432 Erich S. Gruen
claim that the multitudes have long since shown great zeal for our faith, and that not
a singleethnosexists, whether Greek or barbarian, to which our observances, including
the Sabbath, dietary laws, and fasts have not spread (CAp. 2.282–283). The exagger-
ation is patent. However, there is no reason to doubt that the numbers of those who
adopted Jewish practices or who took part in Jewish communities noticeably increased
over the years. One does not have to take the Jews’ word for it. The Romans noticed
it, even though they disapproved. Tacitus complained about the basest of peoples who
renounced their own native religions and were now regularly sending contributions to the
Temple in Jerusalem, thus increasing the resources of the Jews (Hist. 5.5.1). Those who
cross over to Jewish ways, he says, scorn their own gods, abandon their native land, and
hold parents, siblings, and children cheap (Hist. 5.5.2). Juvenal offers comparable sneers
regarding proselytes, alleging not only that they worshiped the divinity of the sky and
had themselves circumcised, but that they rejected Roman laws and devoted themselves
to laws transmitted by Moses in a secret scroll (14.96–106). One need not take these
statements, as some do, to indicate that Romans actually found increasing numbers of
Jews to be a growing menace, giving rise to an anxious Judeophobia (e.g., Schäfer 1997:
183–92; Yavetz 1998: 96–8). Nor does it imply active Jewish proselytizing, as others
have inferred (e.g., Feldman 1993: 288–341; but see Goodman 1994: 60–90). It is,
in any case, clear enough that converts to Judaism, Jewish habits, or Jewish institutions
and those who, in some fashion, became members of the Jewish community were widely
familiar in ancient society.
However one might wish to define “converts” or “proselytes,” a broader penumbra
of gentiles became associated with Jewish society, to which the name “Godfearer” has
conventionally been assigned. Some may have been attracted by its great longevity, by
the ethical precepts, by the rigorous adherence to the law, by the discipline demanded
in its practices, by the social bonding of the synagogues, by the celebration of its festi-
vals, or by the reputation not only for eastern wisdom but for skills in both the practical
and the occult sciences (Feldman 1989: 282–97). The motives can only be matters of
speculation. However, the fact of gentiles being welcomed into Jewish society is incon-
trovertible. It might take the form of imitating Jewish customs, observing the Sabbath,
adopting certain codes of behavior, taking part in synagogue activities, or providing mate-
rial support for the Jewish community. The Jews did not turn such people away. Their
ranks included a Roman centurion, a Roman governor of Syria, the eminent aristocratic
lady Fulvia, and even the wife of Nero (Luke, 7:1–5; Philo,Leg. AdGaium, 245; Jos.
Ant. 18.82, 20.195).
The term “Godfearer” or something like it appears frequently in our literary and epi-
graphic texts (e.g., Acts, 10.1–2, 13.16, 16.14, 17.17, 18.4; Jos.Ant. 14.110;IJO, II,
#27, 49; Siegert 1973: 109–64; Wander 1998: 65–73). Almost all of this testimony
refers to individuals and makes no mention of a collective, thus having left it open to
scholars to argue that the tag “godfearer” only applied to especially pious individuals.
That is no longer open. The great donor inscriptions from Aphrodisias attest to an impor-
tant Jewish community there. The donors listed on the stele include not only individuals
designated as Jews, proselytes, and godfearers, but the stone records a whole category
of “those who aretheosebeis”(IJO, II, #14). The term plainly applies to an acknowl-
edged group of gentiles, distinct from Jews but associated with them and part of a shared