The rites of Purim as seen by the Christian legislator: Codex Theodosianvs 16.8.18

John Victor Tolan

p. 165-173


Texte intégral

1On May 29th 408, a constitution issued by Anthemius, praetorian prefect of the East, makes a curious accusation against Eastern Jews; the law is subsequently incorporated into the Theodosian code, promulgated by Emperor Theodosius II in 438:

Emperors Honorius and Theodosius Augustuses to Anthemius, Praetorian Prefect. The governors of the provinces shall prohibit the Jews from setting fire to Haman in memory of his past punishment, in a certain ceremony of their festival, and from burning with sacrilegious intent a form made to resemble the Holy Cross in contempt of the Christian faith, lest they introduce the sign of our faith into their places, and they shall restrain their rites from ridiculing the Christian law, for they are bound to lose what had been permitted them till now unless they abstain from those matters which are forbidden. Given the fourth day before the calends of June at Constantinople, in the consulate of Bassus and Philippus1.

2This law suggests that in their celebrations of the festival of Purim, Jews deliberately mock Christianity by burning a crucified effigy of Haman. Not only does the law prohibit this custom, but the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius, under whose authority the law is issued, warn Jews to refrain from associating Christian symbols with Jewish rites and in general from ridiculing Christianity. The implicit threat is that if they fail to heed this injunction, they risk losing their privileges in Christian Roman society.

3As often with isolated legal texts, it is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend the historical reality underlying the text. Did 4th century Jews in fact burn a crucified Haman in effigy as part of Purim celebrations? If so, how widespread was this practice? The emperors affirm that the practice deliberately mocked Christianity, and that this is part of a wider tendency to deride the Christian faith. This is one of a number of laws in the Theodosian Code, which seem to reflect a preoccupation with the borders between Jewish and Christian communities, Jewish and Christian symbols and rituals.

Purim and the depiction of Haman’s demise, according to medieval Jewish and Christian authors

4Purim is the annual commemoration of the victory of the Persian Jews over their enemies, as commemorated in the book of Esther2. The Jewess Esther, according to the Book of Esther, was queen of Persia, wife of the Emperor Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). Her cousin, Mordecai, was a counselor to the Emperor. Another counselor, Haman, out of hatred for Mordecai, convinced Ahasuerus to order the massacre of all the Jews of Persia. The queen’s entreaties dissuaded the Emperor from this massacre, and the Emperor then allowed the Jews to wreak vengeance against their enemies. Thus Haman and his ten sons met their death, as did 75 000 enemies of the Jews across the Persian Empire. Subsequently this event, the deliverance by God’s grace of his people from the hands of his enemies, is commemorated, both in writing and by an annual celebration.

5And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to establish this among them: that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and the fifteenth day of the same yearly, as the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another and gifts to the poor. And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them, because Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had schemed against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, the lot) to consume them and to destroy them3.

6The text itself serves both as a commemoration of these events and as an injunction to celebrate annually the festival of Purim (named a few lines later). The reading aloud of the scroll of the book of Esther will, apparently from the beginning, be an integral part of that celebration.

7The law in the Theodosian Code is one of the sources, which confirm that Purim was indeed celebrated in Jewish communities as early as the 5th century CE. We have seen that part of this celebration involves the burning of Haman in effigy. But why is the effigy of this ancient Persian enemy of the Jews «crucified»? In order to understand this, we need to look at the biblical text, which says that Haman had prepared a gallows for the execution of his enemy Mordecai —but that will in fact serve for his own death.

Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said: «Moreover, the gallows [ֵ ץע ] that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high». And the king said: «Hang him on that». So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated4.

8The Hebrew word, translated here as «gallows», is «ets» (ֵ ץע ), which means «tree», but can also mean «plank» or, as here, «gallows». So given the common practice of crucifixion in ancient Persia and Rome, Roman Jews might reasonably assume that someone executed on an ֵ ץע was in fact crucified.

9This becomes an even more likely interpretation if one looks at the Septuagint version of Esther 7, 95:

Then Bougathan, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said: «Look! Haman has even prepared a pole for Mardochaios, who spoke up on behalf of the king, and a pole fifty cubits tall has been erected at Haman’s». And the king said: «Let him be crucified upon it»6.

