508 Cohen
The tension prompted by Jewish slaveholding persisted into the Ostrogothic
period. The Vita Caesarii, for example, describes the saint redeeming Christian
slaves in Ostrogothic-controlled Provence so that they would not become
Arians or Jews, perhaps a reference to the likelihood that slaves would con-
vert to the faith of their masters.29 Elsewhere, in a late 5th-century letter sent
to Bishops Siracusius, Constantius, and Laurentius, Gelasius (bishop of Rome,
492–6) reports that a Jew named Judas claimed that one of his slaves had
escaped and taken sanctuary in the church of Venafrana in Campania. Judas
wished the slave to be returned. However, the slave declared that he had been
a Christian since birth (ab infantia Christiano); he had only recently been cir-
cumcised (and presumably forcibly converted to Judaism) by his master—an
act that if we believe the unnamed slave would have been in violation of Roman
law. Generally speaking the right of sanctuary did not apply to runaway slaves.30
But the issue was more delicate when the faith of a Christian was threatened,
as appears to be the case here. It is also possible that the slave was in fact
Jewish and that he was simply attempting to escape his lot by now claiming
to be Christian. In his response to this complex case Gelasius endeavours to
balance the rights of a Christian and the rights of a slave owner, whatever his
religion. The bishop of Rome does not prejudge the case but commands the
bishops to look into it diligenter.31 A second example of the difficulties engen-
dered by Jewish slave owning can be gleaned from another attack against a
synagogue, this time in Rome itself. We learn from a letter of Theoderic pre-
served in the Variae that a Roman synagogue had been burned in 509 or 511
by a Christian mob that had rioted when some slaves were publicly punished
for the murder of their master.32 This violent reaction makes the most sense if
we assume that the slaves were Christians and the master a Jew.33 In response
the king asked the Senate to investigate the destruction of a synagogue and to
punish the perpetrators.
Not only did Jews in Ostrogothic Italy own Christian slaves, but they also
at times contravened the legal and social restrictions imposed upon them in
pp. 82–5 and “Legal Status of the Jews”, pp. 164–8 with references to the often contradic-
tory legislation on this question.
29 Vita Caesarii I.32, ed. and trans. Bona, pp. 98–9. The (re)creation of the prefecture of the
Gauls under the control of the Ostrogothic kingdom is announced in Va r. 3.17.
30 From the Gelasian corpus see frag. 41, ed. Thiel, pp. 505–6.
31 Gelasius frag. 43, ed. Thiel, pp. 506–7. Jews were banned from owning Christian slaves in
Italy by the end of the 6th century. The results of the bishops’ inquiry is lost. On asylum-
seeking and the Jews see Allen/Neil, Crisis Management, pp. 47–8 and notes.
32 Va r. 4.43.
33 Lafferty, Law and Society, p. 32, n. 35.