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An Ancient List of Christian Festivals in Toledot Yeshu: Polemics as Indication for Interaction*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra
Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra*
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université Aix-Marseille
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Extract

Calendars, liturgy, and especially festivals offer a convenient vantage point from which to analyze collective identities. They can provide access to group mentalities rather than to the ideas of individual intellectuals, which are often more or less confined to ivory towers.1 Ritual addresses the whole human being—the intellect, emotions, and body—and it does so by establishing and defining relations between the individual, his or her in-group, and the out-group.2 Every collective identity is formed and reformed in a continuous process encompassing exchange with, as well as distinction from, other possible collective identities.3 Sometimes, this construction of a “we” in distinction from “them” is explicit, while at other times it takes place in a more clandestine and encrypted fashion.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 102 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 481 - 496
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2009

To John Gager

Calendars, liturgy, and especially festivals offer a convenient vantage point from which to analyze collective identities. They can provide access to group mentalities rather than to the ideas of individual intellectuals, which are often more or less confined to ivory towers.Footnote 1 Ritual addresses the whole human being—the intellect, emotions, and body—and it does so by establishing and defining relations between the individual, his or her in-group, and the out-group.Footnote 2 Every collective identity is formed and reformed in a continuous process encompassing exchange with, as well as distinction from, other possible collective identities.Footnote 3 Sometimes, this construction of a “we” in distinction from “them” is explicit, while at other times it takes place in a more clandestine and encrypted fashion.

Explicit polemics form the starting point of the present contribution to this discussion. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the existence of explicit polemics does not negate the possibility of other, friendlier interactions occurring simultaneously. Far from it! As the famous example of Chrysostom demonstrates, polemics (by some members of group A against group B and/or other members of group A) may be an indication of too much “friendly” interaction (between other members of group A and members of group B).

In recent years several studies have been written on Christian-Jewish relations that focus on festivals. There is, for one, the groundbreaking, brilliant, and controversial investigation of Passover by Israel Yuval.Footnote 4 Clemens Leonhard recently published an equally provocative book on the same festival,Footnote 5 and Elliot Horowitz another one on Purim.Footnote 6 The present author tried to break some new ground with a book on Yom Kippur in late antique Judaism and Christianity.Footnote 7 Gerard Rouwhorst tried to disentangle the development of early Christian and Jewish Pentecost traditions.Footnote 8 Joshua Schwartz investigated connections between Sukkot/Hanukka and Encainia (the dedication week of the Holy Sepulcher celebrated in September)Footnote 9—to cite just a few examples.Footnote 10

Two approaches emerge from these studies. The “maximalist” approach tries to extrapolate and reconstruct supposedly lost chapters of the early Jewish-Christian dialogue by juxtaposing Rabbinic passages with Christian sources, neither of which mentions the other religion explicitly. Israel Yuval is arguably one of the leading maximalists.Footnote 11 The “minimalist” approach, on the other hand, tries to “explain away” even the relatively few explicit statements or to date them as late as possible. An excellent example is the work of Johann Maier.Footnote 12 Many of the methodological discussions in studies of this kind suggest the existence of a hidden transcriptFootnote 13 in early Rabbinic sources. Frequently, this controversy is closely associated with a predilection of the opposing sides to date Jewish reactions to Christianity very early (i.e., to the Tannaitic period), or late (i.e., to the Amoraic period or even later), respectively. The growing distance from the Shoah and a greater experience with intra- and extra-Jewish polemics in the modern state of Israel may also influence many scholars' perspectives.

This conundrum is particularly vexing with regard to Christian festivals. Unlike pagan festivals, none of the central Christian liturgical events seem to be mentioned explicitly in Jewish sources from pre-Islamic times. Minimalists may consequently question whether Jews of this period knew anything at all about Christian festivals and/or whether festivals were important enough (or regarded as important enough) to be subject to reactions by Jews. However, the very absence of explicit early Jewish references to Christian festival traditions may be a misperception. An explicit reference is found in some recensions of Toledot Yeshu, and it is my contention that this tradition is in fact of pre-Islamic origin.

Toledot Yeshu is a kind of Jewish anti-Christian romance or anti-Gospel, which has had a very prolific history down to modern times.Footnote 14 Over 100 manuscripts exist in various languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Jewish-Persian, Yiddish, Spanish, Ladino, and German.Footnote 15 This book was a worldwide bestseller, at least unofficially.Footnote 16 However, almost all manuscripts of Toledot Yeshu are late medieval or modern and some details are indeed best explained as medieval or even modern motifs.Footnote 17 Other traditions, on the other hand, appear already in the second and third centuries c.e.Footnote 18 This discrepancy has led to considerable controversy concerning the age of the work. Do the late antique traditions prove the existence of a full-fledged anti-Gospel prior to the rise of Islam, or are they unconnected polemical fragments? Questions of dating are further complicated by the numerous recensions and rather complex literary development of the work.Footnote 19

The anti-Gospel or first part of Toledot Yeshu usually opens with an account of Jesus' not-so-miraculous and not-quite-virginal conception (S1, V1, Y1a)Footnote 20 and his education as a young man (S2, V2–4, Y1b). It continues with Jesus' theft of the divine name, which enabled him to perform miracles in Jerusalem and Galilee (S3–4, V5-6, Y2–3). As in the canonical Gospels, Jesus' arrest and death and stories about what happened to his body occupy a considerable portion of the plot (S5–8, V7–15, Y4–11).

In many manuscripts—all of them belonging to the recensions called Helena and Herod—this anti-Gospel is succeeded by anti-Acts.Footnote 21 In fact, the Helena-recension is the most widespread version of Toledot Yeshu.Footnote 22 Though “unattested before the thirteenth century,” the Helena group has been characterized as “patently making use of earlier materials.”Footnote 23 As we shall see, the list of Christian festivals appears only here.

