on issues involving Jewish ritual dynamics. Rather, its purpose has been
to provide material for renewed discussions of issues critical to both Jewish
and Christian self-understanding, taking the reconstruction of institutional
contexts seriously as a starting point for ritual analysis. If the reader feels en-
couraged to engage in such further work in this field, I will consider the goal of
the study achieved.54
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Part 4
Dynamic Rituals and Innovation of Rituals in
Modern Contexts
∵
Chapter 10
Olive Oil, Anointing, Ecstasy, and Ecology

Jonathan Schorsch
The French historian and philosopher of science Michel Serres suggests that
law and agriculture stem from the same root at the origins of society and
culture.1 Though my interest is more in norms and practices than law, I take se-
riously the intertwining Serres raises in the context of Israelite religion/culture
and ancient Judaism by attending to historical transformations in the ritual
of anointing and its significance. In the full version of this investigation, I will
trace the manner and meanings of anointing with oil, in real rituals and imag-
ined rites, from biblical to rabbinic texts, hekhalot material and early Christian
iterations, into medieval prophetic kabbalah, and finally its (admittedly infre-
quent) revival in New Age or shamanic American Judaism. What I can present
here is obviously but a small portion of my overall findings. While ecological
elements seem to be rather invisible in the middle historical material I explore,
many ancient sources have convinced me that the origins and early develop-
ment of anointing with olive oil, a central agricultural product and cultural
object, should be reconsidered in light of modern ecological awareness.
Ecology and ecocriticism have become increasingly accepted approaches
and methodologies, yet what is it that we mean when we speak of a culture
as being situated within its ecology or being ecologically oriented? Is ecology
merely cultural background, a series of facts of everyday life, without signifi-
cance; or is it that which produces the most fundamental meaningfulness for
culture? How do we conduct an ecological reading of premodern cultures with-
out being merely presentist, polemical, or romanticist? In his seminal—and
controversial—revisionist account of Israelite religion and culture, Howard
Eilberg-Schwartz, drawing on anthropology, reemphasizes what was known
long before him: that nature “served as a foundational or root metaphor for
ancient Israelite thought” and hence “has important implications for under-
standing the large number of Israelite religious practices that revolve around
animal husbandry and agriculture.” Yet he notes the “reticence of biblical
sources to provide any explicit account of their significance,” a reticence that
1 Michel Serres, The Natural Contract, trans. Elizabeth MacArthur and William Paulson (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).

216 Schorsch
often has frustrated scholars and environmentalists, but also opened paths for
interpretation and innovation.2
Various kabbalists of the school of Abraham Abulafia saw in the anointing
ritual of the high priest an ecstatic visionary event, while modern ecologically-
oriented thinkers and activists offered and offer a perspective on Israelite
religion and Judaism that enabled and enables a new or renewed integration
of tradition with the natural world. I attend to religion and material culture,
as well as ritual studies and ecocriticism, as a way both to unfold midrashic
and medieval readings of oil and anointing, but also as new parallels to these
earlier cultural turns, each of which makes possible new insights into what
an ancient practice such as anointing with oil might have been about and
expanded notions of how we today might understand or wield it. Both cross-
cultural comparison with related rites in other societies and in-depth study
of the many relevant internal sources will help. Of the many previous treat-
ments of this rite, only a single essay pays attention to the fact that it involved
sensations and a personal physical process, in this case by means of a viscous
liquid agricultural product.3 I push Eilberg-Schwartz’s insights further; “the
large number of Israelite religious practices that revolve around animal hus-
bandry and agriculture” are not merely explained by natural metaphors; they
themselves explain much about Israelite religion/culture and later Judaism, an
approach vehemently resisted by wissenschaftlich scholarship. In some sense,
then, I unfold my material backwards from a historiographical perspective.
The paucity and thin nature of the available sources, on the one hand, and the
compelling potential of cross-cultural resonances, on the other, encourage the
use of etic methodologies, but these should not be seen as inherently inimi-
cal to emic understandings, however differently articulated. I acknowledge the
speculative, preliminary, and here historiographically loose character of my
treatment, though I hope this will not minimize its contribution.
What did it mean when priests, kings, messiahs, bridegrooms, brides, or
mystics were anointed? In a moment of investiture, of institutional or societal
transition, someone had olive oil poured on him. Was it merely a kind of bath-
ing or purification? What did the people involved make of the anointing; how
2 Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and

Ancient Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 119.
3 Cornelis (Cees) Houtman, “On the Function of the Holy Incense (Exodus XXX 34–8) and the
Sacred Anointing Oil (Exodus XXX 22–33),” VT 42.4 (1992): 458–65. Ze’ev Weisman, “Anointing
as a Motif in the Making of the Charismatic King,” Bib 57 (1976): 378–98, treats the potentially
mythological and magical context of royal anointing, while mentioning any actual ecological
significance only in passing. Many of my findings parallel his, though I came to them before
reading his essay, and I build on his hypotheses.
Olive Oil, Anointing, Ecstasy, and Ecology 217
did they understand its meaning? Was a little or a lot of oil used? What did it
feel like? Does it matter what it felt like? Of course, when comparing between
different societies and epochs, we must be careful not to ascribe motives or
understandings that may not be there.
Among some of the tribes of the Sonoran desert in northern Mexico and
southern Arizona—especially the Seri and O’odham (formerly known
as the Papago)—placental burial has been reported as one traditional
means of reaffirming and reinforcing a newborn child’s reciprocal rela-
tionship with his or her surroundings. The Seri bury the placenta at the
base of a giant cactus, with the understanding that both child and plant
may be nurtured by the connection.4
This does not mean women in ancient Judea had the same thing in mind,
though we know of similar customs of placental burial. The relationships en-
acted in the bodily activity that is ritual “are not merely abstract connexions
posited between hypothetical terms, but experiential truths sustained by in-
tentionally and emotionally laden events,” constructed by a particular culture
in a particular time and place.5
1 Oil, Anointing, and Ecology
Medieval mystics re-envisioned anointing in light of their own contemplative

and ecstatic goals and methods. Their intertextual reconstruction of the an-
cient practice draws on many of the numerous meanings accrued to anointing
and olive oil over the centuries by traditions emanating from the Torah and in
accord with cross-cultural understandings. These include the idea of olive oil
as a cleansing agent and means of purification; oil as a symbol of gladness; oil
as a symbol of wisdom; oil as the achievement of labor; oil as a symbol of trans-
formation; the sacred nature of the anointing oil; magical qualities attributed
to it; and much else—including postbiblical practices of personal anointing
by spiritual/mystical seekers found (whether as actual practice or mere tex-
tual projection) in apocryphal, hekhalot, and other texts. Most of these tropes
4 Lloyd Burton, Worship and Wilderness: Culture, Religion, and Law in Public Lands Management
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 35.
5 Michael Houseman, “Painful Places: Ritual Encounters with One’s Homelands,” JRAI 4.3
(1998): 448.
218 Schorsch
themselves strike me as permutations of understandings of the materiality of

olive trees, olives, the production of olive oil and its basic uses.
Much later, ecologically-minded thinkers have led our attention (back) to
the specific physical and environmental elements of the ritual. It is striking
how few of the many studies of anointing pay any mind at all to the ritual’s
central act of pouring a thick liquid agricultural product over the head of the
initiate or the fact that olive oil is a processed product based on plant material.
It is all too easy to emphasize the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions
of anointing with olive oil by avoiding thinking about the ritual’s application
of a biological substance in an embodied event. I cannot take the time here
to review the complex relevant history of scholarship as it led from medieval
Jewish-Christian debates to the Enlightenment, Wissenschaft des Judentums,
anthropology, university Jewish studies, and to ecological criticism, but I take
up the lessons learned from this sequence of progressive distillations.
The anointing of priests, kings, and possibly prophets with a centrally im-
portant agricultural-cultural liquid cannot be separated from the network of
(1) agriculture as a set of technical-religious practices/rituals; (2) the panoply
of Israelite rituals that supported/completed agricultural success, including,
of course, the sacrificial rites and other grain and fruit offerings made at the
Jerusalem Temple; and (3) god and god’s cosmos, which react in accordance
with Israelite behavior. The elements of this complex remained inseparable in
Israelite culture. Writes theologian Theodore Hiebert: “Such a ritual and theo-
logical system is not one that sets God and people apart from natural processes
but formalizes through cultic acts their interdependence.”6
Let us start with a modern vantage point steeped in environmentalism. The
prophet Zechariah (early sixth c. BCE) describes the menorah for the hoped-
for Second Temple, adding a significant detail to the features of the original as
presented in the texts about the desert tabernacle: next to this future menorah
will stand “two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and one on its left”
(Zech 4:2–3).7 The prophet goes on to offer a miraculous vision (Zech 4:11–13):
the two trees supply the menorah with oil directly! Rabbi Arthur Waskow, in a
Hanukkah-related e-mail sent out from his organization, The Shalom Center—
some of these passages were selected by the rabbis for the haftarah to be read
on Shabbat Hanukkah—parses the prophet’s vision as follows:
No human being needs to press the olives, collect the oil, clarify and sanc-
tify it. The trees alone can do it all.
6 Theodore Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 143.
7 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
Now wait! This is extraordinary. What is this Light-Bearer that is so in-

