Review of Schwartz by Weitzman

Mediterranean Exchanges: A Response to Seth Schwartz's "Were the Jews a Mediterranean
Society?"
Author(s): STEVEN WEITZMAN
Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 102, No. 4 (Fall 2012), pp. 491-512
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41681760
Accessed: 15-03-2019 16:25 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41681760?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

extend access to The Jewish Quarterly Review
This content downloaded from 129.234.0.68 on Fri, 15 Mar 2019 16:25:22 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The J EWiSH Quarterly Review, Vol. 102, No. 4 (Fall 2012) 491-512
Mediterranean Exchanges:
A Response to Seth Schwartz's Were the
Jewö a Mediterranean Society ?
STEVEN WEITZMAN
Stanford University
If YOU HAVE THE occasion to read Seth Schwartz's most recent

book, don't make the mistake that I did and assume that the word "Medi-
terranean" refers to a body of water. There is nothing here about seafar-
ing, trade routes, or piracy. The term "Mediterranean" as Schwartz u
it is a reference not so much to a specific locale but to a certain way
doing history, an approach associated with Fernand Braudel's The Me
terranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Paris, 194
The scholarship inspired by Braudel's work seeks to understand the h
tory of the various peoples living around the Mediterranean, but wh
has come to distinguish it is not its focus on the Mediterranean Sea
se but an ecological/anthropological approach that stresses the fact
that held otherwise diverse peoples together in a shared transethn
transreligious culture - the ethos and social practices they held in co
mon, and the lines of connection that cut across their linguistic, geograp
ical, and religious differences. What Schwartz is really asking through hi
title is: "What can Mediterraneans m tell us about ancient Jewish soci-
ety?" - a question that may make this book less appealing for those read-
ers hoping for another book about Jewish pirates or port Jews, but
which gives Schwartz an opportunity to explore early Jewish sociology,
how Jews in the Second Temple period and Late Antiquity related to one
another and to others they encountered in the Greco- Roman Mediterra-
nean.
To understand Schwartz's project, then, we hav

he means by Mediterraneanism. The term "Medit
cist Susan Alcock has noted, has become fashion
of the last two decades - a number of serials now bear it as a title or
The Jewiàh Quarterly Review (Fall 2012)

Copyright © 2012 Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
All rights reserved.
492 JQR 102.4 (2012)
subtitle- and it bears a variety of meanin

Schwartz has in mind is the approach exem
and Nicholas Purcell in the The Corrupting S
hundred-page effort to establish the unity
culture prior to the period that Braudel cove
Sea is engaged in historical ecology, a desc
tion, flood patterns, and other environme
shape Mediterranean culture, but that par
irrelevant to Schwartz's study, which makes
ences to the climate and geography of the
Mediterranean isn't really a place but a heu
of how its distinctive topography and eco
Jewish culture is almost completely irreleva
What Schwartz does take from Mediterr
with "connectivity," Hordern and Purcell's te
and metaphorical, that linked the people
distance and cultural difference. Connectiv
navies, and other conduits that directly co
also encompasses what Alain Bresson calls
national, transcultural behaviors that fac
other kinds of interaction and exchange.3
Mediterranean Society ? is precisely the vi
ancient Jews to the Greco- Roman Mediterra
and other forms of ritualized generosity use
sustain relationships of reciprocity, allegia
The form of connectivity of most interest
refer to as euergetism, a very rough equi
philanthropy, "private liberality for the pub
classicist Paul Veyne. The term is a neolo
derived from the wording of Hellenistic d
"do good to the city" ( euergetein ten poli
1. See Susan Alcock, "Alphabet Soup in the M

gence of the Mediterranean Serial," in Rethink
Harris (Oxford, 2005), 314-36. I would like to
my thanks to the members of Stanford's new an
Group in Ancient Religion for their feedback in
this essay.
2. Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Medi-
terranean Hbtory (Oxford, 2000).
3. Alain Bresson, "Ecology and Beyond: The Mediterranean Paradigm," in
W.V. Harris, ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean, 94- 114, esp. 106-8.
MEDITERRANEAN EXCHANGES -WEITZMAN 493
resources or act of public service. Euergetism is ostensibl

generosity, but as Veyne recognized, it really entails a kind
between the giver and those who benefit from his gen
exchange of the former's wealth in exchange for public r
status.4 An individual would perform some benefaction for
donating food, building a temple, sponsoring the performan
and in return, he was honored with public displays of gratit
ing of a decree posted in a public place that recounted th
and conferred praise on the giver, along with other honors
tion of a statue in the benefactor's image, the bestowing
public ceremony, or a special seat at a festival or game. As V
the history of this practice, over time, as Roman notables ca
what was originally a Greek practice, the exchange of we
became almost obligatory for both parties. Euergetism was n
tax, something that the wealthy had to pay as a matter of l
dictate, but it was a kind of gratuity expected of those w
and the behavior of the beneficiaries, their expression of gr
tain conventional ways, was also tacitly obligatory.
Many scholars now recognize that euergetism was an im
of connectivity for the Hellenistic- Roman Mediterranea
ship between rulers and subjects was based in part on
change: Hellenistic kings like Ptolemy III and Antio
expressly hailed by their grateful subjects as "benefactor
Roman emperors, and their generosity was reproduced o
level by notables who acted as benefactors to their cities
the cities of others. The Roman Empire itself was bound tog
by conquest and coercion but by a euergetic relationship
emperors - "common benefactors" as they are referred
tions - and the various peoples that benefitted from their la
Schwartz's book is an attempt to situate the Jews with
network of virtual connectivity, especially euergetic exc
ator of ties of dependency." The core of the book is an an
texts from this period - the Wisdom of Ben Sira from the ea
tury B.C.E., the historical writings of Josephus from the la
C.E., and the Palestinian Talmud from the late fourth centur
4. Paul Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Po

