Basilica, Stoa, and Cathedra: A Historical and Linguistic Analysis of the Talmudic Passage on the Synagogue of Alexandria (Sukkah 51b)
See my previous piece “Waves from the West: Uncovering some Greco-Roman Undercurrents in the Sea of Talmud” (May 21, 2023). And see all my pieces on Greek loan words in the Talmud and related literature at my page at Academia.edu (requires registration). For a succinct scholarly overview of the topic, see Daniel Sperber, “Rabbinic Knowledge of Greek,” in Shmuel Safrai, et al., eds., The Literature of the Sages, Part Two (2006), pp. 627-640.
Illustration generated by Dall-e. Description: “An illustration of the grand synagogue of Alexandria in Egypt, inspired by a Talmudic passage. The synagogue is depicted as a magnificent basilica with a colonnade within a colonnade. Inside, there are six hundred thousand men, representing a bustling scene of worship. The interior features seventy-one golden chairs, each symbolizing the members of the Great Sanhedrin, and made of an immense amount of gold. At the center, a wooden platform is visible where the sexton stands with scarves in his hand. He is waving a scarf to signal the congregation to respond 'amen' during the communal prayer. The grandeur and opulence of the synagogue are highlighted, reflecting the glory of ancient Israel.”
Text of Sukkah 51b
תניא, רבי יהודה אומר:
מי שלא ראה דיופלוסטון של אלכסנדריא של מצרים, לא ראה בכבודן של ישראל.
אמרו: כמין בסילקי גדולה היתה, סטיו לפנים מסטיו.
פעמים שהיו בה (ששים רבוא על ששים רבוא), כפלים כיוצאי מצרים.
והיו בה שבעים ואחת קתדראות של זהב, כנגד שבעים ואחת של סנהדרי גדולה, כל אחת ואחת אינה פחותה מעשרים ואחד רבוא ככרי זהב.
ובימה של עץ באמצעיתה, וחזן הכנסת עומד עליה והסודרין בידו. וכיון שהגיע לענות אמן, הלה מניף בסודר וכל העם עונין אמן.
Ed. Steinzaltz translation and explanation, with slight adjustments:
It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yehuda says:
One who did not see the great synagogue [deyoploston] of Alexandria of Egypt never saw the glory of Israel.
They said that its structure was like a large basilica [basileki], with a colonnade within a colonnade.
At times there were six hundred thousand men and another six hundred thousand men in it, twice the number of those who left Egypt.
In it there were seventy-one golden chairs [katedraot], corresponding to the seventy-one members of the Great Sanhedrin, each of which consisted of no less than twenty-one thousand talents of gold.
And there was a wooden platform at the center. The sexton of the synagogue would stand on it, with the scarves in his hand. And because the synagogue was so large and the people could not hear the communal prayer, when the prayer leader reached the conclusion of a blessing requiring the people to answer amen, the sexton waved the scarf and all the people would answer amen.
Greek Loan words in the text
It is apparent that many of the loan words are primarily architectural. Many of these have Wikipedia entries, since they are prominent aspects of Hellenistic architecture.
Dioploston (דיופלוסטון): Jastrow explains that this is a compound word, to be analyzed as Dioplo-ston, meaning “double stoa” (διπλῆ-στοά - diple-stoa). Diple is cognate with the modern English word double. Jastrow explains “a double colonnade; double row of seats”.
Basilica (בסילקי). Basilica - Wikipedia: “In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name to the architectural form of the basilica. Originally, a basilica was an ancient Roman public building, where courts were held, as well as serving other official and public functions. Basilicas are typically rectangular buildings with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles [...]”
Stoa (סטיו): Stoa - Wikipedia: “A stoa [...] in ancient Greek architecture, is a covered walkway or portico, commonly for public use.”
Cathedra (קתדראות). (In the original, in plural) Cognate with modern English word cathedral. Cathedra - Wikipedia > “Etymology”: “The English word cathedra, plural cathedrae, comes from the Latin word for ‘armchair’, itself derived from the Greek (καθέδρα).”
Sanhedrin (סנהדרי). (In the original, it’s re-analyzed in Hebrew as a plural, with semichut. Similar to what happened with sudarin, mentioned further, see the discussion in Balashon blog.) The institution of the Sanhedrin is mentioned in Josephus (Josephus incidentally wrote in Greek). I'm not sure if Talmud knows that this is a Greek loan words, it's likely that they didn't. Sanhedrin - Wikipedia: “The Sanhedrin [...] from Koinē Greek [...] synedrion, 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council' ”. Synedrion - Wikipedia: “A synedrion or synhedrion (Greek: [...] "sitting together", hence "assembly" or "council" [...]) is an assembly that holds formal sessions. The Latinized form is synedrium. Depending on the widely varied constitutions, it applied to diverse representative or judiciary organs of Greek and Hellenistic city-states and treaty organisations”. See more at סנהדרין - ויקימילון.
Bima (בימה): βῆμα - Wiktionary (bema), sense #2: “raised place or tribune from which men spoke in a public assembly”. See more at Balashon - Hebrew Language Detective: bamah and bimah; בימה - ויקימילון; במה ובימה - האקדמיה ללשון העברית.
Sudarin (סודרין). σουδάριον - Wiktionary (soudárion): “Borrowed from Latin sudarium [...] towel, napkin.” sudarium - Wiktionary, sense #2: “handkerchief”. Cognate with modern English sweat and sweater. See more at Balashon - Hebrew Language Detective: sudar and sweater; סודר - ויקימילון.
