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What Is Hidden in the Small Box? Narratives of Late Antique Roman Palestine in Dialogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2021

Reuven Kiperwasser
Reuven Kiperwasser*
Affiliation:
Ariel University Ariel, Israel
*
reuven.kiperwasser@gmail.com

Abstract

This study is a comparative reading of two distinct narrative traditions with remarkably similar features of plot and content. The first tradition is from the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah, datable to the fifth to sixth centuries. The second is from John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale), which is very close to Kohelet Rabbah in time and place. Although quite similar, the two narratives differ in certain respects. Pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg had been interested in the question of the relationships between early Christian authors and the rabbis; however, the relationships between John Moschos and Palestinian rabbinic writings have never been systematically treated (aside from one enlightening study by Hillel Newman). Here, in this case study, I ask comparative questions: Did Kohelet Rabbah borrow the tradition from Christian lore; or was the church author impressed by the teachings of Kohelet Rabbah? Alternatively, perhaps, might both have learned the shared story from a common continuum of local narrative tradition? Beyond these questions about literary dependence, I seek to understand the shared narrative in its cultural context.

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Research Article
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AJS Review , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , April 2021 , pp. 76 - 94
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Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2021

Two narratives, one found in the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah (KR),Footnote 1 and the other in John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale [PS]),Footnote 2 composed in very close temporal and geographical proximity,Footnote 3 share striking similarities in plot and content.Footnote 4 To explore these intriguing similarities, I analyze two sets of stories from KR and consider their parallels elsewhere in rabbinic literature and in the PS. I argue that the first story found in KR stems from the same narrative milieu as the story in PS. The second story in KR uses an ancient Mediterranean motif that appears to fit the context of PS much better than that of KR. This motif's first appearance in rabbinic literature is in KR; we can therefore reasonably assume that KR derived it from the same narrative milieu from which it also came to PS. In neither case do I believe that PS directly influenced KR: the former was known only in narrow monastic circles,Footnote 5 and it is doubtful that the editor of KR would have been able to read it. Direct influence therefore being highly unlikely, the similarity between KR and PS is perhaps better explained by their common resort to a shared narrative tradition.

The following comparison of the two sets of stories will address both their extensive similarities and the differences between them, taking into account previously undiscussed textual case studies and reflecting on different models for explaining parallel traditions. While the question of the relationship between Christian authors and the late antique rabbis has been thoroughly investigated by pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg,Footnote 6 and numerous contemporary scholars have continued the inquiry,Footnote 7 the relationship between John Moschos's work and Palestinian rabbinic writings has never been systematically treated (with the notable exception of one very enlightening study by Hillel Newman).Footnote 8 My questions in this study are typical of comparative analyses: Did KR borrow the narrative tradition from Christian lore? Alternatively, was the church author impressed by the rabbis’ midrashic teachings? Or, did both Moschos and KR absorb the story from a shared narrative milieu? Alongside these comparative inquiries, I seek to understand the shared narrative's cultural context.Footnote 9 I hope that this reading of these two stories will facilitate the discovery of cultural treasures of Jewish and Christian narrators that are still hidden in the “small boxes” of their own tales.

What Is in a Small Box?

Kohelet Rabbah 3:2–8Footnote 10

Let us summarize this brief tale, brought to illustrate Ecclesiastes 3:6. A certain trader embarks on a sea journey, carrying with him a small box (קובין), which contains a considerable amount of denarii. He overhears sailorsFootnote 12 plotting to kill him and his son and take possession of the money once the ship enters the high sea.Footnote 13 In order to avert this scenario, the father and son pretend to quarrel,Footnote 14 after which the merchant throws the box into the sea and survives. Upon arrival to Caesarea, he complains to no less a personage than the proconsul, who demands that the sailors cover the merchant's loss. Alive and also newly wealthy, the merchant explains to the confounded sailors that the words of Ecclesiastes were the blueprint for his clever plan. It is good to “cast away,” meaning, to lose wealth in troubled times, after which one can be rewarded again.Footnote 15 The link to the verse appears artificial, and the end of the story is not particularly convincing.Footnote 16 Of course, storytellers, from time immemorial, have sent their heroes on long journeys, including sea travel, in order to bring them back, having gained a new perspective.Footnote 17 Is this what happened here? Has the narrator invented the plot solely to substantiate Solomon's recommendations? While plausible, this is not the only possibility. I propose that we move in a different direction and seek to understand this tradition within a broader narrative milieu. But first, let us reflect on the whimsical vocabulary of our rather modest story.

This short and slightly elliptical tale had deteriorated severely in transmission. Saul Lieberman tried to reconstruct the text with the help of suggestions made by the medieval author R. Yiẓḥak ben Sheshet Perfet (Rivash, 1326–1408), who read this story in a letter from a correspondent.Footnote 18 Lieberman devoted special effort to explaining the following phrase: קובין דדינרין יהיב ליה מנא יתהון באפילה (which could be translated: “a box with denarii. He gave [it] to them to keep it in the dark”; however, this is a corrupted version; see further). The ambiguous word קובין (kubin) was emended by Lieberman, following an explanation proposed by Rivash, to קיבוטרין (kibutrin). Rivash assumed that this term refers to a certain box belonging to a ship's crew.Footnote 19 Lieberman also followed Rivash in understanding אפילה (ʾafelah) “darkness” to be a corruption of אילפא (ʾilfaʾ), the Aramaic term for “ship.”Footnote 20 Lieberman proposed that the merchant-father in the story gave his son the box, and the son attracted the negative attention of the sailors by counting the dinars in the box—although none of this is found in the story.Footnote 21 But comparative analysis offers us another way to understand this story. Reading the story together with a similar one recorded in the writings of John Moschos frees us from needing to search for ways to justify the logic of the KR narrative.