trans. B. Pearce (London, 1990).
5. On the emperor as benefactor, see Veyne, Bread and Cireu
90. For the use of the title "common benefactor," which app
Roman period, see Andrew Erskine, "The Romans as Common
Historia: /Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte 43 (1994): 70-87.
494 JQR 102.4 (2012)
each case we are shown that the text is

adapting distinctively Israelite tradition
sociology that surfaces more directly in
sources. Schwartz argues, in fact, that J
in Late Antiquity developed as a kind of
grafting biblical ideas of group identity, m
the Greco- Roman ethos of benefaction,
this to be the case not only for a figure
for a Hellenized audience and using euer
be easily detected, but even for the rab
the Jerusalem Talmud. As depicted by S
tant to certain aspects of euergetism, but
in their community, the bond between
understands to be essentially a euergetic on
exchange of the master's support for the s
But something prevented Jews from full
relationship. Some, Schwartz tells us, com
or Dead Sea sectarians, for example, who b
society of Hellenistic- Roman Judea int
patronage, friendship, the pursuit of hono
neanism. Even the literary sources th
reflecting the influence of euergetism,
in his reading, rejecting certain of its p
for one's community to acquire honor for
out of obedience to God's commands) an
statues as a way of bestowing such hon
Jews eventually found a place in the Me
recounting of the history of this period, th
falling into terrible conflicts with the R
their integration, he proposes, is that
embrace of Mediterraneanism and in so
it, never fully connecting to the society a
fully accepted the ethos of reciprocal e
Roman Mediterranean together.
What made Jews so resistant to euerge
the source of this tension was a cultural tradition to which the Jews
were heir, an "anti-Mediterranean ethos" enshrined in the Torah itself.
Whereas what Schwartz regards as a typical Mediterranean community
was held together by exchange and reciprocity, the Torah envisions a
society bound together by a sense of group solidarity and love. Whereas
a typical Mediterranean community was highly inequitable in the distri-
bution of wealth and status, the Torah seeks to foster an eg

munity through laws that impede the concentration of reso
require the haves to give to the have-nots. Whereas giving in
nean community was a matter of personal discretion and
self-initiated act that redounds to the personal credit of the
to others according to the Torah is not voluntary; it is s
does because one owes it to God for his generosity, or be
commanded to give by divine law. As Martin Goodman s
than twenty years ago, this ethos explains why Jews in
Roman period did not honor benefactors as Greeks and
What other peoples would have regarded as a benefactio
honor - a donation to the Temple, for instance - was view
fulfilling a religious obligation, as acknowledged, for e
first-centuiy Alexandrian Jew, Philo, in his commentary on
Special Lawé 1.77: "It is ordained that everyone, beginning at
year, should make an annual contribution of first fruits (to
Since giving was a matter of duty rather than voluntary
pected of all members of the community, a donation to
not merit special recognition for the giver or work to el
above others in his community.
In keeping with earlier publications like Imperiálům and J
(Princeton, N.J., 2001), Were the Jem a Mediterranean Socie
ambition, and I especially appreciate Schwartz's effort to
he reads ancient texts, treating them now not just as source
information but also as what he calls textual artifacts, produ
creativity that need to be understood and contextualize
right. For all that I appreciate in this book, however, I f
agreeing with how it answers the question posed by its ti
neanism has been criticized for the same stereotyping t
has been charged with committing, dividing human cultu
drawn zones, East and West, defined in opposition to
Schwartz is perfectly aware of this critique and shapes
accordingly; for him, the "Mediterranean"- a society base
exchange and the pursuit of honor - is not confined to the M
in a geographic sense; in fact, it doesn't exist in any actual p
6. See Martin Goodman, The Ruling Cladd of Judaea: The Origin

Revolt against Rome, A.D. 66-70 (Cambridge, 19 87), 126-30.
7. For a sense of this critique, W.V. Harris, ed., Rethinking the
especially the essay by Michael Hirzfeld, a longtime critic, "Pra
neanism: Excuses for Everything, from Epistemology to Eating
496 JQR 102.4 (2012)
ideal type, a heuristic device. Despite th

centrism of Mediterraneanism, however
analysis preserves a sharply drawn bin
places the Mediterranean in opposition t
which I wish to examine in this review.
To help me in developing this argument, I want to enlist the testimony
of a source that Schwartz does not consider, the writing of the aforemen-
tioned Philo of Alexandria. Schwartz's neglect of Philo as a source for
early Jewish euergetism is curious. What motivates it, I am guessing, is
Schwartz's assumption that there is some fundamental distinction to be
made between Judean and diasporic Jewish authors; the book focuses
on Judea and Judean/Palestinian sources, and all but ignores the consid-
erable evidence we have for Jews living elsewhere in the Mediterranean,
at Alexandria and Rome, including scores of inscriptions that bear
directly on euergetism.8 The homeland/diaspora opposition is not the con-
trast I want to focus on this review, but it should be noted that the sources
from this period often frustrate the attempt to draw a clear contrast
between the two kinds of Jewish experience. Josephus is a case in point.
Schwartz presumably included him in his study because what he
describes in his writing is Jewish life in the Galilee and Judea, but that
is to focus on the content of Josephus 's writing, not the circumstances in
which it was composed: Josephus himself can be considered a diasporic
author, producing the Jewidh Antiquities and other works after relocating
to Rome. That makes the neglect of Philo somewhat arbitrary, and mak-
ing it even more unfortunate in this context is that it happens to mirror
the invisibility of Egypt in Mediterraneanist scholarship, as lamented by
the classicist Roger Bagnali.9 Whatever the arguments for his omission,
Philo has much to contribute to a Mediterraneanist study of early Juda-
ism if only because, in contrast to the authors Schwartz focuses on, he
actually lived in a Mediterranean port city. What makes him even more
pertinent for Schwartz's specific argument, however, is that he is also one
of the most forthcoming sources we have for how a Jew at this time
related the dictates of Torah to the ethos of euergetism.
Philo 's discourse, in fact, is shot through with the language of Greco-
Roman benefaction, using the term euergejià or related forms close to 150
8. For a sense of all the testimony that has been excluded from Schwartz's
analysis, see the excellent overview of diasporic Jewish literature from this
period by John Barclay, Jem in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Tra-
jan (323 BCE-117CE) (Edinburgh, 1996).
9. Roger Bagnali, "Egypt and the Concept of the Mediterranean," in Rethink-
ing the Mediterranean, 339-47.
times. It is true that much of this language is applied to God