While anti-Acts varies considerably from one manuscript to another, one common version can be summarized as follows: After Jesus' death, the twelve apostles are dispersed in various countries where their activities within the Jewish communities cause confusion and violent fights (S9, V16, Y12a). The Jewish leaders decide to resolve this chaotic situation by sending Eliyahu alias Paul (in other recensions, Peter) as a “mole” or double agent in order to lead the Jesus-followers to complete separation from Judaism. Eliyahu achieves this aim by introducing a new festival calendar, abolishing circumcision and kashrut, and preaching Sermon on the Mount ethics (S10, V17–19, Y12b). The protagonist of the next section is Nestorius, who in direct opposition to Paul's / Eliyahu's teachings calls on the Christians to return to the Torah and circumcision, emphasizes Christ's manhood, and demands the abolition of bigamy. Nestorius is eventually killed by a crowd of furious Christian women (S11, V20). The final section focuses on Simon Kephas, the president of the (Jewish) Sanhedrin who is forced to convert to Christianity under the threat of total annihilation of all Jews. He accepts under the condition of being allowed to live secluded in a tower in order to protect his purity. Here he composes central pieces of Jewish synagogal poetry (S12, V21). A few manuscripts add an account of the discovery of the True Cross (V22).Footnote 24

These various versions of anti-Acts cast light on an ancient Jewish perspective on the parting of the ways. The considerable space and detail given to the question of the development of an independent Christian festival calendar suggests that it was of considerable importance to the Jewish authors, redactors, copyists, and readers of this tractate to distinguish the Christian festivals from their all-too-similar Jewish counterparts. In addition, we may observe that the Christian calendar is given an extremely early origin. The radical decision to break with the old and create a new festival calendar is attributed to Jesus himself, at least by Elijah (Paul). This can be seen as another sign of the fundamental importance attributed to festivals and rites for the establishment of an identity.Footnote 25

Yet how old is anti-Acts? Simon Légasse suggests that anti-Acts is an addition postdating the ninth century.Footnote 26 Central motifs from the anti-Gospel are repeated (such as the theft of the holy name) and the basic aim of the plot has changed from a depreciation of Jesus to a story about the separation of Judaism and Christianity. As we shall see, neither argument is sufficiently strong. Di Segni deduces from the attribution to Peter of the composition of liturgical hymns or piyyutim—a genre that according to him first appeared after the sixth century—and from the presence of Eleazar HaQallir (floruit sixth/seventh century) a terminus post quem for the Peter section.Footnote 27 However, the beginnings of the Jewish piyyut genre are certainly earlier, in the fourth or fifth century at the latest.Footnote 28

Other scholars note that some elements appearing in other sections of anti-Acts seem to point to a late-antique Syrian milieu. Already Samuel Krauss deduced from the existence of some Aramaic phrases in the otherwise Hebrew text that anti-Acts enshrines old traditions.Footnote 29 Some words are indeed unattested in Palestinian Jewish Aramaic but do exist in Syriac.Footnote 30 The depiction of Simon Peter sitting alone in a tower has long been compared to that of Simeon Stylites.Footnote 31 Nestorius, the propagandist of the third section of Toledot Yeshu (who has almost nothing in common with the theologian of the mid-fifth century) has been regarded as a caricature of Barsauma of Nisibis of the fifth century.Footnote 32 In what follows, I shall advance further arguments that firmly contextualize the list of festivals from the Eliyahu/Paul section of anti-Acts in late antiquity. The passage appears in a speech given by Elijah alias Paul to the Christian Jews:

Jesus said to you: Everybody in my possession shall desecrate the Sabbath that already the Holy One may he be blessed hated and keep the First Day [Sunday] instead, since on this day the Holy One may he be blessed enlightened his world;

and for [the days of] Passover, which Israel keeps, make them into the festival of the Resurrection (),Footnote 33 since on this [day] he rose from his tomb;

and for Shavuot ()Footnote 34 Ascension ()Footnote 35, and this is the day on which he ascended to heaven;

and for Rosh Hashanah the Passing Away / Invention of the Cross ( / )Footnote 36;

and for the Great FastFootnote 37 the Circumcision ()Footnote 38;

and for Chanukkah Kalendae.Footnote 39

Samuel Krauss regarded the list of festivals as confused or imprecise:Footnote 40 “The Jewish narrator did not have to have a Christian calendar before his eyes, neither did he want to inquire.”Footnote 41 At first glance, the confusion does indeed seem quite substantial: Shavuot is compared to the Feast of Ascension instead of Pentecost; Rosh Hashanah is compared to the Invention of the Cross (observed in May according to Krauss); Yom Kippur is associated with the circumcision of Christ usually celebrated on January first, etc. However, if we consider Christian liturgical practice at the end of the fourth or the fifth century, the confusing fog evaporates and the Jewish text emerges as being quite well informed about Christian festivals.

For the first centuries c.e., the fifty days of Pentecost constituted a single long festival celebrating Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension and the pouring out of the Spirit.Footnote 42 The last day of Pentecost received special devotion beginning in the third century,Footnote 43 but a separate festival of Ascension began to develop only in the late-fourth century.Footnote 44 In the fourth and early fifth centuries, the final Sunday of the 50-day period, the day of Pentecost, often commemorated both the Outpouring of the Spirit on the Apostles and the Ascension of Jesus.Footnote 45 The Doctrina Apostolorum, a text from an environment with close (but tense) Jewish-Christian relations, states explicitly that the ascension is celebrated on the last day of the Pentecost.Footnote 46 Egeria's Diary, which describes the liturgy of Jerusalem in the 380s, does not seem to know of Ascension as a distinct festival.Footnote 47 Even the Old Armenian Lectionary, which reflects the Jerusalem liturgy from the early-fifth century, seems to regard Ascension as a rather recent development.Footnote 48 While I would not press this point too strongly,Footnote 49 my impression is that Toledot Yeshu is not confused here, but rather reflects contemporary Christian ritual life in a community in which the Christian Shavuot/Pentecost included a commemoration of the ascension. This is reinforced by further observations regarding the other festivals mentioned in the text.

