Jews and Others
regular rhythm largely dictated by local Christian initiatives. If it was im-
perial agents who destroyed temples in Carthage in ,^90 it was the initiative
taken by Porphyry, bishop of Gaza, which led to the destruction of all the
temples there in the first years of the fifth century, and to the use of stones
from the temple of Marnas to pave the courtyard of a new church.^91
The fundamental change in the religious climate which began in the s
is the essential background which must be borne in mind if we are to under-
stand the very significant but in many ways less drastic change which affected
the Jewish communities of the empire in the same period. The change is most
clearly visible in imperial legislation; given the excellent collection, trans-
lation, and analysis of the texts by Linder,^92 we may keep to the essentials.
Before this period imperial attention to the position of the Jews had been
largely directed to two issues: preventing the ownership, or at any rate the
conversion and circumcision, of Christian slaves by Jews; and defining the
limited number and nature of Jewish community officials who could enjoy
exemption from service on town councils. The emperors at various times
defined these officials aspatriarchae(see text to n. above),presbyteri,hiereis
(priests),archisynagogi,andpatressynagogarum,^93 thereby, as mentioned earlier,
expressing an awareness of day-to-day Jewish community life which is not
so evident in other contexts. The earliest of these pronouncements, dating
to.., is simultaneously the earliest evidence for the existence of an
established Jewish community in Cologne.^94
In the s, however, new themes begin to come in. In , for instance,
the emperors Gratian, Valentian, and Theodosius declared the confiscation
of the property of Christian converts to paganism, Judaism, or Manichae-
ism,^95 perfectly reflecting the anxieties which Chrysostom was to express
three years later. Judaism itself, however, was at all times stated to be legal,
for Jews. Thus in Theodosius and his sons, Arcadius and Honorius, wrote
to thecomesof the Orient as follows:
It is sufficiently established that the sect of the Jews is prohibited by no
law. We are therefore gravely disturbed by the interdiction imposed in
some places on their assemblies. Your Sublime Magnitude shall, upon. Augustine,City of God, .
. The story is told in the biography of Porphyry by Mark the Deacon, edited by
H. Grégoire and M. A. Kugener ().
. Linder (n. ).
. E.g.Cod.Theod.,,andLinder(n.),no.,of...
.Cod.Theod.,,Linder(n.),no..
.Cod.Theod.,,Linder(n.),no..