In this paper I look at one particular exegetical complex through which, I will argue, the rabbis grapple with the question of legal jurisdiction and the status of revelation in the shadow of Roman legal hegemony. I will try to show that rabbinic midrash in its literariness (that is, as a source for the history of ideas, rather than a repository of more or less viable data for reporting history on the ground) is a valuable site for mining the mentalité of tannaitic culture (to the extent that we can posit such a thing), and specifically of tannaitic constructions of the idea of the law from the perspective of the subaltern.