Rosh Hashanah is juxtaposed with a Cross festival, the “Passing Away of the Cross” () or, according to an emendation by Krauss based on a Yiddish manuscript (B), the “Invention of the Cross” (). Clearly, this is a reference to the famous Exaltatio Crucis on September 14.Footnote 50 This festival, a major liturgical event, spread from fourth-century Jerusalem throughout the East and from the seventh century onwards in the West.Footnote 51 From a calendrical viewpoint, September 14 fits the comparison to Rosh Hashanah rather well. In the late fourth century, Egeria points to the invention of the cross as central to the feast of the Enkainia. In fact, this may well have been the feast's original name (or its designation among outsiders who knew about the importance of the tradition): “The dedications of those holy churches are celebrated with the highest reverence as the cross of the Lord has been found on the very same day.'Footnote 52 Krauss cleverly emends (“passing away” or “funeral”) to (“finding”) in order to arrive at the name of a Christian festival.Footnote 53 Yet, the present Aramaic form could in fact be a pun playing on the similar spelling and sound of “Finding of the Cross” and “Passing Away” or even “Death of the Cross,” or if taken more literally, on “Laying Down of the Cross” and “Exaltation of the Cross.”Footnote 54

The next Christian festival mentioned, (g zôrta = circumcision), the comparandum for Yom Kippur, seems particularly strange. Krauss explains this as the celebration of Christ's circumcision, usually commemorated on January 1. This does not make much sense from the perspective of the liturgical calendar. Krauss suggests that the author confused the circumcision of Jesus with the birth of Mary.Footnote 55 This requires quite a bit of emendation. Another much smaller emendation might provide a more satisfying solution: reading g zîrta instead of g zôrta. Yod instead of waw is the most common scribal error in texts that use square script. Syriac (g zîrta) can also mean indictio.Footnote 56 If this is understood as referring to the (Day of the) Indiction, the two dates given for the holiday, namely September 23 (before ca. 450) or September 1 (after ca. 450), match Yom Kippur rather well.Footnote 57 As we know from later sources, this day was publicly celebrated with processions.Footnote 58 In fact, if Rosh Hashanah is compared to the Invention/Exaltation of the Cross on September 14 and Yom Kippur to the Indiction on September 23, the number of days between the Jewish and Christian festivals is identical.

Reading g zîrta might even help us establish a terminus ad quem for the composition of this list of festivals. After ca. 450, the Indiction is set on September 1, before the festival of the Cross on September 14. However, the comparison begins with Rosh Hashanah vs. Invention of the Cross (September 14) followed by Yom Kippur vs. Indiction (September 1). If the list indeed emerged after 450, the order of festivals would have been reversed: Rosh Hashanah (1 Tishri) would have been compared to the Indiction (September 1) and Yom Kippur (10 Tishri) to the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14). From the perspective of the liturgical content of the Christian festivals, juxtaposing Tishri 1 with September 1 would even have been a closer analogy. The present text is therefore also the lectio difficilior. As our text does not exploit these elements of even closer similarity, we may conclude that more probably the list of analog festivals was composed before 450. Moreover, a reference to the Indiction, unknown as it was in the Persian world, gives an indication as to the Eastern limits of possible provenance and confines this section firmly inside the Byzantine Empire.

Finally, listing the (pagan) Kalendae (Ianuariae) as parallel to Chanukka, too, points to a rather early period when this festival was still important, more important than Christmas. The term Kalendae is very well known in Jewish sources. It appears in an ancient rabbinic discussion of pagan festivals to be avoidedFootnote 59 and has been juxtaposed with Chanukka.Footnote 60 The natural comparandum to Chanukka in a medieval Christian context, however, would have been Christmas. The absence of Christmas from the list in Toledot Yeshu may point to a time when this festival was not yet widely celebrated or to a geographical area where Christmas did not (yet) attract as much attention as Kalendae (still) did. Statements by Augustine and Faustus the Manichean prove the attraction of the Kalendae to Christians in very late fourth- and early-fifth-century North Africa.Footnote 61 Libanius and Chrysostom attest to its appeal in Antioch at this time.Footnote 62 It is likewise well known that it took much longer for Christmas to become attractive in certain parts of the East.Footnote 63

In short, the cumulative evidence seems to point to a rather early provenance for this list of Christian (and Jewish) festivals between the late-fourth and mid-fifth centuries. The validity of these conclusions relies on the presupposition that the list of festivals is chronologically sequential. The order of the Jewish festivals makes this assumption highly probable. The list begins with the weekly festival Sabbath. The yearly festivals Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Chanukka follow in strictly chronological order. To begin with the Sabbath and to continue with Passover is unexceptional and accords with biblical passages such as Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28–29.Footnote 64 Many lists in rabbinic literature likewise begin with Passover rather than with Rosh Hashanah.Footnote 65 If the interpretations noted above are correct, the list of Christian festivals follows the same strict chronological order as the Jewish one, beginning with the weekly Sunday and then continuing with the yearly festivals Easter, Ascension, festival of the Cross, Indictio, and Kalendae.Footnote 66 As the list of Christian festivals is juxtaposed with a chronologically ordered Jewish list, this assumption seems to me very probable, but it remains a hypothesis.

This conclusion is further supported by the observation that later scribes failed to understand the aforementioned practices and tried to avoid difficulties by updating the liturgical practices to suit their contemporary environment. An important Yiddish manuscript compares Shavuot to “Pfingsten.” Other manuscripts take an even easier route and omit the list of holidays, referring simply to “Sabbaths and festivals”:

And [Eliyahu] said: the most important thing that Yeshu (may his memory be blotted out) wants from you is that you separate from the Jews in Torah, language, social contact, Sabbaths, and festivals and that you make houses for your prayers.Footnote 67

Assuming that the provenance suggested for the Christian list of festivals reflected in the present text is correct, we cannot rule out the possibility that a fifth-century Christian list was used by a Jewish author who lived later, or even much later, and/or not in the same region as the origin of the list.Footnote 68 Easter and Ascension/Pentecost would have been well known to most people. The author could have learned from the Talmudic discussions that Kalendae could be linked to Chanukka. He would have fortuitously juxtaposed the Cross festival with Rosh Hashana and the Indiction/Circumcision with Yom Kippur without necessarily understanding what they were and when they were celebrated. However, adjustments to the list of festivals in later manuscripts of Toledot Yeshu that adapt the Christian festivals to contemporary practice make it more likely, in my view, that someone using an old list to compose this part of Toledot Yeshu would have revised his source at the outset to reflect contemporary circumstances. In addition, subsequent to the list of festivals, the text speaks of circumcision. It would have been smoother and more convincing in a Catholic or Orthodox environment to juxtapose Chanukka with the commemoration of Jesus' circumcision on January 1st (as is in fact done, e.g., in a Yiddish manuscript).Footnote 69 Yet we cannot disprove the possibility that an early Christian list was later used by a Jewish author.

