JEWISH 
 FORERUNNERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ADOLPH DANZIGER. 
 
JEWISH FORERUNNERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 BY 
 
 ADOLPH DANZIGER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 31 West Twenty-third Street 
 1903 
 
Copyright, 1903 
 
 BY 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & CO. 
 
 Published, March, 1903 
 
 Ube •ftntcherbocfter press, -ftew i?orft 
 

 TO 
 
 PHCEBE A. HEARST 
 
 THE GENEROUS PATRONESS OF EDUCATION 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 327170 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 hlllel the babylonian, forerunner of christ ; 
 Shammai the Nationalist, Opponent of 
 Hillel I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Jesus of Nazareth : Talmudic Evidences of 
 
 His Life and Death . . . . .30 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 yochanan ren zakkai, the " least of the 
 
 Disciples" of Hillel . . . . .55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 'Haninah ben Dosa, the Second Shammai . 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, the Disciple of Ben 
 
 Zakkai, who Embraced Christianity . 91 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Josua ben Hananiah, the Blacksmith- Judge 
 
 and Friend of Hadrian .... 122 
 
 V 
 
VI CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Akibah the Revolutionist, Forerunner of 
 
 Mohammed 152 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Rabbi Mair the Illustrious, and Acher the 
 Agnostic 185 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Simon ben Yohai, Rival of the House of 
 
 Hillel; his son Eleazar . . . .211 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Rabbi Juda the Prince, Compiler of the 
 mlshnah, the founder of talmudic 
 Literature 242 
 
 Notes ....... . 275 
 
 Index 319 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE singular position of the Jewish people in the 
 modern world is a fact of supreme interest to 
 the student of history. It constitutes a large and 
 powerful nationality (whatever may be said to the 
 contrary), without political organization or a native 
 land, spread amongst the other nations, yet preserv- 
 ing its own institutions, its own religion, its own 
 language, while mingling in the business, intellectual, 
 and political life of those others. 
 
 It is hated in some places, it is flattered in others, 
 but it never is ignored, and it everywhere gives evi- 
 dence of active national life after an existence of 
 nearly four thousand years. But this is only a part, 
 and not the largest part, of the claims of the Jewish 
 people on the attention of thinkers of every land. 
 It and its literature have been the subject of discus- 
 sion for centuries by competent and incompetent, 
 by friend and foe, alike. From it have sprung the 
 moulders of religious thought of all the great Western 
 nations. Christianity recognizes the Hebrew Law 
 and the Hebrew patriarchs of three thousand years 
 ago as an integral part of its history. Jesus, recog- 
 nized by the Christian world as the Mediator be- 
 tween God and man, belongs by parentage to the 
 royal House of David. Mary and Joseph and Peter 
 
 vii 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and Paul and John, all of purest race, are the highest 
 in honor of all in the roll of the Christian Church. 
 
 Beyond the wide extent of Christendom, the creed 
 of Mohammed occupies an almost equal portion of 
 the earth from Senegambia to Java, from Siberia to 
 the Sahara and Hindustan. That creed, too, is dis- 
 tinctly traceable to a Jewish source. The Arabian 
 Prophet was of Jewish race by the mother's side; 
 his thought was moulded by Jewish scripture and 
 the teachings of a Jewish master. He recognized 
 the Jewish revelation as a forerunner of that which 
 he claimed was made to himself, and the ceremonial 
 of his law is largely Jewish in form. The strong 
 analogy between his career and that of a Jewish 
 leader five centuries earlier is touched on in the 
 pages following in this work. 
 
 The object proposed is to sketch from contempo- 
 rary Hebrew literature the workings of the Jewish 
 mind during the period when the race was passing 
 from tribal to cosmopolitan existence, and its religion 
 widening from the practice of one land to a world- 
 wide system. Great as has been the part played by 
 the Jewish people in the history of mankind, it has 
 been entirely different from that of other nations 
 generally recognized as leaders. Its distinction is 
 in the moral and mental field, not in that of war or 
 political organization. It is not, then, by records of 
 conquest or legislation, although law has had consid- 
 erable influence in moulding the religious character 
 of the Jew, that the development of the race can 
 properly be studied. It is rather in the lives of the 
 teachers and thinkers, who, in the democratic the- 
 
INTRODUCTION IX 
 
 ocracy of Jewish society, formed the national policy 
 and shaped the minds of the people. We have 
 chosen a series of the most prominent of these 
 masters in Israel to illustrate the course of events in 
 the Jewish nation during the last two centuries of 
 its separate existence. Their story is mainly drawn 
 from the literature of their own time, as embodied 
 in the great collection of the Talmuds, known as the 
 Babylonian and Jerusalemic. Different as the style 
 of that work is from modern methods and modes of 
 thought, it contains ample foundation of fact to base 
 intelligent historical work on, especially when one 
 seeks to know the nature of mental action of the 
 period, rather than the chronology of external facts. 
 The Jews in Palestine, under the Asmonean kings, 
 formed a small, independent power between Syria 
 and Arabia. By the outside world they were re- 
 garded in the same light as others of the numerous 
 kingdoms of Western Asia. The Roman historian, 
 Tacitus, contemptuously says they were the "most 
 despised of the conquered under Medes, Persians, 
 and Greeks," but they had won some distinction 
 by their successful revolt against the Grecian kings 
 of Syria. In their own minds, however, the Jews 
 regarded themselves as superior to all the other 
 branches of mankind. They were the chosen people 
 of the Most High God, entrusted with the knowl- 
 edge of his Law, and placed by his special command 
 in the land which they had then possessed for four- 
 teen centuries. During that time they had seen 
 both good and bad fortune. David had extended 
 their rule over Syria, and the wealth and glory of 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 Solomon was the theme of admiration all through 
 Western Asia still. They had suffered deeply too. 
 The larger part of the sons of Jacob had been dis- 
 persed in unknown lands, and the remnant had been 
 carried to Babylon as captives for two generations, 
 but still they had returned. They had increased 
 after the captivity, under Persian and Greek, into a 
 nation of probably two millions in Palestine. 
 
 All through their checkered history, the Hebrew 
 people held faith in a future great development of 
 their nation of a permanent and beneficial kind. 
 What its exact nature would be they did not de- 
 termine. They held that such a development was 
 intended by divine counsel, and the House of Israel 
 was to be a central figure in it. Moreover this 
 beneficent development was to be accomplished by a 
 supernatural person, to appear on earth at some 
 future time, but meanwhile watching over the fate 
 of the Jewish people. 1 
 
 These two ideas were deeply fixed in the minds 
 of the Jewish population, and intensified the patri- 
 otic feelings which they possessed in common with 
 other nations. The love of the Jews for their native 
 land and its Law, both given specially by the Lord 
 to them, was far stronger than that of the Spartan 
 or Roman for their respective countries. It was not 
 alone the interests of the present or pride in the 
 
 1 rwnn nio»S kSn iioana vh \bn owaan hi— " All the Prophets 
 
 had in view the Messianic time in their prophecies." — Talmud Babli, 
 Sanhedrin 99 ; and Midrash Rabba, Genesis 24, 67 : D'NUin SanB-'BO 
 O'Om ]Tvhy B»p20 Kin — " When Israel transgresses He [the Messiah] 
 asks mercy for them." 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 past that kept up the national spirit, but abiding 
 faith in a future more glorious than any yet seen on 
 earth for the Jewish nation. The land of Palestine 
 was almost as closely connected with that nationality, 
 in the minds of the people, as their own existence, 
 or the Law of which they were the guardians. Jeru- 
 salem was to share with the Jew in the future promi- 
 nence assured by prophecy. In Palestine, alone, 
 the religious rites prescribed by God could be fully 
 accomplished. The descendants of Abraham, away 
 from Palestine, were only exiles. They might keep 
 up their connection with Jewish nationality by ob- 
 servance of the Law and by following implicitly the 
 teachings of the masters of the Law in the Holy 
 Land, but they were distinctively regarded as in an 
 unfortunate position. In fact, the law governing 
 Jewish residents in another land differed essentially 
 in many respects from that applied to those living 
 in Palestine. The man whom circumstances forced 
 to live away from the Holy Land — 'Hutz la-Aretz 
 {ex patrid) — was an object of pity. There was no 
 thought of voluntarily spreading to other lands 
 among the Palestine Jews, when the Asmonean 
 kings held independent sway in Jerusalem and the 
 Temple of the Lord crowned Mount Moriah. 
 
 The divine Law itself was moulded under these 
 ideas during many generations of Rabbis. The con- 
 ditions of life in Palestine were looked on as the 
 normal conditions of humanity in its highest state, 
 and the practical requirements of worship and morals 
 were framed on that theory. The Sanhedrin, the 
 Parliament of the nation, was made up of men trained 
 
Xli INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the Law in the rabbinical schools of Palestine, and 
 their decisions had the force of law for the people 
 as a part of revelation itself. A narrow and bigoted 
 cast of mind was thus engendered, which made the 
 Jews the object of special dislike to the nations with 
 whom they came in contact. It was the very reverse 
 of the character fitted for a colonizing race or for 
 one destined to intellectual leadership among men. 
 
 Hillel, a Jew of Babylonian birth, who came to 
 Jerusalem as a needy student under the reign of 
 Herod, and by sheer force of talent won his way to 
 the Presidency of the Sanhedrin, was the first to see 
 the unfitness of this frame of thought to the condi- 
 tions and development of the Jewish race. He com- 
 bated it long and earnestly, and he trained disciples 
 on his own ideas. His personality was strong enough 
 to secure the continuance of his descendants for 
 many generations in the office of President of the 
 Sanhedrin, which, after the suppression of the mon- 
 archy, became the highest power in the national 
 organization. A rival school, the House of Sham- 
 mai, maintained, during two centuries, a vigorous 
 opposition to the policy of the House of Hillel. 
 At times, it was stronger with the nation in virtue 
 of its hot national patriotism, or the superior talent 
 of its professors. The House of Hillel and the 
 House of Shammai were, in fact, in modern lan- 
 guage, the Liberal and the Conservative parties in 
 the Jewish nation. The great powers of Akibah, 
 with the help of the Rabbis of the House of Sham- 
 mai, precipitated the revolt against the Romans 
 under Hadrian. Akibah audaciously proclaimed a 
 
INTRODUCTION XU1 
 
 leader of his own choice as the divinely sent Mes- 
 siah, in the person of Bar Kochba, and essayed to 
 found a Jewish Empire of the East by armed force. 
 His failure quenched among the larger part of the 
 people the idea of a Jewish conqueror yet to come. 
 A little later, Rabbi Judah, the Prince, walking in 
 the footsteps of his ancestor Hillel, devoted himself 
 to the work of binding the nation together by the 
 bonds of literature and Law which might preserve 
 its nationality even if scattered through other lands. 
 
 Nationalism rs common to the people of every 
 land. It was specially developed among the Jews 
 by the exclusive possession of the divine Law re- 
 vealed to Moses. The maintenance of nationality 
 for the Jew was a religious duty in the fullest sense 
 of the word as well as a human sentiment. Were 
 Israel to pass away, as other nations once greater 
 in power had done, the religious Jews felt that the 
 Lord's work, not man's alone, would be destroyed. 
 But growth and decay are the common lot of nations 
 as of men. Race sympathy, language, country, and 
 common laws are the bonds which maintain the dura- 
 tion of human societies, and each is subject to change 
 with the course of time until the society itself is dis- 
 solved and others take its place with new forms. 
 
 Under the dominion of the Roman Empire it was 
 evident that the Jewish people could not continue 
 to maintain itself long in its hereditary land. It 
 could not endure the oppression of the Roman 
 tax-gatherer and the Roman soldier. The Roman 
 Government, after the repeated rebellions of the 
 Hebrews, was desirous to scatter them through its 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 dominions, and events helped this political purpose. 
 The keen intelligence of the race made them traders 
 rather than cultivators, and trade naturally led to 
 travel and settlement abroad. Strong as was the 
 race patriotism of the people it had failed to keep 
 up a distinct nationality in the large section of the 
 Jews that had been carried to distant lands by the 
 Assyrian conqueror. The ten tribes were lost for- 
 ever to national existence when torn from the 
 promised land. That a similar fate did not fall 
 upon Judah seems due largely to the work of Hillel 
 and his descendant, Judah, the Prince. 
 
 The work of the latter was to make rabbinic 
 literature a handmaid and protector to the Hebrew 
 Law. The divine Law had been a written one, 
 but the interpretations and deductions which had 
 sprung from it during the course of centuries were 
 only preserved by tradition. Custom had so ruled 
 rigidly. Masters of the Law and Judges in Israel 
 were carefully trained from generation to genera- 
 tion, but it was by the spoken not the written 
 word. The "sayings" of the wise as well as the 
 decisions of the Judges were handed down in the 
 schools of Palestine, and whoever wished to become 
 learned in the law, had to go to Palestine and spend 
 long years there for that end. This is exemplified 
 in the cases of Ben Hyrkanos, Akibah, and Hillel. 
 Those who could not give the time for this exclusive 
 application were forced to remain among the "ig- 
 norant," who might, indeed, attain salvation by 
 obedience, but who were regarded as morally and 
 intellectually the inferiors of the Rabbis and stu- 
 
INTRODUCTION XV 
 
 dents. When the Prince reduced to writing the 
 whole mass of traditional lore, it became possible 
 for the Jewish dweller of any land to acquire the 
 w isdom of his fathers and train his mind in its study. 
 A Jew needed no longer to journey to Palestine to 
 become a scholar or a master in Israel. Thus, in 
 fact, the religious thought first developed in the 
 Holy Land has been kept unchanged through eigh- 
 teen centuries in every quarter of the globe where 
 Jews dwell. 
 
 Three men were specially prominent in the modi- 
 fications of the Jewish people and customs while 
 they yet dwelt in Palestine: Hillel gave them a cos- 
 mopolitan character as opposed to the old tribal one ; 
 Akibah, by the failure of his great rebellion, caused 
 the abandonment among his people of the dream 
 of a military supremacy which had almost become 
 part of their creed; Rabbi Judah, the Prince, by the 
 formation of rabbinic literature, gave the race a 
 centre of union which had been strong enough 
 to perpetuate their nationality through centuries of 
 subjection and dispersion. I have tried to show 
 the modern reader what manner of men these Masters 
 in Israel and their fellows were in these sketches. 
 
 I cannot refrain from expressing my deep sense of 
 obligation to Miss Henrietta Szold, of Baltimore, 
 whose lucid criticism of another work of mine sug- 
 gested the writing of this book, and to my friend, 
 Mr. Beyant J. Clinch, of San Francisco, California, 
 who greatly aided me with valuable suggestions and 
 a revision of the manuscript. 
 
 Adolphe Danziger. 
 
JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 
 
 A BRIEF description of the life and politics of 
 the Jewish people during the last period of its 
 existence as a distinct nation in Palestine is needed 
 for the proper comprehension of the lives of its 
 prominent men. 
 
 That period extended from the time when the 
 Persian king, Cyrus, five centuries before Christ, 
 sent back the captives of Babylon to Palestine, 
 down to the middle of the third century after Christ. 
 
 The people that returned to the Holy Land after 
 the seventy years' captivity, numbered only a few, 
 probably one or two hundred thousand. They grew 
 in numbers and wealth rapidly, and when the Roman 
 conquerors made them part of their Empire, the 
 Jewish population numbered two or three millions. 
 
 When the captives returned the old kingdom of 
 David was not restored. As in the old days before 
 
 Saul, the people had no ruler but the Law of Moses 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
2 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and its authorized religious interpreters. The Rabbis 
 or teachers of the Law were also the Judges of civil 
 affairs, and practically the rulers of the community. 
 
 The priesthood attached to the service of the 
 Temple at Jerusalem had high dignity but no po- 
 litical power. The whole polity of the Jewish peo- 
 ple had been formed by Moses on a strictly religious 
 basis, but the priesthood employed in sacrifices and 
 ceremonial was not the guardian of religious doc- 
 trines nor the judge in them. These functions were 
 filled by the Rabbis, who were also a clergy, in 
 modern language. 
 
 Each generation of Rabbis taught, by word of 
 mouth, the Law to the people and also trained up dis- 
 ciples to fill their own ranks. The intellectual activ- 
 ity of the race was concentrated on the study of the 
 Law, as that of Mediaeval Europe was on the study 
 of theology and scholastic philosophy. 'Rabbi" 
 and "scholar" were synonymous, as "clerk" (cleric) 
 and "learned man" were in Europe six centuries ago. 
 
 Each distinguished Rabbi gathered disciples in 
 proportion to his reputation for learning, and when 
 he deemed any of them thoroughly skilled in the 
 Law, he ordained him Rabbi and gave him the right 
 to teach and preach in the synagogues. 
 
 The ruling body of the nation, the Sanhedrin, 
 was a council of the leading Rabbis, who judged the 
 people according to the Law of Moses, both as 
 written in the Scripture and as handed down by 
 tradition of the schools. The Sanhedrin chose its 
 own members and elected its President and Chief 
 Judge, who was of nearly equal authority. 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 3 
 
 In all important cases the majority vote of the 
 Sanhedrin was the supreme power among the Jewish 
 people, both for making, or rather declaring, laws 
 and pronouncing on their application. The Sanhe- 
 drin was practically legislature and Supreme Court. 
 For the enforcement of its decisions it depended on 
 the action of the people. This state of affairs con- 
 tinued, with some slight changes, down to the do- 
 minion of the Greek successors of Alexander in 
 Syria. The Antiochid kings tried to Hellenize their 
 Jewish subjects in both religion and language. They ■ 
 intruded High Priests into the Temple for bribes 
 and forbade the practice of the Jewish religion.. 
 The revolt of the Makkabees followed, and finally' 
 John Hyrkan, the High Priest of the Asmonean 
 family, took the title of King of the Jews, and made 
 Palestine a sovereign state. 
 
 Intercourse with the Greek heathens of Syria had 
 lessened the hold of the Jewish faith among the 
 Hebrews. A school, or sect, arose, under the name 
 of Sadducees, which rejected the traditional law ac- 
 cepted by the Jewish people from immemorial time 
 and claimed that the text of the Pentateuch alone, 
 as interpreted by themselves, embodied the whole 
 Law. This teaching was acceptable to Hyrkan, who 
 desired to lessen the influence of the Sanhedrin, then 
 practically the Parliament of the nation, and he be- 
 came a Sadducee. He persecuted the traditionalist 
 members of the Sanhedrin, in whose stead he put 
 Sadducees, and as he was also High Priest, his office 
 became supreme in every part of religion. The suc- 
 cessors of John Hyrkan pursued the same policy 
 
4 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 toward the Pharisee Rabbis, and when the Asmonean 
 dynasty was succeeded by the Idumaean Herod, the 
 Sanhedrin had lost its power as a political factor alto- 
 gether, though even Herod leaned more toward the 
 Sadducees than the Pharisees, whom he persecuted 
 bitterly. The priestly office was separated from the 
 kingly, but the High Priests continued to hold Sad- 
 ducean doctrines. Thus, by a singular combination, 
 the men who to strangers were the heads of religion 
 were heretics to the orthodox Jews themselves. 
 
 The Rabbis continued to hold their influence, and 
 were accepted by the bulk of the people as their re- 
 ligious teachers in spite of kingly persecution. A 
 number of the Rabbis, however, especially the writers 
 or SopJicrim (the scribes of the New Testament) 
 consented to serve the Sadducean kings and priests 
 in the administration of the Law. They were re- 
 garded as intermediate between the Sadducees and 
 Pharisees. By their influence among this class, the 
 High Priests succeeded in controlling the Sanhedrin 
 for a considerable period. Their policy was to con- 
 centrate the minds of the people on the Temple at 
 Jerusalem as the very centre of religion. By this 
 they increased their own revenues and importance. 
 This special importance of the Temple tended to 
 another result. It intensified the local nationalism 
 and tended to make the people forget the wider 
 brotherhood of man in the local ceremonialism of 
 the Jewish Temple service. Thus Sadducean princi- 
 ples tended to make the Jewish people a mere tribe, 
 which could have no national existence outside of 
 Palestine, the Holy Land. 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 5 
 
 The orthodox or Pharisee teachers, many of them 
 drawn from Jews born in other lands, taught the 
 broad principles of the Mosaic Law, and lessened 
 the importance of both the Temple and the Holy 
 Land as elements in the religious life of the people. 
 The High Priests of the Temple represented the 
 narrow localism of Palestine and had a contempt for 
 abstract dogma. The Presidents of the Sanhedrin, 
 or Patriarchs, were the heads of the masters teaching 
 Jews of every land. The High Priests perished with 
 the destruction of the Temple by Titus. The Pa- 
 triarchs of the Sanhedrin continued to exist as 
 recognized religious heads of the Jewish people 
 down to the last Emperor of the Roman world, 
 Theodosius. The man who first made this office 
 hereditary and defined its powers clearly against 
 priestly usurpation was Hillel. 
 
 Hillel was born in Babylon among the Jewish 
 colony which had remained there when the "rem- 
 nant of Israel" was restored to its native land by 
 Cyrus. The Babylonian Jews counted many of the 
 noblest in blood of the race, and Hillel's parents, 
 though poor, traced descent from David. 1 He 
 was advanced in life, forty years old, when he left 
 Babylon to study deeply the Law in the famous 
 schools of Jerusalem, which drew students from 
 many lands to learn. Herod then ruled in Palestine 
 as a subject-king of Rome. The persecution to 
 which the Pharisee Rabbis had been subjected had 
 ceased for a while, and the more famous Rabbis 
 taught in peace, even if the Sadducean High Priests 
 controlled by force or bribery the decisions of the 
 
6 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 national Assembly. Two famous masters, Shemaiah 
 and Abtalion, were recognized by the faithful in 
 Israel as the wisest amongst the traditional teachers, 
 and to their school Hillel came to learn the precepts 
 of the Law. 
 
 He was poor when he came. He had a rich 
 brother in Jerusalem, but he declined his aid when 
 proffered, 8 and preferred to support himself and 
 pay the small admission fee required at the school 
 by daily labor. He fully accepted the rabbinical 
 maxim, "it is better to live by flaying abandoned 
 carcases than by beggary." He went out daily to 
 gather firewood in the forest near, which he sold in 
 the market. The fee for entrance to the school was 
 half a copper shekel. Hillel regulated his labor so 
 that when a shekel was earned for each day, he gave 
 the rest of his time to the studies of the school. The 
 other half defrayed his scanty food. 3 At times he 
 went two or three days without any in his thirst for 
 knowledge. 
 
 His example was not a solitary one among the 
 Jewish students of his time. Many of the most 
 eminent Rabbis earned their bread as artisans while 
 giving their energies to the study or teaching of the 
 Law. The Priests of the Temple were rich and 
 honored. The teachers of the Law often had to 
 struggle for the necessaries of life." Honest poverty 
 was no reproach among their class. 
 
 It is told of Hillel that one day, when the Presi- 
 dent of the college was to deliver an important lec- 
 ture, he lacked the half-shekel to pay the doorkeeper. 
 He mounted the flat roof of the building and listened 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 7 
 
 at a window which looked into the hall below. It 
 was evening and bitterly cold, but the student for- 
 got everything in listening to the words of wisdom 
 which flowed from the great Rabbi's lips. He grew 
 cold and was unable to move when the lecture ended. 
 He fell asleep at last and snow came on, which cov- 
 ered his body with a mantle of white. On the next 
 morning, which was the Sabbath, the students 
 gathered early to hear the morning sermon. They 
 saw the window darkened by the lifeless body, and 
 they carried it into the room. They tried to revive 
 Hillel, but there was no fire, and the Law forbade 
 kindling one on the Sabbath Day. The question 
 whether it was lawful to break it in such a case was 
 keenly debated, but the Masters settled it by declar- 
 ing the rule, "This man deserves that the Sabbath 
 law be suspended in his behalf." 5 When he recov- 
 ered and told his story they commanded that thence- 
 forth he should pay no entrance fee. 6 
 
 Independence and perseverance were shown by 
 this conduct, and to these Hillel added a keen and 
 lofty intellect. He profited above all the other stu- 
 dents by the lessons of his Masters and after some 
 years he received the rabbinical degree. He then 
 returned to his native land, where he was received 
 with honors by the old Jewish population, and there 
 he passed some years teaching. 
 
 He felt drawn back to Jerusalem by the love of in- 
 tercourse with the learned and perhaps, also, with a 
 secret ambition of becoming a leader of the people. 
 If so, it was gratified beyond his hopes. 7 The San- 
 hedrin had been filled with incompetent men after 
 
8 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the death of Shemaiah and Abtalion. They were 
 recognized by the people as faithful guardians of 
 the oral law, but when they were gone none was 
 found who could command the same confidence or 
 even remember the text of their decisions, which 
 were the undoubted law of Israel to all believers. 
 Two Rabbis, the Sons of Bethyrah, of high family 
 but little learning, held the offices of President and 
 Supreme Judge, but they were unable through 
 ignorance to decide many of the questions put to 
 them. Hillel gained admission to the Sanhedrin and 
 gradually won respect by his profound and accurate 
 knowledge of the points of the oral law. At length 
 a crisis came. A point of religious observance had 
 to be settled which, small as it appears in modern 
 eyes, was of vital importance to religious Jews. The 
 First Day of the Passover in a certain year fell imme- 
 diately after a Sabbath, and the question was how to 
 reconcile the laws, one of which commanded the 
 slaying of the Paschal lamb before Passover, and the 
 other that forbade any slaying on the Sabbath. The 
 party spirit between Sadducees and Pharisees, the 
 sticklers for the letter of the Pentateuch as the only 
 law, and the teachers who maintained the value and 
 necessity of tradition, gave the question an impor- 
 tance that may seem incomprehensible to modern 
 minds. It was not so to the Jewish people. They 
 regarded any violation of the Law as among the 
 worst evils that can befall man, and here was a point 
 in which either of two necessary courses seemed to 
 involve such a violation. The people murmured 
 against the ignorance of the Council and asked, 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 9 
 
 "Are there, then, no Judges in Israel to tell us what 
 is the law so that we may not sin? " 
 
 The Sadducee Rabbis of the High Priest's fac- 
 tion were confounded. They had claimed that the 
 Scripture alone was the sole guide for the law, and 
 here the Scripture required two courses to be fol- 
 lowed, each of which violated the other. The Phari- 
 sees proclaimed tradition as the guide, but none 
 knew the traditional law on this point. Hillel did. 
 He rose and declared the law required that the 
 Passover observance take precedence over the Sab- 
 bath Day. At first he was scoffed at as a foreigner, 8 
 but the scoffers ceased when he quoted the exact de- 
 cision on this case of his former teachers, Shemaiah 
 and Abtalion. Their authority was recognized by 
 all, and the question was settled to the delight both 
 of the Pharisees and the whole people. Even the 
 Sons of Bethyrah, wearied, perhaps, of the difficulties 
 of their position, voluntarily laid down their office, 
 and the Babylonian Hillel was chosen President of 
 the Sanhedrin "to restore peace in Israel," as the 
 Talmud says. 9 
 
 His election was a triumph for the Pharisees, who 
 had long been overborne by their opponents, backed 
 by the wealth and power of the Sadducean High 
 Priests. It was also a triumph for the element 
 among the nation which opposed the narrow-spirited 
 nationalism of Palestine. Hillel was not even born 
 in Palestine. His teachers, whose authority had 
 saved the reputation of the Assembly among the 
 people, were not even of Jewish race, but of the 
 " Proselytes of Righteousness" from the Gentiles. 
 
IO JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The election of Hillel was, then, a victory not only 
 over the Sadducees, but over the whole spirit of 
 narrow tribalism which would confine privileges to 
 the natives of Palestine. 
 
 Hillel himself recognized this fact, and his quick 
 intelligence and patient tact enabled him to use the 
 power thus placed in his hand to the fullest degree 
 in exalting the dignity of the Presidential office. 
 The court party in the Assembly had been forced 
 to agree in Hillel's election. They tried to offset 
 the power of this foreigner by giving him a col- 
 league who represented Palestine nationalism of the 
 narrowest kind. They chose for Chief Judge, the 
 second officer of the Sanhedrin, a Rabbi named Sham- 
 mai, famous alike for his learning and his haughty 
 temper. This man, who was attached by many ties 
 to the Sadducean faction, it was hoped, might re- 
 duce the power of Hillel to naught in the Assembly. 
 
 The position of the latter was assailed by Sham- 
 mai with the utmost bitterness, though under the 
 regular rabbinical form. As Chief Judge he de- 
 lighted in reversing decisions rendered by the Pres- 
 ident, and holding his sayings up to scorn. These 
 assaults Hillel treated with a calmness which 
 shamed even the partisans of his rival. He treated 
 Shammai with scrupulous politeness and extended 
 the same courtesy to his decisions. The curious 
 saying recorded in the Talmud that both these rivals 
 spoke the "words of the living God " sounds like an 
 utterance of Hillel. His work was for something 
 greater than wordy victories. 
 
 He evidently realized that the Jewish people 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST II 
 
 would not long remain in Palestine under existing 
 conditions. Exile was its fate, and in Babylon Hillel 
 had seen and studied how the law of Israel might 
 be preserved intact even though the chosen people 
 were scattered from the Holy Land. He made it his 
 task to prepare the popular mind for the impending 
 changes. As a means to this end he increased the 
 dignity of the office with which he was clothed, so 
 as to make it greater than even the High Priest's 
 functions. He introduced the idea of Davidic de- 
 scent as a proper qualification for the head of the 
 Assembly of Israel. Hillel himself belonged to that 
 family, and, besides increasing the popular venera- 
 tion for the office, this new idea made the Presidency 
 practically hereditary in the House of Hillel. As 
 the High Priest was of the House of Aaron so the 
 President of the Assembly, a descendant of the great 
 king, was recognized as the Nasi, or Prince, in Israel. 
 Hillel had no ill-feeling against Rome; at least not 
 in the same degree as the natives of Palestine. The 
 Heathens had not affected him personally nor his 
 family. Jerusalem and the Holy Land were to 
 the Jews in Babylon little more than a memory, a 
 religious sentiment, and re-awakened only when 
 they made a pilgrimage to the land of their fathers. 
 The Hebrews in Babylon were happier than those in 
 the Holy Land. From a religious point, Hillel was 
 satisfied ; the Land of the Lord was indestructible, 
 the faith as such was not affected by dynastic changes. 
 He and his people had lived and prayed in Babylon 
 with the same fervor to the same God, as those 
 who lived in Jerusalem. If the Commonwealth 
 
12 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was threatened in its religious life, it was wiser 
 to conciliate than to oppose the enemy of the 
 Lord. Love is a greater factor in securing the na- 
 tional and religious stability of a people than hate. 
 God's chiefest law is love, and this the Jew could 
 carry with him to the ends of the world. For this 
 neither Temple nor Palestine was indispensable. 
 What the Jew needed was a clearer understanding 
 of the will of God. Imbued with these ideas, Hillel 
 advocated kindlier feelings towards the Heathens. 
 If the Jews would treat them with consideration 
 they might remain undisturbed in their national ex- 
 istence. Thus thought and acted the foreigner 
 Hillel. It was, therefore, quite natural that the 
 Nationalist party, whose head was Shammai, op- 
 posed the conciliatory measures of the President. 
 But in order to maintain this policy, Hillel needed 
 a powerful party behind him, a party of wealth which 
 must be favored to make it stable and responsive. 
 
 Here, then, was the contention of the Nationalists. 
 They desired to foster sentimental patriotism among 
 the masses, and they frowned upon the attempt to 
 create a select party of aristocratic diplomatists in 
 opposition to themselves, who held sway over the 
 affairs of the nation for so long. 
 
 But the same determination which characterized 
 Hillel's student life was now manifest in his life 
 and work as President of the Assembly. Paving 
 the way for the future, he instructed his disciples 
 how to act in coming events. He put it to them 
 clearly and unmistakably. He taught them the 
 lessons of universal love, unhindered by national 
 
IIILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 13 
 
 sentiment, race, or creed. The burden of this mis- 
 sion he placed upon the shoulders of his favorite and 
 famous disciple, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, whom 
 he taught to look upon learning and the general edu- 
 cation of the people as of higher worth than the 
 Temple. This principle was expressed by Hillel's 
 descendant, Judah the Prince, in emphatic terms 
 two centuries later: "Disturb not the training of 
 the young, not even for the sake of rebuilding the 
 Temple," says he. 10 
 
 If Hillel's policy was marked by acts which seem- 
 ingly favored the rich man against the poor, it must 
 be put to the policy rather than to his character, 
 which was pure and above reproach. That, aided 
 by those whom he thus favored, he became very 
 wealthy must not be accounted a fault to reflect 
 upon his honesty as President of the Sanhedrim It 
 must be borne in mind that the Presidency was nat- 
 urally supported in magnificent style, and that Hillel, 
 though personally very frugal, spent vast sums for 
 the support of others and the laying of the founda- 
 tion for the grandeur of his house, which should not 
 fall, though the walls of the Temple and the city of 
 Jerusalem crumbled to dust. His was not the life of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, who came with a mission of sal- 
 vation, the prerequisite to which was self-abnega- 
 tion and a total reliance upon the Father for all 
 things. And yet Hillel was laying the foundation 
 on which the work of Jesus could more easily 
 rise. Hillel was paving the way for a universal 
 faith unhampered by petty national affairs. He was 
 intensely human; had he been otherwise, had he 
 
14 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 employed other than the simplest and most natural 
 means for his work, who knows how many centuries 
 would have elapsed ere the civilizing influence of 
 Judaism in the guise of Christianity could have made 
 itself felt. None before Hillel ever attempted such 
 a policy. He was the founder and originator — not 
 of the universality of the faith, but of HOW TO MAKE 
 THE FAITH UNIVERSAL. 
 
 Withal Hillel was not a reformer in a modern 
 sense. He did not deviate a jot or tittle from the 
 law. His acts stood in no contrast to the Mosaic 
 Law, not even his "Prosbul Act," of which we shall 
 speak farther on. What Hillel attempted was in 
 the nature of a warning note of preparation for the 
 future in case of calamity, so that, when driven 
 from the land of their fathers, the learned men in 
 Israel should carry along the indestructible seed of 
 the sacred faith and plant it upon foreign soil. De- 
 pendent upon none but God, they should be ready 
 to go whithersoever His finger pointed. Hillel 
 wanted them prepared to teach and practise love, 
 charity, humility, prudence, wisdom, and forbear- 
 ance. That Shammai opposed Hillel's work speaks 
 for the power thereof; yet it casts no discredit 
 upon that zealous Nationalist to have had different, 
 though less subtle, ideas. 
 
 In matters of doctrine Hillel was even stricter 
 than his opponent Shammai, but when it came to 
 the philosophy of life, to considerateness, to the 
 spreading of Israel's pure religion among the masses, 
 even amongst non-Hebrews ; when it came to answer- 
 ing miscellaneous questions by mockers, scoffers, and 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 1 5 
 
 Heathens where the peculiar situation demanded 
 skill, patience, and unruffled temper, so that the 
 faith and its adherents might stand glorified before 
 the world ; when it came to teaching the principles 
 of human love and forbearance by precept and 
 practice, then Hillel towered above his antagonist 
 as the lofty cedar above the gnarled oak. Then all 
 the gifts of the sage, his. amiability and divine pa- 
 tience came into play, and men praised his name 
 and glorified his virtues. 
 
 Hillel's sayings show his lofty soul as much as his 
 policy, and the stories in the Talmud, legendary as 
 they may be, always tend to emphasize the latter. 
 
 "Be thou of the disciples of Aaron, who loved 
 peace and pursued peace; so that thou love man- 
 kind, and allure them to the study of the Law." " 
 
 That which makes the character of Hillel so ad- 
 mirable to the student of the Talmud is the almost 
 total absence of the miraculous in his work. It 
 seems that the Talmudic fabulists felt that they 
 dared not obscure his splendid personality by petty 
 fantastic stories. Did they understand his policy? 
 Is this a tacit rebuke to Hillel's application of nat- 
 ural means to further a sublime end? There is 
 ground for both suppositions. But thanks be to 
 them, whatever their intention, for the clear-cut 
 pictures they give of his character and manner of 
 acting. These pictures also put into strong relief 
 the nature of Shammai and the policy he pursued. 
 
 Once a Heathen, says the Talmud, came to Sham- 
 mai and said : 
 
 "Rabbi, I desire to become a Jew; but I care 
 
16 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 nothing for the elucidations of the Rabbis and the 
 ordinances of the Synagogue ; I care but for the 
 written Law of Moses, and to it will I adhere." 
 
 "Wouldst thou, a Heathen, despise the wisdom 
 of the Rabbis? Go hence, I will have none of thee ! " 
 said Shammai angrily. 
 
 , The Heathen went to Hillel and repeated his re- 
 quest. The Rabbi looked at the stranger quizzically. 
 
 "Dost thou know aught of Hebrew? " he asked. 
 
 "Nothing whatever," the man replied. 
 
 There was a fleeting smile on Hillel's face as he 
 bade the man be seated. 
 
 "I will teach thee the Aleph-Beth of the Hebrew 
 language," he said. 
 
 It was a simple lesson, merely the reading of the 
 Hebrew alphabet, at which Hillel explained that, un- 
 like the Greek and Latin, the Hebrew language was 
 always read from right to left. The lesson being 
 over, the man went away very much impressed, and 
 on the day following came for another lesson, which 
 Hillel started by reading the alphabet from left to 
 right. 
 
 The Heathen was puzzled. 
 
 "Rabbi," said he, "thou didst say yesterday that 
 Hebrew is read from right to left." 
 
 "Then thou art willing to accept the oral explana- 
 tion I gave yesterday about the written word as au- 
 thentic for to-day, and any explanation I should 
 give thee to-day thou wouldst again accept with the 
 same faith for to-morrow? Why? Because thou be- 
 lievest in my ability to teach thee the hidden mean- 
 ing of words and phrases. Why, then, shouldst thou 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST \J 
 
 reject the elucidations and ordinances of the Rabbis, 
 who do no more than I do in thy case, namely, the 
 explanation of the written word, and its proper ren- 
 dition?" the sage replied. 
 
 The Heathen saw the wisdom and justice of Hil- 
 lel's words and reverently begged for admission into 
 the congregation of Israel, promising to adhere to 
 the written and the oral laws of the Hebrews. 1 ' 
 
 Hillel has some pointed utterances against those 
 who boasted of the position they held by virtue of 
 their names as priests or any other official dignity. 
 Also against those who, having acquired some 
 knowledge, made it a means for sordid ends. "If the 
 Temple is destroyed, where will be your official dig- 
 nity? If you are despoiled of your ill-gotten wealth, 
 what good will your sham knowledge do you? ' To 
 quote his own words : 
 
 "Whosoever aggrandizes his name destroys it; 
 and he who fails to increase his knowledge of the 
 Law shall be cut off; and he who does not study the 
 Law is deserving of death ; and he who serves himself 
 with the crown of the Law, will be consumed." l3 
 
 In Hillel's day the pomp of the Temple, the high- 
 priestly office, and the wealth and influence of the 
 Jewish aristocracy appeared alluring to some ambi- 
 tious Heathens, who not infrequently sought Judaism 
 with these ends in view. Shammai, who hated the 
 foreign element in general and the Heathen element 
 in particular, frightened away such applicants with 
 telling harshness. He did not want Crcthi and PlctJii 
 in the congregation of Israel. The Jews never had 
 any use for this class of people; they were always a 
 
18 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 hindrance rather than a help to the development of 
 the national idea. Moses would not give them 
 equality with the Israelites, and accorded them the 
 position of slaves : hewers of wood and carriers of 
 water; and even then they caused great trouble. 
 Such was the position taken by Shammai. 
 
 Hillel thought differently. The Heathens' ambi- 
 tion, he argued, was not only natural, but it was 
 encouraged by the boastful Jews themselves. But in- 
 stead of treating such applicants harshly and making 
 enemies of them, he said, treat them wisely ; show 
 them the way to salvation ; make them meek and 
 humble; let them see the real beauties of the faith 
 and they will embrace it for its own sake. In this 
 manner you will not only serve the faith in the pres- 
 ent, but you may secure for it incalculable benefits 
 for the future. 
 
 This thought is clearly illustrated by the following 
 story : 
 
 Once, says the Talmud, a Heathen came to the 
 house of Shammai, and said to him : 
 
 "Rabbi, I desire to become a Jew on condition 
 that thou make me a High Priest." 
 
 Shammai grew very wroth at such a demand, and, 
 threatening the man with his long staff, he cried : 
 
 "Away, thou barbarian, lest I chastise thee as 
 thine impudence deserves ! An infidel cannot become 
 a High Priest, nor can he come nigh unto the Holy 
 Place." 
 
 However, the Heathen's ambition was not so 
 easily thwarted; he went to Hillel, and proffered 
 the same demand. 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 19 
 
 "Thy desire is not extraordinary, my son," said 
 the sage; "but art thou sincere?" 
 
 "I am," said the Heathen. 
 
 Hillel's features seemed to change; he became 
 awfully earnest. 
 
 "Canst thou approach the Lord God of Israel 
 with proper reverence? " he asked. 
 
 "I can," the man replied, somewhat subdued. 
 
 "Ah, but knowest thou the law which surrounds 
 the exalted position to which thou aspirest? " Hillel 
 asked with increased solemnity. 
 
 "I know it not, oh, Rabbi," the man replied. 
 
