Aphrodite and the Rabbis

by Burton L. Visotzky

  The pagan images in the mosaics of Sepphoris are delightful. One mosaic shows a scene at Egypt’s Nilometer, depicting the device which measured the annual rise of the famous river. Another scene shows the image of a one-breasted Amazon. Yet another Sepphoris mosaic displays the myth of Orpheus, a figure from Greek and Roman mythology who played his music to soothe the animals. Just to Orpheus’s right is an array of the birds of that birdy town. To his left, a boar, a hare, and a snake in a tree are all calmed by Orpheus’s music.

  Of course, Jewish tradition tells of another great musician and harp player, King David. So we shouldn’t be entirely surprised to see him on the mosaic floor of the early sixth-century CE synagogue on the coast at Gaza, looking remarkably like Orpheus. Just in case you might think it actually is Orpheus, the mosaic has a caption to the right of the Jewish king’s head identifying him in Hebrew as “David.” But he is clearly modeled on Orpheus—his harp is charming a snake, a lioness, and even a giraffe (or maybe a long-necked gazelle).

  This brief detour to see King David in Gaza has brought us back from pagan gods and heroes once more to Jewish characters in synagogues. Let’s return to Sepphoris now to take a closer look at the art in the synagogue excavated there. The synagogue dates from the fourth century, and its art is typical: menorahs, palm, and citron (the biblically commanded lulav and etrog, used for the holiday of Sukkot), lions, a shofar, and other biblical horns.

  As we walk to the front of the main sanctuary, bordered on either side by the Jewish symbols just mentioned, there is a mosaic panel of the Temple—or maybe it’s a Torah ark? In any case, the doors of that building are topped with a shell shape and bracketed by pillars. This ubiquitous depiction of doors is found in many Roman-era synagogues. But it also is found on a sarcophagus in the Naples Museum, there identified as a Christian resting place. And similar sets of doors can be found outside of religious contexts, at least Jewish or Christian ones.

  We already have seen “the doorway” in funerary and synagogue contexts, but it is also found on a wall in Herculaneum, the pagan town that was covered along with Pompeii by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. The doorway is flanked by columns on both sides, with the oft-seen shell above the portal. Within the doorway is neither a Torah nor a Temple priest, but two figures: male and female. Most art historians identify them as Poseidon and his wife, Amphitrite. The shell is appropriate for the King of the Sea.

  Herculaneum

  But what can this tell me about the depiction of the shell and the doorway in synagogue art? That type of doorway may be a Torah ark or shrine, since the one depicted in Rome’s Jewish catacomb at Villa Torlonia shows scrolls inside the open doors. It may symbolize God’s house, as it seems to be a portal for the gods in the picture above. But the doorway also may be symbolic of the monumental gates of the Jerusalem Temple. In Jewish Roman art it may even represent the synagogue itself. There are too many options to decide with any assurance what the door is supposed to represent. I would like to think that the one thing the doorway should not represent in synagogue art, however, is a portal for pagan gods.

  The god Poseidon and his wife are also depicted on a mosaic floor from a private home from Cirta, Libya, dating to the early fourth century CE. There, they are flanked by putti, or little angelic figures, along with a pod of dolphins. The divine couple ride their four-horsed chariot, the quadriga, in the heart of the sea—a reasonable place for the Roman god of the waves. But given that Sisera, the enemy of the Israelites, met his end when his chariot became mired in the mud (Judges ch.4–5), and that Pharaoh and his troops drowned in the Reed Sea (Ex. 14), you have to wonder whether driving a quadriga in the water is such a good idea, god or not.

  The quadriga and my mention of the Bible brings me right back to the synagogue at Sepphoris and a confusing, complex image there. The central panel of the synagogue floor’s mosaic “carpet” depicts the zodiac, with Zeus-Helios riding his quadriga across the sky as the central focus. The prevalence of the zodiac in synagogue art may indicate an area of divergence between the rabbis of Talmudic circles and the Jews in the synagogue communities of Roman Palestine. The rabbis expressed their stern disapproval of the image, while the Jews in the synagogue seemed to enjoy the motif.

