Ritual Dynamics in Jewish and Christian Contexts: Between Bible and Liturgy 9789004405950, 9789004400924, 900440595X

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Figures
Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction
Part 1 Ritual Dynamics in (Holy) Jewish and Christian Texts
Chapter 1 Is Rabbinic Prayer a Liturgy, or Essentially a Reading of Texts?
Chapter 2 Ritualizing the Cleaning of the House before Passover in Medieval Ashkenaz: Image and Text in Illuminated Haggadot
Chapter 3 The Ritualization of Manufacturing and Handling Holy Books by the Hasidei Ashkenaz between Halakah and Magic
Chapter 4 Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern Liturgical Books
Part 2 A Dynamic Relationship: Christian and Jewish Traces in Jewish and Christian Texts
Chapter 5 Memories of the Temple and Memories of Temples
Chapter 6 Conceptual and Ideological Aspects in the Mishnaic Description of Bringing the First Fruits to Jerusalem
Chapter 7 Christian Presence in Jewish Ritual
Part 3 Comparing and Contrasting Rituals
Chapter 8 Initiation by Circumcision and Water Baptism in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
Chapter 9 Space, Ritual, and Politics in (the Reconstruction of) the Ancient Synagogue: An Exploration of the Historical Archive
Part 4 Dynamic Rituals and Innovation of Rituals in Modern Contexts
Chapter 10 Olive Oil, Anointing, Ecstasy, and Ecology
Index of Names
Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts

Citation preview

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

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1388-2074 isbn 978-90-04-40092-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-40595-0 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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 7

Contents

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 significant scientific interest. It was supported by both the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and the University of Erfurt. Many of the papers presented 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 rituals 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 memories 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 participating 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 examples 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 advanced 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 1–2 Kgs 1–3 Macc 1QM

1 Corinthians 1–2 Kings 1–3 Maccabees Milhamah (War Scroll)

Abbreviations 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

xi

xii 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

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 CCL CEOED

Abbreviations

Cambridge Companions to Literature 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 INR IS JAAR JAJSup JBV JCP JH JHS JJS JJTP JMRS JNES JQR JRA JRAI JSJ JSJSup JSocS JSQ JSt JU KJV Lieberman

xv

Israel Numismatic Research Italia sacra Journal of the American Academy of Religion Supplements to Journal of Ancient Judaism Journal of Beliefs and Values: Studies in Religion and Education Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series Jewish History Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Roman Archaeology Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series Jewish Social Studies Jewish Studies Quarterly Jewish Studies Judentum und Umwelt King James Version 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 NIV NJPS

Abbreviations

New International Version 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 VT WBC Weiss WM WMS Worship WUNT YJS

Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Weiss, Isaac Hirsch, ed. Sifra on Leviticus. New York: Om, 1947. Wormser Minhagbuch Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien Worship Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Yale Judaica Series

xvii

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 relations 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 assumed 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 theology, 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-WeberKolleg 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 collection” 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, historische 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 published 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 performance, 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 development 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, passages 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 concept 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

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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 subjected 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, although 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 region, 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 halakot. 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 preparatory 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 “liturgy” 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 nearly 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 ritualization. Martin Klöckener, “Concepts of History and Tradition in Modern Liturgical Books,” writes on the liturgical books of the Catholic Church, published after the Council of Trent as Editiones typicae; they have remained the normative ritual books until after the Second Vatican Council. The trend towards 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 greater 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 contemporary Greek celebrations. A perhaps more impressive example of possible contacts with Greek rituals may be detected in the Feast of Tabernacles. The

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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 recall similar texts from Greek temples. Tacitus and Plutarch already mentioned parallels between ritual performances of the cult of Dionysus and the celebration 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 rabbis 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 different 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 ethnography. Christian travelers who came to synagogues or Jewish houses in order to observe how Jews celebrate their holidays or perform circumcisions or marriages, normally were not interested in polemics; they rather described what they saw, keeping their critical remarks to a minimum. The Jewish communities 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 extent, 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 ongoing 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 initiation 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 referring 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, preChristian, 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 circumcision 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 influences 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

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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 differentiation between political and religious space. But in general their closest functional parallel would be Greco-Roman voluntary associations. In the diaspora 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 synagogues in which Jesus and the Pharisees interacted. Here were the institutional origins of the later church and synagogue (as nonpolitical institutions exclusively 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 obtained 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 originally 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 traditions 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 muchbetter-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 attempting to trace some distinctions between liturgy, prayer, and ritual. The subject of the subsequent section will be more specific and will deal with rabbinic 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 period. 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 become 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 inscriptions and artefacts immediately presents the visitor with numerous examples

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

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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, declarations, and physical representations of worshipers and their gods, indicating clearly that from the earliest times, manifestations of worship and their locations 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 borrowed 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 immediately 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 citizens 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, especially 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 ?

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13

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 intention 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 channel 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).

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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 variety 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 moment 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 growing 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 religious 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 worship, 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 liturgical 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.

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within the liturgical sphere, without detaining ourselves longer, in order to assess 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 continued 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 challenges 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, internal 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.

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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 (edited 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 established 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 forgiveness 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.

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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 theological 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.

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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 houses of our ancestors in Egypt; bitter herbs, because the Egyptians embittered 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 written 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 sacrificial 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.

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

19

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 offering exonerated, but now there is neither sin offering nor burnt offering, 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 worshipers could create within themselves the correct spiritual frame of mind with which to approach the Almighty and commence the statutory prayers themselves. The new halakic regime not only reported as favorable such recitation of chapters of Psalms but characterized this activity as an undertaking voluntarily 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 talmudic 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 century, 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 appendix 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, adopted 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.

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

21

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 development 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 employed 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 accommodated halakic works, mystical tracts, biblical lectionaries, and calendrical lists. As the Hebrew manuscripts became larger and grander, they attracted to themselves 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

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into the prayers of many other communities. They also entered the prayer books of those wealthy enough to commission exemplars from privately employed 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 invention 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 (socalled “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 ritualized. 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

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

23

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 marking 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 original 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 traditionally 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 therefore 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.

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

25

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 almost 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 ambivalent 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 substantially 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 synagogue 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, standardization, 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. Bibliography Avi-Yonah, Michael. “Jewish Art and Architecture in the Hasmonean and Herodian Periods.” Pages 250–63 in The Herodian Period. Vol. 7 of World History of the Jewish People. Edited by Michael Avi-Yonah and Zvi Baras. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1975.

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Beer, Georg, ed. Faksimile-Ausgabe des Mischnacodex Kaufmann A 50: Mit Genehmigung der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Budapest. Hague: Nijhoff, 1929. Brody, Robert. The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Brody, Robert. “Liturgical Uses of the Book of Psalms in the Geonic Period.” Pages 61–81 in Prayers That Cite Scripture. Edited by James L. Kugel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. Fine, Steven. This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-Roman Period. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Finkelstein, Louis, ed. Siphre ad Deuteronomium H. S. Horovitzii schedis usus cum variis lectionibus et adnotationibus [Hebrew]. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1969. Fleischer, Ezra. Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Keter, 1975. Friedmann, M., ed. Seder Eliahu Rabba und Seder Eliahu Zuta (Tanna d’be Eliahu). Vienna: Achiasaf, 1902. Goldin, Judah. The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan. YJS 10. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955. Goldschmidt, E. Daniel. “The Oxford Ms. of Maimonides’ Book of Prayer.” Pages 187– 216 in On Jewish Liturgy: Essays on Prayer and Religious Poetry [Hebrew]. Jerusalem, 1978. Goodblatt, David M. Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia. Leiden: Brill, 1975. Greenberg, Moshe. Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Haran, Menahem. “Priesthood, Temple, Divine Service.” HAR 7 (1983): 121–35. Hertz, Joseph H., ed. The Authorised Daily Prayer Book of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire. Rev. ed. London: Vallentine, 1946. Repr., 1963. Hoffman, Lawrence A. The Canonization of the Synagogue Service. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979. Kister, Menahem, 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. Knohl, Israel. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Langer, Ruth. “Biblical Texts and Jewish Prayers: Their History and Function.” Pages 63–90 in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into Its History and Interaction. Edited by Albert Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

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Langer, Ruth. “Sinai, Zion, and God in the Synagogue: Celebrating Torah in Ashkenaz.” Pages 121–59 in Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue: Studies in the History of Jewish Prayer. Edited by Ruth Langer and Steven Fine. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005. Meyers, Eric M. “Ancient Synagogues: An Archaeological Introduction.” Pages 3–20 in Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World. Edited by Steven Fine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Reif, Stefan C. Jews, Bible and Prayer: Essays on Jewish Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Notions. BZAW 498. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017. Reif, Stefan C. Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Reif, Stefan C. Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006. Rosenfeld, Abraham, ed. The Authorised Selichot for the Whole Year. 4th ed. London: Labworth, 1969. Rubenstein, Jeffrey. The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Sacks, Jonathan, ed. The Koren Siddur. Jerusalem: Koren, 2009. 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 University Press, 2002. 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, haggadot 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, illustrated 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 includes 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.

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

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 numerous 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 commemorative 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 actions 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 halakhic 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, baking 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.

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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 observations 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 leaven 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 fourteenth, 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 fourteenth, 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

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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 beginning 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 century 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 University Press, 1972).

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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 eleventh 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 pinpoint 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 evidence 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 memorizing 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 indebted to Elisabeth Hollender from Goethe Universität in Frankfurt for telling me about Joseph ben Samuel’s piyyut and helping me with the manuscript reference.

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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 sermon indicate clearly that by the late thirteenth century at the latest, these preparations were considered not only halakhic precepts to be observed during 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.

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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

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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 scalded. This includes cauldrons used for cooking and boiling vessels…. Our

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wooden bowls are to be scalded … An iron pan will be scalded in the cauldron…. 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 different 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 haggadah. 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 siddur, 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 preparations, 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.

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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 commemorate the Passover sacrifice and the other to commemorate the hagigah [“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 leaven. 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 referenced 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.

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Figure 2.3 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/56 (Bird’s Head Haggadah), fol. 3r, Middle Rhine, ca. 1300, preparation of haroset

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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 finalizing 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 visualized. 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 tractate 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 destruction 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.

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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 pictorial 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.

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write the seder for the destruction of leaven and in general issues that concern 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 permits 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 addition 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.

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Figure 2.4 Cologny Genève, Fondation Martin Bodmer MS 81 (Joel ben Simeon), fol. 1r, Italy, ca. 1450, the search for leaven

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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 instructions. 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 supervision 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.

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Figure 2.5 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50 (Yahuda Haggadah), fol. 2v, Franconia, ca. 1460–1465, clearing the house of leaven

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Figure 2.6 Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/50 (Yahuda Haggadah), fol. 3r, Franconia, ca. 1460–1465, the search for leaven

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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 hermetic 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 emphasizes 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 members 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).

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“Amen.” Then [the members of his house] can trust the blessing and assist 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 attendance 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, mundane 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 haggadot 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 surviving Sefardi haggadah, dated to circa 1280, originated in Castile and is now in London.43 Like most other illuminated Sefardi haggadot, it includes an extensive image cycle of biblical events from the book of Exodus leading to the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. However, the preparations that are related so prominently in works from Ashkenaz are not mentioned anywhere in the text. The book opens with the text of the kiddush and continues immediately 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 discussion 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.

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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 illustrations 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 medieval 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 community. 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 biblical 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

Image and Text in Illuminated Haggadot

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

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Further details concerning the visualization of preparatory acts in Sefardi haggadot are beyond the scope of this essay. However, even these brief observations 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 history 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 underscored a strong communal aspect. One last observation, finally, is telling. Among the Sefardi haggadot, a manuscript 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 commentary; 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.

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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 negotiated 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 understood 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 ritual; 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 constitute a set of parameters that lead us to define the cleaning actions as they were performed in fifteenth-century households as rituals. Cleaning and searching 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 “conventionalized 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 ‘declarative’ 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 exercises, 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.

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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 manifestations 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 reminders, 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 entity. 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 multilayered ritual artifact guiding them through certain sets of actions, and an aid in making sense of them. Bibliography Adir dar metuhim [“The Invincible Dwelling on High”]. Folios 68v–70v in Leipzig Mahzor. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek. MS Voller 1002/I. Bar Ilan Responsa Project. Sefer Maharil: Hilkhot bediqat hamets. Responsa Project: The Database for Jewish Studies. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1972–. Bird’s Head Haggadah. Jerusalem, Israel Museum. MS 180/57. 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. 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. Davidson, Israel. Thesaurus of Hebrew Poems and Liturgical Hymns from the Canonization of Scripture to the Emancipation. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1924. Eleazar ben Judah of Worms. Derashah le-Fesah. Edited by Simhah Imanuel. Jerusalem: Meqitse Nirdamim, 2006. Epstein, Isidore, ed. The Babylonian Talmud. London: Soncino, 1935–1952. Epstein, Marc M. The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Erna Michael Haggadah. Jerusalem, Israel Museum. MS 181/18. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Center for Jewish Art. The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art. http://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=alone&id=4544.