benefactor in Philo's theology, a move that Schwartz also
phus (Ant. 4.213; 317, etc.) and which seems consistent
argues about the latter: Josephus's use of euergetic langu
Israel's relationship with God shows that he was influen
tism but it also reflects his resistance to this ethos by limit
relationship to the theological realm. This at least is what
saying in the following passage:
Their problem was that they (the Jews) had a competin

set of loyalties, that while the Romans ruled by applying t
and some adapted practices of institutional reciprocity
ends - by regarding the emperor as patron and benefactor
the Jem rejected those practiced a priori, or at best metaphoriz
ently, aà applying exclusively to relations between God and Idra
In other words, the Roman embraced euergetism where

rejected it, or limited it to their relationship with God-
implicitly deny the option of benefaction to humans. This is
directly challenged by the somewhat more extensive test
for as he describes things, God, while the supreme benefact
only benefactor to whom the Jews are indebted; they als
to another, the Roman emperor, described in Philo's polit
"our savior and benefactor" ( Flaccuö 74); "this great benefac
148); and as "the first and the greatest and the common ben
cud 149). Contrary to what Schwartz suggests for Joseph
these descriptions of the Roman emperor as a benefactor
any objection to developing a euergetic relationship with
being, or any sense that such a relationship exists in ten
egalitarian ethos of the Torah.
To the contrary, the Torah as Philo reads it seems to regar
as perfectly consistent with the demands of the Torah, incl
the relationships enjoined by the Torah 's command to honor
(which Philo understands to imply a range of laws covering
of social relationships):
In the fifth commandment on honoring parents we hav

of many necessary laws drawn up to deal with the relat
young, rulers to subjects, benefactors to benefitted . . . and
10. Schwartz, Were the Jem a Mediterranean Society ? 108; my em
498 JQR 102.4 (2012)
other instructions given, to the young on

in taking care of the young, to rulers on
subjects, to recipient*) on requiting them with
of their own initiative on not seeking to get
. . . (The Decalogue 165-67 ; my emphasis).
From Schwartz's perspective, the Torah

tion of the relationships of reciprocity
together in the Roman period. That, ho
himself understands it. What is more g
Jewish culture, as one learns from Jam
ars, is how the Torah was read by Jews at
reading does not match up with what w
original meaning. From that perspectiv
opposition to euergetism: in Philo 's inte
to that ethos, regulating but not forbid
great allegiance to the Torah, and he so
directly opposed to the values and mores o
him, and yet, he does not seem to have
the giving or receiving of benefactions,
received in the right way.
The fact that the Torah allows for euerge
does not mean that a euergetic relationship
emperor was an uncomplicated one for
were so indebted to God, they had oblig
euergetic relationship with the emperor
like Philo and Josephus, the most notic
hibition of images, which made it impo
gratitude to their benefactors in the wa
Josephus on the issue:
The Greeks, with some other nations, t

they delight in making portraits of paren
even obtain likenesses of persons totall
do the same for favorite slaves. What won
dering this honor to their emperors and
hand, our legislator, not in order to pu
1 1 . All citations of Philo follow the Loeb

bridge, Mass.) with a modification here or t
original text important to my argument.
upon honors paid to the Roman authority, but out o

practice profitable to neither God nor man, forbad
images, alike of any living creature, and much more
Apion 2.74-75)
Despite Josephus's insistence that Jewish aniconism was not motivated

by contempt for the Romans, the rejection of statues did cause problems
for the Jews in their relationship with the emperor who received such
honors from other peoples: Philo reports in the Embaàày to Gaiud that
Greeks from his ci ty, seeking to undermine the Jews in the eyes of the
emperor Caligula, called his attention to their refusal to erect statues in
his honor as evidence of their disloyalty, and Caligula was so inclined to
believe them that he proceeded to order a statue of himself as Jupiter
installed in the Temple, a move that would have ignited a major revolt
had Petronius, the Roman governor of Syria, not found ways to delay
things long enough for Caligula to die and the command to be rescinded.
Rejecting a particular form of euergetic reciprocity was not the same
thing as rejecting euergetism itself, however. Josephus notes in the pas-
sage cited above that Moses' goal in forbidding images was not to deny
the Romans the honor due to them, nor did the prophet "forbid the pay-
ment of homage of another sort, secondary to that paid to God, to worthy
men; such honors we do confer upon the emperors and the people of
Rome" (Agairiàt Apion 2.76-77). Philo anticipates this claim: the Jews did
not express their gratitude to the emperor in the way that other peoples
did, but they did honor him in a way that was consonant with their own
religious obligations and traditions, using exactly the same ritual tech-
niques that they used to honor God for his benefactions. Thus, he claims
that Jews express their love of Caesar through the votive offerings and
sacrifices that happened on a daily basis in the Temple, albeit offered to
God in honor of the emperor rather than to the emperor himself to avoid
the sin of worshipping other gods ( Embaàày to Gaiuà, 280, 356-57). Else-
where he reports that Jews expressed gratitude to the emperor through
their synagogues, not by erecting statues in them as the Greeks did in
their temples but through other forms of tribute deposited there: "the
shields and gilded crowns and the slabs and inscriptions" ( Embaàày 133;
cf. Flaccuà 48- 49). 12 The Jews' obligation to God - an obligation gener-
12. Although we do not have inscriptional evidence from the Alexandria of

