The Etrog: Celebrating Sukkot With a Persian Apple

This piece is based on my, “Prestigious Fruit Trees in Ancient Israel: First Palynological Evidence for Growing Juglans Regia and Citrus Medica,” Israel Journal of Plant Sciences (2014); eadem, “The Citrus Route Revealed: From Southeast Asia into the Mediterranean,” American Society for Horticultural Science 52.6 (2017): 814–822; eadem, “The History of Citrus Medica (Citron) in the Near East: Botanical Remains and Ancient Art and Texts,” in AGRUMED: Archaeology and History of Citrus Fruit in the Mediterranean: Acclimatization, Diversifications, Uses, ed. Véronique Zech-Matterne and Girolamo Fiorentino (Naples: Publications du Centre Jean Bérard, 2017). It has been adapted from these by the editors of TheTorah.com in consultation with the author.

For this argument, see Lisbeth S. Fried, “Sukkot in Ezra-Nehemiah and the Date of the Torah,” TheTorah (2015).

Nehemiah clearly understands the taking of the various species as part of the commandment to build a sukkah. This is also the interpretation of the Israelite-Samaritan community, and large swaths of the Karaite community. See discussion in Benyamim Tsedaka, “A Fruity Sukkah Made from the Four Species,” TheTorah (2014); Shawn Lichaa, “Sukkot’s Unshaken Four Species,” TheTorah (2016). In contrast, Rabbinic Judaism interprets this as an independent command. (This was apparently a common interpretation in the Second Temple period as well.)

For the description of a lulav as a wand (θύρσος), see Rene Bloch, “What Sukkot Meant to Jews and Gentiles in Greco-Roman Antiquity,” TheTorah (2018).

^{2 Macc 10:7} διὸ θύρσους καὶ κλάδους ὡραίους ἔτι δὲ καὶ φοίνικας ἔχοντες ὕμνους ἀνέφερον τῷ εὐοδώσαντι καθαρισθῆναι τὸν ἑαυτοῦ τόπον.

English from H. St. J. Thackeray in the Loeb Classical Library (#242) translation. The term persea tree can be a reference to the Mimusops schimperi—also known as the Persia Tree of Egypt (see the LSJ dictionary, s.v. περσέα) but from the anecdote about Jannai, it is clear Josephus means the citron, which also goes by this name.

English from Ralph Marcus in the Loeb Classical Library (#365) translation.  

See H.C. Barrett and A.M. Rhodes, “A Numerical Taxonomic Study of Affinity Relationships in Cultivated Citrus and Its Close Relatives,” Systemic Botany 1.2 (1976): 105–136; Rainer W. Scora, “On the History and Origin of Citrus,” Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 102.6 (1975): 369–375.  

This is known since studies looked not only at nuclear DNA but also chloroplast DNA. See, Elisabetta Nicolosi, Ziniu Deng, Alessandra Gentile, S. La Malfa, G. Continella, E. Tribulato, “Citrus Phylogeny and Genetic Origin of Important Species as Investigated by Molecular Markers,” Theoretical and Applied Genetics 100.8 (2000): 1155–1166.

This is a common occurrence in Hebrew for words which open with two consonants one after the other. Thus, תמול (yesterday) becomes אתמול, and the Persian King Khshayarsha (=Xerxes) becomes אחשורוש (Achashwerosh/Ahasuerus). The addition of a prosthetic aleph was especially common in rabbinic Hebrew with Greek words beginning in “st,” hence στράτα (strata, street) becomes אסטרטא (istrata), and στάδιον (stadion, stadium/track) becomes אצטדין (itztadin). See, Paul Joüon and Tamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 3rd reprint of 2nd ed. with corrections, Subsidia Biblica 27 (Roma: G&B press, 2011), 67 [§17a].

Note that in the Hebrew and Arabic, the penultimate n sound is gone, having elided into the g sound at the end of the word.

