inhabitants of Greco-Roman cities, of whatever religious or ethnic stripe, lived “cheek
by jowl” with one another in crowded urban environments. Consequently, the social
segregation which one usually associates with sectarian-minority religious behavior
was difficult (if not impossible) to achieve and for the most part socially dysfunc-
tional in such settings. Third, not only are Greco-Roman cities “close” affairs
because of their crowded physical traits (synagogues, beside churches and pagan
temples, all near common civic space like the basilica and marketplace, and with
domiciles and shops of various communities adjacent to or interspersed with one
another), Greco-Roman cities also demanded of their inhabitants (of means) mutu-
ally upholding systems of benefaction and civic service. The “honor” bestowed and
received in return for such benefaction and civic service (in the form of magistracies
and service as a member of the local curial class) made the city and its constituent
elements function, served to cement the patron–client relations so much a part of
Greco-Roman social and economic life, and provided recognized means of social
integration and acceptance. Benefaction and civic service made the city work and
maintained its infrastructure and principal institutions. As such, benefaction and civic
service were for the Roman authorities an essential element of governance, peace,
and order throughout the empire, because Roman imperial government relied
heavily upon quasi-autonomous urban government and organization as its basic and
principal substrate of governance.
Greco-Roman Jews were not apart from and outside this urban system; they could
not be. Those (relatively few) Diaspora Jews who would have attempted to define
for themselves a life which minimized social and cultural participation in (primarily)
pagan urban life would have had to follow a more hermetic and ascetic or monastic-
like life (see e.g. Philo, The Contemplative Life, on the therapeutae). The overwhelming
body of evidence points in the other direction, and so invites the use of models
of minority integration and participation in the local host society and culture,
within the limits which permit the maintenance of a significant and meaningful
ethnic-religious community and culture.
Roman Diaspora Judaism: An Adaptation of Late
Biblical Judaism for Life as a Minority Community
within Greco-Roman Urban Settings
Our account of Greco-Roman Diaspora Judaism is organized under five thematic
headings: (1) Roman Diaspora Judaism’s continuities with, dependence upon, and
appropriation of biblical literature and late biblical Judaism; (2) discontinuities
and disjuncture between Roman Diaspora Judaism, on the one hand, and biblical
literature and late biblical Judaism, on the other; (3) Roman Diaspora Judaism’s
repatterning of key aspects of the biblical-Judaic “world”; (4) the synagogue as
both the institution par excellenceof the Roman Diaspora and a typical Roman civic
institution; and (5) constituent roles and institutions within the synagogue and
community.
354 Jack N. Lightstone