Philo 's day to illustrate what he is referring to here, evidence from elsewhere
suggests what might have been recorded on such inscriptions. From a later
period, for example - second to third century C.E.-we know of Jewish inscrip-
tions that attest Jewish loyally to the emperor, beginning with the formulaic
Latin expression "for the welfare of the emperor" (pro salute Augusti) . For discus-
500 JQR 102.4 (2012)
ated through euergetism - restrained their

other benefactors, but it did not preven
to Philo, Jews manifested their gratitude
basis.
And while it is true that Caligula was d

of honoring them, most of his predeces
willing to accept it as a perfectly acceptabl
This is partly because the Romans had
which ideal rulers like Augustus refused
honor (see, for example, Suetonius, Augu
tradition and evokes it as an argument
Jews, too, to avoid statues. What some
over, was that when it comes to express
matter how one expresses it; what coun
lies behind the expression: "the true est
Roman philosopher Seneca, for example
human heart" (On Benefit*) 4.21.4). If a rec
pher suggests elsewhere, that by itself wa
appeared to the world to be ungrateful,
without feeling such gratitude was of n
what is done or what is given, but the spir
1.6.1). The existence of such an attitude
that a Jew like Philo could plausibly arg
perspective that the Jews' refusal to erect
did not really matter so long as they fe
Philo makes just such a claim:
(The Jews) stood not a whit behind an

Europe, in its prayers, its erection of v
sion of an example from the Roman port ci

"Synagogue and Society in Imperial Ostia: A
dence," in Judaism and Christianity in F irdt- C
Richardson (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1998), 30-
tions have existed in an earlier period? The
inscriptions that acknowledge the emperor
attested in synagogue inscriptions from the H
ers. See, for example, William Horbuiy and
Greco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge, 1992), 35,
King Ptolemy and Queen Berenice, his sister
Jews (dedicate) the synagogue/' It thus seem
thing like these inscriptions, applied to the R
in mind.
MEDITERRANEAN EXCHANGES - WEI TZ MAN 501
sacrifices . . . not so much with mouth and tongue as in

formed in the secrecy of the soul by those who do not tell y
love their Caesar but love him in very truth . ( Embaády 280)
This passage appears in a letter written by the Jewish king

Caligula in which he is trying to persuade the emperor to desis
effort to install a statue in the Temple, but in all likelihood
probably a fiction concocted by Philo himself and reflects his v
any case, it espouses a view very similar to the one that Seneca
in the same period: the author's point here is that it does not m
the Jews do not honor the emperor in the way that othe
What is crucial is that they feel gratitude in their heart; indee
suggests that the Jews feel this gratitude more deeply than
that non- Jews are described as those who "tell you that the
Caesar" versus the Jews who "love him in very truth") -
their sincerity, it seems, is their avoidance of the forms
employed so widely in the rest of the world. Far from obs
honoring of benefactors, Jewish avoidance of statues, Phi
actually represents a more sincere response to benefaction.
Contrary to what Schwartz suggests, in other words, ther
in the Torah that impeded Jewish participation in a euergis
ship with a Roman ruler, or by extension their connection
Mediterranean community, if by "Torah" we mean the Tor
actually understood by Jews in the first century C.E. Jew
forbade certain forms of public honor, but not euergetism itse
receiving of benefactions or their public acknowledgment, and
ish resistance to certain ways of making that acknowledgm
the erection of statues - could be justified by appeal to Greek a
cultural and philosophical tradition that stressed the importanc
tions over what was physically exchanged between a benefac
eficiary. What was necessary for a euergetic interaction to wor
a Jew and a non- Jew was only that the non- Jew, as a sincere
motivated by generosity rather than the expectation of a retur
to accept whatever gratitude his beneficiary was able to e
according to our sources, the Romans were usually willing
"being content to accept such honors as the religious and legal
of the donors permit them to pay" (Against Apion 2.73).
13. For the evidence suggesting Philo rather than Agrippa as th

of this letter, see Solomon Zeitlin, "Did Agrippa Write a Letter t
ula?" JQR 56.1 (1965/66): 21-31; Daniel Schwartz, Agrippa 1: The
Judaea (Tübingen, 1990), 178-80, 200-202.
502 JQR 102.4 (2012)
It is certainly possible that the Torah w

