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On the Meaning of the Term “Jew” in Greco-Roman Inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Ross S. Kraemer
Ross S. Kraemer
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

The Greek terms Ἰουδαῖος/Ἰουδαία and their Latin equivalents Iudaeus/Iudaea have rarely posed serious translation problems for scholars. Whether in masculine or feminine form, singular or plural, regardless of declension, these terms have usually been taken as straightforward indicators of Jews, at least when applied to individual persons. Only recently A. T. Kraabel has suggested that these terms, uniformly translated “Jew” or “Jews,” might have other significance, in particular as indicators of geographic origin, that is, “Judaean(s).”

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 35 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1989

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References

1 For the sake of convenience, I will refer primarily to the Greek terms; in general, the reader may assume that general comments hold true for both Greek and Latin forms, unless I indicate otherwise. On the meaning of these terms, see Solomon Zeitlin, “The Names Hebrew, Jew and Israel: A Historical Study,” JQR n.s. 43 (1952–53) 365–79. See also Tomson, Peter J., “The Names Israel and Jews in Ancient Judaism and in the New Testament,” Tijdschrift voor filosophie en theologie 47 (1986) 120–40.Google Scholar

2 Of course, Ioudaia has uniformly been translated “Judaea” when it occurs in a manifestly geographic context. For some examples of the assumptions behind the translation of these terms, see Frey, Jean-Baptiste, “Inscriptions inédites des catacombs juives de Rome,” Rivista Archaeologia Cristiana 7 (1930) 235–60Google Scholar. Frey distinguishes between “une indication de race et de nationalitè” and “une indication de religion.” See also Hirschberg, H. Z. (J. W.), A History of the Jews of North Africa, vol. 1: From Antiquity to the Sixteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1974)Google Scholar, who assumes that in the North African inscriptions, the terms are simply ethnic appellations: “The authors of the inscriptions mostly did not try to conceal the religious and national identity of the buried. In comparatively many cases we find the ethnic appellation ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewess’” (69).

3 Kraabel, A. Thomas, “The Roman Diaspora: Six Questionable Assumptions,” JJS 33 (1982) 445–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Gager, John G., The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)Google Scholar. The literature on the degrees of pagan attraction to Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, and the possible distinctions between God-fearers, pagan sympathizers, and “formal” converts is considerable. Kraabel has argued strongly (above, n. 3) that the various phrases translated as God-fearers, sebomenoslē, phoboumenoslē, theosebēs, metuens, etc., cannot be construed as technical terms. See also Kraabel, A. Thomas, “The Disappearance of the God-fearers,” Numen 28 (1981) 113–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Greeks, Jews, and Lutherans in the Middle Half of Acts,” in George W. E. Nickelsburg and George MacRae, eds., Christians Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (= HTR 79 [1986]) 147–57Google Scholar. Others have construed the evidence quite differently; see, e.g., John G. Gager, “Jews, Gentiles, and Synagogues in the Book of Acts,” Ibid., 91–99, and Finn, Tom, “The Godfearers Reconsidered,” CBQ 47 (1985) 75–84Google Scholar. Additional bibliography can be found in all four articles. A newly published inscription from ancient Aphrodisias has been read by a number of scholars as the definitive evidence against Kraabel's interpretation, but there will doubtless be additional discussion. See Reynolds, Joyce M. and Tannenbaum, Robert, Jews and God-fearers at Aphrodisias: Greek Inscriptions with Commentary (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Philological Society, 1987).Google Scholar

5 I am indebted to Tom Kraabel for hammering away at me on this point!

6 Given the haphazard state of Jewish inscriptions, there may be a few more in obscure publications which I have missed. I would appreciate hearing from anyone with additional references to individuals in inscriptions. My approximation of the number of Jewish inscriptions at 1700 is based on the numbering in CIJ (which gave 1539 inscriptions, but did not include certain geographic areas), taking into account those regions not included in Frey, together with new inscriptions. I have not attempted to count all the relevant inscriptions.