In sum, the Aramaic festival names that preserve Syriac loanwords in a Hebrew text and the liturgical realia reflected in the titles of the festivals suggest strongly that the Strasbourg manuscript has faithfully transmitted early traditions from the late-fourth or (more probably) early-fifth century that have been updated to reflect contemporary liturgical practice in most other manuscripts of anti-Acts.

What kind of sociological situation could have been the setting for such a composition? According to anti-Acts, the separation of Judaism and Christianity does not cause war but peace. It is the ambiguity before the foundation of new and distinct religious rules of conduct that causes trouble. Paul alias Elijah is in a sense a Saint for the Jews, since in founding Christianity as a separate religious system he ends the blurring of boundaries. In contrast to, e.g., the Pseudo-Clementines, which portray Paul as the great betrayer, the anti-Acts of Toledot Yeshu accepts one of the central themes of mainstream Christianity, viewing Paul as a separator between Jews and Christians.Footnote 70 Why? In a poignant paper, John Gager has termed groups on the boundary between mainstream Judaism and mainstream Christianity (i.e., Jewish Christians, Christian Jews, and God-fearers) “the dangerous ones in between”—“dangerous” in the view of the proponents of both mainstreams.Footnote 71 Simon Légasse has suggested that the anti-Acts section of Toledot Yeshu emerged in medieval Western Europe. Jews, he postulated, were afraid of Judaizing Christians since their attraction to Judaism could anger Christian authorities and cause trouble for the Jews.Footnote 72 Speaking out against Christian Judaization, then, was a kind of preemptive Jewish self-censorship. As I have tried to argue, the Elijah/Paul section of anti-Acts in the Helena-recension of Toledot Yeshu (and possibly even a rudimentary version of Toledot Yeshu) should be dated to the late-fourth or early-fifth century. Chrysostom and ecclesiastic legislation indicate that there was a significant amount of Christian “Judaizing” in the contemporary Eastern Empire.Footnote 73 Severe punishments for Jewish instigators of Christian converts in Imperial legislationFootnote 74 show that Christian authorities tried to prevent Jews from converting Christians. In 383 c.e., even instigating others to merely participate in Jewish rituals became a crime punishable by death.Footnote 75

On the other hand, Jewish Christianizing, too, would probably not have been seen as laudable by other Jews. It is difficult to estimate the extent of this phenomenon as sources are scarce.Footnote 76 Jewish punishment and persecution of Jewish converts to Christianity is prohibited by several imperial laws from the early-fourth and early-fifth centuries.Footnote 77 Conversion to Christianity for social, criminal, or fiscal rather than religious reasons is prohibited by other lawsFootnote 78 from the late-fourth and early-fifth centuries. Anyone who partially observed Christian rites and continued to abide by Jewish customs would naturally be suspected of being such a pseudo-convert. The polemics of this part of anti-Acts therefore serve as an indicator for the existence of Jewish-Christian interaction and fit a situation in which Jewish identity had to be reinforced.Footnote 79

Conclusions and Implications

Let me briefly summarize my main points. The list of festivals appearing in some versions of the Eliyahu/Paul section of the anti-Acts of Toledot Yeshu suggests an early date—probably the first half of the fifth, or perhaps even the late-fourth century—for this part of the text. Paganism was still part of the landscape (Kalendae Ianuariae), and Christmas was not yet universally celebrated. Pentecost and Ascension were not yet clearly separate holidays, and the True Cross began to have great significance in popular belief and behavior. Most probably, anti-Acts was already part of a recension of a composition similar to our Toledot Yeshu. It may not belong to the earliest stage of the Toledot, however, since it seems unlikely that recensions without anti-Acts opted to excise them at one point. The Syriac elements, the absence of Christmas, and the presence of Persia and Nestorius may point to a geographical area east of the Orontes, in particular for the Nestorius section. The reference to the Indiction excludes Babylonia, so the most probable provenance is Byzantine Syria/Palestine. However, the three sections of anti-Acts are not necessarily of the same age and provenance. A gradual expansion is possible: as the Nestorius section refers to the Eliyahu section, the former may well be a later embellishment of the latter. The Syriac festival names, otherwise unattested in Palestinian Aramaic, may even testify to a (written) Christian source as its original nucleus. Jewish lists of Christian festivals most likely existed in Late Antiquity and were known to authors who took the regulations in the first chapter of Avoda Zara seriously.

Scholars have wondered why Palestinian rabbinic sources include so few openly anti-Christian traditions in comparison to the Babylonian Talmud. Recently, Schäfer ascribed this to the different political situations of Byzantine and Sassanian Jewry.Footnote 80 However, if Toledot Yeshu (not only the list of Christian festivals) turns out to be from late antiquity, this discrepancy between Babylonian and Palestinian Jewry must be reevaluated. It is not impossible that this apparent difference was caused by the tendency of Palestinian Judaism to exclude material from the Talmud and to create separate compositions such as the midrashim or Toledot Yeshu. The Bavli, as a melting pot of many different genres, includes a larger proportion of anti-Gospel material.Footnote 81 So far, assuming that my presuppositions and interpretations are correct, we can only make a probable case for a small part of Toledot Yeshu, the Eliyahu section, and only in one recension, that of Helena. Yet some late-antique Palestinian Aramaic Piyyutim found in the Geniza are very explicitly anti-Christian and provide further evidence for the existence of explicitly anti-Christian texts from Byzantine Palestine.Footnote 82 To reach firmer conclusions on this point we must wait for the critical edition and in-depth analysis of all of Toledot Yeshu that has been announced as project in progress by Peter Schäfer.