10In this passage of the Septuagint, one of the royal eunuchs discovers the «pole» (ξύλον) that Haman has prepared for killing Mordecai. The king, in ordering Haman’s execution, uses the word σταυρωθήτω («crucify»). In the Latin text of the Vulgate, the king specifically orders a Cross (crucem) to be prepared for Haman7. So a number of readers and translators of the text of Esther, writing earlier or at roughly the same period concerned in Theodosius’ law, understood Haman’s execution to be a crucifixion.

11Later readers were at times to come to the same conclusion. In the Purgatorio, the pilgrim Dante has a vision in which he sees the protagonists of the book of Esther:

Then there rained down into my lofty phantasy
One fastened to a Cross, scornful
And fierce in looks, and in his death.
With him were Ahasuerus, the great king,
Esther, his wife, and Mordecai the just,
So upright in his words and deeds8.

12Dante’s Haman, too, is «fastened to a Cross». It is probably Dante’s description that inspired Michelangelo for his depiction of the crucifixion of Haman in the Sistine Chapel, painted in 1511: Haman occupies the center foreground, his naked body dramatically splayed, nailed onto a rough Cross hewn from branches of a tree (fig. 1)9.

13The point of all this is that we find a great variety of traditions that have Haman hanged, impaled or crucified: in Jewish sources before and after the rise of Christianity, and in Christian traditions up to and including Dante and Michelangelo10. There is therefore nothing exceptional or unusual in the fact that 5th century Jews in the Eastern Roman Empire would depict Haman crucified.

Fig. 1. —Michaelangelo Buonarroti, Punishment of Haman, 1511, Fresco, 585 x 985 cm, Sistine Chapel, Vatican

Image 100000000000028D000001A54D00A2B5D879D3E4.jpg

Vatican, Cappella Sistina [ARR]

The celebration of Purim in ancient and medieval Jewish societies

14The law of Theodosius II is one important testimony that Jews in antiquity did indeed celebrate Purim. Second Maccabees, which was probably written during the 2nd century BCE, provides another important example. It mentions the celebration that coincides with the victory of Judas Maccabeus, who defeated and killed the enemy Seleucid general Nikanor:

And he hung Nicanor’s head from the citadel, a clear and conspicuous sign to every one of the help of the Lord. And they all decreed by public vote never to let this day go unobserved, but to celebrate the thirteenth day of the twelfth month [which is called Adar in the Syrian language] the day before Mordecai’s day11.

15He hung Nicanor’s head from the Citadel, a clear and evident sign to all of the help of the Lord. They all decreed by public vote never to let that day go by unobserved, but to celebrate the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, called Adar in Aramaic, the eve of what is called the Day of Mordecai.

16This fresh victory over a powerful enemy of the Jews falls at the same time as the ancient victory over Haman, in the month of Adar. Significantly, the celebrations of the new victory are fused with those of the «day of Mordecai», which was clearly a part of the Jewish festive calendar. The idea of commemorating fresh victories over the Jews’ enemies as new Purims continues until at least the 16th century, when Jewish communities in Morocco establish a new «Purim» celebration to commemorate the defeat of king Sebastian I of Portugal’s forces at the Battle of Ksar El Kebir (also known as Battle of Three Kings) on 4th August 157812.

17In his Antiquities of the Jews (ca. 94 CE), Josephus offers testimony to the continued observance of Purim. He relates the story of the book of Esther and notes that the Jews still observe the feast of Purim in order to remain faithful to the mandates of the book of Esther13. The Megillah, part of the Mishna, composed ca. 200 CE, gives indications as to how Purim is to be celebrated. The scroll of Esther is to be read publicly, in its entirety, between the days of 11 and 15 Adar. The Babylon Talmud (Megillah 7b) specifies that among other obligations, one should drink until one is no longer able to understand the difference between «praised by Mordecai» and «cursed by Haman»14.

