Endnote 4 – Godfearers in the City of Love

Perhaps we can narrow the dates even further. The donation of the 55 Jews and 52 theosebeis on Face I probably belongs to the short period of religious tolerance between Galerius’s tolerance decree (311 C.E.) and the more aggressive measures for the establishment of Christianity under Theodosius I (380 C.E.). The more advanced letterforms and the larger number of Biblical names on Face II support the assumption that the second text was inscribed later, probably sometime in the early fifth century. In 418 C.E. imperial legislation banished Jews from imperial administration and prosecuted conversion to Judaism (see Gary Gilbert, “Jews in Imperial Administration and Its Significance for Dating the Jewish Donor Inscription from Aphrodisias,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 35, no. 2 (2004), pp. 169–184). Although the three proselytes probably converted to Judaism earlier than this date, they could have made their donation later.