SYNAGOGUE AND COMMUNITY 283the synagogue inscriptions were public in a way that dedicatory inscriptions in
temples were not. Those worked into mosaic pavements, carved onto decor-
ated facades, or scratched into chancel screens andmenorotwere meant to
be contemplated no less than the objects on which the writing was made. As
the rabbis acknowledged, the synagogue donor expected to be remembered
not only by God but by his fellow townspeople. Furthermore, the synagogues
were used primarily by the local townspeople in the service of a religious
system far more concentrated and centralized than Greco-Roman paganism.
The zeal to write one’s name was still present but was weaker, its purpose
slightly altered. Hence the existence of a small number of “anonymous” dedi-
cations (see below).
Indeed, the synagogue inscriptions are in significant respects similar to sec-
ular dedicatory and honorary inscriptions from Greco-Roman cities. The
voice speaking in thedakir letabinscriptions is not that of the donors them-
selves, as in the corresponding inscriptions in churches and temples, but of
the community. (A minority of synagogue inscriptions are in the first person
or say simply “N made this”.) By having their names written on the synagogue
pavements, the donors were not simply eternalizing their place in the cosmic
order but in the social order also, or to be more precise, a social order that
was itself embedded in a cosmic order and may in fact have been subtly differ-
ent from the social order prevailing outside the walls of the synagogue. They
are marking their place in the holy community of Israel.
The church dedications occupy an intermediate position between their
Jewish and pagan counterparts. Like the pagan inscriptions, they commemo-
rate a transaction between the pious benefactor and God, in the form of a
prayer that God remember or help him or her as recompense for his or her
generosity. Like the Jewish inscriptions, though, they are displayed to the con-
gregation on the mosaic pavement of the nave or the narthex. The congrega-
tion is thus expected to “overhear” the donor’s prayer and witness his or her
generosity, but at a certain distance. An interesting set of exceptions to this
generalization are the not uncommon “anonymous” dedications, often
phrased roughly as follows: “Gift of the one whose name God knows.” Such
inscriptions acquire their striking effect precisely from the shared conviction
of the congregation that naming is important, that the dedicatory inscriptions
are not simply private supplications but are supposed to be read.^22
(^22) Pace Beard, 46–47, wh oassumes that the Christian inscripti ons reveal a mentality utterly
different from that revealed by the pagan. In any case, at least in Palestine, inscriptions that name
donors are overwhelmingly more common than the anonymous type. The anonymous formula
appears in tw oJewish inscripti ons; at Jerich o(Naveh,On Mosaic, no. 68, in Aramaic), it is part
of a long “prayer” on behalf of theqahal, and it may serve much the same function in the brief
Greek inscription from the “Bet Leontis” in Scythopolis (Roth-Gerson, no. 9: “Offering of those
whose names the Lord knows; may He protect them forever”). A partly destroyed mosaic inscrip-
tion from Hamat Gader may commemorate an anonymous gift, byhadah itah entoliah(“a