18Another testimony to the importance of Purim in ancient Jewish practice is a fresco from the synagogue of Dura Europos, painted ca. 245 CE, and given an unusually prominent place in the synagogue: just to the right of the sanctuary of the Torah (fig. 2)15. On the left, Mordecai (his name is indicated), dressed in a coat that is identical to those worn by Persian kings in the traditional Persian iconography, rides a white horse held by a man who probably is Haman. On the right we see the king dressed in identical clothing, sitting on his throne. Behind the king sits, enthroned, Queen Esther. Much has been written about this painting. Here I will only recall some elements of context, fleshed out in greater detail by scholars such as Dalia Tawil. Dura Europos is in 245 a Roman city to the border with the rival empire of the Sassanids. The influence of Persian artistic traditions here is clear. The figure of the king, faithful to the Persian iconography, is presented so as to enhance his legitimacy. Ostensibly honoring Mordecai (in royal attire) and Queen Esther, the artist presents the Persian monarch as a defender of the Jews against their enemies. If the enemy represented is of course Haman, contemporary echoes would ring loud and clear to the Jews of this Roman town near the borders of the Persian Empire. This interpretation may explain the importance given to the story of Esther put immediately to the right of sanctuary of the Torah. It shows the symbolic importance of Purim as a festival celebrating the victory over his enemies old and new, here pagan Rome, Christian Rome later16.

Fig. 2. —The Purim Triumph, ca. 245 CE, Fresco, Dura-Europos Synagogue, Syria. Goodenough, Erwin R., Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, New York, Bollingen Foundation, 1964, p. 11

Image 10000000000002A8000001A4E6D682096859AFDA.jpg

National Museum of Damascus, Syria [ARR]

19Various texts between the 9th and 11th centuries CE show that Jewish communities of the Muslim world celebrated Purim and that at least some of the celebrations involved burning Haman in effigy. Al-Bīrūnī, writing in 10th century Iran, explains that the festival of Purim is also called the feast of the Megillah and is sometimes known as «images of Haman» (ṣuwar Hāmān), since as part of the festivities the Jews make images of Haman which they strike and then burn, in imitation of the burning of Haman on the 14th and 15th of the month of Adar17. A responsum from the Cairo Geniza, preserved on a parchment fragment from the 13th century, probably dates from the Gaonic period in Baghdad: it describes the rites of the Jews of «Babylon and Elam». Four or five days before Purim, the responsum explains, the Jewish youths make an effigy of Haman and hang it from the roof. On the day of Purim they build a great fire and then toss the effigy in the fire, singing and joking18.

20What can we learn from this rather sparse collection of examples coming from Jewish communities far apart from each other, in both space and time? First, that Purim indeed found a place in the liturgical calendar of a number of Jewish communities of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. While the rites and traditions no doubt varied, the central rite is the reading aloud of the scroll of Esther; later sources explain that the reading is often done in the vernacular (so that all can understand), frequently in a joyful and chaotic ambiance (with children shouting or making noise every time the name of Haman is pronounced)19. The celebrants drink; they sometimes burn an effigy of Haman (we find examples of this up to the 20th century). In medieval and modern Europe, the festival is similar in many ways to the Christians’ carnival: a joyous atmosphere reigns and normal hierarchies are often suspended or reversed: men dress as women, women as men, figures of authority are lampooned, etc. Yet like carnival, Purim can also be a period of violence, of settling accounts and letting long-subdued hostilities break forth. Elliot Horowitz, in his book Reckless Rites, shows how Purim has at times been the occasion of anger or hatred against those who are perceived as the enemies of the Jews20. He shows that this has been the case, at times, in the contemporary state of Israel, citing examples, say, of Jews spitting on Armenian Christians in the Old City of Jerusalem. The most infamous and tragic manifestation of violence against non-Jews on Purim was the massacre of 29 Muslims by the deranged extremist Baruch Goldstein in 1994.

Constructing alterity in the Theodosian code

21If we follow Horowitz’s logic, perhaps Anthemius, Theodosius and Honorius were right: Jews, in burning an effigy of Haman crucified, deliberately mocked Christianity, its rites and dogma. In the absence of corroborative evidence, of course, this remains pure speculation. In the end, it is impossible to say who these Jews were, what exactly they did in their rites, or in with what aims and in what spirit they did so. The law, it seems, tells us little concrete about the acts and beliefs of these 5th century Jews.