Now, let us return to the more important social realm: Clearly, this passage in anti-Acts betrays the perspective of somebody who has a general knowledge of contemporary Christian festal traditions in Palestine/Syria. He is well acquainted with at least parts of the New Testament and bothered by people and groups blurring the boundaries between Christianity and Judaism, Jewish Christianizers, Christian Judaizers and most of all by Jewish Christians. In his view, interaction and mixing traditions causes conflict and festivals emerge as particularly important for the construction of Jewish and Christian identities, respectively. It does not seem too far-fetched for me to assume that the original composer(s) of anti-Acts lived in a time and a geographical area in which Christian participation in Jewish festivities and Jewish participation in Christian celebrations were not marginal phenomena. The author(s) then belong(s) to a hard-liner group that wants to limit these phenomena.

References

1 Of the vast literature on this subject, I will mention pars pro toto the particularly good article by Jan Assmann, “Der zweidimensionale Mensch. Das Fest als Medium des kollektiven Gedächtnisses,” in Das Fest und das Heilige. Religiöse Kontrapunkte zur Alltagswelt (ed. idem; Studien zum Verstehen fremder Religionen 1; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1991) 13–30; as well as Christoph Auffarth, “Feste als Medium antiker Religionen. Methodische Konzeptionen zur Erforschung komplexer Rituale,” in Zwischen Krise und Alltag. Antike Religionen im Mittelmeerraum / Conflit et normalité. Religions anciennes dans l‘espace méditerranéen (ed. Christophe Batsch, Ulrike Engelhaaf-Gaiser, and Ruth Stepper; Potsdamer altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 1; Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999) 31–42; and Alessandro Falassi, “Festival: Definition and Morphology,” in Time out of Time: Essays on the Festival (ed. idem; Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967) 1–10. Noteworthy books include Jörg Rüpke, Kalender und Öffentlichkeit. Die Geschichte der Repräsentation und religiösen Qualifikation von Zeit in Rom (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 40; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995); and Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar 2nd Century b.c.e.–10th Century c.e. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

2 See, for example, Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); and eadem, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

3 Henri Tajfel, “Social Categorization, Social Identity and Social Comparison,” in Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (ed. idem; London: Academic Press, 1978) 61–76; Gerd Baumann, “Ritual Implicates ‘Others': Rereading Durkheim in a Plural Society,” in Understanding Rituals (ed. Daniel de Coppet; London: Routledge, 1992) 97–116.

4 Israel Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages ([Hebrew] Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000; trans. [English]; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

5 Clemens Leonhard, The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian Easter: Open Questions in Current Research (Studia Judaica 35; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006).

6 Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).

7 Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century (WUNT 163; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2003).

8 Gerard Rouwhorst, “The Origins and Evolution of Early Christian Pentecost,” Studia Patristica 35 (2001) 309–22; cf. Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Parody and Polemics on Pentecost: Talmud Yerushalmi Pesahim on Acts 2?” in Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into its History and Interaction (ed. Albert Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard; Jewish and Christian Perspectives 15; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 279–93.

9 Joshua Schwartz, “The Encaenia of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Temple of Solomon and the Jews,” ThZ 43 (1987) 265–81.

10 See also the highly interesting work of Stephane Verhelst, “La liturgie de Jérusalem à l'époque byzantine. Genèse et structures de l'année liturgique” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999); and idem, “Le 15 Août, le 9 Av et le Kathisme,” Questions Liturgiques 82 (1987) 167–69.

11 Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb. See also Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); and Stökl Ben Ezra, “Parody and Polemics on Pentecost.”

12 Johann Maier, Jesus von Nazareth in der talmudischen Überlieferung (Erträge der Forschung 82; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978). See also Leonhard, The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian Easter.

13 For this term see James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: The Hidden Transcript of Subordinate Groups (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

14 For the history of this impact, see Yaakov Deutsch, “Toledot Yeshu in Christian Eyes” (M.A. diss. [Hebrew]; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997); Riccardo Di Segni, “La tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu. Manoscritti, edizioni a stampa classificazione,” Rassegna Mensile di Israel 50 (1984) 83–100; idem, Il Vangelo del Ghetto (Rome: Newton Compton, 1985); William Horbury, “A Critical Examination of the Toledoth Jeshu” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1970); George Howard, “A Primitive Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and the Tol'doth Yeshu,” New Testament Studies 34 (1988) 60–70; Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach jüdischen Quellen (Berlin: S. Cavalry, 1902; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1994); idem and William Horbury, The Jewish-Christian Controversy from the Earliest Times to 1789. Volume 1: History (ed. and rev. William Horbury; Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 56; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996); Hillel Newman, “The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature,” JTS 50 (1999) 59–79.

15 For a list, see Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto, 225–31.

16 A further indication of the widespread and far-reaching influence of the polemic is the great variety of scripts that come from practically all areas of medieval Judaism: Ashkenazi, Oriental, Yemenite, Persian, and Italian. Some are even attributed to Karaites (Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto, 33).

17 The earliest manuscripts are a number of very fragmentary Aramaic copies from the Geniza, perhaps from the eleventh century. See Daniel Boyarin, “A Corrected Reading of the New ‘History of Jesus' Fragment,” Tarbiz 47 (1978) 249–52 [Hebrew]; and Yaakov Deutsch, “New Evidence of Early Versions of Toledot Yeshu,” Tarbiz 69 (2000) 177–97 [Hebrew]. The full narrative is first attested in a Christian reaction to it by Agobard in ninth century Lyons. See Agobard (d. 840), De iudaicis superstitionibus et erroribus 10: PL 104 :77–100 = MGH Ep. V :185–99; see also the Epistula contra Iudaeos of Agobard's successor Amulo (d. 852): PL 116 :141–84.

