"Ypsistos" [Greek] and the Synagogue at Sardis Kraabel, A Thomas Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1969; 10, 1; ProQuest pg. 81

t",y \lft(j'tO~ and the Synagogue at Sardis 
A. Thomas Kraabel 

THE EXCAVATIONS AT SARDIS are still in progress under the direc­
tion of Professor George M. A. Hanfmann of Harvard and only 
preliminary reports! have been published; but already finds 

made there promise to clarify a number of problems in the history of 
Graeco-Roman religions, in which I include post-exilic Judaism and 
early Christianity. With one of those problems I wish to deal in this 
article, a long-held <common opinion', the hypothesis of a connection 
between the epithet v"'LaTo~ and the theology and piety of Diaspora 
Judaism. 

I 
It is necessary first to consider the religions of the area around Sardis, 

specifically those of ancient Lydia, Phrygia and Ionia in the Roman 
province of Asia, what is now western Asiatic Turkey. The evidence 
for these religions in the time of the Roman Empire is chiefly epi­
graphical and archaeological; extended texts are rare. There is no 
Anatolian Qumran or Nag Hammadi. Nevertheless, some general 
statements can be made: 

(1) The Greek cults and Judaism existed in Asia Minor very early. 
Jews were present there half a millennium before the construction of the 
mammoth Sardis synagogue: Obadiah 20 refers to exiles from Jeru­
salem living in 'Sepharad', Aramaic for Sardis (sixth/fifth centurYB.c.).2 
Greek connections with the area are even earlier; I need mention only 

1 Annual reports are printed in BASOR (beginning 1959), and are cited here by RASOR 
issue-number, year and page; the first footnote of each year's article is devoted customarily 
to a bibliography of the year's other publications dealing with Sardis and the excavations. 
The best survey of the history of Sardis is now G. M. A. Hanfmann, "Sardis und Lydien," 
AbhMain~, Jhrg. 1960 nO.6. For a thorough and very readable survey of the finds through 
1964, see D. G. Mitten, "A New Look at Ancient Sardis," BiblArch 29 (1966) 38--68. 

2 I. Rabinowitz, "Sepharad/Sardis," Encyclopedia Biblica (in Hebrew) forthcoming, with 
full bibliography. This article was made available in manuscript to the Sardis expedition by 
courtesy of the author. See also M. J. Mellink, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible 
IV. (1962) 272f, S.V. SEPHARAD. 

6+G.R.B.S. 81 



82 "Y'PIETOE AND THE SYNAGOGUE AT SARDIS 

the 'Ionian' or 'Milesian' pre-Socratics, associated with Ionia and the 
town of Miletus on the west-central coast. Orthe name of Troy, on the 
northwest coast. 

(2) The most familiar deity of western Asia Minor is the Great 
Mother, who is worshipped in Greece by the end of the archaic period 
and is formally brought to Rome by the state in 204 B.C.3 An examina­
tion of the inscriptions reveals that this area actually contained a great 
number of 'mother' -goddesses; Josef Keil counted a dozen in Lydia 
alone, Meter Hipta, Meter Sipylene, Meter Tazene, and the like.4 

(3) The inscriptions mentioning these and other Anatolian deities 
reveal something else about the piety of western Asia Minor: the wor­
shipper often sees himself as a humble, insignificant person, a slave, 
not a free man. It is true that a number of local gods are turned into 
near-cosmic deities in the Hellenistic period; this occurs in many areas 
during the religious transformations which take place at this time. 
Before such gods, worshippers are appropriately meek. But this atti­
tude of submissive humility is particularly prevalent in western Asia 
Minor, as three sets of inscriptions will show: 

(a) The first are the so-called 'Penitential Inscriptions', centering in 
the Katakekaumene of northeast Lydia, the 'burned-over area' be­
ginning just east of Sardis. The inscriptions are from around the third 
century and follow this pattern: (1) the dedicant states that he has 
broken a divine regulation-trespassed on sacred land, broken an 
oath, taken a slave which was not his-and (2) the deity has punished 
him for it: a man is afflicted with an eye disease, a woman is punished 
"in the breasts"; (3) the transgressor thereupon repents and (4) sets up 
the inscription as a public indication of his evil doing and as a warning 
to others about the awful power of the god. The inscriptions are usu­
ally quite specific: the dedicant's offense, the god offended, the 
punishment experienced are all listed. Franz Steinleitner, who did the 
standard study of these texts, describes the religious attitude they re­
veal: the deity is awesome, powerful and remote; his worshippers are 
as nothing before him.5 Martin Persson Nilsson saw a particular re-

3 M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion ra (Hdb. der Altertumsw. V.2.1, Munchen 
1967) 725 [hereafter GGR I]; K. Latte, Romische Religionsgeschichte (Hdb. der Altertumsw. V.4, 
Munchen 1960) 258--62. 