22Yet it does tell us something important about how the Emperor and his officers perceive the Jews and their place in a Christian Empire. In a period when various church fathers (for example John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople from 398 to 404) attempted to limit Jewish-Christian contact (by, for example, prohibiting Christians from frequenting synagogues), we see that Christian authorities seek to separate the two communities, Jews and Christians. While the Theodosian code frequently qualifies Judaism as a «superstition», it nevertheless offers protection to Jews and to their synagogues. Various laws prohibit violence against synagogues, prohibit judges from summoning them to court on the Sabbath, offer privileges to Jewish religious officials21. Here the emperors affirm that in order to conserve these privileges, Jews must avoid ridiculing Christianity. In particular, incorporation of Christian objects or symbols into Jewish rites, and into Jewish religious space, is prohibited.

23Another law from the Theodosian Code sheds light on this process of defining and constricting Judaism in a Christian Roman Empire.

Jews shall be bound by their own ritual. Meanwhile, in preserving their privileges, we shall imitate the ancients by whose sanctions it was determined that those privileges which are conferred upon the first clerics of the venerable Christian religion shall continue, by the consent of Our Imperial Divinity, for those persons who are subject to the power of the Illustrious Patriarch, for the rulers of the synagogues, the patriarchs, and the priests, and for all the rest who are occupied in the ceremonial of that religion22.

24Jews shall be bound by their own ritual. Meanwhile, in preserving their privileges, we shall imitate the ancients by whose sanctions it was determined that those privileges which are conferred upon the first clerics of the venerable Christian religion shall continue, by the consent of Our Imperial Divinity, for those persons who are subject to the power of the Illustrious Patriarch, for the rulers of the synagogues, the patriarchs, and the priests, and for all the rest who are occupied in the ceremonial of that religion.

25Issued by Arcadius on 1st July 397, it concerns the privileges attributed to Jewish «clergy» (whose various members are enumerated) and, as Capucine Nemo-Pekelman has noted, contains nothing new in substance23. Yet, as she notes, there is one important difference in the justification given for those privileges: they are specifically associated with those granted to Christian clergy, and Judaism is presented not as a «superstitio» but as a «religio» with its own «sacramentis» and «sanctimonia» —terms free of invective and often reserved for Christianity.

26Perhaps the most intriguing and enigmatic part of this law is the first sentence: «Iudaei sint obstricti caerimoniis suis» («Jews shall be band by their own ritual»). This is of course far less specific and concrete than the clerical privileges enumerated afterward. Yet it suggests a desire to define and confine the Jewish community. In order to benefit from the privileges accorded to them by the emperors, Jews must be subject to the clerical hierarchy of what Amnon Linder has called the «Jewish Church»24. Moreover, they must be Jews in ritual; this is at least what this first sentence seems to suggest. What is the ritual of the Jews’ religio? For the law of 408, clearly, it cannot include Christian rite or symbol or anything mocking Christianity. Imperial law delimits and defines what Judaism is. In the words of Daniel Boyarin, the 4th century emperors and their legists «invent» Judaism, which is for the first time designated as a «religion»25. While earlier emperors had granted privileges to Jews, they had done so in the same way they granted similar dispensations to other nationally or ethnically defined groups; only now, with the emergence of Christianity as the dominant religion of the empire, is Judaism defined and delimited as a religion.

27For Theodosius, as for various church fathers, it was necessary clearly to mark the borders between these two religions, each one having its beliefs, its rituals and its ecclesiastical hierarchy. In order to do this, anything that tended to efface the barriers between the two religions had to be prohibited. The rituals of burning a crucified effigy of Haman transgressed this border by bringing the quintessential symbol of the Christian faith, the crucifix, into the Jewish ritual space. The rites of the other cause problems when they call into question the truths of the dominant religion.

Notes de bas de page

1 «Impp. Honorius et Theodosius AA. Anthemo praefecto praetorio. Iudaeos quodam festiuitatis suae sollemni Aman ad poenae quondam recordationem incendere et sanctae crucis adsimulatam speciem in contemptum christianae fidei sacrilega mente exurere prouinciarum rectores prohibeant, ne locis suis fidei nostrae signum inmisceant, sed ritus suos citra contemptum christianae legis retineant, amissuri sine dubio permissa hactenus, nisi ab inlicitis temperauerint. Dat. IIII kal. iun. Constantinopoli Basso et Philippo conss.» (Theodosius II, Theodosiani [hereafter CTh), 16.8.18, p. 891; The Corpus of Roman Law, trans. by C. Pharr. I prefer the reading «locis» to «iocis» (extant in some manuscripts), and have modified the citations of the Latin text and English translation accordingly. For the text, commentary and bibliography on this law, see <http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait979/>. This publication is part of the research project RELMIN «The Legal Status of Religious Minorities in the Euro-Mediterranean World (5th-15th centuries)»; The research leading to this publication has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Progamme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement n° 249416. See <www.relmin.eu>.