The Story of a Jeweller Who, by a Wise Decision, Saved His Life at SeaFootnote 22

One of the fathers said there was a jeweller of the kind known as a gem-engraver. He had some valuable stones and pearls when he went aboard a ship together with his servants [παίδων αὐτοῦ];Footnote 23 it was his intention to go do business elsewhere. By divine providence, it happened that he became fond of the crewman who was detailed to wait upon him. This servant slept at his side and ate the same food he ate. One day, the servant overheard the sailors whispering [τῶν ναυτῶν ψιθυριζόντων] to each other and determining among themselves to throw the gem-engraver into the sea, to get their hands on the stones he had with him. It was a very disturbed servant who went in to wait on the good man. “Why are you so gloomy [στυγνός] today, boy?” asked the man, but the other kept his own counsel and said nothing. He asked him again: “Come now, tell me what the matter is,” at which the servant broke into tears and sobbed out that the sailors were planning to do this and that to the jeweller, who asked: “Is this really so?” “Yes,” was the reply; “That is what they have decided among themselves to do to you.” Then the jeweller called his sons and said to them: “Whatever I tell you to do, do it at once and without arguing.” Then he unfolded a linen cloth and said to them: “Bring the inlaid chests” [φέρετε τά μου ζικία], and they brought them. He opened them and began taking out the stones. When they were all set out, he began to say: “Is this what life is <all about>? Is it for these that I put my life in danger and at the mercy of the sea when, in a little while, I shall die, and take nothing with me out of this world?” He said to his sons: “Empty it all into the sea.” As soon as he spoke, they cast the riches into the sea. The sailors were amazed—and their conspiracy was frustrated.

The common points between the two tales are clear. In both stories, a wealthy merchant goes on a journey by sea, accompanied by his son(s) or servants.Footnote 24 Moreover, both stories feature a small box with precious contents that attracts the sailors’ attention and inspires them to pursue a course of criminal intent. In both stories the would-be criminals are prevented from achieving their goal when the object of their desire is thrown into the sea.

The odd term used for the small box is an additional point of connection between the KR and PS versions of the story. This term drew lexicographical speculation not only from Lieberman, but also from scholars of Byzantium who read Moschos. As John Duffy and Gary Vikan observe, “One of the distinguishing features of the Pratum is its language: Moschos writes Greek that tends towards the colloquial, and he is one of a handful of authors who bring us close to the Byzantine vernacular of the period. This informal style allows him to admit certain words from everyday language which, if writing in a more elevated manner, he would likely avoid.”Footnote 25 According to the Greek text, the man orders the lads to fetch the chest by saying φέρετɛ τά μου ζικία. An accompanying note in the Migne edition explains that the word ζικία is unattested and that, to judge by the ancient Latin translation, the intention is capsulas.Footnote 26 Thus, according to Migne, the term βικία may have been intended.Footnote 27 This attempt at emendation was described by Duffy and Vikan as “admirable, in view of the context, but … not the correct one.”Footnote 28 They proposed their own emendation: “But the problem is not deep-seated, for it can be removed by a slight shift of the elements, namely by reading φέρɛτɛ τά μουζικία. This again confronts us with a rare word, μουζικίον, but fortunately it is attested twice in another story of the same John Moschos, and apart from that in no other Greek author. … We may conclude, then, from the two surviving examples that at the very least μουζικίον denotes a small box for keeping precious objects.”Footnote 29 Ultimately, Duffy and Vikan identify this object with the ivory pyxides used in pagan and Christian rituals. This highly creative explanation was accepted, in part, by Jeffrey Featherstone and Cyril Mango.Footnote 30

In my view, however, Migne's suggestion, followed by Lampe, that ζικίον is a mistaken rendering of βικίον (vessel, box) seems most plausible. The phonetical proximity of the Aramaic קובין /קוביא of KR and the Greek βικία is evident, as is the usage of the same word in the everyday life of fifth-century Roman Palestine. Naturally, the term was ביקיא, which somehow came to be corrupted into קובין = קיביא in its transmission to KR.Footnote 31

The primacy of Moschos's text to KR is apparent in ways other than in its preservation of this term. The story aims to show that life is worth more than money, and that a clever traveller managed to save his life by derailing the plans of those who would steal his money. It is notable that Moschos's text does not present a typical Christian hagiographic story, lacking as it does the glorification of pious monks or ascetics. It is thus reasonable to assume that the story was likely a widespread narrative with picaresque, entertaining elements mobilized for the needs of the Christian narrator.Footnote 32 Clearly, the tale has no inherent connection to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes and was likely not crafted to elucidate Ecclesisates 3:6. It is more likely that the already-existing story was adapted for and by KR.Footnote 33 The rabbinic narrator of KR considered it important to reward his pious hero by compensating him for his lost money, thereby imparting to his audience a sense of the probity and reliability of the local legal system.

Although, as we have seen above, the story in PS appears more original than the one in KR, we should not assume that the latter was borrowed from the former. Rather than posit a rigid, linear model of an “interaction effect,” I suggest an alternative model whereby KR and PS both drew their stories from the shared living narrative milieu of their time.Footnote 34 The commonalities between these stories allow us to detect something of the common culture within which these stories were created.Footnote 35 As the writings of John Moschos were probably known only to his monastic brethren, I reiterate my earlier rejection of the possibility that the editors of KR read this text. The KR editors’ awareness and use of stories circulating among the Greek-speaking population of the Land of Israel is far more likely.Footnote 36

What Is in the Fish?

A second commonality between KR and PS, found in a second pair of stories, evinces a different kind of relationship between the two compilations. This is a shared motif, a single plot item, which we might dub “the treasure in the belly of the fish.” This motif travelled early on from the ancient Orient to the Mediterranean Basin and I will demonstrate that Moschos and KR utilize this motif at around the same time. Let us begin with the small and rather elliptical fish story that appears in KR 11:1.