  In fact, the zodiac occupies a significant place in the broader Jewish worldview. Each Jewish month is measured by the phases of the moon, visible over its monthly cycle. Given that this is a phenomenon observable in nature, it is not surprising that the months of the Jewish calendar correspond with other cultures’ lunar calendars. Indeed, the rabbis’ calendar borrows the names of its months from Babylonia; and these months are congruent with the signs of the celestial zodiac. However, the rabbis do not believe that astrology rules Jewish fate—the Talmud explicitly rejects this notion when it more than once pronounces: “The astrological signs [Hebrew: mazal] are not for the Jews.”

  Yet in Palestinian synagogue zodiac mosaics, the months are depicted by astrological signs. The roundel of synagogue zodiac wheels, even when they are captioned in Hebrew, depicts those signs. The circle of the lunar months is enclosed within a square. Each of the four corners embracing the zodiac circle has a mosaic representing one of the four seasons, while the months in the circle are most often, but not always, situated in the correct seasonal quadrant. A representative of the night sky in which the constellations of the zodiac are visible seems like an obvious choice for the center of the circle. Or a depiction of the moon and stars would be interesting. Because the book of Genesis tells us that “there was evening, there was morning,” we might also expect to see a picture of the sun in its course across the sky.

  Throughout the ancient world, the sun was the preeminent symbol of daily constancy. The diurnal round of the sun with its warmth and healing power was seen as a benefaction from the gods or from God. In polytheistic pagan cultures, the sun was often seen as a god, Sol Invictus, the invincible sun, also known as Zeus-Helios. Yet anyone who has read the Ten Commandments knows only too well that this is a disturbing, even forbidden, notion. Exodus 20: 3–5 commands:

  You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make any statue nor any depiction of what is in the heaven above, nor on the earth below, nor in the waters below on the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God . . .

  When Rabbi Gamaliel made his comment about Aphrodite in the bathhouse, which I recounted to you earlier, he offered Jewish legal parameters for representation of living forms in subsequent Jewish art. We do not represent gods to be worshipped but can represent figures, even human, for aesthetic reasons. Beauty is not forbidden; it is rather encouraged, especially as an offering to God. This is how Gamaliel was able to bathe before that statue of Aphrodite. Even so, the center of the zodiac at the Sepphoris synagogue remains challenging, as it depicts the sun god Helios, riding his heavenly quadriga across the daytime sky.

  In the mosaic at Sepphoris, even as the horses pulling the chariot are realistically drawn, Helios is depicted only as an orb with rays emanating to light the world. To the right of the sun-like circle, the mosaic artist also depicted the crescent moon and one star. Clearly, the community of the synagogue in Sepphoris was not too worried about the Second Commandment’s prohibition against heavenly bodies, even if Helios was depicted only symbolically. This representation might reflect a tradition in the Babylonian Talmud, where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hannaniah likened the difficulty of looking directly at the sun to the difficulty of beholding God. So perhaps the orb of the sun in the Sepphoris synagogue mosaic is meant only to represent, but not to picture, God.

  In truth, this mosaic is hardly unique. The synagogues in Huseifa and Hammat Tiberias also have zodiacs on their floors. At Hammat, Helios/Sol is not merely an orb, but incarnate. Zeus-Helios is depicted in handsome human form, holding the orb of royalty and a whip, perhaps to urge his quadriga-chariot across the sky. He is surrounded by the zod
iac wheel. Each of the months has a name captioned in Hebrew, as does the four-season mosaics in each quadrant of the square that surrounds the zodiac circle. Aquarius is denoted with a Hebrew caption that is spelled backwards—perhaps indicating that the mosaic artist did not know the language and might have been a pagan who found work in the synagogue. It would be convenient to blame the floor on a non-Jewish artisan. Yet someone in that Jewish community approved the design and paid the bill.

  Hammat Tiberias and even Sepphoris/Diocaesarea were Roman imperial cities. So it is possible that the Jews there were more assimilated and so were more comfortable with these pagan symbols. Perhaps the urban communities were just that much more cosmopolitan and laissez-faire about their Jewish practice. But in fact there are also zodiacs in the small town synagogues of Na’aran, near Jericho, and at Beit Alpha, in the Galilee. These are not big urban centers, and while the primitive art of Beit Alpha shows a lack of sophistication, it enthusiastically embraces the Zeus-Helios image. In the photo of Beit Alpha below, note the wheel of the zodiac and the four seasons in the corners. Zeus-Helios emanates rays of light and has a moon and stars accompanying him. Was this a case of the small town community having art envy? Or am I making too much of this apparently pagan image adorning a synagogue?

