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31

THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND E C O N O M I C H I S T O RY O F B A B Y L O N I A N J E W RY, 2 2 4 – 6 3 8 C E ISAIAH M. GAFNI

I INTRODUCTION

The fall of the Parthian monarchy (224 C E ) and the succession of the Sasanian dynasty mark a major turning point in the political and religious history of Iran.1 Jewish historical reckoning designates precisely that same time as the dawn of the talmudic era in rabbinic Babylonia, an age that was destined to produce undoubtedly the second most important literary corpus in Jewish tradition: the Babylonian Talmud. Whether or not these two developments merely dovetail in time or are actually linked in a causeand-effect relationship is open to debate, but one fact is certain, namely, ignorance of the earlier history of Babylonian Jewry is a direct result of the paucity of Jewish literary evidence produced in Babylonia prior to the third century C E , and, were it not for the Babylonian Talmud, this ignorance would extend for hundreds of years until the Muslim conquests and the subsequent appearance of geonic literature. Non-Jewish sources on the Jews of Babylonia, whether under the Parthians or the Sasanians, are minimal, and material evidence from that community hardly approaches the mass of archaeological remains that have contributed so much to the knowledge of Palestinian Jews and Judaism in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. The importance of those remains (most significantly from ancient synagogues and a few burial sites) lies not 1

For the classic study of Iran under Parthian rule, see N. Debevoise, A Political History of Parthia (Chicago, 1938); for more recent works, see K. Schippmann, Grundzu¨ge der parthischen Geschichte (Darmstadt, 1980); J. Wolski, L’Empire des Arsacides, Acta Iranica 32 (Leuven, 1993); for the Sasanian period, the basis for all subsequent research remains A. Christensen, LpIran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen, 1944); for more recent work, see K. Schippmann, Grundzu¨ge der Geschichte des sasanidischen Reiches (Darmstadt, 1990); some recent overviews include R. N. Frye, The History of Ancient Iran (Munich, 1984), 205–47 (on the Parthian period) and 287–339 (the Sasanians; Frye’s chapters contain useful inroductions on the sources for each period); J. Wiesehoefer, Ancient Persia: From 550 B C to 650 A D (London and New York, 1996), 151–221 (153–64 offer a succinct review of the sources for the Sasanian period; 282–300 contain useful bibliographical essays); and Z. Rubin, ‘‘The Sasanid Monarchy,’’ in CAH X I V (Cambridge, 2000), 638–61.

792

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224–638 C E 793 only in the unique nature of the information they supply but also in their function as a control for, or as a means of evaluating, the information provided by Palestinian rabbinic sources. This control is additionally enhanced in the West by ongoing references to Jews in the writings of Church Fathers as well as in the legislation of the Roman Empire. Unchecked by a similar process of comparison, the Babylonian Talmud often serves, not merely as the major source of information for talmudic Babylonia, but at times also as the only resource providing more than fleeting references to Jews between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers from the third to the seventh centuries C E .2 Consequently, historians of Babylonian Jewry must grapple, not only with the ahistorical nature of talmudic narrative passages, but also with the fact that the entire Babylonian Talmud corpus represents the ideas and thoughts of a rabbinic elite, clearly a small segment within the broader Jewish population.3 Any attempt at producing a concise history of the Jews of talmudic Babylonia must constantly keep this crucial limitation in mind.4 2

3

4

Certainly Judaism figures in certain Zoroastrian texts, frequently as the object of religious polemics. However, as noted by S. Shaked, these materials rarely reflect actual confrontation and formal debates between the two groups, but instead serve as context for a Zoroastrian self-definition, with Judaism fulfilling the role of the adversarial ‘‘other,’’ informing readers on what Shaked calls ‘‘the nuisance value of the existence of the other religion’’; see S. Shaked, ‘‘Zoroastrian Polemics against Jews in the Sasanian and early Islamic Period,’’ in S. Shaked and A. Netzer (eds.), Irano-Judaica, I I ( Jerusalem, 1990), 85–104. For earlier collections and discussions on Jews in Pahlavi literature, see ibid., 87 nn. 1 and 4. Conversely, the extent to which talmudic literature relates to Zoroastrian beliefs frequently depends on speculative interpretation of the texts, and, even when it appears that the Talmud was alluding to such beliefs, one might again ask whether or not such cases reflect actual confrontation or a Jewish awareness of the state religion. On this matter, see E. Ahdut, ‘‘Jewish–Zoroastrian Polemics in the Babylonian Talmud,’’ in S. Shaked and A. Netzer (eds.), Irano-Judaica, I V ( Jerusalem, 1999), 17–40 (Hebrew). Questions surrounding the use of rabbinic sources for historiographical purposes are particularly acute when dealing with Babylonia; for a collection of studies on this critical issue see J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck (eds.), Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part 3, I (Leiden, 1999), 23–230. For Babylonian talmudic stories, see also J. L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition and Culture (Baltimore, 1999). Processes of transmission and redaction pose yet another obstacle inhibiting the use of the Babylonian Talmud as a historical source; for a summary of all these questions, see I. M. Gafni, ‘‘A Generation of Scholarship on Eretz Israel in the Talmudic Era: Achievement and Reconsideration,’’ Cathedra 100 (2001), 216–22 (Hebrew). For general surveys of Jewish Babylonian history, see J. Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 5 vols. (Leiden, 1965–70); I. M. Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era: A Social and Cultural History ( Jerusalem, 1990). For a brief overview, see J. Neusner, ‘‘Jews in Iran,’’ in E. Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, I I I /2 (Cambridge, 1983), 909–23. The most comprehensive geographical survey of Babylonian Jewry is A. Oppenheimer, Babylonia Judaica in the Talmudic Period (Weisbaden, 1983).

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794

T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D

I I J E W S U N D E R S A S A N I A N R U L E : S TAT E A N D C H U R C H

While the direct role played by the Sasanians in this new stage of Babylonian Jewish history is problematic, it is evident that the rabbis involved in producing talmudic literature were abundantly aware of the implications of a new regime in their midst. For centuries, the Jewish community of Babylonia seemed to thrive, thanks to a policy of non-interference with their internal structures and lifestyle, the result of a commonly perceived feudalistic framework under the Parthians that allowed substantial communal autonomy.5 The fear that this autonomy would likely be challenged under the Sasanians, and possibly a retrospective cognizance that this autonomy indeed transpired, are clearly expressed in one talmudic tale. After taking extreme pre-emptory action against a potential informer who was planning to expose Jewish property to the government, a third-century rabbinic sage (Rav Kahana) is advised by his mentor Rav to flee the boundaries of the Iranian Empire and escape to Roman Palestine: ‘‘Until now the Greeks6 who were not strict about bloodshed [ruled]; now there are the Persians who are strict’’ (BT Bava K. 117a).7 Two developments under the new Sasanian monarchy probably aroused the greatest fear among Babylonian Jews as well as among all other ethnic and religious groups in the region. The ascension of the new dynasty brought an enhanced and prolonged military confrontation with the Roman Empire, one that continued well into the fourth century. Under the rule of Shapur I (239–70 C E ), a series of major battles with Roman legions occurred, one resulting in the capture of the Emperor Valerian (259–60 C E ).8 These wars brought major devastation to areas such as 5

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On the nature of Parthian rule and its ‘‘feudalistic’’ character, see Frye, Ancient Iran, 216–33. This sequence – first Greeks and then Persians – is found in numerous manuscripts (the printed editions of the Talmud have a reverse order), and it correctly recognizes the Greek influences evident in Parthian Iran (see Frye, Ancient Iran, 230), as opposed to the enhanced Persian self-image of the Sasanians. For the process of centralization under the Sasanians, see V. G. Lukonin, ‘‘Political, Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and Trade,’’ in Yarshater (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran I I I /2 729–32. For a brief summary, see R. N. Frye, ‘‘The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians,’’ in Yarshater, (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran I I I /1 (Cambridge, 1983), 124–9. Valerian’s capture was commemorated in Shapur I’s famous inscription on the Kaabah of Zoroaster (KZ) as well as in a series of massive rock reliefs at Bishapur and Naqsh-I Rustam; for a translation of the inscription, see Frye, Ancient Iran, 371–3; for the carvings, see E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis, I I I : The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments (Chicago, 1970), 127–9; it is even possible that this event is vaguely referred to in talmudic literature; see, S. Lieberman, ‘‘Palestine in the Third and Fourth Centuries,’’ JQR 37 (1946–7), 35 n. 324.

