THE SYNAGOGUE: ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION 219one case, the “makers” are identified as “the Jews in Athribis” and Ptolemy,
son of Epikydes, the local police chief (Horbury-Noy 1992, no. 27). When
comparedwithlateantiquesynagogueinscriptionsorevenwithsomecontem-
poraneousinscriptionsfromforeigntemplesinEgyptthatprovidelistsofcon-
tributors, though, these are strikingly opaque about the funding of the build-
ing. Perhaps lists of contributors were made but have not survived. The
mention of an apparently non-Jewisheuergetesin one case would be interest-
ing if its implications could be generalized;^11 also noteworthy is the fact that
all the prayer houses, like all Egyptian temples, were dedicated to the royal
family and so commemorated (wishfully?) the Jewish corporations’ alliance
withthePtolemies—animportantthemealsoinsomeEgyptian-Jewishlitera-
tureofthesameperiod,liketheLetter of Aristeas.Buttheprayerhouseinscrip-
tions tell us little about the structure of the groups that built them.
Whatseemsclear,though,fromthepapyriofPtolemaicEgyptisthatadher-
ence to Judais m made little difference fro mthe perspective of civil law. To
make a long story short, the inhabitants of Ptolemaic Egypt were divided into
two categories for legal purposes—the nativeEgyptian majority and the privi-
legedminorityofimmigrantsandtheirdescendants.Thelatter,whonaturally
includedtheJews,weredeemed“Hellenes,”regardlessoftheirethnicorigins.
The Hellenes theoretically had the right to use theirpolitikoi nomoi, that is,
the lawsof their nativecities orcountries, but infact a sortof Greco-Egyptian
common law soon developed and came to prevail. The Jews thus had the
right to use the laws of the Torah, which were theirpolitikoi nomoi, but the
extant papyri provide only a single more or less secure reference to a Jew’s
exercise of this right—an allusion to a divorce performed according to the
politikoi nomoioftheJews (i.e.,bythe husband’sunilateralrepudiation ofhis
wife).Thisreferenceappears,significantly,inadocumentfromasuitbrought
by the wife for a monetary settlement in accordance withGreeklaw (CPJ
1.128).ThelegalhistorianJ.Modrzejewski,forallhisdiligenceandingenuity,
was able to find no further trace of Jewish civil law in the papyri of Ptolemaic
Egypt.^12 Itmaybeworthadding,though,thatsomeasyetunpublishedHeidel-
berg papyri may refer to Jewish courts administering justice in the Egyptian
countryside. Ifthis proves tobe correct, what Ihave written willrequire some
revision,thoughnotcompletereversal,sincethegeneralpatternisunaffected
by a single exceptional case.^13
At least in the countryside, then, Jews generally see mto have married,
divorced, lent each other money, and sued each other, in accordance with
(^11) There see mno grounds for Modrzejewski’s near certainty (p. 94) that Ptole my was Jewish.
(^12) Jews of Egypt, pp. 107–19.
(^13) Personal communication from Roger Bagnall; Modrzejewski knows of these papyri but has
not discussed the min the 1997 paperback edition of his book published by Princeton. They will
be published by James Cowey.