timately interwoven with two trees? Is the Menorah the work of human
hands, or itself the fruit of a tree?
Both, and beyond. In our generation it might be called a “cyborg,” a
cybernetic organism that is woven from the fruitfulness both of “ada-
mah” (an earthy sprouting from the humus-soil) and “adam” (a human
earthling). Just as earth and earthling were deeply intermingled in one of
the biblical Creation stories (Gen 2:7), so the Divine Light must inter-
weave them once again, and again and again, every time the Light is lit in
the Holy Temple.
What stirs Zechariah to this uncanny vision? If we listen closely to the
Torah’s original description of the Menorah for the wandering desert
Shrine, we may not be quite so surprised. For the Torah describes a
Menorah that has branches, cups shaped like almond-blossoms, blos-
soms, petals, and calyxes (the tight bundles of green leaves that hold a
blossom). (Exodus 25:31–40 and 37:17–24)
In short, a Tree of Light, a Green Menorah. Small wonder that Zecha-
riah envisioned its receiving oil directly from the olive-trees!8
Zechariah’s vision places not one but two trees in the midst of the temple pre-
cincts. Zechariah himself explains that these trees represent the two “sons of
oil,” priests given a messianic luster; they may be merely symbolic. Still, planting
two trees in the midst of the sanctuary is quite an innovation, the likes of which
both Ezekiel and the author of 1 Enoch admired, as each of them (trans)plants
trees or the tree of knowledge from Eden to the temple of the future. Granted
they do not stand next to the altar, a location where biblical warning prohib-
its the placing of an asherah, usually understood to be a living tree, stylized
tree or pole, or even sculpted image of the goddess central to Asherah worship.
Still, noticeably, the prophetic trees in the temple (re)create it as an ecological-
cosmological site akin to temples throughout the region, as I discuss below.
For our purposes here, it is imperative to recall the centrality of olives to the
economy and therefore the culture of ancient Israel. Archaeological findings
tell us that various priesthoods in the region controlled olive oil production and
distribution, another factor we must consider. Following on biblical intimacy
with the land on which its contents unfold, rabbinic discourse, in Palestine in
particular, evinces a thorough knowledge of and affection for olive trees, olives,
and olive oil amid a more general familiarity with local topography, geography,
climate, and agriculture.
8 Arthur Waskow, “Deep Meanings of Hanukkah: The Prophetic Green Menorah,” The Shalom
Report, 4 November 2013.
220 Schorsch
2 Biblical and Rabbinic Cosmological Ecologies
Though olive trees were included in the tree species from which one had to
leave some of the fruits for the poor, pe’ah (m. Pe’ah 1:5), an interesting exemp-
tion held for olive trees. The text of m. Pe’ah 7:1 informs readers as follows:
An olive tree that has a name in the field, even the olive tree of Netufah
in its time, and he forgets it, it is not [subject to] Shikhechah [forgotten
sheaves given to the poor]. Regarding what did they say this? Regarding
[an olive tree] which is known for its name or for its produce or for
its place. [What does] “For its name” [mean?]—that it was [called]
Shifchuni [“The one which pours forth”] or Bayshuni [“The one which
puts to shame”]. “For its produce”—that it produces a great amount. “For
its place”—that it stands near a wine press or near a hole [in a fence].9
On the one hand this Mishnah alludes to the fact that as a farmer, in order to
farm well “you are continually required to consider the distinct individuality of
an animal or a tree, or the uniqueness of a place or a situation, and to do so you
draw upon a long accumulation of experience, your own and other people’s.”10
The Mishnah indicates as well that these individual beings and particular
lives, in this case olive trees, comprise recognized members of the communi-
ty: they have names. Hosea 14:7 already acknowledges the beauty of olive trees
(‫)ויהי כזית הודו‬, which Targum Yonatan translates as a metaphor of fruitfulness,
and Radak as one of perennial moist leaves, pointing to unending goodness. Olive
trees, incredibly hardy, often ancient, might gain for themselves a reputation
for their fertility, the quality of their olives, or for their place of growth or shape.
The rabbis knew their olives. A person who finds olives (or carob pods) fall-
en on the ground by a grove or orchard may not claim them, unlike with figs
and other fruit (m. Ma’as. 3:4). Rabbi Abbahu explains that this is because ol-
ives readily can be identified by color and shape (b. B. Metz. 21b). The Mishnah
asserts that Tekoa produced the most prized oil in the land, while Abba
Shaul assigns the oil from the olives of Regev, across the Jordan, second place
(m. Menah. 8:3, which calls Tekoa “the alpha of oil,” as does t. Menah. 9:5).
The Tosefta (Menah. 9:1) also contains Rabbi Elazar ben Ya’akov’s opinion that
the olives of Gush Halav (Jish or Giscala in the Galilee) rank third. Clearly we
9 Translation is that of Sefaria: A Living Library of Jewish Texts, “Mishnah Peah 7,”
https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Peah.7.5?lang=bi.
10 Wendell Berry, “Imagination in Place,” in The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays (n.p.:
Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005), 48.
have varying rabbinic opinions being given. Ben Sira (second c. BCE) lauds the
olive trees and olives of the eastern lowlands, the sh’feila as the best (Sir 24:18).
So prominent were the olive trees of Tekoa and Gush Halav that their grow-
ing season determined that of the land as a whole. During sabbatical years
one could eat olives from the trees until the time they no longer appeared on
the trees of Tekoa and, according to Rabbi Elazar ben Ya’akov, those of Gush
Halav (t. Shev. 7:12). Quantitatively, the harvest at Gush Halav, the sole source
of the olive oil used in the Jerusalem Temple, was abundant; at least in Roman
times, but probably earlier, as the Talmud understands this abundance as a
fulfillment of the blessing accorded the tribe of Asher (Deut. 33:24), in whose
territory the town sat. According to the Palestinian Talmud, the olives from
the town of Netofa in the central lower Galilee were famous for their juiciness
(y. Pe’ah 7, 1, 20a; notef means “to drip”).
Lest we think such knowledge was merely technical or abstract, David
Abram, summarizing the relationship of the Western Apache with their home
landscape, offers us an understanding of the significance underlying these rab-
binic characterizations, including those of personality-bearing trees:
Particular mountains, canyons, streams, boulder-strewn fields, or groves

of trees have not yet lost the expressive potency and dynamism with
which they spontaneously present themselves to the senses. A particular
place in the land is never, for an oral culture, just a passive or inert set-
ting for human events that occur there. It is an active participant in those
occurrences. Indeed, by virtue of its underlying and enveloping presence,
the place may even be felt to be the source, the primary power that ex-
presses itself through the various events that unfold there.11
Significantly, the olive trees spoken of in m. Pe’ah 7:1 have been removed from
the category in which animals and plants are usually kept. As Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari remind us, animals remain a species category, without in-
dividuals or individuality, they live conceptually in the herd.12 Maimonides
insists, for example, that only humans merit divine providence as individuals;
for animals, divine providence only concerns itself with the species.13
Despite the overt monotheist polemics of the Bible and the rabbis, it is easy
to see just how steeped they were in conceptualizations of the natural-cultural
11 David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 162.
12 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 243–48.
13 Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed, pt. 3, ch. 17.
222 Schorsch
world not so different from those of many of their surrounding neighbors.