18 Newman, “The Death of Jesus”; Horbury, “A Critical Examination of the Toledoth Jeshu.”

19 Classification of the recensions of Toledot Yeshu is a topic worthy of research in itself. See the useful introduction to Newman's fascinating article, “The Death of Jesus.” One of the more recent attempts at classification is the detailed study by Di Segni (“La tradizione testuale delle Toledoth Jeshu,” in Il vangelo del Ghetto, 29–42 and 216–19). Di Segni distinguishes between three primary recensions named according to the protagonist supervising the trial of Jesus: Pilate, Queen Helena, and Herod. Di Segni regards the Pilate group represented by the Aramaic Geniza fragments, Agobard, and Amulo as the earliest recension.

20 S= ms Strasbourg, bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, ms 3974 (Héb. 48) pages 170–75 (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, Heb. 38–50; Germ. 50–64), V= ms Vienna, now lost, olim Vienna, Israelitische Theologische Lehranstalt, Cod. Heb. 54 (ibid., Heb. 64–88; Germ. 88–117), Y= ms Yemen, now lost, olim private collection of E. Alder, London (ibid., Heb. 118–21; Germ. 122–28); B= ms Bodleiana, Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms Rawl. Or. 37. I use the same sigla as Krauss with the exception of ms Yemen that Krauss abbreviates A. The numbers following the sigla indicate sections. In addition I use, L= London, Sassoon Library 793, pages 359–65; and J= Jerusalem, National Library 8° 864, folia 80v–85r. Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto, 225–31, uses sigla Je12 for Jerusalem, *K2 for Vienna, *K1 for Yemen, LoS2 for Sassoon, Ox5 for Bodleiana and St for Strasbourg. Krauss (ibid., 27–37) classifies S and Y as Wagenseil type (Di Segni: Elena-primo), V as de Rossi (Di Segni: Elena-Italiano). The birth account is absent from the earliest witness to the Helena recension, Raimundo Martini (Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto, 33) and from the “Pilate” recension of the Geniza fragments and Ibn Shaprut (Deutsch, “New Evidence,” 178).

21 On this part, see Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto, 203–15; Simon Légasse, “La légende juive des Apôtres et les rapports judéo-chrétiens dans le haut Moyen Age,” Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique 75 (1974) 99–132; and idem, “La légende juive des Apôtres et les rapports judéo-chrétiens dans le Moyen Age occidental,” Yearbook of the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies, 1974/75: 121–39.

22 Di Segni subdivides it into four branches: primo, italiano, Wagenseil and Slavo (Il vangelo del Ghetto, 31–40).

23 Newman, “The Death of Jesus,” 60.

24 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 141–43.

25 In contrast, I. Troki claims that Sunday was introduced (by the pope) only 500 years after Jesus' death (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 271).

26 Légasse, “La légende juive … dans le haut Moyen Age,” 101.

27 Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto, 209. A more recent investigation of Peter in Jewish sources is Wout van Bekkum, “‘The Rock on which the Church is Founded': Simon Peter in Jewish Folktale,” in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity (ed. Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz; Jewish and Christian Perspectives 7; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 289–310.

28 Aharon Mirsky, Yosse ben Yosse Poems (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1991 [Hebrew]); Joseph Yahalom, Priestly Palestinian Poetry: A Narrative Liturgy for the Day of Atonement (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996 [Hebrew]).

29 Samuel Krauss, “Neuere Ansichten über ‘Toledoth Jeschu'” MGWJ 77 (1933) 44–61, esp. 46–47.

30 E.g., for ‘Resurrection' and for ‘Ascension.' See M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1992) and R. Payne Smith's Thesaurus Syriacus (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879–1901) 2:2210 and 2649.

31 Samuel Krauss, “The Mount of Olives in ‘Toldoth Jesu,'” Zion 4 (1939) 170–76 [Hebrew], at 170.

32 Stephen Gerö, “The Nestorius Legend in the Toledoth Yeshu,” OrChr 59 (1975) 108–20.

33 According to a “better” manuscript mentioned by Krauss (“Neuere Ansichten,” 47). ms B reads .

34 B: Shavuot.

35 B: Pfingsten. Accoding to L and J, (every) Sunday, the ascension is celebrated. These manuscripts are important as they give the festival names in Aramaic but compared to S their readings are clearly secondary corrections.

36 S reads (lying down, death, funeral sermon), cf. L () and J () which are clearly misreadings. On Krauss's emendation to (finding), see below. ms B reads “gefunden das Holz” (in Yiddish).

37 B: Yom Kippur.

38 B: gewest. L and J read (judgment), again a secondary improvement using a known expression which does not make sense in a liturgical context. But see below for an explanation for reading “Indiction” here.

39 B: Tomis. L and J: (every year). The full text of S reads:

. (ms Strasbourg according to Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 48 with the lect. var. according to the article mentioned in the previous footnotes [translation mine]).

40 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 271–72: “Der Wortlaut des Toldoth ist zwar Kreuzauffindung, aber solche Ungenauigkeiten müssen wir schon in den Kauf nehmen und die Meinung dahin berichtigen, dass die Kreuzaufrichtung gemeint ist.”

41 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 271: “Der jüdische Erzähler mußte eben keinen christlichen Kalender vor sich haben, als er dies schrieb, und erkundigen mochte er sich auch nicht.”

42 Odo Casel, La fête de Pâques dans l'Église des Pères (Paris: CERF, 1963; French translation of “Art und Sinn der ältesten christlichen Osterfeier,” Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft 14 [1938] 1–78); Thomas Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1991) 62–63; and the references given below. Gerard Rouwhorst (“The Origins and Evolution of Early Christian Pentecost”) argues that even Pentecost was not observed in the first two centuries.

43 See the ambiguous Tertullian De baptismo 19:2 (ed. Gerlo; CChr.SL, 1954) 1:293–94.

44 Chrysostom, In ascensionem domini nostri Iesu Christi (PG 50:441–52); Franz-Rudolf Weinert, Christi Himmelfahrt. Neutestamentliches Fest im Spiegel alttestamentlicher Psalmen. Zur Entstehung des römischen Himmelfahrtsoffizium (Disserationen theologische Reihe 25; Sankt Ottilien: EOS 1987) 6–22.