  To further complicate our understanding of the images found on these synagogue floors, Helios is invoked in a Jewish prayer, recovered in a quasi-magical liturgical text from the fourth century CE among the manuscripts of the Cairo Geniza, the ancient used-book depository. The prayer is in a manuscript called Sefer HaRazim, the Book of Mysteries. We quoted this prayer above, while discussing Gamaliel’s bath with Aphrodite. Here is the line of Greek, transliterated into Hebrew, which names Helios:

  I revere you HELIOS, who rises in the east, the good sailor who keeps faith, the heavenly leader who turns the great celestial wheel, who orders the holiness (of the planets), who rules over the poles, Lord, radiant ruler, who fixes the stars.

  The Helios prayer gives us a peek at Greco-Roman Jewish folk religion in Roman Palestine during this period. Perhaps it also sheds light on the Zeus-Helios images on the synagogue floors. Helios, or Sol Invictus, as he was known in Latin, apparently was a revered god, at least by some. He was a pagan god who might have been identified with the One and Only God in the minds of the Jews who beheld him riding across their community’s synagogue floor.

  Beit Alpha synagogue mosaic

  The Helios phenomenon is even more complicated than the Jewish evidence alone allows. The last pagan emperor, Julian, who reigned from 361 to 363, wrote about Helios,

  What I am now about to say I consider to be of the greatest importance for all things “That breathe and move upon the earth” and have a share in existence and a reasoning soul and intelligence, but above all others it is of importance to myself. For I am a follower of King Helios . . . the King of the whole universe, who is the center of all things that exist. He, therefore, whether it is right to call him the Supra-Intelligible, or the Idea of Being, and by Being I mean the whole intelligible region, or the One. . . .

  In Julian’s “Hymn to King Helios,” we see a pagan praise his god as the One. Julian defines attributes of Helios not unlike those that the rabbis attribute to their one God. To the extent that the Jews who placed the image of Zeus/Helios on the floors of their synagogues knew or agreed with Julian’s theology, the image may have been a convenient pictorial stand-in for God. Some synagogue mosaics depicting biblical stories also show the hand of God reaching down from Heaven. So Helios simply might represent the Jews’ God in these synagogue mosaics.

  We’re not quite done with Zeus-Helios, aka Solis Invictus. Julian was not the only emperor fascinated with the god. Roman emperors not only invoked Sol’s assistance, but also identified themselves as incarnate manifestations of the god. The dedicatory altar to Sol, depicted below, was originally found in Palmyra, to the northeast of Roman Palestine in modern Syria. The inscription on the front of the altar, in Latin, invokes the god Sol. The Mandaic inscription on the side identifies him as King Bel. Note that Sol/Helios rides the quadriga of winged horses. Behind Sol an angel crowns him with rays of light. The small receptacle atop Sol’s head—formed by the angel crowning him with a halo—likely was filled with oil so that literal flames emanated from this bas relief of Sol Invictus.

  Sol Invictus—Capitoline Museums, Rome

  The image of Sol on the chariot with angelic accompaniment may be seen mirrored in this image of Emperor Titus at his apotheosis, commemorated on the interior of the infamous arch of Titus in Rome. The other side of the arch presents the well-known relief of Roman soldiers carrying in triumph the despoiled menorah and other implements from the conquered Jerusalem Temple.

  Much like Sol Invictus, Titus rides the quadriga (although his horses lack wings), and an angelic figure has his back. Titus is not the only emperor so depicted. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius is depicted in a bas relief riding his quadriga, again with the angelic genius of Rome flying at his back.

  This gives me pause. These images in their various Greco-Roman guises were abundantly visible to Jews throughout the Roman Empire. Perhaps we should not read too much into the image of Zeus-Helios in the zodiacs on the synagogue floors after all, despite the Sefer HaRazim prayer and Emperor Julian’s hymn. Romans saw this imagery everywhere. Sol Invictus might have been a god to some, but sometimes art is just art, and Sol was simply meant to represent the sun, no more. The tourists who check into the Hotel Solis Invictus in modern Rome most likely do not do so as an act of idol worship.