Both biblical and early Palestinian rabbinic discourse reflect, despite growing
urbanization, the perspective of an essentially indigenous people. They are in-
timately concerned with matters we would now call, for instance, land use,
relations with nonhuman members of the community, what might be termed
cosmological ecology. Much evidence shows deep ambivalence regarding, say,
asherot, or sacred trees such as Abraham’s alon, or indicates that the priests
themselves may have acted in mantic, pneumatic ways, particularly in early
times. The temple itself was clearly a nexus of the agricultural-cosmological
economy, even before we take into account its mythologization in rabbinic
literature, a mythologization that points back to its ecological-cosmological
centrality.
Finding evidence for nonrationalistic, nondualistic, animist or vitalist, mag-
ical or shamanistic attitudes and practices in biblical and rabbinic discourse
is not difficult, particularly if apocryphal and hekhalot circles are included.
Raphael Patai, in his seminal book, Man and Earth, excavates widespread
Israelite-Jewish “folk” beliefs expressed in midrashic and other sources: that
nonhuman animals and even inanimate natural entities share the same earthly
and divine origins; “inanimate” natural entities are actually animate; humans
and other life forms might transmogrify into one another; nonhuman enti-
ties might involve themselves in human affairs and act on behalf of particular
humans; all created entities share the capacity to think, feel and speak—and
praise and thank the Creator for existence.14 Patai marshals texts showing that
Hebrew/Aramaic literature frequently considers the earth itself to be a femi-
nine, sentient organism that weds the masculine sky and/or sky god, becomes
pregnant, and gives birth to all the forms of earthly life.15 Hosea (for instance,
Hos 4:3; 6:3; 9:16) and Ezekiel (Ezek 23:1 and following) attribute earthly fertility
to the conjugal relationship of God or his prophet with women, as did Ugaritic
culture. The prophet Jeremiah (Jer 2:27) chastises those Israelites who “say to
the tree, ‘My father are you,’ and to the stone, ‘you gave birth to me.’ ” Jacob’s
anointing of stones (Gen 28:18; 35:14) and the episode of Manoach and his wife
bringing a sacrifice on a stone, in response to a mysterious stranger who turns
14 Rafael Patai, Adam ṿe-adamah: meḥḳar be-minhagim, emunot ṿe-agadot etsel Yisra’el ve-
umot ha-’olam (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1942), 1: 23. These beliefs, Patai remarks in a
footnote there, are “common among primitive nations.” The whole of this study is replete
with source material, though the text is not free from the conceptual and terminological
limits of its Frazerian, folkloristic, if not volkish approach.
15 Patai, Adam ve-adamah, chs. 8–12, 19. See also Moshe Weinfeld, “Feminine Elements in
Israelite Portrayals of Divinity: The Holy Couple and the Sanctified Tree” [Hebrew], BetM
40 (1995): 348–58. Some, of course, object that such depictions are merely metaphorical.
out to be an angel (Judg 13), testifies to what was no doubt a common early
Israelite practice. On a less overtly theological level stands the (later?) custom,
attested in the Talmud, of planting a cedar tree at the birth of a boy and a
pine tree (‫ אורן‬or ‫ )ברושׁ‬for a girl. When the child grew—like its tree twin—and
married, the tree was cut down, trimmed and used as a pole for the wedding
canopy (‫( )חופה‬b. Git. 57a).
One thinks of sages with the ability bring rain, such as Honi the Circle Maker
or Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa, or Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, who understood
the language of the palm trees (‫( )דקלים‬b. Sukkah 28a; B. Bat. 134a) and Hillel,
who knew “the conversation of trees and grasses” (Masekhet Sofrim 16:9). The
Talmud tells us that Raba created a golem, while Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi
Oshia spent every Sabbath eve and created a miniature calf (b. Sanh. 65b). One
text from the hekhalot corpus offers a means to “become wise in … the work of
man and woman and cattle and animals and birds and creeping things of the
ground.”16 Of central importance were the annual fertility rites of Sukkoth at
the temple, meant to help bring about the required fall rains, particularly the
festive ceremony and celebration of the “drawing of the water.” A mishnaic text
relating to the incense burned at the temple cites a teaching of Rabbi Natan
that the one brewing it should say—perhaps “chant” is a better term—“ ‘hadek
heitev, heitev hadek,’ since the voice is good for fragrances” (m. Ker. 6). As is so
often the case, ritual preparation brings together human microcosm, natural
ecology, and cosmic macrocosm. Numerous other examples could be cited.
Agricultural knowledge likely has always hovered between technē, magic,
and theurgy. One remarkable talmudic passage evinces this cusp, as well as
bolstering our sense of rabbinic trans-species animism:
A tree that sheds its fruit [while still unripe], he surveys it and paints it red
and ladens it with rocks. Why burden it with stones? In order to weaken
its strength. And painting it red, what medicine does this bring? In order
that people will see it and beg for mercy for it. As we learned, “ ‘Impure,
impure’ will he be called” (Lev 13:45). It is necessary to announce his [the
metzora’s] sorrow to the public, and the public will request compassion
for him (b. Shabb. 67a).
The complex details of this scenario involving the healing of an unhealthy

tree cannot be treated here; the topos has been discussed much in the schol-
arly literature. On the one hand, the technē of arboriculture is expressed here,
16 Translated in James R. Davila, Descenders to the Chariot: The People behind the Hekhalot
Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 64.
224 Schorsch
the naturalist explanation offered in the first section of the passage. But we
see—the text cites a beraita, an earlier Palestinian opinion (tannaitic or per-
haps amoraic) as its source—also that the tree’s condition requires human
emotion, whether because human prayers are heard by god, who will take
action, or because the tree itself responds to external stimuli. The version
appearing in the Palestinian Talmud (Shev. 4:4, 35b) proffers the latter read-
ing, explaining, contrarily, that “the tree is shamed so that it makes fruit”
([‫)ומביישים השׁיעשׂ ]פרי‬.17 The emotional register here directly contradicts the
version from the Babylonian Talmud, but the operation’s significance remains
the same. Such a tree is likened to a metzora, a person suffering a serious ail-
ment. Its aberrant condition requires a social solution, one that includes it
in the human community, which of course depends on it for sustenance and
therefore bears responsibility for restoring it to health, as well as the ability to
do so. The social network contains, of course, not only physical species (hu-
mans, trees) but the deity, whose being addressed here completes the circuit
of recognitions and intentions. The animistic understanding expressed in this
rabbinic passage appeared in any number of the surrounding polytheistic cul-
tures. It must be emphasized that the version of this passage (also appearing
in b. Hul. 77b–78a) is brought as an example of a practice that is customarily
performed by Jews, that is, as proof that such a practice is not ‫דרכי האמורי‬, “the
ways of the Amorites,” that is, a foreign, “pagan” custom. At the same time, the
practice echoes insight into plant sentience, a subject being unfolded with rad-
ical findings in our time by biologists and ecologists. Despite debate between
the rabbis over whether this practice is magical, mere agricultural technique
or forbidden, not one of them questions the notion that trees have feelings
and respond to social stimuli. Rabbinic discussion of these practices had not
yet fully shed “the experience of existing in a world made up of multiple intel-
ligences,” the sense that each life form, from plant to animal to planet, “is an
experiencing form.”18
3 Situating Temple and Priests
Further evidence for the signifying power of olive oil in anointing can be found
in sources relating to the priesthood. The priestly tradition seems in general to
favor, in contrast to the deuteronomistic tradition, the sensory, tactile and vis-
ceral over the abstract and rationalist. The priests certainly love ritual. Hiebert
17 The original y. Shev. 4:4, 35b, in Aramaic reads: ‫ומבהתין ליה דיעביד‬.
18 Abram, Spell of the Sensuous, 9–10.
suggests that, unlike the Yahwist author, who always begins describing animals
with those “that live nearby in the field and that creep on the ground and con-
cludes with the birds in the sky,” the Priestly writer “views nature from a divine,
cosmic perspective. P’s lists [in Genesis] always proceed in the other direc-
tion, from cosmological space to the inhabited world, from the animals of the
distant sky to those that live with humans on the land.”19 Likewise, Hiebert
proposes that the Yahwist describes how god “made earth and sky” (Gen 2:4b),
while P refers to when god “began to create the sky and the earth” (Gen 1:1,
2:4a), the order of elements aptly summarizing each tradition’s distinct cos-
mological orientation. According to many scholars, the priestly texts reflect a
society centered on agriculture, not pastoralism. Israel Knohl argues, against
Julius Wellhausen, that the priestly authors of the Holiness Code (Lev 17–26
and many other sections), whom he refers to as the Holiness School, are “clear-
ly conscious of the agricultural cycle” in their festival legislation, though their
text “is relatively later than” the passages attributed to P, “where the natural
agricultural context is indeed lacking.20 This means that it was not “histori-
cal ‘lateness’ that caused an ‘alienation from nature.’ ” In the Holiness School’s
writings, “cultic practices connected to nature receive great attention.”21 Knohl
argues that “the main innovation of HS [the Holiness School] is the blending
of the ‘pure’ Priestly cult with popular festival customs which express the ag-
ricultural life.”22
This view can be traced back to Yehezkel Kaufmann, who likewise sees
no divorce in the priestly texts between priestly ritual concerns and “popu-
lar” agricultural concerns. He dates the turn away from “popular” agricultural
inclinations to the Second Temple period.23 Knohl notes that HS passages re-
lating to the Tabernacle construction and sanctification have the instructions
addressed to the entire people of Israel, not just to Moses, hardly the mark of a
self-interested and disconnected elite. Indeed, points out Knohl, HS passages
(as in Lev 11:44; 19:2; 20:7, 26; Num 15:40) consistently “call for the sanctifica-
tion of the entire people.”24 The instructions regarding the priestly anointing
in Exodus and Leviticus, according to Knohl, derive either entirely from HS or
come from earlier priestly scrolls redacted by the later Holiness School. Thus,
19 Hiebert, Yahwist’s Landscape, 51.

