THE SYNAGOGUE: ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION 227
That synagogues existed in the second and third centuries is certain be-
cause they are mentioned in the Mishnah and the Tosefta. The latter, espe-
cially, incorporates enough circumstantial detail in its discussion to make it
almostimpossibletoimaginethatthesynagoguewasapurelytheoreticalcon-
struct. The Palestinian Talmud also reports stories about third century rabbis’
dealings with synagogues, not all of which are likely to be anachronistic. The
Mishnah and Tosefta also provide us with what we may consider the earliest
theoretical account of the synagogue’s character, the sources of its holiness,
and its relationship with the townspeople who used and maintained it.
The same works also provide someverylimited evidence for the existence
of thereligious community, or rather occasionally seem to have thoughtofthe
Jewish town as a partly self-enclosed locus of religious obligation. The main
manifestation of this view, aside from their association of the synagogue and
the town, is that they briefly discuss communal charity requirements. But on
thewhole,theMishnahandToseftaseemnotyettohaveconsideredthepossi-
bility that the community was an appropriate subject of legislation or a signifi-
cantlocusofreligiousmeaning.^39 WewillseethateventhePalestinianTalmud,
which was compiled at a time when the synagogue and community were be-
coming well established and frequently refers to them in passing, has still not
entirely assimilatedtheir existence. It has, for example,a remarkably impracti-
cal conception of communal ownership—necessarily more so than the con-
ceptions that prevailed in reality. Its avoidance of the wordqahal,exceptinits
biblicalsenseoftheCongregationofIsraelatatimewhenvillagecommunities
were regularly using it to refer to themselves, is perhaps intentional.^40 We will
see below that the rabbinic conception of the synagogue and the Jewish town
differed in important ways from those implied by the physical remains.
RedistributionLikeitscontemporary,thedemocraticconstitutionoftheclassicalGreekcity,
the Pentateuch is implicitly opposed to the institution of patronage. Rather,
imaginingIsraelasanegalitariancommunity,itprescribesacomplexofredis-
(^39) See Baer, “Origins,” pp. 1–18.
(^40) See Baer, “Origins,” p. 8. The Babylonian Talmud sporadically mentions aqahala qadisha
di bi-Yerushalem. Gaonictradition regardedthis asidentical withtheedah qedoshah(nolocation
given) mentioned once in the Palestinian Talmud in no discernible context (Y. Maaser Sheni
2:4, 53d); there it is identified as the common designation (though it appears nowhere else in
the Talmud) for two rabbis of the late second century. Qohelet Rabbah 9.9 attributes a wisdom
sayingtotheedah qedoshahandthennotes,followingY.M.S.,thatthisisthenamefortworabbis,
who were so called because they devoted a third of their time to prayer, a third to study, and a
third to manual labor. The representation in a text of approximately the sixth century of this
enigmatic entityin termsmanifestly derivedfrom coenobiticmonasticism isof greatinterest, but
it is unlikely to tell us anything about the actualedah qedoshah, if any. At most, these shadowy
traditions may inform us of the persistence or reemergence of the ideologically loaded language