  Arch of Titus—Rome

  Marcus Aurelius—Capitoline Museums, Rome

  The images of Zeus-Helios and the zodiac often are found combined with biblical scenes as part of larger synagogue mosaic “carpets.” The most frequent biblical image is of the seven-branched candelabrum, the Menorah of the Jerusalem Temple. As the Torah makes abundantly clear, God likes a nicely lit menorah. In Numbers 8:1–4, God commands Moses to tell his brother, Aaron, the High Priest, “When you mount the Menorah, let seven lamps give light at the front of the Menorah.” And the passage concludes, “According to the pattern God has shown Moses, so was the Menorah made.” Much more detail of the manufacture of the menorah of the desert tabernacle may be found in Exodus 25: 31–40 and again summarized in Exodus 37:17–24, where the Bible describes how the architect of the tabernacle, Bezalel, did his God-inspired work. Finally, in a set of passages dedicated to the animal offerings that were to be brought for each holiday, Leviticus 24:1–4 reports that God told Moses, “Command the Israelite folk to bring clear beaten olive oil to light and raise up an eternal flame . . . upon the pure [gold] Menorah to burn eternally before the Lord.”

  There are bas reliefs of a menorah on the arch of Titus in Rome, as well as at the synagogue remains in Ostia, and etched into the memorial plaque of a Roman Jewish catacomb. Note that to one side of the menorah pictured is a palm and citron (lulav and etrog), while on the other side, there is what looks like a ram’s horn. Another memorial in the catacomb mentions the teacher Deutero, who is recalled as sweet (dulcis). He, too, is remembered with a menorah and what looks to be a citron.

  The photo labeled Catacomb Fig. 3 shows one last menorah from the same catacomb. This one has been frescoed onto the wall.

  Catacomb Fig. 1—Vigna Randanini, Rome

  Catacomb Fig. 2—Vigna Randanini, Rome

  There are dozens of images of the menorah from Jewish communities in all corners of the Roman Empire. Archeologists uncovered a bronze cast of a menorah from the synagogue at Ein Gedi, to the west of the Dead Sea, while menorah images are ubiquitous on humble clay oil lamps from the period, which—if you think about it—is kind of ironic.

  Jewish art had a somewhat standard iconography accompanying the pagan imagery that was also in use in Roman-era and Byzantine synagogues. Some of this imagery comes from narratives in the Torah. At the
synagogue in Sepphoris, among other synagogues, actual verses of Scripture in Hebrew or Greek served as captions for mosaics. I suppose this is not unlike stained glass windows found in synagogues (and churches) across North America. One of the biblical images we often see in modern houses of worship, as well as in the synagogues of Roman Palestine, is the story of the Binding of Isaac, recounted in Genesis 22. This powerful narrative was not only chanted in the synagogue when a congregation read the book of Genesis, but it was also the Torah reading for the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShannah. The fragment that has survived in the Sepphoris synagogue depicts the two servants who accompanied Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22:5).

  Catacomb Fig. 3—Vigna Randanini, Rome

  The illustration of the entire story of the Binding of Isaac at the small town synagogue of Beit Alpha, on the other hand, is primitive and shocking to behold. On the left are the two servant lads; to the right is the fire altar, Abraham, and a small Isaac, both of whom are identified by captions in Hebrew. In the center of the image, also with Hebrew captions, we see the ram caught in the thicket and the biblical words, “Do not put forth [your hand against the boy]” (Gen. 22:12), uttered by the angel of God in order to bring the approaching sacrifice of Isaac to a halt. The voice emanates from a dark-colored mosaic disc, with rays on either side and with a five-fingered hand extending toward Abraham. Is this the hand of God’s angel or possibly even the hand of God? Either way, it is a daring depiction of the unseeable, ineffable manifestation of the Jewish God. Or perhaps, like the orb of Helios in Sepphoris, that disc is an artistic stand-in for God, rather than a physical representation of God’s hand.

  Oil lamp fragment with menorah—Milan Archeological Museum