 "Knowest not the Law?" Hillel cried in evident 
 surprise; "my son, the position of a High Priest is 
 more exalted than that of a king, and even a king 
 must know the laws of his land ; how much more then 
 is it incumbent upon the High Priest who stands be- 
 fore the awful sanctuary of the Lord, to know the 
 laws governing the approaches to the sanctuary ! 
 Now, my son, listen. This is one of the laws: 'And 
 the stranger who cometh nigh (unto the altar of the 
 Lord) shall die.' " " 
 
 The Heathen turned pale. 
 
 'To whom doth this refer?' he asked, trem- 
 blingly. 
 
 "Aye, to whom doth it not refer? Even David, 
 the king, had he lived and dared to go near the altar 
 to serve the offering, would have merited death," 
 Hillel rejoined. 
 
 "Your laws are strict," said the Heathen, "but 
 in them is pleasantness. My desire for the exalted 
 position was wrong, but my wish to be of your faith 
 
20 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 is now keener than before ; pray, Rabbi, admit me 
 into the congregation of the Jews." 
 
 Thereupon Hillel readily accepted the applicant 
 and put him under the care of his disciples for in- 
 struction and ultimate admission into the covenant 
 of Abraham. 16 
 
 Such marvellous wisdom could not fail to bring the 
 Law and its adherents into great respect among the 
 Heathens. But even greater was its effect upon 
 the Hebrew people. The Babylonian who, without 
 financial or political backing, but by mere merit, 
 had become the head of the Sanhedrin, and titular 
 prince, gave to them a higher conception of their own 
 faith and national aspiration. With Hillel rose an 
 appreciation of the laws and the possibility of being 
 released from the burden of dead-letter worship. He 
 also brought a clearer knowledge of tradition ; for 
 he had sat at the feet of the masters, Shemaiah and 
 Abtalion, and his keen spirit had penetrated the 
 greatest depths of their discourses; he lost no hint 
 which their words implied. He treasured their 
 teaching regarding the relation between the Law 
 and the needs of human life. The words came to 
 him as a light from heaven, "should one peril his 
 life for the Law, the Law shall be turned to save 
 his life." 19 Was not in this a hint for reform, a 
 point whence to start a form of elucidation of the 
 Law, which shall become, as he himself said, "allur- 
 ing"? Certainly. None before him saw it so 
 clearly, and none before him set to work so syste- 
 matically to make the Law of Moses a responsive 
 element, an active principle, and to define the 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 21 
 
 regulations the ignorant application of which 
 wrought unspeakable harm to the people. 
 
 Hillel did not care so much for great scholars as 
 for good men. One who knew all the laws and kept 
 none was infinitely more culpable than one who 
 knew none at all. A man's salvation depended 
 not upon his knowledge of every tittle of the 
 law, but in the proper exercise thereof. Nor did 
 he conceal his preference for the kernel to the 
 shell, and when a Heathen, probably to test the 
 Rabbi's patience, asked to be taught all the laws 
 of the Hebrews while he would stand on one foot, 
 the sage did not drive him away as Shammai did. 
 He took that mocker by the hand and spoke to him 
 gently. 
 
 "My son," said he, "to be a good Jew thou 
 needest to know but one principle, and that I can 
 teach thee in less time than thou requirest. That 
 which is hateful unto thee, do not unto thy neigh- 
 bor. This is the fundamental principle of the Mo- 
 saic religion : all the rest is mere commentary ; go 
 and live up to that." " 
 
 Wonderfully enlightened, the erstwhile scoffer be- 
 came an adorer; he studied the lore and the laws of 
 the Hebrews and became a convert. 
 
 In sooth the times and the conditions of society 
 in Palestine were such that a powerful, equipoised 
 factor was needed to stand between the stubborn ad- 
 herents of the dead letter of the law, and those He- 
 brews who affected Roman manners and denied the 
 Law altogether, and were even ashamed of being 
 called Hebrews. To break down the barrier erected 
 
22 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 by stiff-necked zealots, and to bring back into the 
 fold those stray sheep of Israel, whom folly and a 
 contempt for the bigots had driven away, was an- 
 other aim of Hillel's activity. 
 
 Among the first acts of his administration was his 
 "Prosbul Act," which was designed to protect the 
 money-lenders as well as the borrowers during the 
 "Year of Release." For the man who held a 
 mortgage on another man's property was forced to 
 release it on the first day of the seventh year. If 
 the mortgageor was a dishonest man, he simply re- 
 fused payment, and the mortgagee lost his capital. 
 Thus people resorted to all manner of fraud, in 
 which they were virtually assisted by the law. The 
 money lenders, to protect themselves, would either 
 charge exorbitant rates of interest or refuse to lend 
 money altogether. Ordinarily this would not have 
 been such a great misfortune, but there were times 
 when the people had to have money or feel the 
 scourge of the tyrant. The first year after the ac- 
 cession to the throne of Herod, was a Year of Re- 
 lease ; the people had been drained to the last drop 
 by exorbitant taxes the preceding year, which had 
 been followed by bad crops. The people then had 
 neither food nor money to buy it. They took their 
 last possessions and went to the money-lenders ; but 
 these refused to advance a single coin : they were 
 afraid to lose their money at the coming Year of 
 Release. 
 
 Hillel came to the assistance of both parties by 
 means of the "Script," which was in the nature of a 
 promissory note and which secured to the lender his 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 23 
 
 money even after the Year of Release ; for though 
 the property reverted to the borrower, the lender 
 could sue on the "Script " and collect his money by 
 due process of law in judgment and execution. ,H 
 
 After the publication of this Act, the people 
 heaved a sigh of relief, and though it favored the 
 lender it gave a fair chance also to the borrower. 
 
 Another injurious law was that which provided 
 that a man, having sold a house and desiring to buy 
 it back, which he could do within a year, was forced 
 to pay the original purchase price personally into 
 the hand of the one in possession. But the latter, 
 not desiring to give up the property, often hid 
 himself on the last day and thus defeated the laws 
 of equity. 
 
 Hillel made an act which provided that the origi- 
 nal owner had the right to deposit the purchase 
 money in a court of justice on the last day of the 
 year within which the property was sold, whereupon 
 he could take immediate possession. 10 
 
 Another evil was found in the borrowing and lend- 
 ing of grain at seed-time. Poor crops frequently 
 forced the people to borrow grain for food or seed, 
 which the rich merchants readily gave ; but prior to 
 the expiration of the debt the lenders combined to 
 raise the price of grain and demanded returns equiva- 
 lent to the increased rates. 
 
 Hillel remedied this by providing that cereals shall 
 be returned or paid for at the price it sold for on the 
 day it was loaned. 30 
 
 And so he went on instituting one reform after 
 another; making every Mosaic Law luminous by the 
 
24 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 brilliancy of his matchless intellect. He was, in 
 sooth, a second Ezra, and, like him, he reconstructed 
 the Law of Moses, making it a moving force for all 
 time." 
 
 His knowledge was universal ; embracing many 
 languages and the sciences of botany, medicine, as- 
 tronomy, mathematics, and geography. Speaking 
 in the language of the Talmud : "There was no phil- 
 osophy and no tongue which he had not learned ; he 
 knew the speech of the mountains, hills, valleys, 
 trees, plants, and that of the domestic and wild 
 
 • 1 » f 33 
 
 animals. 
 
 As was the man, so was his domestic life, happy to 
 the fullest measure ; for his wife was as lovable and 
 tender-hearted as he. The thought of coming evil to 
 the nation which, as we have indicated, mainly di- 
 rected his policy, never extended to his own house ; 
 nor did it manifest itself in his home life. Both 
 were fortified by walls of the purest faith and wis- 
 dom. He feared neither the present nor the future. 
 The Talmud illustrates this beautifully and signifi- 
 cantly. Hillel was on the way to his home, when 
 a great noise suddenly reached his ear. "I am cer- 
 tain," said he, "that it is not in my house [that 
 no misfortune has befallen me or mine]."" This 
 pure optimism ruled all his words and acts, and no 
 amount of personal inconvenience was ever great 
 enough to disturb this wonderful equanimity. 
 
 One day a very distinguished man came to see 
 him; Hillel asked his wife to prepare a dinner — 
 probably commensurate with the dignity of the 
 guest. Hour upon hour passed, still the dinner was 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 2$ 
 
 not brought. Hillel showed not the least impa- 
 tience; he kept his guest in good spirits by de- 
 lightful conversation, and at length Hillel's wife 
 appeared with the servants and the steaming food. 
 
 "We are late to-day," said Hillel smilingly. 
 
 "The food was ready long ere now," said she, 
 "but a poor and hungry man came and asked for 
 something to eat and I gave it to him, and that ne- 
 cessitated the preparation of other food." 
 
 "My dear," said Hillel, "thy good heart has 
 prompted thee to do the right thing; for charity is 
 one of the noblest virtues, and the Lord is more 
 pleased with thy work than any other." " 
 
 His patience was proverbial. It was greater, finer, 
 nobler than that of Job; for Hillel was not called 
 upon to contend with fate, but with the follies of 
 man. But, though tried beyond the ordinary en- 
 durance which characterizes wise men, he never lost 
 his temper. This admirable quality is praised by 
 Rabbis who rightly place Hillel above Shammai. 
 "Let every man always be as meek as Hillel and not 
 high-tempered like Shammai."" In illustration of 
 Hillel's meekness the following story is given : 
 
 On a Friday, while Hillel was in his bath in honor 
 of the Sabbath, a man called to see him. Hillel 
 quickly dried himself, put on his mantle, and, going 
 into the reception-room, asked the man what he 
 desired. 
 
 "I have a question to ask," said the visitor. 
 
 "Ask, my son," rejoined Hillel. 
 
 "Why have the Babylonians round heads? ' 
 
 "Thou hast asked an important question," said 
 
26 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Hillel, evidently unaffected by the irreverent insinu- 
 ation. "Because the Babylonians lack skilful mid- 
 wives." 
 
 The man went away without thanking him, and 
 after an hour returned and roughly called for Hillel. 
 "What desirest thou?" the latter asked. 
 "I have a question," said the man. 
 "Ask it, my son," said Hillel. 
 "Why are the Tharmudians cross-eyed? ' : 
 "Thou hast asked an important question," said 
 Hillel, "because they live in a sandy country." 
 
 The man went away as before, and after an hour's 
 absence returned, crying: "Is Hillel there? Is Hil- 
 lel there? " 
 
 "He is here," said Hillel pleasantly; "what de- 
 sirest thou of him? " 
 
 "I have a question to ask." 
 "Ask, my son." 
 
 "Why have the Africans flat feet? " 
 "Thou hast asked an important question ; because 
 the Africans are obliged to pass through great 
 swamps," was Hillel's reply. 
 
 "I have many more questions to ask," said the 
 man tentatively. 
 
 "Ask them, my son," said Hillel. 
 "But I fear thou wilt become angry," the man 
 remarked. 
 
 Hillel drew his mantle closer and sat down. 
 "Ask all the questions thou hast, my son; I will 
 listen," he said. 
 
 "Art thou Hillel whom they call the Prince in 
 Israel? " the man asked. 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 2J 
 
 "I am Hillel." 
 
 "Then may there be none more like thee in 
 Israel! " the man cried. 
 
 "Wherefore this wish, my son?" 
 
 "Because I have this day lost four hundred gold 
 pieces on thine account; I wagered that I could 
 make thee angry," the man explained. 
 
 "My son, thou mightest lose many hundreds of 
 gold pieces ere Hillel would give way to anger." '" 
 
 He was scrupulous in matters of personal cleanli- 
 ness, bathing daily, often several times during the 
 day. 
 
 "If man taketh such care of statues which he 
 washeth and cleanseth from dust, though these 
 statues are but the images of mortals, how much 
 more eagerly should a man attend to the cleanliness 
 of his person, which was created in the image of 
 the divine! " he often said." 
 
 "Man should be clean so as not to offend his 
 guest," he once said to his disciples. 
 
 "What guest? " they asked. 
 
 "The soul," the Master replied. "The soul is 
 man's most cherished guest; within us to-day, it 
 may be with God to-morrow, and think of it, my 
 children, if the soul should say to God that it had 
 lodged in an unclean dwelling." 38 
 
 None surpassed him in humility; not even in the 
 days of his rising fame, a period when students ac- 
 quiring a certain degree of recognition are apt to be 
 vain and presumptuous. Hillel was always meek 
 and polite, ready to do a man service, no matter how 
 trifling or how great. If a man needed a service to 
 
28 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 which he was used, but owing to reverses in his for- 
 tune was unable to procure, he would never go with- 
 out it when Hillel happened to be near. He either 
 hired the services of another, or, if he happened to 
 be without ready money, would do it himself. 
 
 It was one of Hillel's principles to prevent humil- 
 iation of any person, particularly of impoverished 
 nobles, who, he held, suffered more keenly than 
 others when they had to appear in public and could 
 not afford the means their former position so readily 
 gave them. Such people were Hillel's particular 
 care, and he humored their wants to the smallest 
 degree. The Talmud contains a story in illustration 
 of this feature in Hillel's character. 
 
 A certain impoverished noble who used to have a 
 "crier " run in front of his carriage complained that 
 he could now ill afford it. Hillel at once called a 
 "crier," and engaged him for immediate service. 
 Some days later Hillel saw the noble driving, but, 
 alas, without a "crier." Hillel examined his then 
 slender purse and found that he had not the price 
 for a crier's service. Without a second thought, 
 Hillel ran in front of the noble and performed the 
 service of "crier." 
 
 Thus by the force of intellectuality and personal 
 service Hillel gradually prepared the Jews, who 
 stood at the threshold of indefinite exile, to bear 
 the great burden which misfortune, deserved or 
 otherwise, put upon them. He wanted them pre- 
 pared to go into the world and act so that, though 
 assimilated, they might yet retain the power to sway 
 man by the living word. • 
 
HILLEL, THE FORERUNNER OF CHRIST 29 
 
 "Be thou not dressed among the naked, nor naked 
 among the dressed; sit not when others stand, and 
 stand not when others sit ; weep not when others laugh, 
 and laugh not when others weep ; attempt no changes 
 with the customs of those with whom you dwell." " 
 
 From this it will be seen that he was possessed of 
 exquisite tact, and had he lived half a century later 
 who knows but that this one amiable intellectual 
 giant might have averted the great calamity which 
 befell the Temple and the city of Jerusalem? 
 
 A great deal more might be written about the var- 
 ious disputes between Hillel and Shammai. This, 
 however, would but repeat what we have already said, 
 namely, that Hillel towered above the men of his time 
 an immeasurable height, and that he was the actual 
 founder of Judaism as it appeared after the destruc- 
 tion of the Temple, and that he was practically a new 
 Moses unto the Jews. The former gave the Law, 
 the latter made that law a vital force for all time. 
 Hillel's life and work made the work of Jesus a pos- 
 sibility. Without Hillel the world would have been 
 less receptive to the message of the lowly Nazarene. 
 
 Grateful to Hillel's memory and appreciative of 
 his wonderful work, the Talmudists ascribe to his 
 life a value as great as to that of Moses, and in the 
 beautiful hyperbolic form of rabbinical expression, 
 it is said that Hillel lived to the age of one hundred 
 and twenty years. In reality, however, he lived but 
 eighty years, and died about sixty years before the 
 destruction of the Temple by Titus, and ten years be- 
 fore the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, having been presi- 
 dent of the Sanhedrin for forty consecutive years." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 JESUS OF NAZARETH 
 
 IN writing of Jesus of Nazareth, I seem to myself 
 to hear a voice such as came to Moses in the 
 desert of old: "Take the shoe from off thy foot, for 
 the place on which thou standest is holy ground." 
 As Moses marvelled at the bush which burned and 
 yet was not consumed, and approached to examine 
 its nature, so I am drawn to examine the wondrous 
 mystery of the life and death of Jesus to my fullest 
 power of mind, and in deep reverence. 
 
 I propose to examine the position occupied by 
 Jesus in the history of the Jewish people, to tell the 
 conditions which moulded his life work, and brought 
 about his agony and death. 
 
 The sources from which I shall draw mainly in 
 this task are the pages of the Talmud. This remark- 
 able work enshrines the mental activity of the Jew- 
 ish race during nearly a thousand years. Though 
 embodied in literary form only in the second century 
 after the birth of Christ, by the labors of Rabbi Juda 
 the Prince, the material of the Talmud text was the 
 common property of the Jewish people for centuries 
 earlier. 
 
 The history and philosophy of successive genera- 
 
 30 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 3 1 
 
 tions were handed down by a rigorous system of oral 
 tradition among the Rabbis, as the Koran in after 
 years was handed down by the followers of Moham- 
 med. The earliest traditions embodied in the work 
 of Rabbi Juda the Prince date to at least the third 
 century before Christ, and later writers continued to 
 add to the text down to the ninth century after his 
 birth. 
 
 It is rather an encyclopedia than what is styled a 
 history in the common speech of our own day. 
 Juda's object was to embody in writing the traditional 
 law given to Moses as interpreted by later recog- 
 nized teachers of Judaism. The circumstances under 
 which these decisions were given, as well as the de- 
 cisions, are related in the customary style of Eastern 
 nations. 
 
 The narratives of the Talmud have some resem- 
 blance to the legends of the Christian mediaeval saints, 
 but they contain a wealth of facts relating to the Jew- 
 ish people which can be learned from no other source. 
 The difference of language, from pure Hebrew to 
 the patois of Syria and Babylon, in which the Tal- 
 mud is written, makes its study a task only for 
 scholars, but a task which well repays the labor 
 imposed. 
 
 From this record of purely Jewish life and thought, 
 handed down to us like a testament of bygone ages, 
 I seek to gather what it tells of that life, so full 
 of human charm and sweetness, of the individual 
 whose sublime principles might have united all 
 men, Jew and Gentile alike, under the banner of his 
 Messiahship, had it not been for the errors and 
 
32 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 crimes of those who mistook his word and work and 
 mission, and even in his name were guilty of deeds 
 at which humanity revolts. 
 
 I desire to place clearly before the men of our day 
 the community of spiritual thought which, begin- 
 ning with Hillel, runs through, and is consecrated by, 
 the life and death agony of the Man of Suffering of 
 Galilee. In the sequence of time Jesus follows 
 Hillel, and Hillel's teachings had prepared Hebrew 
 hearts for the gentle message of Him who followed. 
 That many were so prepared, outside history shows. 
 That many of the leading Rabbis, the masters in 
 Israel, knew and approved its doctrine, is attested by 
 the Talmud itself. The name of Jesus of Nazareth 
 and of many of his chief disciples find frequent 
 mention in its pages. 1 His life and work and death 
 are as clearly attested there as is the work of Hillel 
 or his successors in the Patriarchate. Looking ex- 
 clusively to Jewish historical authority, there can 
 be no more doubt regarding the actual existence of 
 the one than of the other. 
 
 "Let none be as Josua ben Perachiah, who re- 
 pulsed Jesus of Nazareth (Jeshu ha-Notzri) with 
 both hands," is an injunction contained in the 
 Talmud. 2 
 
 The day of his death, the manner of its accom- 
 plishment, 3 his age at the time, and the name of the 
 Roman governor, Pontius Pilate (Pinehas Listai), 
 who sanctioned his execution, are also told there. 4 
 
 If Jesus is frequently referred to by other names, 
 as Otho ha-Ish (that man), or Peloni (a certain one), 
 it may easily be understood. After the death of 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 33 
 
 Jesus his name became a stumbling-block of con- 
 tention between different portions of the Jewish peo- 
 ple. While some used it to heal the sick and give 
 authority to the divine law of love for man, 6 others 
 coupled it with malediction. The bitterness of these 
 dissensions was intense. The followers of Christ 
 were branded by some Jews with the opprobrious 
 name of heretics (Minim), while other Jews, and 
 those often the most learned, echoed the senti- 
 ment." 
 
 Whether regarded with love or hate, the person- 
 ality of Jesus fills a large place in the Jewish world 
 of Palestine. It occupied the thoughts and the 
 discussions of the Rabbis to whom everything was 
 centred, at the time, in the affairs of the Holy 
 Land. 
 
 The descent of Jesus from David, as set forth in 
 the New Testament, is not disputed in the Talmud, 
 though it must have been publicly proclaimed at the 
 time. It is hardly credible that the hostile High 
 Priest and the Roman governor should have laid such 
 stress on his claims to kingship were not his descent 
 from David an unquestioned fact. Pilate gave the 
 title "King of the Jews " in his sentence in a spirit 
 of no hostility to the victim over whose cross it was 
 written. He even used it as a means of exciting 
 popular sympathy in his behalf, according to the 
 New Testament narrative, and the enemies who 
 sought and compassed his death made no attempt to 
 deny His origin. The Prince of Judaism and the 
 Prince of the Christian world are of one blood, the 
 race of David ; and the faith and hopes of mankind, 
 
34 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 whether Jewish or Christian, spring from a common 
 fountain. 
 
 There are many among my people who decline 
 to regard the narrative of the New Testament as 
 worthy attention on their part. At the same time 
 their regard for the Old Testament is not lessened 
 because they accept many things in it in an allegori- 
 cal or figurative sense. I would ask such why it is 
 not more reasonable to test the statements contained 
 in the New Testament by historical standards. That 
 work has been received as authentic history by the 
 largest part of civilized men during many centuries. 
 Granted even that we as Jews reject certain points 
 cardinal with the Christian faith, it cannot be denied 
 that Christianity is a historical fact, and its existence 
 to-day is directly traceable to Jewish origin through 
 the New Testament. Such a work cannot be ignored 
 nor treated with contemptuous indifference by 
 thoughtful men, be they Jews, Christians, or any 
 other class, but least of all by the Jewish historian. 
 
 The first appearance of Christ in public, when, at 
 twelve years of age, he presented himself among 
 the learned doctors of the law in the Temple, was 
 almost in the time of Hillel's life. Whether Hillel 
 himself was one of those who marvelled at the intel- 
 ligence displayed by a child cannot be told, but cer- 
 tainly the doctors then present were Hillel's followers. 
 Hillel's authority was then supreme among the 
 teachers of Judea. The noble picture of Raffaele is 
 one which may command the fullest sympathy of 
 Christian and Jew alike. The Temple stood in its 
 glory in Jerusalem, and within its precincts the mas- 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 35 
 
 ters in Israel expounded the Law of Moses, which 
 Jew and Christian alike hold in reverence. Hillel 
 had taught it there forty years, and by his words in 
 a great measure the religious thought of the people 
 had been moulded to receive as they might the mes- 
 sage which Christ came to offer. That message de- 
 veloped, but did not contradict, the teachings of the 
 great Rabbi. Hillel had come from Babylon in his 
 early days. The boy who appeared among the 
 doctors had been an exile in Egypt from his in- 
 fancy. Both were Jews even of the noblest blood 
 of the ancient kings, but neither had any part in 
 the narrow local spirit which would make Palestine 
 the only Holy Land in God's world. 
 
 The High Priests and their partisans, the self- 
 righteous Sadducees, cared little for either Hebrew 
 learning or Hebrew religion. They rejected the 
 traditional law absolutely, and cared not for the 
 controversies of the learned Rabbis. In the very 
 service of the Temple they were obliged to employ 
 the Scribes or Rabbis, whom they stigmatized by the 
 name of Pharisees, or aliens, but whose knowledge of 
 the Hebrew language was indispensable in the Tem- 
 ple service. But if the Sadducees cared little for 
 Hebrew religion, they were filled with a bitter zeal 
 for the nationality of their land. They were the 
 local aristocracy of Palestine, recognized as such by 
 the Roman governors, and they jealously guarded 
 their official position, while despising the belief of 
 the majority of their nation. 
 
 Hillcl's teaching was in direct opposition to the 
 bigoted nationalism of the Sadducean High Priests. 
 
36 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 They held the Temple as the centre of the law 
 itself: he regarded it as merely an adjunct. "You 
 are lost," he said to them, "if you are separated 
 from the material Temple, but we carry a Temple in 
 our hearts in which the Lord can be served always 
 and everywhere." "A place is only holy if its 
 dwellers make it holy." 8 So close is the analogy 
 between the moral teachings of Hillel and his school 
 with those of Christ, that some of our Jewish writers 
 have asserted that all the sayings recorded in the 
 New Testament may be found in the Talmud. The 
 statement is partially true, but then many of the doc- 
 trines so set forth were uttered by Rabbis like Eliezer 
 ben Hyrkanos many years after the death of Christ. 
 
 Christ's appearance amid the doctors of the Tem- 
 ple was but momentary. He buried himself in an 
 obscure village for eighteen years afterwards. John 
 the Baptist and others, zealous for the Law, had 
 gone into the desert to live solitary lives of peace and 
 prayer, away from the corruption which reigned even 
 in the Sanctuary of the Most High. They foresaw 
 coming changes in the state of the people of Israel, 
 and the advent of One who would give Judea and 
 the world something greater than a revived empire 
 of David, but a something which the masses of the 
 people could hardly conceive in their narrow range 
 of thought. 
 
 The days indeed were evil for the mass of the 
 Jewish people when John came from his desert to 
 raise the minds of men with the hope of a mighty 
 change. Morals had greatly deteriorated during the 
 wars of the two previous centuries. The Talmud 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 37 
 
 gives a proof of this when it records how Ben Zakkai 
 decreed the abolition of the ordeal prescribed in the 
 Mosaic Code in cases of suspected marital infidelity. 
 It says that the change of manners was so great that 
 what had been a protection for innocence was made 
 an engine for its oppression. 9 
 
 Though the populace still gloried in their nation- 
 ality, and looked forward to indefinite future gran- 
 deur for it, the simple faith of a former age had been 
 weakened by the influence of foreign laws and litera- 
 ture. Mention has been made of the Sadducees, a 
 party among the Jews, who sprang into existence 
 under the dominion of the Greek monarchs of Syria, 
 and who proclaimed a new doctrine. They rejected 
 the whole traditional law which had hitherto been 
 accepted unquestioningly as of equal authority with 
 the Scriptures. Their position, doctrinally, was 
 somewhat similar to the Puritans of England. Their 
 innovations in the Jewish religion had indeed an an- 
 alogy with the Protestant Reformation in Europe 
 afterwards. The Sadducee teachers taught that the 
 Bible alone was the source of all religious truth, and 
 they even rejected belief in a future life because 
 they could not find such expressly set forth in the 
 written word. Their theory found favor with the 
 native Jewish kings, who established an independent 
 kingdom in Palestine during the second century be- 
 fore Christ. These rulers were of the priestly race, 
 and they united in themselves the offices of king and 
 High Priest of the Temple. In the original organi- 
 zation of the Jewish people, law and religion were 
 alike of divine origin, but the priests were entirely 
 
38 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 distinct from the teachers of the law. The priests 
 were devoted to the service of the Temple exclu- 
 sively, the law was interpreted and decided by the 
 Rabbis, or masters, who were chosen from all classes 
 on the test of learning alone. It was natural that 
 the kings should seek to lessen the influence of the 
 powerful body of the Rabbis, and the Sadducean 
 doctrine was decidedly favorable to such a result. 
 The Rabbis were branded as Pharisees, or aliens, as 
 a term of reproach. It signified that their place in 
 the nation was less intimately connected with Pales- 
 tinian nationality than that represented by the her- 
 editary priests, who all descended from Aaron. 
 
 Though the office of High Priest was again separ- 
 ated from temporal rule on the extinction of the As- 
 monean dynasty, it continued to be a high dignity 
 in itself. When the Roman rule was established, 
 the foreign governors treated the High Priest as the 
 head of the Jewish religion, and left him free to 
 deal with his own people in religious affairs. Ish- 
 mael Phabi purchased the office from the Roman 
 governor, Gratus, some years before the preaching 
 of Christ. He was not even of the family of Aaron, 
 and was a Sadducee in profession, while the people 
 at large still held the old traditional law, but Roman 
 policy treated such points with scornful indifference. 
 Eight High Priests of Phabi's family retained the 
 priesthood and the profitable guardianship of the 
 Temple of Jerusalem through Roman favor. By 
 it, too, they controlled the Sanhedrin, or Assembly 
 of the Rabbis, which was at once the supreme court 
 and the legislature of the nation in both religion 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 39 
 
 and morals. The Rabbis, scattered through the 
 country, still retained their influence among the peo- 
 ple as teachers of the Jewish faith. The members 
 of the Sanhedrin shaped the law to suit the will of 
 the Sadducean High Priests. The main object of 
 the latter was to increase their own revenues, and 
 for that purpose they multiplied minute religious 
 observances, and made the breach of them punish- 
 able with heavy fines. These fines were part of 
 the revenue of the Temple, and the High Priests 
 drove, besides, a profitable trade in selling the vari- 
 ous animals and other articles specified as fines or re- 
 quired for legal sacrifice offerings generally. The 
 demoralizing effect of this traffic in sacred things was 
 deeply felt by the religious part of the people, and 
 its oppressive nature made the office of High Priest 
 odious to the mass of the population, but the favor 
 of the Roman governors maintained the unworthy 
 priests in their purchased power. 
 
 The Talmud tells how, shortly before the revolt 
 against Rome which ended in the destruction of Jer- 
 usalem, a patriotic member of the Sanhedrin caused 
 a reduction of the prices of the sacrificial cattle and 
 doves as a relief to the people. Subsequently the 
 populace rose in arms, destroyed the bazars of An- 
 nas on Mount Olivet, killed the High Priest, and 
 cast his body to the dogs. 10 This illustrates the feel- 
 ings with which the Sadducean Priests were regarded 
 by the people at large in the time of Christ. Their 
 creed and their conduct were alike repugnant to the 
 religious sentiment of the nation. 
 
 Of the Pharisees who, for diplomatic reasons, were 
 
40 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 employed to do clerical service in the Temple, many 
 were scarcely more esteemed than the High Priest. 
 A large number of others, while affecting unbounded 
 zeal for religion, were grossly corrupt in their lives. 
 The contrast between their preaching and their prac- 
 tice was a public scandal, which finds expression in 
 the Talmud scarcely less strongly than in the Gospel 
 narrative. A remarkable passage in the former 
 enumerates seven classes of Pharisees according to 
 the various manners affected by each, and five of 
 those classes are held up as unworthy of respect. 
 The term Tsevoim, "dyed Pharisees," was a com- 
 mon term for hypocrite among the Jews. "You need 
 not fear the Pharisees, who are really such," was 
 the last advice of King Yannai to his wife, "but fear 
 the dyed Pharisees, who do the works of Zimri and 
 seek the reward of Pinehas. " n The testimony of 
 this king is notable, because of his intense hatred of 
 the Pharisees. In the civil war, and after the cap- 
 ture of their fortress Bethome, about 80 B.C., he 
 caused no less than eight hundred Pharisees and 
 their partisans to be crucified. A deep horror of 
 this form of punishment was left on the minds of all 
 Pharisees for over a century. 12 
 
 It should be remembered that, though Pharisee 
 and Sadducee are names given to two opposite doc- 
 trines, they are only applied to the teachers of those 
 doctrines, not to the body of the laity, who ac- 
 cepted either. The common people of Palestine 
 held to the law as given them by the Pharisee Rab- 
 bis. They recognized the authority of the Sanhe- 
 drin and its president as supreme in matters of 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 41 
 
 religion, but they are never called Pharisees. That 
 term, both in the Talmud and the Gospels, is con- 
 fined exclusively to the teachers of the law and its 
 students, from whose ranks these teachers were 
 recruited. 
 
 Such was the religious condition of the Jews of 
 Palestine when John the Baptist came from his 
 desert retreat to stir its people to higher spiritual 
 life. He was looked on as an Essene, a class of men 
 who devoted themselves to austerity of life and 
 works of mercy to others. The Jewish people then 
 as now in many lands recognized the existence of 
 supernatural powers in individuals, and associated 
 their possession closely with a stricter rule of life. 
 John's preaching was received with enthusiasm by 
 the people at large, and even by many of the Phari- 
 sees, who saw nothing opposed to their own belief 
 in his action. For the Jews always hoped for the 
 coming of a Messiah, and at no time more fervently 
 than at the announcement of John. When Christ 
 presented himself to him for baptism, John recog- 
 nized him as the Chosen of the Lord, and pro- 
 claimed his own inferiority to him at the same time. 
 There was nothing repugnant to Jewish teaching in 
 John's proclamation. The idea of a Messiah, a 
 definite individual, who was to come in the fulness 
 of time to bring some great beneficial change in the 
 condition of mankind, was familiar to all Jews. The 
 prophets promised it ; the Rabbis continually taught 
 it; the Sadducees scoffed at it, but it had gone into 
 the flesh and bone of the Jewish people, and they 
 accepted it without any reservation as to its veracity. 
 
42 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Opinions differed about the personality of the Mes- 
 siah. Some held that the Messiah eternally existed 
 with God, that is, was an emanation of God Himself, 
 and united with the Holy Ghost; that His name, as 
 well as the Law itself, was among the first emana- 
 tions of God, 13 that is, in the sense of the Logos of 
 the New Testament. 
 
 Others held different theories about the person to 
 be expected, but some person was keenly looked for 
 by all Jews to fulfil the glorious promises made by 
 the prophets of God's glory in the Holy Land. 
 When, a century and a quarter after Christ, the 
 famous Rabbi Akibah actually proclaimed the sol- 
 dier Bar Kochba the Messiah, few objected. The 
 Talmud records but one objection. Yochanan ben 
 Torta said to Akibah: "Sooner will grass grow out 
 of thy chin than this one will be the Messiah. ' ' " But 
 then this very opposition may have sprung from the 
 faith that the Messiah had already come, that the 
 One crucified was the real Redeemer. Bar Koch- 
 ba's imposture was recognized after his defeat, and 
 Juda the prince branded his name as Bar Kozi- 
 bah, the son of lies, but Akibah is still regarded 
 as a saint and martyr by the Jewish people. 
 
 There seems no evidence that Christ, when he be- 
 gan his mission, made public announcement of any 
 claim to the Messiahship. Even if he had, it would 
 not have been necessarily regarded as an offence 
 against the Law of Moses. He went among the peo- 
 ple as a teacher of the Law, and as such he was re- 
 ceived into the synagogues of the Rabbis, who saw 
 nothing offensive to their ideas in his mission. He 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 43 
 
 declared he had not come to destroy, but to fulfil 
 the Law of Moses. He bade the people follow the 
 teaching of the Pharisees, as they held the chair of 
 Moses, the inspired lawgiver, while at the same 
 time he cautioned them against the practices in ac- 
 tual life of the same teachers. The questions ad- 
 dressed to him by the Pharisees were, at least in 
 part, addressed to obtain elucidation of the true 
 meaning of the Law. At times they openly ap- 
 proved his answers, as when he declared the false- 
 hood of the Sadducean doctrine that the dead rise 
 not again. On other occasions, the silence with 
 which his answers were received may fairly be inter- 
 preted into consent. He was asked to eat in the 
 houses of distinguished Rabbis, and he accepted 
 their invitations. Other Pharisees came to warn him 
 of plots against his life. While individuals occasion- 
 ally attempted violence or expressed opposition to 
 his teachings, there seem no good grounds to think 
 that the body of the Jewish people, or the larger part 
 of the Rabbis, felt or showed any hostility to him on 
 religious grounds. 
 
 Indeed, it is hard to see why they should. If the 
 moral teachings recorded in the New Testament 
 were placed in the mouth of one of the Rabbis can- 
 onized in the Talmud, they would seem perfectly 
 conformable to the spirit of the Law of Moses. 
 Christ did not deny the obligation on the Jews of 
 his time of the ceremonial law. When his disciples 
 were rebuked for violating the Sabbath by plucking 
 ears of corn for food, he did not deny that such was 
 forbidden under ordinary circumstances, but excused 
 
44 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 it on the ground of necessity. The teachers of highest 
 repute in the Talmud used the same reasoning to 
 justify any work on the Sabbath, if needed for the 
 saving of life or even to prevent danger to life. His 
 prohibition of divorce was in accord with the teach- 
 ings of the Rabbis, "Let no man put away the wife 
 of his youth unless for grievous sin." It is true that 
 Hillel, the president of the Sanhedrin, had sanc- 
 tioned a laxer application of the law, but there was 
 nothing in the principle laid down by Christ on this 
 subject opposed to the teachings of many orthodox 
 Rabbis. It was, then, neither zeal for the Jewish re- 
 ligion nor opposition to the moral teachings of Christ 
 that instigated the plot to take away his life. The 
 people followed him with ever-growing enthusiasm, 
 during his mission, but the High Priest and his fac- 
 tion saw in the popular movement a twofold danger 
 to their own power and wealth. The revival of the 
 religious spirit among the Jewish people would, the}' 
 thought, naturally increase the dislike already exist- 
 ing against themselves as unbelievers and intruders 
 into the priestly office. It might provoke popular 
 outbursts, such as that which afterwards did in fact 
 sweep away the second Annas. Another risk was 
 that the popular effervescence over the new Teacher 
 might excite the political jealousy of the Roman 
 rulers in Palestine. Christ was from Galilee, and the 
 Galilean peasantry of that day were a particularly 
 independent and fearless section of the Hebrew peo- 
 ple. Local outbreaks had occurred there more than 
 once, and the rulers of the Temple feared that one 
 of national extent might follow. They felt that in 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 45 
 
 such a case the Temple and their own wealth would 
 be involved in a common ruin with the people. To 
 avert such a risk, the unworthy High Priest, Joseph 
 Caiaphas, resolved to make away with the life of the 
 Teacher whose words and deeds were so widely in- 
 fluencing the people. 
 
 To accomplish the destruction of Christ with 
 safety to themselves, his enemies must recur either 
 to Jewish or to Roman law. The crowds of follow- 
 ers that surrounded him precluded the possibility of 
 private assassination. By the help of their depen- 
 dents in the Sanhedrin the High Priest might secure 
 a conviction in that body on some charge that might 
 be capital under Jewish law, but the forms of that 
 law required long delay in such cases, and Caiaphas 
 dared not face the popular feeling that would surely 
 be stirred up against himself by such an attempt. 
 There was absolutely no accusation that could be 
 brought against Christ, under the Law of Moses, of 
 any important kind. It would be different if the 
 Roman authorities could be induced to act. They 
 were heedless of Jewish feeling and popularity if the 
 interests of the empire were involved, but they, too, 
 were wholly indifferent to Jewish religion or ques- 
 tions connected with it. The Sadducees tried, un- 
 successfully, to involve Christ in a political charge 
 by asking him whether it were lawful to pay tribute 
 to the heathen caesar. They were equally unfortu- 
 nate in trying to interest the tetrarch of Galilee, 
 Herod, in their cause. Finally Caiaphas determined 
 to adopt a middle course to attain his end of destruc- 
 tion. It was to seize his victim suddenly, submit 
 
46 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 him to a trial before the priestly court, which might 
 be represented to the heathen governor as the usual 
 course of Jewish law, and then obtain from the latter 
 a sentence of death, which it was thought might 
 readily be granted in the case of an individual with- 
 out wealth or powerful friends to plead his cause. 
 An additional motive might be suggested if the 
 danger of a popular sedition were urgently pre- 
 sented to Roman jealousy. 
 
 The plot was put into execution. The great 
 Teacher was seized at night by armed servants of the 
 High Priest, and a patrol of soldiers secured by his 
 influence. No charge had been made against him 
 previously, nor was he brought before the court of 
 the Sanhedrin, the only body competent, under 
 Jewish law, to try a charge involving the death pen- 
 alty. Almost every rule of that law was, indeed, 
 trampled on in the case of Jesus of Nazareth. It 
 required that a capital charge should be heard in the 
 daytime only, and that two days at least should be 
 given to its investigation. It absolutely forbade the 
 punishment by crucifixion. 15 It gave a culprit, even 
 if convicted, the right of demanding a rehearing of 
 his case during five days in succession. But four 
 crimes were held worthy of death, — idolatry, murder, 
 incest, and blasphemy, — and the last was clearly de- 
 fined to be coupling the ineffable name of God with 
 an imprecation. Finally, the lawful judge was the 
 vice-president of the Sanhedrin, and the decision 
 rested with him, with no one else, and, least of all, 
 with the High Priest. 
 
 Whatever influence Caiaphas and his party may 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 47 
 
 have had in the Sanhedric Court, they did not ven- 
 ture to bring their destined victim before it. Jesus 
 was dragged by the Temple retainers not to the 
 Court, but to the private house of the High Priest. 
 His captors, who had gone out to seize his person 
 only under cover of night through fear of the peo- 
 ple, surrounded the house to keep off any partisans 
 or followers of the illustrious Captive. A gathering 
 of the mercenary scribes of the Temple and of some 
 "elders " proceeded to try him, with the High Priest 
 as their president. No charge had been made to 
 warrant the arrest, and now that Jesus has been 
 seized, his enemies seek to find a colorable pretext 
 for their action. False witnesses attempt in vain to 
 bring forward some point of his teaching which 
 might be twisted into an offence against the Jewish 
 law, but in vain. Even before the High Priest's 
 followers they could not weave any connected story 
 of such. 
 
 Then Caiaphas himself rose and by questions sought 
 to draw from Jesus some statement which might be 
 turned into an accusation. Baffled by the reply that 
 the teaching of Christ had been public, and could be 
 learned from his hearers, the High Priest, with 
 affected zeal for the law, which he outraged, asked : 
 "Art thou the Christ, the son of the living God ? " 
 The same question had been already publicly asked 
 him, and in answer he had pointed to the works he 
 did. John the Baptist had been publicly asked a 
 similar question three years before. It was no crime 
 under Jewish law, that a man should proclaim him- 
 self the Messiah, whom all expected. Much less 
 
48 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was it to speak of God as "the Father," and to one- 
 self as the "son of God " ; for that term was com- 
 monly applied to the whole people of Israel, and Jew 
 and Christian alike address the Almighty as "Our 
 Father." 16 It is uncertain, apparently, whether 
 Jesus replied directly to the question by asserting 
 his Messiahship, or only answered: "So you say," " 
 but neither would have been criminal in the eyes of 
 the Pharisee Rabbis. Even less so would be the 
 prophecy which accompanied the declaration : 
 "Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting 
 on the right hand of the power of God, and coming 
 in the clouds of heaven." 
 
