Synagogue of Magona (Mahón)

La comunidad judía

The letter presents Magona as a town where Jews were numerous and prominent, while the Christian church stood outside the walls; Josep Amengual i Batle reads this as a sign that the Jewish community there was older than the Christian one. Its leader, Theodorus, is described as the foremost man of the town among Jews and Christians alike in wealth and honour, a teacher of the Law and pater patrum of the Jews, who had discharged his curial duties and served as defensor civitatis and patron of the municipality. Other Jews named in the letter include Caecilianus and his brother Florianus, Meletius, Reuben, who was the first to convert, Innocentius, a Jew from elsewhere staying in the town, and Artemisia, daughter of Litorius, whom Amengual takes to have been a Jewish former governor. The Encyclopaedia Judaica describes the community as organised under a defensor, with Theodorus acting as archisynagogos. Severus gives the number of converts as 540, a figure some scholars think too large for the island and have questioned. Nothing is known of the community before 418, and the Encyclopaedia Judaica notes that no information survives for the following Byzantine and Muslim periods.

Arquitectura y diseño

Nothing is known of the building's plan, size, materials or decoration. The letter calls it simply the synagogue (synagoga) and gives no description of it. It indicates only that the building stood within the town of Magona, which Severus's congregation reached after crossing the island, and that the Christians went to it in procession. Amengual i Batle argues from the letter that the synagogue stood inside the small walled area (oppidum) of fifth-century Magona, while the town's Christian basilica lay outside, about 850 metres away. The letter says the Jews kept their sacred books and silver objects in the building, which implies a permanent, furnished house of worship rather than a rented room, but how large it was or how it was arranged is unknown. The date of its construction, its builder and its seating capacity are unknown. No archaeological remains of it have been found or identified, and the site of the church later built over its foundations is also unknown, although Amengual suggests that traces of the fire might survive beneath it.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

The letter offers glimpses of the community that used the building, though always through the eyes of a hostile bishop. The synagogue held the community's holy books and its silver vessels, which survived the fire. It was the meeting place of a congregation whose leaders held civic office in the town: Theodorus, its head, had been defensor civitatis, and Caecilianus was later chosen for the same post. Severus describes the Jews as learned in the Law and ready to argue over Scripture, and the letter reports a debate between Meletius and the Christian Innocentius. Theodorus is said to have asked for time to address the members of the synagogue before deciding whether to convert. The letter also names women who resisted conversion, among them Artemisia and the wife of Innocentius, and Ross Kraemer has studied these passages as rare evidence of Jewish women's resistance in this period. Beyond these hints, the services, officials and customs of the congregation are unknown.

Destrucción

According to Severus's own letter, the destruction was the work of a Christian mob that he led from Iamona to Magona in early February 418, after the arrival of Saint Stephen's relics had inflamed relations with the Jews. After public arguments between the two communities turned into a riot, the Christians went in procession to the synagogue and the crowd took the building. The letter says the synagogue was burned and overturned, using the phrase 'eversa, itaque cunctis iudaeis stupentibus, synagoga, ad ecclesiam cum hymnis perreximus' (with the synagogue overturned while all the Jews looked on in astonishment, we went back to the church singing hymns). Its books and silver were spared. The Bryn Mawr Classical Review summary of Bradbury's edition describes 'the sacking and burning of the local synagogue', and states that the converts then paid for the demolition of the burned shell and built a church with their own money and labour; Amengual cites the letter's plan to overturn the synagogue's foundations and raise a new basilica on the same site. Many Jews fled to the countryside before they too gave in. Some scholars place the events late in 417 rather than in 418.

El destino de la comunidad

Within eight days of Severus's arrival the leaders of the community, beginning with Reuben and then Theodorus, accepted conversion, and the others followed under heavy pressure. Severus claims 540 people were added to the Church. Amengual argues that the converts were enrolled as catechumens and probably baptised at Easter, 7 April 418, rather than at once. The letter itself shows that the conversions were coerced: Galilaeus, a relative of Theodorus, is said to have converted out of fear of his Christian neighbours, and some Jews hid in the countryside before giving in. The Encyclopaedia Judaica adds that many Jews, especially women, died for their faith and a few hid in forests and caves, statements not checked against the letter in this research. Severus's letter was circulated in North Africa, where Bishop Evodius had it read out in his church at Uzalis as part of the cult of Saint Stephen. No Jewish community is recorded on Menorca again until the Middle Ages, and nothing is known of the converts' descendants.

El lugar hoy

The location of the synagogue within Mahón is unknown. The letter places it in the town of Magona, and Josep Amengual i Batle argues that it, and the church built over it in 418, lay inside the small walled core of the late Roman town, which corresponds to the historic centre of present-day Mahón on the bluff above the harbour. No excavation has identified the synagogue or the church that replaced it, and no remains of either are known. The map pin is placed at the Plaça de la Constitució in the historic centre only to mark that area; it is not the synagogue's site.

Nombres destacados