Palaestina Secunda: Jewish Resilience in Late Antiquity

Throughout the fourth century CE, the Roman provincial system underwent many organizational changes, including the creation of Palaestina Secunda ca. 400 CE. Located in northern Palestine, it comprised the Galilee, the Golan Heights, the Jezreel Valley, with Scythopolis as its capital. The usual reasons for such territorial adjustments—military, ethnic, political, social, economic, domestic security, and other concerns—do not seem to be applicable here.

It will be suggested that three factors were in play: (1) Palaestina Secunda contained the Jewish cities of Tiberias and Sepphoris, homes to the Patriarichate and centers of rabbinic activity; (2) this region contained the greatest concentration of Jews, and its 90-or-so synagogues constituted over 85 percent of the total in Palestine generally; (3) the Jews of late fourth-century Palaestina Secunda, as in Palaestina Prima, met with little adversity and seem to have enjoyed considerable stability and growth.

Multiple interrelated reasons account for this significant degree of Imperial support; the Patriarch approached the zenith of his power and authority at this time and, consequently Jewish practices and observances were reconfirmed in Imperial law, and synagogues received strong Imperial backing.

The benefits of this arrangement continued throughout the ensuing centuries, when Jewish cultural and religious creativity (aggadic midrashim, religious poetry [piyyut], mystical and magical literature) flourished and synagogues were built, many of which boasted impressive artistic, architectural, and epigraphic remains.