 That God had spoken and would continue to speak 
 through the mouths of inspired men, or Prophets, 
 was then, as now, a fixed belief of all who held to the 
 Mosaic Law. A prophecy might be true or it might 
 be an imposition, but its utterance in the name of 
 God Himself was no crime. To assert that would be 
 to stamp the most venerated names in Scripture, 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah and David, as criminals. It 
 was, however, enough for the Sadducee who filled 
 unworthily the seat of Aaron. He tore his robes 
 and proclaimed a blasphemy. His servile partisans 
 echoed the cry and declared the so-called crime wor- 
 thy of death. 
 
 They could only, with safety to themselves, vent 
 their hate in words and blows. The Roman gover- 
 nor held strictly in his own hands the right of capital 
 punishment among the subject race. Accompanied 
 by the gang of his followers, the High Priest goes to 
 the pretorium, the Roman Justice Hall, and there 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 49 
 
 asks Pilate to inflict death on the prisoner he brings 
 to him. The charge is altered to better awaken the 
 political passions of a Roman ruler: 
 
 'We have found this man leading astray our na- 
 tion, and forbidding to pay tribute to caesar, and 
 saying he is the anointed king." 
 
 No shadow of proof is given to these charges, and 
 the governor receives them with coolness, mixed 
 with contempt. Caiaphas urges in vain his own sup- 
 posed rights and official character. He asks if 
 Pilate supposes he would bring a prisoner to him un- 
 less he were indeed guilty of offences against Jewish 
 law. 
 
 'Then take and judge him by your Jewish law," 
 was the scornful reply. 
 
 Pilate despised the High Priest, whose bribes he 
 had received, with all a Roman's contempt for Asi- 
 atic barbarians. But the malice of Caiaphas was not 
 to be baffled by scorn. He urged that Jewish law 
 could not inflict death, and appealed again more 
 eagerly to the Roman fears of sedition by declaring 
 that his prisoner wished to make himself a king, a 
 rebel against the empire. His attendants re-echo 
 the cry, and add that they recognize no king but 
 caesar. This may well prove that not the people of 
 Judea, but a hired mob, was the public which clam- 
 ored for the death of Christ. 
 
 The Roman governor examines the accused long 
 and earnestly, while the guard checks with spear and 
 sword the noise of the rabble. Pilate was merciless 
 in his rule. He had doomed unsparingly the rioters 
 and zealots of Galilee, and he knew their faces well, 
 
50 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 but the face now before him is not as theirs. A 
 spiritual light shines there, and universal love for 
 man. The fetters which bind him cannot lower the 
 dignity of his person ; the fierce hate of his enemies, 
 who rage for his life, neither daunts him nor affects 
 the mildness of his words. The harsh Pilate softens 
 towards a Hebrew, and he strives hard to release 
 him. He appeals even to the national spirit of his 
 accusers, and asks if they would have him crucify the 
 king of their nation. The appeal to Roman preju- 
 dice had fallen in vain even on the Roman Governor. 
 
 It was now the turn of the High Priest to pose as 
 the devoted subject of Rome, and to threaten even 
 the Roman governor. "If thou release this man 
 thou art not loyal to the empire," was his final ar- 
 gument, and it succeeded too well. Though Pilate 
 might treat the Jewish dignitaries with haughty in- 
 difference, he knew well the power which the wealth 
 of the Temple gave its ruler. Even in Rome itself 
 a charge of disloyalty backed up with gold might be 
 fatal to a Roman governor. He yielded and deliv- 
 ered Jesus into the hands of the High Priest and his 
 followers to deal with as they desired. They led 
 him away to die by the Roman death of crucifixion, 
 absolutely abhorrent to the Jewish religion and, 
 above all, to every true Pharisee. 
 
 Over the supreme tragedy let the Angel of Sorrow 
 spread his wings. Veil thy face, Sun ! Be darkened, 
 sky ; let the earth tremble, and man mourn in tears ! 
 The most angelic of men, the most loving of teach- 
 ers, the meek and humble Prophet, is to die by the 
 death of the cross. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 5 1 
 
 He has made humility honor; he has carried the 
 highest wisdom to the homes of the lowly and igno- 
 rant of the world ; he has carried it beyond all bar- 
 riers of schools and Temple, and for this he is to die 
 a death of shame. The Redeemer of the poor, the 
 teacher of the ignorant, the friend of all that faint 
 with toil and are oppressed with cares, must die on 
 the cross. 
 
 It is hard to believe that malice and greed could 
 so brutalize the hearts of men; harder, that those 
 men should be the nominal leaders of that people to 
 whom the Lord God himself had given the sovereign 
 commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself." 
 
 But it is only too true. Greed of lawless gain 
 wrung from the people's oppression, low ambition of 
 the venal honors bought from a foreign master, and 
 fear of the wrath of an outraged populace made 
 those leaders craven, apostate to the law of God, and 
 slayers of the noblest spirit of their own and of all 
 times. 
 
 Jesus died for the essence of all religion ; for 
 purity, charity, and holiness; for a cause in which 
 death itself is a godly thing. 
 
 When we place the life and death of Jesus beside 
 that of the greatest of other teachers, as Hillel, the 
 soul expands in admiration. Hillel's was a life of 
 peace. He moulded the minds of his people in the 
 council, and he prepared them remotely for the 
 mission of Jesus, but there was no shadow of sacri- 
 fice nor blood in his life. But every word of Jesus 
 points to a tragic end freely accepted for the good of 
 
52 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 others. It would have been easy for him to raise 
 the bold mountaineers of his native Galilee in his 
 own defence, when his enemies sought his life, and 
 with them to drive the recreant High Priest and his 
 partisans from the Temple, but he would not do it. 
 Bloodshed and human power were repugnant alike 
 to the nature and teachings of this most admirable 
 of men, who freely gave his life for the truth he pro- 
 claimed. 
 
 His fate is no secret to himself. In his announce- 
 ment of the kingdom of heaven one can hear the 
 strokes of the hammer on the nails that pierce his 
 hands. The greatness which can speak in the face 
 of torture and death as Jesus spoke; which can re- 
 turn good for evil, love for hate, blessing for curses; 
 which not only preaches the law of love, but lives 
 by it and dies for its sake, is a greatness before which 
 every other fades into nothing. 
 
 The man Jesus is the most heroic, the grandest, 
 the noblest personality of all time and age. Even 
 in the shadow of Golgotha let us, however, be just 
 and not lay the charge of the great Crime on those 
 who did not commit it. It was not the Mosaic 
 Law, nor the Jewish people, nor the great body of 
 its teachers, the Pharisees, who steeped their hands 
 in the blood of Christ. That was exclusively the 
 work of the Sadducean High Priest and his servile 
 adherents, of men who had usurped by fraud the 
 succession of Aaron and used it as a means of heap- 
 ing up wealth by oppression, who were the tools of 
 Rome, not the representatives of the religion of 
 Moses, murderers in the name of Jewish law, which 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH 53 
 
 they despised alike in their creed and their lives. 
 The Jewish law did not and could not sanction the 
 death of Christ. The mob which came from the 
 Temple, and the High Priest, with swords and clubs, 
 in the company of Judas, "by night for fear of the 
 people," and which on the following morning yelled, 
 "Crucify the king of the Jews, we have no king but 
 caesar! " was not the Jewish people that had sung 
 " Hosanah to the Son of David ! " a few days before. 
 In truth and justice let not that crowning iniquity 
 be laid to their charge. 
 
 Not even the Pharisees or teachers of the law, so 
 frequently rebuked by Jesus for the inconsistency of 
 their precepts with their practice, were the agents of 
 his death. Some of that class undoubtedly co-oper- 
 ated with the Sadducean High Priest, but the mass 
 of the Rabbis had no share in it. Nicodemus, who 
 took down the body of Christ, was himself a master 
 in Israel. Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel, the 
 president of the Sanhedrin, nowhere appears in the 
 iniquitous proceedings. A short time later, when 
 the High Priest persecuted the disciples of Christ, 
 Gamaliel, according to the New Testament (Acts v.), 
 spoke in their behalf in words that are wholly in- 
 consistent with any hostility towards Christ or his 
 doctrine : 
 
 "I say to you, refrain from these men, and let 
 them alone; for if this work be of men it will come 
 to naught. But if it be of God you cannot hin- 
 der it, and you may be found yourselves foes of 
 God." 
 
 This declaration of the highest authority among 
 
54 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the Jewish teachers shows, we think, that the rab- 
 binical body had no part in the crime of Caiaphas, 
 the High Priest. 
 
 The lesson is instructive for Jew and Christian 
 alike, and may well lead both to a better understand- 
 ing of each other, and an advancement in the charity 
 which Christ taught to men. 17 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 
 
 AMONG the many disciples who were moulded 
 by the great Hillel to continue his policy, one 
 was specially distinguished, Yochanan ben Zakkai. 
 He had entered the schools late in life, like Hillel 
 himself. He had been a merchant before becoming 
 a student and a Rabbi, and his business ability was 
 shown all through his long life in the discharge of 
 his clerical functions. 1 
 
 Ben Zakkai mastered the learning of the law with 
 an ease not to be expected in a scholar of forty years 
 of age. Hillel's favor was won not less by his dili- 
 gence than by the systematic power of teaching 
 which he quickly developed. Not only the law, 
 but many languages of the Gentiles, occupied the 
 active mind of Ben Zakkai. 3 He was a natural dip- 
 lomat as well as a scholar, and at the time diplomatic 
 skill was a matter of vital necessity for Jewish 
 teachers, who would carry on the instruction of their 
 people without exciting the jealousy of their Roman 
 rulers. Ben Zakkai's urbanity, his calmness, which 
 no provocation could disturb, and a quiet dignity 
 which imposed respect on even the haughtiest inso- 
 lence, made him a model in this respect. Hillel 
 
 55 
 
56 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 regarded him as his own right hand. He felt that 
 though the arms of Rome might overthrow the walls 
 of Jerusalem, even destroy the Temple, the faith 
 would be safe with men like Ben Zakkai at the head 
 of affairs. The Roman might despise the Jew, but 
 there was one man in Judea he was forced to respect, 
 Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. No Roman could 
 show brutality towards the calm Oriental, whose 
 stately courtesy ever offered the first greeting to 
 even a slave. Even the arrogance of the victorious 
 soldier felt rebuked by the mild patience which 
 marked every act of the Jewish teacher. 3 
 
 In patience, indeed, Ben Zakkai possessed his soul, 
 and in it he both found for himself and pointed out to 
 his people the true secret of success for the Hebrew 
 race. Tenacity of purpose, coupled with meekness 
 of demeanor, has carried the Jew through centuries 
 of struggle, while pride of heart and reckless indiffer- 
 ence to principle as surely doomed its conquerors to 
 destruction. The Jewish race was powerless in the 
 field against the disciplined armies of Vespasian or 
 Hadrian. It acknowledged the fact, and bowed to 
 the yoke it could not break, but it never recognized 
 that yoke as other than a passing one. Under the 
 rule of the empire the conquered Jews held still to 
 their own law ; they cultivated their minds on the 
 old Hebrew learning, and kept their faith in them- 
 selves. They kept aloof from heathen ways and 
 vices, but they avoided disputes or the proclama- 
 tion of their moral superiority, which they felt to be 
 their own even in physical bondage. Hillel had, all 
 through his life, insisted on the ethical importance of 
 
RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 57 
 
 meekness. Ben Zakkai taught the same lesson, not 
 for individuals, but for the public action of the na- 
 tion. The patient man proved in this field better 
 than the strong man. The Jewish nationality has 
 outlived the empire which destroyed Jerusalem. 
 The religion and morality of Judea have prevailed 
 over the superstitions and the philosophy of Greece 
 and Rome, Whether it was done by Ben Zakkai or 
 by Paul of Tarsus, the moral remodelling of the Ro- 
 man world was exclusively the work of teachers of 
 Jewish race. 
 
 Ben Zakkai's life was lengthened far beyond the 
 ordinary term. He was the favorite disciple of 
 Hillel and a contemporary of Herod the Great, yet 
 he lived to see the destruction of the Temple by 
 Titus, and to reorganize the Sanhedrin after that 
 national catastrophe. His life was cast in a time of 
 factions and disturbances both within and without. 
 Mention has been made elsewhere of how the Sad- 
 ducean priesthood tyrannized the people and bent 
 their energies to sustain themselves in power. The 
 intruding High Priests of the House of Bocethos, 
 of Cantheros, and of Phabi, in turn, oppressed the 
 people. And as these priests monopolized the 
 traffic in sacerdotal offerings, their influence was 
 naturally directed to multiplying the ceremonial 
 duties connected with the Temple. They had 
 sought and, by bribes to the Roman authorities, ob- 
 tained a judicial power that did not really belong to 
 their office. Hillel had made a strong attempt to 
 counteract their influence, but he was largely ham- 
 pered by his opponent, Shammai. In the time of 
 
58 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Christ this pernicious influence was at its height. 
 After his death their influence gradually diminished. 
 In their place another party arose, the Siccarees, the 
 sworn enemies of Rome. Between all these parties 
 and the constant strife amongst them, the very faith 
 of Israel was in danger. The men who had suc- 
 ceeded Hillel — his son Simon, and his grandson 
 Gamaliel the first — were not fitted to cope with the 
 astute diplomats who presided over the Temple ; the 
 task then fell to Yochanan ben Zakkai of preserving 
 the Jewish religion, and of carrying out the policy of 
 Hillel. He became the virtual head of the Sanhe- 
 drin and the leader of the orthodox, or Pharisee, ele- 
 ment of the nation, and no fitter man could have 
 been found. 
 
 In multiplying the petty details of ceremonial 
 worship the High Priests exaggerated the importance 
 both of the Temple and the land of Palestine. No 
 fitting worship could be offered anywhere but in the 
 Temple, and by an easy stretch of reasoning the 
 Sadducees argued that a man could hardly be a true 
 Jew if he resided outside the Holy Land, where the 
 Temple stood. This narrow feeling of nationality 
 extended beyond the bounds of Sadducean secta- 
 rianism. It grew strong among the masses when 
 Roman oppression became intolerable. It was the 
 special task of Ben Zakkai to moderate the fanaticism 
 of patriotic feeling while cultivating the feeling itself 
 among their people, as well as to preserve the re- 
 ligion of Moses from corruption at the hands of 
 the Sadducean High Priests and their partisans. 
 Like Hillel, Ben Zakkai felt that a Jewish king- 
 
RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 59 
 
 dom, however glorious, was not the end for which 
 the divine revelation of the Law had been made to 
 Moses. He felt it was given for a higher object, to 
 establish the rule of justice and truth in every part 
 of God's world, to build up a Temple, not of stone 
 and mortar, which might be destroyed by human 
 hands, but of human hearts, freely offering the hom- 
 age of love to their Creator and to the men made in 
 his image. He set himself then to lessen the load 
 of local ceremonial, which had been so notably in- 
 creased by the greed of the High Priests, and to im- 
 press on the minds of the people the spiritual nature 
 of their religion. The Temple itself, rebuilt by 
 Herod and profaned by the crimes of its administra- 
 tion, commanded little veneration from his religious 
 soul. He saw with a prophetic eye that the condi- 
 tion of the people in Palestine had no elements of 
 stability. A legend represents him as passing the 
 edifice, when its gates were suddenly opened by in- 
 visible hands. 'Temple," cried Rabbi Yochanan, 
 "why wouldst thou frighten me? knowest thou not 
 that thine own destruction is at hand? " 4 
 
 His task was no easy one, with the Sanhedrin itself 
 under the sway of the Sadducean High Priests, and 
 the people handed over to their mercy by the Ro- 
 man proconsuls. The only influence he could wield 
 was that derived from his own abilities and learning. 
 He enlisted the people at large in his cause. Near 
 the outer wall of the Temple he taught them the 
 true nature of the law with simple eloquence. 
 Even in subjection the Jewish people still retained 
 some influence over its rulers, and Ben Zakkai was 
 
60 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 advanced in the Sanhedrin in spite of Sadducean 
 hostility. He was made chief justice, and in that 
 office he had opportunity for carrying out his policy 
 on a larger scale. His boldness was in strong con- 
 trast to the timidity of the son and grandson of 
 Hillel. He abrogated one of the oldest regulations 
 of the law, though dating from Moses himself, as a 
 necessity. This was the ordeal of "bitter waters ' 
 prescribed as a test in charges of adultery against 
 married women. It was sanctioned alike by the 
 practice of ages, the teaching of the Rabbis, and the 
 doctrine of the Sadducees, who recognized the Scrip- 
 tures as the sole and infallible guide in religious be- 
 lief and in practice. It had become an engine of fraud 
 and oppression in the hands of the corrupt adminis- 
 trators of the Temple service, who were charged with 
 its application. As the chief judge in Israel, Ben 
 Zakkai decreed its abolition, and his decision was 
 received with approval by the most religious as well 
 as by the people. It was a signal victory for the 
 Rabbis over the High Priests and their faction. 6 
 
 Even a more significant measure of Ben Zakkai's 
 was his decision that the "Red Cow " as an offering 
 for the sins of the whole people, sacrificed by Sad- 
 ducean High Priests, was of no worth and void. As 
 there were no other High Priests to offer up the 
 "Red Cow," the decision practically amounted to 
 an abolition of the practice altogether. It is signifi- 
 cant of the mould of Ben Zakkai's mind. The Law 
 of Moses had to be shaped to new circumstances if its 
 real life was to be preserved. The Temple observ- 
 ances could not be long maintained if the people were 
 
RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 6l 
 
 to go forth over the face of the earth, but the spirit- 
 ual law could if the hearts of the people cherished it. 
 Were this not the case, Ben Zakkai would never 
 have attempted interference with one of the cardinals 
 of the Temple service, though it were performed by 
 less worthy priests. 
 
 No doubt the tyranny and corruption of the venal 
 priesthood were evidence sufficient of an approach- 
 ing catastrophe from without as well as within the 
 land of Palestine. A bitter hatred against the Jew- 
 ish oppressors existed among all classes. The peo- 
 ple cried: "Woe on the house of Bocethos and on 
 the staffs of his hirelings, that beat men to obedi- 
 ence ! Woe on the house of Cantheros, because of 
 what their pens have written ! Woe on the house of 
 Annas, for their poisoned tongues ! Woe on the 
 house of Ishmael Phabi for their heavy hand ! They 
 are High Priests, their sons and the husbands of 
 their daughters stand over the Temple, and their 
 servants beat the people with staffs. The Temple 
 cries to them, "Begone ye children of Heli, ye have 
 defiled the House of God." 6 Such are the words 
 preserved in the Talmud as an expression of the 
 popular feeling. But neither the son nor the grand- 
 son of Hillel had really penetrated the depth of his 
 teaching. Ben Zakkai alone knew what the master 
 wanted, and he alone foresaw the future. 
 
 The corrupt tyranny of the High Priests was not 
 the only foe which the calm yet courageous chief 
 judge had to contend with. A large part of the 
 people who hated the Sadducean doctrines were 
 drunk with fanatical patriotism which they identified 
 
62 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 with religious duty. A mob rose and slew the High 
 Priest in hate of his extortions, and the act went un- 
 avenged by Rome. The hot-blooded among the 
 people felt emboldened, and they believed they could 
 by their own strength overthrow the Roman empire. 
 A conspiracy of murder, not unlike the Italian Car- 
 bonari of half a century ago, was organized by the 
 fanatical zealots. These were the Siccarees, the dag- 
 ger men, or assassins, and their chief was Ben Be- 
 tiach, a nephew of Ben Zakkai, but far from sharing 
 his mild spirit. Assassination of Roman and of 
 Jewish officials became frightfully frequent. The 
 Jewish people showed a hopeless ignorance of the 
 political conditions around them. They fought bit- 
 terly among themselves while exasperating their 
 Roman rulers by their atrocities. There was no 
 council among the patriots, no union. Some looked 
 for supernatural aid in the struggle ; others doubted 
 that Rome would even seek to maintain her rule by 
 arms. Others relied on the walls of Jerusalem, the 
 wealth of the people, and the courage of the race to 
 protect them. The fanatics forced the wealthy into 
 their insurrection, and proclaimed war to the death 
 against the rule of the heathen. 
 
 The bulk of the Jewish people broke out in insur- 
 rection. They lacked not patriotic spirit, nor physi- 
 cal courage such as their fathers had shown in their 
 struggle against the Greek kings of Syria, but there 
 was neither concert, leader, nor discipline among the 
 ill-starred people. There was neither a David nor a 
 Judas Maccabeus to lead them to battle. The ablest 
 men among them foresaw the hopelessness of the 
 
RABBI YOCIIANAN BEN ZAKKAI 63 
 
 cause in which they were engaged, without knowing 
 how to extricate themselves. 
 
 A few of the noblest spirits among the nation saw 
 a future beyond the inevitable ruin of the Temple 
 and the city of Jerusalem. They saw the law 
 written in flame on the skies, and its benign light 
 shedding lustre over the world ; they recognized a 
 kingdom not of earth but of heaven, as seen by the 
 prophets, and as announced by the meek Nazarene. 
 Among these was Ben Zakkai. Though opposed to 
 the insurrection, he commanded the respect of all 
 among the Jews. He used it to try to bring sane 
 counsels to the hearts of the fanatics. He called his 
 nephew, Ben Betiach, to him, and urged the crimi- 
 nality of a rising which had no prospect of any result 
 but the shedding of oceans of blood. The wisdom 
 of calm age spoke to the senseless fury of passionate 
 youth. 
 
 'Unless you desist from your course, you are all 
 doomed to death," said the old Rabbi. 
 
 "Better death than dishonor," was the reply. 
 "But the people will weary of fighting against 
 overpowering enemies. They will seek peace and 
 the enjoyment of what they have, even if under 
 Roman rule." 
 
 'They must and shall fight!" replied the fierce 
 zealot. 
 
 'They will not," urged Ben Zakkai; "they have 
 food in plenty within the town'; they will reflect be- 
 fore famine comes to madden their hearts. Seek 
 peace while yet you may find it." 
 
 'We will have no peace with the heathen, 
 
64 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 accursed of God ! We shall fight this very night or 
 to-morrow ! ' exclaimed Ben Betiach, and he rushed 
 away from his uncle's counsels. 
 
 He did not fight, however, then, but he made the 
 struggle only the more terrible. His uncle's caution 
 had struck him. He would bring hunger to his aid 
 in the desperate struggle. By his command the 
 provisions stored in Jerusalem were burned and the 
 people were called to face death by famine if they 
 did not at once break the lines of the besiegers. The 
 result is too harrowing to repeat here. Through all 
 the agonies that are written on the pages of Jewish 
 history, there is none to match the siege and destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem. The calamity which still burns 
 the soul of every Jew was caused by disregard of the 
 wise counsels of Ben Zakkai. 
 
 When he saw the end approaching, when he recog- 
 nized that all was lost, he concluded to leave the 
 doomed city. He counselled with his foremost dis- 
 ciples, Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, Josua ben 'Hananiah, 
 and his friend Rabbi Zadok, who had been fasting 
 daily for forty years and had spent his time in prayer 
 to the Lord to save the Holy City and the Temple. 
 At this meeting it was settled that Rabbi Yochanan 
 . should leave the city, go to the Roman general, and 
 plead for the people, or at least save the men who 
 had no share in the rebellion. But the rebels slew 
 all who attempted to leave the city. They made no 
 conditions and asked no quarter. They would fight 
 to the death for their rights for independence and 
 the sanctuary. 
 
 Ben Zakkai caused a rumor to be spread of his 
 
RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 65 
 
 sudden sickness and, after, of his death. He in- 
 structed his disciples to put him in a coffin and 
 carry him out of Jerusalem into the Roman camp. 
 Though the times were such that a life was hardly 
 counted, yet the announcement of the great Rabbi's 
 death caused universal sorrow ; even the soldiers, 
 rough-mannered and wild-visaged men, shed tears. 
 
 The Rabbi's disciples carried the coffin to the 
 "Death Gate," which opened only for funerals. 
 There they hoped they could pass without diffi- 
 culty. But the besieged, thinking that members 
 of the peace party might resort to such means of 
 escape, guarded even the Death Gate. 
 
 When the funeral procession approached, it was 
 stopped at the gate. 
 
 "Whose body have you there?' asked the 
 captain. 
 
 'The crown from our head has fallen ; we are car- 
 rying the body of our master, Rabbi Yochanan ben 
 Zakkai, ' ' they cried with wailing and groans. 
 
 The captain was affected. 
 
 "If Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai is dead," he said, 
 "then fallen is indeed the crown of Israel. Open 
 the gate, men, let them pass." 
 
 "Art thou sure, captain, that Rabbi Yochanan is 
 dead?" cried a fanatic. "Maybe they are taking 
 away a living traitor. I will make sure that he is 
 dead." 
 
 He raised his lance to strike at the shrouded form 
 of the Rabbi. 
 
 "Hold, men of Israel!" cried the disciples; "to 
 dishonor the body of the saint would be a sin for 
 
66 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 which disaster, swift and sure, would fall on all 
 Israel. Let us pass in peace." 
 
 'They are right," said the captain; "enough sor- 
 row has already come upon us, let none be added by 
 such a sin. Open the gate." 
 
 The fanatic reluctantly desisted ; the gate was 
 opened and the procession passed through. 
 
 At a distance from the walls of Jerusalem, the dis- 
 ciples halted, Rabbi Yochanan came from his coffin 
 and went to the Roman camp. The guards took 
 him to the tent of Titus, 1 and he bent low before the 
 general. 
 
 "Hail, caesar! " said Ben Zakkai, "I ask thy pro- 
 tection." 
 
 "I am not caesar, " Vespasian replied. 
 'Thou art caesar even now; for the caesar in 
 Rome is dead," the Rabbi said. 
 
 He had scarcely uttered the words, when a mes- 
 senger entered the tent, bringing the news of Nero's 
 death and of Vespasian's call to the throne. 
 
 'Thou art a Prophet, Rabbi," said Vespasian. 
 "The Lord our God hath given me knowledge. 
 Thou art mighty, O caesar, thou wilt take the 
 tower. In the tower is a cask of honey, near the 
 honey is a snake : kill the snake and save the cask of 
 honey," said the Rabbi. 8 
 
 Vespasian understood the metaphor. 
 
 "Nay, Rabbi," he said, "we destroy the tower, 
 the snakes, and the cask with the honey. Ask for 
 something else." 
 
 "Then, O caesar, give me protection in the city 
 of Yamnai; I am old, I am a lover of peace: permit 
 
RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 6j 
 
 me to spend my remaining years in study in the 
 company of my few friends," the Rabbi said. 
 
 "Is that all?" cried Vespasian in wonder. 
 
 "One more request, caesar: a friend of mine, 
 Rabbi Zadok, is ill and worn from fasting, I pray 
 thee, send thy physicians to heal him." 
 
 A Roman bearing such tidings would have asked 
 gold, slaves, and honors, while this old Hebrew 
 sought but study; as if study meant conquest or 
 power! How could the Hebrews become a great 
 nation if their distinguished men lacked ambition? 
 
 Perhaps these thoughts passed through the mind 
 of Vespasian as he granted the Rabbi's request. 
 He knew not that his word would undo the whole 
 work of Roman conquest which he was engaged in. 
 He thought to crush the Hebrew, his nationality, 
 his Temple, his faith, while he gave Yamnai to Ben 
 Zakkai, whose ambition seemed so small. From 
 Yamnai went forth the law as well as from Zion ; it 
 spread over the world, and no power has ever been 
 strong enough to stop its progress. 
 
 Ben Zakkai left Vespasian and went to Yamnai, 
 where he soon gathered around him the noblest 
 spirits of his time. He founded the great school 
 known in the Talmud as "the school of Yamnai." 
 He gave special attention to those of his disciples 
 who he knew would continue the work after him, 
 and began the reorganization of a new Sanhedrin. 
 Unlike the old one in Jerusalem, its aim was the es- 
 tablishment of a spiritual government independent 
 of place, rather than to change a fixed national au- 
 thority from Jerusalem to Yamnai. Sadducecism 
 
68 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 as a force was dead ; its influence even remotely on 
 the law-giving body of the nation was felt no more. 
 The difficulties which later arose among the scholars 
 was a contention against the power of Hillelism and 
 the bold strides it made in its policy of universalism, 
 rather than its sectarian doctrines. The men who 
 fought them most bitterly were Ben Zakkai's own 
 disciple, Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, and, later, Simon 
 ben Yohai, both ambitious for leadership in the 
 affairs of the Sanhedrin. 
 
 The destruction of the Temple, though he had 
 foreseen the calamity, crushed the soul of Rabbi 
 Yochanan. He and his disciples tore their garments 
 and for seven days mourned in sackcloth and ashes. 
 Then they went to Jerusalem to look on its ruin. 
 The disciples threw themselves upon the sacred soil 
 and lifted up their lamentations. Rabbi Yochanan 
 ben Zakkai gazed at the ruins and then at his weep- 
 ing friends. Tears blurred his vision ; he was sorely 
 stricken. But from the ruins and the mist and 
 smoke he saw a new spiritual Temple rise, and its 
 apex kissed the clouds which, lit by the wondrous 
 light, cast upon the earth a glory beyond expression. 
 
 "My sons," said the master, "weep not, and dry 
 your tears ; the enemy hath destroyed the sanctuary 
 of stone and mortar, but the true altar of the Lord, 
 the place of forgiveness, is with us yet. Would you 
 know where? Behold, in the homes of the poor, 
 there is the altar; love, charity, mercy, and justice 
 are the offerings, the sweet incense which pleases the 
 Lord. Love ye one another, and ye shall find mercy 
 and forgiveness." ' 
 
RABBI YOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI 69 
 
 "But, O Master," cried they, "the sanctuary of the 
 Lord is destroyed, Israel has disappeared, and there- 
 fore the Lord's presence no longer abides with us." 
 
 "Say not so, my children," said the saint, 
 "whithersoever the people of the Lord go, thither 
 the holy presence goes with them." 10 
 
 With over a hundred years on his head the ven- 
 erable teacher turned away from the desolation of 
 Jerusalem to build up again the spiritual organiza- 
 tion of his people. Through the favor of Vespasian, 
 who then ruled the Roman world, Ben Zakkai was 
 able to open a college for his disciples in Yamnai. 
 Other Rabbis gathered around to share the protec- 
 tion afforded him. He seized the opportunity to 
 found a spiritual republic such as Hillel had outlined. 
 With statesman-like skill, Ben Zakkai transferred the 
 power hitherto held by the High Priests, recog- 
 nized by Rome as the heads of the Jewish nation, 
 into the hands of the Rabbis. The office of the 
 Jewish Pontiff had disappeared with the destruction 
 of the Temple. In its stead came the Patriarchate, 
 which gradually increased in power and was favored 
 even by Rome. Its organization was solidified by 
 the master, Ben Zakkai, and thenceforth formed the 
 only national government left to the Jewish people. 
 
 Ben Zakkai gathered around him the masters 
 who had belonged to the Sanhedrin like himself. 
 He filled up the numbers of the membership from 
 the most learned of his disciples, and this national 
 council, in fact, gained in power among the people 
 with the fall of the Temple. Ben Zakkai was uni- 
 versally recognized as its natural head, both for his 
 
JO JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 knowledge of the law and his commanding abilities. 
 With self-sacrificing wisdom, however, he procured 
 the election of the second Gamaliel, a descendant of 
 Hillel, as president. He thought that the recogni- 
 tion of heredity and Davidic descent in the presi- 
 dency of the national council would add an element 
 of dignity and stability to the office which was 
 needed in the troubled times. During the remnant 
 of Ben Zakkai's life his authority, however, was de- 
 servedly paramount in the council of Israel. 
 
 The organization of the national council after the 
 fall of Jerusalem was a vital measure in the life of 
 the race. During the century 7 that elapsed after the 
 extinction of the national dynasty the minds of the 
 Jewish people were mainly turned to the hope of a 
 revived kingdom which should restore the glories of 
 David and Solomon. For that reason they clung to 
 Jerusalem and its Temple with a patriotic fervor 
 which even the usurped tyranny of the High Priests 
 of Phabi's house could not quench. When all these 
 hopes were blighted and the spirit of resistance 
 crushed by the swords of the Roman legionaries, 
 Ben Zakkai recalled the people to the spiritual work 
 which was the true essence of Judaism. The lesson 
 that patience is better than strength, which he had 
 preached in vain before, was now welcomed by every 
 Hebrew, and it has become part of their nature in 
 the long ages that have passed since. The sage was 
 better than the soldier. 
 
 The religion of Israel is still a living force, while 
 the material empire of Rome has crumbled in the 
 dust. The Scriptures, the intellect, and the individ- 
 
RABBI VOCHANAN BEN ZAKKAI yi 
 
 uality of the race, which seemed to be doomed to 
 extinction when Titus burned the Temple, survive 
 to-day. They have penetrated like a leaven the 
 moral and intellectual nature of every race within 
 the old Roman empire and far beyond its limits. 
 Christianity is, in truth, but Judaism developed to 
 its fuller extent; for Judaism in its essence was the 
 faith taught by Jesus of Nazareth. That Ben Zakkai 
 understood this truth and worked with forethought 
 and wisdom to save the truth contained in Judaism 
 is his great glory. Hillel spoke prophetically when 
 he styled Ben Zakkai "The father of wisdom for 
 generations yet to come." " The great Rabbi had 
 domestic as well as national sorrows. A dearly 
 loved son was taken from him by death, and the 
 soul of the father was filled with grief. His disciples 
 came to offer what consolation they could. One 
 recalled the sorrow that had been endured by Adam 
 when he looked on the body of his murdered son. 
 Another bade the sufferer consider the afflictions of 
 Job. 
 
 "Children," answered Ben Zakkai, "how can my 
 grief be lightened by thinking of the grief of other 
 men ? ' ' 
 
 But Elazar ben Arakh spoke to him and said: 
 "A certain man had received the guardianship of 
 a jewel of price, and he watched by day and night 
 for its safe keeping. When the lord of the jewel 
 came to take it back the man was happy, because he 
 no longer could fear for the jewel. Even so, dear 
 Master, thou shouldst rejoice when thou hast given 
 thy son to God, who trusted thee with him, since 
 
72 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 thou hast given him in his innocence as thou didst 
 first receive him." 
 
 And the master said to Elazar: 
 
 "Thou alone hast spoken wisely, and thy words 
 have consoled my soul." ia 
 
 Ben Zakkai had another son, Juda, who became a 
 scholar worthy of his father. 
 
 When the master, after his long life, found his 
 end draw near he was seized with great fear. His 
 disciples, when they came to his bedside, were 
 scandalized and asked : 
 
 "Master, thou art the light of Israel; why, then, 
 dost thou tremble?" 
 
 "Were I going before a human judge to plead for 
 life might I not justly tremble," the master an- 
 swered; "yet a man can be swayed bywords and 
 favor, but the Judge before whom I must appear 
 cannot be deceived. From His tribunal man must 
 go the road of heaven or the road of hell. Can I 
 tell which road I shall be sent? " 
 
 His disciples asked a last blessing, and he told 
 them: 
 
 "May your fear of offending God be as great as 
 your fear of man." 
 
 "What more? " they asked, and he said: 
 
 "If a man seeks to please God as eagerly as he 
 seeks to please men, he will never sin." 13 
 
 His death occurred a few years after the destruc- 
 tion of the Temple. The Talmud justly says of 
 him: "With the death of Rabbi Yochanan ben 
 Zakkai the light of wisdom was quenched. 14 None 
 like him rose afterward in Israel. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 
 
 TWO divisions of the Synagogue exist in the 
 present day. The one looks with longing and 
 prayer for a restored Jerusalem; the other desires 
 assimilation with the nations of the world. The 
 first is eager for a national theocracy on the very soil 
 of Palestine ; the other for a universal brotherhood 
 of man. The so-called "Reform " wing of Jewry, 
 the world over, looks with disdainful pity on those 
 Jews who cling to tradition, believe in miracles, and 
 with beating hearts and tear-filled eyes, pray daily 
 for the coming of the Messiah, and look with confi- 
 dence for the supernatural signs that are to herald 
 it. They regard them as slaves to superstitions 
 which entail sacrifices, agonies, tears, and self-denial. 
 The origin of this division can be traced back as far 
 as the first century of the present era in the life of 
 the Jews of that day. 
 
 At that time Ben Zakkai and Ben Dosa already 
 appeared as leaders of the two schools which are rep- 
 resented in the Jewish race in the nineteenth century. 
 Both were attached to the faith and devoted to the 
 maintenance of the law given to Moses, but they 
 differed as to the best counsel for perpetuating it. 
 
 73 
 
74 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Ben Zakkai realized that Titus had closed the politi- 
 cal career of Jewish nationality, and that, if that 
 nationality were still to exist, it must struggle with 
 intellectual weapons alone, with the all-conquering 
 humanitarian principle. He would perpetuate Ju- 
 daism by spreading its moral teachings through- 
 out the heathen world, building a temple of souls 
 in place of the ruined Temple of stone. 
 
 To the mind of his rival, Ben Dosa, Judaism could 
 only be perfectly maintained in a Jewish state where 
 the civil administration was carried out in strict 
 conformity with the religious law, binding the indi- 
 vidual conscience of every believing Jew. If such a 
 state were impossible from external causes, then 
 the law at least should be kept intact by the indi- 
 vidual children of Israel. That could only be done 
 by jealously excluding the heathen and his ways 
 from all contact with the inner life of the faithful 
 Jew. 1 
 
 To Ben Zakkai the law was only a means, though 
 a most potent one, for promoting the human welfare 
 of his race. To Ben Dosa human life was only the 
 means by which the supreme law of the universe 
 could be fulfilled by man. In itself the fulfilment 
 of the law was better than any human happiness, 
 better than life itself. 2 
 
 While Ben Zakkai would adapt its precepts to 
 promote the interests of his people, in a worldly 
 sense, Ben Dosa saw mysteries of another world and 
 another life in every word of its text. He cared 
 nothing for the material comforts of life or the splen- 
 dor of high position, both of which Ben Zakkai 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 75 
 
 keenly appreciated. Ben Dosa was an ascetic, who 
 found his only joy in mystic contemplation, and 
 lived in want. His asceticism awed the people. 
 Ben Zakkai, who in his heart despised the mystic 
 teacher, yet appreciated his influence with the peo- 
 ple. Ben Dosa, on his side, felt little respect for the 
 man of the world, who knew the law indeed as an 
 intellectual study, but seemed to take no heed to 
 conform his practice to its precepts. 3 
 
 Ben Dosa was not the founder of the system of 
 religious observance which bore the name of Prac- 
 tice, and called for a close and minute fulfilment of 
 every point of the law as a strict duty. That 
 theory dates back to Rabbi Simon the Just, the last 
 member of the great synod, in the third century 
 before Christ. He was, however, the true follower 
 of Shammai, a fervent adherent to nationalism and 
 its leader at a most critical time for the Jewish race. 
 He was the immediate forerunner of Rabbi Akibah, 
 and the great revolution attempted by Bar Kochba 
 may be traced to the effects of his teaching. With- 
 out the silent persistence in working for political 
 independence as a requisite for the theocratic gov- 
 ernment to which he looked as the true fulfilment 
 of the Law of Moses, the hope of a Messiah might 
 have died out of the hearts of Israel. Though that 
 spirit has caused the Jew sorrow and tears and oceans 
 of blood, yet without it, who can tell whether there 
 would be to-day any memory of the Jew, or whether 
 he would stand as an unimpeachable witness of the 
 marvellous wisdom and mercy of divine providence? 
 This spirit gave the Jew his particular individuality 
 
76 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 among the nations during the centuries gone by, and 
 it shows itself whenever disorganization threatens 
 his religious autonomy. It is the perpetuum mobile 
 of the Jewish faith, a marvel in the eyes of men. 
 
 It had its dangers, however, in the days we now 
 speak of and they were appreciated by the politic 
 Ben Zakkai. If it were to grow unchecked, he felt, 
 it was bound to result in a war of extermination 
 against the Jewish race and an ossification of Juda- 
 ism itself, which would hinder rather than help the 
 maintenance of the Mosaic law. He felt, too, that 
 it was useless to oppose it by external force. Re- 
 ligious ideas, forcibly repressed, break out after lapse 
 of time with the accumulated power stored during 
 their period of enforced inactivity. Such at least 
 was the belief of Ben Zakkai. He tried to win over 
 the mystic to his own policy by treating him with 
 personal respect. He asked him to his house, 
 sought his advice, and treated it with consideration 
 externally. The Talmud gives a characteristic anec- 
 dote of this intercourse between the politician and 
 the mystic. 
 
 "It came to pass that Rabbi 'Haninah ben Dosa 
 went to Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai to discuss the 
 Law with him, and while he was in his house the son 
 of Ben Zakkai fell ill. Then Ben Zakkai said : 
 
 " "Haninah, my son, ask the mercy of Heaven 
 that my son may live.' 
 
 "And 'Haninah bowed his head even between his 
 knees and so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord 
 healed the son of Ben Zakkai. 
 
 "Then said Ben Zakkai: 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA JJ 
 
 "'Had I bowed my head between my knees a 
 whole day Heaven would not have heeded me.' 
 
 "Then 'Haninah went his way, and Ben Zakkai's 
 wife asked her husband : 
 
 " 'Is 'Haninah, then, greater than thou art?' 
 