by Jews not as willing to accommodate
phus were, but I at least cannot find an
right rejection of euergetism. Certainly
Temple period that discourage interactin
Maccabei , certain Dead Sea Scrolls. The
ever, seems to be the foreigners thems
lence, unreliability, impurity, and asso
the benefactor-beneficiary relationship or
egalitarianism of the Torah. In a text like
fuels the conflict between the Jews and th
the Jews' resistance to reciprocal exchan
resistance to such relationships. As an ex
1 Macc 11.53: "King Demetrius [a Greek
kingdom and the land was quiet before him
all that he had promised; he became estran
Maccabees) and did not repay the favorà that J
him very hardhly"u Note that what under
a Jew and a non-Jew in this scene is the
code of reciprocal exchange.
But all this is to base ourselves on liter
kind of evidence that we have to consid
itself through inscriptions, using them to
community or to decree the giving of
inscriptions, as Schwartz notes, seem to
graphic finds from Jerusalem, which inclu
rations of donations, and even those m
function. Whereas the literary testimony
ably apologetic, produced precisely to a
with the cultural orientation of Helleniz
dence would seem to be a direct reflect
benefactors and beneficiaries really inte
honorific inscriptions from Jerusalem wou
did in fact eschew the culture of euerg
inscriptional record of other communities.
Now some caution is in order here sinc
ment from epigraphic silence, and there is
14. For more on the Maccabees' embrace of

"Jewish Leadership and Hellenistic Civic Be
B.c.E." Journal of Biblical Literature 126 (2007
to suggest that the inscriptional evidence that happe

preserved does not give us a full picture.15 What see
Schwartz's analysis, however, is Jewish epigraphy fro
lem, from the Galilee and from diasporic communitie
Asia Minor, and Europe, evidence which he himself
but which has been analyzed by Tessa Rajak in an ess
ninety-four diasporic inscriptions to address whether an
ticipated in the euergetic culture of the Greco-Roman wo
Wealthy Jews, Rajak concludes from this survey, en
kind of public giving that non- Jewish elites were en
corded those gifts in inscriptions whose language, eve
or Aramaic, bears the influence of euergetic convent
attest resistance to a euergetic ethos. Jewish inscriptio
the name of a giver and how much he gave but often wit
on him any honorific title or bestowing some visible sign
(a crown, etc.). If they do add something, it is often a
the donor's well-being. In one example that Rajak cit
from Scythopolis/Beth Shean, the givers are left comple
their names are said to be known to God alone.17 Whereas non- Jewish
benefaction is wealth invested for the purpose of self-promotion, in other
words, Jewish benefaction often appears selfless, altruistic, motivated by
piety or communitarianism.
We probably should point out that the difference between Jewish and
non-Jewish practice is not always as stark as this summary of Rajak 's s
argument suggests. She herself notes some counterexamples, five inscrip-
tions from presumably Jewish contexts that seem more conventionally
euergetic- there is one from Berenice in present-day Libya, for example,
where a M. Tittius, a Roman official and patron of the Jewish commu-
15. See Noah Greenfield and Steven Fine, "Remembered for Praise: Some
Ancient Sources on Benefaction to Herod's Temple," Imaged 2 (2008): 166- 71.
16. Tessa Rajak, "Benefactors in the Greco- Jewish Diaspora," in Rajak, The
Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome: Studied in Cultural and Social Interaction
(Leiden, 2001), 373-91, a reprint of an essay that originally appeared in H. Can-
cik et al., eds., Geschichte- Tradition -Reflexion: Festschrift fur Martin Hengel zum 70.
Geburtstag, vol. 1 (Tübingen, 1996), 305-19. For other collections/studies of the
pertinent inscriptional evidence, see Baruch Lifshiftz, Donateurs et fondateurs daru
le synagogues juives (Paris, 19 67); Frederick W. Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study
of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis, Mo., 1982); and
Susan Sorek, Remembered for Good: A Jewish Benefaction System in Ancient Palestine
(Sheffield, 2010).
17. Rajak, "Benefactors," 387, referring to a text published in L. Roth Gerson,
The Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in Eretz Israel (Jerusalem, 1987), no. 9.
504 JQR 102.4 (2012)
nity, is awarded an olive wreath and a woo

community and at each new moon for his
from Acmonia, in present-day Turkey, th
honored for their benevolence with a g
these cases as exceptions, "marginal" ca
assimilation in that particular community
givers, and even in some of these exa
restraint relative to non- Jewish euerge
benefactor is modest compared to non-
be much more common are inscriptions th
ter of euergetism, that minimize or elimin
exchange for his gift. The donor might
noted, or else lumped together in a group
guished from others, or his gift might be
than from the individual's own wealth, r
tude away from the donor toward the deit
of the Jewish inscriptional record is at od
tioned in non- Jewish communities, and
evidence of Jewish resistance to the self-s
Jews operated within a euergetistic fra
aspects they regarded as antithetical to
expectation of being reciprocated for one's
All this would seem to be consistent wi
want to suggest another way to read th
how one understands the practice of euerg
it as a self-interested exchange of weal
Schwartz's and Rajak's interpretation ce
Greeks and Romans approached euergetis
quite the opposite, in fact. If one understa
ple, Philo 's contemporary Seneca did, th
relating the Jewish inscriptional recor
recognized that a benefaction resembled
ing of wealth to another - but there is a k
bestowed without an expectation of gettin
When a man bestows a benefit, what d

and to give pleasure to the one to who
18. Rajak, "Benefactors/' 385-88. For vow-f

for Jewish giving in Late Antiquity, see Mic
conveyed to me and stirs in me a joyful response,

sought. For he had no wish that I should give h
exchange. Otherwise, it would not have been a benef
gaining. ( Benefit d 2.31.2)
What defines a benefaction according to Seneca is prec