Kohelet Rabbah 11:1Footnote 37

In this story, the puzzling verse from Ecclesiastes was read not as a metaphor but as an order to perform a ritual. Making sense of the plot is difficult. The narrator does not explain why the man threw the bread into the sea every day or why this seemingly foolish act yielded such a great reward. The story in KR was most likely imported from another context, as it contains far too much detail for it to serve the primary purpose of illustrating Ecclesiastes 11:1. Given the known “encyclopaedic” tendencies of KR's editors,Footnote 38 it is reasonable to posit that the editors endeavoured to enrich KR by gleaning material liberally from different sources that could somehow be connected to a verse. In this case, KR's source is the congeries of complex folk stories of the KR editors’ environment.Footnote 39 KR's version of the story is much simpler than both its Babylonian Talmud parallel (B. Shabbat 119a) and Moschos's Christian version. The version found on B. Shabbat 119a is rather well known:Footnote 40

B. Shabbat 119aFootnote 41

Hillel Newman reads this story together with the nonrabbinic parallel in PS.Footnote 42 Newman first notes that Moschos relates a story he heard from a woman named Mary on the Greek island of Samos, who told him of a Christian woman of Nisibis in Babylonia who was married to a pagan:Footnote 43

They possessed fifty miliarisia. One day, the husband said to his wife: “Let us lend out that money and get some advantage from it, for in drawing on it a little at a time, we are going to spend it all.” The wife answered: “If you insist on lending this money, come: lend it to the God of the Christians.” He said to her: “Well, where is this God of the Christians, so we can lend it to him?” She said: “I will show you. Not only shall you not lose your money, but it shall even earn interest for you and the capital shall be doubled.” He said to her: “Come on then; show me and we will lend to him.”

To summarize the remainder of the story: The woman takes her husband to the church of Nisibis, where he gives his money to the poor. Three months later, unable to meet his own expenses, the husband returns to the church and finds a coin on the floor. His wife sends him off to use the coin to buy food and he buys bread, wine, and fish. When his wife opens the fish, she finds within it a precious gem, which the husband sells for three hundred miliarisia. And then:

Filled with wonder at the goodness of God, she said to him: “Oh husband, see how good and generous and affluent is the God of the Christians! Look how he has not merely returned to you the fifty miliarisia you lent him together with interest, but in only a few days has given you the capital multiplied by six! Know therefore that there is no other God, neither on earth nor in heaven, but him alone.” Convinced by this miracle and learning the truth by experience, he immediately became a Christian and glorified our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Newman explains:

The importance of this parallel lies not only in the shared motif of the fabulous gem in the fish but also in the fact that both Jewish and Christian stories explicitly cast the appearance of the gem as repayment of a religious loan, thereby validating the extraordinary stature of the borrower. Joseph lends to the Jewish Sabbath; the pagan lends to the god of the Christians. Joseph's belief is vindicated at the expense of the gentile; the faith of the pagan's wife is vindicated, and he becomes a Christian. Without belittling all that is unique to each story, I suggest that the similarities are not merely coincidental, especially because both would appear to be Babylonian,Footnote 44 and they are roughly contemporary.Footnote 45

There is yet another Babylonian appearance of the motif of “a precious stone in a fish's belly,” in B. Bava Batra 133b, this one unexplored by Newman:

B. Bava Batra 133b

This story is clearly of Babylonian origin. The narrative details and peculiarities of the story's plot deserve an in-depth analysis that it will not receive here.Footnote 46 I will simply note that despite the story's Land of Israel setting, there is no Palestinian rabbinic parallel. There is no hint in the plot of a Palestinian historical background. The marriage of the unsuccessful son of an ancient sage to the daughter of the king's servant is portrayed as a fall from grace. The husband's buying his wife a fish on the birth of their child seems like an amusing invention of the Babylonian narrator, who is focused on the motif of the precious stone in the fish's belly.

Hillel Newman points to a different fish story, coming from the Palestinian composition, Bereshit Rabbah, which may further illuminate the motif:

Bereshit Rabbah 11:4Footnote 47

At first glance, the only nexus between this story and the motif analyzed above is the act of buying and eating fish. No miracle is found within the fish's stomach.Footnote 48 However, a much later version of this story includes the miraculous motif.

Pesikta Rabbati 23Footnote 49

The end of this story does bear some resemblance to the miraculous “precious stone in a fish belly” motif; the appearance of this motif at the very end of the story leaves the impression that it is an addition, and potentially an easily disposable one at that.Footnote 51 Newman compared Bereshit Rabbah's and Pesikta Rabbati's versions to the Bavli's and identified a commonality—both are “fish stories” in which divine providence is somehow exposed through the protagonist's purchase of a fish at the market. In Bereshit Rabbah's version, however, there is no gem and no loan repayment. In Pesikta Rabbati, these elements appear secondarily as a Hebrew addition to the Aramaic story,Footnote 52 probably under the influence of the aforementioned Bavli version.Footnote 53

Nonetheless, it is quite possible that the motif of the precious stone found in the fish's bowels was widespread since ancient times in both East and West. The motif first appears in the fifth-century BCE Histories of Herodotus,Footnote 54 and thereafter in lists of literary traditions such as Kālidāsa's The Recognition of Śākuntalā Footnote 55 and early medieval Jewish and Muslim texts.Footnote 56 Thus, the motif of the precious stone miraculously found in the fish's belly is a universal migrating motif. However, it did not appear in classical Palestinian literature until quite late. In Kohelet Rabbah, the motif is embedded in a genuine Palestinian narrative.Footnote 57

The artificiality of the appearance of the “precious stone in the fish's belly” motif in KR attests to its origins in another narrative milieu. As noted earlier, the motif in KR is much less well integrated into the work than it is into the story related by Moschos.

* * * * *

This essay has analyzed two narratives common to Kohelet Rabbah and Pratum spirituale. One of them is a true parallel, in the sense that the two stories about a box thrown into the sea are clearly descended from a common prototype, and the Christian version is primary. My assumption is based not only on the similarity of numerous plot elements, but also on the verbal echoes of the Greek prototype. The second shared story demonstrates the common deployment of a particular motif: the treasure in the belly of a fish. This motif came from the ancient Orient to the Mediterranean Basin earlier than the rabbinic and Christian compilations in which we find it, and was incorporated into both these compilations around the same time.