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Goitein, Tal. “The Erna Michael Haggadah: An Ashkenazi Manuscript in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.” MA thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010. Golden Haggadah. London, British Library. Add. MS 27210. British Library, Digitised Manuscripts. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_27210 &index=23. Grimes, Ronald L. Beginnings in Ritual Studies. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1982. Grimes, Ronald L. The Craft of Ritual Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Gutmann, Joseph. “The Illuminated Medieval Passover Haggadah: Investigations and Research Problems.” SBBL 7 (1965): 3–25. Hamburg Miscellany. Hamburg, Staats- und Landesbibliothek. Cod. Heb. 37. 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=21794. Harris, Julie. “Love in the Land of Goshen: Haggadah, History, and the Making of British Library, MS Oriental 2737.” Gesta 52.2 (2013): 161–80. Hayoun, Maurice Ruben, ed. Haggadah de Pessah: La Pâque juive; Manuscrit du XVe siècle copié et enluminé par Joël ben Siméon Feibusch Ashkénazi. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011. Hollender, Elisabeth. Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Kogman-Appel, Katrin. “Another Look at the Illustrated Sephardic Haggadot: Communal and Social Aspects of the Passover Holiday.” Pages 81–102 in Temps i espais de la Girona Jueva: Actes del Simposi Internacional celebrat a Girona, 23, 24 i 25 de març de 2009. Edited by Silvia Planas Marcé. Gerona: Patronat Municipal Call de Girona, 2011. Kogman-Appel, Katrin. “The Audiences of the Late Medieval Haggadah.” Pages 99–143 in Patronage, Production, and Transmission of Texts in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Cultures. Edited by Jonathan Decter and Esperanza Alfonso. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. Kogman-Appel, Katrin. “Creating a Visual Repertoire for the Late Medieval Haggadah.” In Sephardim and Ashkenazim: Jewish-Jewish Encounters in History and Literature. Edited by Sina Rauschenbach and Kerstin Schorr. Berlin: de Gruyter, forthcoming. Kogman-Appel, Katrin. A Mahzor from Worms: Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish Community. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Kogman-Appel, Katrin. Die zweite Nürnberger und die Jehuda Haggada: Jüdische Illustratoren zwischen Tradition und Fortschritt. JU 69. Frankfurt: Lang, 1999. Kogman-Appel, Katrin, and David Stern. The Washington Haggadah: A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript from the Library of Congress. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. Leach, Edmund. “Ritualization in Man in Relation to Conceptual and Social Development.” Pages 403–408 in A Discussion on Ritualization in Animals and Man. Edited by Julian Huxley. PTRS, Ser. B, 251. London: Royal Society, 1966.

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London, British Library. Add. MS 14761. British Library, Digitised Manuscripts. http:// www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?index=0&ref=Add_MS_14761. London, British Library. MS Or. 2737. British Library, Digitised Manuscripts. http:// www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Or_2737. Lukes, Steven. “Political Ritual and Social Integration.” Soc 9.2 (1975): 289–308. Mahzor keminhag q”q Ashkenazim. Venice: Zuan di Gara, 1599. Metzger, Mendel. La Haggada enluminée: Étude iconographique et stylistique des manuscrits enluminés et decorés de la Haggada du XIIIe au XVIe siècle. Leiden: Brill, 1973. Moses ben Maimon. The Code of Maimonides. Edited and translated by Isaac Klein. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. 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 FourteenthCentury Catalonia in Facsimile (MS British Library Add. 14761). London: Facsimile Editions, 1992. Second Nuremberg Haggadah. London, David Sofer Collection. 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=30.

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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. http://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=set&id=11.

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 encyclopedic 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 preparing, 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 aspects 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.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_005

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“The Work of Heaven”

The Babylonian Talmud presents a short but remarkable anecdote that indicates 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 unchanged wording by a rabbi of our time. During the past two thousand years, nothing has changed regarding the Jewish self-perception as being the preservers 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

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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 different 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 philosophical 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 evidence 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 subsequent 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 monastic 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).

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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 purity 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 document 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 writing 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 tefillin. 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 holiness by a rite of sanctification. Especially in Germany, this ritual expansion is reflected in the very specific 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 subject 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.

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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, halakic 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 invokes a law pertaining to ritual impurity, notwithstanding the fact that laws of this sort do

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The appreciation of the sefarim by the Hasidei Ashkenaz entails behavioral standards for the treatment of sefarim that can be considered as an intensified 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 disciple, 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 storage 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.

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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 accompanied 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 thoroughly 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 competing 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.

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meaningful. Like the halakic authorities of that time, the German Pietists attached great importance to all material aspects of manufacturing the sifrei qodesh—they even exceeded the rabbinic efforts for ritually pure writing materials. 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 discussions 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 rejecting 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 instruments 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 actually 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.

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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 writing 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 shavings 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 people 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 writing 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.

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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 occasions 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 beyond 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 oscillations 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 expression to both: their magical approach to religious artefacts, which should not be touched by improper intentions; and the hypersensitive consciousness 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.

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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 respect 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.

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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 material 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 demarcation 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 sefarim, 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 disorder. 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 regulations 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 highly 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.

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Ashkenaz were convinced that the moral, emotional, and temperamental disposition 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 person.” 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 knowledge. 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.

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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 making] 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 dignified 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 entrusted 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 succeed 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),

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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 verbalization 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 truthfulness.” 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 University Press, 1962). 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.

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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 describes 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 absolutely 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 predecessors, 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 holiness” 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 depended 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 processing 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 everything 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.

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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 considered 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 spoken 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 magical 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 performative 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 apparently 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 literature, 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.”

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[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 demons 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 environment 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 importance 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.

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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 loving kindness, king, kings, exalted, great, Most High, righteous and upright, 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 perform 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 halachic 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 powerful names, as a curse, could bring harm to a person or—if written on a body 48  M  assekhet Sefer Torah and Massekhet Soferim, chapters 4 and 5. 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.

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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 magical 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 rabbinic 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 renaissance, 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 perforated. 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 empirischen 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.

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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 writing 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 hallowed 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 written 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 engravings 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.

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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 ineffable 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.

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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 according 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 opportunity 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 almost 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, secluded minority with atavistic features, which preserved its identity within a Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 87–102; for a more complete summary 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.

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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 consecratio (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 decades, 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.

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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 tremendous 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. Bibliography Angenendt, Arnold. “Libelli bene correcti.” Pages 117–135 in Das Buch als magisches und als Repräsentationsobjekt. Edited by Peter Ganz. WMS 5. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1992. Assaf, Simcha. “ ‘Am ha-sefer ve-ha-sefer.” Pages 1–26 in Be-Ohole Ja’aqov. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1943. Austin, John L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962. Baer, Isaak. “Ha-megamah ha-datit ha-ḥevratit shel Sefer Ḥasidim.” Zion 3 (1937): 1–50. 69  Wilhelm Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 4th ed. (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1958); Hagen Keller, “Vom ‘heiligen Buch’ zur ‘Buchführung’: Lebensfunktionen der Schrift im Mittelalter,” in FMSt 26 (1992): 1–32; Arnold Angenendt, “Libelli bene correcti,” in Das Buch als magisches und als Repräsentationsobjekt, ed. Peter Ganz, WMS 5 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 117–35; Ilona Opelt, “Der antike Autor und sein Buch,” in Das Buch in Mittelalter und Renaissance, ed. Rudolf Hiestand, StHum 19 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994), 17–31; Anton Legner, “Illustres manus,” in Ornamenta Ecclesiae: Kunst und Künstler der Romantik, ed. Legner (Köln: Schnütgen-Museum der Stadt Köln, 1995), 187–262; Horst Wenzel, Hören und Sehen—Schrift und Bild: Kultur und Gedächtnis im Mittelalter (Munich: Beck, 1995); Franz Ronig, “Bemerkungen zur Bibelreform in der Zeit Karls des Großen: Funktion und Ikonologie,” in Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit und Papst Leo III in Paderborn, ed. Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff (Mainz: von Zabern, 1999), 711–17; Jan-Dirk Müller, “Aufführung—Autor— Werk: Zu einigen blinden Stellen gegenwärtiger Diskussion,” in Mittelalterliche Literatur und Kunst im Spannungsfeld von Hof und Kloster, ed. Nigel F. Palmer and Hans-Joachim Schiewer (Tübingen: De Gruyter, 1999), 149–66; Martin J. Schubert, Der Schreiber im Mittelalter, Mittelalter 7.2 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003); and especially Jürgen Wolf, “Das ‘fürsorgliche’ Skriptorium: Überlegungen zur literarhistorischen Relevanz von Produktionsbedingungen,” in Schubert, Schreiber im Mittelalter, 92–109; and Hildegard Elisabeth Keller, “Kolophon im Herzen: Von beschrifteten Mönchen an den Rändern der Paläographie,” in Schubert, Schreiber im Mittelalter, 157–82; Otto Ludwig, Von der Antike bis zum Buchdruck, vol. 1 of Geschichte des Schreibens (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005); Joachim Friedrich Quack and Daniela Christina Luft, eds,. Erscheinungsformen und Handhabungen Heiliger Schriften, MText 5 (Berlin: De Gruyter 2014).

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Bar-Ilan, Meir. “The Writing of Torah Scrolls, Tefillin, Mezuzot, and Amulets on Deer Skin” [Hebrew]. Beth Mikra 30 (1984–1985): 375–81. Baumgarten, Elisheva. “Circumcision and Baptism: The Development of a Jewish Ritual in Christian Europe.” Pages 114–27 in The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite. Edited by Elizabeth Mark. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2003. Baumgarten, Elisheva. Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Baumgarten, Elisheva. “A Tale of a Christian Matron and Sabbath Candles: Religious Difference, Material Culture and Gender in Thirteenth Century Germany.” JSQ 20 (2013): 83–99. Baumgarten, Elisheva, and Judah D. Galinsky, ed. Jews and Christians in Thirteen-Century France. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Beit-Arié, Malachi. Hebrew Codicology. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1981. Beit-Arié, Malachi. “Ideal Versus Reality: Scribal Prescriptions in Sefer Ḥasidim and Contemporary Scribal Practices in Franco-German Manuscripts.” Pages 559–566 in Rashi 1040–1990: Hommage á E. E. Urbach. Edited by G. Sed-Rajna. Paris: Cerf, 1993. Blau, Ludwig. Das altjüdische Zauberwesen. Budapest: [n.p.], 1898. Blau, Ludwig. Studien zum althebräischen Buchwesen und zur biblischen Litteratur- und Textgeschichte. Strassburg: Trübner, 1902. Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Cohen, Abraham, ed. The Minor Tractates of the Talmud: Massektoth Ketannoth; Translated into English with Notes, Glossary and Indices. London: Soncino, 1966. Cohen, Esther, 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. Cohn, Yehudah B. Tangled Up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World. BJS 351. Providence: Brown University Press, 2008. Crown, Allan David. “Studies in Samaritan Scribal Practices and Manuscript History: III. Columnar Writing and the Samaritan Massorah.” BJRL 67 (1984): 349–81. Dan, Joseph. “Ashkenazi Hasidim, 1941–1991: Was There Really a Hasidic Movement in Medieval Germany?” Pages 87–102 in Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism 50 Years After: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on the History of Jewish Mysticism. Edited by Peter Schäfer and Joseph Dan. Tübingen: Mohr, 1993. Dan, Joseph. “The Book of the Divine Name by Rabbi Eleazar of Worms.” FJB 22 (1995): 27–60. Dan, Joseph. “Rabbi Judah the Pious and Caesarius of Heisterbach: Common Motifs in Their Stories.” Pages 18–27 in Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature. Edited by Joseph Heinemann and Dov Noy. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1971.

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Falk, Ze’ev W. Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1966. Fishman, Talya. Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Fishman, Talya. “The Penitential System of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz and the Problem of Cultural Boundaries.” JJTP 8 (1999): 201–29. Fishman, Talya. “The Rhineland Pietists’ Sacralization of Oral Torah.” JQR 96.1 (2006): 9–16. Franz, Adolph. Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter. Freiburg: Herder, 1909. Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1960. Gaster, Moses. Ma’aseh Book: Book of Jewish Tales and Legends. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1934. Goodenough, Erwin R. Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. 13 vols. New York: Pantheon, 1953–1968. Gordon, Martin L. “Mezuzah: Protective Amulet or Religious Symbol?” Tradition 16 (1976–1977): 7–40. Güdemann, Moritz. Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden in Frankreich und Deutschland…. 2 vols. Wien: Hölder, 1880. Haran, Menachem. “Book-Scrolls in Israel in Pre-Exilic Times.” JJS 33 (1982): 161–73. Haran, Menachem. “Scribal Workmanship in Biblical Times: The Scrolls and the Writing Implements” [Hebrew]. Tarbiz 50 (1981): 65–87. Hezser, Catherine. Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Humphrey, Caroline, and James Laidlaw. “Die rituelle Einstellung.” Pages 135–55 in Ritualtheorien: Ein einführendes Handbuch. Edited by Andréa Belliger and David J. Krieger. 4th ed. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008. Keller, Hagen. “Vom ‘heiligen Buch’ zur ‘Buchführung’: Lebensfunktionen der Schrift im Mittelalter.” FMSt 26 (1992): 1–32. Keller, Hildegard Elisabeth. “Kolophon im Herzen: Von beschrifteten Mönchen an den Rändern der Paläographie.” Pages 157–182 in Der Schreiber im Mittelalter. Edited by Martin J. Schubert. Mittelalter 7.2. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003. Legner, Anton. “Illustres manus.” Pages 187–262 in Ornamenta Ecclesiae: Kunst und Künstler der Romantik. Edited by Anton Legner. Köln: Schnütgen-Museum der Stadt Köln, 1995. Liss, Hanna. “Vom Sefer Tora zum Sefer: Die Bedeutung von Büchern im ‘Buch der Frommen’ des Rabbi Yehuda ben Shemu’el he-Ḥasid.” Pages 207–28 in Erscheinungsformen und Handhabungen Heiliger Schriften. Edited by Joachim Quack and Daniela Christina Luft. MText 5. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Ludwig, Otto. Von der Antike bis zum Buchdruck. Vol. 1 of Geschichte des Schreibens. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005. Maier, Johann. Die Tempelrolle vom Toten Meer. Munich: Reinhardt, 1978.