4 Josef Keil, "Die Kulte Lydiens," in Anatolian Studies Presented to Sir William Mitchell 
Ramsay, edd. W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder (Manchester 1923) 239--66, esp. 257-58. 

5 Franz Steinleitner, Die Beicht im Zusammenhange mit der sakralen RechtspjIege in der Antike 
(Leipzig 1913) 76ff. 



A. T. KRAABEL 83 

ligious frame of mind6 behind these inscriptions; he called it the 
"Lydian-Phrygian mentality." 

(b) The second set of inscriptions was recently studied by Louis 
Robert;7 the texts are dedications to an anonymous deity 'TO BELOV, 

'the divinity'. One text calls this god TO Of to v oatov KaL oLKawv, 'the 
holy and righteous divinity'.8 Whether 'TO BELOV be a familiar deity 
under a new, more lofty name, or a new god entirely, the impression 
is of a god of great majesty and power. 

(c) A third set of inscriptions includes those which refer to an aYYEAos­
or aYYEALKeJs, a divine messenger. Most of these texts come from around 
Stratoniceia in Caria, but Robert has published one from Saittai, some 
forty miles northeast of Sardis. It is from the second or third century, 
an expression of thanksgiving to two deities; the first name is lost, but 
the second is called aYYEAoS' aatoS' 8tKatoS' , 'the holy and just inter­
mediary (or messenger),.9 The town of Colossae is located some 
seventy miles northeast of Stratoniceia and the same distance south­
east of Sardis; in the New Testament letter to the church at Colossae, 
the writer charges his opponents with angel-worship (Col. 2.18).10 

Anatolian Jewsll were somehow involved in this Colossian heresy, but 
there is a current of pagan aYYEAos--piety present as well, a piety which 
focuses on a remote deity, so far distant that messengers or interme-

S M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion II2 (Hdb. der Altertumsw. V.2.2, Mi.inchen 
1961) 291 [hereafter, GGR II]. 

7 Louis Robert, "Reliefs votifs et cuItes d'Anatolie," Anatolia 3 (1958) 112ff. 
s Robert, op.cit. (supra n.7) 116f. 
9 Robert, op.cit. (supra n.7) 120, cf.120-23 and the research report ofF. Sokolowski, "Sur Ie 

cuIte d'Angelos dans Ie paganisme grec et romain," HThR 53 (1960) 225-29, and Nilsson, 
GGR 11.577. 

10 On the NT text, see the commentaries ad loc. By the later Imperial Period, if not earlier, 
angel-cultus is a well-attested part of some forms of Anatolian Christianity; this is clear 
from the ban on this practice in Canon 35 of the fourth-century Council of Laodicea (a to'.vn 
less than ten miles from Colossae), from such Phrygian inscriptions as MAMA I 434 and 
IV 307, and from the veneration of the archangel Michael, which has a major early center 
at the Church of St Michael at Chonae, five miles south of Colossae; cf W. M. Ramsay, The 
Church in the Roman EmpireS (London 1894) 465-80, and J. Michl, RACh V (1962) S.V. ENGEL 

182,200,243-51 ("Michaelskult" 251). 
11 It is not impossible that this ayy€'\'oS'-piety entered Colossian Christianity via local Jews 

who brought the indigenous Anatolian idea of the divine &YYE'AOS' with them when they be­
came Christians (the Christians attacked in the letter to the Colossians). On Diaspora 
Judaism as a channel for the importation of elements of pagan piety into early Christianity, 
see my note in E. R. Goodenough with A. T. Kraabel, "Paul and the Hellenization of 
Christianity," in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed. 
Jacob Neusner (Stud.Hist.Rel. 14, Leiden 1968) 35-37. 



84 "Y'l'IETOE AND THE SYNAGOGUE AT SARDIS 

diaries are required to bridge the gap between him and his mortal 
worshippers. 

One inscription from a Lydian altar may serve to summarize this 
side of Anatolian piety; the lettering is second or third century, but 
the dedicant omits his name and the date-perhaps he considered 
such minor matters unnecessary or unworthy. The text is a confession 

d . . l' ()' , , ~ , M' 0' , '\ an an InvocatIon: €LS €OS €V ovpavoLS, P.€yas "Iv vpavtos, p.€yaIlTJ 

ovvap.LS TOU &()avaTOV ()€OU, "There is (only) one (important) god in the 
heavens, Men Ouranios, the mighty power of the immortal god."12 

With this religious attitude present, it is not at all surprising that 
the word VtPLUTOS, <highest' or <supreme', is used of deities in 34 in­
scriptions in the area under discussion. But this part of Asia Minor also 
contains a number of well-attested Jewish settlements; most of their 
inscriptions are from the second or third centuries, but many of the 
communities had their beginnings in the Hellenistic period. VtPLUTOS is 
a common epithet of God in the Septuagint, and Franz Cumont, 
Martin Nilsson and Carsten Colpe have all argued for strong Jewish 
influence in vtPLuTos-inscriptions; such men deserve to be taken 
seriously.13 We must look at the Jewish evidence from western Asia 
Minor. 

