Jews and Others
Greek—sophoi) would give rulings on questions such as the Sabbath limits.
The teaching of the ‘‘wise,’’ taking place on fixed days, could be described in a
set Greek terminology: ‘‘thesophoideuterousin’’—‘‘thesapientesteach thetradi-
tiones.’’ Similarly, in his Commentary on Habbakuk^77 he records approaching
a Jew at Lydda ‘‘who among them was calledsapiensanddeuterōtēs.’’ It seems
clear that his Jewish contacts could and did explain the system to him in
Greek. The question of how profound, if profound at all, was the gulf be-
tween the Holy Land and the diaspora presents itself once again. Fifteen years
later, Augustine, writing hisAgainst an Adversary of the Law and the Prophets
at Hippo in North Africa, could also note that Jewish teaching of unwritten
traditions was calleddeuterōsis:^78 had he learned this at second hand, or from
personal observation there? He himself records that his fellow bishop at Oea
in Tripolitania had been forced by violent reactions among his congregation,
especially the Greeks, when faced with a controversial reading in Jonah, to
ask the local Jews what reading there was in theirHebraei codices.^79 Is it pos-
sible that the Hebrew Bible really existed there in codex (i.e., book) form
rather than in scrolls? But in fact Jerome, replying to Augustine on this point,
quietly corrects him, and speaks of the reading to be found ‘‘in thevolumina
[scrolls] of the Jews.’’^80 Equally suggestive is Jerome’s report of how in Rome
inhewasgivensomevoluminaby a ‘‘Hebraeus’’ who had borrowed them
from a synagogue with the intention of reading them—quasilecturus.^81 In this
casevoluminaclearly does mean scrolls, for Jerome has to unroll one of them
to read the relevant passage—volumen Hebraeum replico.^82 We need not doubt
that there was at least one synagogue, as a recognisable building, in Rome,
for under the rule of the usurper Maximus (–) it was burned down,
evidently by Christians.^83 The report of a synagogue functioning also as a
sort of lending library, and thus contributing to intellectual dialogue with
Christians, adds a different element to the picture.
As is well known, such day-to-day contacts and mutual influences are also
very well attested in the s at the other end of the Mediterranean, at Anti-
och. For they are the subject of the sermons delivered there by John Chrysos-
tom as presbyter in –.^84 His sermons, though inevitably hostile in tone,
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. R. L. Wilken,JohnChrysostomandtheJews(); translation and commentary on the