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Marcus, Ivan G. “History, Story, and Collective Memory: Narrativity in Early Ashkenazic Culture.” Pages 255–79 in The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History. Edited by Michael Fishbane. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Marcus, Ivan G. Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany. Leiden: Brill, 1981. Marcus, Ivan G. Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Martini, Annett. “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 2018. Martini, Annett. “Ritual Consecration in the Context of Writing the Holy Scrolls: Jews in Medieval Europe between Demarcation and Acculturation.” EJJS 11.2 (2017): 174–202. Müller, Jan-Dirk. “Aufführung—Autor—Werk: Zu einigen blinden Stellen gegenwärtiger Diskussion.” Pages 149–66 in Mittelalterliche Literatur und Kunst im Spannungsfeld von Hof und Kloster. Edited by Nigel F. Palmer and Hans-Joachim Schiewer. Tübingen: De Gruyter, 1999. Opelt, Ilona. “Der antike Autor und sein Buch.” Pages 17–31 in Das Buch in Mittelalter und Renaissance. Edited by Rudolf Hiestand. StHum 19. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994. Poole, John B., and Ronald Reed. “The Preparation of Leather and Parchment by the Dead Sea Scrolls Community.” Technology and Culture 3 (1962): 1–26. Princeton University Sefer Hasidim Database. Directed by Peter Schäfer. https://etc .princeton.edu/sefer_hasidim. Quack, Joachim Friedrich, and Daniela Christina Luft, eds. Erscheinungsformen und Handhabungen Heiliger Schriften. MText 5. Berlin: De Gruyter 2014. Rappaport, Roy A. “Ritual und performative Sprache.” Pages 189–208 in Ritualtheorien: Ein einführendes Handbuch. Edited by Andréa Belliger and David J. Krieger. 4th ed. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008. Ronig, Franz. “Bemerkungen zur Bibelreform in der Zeit Karls des Großen: Funktion und Ikonologie.” Pages 711–17 in Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Edited by Cristoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff. Mainz: von Zabern, 1999. Rubin, Ascher. “The Concept of Repentance among the Ḥasidey ‘Ashkenaz.” JJS 16 (1965): 161–76. Ryder, Michael L. “Remains Derived from Skin.” Pages 539–554 in Science and Archaeology. Edited by Don R. Brothwell and Eric S. Higgs. London: Blackwell Scientific, 1970.

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Schäfer, Peter. “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism.” Pages 19–44 in Envisioning Magic. Edited by Peter Schäfer and Hans G. Kippenberg. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Scholem, Gershom. Die jüdische Mystik in ihren Hauptströmungen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980. Schubert, Martin J. Der Schreiber im Mittelalter. Mittelalter 7.2. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003. Sirat, Collette, ed. La conception du livre chez les piétistes ashkenazes au moyen âge. Geneva: Droz, 1996. Swartz, Michael D. “Book and Tradition in Hekhalot and Magical Literatures.” JJTP 3 (1994): 189–229. Swartz, Michael D. Scholastic Magic: Ritual and Revelation in Early Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Swartz, Michael D. “Scribal Magic and Its Rhetoric: Formal Patterns in Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah.” HTR 83 (1990): 163–80. Tov, Emanuel. Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Tov, Emanuel. Der Text der Hebräischen Bibel: Handbuch der Textkritik. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1997. Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. New York: Atheneum, 1987. Veltry, Giuseppe. “Jewish Traditions in Greek Amulets.” BJGS 18 (1996): 33–47. Veltry, Giuseppe. Magie und Halakhah: Ansätze zu einem empirischen Wissen­ schaftsbegriff im spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Judentum. Tübingen: Mohr, 1997. Wattenbach, Wilhelm. Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter. 4th ed. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1958. Wenzel, Horst. Hören und Sehen—Schrift und Bild: Kultur und Gedächtnis im Mittelalter. Munich: Beck, 1995. Wolf, Jürgen. “Das ‘fürsorgliche’ Skriptorium: Überlegungen zur ­literarhistorischen Relevanz von Produktionsbedingungen.” Pages 92–109 in Der Schreiber im Mittelalter. Edited by Martin J. Schubert. Mittelalter 7.2. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003. Wolfson, Eliot. “The Mystical Significance of Torah Study in German Pietism.” JQR 85 (1993): 43–78. Yadin, Yigael. “Tefillin (Phylacteries) from Qumran” [Hebrew]. Eretz-Israel 9 (1969): 60–83. Yuval, Israel. “Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Accusations” [Hebrew]. Zion 58 (1993): 33–90.

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 liturgical 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, basically 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 liturgical 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). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_006

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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 interweaving 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 become 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 tradition 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 between 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).

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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. 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 1.3

3  Ep. 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 terrarum 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’

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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 preface 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 himself 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 larger 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 constitutes 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 übertragen,” 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.

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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 ceremonies 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 accounts: 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 ending 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 argument: 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 celebrations 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,

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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 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 2.1

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 primum’ 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,”

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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) consequently 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 influence 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 tradition,” 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 authentic 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 focusing 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.

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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 consequence, 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 edition 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 supposed 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.

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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 tradition. 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 universal 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 understanding 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 sapienter instituta sunt, nihil magis iidem Pontifices Praedecessores nostri curandum sibi esse statuerunt, quam ut communes Ecclesiastici muneris rationes ad propriam normam, servata antiquitatis auctoritate, revocarent. 25  See Klöckener, “Konstitution ‘Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei,’ ” 136–39.

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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. 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. To focus on the allegedly old and proven tradition of the church promises a reliable and orthodox liturgy with an accurate shape and form. 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. 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. 3. 4.

5.

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 program 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 example, 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 tradition 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 2.2

26  To these editions see Dykmans, Pontifical, 108–48; Klöckener, Liturgie der Diözesansynode, 17–25; Klöckener, “Pontifikale,” 400–402.

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smaller revisions, these did not essentially change the profile of this liturgical book. In comparison with the previous edition from 1582, the Pontificale Romanum of Pope Clement VIII (1595/1596) contains a more significant number 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 abolished 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 rubrics 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 sequences, 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 commitment 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 breviary”), 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.

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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 orientation 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 liturgical 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 regional history and their own tradition. A certain difference consists in the fact that such diocesan, regional, or local liturgical traditions were not characterized 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.”

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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 problematic 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 retrograde 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 situation 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.

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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 preservation 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 recognizable. According to this view of tradition, the doctrine transmitted in the liturgy, the typical Roman liturgical structures, elements, and way of praying 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 indispensable 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 translation 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.

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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, considering 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 adjustment of liturgical sources has been taking place. This process has been different according to the epoch, the context, and conditions of the liturgy, 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

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Finally, a special liturgical dynamic emerges due to the contexts of liturgy, 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 ecclesial 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 connection 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 proceedings, 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, theologically 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 collegiate 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 religieux 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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Häußling, Angelus A. “Liturgiereform: Materialien zu einem neuen Thema der Liturgiewissenschaft.” ALW 31 (1989): 1–32. Häußling, Angelus A. Tagzeitenliturgie in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Historische und theologische Studien. Edited by Martin Klöckener. LQF 100. Münster: Aschendorff, 22017. Heinz, Andreas. “Papst Gregor der Große und die römische Liturgie: Zum Gregorius-Gedenkjahr 1400 Jahre nach seinem Tod (†604).” LJ 54 (2004): 69–84. Jedin, Hubert. 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. Jedin, Hubert. “Das Konzil von Trient und die Reform der liturgischen Bücher.” EL 59 (1945): 5–38. Klöckener, Martin. “Augustins Kriterien zu Einheit und Vielfalt in der Liturgie nach seinen Briefen 54 und 55.” LJ 41 (1991): 24–39. Klöckener, Martin. “Die Bulle ‘Quo primum’ Papst Pius’ V. vom 14. Juli 1570 zur Promulgation des nachtridentinischen Missale Romanum: Liturgische Quellentexte lateinisch-deutsch 2.” ALW 48 (2006): 41–51. Klöckener, Martin. “Die Konstitution ‘Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei’ Papst Clemens’ VIII. (10.2.1596) zur Promulgation des Pontificale Romanum: Liturgische Quellentexte lateinisch-deutsch 5.” ALW 54 (2012): 127–46. Klöckener, Martin. “Die Liturgie an der Stiftskirche St. Nikolaus in Freiburg auf Grundlage des Zeremoniale aus dem späten 16. Jahrhundert.” Pages 409–42 in Le Chapitre Saint-Nicolas de Fribourg: Foyer religieux 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. Edited by Jean Steinauer and Hubertus von Gemmingen. ASH 7. Fribourg: Société d’histoire du Canton de Fribourg, 2010. Klöckener, Martin. 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. Klöckener, Martin. “Die Liturgiereform von Trient und ihre Umsetzung in der Schweiz: Mit einem vergleichenden Ausblick auf die Liturgiereform des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils.” Pages 244–71 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. Edited by Mariano Delgado and Markus Ries. SCRK 13. Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2010. Klöckener, Martin. “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): 396–415.

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Klöckener, Martin. “Tradition und Erneuerung im Gottesdienst der katholischen Kirche. Oder: Liturgische Ordnungen und ihre Verbindlichkeit.” Pages 55–76 in Liturgie und Konfession: Grundfragen der Liturgiewissenschaft im interkonfessionellen Gespräch. Edited by Birgit Jeggle-Merz and Benedikt Kranemann. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2013. Klöckener, Martin. “Die Vorrede ‘Hucusque’ zum Supplementum Anianense des gregorianischen Sakramentars ins Deutsche übertragen.” ALW 46 (2004): 31–36. Klöckener, Martin, and Benedikt Kranemann. “Liturgiereform—Grundzug des christlichen Gottesdienstes: Systematische Auswertung.” Pages 1083–1108 in Liturgiereformen seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Vol. 2 of Liturgiereformen: Historische Studien zu einem bleibenden Grundzug des christlichen G ­ ottesdienstes; Festschrift Angelus A. Häußling. Edited by Martin Klöckener and Benedikt ­Kranemann. LQF 88.2. Münster: Aschendorff, 2002. Meyer, Hans Bernhard, and Irmgard Pahl. Eucharistie: Geschichte, Theologie, Pastoral. GdK 4. Regensburg: Pustet, 1989. Rennings, Heinrich, and Martin Klöckener, eds., Dokumente des Apostolischen Stuhls 1963–1973 und des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils. Vol. 1 of Dokumente zur Erneuerung der Liturgie. 2nd ed. Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2002. Rexer, Jochen. “Inquisitiones Ianuarii (Ad–).” AugL 3:620–30. Ruffiot, Franck. 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 (to be published in LQF, 2019). Zerfaß, Alexander, 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.” Pages 186–205 in Häußling, Tagzeitenliturgie in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Historische und theologische Studien. Edited by Martin Klöckener. 2nd ed. LQF 100. Münster: Aschendorff, 2017.

Part 2 A Dynamic Relationship: Christian and Jewish Traces in Jewish and Christian Texts

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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 wonderful “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 influences 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) characteristics of ritualized acts.2 The fact that symbolic acts, objects, or persons appear in rituals makes these acts, objects, or persons meaningless, ambiguous, or even overdetermined.3 It is not even obvious which actions, objects, persons, circumstances, and so on, belong to the ritual and are hence essential 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 sozialwissenschaftliche 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, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. 3  See Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 182–87 esp. 184.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_007

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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, performers, 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 avodah 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 liturgies 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 context 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 claiming that dangerous similarities between customs just reflect their common ancestry going back to a mythic past before any division into Jewish and nonJewish. 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.

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For such reconstructions, the rabbis may lay claim to historical priority and originality, labeling any similar concept or practice on the part of the respective 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 identical. 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 (performers 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 confessional neutrality, mundane irrelevance, or well-accomplished appropriation. 2

Memories of the Temple

The Temple of Jerusalem plays a role of some importance in rabbinic conversations 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 reading 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 following note.

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commandment to perform the sacrifice and the reading of its laws.10 It is probably 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 contradiction 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 immortality (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.

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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 liturgies 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, remembrance, 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” (zekher 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 reason 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.

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started this count of the days until Pentecost) was discontinued after the destruction 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 sandwich 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 customary 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 liturgical 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 bodily 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 memory 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 category 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.”

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of how rituals functioned as fulfilment of commandments (e.g., to offer a sacrifice) 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 participants 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 collective 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 frescoes 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.

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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 during their presentation of the first fruits. Lieberman assumes that the Mishnah points to actual performances in Second Temple times—aspects of the performance 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 narrative 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 historians 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 spätantiken Religionskulturen, RVV 61, ed. Peter Gemeinhardt and Katharina Heyden (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 267–74.