45 Robert Cabié, La Pentecôte. L'évolution de la cinquantaine pascale au cours des cinq premiers siècles (Tournai: Desclée, 1965) 127–45; Georg Kretschmar, “Himmelfahrt und Pfingsten,” ZKG 66 (1954/55) 209–53.

46 Canon 9: “At the completion of fifty days after His resurrection make ye commemoration of His ascension to His glorious Father” (ANF 8:668). For the Syriac, see Paul de Lagarde, Reliquiae juris ecclesiastici antique syriace (Leipzig: Teubner, 1856) 32–44; and William Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents Relative to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the Neighbouring Countries from the Year after Our Lord's Ascension to the Beginning of the Fourth Century (London: Williams & Norgate, 1864) 24–35 [ET], 166–73 (notes), *24–*35 (Syriac), at 27. See also the beginning of the treatise, which dates the event of Jesus' ascension to the fiftieth day after Passover: “In the year three hundred and thirty-nine of the kingdom of the Greeks, in the month Heziran, on the fourth day of the same, which is the first day of the week, and the end of Pentecost—on the selfsame day came the disciples from Nazareth of Galilee, where the conception of our Lord was announced, to the mount which is called that of the Place of Olives, our Lord being with them, but not being visible to them. And at the time of early dawn our Lord lifted up His hands, and laid them upon the heads of the eleven disciples, and gave to them the gift of the priesthood. And suddenly a bright cloud received Him. And they saw Him as He was going up to heaven. And He sat down on the right hand of His Father. And they praised God because they saw His ascension according as He had told them; and they rejoiced because they had received the Right Hand conferring on them the priesthood of the house of Moses and Aaron” (ANF 667). Based on the absence of a separate festival of Ascension, Francis C. Burkitt dates this text to the “fourth or even third century,” but this is not necessary; see his review of Anton Baumstark's Geschichte der Syrischen Literatur in JTS 24 (1923) 200–3. The third century is highly unlikely in view of the mention of Lent.

47 Some think Egeria's Diary might refer to Ascension by the name of “forty days” (42:1). Yet the ceremony described by Egeria takes place in Bethlehem, not the Imbomon. According to the date given by manuscript P of the Armenian lectionary (pace ms J 121), this may in fact be the feast of the Innocents that in 383 fell on the fortieth day after Easter (Paul Devos, “Egérie à Bethléem. Le 40e jour après Pâques à Jérusalem en 383,” AnBoll 86 [1968] 87–108). That she did not yet know of Ascension becomes more probable in view of the next paragraph, according to which the liturgical contents of Ascension are still part of Pentecost (43:5).

48 See Charles (Athanase) Renoux, Le Codex arménien jérusalem 121. Tome 2: Édition, comparée du texte et de deux autres manuscrits (PO 36/2; Turnhout: Brepols, 1971; no. LVII, LVIII, 336–48).

49 For example, the preference of Ascension over Pentecost might also be influenced by awareness of the Christian claim that Jesus ascended to heaven. See y. Ta‘anit 2:1 (65b) and Schäfer (2007, 107–11).

50 And not to the celebration of the Inventio Crucis in May in medieval and later Latin liturgy as briefly discussed by Krauss.

51 Louis van Tongeren, Exaltation of the Cross: Towards the Origins of the Feast of the Cross and the Meaning of the Cross in Early Medieval Liturgy (Liturgia condenda 11; Leuven: Peeters, 2001); idem, “Vom Kreuzritus zur Kreuzestheologie. Die Entstehungsgeschichte des Festes der Kreuzerhöhung und seine erste Ausbreitung im Westen,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 112 (1998) 216–45.

52 Harum ergo ecclesiarum sanctarum encenia cum summo honore celebrantur quoniam crux Domini inventa est ipsa die (Diary 48:1).

53 The regular Syriac form for inventio crucis would be rather without the initial Aleph (Payne Smith 2:4150).

54 is attested in b. Ketub 103b for death. This word play could hardly be translated to Yiddish. Alternatively, the Yiddish form reports the original and the current Aramaic is a later pun.

55 Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 272.

56 Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, 1:701.

57 Venance Grumel, “Indiction,” in NCE 7 (1967) 466–68; idem, “Indiction byzantine et ΝΕОΝ ΕТОΣ,” Revue de Études Byzantines 12 (1954) 128–43; and compare the additional notes of François Halkin, “La nouvelle année au septembre,” AnBoll 90 (1972) 36; and Denis Feissel, “Notes d‘épigraphie chrétienne (VII),” Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 108 (1984) 545–79, esp. 566–71. The more widespread Syriac term for indiction seems to be simply the transcription of the Latin/Greek. Carl Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum (Halle: Niemeyer, 21928; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1982); see reverse index. Thanks to Adam Becker for this information. In the continuation of Payne Smith's entry to g zîrta there is another not unsuitable candidate for a pendant to Yom Kippur: (auma d g zîrta), the Fast of the Ninevites. Some of its readings indicate connections to Yom Kippur (e.g., Isa 58:1–14, Jonah 3–4). This multi-day fast was observed around February by both Syrian churches as a major event. See Anton Baumstark, Nichtevangelische syrische Perikopenordnungen des ersten Jahrtausends (Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen 15; Münster: Aschendorff, 1921, 21971) 60–64. The earliest evidence comes from the end of sixth century (ibid.). In an erudite answer to an inquiry on the hugoye-list, Basil Lourie suggested as terminus ad (!) quem the late fourth century (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hugoye-list/message/277). This seems too early to me.

58 Venance Grumel, La chronologie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1958) 192–206.

59 m. ‘Aboda Zar. 1:3 and the relevant Talmudic discussions y. ‘Aboda Zar. 1:2(3) (39c) and b. ‘Aboda Zar. 8a, as well as t. ‘Aboda Zar. 1:4.

60 Moshe Benovitz, “Herod and Hanukka,” Zion 68 (2003) 5–40 [Hebrew]; Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Interaction et différenciation. Quelques pensées sur les rôles des fêtes juives, chrétiennes (et ‘païennes'),” in Cohabitations et contacts religieux (ed. Nicole Belayche and Jean-Daniel Dubois; Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Etudes, Sciences religieuses; Turnhout: Brepols; forthcoming).

