146 CHAPTER FOUR
When R. Aha died, the star (Venus) was visible at noon.
When R. Hanan died, the statues (andartaya) bent over.
When R. Yohanan died, theeikoniabent over—they said it was because no
eikonionwas as beautiful as he.
When R. Hanina of Berat (Bet?) Hauran died, the Sea of Tiberias split....
When R. Hoshaya died, theKalonof Tiberias fell.^58
When R. Isaacb. Elyashib died, seventylintels belonging to landlordsin Gali-
lee were uprooted—they said that they had stood by his merit.
When R. Samuel b. Rav Isaac died, the cedars of the Land of Israel were up-
rooted....
When R. Yasa bar Halfuta died, the gutters of Laodicea ran with blood—they
said it was because he had given his life for circumcision (?).
WhenR.Abbahudied,thecolumnsofCaesareawept.TheCutheans(Samari-
tans) said, “Rather, they were sweating....”^59
Amemberofthepatriarchalhouseholddiedandtheburialcavecollapsedand
endangered lives.^60 R. Yosi came and eulogized him, “Happy the man who left
the world in peace!”. When R. Yosi died,^61 the Castellu mof Tiberias fell and the
Patriarch’s men rejoiced. R. Ze’ira said to them, “The two events are dissimilar:
there, lives were endangered, here not; there no idolatry was uprooted, here it
was.”
This remarkably complex collection of material deserves a fuller treatment
than it will receive here. For the present purpose, one of the points of the
passageissimplytodemonstrateinaconcisewaythatTiberiaswasdominated
by images and shrines of gods—theeikoniaandandartaya, theKalonand
Castellum—which complicated things for the rabbis who lived and died
there.^62 Apart fro mthe first story, which concerns the great piety of Nahu m
of the Holy of Holies, the passage is a compilation of reports of prodigies.
These reports presuppose, and in one case come close to stating explicitly,
thattherabbisplayanimportantroleinmaintainingtheorderofthecosmos.
(^58) Kalonin Hebrew means “reproach,” and it seems overwhelmingly likely that Jastrow (s.v.)
was right in taking it as a cacophemistic reference to some public image of a god or a temple.
Lieberman, “Emendations in Jerushalmy”Tarbiz1, no. 2 (1931): 113–4, asserted that it was
simply a loanword from Latincolumna, and this assertion is taken up as fact in M. Sokoloff,
DictionaryofJewishPalestinianAramaic, s.v.; but Jastrow’s suggestion makes more sense in con-
text.Neusner’stranslation,“palm,”seemsaguessoramistake,sinceitsetymologicaljustification
isunclear;G.Wewers,AvodaZara:Go ̈tzendienst(Tu ̈bingen:Mohr,1980),p.91,suggests“pagan
temple or whorehouse.”
(^59) See S. Lieberman, “The Martyrs of Caesarea,”Annuairedel’Institut dePhilologieetd’His-
toireOrientalesetSlaves7(1939–1944):400–401fortheemendationofmry’yntomdy’yn(sweat).
(^60) The meaning of the word translated “collapsed” (QLT) is uncertain, according to Sokoloff,
but seems obvious enough from the context.
(^61) Editioprincepsreads “Yasa,” but clearly “Yosi” is meant.
(^62) For additional, scattered stories and laws to the same effect, much of it in Y. Avodah Zarah,
see Klein,SeferHayishuv, s.v.