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Conversely, it may also be an example of rabbinic inventions of temple procedures 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 sanctuary 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 installations. 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 dangerous (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 temple. 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

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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 remembered the cult at the temple may have regarded sukkot as entirely insignificant installations giving shade. Setting up shelters and sunshades for outdoor dinners was not restricted to the cult at the temple of Jerusalem. Rabbis who analyzed their own practice were aware that gentile Greeks also visited sanctuaries 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 staging 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.

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The Lulab and the Thyrsus

More closely connected with Sukkot, the lulab and its use in rituals has induced 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 customs. 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

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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 description 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 etymological 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 autumnal 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 probable 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.

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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 concerning 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 allusion 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. 38  Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 129. 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’

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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 similarities 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-I7, Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmud Research of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, The Saul and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank, http://www.liebermaninstitute.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 colonnade to colonnade and from colonnade to the Temple Mount [wall].” (The latter part of the statement is not preserved in the standard edition.) 45  Dueck, “Feast of Tabernacles,” 131.

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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 designation 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 mentioned 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 ritual, 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 explain 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 improved 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.

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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 understanding 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 procedures at the Second Temple is, hence, an ancient mistake—albeit a mistake that is deliberately applied by Jewish authors (like Josephus) who want to explain their rituals to the respective others. Tacitus, Plutarch, and the sages write their Roman, Greek, or Jewish descriptions 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 performance 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

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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 collective 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.

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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 therefore the indeterminacy and ambiguity of ancient bits of practice, all the more so, because similar cultic implements and ritualized acts continue to be performed in the temples of the others. Whomever Plutarch quotes in his report about the Jewish cult, he invites his readers to disambiguate the Jewish practice 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 underdetermined 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 traditions of knowledge about the past. This approach is not unwarranted, because new finds may always show that a certain bit of rabbinic reconstruction is attested 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 regarded 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 sanctuaries. What is more, truly ancient parallels and similarities between the temple

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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 contemporary 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, reconstructions of historical temple procedures remained ambiguous in the eyes of readers who knew what was going on in the rest of the world. Any modern 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 exclusively Jewish as the remembrance of the temple of Jerusalem. Bibliography Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Benovitz, Moshe. “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.” Pages 17–26 in Halakha in Light of Epigraphy. JAJSup 3. Edited by Albert I. Baumgarten, Hanan Eshel, Ranon Katzoff, and Shani Tzoref. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011. Bergler, Siegfried. “Jesus, Bar Kochba und das messianische Laubhüttenfest.” JSJ 29 (1998): 143–91. Bergmann, Claudia D. University of Erfurt, Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien. Research Centre “Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity to the Present.” Bokser, Baruch M. “Ritualizing the Seder.” JAAR 56 (1988): 443–71. Büchler, Adolf. “La fête des cabanes chez Plutarque et Tacite.” REJ 37 (1898): 181–202. Cohn, Naftali S. The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis. DRLAR. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

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Dueck, Daniela. “The Feast of Tabernacles and the Cult of Dionysus: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue” [Hebrew]. Tsion 73 (2007–2008): 119–138. Fine, Gary M. “Coins of Bar Kokhba: The Temple Water-Drawing Ceremony and the Holiday of Sukkot.” INR 4 (2009): 83–93. Lapin, Hayim. “Palm Fronds and Citrons: Notes on Two Letters from Bar Kosiba’s Administration.” HUCA 64 (1993): 111–35. Leonhard, Clemens. “ ‘Als ob sie vor mir ein Opfer dargebracht hätten’: Erinnerungen an den Tempel in der Liturgie der Synagoge.” Pages 107–22 in Kontinuität und Unterbrechung: Gottesdienst und Gebet in Judentum und Christentum. Edited by Albert Gerhards and Stephan Wahle. SJC. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2005. Leonhard, Clemens. “Das Laubhüttenfest der Rabbinen und die Heiligung von Zeiten.” Pages 249–81 in Heilige, Heiliges und Heiligkeit in spätantiken Religionskulturen. Edited by Peter Gemeinhardt and Katharina Heyden. RVV 61. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. Leonhard, Clemens. “ ‘Herod’s Days’ and the Development of Jewish and Christian Festivals.” Pages 189–208 in Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and bar Kokhba: Groups, Normativity, and Rituals. Edited by Benedikt Eckhardt. JSJSup 155. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Leonhard, Clemens. The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian Easter: Open Questions in Current Research. SJ 35. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006. Leonhard, Clemens. “Pesach and Eucharist.” Pages 275–312 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. Edited by David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger. WUNT 376. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Leonhard, Clemens. “Tempelfeste außerhalb des Jerusalemer Tempels in der Diaspora.” Pages 123–55 in Die Makkabäer. Edited by Friedrich Avemarie, Predrag Bukovec, Stefan Krauter, and Michael Tilly. WUNT 2/382. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Lichtenberger, Achim. Kulte und Kultur der Dekapolis: Untersuchungen zu numismatischen, archäologischen und epigraphischen Zeugnissen. ADPV 29. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003. Lieberman, Saul. 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. Mandelbaum, Bernard, 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. Rappaport, Roy A. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. CSSCA 110. Cambridge: University Press, 1999.

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Rubenstein, Jeffrey L. The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods. BJS 302. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1995. 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/. Smith, Jonathan Zittel. “The Bare Facts of Ritual.” HR 20 (1980): 112–27. Stökl Ben Ezra, Daniel. “Templisierung: Die Rückkehr des Tempels in die jüdische und christliche Liturgie der Spätantike.” Pages 231–78 in Rites et croyances dans les religions du monde romain: Huit exposés suivis de discussions; Vandoeuvres—Genève, 21–25 août 2006. Edited by Corinne Bonnet and John Scheid. EAC 53. Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 2007. Tov, Emanuel. “11Q19.” In BrillOnline Reference Works. Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library Non-Biblical Texts. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2542-3525_dsselnbt_DSS_EL _NBT_11Q19. Vanderkam, James C. The Book of Jubilees. CSCO 511; SAeth 88. Leuven: Peeters, 1989.

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.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_008

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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” narrative 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 increasingly come to view this combination of “historical” and “halakic,” and of “narrative” and “legal” language in the descriptions of rituals, rather as an expression 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 construction 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, dating to the end of the Second Temple period, and therefore documenting the popular practice 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

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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 language 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 rituals, 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 fictitious 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 controversies 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 formation 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.

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of temple worship?9 Or are we, in the spirit of Jacob Neusner’s studies, dealing 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 interpretation 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 person’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 describes 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 rotation) 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 contradiction 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 depicting an imaginary territory: “It describes with remarkable precision and concrete detail, 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.

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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 public 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 olivebranch 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” because 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 bikkurim. 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 actually 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,

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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 description 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 establishes 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 sequence 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 opinion 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 publication, and for his insights and advice.

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one should, as Adolf Büchler wrote,19 view the description of the “the governors 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 beginning 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, accompanied by the music of the flute, be a paraphrasing of Isaiah. The fundamental question we are left with is whether our chapter is primarily 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 depicted 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 combination “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.

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in the Mishnah.22 In light of this examination, I suggested that the description 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 ceremonies are much greater than those demonstrated by Schwartz, and in light of this I argue that the Tannaim borrowed the ritual patterns relating to honoring 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.

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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 organization 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 civilian 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 described 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 literary 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 uncommonness 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 regarding the bikkurim. For further discussion of this topic, see also Schwartz, “Rabbinic and Roman Honor,” 289–92.

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halakic question of which people one must rise for, and the theoretical question 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 context 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 emperor 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 delegation 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 before 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 wearing 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 another 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.

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carried with them the city’s idols and the various signs representing the professional guilds of the various artisans. After an exchange of blessings, the guest, accompanied by his entourage, entered the city amongst his greeters, proceeded 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 announces 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 civilian 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 according 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 important 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.

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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 difficult 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 participating 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 demonstrated 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 example 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 apparently 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, impatient 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 remain 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).

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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 explicitly stated that the king actually participated in the celebration by carrying the basket. The Mishnah and Tosefta are only commenting that the same obligations 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 ideological 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 theoretical 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.

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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 advancing 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 entered 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 basket 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 discourse of resistance to a ruling culture, see Y. Levinson’s article, “Athlete of Faith and Fatal

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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 adventus ­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 courage 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 description, 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 scholars 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.

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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 distinction 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 between the king and the priest.46 I believe that the rabbis’ subversive use of the adventus ceremony as a literary 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. Bibliography Allen, Leslie C. Psalms 101–150. WBC 21. Nashville: Nelson, 2002. Avery-Peck, Alan J. Mishnah’s Division of Agriculture: A History and Theology of Seder Zeraim. BJS 79. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985. Baer, Yitzhak. Yisrael ba-Amim. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1955. Biale, David. Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History. New York: Schocken, 1986. 46  See Shlomit Mali, “ ‘Light Beyond the Hills of Darkness’: Rabbinical Stories of Alexander the Great” [Hebrew] (MA thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2009), 53, and the additional literature cited there.

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Alberdina Houtman, Joshua Schwartz, and Marcel Poorthuis. JCP 28. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 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. (Palestinian Talmud) Tigay, Jeffrey H. The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy. Edited by Nahum Sarna et al. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996. Tropper, Daniel. “The Internal Administration of the Second Temple at Jerusalem.” PhD diss., Yeshiva University, 1970.

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 important 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 attend 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 wichtige 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 introduction 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).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_009

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interest in Jewish customs and ceremonies. These reflect a wide range of reactions 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 rituals 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 manifested 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 display 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 rituals. 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.

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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 written 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 present 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 important 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 ceremonies 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 warhafftigen 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 verheissene 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

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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 perspective 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 systematic 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 circumcision, 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 different 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

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interest in the circumcision ceremony is probably, as other travelers explained, that circumcision is the most ancient religious ritual. Descriptions of the circumcision 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 descriptions 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 manner 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.

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For Aldersey, visiting the synagogue was a way to obtain additional knowledge 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 comparison 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 mentioned some things that he liked: They are very religious in two things only, and no more, in that they worship 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 irreligious 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 anoher) 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.

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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 musicke: 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 service 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 vis23  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 Geistesgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, ed. Hans-Joachim Schoeps (Tübingen: Mohr, 1952), 173–74.

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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 ethnographers” 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 vicinity. 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.

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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 complained 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 protest 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 celebration 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 holidays; 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 community 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.

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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 community 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 welcome 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 community 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 community 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 various 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.

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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 synagogue, 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 reactions 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 especially 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.

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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 national 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 practices 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 noteworthy 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 nonJewish criticism of Jewish practices and changes in these practices, and this too is a fruitful direction for further research. Bibliography Aldersey, Laurence. The First Voyage or Iourney, Made by Master Laurence Aldersey … in the Year 1581. Pages 179–80 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…. Edited by Richard Hakluyt. London: Bishop and Newberie, 1589. Bloom, Herbert I. The Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Williamsport, PA: Bayard, 1937. Braden, Jutta. Hamburger Judenpolitik im Zeitalter lutherischer Orthodoxie: 1590–1710. Hamburg: Christians, 2001. Braden, Jutta. “ ‘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. Burnett, Stephen G. From Christian Hebraism to Jewish Studies: Johannes Buxtorf (1564– 1629) and Hebrew Learning in the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Burnett, Stephen G. “Johannes Buxtorf I and the Circumcision Incident of 1619.” BZGAK 89 (1989): 135–44.

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Buxtorf, Johannes. Synagoga Judaica: Das ist Juden Schul; Darinnen der gantz Jüdische Glaub und Glaubens-übung mit allen Ceremonien Satzungen Sitten und Gebräuchen. Basel: Henricpetri, 1603. Carlebach, Elisheva. Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Germany, 1500–1750. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Cohen, Richard I. Jewish Icons: Art and Society in Modern Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Cohen, Mark R. “Leone da Modena’s Riti: A Seventeenth-Century Plea for Social Toleration of Jews.” JSocS 34 (1972): 287–319. Coryate, Thomas. 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. Davis, Richard B. George Sandys, Poet Adventurer: A Study in Anglo-American Culture in the Seventeenth Century. London: Bodley Head, 1955. Deutsch, Yaacov. Judaism in Christian Eyes: Ethnographic Descriptions of Jews and Judaism in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Edenberg, Mathias. Tagebuch der Reisen in Deutschland und Italien. Pages 175–76 in Philosemitismus im Barock: Religions- und Geistesgeschichtliche Untersuchungen. Edited by Hans-Joachim Schoeps. Tübingen: Mohr, 1952. Friedenheim, Caspar Joseph. Die Hoffnung Israel auf die Erlösung durch den Messias ist kommen und vorhanden in Jesu von Nazareth. Würzburg: [n.p.], 1770. Friedenheim, Caspar Joseph. Yehudi mibakhutz: Das ist der äußerliche Jud in Ansehung ihres dermaligen vermeintlichen Gottesdienstes und besonders in Absicht auf das ihnen so wichtige Stück Jom Kipur; Das ist der Versöhnungstag und dessen dermaligen Feyer und Begehung. Würzburg: [n.p.], 1785. Frojmovic, Eva. “Christian Travelers to Circumcision: Early Modern Representations.” Pages 128–41 in The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite. Edited by Elizabeth Wyner Mark. BSJW. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2003. Hess, Ernst Ferdinand. 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 verheissene und gesandte Messias sey. Erfurt: [n.p.], 1598. Holmberg, Eva Johanna. Jews in the Early Modern English Imagination: A Scattered Nation. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Horowitz, Elliott. “A ‘Dangerous Encounter’: Thomas Coryate and the Swaggering Jews of Venice.” JJS 52 (2001): 341–53. Hsia, Ronnie Po-Chia. “Christian Ethnographies of Jews in Early Modern Germany.” Pages 223–35 in The Expulsion of the Jews: 1492 and After. Edited by Raymond B. Waddington and A. H. Williamson. New York: Garland, 1994.