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796 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor, all containing large concentrations of Jews. Significantly, one of the prominent rabbinic sages of the third century, Samuel, is described as having refrained from evincing any public manifestation of mourning upon hearing that 12,000 Jews were slain in Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, during one of these battles.9 Moreover, the same talmudic anecdote quotes Shapur swearing to Samuel that ‘‘I have never slain a Jew.’’ As with all such talmudic anecdotes, the historicity of the story is not only beyond proof, but, in practical terms, it is not the issue. When placed in the context of a variety of stories that portray amicable relations between Samuel and the Persian king, the message emerges that one of the rabbinic sages is reconciling himself to the new regime and striving to achieve a modus vivendi with it.10 More than likely, this reconciliation was also the rationale for Samuel’s declaration alongside that of the Jewish Exilarch Ukban bar Nehemiah that ‘‘the law of the kingdom is law.’’11 While this principle appears in the Talmud in a narrow context, recognizing the government’s legitimate right to demand taxes and determine the legal frameworks for possessing land, the following political implications are obvious: in contradistinction to Rome, the ‘‘evil kingdom’’ that forcibly conquered the Land of Israel and destroyed the Jewish Temple, the Persian rulers are the legal and recognized sovereigns of their land. The few talmudic anecdotes that allude to Persian kings, at least until the early fifth century, all suggest that a rather cordial relationship existed between them and their Jewish subjects.12 Indeed, if Rome was perceived by the Rabbis as the common enemy of both Persia and the Jews,13 this shared political position would only have been enhanced with the embracing of Christianity by Rome in the fourth century. The attempt by the Emperor Julian (the Apostate) to lure Babylonian Jews from their loyalty to the Sasanians seemed to fall on deaf ears, and no solid evidence exists 9

10

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12

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BT Moed K. 26a; for problems relating to the chronology of these events, see Gafni, Babylonia, 258–63. Samuel’s contemporary, Rav, seemed to embrace a more cautious position and is quoted as foreseeing an ultimate Roman victory over Persia (BT Yoma 10a) – possibly the result of his years spent as a student in Roman Palestine before returning to Babylonia in 219 C E prior to the rise of the Sasanians. BT Bava B. 55a and parallels; see Neusner, Babylonia, I I 69. This principle was destined to have major ramifications for the Jewish community’s self-understanding of its legal status in a Diaspora context; see S. Shiloh, Dina de-Malkhuta Dina ( Jerusalem, 1975) (Hebrew); D. Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York, 1986), 54–7. BT Taan. 24b; BT Ket. 61a–b; see Neusner, Babylonia, I V 35–9; I. M. Gafni, ‘‘Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,’’ in D. Biale (ed.), Cultures of the Jews (New York, 2002), 235. One talmudic source actually claims that ‘‘Rome is destined to fall to Persia’’ precisely because it was the Persians under Cyrus who facilitated the building of the second Temple, the very temple destroyed by the Romans; BT Yoma 10a.

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224–638 C E 797 to suggest that Babylonian Jews were swayed by the Emperor’s promises of Temple restoration and a return of Jerusalem to the Jews.14 War between Persia and Rome, however, was not the only military factor that endangered historical centers of Jewish life. In the early 60s of the third century, the town of Nehardea was destroyed by the invading Palmyrene forces, part of their short-lived conquest of large segments of middleeastern territory at the expense of both major empires. Large numbers of Jews had lived in Nehardea since the first century C E , and medieval Jewish chronographers, such as Rav Sherira Gaon, considered the destruction of the town a major stage in the history of the earliest rabbinic centers of learning.15 Along with occupying a more assertive military position, and the creation of a more centralized state, the Sasanians also raised Zoroastrianism (or, as it is referred to in ancient texts and inscriptions, the Mazdayasnian, that is, Mazda-worshiping, religion) to the status of a state religion. This status is hardly surprising, inasmuch as Papak, the father of the first Sasanian king, was a priest of the fire temple of Anahita at Stakhr near Persepolis, and his successors went out of their way, on coins and in inscriptions, to stress the links between monarchy and religion. Therefore, with the founding of the new dynasty by Ardashir, ‘‘religion ascends the throne in Iran.’’16 Therefore, any similarity between this marriage of state and religion and the events in the Byzantine Empire is limited. Not only has evidence appeared of amicable relations between Shapur I and the Rabbis, but that same monarch appeared to enable Manichaeism to flourish throughout the Empire as well.17 Certainly, specific periods of Sasanian rule witnessed an enhanced activity on the part of the priesthood, with the most prominent of these being the consolidation and strengthening of the Church under the third-century priest Kirdir. While already prominent during the reign of Shapur I, Kirdir seemed to assume real power during the reign of Shapur’s sons, OhrmazdArdashir (273–4 C E ) and Bahram I (274–6) and the latter’s son Bahram II (276–93). His attempts at strengthening the Church are known, thanks to the detailed descriptions he provides in a number of inscriptions. Here for the first time, one encounters an explicit allusion to attempts at persecuting 14

15 16 17

See G. Widengren, ‘‘The Status of the Jews in the Sassanian Empire,’’ Iranica Antiqua 1 (1961), 132–9, and especially 132 n. 2. See Neusner, Babylonia, I I 48–52; Gafni, Babylonia, 263–4. J. Duchesne-Guillemin, in Yarshater (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran, I I I /2 874. Frye, Ancient Iran, 300; for a comprehensive overview of Sasanian attitudes towards the various religious groups under their rule, see J. Duchesne-Guillemin, in Yarshater (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran, I I I /2 874–97; see also Wiesehoefer, Ancient Persia, 199–216.

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798 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D Jews together with ‘‘Buddhists, Brahmins, Nasoreans, Christians, Maktaks (Manichaeans?) and Zandiks.’’18 The nature of these persecutions, however, is unclear, and, in all likelihood, the real thrust of Kirdir’s activity was aimed at maintaining proper religious behavior among Iranians while preventing other groups from behaving in a manner that might be perceived as demeaning to Zoroastrian sensitivities. Therefore, while the Talmud nowhere suggests a concerted effort on the part of the Zoroastrian clergy either to attract Jews or physically to coerce them to embrace the revitalized state religion, it does allude frequently to the fire-priests (habarim) who hovered around the community, interfering in those areas in which Jewish behavior might clash with Zoroastrian concepts of sanctity. The most common pretext for intervention in the lives of Jews was, in all likelihood, their use of fire for common everyday needs as well as the lighting of candles for religious purposes, such as the celebration of Hanukkah.19 Stories are told of rabbis sitting around a flame only to have the Persian priest remove the candle from their midst, thereby leading into a general comparison of the advantages and pressures of life under the Persian and Roman governments.20 The use of candles was not the only benign activity that might have aroused the Zoroastrian clergy. Burial in the ground was deemed to pollute the sacred earth, and this act led to the Zoroastrian custom of exposure.21 Judaism, however, required the burial of the dead, and the Babylonian Talmud describes Persian magi exhuming corpses, including those of noted rabbis.22 Nevertheless, another element requiring protection from all manner of impurity was water, and here again the immersion of Jewish menstruant women 18

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For literature on these inscriptions and the various groups mentioned, see Neusner, Babylonia, I I 17–26. See, e.g., the question posed in BT Shabb. 45a, ‘‘They asked Rav: Is it permissible to move a Hanukkah candle from before the habarim on the Sabbath?’’ Later, geonic sources seemed to know something of the practices that led to such dillemas: ‘‘In the Persian Kingdom their habarim would go round Jewish houses, extinguish candles and remove the embers, taking them to their fire-houses, forbidding either flame or embers from remaining overnight outside their houses of idolatry’’; S. Assaf, Gaonic Responsa ( Jerusalem, 1928), 171. BT Gitt. 16b–17a. For an extremely detailed study of this text and of the historical background for Zoroastrian preservation of the sanctity of fire and its removal from nonreligious contexts, see E. S. Rosenthal, ‘‘For the Talmudic Dictionary – Talmudica Iranica,’’ in S. Shaked (ed.), Irano-Judaica, I ( Jerusalem, 1982), 38–134, especially 38–42, 58–64, and the notes on 75–84 and 128–31 (Hebrew). See M. Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London, 1979), 14–15, 44–5, 120–1; idem, Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigor (Cosa Mesa, CA, and New York, 1992), 95. BT Bava B. 58a; see also BT Yev. 63b.