20 Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 41.
21 Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 45.
23 Yehezkel Kaufmann, Toldot HaEmuna HaYisraelit Mimei Kedem ad Sof Bayit Sheni
(Jerusalem: Bialik; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1967).
226 Schorsch
even if the divergent priestly perspectives could be definitively untangled, we

remain far from understanding just how the rituals might have been intended
by the texts or experienced by those involved. Historical change also must be
kept in mind. Furthermore, we must reconcile plausible early priestly eco-
nomic control of olive oil production and priestly self-insertion (?) into the
agricultural theological ecology as forms of elite domination and theologi-
cal imposition from above onto “the people,” with our desire to posit priestly
and/or Israelite ecological “organicity” and lack of alienation. Are these two
seemingly divergent stances mutually exclusive? Understanding the priestly
relationship to “nature” and agriculture remains a central challenge.
Clearly, late biblical texts, apocryphal/apocalyptic authors, the rabbis and
hekhalot adepts developed the spiritual import of anointing oil, a practice
seemingly long out of use, and sometimes saw the priests as shaman-mystics
or themselves as priests. The temple itself was seen in a mythologized, nature-
invoking manner: “When Shlomo built the temple, he planted in it all kinds of
choice fruit (‫ )מגדים‬of gold, and they would bring forth fruit at the right time,
and because the wind blew through them, the fruit would drop … and from
them the priesthood lived [either by selling them or eating them]” (b. Yoma
39b). Another version: “Said Rabbi Aha ben Yitzhak: When Shlomo built the
temple, he formed (‫ )צר‬all sorts of trees within it (‫)לתוכו‬, and when the trees
outside gave fruit, those within [the temple] gave fruit” (y. Yoma 41d). Elizabeth
Bloch-Smith sees the palmettes decorating the walls of the temple as stylized
sacred trees similar to those from regional iconography, and as an attempt to
recreate the garden of Eden.25
According to Tanhuma (Tetzave 13), the historical cessation of each ag-
riculturally dependent activity in the temple caused the extinction of that
product’s fertility or pleasure-giving capacity in the land as a whole; that is,
when the menorah was no longer lit with its oil, olive trees stopped producing
(citing Hab 3:17). The biblical writers and activists provide a deeply ideologi-
cal version of the history and activity of the temple and priesthood. We have
to ask ourselves whether in offering such “mythological” perspectives, these
later authors are transmitting knowledge they had from tradition or engag-
ing in historical reconstruction, what Martha Himmelfarb called invoking a
“mythic past.”26 Of course, some scholars, such as Seth Schwartz, see such
25 Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, “Solomon’s Temple: The Politics of Ritual Space,” in Sacred Time,
Sacred Space: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, ed. B. M. Gittlen (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2002), 83–94.
26 Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 113.
“exaggerations and supernatural elements” as “characteristic of … idealized,

Rabbinic accounts.”27
But the temple’s centrality to the Israelite cosmo-agricultural universe was
hardly just mythological. It is astonishing how frequently wissenschaftlich
scholarship suppresses the materiality and natural-ecological groundedness of
the temple and its rituals. Given its foundation as the primary societal nexus of
agricultural-theological exchange, the temple constituted an abattoir, public
grill, bakery, as well as a veritable barn and animal menagerie. After the ark
of testimony, the table for the bread prepared by the priests for YHWH and
the candelabrum, both objects dedicated to processed agricultural products
and their sacralization, comprise the first two items listed in the description of
the Tabernacle (Exod 25:23–40). Mishnah Hul. 12:1 mentions, while discussing
the commandment to send away the mother bird in order to take the young,
that “sacred” birds belonging to the temple, if found along the road, were not
to be chased away but returned to the temple treasury. We can thus envision
the temple treasury as in part a kind of aviary. Is this where all of the animals
donated to the temple were kept temporarily? The priests and/or Levites must
have spent a good part of their time caring for these creatures, on whom they
depended, directly or indirectly, for sustenance.
Given olive oil’s associations with transformation, perhaps it is pertinent
that the temple’s two doors to the holy of holies and the two cherubs within—
the doors featuring carvings of cherubs, palm trees, and flowers, like the whole
building—were constructed from olive tree wood (1 Kgs 6:23, 31–33). (The
sculpted wooden cherubs were then gilded.)
4 Biblical Scenes of Anointing and Anointing Oil
One powerful indication of the atmosphere of the installation of kings, a

rite which for Davidic kings included anointing, is offered us by the installa-
tion of Avimelech as king at Shechem by the local citizens. This takes place
‫( עם ֵאלון ֖מצב‬im elon mutzav). The Hebrew is difficult. It could mean “with the/a
terebinth planted” at Shechem, “at the terebinth pillar” that is in Shechem,”
or something else. Onkelos’s Aramaic translation understands the phrase to
refer to a smooth ground on which rises a pillar. Rashi and Ralbag (R. Levi b.
Gershon) follow Onkelos, the former adding that the smoothed ground hosted
multiple matzevot, and the latter that the pillar may have been stone. Radak
(R. David Kimchi) thinks the first two words of the expression refer to an actual
27 Seth Schwartz, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 105.
228 Schorsch
tree—“by the terebinth”—similar to the ones at Beit Lehem and elsewhere,

but that the entire phrase refers to a smoothed ground with a stone or matzeva
on it, such that the name of the whole site was attached to the tree there. In
any case, what is striking is the very fact of this Israelite royal installation tak-
ing place at or with a tree or tree-like pillar.
The text immediately follows this with a parable of the trees seeking to
anoint a king from among their various species. It is noteworthy that the olive
tree is the first tree to be approached by the other trees, a sign of its signal im-
portance. Olive trees, so frequently connected in mythology to wisdom, seem
to have been considered sacred by various Near Eastern and Mediterranean
peoples (in Greece, for instance, the cultivated olive tree was considered a gift
of the goddess Athena). The parable functions in part as an allegory critiqu-
ing Avimelech’s lack of worthiness to be king (made explicit in Judg 9:16–20).
The parable, it should be noted, uses the term “to anoint a king,” even though
the Avimelech episode makes no mention of his being anointed. The text as
a whole implies a connection between royal installation and a cultic tree/
pillar. This connection is strengthened by the context. After the death of
Avimelech’s father, the leader Gideon, known also as Yeruba’al—supposedly
because he had challenged the god Ba’al by destroying an altar dedicated
to him (Judg 6:32)—and the people, including Gideon’s sons, turned to the
worship of a god named Ba’al Brit. Gideon’s other name implies that a family
connection to Ba’al came even earlier, however. Avimelech is given silver by
his sixty-nine brothers from the temple of this god in Shechem in exchange
for their letting him become king. His nomination comes not from YHWH but
from Avimelech’s own self-assertion. This negative setting, from the theological
perspective of the YHWH-oriented text, likely explains why the authors-editors
not only had no problem leaving in place the “pagan” form of royal installation
but saw it as a means of critiquing Avimelech, whose short reign goes disas-
trously awry. (Historically, Shechem was Canaanite until “nearly the end of the
period of the Judges.”)28 In this episode, we discover a strong indication of an
initiation rite involving a sacred tree or pillar, plausibly Israelite, Canaanite, or
both. According to Menahem Haran, David himself was first anointed as King
of Judah at the ancient temple of Hebron (2 Sam 2:4).29
Moving to another relevant scene, it is tempting to interpret King Josiah’s
enigmatic hiding of the vessels of the temple, including the anointing oil
brewed by Moses, as concomitant with his religious reforms. Perhaps anointing
28 Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1978), 51.
29 Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 34.
with the product of a tree was suspected by this Deuteronomistic purist as

being uncomfortably closely related to forms of worship of or through trees. A
few years earlier Josiah had removed the asherah from the Jerusalem Temple
as well as the asherah at the “sinful” sanctuary of Bethel, burning them both—
though all of these “idolatrous” objects, we are told, had been established by
King Solomon (!) (2 Kgs 23:4, 6, 15). Josiah had also “brought all the priests out
of the cities of Judah [up to Jerusalem] and defiled the high places where the
priests had burned [grain-]offerings” (2 Kgs 23:8). From the king’s perspective,
the priesthood itself outside the central sanctuary was part of the problem, as
were elements of Israelite-Judean religion initiated by none other than Moses
and Solomon. To my mind, all of the internal and cross-cultural evidence
points to anointing of priests and kings as a rite dating back into the Bronze
Age and not as a late importation from Babylonia that was retrojected back
within biblical texts. In Josiah’s eradicating of practices such as anointing with
olive oil, the Bible seems to be revealing a priestly inclination to nature-related
and/or quasi-magical objects that other YHWH-oriented leaders felt needed
to be uprooted. Cross-cultural comparison with roughly contemporaneous
sources shows that anointing and libations with olive oil often emerge from
and invoke thinking about natural bounty and fertility.
Perhaps the purist monotheistic motivations that moved Josiah explain why
anointing seems (gradually?) to have been limited to the investiture of only the
highest theopolitical functionaries. It is intriguing that both ritual anointing
and so-called asherah worship seem to disappear after the exile to Babylonia.
While the Mount of Olives was clearly known for its trees and oil produc-
tion, one wonders whether the alternative mishnaic name, the Mountain of
Anointment, ‫( הר המשׁחה‬m. Mid. 2:4; m. Parah 3:6,7; m. Sheqal. 4:2; Bereshit
Rabba 33:9), is more than a poetic moniker and might attest to an old tradi-
tion of its serving as the location for anointing, before or even parallel to the
existence of the temple.
5 Olive Oil and Anointing in the Ancient Near East
We seem to know nothing about the origins of anointing as a general cul-

