170 CHAPTER FIVE
The phrasing of R. Gamaliel’s response—you pagans say, “Aphrodite is
madeasanornamentforthebath,”youpaganswouldneverthinkofbehaving
in a temple as you do in the bath—indicates that the Mishnah is not simply
ignoringthenatureofreal-lifepaganisminaquestforformalexegeticalpreci-
sion. Rather, it claims to be shaping its interpretation of the biblical laws
around its understanding of paganism. And for good reason. The Pentateu-
chal textitself doesnot infact constrain the rabbis’ viewof paganism. Onthe
contrary,therabbiscould,forinstance,havetakenthePentateuchalexhorta-
tionsaboutdivine unity(Deuteronomy6:4;Exodus20:1–5)as legalprescrip-
tion and understood the mto prohibit any practice that see med to contradict
it, such as the noncultic use of images. Instead of reading in an exclusive
way the verses prohibiting the representation of animal, human, and divine
creatures (“thoushaltnotmakean idolnor any image... .thou shaltnotbow
downtothemnorworshipthem”[Exodus 20:3–5;Deuteronomy5:7–9]=do
not make them or have them if they have been or will be worshiped, but
otherwise, you incur no penalty), they could have read the minclusively, as
their predecessorsbefore 70C.E., whenthe Jewsrigorously avoidedfigurative
art,haddone.Theycould,insum,haveprohibitedeverythingassociatedwith
paganism. After all, the stakes were high: Israel’s God was a jealous God
(Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 5:9). Instead, the rabbis imagined that pagan
religiosity consisted exclusively of cultic acts directed at fetishes, and they
interpreted the biblical prohibitions accordingly (though it must be said that
some aggadic—nonlegal—passages indicate a more subtle appreciation of
pagan religiosity).
Whatwouldapaganhavethoughtoftherabbis’viewofhisreligion?Clearly
the rabbis supposed that Proklos was convinced by R. Gamaliel’s arguments,
and no doubt few pagans would have denied the importance of figural repre-
sentation and the centrality of sacrifice in their religious life. Some, further-
more,wouldhaveregardedthedeity’simageasitsembodiment,atleastunder
some circumstances. But others would have claimed that the individual gods
were only aspects of the divine, all legitimately worshiped because, as the
fourth-century poet Symmachus put it, “itis impossible that there is only one
road to so great a mystery.”^17 Such thoughtful pagans might have regarded
the rabbis’ theology of paganis mas unhelpfully reductive: even ho mespun
statuettes that would never receive a cult might be thought to contain a spark
(^17) See MacMullen,Paganism in the Roman Empire, pp. 59–60; A. D. Nock, “Studies in the
Graeco-Roman Beliefs of the Empire,” in Z. Stewart, ed.,Essays on Religion and the Ancient
World(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 40. In some aggadic passages, the rabbis
evince a more nuanced grasp of pagan religiosity. See B. Avodah Zarah 54b–55a, with partial
parallels in Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael, pisqa 65 and Mekhilta deRashbi, Yitro (Ex 20:5), with
discussion in M. Halbertal and A. Margalit,Idolatry(Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1992), pp. 26–27.