II 
The major Jewish settlements in this area have been known for 

some time. IONIA: In Miletus, the theatre contains seats reserved for 
Jews, according to a crude but rather famous inscription (CIjud 748). 
In Priene there is a small synagogue from about the fourth century.l4 
In Smyrna there is a strong early tradition of the involvement of Jews 

12 Josef Keil and A. von Premerstein, "Berichte tiber eine zweite Reise in Lydien," 
DenkschrWien 54.2 (1911) no. 211, cf Erik Peterson, El, 8,,6, (Forsch.Rel.Lit.A.u.N.T. 
N.F. 24, Gottingen) 268f, and Nilsson, GGR 1I.657. 

13 F. Cumont, RE 9 (1916) 444-50, s.v. ·Yr/1urro,; Nilsson, GGR H.662ff"; Colpe, Ver Kleine 
Pauly IT (1967) 1291f, s.v. HYPSISTOS (which begins with the statement that hypsistos is a divine 
epithet" das seine religiose Pragnanz als Obersetzung des semit. Aquivalents cEljon gewon­
nen hat.") See also A. B. Cook, Zeus H (Cambridge 1925) 876ff, and A. D. Nock, "IV. Zeus 
Hypsistos" in C. Roberts, T. Skeat and Nock, "The Gild of Zeus Hypsistos," HThR 29 (1936) 
55-72. 

14 On the Priene synagogue, see T. Wiegand and H. Schrader, Priene (Berlin 1904) 320, 
480f; E. R. Goodenough,Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (New York 1953-68) H.77, 
III.878f, 882; E. L. Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece (London 1934) 42f. 



A. T. KRAABEL 85 

in the persecution of Christians ;15 there are also Jewish inscriptions of 
the third and fourth centuries and an inscription (ca. A.D. 125) erected 
by the city and mentioning Jews.16 In Ephesus, certain graves are put 
under the protection of the Jewish community (Cljud 745f, second/ 
third centuries). PHRYGIA: The Jews of Phrygia are well attested; in­
scriptions in some numbers exist for the towns of Eumeneia, Acmonia, 
Apameia and Hierapolis, most of them simple burial texts of ca. the 
third centuryP Apameia also gained the attention of art historians 
when some of its coins were found to depict Noah and his ark (third 
century).18 Acmonia produced the only clearly Jewish inscription using 
the epithet vifLaTo~ (Cljud 769)-of which, more shortly. LYDIA: In 
Lydia the major cities known to have Jewish populations are Phila­
delphia, Thyateira and Sardis; epigraphical and literary evidence exists 
for all three locations.19 

These communities are described briefly in the standard reference 
works: Juster, Schiirer, Goodenough; Samuel Krauss and Viktor 
Tcherikover. The Phrygian Jews were the subject of a useful early 
study by Sir William Ramsay.20 All these scholars indicated something 
of the nature of Anatolian Judaism, but it was not until the Sardis dis­
coveries that the picture began to become clear. This is chiefly because 
of the quantity of evidence we now possess which was unknown before 
1962: more Jewish inscriptions from this one city than from all the rest 

15 See the patristic texts Passio Polycarpi, Passio Pionii and Vita Polycarpi, and the discus­
sion of them (subtitled "L'hagiographie de Smyrne") in H. Delehaye, Les passions des 
martyrs et les genres litteraires 2 (Bruxelles 1966) 11-59. 

16 The four Jewish inscriptions are Cljud 739-41 and SIG3 1247 note; the inscription 
erected by the city is Cljud 742=IGRR IV 1431. 

17 Incomplete publication of the Jewish texts from these towns in Cljud: Eumeneia, 761; 
Acmonia, 760, 762-71 ; Apameia, 773f; Hierapolis, 775-80. 

18 These coins are most conveniently seen in H. Leclercq, DACL 1.2 (1907) 2S1Sf fig.S2S-27. 
S.V. APAMEE; good photo of an inferior specimen (A.D. 238-44) in Mary B. Comstock, "Greek 
Imperial Coins," BMFA 65:342 (1967) 163f fig.5. See also Goodenough. op.cit. (supra n.14) 
II.ll9f, I1I.700. The most recent discussion is H. Strauss, "Jiidische Quellen friihchristlicher 
Kunst," ZNTW 57 (1966) 134-36, with negative conclusions. 

