The Jews of the Graeco-Roman Diaspora erences to Julian’s project to rebuild the Temple.^52 Diocletian on the other
hand achieves a higher profile; for instance the terms of his persecution are
presented as one possible reason out of several why Samaritan wine was con-
sidered unclean: ‘‘When Diocletian the King came up here, he issued a de-
cree, saying: ‘Every nation must offer a libation, except the Jews.’ So the
Samaritans made a libation. That is why the sages prohibited their wine.’’^53
The late Roman Holy Land, with its separate religious communities, Chris-
tian, of various persuasions, pagan, Jewish, and Samaritan—mutually hos-
tile but necessarily inhabiting neighbouring streets and fields—would offer
a fascinating study. And the ‘‘rabbinic’’ literature of the Jewish community
there might also in principle offer one window on the life of the Jewish dias-
pora overseas; except that even bare allusions to identifiable places beyond
the borders of the Holy Land are very few.^54 And, moreover, the criteria for
the historical study of this material have not yet been established.
It would of course be still more illuminating if the communities of the
diaspora of this crucial period had left evidence through which they could
speak for themselves. Was the Mishnah known to and used by them too? Did
their rabbis prepare commentaries on it? Did they indeed have rabbis at all?
Or are we speaking (notionally) of a quite different Judaism, necessarily that
of a significant proportion of the Jewish people at that time, of which how-
ever all real trace has disappeared? For if the Judaism of the diaspora in this
period did produce any literature, it has been entirely lost. A survey of an-
cient Jewish literature, in all genres and in whatever language, produces not
a single case of a Jewish work which is known to have been written in the
diaspora between.. and .^55 It has indeed been boldly asserted that
the late Roman work in Latin calledCollatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum,
a not very perceptive comparison of Jewish and Roman law as applied to a
number of separate issues, was written by a Jew living in Rome in the sec-
ond half of the fourth century.^56 Anything is possible: but it is necessary to
underline just how isolated such a work, if really Jewish, would then seem.
If the Judaism of the diaspora can speak for itself at all, it is only through
the physical remains of its synagogues, some of which have been discussed
above; its inscriptions, whether from synagogues or tombs, or isolated; and
. Avi-Yonah (n. ), –.
. Jerusalem Talmud,Avoda Zarah., trans. J. Neusner.
. A. Neubauer,La Géographie du Talmud(), seems to be the only available survey.
. Schürer, Vermes, and Millar,HistoryIII..
. L. Cracco-Ruggini, ‘‘Tolleranza e intolleranza nella società tardoantica: il caso degli
ebrei,’’Richerche di storia sociale e religiosa (): .