Rummaging in the “small boxes” of late antique rabbinic and Christian compilations, then, has yielded an important discovery: these two literary traditions, the rabbinic and the Christian, participate in a shared world of narrative discourse. Consideration of these textual parallels affords us a glimpse of the common culture that lies behind these texts and shapes these stories. I hope that this study, together with others, will catalyze further comparative analysis and lead to the unearthing of additional shared literary topoi and motifs in broader circulation—topoi and motifs that are neither particularly Jewish nor especially Christian, but which were adopted, and adapted, by both religious groups.

Footnotes

This paper came into existence through conversation with Michail Kitsos, a devoted reader of Greek patristic writings to whom I am thankful. I owe many thanks to Hillel Newman for advice and bibliographical references, to Beatrice Daskas for help with the Greek texts, and to Emmanouela Grypeou for reading and sharing her thoughtful notes. The first draft of this paper was presented to the participants of the international conference: The Talmud and Christianity: Rabbinic Judaism after Constantine, at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, June 27–28, 2016. The participants’ notes and comments helped me very much in preparing this paper. I began writing this paper during my stay at Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies (DFG-Kolleg-Forschergruppe FOR 2311) and finally prepared it for publication as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Judaic Studies Institute of the Free University of Berlin.

References

1. See on this work Grünhut, Eleazar, Kritische Untersuchung des Midrasch Kohelet Rabbah (Frankfurt: J. Kauffmann, 1892)Google Scholar; Wachten, Johannes, Midrasch-Analyse: Strukturen in Midrasch Qohelet Rabba (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1978)Google Scholar; Marc Hirshman, “Midrash Qohelet Rabbah: Chapters 1–4” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Jewish Theological Seminary, 1983); Reuven Kiperwasser, “Midrashim on Kohelet: Studies in Their Redaction and Formation” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2005); Kiperwasser, “Toward the Redaction History of Kohelet Rabbah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010): 257–77.

2. A new English translation, titled The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos, was published by John Wortley (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1992); for the Greek text, see Patrologiae cursus completus: Series graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris: J. P. Migne, 1857–66) (hereafter PG), 87 (3): 2851–3112. It is also known as the Leimon or Leimonarion or Neos paradeisos. The Greek text in Migne reproduces the 1681 edition by Jean-Baptiste Cotelier together with a facing Latin translation emended from that executed by the fifteenth-century Florentine humanist Ambrose Traversari (Fra Ambrogio). Despite the preliminary work of Philip Pattenden (“The Text of the Pratum Spirituale,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 26 [1975]: 38–54), the PS still lacks a critical edition. For a first contemporary study of Moschos and his work, see Henry Chadwick, “John Moschus and His Friend Sophronius the Sophist,” Journal of Theological Studies 25 (1974): 41–74, reprinted in his History and Thought of the Early Church (London: Variorum, 1982). See also the recent works of José Simón Palmer, El monacato oriental en el “Pratum Spirituale” de Juan Mosco (Madrid: Fundacion universitaria espanola, 1993), 46–47; Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, John Moschos’ Spiritual Meadow (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014); and Derek Krueger, “Between Monks: Tales of Monastic Companionship in Early Byzantium,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 20 (2011): 28–61.

3. See Chadwick, “John Moschus,” 41: “Written in the second or third decade of the seventh century, it records anecdotes from the monasteries of Palestine and Egypt related to John Moschus as he travelled about with his friend Sophronius in search of edification and the unusual.”

4. KR can be dated to the sixth century, although its final redaction probably did not occur before the seventh century. Regarding the relatively late final redaction of this work see Reuven Kiperwasser, “Structure and Form in Kohelet Rabbah as Evidence of Its Redaction,” Journal of Jewish Studies 58 (2007): 283–302; Kiperwasser, “Toward the Redaction History of Kohelet Rabbah”; Kiperwasser, “Early and Late in Kohelet Rabbah: A Study in Redaction-Criticism” [in Hebrew], in Iggud – Selected Essays in Jewish Studies, ed. Baruch J. Schwartz, Abraham Melamed, and Aharon Shemesh (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008), 291–312.

5. This would be true about every early Christian book. Despite extensive book production in monastic circles, books were read by a very small number of readers. As stated by Keith Hopkins, “many or most Christian communities … simply did not have among them a single sophisticated reader or writer.” See “Conquest by Book,” in Literacy in the Roman World, ed. Mary Beard et al., Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 3 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1991), 133–58. However, one can suggest that these very few readers did contribute to the circulation of the stories of Moschos, although their dissemination among different Christian communities probably took a long time. On reading practices in early Christian communities see Guy Stroumsa, “The New Self and Reading Practices in Late Antique Christianity,” Church History and Religious Culture 95 (2015): 1–18, and recently, Stroumsa, The New Self and Reading Practices (Leiden: Brill, 2019).

6. See Samuel Krauss, ‘‘Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,’’ Jewish Quarterly Review 5, no. 1 (1892): 122; Louis Ginzberg, “Die Haggada bei den Kirchenvätern,’’ in Abhandlungen zur Erinnerung an Hirsch Perez Chajes (Vienna: The Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1933), 22–50. For the full bibliography of these approaches, see Judith R. Baskin, ‘‘Rabbinic-Patristic Contacts in Late Antiquity: A Bibliographical Reappraisal,’’ in Approaches to Ancient Judaism, vol. 5, Studies in Judaism and Its Greco-Roman Context, ed. William Scott Green (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985), 54 and 75–80. See also Samuel Krauss, “Church Fathers,” in the Jewish Encyclopedia online version (1906) at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4380-church-fathers. The works of Krauss and Ginzberg were preceded by Graetz's studies; see Heinrich Graetz, ‘‘Haggadische Elemente bei den Kirchenvätern,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 3, no. 8 (1854): 311–19; 9 (1854): 352–55; 10 (1854): 381–87; 11 (1854): 428–31; 4, no. 5 (1855): 187–92, on which see the work of Baskin mentioned above. See also Hillel I. Newman, ‘‘Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, and the Church Fathers,’’ in Die Entdeckung des Christentums in der Wissenschaft des Judentums, ed. Görge K. Hasselhoff (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 147–63. For an analysis of Krauss's approach, see Catherine Hezser, “Samuel Krauss' Contribution to the Study of Ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Graeco-Roman Culture within the Context of Wissenschaft Scholarship,” Modern Judaism 33, no. 3 (2013): 301–31.