What I write here is likely the case, but I must add a caveat: Recent investigation has shown that to differentiate citrus seeds from similar ones requires advanced testing. See Sylvie Coubray, Véronique Zech-Matterne, and Arnaud Mazurier, “The Earliest Remains of a Citrus Fruit from a Western Mediterranean Archaeological Context? A Microtomographic-Based Reassessment,” Comptes Rendus Palevol 9 (2010): 277–282; Clémence Pagnoux, Alessandra Celant, Sylvie Coubray, Girolamo Fiorentino, and Véronique Zech-Matterne, “The Introduction of Citrus to Italy, with Reference to the Identification Problems of Seed Remains,” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 22 (2013): 421–438. These methods were not available when the seeds I will discuss presently were uncovered, and the seeds are no longer locatable in order to be tested.

Emanuel Bonavia, The Flora of the Assyrian Monuments and Its Outcomes (London: Westminster, 1894), 68. The species cannot be determined, since the seeds were charred, but it is likely that it would have been citrons.

The stratum was unsealed, and thus it is possible that these seeds date from later and only ended up in the 12^th century stratum. In theory, the seeds could be tested to determine their date, but as noted above, this has not been possible.  

Hakon Hjelmqvist, “Some Economic Plants and Weeds from the Bronze Age of Cyprus,” Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology 45.5 (1979): 110–117.

Seeds can simply point to imported fruit, while pollen is a sure sign that the tree grew there.

As this was only one grain, it is hard to know how seriously to take this datum.

See my articles (n. 1) for bibliography.

Antiphane’s work has been lost, but this passage is quoted in Athenaus’ Deipnosophistae 3:27, in his discussion of the citron. Translation from C.D. Yonge, The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus (London, 1854), 140.

Trans. by Arthur Hort from Loeb Classical Library 70, pp. 310–313, with some annotations.

See discussion in, Samuel Tolkowsy, פרי עץ הדר: תולדותיו בתרבות העמים, בספרות, באמנות ופולקלור, מימי קדם ועד ימינו [Citrus Fruits: Their Origin and History Throughout the World] (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1966).

He then discusses methods of planting:

The seed is taken from the fruit and sown in spring in carefully tilled beds, and is then watered every fourth or fifth day. And when it is growing vigorously, it is transplanted, also in spring, to a soft well-watered place, where the soil is not too fine; for such places it loves. And it bears its “apples” at all season; for when some have been gathered the flower of others is on the tree and it is ripening others. Of the flowers, as we have said, those which have, as it were, a distaff projected projecting in the middle are fertile, while that that have it not are infertile.  It is also sown, like date-palms, in pots with a whole in them. 

He continues:

Large the tree’s self in semblance like a bay, and, showered it not a different scent abroad, a bay it had been; for no wind of heaven its foliage falls; the flower, none faster, clings; with it the Medes for sweetness lave the lips, and ease the panting breathlessness of age.

Translation from J. B. Greenough (1900). Pliny the Elder (23–79 C.E.), in his Natural History (12:7.2), says something similar:

The citron or Assyrian apple, called by others the Median apple, is an antidote against poisons. It has the leaves of the strawberry-tree, but with prickles running among them. For the rest, the actual fruit is not eaten, but it has an exceptionally strong scent, which belongs also to the leaves, and which penetrates garments stored with them and keeps off injurious insects.

(Translation from Rackham, Jones, & Eichholz.) Similarly, Pliny states in Natural History 23:56: 

Citrons, either the pulp of them or the pips, are taken in wine as an antidote to poisons. A decoction of citrons, or the juice extracted from them, is used as a gargle to impart sweetness to the breath. The pips of this fruit are recommended for pregnant women to chew when affected with qualmishness. Citrons are good, also, for a weak stomach, but it is not easy to eat them except with vinegar.

The story continues:

At which the governor was mightily astonished. And at last, examining the soldier who had charge of them, whether they had eaten or drunk anything, when he learnt of him that some citron had been given to them without any evil design: on the next day he ordered some citron to be given to some of them again, and others to have none given to them. And those who eat the citron, though they were bitten, received no injury, but the others died immediately on being bitten.

Yonge, trans. The Deipnosophists, 141–142.