The majority of known Jewish inscriptions are collected in Frey, Jean-Baptiste, ed., Corpus of Jewish Inscriptions: Jewish Inscriptions from the Third Century B.C. to the Seventh Century A.D., vol. 1: Europe (New York: Ktav, 1975)Google Scholar, with prolegomenon by Lifshitz, Baruch, originally published as Corpus lnscriptionum Judicarum (Rome: Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, 1936)Google Scholar in 2 vols. Vol. 1 covers Europe; vol. 2 (which has not been updated) covers Asia Minor, Syria, Judea, and Egypt. More recently, donative inscriptions were compiled by Lifshitz, Baruch, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris: Gabalda, 1967).Google Scholar

The Roman inscriptions were revised and translated into English in an appendix to Leon, Harry J., The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1966)Google Scholar. A small number of additional Jewish inscriptions were published by Fasola, Umberto M., “Le due catacombe Ebraiche di Villa Torlonia,” Rivista di Archaeologia Cristiana 52 (1972) 7–63.Google Scholar

The Jewish inscriptions from various towns in North Africa (Cirta, Cyrene, Tocra, etc.) were never compiled by Frey, who died before he could assemble the planned third volume of CIJ. Some of these are published in Gray, John, “The Jewish Inscriptions in Greek and Hebrew at Tocra, Cyrene and Barce,” in Rowe, Allen, ed., Cyrenaican Expedition of the University of Manchester, 1952 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956)Google Scholar, or in Ferron, A., “Inscriptions juives de Carthage,” Cahiers de Byrsa 1 (1951) 175–206Google Scholar, and most recently in Lüderitz, Gert, Corpus jüdischer Zeugnisse aus der Cyrenaika (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1983)Google Scholar. Others from North Africa are only in CIL or even less accessible. See also Delattre, Alfred Louis, Gamart ou la necropole juive de Carthage (Lyons, 1895)Google Scholar; Monceau, P., “Les colonies juives dans l'Afrique romaine,” REJ 44 (1902) 1–28;Google Scholar Hirschberg, Jews in North Africa, and Appelbaum, Shimon, Jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrene (SJLA 28; Leiden: Brill, 1979)Google Scholar. See esp. Bohec, Yann Le, “Inscriptions juives et judaisantes,” and “… remarques onomastiques,” Antiquitès africaines 17 (1981) 165–207, 209–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

The inscriptions from Egypt were edited and translated by Lewis, David M. in Tcherikover, Victor A. and Fuks, Alexander, ed., Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964)Google Scholar. Notices of new Greek Jewish inscriptions occur frequently in Bulletin èpigraphique, while L'annèe èpigraphique reports Latin Jewish inscriptions. In the last few years a new publication, Horsley, G. H. R., ed., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity (= NewDocs; North Ryde: MacQuarie University, 1981 –)Google Scholar, currently 4 vols., has included notices of newly published Jewish inscriptions. Small numbers of Jewish inscriptions from the Greco-Roman period may occasionally be found in such works as Scheiber, Alexander, Jewish Inscriptions in Hungary (Leiden: Brill, 1983).Google Scholar

For inscriptions from Asia Minor, one needs to search extensively through Louis Robert, Hellenica, as well as in Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua. Still helpful is Ramsay, William H., The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Clarendon, 1895–1897Google Scholar; reprinted New York: Arno, 1975).

Finally, extremely helpful, though not exhaustive in bibliography, is Kant, Larry, “Jewish Inscriptions in Greek and Latin,” ANRW II.20.2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987) 671–713.Google Scholar

7 Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs.

8 Frey, “Inscriptions inédites,” 251.

9 Leon, Jews of Ancient Rome, 267.

10 Cameron, A., “Threptos and Related Terms in the Inscriptions of Asia Minor,” in Calder, W. M. and Keil, Josef, eds., Anatolian Studies Presented to William Hepburn Buckler (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1939) 27–62Google Scholar. See also Nani, T. G., “THREPTOI,” Epigraphica 5–6 (1943–1944) 45–84Google Scholar; Boswell, John, “Expositio and Oblatio: The Abandonment of Children and the Ancient and Medieval Family,” AHR 89 (1984) 10–33;Google ScholarPubMed and Beryl Rawson, “Children in the Roman Familia,” in idem, ed.. The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986) 170–200Google Scholar. CIJ 3 records a male threptos, but the exact relationship between this Justus and Menandros, who dedicates the inscription, is unclear.

According to m. Ketub. 1.2–4, a female child who converted to Judaism past the age of three years and one day was not considered a virgin for the purposes of reckoning her dowry, and so on, but I see no way in which that clarifies the presence of a three-year-old proselyte, even if we could be sure that Jews in Rome at this time would have subscribed to rabbinic views on such matters.

