Catacombs are underground burials,
evidence of 534 brief tomb inscriptions from the Jewish catacombs, the large underground burial places outside Rome. (The catacombs are not open to the public. Copies of some of the inscriptions can be seen in the stairhouse of the modern synagogue at the Lungotevere dei Cenci; a few originals in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.) The following Jewish catacombs have been identified.
- on the Via Nomentana near the Villa Torlonia,
- on the Via Labicana outside the Porta Maggiore,
- on the Via Appia Pignatelli (beyond the second milestone, closer to the city than the Christian catacombs),
- on the Via Appia (Via Cimarra),
- on the Via Ostiensis, at Monteverde.
The last one was not only the largest catacomb, but also the oldest. It was probably used from the late first century BCE (until the fourth century CE) and its early date confirms the words of Philo that many Jews were settled in Rome after the war against Pompey in 63 BCE. The oldest inscriptions mention freed slaves, who must have been Pompey’s prisoners of war.
Three factors seem to have influenced the idea to bury people underground. In the first place, the Jews believed in resurrection, a belief that made it impossible to cremate bodies. Secondly, the use of catacombs was a lot cheaper than the purchase of ground for individual burials (which, by the way, are not unknown). In the last place, in Judaea, people were sometimes buried in artificial caves (e.g., at Qumran).
The Jewish catacombs closely resemble the better known Christian ones, but there are two differences. The corridors in the Christian sepulchers are very narrow, whereas the corridors in the Jewish catacombs are broad. Another difference is that in the latter, Kokim-tombs can be found, which closely resemble the chamber tombs in Judaea. (They are described in the Mishna.)
The tombstones offer us a map of the the Jewish community in Rome. For example, the inscriptions mention the names of the Roman synagogues, and it is possible to establish where they were, because people would bury their dead in the nearest catacomb.
Most of the 534 names on the inscription are Greek: 405 (76%). 123 people (23%) had a Latin name, whereas the remaining 5 inscriptions show Hebrew, Aramaean and hybrid names. This confirms that most Roman Jews were culturally Greek, not Latins. Another argument for the Greek orientation of Roman Judaism can be found in the letter that the Christian teacher Paul wrote to the Roman Christians: he gives his regards to 18 people with a Greek name, 4 Latins and 2 Hebrews (Epistle to the Romans 16.5-16).
Actually, we would have expected less Latin names, because the Roman populace overwhelmingly spoke Greek. However, it turns out that almost all Jews with a Latin name were members of the Synagogue of Elaias. This suggests that most Roman Jews were ‘ordinary’ people, speaking Greek, and that the Latin-speaking minority had a synagogue of their own. We do not know what led to this arrangement.
The use of the Greek language is interesting too. It is grammatically correct, but contains remarkable spelling mistakes. For example, kai (‘and’) is sometimes written as ke, and Ebraios (‘Hebrew’) becomes Aibreos. In other words, -ai- and -e- are interchangable. This is a normal linguistic phenomenon in the first centuries CE, but an educated Roman or Greek would never make these mistakes. This suggests that most literate Jews were unable to pay for further education; it more or less corroborates the statement of Juvenal (above) that the Jews were poor.
The catacomb inscription inform us also about the officials in the Jewish community. Every synagogue had a gerousiarch, ‘president’, and a board of archontes, ‘governors’. The possessions of the community were guarded by a phronistes. We also learn about grammateis (‘scribes’) and presbyteres (‘elders’). A benefactor would be called ‘father of the synagogue’. (One inscription mentions a benefactor who married his sister-in-law after his brother had died, a practice that had become obsolete in mainstream Judaism.) The archisynagogos was responsible for the maintenance of the synagogue; his assistant was the hyperetes. Finally, there was the archigerousiarch: he represented the Roman community as a whole. We may imagine that the above-mentioned Theudas was an archigerousiarch.
Although one inscription mentions a ‘teacher of the Law’ the ‘new’ title of rabbi or Greek/Latin equivalents are not attested in the catacomb inscriptions (nor is Theudas called ‘rabbi’ in the Talmud).
In conclusion, we may probably state that in the first centuries CE, the Jewish community of Rome still retained several traits from a Jewish faith that antedated rabbinical Judaism: no rabbi’s (at least not in the age of the catacombs) and no female presbyters; the custom to marry a sister-in-law still existed; and the paschal lamb was prepared as it had always been done.
The archaic character of this Jewish community has, of course, disappeared. However, even today, the Roman Jews are still proud to be neither Ashkenazic nor Sephardic Jews – the main branches of Judaism that originated long after the Roman community.
Literature
The first general work on the Roman Jews was H.J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (1960 Philadelphia). More recent is J.G. Westenholz, The Jewish Presence in Ancient Rome (1994). An overview of recent publications can be found in M. Williams (ed.), The Jews among the Greeks and Romans. A Diasporan Sourcebook (1998 Baltimore), which contains -next to the bibliography- many translated texts on the Jews in the Diaspora. On the fourth century, one may consult L.V. Rutgers, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome. Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (1995 Leiden).