a self-interested transaction: a benefactor has no wish "t
him anything in exchange" but acts out of sincere gen
Seneca remarks: "If it were only self-interest that mo
others, those who could most easily dispense benefits
and the powerful and kings, would not be under the
bestow them; nor indeed, would the gods bestow count
only reason for giving a benefit is the advantage of the
can hope for no advantage from us, then no motive i
giving a benefit" (Benefit*) 4.3.2-3). If we had only such
one might well conclude that euergetism itself is "anti-M
Schwartz defines that posture, a rejection of self-int
exchange.
Of course, Seneca isn't our only source, and one might well counter
that he is hardly typical of Greco- Roman practice; countless inscriptions
attest to what it is that benefactors hoped to receive in return for their
generosity - honor, public acclaim, the gratitude and loyalty of their
beneficiaries, as noted explicitly by Cicero, who speaks of those who give
not because they are really generous but because they are animated by
"a sort of ambition to make a show of being open-handed" (Duties 1.44).
Some like the satirist Lucian even accused the gods of bestowing
blessings only in order to get sacrifices in return: "nothing that they do
is without compensation" (On Sacrificed 2). Note, however, that such
sources, while acknowledging the self-interest at work, acknowledge
something shameful about it. What makes a benefaction honorable, and
what merits praise and gratitude, is the appearance of open-handedness.
If self-interest motivates it, that self-interest is completely disguised, "mis-
recognized" in the parlance of anthropology, construed by the giver, the
recipient, and the community not as a loan or investment (which does not
merit praise because it is a self-serving act ultimately meant to benefit the
giver) but as a gift born of a genuine desire to benefit someone else with-
out regard for one's own interests. This ideal may have been more hon-
Jewish Votive Offerings in Late Antiquity," in Religion and the Self in Antiquity,
ed. D. Brakke, M. Satlow, and S. Weitzman (Bloomington, Ind., 2005), 91-108.
506 JQR 102.4 (2012)
ored in the breach then the observance, bu

with Roman social norms in general, or
Griffith, who has detected a similar under
the Roman elite.19
Whether or not this ideal of euergetism was actually observed by real-

life Greeks and Roman benefactors, what is relevant here is that Jews
like Philo seem to have been familiar with it and to have internalized it
as a Jewish religious ideal. It is reflected, for example, in his comments
on the Decalogue cited above: the fifth commandment seeks to instruct
those "who have given of their own initiative (that is, a benefactor) on not
deeking to get repayment ad though it were a debt" ( The Decalogue 1 67). Accord-
ing to Philo, the ideal giver who acts in accordance with the dictates of
the Torah is precisely the kind of ideal giver that Seneca describes: one
who gives without the expectation of reciprocity. A similar view surfaces
in his treatment of Abraham as a model of generosity : God does not reject
relationships with those who seek something for themselves, blessings or
remissions of punishment, but he prefers those like Abraham who are
"unbribed" ( adekadtod ), who do not seek a reward for what they do (On
Abraham 128-29). In this Abraham emulates God himself, the greatest of
all benefactors not only because of the scale of his benefactions but also
because, as a being who needs and seeks nothing, he is the ultimate
unself-interested benefactor, giving to others without there being even
the possibility of a return. Without wishing to suggest direct influence of
one source on the other, what needs to be noted here is how closely
Philo 's understanding of benefaction resembles that of Seneca, as in the
latter 's description of the nonreciprocal nature of divine benefaction:
"God bestows on us veiy many and veiy great benefits, with no thought
for any return, since he has no need of having anything bestowed, nor
are we capable of bestowing anything on him" ( Benefitd 4.9.1). 20
The parallel between Philo and Seneca suggests another way to under-
stand the Jewish inscriptional record - not as a rejection of euergetism
but as an embrace of it in a form that at least some Greeks and Romans
themselves recognized as ideal, a nonreciprocal form of giving. What
Rajak describes as Jewish resistance to euergetism - the avoidance of
titles and honors, the ascription of one's generosity to God, and other
19. Miriam Griffith, 44 De Beneficüd and Roman Society," Journal of Roman Stud-
ied 93 (2003): 92-113, esp. 102-6.
20. For more on benefaction as a model of human-divine interaction in Greek
and Roman thought, see Jerome Neyrey, "God, Benefactor and Patron: The
Major Cultural Model for Interpreting the Deity in Greco-Roman Antiquity,"
Journal for the Study of the New Tedtament 27 (2005): 465-92.
ways of taking the donor out of the limelight - can all b

to act on this ideal, ways of gesturing the disavowa
Consider the anonymity of donation. Seneca actually
benefactors give anonymously precisely because givi
demonstrates the absence of self-interest (Benefits 2.10.2
attitude toward euergetism explain the anonymous do
Shean? The parallel makes one wonder if that and the oth
strategies that Rajak observes, rather than differentiatin
tism from non- Jewish euergetism, are not really attem
Jewish benefactions from insincere or self-serving b
thus align Jewish giving with an ideal also embraced b
as the most honorable form of giving.21If there is anyth
tion, we'd have to rethink Schwartz's use of epigraph
the dearth of honorific epigraphy from Jerusalem do
ethnic contrast that he thinks it does but instead repr
variant of the Greco- Roman conception of euergetism as
ciprocal giving.
To explain Jerusalem's deviation from the epigraphi
suggests that Jews may have developed their own epigra
forms of honor, especially oral commemoration of the b
He would have found support for this view in the wr
says explicitly that the Jews acknowledge God's benef
usual ways - sacrifices, buildings, and other visible ho
through the recitation of praise:
It is not possible to express our gratitude to God by me