11 Cohen, Shaye J. D., “The Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law,” AJSRev 10 (1985) 19–53Google Scholar; idem, “The Matrilineal Principle in Historical Perspective,” Judaism 43 (1985) 5–13.Google Scholar

12 Bruneau, Philippe, “Les Israelites de Délos et la juiverie délienne,” Bulletin de correspondance hellenistique 106 (1982) 465–504CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kraabel, A. T., “New Evidence of the Samaritan Diaspora Has Been Found on Delos,” BA (March 1984) 44–46.Google Scholar

13 Hoenig, Stanley B., “Conversion During the Talmudic Period,” in Eichhorn, David Max, ed., Conversion to Judaism: A History and Analysis (New York: Ktav, 1965) 33–66; the reference is to t. Ned. 2.4.Google Scholar

14 Goodenough, E. R., Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (13 vols.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953) 2. 137–40.Google Scholar

15 Scheiber, Jewish Symbols in Hungary, 45.

16 See “A Problem Like Maria,” NewDocs 1979 [1987] no. 115 for a detailed discussion of the name Maria in inscriptions.Google Scholar

17 E.g., the proselyte Beturia Paulla takes on the name of Sarah (CIJ 523). See Horsley, G. H. R., “Name Change as an Indication of Religious Conversion in Antiquity,” Numen 34 (1987) 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 CIJ 1. 576.

19 See Kraemer, Ross S., “Non-literary Evidence for Jewish Women in Rome and Egypt,” in Skinner, Marilyn B., ed., Rescuing Creusa: New Methodological Approaches to Women in Antiquity (= Helios 12 [1986]) 85–101Google Scholar. For some discussion of the methodological problems in using epigraphy for demography, see Hopkins, Keith, “On the Probable Age Structure of the Roman Population,” Population Studies 20 (1966) 245–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

20 I have discussed this at length in a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Dallas, 1983, “The Conversion of Women to Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period,” which is condensed from a larger unfinished manuscript.

21 CIJ 741, 750, 753, 764, 778, 786, 789, 790, 791, 793, 794, 795, and TAM 3 (1941) 448 (discussed in Robert, , Hellenica 11–12 [1960] 386)Google Scholar; BE (1971) 645. CIJ 741 refers to Rufina loudaia (on which, see above, p. 45); CIJ 750 refers to Getiores, who is actually called Ebraia, not loudaia.

22 TAM 3 (1941) 448, also in Robert, , Hellenica 11–12 (1960) 386.Google Scholar

23 Quoted in French translation in Robert, , Hellenica 11–12 (1960) 386.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 386 n. 2.

25 Brooten, Bernadette J., Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (BJS 36; Chico: Scholars Press, 1982) 10.Google Scholar

26 CIL 8. 7710, for another Rufina who may be called Judea, from Theveste in North Africa. See below, p. 43.

27 See Brooten, Women Leaders, 10 for this interpretation of thremmata.

28 Hirschberg, Jews in North Africa, 181. See also Frey, “Inscriptions inédites,” 239, who claims that “half” the actual proselyte inscriptions are to slaves or threptoi. He thinks that Rufina was the instrument of conversion here. In the Ps.-Clem. Homilies 13.7.3–8.1 two men are bought by a convert to Judaism named Justa, who adopted them and educated them in worship and study.

29 TAM 3 (1941) 448; CIJ 775 and CIJ 779, although in the case of the latter, it is not absolutely clear that this is a Jewish inscription.Google Scholar

30 Beturia Paulla, CIJ 523.

31 CPJ 1537, 1538. Recent discussion in NewDocs 1979 (1987) no. 26 (= pp. 113–17). Republished in Bernand, André, Le paneion de 'El-Kanaīs: Les inscriptions grecques (Leiden: Brill, 1972).Google Scholar

32 CIL 8. 7150, 7155, 7530, 7710, 8423, 8499, 17584, 20759.

33 Oehler, Johannes, “Epigraphische Beiträge zur Geschichte des Judentums,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 53 (1909) 292–302; 443–52; 525–38. Note that the reading [Iu]deae is reconstructed, although it fits better than that offered by the CIL editor: [sacerdoti]deae.Google Scholar

34 On the title pater synagogae see Brooten, Women Leaders, 64 – 71.

35 See Cohen, “Origins of the Matrilineal Principle,” and idem, “Matrilineal Principle in Historical Perspective” (n. 11).