tural phenomenon. Yet the very sacralization of olive oil in ritual anointing
throughout the Near East likely reflects the relatively new cultivation of olives.
Researchers place the cultivation of olive trees in the second wave of plant do-
mestication, long after the first wave, which featured the domestication of basic
grains, at the beginning of the Neolithic period. The first definite indications
of olive cultivation (at archaeological sites in present-day Jordan), believed to
230 Schorsch
be among the earliest fruit trees to be cultivated (along with date palm, fig,
and grape), appear in the Chalcolithic era, around 3700–3500 BCE, while ra-
diocarbon dating suggests that cultivation began already in the second half of
the fifth millenium BCE.30 If some species of trees and certain individual trees
were considered sacred—the first depictions of stylized trees “with obvious
religious significance” appear “in fourth-millennium Mesopotamia” (though
earlier evidence may have been lost or not yet found)—it makes sense that the
use of the oil derived from olives from olive trees, with its unique consistency
and texture, quickly acquired a heightened cultural and cultic meaning.31 In
this light, the third millennium BCE origin, as told to Herodotus, of the Tyrian
temple of Melqart/Heracles, which (at least later) housed one or more sacred
olive trees, might not be mere fantasy. Discussing a gem found at Vapheio, in
Laconia, Greece, that depicts two lion-headed spirit beings holding aloft vases
over a palm sapling (seemingly to water it), Evans notes the likely parallel
Assyrian representations of winged genii fertilizing adult palm trees with male
cones. He speculates that the Vapheio gem dates from the period in which the
“religious cultivation of the young palms” was “being largely introduced on to
Greek soil by the cosmopolitan taste of the Mycenaean rulers.”32
The Hittite myth of Telepinu, or Telepinus, son of the Storm-god, offers a
striking example of the metaphysical-ecological context of agricultural prod-
ucts, including olive oil. Angry, Telepinu abandons his house and “lost himself
in the steppe; fatigue overcame him.” As a consequence, all vegetation and
animal life lost its fecundity, famine ensued, springs dried up. The goddess
Kamrusepas, magician and healer, is brought in to restore the natural—and
hence civic—order. She addresses Telepinu and leads him through a kind of
exorcism ceremony, worth quoting in full:
O Telepinus! [Here lies] sweet and soothing [cedar essence. Just as it

is …], [even so let] the stifled [be set right] again!
30 Reinder Neef, “Introduction, Development and Environmental Implications of

Olive Culture: The Evidence from Jordan,” in Man’s Role in the Shaping of the Eastern
Mediterranean Landscape, ed. S. Bottema, G. Entjes-Nieborg and W. van Zeist (Rotterdam:
Balkema, 1990), 297, 301; David Zohary and Pinhas Spiegel-Roy, “Beginnings of Fruit
Growing in the Old World,” Science 187 (1975): 319–27; Assaf Goor, “The Place of the Olive
in the Holy Land and its History Through the Ages,” Economic Botany 20 (1966): 223.
31 Simo Parpola, “The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and
Greek Philosophy,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 52.3 (1993): 161.
32 Arthur J. Evans, “Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and Its Mediterranean Relations,” JHS 21
(1901): 101.
Here [I have] upthrusting sap [with which to purify thee]. Let it [in-
vigorate] thy heart and thy soul, O Telepinus! Toward the king [turn] in
favor!
Here lies chaff. [Let his heart (and) soul] be segregated [like it]! Here
lies an ear [of grain]. Let it attract his heart [(and) his soul]!
Here lies sesame. [Let his heart (and) soul] be comforted by it. Here
[lie] figs. Just as [figs] are sweet, even so let Te[lepinus’ heart (and) soul]
become sweet!
Just as the olive [holds] oil within it, [as the grape] holds wine within
it, so hold thou, Telepinus, in (thy) heart (and thy) soul good feelings [to-
ward the king]!
Here lies ointment. Let it anoint Telepin[us’ heart (and) soul]! Just as
malt (and) malt-loaves are harmoniously fused, even so let thy soul be in
harmony with the affairs of mankind! [Just as spelt] is clean, even so let
Telepinus’ soul become clean! J[ust as] honey is sweet, as cream is
smooth, even so let Telepinus’ soul become sweet and even so let him
become smooth!
See, O Telepinus! I have now sprinkled thy ways with fine oil. So walk
thou, Telepinus, over these ways that are sprinkled with fine oil! Let šaḫiš
wood and ḫappuriašaš wood be at hand! Let us set thee right, O Telepi-
nus, into whatever state of mind is the right one!33
The ritual works; Telepinu and the world are healed. Kamrusepas gathers
the gods “in assembly under the ḫatalkešnaš tree … (including) the [Is]tusta-
yas, the Good-women (and) the Mother-goddesses, the Grain-god … and the
Patron of the field.”
This myth presents a Hittite parallel to the myths regarding the death and
revival of gods of other peoples: Tammuz in Mesopotamia; Baal in Ugaritic cul-
ture. These myths come to explain the dormant winter season and the spring
resurgence of growth and to provide ritual means of assuring the continuity of
this cycle (as does the end of this myth). Olives and oil (from an unspecified
plant source) appear amid a litany of species on which human life has come
to depend. Threatened by infertility, the world must be restored by the divine
forces that battle with nature for orderliness, necessary for the flourishing of
human—and all—life. Ritual anointing—though the oil here is used on a path
33 James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 127–28 (italics and brackets from Pritchard).
The recording of the myth is dated by scholars to roughly the fifteenth to thirteenth cen-
turies BCE.
232 Schorsch
as well as a person—with plant-based matter (culture = agriculture processed

through or into culture) plays a part in setting aright the natural world. The
text parallels the qualities of central agricultural goods and the benefits they
offer the human psyche, which is acted upon and acts similarly to other spe-
cies, even seemingly inanimate ones.
Based on both ancient Near Eastern evidence and biblical passages,
Daniel E. Fleming emphasizes early Israelite uses of oil as reflecting urban set-
tings, while the anointing of priests other than the high priest
with oil and blood, in contrast, is not associated with the institutions
of urban centers and their palaces and temples. Our one ritual parallel
from Emar [thirteenth c. BCE Syria] derives from a city archive but lo-
cates the anointing with oil and blood at an archaic shrine outside the
city walls. Whereas the anointing of Aaron suggests a natural origin in
the Jerusalem Temple heritage of the priestly Torah, the anointing of his
sons may have roots in a more widespread practice from the old towns,
villages, and shrines of the countryside.34
Fleming’s distinction between temples in urban and rural settings, while in-
triguing, may be difficult. Much depends on how the terms are defined and
applied. On the one hand, some scholars connect the original cultivation of
olive trees with the onset of urbanization in the Neolithic period and note
the link between late Iron Age technological advances yielding “industrial”
production of olive oil and the integration of oil production facilities into set-
tlements.35 On the other hand, ancient cities before the Common Era stood
within the larger natural ecology.
Based on a here much-truncated survey of the evidence, I argue that the
Israelite rituals of anointing as actual acts, certainly in their original histori-
cal iteration, even into the First Temple period, revolved around and built up
senses of the integrated Israelite cosmos of supernature-nature-culture, in
which and as part of which these rituals transpired. Weisman posits that the
literary anointing motifs relate “to the agrarian tradition”—he cites the par-
able of the trees’ anointing of a king from Judg 9:8–15—while the “motif of
the ‘possession by the spirit’ may be possibly related to the desert-nomadic
34 Daniel E. Fleming, “The Biblical Tradition of Anointing Priests,” JBL 117.3 (1998): 414.
35 Rafael Frankel, “Olives,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed.
Eric M. Meyers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): 4:179; David Eitam, “Olive
Production During the Biblical Period,” in Olive Oil in Antiquity: Israel and Neighbouring
Countries from the Neolithic to the Early Arab Period, ed. David Eitam and Michael Heltzer
(Padova: Sargon, 1996), 22.
tradition”—referring to Numbers 11:25–29.36 These supernatural-natural-

cultural meanings—in a non-ideational sense—are further bolstered and
developed in the discourse around anointing from innerbiblical intertextu-
ality, through rabbinic thought and into medieval kabbalah. We might apply
environmental educator Mitchell Thomashow’s term “ecological identity” to
this complex of meanings, by which Thomashow refers to “how people per-
ceive themselves in reference to nature.”37 Olive oil is poured on the head of
certain individuals at a moment of significant transition precisely because the
whole point of the priesthood is to distill the material agricultural productivity
of the nation into human celebration of the divine cosmos, into blessing, into
joy, into immaterial or societal effervescence, in Durkheim’s term.
6 Conclusion
Setting ancient anointing in an ecological context makes it ripe for plausible

new interpretations. One major problem is that little evidence points direct-
ly to Israelite or rabbinic consciousness about ecological connections and
anointing. I can only argue by inference and would seem to be reading into
the tradition and history things I wish were there. Maybe so. Yet the example
of the medieval kabbalists’ strong interpretation of ancient anointing reminds
us that this unfolding of rereadings is what extends the ritual and its meanings.
The cultural and discursive context of kabbalah parallels as well as informs
the cultural and discursive context of Jewish environmentalism. Moshe Idel
has pointed out that
one of the heaviest prices of this apologetic [medieval rationalist phil-

osophical] reinterpretations of Judaism was the further suppression of
apocalyptic, magical, mythical, and mystical elements…. But … the ratio-
nalistic reconstructions of Judaism prompted, in turn, a powerful reac-
tion wherein an amalgam of older traditions, including the same mysti-
cal, mythical, and magical elements, came to the surface in more overt
and more crystallized forms.38
36 Weisman, “Anointing as a Motif,” 378–98.