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Kalir, Joseph. “The Jewish Service in the Eyes of Christian and Baptized Jews in the 17th and 18th Centuries.” JQR 56 (1966): 51–80. Kaplan, Yosef. “For Whom Did de Witte Paint the Sephardi Synagogue?” Pages 29–50 in An Alternative Path to Modernity: The Sephardi Diaspora in Western Europe. BSJS 28. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Margaritha, Anthonius. Der gantz Jüdisch Glaub mit sampt eyner gründtlichenn vnd warhafftigen anzeygunge, aller satzungen, Ceremonien, gebetten, heymliche vnd öffentliche gebreüch, deren sich die Juden halten…. Augsburg: [Steiner], 1530. Modena, Leon. Historia de gli riti Hebraici…. Paris: [n.p.], 1637. Montaigne, Michel de. 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. Moryson, Fynes. 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. Müller, Johannes. Judaismus oder Jüdenthumb: Das ist Außführlicher Bericht von des Jüdischen Volckes Unglauben, Blindheit und Verstockung. Hamburg: Hertel, 1644. Nilson, Andres. Norcopensis, geadekt Nordenhielm. Pages 176–77 in Philosemitismus im Barock: Religions- und Geistesgeschichtliche Untersuchungen. Edited by HansJoachim Schoeps. Tübingen: Mohr, 1952. Patschovsky, Alexander. Der Passauer Anonymus: Ein Sammelwerk über Ketzer, Juden, Antichrist aus der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts. SMGH 22. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1968. Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews. 4 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Picart, Bernard. Ceremonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde. 8 vols. Amsterdam: Bernard, 1723–1743. Porges, Nathan. “Die Anfangsgründe der hebräischen und griechischen Gramatik des Franciscus Tissardus.” Pages 176–84 in Festskrift I Anledning af Professor David Simonsens 70-aarige Fødselsdag. Edited by David Simonsen. Copenhagen: Hertz, 1923. Purchas, Samuel. 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. Purchas, Samuel. 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. Ruderman, David B. The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1981. Salanus, Petrus. Reisejournal. Pages 173–74 in Philosemitismus im Barock: Religions- und Geistesgeschichtliche Untersuchungen. Edited by Hans-Joachim Schoeps. Tübingen: Mohr, 1952.

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Sandys, George. 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. Schammes, Jousep. Minhagim de-Kehilat Kodesh Vermaisa [Hebrew]. Edited by Benjamin Hamburger and Erich Zimmer. 2 vols. WM. Jerusalem: Mekhon Yerushalayim, 1988–1992. Schoeps, Hans-Joachim. Philosemitismus im Barock: Religions- und Geistesgeschichtliche Untersuchungen. Tübingen: Mohr, 1952. Sherman, William H. “Stirrings and Searchings (1500–1720).” Pages 17–36 in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. Edited by Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs. CCL. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Sperber, Daniel. The Customs of Israel [Hebrew]. 3 vols. Jerusalem, 1994. Strachan, Michael. The Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Tissard, François. Dialogus Prothypatris kai Phronimos: Qui videlicet pro patria promptus est et Prudens; De Judeorum ritibus compendium; Tabula elementorum hebraicorum…. Paris: [n.p.], 1508. Yardeni, Myriam. “Descriptions of Voyages and a Change in Attitude toward the Jews: The Case of Thomas Coryate.” Pages 71–91 in Anti-Jewish Mentalities in Early Modern Europe. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990

Part 3 Comparing and Contrasting Rituals

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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 dynamics and dynamism? The word dynamics first of all means that rituals are not static or immutable. 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 strategies 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 distinction 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, contributes 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.

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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 emphasized 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, rituals may also function as important catalysts for social, cultural, and religious changes. One of the major reasons why, for instance, in the United States “worship 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 existence, 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.

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related to each other—for instance in the development of Jewish Pesach and Christian Easter, and in the communal meals—but they also become particularly 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 overwhelming 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 development of this rite in the preexilic period. A comparison with ethnographic data derived from other, especially African, societies where circumcision is practiced 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).

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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 biblical 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 preceding 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 everybody 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.

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hide their circumcision or that they even had their foreskin repaired by a special 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 proselyte 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 related 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.

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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 required 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 suffice 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 position 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 version 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.

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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 society, 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 communities 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 transformation and reinterpretation of existing traditions that, as far as the earliest period is concerned, were for the most part derived from Judaism. It is precisely 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, circumcision was replaced with baptism and that, with the exception of some marginal Jewish-Christian sects, circumcision was abolished and left no traces in communities 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 circumcision 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).

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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 washings 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) antecedents 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.

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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 circumcised 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 circumcision 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 outspoken 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 circumcision 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 circumcision 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, Circoncision, 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.

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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 consider 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 attributed 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 circumcision 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 spoken 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 impact 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 patristic 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.

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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 interesting 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 liturgical 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 remarkable 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.

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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 certainly 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 designated, 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 prebaptismal 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 influential, 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 anointing 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).

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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 direction. 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 rituals 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.

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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 gentiles, 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.

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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 milieu, 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 prescribed or recommended, nor rejected. Disagreeing with scholars like Hans Joachim Schoeps, who held that circumcision 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.

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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 thoroughly. Likewise remarkable in this regard is the fact that the passage from the Diamartyria presents a clearly positive picture of circumcision since, according 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, abstaining 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.

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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 common 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.

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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 occurred 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 elements, 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 circumcision. 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).

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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 disappear 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 differences 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 originated, and the milieus from which the other sources (Acts of Thomas, Didascalia, but also Ephrem and Aphrahat) derived. For the former types of communities, 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).

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It should be furthermore kept in mind that at least some of these communities 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 became 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 appears 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 common patterns in Christianity came into existence, the discussion about the question as to whether circumcision or immersion—or both—for admission 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 normative 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 remarkable that Jewish and Christian communities more or less simultaneously were dealing with a similar question, which was to decide which rituals were

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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 unequivocally 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 passages. 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 everything 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.

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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 influences 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 certainly 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. Bibliography Arnason, Johann, Shmuel Eisenstadt, and Björn Wittrock, eds. Axial Civilizations and World History. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Beck, Edmund. Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymne de Nativitate (Epiphania). 2 vols. CSCO 186–187. Leuven: Peeters, 1959. Beck, Edmund. Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Hymnen de Virginitate. 2 vols. CSCO 223–224. Leuven: Peeters, 1962. Beck, Edmund. Des heiligen Ephraem des Syrers Sermones de Fide. 2 vols. CSCO 212–213. Leuven: Peeters, 1961. Bell, Catherine. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Bellah, Robert, and Hans Joas, ed. The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Cambridge: Belknap, 2012. Brock, Sebastian. “Baptismal Themes in the Writings of Jacob of Serugh.” Pages 325–48 in Symposium Syriacum 1976: Célébré du 13 au 17 septembre 1976 au Centre Culturel “Les Fontaines” de Chantilly, France. OCA 205. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1978. Brock, Sebastian. The Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2008. 54  Shaye Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised? Gender and Covenant in Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 43–45.

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Cirillo, Luigi. “Le baptême, remède à la concupiscence, selon la catéchèse ps.-clémentine de Pierre: Hom. XI 26 (Réc. VI,9; IX,7).” Pages 79–90 in Text and Testimony: Essays in Honour of A. F. J. Klijn. Edited by T. Baarda, A. Hilhorst, G. P. Luttikhuizen, and A. S. van der Woude. Kampen: Kok, 1988. Cirillo, Luigi, and André Schneider. Roman pseudo-clémentin: Reconnaissances. Pages 1591–2003 in vol. 2 of Écrits apocryphes chrétiens. Edited by Pierre Geoltrain and Jean-Daniel Kaestli. BP 516. Paris: Gallimard, 2005. Cohen, Shaye. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Cohen, Shaye. Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised? Gender and Covenant in Judaism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Collinson, Patrick. “The Late Medieval Church and Its Reformation.” Pages 196–232 in The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. Edited by John McManners. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Cureton, William. Ancient Syriac Documents Relative to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2005. Daniélou, Jean. “Circoncision et baptême.” Pages 755–76 in Theologie und Gegenwart: Michael Schmaus zum sechzigsten Geburtstag. Edited by Johann Auer and Hermann Volk. Munich: Zink, 1957. Dölger, Franz. Sphragis: Eine altchristliche Taufbezeichnung in ihren Beziehungen zur profanen und religiösen Kultur des Altertums. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1911. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. The Savage Mind: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Ferguson, Everett. Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Geoltrain, Pierre, and Jean-Daniel Kaestli, eds. Vol. 2 of Écrits apocryphes chrétiens. BP 516. Paris: Gallimard, 2005. Goodman, Martin. “Jewish Proselytizing in the First Century A.D.” Pages 53–78 in Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire. Edited by Tessa Rajak, Judith Lieu, and John North. Methuen: London, 1992. Goodman, Martin. Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994. Gribomont, Jean. “Le triomphe de Pâques d’après Saint Ephrem.” ParOr 4 (1973): 147–89. Hoffman, Lawrence. Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Johnson, Maxwell. The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999. Jones, Stanley. “Jewish Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines.” Pages 315–34 in A Companion to Second Century “Heretics.” Edited by Annti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2005.

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Kinzig, Wolfram, “The Nazoraeans.” Pages 463–487 in Jewish Believers in Jesus. Edited by Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik. Peabody Mass, 2007. Klijn, A. F. J., and G. J. Reinink. Patristic Evidence for Jewish Christian Sects. Leiden: Brill, 1973. Kretschmar, Georg. “Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes in der alten Kirche.” Pages 1–347 in Der Taufgottesdienst. Vol. 5 of Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes. Edited by Karl F. Müller. Kassel: Staudia, 1970. Mimouni, Simon. Le judéo-christianisme ancient. Essais historiques. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1998. Mimouni, Simon. La circoncision dans le monde judéen aux époques grecque et romaine. Leuven: Peeters, 2007. Molland, Einar. “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. Myers, Susan. “Initiation by Anointing in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity.” StLi 31 (2001): 150–70. Parisot, J. Aphraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes. 2 vols. PS. Paris: Didot, 1894–1907. Pierre, Marie-Joseph. Aphraate le Sage Persan: Les Exposés. 2 vols. SC 349, 359. Paris: Cerf, 1988–1989. Rehm, Bernhard, and Georg Strecker. Die Pseudoklementinen. 2 vols. GCS 42, 51. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992–1994. Rouwhorst, Gerard. “Christliche und jüdische Theologie: Christlicher Gottesdienst und der Gottesdienst Israels; Forschungsgeschichte, historische Interaktionen, Theologie.” Pages 493–572 in Gottesdienst im Leben der Christen. Vol. 2 of Theologie des Gottesdienstes: Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft. Edited by Martin Klöckener, Angelus Häussling, and Reinhard Messner. GdK 2.2. Regensburg: Pustet, 2008. Rouwhorst, Gerard. “Liturgical Mimesis or Liturgical Identity Markers? The Initiation of Christians and the Baptism of Christ in Early Syriac Christianity.” Pages 25–47 in Studies in Oriental Liturgy: Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, New York, 10–15 June 2014. Edited by Bert Groen, Daniel Galadza, Nina Glibetic, and Gabriel Radle. Leuven: Peeters, 2019. Rouwhorst, Gerard. “The Liturgical Reading of the Bible in Early Eastern Christianity: The Protohistory of the Byzantine lectionary.” Pages 155–72 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. Edited by Klaas Spronk, Gerard Rouwhorst, and Stefan Royé. Turnhout: Brepols, 2013. Rouwhorst, Gerard. “Le noyau le plus ancient de la collection ‘Sur l’Épiphanie’ et la question de leur authenticité.” VC 66 (2012): 139–59.