7. Space considerations preclude mentioning all these scholars. Studies of the interface between rabbinic literature and patristics include Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism, Reading Medieval Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); and Hillel I. Newman, “Jerome's Judaizers,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 9, no. 4 (2001): 421–52. See also the works I mention below regarding “the parting of the ways.”

8. See Hillel I. Newman, “Closing the Circle: Yonah Fraenkel, the Talmudic Story, and Rabbinic History,” in How Should Rabbinic Literature Be Read in the Modern World?, ed. Matthew Kraus (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006), 105–36. I will further analyze the same example.

9. I already tried my hand at a similar approach to the comparative reading of rabbinic texts and Syriac patristic writings in a few papers written together with Serge Ruzer: see Reuven Kiperwasser and Serge Ruzer, “The Holy Land and Its Inhabitants in Travel-Stories of Bar-Sauma” [in Hebrew], Cathedra 148 (2012): 41–70; Kiperwasser and Ruzer, “To Convert a Persian and to Teach Him the Holy Scriptures: A Zoroastrian Proselyte in Rabbinic and Syriac Christian Narratives,” in Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians: Religious Dynamics in a Sasanian Context, ed. Geoffrey Herman (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2014), 91–127; Kiperwasser and Ruzer, “Syriac Christians and Babylonian Jewry: Narratives and Identity Shaping in a Multi-Religious Setting,” in Patristic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: Proceedings of an International Conference to Mark the 50th Anniversary of the International Association of Patristic Studies, ed. Carol Harrison, Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, and Theodore de Bruyn (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 421–42. However, the literary corpora I am subjecting to comparative analysis in this study are new. The comparative study of PS and rabbinic literature resembles, in general terms, the comparative study of rabbinic literature and Apophthegmata patrum, in that both are anthologies of narratives about deeds of spiritual leaders. However, as we will see, the cultural proximity between PS and rabbinic narratives is much stronger. See Catherine Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum and Apophthegmata of the Rabbis,” in La narrativa cristiana antica: Codici narrativi, strutture formali, schemi retorici, Studia Ephemerida Augustinianum 50 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1995), 453–64; Hezser, “Die Verwendung der hellenistischen Gattung Chrie im frühen Christentum und Judentum,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 27 (1996): 371–439; Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

10. See Marc Hirshman's critical edition of the first part of KR, Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 1–6 (Jerusalem: The Midrash Project of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2016), 178. For the synoptic edition see http://www.schechter.ac.il/.upload/Midrash/kohelet%20raba/parasha3.pdf. The translation is mine.

11. According to all the manuscripts אפילה means darkness; however, I accept Lieberman's emendation to אילפא.

12. Following the version of the printed edition, we could read here דנווטיא, which is probably a Graecism of the Greek ναυτής. See Samuel Krauss, Griechische und lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1898), 355. Other textual versions differ, though these differences could be explained as graphic errors. The version of the JTS manuscripts and the gloss that appears there is nonetheless quite interesting.

13. In Greek, πέλαγος; see Daniel Sperber, Nautica Talmudica (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1986), 147; and Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 52.

14. I think that the wording “he made himself angry at his son” indicates that the merchant pretended to be angry.

15. Here, I propose that the merchant is the character who articulates the verse in the end of the story. Traditional commentators on KR, however, understood these to be the words of the proconsul, who judged according to the Ecclesiastes verse. I have certain doubts about this interpretation; nevertheless, the suggestion is not completely implausible.

16. By “artificial,” I mean that this whole paragraph interprets Ecclesiastes 3:2–8. Every verse in it is built as a collision between two opposed times, such as “a time to keep” and “a time to throw away.” In KR the midrashist interprets the first “time” and then the second (opposed) “time,” couple by couple. In the first half of the commentary, every first “time” is interpreted as a time that belongs to a period of peace, and the second “time” as belonging to a period of war. After our story, a tradition about peace and war is also appended, supported by scriptural examples. But our story is the only one built on the second “time” of the verse, Ecclesiastes 3:6 (“a time to throw away”). Our story does not hint at a “time to keep,” and does not belong to the overarching theme of peace versus war. These unique features of our story point to an insertion made by the editor of KR. Thus, the story is weakly and “artificially” connected to the verse, based as it is on only half of it. The end of the story is not convincing—it is hard to see any basis for a judicial decision in this verse.

17. On the Christian appropriation of the topos of a sea voyage and its comparison to the pagan one, see Knut Backhaus, Religion als Reise, Intertextuelle Lektüren in Antike und Christentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). Regarding the comparison of rabbinic and Christian topos, see Reuven Kiperwasser and Serge Ruzer, “Sea Voyage Tales in Conversation with the Jonah Story: Intertextuality and the Art of Narrative Bricolage,” Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing 20, no. 2 (2019): 39–57.

18. See Saul Lieberman, “Six Words from Koheleth Rabba” [in Hebrew], in Essays in Jewish History and Philology: Gedaliahu Allon Memorial Volume, ed. Menahem Dorman et al. (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 1970), 227–30; reprinted in David Rosenthal, ed., Studies in Palestinian Talmudic Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991), 498–99, to which I refer later.

19. Ibid., 499–500.

20. See Sperber, Nautica Talmudica, 105.

21. Up to this point, Lieberman restricts himself to clarifying ambiguous words. Here, however, he proposes to correct the seemingly certain reading אנטיפוטא derived from the Greek ανθύπατος (proconsul) to another Greek-Aramaic term, דיוקטא from διώκτης, meaning “prosecutor,” arguing from logic that in such a trivial case the merchant would have appealed first to the prosecutor and not directly to the proconsul. This interesting suggestion is unnecessary, though. In folk narrative, and in this story as such, it is not necessary to follow subtle legal niceties. Regarding these terms, see Daniel Sperber, A Dictionary of Greek and Latin Legal Terms in Rabbinic Literature (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1984), 83.