37 Mitchell Thomashow, Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), xiii.
38 Moshe Idel, “Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah,” in Midrash and Literature, ed.
Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 143.
234 Schorsch
Eilberg-Schwartz cautions that ancient Israelites “would have found implau-

sible the kinds of interpretations offered here” and takes it “as axiomatic that
individuals are not aware of all the interconnections between their practices
and the various strands of thought that exist in their culture.”39 Do claims to
ancient environmental awareness assume just that, awareness of the ecologi-
cal implications of practices? Do they merely posit environmental orientation
on the level of system rather than of the individual? In either case, we must
not assume that ecological embeddedness implies only a beneficent, wise, or
unalienated attitude or set of practices.
Even so, Israelite society, even rabbinic Judaism, stood partway between
orality and literacy. The laws and history were written by a scribal elite, which
promulgated central sacred texts by means of textuality. But the majority
of the society lived an essentially oral existence, even if we remain quite ig-
norant of many of the specifics of their lived reality and of the relationship
between “ordinary” Israelites and the scribal elites and the latter’s prescrip-
tive program. David Abram’s formulation pertains rather plausibly, necessary
modifications notwithstanding: “The multiple ritual enactments, the initiatory
ceremonies, the annual songs and dances of the hunt and the harvest—all are
ways whereby indigenous peoples-of-place actively engage the rhythms of the
more-than-human cosmos, and thus embed their own rhythms within those
of the vaster round.”40
One of our hermeneutical tasks is to be able to comprehend the ancient
textual turn and the mostly urban elite that produced it. Socrates, reflect-
ing a cultural transition in Greece similar in certain ways to the scribal
then rabbinic one in Israel, insists that “I’m a lover of learning, and trees
and open country won’t teach me anything, whereas men in the town do”
(Plato, Phaedr. 230d).41 For us today, realizing perhaps for the first time with
full horror the accumulated historical environmental ignorance of city folk,
the ability to remember what other ancestors of ours might have “learned
from trees,” from their own self-conscious embeddedness in the more-than-
human world, will be helpful.
39 Eilberg-Schwartz, Savage in Judaism, 119.

40 Abram, Spell of the Sensuous, 187.
41 Plato, “Phaedrus,” trans. R. Hackforth, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton
and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 479.
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Index of Names
Aaron 232 Deutsch, Yaacov vii–viii, 4–5

Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen, Rabbi 71 Dueck, Daniela 118–122
Abba Shaul 220 Durandus, William 94
Abbahu, Rabbi 220 Durkheim, Emile 166, 233
Abel 88–89
Abraham 48, 89, 117, 119, 166, 168, 178, 222 Edenberg, Mathias 154–155
Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne 70 Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 215–216, 234
Abraham ben Moses of Sinsheim 59–60 Elazar ben Ya’akov, Rabbi 220–221
Abram, David 221, 234 Eleazar of Worms 33, 35–36, 39
Abulafia, Abraham 216 Eliezer ben Jacob, Rabbi 15
Adam 15, 108 Eliezer ben Samuel of Metz 59
Agrippa, King 4, 133, 135–136, 138, 140–141 Eliezer, Rabbi 169–170
Aha ben Yitzhak, Rabbi 226 Elijah 113
Akiva, Rabbi 133–134 Elman, Yaakov 129
Aldersey, Laurence 152–153 Ephrem the Syrian 175, 177–178, 182–183
Alexander the Great 142–143 Epiphanes, Antiochus 122
Aphrahat 178, 182–183 Evans, Arthur J. 230
Asher ben Jehiel Ashkenazi 71 Ezekiel 219, 222
Augustine of Hippo 86–87, 99 Ezra 134
Avimelech 227–228
Farissol, Abraham 150
Beit-Arié, Malachi 77–78 Fine, Gary M. 119
Benovitz, Moshe 119–120 Fishman, Talya 60
Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria 132, 134 Flavius Josephus 120
Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth 226 Fleming, Daniel E. 232
Bodmer, Martin 40–41, 43 Frankfurter, David 197
Braunschweig, Abraham 156 Friedenheim, Casper 148
Breuer, David 138
Breuer, Yochanan 128, 132 Gafni, Isaiah 142
Brody, Robert 18 Gamaliel, Rabban 17–18
Buber, Martin 141 Gelasius I, Pope 91
Büchler, Adolf 118, 133–134, 140 Gideon (Yeruba’al) 228
Burckard, Johannes 95 Goodblatt, David 18
Buxtorf, Johannes 149–150, 155–156 Gordon, Martin L. 73
Greenberg, Moshe 13
Caro, Joseph 20 Gregory the Great, Pope 88, 91
Castello, Alberto da 88–89 Gregory VII, Pope 91
Chief Rabbi Hertz 20 Grimes, Roland L. 51
Clement VIII, Pope 93, 95 Guattari, Félix 221
Cohen, Shaye 142, 170, 186 Günzburg, Simon Levi 149–150
Cohn, Naftali S. 113, 130, 132
Corbo, Virgilio C. 201 Haber, Susan 200
Coryate, Thomas 151, 153 Haim ben Moses Or Zarua 33
Hanina ben Dosa, Rabbi 223
David 89, 138, 228 Haran, Menahem 13, 228
Deleuze, Gilles 221 Harland, Philip 205
238 Index of names
Häußling, Angelus 91 Knohl, Israel 13, 225

Heracles 230 Kocher, Abigail 15
Herod the Great 13 Kogman-Appel, Katrin vii, 2
Herodotus 230
Hess, Ernst Ferdinand 150 Lehem, Beit 228
Hiebert, Theodore 218, 224–225 Leo X, Pope 88
Hillel 112, 223 Leonhard, Clemens vii, 3, 115
Himmelfarb 226 Levi b. Gershon (Ralbag) 227
Hoffman, Lawrence 18 Lichtenberger, Achim 115
Honi the Circle Maker 223 Liddell, Henry George 12
Hoogh, Romeyn de 157 Lieberman, Saul 113–114, 122, 129, 132
Hosea 222
Hsia, Ronnie 149 Ma´oz, Zvi 198
Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) 20, 31,
Idel, Moshe 233 59, 111, 140, 221
Imanuel, Simhah 33 Mali, Hillel vii, 4
Isaac 48, 89 Mali, Shlomit 143
Isaac ‘Or Zaru’a, Rabbi 59 Marcus, Ivan 62, 79
Isaiah 134 Margaritha, Anthonius 150, 155
Ishmael, Rabbi 57 Martini, Annett vii, 2
Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg, Rabbi 59–60
Jacob 89, 222 Meir ha-Kohen of Rothenburg, Rabbi 59–60,
Jacob ben Meir Tam 62 71
Jacob ben Moses Levi Moelin 33, 46–47 Meir, Rabbi 30
Jacob of Sarug 178 Melqart 230
Jaddus 142 Melchizedek 89
James 180 Menachem ben Solomon Meiri 70
Januarius 86 Michal (Saul’s daughter) 138
Jehudah he-Hasid 77 Modena, Leon 158
Jeremiah 133–134, 222 Molland, Einar 179
Jeremiah, R. 17 Montaigne, Michel de 152
Jesus 6, 15, 85–86, 89, 121, 142, 166, 171–173, Mordekhai ben Hillel ha-Kohen 71–72
176–177, 181–182, 192, 205–206, 208 Mordekhai ben Hillel, Rabbi 59–60
Joel ben Simeon 40 Morrison, Fynes 152
John the Baptist 172 Mose 71, 89, 152, 166, 225, 228–229
Jose, R. 74 Müller, Johannes 156
Josef b. Efraim Caro from Tolendo 72
Joseph ben Samuel Tov Elem 32 Natan, Rabbi 223
Josephus 122, 124, 190, 192, 204 Nehemiah 134
Joshua, Rabbi 169–170 Neusner, Jacob 129, 131
Josiah, King 190, 228–229 Nilson, Andres 155
Judah, Rabbi 30–31, 57 Noah 88
Justin 174
Onkelos 227
Karo, Joseph 149 Oshia, Rabbi 223
Kaufmann, Yehezkel 225
Kimchi, David (Radak) 227 Patai, Raphael 222
Klöckener, Martin vii, 3 Paul 85–86, 99, 173–175, 179, 181–184
Index of names 239
Paul VI, Pope 96–98 Shlomo 226

Pepys, Samuel 154 Simeon b. Nanas, Rabbi 133
Peter 88, 180 Simeon the Righteous 16
Petrus Salanus 154 Simeon, Rabbi 132–133
Philo 192, 201, 204 Simon-Shoshan, Moshe 128–129
Picart, Bernard 157 Singer, Simeon 20
Piccolomini, Agostino Patrizi 94 Sira, Ben 14, 25, 221
Pius V, Pope 91–92 Sofer, David 43
Plutarch 4, 116–119, 121–122, 124–125 Solomon ibn Gabirol 19
Polycharmos, Tiberios 203 Solomon, King 229
Purchas, Samuel 153 Stökl ben Ezra, Daniel 130
Quiñonez, Francesco (Cardinal) 95 Tacitus 4, 117–118, 121–122

