Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. - Seth Schwartz

274 CHAPTER NINE
Payyetanimwere of course employed by communities, and their poetry
was learned, obscure, allusive, and performed to music .Some community
leaders must have approved of their message, but others may have approved
mainly of their singing, or may have delighted in their penchant for mystifi-
cation .Thepayyetanim, and the iconophobia that seems a related phenome-
non, are evidence for the beginnings of a process of rabbinization .They serve
as powerful reminders that, even in the fourth and fifth centuries, the syna-
gogues, the art with which they were decorated, and the rituals performed in
them, not only conveyed meaning but also served as arenas in which meaning
was contested.