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Rouwhorst, Gerard. “A Remarkable Case of Religious Interaction: Water Baptisms in Judaism and Christianity.” Pages 103–26 in Interactions between Judaism and Christianity in History, Religion, Art and Literature. Edited by Marcel Poorthuis, Joshua Schwartz, and Joseph Turner. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Rouwhorst, Gerard. “Table Community in Early Christianity.” Pages 69–84 in A Holy People: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Religious Communal Identity. Edited by Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz. JCP 12. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Rouwhorst, Gerard. “Salbung”. RAC XXIX (2018): 340–370. Saber, Georges. La théologie de Saint Ephrem: Essai de théologie historique. Kaslik: Université de Saint-Esprit, 1974. Schoeps, Hans Joachim. Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums. Tübingen: Mohr, 1949. Skarsaune, Oskar, “The Ebionites.” Pages 419–62 in Jewish Believers in Jesus. Edited by Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007. Spinks, Bryan. Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Strecker, Georg. Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen. 2nd ed. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1981. Strecker, Georg. “On the Problem of Jewish Christianity.” Pages 241–85 in Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Edited by Walter Bauer. London: SCM, 1972. Stroumsa, Guy. La fin du sacrifice: Les mutations religieuses dans l’Antiquité tardive. Paris: Jacob, 2005. Vööbus, Arthur. The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac. 2 vols. CSCO.S 179–80. Leuven: Peeters, 1979. Wehnert, Jürgen. “Taufvorstellungen in den Pseudoklementinen.” Pages 1071–114 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. Edited by David Hellholm, Tor Vegge, Øyvind Norderval, and Christer Hellholm. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. Winkler, Gabriele. Das armenische Initiationsritual: Entwicklungsgeschichtliche und liturgievergleichende Untersuchung der Quellen des 3. bis 10. Jahrhunderts. OCA 217. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1982. Winkler, Gabriele. “The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing and Its Implications.” Worship 52 (1978): 24–45. Witkamp, Nathan. Tradition and Innovation: Baptismal Rite and Mystagogy in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Narsai of Nisibis. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 149. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Yarbro Collins, Adela. “The Origins of Christian Baptism.” StLi 19 (1989): 28–46. Ysebaert, Joseph. Greek Baptismal Terminology: Its Origin and Early Development. Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1962.

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 basically 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 follows, therefore, that if we want to understand dynamics of ancient Jewish rituals as performed in institutions we call “synagogues,” we need first to understand 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 famous 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 undermining 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.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004405950_011

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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 influence 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 narratives, intertwined with ideas not only about separate Jewish and Christian religious identities and forms of worship, but also with the very notion of “religion” 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 reveals 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 interested 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

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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 modern 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 contemporary 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, inscriptions, 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).

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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 nature and function of the earliest “synagogues.” This, it is hoped, may provide material for further studies on the ritual and other activities that were associated 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 synagogue 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 synagogue 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 excavator, Dina Avshalom-Gorni, and Arfan Najar, “Migdal: Preliminary Report,” Hadashot Arkheologiot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 125 (2013), Israel Antiquities Authority,

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Figure 9.1 The Gamla Synagogue, looking south-west Photograph by Anders Runesson

While this certainly connects the Magdala and the Gamla buildings functionally, 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 importantly, 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.

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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

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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

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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 teaching 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 special 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 proceedings, 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 cannot 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 object of household devotion ‘contained’ the power of the temple god.” This dialectic relationship, as it were, between domestic and public cult may, then, provide a frame of reference 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.

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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 question 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 century, 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 translate 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 architecture,” 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 arrangement 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 emphasis 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

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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 nature 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 sacrifices, 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 activities 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.

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features were added, Theodotos says, “for accommodating those needing them from abroad.” Such architectural features do not belong in the sphere of political institutions, and we do not find them in connection with the other buildings just discussed. A possible exception could be the water installations, which we actually 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 before 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 architectural 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 washings 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 institution, also existing in Jerusalem. 24  See discussion above on the bouleutēria.

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without fixed benches. If we connect at least some of the scrolls found in adjacent 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 triclinium 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 inscriptions 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; according to him, Essenes gathered in a synagōgē (Prob. 80–83). Regarding the term bet hishtahavot, “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).

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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 (plaster) 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 ecclesia (“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 institution 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/assembly 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

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include Priene (Asia Minor) and Dura Europos (Mesopotamia/Syria), both of which have some important features in common with the building mentioned 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 administration. 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 adapted from private architecture. The Priene, the Dura, and the Stobi synagogues, however, were all originally private houses that were later adapted to accommodate Jewish assemblies. As such, these structures may well have provided cooking and dining facilities, which would have been useful for a Jewish association, 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 inscriptions 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 extensive 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.”

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this temple term, and from the fact that such institutions were sometimes explicitly 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 evidence 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 priestess 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 acceptance 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 borders 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 institutions called proseuchai; but this source, centuries younger than the earliest inscriptions, we have excluded from the present exercise in historical reconstruction. For a reconstruction 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.

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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 designation “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 consistency 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 associations 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 believers 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.

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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 evidence 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 present 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 different, 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 existence 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.

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These associations, in which the word-pair “Jews and Christians” was born, were independent of each other from the beginning, and thus never experienced 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 organizational 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 stability, 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, displaying 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 version 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.

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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 ancient 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 religious 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) emphasizing 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 encouraged to engage in such further work in this field, I will consider the goal of the study achieved.54 Bibliography Avshalom-Gorni, Dina, and Arfan Najar. “Migdal: Preliminary Report.” Hadashot Arkheologiot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 125 (2013). Israel Antiquities Authority. http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=2304&mag_id=120. Bauckham, Richard, and Stefano De Luca. “Magdala as We Know It.” EC 6 (2015): 91–118.

54  Versions of this study have been presented at conferences at the University of Toronto, Canada (2011) and the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies of the University of Erfurt, Germany (2016), as well as at the Social History and the New Testament Seminar of the SNTS (Athens, Greece, 2018). I am grateful to the participants in these conferences for rewarding discussions. A special thank-you to Bernadette J. Brooten for her careful reading of and insightful comments on the penultimate version of the study. The current text is a modified, re-contextualized, revised, and corrected version of an article previously published as “Synagogues without Rabbis or Christians? Ancient Institutions beyond Normative Discourses,” JBV 38 (2017) 159–72.

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Binder, Donald D. Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple Period. SBLDS 169. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999. Binder, Donald D. “The Mystery of the Magdala Stone.” Pages in 17–48 in A City Set on a Hill: Essays in Honor of James F. Strange. Edited by Daniel Warner and Donald D. Binder. Mountain Home, AR: BorderStone, 2014. Cohen, Shaye. “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.” Pages 89–105 in Evolution of the Synagogue: Problems and Progress. Edited by Howard C. Kee and Lynn H. Cohick. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1999. Corbo, Virgilio C. Cafarnao I: Gli edifici della citta. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1975. Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1913. Repr., 1993. Falk, Daniel. Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls. STDJ 27. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Feldman, Louis H., and Meyer Reinhold. Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996. Frankfurter, David. “Traditional Cult.” Pages 543–64 in A Companion to the Roman Empire. Edited by David S. Potter. Oxford: Blackwell, 2010. Frederiksen, Rune. “The Greek Theatre: A Typical Building in the Urban Centre of the Polis?” Pages 65–124 in Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis. Edited by Thomas Heine Nielsen. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002. Fredriksen, Paula. “ ‘If It Looks Like a Duck, and It Quacks Like a Duck …’: On Not Giving Up the Godfearers.” Pages 25–33 in A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer. Edited by Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Nathaniel P. DesRosiers, Shira L. Lander, Jacqueline Z. Pastis, and Daniel C. Ullucci. BJS 358. Providence: Brown University, 2015. Gillihan, Yonder Moynihan. 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. Haber, Susan. “They shall Purify Themselves”: Essays on Purity in Early Judaism. Edited by Adele Reinhartz. EJL 24. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008. Hansen, M. H., and T. Fischer-Hansen. “Monumental Political Architecture in Archaic and Classical Greek Poleis: Evidence and Historical Significance.” Pages 23–90 in From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for the Ancient Greek Polis. Edited by David Whitehead. HistE 87. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994. Harland, Philip A. Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Kloppenborg, John S. “Dating Theodotos.” JJS 51.2 (2000): 243–80.

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Korner, Ralph J. The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement. AJEC 98. Brill: Leiden, 2017. Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Krause, Andrew R. Synagogues in the Works of Flavius Josephus: Rhetoric, Spatiality, and First-Century Jewish Institutions. AJEC 97. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Leibner, Uzi. “Excavations at Khirbet Wadi Hamam (Lower Galilee): The Synagogue and the Settlement.” JRA 23 (2010) 220–63. Leibner, Uzi, and Shulamit Miller. “Appendix: A Figural Mosaic in the Synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam.” JRA (2010) 238–63. Levine, Lee I. The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. Levine, Lee I. Visual Judaism: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Linder, Amnon. The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987. Loffreda, Stanisalo. Cafarnao II: La Ceramica. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1974. Loffreda, Stanisalo. Recovering Capharnaum. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1997. Magness, Jodi. “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues.” DOP 59 (2005): 1–52. Magness, Jodi. “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues.” Pages 363–89 in Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina. Edited William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003. Ma‛oz, Zvi. “The Synagogue of Gamla and the Typology of Second-Temple Synagogues.” Pages 35–41 in Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Edited by Lee I. Levine. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981. Matassa, Lidia. “Unravelling the Myth of the Synagogue on Delos.” BAIAS 25 (2007): 81–115. McCollough, C. Thomas. “Khirbet Qana.” Pages 127–45 in The Archaeological Record from Cities, Towns, and Villages. Vol. 2 of Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Edited by James R. Strange and David A. Fiensy. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Netzer, Ehud. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho. Vol. 2 of Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2004. Netzer, Ehud. “A Synagogue from the Hasmonean Period Recently Exposed in the Western Plain of Jericho.” IEJ (1999): 203–21.

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Reich, Ronny, and Marcela Zapata Meza. “A Preliminary Report on the Miqwa’ot of Migdal.” IEJ 64.1 (2014): 63–71. Richardson, Peter. Building Jewish in the Roman East. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2004. Runesson, Anders. “Architecture, Conflict, and Identity Formation: Jews and Christians in Capernaum from the 1st to the 6th Century.” Pages 231–57 in The Ancient Galilee in Interaction: Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity. Edited by Jürgen Zangenberg, Harold W. Attridge, and Dale Martin. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Runesson, Anders. “Jewish and Christian Interaction from the First to the Fifth Centuries.” Pages 244–64 in The Early Christian World. Edited by Philip Esler. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2017. Runesson, Anders. “The Nature and Origins of the First-Century Synagogue.” In Bible and Interpretation (2004). http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2004/07/run288001 .shtml. Runesson, Anders. The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study. ConBNT 37. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001. Runesson, Anders. “The Question of Terminology: The Architecture of Contemporary Discussions on Paul.” Pages 53–77 in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Edited by Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Runesson, Anders. “The Synagogue at Ancient Ostia: The Building and Its History from the First to the Fifth Century.” Pages 29–99 in The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of Rome: Interdisciplinary Studies. Edited by Birger Olsson, Dieter Mitternacht, and Olof Brandt. ActaRom-4° 57. Stockholm: Åström, 2001. Runesson, Anders. “Synagogues without Rabbis or Christians? Ancient Institutions beyond Normative Discourses.” JBV 38 (2017): 159–72. 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. Ryan, Jordan. “Public and Semi-Public Synagogues of the Land of Israel during the Second Temple Period.” In El Proyecto arqueológico Magdala: Interpretaciones preliminaires bajo una perspectiva interdisciplinar. Edited by Juan María Solana and Marcela Zapata Meza. Special issue, RPen 5.1 (October 2013): 32–39. Schwartz, Seth. Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 BCE to 640 CE. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Solana, Juan María, 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. Spigel, Chad S. Ancient Synagogue Seating Capacities: Methodology, Analysis and Limits. TSAJ 149. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012.

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Spijkerman, Augusto. Cafarnao III: Le Monete della Città. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1975. Stemberger, Günter. Jews and Christians in the Holy Land. Edinburg: T&T Clark, 2000. Strange, James F. “Archaeology and Ancient Synagogues up to about 200 CE.” Pages 37–62 in The Ancient Synagogue: From the Beginning to about 200 CE; Papers Presented at the International Conference at Lund University, October 14–17, 2001. Edited by Birger Olsson and Magnus Zetterholm. ConBNT 39. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003. Testa, Emmanuele. Cafarnao IV: I Graffiti della casa di S. Pietro. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1972. Trebilco, Paul. Jewish Communities in Asia Minor. SNTSMS 69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Trümper, Monica. “The Oldest Original Synagogue Building in the Diaspora: The Delos Synagogue Reconsidered.” Hesperia 73 (2004): 513–98. Williams, Margaret H. “The Jews and Godfearers Inscription from Aphrodisias: A Case of Patriarchal Interference in Early 3rd Century Caria?” Historia 41.3 (1992): 297–310. Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg, and Edward M. Cook. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996. Yadin, Yigael. “The Synagogue at Masada.” Pages 19–23 in Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Edited by Lee I. Levine. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981. Zangenberg, Jürgen K. “Archaeological News from Galilee: Tiberias, Magdala, and Rural Galilee.” EC 1 (2010): 471–84.

Part 4 Dynamic Rituals and Innovation of Rituals in Modern Contexts

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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 seriously 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 imagined rites, from biblical to rabbinic texts, hekhalot material and early Christian iterations, into medieval prophetic kabbalah, and finally its (admittedly infrequent) 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 development 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 significance; or is it that which produces the most fundamental meaningfulness for culture? How do we conduct an ecological reading of premodern cultures without 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 understanding 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).

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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 ecologicallyoriented 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 crosscultural comparison with related rites in other societies and in-depth study of the many relevant internal sources will help. Of the many previous treatments 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 husbandry 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 inimical 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 bathing 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.

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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 relationship 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 enacted in the bodily activity that is ritual “are not merely abstract connexions posited between hypothetical terms, but experiential truths sustained by intentionally 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 ancient 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 transformation; 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 textual 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.

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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 important 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 theological 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 hopedfor 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 sanctify 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.

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Now wait! This is extraordinary. What is this Light-Bearer that is so intimately 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 “adamah” (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 interweave 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, blossoms, 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 Zechariah 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 precincts. 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 prohibits 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 ecologicalcosmological 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.

