A Common Justice. Uriel I. Simonsohn
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leaders and men of elevated social standing. Considering the growing importance of the church in the social administration of towns and villages, it is important to note that the social rank and responsibilities that came with it also served to legitimize the judicial function of religious leaders. The judicial services performed by recluses, monks, and rural priests were of particular significance in the absence of ecclesiastical institutions.84 As small-scale egalitarian communities that often lacked autonomous institutions, local villages had a constant need for the intervention of external figures for purposes of direction, protection, and mediation.85 One version of the Life of the Syrian holy man Simeon Stylite (d. 459), which was authored by the bishop-writer Theodoret of Cyrrhus (d. 466), mentions Simeon’s role as arbiter: “He can be seen sitting in judgment and handing down proper and just sentences. These and similar activities are dealt with after three in the afternoon, for he spends the whole night and the day up till three P.M. in prayer. After three P.M. he first delivers the divine teaching to those present and then, after receiving the request of each and affecting some healings, he resolves the quarrels of the disputants.”86
Whereas the passage above illustrates Simeon’s role as an arbiter, resolving disputes and handing down sentences in a rather generic fashion, a letter from the Syrian village of Panir to the stylite exemplifies a village community seeking the patronage of a holy man. The letter, from Cosmas of Panir, was appended to the Syriac version of Simeon’s life and appears to be “a written covenant between the village and the holy man.”87 The letter is, in fact, the only non-hagiographic source that attests to the stylite’s authority.88
[T]o Mār Simeon … from Cosmas of the village of Panir together with the deacons and the readers and of the congregation and from the procurator and the veterans and all the village equally, all of us extol your great love in Christ, peace…. We are all writing to you in one perfect love concerning this. First we subscribe concerning Friday and Sunday, that be kept purely and worthily; concerning measures, that we not make ourselves two measures, but we have one true measure and one honest weight; that we not change a man’s boundary; that we not cheat a hired servant and a laborer of his wages; concerning usury, that half a percent be collected on extol your great love in Christ, peace…. We are all writing to you both old and new [debts]; about those small coins that are paid, that they be restored to their masters; that we administer honest judgment between the great and the small and that we show no favoritism; that we not accept a bribe, a man against his fellow man; that we not slander one another and not associate with robbers and magicians, that we chastise evil-doers and transgressors of the law, and we remain in the congregation for the life of our souls. Surely no one will be presumptuous and transgress these laws, or plunder, or defraud, or bribe a judge, or plunder orphans and widows or the poor, or rape a woman…. [W]hoever dares to transgress these, let it be according to your word, my Lord.
Pray for us, my just noble and true lord, that we be established and confirmed in what you have commanded us. We trust in Our Lord that if we do your words and keep your commandments and fulfill your laws we will be helped by Christ through your prayers. Pray for us, my lord, that we not be ashamed before you or found guilty by your Lord but that openly we will do these things in righteousness and we receive life from them.89
In the case of Panir, the role that Simeon was expected to fulfill was not that of an arbiter but rather more of a leader, laying down and enforcing rightful conduct among the village’s members. The letter serves as evidence of the stylite’s position: his leadership was accepted thanks to his spiritual reputation and his position as a respectable outsider.
It is this position that enabled holy men to serve as men of judicial authority in other contexts. The stylite’s function, as described in the letter, can be viewed “as one dramatic instance in a wider history of Christian arbitration and intervention, which was active from Egypt to Constantinople.”90 As Brown acknowledged in his reassessment of the rise and function of the holy man in late antiquity, holy men were not merely a late antique version of the classical holy fool but a variety of figures of spiritual reputation.91 The “collection of sayings, dialogues, and short narratives which preserve the words of the fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monks,”92 the Apophthegamta Patrum, sheds light on some of the ideals pertaining to passing judgment in the context of a monastic community. Here the monk is guided to abstain from judging or condemning his neighbor and to refrain from resolving disputes.93 Whereas such ideals may have been effective within the monastic community, their applicability outside it is less attested.
A collection of sixth-century questions and answers attributed to two members of the monastic community from the village of Tawatha, outside Gaza, testifies to the role played by monks in the life of local lay communities.94 Among the cases mentioned in this collection, one speaks of thieves who broke into a man’s house. The man asked: “Should I chase after them, or should I pretend that nothing has happened?” To this, the monks replied: “Why is it that we want to take revenge instead of leaving everything to God? … [L]est we want to fall into vainglory, let us do nothing … to the thieves.” Further persistence on the part of the alleged petitioner meets the following position: “Those who are on the lower level … seek to recuperate what they have lost…. This brings some people to turn to the courts.”95 Admittedly, the monks were not exercising judicial authority in its conventional form. Nonetheless, to an extent, their answers did assume a judicial capacity, as they were asked to decide on issues that required judicial resolution.
While the exact nature of the judicial role played by the sixth-century monks of Tawatha is debatable, the evidence regarding clergy exercising legal authority in the Egyptian village of Karanis is rather straightforward. One document, dated to 439 and issued by twelve presbyters and five deacons from Karanis, is a “statement forbidding the interception of water from a particular source.”96 Indications of judicial services being rendered by monks can be found in the case of the monastery of SS. Sergius and Bacchus in the vicinity of Nessana. Among the documents excavated at Nessana are a few examples of judicial proceedings handled by members of the local monastic community and clergy. An example of one such document is a divorce agreement drawn up by a priest in 689.97 Though the Nessana papyri are dated to the second half of the seventh century (after the Arab takeover of Palestine), the practices to which they attest trace their origins to an earlier historical period.
It is now acknowledged that the category of holy men consisted of a diverse group of individuals that included bishops, clergy, monks, and solitary stylites.98 Thus the example of men such as Synesius, who started out as a local notable and by 411 was appointed bishop, suggests that the holy man and the local landowner could have merged into a single authority. Sometimes, this authority drew its legitimacy from material and at other times from spiritual capital.99 Moreover, the rise of the holy man needs to be seen within the general context of Christianization. While the appointment of episcopal courts was a formal expression of that trend, the judicial functions fulfilled by rural priests, abbots, monks, and stylites constituted its informal obverse.100 Although holy men lacked official appointment, it is possible that it was this very feature in their position that gave them so much power. The popularity of holy men as arbiters had much to do with their reputation of being “close to God.” Such a perception of the holy man not only gave special meaning to his judgment but also gave people a sense of security in his presence.101
Choice and Collaboration
Despite our systematic presentation of the various judicial institutions within the late Roman Empire, such a systemization was not conceived in practice, as people were not necessarily confined or obliged toward a single judicial institution. In fact, as we shall see, many of them chose to “forum shop” and appear before institutions of different social orientations, working each one to the best of their advantage.102 Indeed, there is evidence that individuals were in a position to make judicial choices. Augustine mentions a certain Jew, Licinius, who chose to appeal to the bishop’s court in order to save a piece of property he had lost to a member of the church, rather than turning to a secular authority.103 Other cases show civil affairs falling under the jurisdiction of military magistrates and vice versa.104 In her analysis of Coptic-language