19 On Philadelphia and Thyateira, see Emil Schiirer, Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes im 
Zeitalter Jesu Christi4 III (Leipzig 1909) 14f, and CJjud. 752-54. In addition there are brief ref­
erences in Cicero and Josephus to some of the cities already mentioned; cf Gerhard Kittel, 
"Das kleinasiatische Judenrum in der hellenistisch-romischen Zeit," ThLZ 69 (1944) 9-20. 

20 J. Juster, Les juifs dans l'empire romain I (Paris 1914) 189-92; Schiirer, op.cit. (supra n.19) 
12-24; Goodenough. op.cit. (supra n.14) II. 77-81; S. Krauss, Synagoga/e Altertitmer (Berlinl 
Wien 1922) 230-35; A. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia 1959) 
287-89. W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics ofPhrygia 11.2 (Oxford 1897) 667-76. 

6* 



86 "Y'PIETOE AND THE SYNAGOGUE AT SARDIS 

of western Asia Minor; the largest synagogue site excavated anywhere, 
and the second earliest known (only the Masada synagogue is older). 
Sardis has now become the most important Jewish site in Asia Minor, 
and one of the three most important in the whole of the Diaspora; 
only Rome and Dura Europus may be considered rivals. 

As a city, Sardis became politically and economically important in 
the period 700-550 B.C., under the Mermnad rulers Gyges, Alyattes 
and Croesus. The city continued to be an economic and governmental 
center under the Persians, then under the Seleucids, the Attalids of 
Pergamum and finally the Romans.21 The city's population reached a 
maximum of perhaps 100,000 in the second century.22 

The Jews had reached Sardis in large numbers by the middle of the 
Hellenistic period; many of them had come not from Palestine but 
from regions farther east. According to Josephus, some 2000 Jewish 
families were moved from Babylonia and Mesopotamia to Lydia and 
Phrygia by the Seleucid king Antiochus III at the end of the third cen­
tury B.C. or the beginning of the second (AJ 12.147-53); these families 
were entrusted to Antiochus' general Zeuxis, who had headquarters 
at Sardis.23 By the middle of the first century B.C. the Jews possessed a 
topos, a place of assembly in the city Uosephus, AJ 14.235); this was an 
antecedent of the synagogue-basilica now being excavated. The earliest 
inscriptions from this synagogue are from the later second century, 
the latest from the fourth and fifth centuries. 

The synagogue itself is a gigantic building, a narrow basilica 90 
meters long from apse to front steps; the main hall alone is 18 meters 
wide by 55 meters long. It is located beside the main highway, the old 
Royal Road, for centuries the principal overland route between the 
east and the Aegean. Immediately to the north and west of the syna­
gogue is a major social center of Roman Sardis, the huge gymnasium­
and-baths complex, part of which is now being reconstructed by the 
Turkish government and the Sardis expedition. It is obvious from a 
city plan24 that the synagogue-basilica was designed along with the 
baths as a unit, part of a huge urban renewal project undertaken after 
the city was heavily damaged by an earthquake in A.D. 17. The basilica 

21 Hanfmann, op.cit. (supra n.l) 514ff; Mitten, op.cit (supra n.l) 38-68. 
22 Hanfmann, op.cit. (supra n.l) 53!. 
23 As shown by an inscription from Sardis recently published by L. Robert, Nouvelles in­

scriptions de Sardes I (Paris 1964) no.1. 
24 See provisionally BASOR 177 (1965) 11 fig.lO; a detailed city plan is nearing completion. 



A. T. KRAABEL 87 

began probably as a public building,25 but it had become Jewish prop­
erty by the latter half of the second century and continued as such 
until the destruction of the city by the Persians in the early seventh 
century; even after Constantine it was not demolished or appropri­
ated by the government. 

All this suggests that the Jews of Sardis were a powerful people.26 

It required political power and social acceptance to obtain such a fine 
building in the first place, and to continue to retain it later in the face 
of Christian envy; it required economic power to support and re­
decorate the building-the Sardis Jews must have had all of these. 
They fit into Sardis society fully, and at the same time they main­
tained their Jewish cultural and religious identity: the synagogue was 
a building for worship and teaching, as its furnishings and inscrip­
tions27 make clear. 

III 
But my present purpose is not to tell what has been found at Sardis; 

much of that information has been published already in the annual 
excavation reports. I am concerned rather to show some of the im­
plications of Sardis for the understanding of Graeco-Roman religions. 

