nected with their Opposition to the Christians and with the effort o f both groups to make their religious adherence visible and unambiguous.75
These efforts for homogeneity and solidarity make sense if one considers the com-petition among the religions in Late Antiquity.76 The tolerance decree o f Galerius had created — only temporarily — a kind of market of religious beliefs, in which Greeks, Christians, and Jews were participating, crossing the boundaries of their religious com-munities. The evidence collected recently by Paul Trebilco indicates that in the fourth Century not only pagans, but also Christians were attracted to Judaism and attended the synagogue — a problem often addressed by the Christian fathers.77 At Aphrodisias, the three proselytes and the 54 theosebeis in the 'donor inscriptions' present clear evidence for the attraction of the Jewish religion; it may be true that the theosebeis were primarily recruited among the pagan families, but there are reasons to suspect that the Jewish synagogue had attracted members of Christian families as well. One of the theosebeis has the characteristic Christian name Gregorios (face I 1. 44), which alludes to the duty of the Christian to be alert and watchful (gregorein), particularly with regard to sins (a meaning attested, e.g., in the Gospel of Matthew 24.43).78 Not very far away, at Dehler, near Philadelpheia, two theosebeis with the names Eustathios and Athanasia donated a basin to the synagogue.79 Again, their names are almost exclusively attested for Chris-tians and allude to Christian beliefs and virtues: faith and immortality of the soul.80 W e may suspect that Gregorios at Aphrodisias and Eustathios and Athanasia in Philadel-pheia, originated from Christian families. O f course, this phenomenon is not limited to Aphrodisias: the proselyte Anastasios at Venosa was probably the offspring of Christian parents who gave him a typically Christian name that alludes to resurrection.81 The in-terpenetration o f ideas and forms of religious expression can be detected in the use of the same religious vocabulary by pagans, Christians, and Jews, which makes it often so difficult to attribute an inscription to one of the three communities. The dedications of Fl. Eusebios and Polychronios discussed earlier are intriguing examples for this religious complexity.82
75 For the construction of new barriers because of Christian anxieties cf. Rajak 1992: 25; Lieu 1998; Stanton 1998. For the confrontation of Christianity and Judaism in the fourth Century see Neusner 1991: 30-92. For the onomastic practices of the Jews in Rome see Rutgers
1995: 139-175.
76 For religious competition cf. North 1992: 183-92.
77 Trebilco 1991: 27-32; cf. van der Horst 1990: 174-81; Hahn 1996: 72-5.
78 There is a single attestation of the name (in its female form Giegoria) for a Jewish (?) woman: Frey 1952: no. 927. For 7priyop€lv in Christian literature see, e.g., Lautenschlager
1990: 39-42.
79 Robert 1937:410f.; Frey 1952: no. 754; Trebilco 1991: 162, assumes that they were Jews.
80 There is only one attestation of the name Athanasios in Jewish context: Frey 1952: no. 796 (Noy 1995: no. 400 is not certain) and two for Eustathia: Frey 1952: nos. 804 and 813.
81 Noy 1993: no. 52 (fifth Century). For another attestation of Anastasios in Jewish context see Frey 1952: no. 1123 (Beth Shearim).
82 For an example from Ephesos see Horsley 1992: 126. For the blurring of distinctions be-tween Christians and Jews see van der Horst 1990: 176f.; bebe-tween Jews and polytheists in Asia Minor: Ameling 1996: 45-7; between Christians and pagans in Egypt in Late Anti-quity: Vinzent 1998: 46-53.
232 THE JEWS OF APHRODISIAS
T h e aim o f this paper w a s to s h o w that the k n o w n J e w i s h evidence at A p h r o d i s i a s c o m e s from Late Antiquity. T h e sudden appearance o f J e w i s h evidence is probably a result o f Galerius' tolerance decree. Between c. 3 5 0 and 500 C E , in a period o f religious conflict and suppression, but also o f religious quest and ambiguity, the J e w i s h C o m m u -nity o f A p h r o d i s i a s flourished, possibly profiting f r o m the resistance o f the late pagans.*
Heidelberg University
A p p e n d i x I: T h e onomastic habit in the 'donor inscriptions'83
In this A p p e n d i x , I present personal names o n face I o f the ' d o n o r inscriptions' w h i c h are characteristic for or exclusively attested in Late Antiquity. F o r this survey, I h a v e not collected all the attestations o f the relevant names, but I h a v e limited m y s e l f to the f o l l o w i n g representative onomastic lexica: LGPN, Foraboschi 1971, Preisigke 1922, and Solin 1982. Since the 'donor inscriptions' were f o u n d in a city in A s i a M i n o r , it w a s important to survey the m a j o r corpora o f A s i a M i n o r as w e l l (Inschriften der griech-ischen Städte in Kleinasien, I.Magnesia, I.Milet, I.Pergamon, I.Priene, MAMA, TAM,
Hagel and T o m a s c h i t z 1998, Laminger-Pascher 1992, and M a l a y 1999). G i v e n their J e w i s h context, it w a s also important to consider also Frey 1937: 3 9 3 - 5 9 3 and 1952, Horbury and N o y 1992 and N o y 1993, Lüderitz and R e y n o l d s 1983 ( N o y 1995 and Frey
1937: 5 - 3 9 2 overlap w i t h Solin 1982). Needless to say I have tried to a v o i d duplication.
I have considered both male and female, G r e e k and Latin, expanded and shortened forms (e.g. A r k a d i o s , Arkadia, A r c a d i u s , A r c a d i a , Gregorios, G l e g o r i o s , Gregoris, Prokopios and Prokopianos).
I should like to express my thanks to Professor R.R.R. Smith (Oxford) and Professor Ch.
Rattö (New York) for inviting me to participate in the excavation of Aphrodisias as an epi-grapher (1995-) and for facilitating my work in many ways; I have discussed the problem of the 'donor inscriptions' with Dr. Joyce Reynolds, whose critical remarks were of great help to my work. Dr. James Cowey has corrected the English text. The problems discussed in this article have been presented in lectures at the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting (San Francisco No-vember 1997), in Heidelberg (June 1998), at the Conference 'Kulturelle Komplexität:
Bedrohung oder Chance?' (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen, September 1998), at the Annual Meeting of Austrian Ancient Historians (Vienna, October 1998), at the Conference 'Die Epigraphik sozialer und religiöser Gruppen in Kleinasien' (Trier, May 1999) and at the 'David Lewis Lecture' (Oxford May 2000). The comments of colleagues and the questions from the various audiences have helped me render some issues more precisely. I should also like to thank Hedwig Millian who allowed me to use her unpublished Masters' thesis, Die jüdische Widmungsinschrifl aus Aphrodisias in Karien im Widerstreit der
wissenschaftli-chen Meinungen (Vienna 1997), which presents an excellent summary of recent research on the 'donor inscriptions'. My research at Aphrodisias has been supported by the Dorot Foun-dation (1996) and the Alexander S. Onassis FounFoun-dation (1997).
Ronald Oetjen has assisted me in the compilation of Appendix I.
ANGELOS CHANIOTIS 233
2 3 4 T H E J E W S OF A P H R O D I S I A S