Telepinu/Telepinus 230
Rabba, Vayyiqra 121 Theodosius I 205
Rashi 227 Theodotos 6, 199–202
Reif, Stefan vii, 1, 3 Theodulf of Orleans 87–88, 99
Richardson, Peter 203 Thomashow, Mitchell 233
Rosen-Zvi, Ishay 129–134 Tissard, François 150–151
Rouwhorst, Gerard viii, 5 Titus 139
Rubenstein, Jeffrey 18 Trümper, Monica 202
Ruderman, David 151
Ruffiot, Franck 87 Wachtendorp, Reverend 156
Runesson, Anders viii, 5 Waskow, Arthur 218
Rüpke, Jörg 139 Weisman, Ze’ev 216, 232
Wellhausen, Julius 225
Samuel the Pious / the Parchment Wells, Samuel 15
Maker 62–63 White, Michael L. 202
Sandys, Georg 154 Winkler, Gabriele 176
Schammes, Jousep 155 Witte, Immanuel de 157
Schoeps, Hans-Joachim 154–155, 179
Schorsch, Jonathan viii, 6 Yadin, Yigael 198
Schwartz, Seth 135–137, 226 Yehuda, Rabbi 133
Scott, Robert 12 Yohanan b. Zakkai, Rabban 16, 223
Serres, Michel 215
Severa, Julia 204–205 Zalman of St. Goar 46
Shalom ben Isaac of Neustadt 33 Zechariah 218–219
Shimon b. Gamliel, Rabban 138 Zera, R. 17
Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts
Hebrew Bible (according to the Order of 27:16 32

the Biblical Books) 28:1–10 110
Gen Deut
1:1 225 11:13 15
2:4a 225 12:4 61
2:4b 225 14:26 116
2:7 219 16:11 116
2:16 15 16:13–14 116
17 168 26:1 143
28:18 222 26:1–11 4, 131, 135
35:14 222 26:3–10 131
26:10 141, 143
Exod 26:11 143
12:3 28 26:2 143
12:6 28 26:3 141
12:14 73 26:3–10 131
12:19 2 26:9 141
13:3 28 33:24 221
13:8 28
13:9 73 Judg
25:23–40 227 6:32 228
25:31–40 219 9:8–15 232
37:17–24 219 9:16–20 228
39:30 76 13 222
39:40 77
2 Sam
Lev 2:4 228
11:44 225 6 138
13:45 223
17–26 225 1 Kgs
19:2 225 6:23 227
19:32 136 6:31–33 227
20:7 225
22:21 61 2 Kgs
22:32 76 23:4 229
23:40 116, 119 23:6 229
23:42 116 23:8 229
23:42–43 116 23:15 229
23:43 116
26 225 Neh
8 199
Num 8:15 120
11:25–29 233
15:40 225
Ps New Testament (according to the Order of

100 20 the Biblical Books)
122 136
125:3 66 Matt
11:17 204
Prov 21:13 204
28:9 17 28:19–20 183
30:6 69
Luke
Isa 19:46 204
30:29 134
52:1 66 John
56:7 203 3:5–6 183
12:13 121
Jer
2:27 222 Acts
31:4–5 133 6:9 200
31:5 131 15:1–5 173
51:23 134 15:20 180
51:28 134 15:28–29 180
51:57 134
Rom
Ezek 2:25–29 173
23:1 222 3:1–2 173
23:6 134 6 181
23:12 134 16 181
23:23 134
1 Cor
Dan 7:18 169
3:2 134 7:19 173
11:23 85
Hos
4:3 222 Gal
6:3 222 6:5–16 173
9:16 222
14:7 220 Col
2:11–13 173
Hab
3:17 226 Apocrypha / Extra-biblical Literature
(Alphabetical)
Zech
4:2–3 218 Acts Thom 10:38 176
4:11–13 218 Acts Thom 25 177
14:8–9 119 Acts Thom 26 177
16–17 119 Acts Thom 27 177
242 Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts
Acts Thom 67 177 Barcelona Haggadah,

Acts Thom 132 177 London, British Library,
Add. MS 14761 50
1 Macc 1:15 169 Barn 9 173
1 Macc 3:46 204 Bereshit Rabba 33:9 229
1 Macc 7:37 204 Bird’s Head Haggadah 36
1 Macc 13:15 121 Bik 3:3 134
Bik 17 134
2 Macc 6:7 117 BL Add 14761 50
2 Macc 10:6–8 120 Bodmer Haggadah 41, 43
2 Macc 10:7 124 Breviarium
2 Macc 14:33 117 Romanum (1568) 90
Breviarium vetus (no. 5) 91
3 Macc 2:29 117 B Abod Zar 59a 169
3 Macc 7:20 204 B Avod Zar 59 170
B Erub 13a 57
Sir 24:18 221 B Bat 134a 223
B Ber 33b 120
T. Mos. 8:3 169 B Git 57a 223
B B. Metz 21b 220
Wis 4:2 124 B Hul 54b 136
B Hul 77b–78a 224
Other Ancient and Medieval Sources B Menah 16b 111
and Manuscripts (Alphabetical and B Menah 29b 63
according to the Spelling in the B Menah 66a 111
Individual Articles) B Pesah 115a 112
B Qidd 33a 136
Adir dar metuhim 32 B Rosh Hash 30a 112
Adjuration 179 B Sanh 65b 223
Alberto da Castello’s B Shabb 10a 17
Preface in the Roman B Shabb 14a 61
Pontifical from 1520 88 B Sukkah 28a 223
Ant 11.8.4 142 B Sukkah 41a 112
Ant 11.302–45 142 B Ta’an 27b 24
Ant 11.329 143 B Yevam 46a 184
Ant 11.331 143 B Yevam 46a–b 169, 184
Aphrahat 182, 183 B Yevam 47a–b 169, 170, 184
Augustine, Bapt 7, 11, 174 B Yoma 19b 111
Augustine, Epistula 54, 86
to Januarius CD 20.2 201
Avot 1.2 16 CD 10–13 201
Avot de-Rabbi Nathan 4 16 C Faust 19, 4.7 174
C Crescon I 31, 36, 174
Babylonian Talmud,
Pesahim 7b 46 Demonstrations 178
Babylonian Talmud, Dem 11.6 178
Pesahim 79b 29 Dem 11.11–12 182
Dem 12.10.13 182 Hom 14.1 180

Dem 21.18 182 Hymns Epiph 3.4 177, 178
Diamartyria 179 Hymns Virg, 7.7 177
Didascalia 181, 183
Didascalia Apostolorum 175 Irenaeus, adv. haer. I, 26 2, 174
Did Apost 16 177
Did Apost 24 178 Jerome, Comm. Ez. 44 6, 174
Did Apost 26 178 Jewish Antiquities
(11.326–36) 142
Erna Michael Haggadah 40 Josephus, C. Ap. 2.204 197
Elohe ruhot lekhol basar 32 Jub 15:25–34 168
Epiphanius, Pan. XXX, Jub 30:7–14 168
2,2; 5,4; 7,5; 17,5;26,1–3 174 Jub 16:30 117
Ephrem, On Faith 183 Justin, Dial 29:1 173
Ep 116,16 174 Justin, Dial 38:4–39:1 173
Ex quo in Ecclesia Justin, Dial 41:4 173
Dei (1596) 90, 93 Justin, Dial 43:2 173
Justin, Dial 43:2–4 173
General Instruction of Justin, Dial 46:1 174
the Roman Missal 98 Justin, Dial 47:1–5 174
Gen Rab 46:13 169 Justin, Dial 113:6–7 173
Gerim 185 Justin, Dial 114:4 173
Gerim 1 185 J.W. 7.63–74 138
Gerim 5 185 J.W. 7.100–103 138
Golden Haggadah 48 J.W. 7.101 139
J.W. 7.119–120 138
Haggadah, London,
British Library, MS Leipzig Mahzor 37
Or.2737 47
Halakhot Qetanot, Ma’aseh Book 62
Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §3 71 Maimonides, Mishne
Halakhot Qetanot, Torah, Sefer Zemanim,
Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §4 71 Hamets umatsah 31
Hamburg Miscellany 39 Masekhet Sofrim 16:9 223
Hecataeus of Abdera 117 Massekhet Sefer Torah 59, 61, 74
Hillel ha-Kohen, Halakhot Massekhet Soferim 59, 61, 74
Qetanot, (Menahot) chapter Massekhet Soferim 5.6 76
qomez rabbah, §966 72 Maysebukh 62
Hom 3.73 181 Menah 9:1 220
Hom 7.4 180 Mishnah Bikkurim 133
Hom 7.8 181 Mishnah Pesahim 1:1–4 30–31
Hom 9.19 180 Mishnah 3 133
Hom 11.26 180 Mishnah 4 133
Hom 11.26–27 180 Mishnah 5 133
Hom 11.30 180, 181 Mishnah 6 133
Hom 11.36 180 Mishnah 9–10 133
Hom 13.4 180 Mishnah Hul. 12:1 227
Hom 13.5 180 Mishne Torah 31
244 Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts
Missale Romanum (1570) 90, 92, 95 Pseudo- Clementine

