The Household Synagogue
The Household in the Ancient World
pagan associations: "Our presidents . . . have gained their distinction not by money but by merit. For money counts not in the things of God" (Apology 39).
One may speak of "charities" in Graeco-Roman society only with qualification, and the "charitable" help which individuals offered the clubs to which they belonged is no exception: wealthier members of clubs donated sums of money in return for honorm — a coveted commodity. Honor virtutis praemium. In a monetarist age it is easy to forget that it has not always been the case that money makes the world go round. In the early empire, it was expected that club officials would go out of their way to earn their honneur, by using their own resources to pay for the banquets, building projects, and ornamentations the club could not otherwise afford.105 There is evidence that where it was possible such norms existed even in the collegia funeratica, the more humble burial associations of the poor.106 Thus, those most suited for these tasks, the relatively well-to-do, were elected (and re-elected) as its leaders.107 In the Roman collegia, the strata of leadership were often named after and ranked according to political office.108 This aping of the political sphere spilled over into the choice of leaders, for higher ranking officials were often its well-to-do patrons.109 The use of secular titles was not as prevalent in the Greek thiasoi or eranoi, but a similar parallel between wealth and importance of position prevailed there as well.110
Alongside the "mothers" or "fathers" of the club — the donors or patroni, whose names head the lists of charters of Graeco-Roman associations111 — the well-to-do officer had a central role to play in the maintenance of the club.
The Household Synagogue Klauck comments, "So lange die judische Familie, das judische Haus intakt ist, droht dem Judentum keine Gefahr."112 Of the six known Diaspora synagogues, two, at Dura113 and Priene,114 were almost certainly domestic meeting places; another, at Stobi,115 probably originated as a house; and of the remaining three — Sardis, Delos, 6 and Ostia117 — only Sardis and Ostia were clearly monumental structures. The household evidently played a central role in the common life of the Jewish community during the Hellenistic and Imperial periods.118
We shall focus our discussion on the inscriptional evidence recovered from the house synagogues at Dura and Stobi. From the Durene synagogue we have third century A.D. epigraphic evidence that the owner of the house, Samuel ben
Yeda'ya, not only funded and supervised the conversion of his home into a synagogue, but was also πρεσβύτερος and άρχων, probably the highest authority of the community.119 Kraeling argues that Samuel continued to live in the domestic suite of the enlarged complex.120 The evidence is clearer in the case of the household synagogue at Stobi. Tiberius Polycharmus, "father of the synagogue," converted his villa into a Jewish community centre, with prayer hall, eating hall, and portico, reserving for himself and his successors the right to reside in the upper story of the complex.121 "Fathers" (and "mothers") of synagogues were not always its leaders, but the expectation of a synagogue leader
(άρχισυνάγωγος) was to use private funds for renovations, ornamentations, and maintenance of the community hall.122 At Teos in Asia, for example,
Proutioses (Publius Rutilius Joses) the άρχί-ίτυνάγωγος, built the synagogue