and oblations and sacrifice, as is the custom for mos
the whole world were not a temple adequate to yield
him. Nay, it must be expressed by means of hymn
these not such as the audible voice can sing, but st
reechoed by the mind too pure for the eye to discern.
a Planter 126)
21. In support of this idea is the fact that several of the self-effacing behaviors
which Rajak claims distinguish Jewish giving from Greco-Roman euergetism -
the listing of givers in large groups, or the casting of the gift as the fulfillment
of a vow- have non- Jewish parallels, as she herself acknowledges (see Rajak,
"Benefactors," 386: "List of group donations are not unique to Jewish communi-
ties"; and "These votive formulae are perfectly well-known in pagan contexts").
The possibility hinted at here but not pursued is that what Rajak regards as
differences between Jewish and non- Jewish practice may actually reflect variant
expressions of public giving unique to neither Jewish or non- Jewish culture in
this period.
508 JQR 102.4 (2012)
Since God can never be adequately compe

make no effort to offer him a material
they could offer of any value to God. L
benefaction, however, they still feel grate
to express this gratitude in some way, an
through the act of verbal praise, the expre
of songs and hymns that acknowledge w
Philo speaks in this particular passage o
any public dimension whatsoever - the
recite are silent thoughts- but elsewhe
express this gratitude out loud, through
the song sung by the Israelites after Go
tians at the Red Sea, the archetype of t
(see Life of Mojej 2.256). Josephus, too,
only acceptable way to respond to God's
possible for men to return thanks to G
received . . . But with that (gift of spee
have been made superior to other creat
greatness and give thanks for thy kind
has a point when he suggests that Jews pr
tors through oral performance rather than
but what he does not sufficiently register
have arisen from Jewish qualms about e
represent a response to a particular kind o
tism, how to recriprocate acts of giving th
sated.
What Schwartz also does not recognize

tive aspect of Jewish euergetic culture ma
terraneanism but rather from within th
rather from within the strain of it that Seneca articulates. Seneca never
read the Torah so far as I know; and yet once again his view is remarkably
similar to that of Philo, the philosopher calling for a similar kind of
thanksgiving to be offered to those who cannot be properly compensated:
"I shall never be able to return gratitude for this," he imagines the one
indebted to such a benefactor saying, "but at any rate I shall not cease to
declare everywhere that I cannot return it" ( Benefit à 2.24.4-2.5.1). The
22. Philo 's emphasis on praise as the best way to express one's gratitude is in
accord with Greek tradition at the time. See J. H. Quincey, "Greek Expressions
of Thanks," Journal of Hellenic Studies 86 (1966): 133-58, esp. 157.
23. Cf. Neyrey, "God, Benefactor, Patron," 483-89.
recipient here must address the same challenge facing t

relationship to God: how to express gratitude to a benef
erosity cannot be reciprocated, and the solution is simil
recited praise (''I shall not cease to declare everywhere
edges the gift as nonreciprocal. Because one cannot ma
such a benefit, the gratitude and obligation one is supp
never come to an end, and the only appropriate respon
cumstance is to acknowledge that obligation in perpetuity,
less acts of praise - precisely the kind of ceaseless grat
express through the ongoing hymns and praise they offer
ing to Philo. If the Jews of Jerusalem did in fact prefer t
tors with oral praise rather than inscriptional comme
preference may have distinguished them from other ci
but it can still be understood within a Mediterranean ethos
our understanding of that ethos includes not just the conv
ing of benefactors but deviations from convention to h
considered too great to be honored in the usual ways.
What all this leads us to is the recognition that Schw
situate the Jews within Mediterranean society begins from
tion between the Torah/ Judaism and Mediterranean culture. Schwartz
knows perfectly well that the sources we have from this period cannot be
neatly categorized as Mediterranean or anti-Mediterranean. The core of
his argument is the analysis of texts that practice what he describes as
accommodative techniques, seeking to balance loyalty to the egalitarian
ethos of the Torah with the desire to participate in a larger society held
together by reciprocal exchange. The problem is his assumption that what
he is dealing with in these sources is an attempt to reconcile the conflict-
ing demands of conflicting social systems. From the Jewish side of things,
a Jew like Philo, no less representative of Judaism in this period than
Ben Sira, Josephus, or the Yerushalmi, does not appear to have seen the
contradiction between the Torah and euergetism that Schwartz does.
Philo does recognize differences between how Jews honor their benefac-
tors and how other peoples do, but those differences do not preclude
participation in euergetism, they merely channel it through certain kinds
of behaviors rather than others - through oral praise, for example, rather
than the erection of statues. From the Mediterranean side of things, it
may be equally misleading to reduce a practice like euergetism to self-
interested exchange. Indeed, as Griffith notes in her analysis of Seneca's
treatment of benefaction, euergetism reflects an egalitarian ethos in its
own right, applying to relationships among equals rather than to hierar-
510 JQR 102.4 (2012)
chical relationships between superiors

Mediterraneanism are not the opposed
understands them to be, it follows that Je
the tensions that he detects in sources like
thoée tend io nö may not really be there to begin
All this is to explain why I find myself
with Schwartz's yes and no answer to t
Mediterranean Society?" If Jews seem t
vated by self-interest and an expectatio
they arose from a tradition inherently o
because they had internalized a struggle
nean society itself, the struggle between g
the desire to sustain equality among mem
a moment in his book where Schwartz c
himself. Near the beginning of his argume
neanism and anti-Mediterraneanism are
needed the other to perform the redist
perform on its own, and thus, Schwar
always "coexisted with - was adultera
counterculture." That is a claim I agree wit
then confuses this point by conflating
tism, which mirrors what a Roman like
with how they responded to Greco- Ro
Roman rule in particular, in the process tr
cies within Mediterraneanism into a conflict between Mediterraneanism
and Judaism. The result is an artificially polarized view of how early