 "And Ben Zakkai answered: 
 
 " 'No. He is like a servant before the king, but 
 I am as a lord before the king.' " * 
 
 The pride of the ruler in Israel could not be bet- 
 ter described. 
 
 The sayings recorded of Ben Dosa breathe a dif- 
 ferent spirit and show how widely divergent were 
 his thoughts from those of the great politician. 
 
 "If a man fears sin more than he loves knowledge, 
 his knowledge will abide with him, but the knowl- 
 edge of him who loves it more than he fears sin will 
 pass away." 
 
 "If a wise man's good works are greater than his 
 wisdom, his wisdom will abide, but if a wise man's 
 works are not equal to his wisdom, then his wisdom 
 itself will decay." 
 
 "He who finds grace with man's conscience will 
 find grace with the Most High, but he whose deeds 
 are reprobated by just men will also be reprobated 
 by the Most High." 5 
 
 These maxims express the principle of Ben Dosa's 
 national policy, and no argument could swerve him 
 from his chosen path. Whatever plea the diplo- 
 matists set up to make him relent, his reply was 
 always the same: "The Jews have brought their 
 misfortune upon themselves by laxity in the ob- 
 servance of the law, hence nothing but the strictest 
 
78 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 adherence could restore them to the grace of God, 
 and bring back their former happiness. Had they 
 paid less attention to external affairs and more to 
 that domestic theocracy established by the great 
 lawgiver, there would have been no cause to prac- 
 tise diplomacy against the heathen and to protect 
 the law against him. In sooth the law would have 
 been as a strong walled fortress to the Jew, and he 
 would not have needed to fear any but God." 
 
 Stern as Ben Dosa was with others, far more stern 
 was he with himself. His life was pure and holy. 
 His domestic happiness was perfect in spite of his 
 awful poverty. His fame as a man of divine power 
 travelled through all the land, and from the length 
 and breadth thereof people came to him asking his 
 intercession with Heaven for every ill of the body 
 and soul. Even in matters which required human 
 judgment rather than divine interposition, such as 
 quarrels between neighbors, ordinary jealousies be- 
 tween peddlers, or where stray goats took a particu- 
 lar fancy to the cabbage in some pious widow's 
 garden, they came to him ; and as his simple word 
 had the power of commanding obedience from be- 
 ings natural and supernatural, he made every one 
 happy. To him also came farmers whose crops 
 promised poorly on account of tardy rain, and, be- 
 ing master of the highest mysteries, he commanded 
 the elements and they obeyed (Taanith 24). 
 
 But none appreciated his worth more than his 
 wife. She knew that temporal poverty with 'Hani- 
 nah meant everlasting bliss with him in paradise. 
 And so jealous was she that her beloved saint should 
 
RABBI HANINAH BEN DOSA 79 
 
 have his undiminished share in the world to come 
 that she refused earthly wealth, though she had it 
 in her power to get as much as she desired. For she, 
 too, was beloved of the Lord and He performed 
 miracles in her favor. But of wealth she would have 
 none. Though a wonderful woman, Mrs. 'Haninah 
 was not without that housewifely pride which does 
 not permit an inquisitive neighbor to pry into one's 
 pots. And the good neighbor women, who may 
 have thought that there was something wrong with 
 the 'Haninahs after all, since he could assist every- 
 body else and remained so very poor himself, were 
 often eager to find out how the 'Haninahs lived; 
 what they dined on; whether they had plenty of 
 Sabbath loaves and fish and meat as was the custom 
 and usage in Jewish households on the Sabbath. 
 But 'Haninah's wife was as shrewd as she was holy, 
 and on Friday afternoons she would make a great 
 fire in the oven, and the neighbor women, seeing the 
 volume of smoke issuing from the smoke-stack, 
 would whisper to each other that 'Haninah's wife 
 must be baking bread and roasting meat for the 
 Sabbath. But there was nothing in the oven save 
 the fire, which was a weak reflex of the holy fire that 
 burned in the great soul of that pious and God-fear- 
 ing woman. But the neighbor women were burning 
 with a curiosity to peep in to find out. And as 
 woman will have her way, though the way be some- 
 time far from the heavenly, even so did one of them 
 go by stealth into the kitchen while 'Haninah's wife 
 was away and look into the oven. What she saw 
 astounded her greatly ; for the oven was filled with 
 
8o JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 many loaves, just turning to a golden brown, and 
 dishes of pastry and meats. "It is a miracle," the 
 inquisitive woman said to the others, "a miracle, I 
 tell you ; for what I saw in that oven is fit for the 
 khadi or the president of the Sanhedrin." And a 
 miracle it was, indeed, wrought by the Lord for His 
 beloved, so as not to bring them to shame before 
 malicious and inquisitive eyes. 6 
 
 In her younger days 'Haninah's wife may have had 
 moments when her heart longed for the comforts 
 which ordinary wealth affords. When the Temple 
 in Jerusalem was as yet undefiled by heathen hands, 
 and the thousands of men and women dressed in 
 festive garb, carrying offerings of doves and spices, 
 or holding high the slender palm and the aromatic 
 citron, while singing joyful psalms as they went on 
 their pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Lord ; when 
 she beheld the youths and maidens radiant with 
 happiness, then she may have had regrets, longings, 
 desires. She may have wished to be, if but for a 
 moment, rich, or at least relieved of oppressive pov- 
 erty. It was during one such moment of depression 
 that 'Haninah found her. He so loved her that his 
 soul was smitten with sorrow at her sadness and he 
 asked the cause thereof. Amidst tears and sobs she 
 told him of the yearning of her heart and begged 
 him to pray Heaven for wealth. 'Haninah turned 
 pale; not that he feared the Lord's refusal, for the 
 celestial voice had regretfully exclaimed that "the 
 entire world is supported on account of ' Haninah, 
 and he is satisfied with a measure of figs." And 
 the popular voice was fully on the side of Heaven. 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 8l 
 
 'Haninah, they thought, ought to be, if not wealthy, 
 at least comfortable. But 'Haninah knew that com- 
 forts in this world were merely an advance from the 
 world to come, and that he would miss there what 
 he would have enjoyed here. However, he could 
 refuse his wife nothing, since what she asked was 
 really very reasonable. He promised to pray for 
 riches. When night came 'Haninah retired to his 
 chamber to pray and his wife went to sleep. 
 
 And, sleeping, she dreamed. In her dream she 
 had a vision of paradise. She saw the righteous of 
 all Israel clothed in shining garments, crowned with 
 jewelled crowns, seated upon chairs of gold at golden 
 tripods and contemplating the shekhinah, the su- 
 preme glory of the Lord. 
 
 One seat was unoccupied and before it stood a 
 tripod like the others, but wanting one of its sup- 
 ports. She asked for whom it was. thus placed, and 
 the angel, with a look of sadness, replied it was the 
 place of 'Haninah ben Dosa. ' ' But why, my Lord, 
 she asked, "is the tripod thus maimed?" "Because 
 he among the Just who receives part of his reward 
 on earth forfeits that part in eternity." 'Haninah's 
 wife awoke, and she went to tell the strange dream 
 to her husband. She found him in his room, and 
 beside him lay a bar of gold like the leg of one of 
 the tripods which she had seen in her dream. He 
 bade her take it and use it for her wants. But the 
 woman thought of the angel's words and her heart 
 was grieved. 
 
 "I will not touch it, my husband," she said, "and 
 do you pray at once to Heaven to take back its gift, 
 
82 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 unless thou wouldst forfeit thy share in the world to 
 come." 
 
 "But it was at thy asking that I prayed for gold," 
 he rejoined. 
 
 "Nay, but I have seen awful things in a dream," 
 she answered. 
 
 "Ah, then," said Ben Dosa, "thou knowest now 
 that our glory would be less in paradise by as much 
 as we had received here? " 
 
 "Yes, my beloved one, I have seen, and now 
 pray the Lord to take back His gift." 
 
 So 'Haninah prayed again and the angel took away 
 the golden bar, and 'Haninah and his wife were 
 happy in their great poverty. 8 
 
 Then 'Haninah made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 
 gratitude for the favor shown him. As he went, the 
 roads were full of cattle which pilgrims were bring- 
 ing to offer in the Temple, and 'Haninah desired to 
 make an offering, too, but he had not the means. 
 As he walked sadly, he saw a block of marble in a 
 desert place, and he thought with himself: "I have 
 found an offering meet for the Temple." So he 
 sought for tools, and cut and polished the rough 
 stone till it was a perfect block; but he knew not 
 how he would get it to Jerusalem. He asked some 
 pilgrims to help him, but they would not unless he 
 would pay them fifty pieces of silver. 'Haninah had 
 only five, so the pilgrims left him. But five men 
 came along, who were angels, and they agreed to 
 carry the block for five pieces, if he would bear a 
 part of the load. 'Haninah accepted thankfully, and 
 they carried the offering to the Temple. The others 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 83 
 
 bore it into the chamber where marble was stored, 
 and 'Haninah followed with the money to pay them ; 
 but when he entered they had disappeared, and the 
 guardians of the Temple told him that they were not 
 porters but ministering angels who had brought his 
 offering." 
 
 So 'Haninah went back glad, and when he came to 
 his house it was Friday. As he entered, he heard 
 his daughter weeping. Her mother asked the reason 
 of her tears, and the maiden told how by mistake 
 she had filled the Sabbath lamp with vinegar instead 
 of oil. 
 
 "Weep not," said 'Haninah as he entered, "for He 
 who hath made oil to burn will also cause vinegar to 
 burn." 
 
 And so it was. The lamp burned clear all night 
 and all day until the stars on the Sabbath evening 
 and the time of the prayer of separation had come. 10 
 
 'Haninah felt that the liberal Hillelites cared not 
 for his ways and would be glad to deride him, but he 
 was undisturbed. He continued his task of purify- 
 ing the life of the Jewish people on their own soil, 
 and of asking aid from God rather than man in its 
 execution. He taught the people that He who 
 could work wonders in ordinary life might also, if 
 He willed, restore the glory of Israel and the Tem- 
 ple. He regarded the men who trusted in heathen 
 help as of the lighter wing of the faith. Ben Zak- 
 kai had asked Vespasian to send his physician to 
 heal Rabbi Zadok when he escaped from Jerusalem ; 
 'Haninah would never have asked such a favor. His 
 confidence was wholly in supernatural aid. Men 
 
84 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 derided him as the "miracle-worker," but when 
 sorrow befell these same mockers came to seek his 
 aid. Among them was a second Gamaliel, presi- 
 dent of the Sanhedrin. Gamaliel's son was sick unto 
 death, and the doctors found their skill unavailing 
 to cure him. Some of his friends urged Gamaliel to 
 ask the help of Ben Dosa, and he did, though un- 
 willingly. When Gamaliel's messengers brought the 
 request 'Haninah went up to the loft of his cottage 
 and remained there some time in prayer. When he 
 came down 'his face was resplendent with super- 
 human light. He told the messengers that the boy 
 was safe, and that even then he had asked for water. 
 They asked him: "Art thou then a prophet?" 
 And he said: "I am neither a prophet nor the son 
 of a prophet, but when my prayer floweth smoothly, 
 I know it is granted." 
 
 The messengers noted the time and went back to 
 their master. 
 
 "' Haninah 's prayer hath been in vain," said the 
 latter; "for ere you reached his house my son sat up 
 and asked for water." 
 
 But when the students told him what 'Haninah had 
 said, Gamaliel was silent. He appreciated the power 
 of ' Haninah 's prayer. 11 
 
 In the estimation of the great men what lowered 
 the value of 'Haninah's work was the ready exercise 
 of his power in trivial matters. Being caught in a 
 rain, he said: "All people rejoice at this rain, while 
 I am drenched." And the rain suddenly ceased. 
 Arrived at home he heard people say that more rain 
 was needed to secure a good harvest. "Then," 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 85 
 
 said he, "as I am under shelter there is nothing to 
 keep heaven from giving rain to the earth." He 
 had scarcely finished the word when the rain started 
 again." One day a widow came to him and tear- 
 fully told of a mishap in the building of her cottage. 
 "The carpenter finds the cross-beams too short, and 
 I am too poor to buy new ones," she cried. "What 
 is thy name?' asked 'Haninah. "My name is 
 Ikho," said the widow. "Ikho, the beams are long 
 enough," said 'Haninah, and bade her go. 13 Full of 
 faith, the woman told the carpenter to try the same 
 beams again. The man shook his head, but did as 
 requested, and to his inexpressible astonishment the 
 beams projected an ell on either side. 11 On another 
 occasion Rabbi 'Haninah again demonstrated his 
 power in a manner equally marvellous. He had 
 several goats, and these, with their natural inclina- 
 tion for mischief, invaded the neighboring vegetable 
 gardens. But, being brought up in a saintly atmos- 
 phere, they nibbled a leaf here and there, but did no 
 further damage. The owners of the gardens, how- 
 ever, would take no chances on goats, ever so pious, 
 where flowering vegetables offered temptation, and 
 told the Rabbi to keep his goats where they would 
 be less dangerous to people's cabbage. However, 
 the saint knew his goats ; he knew that they would 
 go against a pack of wild animals rather than steal 
 a blade of grass not their master's. 
 
 "My goats have done no damage to your gar- 
 dens," said he; "but if it be as you say, let bears 
 come and kill them : if not, then let each goat come 
 forth carrying a bear upon its horns." The words 
 
86 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 were scarcely uttered when 'Haninah's goats ap- 
 peared, and, to the discomfiture of the neighbors, 
 were bearing expiring bears upon their horns, thus 
 making obvious their innocence. 16 
 
 The opposition to 'Haninah was not always pas- 
 sive. Those men who later on played an important 
 part in the affairs of the intellectual commonwealth 
 and who worked for progress and a better policy to- 
 ward the victorious enemy, Rome ; those leaders of 
 thought, disciples of the sagacious Ben Zakkai, saw 
 in 'Haninah and his adherents a hindrance to over- 
 come which they bent every energy ; and but for the 
 sincere piety and simplicity of 'Haninah, there might 
 have been enacted a tragedy as shocking as that on 
 Calvary. The Rabbis were as yet in the throes of 
 fear which the great national calamity had produced. 
 Rome needed but the slightest pretext to swoop 
 down upon them and annihilate the last vestige saved 
 from the ruins of Jerusalem, and such a pretext 
 could readily be found in the actions of such men as 
 'Haninah. If endowed with some ambition it would 
 have required but the turn of a straw to raise a re- 
 bellion, and this the Rabbis were determined to 
 prevent. Hence they not infrequently asked him 
 "catch questions" somewhat similar to those the 
 pseudo-Pharisees asked Jesus. Moreover, the word 
 had gone forth that with the destruction of the 
 Temple prophecy had ceased, a warning intended to 
 subdue ambitious aspirants to messianic distinction 
 or prophetic authority. 18 The "men of miracles," 
 therefore, had to be on their guard against those im- 
 placable protestants of the old synagogue; for at 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 87 
 
 the least agitation of the masses they would have 
 been the first to be delivered into the ever Moloch 
 hands of Rome. It is equally noteworthy that the 
 men who were sacrificed by those in power were 
 always those of a sect with whom the latter had 
 much sympathy, since they professed the same faith 
 and were in the eyes of the Romans nothing more 
 nor less than Hebrews. This diplomatic cruelty was 
 practised in every case where a person's existence 
 and political faith were a menace to the peace of the 
 majority. And as surely as Rome knew no differ- 
 ence between Jew and Jew, so surely was a man's 
 fate sealed whom the scholars saw fit to accuse. 
 The men of miracles were the more dangerous be- 
 cause of their great popularity, a popularity seldom 
 attained by the scholars, who repelled by their pride. 
 No humble man dared approach a famous scholar, 
 whereas the "saint" lent a willing ear and ready 
 help to the lowliest and the most ignorant of his 
 people. 
 
 It was precisely this which aroused suspicion and 
 upon which the scholars frowned as they found no 
 biblical or politico-national ground for decisive ac- 
 tion. During the second century they found such 
 grounds, but they were then swayed by the resist- 
 less power of a master mind, a mind trained in the 
 cunning of the schools and aflame with the un- 
 quenchable fire of patriotism. Men like Rabbi 
 'Haninah, therefore, were watched and their every 
 action scrutinized. Whatever he did by means of 
 prayer they could afford to let pass, but woe to 
 him if he claimed a more direct power! These 
 
88 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 threats are often clothed in the garb of a story ; but 
 to one acquainted with the spirit of the Talmud and 
 the history and the conditions of those times it is as 
 clear as the light of day. However, vigilance and 
 cunning were not altogether on the side of the 
 scholars; the "men of miracles " knew their delicate 
 position and spoke accordingly. These thoughts 
 are best illustrated in the following story : 
 
 The daughter of Rabbi Nehuniah, the grave-dig- 
 ger, fell into a deep cavern beneath a grave. 
 
 They came and told Rabbi 'Haninah of it. 
 
 "Peace! " said he, and the people went away, sat- 
 isfied that the maiden would come out unharmed. 
 
 An hour passed, yet the maiden did not appear 
 and the anxious people again went to the Rabbi. 
 
 "Peace! " he said, and remained quiet. But after 
 the third hour the people, believing that the Rabbi's 
 power had not been exerted sufficiently to rescue the 
 maiden, came again and clamored for relief. 
 
 "She hath this moment left the cavern," said 
 Rabbi 'Haninah. 
 
 A few moments later a great noise was heard, and 
 soon the people came to the Rabbi's house with the 
 rescued maiden. 
 
 "My daughter," said the saint, "who took thee 
 from the cavern? " 
 
 "I saw a he-goat which was led by an old man, 
 and I followed them out of the cavern," she replied, 
 to the astonishment of all the people. 
 
 And they [the scholars] asked him : 
 
 "Art thou, then, a prophet?" 
 
 "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet," 
 
RABBI 'HANINAH BEN DOSA 89 
 
 he replied, " but I felt it was impossible that a grave 
 dug by a pious man like Rabbi Nehuniah should 
 prove disastrous to his daughter." " 
 
 It was a clever reply and the scholars were forced 
 to leave the "man of miracles " to pursue his own 
 works, trusting that his piety, which was sincere, 
 would keep him from causing practical mischief. 
 
 Soon, however, matters of graver importance en- 
 grossed the attention of the Rabbis. Christianity 
 began to assert itself; traditional differences among 
 the scholars threatened Sanhedric disruption ; two 
 intellectual giants, disciples of the great Rabbi Yo- 
 chanan ben Zakkai, came upon the scene and mus- 
 tered their forces for supremacy in the religious life 
 of the Hebrews. Great was that battle, loud the 
 clash of opinion, and the stream of mental activity 
 was, for a time at least, turned in a different direc- 
 tion. But it was only for a time. Even amidst the 
 noises of academic disputations, the weapons were 
 forged to drive the arch-enemy, Rome, from the 
 country. And the men who prepared the way were 
 not mystics, who, like 'Haninah ben Dosa, hid their 
 political convictions behind the garb of piety and the 
 performance of miracles. It is true their thoughts, 
 words, and actions were exceedingly guarded, but 
 there is not the least doubt about their aims. And 
 the man who afterwards carried these ideas into fear- 
 ful effect sat at the feet of these intellectual giants ; 
 he drank in every one of their words, and silently 
 but thoroughly prepared the way for the greatest 
 and last battle against the Roman yoke. In Rabbi 
 Akibah the stern doctrines of Rabbi Eliezer and the 
 
go JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 nationalistic spirit of Rabbi ' Haninah ben Dosa found 
 an ardent supporter. Eagerly, therefore, did he lis- 
 ten to the great disputes which were carried on be- 
 tween the matchless Rabbi Josua ben Hananiah 
 and the great Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos. The 
 former had taken Ben Zakkai's diplomacy as his sole 
 guide in life, while the latter, who had retained all 
 the learning of his master, was more inclined toward 
 the national policy of 'Haninah ben Dosa ; but, vastly 
 more blunt and outspoken in his ideas than 'Haninah, 
 he failed of his purpose and caused himself many 
 years of sorrow. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 
 
 TRADITION in Judaism is like a colored thread 
 running all through the woof of a cloth. One 
 can hardly say where it begins, yet it is never 
 broken. So it is with the teachings of the great 
 masters in Israel. They appear in successive gen- 
 erations, but each stands as the pupil of some earlier 
 teacher whose lessons he has received, and which in 
 turn he transmits to his own disciples, amplified by 
 his own experiences and thoughts. 
 
 At the time when writing was rare, it was by word 
 of mouth mainly that the wisdom of one generation 
 was transmitted to those that came after it. It was 
 then a primary object with every great thinker to 
 gather around him a school of disciples to whom as 
 intellectual children he might leave the inheritance 
 of the thoughts that were formed in his own mind. 
 
 Ben Zakkai showed a special care in the choice of 
 such disciples from his numerous scholars. One he 
 prized for his quick intelligence and ready wit, an- 
 other for his marvellous powers of memory, and an- 
 other for his lofty soul, pure heart, and burning 
 eloquence. 
 
 It was for the last-named quality that he specially 
 
 91 
 
92 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 favored Elazar ben Arakh. He chose him as his 
 chief assistant in his school, and in his heart he de- 
 sired him for his own successor. He did not wish, 
 however, to impose him on his pupils merely by the 
 power of his magisterial authority. He desired that 
 the merit which he recognized in Elazar should be 
 also acknowledged by his fellow-students, and for 
 that end he was wont to hold exercises of intel- 
 lectual powers among them by submitting questions 
 for public discussion. One may serve as an example. 
 
 "My children," said the master, "let each of 
 you say what virtue is the most important for man 
 that he may walk the straight path during his life." 
 
 "A good eye," said Eliezer ben Hyrkanos. "An 
 eye that desireth nothing which belongeth to others 
 is the chief virtue." 
 
 "A worthy associate," said Josua ben Hananiah. 
 "A worthy associate keepeth man from evil ways." 
 
 "A good neighbor," said Yosay. "A good neigh- 
 bor promoteth peace, and peace bringeth happiness. " 
 
 "Prescience," said Simon. "When one can fore- 
 see the consequences of an action he is sure to make 
 no mistake in life." 
 
 "A good heart," said Elazar. 
 
 And the master, weighing the words of each, said : 
 "The answer of Elazar is the best; for he who 
 hath a good heart possesseth the noblest of all vir- 
 tues; he is sure to pursue the right path in life; for 
 he is sure to have all the other virtues you enumer- 
 ated." 
 
 This preference established Elazar's position in 
 the school, but in order to raise him to the dignity 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HVRKANOS 93 
 
 of Rabbi it was necessary to show the other disciples 
 that Elazar was their superior not only in ethical 
 teaching, but also in philosophical lore, in the mys- 
 ticism which is contained in the study of the mer- 
 kabah, the vision of Ezekiel, and kindred subjects, 
 — the metaphysics of that day. 
 
 The Talmud thus tells how it was done : 
 
 "One day Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was riding 
 on the highway, and Elazar ben Arakh was behind 
 with others, and Elazar said : ' Rabbi, repeat to me a 
 passage from the merkabah.' And Rabbi Yochanan 
 replied : ' I told thee the merkabah is not repeated 
 aloud, but each one reasons upon it alone, according 
 to his individual understanding.' 'Then permit me 
 to discourse upon it,' said Elazar. 'Do so,' replied 
 Rabbi Yochanan. 
 
 "They dismounted among the trees and Ben Ar- 
 akh began to elucidate the merkabah. And lo ! a 
 fire came from heaven enveloping Rabbi Yochanan, 
 Elazar, and the trees ; and there was heard celestial 
 music among the trees, and voices of angels that 
 praised God for that such wisdom was given unto 
 mortals. And when the great Ben Arakh ceased, 
 Rabbi Yochanan rose, kissed his forehead, and said: 
 
 " 'Praised be the Lord of Israel, who hath given 
 our father Abraham a son who can penetrate and 
 make clear the workings of the merkabah. There 
 are some who preach fair but do not act fairly ; thou 
 [Ben Arakh] art fair in speech and fair in action. 
 Hail unto thee, Father Abraham, that Elazar ben 
 Arakh is of thy seed.' " ' 
 
 It is to misunderstand the spirit of the Talmud to 
 
94 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 suppose that this strange tale was to be taken in a 
 literal sense. It would be childish to think that any 
 supernatural interposition was needed to justify the 
 selection of Elazar to the office for which he was so 
 well qualified, and the talmudic writers were not 
 childish in any sense. The Oriental mind is attached 
 to imagery, and loves to speak in parables. The 
 Hebrews of the time we speak of had, moreover, 
 good reasons to conceal as far as possible their na- 
 tional and religious practices from the notice of the 
 jealous Roman officials who regarded every Jew as 
 a disguised rebel against the empire. The tale of 
 the miraculous fire, if carried to Roman ears, would 
 only be laughed at, but to the Jewish expert its 
 meaning was easy of comprehension. It told in fig- 
 urative language how Elazar had been duly invested 
 with authority to teach the Law by the recognized 
 master in Israel. The "highway " of discussion is 
 the preliminary examination of his qualifications 
 before the other disciples, figured by the trees. 
 Elazar's knowledge of the practical application of 
 the law, the Jialakhah, had been already known, as 
 well as the soundness of his moral teachings. The 
 master had to test him further in the more recondite 
 doctrines of metaphysics. His eloquence and his in- 
 sight are recognized by the fire, that is, by the en- 
 thusiasm which seizes his audience when he speaks. 
 The praise of the master and the kiss bestowed on 
 the disciple conveyed the tidings of his elevation 
 to the rabbinical dignity to every Hebrew skilled in 
 the law. 
 
 Ben Zakkai, though by the favor of Vespasian he 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HVRKANOS 95 
 
 conducted his studies undisturbed, was careful not 
 to let the Roman masters of Palestine know that he 
 was training up teachers and masters in Israel, and 
 forging weapons for an intellectual and moral strug- 
 gle with the oppressor. The story of Elazar's elec- 
 tion was then told to the faithful in Israel under the 
 figure of this narrative. 
 
 Elazar needed no further credentials to command 
 the respect of the people. His own character was 
 enough. Generous and lovable, he was also power- 
 ful as a disputant and recognized as such. 
 
 "Know how to answer an epicurean," was a 
 favorite maxim of his. 
 
 By "epicurean," apparently, are meant the follow- 
 ers of the sect of gnostics, a spurious Christian creed 
 which combined the worst immoralities of Greek 
 paganism with a few fragments of Christ's doctrines. 
 Epicurus, the master of the Greek school of thought, 
 which held pleasure to be the highest good, was 
 to the Jewish mind typical of unrestrained sensu- 
 ality. Hence the name was generally applied to 
 scoffers at the rigid rules of the Mosaic law. 
 
 On the death of his master, Ben Zakkai, Elazar 
 took up his abode in Emmaus, a town in the moun- 
 tains of Palestine famous for the medicinal virtues of 
 its hot springs. He intended to establish a school 
 there and at the same time to restore his health, 
 which had been seriously affected. He never carried 
 out his project. He seemed to sink into a lethargy 
 in his new abode. He wrote little or nothing, and in 
 a few years he passed out of sight. The talmudic 
 authors in two or three places a state that the great 
 
96 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Rabbi "forgot his learning." It is not impossible 
 that there is a hidden meaning to these statements. 
 In the mountain village Elazar had probably met 
 with Christians, and been cured of his ailments 
 among them. His acceptance of the faith in Christ 
 would readily be described as "forgetting the Law" 
 by talmudic imagination. 
 
 Ben Arakh was the admitted head of the college 
 of students formed by Ben Zakkai. Eliezer ben 
 Hyrkanos was next to him in reputation as a scholar. 
 His memory was prodigious and he retained without 
 apparent effort the contents of a library on its tab- 
 lets. Indeed, so well stored was he with the maxims 
 and decisions of the famous teachers of all Jewish 
 schools that men often taxed him with betraying the 
 cause of the Hillelites, to whom he properly be- 
 longed, by decisions made in the spirit of Sham- 
 maiism. 3 Eliezer was utterly indifferent to popular 
 favor, and was stubborn in his own views. If the 
 Sanhedrin decided, as it sometimes did, contrary to 
 what Eliezer believed to be the genuine tradition of 
 the law, he would not yield. Opinions, he held, 
 should be weighed, not merely counted. So far did 
 he carry his tenacity that he was finally laid under 
 sentence of excommunication by the majority in the 
 Sanhedrin. Gamaliel, its president and brother-in- 
 law to Ben Hyrkanos, was obliged to pronounce the 
 sentence. 4 
 
 Eliezer's stubbornness was inherited from his 
 father, a noble of the highest race by birth, 6 but by 
 choice a farmer with no taste for books or learn- 
 ing. Eliezer alone among his brothers desired to 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 97 
 
 become a scholar. The story of his choice is told 
 in characteristic figurative style. 
 
 As Eliezer was ploughing one day a keen longing 
 for learning came on him. He stopped his horse, 
 sat down, and wept. His father came to ask the 
 cause of his behavior. 
 
 "Why dost thou weep? " he asked. "Dost thou 
 dislike the field thou art ploughing? If so, change 
 places with another. Or dost thou dislike the whole 
 task?" 
 
 Eliezer continued to weep, and the father rather 
 hotly asked again the reason for such behavior. 
 
 "I desire to study the law," replied Eliezer at 
 last. 
 
 "Thou art over old to begin now," said the old 
 man. "At twenty-eight years it is time to marry. 
 Thou mayest later send thy children to school, but 
 it is too late for thee." 
 
 Eliezer made no answer and his father was mysti- 
 fied. His son began to pine away and for two weeks 
 he could hardly eat or sleep. Then, while in the 
 field, he again sat down and wept bitterly. An old 
 man came by and asked : 
 
 "Why dost thou weep, son of Hyrkanos?" 
 
 "Because I long to study the law," Eliezer 
 replied. 
 
 "Then go to Jerusalem, to Yochanan ben Zakkai, 
 if thou wouldst study it," said the old man, who 
 was no other than the prophet Elijah himself, and 
 who then vanished from sight. 
 
 Eliezer arose and walked to Jerusalem. He found 
 the college of the famous master and addressed him 
 
98 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 in a voice broken with sobs. The astonished Rabbi 
 asked the reason of his grief. 
 
 "Because I desire to study the law," was the 
 answer. 
 
 "Whose son art thou?" asked Rabbi Yochanan ; 
 but Eliezer was silent. 
 
 "Canst thou read the prayers?" was the next 
 question, and Eliezer confessed he could not. 
 
 That a grown man who could not even read his 
 prayers should want to be a student amused the 
 Rabbi, who jocosely offered to teach him the 
 prayers. Eliezer only wept afresh at the evident 
 sarcasm of this answer. 
 
 "Why weepest thou now? " asked the master. 
 
 "It is the law I would study," Eliezer persisted. 
 
 Ben Zakkai was struck with the singular earnest- 
 ness of the appeal and gently said : 
 
 "Son, I will teach thee myself two lessons in the 
 law each week; they will be decisions which thou 
 must commit to memory." 
 
 He then drew the new-comer apart from the others 
 and gave him some comments on points of the law. 
 Eliezer listened with rapture and drank in every 
 word of the master. The latter finally concluded, 
 and, telling the novice to return in a week for ex- 
 amination, sent him away. On the Rabbi's friendly 
 suggestion, two residents of the city, the priest 
 Yosay and Josua ben Hananiah, the teacher, offered 
 a home and food to the new disciple. He went to 
 the priest's house, was entertained hospitably, and 
 then retired to repeat to himself the lesson he had 
 received, no word of which escaped his singularly 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 99 
 
 retentive memory. He repeated it over and over 
 during the week with such anxiety that he would 
 not even take time to eat. At the fixed time he 
 came to Ben Zakkai. 
 
 The master received him with a smile. He fully 
 expected a troublesome hour in going over the first 
 lesson of an ignorant man, but was astounded when 
 the novice recited his lesson word for word and com- 
 mented on it with the sagacity of a master mind. 
 
 This man 's mind is like a cemented cistern, which 
 lets no drop of water filter away," exclaimed Ben 
 Zakkai in delight. He bent down to embrace his 
 pupil, but the latter's breath, owing to his long fast, 
 had an odor too strong for the Rabbi's endurance. 
 Involuntarily he thrust Eliezer's head from him and 
 the latter again burst into passionate tears. 
 
 "Son," exclaimed Rabbi Yochanan with a laugh, 
 "if thy learning rises to heaven as forcibly as thy 
 breath reaches my nostrils thou wilt be great among 
 the greatest doctors of the law. Whose child art 
 thou?" 
 
 'The son of Hyrkanos," said Eliezer this time. 
 
 "Verily, thou art sprung from a famous house and 
 thou didst not tell me so. This very day thou must 
 eat in my house," exclaimed Ben Zakkai. 
 
 "I have already eaten at the house of my host," 
 said the haughty scholar, who felt insulted and 
 scarcely cared to accept the proffered hospitality. 
 
 "Where dost thou stay? " asked the master, who 
 doubted the statement after his experience. 
 
 "I live with Rabbi Yosay the priest, and with 
 Rabbi Josua ben Hananiah." 
 
IOO JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Ben Zakkai sent to inquire whether Eliezer had 
 dined that day. He learned he had eaten nothing 
 for eight days. Ben Zakkai then insisted upon 
 Eliezer's dining with him, and thenceforth his posi- 
 tion as one of the disciples was fixed in the school. 
 
 His brothers were glad that Eliezer had incurred 
 his father's displeasure by leaving home. They 
 disliked him because the father showed him pref- 
 erence, and as they beheld the rage of Hyrkanos 
 they heaped abuse upon Eliezer, and urged their 
 father to go to Jerusalem and publicly disinherit the 
 disobedient son. The old man, who knew not the 
 hearts of his sons, vowed that he would disinherit 
 Eliezer. But as day followed day, and month 
 month, his heart was sad, and he stayed at home ; 
 he could not find it in his heart to cut off his beloved 
 son Eliezer. Thus years passed by, in toil and in 
 bitterness; for the eager student seemed to have 
 forgotten his kindred altogether. 
 
 One day Hyrkanos heard that Eliezer was a stu- 
 dent at Ben Zakkai's academy. The intelligence 
 affected him like a stroke of lightning. The old 
 anger which had been dormant awoke. 
 
 "A student!" he said. "A student of the law, 
 which saith, ' Honor thy father' ! A disobedient son 
 is he and naught else." 
 
 Forthwith he journeyed to Jerusalem. It hap- 
 pened that Ben Zakkai gave a feast to which all the 
 great men in Jerusalem were bidden. Hyrkanos, 
 whose family was one of the noblest in Israel, went 
 to Ben Zakkai's house. There he met the foremost 
 nobles of Palestine, Ben Sisith Hacknass and Nak- 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS IOI 
 
 dimon ben Gorion, who could have given to every 
 inhabitant of Jerusalem three hundred measures of 
 flour and still have retained enough to feed the entire 
 country for ten years," and Calba Sebuah, the owner 
 of immense gold-mines. 7 
 
 It was not easy to get into the hall. Hundreds 
 had been bidden, and others had come without that 
 formality, with all who belonged to the academy 
 besides, and innumerable attendants. 
 
 Hyrkanos at length made his way into the great 
 hall and asked for his son Eliezer. 
 
 "Which Eliezer seekest thou?" some students 
 asked. 
 
 "Which Eliezer!" cried the old noble. "I seek 
 the son of Hyrkanos, that disobedient " 
 
 He stopped; for at that moment the students 
 made way for a distinguished-looking man. Even 
 the angry Hyrkanos was awed at the majesty which 
 shone from his face. 
 
 "Who is he? " Hyrkanos asked in a whisper. 
 
 "That is the great disciple, Rabbi Eliezer ben 
 Hyrkanos," they answered. 
 
 A mist rose before Hyrkanos's eyes; he could 
 hardly believe his senses. 
 
 "Who did you say this man is?" he asked again. 
 
 ' ' Dost thou not know him ? ' ' they cried, ' ' of whom 
 't is said that if all the laws and ordinances were 
 lost he could write them from memory ; he of whom 
 the master hath said that his mind is like a cemented 
 cistern which lets no drop of water filter away, our 
 great Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos?" 
 
 A revulsion of feeling took place in the father's 
 
IC2 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 heart. Anger gave way to pride and love ; tears fell 
 from his eyes. He mastered himself and, seeing his 
 son take his seat near Ben Zakkai, he sent word to 
 the latter, saying: 
 
 " Hyrkanos, the father of Eliezer, is here, unknown 
 to him." 
 
 Ben Zakkai at once ordered that the old noble be 
 sealed by his side. He looked at Eliezer and said 
 to him : 
 
 "Say something." 
 
 "I am like a cistern, which can give just as much 
 water as was put into it ; even so, O master, can 
 I but repeat what I learned from thee," Eliezer 
 replied. 
 
 "Nay, thou art a living spring, which giveth water 
 without measure. Thou canst discourse more law 
 than was given on Mount Sinai. But lest my 
 presence be a hindrance to thy discourse, I will 
 leave the room," said the master, and went out. 
 
 Rabbi Eliezer began. As he spoke light seemed 
 to shine from his face like that of Moses. All the 
 people stood in rapt attention at the marvellous 
 speech which came from the mouth of Eliezer. But 
 Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai came from behind and 
 kissed his head and said : 
 
 "Glory be to thee, Father Abraham, and to you, 
 Fathers Isaac and Jacob, that this one is descended 
 from your seed ! " 
 
 When Hyrkanos saw what the master did, and 
 heard his words, he cried : 
 
 ' Verily, glory should be mine ; for he is descended 
 from me." 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS IO3 
 
 But when Eliezer recognized his father, he feared. 
 
 "Father," said he, "be seated elsewhere; I shall 
 be unable to continue." 
 
 The happy father did not want him to continue. 
 
 "My son, my beloved son," he cried, "come to 
 me. 
 
 In a moment Eliezer was by his father's side, beg- 
 ging forgiveness. 
 
 "Dear son," said Hyrkanos, "I came to disinherit 
 thee; but now I bid thee come home, thou shalt 
 have all." 
 
 "I seek not earthly treasure, father," said Eliezer, 
 "I strive for spiritual wealth, and here indeed have 
 I found what I sought, and here shall I remain." ' 
 
 He continued his studies in Jerusalem. He was 
 one of the disciples who carried their master through 
 the Death Gate into the Roman camp," and when 
 Ben Zakkai founded his school in Yamnai, Eliezer as- 
 sisted him in teaching the law. After the master's 
 death, Eliezer went to Lydda in Southern Judea, 
 and there opened a school. Soon his auditors be- 
 came so numerous that he hired a ruined circus, and 
 there taught the multitude the Word of God and 
 the sayings of the great men in Israel. 
 
 It is -probable that the veneration accorded him by 
 the crowd made him arrogant. In virtue of his un- 
 failing memory he claimed the obedience of the San- 
 hedrin to his decisions. 
 
 That body, however, declined to accept Ben 
 Hyrkanos's decisions as supreme in the law. The 
 majority of the day, it held, had that supremacy, 
 and to oppose the will of the majority was treason. 
 
104 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Eliezer opposed it, however, in the full assurance 
 that right was on his own side. He was specially 
 severe on the president, Gamaliel, though the latter 
 was married to his sister. 10 
 
 Rabbi Josua was the champion of the majority 
 rule against Eliezer. He was presiding Judge under 
 Gamaliel. A question was submitted to Eliezer's 
 decision which had already been ruled on in the 
 Sanhedrin. Eliezer laid down the law in a directly 
 contrary sense. He was cited before the tribunal as 
 a teacher of false laws. There he maintained his 
 former decision and claimed that tradition was the 
 infallible tribunal at which the law could be prop- 
 erly interpreted. 
 
 The trial is told in the Talmud in figurative lan- 
 guage, which, however, gives the substantial facts 
 clearly enough. On that day, it says," Rabbi Elie- 
 zer answered every question, but the council would 
 not accept his answers as the true meaning of the law. 
 
 "If the law be as I say, let that fruit tree bear 
 witness," said Rabbi Eliezer. 
 
 Whereupon the tree near the school was torn from 
 its place and cast away a hundred yards. 
 
 "The testimony of the fruit tree is not enough," 
 the Rabbis replied. 
 
 "If the law be as I say, yonder brook shall bear 
 witness," said Rabbi Eliezer. 
 
 And lo, the water in the brook flowed backwards. 
 
 "The testimony of the brook is insufficient," they 
 said. 
 
 "If the law be as I say, the walls of this house 
 shall bear witness," Rabbi Eliezer cried. 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 105 
 
 Thereupon the walls bent inward as if to fall. 
 But Rabbi Josua called to them, saying: 
 
 "When sages dispute about the law, how dare 
 you interfere? " 
 
 And the walls did not fall, because of the presence 
 of Rabbi Josua, neither did they straighten, be- 
 cause of the presence of Rabbi Eliezer, and they are 
 yet standing so. 
 
 And again the voice of Rabbi Eliezer was heard : 
 
 "If the law be as I say, let the host of heaven 
 bear witness." 
 
 Whereupon a voice from heaven spoke : 
 
 "What would you with Rabbi Eliezer, since the 
 law is ever as he sayeth? " 
 
 At this Rabbi Josua arose and said : 
 
 "We heed not the celestial voice in matters of the 
 law; the law is not in heaven." 
 
 This Rabbi Jeremiah explains to mean that though 
 God had given the law on Mount Sinai, he had also 
 given to man to interpret the law, and in the law 
 it is written that the majority shall decide. 
 