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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 exemption 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 community: 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) fallen 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 olives 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.

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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 growing 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 rabbinic 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 setting 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 expresses 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 individuals 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.

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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 intimately 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, magical 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 entities 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 feminine, 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 veumot 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.

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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 scholarly 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.

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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 perhaps 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 reading, 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 ailment. 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 (humans, 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 cultures. 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 radical 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 intelligences,” 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 visceral 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.

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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 concludes 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 direction, 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 cosmological 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 “clearly 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 “historical ‘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 agricultural 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 “popular” agricultural concerns. He dates the turn away from “popular” agricultural inclinations to the Second Temple period.23 Knohl notes that HS passages relating 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 sanctification 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. 22  Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 205. 23  Yehezkel Kaufmann, Toldot HaEmuna HaYisraelit Mimei Kedem ad Sof Bayit Sheni (Jerusalem: Bialik; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1967). 24  Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 81.

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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 economic control of olive oil production and priestly self-insertion (?) into the agricultural theological ecology as forms of elite domination and theological 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, natureinvoking 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 agriculturally 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 ideological 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 engaging 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.

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“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 installation 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.

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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 taking 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 importance. 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 critiquing 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 disastrously 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.

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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 production, 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 tradition 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 cultural 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 domestication, 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

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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 radiocarbon 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 products, 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.

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Here [I have] upthrusting sap [with which to purify thee]. Let it [invigorate] 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 [toward 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 Telepinus, 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]tustayas, 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 culture. 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 centuries BCE.

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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 species, 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 settings, 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 locates 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 intriguing, 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 settlements.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 historical 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 parable 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.

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tradition”—referring to Numbers 11:25–29.36 These supernatural-naturalcultural meanings—in a non-ideational sense—are further bolstered and developed in the discourse around anointing from innerbiblical intertextuality, 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 perceive 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 directly 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 philosophical] reinterpretations of Judaism was the further suppression of apocalyptic, magical, mythical, and mystical elements…. But … the rationalistic reconstructions of Judaism prompted, in turn, a powerful reaction wherein an amalgam of older traditions, including the same mystical, 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

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Eilberg-Schwartz cautions that ancient Israelites “would have found implausible 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 ecological 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 ignorant of many of the specifics of their lived reality and of the relationship between “ordinary” Israelites and the scribal elites and the latter’s prescriptive 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, reflecting 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-thanhuman 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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Bibliography Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Berry, Wendell. “Imagination in Place.” In The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays. N.p.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005. Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth. “Solomon’s Temple: The Politics of Ritual Space.” Pages 83–94 in Sacred Time, Sacred Space: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel. Edited by B. M. Gittlen. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002. Burton, Lloyd. Worship and Wilderness: Culture, Religion, and Law in Public Lands Management. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. Davila, James R. Descenders to the Chariot: The People behind the Hekhalot Literature. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Eitam, David. “Olive Production during the Biblical Period.” Pages 16–43 in Olive Oil in Antiquity: Israel and Neighbouring Countries from the Neolithic to the Early Arab Period. Edited by David Eitam and Michael Heltzer. Padova: Sargon, 1996. Evans, Arthur J. “Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and Its Mediterranean Relations.” JHS 21 (1901): 99–204. Fleming, Daniel E. “The Biblical Tradition of Anointing Priests.” JBL 117.3 (1998): 401–14. Frankel, Rafael. “Olives.” OEANE 4:179–84. Goor, Asaph. “The Place of the Olive in the Holy Land and its History Through the Ages.” EBot 20 (1966): 223–43. Haran, Menahem. Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978. Hiebert, Theodore. The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Himmelfarb, Martha. Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Houseman, Michael. “Painful Places: Ritual Encounters with One’s Homelands.” JRAI 4.3 (1998): 447–67. Houtman, Cornelis (Cees). “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. Idel, Moshe. “Infinities of Torah in Kabbalah,.” Pages 141–57 in Midrash and Literature. Edited by Geoffrey H. Hartman and Sanford Budick. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Kaufmann, Yehezkel. Toldot HaEmuna HaYisraelit Mimei Kedem ad Sof Bayit Sheni. Jerusalem: Bialik; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1967.

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Knohl, Israel, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Neef, Reinder. “Introduction, Development and Environmental Implications of Olive Culture: The Evidence from Jordan.” Pages 295–306 in Man’s Role in the Shaping of the Eastern Mediterranean Landscape. Edited by S. Bottema, G. Entjes-Nieborg, and W. van Zeist Rotterdam: Balkema, 1990. Parpola, Simo. “The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy.” JNES 52.3 (1993): 161–208. Patai, Raphael. Adam ṿe-adamah: meḥḳar be-minhagim, emunot ṿe-agadot etsel Yisra’el ve-umot ha-’olam. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1942. Patai, Raphael. Man and Temple: In Ancient Jewish Myth and Ritual. London: Nelson & Sons, 1947. Plato. Plato: The Collected Dialogues. Translated by R. Hackforth. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Schwartz, Seth. Josephus and Judaean Politics. Leiden: Brill, 1990. Sefaria: A Living Library of Jewish Texts. “Mishnah Peah 7.” https://www.sefaria.org/ Mishnah_Peah.7.5?lang=bi. Serres, Michel. The Natural Contract. Translated by Elizabeth MacArthur and William Paulson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Thomashow, Mitchell. Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996. Waskow, Arthur. “Deep Meanings of Hanukkah: The Prophetic Green Menorah.” The Shalom Report. 4 November 2013. Weinfeld, Moshe. “Feminine Elements in Israelite Portrayals of Divinity: The Holy Couple and the Sanctified Tree” [Hebrew]. BetM 40 (1995): 348–58. Weisman, Ze’ev. “Anointing as a Motif in the Making of the Charismatic King.” Bib 57 (1976): 378–98. Zohary, David, and Pinhas Spiegel-Roy. “Beginnings of Fruit Growing in the Old World.” Science 187 (1975): 319–27.

Index of Names Aaron 232 Aaron ben Jacob ha-Kohen, Rabbi 71 Abba Shaul 220 Abbahu, Rabbi 220 Abel 88–89 Abraham 48, 89, 117, 119, 166, 168, 178, 222 Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne 70 Abraham ben Moses of Sinsheim 59–60 Abram, David 221, 234 Abulafia, Abraham 216 Adam 15, 108 Agrippa, King 4, 133, 135–136, 138, 140–141 Aha ben Yitzhak, Rabbi 226 Akiva, Rabbi 133–134 Aldersey, Laurence 152–153 Alexander the Great 142–143 Aphrahat 178, 182–183 Asher ben Jehiel Ashkenazi 71 Augustine of Hippo 86–87, 99 Avimelech 227–228 Beit-Arié, Malachi 77–78 Benovitz, Moshe 119–120 Bitton-Ashkelony, Brouria 132, 134 Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth 226 Bodmer, Martin 40–41, 43 Braunschweig, Abraham 156 Breuer, David 138 Breuer, Yochanan 128, 132 Brody, Robert 18 Buber, Martin 141 Büchler, Adolf 118, 133–134, 140 Burckard, Johannes 95 Buxtorf, Johannes 149–150, 155–156 Caro, Joseph 20 Castello, Alberto da 88–89 Chief Rabbi Hertz 20 Clement VIII, Pope 93, 95 Cohen, Shaye 142, 170, 186 Cohn, Naftali S. 113, 130, 132 Corbo, Virgilio C. 201 Coryate, Thomas 151, 153 David 89, 138, 228 Deleuze, Gilles 221

Deutsch, Yaacov vii–viii, 4–5 Dueck, Daniela 118–122 Durandus, William 94 Durkheim, Emile 166, 233 Edenberg, Mathias 154–155 Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 215–216, 234 Elazar ben Ya’akov, Rabbi 220–221 Eleazar of Worms 33, 35–36, 39 Eliezer ben Jacob, Rabbi 15 Eliezer ben Samuel of Metz 59 Eliezer, Rabbi 169–170 Elijah 113 Elman, Yaakov 129 Ephrem the Syrian 175, 177–178, 182–183 Epiphanes, Antiochus 122 Evans, Arthur J. 230 Ezekiel 219, 222 Ezra 134 Farissol, Abraham 150 Fine, Gary M. 119 Fishman, Talya 60 Flavius Josephus 120 Fleming, Daniel E. 232 Frankfurter, David 197 Friedenheim, Casper 148 Gafni, Isaiah 142 Gamaliel, Rabban 17–18 Gelasius I, Pope 91 Gideon (Yeruba’al) 228 Goodblatt, David 18 Gordon, Martin L. 73 Greenberg, Moshe 13 Gregory the Great, Pope 88, 91 Gregory VII, Pope 91 Grimes, Roland L. 51 Guattari, Félix 221 Günzburg, Simon Levi 149–150 Haber, Susan 200 Haim ben Moses Or Zarua 33 Hanina ben Dosa, Rabbi 223 Haran, Menahem 13, 228 Harland, Philip 205

238 Häußling, Angelus 91 Heracles 230 Herod the Great 13 Herodotus 230 Hess, Ernst Ferdinand 150 Hiebert, Theodore 218, 224–225 Hillel 112, 223 Himmelfarb 226 Hoffman, Lawrence 18 Honi the Circle Maker 223 Hoogh, Romeyn de 157 Hosea 222 Hsia, Ronnie 149 Idel, Moshe 233 Imanuel, Simhah 33 Isaac 48, 89 Isaac ‘Or Zaru’a, Rabbi 59 Isaiah 134 Ishmael, Rabbi 57 Jacob 89, 222 Jacob ben Meir Tam 62 Jacob ben Moses Levi Moelin 33, 46–47 Jacob of Sarug 178 Jaddus 142 James 180 Januarius 86 Jehudah he-Hasid 77 Jeremiah 133–134, 222 Jeremiah, R. 17 Jesus 6, 15, 85–86, 89, 121, 142, 166, 171–173, 176–177, 181–182, 192, 205–206, 208 Joel ben Simeon 40 John the Baptist 172 Jose, R. 74 Josef b. Efraim Caro from Tolendo 72 Joseph ben Samuel Tov Elem 32 Josephus 122, 124, 190, 192, 204 Joshua, Rabbi 169–170 Josiah, King 190, 228–229 Judah, Rabbi 30–31, 57 Justin 174 Karo, Joseph 149 Kaufmann, Yehezkel 225 Kimchi, David (Radak) 227 Klöckener, Martin vii, 3

Index of names Knohl, Israel 13, 225 Kocher, Abigail 15 Kogman-Appel, Katrin vii, 2 Lehem, Beit 228 Leo X, Pope 88 Leonhard, Clemens vii, 3, 115 Levi b. Gershon (Ralbag) 227 Lichtenberger, Achim 115 Liddell, Henry George 12 Lieberman, Saul 113–114, 122, 129, 132 Ma´oz, Zvi 198 Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) 20, 31, 59, 111, 140, 221 Mali, Hillel vii, 4 Mali, Shlomit 143 Marcus, Ivan 62, 79 Margaritha, Anthonius 150, 155 Martini, Annett vii, 2 Meir b. Barukh of Rothenburg, Rabbi 59–60 Meir ha-Kohen of Rothenburg, Rabbi 59–60, 71 Meir, Rabbi 30 Melqart 230 Melchizedek 89 Menachem ben Solomon Meiri 70 Michal (Saul’s daughter) 138 Modena, Leon 158 Molland, Einar 179 Montaigne, Michel de 152 Mordekhai ben Hillel ha-Kohen 71–72 Mordekhai ben Hillel, Rabbi 59–60 Morrison, Fynes 152 Mose 71, 89, 152, 166, 225, 228–229 Müller, Johannes 156 Natan, Rabbi 223 Nehemiah 134 Neusner, Jacob 129, 131 Nilson, Andres 155 Noah 88 Onkelos 227 Oshia, Rabbi 223 Patai, Raphael 222 Paul 85–86, 99, 173–175, 179, 181–184

239

Index of names Paul VI, Pope 96–98 Pepys, Samuel 154 Peter 88, 180 Petrus Salanus 154 Philo 192, 201, 204 Picart, Bernard 157 Piccolomini, Agostino Patrizi 94 Pius V, Pope 91–92 Plutarch 4, 116–119, 121–122, 124–125 Polycharmos, Tiberios 203 Purchas, Samuel 153

Shlomo 226 Simeon b. Nanas, Rabbi 133 Simeon the Righteous 16 Simeon, Rabbi 132–133 Simon-Shoshan, Moshe 128–129 Singer, Simeon 20 Sira, Ben 14, 25, 221 Sofer, David 43 Solomon ibn Gabirol 19 Solomon, King 229 Stökl ben Ezra, Daniel 130

Quiñonez, Francesco (Cardinal) 95

Tacitus 4, 117–118, 121–122 Telepinu/Telepinus 230 Theodosius I 205 Theodotos 6, 199–202 Theodulf of Orleans 87–88, 99 Thomashow, Mitchell 233 Tissard, François 150–151 Titus 139 Trümper, Monica 202

