Synagogue of Antioch (Kerateion)

PANORAMICA

La storia di Synagogue of Antioch (Kerateion)

Antioch on the Orontes, today Antakya in southern Turkey, had one of the largest Jewish communities of the Roman East, and Josephus praised the beauty of its great synagogue. Several synagogue buildings existed over the centuries, but only one is tied to a named quarter. John Malalas, writing in the sixth century, says that the remains of the Maccabean martyrs, the mother and seven brothers of 2 and 4 Maccabees, were buried 'in the so-called Kerateion' of Antioch, and adds that 'there was a synagogue of the Jews there'. Christians venerated the martyrs' tomb in the same quarter, and by the 390s a basilica of the Holy Maccabees stood there.

From this evidence many modern writers concluded that a Jewish synagogue of the Maccabean martyrs was confiscated and turned into a church in the late fourth century. Recent scholarship is much more cautious. Lothar Triebel (2005) argues that such a synagogue never existed and that only late and doubtful sources speak of a conversion; Jennifer Knust (2020) calls an overt dispossession highly unlikely; Johannes Hahn (2012) accepts that the site passed to Christians around 400 CE, but says the date and circumstances are unknown. This entry therefore describes the synagogue that Malalas places in the Kerateion and states plainly that its seizure is not proved. The 'Matrona' named by John Chrysostom was a separate shrine at Daphne.

POSIZIONE

Where it stood

Historic: the Kerateion quarter, probably in the south of ancient Antioch on the Orontes (Hahn 2012); exact site unknown. Today: Antakya, Hatay province, Turkey; pin at the town centre (approximate).

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La comunità ebraica

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, Antioch was one of the main Jewish centres of antiquity, with close ties to the Land of Israel and many proselytes in the Roman period. The Jews did not live in a separate quarter but were spread through the city, so a synagogue in the Kerateion need not have been the only one; the same article notes that, besides the great synagogue praised by Josephus, other places of worship probably existed. John Chrysostom's sermons Against the Jews, preached in Antioch in 386 or 387 CE, show a community whose festivals and synagogues still drew Christian neighbours, and he speaks of 'the synagogue here in town' as distinct from a synagogue at Daphne. Evagrius refers to synagogues, in the plural, belonging to 'the Jews of Antioch' in the early fifth century. The size of the congregation that used the Kerateion synagogue, its leaders and its date of foundation are unknown. No name of any rabbi, archisynagogos or benefactor connected with this building has been found.

Architettura e design

Nothing is known of the building's form. No remains have been identified, no plan or description survives, and no ancient image shows it. Malalas mentions only that a synagogue stood in the Kerateion where the Maccabean martyrs were said to be buried. Johannes Hahn takes the Kerateion to be a southern district of the ancient city. He notes that burial inside the city was normally forbidden in antiquity, which is one reason why some scholars have placed the martyrs' shrine outside the walls, for example at Daphne, rather than in Antioch itself. The Christian church that later stood on the site is described by Augustine as a basilica, and Hahn believes it was built around 400 CE, soon after the site came into Christian hands. Whether that basilica reused any part of an earlier Jewish building is not recorded. Architect, date of construction, size, capacity and decoration of the synagogue are all unknown, and any statement about them would be guesswork.

La vita nella sinagoga

No source describes services in the Kerateion synagogue itself. What is known of synagogue life in Antioch comes from John Chrysostom's hostile sermons of 386 or 387 CE. He complains that Christians went into 'the synagogue here in town' to share in the Jewish festivals, including the festival of Trumpets, and that the books of Moses and the prophets were kept there. He tells of a Christian who tried to force a woman to swear an oath 'in the shrine of the Hebrews', because many people said that oaths sworn there were more to be feared. He also attacks the shrine at Daphne 'which they call Matrona's', where, he had heard, believers slept beside the place, a practice of seeking healing in dreams. If the tradition recorded by Malalas is correct, the Kerateion synagogue also stood beside the tomb of the Maccabean martyrs, but no source says that Jews venerated the tomb, and Knust finds no evidence of a pre-Christian cult of the martyrs.

Distruzione

How the Kerateion synagogue ceased to be a Jewish building is not documented. The church that replaced it is first attested in Chrysostom's festival sermons on the Maccabees, preached between 386 and 398 CE, and in Augustine's Sermon 300, which says that the basilica of the Maccabees in Antioch was held by Christians and built by Christians. Johannes Hahn concludes that the site was transformed into a basilica around 400 CE in unknown circumstances; attributions of the takeover to the emperor Valens or to Bishop Flavian are, in his words, scholarly speculation. The claim that the building was a synagogue later converted into a church rests mainly on Malalas and on later Arabic topographical tradition; Triebel rejects it, and Knust judges an overt dispossession highly unlikely. So no ancient source read for this entry actually says that Christians seized this synagogue. A separate, better documented episode belongs to the early fifth century: Evagrius reports that synagogues had been taken from the Jews of Antioch by Christians, that Theodosius II ordered them returned, and that Simeon Stylites' rebuke made him revoke the order.

Il destino della comunità

The Jews of Antioch lost synagogues more than once. The Encyclopaedia Judaica places the episode reported by Evagrius in 423 CE, when Christians destroyed a synagogue and Theodosius II's order to restore it was withdrawn after Simeon Stylites protested. The synagogue at Daphne, outside the city, has its own history and is treated separately. In 608 CE, according to the same encyclopaedia, Jews of Antioch were accused of attacking Christians and killing the Patriarch Anastasius; when the rising was suppressed, many Jews were killed or exiled. Little is recorded of the community after that. A Jewish presence nevertheless continued: Benjamin of Tudela found about ten Jewish families, mostly glassmakers, around 1171, and under Ottoman rule the community grew again with settlers from Corfu and Aleppo, reaching 300 to 400 people in 1894. In 1977 Antakya had 164 Jews and one working synagogue, a later building that has nothing to do with the ancient one.

Il luogo oggi

Nothing of the Kerateion synagogue or of the church of the Maccabees that followed it has been identified. The quarter itself cannot be located precisely: Johannes Hahn describes the Kerateion as a southern district of ancient Antioch, but no source consulted gives its boundaries. Ancient Antioch lies beneath the modern city of Antakya in Hatay province, so the site is presumably under later buildings. The map pin for this entry marks the centre of present-day Antakya and is approximate. It should not be read as the location of the synagogue.

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