 A knowledge of the affairs, both religious and 
 political, of that day is required, as well as a clear 
 comprehension of the spirit of the Talmud, to under- 
 stand the peculiar form of expression employed by 
 the Rabbis. Only then can the full gravity of that 
 famous trial be appreciated. Then the "testimony" 
 is both material and relevant, and because of the 
 historical truth underlying it we recognize in that 
 trial a critical moment in the history of the Jewish 
 religion. I venture to say that that trial has had its 
 effect upon Judaism and the Jews during all the 
 
106 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 centuries that have passed since that memorable 
 day ; that it has settled many vexed questions, and 
 has made clear the way pursued by the leaders in 
 Israel for all time. This hyperbolical account of the 
 famous trial is not a mere fancy of the Rabbis inter- 
 larded with superstitions, as has been claimed by 
 some writers on talmudical subjects. There is real 
 pathos in Rabbi Eliezer's plea, and there is force in 
 the exceptions taken by these Rabbis of the majority. 
 Eliezer pleads for tradition, — strict adherence to the 
 law as transmitted from master to master. He 
 held that no man nor body of men had the right 
 to change aught in the body of the law under any 
 conditions. The other Rabbis of the Sanhedrin, 
 particularly Josua, opposed this idea, and held, 
 with Ben Zakkai and Hillel, that the end of the law 
 is the welfare of humanity, and that all in it is sub- 
 ordinate to this principle; that there is a wide differ- 
 ence between religion itself and the customs which 
 in time gather around it, customs which die or be- 
 come obsolete when the necessity or the expediency 
 for their observance ceases. 
 
 Eliezer failed to understand his master. Maybe 
 Ben Zakkai knew that Eliezer did not understand 
 him, that he did not penetrate his policy and the 
 motives which prompted his utterances; maybe the 
 master knew that Eliezer was but a receptacle of 
 learning, without discrimination, and Ben Zakkai, 
 therefore, ironically called Eliezer <4 a cemented cis- 
 tern which lets no drop of water filter away." Eli- 
 ezer's was not a pliant mind. He knew all the lore 
 and law of his people, and his obedience to the law 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 107 
 
 equalled his knowledge; to make the law subser- 
 vient to circumstances was repugnant to his nature. 
 The religious conditions of that day strengthened 
 his preconceived ideas. Christianity with its ex- 
 crescence, gnosticism, had sprung into existence on 
 precisely the principles advocated by Eliezer's oppo- 
 nents, namely, that altered conditions made altered 
 laws. Eliezer's quarrel with the Sanhedrists recalls 
 Hillel's dispute with the Bethyrahs." Did Eliezer 
 entertain aspirations for the presidency? Did he 
 hope that the Sanhedrin, seeing that he was the 
 only one who knew every tradition, would give him 
 Gamaliel's place? It is hardly possible that he did 
 not know the character of Hillel's successors, who 
 would have given up anything rather than the presi- 
 dency. Though this feature of the controversy may 
 have interest from a local political point the chief 
 interest and value must be sought in the religious 
 considerations that prompted Eliezer's stand against 
 the other Rabbis. His reference to the bread-fruit 
 tree points to Christianity, which, though it had its 
 origin in tradition, refused to abide by it. 13 
 
 The Sanhedric Rabbis have no regard for Elie- 
 zer's argument. The reference to Christianity 
 they think a point ill taken. There was nothing in 
 Christianity; its roots were too shallow in the 
 national and religious soil; it could be uprooted and 
 cast away a hundred, nay, four hundred, yards. 
 
 "Hold you so lightly," cried Eliezer, "the tra- 
 ditions of our masters? Would you arrogate unto 
 yourselves authority to add to or to abridge the law? 
 I tell you, there is no authority that at any time 
 
IOS JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 could lawfully do this. We must abide by tradition, 
 which runneth like a murmuring brook through the 
 meadows of Hebraic law and lore. Our masters 
 taught and builded the spiritual kingdom on tra- 
 dition. I have received it from Ben Zakkai, and he 
 received it from Hillel, and he from Shemaiah and 
 Abtalion, and they received it from the Great Synod, 
 and they again from the prophets, and so on, up to 
 Moses, the lawgiver himself, who received the oral 
 law from God on Sinai. 14 By slighting tradition, 
 you sever the present from the past, you cause the 
 waters of the brook to recede and flow backwards. 
 Taken from its glorious tradition Judaism cannot 
 survive." 
 
 At this plea many of the Sanhedrists are affected. 
 They become thoughtful, retrospective. In sooth, 
 "the brook flows backwards." They contemplate 
 this grand source of Judaism, they follow the turns 
 and windings of the brook, they hear its murmuring, 
 they see the checkered scenes, they behold the great 
 vistas strewn with the dead, the martyred men and 
 women of their race, who gave up life for their 
 glorious heritage ; they behold Egypt, Syria, Baby- 
 lon ; they see Moses, Ezra, Nehemiah, Cyrus; they 
 see gloom and glory, thrones and tears, joy and 
 sorrow, sanctity and defilement, Temple and ruins ; 
 they see all that as they mentally travel along the 
 edge of the brook; they behold and reflect, and 
 their hearts turn to Eliezer. 
 
 But there are in that body of men some whose re- 
 flections have brought them to far different conclu- 
 sions. What they have seen convinces them that 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS IO9 
 
 the law was always suited to prevalent conditions. 
 It is true, the surroundings of the brook may be 
 grander near its source; there are dells and glens 
 and fair fields, but the brook itself is narrow at its 
 starting-point. Thence removed by distance, the 
 brook grows shallow and wide. Barren fields, ruined 
 cities, desolate homes, and blighted hopes line its 
 path. An oppressor has forced the Jew to worship 
 the ever-living God of Israel secretly ; the Sanhedrin 
 must devise means so to administer the law as to 
 offend neither God nor caesar. Since there is no 
 higher human authority, a majority of its own body 
 must decide what is right and what is wrong, and 
 from its decision there shall be no appeal. Innova- 
 tions? yea, even innovations and total abrogation of 
 certain laws shall be undertaken, if such a procedure 
 be deemed necessary. 
 
 Eliezer saw countless dangers in innovations. He 
 whose rigorous adherence to religious discipline had 
 prompted him to apply even the strict measures of 
 the Shammaiites, so that he was thought to be one 
 of them,' 6 could see no reason for changing aught in 
 the religious principles simply because the times re- 
 quired it. To him it seemed an undermining of 
 ancient authority, aye, even of the very school that 
 opposed him. They were shaking an established 
 system, thereby giving tacit licence to future scholars 
 for vandalism. He could not believe that his 
 brother-in-law, the president of the Sanhedrin, 
 could so far forget what he owed to Ben Zakkai as 
 to oppose his decisions for which Eliezer now 
 pleaded. He could scarcely believe that Akibah, 
 
IIO JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 his favorite disciple, whose soul was aflame with the 
 idea of restoring the independence of the common- 
 wealth, could oppose him. How could the proud 
 Gamaliel, who boasted Davidic descent, attack the 
 foundation upon which rested the glory of his pa- 
 triarchate? Nothing would suit Rome better than 
 a weakening in traditional belief. You think of 
 policy against Rome, said Eliezer, while she thinks 
 only of your destruction. Your strength can come 
 only by an unswerving adherence to the law. 
 With it there is power, without it weakness ; with it 
 realization of thy hope, Akibah, and thy ambition, 
 House of David : without it there is blight, eternal 
 bondage, and ignominy. And you two, Gamaliel 
 and Akibah, you who are the walls of the school, 
 will you not testify to the truth of my words, give 
 evidence as to the justice of my cause? 
 
 And the "walls" yielded, and bent forward. 
 How could they withstand that plea? How could 
 they sit silent, when he had laid bare their inner- 
 most thoughts? How remain calm in the face of 
 those facts? How could they leave the great master 
 to shame and sorrow? Akibah in particular was 
 touched ; he knew what Eliezer said was the truth. 
 He recognized the force of his master's words; he 
 felt their prophetic import, and who knows but 
 that at that moment his mind conceived the plan of 
 the revolution, which later cost Rome more blood 
 and gold than the campaign of Titus? It was he 
 who first yielded to his master's plea. Gamaliel, 
 the president, too, was moved. It was a moment 
 pregnant with danger of division and disruption. 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS III 
 
 The pleader was not only the president's brother- 
 in-law, but his superior in learning, the disciple and 
 friend of Ben Zakkai. He wavered. But his throat 
 was dry, his tongue cleaved to his palate. He could 
 not utter a sound. The feeling of the Sanhedrin 
 was intense, the silence oppressive. It needed but 
 a word to give the assembly a powerful momentum 
 in favor of Eliezer, to acknowledge him their master, 
 perhaps their president. But at that moment the 
 fate of the Sanhedrin and of Eliezer was decided by 
 his former companion and colleague, the intrepid 
 Rabbi Josua. He saw the weakness of Gamaliel; 
 he knew the bent of Akibah's mind. In a measure 
 he sympathized with them. But he knew also that 
 it was impossible to accept inflexible tradition or the 
 maxims of Eliezer. He saw that it would disrupt 
 the Sanhedrin ; that it would lose its power of inde- 
 pendent action ; that it would remain servile to the 
 will of one man — a great man, surely — but one man 
 only. And this last Sanhedrin, the faint reflection 
 of that older one which had given character and 
 grandeur to Judaism, should bequeath to coming 
 generations the great principle of popular rule by 
 representative power, the direction of which should 
 forever be in the hands of the majority. He felt 
 keenly when he saw the faltering "walls," Gamaliel 
 and Akibah, and it is his scathing sarcasm which 
 dooms them to silence for the time being. Nothing 
 hurt Gamaliel like being told that he did not belong 
 to the learned, and had no sympathy with them.' 9 
 The pliant Akibah felt less hurt at insults, but he 
 heard them often enough." Seeing the proceedings 
 
112 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 in this light, one feels keenly the force of Josua's 
 words: 
 
 "When sages are doing battle in the law, why 
 do you mix in? Why show your weakness so? " he 
 cries. "This is not a question of individual opinion, 
 but of national solidarity, and we can only grow 
 in strength when we sustain the majority." The 
 "walls," cowed by Josua's remarks, were silent. 
 They loved Eliezer and would gladly have sided 
 with him, but they feared to oppose the blacksmith, 
 whose arguments were made with an intellectual 
 force like that with which he wielded the sledge- 
 hammer. 18 
 
 But Eliezer was a great master ; he had gone into 
 that contest to establish a rule for himself and his 
 school. He was fighting for a lofty object. He 
 would not be ruled by incompetents. On his side 
 was the matchless authority of tradition, the heaven- 
 given. He knew it. In the storehouse of his mind 
 there were treasures heaped upon treasures, and the 
 people knew that he spoke by authority. They 
 flocked to hear his discourses; they hung upon his 
 words ; they believed him ; they preferred his word, 
 sanctified by the magic phrase, "so have I heard it," 
 to the decisions of the Sanhedrim He appealed 
 now to those who were bent upon his ruin. 
 
 "The voice of the people is as the voice of 
 heaven," he cried; "the people know that I was 
 ordained by the great master, Ben Zakkai ; let the 
 people decide whether my authority shall stand or 
 
 » * 
 
 no. 
 
 This appeal brought Josua upon his feet. His 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 113 
 
 keen intellect saw the seriousness of the situation. 
 Eliezer's words were something more than a plea, — 
 they threatened the very existence of the Sanhedrin. 
 None knew as well as he what power Rabbi Eliezer's 
 word had with the masses. He was of the gallant 
 band that had stood around their master, Ben 
 Zakkai, whom the multitude adored, and of its 
 survivors none enjoyed the people's confidence as 
 Eliezer. Heroic measures were needed to curb 
 Eliezer's power. 
 
 "The people are guided by the decisions of this 
 Sanhedrin," cried Josua; "to it has been given 
 the right of judgment. The law does not abide in 
 heaven, it has been given to man on Sinai. There 
 it was ordained that the majority should rule, 19 and 
 if a voice from heaven spake otherwise we should 
 not heed it. I repeat, the majority rules, and he is 
 a traitor who speaks to the contrary — excommunica- 
 tion shall fall upon him." 
 
 The word was spoken. Every man in the room 
 trembled. Gamaliel was silent. As president of 
 the Sanhedrin he had to act, and rather than jeop- 
 ardize his own position he sacrificed his brother-in- 
 law. 
 
 Eliezer hated him unto death, and though Gamaliel 
 later excused himself, on the plea of preventing a 
 quarrel in Israel," Eliezer never forgave him. He 
 was less wroth with Rabbi Akibah, for whom he had 
 small respect, and whom he considered "one of the 
 contemptible people " " ; but Gamaliel's vacillation 
 filled him with bitterness. He was heedless of Rabbi 
 Josua's warning. He defied the Sanhedrin and 
 
114 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 left it, still maintaining his right against their decis- 
 ions. His punishment was swift and severe. He 
 was excommunicated. His decisions were annulled, 
 and the objects he had declared clean were taken 
 to the public square and burned." 
 
 To conciliate Rabbi Josua and the Sanhedrin, 
 and to save himself a severe discipline, Akibah vol- 
 unteered his services as messenger to bear the evil 
 tidings to Eliezer. 
 
 "If an improper person were to take the mes- 
 sage," said the diplomatic Rabbi Akibah, "he would 
 destroy the world." " 
 
 Thereupon he put on a black mantle, covered his 
 head with a black cloth, and sat down upon the 
 ground, four yards' distance from Eliezer' s house. 
 
 When Eliezer saw him dressed in black, he asked : 
 
 "Why art thou dressed in black, and why sittest 
 thou at a distance? " 
 
 "It would seem, O Rabbi, that thy colleagues 
 are separating themselves from thee," Akibah said 
 
 gently. 
 
 Eliezer understood. He tore his garments, took 
 off his sandals, and sat himself on the ground. His 
 tears fell fast ; he did not think they would resort to 
 such a measure. 
 
 When it was known that Rabbi Eliezer had been 
 excommunicated by the Sanhedrin, sorrow showed 
 itself on all sides. Even women discussed the pun- 
 ishment of the great Rabbi and neglected their 
 housework; or, as the Talmud puts it, "the dough 
 spoiled in their hands." " 
 
 Sad were the days of his life then. Excluded 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HVRKANOS 115 
 
 from all intercourse even with his disciples, gloomy 
 thoughts darkened his mind ; what was his great 
 learning, his life, good for now? He thought of 
 ending his misery by self-destruction. But in those 
 dark moments light came to him from the past. 
 His soul gained strength from the reflection of the 
 life and hardships of his master, Ben Zakkai, who in 
 ruin and despair held to the Word of God as the 
 only means of salvation. And then the soul of 
 Rabbi Eliezer grew strong again ; his faith returned. 
 Suicide, he saw, was the coward's means of shirk- 
 ing supreme effort and responsibility. And in this 
 spirit he wrote a decision against suicide, which (re- 
 ferring to Genesis ix., 5), he says, is as criminal as 
 murder." His faith in God's mercy became as a 
 rock. A great joy entered his heart. He felt 
 kindly towards all Israel, even to those who had 
 wrought his ruin. Love of his fellow-man and faith 
 in God were the two lights which illumined his soul. 
 'The honor of thy fellow-man shall be dear to thee 
 as thine own," he says. 38 "He, who, having bread 
 in his basket, asketh, What shall I eat to-morrow? 
 belongeth to those who have little faith in God's 
 providence," is another maxim of his. This senti- 
 ment, though thoroughly Jewish, even rabbinical, 
 was in all probability learned by him from the 
 apostles, with some of whom he was in fraternal 
 intercourse after his excommunication. 2 ' 
 
 The fact that Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated 
 had no effect upon the people of Lydda. The 
 harsh decree of the Sanhedrin against their beloved 
 Rabbi incensed them to such a degree that many 
 
Il6 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 refused to abide by the Sanhedric decisions. A 
 split in the ranks of the remnant of Israel seemed 
 imminent. Eliezer saw that such an unfortunate 
 movement would not only cause the law of God to 
 suffer, but that Rome, finding a pretext for inter- 
 ference, would stamp out the last vestige of Jewish 
 life on Palestinian soil. Believing that the people 
 needed an authority for their guidance, and that, 
 despite its faults, the Sanhedrin was the only au- 
 thority by whose mandates the people could live in 
 peace, Rabbi Eliezer gave up his school in Lydda 
 and moved to Caesarea. There he was in close inter- 
 course with James, the disciple of Jesus, 58 and others 
 who confessed Him of Nazareth as the promised 
 Messiah. The Christian body stood just then in 
 very bad repute with Rome. Christians were put 
 to death when arrested, and suspicion of one's being a 
 Christian was sufficient to cause his arrest. Eliezer 
 was a man of distinction, whose associates were 
 easily noted. Rome watched the movements and 
 doings of the great men among the Hebrews. Per- 
 haps, too, some Jews themselves, disliking Eliezer's 
 relationship with the Christians, informed the Ro- 
 man authorities. Be this as it may, Rabbi Eliezer 
 was arrested and charged with being a Christian. 
 
 There was no evidence to prove the charge, but 
 the Roman judges had a simple way of finding the 
 adherents of that "rebel," over whose crucified form 
 they had mockingly written the word "INRI," the 
 initials of the words, "Iesus Nazarae, Rex Iudae- 
 orum" (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). The 
 adherents of that man recognized no judge other 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS WJ 
 
 than Him; they took punishment and death with 
 the same meekness and resignation as He whom 
 they adored, rejoicing at the privilege of being 
 crucified as was their Messiah. 
 
 It was different with the Jews who, after their 
 conquest by Rome, accepted, outwardly at least, the 
 Roman sovereignty. The Roman judges knew that 
 an orthodox Jew would bend before a Roman rather 
 than be thought a Christian. 
 
 The judge before whom Eliezer was taken knew 
 of the Rabbi's great learning and scarcely believed 
 him guilty of the charge. 
 
 "Can it be that thou, a scholar, dost adhere to 
 such folly? " he said. 
 
 The question brought a train of thought into the 
 mind of Eliezer. The judge called Christianity 
 folly. It is a wonderful folly which centres in hu- 
 man love, in mercy, in kindness, in charity, in self- 
 denial. That is a strange folly which lifts up the 
 fallen, gives hope to the despairing, and promises 
 salvation to all. That is a gracious folly which bids 
 forgive a brother man seven times seven times, 
 though he had offended as often. That is a divine 
 folly which seeks its glory in meekness, its reward in 
 bestowing human happiness, its hope in heaven. 
 
 Where was Josua in the hour of distress? 
 Where was the man who, though a scholastic op- 
 ponent, had been his friend for so many years, — the 
 friend with whom he had shared the trials of the 
 siege in Jerusalem ; with whom he had shared suffer- 
 ings and sorrows, and the dangers in rescuing their 
 beloved master from the besieged city ; with whom 
 
Il8 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 he had travelled over land and sea to the city of 
 Rome to plead with the emperor Trajan to revoke 
 the edicts against the Jews?" Eliezer was bitter 
 against Akibah who, after the excommunication, 
 never came near him. It hurt him to think that 
 in the disregard of his scholastic authority, against 
 which the ban was directed, he had forgotten their 
 friendly relations of former days. 
 
 Here, on the other hand, were James and his 
 fellow-believers in Jesus as the Messiah, men whose 
 association was not reminiscent of past grandeur and 
 sorrow, of scholastic fellowship and youthful friend- 
 ship ; with whom he had no learned disputes that 
 left in his soul either the pleasure of the conqueror 
 or the regret of the vanquished ; nothing but 
 simple faith, nothing but brotherly love, nothing 
 but the grace born of meekness and piety. And 
 these strange men, these despised Christians, had 
 come to him like elder brothers ; they had soothed 
 his turbulent soul and healed his wounded heart ; 
 they had surrounded him with love and devotion 
 without asking on his part, and without price on 
 theirs. He loved them for that, and as the thought 
 passed through his mind the spirit in him grew keen 
 for self-sacrifice. 
 
 His eye fell upon the judge, whose face was mild 
 and whose speech had a certain amount of reverence. 
 This reverence was due to the learned Jew, who, de- 
 spite all the political disabilities imposed on him, 
 had to be humored. The Romans knew the in- 
 fluence the learned among the Jews wielded among 
 the masses. If Eliezer confessed himself a Christian, 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS I 19 
 
 he would be outside the pale of that regard for 
 Rome. A Christian could have no influence with 
 the Jews, be his learning ever so great. Eliezer knew 
 that such was the judgment of the Romans. The 
 thought, too, came to him of a possible reconcilia- 
 tion with his former friends; he saw himself re- 
 instated in his former position, again shining as the 
 light in Israel, the disciple of the great Ben Zak- 
 kai. What was James to him? What were all the 
 Christians? 
 
 "I trust in the justice of the judge," he said. 
 
 The word was spoken. By it Eliezer denied the 
 Nazarene and proclaimed his disregard for the 
 Christians. It was so understood by the judge, who 
 said : 
 
 "It is evident from thy speech that thou art no 
 Christian, since thou wouldst abide by my judg- 
 ment." 30 
 
 Eliezer was dismissed, but the incident had its 
 effect upon his mind. Having thus openly re- 
 nounced Christianity, James and the other Chris- 
 tian's shunned him. Soon loneliness, wounded 
 pride, and remorse were the only reward of his 
 vacillation. His body soon succumbed to his mental 
 suffering, — Rabbi Eliezer became sick unto death. 
 
 The Rabbis in Yamnai, hearing of his illness, sent 
 Akibah and others to visit him. The sight of his 
 former disciple greatly affected the sick man. After 
 all, thought he, old friends were the best, they could 
 always be relied on at the last moment. Gently he 
 reproached Akibah for his neglect : the latter as 
 gently told Eliezer that the main reason why the 
 
120 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Rabbis had kept away was because of the report of 
 his apostasy. When Eliezer heard this he was quite 
 overcome. Then after all they had not been his 
 enemies, but friends bewailing his error. He made 
 an open confession and again recanted Christianity. 31 
 But when the visiting Rabbis asked his opinion 
 whether Pcloni, by which they meant Jesus, 32 had a 
 share in the bliss of Paradise, 33 he evaded the ques- 
 tion ; he could not bring himself to speak ill of one 
 whose teachings seemed to him sublime; and to 
 speak well of Him was, in the present state of re- 
 cantation, equally impossible. Therefore he started 
 a discussion about Sanhedric decisions, and soon the 
 combative spirit overpowered all other sentiments, 
 even that of physical pain. He was again the aggres- 
 sive Titan who once defied the entire Sanhedrin. 
 He seemed to grow in strength, his voice gathered 
 volume and power as he hurled his sharp sentences 
 against those who opposed the authority of what he 
 had conceived to be the right form of interpretation 
 in accordance with tradition. He put the entire 
 force of his fast-fading life into his assertions. What 
 the others had declared to be unclean he pronounced 
 clean, and with the word "clean" on his lips he sank 
 down and died. 
 
 A great light had gone out in Israel; forgotten 
 were all disputes of former days; forgotten was the 
 bitterness which these quarrels had engendered. 
 Rabbi Josua bent down and kissed the face of the 
 dear dead friend and companion, and at once re- 
 moved the ban. Then the Rabbis carried the body 
 to Lydda, Eliezer's former place of activity. There 
 
RABBI ELIEZER BEN HYRKANOS 121 
 
 Rabbi Akibah delivered a touching eulogy over the 
 remains of his master, and amidst groans and lamen- 
 tations, the foremost man in Israel was laid to his 
 last rest. 34 
 
 Rabbi Josua, more than any other, felt that 
 with the death of Eliezer ben Hyrkanos much 
 valuable learning was lost; that his mind had indeed 
 been as a "cemented cistern which lets no drop of 
 water filter away." Josua felt that they had 
 buried a book of wisdom, 36 and though the death of 
 Eliezer removed a dangerous opponent to his ac- 
 tivity, Josua yet loved the man, who always 
 fought fair, though often fierce and vicious as a lion. 
 And when, after a time, some Sanhedrists sought to 
 repeal certain laws and decisions enacted by Rabbi 
 Eliezer, Josua, who was then Acting Patriarch, cried : 
 "It is not meet to fight a dead lion." ss 
 Thus it came to pass that he who fought Eliezer 
 bitterest when alive became his defender and, may- 
 be, the conserver of the literary works which bear 
 Eliezer's name. Their quarrels, it must be remem- 
 bered, were not for self-aggrandizement, but for the 
 perpetuation of Judaism; and any harshness that 
 sprang out of them was directed against the means 
 rather than against the aim. After the death of 
 Eliezer, the activity of the schools became marked 
 for its decided national aspect, which the circum- 
 spect Josua could not check, but which his wonder- 
 ful sagacity could conceal and protect from without. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 
 
 RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH, the third 
 disciple of Ben Zakkai, differed from Eliezer 
 as day from night. Eliezer's obstinacy brought 
 him under the judgment of the Sanhedrin, — Josua's 
 subtlety made him its master. He supported the 
 authority of the majority in principle, and in practice 
 he managed the majority. Gamaliel, the president, 
 was but a figure-head when Josua attended the ses- 
 sions. The shrewd and calm Josua, as presiding 
 judge of the Sanhedric court, easily manipulated 
 matters to his own benefit, and appeared as the in- 
 jured party, to whom an apology was due. 1 His 
 master mind commanded respect from the populace 
 and Sanhedrin alike, and even from a Roman em- 
 peror. Ben Zakkai characterized him in a pithy 
 sentence: "He is like a three-ply cord, which doth 
 not break. ' ' a 
 
 He was from birth intended for the sacred profes- 
 sion. 3 Being of the tribe of Levi, he early became 
 a member of the Temple choir, and thence a pupil 
 of Ben Zakkai. Music and Hebrew were not his 
 only studies. He applied himself to Latin and 
 Greek, to mathematics, geography, physics, and 
 
 122 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 123 
 
 astronomy. In the latter science he computed the 
 appearance of a comet for the year 89 A.c. 4 His 
 familiarity with Greek was extensive. A relative of 
 Hadrian, Aquila, who translated the Pentateuch into 
 that language, submitted his work for criticism to 
 Josua and Eliezer. Josua expressed himself in 
 terms of praise. 6 This diplomacy served the Rabbi 
 later with Hadrian. Josua was in temper a modern 
 Bohemian, careless of his personal appearance, but 
 of sparkling wit and biting sarcasm. Subtle in argu- 
 ment, liberal in religion, he was full of resources for 
 moulding public opinion. In his day there was none 
 like him as statesman, orator, or diplomat. His life 
 was not without romance, yet affections of the heart 
 had not sufficient power to influence the mental 
 balance of Josua. When quite young he fell in love 
 with the daughter of a priest. The engagement was 
 made public and the young scholar was happy. One 
 day he met with an accident which confined him to 
 his bed for some time. Meanwhile the father found 
 what seemed a better match, and broke the engage- 
 ment with Josua. 
 
 The lovers met once more and the girl told a tear- 
 ful tale of a father's tyranny to which she was forced 
 to submit. Josua felt much hurt. The priest was 
 but one of the licensed paupers, of whom there were 
 thousands in Jerusalem, and whose descent from 
 Aaron, the first High Priest, was largely supported 
 by the evidence of their own assertions, while Josua 
 was already a rising scholar, who it was surmised 
 would later play a great part in the commonwealth. 
 Josua was conscious of his own worth, and when his 
 
124 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 colleagues sought to console him, he remarked with 
 sarcasm : 
 
 "I suppose an alliance with me was not honor 
 enough for the High Priest Aaron." ' 
 
 It does not appear that Josua ever married. He 
 sought diversion in study, manual labor (he became 
 a smith and a needle-maker), and in travel, which 
 broadened his views and later on made him a mighty 
 power among the ever-discontented Hebrews. 
 
 As a student he won the highest fame. He was 
 made president of the Court of Appeals, the highest 
 office of the Sanhedrin after that of president. 
 He was not one to let passion interfere with political 
 designs, and, his policy being popular power, he was 
 ready to sacrifice all sentiment to that aim. It was 
 he who cut off Eliezer's authority in the Sanhedrin ; 
 because in his course he foresaw danger to the 
 solidarity of that institution ; and he it was who de- 
 feated the president of the Sanhedrin, when that 
 official opposed him in the assembly. Josua disliked 
 a one-man power. His spirit was democratic, and 
 he suffered no law to pass which tended to increase 
 the religious burden of the people, unless the law 
 was directed to prevent immorality. 
 
 "You cannot hinder lewdness, but you can check 
 it by care," was his sententious remark. 7 
 
 In the matter of ceremonialism, in long prayers, 
 in countless observances which Gamaliel tried to 
 add, he stood for the people and against the 
 Rabbis. 
 
 "Let them observe the laws they have," he said; 
 "don't increase them. Busy men and laborers have 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 12$ 
 
 no time for minute and useless observances. If you 
 pour water into a cask full of oil, the oil is bound to 
 flow over and get lost. Make no law which the con- 
 gregation as a body cannot observe." 8 
 
 Gamaliel, the president, would have dealt with 
 Josua, if he could, as the latter dealt with Eliezer. 
 But he found himself against a majority which he 
 could not move. The majority was with the in- 
 trepid and witty debater. Unable to conquer Josua, 
 he sought to humiliate him. It was not permissible 
 to advise any one against the expressed instruction 
 of the president unless openly debated and voted 
 on. In other words, the president's command or 
 decision in any question was operative as law until 
 the Sanhedrin had voted against it. In simpler 
 affairs such procedure was not taken, and the presi- 
 dent's decision not only had all the force of a law, 
 but became immediately operative. Josua disliked 
 this arbitrary power and at every opportunity worked 
 against it. Gamaliel knew of Josua's opposition, but 
 was unable to confront him. At length the day 
 came ; the president was determined to silence Josua 
 for good. Gamaliel had decided that evening prayers 
 were obligatory, the decision being based on biblical 
 authority. This decision created much hardship for 
 the busy men, who if they failed in that devotion 
 became amenable to the law. Rabbi Akibah, 9 who 
 thought the time opportune to avenge his master 
 Eliezer, Gamaliel, and his own wrongs upon Josua, 
 and get him into contempt with the Sanhedrin, 
 asked him if he thought evening prayers oblig- 
 atory. 
 
126 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "I hold evening prayers to be a matter of indi- 
 vidual conscience," said Josua; "if a man feels like 
 praying let him do so." 
 
 This was all Akibah wanted. He went to Gamaliel 
 and informed him that Josua was speaking against 
 his decision. Gamaliel saw a chance to punish 
 Josua if the latter would publicly repeat what he 
 had said privately. Accordingly he instructed his 
 informant to ask him the same question in the 
 Sanhedrin, and ordered Josua to be present. When 
 the session had opened, Akibah asked whether eve- 
 ning prayers were obligatory. 
 
 "They are," said the president. "Does any one 
 object to this decision?" he continued, looking at 
 Josua. 
 
 The latter recognized that Gamaliel had planned 
 a deliberate attack on him. 
 
 "No voice is raised against thy decision," he said. 
 
 "I am told that thou didst declare evening prayer 
 a matter of individual conscience. Stand up ; there 
 is a witness against thee," the president said, point- 
 ing at Akibah. 
 
 "A living witness is here to testify against me," 
 Josua quietly replied, "and I acknowledge that I 
 have uttered such an opinion." 
 
 Gamaliel was not satisfied with this confession. 
 Turning from Josua with a contemptuous shrug, he 
 began his discourse for the day without bidding 
 Josua to sit down, which he could not do without 
 the president's permission. Josua stood without 
 protest. 
 
 The Sanhedrin, considering Gamaliel's action an 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 127 
 
 affront to the president of the court as severe as 
 undeserved, rose in a body and commanded Gamaliel 
 to stop his discourse and step down. He was de- 
 clared unfit longer to occupy his exalted office, and 
 a wealthy and learned young man, Elazar ben 
 Azariah, was thereupon elected in Gamaliel's place. 
 Not until he had humbly asked Josua's pardon, 
 which the latter readily granted, did the Sanhedrin 
 reinstate Gamaliel in the presidential chair. 
 
 Thus did Rabbi Josua's diplomatic silence defeat 
 a man who thought himself in the height of his 
 power; whereas if Josua had lost control of himself 
 even by but a word, he might have been subjected 
 to severe discipline, if not to excommunication. 
 
 Gamaliel was a man who needed but a hint to see 
 the error of his ways. He felt that he was dealing 
 not with an individual, but with a power. A man 
 who, without fortune, could make the council of the 
 nation subservient to his will, deserved admiration. 
 No sooner did Gamaliel recognize this than anger 
 fled his soul. He recognized that it was Josua who 
 really had put supreme power in the hands of the 
 majority. But for his subtle intellect, another, per- 
 haps the stubborn Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, with his 
 Shammaittic tendencies to inflexible law, might have 
 occupied the presidential chair. Gamaliel one day 
 went to Josua's house, which was not much better 
 than a hovel, being a smith's shop and living-room. 
 When the wealthy Gamaliel saw its black walls, he 
 could not suppress a shudder. 
 
 "By the walls one would know that thou art a 
 smith," he said. 
 
128 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Josua's independence was dear to him, and though 
 he ate his bread by the sweat of his brow he never 
 complained. 
 
 "Woe to the generation whose leader thou art : " 
 he answered bitterly. 'Thou hast no conception 
 how hard poor scholars have to work to earn a 
 living." 
 
 "Pardon me, I did thee an injustice," said 
 Gamaliel. 
 
 Josua was silent. 
 
 "Pardon me in honor of my father," pleaded 
 Gamaliel. 
 
 Thereupon Josua stretched forth his hand, which 
 the other grasped and pressed with emotion. The 
 two went to the session arm in arm, and the people 
 were so touched at the sight, that they elected 
 Gamaliel joint-president with Elazar ben Azariah. 10 
 
 Josua travelled extensively through Palestine, and 
 was several times in Rome and in Alexandria. His 
 first trip to Rome was in company with Eliezer." 
 The manners of the people in the Eternal City made 
 a deep impression upon him. He recognized that 
 his people's political salvation depended upon sub- 
 mission, at least in appearance, to Rome's rule. On 
 his return he warned the turbulent Hebrews not to 
 ask too much of Rome ; she had given them some 
 privileges, — let them be contented. The common- 
 wealth was lost before because the people had been 
 inconsiderate and hasty. They never had made 
 preparations for war; their finances were misman- 
 aged ; they sought no outside alliances as the Ro- 
 mans did. A people so poorly directed could not 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 129 
 
 withstand the power of a great nation. These ideas 
 he embodied in his discourses, cloaked in parables 
 or in supposed experiences. One story he told 
 thus: 
 
 "In my life, no one ever put me down but a wo- 
 man, a girl, and a boy. You ask how I was put 
 down by the woman? I came to an inn, where the 
 landlady, a very pious woman, gave me a meal of 
 beans and bread. I ate the beans, leaving nothing 
 in the dish. The second day, she again gave me 
 beans and bread, and again I ate all and left nothing 
 in the dish. On the third day, she brought me the 
 same dish again ; but as she had put too much salt 
 into the beans I could not eat them. And so I ate 
 but the bread. Whereupon she said : 
 
 " 'Rabbi, why dost thou not eat the beans? ' 
 
 " 'I have dined once already,' said I. 
 
 " 'Then,' said she, 'why didst thou eat the bread? 
 Is it because thou didst leave nothing in the dish 
 yesterday nor the day before, that thou wouldst 
 leave all to-day? Let me remind thee of the old 
 saying, that a man, eating, should always leave 
 something in the dish.' 
 
 "Would you know how I was vanquished by a 
 little girl? Once, while travelling, my way led 
 through a field. I had not gone far when a girl met 
 me. 
 
 " 'Rabbi,' said the girl, 'dost know that thou art 
 trespassing on a private field? ' 
 
 " 'I am walking on a well-worn path,' I replied. 
 
 " 'Aye, evil-doers such as thou have worn this 
 path in our fair field,' she said. 
 
I30 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "And wouldst thou know how I was worsted by 
 a little boy? One day, near a city, I came upon a 
 crossroad. At the roadside sat a boy. 
 
 " 'Which way leadeth to the city? ' I asked him. 
 
 " 'This one here is short and long, and the other 
 is long and short,' he said. 
 
 ' ' I took the one which was ' short and long, ' and 
 soon came within sight of the city. But, alas ! I found 
 that my way had led to private gardens which were 
 surrounded by high hedges and I was forced to return. 
 
 " 'My son,' said I, to the boy, 'didst thou not 
 tell me that this road was short? ' 
 
 " 'I did,' said he, 'but, Rabbi, I told thee also 
 that it was long.' 
 
 "I kissed the head of that boy and said, 'Hail 
 unto Israel ! It is a sage people from the highest to 
 the lowest.' " ia 
 
 Valuable as was his judgment in religious matters, 
 it was even greater in dealing with the projects of 
 the revolutionary party. His spies were everywhere 
 — he knew everything. At the court of Domitian 
 or Nerva in Rome, he was in favor, and though 
 these emperors taxed the Hebrews mercilessly, they 
 granted Josua personally many favors, among them 
 a reduction of the fiscus judceus, or the "Jew Tax." 
 He was held in esteem by Domitian's daughter, 
 who invited him to her table despite his careless 
 dress and ugly visage. 
 
 "Rabbi," said she one day, "how is it that so 
 great a mind as thine dwelleth in so homely a body?" 
 
 "Pray, tell me, princess, in what kind of vessels 
 doth thy father keep his best wines? " 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 131 
 
 "In wooden casks," said she. 
 
 "The best wine in wooden casks!' Josua ex- 
 claimed; "I thought he kept them in golden casks." 
 
 "The wine would spoil in golden casks," said the 
 princess. 
 
 "Behold, princess," Josua rejoined, "as old wine 
 is better kept in wooden than in golden casks, even 
 so is wisdom often given to the homely, who are 
 less liable to spoil it by earthly vanity." 13 
 
 He was on equally good terms with emperor 
 Trajan, whom he induced to recall the cruel Quietus 
 from Palestine, to forgive the Hebrews, and to set 
 free the two revolutionary leaders, Pappus and Ju- 
 lianus. The Hebrews were so happy at this edict 
 that they proclaimed an annual "Trajan Day." M 
 
 Josua also gained the good graces of Hadrian. 
 He was then vice-president of the Sanhedrin, almost 
 a prince, and the foremost intellect of his time. 
 He saw that the people could not be kept down 
 much longer. Neither Trajan nor Hadrian had 
 kept faith with the Jews. Hadrian had promised 
 to rebuild the Temple, but he made no attempt to 
 keep his promise. The Hebrews rose in arms in 
 the Valley of Rimmon. Josua hastened to caution 
 his people. The times were not ripe for revolution. 
 Rome was on guard, her legions were massed around 
 Palestine like birds of prey. On the military high- 
 way he met his trusted agent, Ben Zoma, but the 
 latter did not salute him. Josua asked him what 
 was the impending danger. Ben Zoma told him 
 that the country swarmed with Romans; that 
 Roman eyes were then watching them. He bade 
 
132 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Josua hasten with the flight of an eagle to warn the 
 people. 
 
 The Talmud tells this in the form of a parable. 
 
 Rabbi Josua met Ben Zoma, and the latter did not 
 salute. 
 
 "Whence and whither, Ben Zoma?" asked Rabbi 
 Josua. 
 
 "I have thought of the history of creation and I 
 have found that it is not the width of a hand 'tween 
 the upper waters and the lower as it is written 
 (Genesis i., 2), 'And the Spirit of the Lord hovered 
 above the waters.' (There is no system, nor prepa- 
 ration in the camp of Israel, — all is chaos, while the 
 Romans are well organized, ready to strike.) And 
 as is written (Deuteronomy xxxii., 1 1), 'As the eagle 
 fluttereth above the nest.' 
 
 This story the Talmud further states, that Ben 
 Zoma's remarks refer to a band of warriors who 
 pass through a hollow way : on one side is fire, 
 which, if it touch, will burn them, and on the other 
 side is a bank of snow, which will stiffen their limbs. 
 If the Hebrews fight the Romans now, they will 
 meet with defeat, because the Romans are like a 
 burning fire; but in view of their sad condition, in- 
 activity will lead to stagnation. To give no clue to 
 any Roman who might seek to interpret Ben Zoma's 
 words, Rabbi Josua cried out to his followers: 
 
 "Ben Zoma is beside himself; he hath lost his 
 
 * * 16 
 
 reason. 
 
 Whether Ben Zoma was killed by the Romans, 
 or, fearing an uprising, went to lead a hermit life 
 in one of the caves in the mountains is not known. 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN IIANANIAH 1 33 
 
 The Talmud only says that a few days after this 
 message to Rabbi Josua "Ben Zoma was called 
 away from this life." 16 
 
 Josua hastened to Rimmon and there addressed 
 the assembled Hebrews. An eloquent speech it was, 
 and full of meaning to those who knew the orator. 
 He ended with a parable: 
 
 "A lion [Rome] had swallowed a bone which 
 stuck in his throat ; he promised great reward to 
 any one who would extract it. A Nile stork came 
 and with his long beak took the bone from the lion's 
 throat. When the stork asked for the promised re- 
 ward, the lion said : 
 
 'Go hence and tell the people that thou hast 
 been in the mouth of a lion and hast come away 
 unharmed.' 
 
 "We should be satisfied to have escaped from 
 Roman kindness with our lives." 17 
 
 The news that Josua had prevented an uprising 
 of the Hebrews was brought to Hadrian, and re- 
 membering what his relative, Aquila, had written 
 about the Hebrew sage, he showed him great favor. 
 But Hadrian's edicts against the poor Hebrews con- 
 tinued to be very cruel. The Jews dared hope for 
 no more favor from him. Instead of restoring the 
 Temple, he began to lay ruthless hands on their 
 faith. He forbade the study of the law and the 
 practice of circumcision. Sorrowfully the people 
 came to Josua and begged his intercession with the 
 tyrant, who was then in the city of Alexandria, and 
 Josua went to see Hadrian. 
 