The Jewish community at Sardis existed at a time when the people 
of Asia Minor honored a great variety of deities; a common reaction 
now to such a profusion is scholarly confusion, specifically the claim 
that deities and cults were mixed, combined, syncretized on Anatolian 
soil. More complete evidence allows us to sort out the various deities 
and to analyse the alleged syncretisms with greater accuracy. The 
assumed connection between Vif;WTOS and Diaspora Judaism is a com­
monplace of our discipline; this hypothesis can now be tested. For 

25 Professor Henry Detweiler, associate director of the Sardis expedition, appears correct 
in assuming that the building was first a civic basilica before it was turned over to the Jewish 
community in the second century; cf BASOR 187 (1967) 23,25. 

26 The new epigraphic evidence bears this out. Of the 27 males mentioned in the in-
scriptions, nine bear the title 'member of the city council' C{30VAWT7}<;) , two are functionaries 
in the Roman provincial government and another is a former Roman procurator; cf John 
H. Kroll, "The Synagogue Donation Inscriptions, Report, 1966," 6f (typescript by courtesy 
of the author and the Sardis Expedition). 

27 Squarely in the center of the main,hall is a fourth-century inscription honoring one of the 
community's religiOUS leaders; his name is lost, but his titles are [€P€Vs and aoq>o3t3cialCaAOs, 
'priest' and 'teacher-of-wisdom', cf BASOR 187 (1967) 29 and fig.48 (p.23). Generally on the 
synagogue's furnishings, see Goodenough, op.cit. (supra n.14) XII.191-95. 



88 "Y1J'IETOE AND THE SYNAGOGUE AT SARDIS 

Lydia, Phrygia and Ionia we have a goodly number of ;h/nu'Tos-inscrip­
tions and also, thanks to Sardis, contemporary evidence of a powerful 
Jewish population. The area28 under consideration is relatively small, 
less than 150 miles north to south, 200 miles east to west-we are not 
surveying the entire Eastern Mediterranean-but if the supposed 
connections do not appear here, their existence in other areas may no 
longer be assumed. 

I will begin this survey29 of the iJifJLUTos-texts with the one inscription 
from this area which contains the epithet and is at the same time un­
deniably Jewish; it comes from Acmonia, Phrygia (CIJud 769), where 
more than a dozen Jewish inscriptions from the first three Christian 
centuries have been found. The Jews of Acmonia had powerful friends 
among the gentile population and one gentile, a woman magistrate 
by the name of Julia Severa, apparently built the local synagogue at 
her own expense in the latter part of the first century (MAMA VI 264 
= CIjud 766). The Jewish iJifnuTos-inscription is fragmentary; it con­
tains a brief reference to an Old Testament text and calls upon 'the 
highest god' (0 (hos 0 iJif;LUTOS) to protect the grave. This very deliberate 
arrangement of articles, noun and adjective is unparalleled in the 
other Anatolian iJif;LuTos-texts, which call the god simply iJif;LaTOS or 
Ods lJif;LU'TOS, never using the Greek article. 

In the other inscriptions, the dedicant often has in mind a specific 
deity whose name or image appears elsewhere on the stone; he calls 
this god iJif;LUToS because the god was for him 'supreme' or 'highest'. 
Thus, in a recently discovered text30 from Pisidia, a dedication is made 
to O€oS lJif;LUTOS "at the injunction of the god"; the iJif;LuTOS meant be­
comes clear in a later line when the dedicant identifies himself as a 
priest of Men Ouranios, an Anatolian moon-god. Two inscriptions31 

from Aezani in Phrygia honor O€oS lJif;LUToS, one because of "merciful 
delivery from many sufferings"; a large temple of Zeus has been dis­
covered nearby, along with a number of inscriptions in his honor-it 
appears that the dedicants of the two O€oS lJif;LuTos-inscriptions had this 

28 The area has two foci: Sardis on the west and the Phrygian Jewish communities on the 
east. 

29 Sources for the i¥L<1'Tos-inscriptions examined: KeU's list, op.cit. (supra n.4) 255; Cook's 
list for Lydia. Phrygia and (because he has no entry for Ionia as such) Caria and Mysia, 
op.cit. (supra n.13) ll.879-83 (as supplemented by Nock. op.cit. [supra n.13]); Cljud; SEG. 

30 Published by G. Bean, "Notes and Inscriptions from Pisidia n," AnatStud 10 (1960) 65, 
no.115; cf Nilsson, GGR n.637. 

31 For these two inscriptions and their setting, see Cook, op.cit. (supra n.13) ll.%4--68. 



A. T. KRAABEL 89 

Zeus in mind. In Nacoieia, Phrygia, a dedication to ()€Os V~LU'TOS ap­
pears among many to Zeus Bennios and Zeus Bronton.32 Here ()eos 

Vif;LU'TOS may indicate an attempt to identify the other two titles and 
encompass them with a more neutral, grander name. 

