118 CHAPTER THREErotten at the core and on the brink of transformation. More telling, or less
obviously tendentious, may be Jerome’s account of the patriarch’s role in the
deposition and execution of a Roman governor of Palestine around 390, and
Libanius’s inclusion of possibly the same patriarch in his circle of high-rank-
ing friends.^49
Concurrently, the patriarchs’ links to the rabbis seem to have weakened, or
become less exclusive, continuing a process begun already by Juda hI. One
reason for this is likely to have been the growing importance of the patriarchs’
ties to the Diaspora, where Jewish communities were once again on the rise.
If it is true that one function of patriarchal agents in the Diaspora communities
was advocacy, then they would have needed training primarily in rhetoric.
This would have had a strong influence on the composition of the patriarchs’
clientele, which in turn seems to be reflected in Libanius’s correspondence.
The latter testifies to a steady exchange of clients, most of them students of
rhetoric, between the sophist and the patriarch.^50 There is no reason a priori
why the occasional rabbinic figure might not have had such training.^51 But
bot hr hetorical and rabbinic education were presumably sufficiently rigorous
to render mastery of both rare. In fact, it is unattested. Thus, the patriarchs of
the fourth century, unlike those of the third, are scarcely mentioned in rab-
binic literature. Nevertheless, Epiphanius (Panarion30.4) still imagined that
the chief function of theconsistoriumof the patriarch was to teach him Torah;
that is, he describes rabbis or rabbi-like figures as having performed a crucial
advisory role in the patriarchal court, though Epiphanius’s patriarch was sub-
ject to other influences as well. There may be no reason to take the account
of this clumsy and slightly paranoid champion of Christian orthodoxy at face
value, but it does remain likely that there were rabbis among theprimates
mentioned in the law codes. According to a law in the Theodosian Code
(16.8.29), theseprimatestried to continue collection of theapostoleafter the
death or deposition of the last patriarch in the 420s. Another factor in the
loosening of the patriarchs’ ties to the rabbis in the fourth century may be the
marginalization of the curial classes (members of the city councils) of Tiberias
and Sepphoris. Some wealthycurialeselsewhere responded to the increas-
ingly burdensome and dishonorable character of their hereditary obligations
by joining the imperial bureaus (especially in the fifth century, with the rise
of Constantinople) or the Christian clergy, or by securing illegally and at great
cost papers demonstrating senatorial rank and therefore providing exemption
(^49) Jerome,Epp. 57.3 (CSEL 54.506). For Libanius, see the detailed commentary inGLAJJ2,
nos. 496–504. Like Jerome’s, Libanius’s letters indicate that in the 380s and 390s the patriarch
meddled in provincial high politics.
(^50) See S. Schwartz, “Patriarchs and the Diaspora” for further discussion.
(^51) Notwithstanding the alleged rabbinic ban on rhetorical training, which prohibited only
teaching, not study: see E. E. Hallewy, “Concerning the Ban on Greek Wisdom,”Tarbiz 41
(1972): 269–74; Lieberman,Hellenism, pp. 100ff.