 He was received with great consideration, but it 
 
134 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was long before he could bring the emperor to favor 
 his petition. 
 
 Hadrian wished to test the wisdom of the Hebrew 
 sage. 
 
 "Thy people are rebels and barbarians," said 
 Hadrian; "let them abandon their obsolete laws of 
 Moses and obey mine. I am greater than Moses, 
 since I can enforce obedience and he can not, and 
 by the testimony of your own Scriptures it is shown 
 that 'a live dog is better than a dead lion.' 
 
 The emperor's logic seemed irrefragable; he was 
 lord of life and death of the people, he could enforce 
 obedience. But obedience from fear of violence is 
 one thing and obedience from love and reverence of 
 the law is another. But he who has no power over 
 the minds and hearts of those he rules may not hope 
 to receive implicit obedience at all times nor in all 
 places. 
 
 "Canst thou forbid the kindling of fire for three 
 days, O mighty emperor?" said Josua. 
 
 "I can," Hadrian replied, and forthwith he com- 
 manded that for three days no fire be made in the 
 city. 
 
 But that very afternoon smoke issued from one 
 of the chimneys of Hadrian's own palace. On in- 
 vestigation it was found that one of the generals had 
 fallen ill and ordered a fire. 
 
 "Behold," said Rabbi Josua, "thy command for 
 three days has been disobeyed here even now, but 
 the command of Moses not to kindle a fire on the 
 Sabbath is obeyed to this day, thousands of years 
 after his death." 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 1 35 
 
 This gave Hadrian food for thought. The He- 
 brews must have some high qualities to obey im- 
 plicitly their teacher's laws for reverence alone, while 
 Romans had to be held to the obedience of the law 
 by an iron hand. A man who could win the love of 
 such a people might build a commonwealth to out- 
 last the ages. 
 
 "Great indeed is the lamb [Israel] which still liveth 
 though surrounded by seventy wolves," he said, 
 following the trend of his thoughts. 
 
 " N ot the lamb is great, but God who protects it, " 
 said Rabbi Josua. 19 
 
 In this thoughtful manner the Rabbi at length 
 succeeded in having the edicts annulled, and the 
 Hebrews breathed easier for a while. 
 
 In the conversations which took place between 
 the learned emperor and the Jewish sage many 
 references were made to the existing conditions of 
 the Jewish race. Josua endeavored to conciliate 
 Hadrian's opinions towards his people by his wit. 
 Some Jewish bandits had taken refuge in the Par- 
 thian dominions and thence ravaged the Roman 
 borders with impunity. Hadrian had a dislike of 
 war, and especially of any repetition of Trajan's 
 Asiatic campaigns, and preferred to endure the 
 banditti of the deserts as a lesser evil. One day in 
 company with Josua he said : 
 
 "I could set a table in the centre of the world 
 and be host to the immortal gods ; aye, even to thy 
 God." 
 
 "Thou forgettest the Parthians, O caesar," said 
 the Rabbi." 
 
136 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Hadrian looked keenly at the speaker. 
 
 "What of the Parthians? " said he. 
 
 "They are lions," the Rabbi replied. 
 
 "A hunter kills lions," the emperor rejoined. 
 
 "But not those lions; if they were let loose Rome 
 would tremble," said the Rabbi. 
 
 "I have legions," said Hadrian. 
 
 "They would be swept away as by a whirlwind," 
 was the Rabbi's rejoinder. 
 
 "I '11 call back Severus and the veterans from 
 Britannia," said the emperor. 
 
 "An uncertain force to rely on; they have to 
 cross the seas, and may never see land again," the 
 Rabbi persisted. 
 
 "Why dost thou say all this? " asked the emperor. 
 
 The Rabbi was silent. 
 
 "Speak," commanded Hadrian. 
 
 "I was thinking how weak even a powerful king 
 may be when he faces the elements of nature ; and 
 yet these are but the servants of God." 
 
 "I believe not in thy God ; He hath no form ; He 
 is not tangible ; He hath no power; He hath no ser- 
 vants other than the Hebrews whom Rome hath 
 crushed." 
 
 "Say not so, O caesar; our God is the creator 
 of heaven and earth, and the least of His servants is 
 more powerful than all mortals." 
 
 ' ' But I cannot see Him ; nor canst thou show Him 
 to me." 
 
 "No, I cannot show Him to thee; for no mortal 
 can see Him and live ; but I can show thee His works 
 and His servants and by their greatness judge then 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 137 
 
 of the magnitude of the Lord God of Israel. Look 
 into the sun." 
 
 "I cannot; it hurts the eye," said Hadrian. 
 
 "And thou wouldst look at the Lord, whose ser- 
 vant is the sun? " was the Rabbi's reply. 81 
 
 Rabbi Josua was one of the few who were given 
 the opportunity to speak with royal personages on 
 the questions of that day, and he invariably gained 
 their respect. Hadrian, writing to his wife, speaks 
 in deferential terms of Rabbi Josua, the vice- 
 patriarch of the Hebrews." The relations between 
 Josua and the Roman emperor are told with Ori- 
 ental fancy in the Talmud." It narrates how one 
 day Hadrian asked : 
 
 'What is the duration of a snake's pregnancy? " M 
 
 "Seven years," replied Josua. 
 
 "The wise men of the Roman Academy have 
 found that snakes bring forth after three years," 
 rejoined the emperor. 
 
 "It was because the pregnancy had begun four 
 years before the Roman wise men observed it," was 
 the retort, the meaning of which is clear enough in 
 reference to the Jewish troubles." 
 
 "But the men of the Roman Academy are indeed 
 wise," urged Hadrian. 
 
 'We of Judah are wiser," as proudly said Josua. 
 
 "Then go to Rome," commanded the caesar, 
 "and if thou art wiser conquer them in discussion 
 and bring them to me here." 
 
 "How many members are in the Academy?" 
 queried the Rabbi. 
 
 "Sixty." 
 
138 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "Then give me a ship with sixty cabins and as 
 many chairs in each cabin." 
 
 The remarkable ship was, of course, furnished, and 
 in it Josua sailed to Rome. There a difficulty 
 awaited him. The Academy was a secret society of 
 the most rigorous kind, and even to point out its 
 place of meeting was forbidden to the uninitiated. 
 Josua finally discovered the butcher who carried 
 daily supplies to the immured sages. He found the 
 butcher cutting up a sheep and asked him : 
 Hast thou a head ? ' ' 
 
 "I have," replied the butcher. 
 
 "Is thy head for sale, and for how much?" 
 
 "It is for sale for half a sus. " 
 
 The Rabbi handed over the haU-sus, and the 
 butcher tendered the sheep's head. 
 
 "It is not that I have bought and paid for," said 
 the crafty Rabbi; "it is thy own head. Now if 
 thou wouldst keep it thou must show me the en- 
 trance to the Academy of the Wise." 
 
 "But the guards will slay me if I point it out to 
 thee," said the alarmed butcher. 
 
 "If thou dost not show it to me, thou must sur- 
 render thy head," was the reply. 
 
 However Josua was good enough to spend his 
 wisdom in a solution of this dilemma. 
 
 "You need only take a bundle on your shoulder 
 and lay it down for a moment at the entrance and 
 pass on," he said. 
 
 The butcher agreed and Josua soon stood at the 
 Academy gate. 
 
 The finding the entrance was only the first diffi- 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 1 39 
 
 culty of many. The Roman Academy of the tal- 
 mudic legend was like one of the Arabian fairy 
 palaces. A separate guard stood outside the en- 
 trance and inside the main gates without communi- 
 cation between them. A patrol passed at stated 
 times to see that no visitor left by the entrance, as 
 the outer guards were forbidden to let any out 
 though he might pass them unquestioned going in. 
 The Rabbi was refused admittance at the inner 
 portal, and death would be his doom when the 
 patrol should arrive. He was equal to the occasion. 
 The entrance was covered with fine sand which 
 showed whether any one had passed it to the patrol. 
 Josua had turned his sandals backwards when he 
 passed the outward guard and when repulsed from 
 the gate he walked away with his footgear in its 
 natural position. The patrol arrived while he was 
 hiding within the entrance, and at once decided that 
 two people had passed out, so they immediately 
 executed the guards in the style so common in 
 Oriental legend. Josua, when the patrol had left, 
 walked boldly into the Academy itself. 26 
 
 The Roman sages of the Talmud had a primitive 
 test for outside visitors. The salutation must be 
 addressed in proper form or the head of the rash 
 uninitiated one would be promptly removed. The 
 sages sat in peculiar order. The juniors had the 
 highest seats, to give the impression that they were 
 highest in rank and entitled to the first salute. 
 Josua was not to be so easily fooled. He simply 
 said, "Peace to all here assembled," and so escaped 
 the risk of mistaking the precedence due. 
 
140 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 They recognized his right to retain his head on 
 this, and the spokesman asked who the stranger 
 was and what he wanted. 
 
 "I am a sage from Judea, and I come to learn 
 wisdom of the sages of Rome," answered Josua. 
 
 'We will ask thee some questions to test thy title 
 to be called a sage. 
 
 "I am willing to be tested," said Josua, "but it 
 is only just that there should be reward for wisdom. 
 If you puzzle me, my head is at your disposal, if you 
 fail to puzzle me, you shall all come to my ship to 
 dine there." 
 
 They agreed that the proposal was fair, and the 
 contest of wits began. 
 
 "If a man has been rejected by one woman what 
 will be his thoughts when he woos a woman of higher 
 rank?" was the first question proposed. 
 
 Josua took a hook and tapped the wall of the 
 chamber near the ground, where it was formed of 
 solid marble. He could find no crevice to insert the 
 point. He went above the wainscot to the wall of 
 smaller blocks and found a joint to thrust it in 
 easily. Thereupon he said : 
 
 "The man who did not succeed with one woman 
 thinks he may succeed even with one of higher birth, 
 as she may be intended for him by fate." 
 
 "Will a man, who trusted another without witness 
 and had to use force to get back his money, lend 
 again?" was the second query. 
 
 "A grass seller went to the meadow and cut a 
 bundle of rush grass too large to lift upon his shoul- 
 ders. He went and cut more grass and added it to 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH I41 
 
 the bundle and then waited till a man came and 
 assisted him. Such is the creditor who, failing to 
 properly secure his money with the first debtor, will 
 be more careful with the second, but he will con- 
 tinue to lend money, if that is his business." 
 
 "Tell us lies," was the next order, and Josua 
 gave his fancy rein. 
 
 "We had a mule, which gave birth to a little mule; 
 around its neck we found a document on which was 
 written: 'So and So owes our house one hundred 
 thousand pieces of silver.' " " 
 
 "Can a mule give birth? " they said. 
 
 "You asked me to tell you lies." 
 'When salt putrefies, how can it be cured?" he 
 was asked. 
 
 "By the afterbirth of a mule." 
 
 "But is it possible for a mule to have an after- 
 birth?" 
 
 "As possible as for salt to putrefy." 
 
 "Build a house in the air." 
 
 ' Place enough brick and mortar there and I will 
 build the house." 
 
 'Who can place brick and mortar in the air?" 
 
 "It is easier than to build a house there." 
 'Where is the centre of the universe? " 
 
 "Straight up here where I am pointing my finger." 
 
 "How canst thou prove it?" 
 
 "If you don't believe me, take lines and measure 
 the universe." 
 
 "On yonder meadow is a cistern : bring it hither." 
 
 "Make ropes of bran, and I will haul it hither." 
 
 "That is impossible." 
 
142 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "So is that which you demand." 
 
 " Here are broken millstones : sew them together." 
 
 'Here is a piece of the millstone: twist it into 
 thread and I will do it." 
 
 "But that is impossible." 
 
 "Not any more than your request." 
 
 'With what wouldst thou mow a field where 
 knives grow? " 
 
 "With the horns of asses." 
 
 ' ' Have asses horns ? ' ' 
 
 "Do knives grow on a field? " 
 
 'Here are two eggs, — which is from a white hen 
 and which from a black one? " they asked him. 
 
 'Here are two pieces of cheese, — which is from 
 the milk of a black goat and which is from that of a 
 white one?" he asked in return. 
 
 "How doth the ghost leave, when a chicken dieth 
 in its unbroken shell?" they continued. 
 
 "The same way it entered," he replied. 
 
 "Show us an object which hath not the value of 
 the damage it can do? " 
 
 "Bring hither a bastion." 
 
 ' ' We could not get it into the building, ' ' they said. 
 
 "Take axes and break down the walls, and you 
 will have an object which hath not the value of the 
 damage it will do," he answered. 
 
 The Roman sages gave up the task of puzzling 
 the sharp-witted sage from Judea, and promised to 
 visit his ship, but not in a body. Josua had each 
 visitor shown into one of his sixty cabins and 
 when all were on board he hoisted sail and carried 
 the Roman sages to Alexandria, where he presented 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH I43 
 
 them to Hadrian. The latter, on hearing of the 
 facts, made them over to Josua's disposition as un- 
 worthy of imperial protection after such an intel- 
 lectual defeat. Josua, according to the legend, set 
 them to the job of filling a bottomless cask with 
 water, at which they toiled till their shoulders fell 
 off and they all died. 18 
 
 The sense of superior wisdom entertained by the 
 Jewish people in all their disasters is illustrated well 
 by this strange tale, where Oriental and Western wits 
 are represented as clashing in battle. 
 
 Josua's knowledge of human nature in practical 
 life is illustrated by another anecdote. 
 
 A suspicious-looking individual begged a night's 
 lodging in his house. The Rabbi fed him, as hospi- 
 tality required, and located him for the night in the 
 attic of his house, where some valuables were stored. 
 Though a strict observer of hospitality to strangers, 
 Josua had a favorite maxim, "Think every man a 
 thief till he is proved honest ; but meantime treat 
 him as civilly as the president of the Sanhedrin." 
 He doubted his unknown guest, and when the house- 
 hold was at rest he quietly removed the ladder which 
 led to the attic and then retired. 
 
 The tramp visitor rose in the night and packed as 
 much as he could carry of Josua's household goods; 
 but on stepping through the door he fell and broke 
 his legs. He was found in this condition by the 
 Rabbi, who told him that he was a greater fool than 
 knave. 3 * 
 
 His sense of wit made him tell stories even at his 
 own expense. 
 
144 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "Once," he told, "I met a child who carried a 
 covered platter. 
 
 " 'What is in the platter? ' I inquired. 
 
 " 'If my mother had wanted everybody to know, 
 she would not have covered it,' said the child and 
 walked on. so 
 
 "Another time," said he, "I rode up to a well 
 and, seeing a maiden with a jar of water, begged her 
 for a drink. 
 
 " 'Drink thou, Rabbi, and thine ass also,' said the 
 maiden. 
 
 "When I had drank enough, I said to her: 
 
 " 'Thou hast done like Rebekah at the well.' 
 
 " 'Aye, Rabbi,' said she, 'but thou hast not done 
 as Eliezer, who gave Rebekah costly presents.' " " 
 
 Josua was mystic as well as wit. The Talmud 
 tells of him many wonders. He could deal with 
 wizards in their line as readily as with politicians. 
 
 One day, while taking a bath in the city of Tiberias, 
 a sorcerer, thinking to have some merriment at the 
 Rabbi's expense, cast a spell upon him, and as he 
 tried to leave the bathtub his limbs were paralyzed. 
 He guessed who had caused the trouble, and spoke 
 a few words, when lo, the sorcerer was rooted to the 
 spot where he stood. Then a joke suggested itself 
 to the Rabbi. He withdrew the spell from the 
 sorcerer's right hand and left foot, and as he stood 
 near the door, made him strike each newcomer and 
 kick every one who went out of the bath. The 
 master of the bath tried to eject the troublesome 
 guest ; but neither he nor all his assistants could 
 move the spellbound man from the spot. 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH I45 
 
 "Release me, Rabbi! " cried the sorcerer. 
 
 "Not until thou hast released me," the Rabbi 
 answered. 
 
 Having released each other, the sorcerer entered 
 into conversation with Rabbi Josua. He boasted 
 of the marvellous feats he had performed, and his 
 repute as the greatest of sorcerers. 
 
 "In good sooth," said the Rabbi, "I believe all 
 thy great feats were probably such petty tricks as 
 those exhibited a while ago." 
 
 "I can accomplish as great miracles as Moses," 
 cried the sorcerer angrily. 
 
 Rabbi Josua expressed his desire to witness some 
 of these wonders. Whereupon the sorcerer said : 
 
 "Come to the seaside, and thou shalt see." 
 
 They went to the seaside; there the magician 
 spoke a few words, and the waters receded, and the 
 deep was laid bare. 
 
 "Thou art indeed a sorcerer," said the Rabbi, 
 "but canst thou go down into the deep like Moses? " 
 
 "Aye, and more," replied the sorcerer, and he 
 walked upon the dry bed of the ocean. But Rabbi 
 Josua commanded the spirit of the sea, and the great 
 waters engulfed the sorcerer and drowned him. 3 * 
 
 Once Rabbi Josua and Rabbi Eliezer, travelling 
 together, came to a town where some Hebrews 
 dwelt. One of these they visited and were received 
 with friendliness. While at meat the Rabbis noticed 
 that each dish was taken into a small chamber off 
 the dining-room, and then brought to the table and 
 placed before them. The travellers asked their host 
 the reason. 
 
146 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "It is done, ' ' said he, ' ' in honor of my aged father, 
 who hath vowed not to leave his room until one or 
 more of the sages in Israel shall have entered this 
 house." 
 
 'Tell thy father," said Rabbi Josua, "that sages 
 in Israel are sitting at thy table." 
 
 The host went to his father's room and soon re- 
 turned with the aged man. 
 
 ' ' Rabbis, ' ' cried the old man, ' ' my house is blessed 
 from this day forth, and joy hath come into my heart 
 at beholding you. I shut myself up through grief 
 that my son hath no issue. I prayed long; but the 
 Lord heard not my prayer, and then I vowed not to 
 leave the four walls of my chamber till the Lord sent 
 holy men to my house, and these would I ask to 
 pray for my son, so that the curse of childlessness 
 be removed." 
 
 When Rabbi Josua heard the man's words, he 
 knew that it was the malice of Satan which had 
 afflicted this pious house. He asked for some flax- 
 seed, which he mixed and spoke some cabalistic 
 sentences. Then he said : 
 
 'Thy son hath been bewitched by an old woman 
 in the neighborhood; summon her." 
 
 The witch was summoned, and acknowledged that 
 she had put a spell on the old man's son by means 
 of a twisted hair. 
 
 "Give me the twisted hair," said the Rabbi. 
 
 "I cannot; I threw it into the sea," the witch 
 replied. 
 
 Josua commanded the spirit of the sea to bring 
 him the twisted hair, and, having it, he prayed to 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 147 
 
 the Lord to grant issue to this pious family. The 
 Lord heard the Rabbi's prayer, and the old man 
 lived to see a grandson born unto him who after- 
 wards became a famous Rabbi. 33 
 
 Once, while on a visit to Hadrian, the emperor's 
 daughter asked Rabbi Josua if it was true that the 
 God of the Hebrews was a cabinetmaker, as the 
 psalmist says (Psalm civ., 3). 
 
 "Everything that King David says is true," re- 
 plied the Rabbi. 
 
 "In that case I wish he would make me a spindle," 
 merrily exclaimed the princess. 
 
 "Thy wish, O princess, shall be fulfilled," the 
 Rabbi seriously replied. 
 
 Hardly had he finished the sentence when her 
 body was covered with ulcers. She was pronounced 
 a leper, and was taken to the lepers' asylum outside 
 of the city. There she was given a spindle with 
 which to while away the time. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Rabbi Josua, passing by the 
 asylum, saw the princess at the spindle. 
 
 "How dost thou like the spindle, which our Lord 
 hath given thee? " he asked. 
 
 "I do not like it at all. I wish He would take it 
 back," the poor princess cried. 
 
 "Our God never takes back His gifts," said the 
 Rabbi, and went on. Soon after, however, he 
 healed her, and the princess never again demanded 
 anything in jest from the God of the Hebrews. 34 
 
 Josua's expressions indicate his lovable disposi- 
 tion, his liberal mind, and utter disregard for the 
 cares of life so far as he was personally concerned. 
 
I48 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Long before the wealthy Gamaliel had accorded him 
 the pension which freed him from the necessity of 
 daily toil, 35 Josua used to say: 
 
 "The Giver of Life gives also wherewith to 
 live." 36 
 
 It is worth while to quote a few more of the re- 
 corded sayings of this master in Israel, who by a rare 
 exception enjoyed the respect and good-will of his 
 own people and the Gentiles alike. They breathe a 
 mild and sententious wisdom not bounded by the 
 limits of Judaism or nationality. 
 
 "If a needy man ask alms of thee in the morning, 
 give to him. If he ask again at evening then give 
 
 * > 37 
 
 again. 
 
 "Alms benefit the giver more than the receiver." 88 
 
 "The student who lets his knowledge pass from 
 his mind is like a woman who bears children only 
 to bury them. The student who ceases to study is 
 like the sower who neglects to reap." 8B 
 
 "The Sabbath observance should be twofold: part 
 for divine service, part for lawful recreation of body 
 and mind." 40 
 
 "It is well for a man not to touch a woman las- 
 civiously, but he that will not touch a drowning 
 woman lest he be tempted is a pious fool." " 
 
 This is a sarcasm on the fanatical scrupulousness 
 taught by some Jews of his day, notably a certain 
 class of Pharisees. 
 
 "The just of all nations shall share in the bliss of 
 the future life," is a remarkable expression of Josua's 
 spirit of liberality." 
 
 His relations with the Christians of his time are 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 149 
 
 not directly mentioned in the Talmud, but the tenor 
 of his life leaves every reason to believe that, like 
 Eliezer, Josua was familiar with them and the 
 teachings of Christ. He was by nature reticent and 
 guarded in his public utterances, but the whole 
 course of his policy indicates that he did not share 
 the expectation of a messianic restorer of the king- 
 dom of Israel, so prevalent among his countrymen 
 at the time. He kept aloof from the national con- 
 spiracies which resulted in the rising of Bar Kochba, 
 and did not go near the Academy." He freely 
 warned his people of their folly and danger. Though 
 he enjoyed the favor of Hadrian, the Roman em- 
 peror, when the project of rebuilding the Jewish 
 Temple was agitated he never seems to have urged 
 the proposed restoration. The Talmud has no hint 
 of any such action of his in any of its numerous 
 references to Josua. His mind had a broader grasp 
 than the limits of Palestine. He looked forward to 
 the spread of the moral and religious principles of 
 the law among the outside nations as the develop- 
 ment of the Jewish race. With that object he urged 
 the maintenance of peace on his people, and he gave 
 his most earnest efforts to the task of conciliating 
 the good-will of the learned and powerful among the 
 Romans to Judaic law and wisdom. 
 
 Though he discouraged the wild outburst of na- 
 tional spirit which after his death ended in the final 
 rebellion of Bar Kochba, his patriotism was recog- 
 nized by even the fanatical revolutionists. All the 
 Jewish factions trusted implicitly in his honesty 
 of purpose and freely used his influence with the 
 
150 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Roman rulers to obtain protection from oppression at 
 home. He never used that influence for merely per- 
 sonal profit or betrayed the confidence of his country- 
 men by sacrificing their real interests to those of their 
 foreign masters. Hence the respect with which all 
 the talmudic writers speak of Josua even when they 
 did not agree with his sentiments towards the Chris- 
 tians. "Who knows what evil the Christians may 
 yet bring on us," is the cry of a talmudic writer." 4 
 
 Josua kept the even tenor of his way, unmoved 
 by the outbursts of fierce patriotism. "Forbearance 
 is better than daring, ' ' was a favorite maxim of his 
 in those troubled times. He sympathized with the 
 teachings of the Nazarene, and his influence was used 
 for the protection of Christians as well as his other 
 countrymen. In the Talmud we find evidence of a 
 remarkable friendly intercourse between some of the 
 Rabbis of the Sanhedrin and the followers of Christ, 
 which seems to have been due to the influence of 
 Josua. The public discussion of the fulfilment of 
 the messianic prophecies, which had been common 
 and bitter at a former period, gradually ceased when 
 his influence became predominant in Palestine. A 
 large body, even of those Jews who refused to ac- 
 cept Jesus as the promised Messiah, considered the 
 difference between themselves and the Christians on 
 that point not a vital one. There was little of the 
 fierce hatred which developed in later ages. Even a 
 hundred years later Jews and Christians mingled on 
 friendly terms in Palestine. Rabbi Judah the Prince 
 entertained a Christian guest at his table. 
 
 "Wilt thou say grace according to Jewish fashion?" 
 
RABBI JOSUA BEN HANANIAH 1 5 I 
 
 he asked him, "or wilt thou receive forty shekels?" 
 The Christian readily agreed to say grace as a com- 
 pliment to his host. 46 
 
 Josua lived to an advanced age. He saw the 
 burial of his friends Eliezer and Gamaliel II. the 
 president of the Sanhedrin, before he was gathered 
 to his fathers. At his death, though he had kept 
 aloof from the society of the Rabbis of the national- 
 ist school," it was felt that a light was extinguished 
 in Israel. As the Talmud pithily puts it, "Wise 
 counsel died with Josua." 47 Scarcely was he in the 
 grave when the great rebellion broke out which, 
 after temporary success, ruined the national exist- 
 ence of his people. Of that movement the guiding 
 spirit was one not of Jewish blood, — the famous 
 Akibah. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 RABBI AKIBAH 
 
 IN the last desperate struggle of the Jewish people 
 to establish an independent national existence, 
 the central figure is Rabbi Akibah. He it was that 
 called from obscurity the military leader, Bar Kochba, 
 who for a time was hailed as the very Messiah. In 
 him the political wisdom of Ben Zakkai was blended 
 with the mysticism of Ben Dosa, and with a patriotic 
 ardor all his own. He was great among the greatest 
 doctors of the law, as well as a political leader who 
 swayed the popular masses by the power of his word, 
 and led them on through a two-years struggle with 
 the might of the Roman empire such as has hardly 
 a parallel in history. 
 
 In spite of his fervid Jewish patriotism, the famous 
 Rabbi was not of Jewish race. Elazar ben Azariah, 
 the assistant president of the Sanhedrin, spoke of this 
 in a eulogy which he pronounced on him. 
 
 "The sages of Israel are but garlic peelings to me 
 except this bald head, Akibah ben Joseph, whose 
 father was a proselyte of righteousness." 
 
 The pride of race so deeprooted in the Jewish 
 people makes this testimony to the abilities of Akibah 
 very remarkable in the mouth of Elazar. 
 
 152 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 153 
 
 His foreign origin was not the only difficulty 
 which Akibah had to struggle with in his path to 
 the eminence he at last attained. He began life as 
 a herder of cattle, an unlettered peasant who, as he 
 said of himself, "would bite a scholar like a snake if 
 he met one." 3 He was forty years old before he 
 conceived the thought of any higher career in life. 
 His inspiration came in a romantic way. Rachel, 
 the daughter of his employer, Calba Sebuah, fell in 
 love with the handsome herdsman. Her father's 
 wealth placed him among the foremost of his nation. 
 The Talmud says, in its usual florid style, that he 
 could feed all Palestine for ten years from his stores. 
 His daughter's attachment to her father's servant 
 made her urge him to enter the schools of the law 
 as the easiest road to success in life. 
 
 An incident determined the mind of Akibah to a 
 life of study. The legend makes him tell it. 'My 
 becoming a learned man began thus," he said. 
 "One day I found a corpse in the fields. I took it 
 up and carried it to the burying-ground, where I 
 interred it. Some days later I met the great Rabbis 
 Ben Hyrkanos and Josua. I told them what I had 
 done for the body. They told me that in carrying 
 that body I had broken the law as grievously as if I 
 had shed human blood, since it is of precept that 
 wherever a body is found deserted there it should be 
 interred. I said to myself, if I had sinned so griev- 
 ously through ignorance when I thought to do good, 
 how much more grievously must I have sinned at 
 other times when I had no good intentions. And from 
 that moment I resolved to be a student of the law." 
 
154 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Rachel, however, was the active cause of Akibah's 
 new career. She engaged to wed him if he would 
 promise to enter the school of Eliezer, who had 
 been, like Akibah, unlettered till advanced in life, 
 but was then a master in Israel. Her father had 
 other designs in view for his daughter, and he drove 
 her from his house when he learned of this engage- 
 ment." Rachel then married Akibah legally and 
 shared his cabin and bed of straw. 6 Even food was 
 often lacking to the couple, and Rachel cut off her 
 hair on one occasion to buy bread for their support. 8 
 Akibah appreciated his wife's devotion and cried 
 out in transport, "I will yet buy thee a golden city 
 for this when I am wealthy, as I shall be." 7 
 
 He finally entered the school of Eliezer as she 
 had asked him to do." Rachel accepted the separa- 
 tion gladly for the sake of the future greatness which 
 she anticipated with prophetic eye for her loved 
 husband. 
 
 Akibah's experience in the school which he entered 
 at so advanced an age was no easy one. Eliezer was 
 a stern master, and he sometimes sneered at the task 
 which Akibah had undertaken. 
 
 "Thou wouldst be a famous man," he told him 
 once, "and thou mayest, but as yet thou hast not 
 shown brains to make a cowherd." 
 
 "No, not even a good shepherd," answered the 
 disciple humbly, and his answer mollified the mas- 
 ter's severity. 9 
 
 He retained a remarkable modesty regarding him- 
 self long after he had became famous in the Sanhed- 
 rim Eliezer, in his pride of intellect, once said : 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 155 
 
 "Were all men writers, with the ocean for ink, all 
 reeds pens, and all heaven and earth for parchment, 
 they could not write out all that I know of the law, 
 yet I only know of the law as much as a man might 
 take of water from the ocean on a needle-point." 
 
 "I cannot say so much of myself," Akibah mod- 
 estly replied, "I have gained but such knowledge of 
 the law as one gains of a Paradise-apple when he 
 inhales its perfume, or of a lamp when he lights a 
 candle from its blaze." 10 
 
 His abilities, however, soon attracted notice among 
 his fellow-students in Eliezer's school. He was 
 recognized as a master and followed by disciples 
 while yet a student. One day, when the hall was 
 crowded with debaters, Akibah could not enter for 
 the throng. A strictly legal question was raised and 
 debated, but though the master Eliezer presided, 
 the students would not hear a decision in Akibah's 
 absence. "Legal lore is without," was the general 
 cry, and Eliezer had to pass to another subject, this 
 time of Holy Writ. "Scripture lore, too, is with- 
 out," was proclaimed, and, on a third point being 
 proposed, all united in bringing Akibah in with 
 triumph and seating him beside Eliezer." 
 
 The admiration thus shown for Akibah's talent 
 was well deserved. His powers of analysis explained 
 the whole mass of Scripture lore with a fulness and 
 clearness beyond that of the most famous masters. 
 He classified the traditions of the past, drew laws 
 from them, and found new hidden meanings in every 
 phrase. In Eastern hyperbole the rabbinical writers 
 tell that when Moses entered heaven he saw the 
 
156 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Lord crowning the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, 
 and when he reverently asked for whom this work 
 was being done," the Lord replied: 
 
 "Hereafter a man will exist by name Akibah the 
 son of Joseph, who will draw countless laws from 
 every dot of these letters." 13 
 
 Another and more fanciful legend tells how the 
 first father, Adam, was shown by the Lord all the 
 coming generations of man and the leaders among 
 them. When Akibah was shown to him, Adam re- 
 joiced to see one so learned, but he grieved for the 
 sore death that was to befall him.' 4 Such legends 
 show the high estimate placed on the mental powers 
 of Akibah by his contemporaries. The lore of ages 
 of Judaism found in him its best exponent in the 
 judgment of his fellows. 
 
 When Akibah found himself thus honored by his 
 associates in Eliezer's school, he thought of his 
 faithful wife and determined to visit her. With the 
 development of his intellectual powers he could ap- 
 preciate more justly the sacrifice she had made for 
 him when only a hired shepherd, and he resolved to 
 repay it abundantly. He was already himself a 
 lecturer whom crowds of the most ardent young men 
 followed, as later the French students of Brittany 
 followed Abelard. He invited them to accompany 
 him on an excursion into the country, to the vil- 
 lage where Rachel dwelt in obscurity. A crowd 
 of disciples I6 followed his steps, eager to profit by 
 the lessons he gave them on the way, and to 
 show him honor. When he drew near the hamlet 
 where his wife dwelt, Akibah bade his followers 
 
RABBI AKIBAH I 57 
 
 stop while he went on alone to his wife's humble 
 dwelling. 
 
 Rachel's lot had been a specially hard one since 
 her husband's departure for Jerusalem. Her father 
 had offered to receive her back to his home if she 
 would forever renounce her coarse peasant husband, 
 but the faithful Rachel refused that condition. She 
 continued to live in the cabin where Akibah had left 
 her, supporting herself by daily toil among the 
 peasant women of the village. She mixed but little 
 in their daily gossip, and many regarded her reserve 
 as pride. They delighted to insult the high-born 
 lady who had been reduced to their own poor con- 
 dition. They called her "a living widow," and 
 taunted her with what they called her desertion by 
 her husband. Rachel bore it all in her strong faith 
 in Akibah 's future eminence, and when from time to 
 time news reached her of the fame he was winning 
 in the distant city, she forgot every suffering for joy. 
 She had not heard of his approach to her dwelling, 
 when he came with his disciples. 
 
 It was dusk when Akibah approached the cot- 
 tage of his wife. When he entered its inclosure he 
 paused for a while. Then a harsh voice from within 
 grated on his ear. It was a neighbor's, who had 
 come to pay a visit to Rachel in no friendly spirit. 
 
 'Thou art proud, Rachel, and thinkest thyself 
 better than the rest of us villagers," said the visitor 
 as Akibah listened. 
 
 "Not their better," was the reply, "but I am the 
 wife of Akibah, and my lord is a master in Israel." 
 
 "Akibah's wife!" said a man's voice ironically; 
 
158 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ' ' Akibah's wife, cursed by her father ; Akibah's wife, 
 a beggar. 
 
 "I am rich beyond measure in my husband's love," 
 said Rachel. "His glory is mine." 
 
 ' ' Love and glory indeed ! Thy husband hath aban- 
 doned thee ; thou art only a living widow ; he hath 
 been years away, — where is his love?" came the 
 female voice. 
 
 ' ' I fear not. My husband hath been away for years 
 to study the divine Law. He will come when the 
 time is fit. Who am I to hinder his studies? Let 
 him study ; even if twelve years more are needed to 
 finish his work let him stay twelve years. Love is 
 strong : it lasteth. It endureth forever," was Rachel's 
 answer. 18 
 
 Akibah was about to enter and confound the ma- 
 levolent neighbors, but a consideration entered his 
 mind. "If I go in," he said, "I shall not be able 
 to part again from my wife for any motive; yet 
 my work is not done. I am but a scholar yet. 
 When I become of the Sanhedrin of Israel I shall 
 return never more to separate from her. Till then I 
 shall remember thy words, O wife ; for, verily, great 
 is thy merit, and it shall be made greater by the 
 knowledge I shall acquire. Back I go, then, to fur- 
 ther work and study that I may be worthy of thee, 
 Rachel." 
 
 With this apostrophe Akibah stole away from the 
 cottage, went back to his waiting disciples, and re- 
 turned with them to the Academy. His mind was 
 made up for a wider range of studies than those of 
 his master Eliezer. In the national ferment then 
 
RABBI AKIBAH I 59 
 
 prevalent, new schools, both political and religious, 
 had sprung up in Judea. The traditional school of 
 Hillel was still in possession of the Sanhedrin and 
 recognized as the orthodox learning. There were 
 other masters, however, men of a new learning, 
 who without rejecting the received doctrines added 
 to them new studies and methods of interpretation. 
 Politics were also involved in the scholastic questions 
 of the time. The older Rabbis, who dominated the 
 great colleges, were afraid of any resistance to the 
 Roman power, of which they had so terrible an ex- 
 perience in the days of Titus. The younger genera- 
 tion of students chafed under the foreign rule and 
 hoped that they would yet be strong enough to re- 
 store the independence of Israel by armed force. 
 The messianic leader, it was expected by many, 
 would soon arise to crush the legions and restore 
 both the Temple and the throne of David. Mys- 
 ticism was mingled to a large extent with the patri- 
 otic aspirations for self-government and possibly a 
 world-wide Jewish empire. 
 
 The student element of this patriotic party 
 gathered itself around a famous doctor then in 
 Jerusalem, Nahum of Gamsu. 17 He was distin- 
 guished as a scholar. He had introduced a new 
 system of interpretation which met with high ap- 
 proval from the learned and drew crowds to his 
 lectures. None were admitted but such as were 
 already familiar with the received interpretations of 
 the law. Nahum's teaching was for advanced 
 scholars. He discussed recent decisions according 
 to a system devised by his own ingenuity, which 
 
l6o JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 found new meanings in the sacred text by certain 
 rules of interpretation. Indeed, he was a mystic of 
 the school of Ben Dosa, 1 ' as well as a scholar, and 
 moreover he was devoted to the plans of the party 
 among the nation then plotting an insurrection 
 against the Roman rule. His teaching was mainly 
 directed to strengthening the patriotism of his 
 scholars and nerving their minds for a struggle of 
 life and death in behalf of the independence of his 
 native land. A fatalist in belief, his favorite maxim 
 was, "Gam zu letobah" (This, too, is for the best). 18 
 With this remark he faced every misfortune stoic- 
 ally, and he endeavored to instil the same spirit 
 into the young men who followed his lectures. He 
 hated Rome with a mighty hate. The submissive 
 course of the Rabbis of Hillel's school was repugnant 
 to his nature. He would have no intercourse with 
 the heathen, he would not admit Roman customs 
 nor dress to use in Judea, nor would he court the 
 favor of Roman governors by flattery. He was a 
 Hebrew of the Hebrews, and he was ready to give 
 his life for his people. He impressed upon his dis- 
 ciples the importance of maintaining the spirit of 
 union among themselves as a means of preventing 
 the fall of the House of Israel. He bade them avoid 
 everything Roman. Rome, he said, has blinded your 
 eyes that you should not see your true interests; 
 she has cut off your hands that you may not defend 
 yourselves, and your feet so that you can seek no 
 alliances abroad among her foes; but so long as dis- 
 sension does not reign among yourselves she cannot 
 crush you. 
 
RABBI AKIBAH l6l 
 
 A legend expresses this teaching of Nahum. Ac- 
 cording to the Talmud the famous master himself 
 was blind, crippled, and without hands, and more- 
 over his body was covered with ulcers, a punishment 
 for the tardy attention he accorded a man he found 
 starving on the highway, and who died ere the 
 Rabbi reached him. Nahum looked upon the dis- 
 ease that soon after robbed him of sight and the 
 use of his limbs as a retribution sent by heaven to 
 punish him for his guilt. 20 He lived in a hut whose 
 walls threatened hourly to collapse and which was 
 overrun with insects so that the feet of his bedstead 
 stood in pails of water to keep the ants from devour- 
 ing the invalid. His pupils at last got his consent 
 to remove him to a better dwelling. 
 
 "My children," said he, "remove everything first ; 
 the house will stand while I am in it." 
 
 The disciples obeyed, and hardly had they carried 
 the bed-ridden Nahum out when the house fell with 
 a crash. They then saw that it was his sanctity 
 alone that kept the walls standing. In like manner 
 the known rottenness of the temporal government 
 of the Jews was checked by the spirit of patriotism 
 kept alive by Nahum in his people. They might 
 be blind, crippled, and without hands for defence, 
 but a higher power still kept their tottering national 
 government intact as by a miracle. 
 
 To Nahum's school Akibah joined himself after 
 his visit to Rachel's cottage. He seemed to have 
 then definitely conceived the plan of combining all 
 the forces, moral, intellectual, and material, of his 
 countrymen for a new struggle against the Roman 
 
l62 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 power. To that end he would make himself equally 
 at home in every school of Jewish thought. The 
 mystic Nahum became his master after the prudent 
 Eliezer. He afterwards frequented the schools of 
 other famous Rabbis, of Josua, of Gamaliel II., and 
 in all his learning was fully recognized." 1 
 
 He pushed his studies outside the Jewish law and 
 traditions. He studied the doctrines of the Gnos- 
 tics, the rites of the heathen nations, and their ways 
 of life. Soon his name became famous as a prodigy 
 of learning through Palestine. He now fulfilled his 
 promise and returned to his wife Rachel to have 
 her share the benefits of the exalted position he had 
 gained. The crowd that gathered around the popu- 
 lar hero in the village was so dense that Rachel could 
 not get through it when she tried. A man was 
 pushing her back when Akibah saw him and stayed 
 his hand. 
 
 "Lay not a hand on her," he said, "for all that I 
 am and all that you are through me is due to this 
 woman." aa 
 
 Another joy was in store for the former shep- 
 herd. Calba Sebuah, Rachel's father, in his first 
 anger at her marriage, had made a solemn vow never 
 to receive the low-born husband into his house. He 
 had later repented of his promise, and especially 
 when his daughter refused to return to him unless 
 in company with her chosen partner. But a vow 
 must be kept if once made, unless dispensed by the 
 authority of the religious teachers of Judah. Calba 
 resolved to seek this dispensation, and when word 
 came to him that a great, even one of the greatest, 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 163 
 
 doctors of the law had arrived at his village Calba 
 went to seek him." He was admitted, told his case 
 and asked the aid of the Rabbi. 
 
 "Didst thou vow against Akibah?' asked he 
 calmly. 
 
 'Yes, Master, even against the man who married 
 my child against my will ; but he is gone and I de- 
 sire my child's welfare." 
 
