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 Volume 76 › Table of Contents › Article Abstract
The article deals with the term siqoriqin, which was understood as derived from sica,
a dagger, and describing those extremist zealots, the sicarii, who, in the words of
Josephus, carried short daggers, with which they stabbed their enemies. This was the
view of Grätz and others. Elbogen, in 1925, sought another explanation, and was
followed by Feist and others, who sought to understand the term against the background
of agrarian matters discussed in talmudic literature, mainly in the Mishnah
and Tosefta, and in the Talmud of the Land of Israel, where this term appears.
After an overview of the talmudic sources, I looked into the background of the term (the correct pronunciation of which I discuss in note 36), in the framework of the legal status of land owned by absentees, both in Jewish and non-Jewish law. Comparing and contrasting the talmudic sources with sources from Roman law, as well as with epigraphic and papyrological evidence, inclusive of some documents from the Judaean Desert, I arrived at the conclusion that the term is derived from a Greek word describing the cessio bonorum, the transfer of property. This term and the legal procedures behind it were of tremendous significance in the days that followed the Bar Kokhba revolt; the siqoriqin meant an agreement signed by the absentee regarding a compromise enforced by the Jewish courts. |
