RABBIS AND PATRIARCHS ON THE MARGINS 127tury take for granted, and so may have functioned to prescribe, an organized
clerical hierarchy in Jewish communities, subject to the authority (dicio)of
the patriarchs (this issue is discussed in more detail below). This clergy, how-
ever, was certainly less institutionalized than its Christian counterpart, if it
existed at all; we would scarcely have guessed of its existence from the inscrip-
tions. It was at most a thin terminological veneer imperfectly concealing, in
most places, a basically self-regulating euergetistic structure.^74 In practice, this
must have meant that it was harder for the patriarchs to exert control over
these communities than a superficial reading of the evidence indicates. It
cannot have been hard to shirk orders, and some communities would have
been split or would have ignored, or been ignored by, theapostoloicom-
pletely. Imperial authorization of patriarchal power rarely made much practi-
cal difference.^75 It is true thatprimatesactually enjoyed formal jurisdiction
over religious law, but Jewis hreligious law was so murky and contentious a
category, and it was in practice probably so unclear who counted as aprimas,
that it is hard to see why a Roman governor would have wished to get involved
in trying to impose the judgment of aprimason an uncomplying Jew; thus,
imperial authorization counted mainly as an expression of goodwill (which
was not of course to be taken lightly). Furthermore, the patriarch’s right to
collect theapostolewas just that, and no more: the laws, that is, never suggest
that the government obligated the Jews to pay, only that the patriarch was
allowed to keep what he could raise. This was no small concession: the emper-
ors cannot have been happy to see precious metals disappear into patriarchal
coffers, and this unhappiness twice found legal expression.^76 Furthermore, it is
(^74) The fundamental discussion is now Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogoi,” who speak of the
Diaspora communities as possessing a patronal structure, though this is misleading, since it is
probable that the communalinstitutionsdepended on the wealthy (cf. P. Veyne,Bread and Cir-
cuses(New York: Penguin, 1990), p. 10. Euergetism is “private liberality for public benefit”);
with whom individual Jews entered into relationships of dependency—assuming that charity
distribution did not provide a completely adequate safety net—will be discussed below. Further-
more, Rajak and Noy are skeptical that the patriarch could have intervened in local synagogue
appointments as described by Palladius,Life of Chrysostom(PG 47, p. 51, the patriarch changes
archisynagogues at Antioch annually) and Epiphanius in his story of Joseph’s deposition of archi-
synagogues, and so on, in Cilicia. But a letter of Libanius (GLAJJ2, no. 504) indicates that the
patriarc hcould appoint anarchonof the Jews at Antioch, but also that the Jews could remove
the man from office on their own initiative. Thus, Palladius may have been right for the 390s,
but even then patriarchal authority was neither absolute nor uncontested. This would not change
Rajak’s and Noy’s larger picture.
(^75) Rajak and Noy, “Archisynagogi,” 79–80.
(^76) See above. Both Julian and Honorius implied that the Jews found the tax an unbearable
burden; Honorius even called the patriarchdepopulator Judaeorum—despoiler of the Jews.
Clearly professional rhetoricians were at work here, as often in the law codes, and the emperors
had reasons of their own for outlawing the tax. Clearly, also, some Jews were unwilling to pay.
They could have been forced by the local archisynagogue, but it is hard to imagine that the
apostles had any recourse if the archisynagogues themselves were unwilling to pay.