In Ionia, the westernmost of the three provinces, the texts are less 
ambiguous; if the adjective vif;w'TOS is used, the proper name is usually 
Zeus. Even if the name Zeus be omitted, the text is usually clear 
enough. Thus, of two small altars of white marble (very much alike) 
found at Pergamum, one was dedicated to ()eos Vif;LU'TOS, the other to 
ijAtOS ()eos Vif;LU'TOS, i.e. Apollo or another sun-god.33 From Miletus 
come two inscriptions honoring a certain Oulpios Karpos, "the priest 
of the most holy eeos fly ~LU'TOS Ew'T~p"; both are done by trade guilds, 
in one case "the city gardeners" (OGIS 755), in the other "the guild of 
shell-fish spearers" (OGIS 756)-shellfish is, of course, a food prohibited 
by Old Testament dietary laws.34 

There are two dedications to ()eds VY;LG'TOS which, at first glance, 
might appear Jewish; the texts are very similar to those already men­
tioned, but the articles dedicated to the god are not unknown in 
Jewish art and worship and might seem to be the gifts of Anatolian 
Jews. And both dedications were discovered in Lydia, 30 miles or less 
from Sardis. The first35 is a small, rather rough image of an eagle, 
found near Thyateira. It is an ex voto to ()eos ;)Y;LU'TOS, dated by 
Franz eumont to the second century. As Erwin Goodenough 
showed,36 the eagle is not uncommon in Jewish art and symbolism. 
In the Sardis synagogue, the focus of worship was a massive marble 
table; the table supports are in the shape of eagles, each a meter high 
and more than a meter wide.57 But the eagle is also an attribute of 
Zeus, and of any number of high-gods and mountain-gods ;38 if the 

32 The inscription is IGRR IV 542; cf W. M. Ramsay, "Sepulchral Customs in Ancient 
Phrygia," ]HS 5 (1884) 258f. 

33 M. Frankel, ed. Die Inschriften von Pergamon IT (Altertumer von Pergamon Vm.2, Berlin 
1895) 243f, no.330f. cf Erwin Ohlemutz, Die Kulte und Heiligtumer der G6tter in Pergamon 
(Wiirzburg 1940) 85-87. 

M L. E. Toombs, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (1962) 1.645, S.V. CLEAN AND UN­
CLEAN. These Miletus inscriptions are discussed by Nock, op.cit. (supra n.13) 67 n.75; Nilsson, 
GGR 11.664. 

35 F. Cumont, "Un ex-yoto au Theos Hypsistos," BullAcadBelg 1912, 251-53. 
36 Most recently in op.cit. (supra n.14) VIII.121-42. 
37 On the 'Eagle Table', see Hanfmann, "The Sixth Campaign at Sardis (1963)," BASOR 

174 (1964) 34-36. 
38 On the eagle as a religiOUS symbol T. Schneider and E. Stemplinger, RACh I (1950) 87-

91 S.V. ADLER, and Cook, op.cit. (supra n.13) indices s.v. EAGLE. 



90 "Y1JIIETOE AND THE SYNAGOGUE AT SARDIS 

Thyateria eagle were Jewish, made at a time when a powerful and 
self-conscious Jewish community existed 30 miles away, the donor of 
the ex voto would surely have made this clear. For example, the in­
scription might be expected to set it apart from dedications to other 
gods called vI/JLa7'OS; the Jewish vI/JLa7'os-inscription from Acmonia does 
that, the Thyateira eagle dedication does not. 

The other inscription was found even closer to Sardis, in a little 
town now called Saric;am, just north of Manisa (Magnesia ad Sipylum). 
Again the text (IGRR IV 1176) is no different in form from those of 
other dedications to local deities. The dedication is in two parts, one 
by a husband and wife, the other by their three sons. The parents 
dedicate a {3wfLos, on which the inscription is cut; it is a small marble 
column, nearly a meter high, without flutes but provided with a 
capital and base. The sons later install a lamp on the top of the {3wfLos ;39 

this would perhaps be an appropriate dedication to the God of the 
jews,40 but lamps are also important in Graeco-Roman cult, and 
lamp-dedications appear in the Greek world even before the Hellenis­
tic period.41 In addition, vI/JLa7'OS in this inscription is not a fixed title, 
but a rather casual epithet; the parents' dedication is to BEas iJI/JLa7'OS, 

but the sons are content to call the deity simply vI/JW7'OS when they 
add their inscription some 20 centimeters below. 

