RELIGION AND SOCIETY BEFORE 70C.E 55ochus IV’s denial of the Judaeans’ right to live according to their own laws
indicates that imperial recognition of Judaean self-rule (or perhaps in some
cases total nonintervention in its practice) was normal. Indeed, the “royal
favors granted the Judaeans” were sufficiently well known that the author of
2 Maccabees could accuse the hellenizing Jerusalem high priest Jason of
having abrogated them by “destroying the life-style ordained by the La wand
introducing unlawful customs” (4:11).^15 Furthermore, the successive Persian,
Macedonian, and Roman rulers’ support, in a general sense, for the temple
and high priesthood is obvious from the course of events, and is in any case
rendered unsurprising by a great many parallel cases that it is unnecessary to
adduce.^16 In sum, there is no reason to doubt the unanimous claim of the
ancient writers that the emperors patronized the temple, supported and were
supported by the cult (in that sacrifices were offered on their behalf), favored
the priests as a class (and at times other members of the temple staff), and
recognizedtheir righttorulethe JewsofPalestine“according totheirancestral
laws.”^17
TorahThe term “ancestral laws” implies that imperial support for the temple and
the Torah were closely bound together, for it is overwhelmingly likely that
concealed behind this standard Hellenistic administrative jargon are the laws
of the Torah, as is implied in the passage from 2 Maccabees just quoted.
Indeed, as suggested above, it is likely that the Pentateuch itself was, if not
compiled, then at least adopted as the Judaean la wcode at the initiative of
the Persian emperors.
Thevery samedocumentsthatdemonstrate imperialsupportfor thetemple
demonstrate their support for the “ancestral laws” of the Jews, though they
also imply that local magistrates sometimes infringed on the rights of Jews
outside Palestine to observe the laws of the Torah. The earliest piece of evi-
dence for imperial support is the so-called Passover Papyrus (419B.C.E.) from
Elephantine, a military settlement in southern Egypt. This document seems
to record the Persian emperor’s authorization of the observance of the Feast
of Unleavened Bread (not in fact Passover) more or less in accordance with
the laws of some version of the Torah by a group of Judahite troops.^18 In
(^15) See comments by J. Goldstein,II Maccabees(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984), pp.
228–29; E. Bi[c]kerman,Institutions des Se ́leucides(Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1938), pp. 135–40.
(^16) See Bickerman, “La charte se ́leucide.”
(^17) And it matters little that such recognition may often have been reactive, as Rajak, “Roman
Charter,” argues.What mattersis theknowledge thatthe emperorcould be appealedto ifnecessary.
(^18) A. E. Cowley,Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C.(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923),
no. 21; B. Porten,Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Military Colony(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1968), pp. 130ff.; Porten, “Aramaic Parchments and Papyri: A New