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224–638 C E 799 in water was antithetical to basic Zoroastrian tenets. The intervention of the clergy in these Jewish rituals is unsurprisingly noted in at least one talmudic source (BT Yev. 63b) as a ‘‘decree’’ (gazru is the common talmudic term for religious persecution), and historians have labored to identify these actions with Kirdir’s late third-century zealous imposition of Zoroastrian behavior.23 Nevertheless, guarding the sanctity of Zoroastrian purities does not constitute an overt persecution of other faiths, Judaism included, and, lacking any evidence of the Zoroastrians actively seeking to increase their numbers through conversion, one should avoid equating those talmudic allusions to interference in Jewish daily life on the part of the local clergy with outright persecution, notwithstanding Kirdir’s aggressive pronouncements.24 Sasanian tolerance towards the Jews extended into the early fifth century C E , and this attitude was consistent with a general tolerance of minority groups on the part of Yazdgird I (399–420 C E ). Indeed, this policy, of which the main benefactors were the Christian communities of Iran, may reflect that monarch’s attempt to limit the enhanced power of the clergy and aristocracy.25 Therefore, as Christian historians praised Yazdgird I (while he was reviled in Arabic-Persian sources), the Babylonian Talmud referred to amicable contacts between the king and Jewish leaders.26 A most interesting – albeit unverifiable – Pahlavi source actually claims that Yazdgird’s wife ‘‘was the daughter of the resh-galutak (exilarch), King of the Jews, and the mother of Bahram Gor (420–38 C E ).’’27 Talmudic sources also reflect positively on the Persian kingdom in a legal sense, whereas earlier halachah forbids the sale of weapons to Gentiles, but the later strata of the Babylonian Talmud permits this sale ‘‘to Persians, for they protect us.’’28 23

24

25

26

27

28

See in particular the following articles by M. Beer: ‘‘Notes on Three Edicts Against the Jews of Babylonia in the Third Century,’’ in Shaked (ed.), Irano-Judaica, I 25–37; ‘‘The Decrees of Kartir against the Jews of Babylonia,’’ Tarbiz 55 (1986), 525–39 (both articles in Hebrew). I follow R. Brody, ‘‘Judaism in the Sasanian Empire: A Case Study in Religious Coexistence,’’ in S. Shaked and A. Netzer, (eds.), Irano-Judaica, I I ( Jerusalem, 1990), 52–61. See T. Noeldeke, Aufsa¨tze zur persichen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887), 104; Neusner, Babylonia, V 5. BT Ket. 61a–b; BT Zev. 19a. See M. Beer, The Babylonian Exilarchate in the Arsacid and Sassanian Periods (Tel-Aviv, 1970), 45–7. J. Markwart, A Catalogue of the Provincial Capitals of Eranshahr, Analecta Orientalia I I I (Rome, 1931), 19; the chronicle cites the woman by name – Shoshan-dukht – and claims that she was instrumental in establishing a Jewish colony in Gay, the capital of Ispahan. See Widengren, ‘‘Status,’’ 139–42; Beer, Exilarchate, 47–8; Neusner, Babylonia, V 9–14. BT Av. Zar. 16a; printed editions of the Talmud attribute this to Rav Ashi, a contemporary of Yazdgird I, but manuscripts omit his name, and the statement may be a later gloss.

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800 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D If Jews in Babylonia suffered persecution at the hands of Zoroastrian extremists, this persecution probably erupted only towards the second half of the fifth century under Yazdgird II (538–457 C E ) and his son Peroz (459–84). While some historians attribute this persecution to the fanaticism of the former, others note the gradual weakening of the monarchy under the pressure of ongoing invasions of the Empire, thereby creating a power vacuum that the Zoroastrian church aggressively filled.29 Descriptions of any fifth-century persecution of the Jews are not found in the Babylonian Talmud itself, but rather in the chronological works produced in later medieval times, primarily in the ninth-century chronology known as Seder Tanaim ve-Amoraim, and the Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon, written in the late tenth century. These works describe Yazdgird II’s decree prohibiting observation of the Sabbath as well as the subsequent execution of rabbis and Exilarchs, the forced closure of synagogues and houses of study, and the subjection of Jewish children to the forced conversion by the magi.30 Interestingly, these clashes appear to dovetail with the description provided by a tenth-century Persian Muslim author, Hamza Isfahani. The latter claims that in 468 C E , that is, during the rule of Peroz, the Jews of Isfahan flayed two magi. Peroz punished them by slaughtering one half of Isfahan’s Jewish population while forcibly removing their children to the fire-temple of Sros Aduran in the village of Harvan.31 Whether or not the events actually occurred or were merely a pretext for persecution is unclear, but the allusion to children being handed to the fire-priests in both the Jewish and Persian chronicles may suggest vague shared memories of the same event. By the end of the fifth century – commonly regarded as a major stage in the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud – the Sasanian kingdom suffered additional turmoil, this time the result of an internal uprising aroused by the preaching of Mazdak, a Persian priest influenced by Manichaeism that demanded the correction of social ills, especially the inequality in the distribution of material wealth. The Mazdakite movement seemed to enjoy the support of the masses, and the king, Kavad (488–531 C E ) lent his support as well, to the dismay of the established Church and

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See Gafni, Babylonia, 49 nn. 134, 135; Neusner, Babylonia, V 66–72, who sees the pressure on the Jews as the government’s response to a hightened messianic arousal at the time. K. Kahan (ed.), Seder Tannaim weAmoraim (Frankfurt, 1935), 6; B. M. Lewin (ed.), Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (Haifa, 1921), 94–7. See T. Noeldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden: Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari (1897; 2nd ed., Leiden, 1973), 118; Widengren, ‘‘Status,’’ 143.

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224–638 C E 801 aristocracy. The latter succeeded in temporarily deposing the king around the years 496 to 498, and it is precisely at this time that one ninth-century Jewish chronicle describes a Jewish attempt at establishing an autonomous state headed by the Exilarch Mar Zutra, who ‘‘did battle with the Persians, inherited the kingship, and gathered taxes for seven years.’’ Ultimately the Jews were subdued, and the Exilarch and the Head of the Academy were hanged in the city of Mahoza. Verification of these events is virtually impossible, but this depiction of late fifth-century Jewish Babylonia serves to temper the idyllic image of Babylonian Jewry that the later Geonim would so strenuously support as part of their overall claim that the Babylonian community – and its Torah – thrived precisely because they were never subject to the constant religious persecution that was the lot of their Palestinian brethren.33 I I I J E W I S H S E L F - G O V E R N M E N T: T H E E X I L A R C H AT E 3 4

As noted elsewhere in this volume, no hard evidence is available for the existence of the Babylonian Exilarchate before the third century C E , but this lack of information may simply be the result of a paucity of sources for the earlier period. Indeed, the nature of the Parthian monarchy certainly encouraged a degree of Jewish self-rule, and geonic sources spoke in general terms of the existence of the office during the Second Temple period.35 One ninth-century author seemed to fabricate a geneology of Exilarchs, stretching from the days of the First Temple and King Jehoiachin (Yekhoniah) to 32

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34

35

While a relatively obscure event in itself, the image of a late-antique ‘‘communist’’ movement has attracted the attention of numerous scholars; see A. Christensen, Le regne du roi Kawadh I et le Communisme Mazdakite (Copenhagen, 1925); idem, Iran, 316–62; O. Klima, Mazdak: Geschichte einer sozialen Bewegung im sasanidischen Persien (Prague, 1957); P. Crone, ‘‘Kavad’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt,’’ Iran 29 (1991), 21–42; on the role of the Jews in this uprising, see Klima, ‘‘Mazdak und die Juden,’’ Archiv Orientalni 24 (1956), 420–31; Widengren, ‘‘Status,’’ 143–5; Y. A. Solodukho, ‘‘The Mazdak Movement and Rebellion of the Hebrew Population,’’ in J. Neusner (ed.), Soviet Views of Talmudic Judaism (Leiden, 1973), 67–85. The most aggresive proponent of this pro-Babylonian offensive and reimaging of Jewish history was Pirkoi ben Baboi, an early ninth-century Babylonian disciple connected to the geonic academy at Sura; see the literature in I. Gafni, Land Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity (Sheffield, 1997), 96–7 and n. 1; R. Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), 113–17. See M. Beer, The Babylonian Exilarchate in the Arsacid and Sassanian Periods (Tel-Aviv, 1970); D. Goodblatt, The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity (Tu¨bingen, 1994), 277–311. A major new study on the Babylonian Exilarchate is currently being prepared by Goeffrey Herman, to be submitted as a dissertation at the Hebrew University. See Iggeret Rav Sherira, 73–4, and the appendix in Lewin’s edition, xx.

