observances and calendrical intercalations made in the Land. As with so many early
rabbinic injunctions, it is difficult to know whether these are merely theoretical
portrayals or contrived narratives, not uncommon features of this literature. The
only clear instance of a “festival letter” sent from the Land of Israel to a Diaspora
community is that contained among the Elephantine Papyri (Lindenberger 1994:
nos. 30a, 30b) from Persian-period Egypt. Therein Jerusalem Temple authorities write
to the Elephantine Jews regarding the celebration of Passover. We know that (before
70 ce) Temple agents were sent throughout the Greco-Roman Diaspora to collect
annual levies for support of the Temple; later, in the third, fourth, and early fifth
centuries ce, the Palestinian Jewish Patriarch did the same. It is a reasonable hypo-
thesis that these same agents played a role in coordinating the Jewish calendar of the
Greco-Roman Diaspora communities with that in the Land of Israel. Finally, there
is no clear evidence for the period under study that the Diaspora communities
practiced two sacred days for every one celebrated in the Land in order to account
for astronomical differences across Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Lands, as enjoined
in early rabbinic literature. The rabbinic injunctions about the same, called yom tov
sheni shel galuyot, were certainly in force throughout the Diaspora during the Islamic
period. Nor can we say that the earliest rabbis’ normative use of a lunar calendar
extended even to other Jewish inhabitants of the Land of Israel, let alone the Greco-
Roman Diaspora (see S. Stern 2002).
As to the enumeration of years, the later Jewish practice of counting in anno mundi
is not the regnant practice of Jews in the Roman period, even in the Land of Israel
or among rabbinic circles. Rabbinic texts refer to the enumeration of years in formal
documents as minyan shtarot(enumeration [for] writs), which counted years from
the founding of the Seleucid dynasty. No comparably specific, normative practice
emerges in the evidence for Roman Diaspora Judaism outside the Levant, but one
may suppose, on the basis of Levantine Jewish practice, that Roman Diaspora Jews
shared no specifically “Jewish” scheme for the enumeration of years.
For non-Jews in the Greco-Roman world, Jews refraining from work on the Sabbath
(and other holy days) and the inauguration of Sabbaths and festivals with the light-
ing of lamps is one of the obvious and conspicuous traits of Greco-Roman Diaspora
Jews (Ov. Ars 1.75f., Rem.219–30; Hor. Sermones1.9.60 –78; Juvenal 3.10 –18,
14.96 –106; Mart. 4.4; Seneca, De superstitione apudAug. Civ.6.11; Tac. Hist.5.1–13,
esp. 5.4.4; Plut. De superstitione 8, Quaestiones conviviales 4.4.4 – 62; M. Stern
1974 – 84: nos. 256, 258; Suet. Augustus 76.2; see Barclay 1996: 282–319). For invet-
erate critics of Jews and Judaism among pagan Greek and Latin authors, abstention
from work is labeled as idleness. Some Latin authors complain that even non-Jews
have adopted the practice of lighting Sabbath lamps and the observance of some
Sabbath restrictions.
The Torah ordains the celebration of three pilgrimage festivals, Passover,
Pentecost, and the Feast of Booths. The Book of Acts (6. 5), for example, attests
to the presence in Jerusalem of many Diaspora pilgrims in first-century-ce
Jerusalem during these festivals; indeed some Diaspora communities and their
expatriates living in Jerusalem constructed synagogues in Jerusalem. The earliest
Christian communities in Italy, Greece-Macedonia, Asia Minor, the Levant, Egypt,
364 Jack N. Lightstone