Roman Diaspora Jews opted similarly to construct and to perceive their “world”
as dotted with multiple locations where privileged communication with YHWH could
be had; they too recognized a variety of persons as holy and as such able to access
the life-giving, healing blessings of YHWH via prayer, amulets, potions, and incanta-
tions (some of which involved rituals in which votive offerings were probably used).
As we have seen, John Chrysostom, in his two famous sermons Against the Jews,
clearly attests that Jewish holy men, operating within the precincts of the synagogue(s)
in Antioch, dispensed remedies, amulets, and incantations; he castigates his
Christian congregants for seeking the services of these Jewish holy men and is among
the first to articulate the notorious vilification that Jews are in league with the devil
and consequently that Jewish (holy-men) healers heal by the devil’s power (see Meeks
and Wilken 1978: 85–127). The occasion which incited Chrysostom to compose
these two sermons is noteworthy, and we have had occasion to refer to it earlier.
The Jewish High Holy Days (New Year, which he calls Trumpets, and the Day of
Atonement) were approaching, and Chrysostom was acutely aware that many of
his (Gentile!) Christians had in the past gone, and imminently intended to go, to
the synagogue to celebrate, pray, and fast with the Jews. Thus Chrysostom takes the
opportunity to attempt to convince his Christian congregants not to frequent Jewish
healers/holy men either or to use Jewish courts to settle their disputes, both of which
he clearly indicates operate out of the synagogue.
Some of the holy persons accessed by Roman Diaspora Jews were deceased, as
in the case of famous martyrs, ancestors, or those who had been perceived to be
exceptionally holy or learned in life. Their tombs were particularly efficacious sites
for personal prayer, and their spirits could be enjoined in prayer to intercede with
God and the angels on behalf of the supplicant (see Lightstone 1984). The
Maccabean martyrs (Hanna and her sons) were such a case; their alleged tombs in
Syria were the site of veneration and pilgrimage. At some later date these remains
were re-interred under the floor of a synagogue in Antioch, which was subsequently
annexed by Christians as the church of the Maccabean Martyrs (now effectively Christian
saints) (see Bikermann 1951). And, of course, not even the Jerusalem centralists dared
expunge pilgrimage to and prayer at the traditional site of the tombs at Hebron
of the ancient Israelite Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and the tomb of Rachel near
Bethlehem. So important were the Patriarchs’ tombs as a holy site that when Herod
rebuilds the Jerusalem Temple, he fashions around the tombs at Hebron walls, large
sections of which still stand, that architecturally replicate the outer retaining wall of
the rebuilt Temple described in Josephus (see Bellum Iudaicum 5.184 –243;
Antiquitates Iudaicae15.380 – 425). Anyone seeing these walls will draw the appro-
priate analogy.
Of course, chief among those holy places which dotted Roman Diaspora Jews’
“world” was the synagogue. As stated earlier, clear evidence for the existence of
synagogues comes from Hellenistic Egypt almost two centuries before the Roman
conquest of Egypt in the first century bce(Tcherikover and Fuks 1957– 64).
Literary evidence from the first century ce, such as the writings of Philo (e.g. Flaccus,
Legation), Josephus (e.g. Antiquities), and the early Christian community (e.g. Acts),
indicates that the synagogue is a ubiquitous and the central institution of Jewish
communities throughout the Mediterranean basin, including the Land of Israel. In
370 Jack N. Lightstone