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802 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D 36 his own day. In truth, however, only in talmudic literature does a more complete picture of this office emerge, one that draws much from a comparison of the Exilarchate with the Patriarchate of Roman Palestine. The similarities are striking: both claim Davidic lineage, and thereby represent a type of monarchic remnant from the past as well as potential for the future; both officials appear before the kings (or emperors) of their respective empires and possibly served as representatives of the Jewish community. Both seemed to enjoy (to varying degrees at different times) the support of the government, which enabled them to maintain a court that included a retinue of armed servants, thereby affording them a means for enforcing their rulings,37 and both apparently enjoyed substantial wealth.38 The sources also attribute to both officials a role in the appointment of Jewish judges, although here a major difference occurs: the Palestinian Patriarchs were connected to the appointment of judges and the conferring of ordination upon worthy rabbis, while alternatively, the exilarchs defined their role by guaranteeing the support of the office to judges who might otherwise be held liable for faulty adjudication.39 While knowledge of a regulated and independent Jewish court system in Babylonia is limited, it appears that some sort of judicial body existed close to the court of the Exilarch, and, thanks to the status of that office in both Iranian and Jews eyes, it enjoyed a preferential status if only because it had the executive authority that rendered its decisions binding and subject to forced implementation.40 However, no clear proof justifies the claim that the Exilarchs held the power of capital punishment.41 Both Talmuds describe a major economic role enjoyed by the Exilarch, namely, the right to appoint an agoranomos. This office, for which abundant documentation is available in the Graeco-Roman world,42 was responsible 36

37

38 39 40

41 42

See A. Neubauer, Medieval Jewish Chronicles, I I (Oxford, 1895), 73–5; Gafni, Babylonia, 96; the latter part of the list may indeed be based on authentic records from the talmudic and geonic periods, but the first part was simply lifted from the biblical list in 1 Chron. 3.17–24. The servants of the Exilarch are frequently portrayed as rather heavy-handed in their contacts with the Rabbis; see BT Gitt. 67b; BT Bava K. 59a–b; one story even suggests their responsibility for the death of a rabbi, see BT Av. Zar. 38b, and compare BT Gitt. 31b. Needless to say, these portrayals were produced and transmitted in rabbinic circles, and therefore may be providing one-sided representations of the power struggle between Exilarch and Rabbis in Jewish Babylonia. Gafni, Babylonia, 98–104; Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, 279–83. BT Sanh. 5a; Beer, Exilarchate, 106–17. See BT Shabb. 55a; BT Bava B. 65a (this source alludes to ‘‘the gate of the Exilarch where judges are found’’); BT Ket. 94b; BT Kidd. 70a–b; Beer, Exilarchate, 57–93. Beer, Exilarchate, 58–65. See A. H. M. Jones, The Greek City: From Alexander to Justinian (Oxford, 1940), 349, n. 10.

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224–638 C E 803 for overseeing the marketplace, and the third-century rabbinic sage Rav was appointed agoranomos by the Exilarch. The two, however, disputed the position’s terms of reference: the Exilarch assumed that the agoranomos was responsible for regulating prices as well as examining weights and measures, whereas the Rabbis claimed that only the latter fell under the appointee’s jurisdiction.43 This anecdote sheds some light on the centralized authoritative structure of the Babylonian Jewish community. In contrast, the agoranomoi in the Roman world were usually appointed by the local city officials rather than by an outside central authority.44 Control of the marketplace may have served as a major sphere of co-operation between the Exilarchs and an alleged fiercely independent rabbinic class in Babylonia. According to a number of talmudic traditions, the Exilarch had the authority to grant certain rabbis exclusive priveleges in the sale of their produce at the marketplace prior to all the competition.45 The ‘‘taking of the market’’ (nekitat ha-shuk), if not wishful thinking on the part of the Rabbis, is one of the few examples of exilarchic intervention in support of the rabbinic class. No proof exists that any such comparable intervention extended to the inner relationships among the Sages, most specifically to attempts that regulated the leadership within the various learning circles that would ultimately emerge as the academies.46 This blurring of boundaries between Exilarchate and Rabbinate was destined to become much more pronounced in the geonic period.47 Although one talmudic source lists the Exilarch together with a number of officials that comprised the highest levels of the Sasanian hierarchy,48 no genuine evidence is available for attributing such a lofty position to the office. Indeed, even the suggestion that the Exilarch was responsible to the Sasanian government for the collection of taxes among the Jews has not been substantiated.49 It is evident, however, that the royal status ascribed by the Jewish community to the Exilarch as a descendant of the House of David played a major role in the self-image of Babylonian Jewry. The office reinforced a sense of antiquity and continuity with the Judaean captives exiled in Babylon in the early sixth century B C E , prior to the destruction of the First Temple. 43 44

45

46 47

48 49

PT Bava B. 5.15a–b; Beer, Exilarchate, 123–5. See Jones, Greek City, 181, 188; H. Galsterer, ‘‘Local and Provincial Institutions of Government,’’ CAH, X I I I (Cambrige, 2000), 352–3. BT Bava B. 22a; see M. Beer, The Babylonian Amoraim: Aspects of Economic Life, 2nd ed. (Ramat-Gan, 1982), 222–3. Neusner, Babylonia, I V 91–100; Beer, Exilarchate, 94–106; Gafni, Babylonia, 232–5. See R. Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), 75–9. BT Shevu. 6a; see also PT Shevu. 1.32d; and see Beer, Exilarchate, 25–7. See D. M. Goodblatt, ‘‘The Poll Tax in Sasanian Babylonia,’’ JESHO 22 (1979), 270, 293.

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804 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D Moreover, it was a major component in the growing self-esteem that Babylonian Jews began to cultivate as their ultimate response to the postTemple realities of Jewish life. In their eyes, their pedigree was the ‘‘purest’’ of all Jews,50 avoiding the ethnic ‘‘pollution’’ that was the fate of other Jewish centers, particularly that of the assimilationist Graeco-Roman world. Their synagogues are the successors to the destroyed Temple, and the shekhinah – the Divine Presence – has resided in them from the earliest stages of the first Exile.51 Their knowledge of Torah is equivalent to that of the Palestinian sages, and as they claim: ‘‘We have rendered ourselves the equivalent of the Land of Israel from the time that Rav came to Babylonia’’ (that is, 219 C E ).52 It appears, then, that the exalted image of the Exilarch when compared to the Palestinian Patriarch fit perfectly into the slowly emerging self-image of Babylonian supersession vis-a´-vis the Land of Israel, a process that ultimately found the Babylonians referring to their homeland as ‘‘Zion.’’53 I V D A I LY L I F E : G E O G R A P H Y, D E M O G R A P H Y, AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

As noted elsewhere in this volume,54 the earlier periods of Babylonian Jewish history find Jews situated in two major territorial clusters. The first of these clusters included most of northern Mesopotamia,55 as well as those areas east of the Tigris to which Jews had been exiled or had emigrated in the late First Temple period: Assyria and Adiabene, Media, and southeast towards Elam. The most important city in this northern area of Mesopotamia was Nisibis,56 mentioned by Josephus as a town in which monies destined for Jerusalem were gathered,57 and apparently one of the earliest centers of rabbinic teaching prior to the third century C E . However, the Mesopotamian concentration of Jews slowly receded into the background, ultimately losing its position of prominence in Jewish sources. The precarious location of this area, a frequent battleground between Roman 50 51

52 53 54 55

56

57

BT Kidd. 69b; 71a–b; BT Ket. 111a. BT Meg. 29a; see A. Oppenheimer, ‘‘Babylonian Synagogues with Historical Associations,’’ in D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher (eds.), Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, I (Leiden, 1995), 40–8. BT Gitt. 6a; BT Bava K. 80a; see Gafni, Rabbinic Culture, 231–2. BT Ket. 111a; see Gafni, Land, 115–16. See ch. 2 in this volume, section I V, ‘‘The Jews in Babylonia, 70–c. 235.’’ See J. B. Segal, ‘‘The Jews of North Mesopotamia,’’ in J. M. Grintz and J. Liver, (eds.), Studies in the Bible Presented to Professor M. H. Segal ( Jerusalem, 1964), 32–63. Now Nusaybin in Turkey, north of the Syrian border; see Oppenheimer, Babylonia Judaica, 319–34. Josephus, Ant. 18.312, 379.

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224–638 C E 805 and Persian armies, contributed to this regression, and the Babylonian Talmud knew that the territory was constantly changing hands.58 In addition, by the third century an intense Christianization of this territory also contributed to the diminishing number of Jews.59 The second concentration of Jews, in southern Mesopotamia (from 328 north to approximately 33.58 north), was situated primarily from just north to just south of the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.60 The major Jewish centers mentioned throughout talmudic literature were situated on or near the rivers, primarily the Euphrates or along the various canals connecting the two rivers, and these include (from north to south) the following: Pumbedita and Nehardea on the Euphrates, Sura to the south on Nahar Sura, and the Mahoza district, just west of the Tigris and near the major cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon in the general area of Baghdad. When referring to talmudic Babylonia, most writers – beginning with the Babylonian Talmud itself – have this area in mind, and the Babylonian Talmud designates it as the one healthful concentration of Jews with a proper pedigree: ‘‘Babylonia is healthy, Mesene [the district from the Persian Gulf and north to Kut al-Imara in southern Iraq] is dead, Media is sick, Elam is dying.’’61 Any attempt to estimate the Jewish population is an exercise in futility. Josephus chose the more prudent course for conveying the demographic situation by simply saying that ‘‘not a few tens of thousands of Jews . . . had been transported beyond the Euphrates.’’62 Moreover, the period under discussion in this chapter covers at least four centuries, and any system that relies on names of Jewish towns found in the Babylonian Talmud as the crucial factor in calculating population figures ignores the fact that the list is a composite of sources and information spanning many generations rather than an accurate picture of a specific time. Nevertheless, various ‘‘educated guesses’’ have usually hovered at the one million mark, which if correct, renders the Babylonian Jewish community of the third to seventh centuries as the largest concentration of Jews in the Diaspora (certainly after the devastation of Alexandrian Jewry during the years 114–17 C E ) and possibly exceeding the number of Jews in Roman-Byzantine Palestine.63 Population growth among Babylonian Jewry, together with all the other 58 60 61 62

63

BT Kidd. 72a. 59 See Segal, The Jews, 41–8. See the two fold-out maps at the end of Oppenheimer, Babylonian Judaica. BT Kidd. 71b. Josephus, Ant. 15.39; elsewhere Josephus also refers to ‘‘ten tribes beyond the Euphrates – countless myriads whose number cannot be ascertained’’ (Ant. 11.133; see also Ant. 15.14). For one example of population estimates for Jewish Babylonia, see Neusner, Babylonia, I I 246–50; Beer, Amoraim, 22–3 n. 14.

43°E

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224–638 C E 807 residents of the Sasanian Empire, received an additional boost thanks to the Zoroastrian religious incentive to increase the cultivation of agricultural land, and the period under discussion may have witnessed the most intensive agricultural activity in all of Persian history.64 In Iranian and Jewish eyes, Jews were identified not only as part of a widespread religious community but also as residents of their particular towns. Of the two major taxes from talmudic and other sources,65 the land tax (referred to in the Talmud as the tasqa) and the poll tax (kraga),66 the latter appeared to require administrative registration of subjects, and this registration was handled according to town residence. Consequently, in dealing with the rights of local residency as specified in rabbinic law, one sage proclaims that a town resident can prevent an outsider from establishing himself as a business competitor in that town if the latter ‘‘belongs to the poll tax of here.’’67 Registration for tax purposes in a particular town might also determine one’s pedigree in Jewish eyes, and, after a certain sage was offended because his origins were considered to be from a town of doubtful Jewish lineage, he was subsequently placated by paying his poll tax in a different town whose residents were of proper Jewish ancestry.68 Nevertheless, if residency in a particular town might be advantageous in that respect, it also served as a means for exacting the poll tax, which by all accounts was a considerable sum,69 and clearly represented a disadvantage. The legitimacy of rabbinic attempts to avoid the poll tax, whether by claiming equal status with (the possible exemptions of) Zoroastrian clerics or by sages misrepresenting themselves as ‘‘servants of the fire’’70 – is considered in the Talmud, and is a definite sign of the burden that this 64

65

66

67 68 70

See R. N. Frye, ‘‘The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians,’’ in Yarshater (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran, I I I /1 131–2. The most important source for Sasanian taxation relates to the latter stages of the Empire, specifically the reforms planned by Kavad I (488–531) and completed by his son Khusro I Anoshirvan (521–79). These are described by Tabari; see T. Noeldeke, Geschichte der Perser, 242–7; for an English translation, see C. E. Bosworth, The History of al-Tabari, V : The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids and Yemen (Albany, 1999), 255–62. The Talmud is clearly one of the more important sources for knowledge of the kraga prior to that period; see the full discussion in Goodblatt, ‘‘Poll Tax,’’ 232–95. On the different names of the taxes in Jewish, Christian, and Arabic texts and on the taxation of Jews under the Sasanians, see Widengren, ‘‘Status,’’ 149–54; Beer, Amoraim, 227–41. BT Bava B. 21b; see Goodblatt’s discussion of this text, ‘‘Poll Tax,’’ 260–1. BT Kidd. 71a. 69 See Goodblatt, ‘‘Poll Tax,’’ 239–47. BT Ned. 62a–b; the text raises a long list of, as yet, unresolved questions regarding the supposed exemption of Zoroastrians from the poll tax, as well as the practicality of a rabbi’s actually passing himself off as a Zoroastrian priest; see the detailed analysis in Goodblatt, ‘‘Poll Tax,’’ 277–92.

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808 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D tax represented. Those delinquent in payment might be enslaved by others who paid the tax on their behalf,71 and the phenomenon of flight to avoid the payment of taxes – anachoresis in Graeco-Roman sources and confirmed in Palestinian rabbinic literature72 – was not unknown among the Jews of talmudic Babylonia.73 In general, however, a sense of local pride prevailed among Jews of Sasanian Babylonia. Not only did the Babylonian rabbis cultivate a selfimage of parity (and ultimately superiority) with their Palestinian counterparts, but on the local level Babylonian Jews frequently make a point of their belonging to one town, with its favorable attributes, rather than to another one known for its moral or familial blemishes.74 Aspersions are cast on certain Jewish towns because the residents ‘‘all are Ammonites . . . all are bastards . . . two brothers engage in wife-swapping’’ and the like.75 A propensity for theft or greed is a common characteristic used to denigrate the good name of a town: ‘‘If a Nareshen (a resident of Naresh) kisses you – count your teeth; If a Nehar Pekodan accompanies you – it is because of the fine cloth he saw on you; If a Pumbedithan accompanies you – change your accomodations.’’76 Regionalism had other expressions among Babylonian Jews, and not the least important was the rabbinic legal spheres of influence. Laws and practices established by certain rabbinic authorities or study circles affected their immediate geographical environs, and the Babylonian Talmud addresses cases of different spheres of influence required to arrive at some sort of accommodation, such as when ‘‘a woman of Mahoza married a man of Nehardea.’’77 What is striking, though, in all aspects of this Babylonian sense of local patriotism, is that the adversarial relationships expressed are primarily among Jews of different localities. Certainly, Gentiles and Zoroastrian priests can be troublesome at times, but the overriding sense of the threatening Greek or Roman pagan, so familiar from Palestinian sources, does not seem to find its match in the Babylonian Talmud, and ‘‘the other’’ might as frequently be a Jew from another town. The ongoing threat 71

72

73

74

75 77

BT Yev. 46a; BT Bava M. 73b; similarly, land belonging to those delinquent in the payment of land tax might be sold, with usufruct transferred to those who paid in their stead; BT Bava B. 54b; BT Bava M. 73b. See D. Sperber, ‘‘Anachoresis and Usucapio,’’ Bar-Ilan 9 (Ramat-Gan, 1972), 229–96 (Hebrew). BT Sanh. 25b–26a, and quite probably BT Bava M. 86a, following Goodblatt, ‘‘Poll Tax,’’ 271–6. See: I. M. Gafni, ‘‘Expressions and Types of ‘Local-Patriotism’ among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia,’’ Irano-Judaica, I I ( Jerusalem, 1990), 63–71. BT Kidd. 72a 76 BT Hull. 127a; see also BT Hor. 12a; BT Taan. 26a; BT Ket. 65a. BT Ket. 54a.

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224–638 C E 809 of an outside world is not one of the common themes of Babylonian talmudic literature. The economic realties of Babylonian Jewry must be understood within the broader Iranian context; nevertheless, generalizations have frequently been based on broad intuitive assumptions, often the result of an overly innocent use of talmudic materials and not without a trace of apologetic concerns. One common theory tends to compare a ‘‘more prosperous Babylonia’’ with ‘‘inflation- and tax-ridden Palestine,’’ considering this comparison as the economic basis for all kinds of variant traditions between the two Jewish centers, such as the Babylonian Talmud’s preference for earlier marriage prior to the study of Torah.78 On the other hand, another generalization maintains that ‘‘the civil law of Palestine in talmudic times mirrors an exclusively agricultural society, while that of Babylonia reflects a life greatly modified by commerce.’’79 Others accept at face value various rabbinic statements on the relative merits of agriculture and commerce and conclude that the Sages in general evinced a preference for agriculture, ‘‘knowing well the pitfalls’’ that commerce places in the path of an honest man.80 Overwhelming evidence suggests that the majority of Jews in Sasanian Iran were involved in some type of agricultural activity and, as such, were not much different from the vast majority of the local population.81 Tabari’s discussion of the tax reforms under Kavad I and Khusro I informs readers that only the seven major crops, ‘‘the products that maintained alive men and beasts,’’ were to be taxed. These products included wheat, barley, and rice, among the cereals, as well as grapes, trefoil, date palms and olive trees.82 Talmudic literature portrays Jews as being involved in the cultivation of these crops.83 For many, farming was aimed primarily at producing 78

79

80

81

82 83

S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, I I (New York, 1952), 221; see also L. Jacobs, ‘‘The Economic Conditions of the Jews in Babylon in Talmudic Times Compared with Palestine,’’ JSS 2 (1957), 349–59 (for the different approaches to marrying or studying Torah first, see 351). L. Ginzberg, A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud, I (New York, 1971), xxix; see N. Getzow, Al Naharot Bavel (Warsaw, 1878), 58–9 (Hebrew), who goes even further, claiming that the masses of Babylonian Jews had entered the world of commerce. L. Jacobs, ‘‘The Economic Situation of the Jews in Babylon,’’ Melilah, V (Manchester, 1955), 85 (Hebrew); Jacobs also posits a Sasanian disdain for commerce based on the Zoroastrian stress on agriculture, thereby leaving the commercial world open to minority groups, such as Jews and Armenians (84); idem, ‘‘Economic Conditions,’’ 352. Wiesehoefer, Ancient Persia, 191; for the wealth of rabbinic evidence, see J. Newman, The Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia: Between the Years 200 C E and 500 C E (London, 1932); Beer, Amoraim, 15–82. See Bosworth, Tabari, 257–8; Weishofer, Ancient Persia, 192. Newman, Agricultural Life, 111; Beer, Amoraim, passim.

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810 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D food for personal consumption, and the Talmud alludes to the fact that business rather than agriculture is a more certain path to wealth.84 As for the Rabbis, a significant number appeared to be rich landowners whose fields were attended by a range of laborers, tenant farmers, and contractors.85 Slaves are also mentioned in talmudic literature, but it is doubtful whether agricultural life was dependent or significantly based on slavery.86 Commercial activity among Babylonian Jews has also been directly connected to the production and sale of agricultural by-products. Individual rabbis proclaim that they became wealthy by their trade in beer made from dates, while others were wine merchants.87 From the earliest stages of the talmudic period, and in all likelihood before that time, Babylonian Jews were involved in all phases of production and trade in linen and flax clothing, and a number of rabbis are described as dealers in silk.88 Less evidence is available for the involvement of rabbis in handicrafts, but here one wonders whether this observation is not a reflection of the unique social self-image of the Babylonian rabbis, who might have considered this sort of livelihood demeaning89 – in contrast to the self-image of the early Palestinian rabbis.90 Indeed, in this area, it is fair to assume a distinction between rabbinic attitudes and those of Babylonian commoners; in any case, one reads, en passant, about tailors, blood-letters, launderers, tanners, weavers, cobblers, and a host of other craftsmen and artisans throughout the Babylonian Talmud.91 In fact, guilds may have been organized among certain craftsmen, as suggested in one story about 84 85

86

87

88 89

90

91

BT Yev. 63a. Newman, Agricultural Life, 49–73; Beer, Amoraim, passim; however, the phenomenon of an indentured tenant farmer, well documented in the Roman world, is not confirmed in the extensive BT treatment of relations between landowners and farmers. See Gafni, Babylonia, 131–2. The question of slavery among Jews in talmudic Babylonia has received considerable scholarly attention; see Gafni, Babylonia, 133–6, and the bibliography in Beer, Amoraim, 327 n. 1. Beer, Amoraim, 159–80; sesame oil appears to be another popular commodity for trade among Babylonian rabbis; see Beer, Amoraim, 191–6. Beer, Amoraim, 180–91; for silk, see also Neusner, Babylonia, I 88–93. Beer, Amoraim, 284–8; see, e.g., an apparently across-the-board rabbinic discomfort with weavers, whose trade was considered already considered in tannaitic Palestine as an ‘‘inferior craft’’ (Tos. Ed. 1.3); this attitude was conveyed in the Babylonian Talmud as well; see BT Kidd. 82a; BT Sot. 48a; and see M. Eyali, Laborers and Artisans: Their Work and Status in Rabbinic Literature (Givatayim, 1987), 10 (Hebrew). For a list of rabbinic statements – mostly Palestinian – extolling the virtues of labor, see Eyali, Laborers and Artisans, 87–95; Eyali also quotes those rabbis who appear much less enthusiastic (95–7), possibly a result of the professionalization of the rabbinic world, which tended to see the devotion to learning as a calling requiring all of one’s time. See M. Eyali, Laborers and Artisans, 21 and passim.

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224–638 C E 811 slaughterers who established bylaws regulating when each member might ply his trade.92 The economic life of Babylonian Jewry was not segregated from the surrounding population, and the Babylonian Talmud suggests not only the proximity of Jews and Gentiles but also a large measure of daily interaction and co-operation. Jews and non-Jews not only sold fields to one another,93 but might also be found working in the same field, with each taking the other’s place on the respective festivals of the two groups.94 Jews and Gentiles are found pressing grapes together in the Nehardea,95 and one encounters a Jew renting out his ship for the transportation of wine belonging to Gentiles.96 In general, there appears to be a Babylonian rabbinic relaxation of the restrictions deriving from Palestine that tended to erect barriers between Jews and Gentiles in matters of commerce for fear that such activity might be considered tacit support of an aspect of idolatry. While such moderating tendencies may have been supported in the Talmud by legal distinctions,97 they suggest a more pronounced social interaction between the various communities nonetheless.98 V SOCIAL CONTEXTS: JEWS AND GENTILES, R A B B I S A N D L AY M E N

Social interaction between Jews and other groups assumes a common language of discourse, and, in the case of Baylonia, that language was Babylonian Aramaic. For Jews, two other ‘‘official’’ languages also existed, namely, their own Hebrew and the Parthian and Pahlavi dialects of ‘‘Middle Persian,’’ but neither one was the common vernacular used by the masses for daily communication. Late into the Geonic period, readers are informed by Rav Hai Gaon that ‘‘from long ago Babylonia was the locus for the Aramaic and Chaldean language, and until our time all [local] towns speak in the Aramaic and Chaldean tongue, both Jews and Gentiles.’’99 For Babylonian 92 96

97

98

99

BT Bava B. 9a. 93 BT Bava M. 108b. 94 BT Av. Zar. 22a. 95 BT Av. Zar. 56b. BT Av. Zar. 62b; Rav Hisda clearly disapproved of this behavior and demanded that the ship’s owner burn the proceeeds of the transaction; the anecdote thereby informs readers not only about daily relations between the communities but also about the degree to which laymen adhered to or ignored more stringent rabbinic demands. See BT Ned. 62b; Rav Ashi saw nothing wrong in selling his forest to a fire-temple, since ‘‘most wood is used for heating’’ rather than for idolatrous fire worship. Baron, Social and Religious History, I I 190–1, exaggerates the degree of ‘‘mutual segregation’’ in Babylonia, which, he claims, ‘‘was far more complete’’ than that of the Roman world because of the feudalization of the Persian Empire. Quoted from a responsa of Rav Hai, published by A. E. Harkavy, ‘‘Hadashim gam Yeshanim,’’ Ha-Kedem, I I (St. Petersburg, 1908), 82.

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812 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D Jews, Aramaic was ‘‘our language,’’ the means of discourse ‘‘even in the mouths of women and youngsters.’’100 For Jews and Gentiles alike, Middle Persian was perceived primarily as the language of the Iranian church and government, and consequently many of the Iranian loan-words found in talmudic literature relate precisely to those spheres of public activity in which Jews and Persian officials most likely interacted. These interactions include matters of public administration, official titles and military terms, and the dispensation of justice and of punishment.101 It is striking, however, that the number of Iranian loan-words in the Babylonian Talmud is fewer than the thousands of Greek and Latin loan-words that found their way into Palestinian rabbinic literature. Moreover, in no place does the study of ‘‘Persian’’ assume the the ideological significance that attends questions in Palestine regarding the attributes as well as the concomitant dangers of Greek.102 Familiarity with the Iranian environment was not limited to language, however; it is clear from a number of talmudic texts that Babylonian Jews were cognizant of the annual cycle of Iranian festivals.103 Certainly, the names of these festivals were corrupted by subsequent copyists of the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmuds, which is hardly surprising given their removal by hundreds of years and thousands of miles from the settings in which these holidays were originally celebrated. Nevertheless, two of these festivals have been identified; they are ‘‘Noruz’’ (‘‘Musardi’’ in manuscript versions of the Babylonian Talmud and ‘‘Noroz’’ in the Palestinian) and ‘‘Mihragan’’ (‘‘Muharnekei’’ in the Babylonian Talmud). The former festival celebrated the coming of spring or summer,104 while the latter signified the onset of the rainy season. The halachic context for taking note of these holidays was the rabbinic stipulation – deriving from the Palestinian Mishnah – to desist from commerce with Gentiles prior to their holidays, and it is possible that some of the intervention of

100

101

102 103

104

See J. N. Epstein, A Grammar of Babylonian Aramaic ( Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, 1960), 17 (Hebrew); Epstein also notes that the Aramaic script used by Jews (‘‘our Aramaic script’’) was the same as was employed by pagans and Manichaeans, as opposed to the Syriac-Nestorian script preferred by Christians. S. Shaked, ‘‘Iranian loanwords in Middle Aramaic,’’ Encyclopaedia Iranica, I I (London and New York, 1987), 260–1. See Gafni, ‘‘Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,’’ 241–2, and 259 nn. 65–70. BT Av. Zar. 11b refers to a series of four ‘‘Persian’’ holidays alongside four ‘‘Babylonian’’ ones; PT Av. Zar. 1.1.39c, quoting the Babylonian sage Rav, alludes to three holidays in Babylonia and three in Media. Neither distinction has been convincingly interpreted by scholars, nor have the names of these holidays been adequately explained. See M. Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London, 1979), 72, 105–6, 124, 128–30.

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224–638 C E 813 Zoroastrian fire-priests in the daily lives of Jews may have occurred on these days.105 As revealed by David Goodblatt, however, certain taxes in Sasanian Babylonia might also have been collected in connection with the festivals of the Iranian calendar, thereby enhancing an awareness of their imminent approach and possibly setting the stage for large-scale flight to avoid payment.106 As in the case of language, Iranian culture in this instance effected an influence on Jews, not so much as part of an assimilatory process, as was the case in the Graeco-Roman world, but specifically in those areas in which the two communities experienced contact of a more prosaic nature. This is not to say that at least the Rabbis, if not the masses of Jews, were unaware of certain basic tenets of the Zoroastrian faith, most specifically the dualistic manisfestations of that religion. At least one allusion to the divisions between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, who are cited by their (corrupted) names, appears in a polemical passage in the Talmud, although this passage is not necessarily the result of an actual confrontation.107 More significant, however, was the cultural impact that proximity appeared to have on Jewish beliefs and behavior. For example, the proclivity for early marriage among Babylonian Jews, which has frequently been attributed to their robust economic state,108 is far more likely the result of Iranian cultural influence. The heightened value that it seemed to place on procreation and marriage fostered an atmosphere that encouraged not only early marriage but also polygynous relations.109 Iranian beliefs also seem to have infiltrated Jewish society in other, more ‘‘spiritual,’’ ways as well. For example, while a belief in spirits and demons was present in Jewish communities throughout the world, including Palestine, their pervasiveness in Pahlavi literature110 undeniably reverberates in the Babylonian Talmud. Thus, in the Berachot, it is announced that ‘‘If the eye had the power to see them, no creature could endure the demons . . . they are more numerous than we are and they surround us like the ridge around a field . . . every one among us has a thousand on his left hand and ten thousand on his right.’’111 Halachic discussions alongside references to a world replete with demons merge seamlessly in the Talmud. For example, the pretext for a lengthy discourse on demons and magic in the Babylonian Talmud (Pes. 109b–112b) is the Mishnah’s requirement that one drink 105 106 107 109

110

See Rosenthal, ‘‘For the Talmudic Dictionary,’’ 39–42. Goodblatt, ‘‘Poll Tax,’’ 275–6, and nn. 111–14. See BT Sanh. 39a; Neusner, Babylonia, V 23. 108 See n. 78 below. See I. Gafni, ‘‘The Institution of Marriage in Rabbinic Times,’’ in D. Kraemer, (ed.), The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory (Oxford, 1989), 13–30; A. Shremer, Jewish Marriage in Talmudic Babylonia (PhD thesis; Jerusalem, Hebrew University, 1996), 302–5. See M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, I (Leiden, 1989), 85. 111 BT Ber. 6a.

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814 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D four cups of wine at the Passover seder, notwithstanding the fact that the Rabbis elsewhere caution against eating or drinking ‘‘in pairs’’ (that is, even numbers) because ‘‘Ashmedai, the king of the demons, is appointed over all pairs.’’112 Significantly, the Babylonian rabbis know that this apprehension was not shared by their Palestinian contemporaries.113 It is also relevant to note that Babylonian Jews not only shared in such local beliefs regarding a wide array of supernatural forces, but also assumed a major role in the neutralization of the threat that these forces represented. The removal of demons or their pacification through the means of ‘‘magic bowls’’ commissioned by persons possessed, or their families, has been subjected to detailed studies in the last century, thanks to the discovery of hundreds of such bowls in Iraq that date precisely to the period under discussion.114 The language and content of these bowls, frequently emulating the process of issuing a decree of ‘‘divorce’’ to the guilty demon, clearly points to their production by Jews. The beneficiaries of the bowls, however, often went by Persian names, and it emerges that Jews were apparently considered by their non-Jewish neighbors to be privy to all sorts of magical skills that could be harnessed in the ongoing battle against demons. If correct, this implies a close business interaction between Jews and others while simultaneously suggesting a perception of Jews as outsiders operating on the fringes of society and providing a service to the indigenous population.115 If Jews were deeply involved in such magical undertakings, one might ask about the influence wielded by the Rabbis over the general Jewish population of Babylonia. The natural assumption might be that the Sages frowned on any recourse to forces that circumvented the proper and accepted channels of prayer, and in numerous rabbinic statements this pronouncement was clearly the case;116 and yet these same rabbinic circles 112

113 114

115

116

BT Pes. 110a; on Ashmedai as a uniquely Babylonian-Jewish figure (as opposed to ‘‘an angel’’ in PT Sanh. 2.20c), see Gafni, ‘‘Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,’’ 261 n. 92; the Iranian fear of even numbers was noted by J. Scheftelowitz, Die altpersiche Religion und das Judentum (Giessen, 1920), 88–91. BT Pes. 110b. For a recent bibliography of some major studies, see Gafni, ‘‘Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,’’ 262 n. 105. See S. Shaked, ‘‘On Jewish Magical Literature in Muslim Countries: Notes and Examples,’’ Pe’amim 15 (1983), 16–17 (Hebrew); J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity, 3rd ed. ( Jerusalem, 1998), 18; Naveh and Shaked note that the amount of Zoroastrian religious influence in the bowls is limited. See E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs ( Jerusalem, 1975), 97–101; G. Veltri, Magie und Halacha (Tu¨bingen, 1997), 295–326; idem, ‘‘Defining Forbidden Foreign Customs: Some Remarks on the Rabbinic Halachah of Magic,’’ Proceedings of the Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies, Div. C/1 ( Jerusalem, 1994), 25–32.

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Figure 31.3 Magic bowl

recommend the use of certain incantations.117 The members of these circles approach astrologers and receive advice from them (advice, it should be noted, that invariably proves accurate), and on occasion offer their own instructions, which apparently recognize the potency of stars, planets, and a host of other forces that seemingly function outside the ‘‘official’’ heavenly entourage.118 Consequently, recourse to magic on the part of the broader segments of the Jewish community might not be the best criterion for appraising the influence wielded by the Rabbis on the general Jewish population. With the major source for Babylonian Jewish society being the Babylonian Talmud, and given the paucity of external information with which to compare that material and thereby to enhance, clarify, or criticize the picture that emerges therefrom, a discussion of the extent of Iranian cultural and religious influence on Judaism is admittedly lacking. One 117

See, e.g., BT Pes. 112a.

118

See Gafni, ‘‘Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,’’ 263 n. 114.

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Figure 31.4 Magic bowl

knows that which the editors of the Babylonian Talmud wish one to know, and is captive not only to their formulations but also to their attitudes. At the same time, assuming that the Rabbis of Babylonia and Palestine shared some basic ideas about the nature of an ideal Jewish society, the discrepancies one finds between the literature of these two rabbinic centers may be indicative of certain disparities between the two social environments. Moreover, much of the Babylonian Talmud’s discussion of local communal frameworks hinges on Palestinian traditions – frequently pre-talmudic – that found their way into Babylonian rabbinic circles. Their

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224–638 C E 817 infrequent application of many of these traditions may be informative about the alternative authority structures in the two centers.119 Whereas Palestinian rabbinic literature and subsequent letters discovered in the Cairo Genizah evince a communal terminology, replete with a variety of frequently anonymous local Jewish officials – fulfilling such functions as the collection of communal taxes and charity, responsibility for the construction of synagogues, and representation of the community in the sale or purchase of town property – much of this bureaucratic material is lacking or decidedly different in the Babylonian Talmud. Here one frequently encounters named rabbis stressing that they – and sometimes they alone – are responsible for collecting and distributing charity;120 similarly, while it is the community’s responsibility to build a synagogue, and the rabbinic role in such endeavors is hardly mentioned in Palestinian sources (or inscriptions),121 numerous stories in the Babylonian Talmud describe rabbis who are responsible for the construction or repair of a synagogue.122 To the extent that this responsibility reflects a different social reality, one more closely controlled by the dual worlds of the Exilarchate and Rabbinate than is that of their Palestinian brethren, is certainly a question that is unresolved,123 as is the question whether or not the heightened rabbinic influence found in the Babylonian Talmud is a consequence of a later and more sophisticated literary redaction that tends to concentrate on rabbinic concerns and interests. Nevertheless, the Babylonian Talmud clearly projects an assertive rabbinic class, and the nature of its relations with the broader Jewish community suggests a different social stratification from the parallel one in Roman-Byzantine Palestine. Babylonian rabbis clearly maintained formal contexts for cultivating regular links with the community. These links appeared to be situated in two settings. In the synagogue, a unique form of rabbinic homily, known as the pirqa, was regularly delivered and carefully crafted to meet the needs of non-rabbinic circles, and this framework can be documented from the

119

120 121 122

123

See I. F. Baer in his noted article on ‘‘The Origins of the Organisation of the Jewish Community of the Middle Ages,’’ Zion 15 (1950), 1–41. He draws a line from Roman Palestine to the framework of the medieval local Jewish community and clearly passes over Babylonia as a major stage in the development of the kehilla, clearly suggesting a major structural discrepancy; see Gafni, Babylonia, 92–3. BT Meg. 27b (Rav Huna); BT Bava B. 8b (Rav Ashi); see Gafni, Babylonia, 106. See S. J. D. Cohen, ‘‘Epigraphical Rabbis,’’ JQR 72 (1981–2), 1–17. BT Bava B. (Maremar and his son Mar Zutra); ibid. (Rav Ashi); BT Meg. 26b (Rami b. Abba); BT Ar. 6b (a donation to ‘‘the synagogue of Rav Judah’’). See Levine, Ancient Synagogue, 269; Levine recognizes that Babylonian synagogues sometimes operated under the patronage of a rabbi, see 358.

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818 T H E L AT E R O M A N P E R I O D middle of the talmudic period until the late geonic era.124 The other point of contact is the student circle wherein a rabbi and his disciples might also serve as an ad hoc court to which commoners could turn in their quest for adjudication or justice.125 These two functions, however, may not necessarily have contributed to the image of the rabbi as a popular and accessible leader, and scholars have indeed noticed a certain aloofness in the image of the Babylonian sage when contrasted with the many and variegated contacts between rabbi and commoner in contemporaneous Palestine.126 In fact, some of the more notorious statements suggesting a mutual hatred between rabbis and laymen (amei ha-arez),127 while employing the names of Palestinian rabbis, may actually be the literary creations of later Babylonian redactors and possibly more indicative of social divisions in Babylonia than in Palestine.128 This distancing of the Babylonian sages from broader segments of the population ran the risk of alienation, and the Rabbis were acutely aware of the fine line between the need to maintain the dignity of their rank and the risk of evincing condescension and contempt. In a revealing examination of the reasons why the Babylonian sages were not commonly blessed with offspring who inherited their stature, the following explanations are proffered: ‘‘R. Joseph said: Lest they maintain that Torah is their patrimony. R. Shisha son of R. Idi said: That they should not be arrogant towards the community. Mar Zutra said: Because they act highhandedly against the community. Rav Ashi said: Because they call the people asses.’’129 This example is one of several rabbinic self-criticisms in the Babylonian Talmud and may help to explain the success of this very same group in the ultimate shaping of Babylonian Jewish society. 124

125

126

127

128

129

I. Gafni, ‘‘Public Sermons in Talmudic Babylonia: The Pirqa,’’ in S. Elizur, M. D. Herr, G. Shaked, and A. Shinan (eds.), Knesset Ezra: Literature and Life in the Synagogue: Studies presented to Ezra Fleischer ( Jerusalem, 1994), 121–9 (Hebrew); D. M. Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia, SJLA I X (Leiden, 1975), 171–96; Brody, The Geonim, 56. I. Gafni, ‘‘Court Cases in the Babylonian Talmud: Literary Forms and Historical Implications,’’ PAAJR 49 (1982), 23–40 (Hebrew); idem, Babylonia, 226–32. The numerous talmudic traditions that project the Rabbis and their disciples as performing administrative and judicial functions have been collected by J. Neusner, School, Court, Public Administration: Judaism and Its Institutions in Talmudic Babylonia (Atlanta, 1987); see also Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction, 272–80. See R. Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity (London and New York, 1999), 1–79. BT Pes. 49b; the definitive study of this phenomenon is still A. Oppenheimer, The ‘Am ha-Aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period (Leiden, 1977). See S. G. Wald, Babylonian Talmud Pesahim, I I I : Critical Edition with Comprehensive Commentary (New York, 2000), 211–39 (Hebrew). BT Ned. 81a.

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3 1 T H E P O L I T I C A L , S O C I A L , A N D E C O N O M I C H I S T O RY O F B A B Y L O N I A N J E W RY, 2 2 4 – 6 3 8 C E The historical backround: surveys of Iranian history Bosworth, C. E., The History of al-Tabari, V : The Sasanids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids and Yemen (Albany, 1999). Boyce, M., A History of Zoroastrianism, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1975–91). Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London, 1979). Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigor (Cosa Mesa and New York, 1992). Christensen, A., LpIran sous les Sassanides (Copenhague 1944). Crone, P., ‘‘Kavad’s Heresy and Mazdak’s Revolt,’’ Iran 29 (1991), 21–42. Frye, R. N., The History of Ancient Iran (Munich, 1984). Noeldeke, T., Aufsa¨tze zur persichen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887). Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, aus der arabischen Chronik des tabari, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1973). Rubin, Z., ‘‘The Sasanid Monarchy,’’ CAH X I V (Cambridge, 2000), 638–61. Schippmann, K., Grundzu¨ge der Geschichte des sasanidischen Reiches (Darmstadt, 1990). Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis, I I I : The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments (Chicago, 1970). Wiesehoefer, J., Ancient Persia, from 550 B C to 650 A D (London and New York, 1996). Yarshater, E. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vols. I I I /1 and I I I /2 (Cambridge, 1983). Studies in Babylonian Jewish history Ahdut, E., ‘‘Jewish-Zoroastrian Polemics in the Babylonian Talmud,’’ Irano-Judaica 4 (1999), 17–40 (Hebrew). Beer, M., The Babylonian Amoraim: Aspects of Economic Life (Ramat-Gan, 1982) (Hebrew). The Babylonian Exilarchate in the Arsacid and Sassanian Periods (Tel-Aviv, 1970) (Hebrew). ‘‘The Decrees of Kartir against the Jews of Babylonia,’’ Tarbiz 55 (1986), 525–39 (Hebrew). ‘‘Notes on Three Edicts against the Jews of Babylonia in the Third Century,’’ IranoJudaica 1 (1982), 25–37 (Hebrew). Brody, R., The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998). ‘‘Judaism in the Sasanian Empire: A Case Study in Religious Tolerance,’’ Irano-Judaica 2 (1990), 52–61. Gafni, I. M., ‘‘Babylonian Rabbinic Culture,’’ in D. Biale (ed.), Cultures of the Jews (New York, 2002). ‘‘Court Cases in the Babylonian Talmud: Literary Forms and Historical Implications,’’ PAAJR 49 (1982), 23–40 (Hebrew). ‘‘Expressions and Types of ‘Local Patriotism’ among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia,’’ Irano-Judaica 2 (1990), 63–71. The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era: A Social and Cultural History ( Jerusalem, 1990) (Hebrew). Land, Center and Diaspora, Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity 21 (Sheffield, 1997). ‘‘Public Sermons in Talmudic Babylonia: The Pirqa,’’ in S. Elitzur et al. (eds.), Knesset Ezra: Literature and Life in the Synagogue: Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer ( Jerusalem, 1994) 121–129 (Hebrew). Getzow, N., Al Naharot Bavel (Warsaw, 1878) (Hebrew).

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Goodblatt, D. M., ‘‘Local Traditions in the Babylonian Talmud,’’ HUCA 48 (1977), 187–217. The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity (Tu¨bingen, 1994). ‘‘The Poll Tax in Sasanian Babylonia,’’ JESHO 22 (1979), 233–95. Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden, 1975). Jacobs, L., ‘‘The Economic Conditions of the Jews in Babylon in Talmudic Times compared with Palestine,’’ JSS 2 (1957), 349–59. ‘‘The Economic Situation of the Jews in Babylon,’’ Melilah 5 (1955), 83–100 (Hebrew). Kalmin, R., The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity (London and New York, 1999). Klima, O., ‘‘Mazdak und die Juden,’’ Archiv Orientalni 24 (1956), 420–31. Naveh, J., and Shaked, S., Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity, 3rd ed. ( Jerusalem, 1998). Neusner, J., A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 5 vols. (Leiden, 1965–70). ‘‘Jews in Iran,’’ in E. Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran I I I /2 (Cambridge, 1983), 909–23. Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism in Talmudic Babylonia (Lanham, 1986). School, Court, Public Administration: Judaism and its Institutions in Talmudic Babylonia (Atlanta, 1987). (ed.), Soviet Views of Talmudic Judaism (Leiden, 1973). Newman, J., The Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia, between the Years 200 C E and 500 C E (London, 1932). Oppenheimer, A., Babylonia Judaica in the Talmudic Period (Weisbaden, 1983). ‘‘Babylonian Synagogues with Historical Associations,’’ in D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher (eds.), Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, I (Leiden, 1995), 40–8. Rosenthal, E. S., ‘‘For the Talmudic Dictionary – Talmudica Iranica,’’ Irano-Judaica 1 (1982), 38–134 (Hebrew). Rubenstein, J. L., Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition and Culture (Baltimore, 1999). Scheftelowitz, J., Die altpersiche Religion und das Judentum (Giessen, 1920). Segal, J. B., ‘‘The Jews of North Mesopotamia,’’ in J. M. Grintz and J. Liver (eds.), Studies in the Bible Presented to Professor M. H. Segal ( Jerusalem, 1964), 32–63. Shaked, S., ‘‘Zoroastrian Polemics against Jews in the Sasanian and Early Islamic Period,’’ Irano-Judaica 2 (1990), 85–104. Shremer, A., Jewish Marriage in Talmudic Babylonia (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1996) (Hebrew). Widengren, G., ‘‘The Status of the Jews in the Sasanian Empire,’’ Iranica Antiqua 1 (1961), 117–62.