61 John Scheid, “Les réjouissances des calendes de janvier d'après le sermon Dolbeau 26. Nouvelles lumières sur une fête mal connue,” in Augustin prédicateur (395–411), Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly, 5–7 septembre 1996 (ed. Goulven Madec; Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1998) 353–65; M. Kahlos, “Pompa diaboli. The Grey Area of Urban Festivals in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries,” in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History XII (ed. Carl Deroux; Collection Latomus 287; Brussels: Latomus, 2005) 467–83.

62 Fritz Graf, “Kalendae Ianuariae,” in Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Geburtstagssymposium für Walter Burkert (ed. idem; Stuttgart & Leipzig: Teubner, 1998) 199–216; idem, “Roman Festivals in Syria Palaestina,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture III (ed. Peter Schäfer; Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 93; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 135–51.

63 E.g. Jerusalem and Armenia (Susan Roll, “Weihnachten,” TRE 35 [2003] 453–68, at 461). On Christmas in general, see Susan Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas (Liturgia Condenda 5; Kampen: Peeters/Kok-Pharos, 1995); Martin Wallraff, Christus Verus Sol. Sonnenverehrung und Christentum in der Spätantike (JAC Suppl. 32; Münster: Aschendorff, 2001) 174–97; Hans Förster, Die Feier der Geburt Christi in der Alten Kirche (Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 4; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).

64 Compared to these lists, some festivals and fast-days are absent (e.g. Sukkot, Purim, and Tish‘a beAv), and the post-biblical Chanukkah has been added. Compare also Deuteronomy 16 (Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot) and 2 Chr 8 (Sabbath, New Moon, Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot); these lists commence with Passover or the Sabbath but do not mention Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

65 E.g. m. Meg. 3:5–6, which mentions Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot followed by Chanukkah, Purim, the New Moon, and liturgical events; see also y. Meg. 3:5 (73d), b. Meg. 30b and Sofrim 17:5. For the sequence Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, see also t. Meg. 3:5, t. B. Metz. 4:18, and t. Bek. 7:9. Sifra Emor 10:13 juxtaposes Passover and Shavuot with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur without Sukkot.

66 The sequence weekly-yearly festivals is also attested in the Codex Theodosianus (15:5:5): Sunday, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost and the Apostolic Passion (of Peter and Paul).

67

ms V ch. 19 (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 85). ms Y replaces almost the entire list and gives Sunday, Christmas, Epiphany, Good Friday/Easter, and Ascension instead: “[Eliyahu] said: ‘Jesus gives you a sign. He said, know what is written in the Torah (Isa 1:14): Your new moons and your festivals my soul hated.' They said: ‘[If] already the Holy One May He Be Blessed hated those days, come, let us abstain from work on the first day of the week on which the Holy One May He Be Blessed enlightened his world and let us decree (make) as festivals the day Jesus was born, the day he was instituted [Epiphany?], the day he died and the day he ascended into heaven.' ” . ms Y, ch. 12 (Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 121).

68 The notion of a medieval Jewish sage accessing ancient Christian Syriac material is not implausible. See Martha Himmelfarb, “R. Moses the Preacher and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,” AJS Review 9 (1984) 55–78, esp. 75–77.

69 B, mentioned above, and Krauss.

70 Légasse, “La légende juive … dans le haut Moyen Age,” 106.

71 John Gager, “Jews, Christians and the Dangerous Ones in Between,” in Interpretation in Religion (ed. Shlomo Biderman and Ben-Ami Scharfstein; Philosophy and Religion 2; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 249–57.

72 Légasse, “La légende juive … dans le haut Moyen Age,” 120–21.

73 Marcel Simon, “La polémique antijuive de saint Jean Chrysostome et le mouvement judaïsant d'Antioche,” in idem, Recherches d'histoire judéo-chrétienne (Paris-La Haye: Mouton, 1962) 140–53; Robert Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Berkeley: Wipf & Stock, 1983); Rudolf Brändle, “Christen und Juden in Antiochien in den Jahren 386/387. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte altkirchlicher Judenfeindschaft,” Judaica 43 (1987) 142–68.

74 Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation ([ET]Detroit: Wayne State University Press; Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1987 [Hebrew original: Jerusalem, 1983]), nos. 8, 12, 16, 39, 50, 54.

75 Cod. Theod. 16:7:3 = Linder, no. 16.

76 Günter Stemberger, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the Fourth Century (Edinburgh: Continuum, 2000) 80.

77 Linder, nos. 8, 10, 52. The most interesting law against “Christianizing” by Jews is in fact much later (eighth century, according to Linder, no. 65).

78 Linder nos. 26, 43.

79 Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society: 200 b.c.e.to 640 c.e. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) 240–74.

80 Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud, 113–22

81 The Babylonian Talmud sometimes reports such traditions in blocks (e.g., the Book of Dreams), and sometimes separately. The Jesus traditions are widely scattered, much like the exegetical traditions of, e.g., Genesis. On the book of dreams, see the forthcoming book by Haim Weiss, ‘All Dreams Follow the Mouth'? A Literary and Cultural Reading in the Talmudic ‘Dream Tractate' (Be'ersheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev [Hebrew]).

82 Michael Sokoloff and Joseph Yahalom, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity: Critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1999 [Hebrew]), especially song 33 on pp. 204–19; Menahem Kister, “Shirat bney ma‘arava. heybetim be‘olama shel shira ‘aluma,” Tarbiz 76 (2007) 105–84; a nice English investigation is Ophir Münz-Manor, “Carnivalesque Ambivalence and the Christian Other in Jewish Poems from Byzantine Palestine,” in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (ed. Robert Bonfil and Guy Stroumsa; forthcoming). Seemingly positive elements are explained as parody by Sokoloff and Yahalom (29), as malicious humor and polemic by Kister (161–62) and as signs of envy by Münz-Manor. I would like to thank Menahem Kister and Ophir Münz-Manor for providing me with their articles prior to their publication.