Finally inscriptions from Lydia within 30 miles of Sardis should be 

39 The inscription indicates that the sons' contribution is 'TO: AV}(I'wp£a (the meaning of the 
plural is uncertain); the singular 'TO )'V}(I'&'.pLOJl is not listed in the standard lexica, but is re­
lated to the feminine noun )'v}(I'a.pla, '(festival or ceremony of) lamplighting'. IGRR errs 
both in its reproduction of this noun and in its locating of the inscription at Agae; in August 
1966 the present writer located, photographed and squeezed the stone at the spot (court­
yard of the Sari<;am mosque) where it had been first copied by A. Frontrier, who published 
it in 1886. The assistance of Bay K. Z. Polatkan (Director, Manisa Museum) in iocating and 
recording the Sari<;am inscription is here gratefully acknowledged. 

40 On lamps and light-symbolism in Jewish cult, see Goodenough, op.cit. (supra n.14) IV. 
71-98. On a third-century {1wf-L6, from Pergamum bearing a lamp, the dedication (probably) 
of a Gentile convert to Judaism, see M. P. Nilsson, "Zwei Altare aus Pergamon," Opuscu/a 
Selecta III (Lund 1960) 297-301; E. Bickermann, "The Altars of Gentiles, a Note on the 
Jewish 'ius sacrum'," RevlntDroitsAnt 5 (1958) 158; G. Delling, "Die Altarinschriften eines 
Gottesfiirchtigen in Pergamon," NT 7 (1964/5) 73-80. The deity is addressed thereon as 8fiO!> 

, if''''''' KVP£O, 0 WJI fiL, afiL. 

U On the use of lamps in Graeco-Roman cult, J. Gage, RACh VII (1966-67) 154-87 s.v. 
FACKEL, and (for Pergamum) H. Pieket, "An Aspect of the Emperor Cult: Imperial Mys­
teries," HThR 58 (1965) 341-45, 347. On lamp dedications, see M. P. Nilsson, "Lampen und 
Kerzen im Kult der Antike," Opuscula Selecta III (Lund 1960) 189-214; the importance of 
such dedications was first brought to my attention by Bentley R. Layton of Harvard 
University. 



A. T. KRAABEL 91 

m.entioned: the first is a dedication to a goddess, (lEa vftO'TTJ .42 The 
second43 is the dedication of an image of another goddess, Thea 
Larmene; the image is dedicated (JEep vif;{u'TCf} KaL fLEY[ aJACf} (JdCf}-it is 
dated to A.D. 181, exactly contem.porary with the earliest Sardis 
synagogue inscriptions. In this general area, Jewish evidence exists 
in abundance, but neither of these texts can be Jewish. 

IV 
It is obvious from these examples that the epithet Vif;LU'TOS, when it 

appears in Asia Minor, can never be taken, by itself, as proof that the 
text is Jewish. Then what was the origin of the original hypothesis of a 
connection between this epithet and Diaspora Judaism? And how was 
Asia Minor singled out as the location in which abundant evidence for 
this connection could be found? 

The first question is the simpler one: the epithet is used frequently 
in the Septuagint for the God of the Old Testament.44 When the word 
began to turn up in eastern Mediterranean inscriptions, it seemed 
logical to conclude that the Septuagint and the inscriptions, when 
they used the same word, were talking about the same god. Nilsson's 
statement of the situation demonstrates this scholarly confusion. He 
begins by saying, quite correctly, ""Yif;LU'TOS is an adjective which may 
be applied to any great god ... (it) is especially suitable for Zeus and 
the other high gods." But then he immediately continues, "It is just 
for that reason that the Semitic Baalim and the God of the Jews bear 
that title. The latter (the God of the Jews) is given the name very fre­
quently in the Septuagint and also in inscriptions from Asia Minor, 
where the Seleucids had caused numerous Jews to settle."45 Nilsson 
was attempting to write carefully on a topic about which many earlier 
scholars46 had made extravagant and ill-founded assumptions, but 

42 Keil and von Premerstein, op.cit. (supra n.12) no.189; cf Robert, op.cit. (supra n.7) 119 
n.60. 

43 Robert, op.cit. (supra n.7) 112ff. 
44 Juding from the standard concordance, the LXX uses VifILClTO'; (alone) of God 54 times, 

o iJifmI'TO'; 50 times, 0 8fi6s iJ.pLGTOS once, iJ.pLaTOS 8<:os not at all. Of the nine NT uses of iJ.pLGTOS 

for God. four use the form 08fi6,; 0 V,pLGTO'; (Mk. 5.Il//Lk 8.28, Acts 16.7, Hebr. 7.1); the 
remainder use V,pUlTO'; (anarthrous) except for Acts 7.48 0 V,pLaTOS. The Apostolic Fathers 
use a iJ.pLaTOS five times (all in I Clem.), iJ.pLGTO'; once (introd. oflgnatius' letter to Rome). 