 ' Knowest thou what hath become of Abikah? " 
 'I do not; but a father's anger passeth. I for- 
 give even him," was the answer. 
 
 "Forgiveness is a great merit. Mercy to others 
 is God's command. Thou shalt find reward because 
 thou hast shown mercy. Know, now, that I am he 
 against whom thy wrath was kindled and thy vow 
 made; I am Abikah." 
 
 The father fell down and kissed the master's feet. 
 
 "Forgive me thou," he said; "forgive a father 
 whose pride was greater than his love for his child." 
 
 Akibah raised the old man and assured him that 
 he was forgiven. 
 
 "Whatever the Merciful doth is for the best," he 
 repeated, and the reconciliation was complete. 
 
 Calba took Akibah and his daughter to his home. 
 He shared his vast possessions with them. He had 
 lands and money and richly laden ships, and of all he 
 gave a half to the master in Israel who had wedded 
 his child." 
 
 The wealth of Calba Sebuah insured the posi- 
 tion of Akibah in the Jewish commonwealth as it 
 still existed under the Roman rule. Then as now 
 wealth played a greater part in political success than 
 
164 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 mere learning or personal merit. The son-in-law of 
 Calba was called to a seat in the national council 
 under the presidency of the second Gamaliel. The 
 policy of the Roman emperors left the subject na- 
 tions a large amount of self-government, especially 
 in the Eastern provinces. Though the authority of 
 the Roman governors was supreme in Palestine, the 
 Jewish people continued to be ruled by their own 
 law and its recognized exponents in the matters of 
 daily life. As a member of the Sanhedrin the former 
 shepherd was now a ruler and judge as well as a 
 public teacher. He showed himself equally capable 
 in those practical functions as he had in the debates 
 of the schools. He struck out a course of action for 
 himself as a judge, based rather on broad general 
 principles than on the technicalities which were 
 prevalent in the Jewish courts of his day. A cele- 
 brated Rabbi, Tarphon, was frequently in collision 
 with Akibah's decisions, and some curious instances 
 are told in the Talmud. On one occasion a man 
 had promised to marry one of five sisters, but could 
 not make up his mind as to which. Each of the 
 five demanded the dower which by Jewish law 
 should be paid for breach of promise of marriage. 
 The rival judges gave opinions on the case.' 6 Rabbi 
 Tarphon decided that the recreant suitor should 
 formally release all the prospective brides from en- 
 gagement and leave the dower to be divided between 
 them. Akibah required him to pay the full dower 
 to each." 
 
 Another time a man was brought before him who 
 had sent his wife away but refused to pay her more 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 165 
 
 than half of the dower he had settled on her at mar- 
 riage. He claimed that his whole living was only 
 equal to that amount, and that by another law she 
 was only entitled to half his possessions. Akibah 
 settled the claim shortly. 
 
 "Thou must pay to the full what thou didst 
 promise, though thou hadst to sell the hair of thy 
 head to pay." 
 
 The husband decided to hold on to both wife and 
 property, and divorce was stopped." 
 
 Though the law as laid down provided a definite 
 fine (four hundred sus) for personal insults offered, 
 it had become customary in the rabbinical courts 
 to grade the fine according to the rank of the parties. 
 Akibah held that in the administration of justice all 
 children of Abraham should be held equal, and that 
 penalties for personal offences should not depend on 
 rank or wealth. 
 
 A decision recorded of Akibah 's is worth recalling 
 as an illustration of the customs of the time in Pales- 
 tine. A man had a quarrel with a woman, and in it 
 he pulled off the veil which covered her head. By 
 the law this was an insult of the grossest kind, and 
 punishable with a fine of four hundred pence (sus). 
 Five insults were thus classified as equal, namely, to 
 pull a man's hair or ear, to tear off his coat, or spit 
 in his face.'* Akibah heard the complaint and gave 
 judgment for the legal damages. The defendant 
 pleaded for time, and then concocted a scheme to 
 evade judgment. He employed a man to drop a jar 
 of oil near the woman as she passed in the street. 
 The bait took, and she lifted the veil from her head 
 
l66 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 to anoint her hair with the oil. A witness immedi- 
 ately reported the occurrence and charged her with 
 infamy on the ground that a woman was forbidden 
 to unveil herself in public. As in other Eastern 
 countries this was held an act of gross indecency, 
 and the defendant used it as an argument that she 
 must be a person of bad character and not entitled 
 to the damages already adjudged her. Akibah re- 
 fused this conclusion and renewed his decision 
 emphatically. 29 
 
 Akibah's maxims fill a large space in the Talmud 
 legend. They are terse and lofty in tone, and in 
 keeping with the tenor of his life. 
 
 "Levity and jesting lead to lewdness." sn 
 
 "Strictly attend to the exact words in Holy Writ. 
 They are safeguards of the law." 
 
 "Charity is the safeguard of riches." 
 
 "Silence is the safeguard of wisdom." 
 
 "Pledges of temperance are the guard of temper- 
 ance." 
 
 "Great is man's privilege that he has been made 
 in God's image, but greater is the privilege to know 
 this." 
 
 "Israel is blessed in that he is the Lord's child, 
 but more blessed in his knowledge that he is such." 
 
 "Israel is honored by possession of the Jewel of 
 the law; but more honored in being allowed to 
 know the value of that Jewel." 
 
 " The Lord knoweth all, yet man's will is free to 
 act." 
 
 "The world is ruled with love, yet that love is 
 according to man's work and good-will. 31 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 167 
 
 "Everything man hath is but a loan." 
 
 "Wealth passeth away." 
 
 "A net is spread over all that liveth," that is, 
 man is held by invisible bonds of fate. 33 
 
 This axiom is in accordance with the fatalism so 
 marked in other utterances of Akibah. His sum- 
 mary of human life and its many temptations and 
 trials is in true Oriental style. 
 
 'The market is open; good and evil are spread 
 before man. The merchant offers credit — so sin 
 offers temptation. The account book is open and 
 the hand writes down the debts, but the collectors 
 follow day by day, and they take payment whether 
 the debtor will or not, for the collectors fail not in 
 their work — so sin writes its account on body and 
 soul. After debauch cometh suffering and pain. 
 Merciless devils torture the sinner. He has enjoyed 
 his sin, he must pay for his enjoyment. The last 
 verdict is that of Truth, and everything must appear 
 when God comes to judge." 3S 
 
 That a shepherd of foreign race should have be- 
 come a ruler and judge in the Jewish commonwealth 
 by sheer mental power was a remarkable fact, but 
 it did not satisfy the ambition of Akibah. When 
 his master Eliezer said that Akibah wished to be 
 world-famous he unconsciously divined the secret 
 aspirations of the shepherd student. Akibah was 
 not content with being a foremost man among his 
 own people. He aspired to absolute rule, and to 
 an authority equal or superior to that of the Ro- 
 man emperor himself. Though the Hebrews had 
 bent to the power of Rome they still thirsted for 
 
l68 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 independence. In their hearts they believed them- 
 selves superior to their heathen masters. As the de- 
 positaries of the divine revelation, the chosen people 
 of the Almighty, they thought themselves by natural 
 right the first among mankind. They chafed under 
 the haughty rule of the foreigner. Akibah shared 
 the popular feeling in this respect. What was more, 
 he believed it possible to win national independence 
 even from the mighty Empire. He shared the be- 
 lief in the superiority of the Jewish race, but his be- 
 lief was of a material kind. That Jewish intellect 
 was more subtle; that Jewish patriotism was stronger 
 than Roman ; that Jewish valor could overcome the 
 disciplined Roman legions, if well directed, were all 
 beliefs with Akibah. He devoted himself to organize 
 the Jewish nation for a new struggle with the same 
 persevering energy he had shown in winning his 
 way from the plough to the Sanhedrin at middle 
 life. He would restore not only the independence 
 of his people, but would found a Jewish empire. 
 His conception of the future of his race was an em- 
 pire such as, five centuries later, was actually realized 
 by an Arab camel-driver. Akibah may in many re- 
 spects be compared to Mohammed, though the re- 
 sult of his enterprise was so different for his people 
 and himself. He, as well as Mohammed, was in- 
 fluenced by his Jewish mother, and the man he 
 afterwards brought forth to lead his people against 
 the Romans was of Jewish blood only on his mother's 
 side. Mohammed proclaimed himself the Prophet 
 of Allah : even so Akibah assumed but the dig- 
 nity of forerunner of the Messiah he would give 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 1 69 
 
 to his people for the realization of his dreams of 
 empire. 
 
 His entrance in the Sanhedrin was, then, only a 
 step to a mightier task. He gave himself up to it 
 entirely. He fanned the religious fervor of his na- 
 tion as a powerful stimulus to the political struggle 
 he planned. He encouraged the national discontent 
 with Roman rule by constant secret lessons. He 
 strengthened the influence of the Sanhedrin as a 
 means of preserving unity in the nation. For that 
 end he sacrificed his former master, Eliezer, when 
 the latter refused on principle to accept the vote of 
 the majority as the supreme law. He carried the 
 decree of excommunication to Eliezer personally, 
 and thus endeavored to secure the good-will of the 
 fallen teacher. He also succeeded in impressing his 
 colleagues in the Sanhedrin with a fear of his in- 
 fluence and ability, which kept the majority from 
 any direct condemnation of his revolutionary pro- 
 jects even if they did not approve them openly. 
 
 He built up his reputation among the doctors as a 
 means of influencing the people. He was the first 
 to reduce to system the mass of legal decisions which 
 formed the' 'oral law " of the Rabbis. 34 He arranged 
 and methodized the AgadaJi, that important part of 
 Hebrew literature of which the style is reflected in 
 the writings of Paul of Tarsus. He was almost 
 another Ezra in reforming the law." 
 
 His attention was even given to the hidden sciences 
 of magic and kindred subjects in favor among his 
 countrymen. The students of the Cabalah believed 
 they could find the secrets of nature in the mystic 
 
170 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 construction of the Tetragrammaton, and many stu- 
 dents lost their reason or their belief in the mazes 
 of the study of magic. Akibah seems to have dipped 
 into them as a part of his task of swaying the popu- 
 lace against Rome. The Talmud figuratively tells 
 that four men were boldest in their exploration of 
 the mystic pardes or paradise. 36 Ben Azzai looked 
 in and then died ; Ben Zoma looked and straightway 
 became mad ; Acher looked and he destroyed the 
 planets (became an atheist) ; Akibah looked and 
 went away in peace. 37 This seems to refer to some 
 actual occurrence in the life of one or all of the four 
 men named, but Akibah's record is the most im- 
 portant as a testimony to public belief in his regard. 
 
 It was not to study, however, that Akibah de- 
 voted himself mainly. His political projects called 
 for active work, and the wealth of his father-in-law 
 was used freely in the propaganda of the Jewish 
 revolution. He travelled through many lands, and 
 everywhere enlisted adherents and collected abun- 
 dant funds through the Jews of those and other 
 lands. In Palestine he supported numerous poor 
 scholars who became his devoted agents. Foremost 
 among his assistants were the great Rabbi Mair and 
 the stern Simon ben Yohai. The mild Josua op- 
 posed the projects of Akibah and during his life 
 prevented the outbreak of the rebellion, 38 but the 
 propaganda went on through the tireless energy of 
 Akibah. 
 
 That it needed no common energy to rouse the 
 men of Judea to another struggle with Rome is 
 shown by the Talmud narrative. 38 It runs thus: 
 
RABBI AKIBAH I/I 
 
 "Rabbi Akibah once came to a town 40 and asked 
 hospitality. He was refused churlishly and had to 
 sleep in the fields outside. Now Akibah, when he 
 travelled, always had with him a lantern and a cock, 
 so that he might read in the inns by the lantern- 
 light, and be awakened for his early prayers by the 
 cry of the cock. When in the field this night he 
 lighted his lantern, tethered his mule, placed the 
 cock in another place, and lay down to rest. While 
 he slept the wind blew down the lantern, a lynx 
 killed the bird, and later a lion came and killed the 
 mule. The Rabbi woke in the morning and saw the 
 wreck. 'Whatever the Merciful hath done is for 
 the best,' was his only comment. 41 
 
 "Now during the night a band of marauding sol- 
 diers came through the town and plundered it. The 
 Rabbi came there on the morrow and saw death and 
 ruin all around. The few survivors lamented their 
 fate bitterly. 
 
 " 'I told you,' said Akibah, 'whatever the Merci- 
 ful doth is for the best. Yesterday you would not 
 receive me nor listen to my words : you thought I 
 slandered the Romans, and that they were friends 
 who would secure you peace and protection. You 
 see now what Roman friendship is and the folly of 
 your belief. Safety can only come to the people 
 when it rises in its strength against the enemy of the 
 Lord.' "" 
 
 This story describes what must have been a com- 
 mon experience of the reception given to Akibah 
 during the years of his propaganda of revolution 
 among the Jewish community of Palestine. 
 
172 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Akibah did not confine his efforts to his native 
 land. With the wealth of Calba at his disposal he 
 began a series of travels through Asia Minor, Baby- 
 lonia, Arabia, and Africa, to incite the scattered 
 branches of the Jewish race in his propaganda, and 
 to secure allies among other races against the com- 
 mon Roman foe. Though Akibah exerted himself 
 to stir up the enthusiasm of his people by appeals 
 to their religious feelings, he had no scruple in 
 uniting in alliance with the outside heathen for 
 political ends. Neither did he refuse to adopt such 
 of the customs of other races as he deemed better 
 than those of Judea. When Jewish zealots of the 
 strict observance blamed his alliance with the heathen 
 Persians, he replied : 
 
 'The sun and moon are God's creatures. If man 
 be unwise enough to worship them, it is to God he 
 will answer. God will not destroy nature's works 
 to keep man from sinning by their abuse." 
 
 His teaching, "If a man's belief be right and one 
 despise him for it, he offends God, who knoweth 
 what belief is right," is certainly unlike what one 
 would expect from a strict adherent of the Jewish 
 law. 43 He himself certainly did not despise the 
 heathens nor even their worship. When at times 
 Jews came to tell him of prodigies and cures wrought 
 by idols, he only answered that the supposed cures 
 were merely accidental, and spoke little against 
 idolatry itself. 44 He recommended three customs 
 of the Medes, whom he had visited on his travels, 
 to his own countrymen. One was to sit on seats 
 at table instead of on the ground ; another, to kiss 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 173 
 
 only on the hand instead of on the lips, and a third, 
 that of holding all political meetings in the fields, as 
 walls have ears." 
 
 A nobler teaching was that which he gave to some 
 Jews of his time who held that the truth and honesty 
 required by the Mosaic Law were only binding in 
 intercourse with their own countrymen. 
 
 "It is equally wrong to deceive a heathen as to 
 deceive a Jew." 4B He also laid down that 'Love 
 thy neighbour as thyself,' is the root and completion 
 of the Law." 
 
 Akibah's liberality in ethics, however, did not ex- 
 tend to the Roman rulers. His work against them was 
 indefatigable, and carried out in a manner not unlike 
 that of the Young Italy of Mazzini in our own time. 
 His propaganda began under the reign of Trajan. 
 That emperor's Eastern campaigns filled Asia, and 
 especially Syria, with the soldiers of Rome and made 
 the work of preparation for a Jewish insurrection all 
 the more hard. Still it went on and with marvel- 
 lous secrecy. An outbreak prematurely made in 
 the year 115 by the leaders known as Julianus and 
 Pappus was put down with such ease that the rulers 
 of Rome regarded the allegiance of the Jews to the 
 Empire as secure. On one occasion an army of Jews 
 gathered in the valley of Rimmon to begin a rebellion. 
 Rabbi Josua came to dissuade them from what he 
 deemed madness. It had been rumored that the 
 Roman government proposed to rebuild the Temple 
 on another site, which in the mind of every true Jew 
 would be a sacrilege. Josua told them to be glad 
 no worse evil was threatened. A stork that has had 
 
1/4 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 its head in the mouth of a lion should be more glad 
 to tell the story than anxious to avenge the insult, 
 was his sharp remark which did for the time avert 
 the insurrection. 47 
 
 The accession of Hadrian and his abandonment 
 of Trajan's late conquests gave promise of better 
 times to the Jews under Roman dominion. Hadrian 
 showed favor to some Rabbis; he pardoned Julianus 
 and Pappus, and he began to rebuild Jerusalem as 
 a Roman city under the name of yElia Capitolina. 
 He even spoke of restoring the Temple for a while, 
 and the partisans of Rome were full of joy at the 
 success which seemed to have attended their policy 
 of submission. Not so Akibah, who never desisted 
 from his revolutionary schemes, though he veiled 
 them so carefully as to deceive the watchful Hadrian. 
 The latter thought he had secured peace by his 
 treaty with the Parthians. He had medals struck 
 with the inscription "Tellus Stabilita" (the world is 
 settled), and he began a personal tour of his vast 
 dominions at the moment when Judea was preparing 
 to rise again in arms. Hadrian, when in Palestine in 
 130, saw nothing to indicate the vast plot devised 
 by Akibah. Rufus, the governor of Judea, con- 
 versed with the revolutionary leader in friendly 
 terms, and questioned him on points of the Jewish 
 law. He could not understand why the Jews, 
 though poor themselves, should be ready to aid the 
 unfortunate among themselves. The heathen maxim 
 was that no mercy should be shown to those whom the 
 gods have cursed, and on this principle the Romans 
 treated the poor and suffering with barbarous cruelty. 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 175 
 
 "Think you not it an offence against your God to 
 relieve such as He hath doomed to suffering? " asked 
 Rufus. 
 
 ' ' No, ' ' replied Akibah. " If a king had justly de- 
 prived his son of food for a time by way of punish- 
 ment, and if another found the prince dying of hunger 
 and fed him, think you his father would be angry 
 with the helper of his son? Even so will God deal 
 with those who minister to their suffering fellow- 
 men ; for all men, however sinful, are children of 
 God." 49 
 
 The interest taken by the Roman governor in 
 Jewish laws was shared by his wife. She became 
 acquainted with Akibah at her husband's house and 
 joined in the intercourse that took place between 
 them. She was captivated by the personal beauty 
 which marked Akibah 's features and which years 
 before had won him the hand of the daughter of 
 Calba Shebuah. Akibah himself was smitten with 
 the charms of the high-born Roman lady. The Tal- 
 mud says that when he first saw her he wept and 
 then laughed. He wept that so fair a being should 
 be in heathen darkness ; he laughed because he fore- 
 saw that she would become a proselyte and his own 
 wife. 49 The wife of Rufus studied the doctrines of 
 Judaism and finally professed herself a believer. 60 
 She left her husband's house and joined her aged 
 lover, who formally married her. 
 
 It may be imagined what was the wrath of the 
 Roman noble at the injury thus done him, alike in 
 family and personal honor. Akibah was searched 
 for diligently, but was hidden by his political friends. 
 
176 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The time for revolution was at hand when Aki- 
 bah carried off the wife of Rufus. The suspicion of 
 the authorities had been aroused, and some severe 
 measures were adopted to cow the spirit of rebellion 
 among the Jews. The sacred site of the Temple 
 was ordered to be ploughed up and sown as a sign 
 that it should never be built again. Rabbi Ishmael, 
 a close friend and colleague of Akibah, who was held 
 in the highest regard by the people, was arrested 
 and executed without trial. 61 He and Akibah en- 
 joyed the common title of "Fathers of Wisdom." M 
 Akibah felt the death of Ishmael keenly. He spoke 
 in impassioned language at his funeral and stirred 
 up the hearts of the people against Rome. Within 
 a brief time Israel was in arms against the legions 
 of the Roman empire again. 
 
 It did not begin, however, till the provident 
 Akibah had found a leader fit to lead the Hebrews 
 to battle with the legions of Rome. He was, with 
 all his ability, no soldier himself, and it needed a sol- 
 dier, above all, to realize his dream of material em- 
 pire. Akibah did not venture to put himself forward, 
 like Mohammed in later years, as a Heaven-sent 
 prophet. He chose rather to act the part of a pre- 
 cursor, as John the Baptist had been to another in 
 past time. Akibah was famed far and wide for his 
 holiness and extraordinary powers, so that it was easy 
 for him to make the people believe that he was the 
 incorporation of the prophet Elijah, who according 
 to prophecy was to precede the coming of the Mes- 
 siah. The expectation of a Messiah to be sent by the 
 Almighty to change the condition of the human race 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 1 77 
 
 was general among the Jews of the time. Many 
 looked for him as an invincible leader who would go 
 forth in the power of the supreme Lord to make 
 Israel the earthly ruler of the human race. Akibah 
 used this faith to forward the political object to 
 which he had devoted his life, and to precipitate the 
 rebellion which destroyed the separate national ex- 
 istence of the Jewish race. A false Elijah preceded 
 a false Messiah. 
 
 During his propaganda among the Jewish people, 
 Akibah had met a young man in whom his keen 
 judgment recognized a great though unknown mili- 
 tary genius. This unknown was said to come from 
 the town of Cozibah, but his origin was hid in obscur- 
 ity. He was without family, and strange tales were 
 told of his origin. 68 A popular legend made him the 
 natural son of the Roman Emperor Hadrian himself. 
 It was said that his birth was the result of an intrigue 
 between Hadrian when in Syria in early life and the 
 wife of a prince of Hebrew race, but a Moor in com- 
 plexion. 54 Be this as it may, Akibah, when the 
 Jewish people were excited to madness by the exe- 
 cution of Ishmael, presented this young man to them 
 as the one destined by Heaven to work their deliver- 
 ance. When his name and origin were asked, Akibah 
 replied that his name was Bar Kochba, the son of 
 the star, the "star" that should come forth from 
 Jacob according to prophecy, the true Messiah come 
 to crush the enemies of the Lord and of His people." 
 
 The people accepted the words of Akibah and rose 
 in arms under this new leader. His success for a 
 time was remarkable. He captured fifty towns ; he 
 
1/8 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 defied the Roman armies. The Romans were dis- 
 couraged by the feats of this unknown warrior, and 
 a superstitious awe grew around his name among 
 them. They dared not meet him in battle. They 
 shut themselves up in their fortifications and even 
 wished to abandon Judea as the provinces beyond 
 the Euphrates had been given up by Hadrian a few 
 years earlier. 66 
 
 Hadrian called his best general, Julius Severus, 
 from Britain with a veteran army to suppress the 
 Jewish rebellion. Bar Kochba was no match for 
 these foes. Severus drove the insurgents from post 
 after post and finally shut up their leader with the 
 flower of his forces in the fortified city of Bethar. 
 There he held out against all attacks for two years, 
 until a Samaritan betrayed to the Romans an un- 
 derground passage to the heart of the city. The 
 Hebrews were surprised and slaughtered after a 
 desperate struggle. Bar Kochba's body, it is said, 
 was found crushed in the coils of a serpent after the 
 battle. The revolution was quenched in Jewish 
 blood. He so audaciously proclaimed as the son 
 of the star had proved a false guide, and had led 
 Israel not to glory, but to temporal ruin. The in- 
 dignant populace heaped execration on his memory. 
 The title Bar Kochba was changed by the people to 
 another derived from his supposed place of birth, 
 and at the same time descriptive of his character. 
 He was called Bar Kozibah, or son of lies. 67 
 
 Rabbi Akibah was not involved in the destruction 
 which fell on the Jewish host in Bethar. He escaped 
 to Lydda when the stronghold of Jewish resistance 
 
RABBI AKIBAH 1 79 
 
 was captured. He does not seem to have lost credit 
 as a teacher even after the fall of him whom he had 
 proclaimed the Messiah. At Lydda, in company 
 with his old opponent, Rabbi Tarphon, he held a 
 council of doctors of the law to decide what course 
 should be followed by the Jewish people in the days 
 of tribulation which had fallen on them. The Ro- 
 man authorities, exasperated at the stubborn defence 
 of Bethar, had refused all toleration to the professors 
 of Judaism. To practise the rites of the Law of 
 Moses, to teach it publicly, and even to meet in any 
 numbers were forbidden to the Jews of Palestine 
 under pain of death. The council at Lydda adopted 
 the advice of Akibah, and proclaimed that it was 
 lawful to dissemble the profession of faith outwardly 
 under these circumstances, though the believers were 
 urged to retain the faith in their hearts and teach it 
 to their children in secret. The old saying of Ab- 
 talion, "and ye shall live by the laws, but ye shall 
 not die by them, 59 was revived and adopted. This 
 decision was very different from that of the Macca- 
 bees under the persecution of Antiochus, but it was 
 in accordance with the tenor of policy of Akibah's life. 
 After the council he hid among the friends who 
 still remained faithful to him and for some time 
 baffled the pursuit of the Romans. Though the 
 effect of the great Rabbi's policy and teaching had 
 been so disastrous, he yet retained the respect of the 
 people to a remarkable extent. In the ruin that 
 had fallen on their nation, zealous Jews still sought 
 for instruction in the law and looked to Akibah as 
 their most trusted teacher. 
 
l8o JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Talmud tells the story of his closing days in 
 a way which leaves no doubt of this fact. Simon, 
 a former pupil of Akibah, and son of a man high in 
 office under the Roman government, it is told, was 
 so anxious to continue his studies that he sought 
 out Akibah in his concealment and urged him to re- 
 new the work of training doctors of the law. The 
 Rabbi pleaded the danger under the existing laws. 
 
 "My son," the Talmud makes him say, "as the 
 cow is more ready to give milk to her calf than the 
 calf is to draw that milk, so am I more anxious to 
 teach than thou art to learn. But see the danger." 
 
 "Ignorance is a greater danger," replied Simon. 
 "Rome can only kill the body: ignorance kills the 
 soul. Rome kills only for time: ignorance kills for 
 eternity." 69 
 
 As this plea had no effect, the enthusiastic youth 
 threatened to reveal Akibah's abode to his father 
 and let him deliver him to the Romans unless he 
 would consent to instruct him in the proscribed re- 
 ligion. Akibah yielded at last and again gathered 
 pupils around him. He was warned of the danger 
 of his course by friends, amongst whom were the 
 celebrated Rabbi Yosai ben Kisma and Pappus, but 
 his fatalistic philosophy came to his aid and he con- 
 tinued to teach regardless of the advice he had 
 already given at Lydda. Pappus, who found him 
 surrounded by pupils, asked : 
 
 "Rabbi, dost thou not know that if thou teach 
 the Law thou wilt lose thy life? " 
 
 "Even so," answered Akibah, "the fox once 
 asked the little fishes to leave the water, where they 
 
RABBI AKIBAH l8l 
 
 were in danger of being devoured by larger fish, and 
 live with him on land, and the fishes told him it was 
 safer to take risks in their element than sure death 
 for want of it. Thus may I say to thee, Pappus, 
 that if death threaten me when teaching God's 
 Word, the tree of life, the true living waters, it will 
 surely come on me if I neglect to teach. Neglect of 
 the law brings everlasting death; Rome can only 
 kill the body." eo 
 
 His career after that was short as a teacher, but 
 before its close he ordained Simon as Rabbi and 
 desired to ordain Mair, another pupil, but the latter 
 declined on the ground that he was not married. 
 Simon, protected by his father's position under the 
 Roman governor, carried on the work of teaching 
 after Akibah's death and transmitted the traditions 
 of the Rabbis to future ages. 
 
 The Roman governor finally discovered Akibah's 
 hiding-place, and made him prisoner. The con- 
 tempt which the former felt for the rebel against the 
 empire was intensified by the hatred he had towards 
 the man who had drawn away his own wife from his 
 household. He doomed the captive to death by 
 torture. Akibah knew that there was no hope of 
 pity from the exasperated Rufus. He called his 
 fatalistic theories to his aid and faced the Roman 
 fires with the stoical courage of an Indian warrior at 
 the stake. 
 
 His skin was seared slowly with hot iron combs, 
 while he continued to pray and thank Heaven for the 
 privilege of dying in such a cause. The executioners 
 then pierced various parts of his flesh with pointed 
 
1 82 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 rods. Akibah looked on his disciples, who had been 
 brought there by command of Rufus, and smiled. 
 The exasperated Roman asked harshly why he smiled 
 under pain. 
 
 "One whose wish is gratified must be happy," 
 Akibah is quoted as saying. "My chief wish was 
 ever to give myself to God. Hitherto I could only 
 give my works, now that I can give Him my life 
 itself, why should I not rejoice? " "' 
 
 Rufus ordered the executioners to finish the vic- 
 tim's life, and Akibah expired with the cry, "Hear, 
 O, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," on 
 his lips." The stoicism with which he met his 
 death, and the patriotic fervor of his character, have 
 made of Akibah a national hero among subsequent 
 generations. With him the separate political ex- 
 istence of the Jewish people came to an end, and 
 patriotic sympathy has enshrined his memory in the 
 hearts of the Jews. The calamities that befell his 
 nation through his policy are forgotten in the case 
 of Akibah as in that of Hannibal. His political 
 projects were a failure. He failed to grasp the mis- 
 sion of the Jewish race under the divine dispensa- 
 tion. It was to be the messenger bearing revealed 
 truth to the other children of man. Akibah con- 
 ceived it as holding revelation for its own benefit, 
 and in virtue of it as lording it over all other nations 
 from the heights of Mount Moriah. 
 
 As a teacher of religion and morals it is hard to 
 find praise for one who proclaimed a false Messiah 
 to his people to attain a political end, and who 
 counselled outward denial of religious belief when 
 
RABBI AKIBAH I 83 
 
 its profession involved serious danger. Neverthe- 
 less, as a scholar, a judge, an organizer, and patriotic 
 Jew, Akibah holds a foremost rank among the recog- 
 nized masters in Israel. 
 
 "A man's sayings are his true monument," is a 
 rabbinical proverb. 63 We shall add a few of Aki- 
 bah's to the story of his life. 
 
 "It is sin when one is scorned to say that others 
 ought to be scorned, or when one is abused that 
 others should be abused likewise." 64 
 
 "Labor is honorable to man." " 
 
 "If thou needest, do any work and excuse not 
 thyself if perchance thou art a priest or a noble." 66 
 
 "If life is equally at stake, first save thyself, then 
 look for thy neighbor's life," is a saying quite in 
 keeping with Akibah's own practice. 67 
 
 "They err who say, I will sin now and repent 
 after. The Day of Atonement brings no forgive- 
 ness to the insincere," is an axiom of a different 
 nature. 68 
 
 "As a golden vase when flawed may be melted to 
 a new vessel, so the sinner may repent and become 
 a new man," embodies his theory on sin and its 
 forgiveness. 69 
 
 On family life his precepts are equally clear, terse, 
 and beautiful. 
 
 "God is with the married who are faithful to one 
 another." " 
 
 "He who keeps his daughter long unmarried is as 
 though he showed her the way to incontinence." 
 
 "He who receiveth alms when he needs them not, 
 will need them before he dieth." ™ 
 
184 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Other of Akibah's maxims have been already 
 given, so these will suffice as characteristic of the 
 great Rabbi. 
 
 Akibah was old at his death. The Talmud, with 
 Eastern exaggeration, says, a hundred and twenty 
 years, but this means little more than he died full of 
 years and works." 
 
 A son and a daughter survived him. The son, 
 Josua, was himself a distinguished doctor of the 
 law. Akibah's daughter was married to Ben Azzai, 
 but as he desired to devote his life to study she 
 voluntarily separated from him. The talmudic 
 writers said of her, "The lamb followeth its mother," 
 that is, she did for Ben Azzai what her mother, 
 Rachel, did for Akibah. 74 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RABBI MAIR 
 
 THE years immediately after the rebellion of Bar 
 Kochba were the darkest in Jewish history. 
 Hadrian prohibited, under pain of death, all public 
 exercise of Jewish religion or even the teaching of 
 its doctrines. The teachers were, many of them, 
 executed and the lately flourishing schools were de- 
 stroyed. With the death of Akibah and Ishmael, 
 the "Wells of Wisdom were dried up," in the lan- 
 guage of their contemporaries. 1 But the national 
 spirit survived even this test. Hadrian died, and his 
 successor, Antoninus Pius, the best of the Roman 
 caesars, relaxed the edicts of persecution. The 
 schools were opened again, though most of the great 
 Rabbis had perished. 
 
 A prominent figure in the new generation of 
 Rabbis was Mair. 2 His character is enigmatical. 
 The Talmud does not tell of his origin or history 
 except in disjointed sentences. It even hints that 
 he was a descendant of Nero, who, according to a 
 wild legend, had escaped death at the time of his 
 deposition, and became a proselyte to Judaism sub- 
 sequently. 3 The chief interest of this surmise is that 
 it indicates that in features and character Mair 
 
 185 
 
1 86 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 showed traces of a non-Jewish origin. His sayings 
 and doctrines, too, have a certain Greek flavor which 
 suggests the same conclusion. In his lectures he 
 compared Hebrew and Greek words in a manner 
 which showed his familiar acquaintance with both. 
 His methods were rather those of a Greek sophist 
 than an Oriental. The Rabbis describe his many- 
 sided versatility in astonishment. It was said that 
 when he discussed a question he would bring such 
 strong reasons for both sides that it was impossible 
 to know his own judgment. 5 He was especially fond 
 of parables, and "Great Speaker of Parables" was 
 his title of honor in the Jewish schools. Yet the 
 few specimens of his skill that survive have a Greek 
 cast in their imagery. We give one of the three 
 preserved in the Talmud, out of three hundred with 
 the authorship of which he is credited, to illustrate 
 this point. Mair was elucidating the saying of 
 Ezekiel, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and 
 the teeth of their children are on edge." This is 
 his illustration : 
 
 "A lion caught a fox and was about to devour 
 him, when the fox exclaimed that his carcase would 
 be but a mouthful, and that if the lion spared him 
 he would guide him to a man who would furnish a 
 more ample meal. The lion consented. The fox 
 led to a hunter who had dug a pitfall and was lying 
 quietly beyond it. The lion felt some awe about 
 attacking a human being. 
 
 " 'The Lord may hear that man's prayer,' he re- 
 marked nervously. 
 
 " 'Don't fear,' said the fox. 'It is wrong to kill 
 
RABBI MAIR 1 87 
 
 one made in God's image, but, too, it is written, 
 that God will visit the sins of the fathers on their 
 children. Thy son or his son will have to pay the 
 penalty of thy sin, not thou.' 
 
 "The lion took courage and sprang at the man, 
 but only to fall helpless in the pit. 
 
 " 'Thou art justly punished,' cried the fox, calmly 
 looking down. 
 
 " 'Didst thou not tell,' growled the lion, 'that it 
 is the sons that pay for their fathers' sins? ' 
 
 " 'I did, indeed,' said the fox, 'and don't forget 
 that thy father and grandfather have sinned before 
 thee and it is for their sins thou dost suffer now.' 
 
 Mair supported himself by various kinds of literary 
 work. 7 He wrote the sacred scrolls for the syna- 
 gogues, and letters for the people. He also wrote 
 verses for public feasts. 8 He spent his earnings 
 freely, and supported several needy students ; but 
 his own family were but scanty sharers in his liberal- 
 ity. He justified himself in his mocking fashion. 
 
 "If my children turn out good the Lord will 
 provide for them. David says in the Psalms, 'I 
 was young and I am old, yet I have not seen the 
 righteous forsaken nor his seed needing bread.' If 
 my children are not good, they deserve nothing, 
 and it would be helping the enemies of the Lord if I 
 left them wealth." 9 
 
 It is little wonder that Mair was credited with 
 finding reasons for any course after this specimen. 
 The serious Rabbis told with indignation how Mair 
 could give a hundred and fifty reasons to prove an 
 object legally clean and as many more to show it 
 
1 88 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 utterly unclean. 10 His was the spirit of Lucian 
 under the garb of a Rabbi. The other Rabbis 
 looked askance at the erratic flights of their brilliant 
 colleague. Mair had refused ordination at the hands 
 of Akibah, but after his marriage he asked it from 
 Rabbi Judah ben Baba. 11 Judah and the father of 
 Mair's wife were among the Rabbis who lost their 
 lives during the persecution of Hadrian. There is 
 no evidence that Mair took any active part in the 
 rebellion, and the tenor of his character makes it un- 
 likely. Some sneers recorded in the Talmud 12 would 
 imply that he was not popular with the Rabbis of 
 the patriot faction. However, none contested his 
 intellectual ability, or cared to enter the arena of 
 debate with the clever sophist. 13 He was called to 
 the Sanhedrin when that body was again assembled 
 under the presidency of Simon, the son of the sec- 
 ond, Gamaliel. He was made Haliam or reader, the 
 third office in that body, his friend Rabbi Nathan 
 being presiding judge. With the president these 
 three formed a committee which was practically 
 supreme in the Council. Simon, amid the mis- 
 fortunes of his people, retained an exaggerated idea 
 of the importance of his office. He had neither the 
 learning nor the generous temper of his father, and 
 his jealous maintenance of his official dignity excited 
 many quarrels in the Sanhedrin. 
 
 Custom required the members of the Sanhedrin to 
 rise and remain standing when the president, the 
 judge, or the reader entered the Assembly. They 
 did not resume their seats till motioned to do so by 
 the president after the three superiors were seated. 14 
 
RABBI MAIR 1 89 
 
 Simon, in the absence of Mair and Nathan, issued 
 an order that the Assembly should only rise as a 
 body on his own entrance. At the entrance of the 
 judge only the first row of members were to rise, 
 and on the entrance of the reader the second row. 
 Rabbis Nathan and Mair were indignant at this 
 change and revenged themselves at a subsequent 
 meeting by proposing a number of difficult ques- 
 tions. Their object was to puzzle Simon and pos- 
 sibly show his unfitness for the office he held ; but 
 it failed. Simon had got information of the scheme, 
 and not only worsted his assailants in debate, but 
 obtained their deposition from office on the ground 
 of conspiracy against himself. 
 
 Mair was not the man to yield on such a point. 
 In the session he plied the president with so many 
 questions that the latter was bewildered and offered 
 to reinstate the judge and reader if they would apolo- 
 gize for their conduct. Nathan consented : Mair re- 
 fused. He was threatened with excommunication. 
 
 "I shall submit readily," he said, "if the presi- 
 dent will explain when and how excommunication 
 may justly be incurred." 15 
 
 The excommunication was not attempted. This 
 episode gives a noteworthy idea of the workings of 
 the venerable Assembly seventeen hundred years ago. 
 
 Mair had a large fund of intellectual pride, and 
 his dislike was intense for those who scorned studies 
 and gave themselves up to sensual pleasures. This 
 class was a large one in Palestine at the time, and 
 receives frequent reprobation through the Talmud.'" 
 The materialists scoffed at the pains taken by the 
 
190 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 scholars to store their minds with decisions and rules 
 of the law. Their favorite theory was that the true 
 way of fulfilling the law was to enrich the people, 17 
 a maxim not unknown in our own days. The 
 austere among the Rabbis lavished condemnation 
 on these doctrines and their maintainers. 
 
 "One might as well give his daughter to a lion in 
 marriage as to a Man of Earth," was one maxim. 
 
 "He who leaves a Man of Earth in his house 
 asleep and returns to find him awake may be sure 
 that pollution has been abroad in that house," was 
 another saying. 18 
 
 Mair was strict even to harshness in speaking of 
 this class of men. Study, for him, was the first duty 
 and privilege of man. 
 
 "Learn the ways of the Lord with thy whole heart 
 and with thy whole soul. Watch at the gate of the 
 law. Keep the law in thy heart. Let the fear of 
 the Lord be ever before thine eyes and keep thy 
 tongue from evil words. Cleanse and make pure 
 thyself that thou mayest stand without sin or guilt 
 before the Lord, and He will be with thee wherever 
 thou art." 10 
 
 It must be owned that there is a tincture of the 
 pride of intellect in Mair's strictures on the Men of 
 Earth, — the unlettered. In later days, when domes- 
 tic sorrow had touched himself, his utterances took a 
 milder form and breathed a more charitable spirit. 
 A parable told by him after the death of his sons 
 may illustrate this change : 
 
 "A king had a twin brother like to himself in face. 
 This brother left his home and became a robber who 
 
RABBI MAIR I9I 
 
 wasted the country. The king, who knew not that 
 the robber was his brother, ordered his soldiers to 
 capture and hang him. It was done, and the rob- 
 ber's body was hung on high as a warning to all who 
 might be tempted to follow unrighteousness. 
 
 "Now the common people, who knew the face of 
 the king, but did not know the robber, thought the 
 body was that of the king. They said to one an- 
 other, 'The king is hanged! the king is hanged!' 
 Then the king heard, and he bade his servants take 
 down the body of his brother and bury it from the 
 sight of men. Even so God finds no glory in the 
 shame of His erring children, nor can Israel have 
 honor in the disgrace of his twin brother." 20 
 
 The family life of Rabbi Mair is told in great de- 
 tail by the rabbinical writers. It throws much light 
 on the social conditions of life in Palestine in the 
 Roman days and on the position then held by wo- 
 man in society among the Jews. Beruriah, his wife, 
 was the child of a distinguished Rabbi who was one 
 of the ten Rabbis slain by Hadrian. 21 
 
 She was to Mair what Rachel was to Akibah, and 
 more; for she exercised a marked influence in the 
 formation of his character. She was clever as well 
 as fair, and her charity to all was boundless. Her 
 husband's fiery temper she gradually modified by 
 gentleness, while she was ever ready to sacrifice her 
 own desires to his advancement, and to stimulate his 
 mind by gentle suggestion. When Mair quoted in hot 
 wrath the text from the Psalm which says, "Let sin- 
 ners perish from the land," Beruriah corrected his zeal. 
 
