196 CHAPTER SIXrecently revised his classic argument about the importance of “holy men” as
patrons in the late empire, by admitting that the traditional elites were never
really fully replaced, and that the gulf between the bishops and the leading
ascetics was not as wide as he had supposed, his more general point, about
the potential utility of religious authority for the acquisition of prestige, and
of dependents, seems unchallengeable.^41 We should perhaps suppose that one
of the corollaries of this change was that the Jews’ position in the conventional
patronage structures was becoming increasingly unstable.^42 Indeed, the laws
can quite easily be read as an attempt by the emperors to create for the Jews
an alternate structure, in which the Jewish commoners are dependent on
theirprimates, who are dependent on the patriarch, who is dependent on the
emperor. Other avenues aregraduallyshut down (we will see presently that
the emperors were in some cases trying to slow, to control, what was in some
places a violent and disorderly process), and aristocratic Jews in turn are barred
from acting as patrons to Christians and others.^43
It is tempting to understand the well-known story of the conversion of the
Jews of Minorca in 418, as told in theLetter o fBishop Severus on the Conver-
sion o fthe Jews, as an example of how this shift could be played out in life.
In brief, the arrival of the relics of St. Stephen on the island in 417 sent the
inhabitants, especially Severus and the people of Iamona, his entirely Chris-
tian see, into such a state of religious enthusiasm that they attacked the large
and socially prominent Jewish community of Magona, the larger of Minorca’s
two towns, and in effect compelled them to convert to Christianity. If we
stand back a bit from this ominous story, we can easily grasp its broader impor-
tance. The leaders of the Jews of Magona were also the leading citizens of
the town, itspatronianddefensores civitatis,^44 well connected even in the
(^41) See P. Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,”JRS61 (1971):
80–101 =Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity(London: Faber, 1982), pp. 103–52; “The Rise
and Function of the Holy Man, 1971–1997,”JECS6 (1998): 353–76.
(^42) Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina v.5.17–20, composed c. 576 to celebrate the forced conver-
sion of the Jews of Clermont in the Auvergne: plebs Arverna etenim, bifido discissa tumultu,/
urbe manens una non erat una fide./ Christocolis Judaeus odor resilibat amarus/ obstabatque piis
impia turba sacris. This is quoted by B. Brennan, “The Conversion of the Jews in Clermont in
AD 576,”JThS36 (1985): 328.
(^43) Cf. the following passage in Pesiqta deRav Kahana (ed. S. Buber, 139b), a text of perhaps
the sixth century: “the nations of the world count Israel and say, ‘How long will you go on being
killed for your God, and giving up your souls for Him?... How much pain does He inflict on
you!... Come, join us, and we will make youduces,eparchs, andstratelatai.’ And Israel enters
its synagogues and study houses, and takes the Torah scroll, and reads in it... (then, at the End
of Days) Israel says before the Holy One, Blessed Be He, ‘Master of the Universe, if not for the
Torah scroll which You wrote for us, the nations of the world would long since have corrupted
us (so that we ceased to worship) You.’ ”
(^44) The post was created in the 360s to protect the weak from the depredations of the powerful,
and so thedefensoreshad themselves to possess considerableauctoritas(CTh 1.29.1, 3). They
were supposed to be nominated by the city council and the bishop, and, as of 409, were supposed