- rulers of the synagogue (archisynagogues, e.g. Noy 1993–5: 1. nos. 4, 14, 20;
Epiphanius, Panarion30.11.1– 4; Levine 1999: 90); and in the Levant, - hazzan, a sort of treasurer-administrator fonctionnaire, perhaps (Epiphanius,
Panarion30.11.1– 4; Levine 1999: 90).
Many of these titles designate authoritative roles and functions in the synagogue
community, and, therefore, may be time-limited designations ending with the
cessation of tenure of office. Some, like “mother” or “father” of the synagogue,
seem to be honorifics bestowed on individuals in recognition of persistent or major
benefaction, or in recognition of long service (see Rajak and Noy 1993).
Notwithstanding the plethora of titles listed, two institutions appear fundamental
throughout the Diaspora: the authority of a governing council (gerousia), and
the centrality of the ruler(s) of the synagogue (archisynagogues) (Rajak and Noy
1993).
In Philo’s first-century ceAlexandria, where multiple synagogues functioned, we
have evidence for the existence of a council of synagogue councils, an overarching
gerousiafor all synagogues, and of a “ruler” of this superintending body. Although
we have no such explicit evidence for a superintending Jewish council in other Diaspora
cities, such as Rome, where there were numerous synagogues, one cannot rule out
the possibility, even probability, of the existence of a council of councils in these
other urban settings (M. Williams 1998).
Inscriptions strongly suggest that membership in the gerousiaand assumption of
the role of ruler of the synagogue were the privileges (and the burden) of a hered-
itary aristocracy, the trans-generational socio-economic elite within the Jewish com-
munities (see Rajak and Noy 1993). In this sense, these council members and “rulers”
constituted a class of Jewish “decurions,” a Jewish communal counterpart to the decu-
rions upon whose shoulders rested the administration of the cities of the Roman
empire. This emergence of a Jewish communal nobility parallel to, and perhaps over-
lapping with, the civic curial class explains how, for example, a child deceased at the
age of three years and three months could be called an archisynagogoson his tomb
inscription (Noy 1993–5: 1. no. 53), or a 12-year-old carry the title grammateus
(Frey 1936 –52 [1975]: no. 284).
Indeed, Roman legal texts make the explicit link between Jewish communal and
civic curial functions (see Linder 1987: 76). How so? Consistently until the fifth
century, Roman law granted certain levels of exemption from the curial burdens of
civic magistracies to leaders of the synagogue, because it assumed that their personal
resources and time would have been greatly exhausted within the context of the syn-
agogue community. From this we learn not only that many Jewish leaders were of
the curial class generally, and were regarded as such by Rome, but also that Roman
law itself recognized magistracies and liturgies served within the synagogue as a
form of “alternative service” for civic magistracies and civic and imperial liturgies.
In this regard, three edicts (Linder 1987: nos. 7, 9) from Constantine, one issued
in 321 ceand two from 330 ce, seem to represent and confirm what he or his
officials considered already long-standing imperial policy. Interpolations in square
brackets are my own:
374 Jack N. Lightstone