Moed 4 139 Homilies 178, 179
M Abod Zar 1.2, 8a 108 Pseudo-Clementine
M Ber 5:1 140 Recognitions 178, 179
M Bik. 2:4 132
M Bik. 3:1 132 Qeset ha-Sofer 72
M Bik. 3.2–3 113 Qiryat Sefer 71
M Bik. 3:3–4 135 Quod a Nobis 91, 96
M Bik. 5:6 133 Quo primum (1570) 90, 92
M Ed. 5:2 169
M Maimonides, Guide to Rec 1.33.5 179
the Perplexed, pt. 3, ch. 17 221 Rec 3.67 181
M Mid 2:4 229 Rec 4.32 180
M Ker 6 223 Rec 4.36 180
M Ma’as 3:4 220 Rec 5.34.2 179
M Menah 8:3 220 Rec 6.10 180
M Parah 3:6,7 229 Rec 6.15 180
M Pesah 10.2 17 Rec 6.9 180
M Pesah 8:8 169 Rec 7.29 180
M Pe’ah 1:5 220 Rec 7.30 180
M Pe’ah 7:1 220, 221 Rec 7.38 180
M Sheqal 4:2 229 Rec 8.53.2 179
M Sotah 7:8 134 Rec 9.28 179
M Sotah 9.10 121 Rec 9.7 180
M Sukkah 3.12 112 Rec 44–48 181
M Sukkah 5.2 121
M Yoma 7:1 134 Sacrosanctum
Concilium 23 97
On Epiphany 178 Schulḥan ‘Arukh 20
On the Egyptians 117 Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 23
On Passover 182 Sefer Benei Yonah 72
Orhot Hayyim 71 Sefer Ḥasidim 56, 61, 63, 65,
Origen, Hom. in Gen. 3:5 174 72, 75, 76, 78
Sefer ha-Eshkol, Hilkhot
Papal Bulls quod a Sefer Torah, §11 70
nobis (1568) 90 Sefer ha-Eshkol, Hilkhot
Periodoi Petrou 178 Sefer Torah, §13 70
Pesach Haggadah, Cologny, Sefer ha-Terumah, Hilkhot
Fondation Martin Bodmer 40 Sefer Torah, §192 70
Pesiq Rab Kah 6.3 110 Sefer Maharil 46
Pesiq Rab 21:2 142 Sefer Minhagim 149
Philo, Prob 80–83 201 Sefer Miṣvot Gadol, §25 71
Plato, Phaedr 230d 234 Sefer Terumah 69
Plutarch 4 Shev 4:4, 35b 224
Plutarch, Quaest Shulhan Arukh 72, 149
Conv 4.6.2 118 SH §33 67
Pontificale Romanum SH §52 69
(1595/1596) 90, 95 SH §66 68
SH §404 68 Tosefta Bikkurim 2:8 132

SH §405 68 Tractate Bikkurim 131
SH §680 65 Tractate Tamid 129
SH §681 65 T Ber 3.1–2, 26b 109
SH §682 66 T Bik 1:7 132
SH §697 76 T Bik 3:3, 65c 136
SH §712 63 T Bikk 2:10 141
SH §§714 64 T Menah 9:5 220
SH §715 76 T Mos 8:3.1 169
SH §719 76 T Pesah 10.11 123
SH § 722 76 T Pesah 10.11–12 109
SH §723 76 T Sheqal 2:15 139
SH §724 64 T Shev. 7:12
SH §725 64 T Sukka 4:4 138
SH §728 64 T Sukkah 3.14–15 114
SH §731 69 T Sukkah 4.1–5 121
SH §732 63 T Yoma 1.9 111
SH §733 73
SH §745 67 Vayyiqra Rabba 30.2 121
SH §886 68 Vayikra Rabbah 30 142
SH §1059 65
SH §1211 68 Washington Haggadah 39
SH §1348 66, 67
SH §1748 69 Yahuda Haggadah 43
SH §1753 63 Y Bik 3:2, 65c 136
SH §1754 64 Y Bik 3.3 65c 113
SH §1762 77 Y Bikk 3:3, 65c 139
SH §1763 73 Y Pe’ah 7, 1, 20a 221
Sifra emor, parashah Y Qidd 64d 44–55, 169
12/pereq 16.9 112 Y Qidd 64d 170
Sifre 15 Y Qod 64d 44–55, 169
Sifrei Ba- Midbar 132 Y Shev 4:4, 35b 224
Siphre ad Deuteronomium 15 Y Sukkah 5.2, 55b 121
Solomon ibn Gabirol 19 Y Ter 6:6 132
Y Yoma 41d 226
Tacitus 4
Tacitus, Hist 5.5.5 117 Zevaḥim 24
Tacitus, Hist 5.8.1 117 Zohar 186
Tertullian, de praescript. Zweite Nürnberger und
haer 33:11 174 die Jehuda Haggada 41, 43
Teshuvot ha-Geonim, §432 70
Tetzave 13 226 11QTa [11Q19] 42:7–17 120
Theodotos inscription 6, 199 1QM 3.3–4 201
Theodulf of Orleans: 1QS 201
The Preface Hucusque 4Q255–264a 201
to the Supplementum of 5Q11 201
the Sacramentarium
Gregorianum 87

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Ritual Dynamics in Jewish and Christian Contexts (Claudia D. Bergmann, Benedikt Kranemann)

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Ritual Dynamics in Jewish and Christian Contexts

Jewish and Christian

Doron Bar – Marcel Poorthuis

Yehoyada Amir – Shaye Cohen – Judith Frishman

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

Names: Bergmann, Claudia D., editor. | Kranemann, Benedikt, editor.

Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Preface and Acknowledgments vii

1 Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a Reading of Texts? 11

2 Ritualizing the Cleaning of the House before Passover in Medieval

3 The Ritualization of Manufacturing and Handling Holy Books by the

4 Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern Liturgical Books 85

5 Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples 107

6 Conceptual and Ideological Aspects in the Mishnaic Description of

7 Christian Presence in Jewish Ritual 148

8 Initiation by Circumcision and Water Baptism in Early Judaism and

9 Space, Ritual, and Politics in (the Reconstruction of) the Ancient

10 Olive Oil, Anointing, Ecstasy, and Ecology 215

Index of Names 237

Deutsch writes about early modern examples of Christians watching or par-

Claudia D. Bergmann and Benedikt Kranemann

2.1 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Voller 1002/I (Leipzig Mahzor), fol. 68r,

Technical Abbreviations and Eras

b. ben (son of)

Biblical and Other Ancient and Medieval Texts

1QS Serekh ha-Yahad (Manual of Discipline)

J.W. Josephus, Jewish War

Wis Wisdom of Solomon

Journals, Reference Volumes, Monograph Series, and Editions

CCL Cambridge Companions to Literature

INR Israel Numismatic Research

NIV New International Version

the Anthropocene Age,” One World—Many Faiths: Religious Contributions to

Rituals are frequently considered to be bound by tradition and repetitive, done

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_002

developed an increasingly ritualized approach towards the kitvei qodesh.

Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_003

3 Early Jewish Worship

Text 3. This is a remarkable report in the Babylonian Talmud in which a view

13 See b. Shabb. 10a.

16 David M. Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden: Brill, 1975);

of substitution and compensation.19 As the famous poet, Solomon ibn Gabirol,

Another aspect of liturgical development during the geonic period concerned

Such a process applied to the numerous artefacts associated with Jewish

9 Rubrics, Study Texts, and Informative Announcements

A person should always be God-fearing in private [and in public], should

In many editions, there is in the layout no indication whatsoever of the origi-

A similar development has occurred in connection with the fifth chapter

The response of the congregation to that announcement should be, and no

It seems justifiable to conclude that a number of important developments in

30 See b. Ta’an. 27b; Sacks, ed., Koren Siddur, 50–53.

existence in parallel of formal and institutionalized liturgy in the Jerusalem

Ritualizing the Cleaning of the House before

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_004

We have no knowledge about the possible reasons for the development of

7 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 79b.

Before I discuss these images, however, I relate to another observation

14 Elisabeth Hollender, Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript

13 See b. Shabb. 10a.

16 David M. Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden: Brill, 1975);

30 See b. Ta’an. 27b; Sacks, ed., Koren Siddur, 50–53.

7 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 79b.

14 Elisabeth Hollender, Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript

19 Imanuel, ed., Derashah, 72–76.

39 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim, 7b.

2 See b. Erub. 13a.

11 All translations are my own unless noted otherwise.

45 S H §§733, 1763.

48 assekhet Sefer Torah and Massekhet Soferim, chapters 4 and 5.

69 Wilhelm Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 4th ed. (Graz: Akademische

zum Supplementum Anianense des gregorianischen Sakramentars ins Deutsche übertra-

21 Zerfaß and Häußling, “Bulle ‘Quod a Nobis,’ ” 200.

31 See more extensively Klöckener, “Tradition und Erneuerung,” 63–66.

1 Claudia D. Bergmann, University of Erfurt, Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwis-