Patriarchate
PATRIARCHATE, or Nesiʾut, was the leading Jewish communal office in the Late Roman and Byzantine Empires, emerging soon after the destruction of the city and Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE and disappearing in the first part of the fifth century. At its peak, the Patriarchate, a hereditary office passing from father to son, wielded authority throughout Roman-Byzantine Palestine as well as the Roman diaspora.
Our knowledge of the Patriarchate is relatively extensive. Rabbinic sources are especially rich in this regard, as the patriarch was an integral part of rabbinic circles from the late first century until the mid-third century. A number of archaeological sites from the third through the fifth centuries relate to this office: the Bet Sheʿarim necropolis; the Hammat Tiberias synagogue; and diaspora inscriptions from Stobi (Macedonia), Venosa, Sicily, and Argos. A number of Church Fathers take note of the Patriarchate as well, though usually in a negative vein; several, however, are quite informative. Finally, Roman sources—Julian, Libanius, and especially the Theodosian Code—are of cardinal importance for understanding the office during the fourth and early fifth centuries, and perhaps even earlier.
Although there is some dispute as to when this office first crystallized, with the minimalists claiming that it emerged as late as Rabbi Judah I at the turn of the third century and the maximalists as early as Hillel several centuries earlier, the general consensus dates its origin to the late first century and the figure of Rabban Gamaliel II. He appears to have maintained ongoing relations with Roman officials, as there are records of a number of trips he took to Rome and Antioch, and rabbinic sources refer on occasion to his relations with imperial authorities. However, Gamaliel's son, Rabbi Simeon, functioned after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135) and seems to have operated in a void. There is no evidence of any contact with Rome, and his authority and influence in Jewish society of his time appear severely limited.
The Patriarchate undoubtedly achieved new heights of prestige and authority in the days of Rabbi Judah I (often referred to as "the Prince," or simply "Rabbi"). Under the sympathetic Severan dynasty (193–235), he garnered a great deal of economic wealth and political influence that, when combined with his intellectual and religious stature, all but guaranteed him an undisputed position of leadership. His close relations with one Antoninus, possibly the emperor Caracalla (r. 211–217) himself, contributed to his accrued influence and means, and this in turn propelled the Patriarchate to an entirely new plane of power and responsibility. The testimony of Origen, who lived in Caesarea only a few years later, is rather dramatic; according to him, the Jewish ethnarch (another term for patriarch) functioned almost like a king, enjoying, inter alia, the power of capital punishment. Additional powers attributed to the third-century patriarchs in rabbinic literature include judicial appointments, some sort of control over educational institutions, and collecting taxes.
Given this enhanced status, and in line with the policy adopted by the Romans themselves throughout the East, the patriarch began to forge new alliances, the most important of which was with the wealthy Jewish urban aristocracies of Tiberias and Sepphoris. The need and desire of patriarchs to cultivate ties with those who were in a position to help them implement their policies were natural. These ties, however, often came at the expense of the sages. Time and again, the latter complained that the wealthy received judicial appointments in their stead and that the patriarchal taxation system affected them adversely.
The rabbis, for the most part, kept their distance from the patriarch as well, critiquing his policies, judgments, and decisions. The number of references to the patriarch drops precipitously in rabbinic sources after the early third century. Whereas Rabbi Judah I is mentioned some twelve hundred times, his grandson Judah II (c. 250 CE) is noted only fifty times, and the latter's grandson, Judah III (c. 300 CE), but twenty times. Fourth-century patriarchs are rarely mentioned in rabbinic sources.
The patriarch cultivated his own "rabbinic" circles, whose counsel he sought and on whom he relied to formulate and implement his policies. Those close to the patriarch were often buried in Bet Sheʿarim, a central necropolis famous for its association with this office, but practically no sages mentioned in rabbinic literature were interred there. As a result of this growing dichotomy, both the Patriarchate and sages became more and more peripheral to each other's agenda.
Fourth-century non-Jewish sources clearly indicate that the Patriarchate enjoyed extensive prestige and recognition. The Theodosian Code is particularly revealing in this regard. One decree, issued by the emperors Arcadius and Honorius in 397, stipulates that:
those who are subject to the rule of the Illustrious Patriarchs, that is the archisynagogues, the patriarchs (sic!), the presbyters and the others who are occupied in the rite of that religion, shall persevere in keeping the same privileges that are reverently bestowed on the first clerics of the venerable Christian Law. For this was decreed in divine order also by the divine Emperors Constantine and Constantius, Valentinian and Valens. Let them therefore be exempt even from the curial liturgies, and obey their laws. (Theodosian Code 16, 8, 13, in Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, no. 27)
This decree clearly spells out the dominance of the patriarch in a wide range of synagogue affairs: he stood at the head of a network of officials, including archisynagogues, patriarchs, presbyters, and others who were in charge of the religious dimension of the synagogue, all of whom had privileges on a par with the Christian clergy. Moreover, this arrangement is said to date from the time of Constantine, over sixty years earlier. When added to other areas of authority noted in earlier rabbinic literature, such as calendrical decisions (determining the time of a new month and when to add an additional month to the year), declaring public fast days, and issuing bans, then the prominence of this office in Jewish communal and religious life becomes quite evident.
With the Patriarchate's demise around 425 CE (for reasons unknown), the last vestige of a unifying public office for Jews living under Roman domination disappeared. Local autonomy, which had always been an important factor in Jewish society, now reigned supreme for a number of centuries.
Rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity; Sanhedrin; Talmud.
Bibliography
Cohen, Shaye J. D. "Pagan and Christian Evidence on the Ancient Synagogue." In The Synagogue in Late Antiquity, edited by Lee I. Levine, pp. 159–181. Philadelphia, 1987. On the basis of Roman and Christian fourth-century sources, Cohen asserts the growing patriarchal control of diaspora affairs, especially in the latter half of the century.
Goodman, Martin. "The Roman State and the Jewish Patriarch in the Third Century." In The Galilee in Late Antiquity, edited by Lee I. Levine, pp. 127–139. New York, 1992. This study argues that the Nasiʾ was a religious leader in third-century Galilee who wielded certain secular powers as well. He was recognized as such by Rome and for the most part fit Roman provincial patterns of rule.
Jacobs, Martin. Die Institution des jüdischen Patriarchen. Tübingen, Germany, 1995. Jacobs presents all primary sources relating to the Patriarchate, together with an extensive commentary and a suggested reconstruction of the history of this institution.
Levine, Lee I. "The Jewish Patriarch (Nasi) in Third Century Palestine." In Aufstieg und niedergang der römischen Welt (ANRW) II, 19.2, edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. pp. 649–688. Berlin and New York, 1979. The article focuses on the areas of authority, religious and secular, of the third-century patriarchs.
Levine, Lee I. The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine in Late Antiquity. Jerusalem and New York, 1989. The volume includes a detailed treatment of the relationships between the third-century patriarchs and contemporary sages.
Levine, Lee I. "The Status of the Patriarch in the Third and Fourth Centuries: Sources and Methodology." Journal of Jewish Studies 47 (1996): 1–32. Levine provides a methodological study of the various sources regarding the patriarchs and a suggested reconstruction of their status in the third to fifth centuries.
Linder, Amnon. The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation. Detroit, 1987. This is a collection of Roman-Byzantine laws relating to the Jews. Each law is accompanied by an introduction, text, translation, and commentary.
Schwartz, Seth. "The Patriarchs and the Diaspora" Journal of Jewish Studies 50 (1999): 208–222. Focusing on the fourth century, Schwartz claims that the patriarch was primarily a diaspora-related institution with regard to whom it served and where it found support.
Stern, Sacha. "Rabbi and the Origins of the Patriarchate," Journal of Jewish Studies 54 (2003): 193–215. The article presents a somewhat radical proposal that the Patriarchate was created under Rabbi Judah I, who hailed from the Galilean aristocracy. Rabbi Judah, Stern maintains, was unrelated to any previous rabbinic personality (e.g., Rabban Gamaliel).
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