Some Historical Background and analysis of the text
The Alexandrian Jewish community was Greek-speaking.1 The famous ancient Greek translation of the Bible (the Septuagint, discussed elsewhere in the Talmud) was from there.
Wikipedia, “History of the Jews in Alexandria”:
The history of the Jews in Alexandria dates back to the founding of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE.
Jews in Alexandria played a crucial role in the political, economic, cultural and religious life of Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria, with Jews comprising about 35% of the city's population during the Roman Era.
Alexandrian Jewry were the founders of Hellenistic Judaism and the first to translate the Torah from Hebrew to Koine Greek, a document known as the Septuagint. Many important Jewish writers and figures came from or studied in Alexandria, such as Philo, Ben Sira, Tiberius Julius Alexander and Josephus.
The position of Alexandria's Jewry began deteriorating during the Roman era, as deep antisemitic sentiment began developing amongst the city's Greek and Egyptian populations. This led to the subsequent Alexandrian pogrom in 38 CE and the Alexandria riot in 66 CE, which was in parallel with the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War […]
In 115 CE the remaining Jewish population participated in the Kitos War, leading to the economic situation of the community being undermined, and its population diminished.
The name Alexandria itself stems from the name of arguably the most famous Greek himself, Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BCE). Alexander the Great is mentioned a number of times in the Talmud. Including immediately after, in the talmudic passage, where Abaye (~4th century CE) is quoted as saying that Alexander killed all of the Jews in Alexandria!:
אמר אביי:
וכולהו קטלינהו אלכסנדרוס מוקדן.
מאי טעמא איענוש?
משום דעברי אהאי קרא: ״לא תוסיפון לשוב בדרך הזה עוד״, ואינהו הדור אתו.
After depicting the glory of the synagogue, the Gemara relates that Abaye said:
All of the people who congregated in that synagogue were killed by Alexander the Great of Macedonia.
The Gemara asks: What is the reason that they were punished and killed?
It is due to the fact that they violated the prohibition with regard to Egypt in this verse: “You shall henceforth return no more that way” (Deuteronomy 17:16), and they returned. Since they established their permanent place of residence in Egypt, they were punished.
However, historically this is impossible. See Norman Solomon, Talmud: A Selection (2009), on this passage, in a footnote (I added hyperlinks and dates, where relevant):
"This is impossible, and contradicts the Yerushalmi (Sukka 5:1), where the name is recognizably a form of Trajan. In 117 [CE] Lusius Quietus, on Trajan’s orders, crushed the Revolt of the Diaspora which had spread to Egypt. A diminished and impoverished Jewish community remained in Alexandria, despite a brief expulsion under the Christian patriarch Cyril in 414 […]
Azaria dei Rossi (c. 1511–78) was the first Jew in modern times to question the text on the basis of external historical evidence; see [Joanna] Weinberg, Light of the Eyes [2001], pp. 241–51."
Compare Gary Rendsburg on bilingual wordplay in the Bible, “YHWH’s War Against the Egyptian Sun-God Ra” (2016), in footnote 2:
“For my earlier study, see Gary A. Rendsburg, “The Egyptian Sun-God Ra in the Pentateuch,” Henoch 10 (1988), pp. 3-15, in particular pp. 6-7 – available at my website: http://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/docman/rendsburg/63-the-egyptian-sun-god-ra-in-the-pentateuch/file). For other instances of bilingual puns in the Bible, see Gary A. Rendsburg, “Bilingual Wordplay in the Bible,” Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988), pp. 354-357 – available at my website: http://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/docman/rendsburg/62-bilingual-wordplay-in-the-bible/file).“
Rendsburg ibid. (“Bilingual Wordplay in the Bible”, p. 356):
The Israelite literati were masters of their craft who could, when necessary, depict life in other lands quite accurately. Without entering into the issue of their historicity, consider, for example, the Joseph Story set in Egypt and the book of Esther set in Persia. It is certainly not beyond belief that these same writers could use bilingual polysemy to enhance the quality of their literary creations. The extent to which educated Israelites were fluent in other Near Eastern languages is a moot point. But it is hard to imagine that, if an Assyrian such as Rabshakeh could speak Hebrew (see 2 Kgs xviii 26; Isa. xxxvi 11; 2 Chr. xxxii 18), there were not some Israelites who knew Assyrian […] Besides, even if one were not conversant in neighboring languages, one could reasonably assume that an educated Hebrew speaker would know the meanings of Greek σοφία [sophia] Egyptian ra, and Akkadian sarru, just to use the examples presented above. All three are common words in the general cultural, religious, or political spheres.
Moreover, there appear to be instances where biblical writers could color their Hebrew composition sufficiently to reflect the speech of non-Israelites. S. A. Kaufman recently has explained the Aramaic-like language in pericopes such as Isa. xxi 11-14 and Prov. xxxi 1-9 as intentional reflections of the speech of denizens of the Syrian Desert. This technique could also explain the presence of Assyrian elements in Rabshakeh's speech in 2 Kgs xviii 19-25, 27-35 = Isa. xxxvi 4-10, 12-20, as noted by Cohen (see n. 10). In Kaufman's words: "The biblical authors apparently did not hesitate to use 'style switching' to reflect differences in the speech of their characters" (see n. 11).
All this goes to show that it should not be surprising to find bilingual puns in the Bible. Clearly this was another device in the arsenal of techniques available to Hebrew writers. Exegetes should be on the lookout for other such instances.
Discussed also in Wikipedia, “Bilingual pun”.
In an upcoming piece, I’ll discuss some bilingual puns in the Talmud.
It should be pointed out that Mishnah Tractate Kelim also has a lot of Greek loan words, due to extensive theme of the realia of furniture.