Jewish culture related to Mediterranean society, by which I mean not
just a society of self-interested reciprocity but one that was also animated
by egalitarian, altruistic, and communitarian impulses.
An unintended consequence of Schwartz's approach to the material is
its revival of a binary opposition that recent scholars have been working
hard to complicate and qualify, the opposition between Judaism and
what is usually known as Hellenism, the shared culture of Greeks and
Romans. Schwartz clearly does not identity the two concepts, but Medi-
terraneanism as he selectively appropriates it does bear a striking resem-
blance to Hellenism as an ambient culture expressed in Greek and Roman
sources, more or less coterminous with the Roman Empire, and pro-
voking three basic responses from Jews - assimilation, rejection, or
something in between. I may be seeing a connection not intended by the
24. Griffith, "De Beneficia."
MEDITERRANEAN EXCHANGES - WEITZMAN 51 1
author, but even its title, Were the Jew J a Mediterranean Soc
book's subject with Hellenism, working as a translation in
rary scholarly idiom of a question asked by earlier scholar
relationship between Jewish and Greek culture as inheren
tic, "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? " This
something unintentionally ironic about this book: Schwar
Mediterraneanism is an attempt to reframe the study of
to find a new way to understand the relationship between ea
their environment, but Schwartz develops it in a way that ac
an outmoded view of that relationship as sharply polarized, a
when more old-fashioned scholars of Hellenism are stri
beyond such oppositions.25
As I noted at the beginning of this essay, however, the
question at stake in this book: What can Mediterraneanis
ancient Jewish society? While there are aspects of Schwar
that I would contest, I believe in the end that he has in
interesting project by reengaging post- Corrupting Sea Medit
scholarship, and it is one that I hope he and others pursue
least, the concept of the Mediterranean offers an attractive
the concept of Hellenism at a time when the field is chaf
limits of the latter category and looking for another way of
common culture of this period that does not make Greece
everything or privilege the perspective of the Romans. T
nean" has also proven itself as a form of intellectual connect
the disciplinary divide between the humanities and geogr
when we all arguably need to be more sensitive to the enviro
25. As an illustration of where the field has been heading in thi

pare the titles used by the same scholar, Troel Engberg-Pederse
Judaism and Hellenism, the title of a conference he organized i
beyond the Judaism/ Hellenis m Divide, the title of an edited volume
years later (Louisville, Ky., 2001). The former title struck him a
because it implied that Judaism and Hellenism were two separ
latter represents an attempt to get beyond that distinction, inclu
aim to dismantle the categories of "Judaism" and "Hellenism."
essays notes, "Since most scholars nowadays agree that all Judaism
world that would have anything to do with early Christianity wa
nized, and that all forms of Greek culture in the same period had
by 'oriental' cultures, to ask whether domething id Hellenistic or Jewish w
misleading question' (Dale Martin, "Paul and the Judaism/Hellen
Toward a Social History of the Question," in Paul beyond the Jud
Divide , 30; my emphasis). The same objection, I am suggestin
against the question Schwartz is asking.
512 JQR 102.4 (2012)
impact on the course of human affairs. Sc

the study of early Jewish culture by enga
and it thus seems fitting, in keeping wi
Philo, to end this essay by expressing grat
ciprocal benefactions.

Review of Schwartz by Weitzman

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Review of Schwartz by Weitzman

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Mediterranean Exchanges: A Response to Seth Schwartz's "Were the Jews a Mediterranean

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

If YOU HAVE THE occasion to read Seth Schwartz's most recent

To understand Schwartz's project, then, we hav

The Jewiàh Quarterly Review (Fall 2012)

subtitle- and it bears a variety of meanin

1. See Susan Alcock, "Alphabet Soup in the M

resources or act of public service. Euergetism is ostensibl

4. Paul Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Po

each case we are shown that the text is

bution of wealth and status, the Torah seeks to foster an eg

6. See Martin Goodman, The Ruling Cladd of Judaea: The Origin

ideal type, a heuristic device. Despite th

times. It is true that much of this language is applied to God

Their problem was that they (the Jews) had a competin

In other words, the Roman embraced euergetism where

In the fifth commandment on honoring parents we hav

10. Schwartz, Were the Jem a Mediterranean Society ? 108; my em

other instructions given, to the young on

From Schwartz's perspective, the Torah

The Greeks, with some other nations, t

1 1 . All citations of Philo follow the Loeb

upon honors paid to the Roman authority, but out o

Despite Josephus's insistence that Jewish aniconism was not motivated

12. Although we do not have inscriptional evidence from the Alexandria of

ated through euergetism - restrained their

And while it is true that Caligula was d

(The Jews) stood not a whit behind an

sion of an example from the Roman port ci

sacrifices . . . not so much with mouth and tongue as in

This passage appears in a letter written by the Jewish king

13. For the evidence suggesting Philo rather than Agrippa as th

It is certainly possible that the Torah w

14. For more on the Maccabees' embrace of

to suggest that the inscriptional evidence that happe

nity, is awarded an olive wreath and a woo

When a man bestows a benefit, what d

18. Rajak, "Benefactors/' 385-88. For vow-f

conveyed to me and stirs in me a joyful response,

What defines a benefaction according to Seneca is prec

ored in the breach then the observance, bu

Whether or not this ideal of euergetism was actually observed by real-

ways of taking the donor out of the limelight - can all b

It is not possible to express our gratitude to God by me

Since God can never be adequately compe

What Schwartz also does not recognize

recipient here must address the same challenge facing t

chical relationships between superiors

and Judaism. The result is an artificially polarized view of how early

24. Griffith, "De Beneficia."

25. As an illustration of where the field has been heading in thi

impact on the course of human affairs. Sc

Potrebbero piacerti anche