36 CIJ 523, Beturia Paulla, called mother of the synagogues of Campus and Volumnius. See Brooten, Women Leaders, 57–59.

37 CIL 8. 7150. It is unlikely but not impossible that the syntax of the second inscription does not follow that of the first, but instead supports the translation: “Avilia Aster Iudea (and) M. Avilius Ianuarus, father of the synagogue, to (his/their) sweetest daughter.” Here we would eliminate the difficulties caused by a wife and daughter called Iudea, and hypothesize instead that Avilius was twice married to women who converted to Judaism. If so, this inscription would constitute one of the rare pieces of evidence for a mixed marriage in which a non-Jewish woman converted and married a Jewish man (although not demonstrably in that order). Marriage between a Jewish woman and a non-Jewish man may possibly be reflected in CIJ 63*, 69*, 71*; as well as in Scheiber, Jewish Inscriptions in Hungary, nos. 4 and 5. She might have married him and then converted, adopting the name Judea. Drew-Bear, Thomas (Nouvelles inscriptions de Phrygie [Zutphen: Terra, 1978] # 20, reprinting Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, 2. 218) thinks that the marriage of Justa, wife of Dionysius, was mixed. The parents of Irene in CIJ 21, discussed above, might also have been a mixed marriage.Google Scholar

38 E.g., CIJ 296, 678, 680, 697, 715i, and all the North African inscriptions (see n. 32 above).

39 E.g., CIJ 693, 665. See also CIJ 250: “Marcia bona Iudea … “.

40 CIJ 21.

41 CPJ 3. 45ff.

42 Professor Amy Richlin of the Classics Department at Lehigh University reminds me that we cannot tell from the inscription whether the woman is freeborn or merely freed, and consequently who named Septimia Maria, since someone else, such as the father or the owner, might have named the child if the mother was a slave when the daughter was born, or if the daughter was a slave at birth.

43 CIJ 68. One might argue that Crescens is a Christian proselyte, born to a mother who initially sympathized with Judaism and thus named her son Iudeus. The terminology of the inscription would not contradict such a reading, nor does the photograph in Frey indicate any Jewish symbols. Diehl classed the inscription as Jewish in Inscriptions Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin, 1927) 2. 497.Google Scholar

44 CIJ 202. See Smallwood, Mary, “The Alleged Jewish Tendencies of Poppaea Sabina,” JTS n.s. 10 (1959) 329–35. See also Frey, Inscriptions inédites, 251–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Juvenal Satire 14. 96–106, in (inter alia) Stern, Menahem, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976– ) 2. 301 (pp. 102–3).Google Scholar

46 E.g., Bell. 2.120.

47 See, e.g., the index to Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, vol. 3.

48 E.g., Plutarch De lside et Osiride, 259.

49 Damascius Vita Isidori (in Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, 2. 678–79).

50 Dio Cassius Historia Romana 66.1.4 (in Stern, Greek and Latin Authors, 2. 371), and 37.17.1 (Ibid., 349–51).

51 See Gaston, Lloyd, “Judaism of the Uncircumcised in Ignatius and Related Writers,” in Wilson, Stephen P., ed., Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, vol. 2: Separation and Polemic (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1986) 33–44.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 44.

53 Gaston's underlying hypothesis is significant: Gentile Christians who falsely call themselves Jews are the cause of unfair Christian slander of Jews. “Not all Judaisms are Jewish, and it is unfair for Jews to be tarred with the brush of Gentile Christian judaizers” (“Judaism of the Uncircumcised,” 44). The issues here are quite complex. When the author of Revelation says that these people say they are Jews, but they are not (Rev 2:9; 3:9) what exactly is at stake? What makes these people not Jews? All the conceivable problems of definition may be raised in attempting to understand this passage. When Ignatius claims that it is better to hear Christianity from the circumcised than Judaism from the uncircumcised (Phil. 6.1), does this mean that Gentiles are teaching Judaism, or could it conceivably be evidence of the presence of born Jews who do not practice circumcision? The answers to these questions are regrettably beyond the scope of this paper, if not incapable of resolution given the available evidence.

54 E.g., CPJ 8, 9, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30.

55 E.g., CPJ 500, 505, 508, 509, 511, 512. See also CPJ 451 (and 151), which is of particular interest in some respects because it refers to a man named Hellenos, son of Tryphon, who apparently referred to himself as an Alexandrian, only to have the scribe cross that out and replace it with the phrase “a Jew from Alexandria.” The editors conjecture that when the scribe had the full facts before him, he disagreed with Hellenos's original phrasing, and replaced it with a more legally accurate terminology.

56 I am indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant during 1982–83, which enabled me to do the basic research and some of the writing for this article. A portion of this paper was read in the fall of 1986 before the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins, members of which provided much helpful critique. Robert Kraft read an earlier draft and offered several helpful observations, while a detailed written critique by Tom Kraabel was especially important in producing the final version.