22. See chap. 203 (3093A-C Migne). All quotations are from Wortley's translation, Spiritual Meadow, 182, with some minor corrections.

23. Per Wortley: “servants.” But probably it means “sons,” as it is evident from the end of the story, which is about the children.

24. The text uses the word παῖς throughout.

25. See John Duffy and Gary Vikan, “A Small Box in John Moschus,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 24, no. 1 (1983): 96; and see R. Browning, “The Language of Byzantine Literature,” in The “Past” in Medieval and Modern Greek Culture, ed. Speros Vryonis (Melibu: Undena Publications, 1978), 112.

26. The note is taken over from the seventeenth-century edition of Moschos by L. B. Cotelier, see Duffy and Vican, “A Small Box,” 96. The Latin translation printed in Migne is the work of the fifteenth-century humanist Ambrogio Traversari.

27. That is, a diminutive of ό βΐκος (jar, cask). Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961–68), s.v. ζικίον, evidently accepts this suggestion, listing the one occurrence as an “error for βικίον, vessel, box.”

28. Duffy and Vican, “A Small Box,” l94.

29. Ibid., 94.

30. Jeffrey Featherstone and Cyril Mango, “Life of St. Matrona of Perge,” in Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Mary Talbot (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996), 56, found in the Vita of St. Matrona of Perge the line “that the servant Kallopodios had broken into the back side of the money chest (μουζικίον).” He explained it as another usage of this rare word “also used by John Moschos (PG 87.3:2936 and 3093 [where a μου ζικία should be emended to μουζικία]. The word (ζικία) was discussed by J. Duffy and G. Vikan, who were unaware of our text. It can now be said that a μουζικίον was specifically a strongbox for keeping valuables and that it could be, as here, of some size. It was not a pyxis.” See their footnote n. 104. I am thankful to Hillel Newman, who referred me to this work.

31. It is difficult to determine exactly how this might have occurred. It is likely that a simple change in the sequence of the two syllables occurred phonetically, but the possibility of graphical metamorphosis (as, for example, ביקיה-כיביה-קיביא-קובין) cannot be ruled out.

32. Without doubting the popularity of these categories and definitions for the reader of academic articles, for the sake of simplicity, I refer here to the well-known article by Dan Ben-Amos, “Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context,” Journal of American Folklore 84 (1971): 3–15.

33. One of the readers of this paper made the interesting suggestion that the story may have originated as part of a “clever merchant” prototype, who saves both his life and eventually his money. In this view, PS “Christianized” this hypothetical prototype with the phrase “money is of no ultimate value after death” while the rabbinic storyteller kept the money. Despite the interest and appeal of this suggestion, my own view is that we should confine ourselves to comparing existing stories instead of presuming a hypothetical prototype. Though one distant ancient parallel could be mentioned here: in this story, a famous Greek musician beset by the crew of the ship he sailed on, who intended to kill him for his money, begged to sing a last song. This done, he leaped overboard, and was carried safely to the shore by a dolphin, who came to hear his music. On the arrival of the would-be murderers, he handed them to the local king for punishment. See Herodotus, Histories 1.23–24. This ancient story may be a possible prototype of our somewhat structurally similar, yet radically transformed story.

34. Recent research has drawn attention to the possibility of actual or indirect links between Babylonian Jewry of the talmudic period and contemporaneous Syriac Christianity, since the geographical and cultural affinity, e.g., the shared Aramaic (Syriac) language, strongly increases the likelihood of such links. Yet, it seems prudent to refrain from setting the axis line of this discussion on such complex phenomena by proposing a monastic influence on Judaism (see, for example, the work of Bar-Asher Siegal, cited above), or vice versa, by suggesting a Jewish influence on the Christian authors. See, for example, Jacob Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1971), 150–95; Tryggve Kronholm, Motifs from Genesis 1–11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian with Particular Reference to the Influence of Jewish Exegetical Tradition (Lund: Gleerup, 1978); Sebastian Brock, “Jewish Traditions in Syriac Sources,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979): 212–32; Burton L. Visotzky, “Three Syriac Cruxes,” Journal of Jewish Studies 4 (1991): 167–75; Günter Stemberger, “Contacts between Christian and Jewish Exegesis in the Roman Empire,” in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1, part 11, Antiquity, ed. Magne Sæbø et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 583–85; Naomi Koltun-Fromm, “A Jewish-Christian Conversation in Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia,” Journal of Jewish Studies 47 (1996): 45–63; Koltun-Fromm, “Aphrahat and the Rabbis on Noah's Righteousness in Light of Jewish-Christian Polemic,” in The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretations, ed. Judith Frishman and Lucas van Rompay (Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 57–72; Serge Ruzer and Aryeh Kofsky, Syriac Idiosyncrasies: Theology and Hermeneutics in Early Syriac Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 30–31, 43–48, 50, 56–59, 97–107; Elena Narinskaya, Ephrem, a “Jewish Sage”: A Comparison of the Exegetical Writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian and Jewish Traditions (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010); Yifat Monnickendam, “Halakhic Issues in the Writings of the Syriac Church Fathers Ephrem and Aphrahat” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2011). For discussion of the existing appraisals of these links (from actual influence all the way to the Zeitgeist), see Adam Becker, “The Comparative Study of ‘Scholasticism’ in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East Syrians,” AJS Review 34, no. 1 (2010): 91–113.