2 E. Lubetski and M. Lubetski, The Book of Esther.

3 Esther 9, 20-24.

4 Esther 7, 9-10.

5 «εἶπεν δὲ Βουγαθαν εἷς τῶν εὐνούχων πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα Ἰδοὺ καὶ ξύλον ἡτοίμασεν Αμαν Μαρδοχαίῳ τῷ λαλήσαντι περὶ τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ ὤρθωται ἐν τοῖς Αμαν ξύλον πηχῶν πεντήκοντα. εἶπεν δὲ ὁ βασιλεύς Σταυρωθήτω ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ» (Esther7, 9-10).

6 Trans. by K. Jobes in A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. A. Pietersma and B. Wright, p. 436.

7 «Iussit excelsam parari crucem», Vulgate, Esther 5, 14.

8 «Poi piovve dentro a l’alta fantasia / un crucifisso, dispettoso e fero / ne la sua vista, e cotal si moria; / intorno ad esso era il grande Assüero, / Estèr sua sposa e ’l giusto Mardoceo, / che fu al dire e al far così intero» (Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, Canto XVII, l. 25-30).

9 Accessible at <http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m/michelan/3sistina/5spandre/10_1pe3.html> [accessed: 2013/01/09].

10 See T. Thornton, «The Crucifixion of Haman». Edgar Wind published in 1938 a strange anti-Semitic analysis of the Purim story, claiming that Jews may have ritually murdered Jesus as part of Purim ritual, which henceforth was transformed into a symbolic burning of Haman in effigy.

11 «’Eξέδησε δὲ τὴν τοῦ Νικάνορος κεφαλὴν ἐκ τῆς ἄκρας ἐπίδηλον πᾶσι καὶ φανερὸν τῆς τοῦ Κυρίου βοηθείας σημεῖον. Kαὶ ἐδογμάτισαν πάντες μετὰ κοινοῦ ψηφίσματος μηδαμῶς ἐᾶσαι ἀπαρασήμαντον τήνδε τὴν ἡμέραν, ἔχειν δὲ ἐπίσημον τὴν τρισκαιδεκάτην τοῦ δωδεκάτου μηνὸς ῎Αδαρ λέγεται τῇ Συριακῇ φωνῇ πρὸ μιᾶς ἡμέρας τῆς Μαρδοχαϊκῆς ἡμέρας» (2 Maccabees 15, 35-36).

12 See L. Valensi, Fables de la mémoire.

13 Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 11, chap. vi.

14 Megillah, trans. by J. Neusner.

15 Accessible at <http://divdl.library.yale.edu/dl/OneItem.aspx?qc=Eikon&q=4134> [accessed: 2013/01/09].

16 D. Levit-Tawil, «The Purim Panel in Dura»; Id., «The Enthroned King Ahasuerus Light».

17 N. S. Doniach, Purim, pp. 72-73.

18 L. Ginzberg, «Geniza Studies».

19 N. S. Doniach, Purim.

20 E. S. Horowitz, Reckless Rites.

21 See C. Nemo-Pekelman, Rome et ses citoyens juifs.

22 «Iudaei sint obstricti caerimoniis suis: nos interea in conseruandis eorum priuilegiis ueteres immitemur, quorum sanctionibus definitum est, ut priuilegia his, qui inlustrium patriarcharum dicioni subiecti sunt, archisynagogis patriarchisque ac presbyteris ceterisque, qui in eius religionis sacramento uersantur, nutu nostri numinis perseuerent ea, quae uenerandae christianae legis primis clericis sanctimonia deferuntur» (CTh 16.8.13).

23 C. Nemo-Pekelman, Rome et ses citoyens juifs, pp. 43-44.

24 A. Linder, «The Legal Status of the Jews».

25 D. Boyarin, «The Christian Invention of Judaism».


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