Rabba, Vayyiqra 121 Rashi 227 Reif, Stefan vii, 1, 3 Richardson, Peter 203 Rosen-Zvi, Ishay 129–134 Rouwhorst, Gerard viii, 5 Rubenstein, Jeffrey 18 Ruderman, David 151 Ruffiot, Franck 87 Runesson, Anders viii, 5 Rüpke, Jörg 139 Samuel the Pious / the Parchment Maker 62–63 Sandys, Georg 154 Schammes, Jousep 155 Schoeps, Hans-Joachim 154–155, 179 Schorsch, Jonathan viii, 6 Schwartz, Seth 135–137, 226 Scott, Robert 12 Serres, Michel 215 Severa, Julia 204–205 Shalom ben Isaac of Neustadt 33 Shimon b. Gamliel, Rabban 138

Wachtendorp, Reverend 156 Waskow, Arthur 218 Weisman, Ze’ev 216, 232 Wellhausen, Julius 225 Wells, Samuel 15 White, Michael L. 202 Winkler, Gabriele 176 Witte, Immanuel de 157 Yadin, Yigael 198 Yehuda, Rabbi 133 Yohanan b. Zakkai, Rabban 16, 223 Zalman of St. Goar 46 Zechariah 218–219 Zera, R. 17

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts Hebrew Bible (according to the Order of the Biblical Books) Gen 1:1 225 2:4a 225 2:4b 225 2:7 219 2:16 15 17 168 28:18 222 35:14 222 Exod 12:3 28 12:6 28 12:14 73 12:19 2 13:3 28 13:8 28 13:9 73 25:23–40 227 25:31–40 219 37:17–24 219 39:30 76 39:40 77 Lev 11:44 225 13:45 223 17–26 225 19:2 225 19:32 136 20:7 225 22:21 61 22:32 76 23:40 116, 119 23:42 116 23:42–43 116 23:43 116 26 225 Num 11:25–29 233 15:40 225

27:16 32 28:1–10 110 Deut 11:13 15 12:4 61 14:26 116 16:11 116 16:13–14 116 26:1 143 26:1–11 4, 131, 135 26:3–10 131 26:10 141, 143 26:11 143 26:2 143 26:3 141 26:3–10 131 26:9 141 33:24 221 Judg 6:32 228 9:8–15 232 9:16–20 228 13 222 2 Sam 2:4 228 6 138 1 Kgs 6:23 227 6:31–33 227 2 Kgs 23:4 229 23:6 229 23:8 229 23:15 229 Neh 8 199 8:15 120

241

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts Ps

100 20 122 136 125:3 66

Prov 28:9 17 30:6 69 Isa

Jer

30:29 134 52:1 66 56:7 203 2:27 222 31:4–5 133 31:5 131 51:23 134 51:28 134 51:57 134

Ezek 23:1 222 23:6 134 23:12 134 23:23 134 Dan 3:2 134 Hos 4:3 222 6:3 222 9:16 222 14:7 220 Hab 3:17 226 Zech 4:2–3 218 4:11–13 218 14:8­–9 119 16–17 119

New Testament (according to the Order of the Biblical Books) Matt 11:17 204 21:13 204 28:19–20 183 Luke 19:46 204 John 3:5–6 183 12:13 121 Acts 6:9 200 15:1–5 173 15:20 180 15:28–29 180 Rom 2:25–29 173 3:1–2 173 6 181 16 181 1 Cor 7:18 169 7:19 173 11:23 85 Gal 6:5–16 173 Col 2:11–13 173 Apocrypha / Extra-biblical Literature (Alphabetical) Acts Thom 10:38 Acts Thom 25 Acts Thom 26 Acts Thom 27

176 177 177 177

242

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts

Acts Thom 67 Acts Thom 132

177 177

1 Macc 1:15 1 Macc 3:46 1 Macc 7:37 1 Macc 13:15

169 204 204 121

2 Macc 6:7 2 Macc 10:6–8 2 Macc 10:7 2 Macc 14:33

117 120 124 117

3 Macc 2:29 117 3 Macc 7:20 204 Sir 24:18

221

T. Mos. 8:3

169

Wis 4:2

124

Other Ancient and Medieval Sources and Manuscripts (Alphabetical and according to the Spelling in the Individual Articles) Adir dar metuhim 32 Adjuration 179 Alberto da Castello’s Preface in the Roman Pontifical from 1520 88 Ant 11.8.4 142 Ant 11.302–45 142 Ant 11.329 143 Ant 11.331 143 Aphrahat 182, 183 Augustine, Bapt 7, 11, 174 Augustine, Epistula 54, 86 to Januarius Avot 1.2 16 Avot de-Rabbi Nathan 4 16 Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 7b Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 79b

46 29

Barcelona Haggadah, London, British Library, Add. MS 14761 Barn 9 Bereshit Rabba 33:9 Bird’s Head Haggadah Bik 3:3 Bik 17 BL Add 14761 Bodmer Haggadah Breviarium Romanum (1568) Breviarium vetus (no. 5) B Abod Zar 59a B Avod Zar 59 B Erub 13a B Bat 134a B Ber 33b B Git 57a B B. Metz 21b B Hul 54b B Hul 77b–78a B Menah 16b B Menah 29b B Menah 66a B Pesah 115a B Qidd 33a B Rosh Hash 30a B Sanh 65b B Shabb 10a B Shabb 14a B Sukkah 28a B Sukkah 41a B Ta’an 27b B Yevam 46a B Yevam 46a–b B Yevam 47a–b B Yoma 19b CD 20.2 CD 10–13 C Faust 19, 4.7 C Crescon I

50 173 229 36 134 134 50 41, 43 90 91 169 170 57 223 120 223 220 136 224 111 63 111 112 136 112 223 17 61 223 112 24 184 169, 184 169, 170, 184 111 201 201 174 31, 36, 174

Demonstrations 178 Dem 11.6 178 Dem 11.11–12 182

243

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts Dem 12.10.13 182 Dem 21.18 182 Diamartyria 179 Didascalia 181, 183 Didascalia Apostolorum 175 Did Apost 16 177 Did Apost 24 178 Did Apost 26 178 Erna Michael Haggadah Elohe ruhot lekhol basar Epiphanius, Pan. XXX, 2,2; 5,4; 7,5; 17,5;26,1–3 Ephrem, On Faith Ep 116,16 Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei (1596)

40 32 174 183 174 90, 93

General Instruction of the Roman Missal 98 Gen Rab 46:13 169 Gerim 185 Gerim 1 185 Gerim 5 185 Golden Haggadah 48 Haggadah, London, British Library, MS Or.2737 47 Halakhot Qetanot, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §3 71 Halakhot Qetanot, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §4 71 Hamburg Miscellany 39 Hecataeus of Abdera 117 Hillel ha-Kohen, Halakhot Qetanot, (Menahot) chapter qomez rabbah, §966 72 Hom 3.73 181 Hom 7.4 180 Hom 7.8 181 Hom 9.19 180 Hom 11.26 180 Hom 11.26–27 180 Hom 11.30 180, 181 Hom 11.36 180 Hom 13.4 180 Hom 13.5 180

Hom 14.1 Hymns Epiph 3.4 Hymns Virg, 7.7

180 177, 178 177

Irenaeus, adv. haer. I, 26

2, 174

Jerome, Comm. Ez. 44 6, 174 Jewish Antiquities (11.326–36) 142 Josephus, C. Ap. 2.204 197 Jub 15:25–34 168 Jub 30:7–14 168 Jub 16:30 117 Justin, Dial 29:1 173 Justin, Dial 38:4–39:1 173 Justin, Dial 41:4 173 Justin, Dial 43:2 173 Justin, Dial 43:2–4 173 Justin, Dial 46:1 174 Justin, Dial 47:1–5 174 Justin, Dial 113:6–7 173 Justin, Dial 114:4 173 J.W. 7.63–74 138 J.W. 7.100–103 138 J.W. 7.101 139 J.W. 7.119–120 138 Leipzig Mahzor

37

Ma’aseh Book 62 Maimonides, Mishne Torah, Sefer Zemanim, Hamets umatsah 31 Masekhet Sofrim 16:9 223 Massekhet Sefer Torah 59, 61, 74 Massekhet Soferim 59, 61, 74 Massekhet Soferim 5.6 76 Maysebukh 62 Menah 9:1 220 Mishnah Bikkurim 133 Mishnah Pesahim 1:1–4 30–31 Mishnah 3 133 Mishnah 4 133 Mishnah 5 133 Mishnah 6 133 Mishnah 9–10 133 Mishnah Hul. 12:1 227 Mishne Torah 31

244

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts

Missale Romanum (1570) Moed 4 M Abod Zar 1.2, 8a M Ber 5:1 M Bik. 2:4 M Bik. 3:1 M Bik. 3.2–3 M Bik. 3:3–4 M Bik. 5:6 M Ed. 5:2 M Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed, pt. 3, ch. 17 M Mid 2:4 M Ker 6 M Ma’as 3:4 M Menah 8:3 M Parah 3:6,7 M Pesah 10.2 M Pesah 8:8 M Pe’ah 1:5 M Pe’ah 7:1 M Sheqal 4:2 M Sotah 7:8 M Sotah 9.10 M Sukkah 3.12 M Sukkah 5.2 M Yoma 7:1

90, 92, 95 139 108 140 132 132 113 135 133 169

On Epiphany On the Egyptians On Passover Orhot Hayyim Origen, Hom. in Gen. 3:5

178 117 182 71 174

221 229 223 220 220 229 17 169 220 220, 221 229 134 121 112 121 134

Papal Bulls quod a nobis (1568) 90 Periodoi Petrou 178 Pesach Haggadah, Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer 40 Pesiq Rab Kah 6.3 110 Pesiq Rab 21:2 142 Philo, Prob 80–83 201 Plato, Phaedr 230d 234 Plutarch 4 Plutarch, Quaest Conv 4.6.2 118 Pontificale Romanum (1595/1596) 90, 95

Pseudo- Clementine Homilies Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions

178, 179 178, 179

Qeset ha-Sofer Qiryat Sefer Quod a Nobis Quo primum (1570)

72 71 91, 96 90, 92

Rec 1.33.5 Rec 3.67 Rec 4.32 Rec 4.36 Rec 5.34.2 Rec 6.10 Rec 6.15 Rec 6.9 Rec 7.29 Rec 7.30 Rec 7.38 Rec 8.53.2 Rec 9.28 Rec 9.7 Rec 44–48

179 181 180 180 179 180 180 180 180 180 180 179 179 180 181

Sacrosanctum Concilium 23 97 Schulḥan ‘Arukh 20 Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 23 Sefer Benei Yonah 72 Sefer Ḥasidim 56, 61, 63, 65, 72, 75, 76, 78 Sefer ha-Eshkol, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §11 70 Sefer ha-Eshkol, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §13 70 Sefer ha-Terumah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah, §192 70 Sefer Maharil 46 Sefer Minhagim 149 Sefer Miṣvot Gadol, §25 71 Sefer Terumah 69 Shev 4:4, 35b 224 Shulhan Arukh 72, 149 SH §33 67 SH §52 69 SH §66 68

245

Index of Ancient Sources and Manuscripts SH §404 68 SH §405 68 SH §680 65 SH §681 65 SH §682 66 SH §697 76 SH §712 63 SH §§714 64 SH §715 76 SH §719 76 SH § 722 76 SH §723 76 SH §724 64 SH §725 64 SH §728 64 SH §731 69 SH §732 63 SH §733 73 SH §745 67 SH §886 68 SH §1059 65 SH §1211 68 SH §1348 66, 67 SH §1748 69 SH §1753 63 SH §1754 64 SH §1762 77 SH §1763 73 Sifra emor, parashah 12/pereq 16.9 112 Sifre 15 Sifrei Ba- Midbar 132 Siphre ad Deuteronomium 15 Solomon ibn Gabirol 19 Tacitus 4 Tacitus, Hist 5.5.5 117 Tacitus, Hist 5.8.1 117 Tertullian, de praescript. haer 33:11 174 Teshuvot ha-Geonim, §432 70 Tetzave 13 226 Theodotos inscription 6, 199 Theodulf of Orleans: The Preface Hucusque to the Supplementum of the Sacramentarium Gregorianum 87

Tosefta Bikkurim 2:8 Tractate Bikkurim Tractate Tamid T Ber 3.1–2, 26b T Bik 1:7 T Bik 3:3, 65c T Bikk 2:10 T Menah 9:5 T Mos 8:3.1 T Pesah 10.11 T Pesah 10.11–12 T Sheqal 2:15 T Shev. 7:12 T Sukka 4:4 T Sukkah 3.14–15 T Sukkah 4.1–5 T Yoma 1.9

132 131 129 109 132 136 141 220 169 123 109 139

Vayyiqra Rabba 30.2 Vayikra Rabbah 30

121 142

Washington Haggadah

39

Yahuda Haggadah Y Bik 3:2, 65c Y Bik 3.3 65c Y Bikk 3:3, 65c Y Pe’ah 7, 1, 20a Y Qidd 64d Y Qidd 64d Y Qod 64d Y Shev 4:4, 35b Y Sukkah 5.2, 55b Y Ter 6:6 Y Yoma 41d

43 136 113 139 221 44–55, 169 170 44–55, 169 224 121 132 226

138 114 121 111

Zevaḥim 24 Zohar 186 Zweite Nürnberger und die Jehuda Haggada 41, 43 11QTa [11Q19] 42:7–17 120 1QM 3.3–4 201 1QS 201 4Q255–264a 201 5Q11 201