45 GGR II.664. 
46 For example, Kittel's use (op.cit. [supra n.19] passim) of the many iJ.pLaTO,;-texts to pro­

duce a picture of a 'Judaizing process' spreading irresistibly over the Roman Empire and re-



92 "Y¥'IETOE AND THE SYNAGOGUE AT SARDIS 

even Nilsson went far beyond his evidence. The Jews whom the 
Seleucids transplanted are those already mentioned who settled 
around Sardis in Lydia and Phrygia. Since Nilsson wrote, the Sardis 
discoveries have revealed that Jewish presence and influence in just 
this area are far greater than he or anyone else had imagined. But the 
newer evidence, instead of drawingvr/tLUTos more closely into Anatolian 
Judaism, points in the other direction. In the one nearby Jewish text 
in which the title is used, the phrasing is deliberate, surely self-con­
scious; the dedicant seems to be asserting that in the face of all the 
deities given the title vr/t,aTos, his god, the God of the Jews, is in fact 
the highest god (CIjud 769). 

But why would a non-Jew use this epithet for his god? For this area 
of Lydia, Phrygia and Ionia there are at least two major causes: the 
first is simply that here a number of gods are associated with heights 
and mountain-peaks ;47 most of the gods are Anatolian, not Greek, to 
begin with, and when Greek epithets become necessary, Vr/tLaTOS is a 
likely one. The second cause is more complex, and has to do with 
what Nilsson called an "impulse toward monotheism"; as he made 
perfectly clear, the trend of piety and religious thought in the Graeco­
Roman world is frequently in this direction.48 The explanation is 
simple enough: after Alexander the Great, local gods began to seem 
insufficient; a deity worth honoring had to have world-wide, even 
cosmic authority. In an age when an emperor had almost universal 
power, one's gods could have no less. Philosophers from Cleanthes to 
Plutarch to Maximus of Tyre spoke in terms of an exalted, eternal god, 
and so did the manufacturers and users of magical papyri and charms. 

Men called a god vr/t,aTos because he was the highest, in their esti­
mation, or because they wanted to reach the highest; in many cases 
he was in fact "the only god for them," or at least the only one worth 
mentioning, a deity superior to the many local gods. Men needed a 

versed finally only by Christianity. But Nilsson's argumentation is not always so careful 
either; perhaps least convincing in his treatment of vepurros is his attempt (GGR II.666) to 

find jewish participation in a western Anatolian cult whose monuments show Zeus, 
Artemis and Apollo and whose inscriptions mention Zeus, Zeus Hypsistos, Apollo and 
Cybele. (His presentation is further clouded by the fact that his pictures of reliefs in ques­
tion are mislabeled in GGR II: Tafeln 14.3 and 14.4 have been reversed, cf p.666.) 

47 A. B. Cook discusses Hypsistos (in op.cit. [supra n.13] II.Z App.B, pp.876iI) in an appendix 
entitled "The Mountain-cults of Zeus." 

48 On the "Drang zum Monotheismus," GGR 11.569-78. 



A. T. KRAABEL 93 

deity who had power not only in their own home towns, but wher­
ever they might go in the much larger world of the Hellenistic 
monarchies and then of the Roman Empire. 

Such forces and human requirements as these produced the 1Jv./(uros­

inscriptions of Lydia, Phrygia and Ionia. I suggest that they are also 
behind 1JV./(uros-texts found elsewhere in the Graeco-Roman world.49 

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 

February, 1969 

49 This conclusion might be reinforced by a glance at another divine epithet. The desire 
for a Ods E-"~KOOS, <a god who listens (to our prayers)', is also part of the piety of this period; 
as O. Weinreich has shown, this term is used quite frequently in the Imperial Period, yet no 
one pootulates a single deity Epekoos or asks that all occurrences of the epithet be derived from 
a Single source. The Weinreich article is "€ilEo£ J7r~KOO'," AthMitt 37 (1912) 1-68; the second 
part (46-68) is a fascinating discussion of votive reliefs depicting only (the god's) ears, a 
graphic example of the meaning of the epithet. For more recent evidence, see M. Avi­
Yonah, "Syrian Gods at Ptolemais-Accho," IsraelExplorJ 9 (1959) 5fr. [Addendum: generally 
on Anatolian Judaism, see my Judaism in Western Asia Minor under the Roman Empire, 
forthcoming in the series Studia Post-Biblica (Leiden) ed. J. C. H. Lebram.] 

7-G.R.B.S.