35. A common culture, however, does not indicate a commonality of “the ways.” The traditional perception that the “parting of the ways” occurred during an extended period is widely accepted. For the description of an ongoing interchange between Jews and Christians see James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, 1961), 113–19, and also his “Rome, Pagan and Christian,” in Judaism and Christianity, vol. 2, The Contact of Pharisaism with Other Cultures, ed. Herbert Loewe (1937; repr. New York: Ktav, 1969), 115–44. His view was rejected by the group of authors of the anthology compiled by Adam Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, The Ways That Never Parted (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2007), who seem to think that discussion between Jews and Christians in antiquity is evidence against a parting of the ways, and that the “old model” of the parting of the ways did not allow for ongoing contacts between Jews and Christians. Though Parkes was aware of such ongoing contacts, these did not call into question for him the reality of the parting of the ways. See also James D. G. Dunn, Jews and Christians; The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135 (1992; repr. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). For more nuanced approaches see Boyarin, Border Lines; Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Ways That Parted: Jews, Christians, and Jewish-Christians ca. 100–150 CE,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE, ed. Joshua J. Schwartz and Peter J. Tomson (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 307–33. See also a very thoughtful analysis of this area of research in the recently published review by Megan H. Williams, “No More Clever Titles: Observations on Some Recent Studies of Jewish-Christian Relations in the Roman World,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 99 (2009): 37–55. I strongly agree with her proposition: “To consider at every moment not a binary opposition, but … the shifting dynamics of a lopsided triangle defined by the interaction of cultural vectors of differing structure and unequal force” (p. 51).

36. As with every Galilean midrash compilation, KR is replete with elements of Byzantine Greek lore; however, in this case, some of them are unique. See, for example, Marc Hirshman, “The Greek Fathers and the Aggadah on Ecclesiastes: Formats of Exegesis in Late Antiquity,” Hebrew Union College Annual 59 (1988): 137–65; Hirshman, “Protocol for Prayer: Origen, the Rabbis and Their Greco-Roman Milieu,” in Essays on Hebrew Literature in Honor of Avraham Holtz, ed. Tseviyah Ben-Yosef Ginor (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2003), 3–14; Hirshman, “The Kairos of a Sage,” in Studies in Talmudic and Midrashic Literature in Memory of Tirzah Lifshitz, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher, Aryeh Edrei, Joshua Levinson, and Berachyahu Liftshitz (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2005), 127–34.

37. For the synoptic edition that served to prepare the critical editions of this important work, see http://www.schechter.ac.il/.upload/Midrash/kohelet%20raba/parasha11.pdf. On this story as the representative of the certain oikotype of folklore storytelling, see Dov Noy, “Jewish Versions of the Animal Languages Folktale (AT 670)—A Typological-Structural Study,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (1971): 194–97. The translation is mine.

38. See Hirshman, “Greek Fathers and the Aggadah on Ecclesiastes.”

39. See Galit Hasan-Rokem, “Had Rabbis Been Aware of the Concept of Folklore?” [in Hebrew], in Higayon L′Yona, New Aspects in the Study of Midrash, Aggadah and Piyut, in Honor of Professor Yonah Fraenkel, ed. Joshua Levinson, Jacob Elbaum, and Galit Hasan-Rokem (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), 199–229.

40. See Yonah Fraenkel, Studies in the Spiritual World of the Aggadic Narrative [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 1981), 16–18. The story is also discussed in Fraenkel “Chiasmus in Talmudic-Aggadic Narrative,” in Chiasmus in Antiquity, ed. John W. Welch (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), 184–85; compare the similar conclusions of Norman J. Cohen, “Structural Analysis of a Talmudic Story: Joseph-Who-Honors-the-Sabbath,” Jewish Quarterly Review 72 (1982): 161–77. Fraenkel expounds this story at length, pointing out the underlying tension between the determinism of the astrologers at the outset, and the reward for Joseph at the conclusion. Joseph lives in a deterministic universe, but he is indifferent to fate—even ignorant of it—making his choices freely and therefore truly entitled to the reward he receives. Hillel Newman's approach to this tale takes a different direction. The story has not escaped the attention of folklorists, who look at it, of course, as a folktale. See Haim Schwarzbaum, Studies in Jewish and World Folklore (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968), 269–70; Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, trans. Jacqueline S. Teitelbaum (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 124–25. However, as Newman rightly points out, folklorists have not compared it to what is probably the closest parallel to it in provenance, both chronologically and geographically, namely, PS. All these attempts of folklorists were preceded by a neglected book by Sholem-Zisl Beylin, titled Wandering or International Sagas and Legends of Ancient Rabbinical Literature [in Russian] (Irkutsk, 1907), 351. For more on Beylin, who unfortunately was unrecognized by contemporary scholars, see http://yleksikon.blogspot.de/2015/01/sholem-zisl-beylin.html. He compared the rabbinic stories about the precious stone in the fish's belly with the above-mentioned Christian story; however, he knows its late version from the Greek-Slavic medieval work Prologue and not from PS. The story was recently and briefly discussed by Richard Kalmin; see Migrating Tales: The Talmud's Narratives and Their Historical Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 189–90.

41. The English translation is according to Newman, “Closing the Circle,” 105–35, with minor changes. The original text is according to the editio princeps. Due to their insignificance, I do not deal here with the minor differences between the textual versions.

42. See Newman, “Closing the Circle,” 105–35. In this article, Newman argues against Fraenkel's famous thesis about the “closure” of the talmudic story. See Yonah Fraenkel, Aggadic Narrative— the Unity of Content and Form [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: ʿAm ʿOved, 2001). See also Fraenkel, Studies in the Spiritual World: The Ways of the Midrash and the Aggadah [in Hebrew] (Givatayim: Dvir, 1991), 235–85; Fraenkel, Midrash and Aggadah [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Open University, 1996), 329–97. See, as well, his “Chiasmus in Talmudic-Aggadic Narrative,” 183–97. The scholarly discussion between Newman and Fraenkel is beyond the scope of this article.

