Die Geschichte von Synagogue of Rome (burned c. 387–388)
Late fourth-century Rome had a large Jewish population divided among several congregations, each with its own synagogue, but almost nothing is known about the individual buildings. One of them appears in history only because of its destruction. In 388 CE Ambrose, bishop of Milan, wrote to the emperor Theodosius I to stop him from punishing the Christians of Callinicum on the Euphrates, who had burned their town's synagogue at the instigation of the local bishop. To warn Theodosius, Ambrose recalled the fate of the usurper Magnus Maximus, who had ruled the West from 383 until his defeat and execution in August 388. Maximus, Ambrose wrote, 'hearing that a synagogue had been burnt in Rome, had sent an edict to Rome, as if he were the upholder of public order.' Christians at Rome then said that no good was in store for him and that 'that king has become a Jew'; Ambrose treated Maximus's swift defeat as divine judgement.
The letter gives no name, location, founder or description of the building, does not say who set the fire, and does not say what the edict ordered. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 says a tumult against the Jews destroyed the synagogue in 387 and that Maximus ordered it rebuilt at state expense, but it cites no source for those details. Whether the synagogue was ever rebuilt is unknown.
Where it stood
Historic: Rome, district and street unknown. Today: unknown; placeholder pin at the centre of Rome, Lazio, Italy (approximate).
Größere Karte öffnen →Die jüdische Gemeinde
The Jewish community of Rome was one of the oldest and largest in the Latin West. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 (Joseph Jacobs and Schulim Ochser) lists the old Roman congregations known from inscriptions: those named after Augustus, Agrippa, Volumnius and Severus, those of the Campus Martius and the Subura, and the Carcaresians, Hebrews, Rhodians and Elaeanians. It places the first Jewish settlement in Trastevere on the right bank of the Tiber, with later concentrations in the Subura and outside the Porta Capena along the Via Appia. Which of these congregations owned the synagogue burned under Maximus is unknown. In the fourth century the community lived under Christian emperors whose laws gradually narrowed Jewish rights: the same encyclopedia notes that Constantine left Roman Jewish institutions unmolested but made Jews second-class citizens, and that Gratian revoked their exemption from serving as decurions. The names of the community's leaders in the 380s are not recorded in the sources read.
Architektur und Gestaltung
Nothing is known about the building's architecture. Ambrose's letter uses only the word synagogue and gives no detail of its size, plan, materials, decoration or date of construction, and no other ancient text describing it has been found. Its location in the city is also unknown: it could have stood in any of the districts where Roman Jews lived, such as Trastevere, the Subura or the area outside the Porta Capena, but no source links the fire to any one of them. No archaeological remains have been identified with it. For these reasons the capacity, architect and style of the burned synagogue are all unknown.
Leben in der Synagoge
No source describes worship or communal life inside this particular synagogue. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 describes how Roman congregations of the imperial period were organised, from inscriptions found in the Jewish catacombs: each congregation had a council of archons presided over by a gerousiarch, and the archisynagogos was its highest religious official, whose chief duty was to preach on the Sabbath. Other titles recorded include the grammateus (secretary) and the mathetes sophon (disciple of the sages). Like other synagogues of the time, a Roman synagogue would have served for the reading of the Torah, prayer, teaching and community meetings, but no detail of this kind survives for the building burned under Maximus. Its congregation, its officials and how long it had been in use before the fire are all unknown. Ambrose's letter shows only that the fire was serious enough to come to the attention of the emperor, who intervened with an edict.
Zerstörung
The only ancient account is a single sentence in Ambrose of Milan's Epistle 40 to Theodosius I, written in 388 CE about the burning of the synagogue at Callinicum. In the translation of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers it reads: 'Is it not on this account that Maximus was forsaken, who, before the days of the expedition, hearing that a synagogue had been burnt in Rome, had sent an edict to Rome, as if he were the upholder of public order? Wherefore the Christian people said, No good is in store for him. That king has become a Jew.' Ambrose does not say who burned the synagogue. The hostile reaction of the Christian people to the edict, and the parallel he draws with Callinicum, are why modern writers, including the Judaism and Rome project and Wikipedia's article on Maximus, describe the arsonists as Christians; the Jewish Encyclopedia speaks of a tumult against the Jews. Ambrose also does not say what the edict ordered; the claim that it required rebuilding at public expense comes from later writers. The fire happened before Maximus's 'expedition', his invasion of Italy in 387 or his campaign of 388.
Das Schicksal der Gemeinde
The Jewish community of Rome survived the fire and the hostility of the 380s. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that Theodosius I exempted poorer Jews from the shipping service of the navicularii, while Honorius required Jews to fill communal offices and in 404 declared them unfit for military service. Maximus himself did not long outlive the edict: he invaded Italy in 387 and drove Valentinian II out of Milan, but in 388 he was defeated by Theodosius at Poetovio, surrendered at Aquileia and was executed on 28 August 388. Ambrose's letter presented this as punishment for his defence of the Jews of Rome, and the argument helped persuade Theodosius to drop his order that the Christians of Callinicum rebuild their synagogue. Whether the Roman congregation rebuilt its burned synagogue, and with whose money, is unknown. Jewish life in Rome continued without a break through late antiquity and the Middle Ages to the present day.
Der Ort heute
The site of the synagogue is unknown. No ancient source gives its district or street, and no excavated building in Rome has been identified with it, so nothing can be said about what stands there today. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder at the centre of the modern city of Rome, as geocoded by OpenStreetMap, and does not mark the synagogue. The districts where the Jews of ancient Rome are known to have lived include Trastevere, the Subura and the area outside the Porta Capena on the Via Appia, but none of these can be linked to this building. No remains of it are known to survive.
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