116 CHAPTER THREEPalestinian Talmud also describes rabbinic grandees appointing their needy
fellows to communal posts, intervening wit hmunicipal governments to secure
tax breaks for friends, and interposing themselves as advocates in the trials of
ordinary Jews.^37 Some rabbis, and others on the fringes of rabbinic circles,
were acquiring visibility and prestige through their rhetorical ability, that is, by
preaching in synagogues—also reported to have been increasingly a rabbinic
concern in the third century.^38 There is a tendency in rabbinic literature, more
pronounced in the later documents, to portray some rabbis as “holy men,”
working miracles, making rain, and performing cures.^39 Rabbis also acquired
influence by offering legal advice. Though a full study of cases reported in
the Palestinian Talmud, comparable to Cohen’s study of the earlier rabbinic
literature, remains to be done, most cases that came before the rabbis of the
third century seem to have originated within rabbinic circles.^40 Yet there seems
no reason to doubt the reports of the Talmud that occasionally their opinions
on some matters were sought by urban communities (even outside Palestine),
local village elders primarily in Lower Galilee, and others.^41
In the late fourth century the patriarchs reached the peak of their power.
The Palestinian church father Epiphanius and the Theodosian Code both
indicate that theapostole,oraurum coronarium, was now collected as if it
were a conventional tax, as indeed it may have been as early as 363, when the
emperor Julian “encouraged” his “brother,” the patriarch Iulus (= Hillel), to
cancel it and so free the Jews from its shackles.^42 In 399, the western emperor
(^37) See, for example, Y. Sanhedrin 3:9, 21c, though the rabbi in question was Babylonian and
it is unclear where the anecdote is set. Similarly, Y. Shabbat 1:4, 3c, when a “great man” would
come to R. Jonathan’s village, he would send him tokens of respect, so as to soften his heart
toward the widows and orphans. A full collection of passages in which rabbis assume the role of
intermediaries would be instructive, since this seems to me likely to have been a significant way
in which they acquired influence. Note also Y. Berakhot 9:1, 11d, about the two late-third-century
rabbis (R. Yohanan and R. Jonathan) who went “to make peace in the villages of the South”
(me’bad shelama be’ilen qiryata dedaroma).
(^38) See L. Levine, “The Sages and the Synagogue in Late Antiquity: The Evidence of the
Galilee,” inGalilee, pp. 209–10.
(^39) See, for example, B. Bokser, “Wonder-Working and the Rabbinic Tradition: The Case of
Hanina Ben Dosa,”JSJ16 (1985): 42–92.
(^40) Levine,Rabbinic Class, pp. 127–33, claims that 80 percent of cases reported in the Y con-
cern rabbis and their families and students. But in C. Hezser’s thorough analysis of the cases in
Y. Bavot (Form, Function, and Historical Significance of the Rabbinic Story in Yerushalmi Neziqin
(Tu ̈bingen: Mohr, 1993), pp. 396–98), 54 percent definitely concern rabbis and their connec-
tions, and in the rest the litigants are anonymous.
(^41) Points similar to t hese are made at greater lengt hand wit hfull documentation by Cat herine
Hezser,Social Structure. I thank her for discussing these issues with me before her book’s publica-
tion.
(^42) Julian,epistulae51 = Linder, no. 13. Cohen’s attempt to explain away Eusebius’s mention
ofapostoloi(“Pagan and Christian Evidence,” p. 171): Eusebius does not explicitly connect them