In this page of Talmud Rabbi Yochanan refers to a rabbi as “The son of holy ones.” Naturally, the Talmud asks
פסחים קד, א
מַאן נִיהוּ ״בְּנָן שֶׁל קְדוֹשִׁים״? רַבִּי מְנַחֵם בַּר סִימַאי. וְאַמַּאי קָרוּ לֵיהּ ״בְּנָן שֶׁל קְדוֹשִׁים״? דְּלָא אִיסְתַּכַּל בְּצוּרְתָּא דְזוּזָא
Who is this person called “the son of holy ones”? It is Rabbi Menachem bar Simai. And why did they call him the son of sacred ones? Because he would not look at the forms on coins…
So Rabbi Menachem bar Simai was considered especially worthy because he refused to look at the image on the coin in his pocket. In its commentary, the Koren Steinsaltz Talmud adds that these images “were occasionally idolatrous symbols or some other prohibited image.” But as we will see, these images were hardly “occasional." Nearly every Greek or Roman coin in the ancient world had a god imprinted on them.
As you can see from the picture below, there were lots of gods on lots of coins, in this case, from Greece.
Jonathan Williams was a curator of Iron Age and Roman coins at the British Museum, and wrote a fascinating article on Religion and Roman Coins in the 2007 Blackwell Companion to Roman Religion. In it, he noted that ever since coins were first used in western Asia Minor in the seventh century BCE, they have depicted religious icons. “The earliest Roman coin types in the late fourth and early third centuries BCE drew heavily on the Greek repertoire, commonly depicting gods such as Mars, Hercules, or Apollo, and religious symbols – tripod, eagle on thunderbolt, caduceus (the herald’s staff ) – familiar from the Greek coinages of Italy and elsewhere.” The gods were everywhere.
Michael Crawford’s seminal 1974 work Roman Republican Coinage is now available online, and it’s well worth taking a look at the sheer number of Roman coins which have an image of a god. Also worth consulting is the online Handbook of Biblical Numismatics, focused on ancient Jewish coins.
“From the earliest introduction of true coinage in Rome around 300 B.C., portrayals of gods had regularly been used to advertise to the people of Italy the growing power of Rome; religious types continued to feature on coins through to the eventual fall of the Western Empire”
A Brief History of Coins from Israel
There were several periods of coinage in ancient Israel. Among these were the Yehud coinage from the Person period, around the 4th century BCE. An example is this coin that shows shows a deity seated on a winged wheel.
After that we have coins from the Hasmonean coins (164 BCE.-37 BCE.). The surviving coins tend to show Jewish images. This one, for example, shows the Menorah, as we would expect a good Hasmonean coin to do.
Herodian coinage covers the period from 37 BCE to 90 CE. Coins from this era were issued by the various Herods, who were Jews of a sort who ruled over Israel. Many of the sages of the Talmud would have been familiar with these coins, which show images of the Herod in power, together with things like grapes or the bows of ships. Here is one from the period of Herod Archelaus (4 BCE–6 CE.)
Coins from the period of the Roman Procurators (6-41 and 44-48 CE) did not have images of gods, out of deference to the Jews who used them. In fact, as the Handbook of Biblical Numismatics notes,
somewhat surprising, in light of their poor attitude towards the Jews, the small bronze prutahs issued by the prefects abided by the strict interpretation of the Commandment against graven images. Except for the pagan religious symbols on the coins of Pontius Pilate the designs were probably not objectionable to the citizenry.
Later coins were made during the Judaea Capta period that followed the destruction of the Temple. During this time Emperor Vespasian “launched an extensive issue of coins commemorating the hard fought Roman victory over the tiny Jewish nation. The Judaea Capta series lasted for 25 years under Vespasian and his two sons who succeeded him as Emperor - Titus and Domitian. These commemoratives were issued in bronze, silver and gold by mints in Rome, the Roman Empire, and Judaea.” Here is an example:
The most common Judaea Capta coin, the silver denarius issued by Vespasian, picturing Judaea weeping beneath a Roman trophy, and the inscription IVDAEA. From here.