43. PS, c. 185 (PG 87:3057–3061). Wortley, Spiritual Meadow, 155–58.

44. See Newman, “Closing the Circle,” 125. See also Fraenkel, “Chiasmus,” 196n5.

45. Unaware of the Jewish versions of the story in the Babylonian Talmud and KR, Chadwick has speculated that the Christian story is an adaptation of a Persian folktale. See Chadwick, “John Moschus,” 54 (following Ilona Opelt, “Der Edelstein im Bauch des Fisches,” in Mullus: Festschrift Theodor Klauser, ed. Alfred Stuiber and Alfred Hermann [Münster: Aschendorff, 1964], 268–72): “The location of the storyteller at Samos makes one wonder if Mary had heard echoes of Herodotus' story of Polycrates of Samos throwing his ring into the sea, only to find it in the fish on his dinner-table some days later. On the other hand, the location of the story in Nisibis points to a Persian tale; and a very close parallel in the Thousand and One Nights (no. 946) was acutely noted by Ilona Opelt in 1964 (Mullus, Festschrift Theodor Klauser, p. 268). However, this seems a bit doubtful. A Thousand and One Nights is a relatively late source and Nisibis, though a part of Persian Empire in that period, has a long history as a Greco-Roman polis.”

46. A note concerning the word כלילי in this story (translated as “wreaths” above): this story probably originated as a picaresque story in which a protagonist of good lineage marries a daughter of an artisan who might have made a living producing wreaths or crowns. (“Crowns” seems to me to be a more plausible reading here.) As the daughter of a crown-maker the wife would be well aware of what to do with precious stones and how to get a good price for the finished product. Guided by her advice the protagonist could get quite a significant reward for the stone and even defeat his father-in-law in the competition for righteousness without having any religious motivation in his dedication to the Temple treasury. Regarding the meanings of כלילא see Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), 582.

47. See Bereshit Rabbah 11:4, to Genesis 2:3 (ed. Theodor-Albeck, 1:91–92). The translation is mine.

48. In only two manuscript versions is there an addition that includes the miraculous motif. It is quite certain, however, that this addition was made in the process of transmission by a copyist who knew the Babylonian version of the story. This was already observed by Newman, “Closing the Circle,” 126.

49. See Pesikta Rabbati (Vienna, 1880), ed. Meir Ish-Shalom (Friedmann), Ten Commandments 23, 119a–b. See also the new edition Pesiqta Rabbati – A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati Based upon All Extant Manuscripts and the Editio Princeps, ed. Rivka Ulmer (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), 574–75. This text is from the lost midrash on the Ten Commandments. On the identification of these midrash fragments in Pesikta Rabbati, see Binyamin Elizur, “Pesikta Rabbati: Introductory Chapters” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2000), 45. For the text under discussion, see Shlomi Efrati, “Pesiqta of Ten Commandments and Pesiqta of Matan Torah: Text, Redaction and Tradition Analysis” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 2019), 2:254. I am thankful to Shlomi Efrati for sharing with me the draft of his dissertation. See also the English translation of William Braude, Pesikta Rabbati, 2 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), 484–85. The translation above is based on the latter, with some minor changes.

50. See Braude, Pesikta Rabbati, 484, and see Efrati, “Pesiqta of the Ten Commandments.”

51. In the current discussion, I leave aside the many differences between the versions of Bereshit Rabbah and PR; these have been discussed in great detail by Efrati.

52. However, in eastern medieval midrash anthologies, the Midrash Ha-gadol and Sefer Maʿasiyot, these sentences appear with some Aramaic words, but Efrati demonstrated that these are additions taken from another location in Pesikta Rabbati; see Efrati there. On these works see Reuven Kiperwasser, “Midrash ha-Gadol and the Exempla of the Rabbis (Sefer Maʿasiyot) and Midrashic Works on Ecclesiastes: A Comparative Approach” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 75 (2006): 409–36.

53. The Bavli version has also contaminated the poorer textual traditions of Bereshit Rabbah 11:4.

54. Polycrates of Samos in Herodotus, Histories 3.42.

55. Its date is uncertain, but Kālidāsa is often placed in the period between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE.

56. The legend that Asmodeus once obtained possession of the ring of Solomon and threw it into the sea, and that Solomon was thus deprived of his power until he discovered the ring inside a fish (See Adolf Jellinek, Beit Hamidrash [Leipzig: F. Nies, 1853–77], 2:86–87), also has an Arabic parallel. This story is first documented in the book of Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari; see Grünbaum, Max, Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sagenkunde (Leiden: Brill, 1893), 251–52Google Scholar, 271–77.

57. The motif of “treasure in the belly of a fish” resembles another motif, of “a coin in the mouth of a fish,” which appears in the New Testament, in Matthew 17:24–27. Some of my listeners at the 2016 Cambridge conference assumed that this might have implications for the background of the PS story and perhaps even also of the rabbinic “fish” stories. However, the story in Matthew differs from stories of above-mentioned type, not only because the find is inside the bowels of the fish rather than in its mouth, but because in the stories of “a treasure in the belly,” the find is usually a reward for something that the hero did and a miraculous mobilization of divine providence. See Horbury, William, “The Temple Tax,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. Bammel, Ernest and Moule, Charles F. D. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)Google Scholar, 274nn51 and 53. In “the coin in the mouth” story, the sudden appearance of the right amount of money in the mouth of a fish is a confirmation of the magical abilities of the miracle worker. This motif is relatively rare, and usually attested in medieval literature; see Bauckham, Richard J., “The Coin in the Fish's Mouth,” in Gospel Perspectives 6: The Miracles of Jesus, ed. Wenham, David and Blomberg, Craig (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986)Google Scholar, 252n98, and Eisler, Robert, Orpheus the Fisher: Comparative Studies in Orphic and Early Christian Cult Symbolism (London: J. M. Watkins, 1921), 100–102Google Scholar. Coins and other small objects could be occasionally found in fish's mouths, which shifts the emphasis from the miraculous discovery to Jesus's wondrous ability to predict the event. Bauckham cautiously suggested that the Matthew story was based on some real event of a discovery of a coin in a fish's mouth, after which the resonance of the event was empowered by the folkloristic motif of the “treasure in the fish's belly,” widespread in Jewish Galilee; see Bauckham, “The Coin,” 242–43. I think that we can agree that these two different types of fish stories are not identical; this paper is not about the possible relationships between them.