In 130 CE., many decades after the Bar Kochba rebellion (during which time the rebels produced their own coins) the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) visited Judaea. On his return to Rome he issued coins to commemorate his trip. “His ADVENTVI AVG IVDAEA bronze sestertius, issued some time between 134 and 138 CE, shows the Emperor receiving a Jewish woman and two children who carry palm branches; in the background, a bull appears next to a sacrificial altar. The altar was a reference to the god Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom Hadrian had dedicated his new pagan temple.” This might be the first coin issued in Judea to have an image of a pagan ceremony on it.
ADVENTVI AVG IVDAEA c134-138 CE. Note the small sacrificial altar.
In first century Roman Palestine, several cities were issued the right to mint their own coins. These of course produced coins with Jewish symbols, like this one from the important town of Zippori, which shows the Emperor Trajan on one side and a palm tree on the other:
Zippori 98-117 CE.
But eventually even these cites started to depicting Roman gods, goddesses and temples. One of these (c. 160 CE) shows Antoninus Pius on one side. On the other is a Roman temple, dedicated to the worship of Jupiter "The Supreme God," which was erected on the former site of the Samaritan Temple on the top of Mt. Gerizim. Another coin struck under Antoninus Pius shows the temple of Artemis with a cult statue.
Coin with a Temple of Jupiter
Coin with a Temple of Artemis
Rabbi Menahem bar Simai
Rabbi Menachem bar Simai, the rabbi who would not look at the images on his coins, lived in Israel among the first generation of rabbis who came after the redaction of the Mishnah, known as the Amoraim (c. 230–250 CE). The coins he would have seen (but not looked at) would have been increasingly Roman and shown more of their deities, like this one, a brass sestertius of Caligula (37–41 CE). It shows the emperor pouring a libation to a god on the obverse and sacrificing on the reverse.
Brass sestertius of Caligula (37–41 CE), showing the emperor pouring a libation like a god on the obverse and sacrificing on the reverse.
Here is another one, closer to the period of Rabbi Menachem, showing the Temple to god Sol Elagabalus. Who knows, perhaps this is one of the coins that he found particularly offensive?
Gold aureus of Elagabalus (218–222 CE.), showing the image of the god Sol Elagabal being drawn in a chariot. 20 mm.
But you don’t have to go back two millennia to find gods on coins. Here is a more recent coin, depicting Zeus. In Canada.
The death of rabbi Menachem
The Jerusalem Talmud, the older (and less famous) brother of the Babylonian Talmud, tells what happened when the saintly Rabbi Menachem bar Simai died.
ירושלמי עבודה זרה יג, א /יח,א
כד דמך רבי נחום בר סימאי חפון איקונתא מחצלן אמר כמה דלא מחתון בחיויי לא יחמינון בדמכותיה
When Rabbi (Me)Nachem bar Simai died, they covered all the images, saying “just as in life he would not look at them, so too, in death he should not look at them”….
Not to be outdone, the Babylonian Talmud (Mo’ed Katan 25b) improves on the story and adds an element of the supernatural
מועד קטן כה,ב
כי קא ניחא נפשיה… דר' מנחם בר רבי סימאי אישתנו כל צילמניא והוו למיחצלייא
When Rabbi Menachem…passed away the faces of the statues became smooth as if they had been smoothed with a plasterer’s trowel.
In one version people removed the images that the late Rabbi Menachem found so objectionable. In another, it was done miraculously. But both are told to emphasize the respect in which he was held. Today, many countries continue the tradition of having sovereigns and rulers on their coins, while others have decided to use images of people who achieved great things in their lives by virtue of hard work rather than who their parents were. Rabbi Menachem would have been far more comfortable using those coins, and who knows, perhaps he would even have taken a peek at them.
1978 US dollar coin showing the famous suffragette Susan B. Anthony. She was the first non-fictitious woman to be featured on an American coin.
1985 Israeli Coin showing the Russian Zionist leader and author Ze'ev Jabotinsky
You know who. And yes, it’s a real coin.