 "It is written," she said, " 'Let sin (^hataim) 
 
I92 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 perish, not sinners' i^hoteim). Rather let us pray 
 that the sinners may be converted from their ways 
 and then sin and sinners shall pass away." 2a 
 
 Beruriah frequently showed her own skill in con- 
 troversy with unbelievers." She advised as to the 
 best methods of study, and her judgment on points 
 of the law were often ratified by the authority of 
 the Rabbis themselves. 24 Her wit was as quick as 
 her husband's. She discussed philosophy with him 
 as well as the law, and few cared to enter on a con- 
 test with the witty Beruriah. Once a famous Rabbi, 
 Yosai of Galilee, met her on the road and asked in 
 pompous style: 
 
 'What is the road that people dwelling around 
 here take to go to Lydda? " 
 
 "Man of Galilee," answered Beruriah, "don't you 
 know the saying, 'Speak not more than necessary to 
 a woman ' ? You could have asked, What is the 
 road to Lydda? " 
 
 Poor Yosai slunk away discomfited at this palpable 
 hit. 26 
 
 A great domestic misfortune which befell Beruriah 
 brought out the nobler side of her character in a 
 very touching way. Her two sons, beautiful boys, 
 were accidentally drowned in a cistern while play- 
 ing. It was a Sabbath Day and the father was 
 teaching in the school. Beruriah in her grief would 
 not interrupt his duties. She covered the bodies of 
 her children with a sheet on the bed and awaited 
 Mair's return till sunset. His first inquiry was 
 where the children were. His wife told him they 
 had gone out to the College, and then brought the 
 
RABBI MAIR 193 
 
 golden goblet of the feast day, filled it with wine, 
 and asked him to repeat the grace for the close of 
 the Sabbath Day. Mair complied, and intoned the 
 blessing with a cheerful heart. He then asked again 
 where the children were. 
 
 "They are in the house, not far away," was the 
 wife's answer. "Eat, dear, the Sabbath meal must 
 not wait." 
 
 Rabbi Mair sat down and made his Sabbath meal. 
 He repeated the grace at the end with joy, for he 
 felt thoroughly blessed in his wife and children at 
 that moment. Beruriah then spoke. 
 
 ' ' Master, ' ' said she, ' ' may I ask thee a question ? ' 
 
 "Ask," he said cheerfully. 
 
 "Some time ago one gave me a treasure which he 
 now asks back. Shall I return it ? " 
 
 "Dost thou ask such a question?" sharply an- 
 swered Mair. 
 
 "But," Beruriah urged, "I have grown to love 
 this treasure, and I am loath to part with it." 
 
 "Things entrusted to us are sacred," said the 
 Rabbi. "They must be returned when demanded. 
 Hesitate not, lest thou sin against the Lord." 
 
 "Must I not repine against him who gave the 
 treasure?" she asked. 
 
 "Certainly not," replied the Rabbi. 
 
 "Come, then, my lord, and I will show the treasure 
 to thee." 
 
 She led him to the room and, removing the sheet 
 from the bodies of her children, said : 
 
 "See the treasure that He who gave hath de- 
 manded back." 
 
 »3 
 
194 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Mair was stricken speechless at the sight. His 
 frame shook for some moments with convulsions. 
 Then tears came and he cried aloud : 
 
 "My sons, my sons, I was your father and your 
 teacher, but you are now my masters in the 
 law." 
 
 Then Beruriah's tears broke out and she, too, 
 wept. But after a brief space she took her hus- 
 band's hand and whispered: 
 
 "Remember, my beloved, that the treasure must 
 be returned." 
 
 Mair grew strong from her resolution. He arose 
 and said : 
 
 'The Lord hath given them to us, the Lord hath 
 taken them away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." 
 
 Again and again he repeated the words and he 
 grew composed, at least outwardly, but his soul was 
 sad and his heart bleeding for many days." 
 
 A tale of the rescue of his sister-in-law, though 
 embellished with legend, may have a foundation in 
 fact. After the defeat of Bar Kochba, the sister of 
 Beruriah, a beautiful girl, was carried away to sla- 
 very. It was learned after many days that she had 
 been carried to Rome and sold to the keeper of a 
 house of ill-fame. Beruriah urged her husband to 
 attempt her rescue. Mair at first demurred. He 
 feared the task and in his pride he dreaded the dis- 
 grace that would attach to himself if he should bring 
 a fallen woman to his house. Beruriah maintained 
 her faith in her sister's constancy, and pledged her 
 word that she would forfeit life rather than virtue. 
 Mair yielded. 
 
RABBI MAIR 1 95 
 
 'If she remain pure," he said, "it is by miracle, 
 and a miracle may be wrought for her deliverance." 
 
 He journeyed to Rome, according to the legend, 
 dressed as a wealthy Roman, and found the house 
 where the girl was kept. 
 
 'Thou hast in this house a comely Hebrew 
 maiden, I am told," he said to the owner, giving 
 him at the same time several pieces of gold. 
 
 "I have, my lord," the man replied. "She is 
 very beautiful, but no man hath as yet gained her 
 favor. 
 
 "Let me see her," said Mair, scarcely able to con- 
 ceal his joy. 
 
 The man led the Rabbi into the room where the 
 maiden was kept, and left them. 
 
 Rabbi Mair beheld the beautiful and weeping 
 daughter of Palestine, seated upon a low divan, her 
 head turned toward the window, gazing upon the 
 blue horizon, far beyond the green meadows and 
 hills, in longing for the land of her fathers and those 
 she loved. 
 
 He approached her. When she saw him, she 
 quickly arose and asked his errand. He told her 
 that he had come to rescue her. Misfortune had 
 made her incredulous; she was afraid of men under 
 any guise. But when he told her who he was she 
 fell upon her knees and thanked God. 
 
 Rabbi Mair then told the keeper that he desired 
 to take away the maiden, offering him a large sum 
 of money. But the keeper hesitated. 
 
 "When this is found out it will cost my head," 
 he said. 
 
I96 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "Fear not," said the Rabbi, "when danger threat- 
 ens thee, say, ' Mair's God, help me! ' and thou 
 shalt be safe." 
 
 Still the man hesitated. 
 
 "Convince me that what thou sayest is the truth," 
 he said. 
 
 "Behold," said the Rabbi, and he approached a 
 number of savage watch-dogs at the gate. He 
 uttered a mystic word, and the dogs cringed at his 
 feet. 
 
 Convinced that the Rabbi spoke truth, the man 
 let the maiden go for the price offered. When the 
 two had departed he felt afraid and raised an alarm, 
 saying that a Hebrew had come and abducted the 
 maiden, and he gave a detailed description of the 
 pseudo-Roman. 
 
 Rabbi Mair had meanwhile taken the maiden to a 
 safe hiding-place, and then made his escape from the 
 city alone. The Talmud tells that the keeper was 
 given an opportunity to test the cabalistic formula 
 of Rabbi Mair, with safety to his life. 
 
 Watch was set for the Jewish abductor on the 
 roads. A party of the watchers were eating in an 
 inn some miles from the city, when a dignified Ro- 
 man entered and sat down to eat. The guards 
 thought he resembled the description given them of 
 the unknown. One of them said, it must be he. 
 Another, that no Jew could carry himself so proudly. 
 As a test they resolved to ask him to eat. 
 
 "Good sir," said their leader, "pray join us in 
 this dish of swine's flesh, for it is good." 
 
 "I am not hungry," said the supposed Roman, 
 
RABBI MAIR 197 
 
 "but I cannot refuse your kind invitation, so I will 
 taste your fare, though I care not to dine." 
 
 He dipped a finger in the gravy, conveyed another 
 finger to his lips, and, saluting, left in haste. The 
 soldiers were deceived and believed he could not be 
 the man they sought. No Hebrew would even 
 taste the flesh of swine." 
 
 The Talmud has other stories illustrating the 
 Rabbi's ready wit, and one or two may be given as 
 examples. 
 
 While travelling, Rabbi Mair came to an inn. It 
 had a bad reputation, as the host was held to be 
 leagued with robbers, but there was no other resting- 
 place near. When Mair took out his purse to pay 
 for his lodging, he noticed the look of greed that 
 came over the host's face. 
 
 "My friend Ki Tobh (for it is good) will soon 
 come here after me," he quietly remarked, and 
 then went to his room. 
 
 He rose at dawn and, as he was leaving, the host 
 met him and asked : 
 
 ' ' Hath thy friend come ? ' ' 
 
 "He hath," replied Mair. 
 Where is he ? " 
 
 "There," said the Rabbi, pointing to the sun. 
 
 "What dost thou mean?" asked the puzzled inn- 
 keeper. 
 
 'That I saw thine intention last night," was the 
 reply. "Night is for deeds of darkness and sin such 
 as were in thy mind; but daylight is the traveller's 
 friend. Ki Tobh is its name by Holy Writ; for 
 'The Lord saw light that it was good, and He called 
 
198 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 it day.' Had not I told thee I expected a friend 
 thou wouldst have slain me as thou and thine evil 
 comrades have slain many other travellers who 
 sought thy shelter." 26 And Rabbi Mair went on 
 his way. 
 
 Advice for travellers was a favorite subject of 
 Mair's. He left numerous wise maxims on this 
 subject. 
 
 "When thou art at Rome do as the Romans do," 
 
 9fi 
 
 was one. 
 
 "Travellers should go in threes," was another, 
 with the gloss, "A lone traveller is like to be mur- 
 dered ; two are likely to quarrel ; but three together 
 will always make their way in peace. 
 
 The nicknames so commonly applied in the East 
 he considered valuable indications of character. If 
 they had reference to anything connected with good 
 in Scripture lore, the bearers were sure of Mair's 
 confidence; if to evil, he distrusted as strongly. 
 "The voice of the people is the voice of God," was 
 his apology for this theory, which was not generally 
 shared by other Rabbis. 
 
 Once, the Talmud tells, Rabbi Mair, Rabbi Juda, 
 and Rabbi Yosai travelled together. They came late 
 to a certain town where a man offered them hospi- 
 tality for the night. Now this man was known as 
 Ki Dor. As it chances, these two words are at the 
 beginning of a sentence in Holy Writ speaking of a 
 perverse generation. Juda and Yosai paid no par- 
 ticular attention to the man's name. They accepted 
 his offer and gave him their purses for safe keeping, 
 but Rabbi Mair would not enter the house. 
 
RABBI MAIR )99 
 
 'I trust not that man," he said, "for evil is at- 
 tached to his name." ai 
 
 So he went away and buried his money in a grave- 
 yard, and then he went and ate and slept. While 
 he slept he dreamed that he was warned to remove 
 his money from its hiding-place. He interpreted 
 his dream that his friends were in danger of loss, and 
 in the morning he went to them and told his dream 
 and its meaning. Juda and Yosai laughed and told 
 him sunset dreams were idle, as a sly hint that his 
 late supper was accountable for the supposed warn- 
 ing." So Rabbi Mair went about his business as a 
 public writer; but he watched Ki Dor all day." 
 
 Rabbi Juda and Rabbi Yosai rested a day in Ki 
 Dor's house, but when they were leaving and asked 
 the return of their money, Ki Dor denied having 
 had any money of them. They sought Rabbi Mair 
 and told him, and Mair asked: 
 
 "Why did you not heed my warning concerning 
 his name? " 
 
 "Why didst thou not tell us plainly?" they said. 
 
 "I had only suspicion myself, so I could not speak 
 as one certain," was Mair's answer. 
 
 As they spoke they were before a wine shop, and 
 lo, Ki Dor came up. The Rabbis seized him and 
 pulled him into the house. And Ki Dor was afeared ; 
 for he thought they meant to kill him. But they 
 bade him sit down and drink wine with them, and 
 they made as if they had all been drunken, and had 
 forgotten their money completely. Then Ki Dor 
 felt glad ; he had robbed the great Rabbis of their 
 money, and now he was drinking at their cost besides. 
 
200 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 He loved wine and would drink much when others 
 paid for it. So he now drank till his head sank on 
 the table. Now Ki Dor was not only a thief, but 
 he was a sloven in his ways. His beard was smeared 
 with the remains of the dinner he had eaten when he 
 met the Rabbis, and they noted that his food had 
 been lentils. So while Mair watched the drunken 
 man, Judah and Josai went to Ki Dor's house and 
 told his wife that her husband had sent them for the 
 money he had given her the night before. 
 
 "What word or token hath he sent? " she asked. 
 
 "The token is that he had lentils for his meal," 
 was the answer, and the woman believed them and 
 gave the stolen money back. They went in haste 
 away. 
 
 When Ki Dor awoke he went home and looked 
 for the money in vain. He questioned his wife and 
 she told him how two men had brought the token 
 from him and carried off the money. Then Ki Dor 
 was so wroth that he slew his wife. 
 
 The moral drawn by the Talmud from this tale is 
 an admirable example of the spirit of hair-splitting 
 prevalent in the rabbinical schools. "Therefore," 
 it sagely rules, "no one should leave table without 
 washing face and hands after eating." 34 It would 
 be hard to find a more characteristic example of 
 the spirit which would "tithe mint and cummin and 
 aniseed," and leave unnoticed the weighty things 
 of the law, — mercy and justice and truth. 
 
 These tales show that in private life relations of in- 
 timacy existed between Mair and his brother Rabbis 
 of other schools. Other statements indicate that his 
 
RABBI MAIR 201 
 
 public work as teacher of the law was troubled 
 sorely by the jealousies prevailing among the stu- 
 dents of his time. The party feelings of the revo- 
 lutionary movement were still bitter after the death 
 of Bar Kochba, and Mair as a moderate in politics 
 was subjected to unworthy persecution by some 
 of his own disciples. An attempt was made to blast 
 his character. A woman one day was hired to 
 enter his school while his disciples were gathered 
 together. 
 
 "Rabbi," she said, "one of you here has seduced 
 me under promise. I demand my right." " 
 
 The law of the Rabbis on seduction is worth re- 
 cording. If a man were found alone in a room with 
 an unmarried woman it was regarded as legal evi- 
 dence of seduction. Such constituted marriage in 
 the eyes of the law if demanded by the woman. 
 On the other hand, if a man was found alone in a 
 room with the wife of another, it was legal evidence 
 of adultery against them. It brought the woman's 
 reputation into doubt and warranted her husband 
 to divorce her without compensation. 36 
 
 The manner in which the woman's claim was put 
 forward was evidently aimed to compromise the 
 master, who was included with his disciples in the 
 term "one of you." Mair rose up and calmly gave 
 her a legal bill of divorce. All his disciples followed 
 the master's example, and the deceit of the com- 
 plainant was made manifest. Mair's character re- 
 mained untouched by evil tongues. 
 
 The hostility against him, however, found a 
 more dastardly means of attack on his honor. It 
 
202 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 resembles closely the plot told in Cymbelinc, for 
 which, indeed, it may have furnished the hint. 
 One day the school disputed and the debate was 
 whether man was naturally more moral than woman 
 or not. The champions of female morality declared 
 that their master's wife was the superior morally of 
 any man living. An insolent student maintained 
 that any woman was ready to yield if approached 
 on her weak side. 
 
 "Dost thou speak of Beruriah?' asked Mair 
 quickly. 
 
 "Even of thy Beruriah," answered the student 
 with insolence. 
 
 "Try thy skill," said Mair indignantly, and he 
 left the room in hot wrath." 
 
 The audacious libertine caught at the chance 
 rashly given him by Mair's word. He went straight 
 to the house where Beruriah was engaged in her 
 daily tasks among her maids and female pupils 
 whom she instructed in the law. She knew the 
 visitor as a member of her husband's college; she 
 greeted him kindly and asked the purpose of his 
 call. 
 
 "I have a message to thee from thy husband, my 
 master," he said. 
 
 "Speak it," said Beruriah. 
 
 "Nay, learned lady, it is for thy private ear alone; 
 so, pray, send out thy maids." 
 
 With all her knowledge Beruriah forgot the warn- 
 ing of the law and sent out the maidens. The 
 visitor then told her, saying, "Thy husband hath 
 given thee to me." 
 
RABBI MAIR 203 
 
 The indignant wife bade him begone and went to 
 call for help, but the mocking libertine restrained 
 her. 
 
 "It is too late now to save thy character," he 
 said. "Thou and I are alone in this room. Thy 
 name as a faithful wife is ruined. Be mine and I 
 will take thee away from this place." 
 
 Beruriah again spurned his offer and the would-be 
 seducer left. He revenged himself by boasting of 
 his success which seemed proved by the private in- 
 terview so treacherously obtained. 
 
 Both husband and wife felt acutely the weight of 
 the disgrace which had fallen on them. Beruriah, 
 like the Roman Lucretia, took her own life in de- 
 spair. Rabbi Mair closed his school and left his 
 native land forever. 
 
 He travelled through many lands seeking peace 
 or, at least, distraction of thought for his harassed 
 soul. Babylonia, Cappadocia, the yEgean coast were 
 visited in succession by the sad-hearted traveller. 39 
 
 "Look not to the cask, but to what is in it; for 
 there be new casks which hold rare old wine, and 
 others that are old and yet have not even new wine 
 within," was his bitter remark as he left his native 
 land. 3 ' 
 
 He finally settled in Sardes in Asia Minor, where 
 he resumed his profession as a teacher. Large 
 crowds came to his lectures. 40 Gradually he re- 
 covered his peace of mind, and the trials he had 
 suffered softened his original harshness. His later 
 sayings are full of mild and humble wisdom, very 
 different from the pride of earlier days. 
 
204 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "Who is truly rich, but he who is content with 
 his fortune." 41 
 
 "Repentance is great, for when one man repents 
 all human nature is forgiven." 42 
 
 "Humble thyself before every man." 43 
 
 This last precept he urged on his disciples ear- 
 nestly and acted on it in his own later practice. 
 
 "Man comes into the world with closed hands, as 
 though claiming ownership of everything, but he 
 leaves with hands open and limp, as though to show 
 he takes naught with him. Yet if man has sought 
 the best couse in life, his reward awaits him beyond 
 the grave. There he finds the table set for the 
 happy feast that lasts through eternity." 44 
 
 In Mair's school at Sardes one of his most devoted 
 auditors was a married woman who missed no lecture. 
 On one occasion a long discourse made her late in 
 preparing the dinner for her husband. 
 
 The latter threatened to divorce her on this ground, 
 which was recognized as a valid one by rabbinical 
 law, unless she would spit at the Rabbi who had 
 been responsible for her neglect of home. The 
 story was carried to his ears, and when the woman 
 next came to the school he insisted on her carrying 
 out the husband's vindictive wish. He knew too 
 well the meaning of a family disruption to let others 
 incur it for the sake of his own dignity. 46 
 
 Mair was not the only distinguished master in 
 Israel who had to suffer in repute at the hands of 
 his own people during these disastrous times for the 
 Jews. His first teacher, Elisha ben Abuiah, with 
 whom Mair kept a close intimacy during life, was a 
 
RABBI MAIR 205 
 
 still more conspicuous mark for jealousy. He was 
 a man of distinction in the schools. According to 
 the Talmud, Elisha ben Abuiah was taken into the 
 Academy of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai at a very 
 early age and enrolled as one of the great master's 
 disciples. 46 Under the guidance of Ben Zakkai he 
 soon developed into a great scholar. He devoted 
 himself to the study of Greek and Latin, in both of 
 which he became proficient. He specially liked the 
 Greek language and he always carried a copy of 
 Homer with him. 47 He loved Greek songs and sang 
 them in the Academy, much to the annoyance of the 
 zealots. 48 He was wont to compare the literature 
 of his people with that of the Greeks. This soon 
 brought him to the consideration of other subjects. 
 He contrasted the artistic culture of Greece with the 
 hard and dull life and works of his own people. He 
 compared the hopeless political position of Palestine 
 with the ever-growing power and splendor of Rome. 
 He lost sympathy with the Hebrew students who 
 crowded dingy schoolrooms to discuss petty points 
 of law. His heart longed for the glorious cities of 
 Greece ; he desired to sit at the feet of the philoso- 
 phers in its academies and to walk in the colonnades 
 of its museums. 
 
 Though the Rabbis of the Nationalist party could 
 condone, if they did not share, Elisha\s enthusiasm 
 for Grecian language and culture, it exposed his life 
 to serious danger from the blind fury of the popu- 
 lace when the revolutionary plot of Akibah was de- 
 veloped. The organized "dagger men " — Siccarees 
 — of the party of action called for unhesitating 
 
206 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 adhesion to the Jewish revolution from the learned 
 and unlearned alike. Lukewarmness in that cause 
 was avenged by assassination. The only safety for 
 those who, like Elisha, saw the hopelessness of the 
 attempt and were unwilling to prevaricate lay in 
 flight from Palestine or in joining actively with the 
 Roman authorities. He chose the latter and he was 
 thenceforth branded as a traitor. It is said that he 
 took part in persecuting the rebels afterwards, but the 
 few particulars given of this charge may have been 
 but an exaggeration of those whom he had quitted. 
 The mystic entrance into Pardcs of the four 
 Rabbis, Akibah, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, and Elisha, 
 — the fate which ensued for each has already been 
 mentioned — " may have a political meaning. It may 
 refer to a council held to prepare the revolution pro- 
 jected by Akibah, and the failure of his colleagues 
 to co-operate successfully with him. The death of 
 Ben Azzai at the hands of the Siccarees was a not 
 unlikely event if his fidelity were doubted. The 
 "cutting of the plants of Pardes " by Elisha may be 
 typical of his absolute withdrawal from the council 
 of the Jewish revolution. Certain it is his name was 
 branded as that of a traitor and apostate. The Tal- 
 mud refuses even to call him by his own name. He 
 is usually Acher (Another), the changeling, the rene- 
 gade, not Elisha, the Rabbi and master in Israel. 
 Under this name he was held up to execration by 
 the Rabbis of the revolutionary party. His fate was 
 sealed in their minds for eternity. The dictum of 
 the zealots in his case was, "Repentance can win 
 pardon for all but Acher." M 
 
RABBI MAIR 20J 
 
 The same spirit prevailed after the fall of Bethar 
 had crushed the life of the rebellion of Bar Kochba. 
 The Rabbis accused Acher of aiding the Roman 
 officials in the suppression of the Jewish religious 
 practices and pointing out the stratagems employed 
 for evading the penal laws. They charged him with 
 openly breaking the ceremonial law, and with lead- 
 ing the young away from their religion and the study 
 of the Sacred Writings." He was said to break in- 
 tentionally the law of the Sabbath, the worst offence 
 a conscientious Jew could commit." 
 
 While Acher was thus publicly hated, Rabbi Mair 
 never ceased to maintain close intercourse with him. 
 When reproached for his intimacy with an apostate, 
 he justified himself by the intellectual worth of his 
 friend and protested his own fidelity to Judaism. 
 
 "I eat the kernel and throw away the husk," was 
 his pithy description of his intercourse with his 
 former master. 
 
 Even the most hostile of Elisha's critics recognized 
 the force of this remark, and in the Talmud the say- 
 ings of Elisha ben Abuiah are treasured as a valued 
 part of the intellectual glories of Israel. 
 
 It is told of Mair that one day as he was delivering 
 the Sabbath discourse in the school it was told him 
 that Acher was riding by. Rabbi Mair abruptly 
 ceased his sermon, went out to greet his friend, and 
 accompanied him along the road to gather knowledge 
 from his lips. The more zealous Rabbis condemned 
 this act of Mair, but one said : 
 
 "A man like Acher is as a nut which hath fallen 
 into filth, but yet may be eaten when its husk is 
 
208 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 separated from it. The sage may sin, yet the wis- 
 dom he hath gained is none the less divine." M 
 
 Acher appears to have definitely renounced the 
 practice of Judaism, and his friend tried unsuccess- 
 fully to bring him back to the fold. He visited him 
 on his death-bed, and Acher listened to his words 
 with pleasure, but there is no sign of his having 
 sought reconciliation. Later Rabbis said of him 
 that, "he died in error and would not be punished, 
 because he had learned the law, nor would he enter 
 Paradise, because he had sinned." 5 * 
 
 This has a curious resemblance to the subsequent 
 teachings of Mohammed. It is more than prob- 
 able that Elisha had embraced Christianity. Mair's 
 temper would readily condone such a change in his 
 friend, however it might be resented by the zealous 
 nationalists of the Sanhedrin. 
 
 When Rabbi Mair left his native land after the 
 death of his wife, the jealousy of his enemies, which 
 had been kept in check while he occupied a seat in 
 the Sanhedrin, broke out. His friendship for Elisha 
 was made a charge against him, as if he, too, had 
 become "Another." Simon ben Gamaliel, the 
 President, did not forget the humiliations he had 
 received from the wit of Rabbi Mair, and he avenged 
 himself by refusing to allow him the title of Rabbi. 
 When necessity forced him to quote any of Mair's 
 former decisions he always suppressed his name, and 
 prefaced them with the remark, "Others say." The 
 allusion to "Acher," the hated "Other one," was pal- 
 pable, and the object was to brand the illustrious exile 
 with a charge which he dared not make in set terms. 
 
RABBI MAIR 209 
 
 Mair, with all his Grecian tastes and wit, was a 
 thorough Hebrew in love for his land and people. 
 When death came to him in Sardes, his dying in- 
 junction was: 
 
 "Bury me on the shore, that the sea which washes 
 the land of my fathers may also touch my bones." " 
 
 With his death, as often happens, a revulsion 
 came in the minds of the people towards the illus- 
 trious dead. The Rabbis who had assailed him 
 while living bewailed his death as the fall of a 
 "Mighty one in Israel." 
 
 "With Mair died the race of makers of parables " 
 was their verdict on him. 66 
 
 His words were recorded and handed down for the 
 instruction of future generations. Even Acher's 
 memory shared in the popular favor. 
 
 "When Rabbi Mair died the smoke that was rising 
 from the grave of Acher passed away," is the quaint 
 expression with which the Talmud records this fact. 67 
 
 The sayings of Acher under his own name were 
 embodied in Jewish literature in the work of Chap- 
 ters of the Fathers.™ His name, though not coupled 
 with the title Rabbi, was reverenced as that of a 
 sage who was one of the intellectual glories of his 
 people. His honorable poverty, too, was remem- 
 bered, and when in after years his daughter came 
 to ask of Rabbi Juda the prince a pension for her 
 support, as was wont for the children of Rabbis, he 
 granted it in memory of his learning. 69 The words 
 of Acher, the branded Jew of his time, have fur- 
 nished themes for preachers of the Synagogue during 
 the subsequent ages. When Rabbi Juda compiled 
 
2IO JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the Mishnah, he gave place in its pages to the say- 
 ings of both Mair and Elisha, as two of the foremost 
 lights of Israel. 
 
 It was a notable instance of the passing nature of 
 the cause of Jewish independence which had clouded 
 the lives of both. Intellectual work was recognized 
 as too precious a part of the national inheritance to 
 be thrown away, however hated in life the workers 
 might have been. The truth of the axiom formu- 
 lated by Rabbi Mair was recognized by all, and with 
 it this chapter may fittingly close : 
 
 "He who studies the law for its own sake," he 
 says, "merits much, and the world owes him much. 
 He is called a dear friend : dear to God and dear to 
 mankind. He rejoiceth God and His creatures. 
 Study clotheth him with meekness and the fear of 
 God; it showeth the way to justice, to piety, 
 righteousness, and faith ; it removeth from sin, and 
 bringeth to high station. The world is benefited 
 by his counsel, wisdom, understanding, and strength. 
 It bestoweth empire, dominion, and reason 
 itself. The secrets of the law are revealed unto the 
 student and make him as an overflowing fountain, a 
 never-failing river. They make him modest, slow 
 to anger, and ready to forgive. They exalt and 
 magnify him above all beings." eo 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 RABBI SIMON BEN VOHAI 
 
 THROUGH the rebellion of Bar Kochba and 
 the calamities which followed it for the Jewish 
 people in Palestine, the House of Hillel seems to 
 have passed unscathed. The presidency of the 
 Sanhedrin had practically become hereditary in the 
 family of the great Babylonian Rabbi. He had won 
 the office by his abilities, the wealth he amassed and 
 transmitted to his descendants; and his admitted 
 descent from David secured it afterwards for many 
 generations to members of his family. Though no 
 political power was attached to it, the veneration of 
 the people made the patriarchate a shadow of royalty 
 in Palestine. Its possessors were careful not to risk 
 it by joining in the revolution attempted by Akibah, 
 and when that was crushed by the Romans, the 
 wealth of Hillel's descendants escaped confiscation. 
 It was the Rabbis of the school opposed to the 
 Hillelites, the House of Shammai, who had been 
 chiefly prominent in the rebellion, and the House of 
 Hillel, though it still enjoyed the respect of the 
 masses as its spiritual leaders, was not an object of 
 suspicion to Rome. 
 
 Among the devoted adherents of Akibah who sur- 
 
 211 
 
212 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 vived him the most noted were Mair and Simon ben 
 Yohai. Both had visited Akibah during his im- 
 prisonment, and both after his death received the 
 degree of Rabbi from Rabbi Juda ben Babba. 1 
 The latter was an enthusiastic partisan of Akibah in 
 the national revolution, and after its failure he con- 
 tinued to teach in defiance of the edicts of Hadrian 
 against Jewish instruction. 2 His rigid observance 
 of the ceremonies of the law was such that when 
 the hours prescribed for prayer came he would omit 
 every other employment to give himself to them. 
 The Talmud tells that once, while travelling on the 
 road, he thus stopped to pray there. A chieftain 
 came by on horseback and courteously saluted him, 
 but the Rabbi, absorbed in his devotions, made no 
 answer till he had finished his prayers. The angry 
 chief said then : 
 
 'Your law bids you be careful of life, yet you 
 have been careless of your own, for there was none 
 to hinder had I cut off your head when you answered 
 not my greeting." 
 
 "I ask thy pardon for that; but answer me, — if 
 thou wert speaking to the king, and a friend ad- 
 dressed thee, wouldst thou turn from the king's 
 face to answer it? " 
 
 "It would be as much as my head were worth," 
 answered the chief. 
 
 "Then if such be the risk for showing disrespect 
 to a mortal king, what would I have deserved had I 
 shown irreverence to the King of kings, who is from 
 eternity to eternity? I stood in supplication before 
 Him when thou deignedst to salute me." 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 213 
 
 The chief accepted the admonition in good faith 
 and the two parted. 3 
 
 Ben Babba continued to instruct disciples in the 
 law, despite the persecution, and one day his school 
 was surprised by a party of Roman soldiers. He 
 saw them coming and at once pronounced the form 
 of words over Mair and Ben Yohai which made them 
 legitimate Rabbis. He then gave them his blessing 
 and bade them flee. 
 
 "But what will become of thee, Master?" they 
 asked. 
 
 "I stay like a rock," he answered. 
 
 The disciples fled, but Ben Babba was pierced by 
 the Roman lances and died there. 4 
 
 Ben Yohai, though an ardent disciple of Akibah 
 and a devoted patriot, was the son of a Jew who had 
 entered the Roman service, and held high position 
 as an official. He seems to have neglected even the 
 religious rites of his people, for in after years, when 
 Ben Yohai was a Rabbi and a religious master in 
 Israel, he had to rebuke his widowed mother for idle 
 speech on the Sabbath Day. 6 Whatever his father's 
 wishes, Simon early devoted himself to the study of 
 the Jewish law. He won a name as an expounder 
 in the rabbinical schools which attracted the attention 
 of Akibah during his career of revolutionary propa- 
 ganda. The son of the Roman official became the 
 friend and disciple of the revolutionist, and was thir- 
 teen years in his company and under his instructions.* 
 Akibah said to him in admiration on one occasion: 
 
 "As I live, it is only thy Maker and I that can 
 understand thy ability." ' 
 
214 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Such testimony speaks much for the abilities of 
 Ben Yohai. Akibah, on the other hand, was adored 
 by his disciple with his whole soul. He lost not a 
 word that fell from his lips. He copied even the 
 manners and gestures of the master, and, in after 
 years, he boasted that his own manners were mod- 
 elled on Akibah 's. 8 Still he was not a slavish ad- 
 herent. He did not fear to reject a decision of the 
 master's when he believed it incorrect, or to give his 
 own explanation as sometimes better than Akibah's." 
 
 Simon ben Yohai, like Akibah, was a married man 
 when he took up a life of study. The latter had his 
 abode and school in the town of Benai Berack, far 
 from Simon's residence, and Simon left his wife and 
 children to dwell apart during the years that he gave 
 himself to study. His wife at last urged him to re- 
 turn, as their daughter was of an age to marry and 
 needed her father's care. Ben Yohai did not heed 
 the call. Akibah heard of it, and, when his disciples 
 were gathered together, he ordered Simon to depart. 
 
 "Let him who hath a daughter of age to marry 
 return to his home till she be married," was his 
 command, which Ben Yohai had to obey. 
 
 He returned to his house unannounced, and the 
 surprise made his wife swoon. The tardy husband 
 thought her dead, and exclaimed : 
 
 "Lord, is this the reward she receives who hath 
 awaited me thirteen years? " 
 
 His wife fortunately recovered, and, then Ben 
 Yohai laid down the sage rule : 
 
 "Enter not suddenly thine own house, much less 
 that of another." I0 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 21 5 
 
 It was not in Akibah's school alone that he 
 grounded himself in knowledge. A curious anec- 
 dote of him in the Talmud illustrates this fact, and 
 also gives an idea of the subjects of study and the 
 methods of studying, of Hebrew scholars in the 
 olden time. Rabbi Simon was explaining to his 
 disciples the manner of observing the Feast of 
 Tabernacles. The Law of Moses required all free 
 men of Jewish race to reside in booths of branches 
 during the days of that festival. The Rabbi laid 
 down the law on the subject as he had heard it from 
 Gamaliel II., the descendant of Hillel. He told 
 how he had, when young, called on the president at 
 Yamnai, and been asked to eat with him in his 
 booth. Ben Yohai, with other guests, came with 
 Gamaliel, and, when they entered the booth, they 
 saw a slave, Tobi, asleep under the table. 
 
 "See," said Gamaliel, "what a scholar this slave 
 is; he knows that he is not liable to the obligation 
 of the festival." 
 
 From this Simon learned that only freemen, not 
 slaves, were required to observe the precept of 
 dwelling in booths for eight days, and also that to 
 fulfil it it was necessary there should be no ceiling 
 of boards like the table under which Tobi was sleep- 
 ing in peace." The technicalities of the law, as 
 elaborated by generations of Rabbis, must have 
 rivalled the intricacies of an English Chancery suit. 
 Another characteristic anecdote of the spirit of the 
 students in the schools tells how Rabbi Juda bar 
 Illai said contemptuously of Ben Yohai: 
 
 " He is like a grinder who throws out only a little 
 
2l6 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 bran," meaning that his original remarks were of 
 little value. 13 
 
 Simon hotly asked his meaning, and was parried 
 with the adroit explanation : 
 
 "I but meant that thou grindest much learning, 
 and forgettest but little, and that of no worth, like 
 bran.'" 9 
 
 Ben Yohai was appeased, but the feud between 
 the masters broke out later in another place. 
 
 After his ordination as Rabbi, Ben Yohai, despite 
 the Roman persecution, established a school in 
 Thekoa, a town in Galilee; either through his 
 father's protection or the remoteness of the place, 
 he was not molested. 
 
 The ardor of the Jewish students for the pre- 
 scribed studies and the still glowing national spirit 
 brought disciples around the favorite of Akibah. 
 Ben Yohai gloried in preserving all that Rabbi's 
 teachings, and he looked with contempt both on ^he 
 scholarship and the political course of the Rabbis 
 who adhered to the House of Hillel. When the 
 decrees against Jewish schools were relaxed by the 
 Emperor Antoninus in 138, Ben Yohai came among 
 the teachers who gathered around the president in 
 Yamnai. He was received with honor, his legal lore 
 was admired, and in private his adhesion to Akibah 
 won him many partisans among the stricter nation- 
 alists. With all his admiration for the revolutionary 
 Rabbi, Ben Yohai had not committed himself to any 
 act of open rebellion. His father was high in favor 
 with the Roman authorities, and Ben Yohai con- 
 ceived the audacious project of securing for himself 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 2\J 
 
 the presidency of the Sanhedrin. Gamaliel, the 
 holder of that office, died in 140, and an election 
 was held to give him a successor. The patriarchate 
 by common consent had been hereditary in the 
 House of Hillcl for a hundred and thirty years. 
 Hillel was a descendant of David, and while a son 
 of David held the highest office in the nation, though 
 with no political power, the Jewish populace recog- 
 nized a kind of continuation of his kingdom and 
 felt that the sceptre had not altogether passed from 
 Juda. 
 
 Ben Yohai scoffed at this sentiment. He derided 
 the little learning and yielding character of Gamaliel 
 the Patriarch, and when his son Simon claimed the 
 vacant seat, Ben Yohai demanded it for himself, as 
 being the most learned Rabbi in Israel. The mem- 
 bers of the council were not ready to accept his 
 claims ; indeed, it could hardly be expected that the 
 Roman authorities would tolerate a friend of Akibah 
 in the chair of the Sanhedrin. Simon was elected 
 president, 14 and Ben Yohai left Yamnai in anger and 
 disappointment and went back to Thekoa. 
 
 He was called some time later to another meeting 
 of the Sanhedrin in Yamnai to settle some important 
 questions which had arisen. I& Ben Yohai came, but 
 anger over his defeat still burned in him. He bit- 
 terly criticised the learning and what he considered 
 the political cowardice of his fellow-Rabbis, and he 
 forgot, in his heat, that the Jewish religion only was 
 permitted by the favor of the all-powerful Roman 
 Empire. During the synod one of the Rabbis, 
 Juda Ben Illai, spoke in terms of praise of the 
 
2l8 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 material civilization of Rome and Greece. The 
 bitter feelings of Ben Yohai were not to be sup- 
 pressed by considerations of danger. He denounced 
 the works of the masters of Palestine with harsh 
 contempt. 
 
 "The Romans," he said, "have done all their 
 works for self, and self-indulgence alone. They 
 have laid out streets and built fair buildings and 
 baths and bridges, but their buildings are brothels, 
 their baths abodes of sin, their bridges only tax 
 offices to wring tribute from the poor. They have 
 done nothing for either the glory of God or the 
 help of man." 
 
 There were friends of Rome and enemies of Ben 
 Yohai even among the Rabbis in their religious 
 gathering. Juda ben Gorion bore to the prstorium 
 the seditious discourse of the angry Ben Yohai, as 
 well as the speeches of the other Rabbis. An edict 
 went forth from the Roman governor: 
 
 "Let Juda, who spoke well of Rome, be promoted ; 
 let Josai, who was silent, be exiled; let Simon ben 
 Yohai, who slandered Rome, be executed." IB 
 
 He did not await martyrdom, however. With his 
 son Eleazar, also a famous scholar, he fled to the 
 mountains. There they remained hidden for many 
 years. As he went he vented the bitterness which 
 filled his heart at the forgetfulness of religion among 
 the teachers of Israel and their readiness to worship 
 the ways of the heathen. Ben Illai, the panegyrist 
 of the Roman tyranny, and Ben Gorion, the treacher- 
 ous spy, were equally hateful to him. 
 
 "Once I used to think," he said, "that had I been 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 21 9 
 
 with Moses at Sinai, I would have asked the Lord 
 to give man two mouths : one to speak his own 
 praises alone, the other to speak the affairs of men. 
 Now I see my folly. For if man with only one 
 mouth can nearly destroy the world by his false 
 speaking, what further evil might not come had he 
 two tongues ! " " 
 
 Legend has woven a story of marvels around Ben 
 Yohai in his cave. It is not easy to distinguish al- 
 ways the facts, be they real or supposed, which the 
 Talmud tells of, from the figurative imagery with 
 which it clothes their narration. It seems best to 
 give them as told, for thus they throw light on the 
 frame of mind prevalent among the Jewish people 
 during the last days of their sojourn in the Promised 
 Land as vassals to Rome. We are told that Simon 
 and his son passed thirteen years in their cave, living 
 on the fruit of a locust and the water of a spring 
 within their resting-place. They sat and slept in 
 the sand which covered its floor, and Simon's body 
 became covered with sores ,8 ; but he heeded them 
 not. He was absorbed in reflection on the law of 
 Israel, and he discussed it daily with his son; grad- 
 ually his mind was drawn away from the passing 
 things of human life to the invisible things of eternity 
 and the inner nature of man. He looked on his 
 former existence, with the strifes, fears, sorrows, and 
 deaths which had filled it, as only a dream of the 
 night. The objects pursued by the majority of men, 
 their loves and their hatreds, the greed of wealth and 
 honors, even ordinary occupations of life, became 
 sinful in his eyes. The one thing worthy of man's 
 
220 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 care was the study of the law. To that he gave 
 himself up wholly. He went over in mind the lore 
 he had gathered from his former teachers, he pon- 
 dered and digested all in his cave, even while the 
 Rabbis of Yamnai were bewailing that study had 
 died out, and that the law of Israel seemed in 
 danger of perishing for want of knowledge. 19 
 
 Thirteen years had thus passed when word was 
 brought to Rabbi Simon that his life was no longer 
 threatened and that he was free to return to the 
 abodes of men." He and Eleazar came forth, but 
 everything that met them was in such contrast to 
 the bareness of their mountain abode that it pained, 
 rather than gladdened, their hearts. The very birds 
 and plants displeased their saddened souls. Ben 
 Yohai recalled the ruin of the Holy City, the tortures 
 and deaths that had fallen on its greatest sons, the 
 misery that hung like a cloud over the people of 
 Israel, the treachery of his own colleagues, and he 
 found no cause for joy in life. He rebuked the joy 
 his son showed at revisiting the society of man. 
 Man has no right to rejoice in such a world as this, 
 was his dreary verdict. "' 
 
 He doubted, after all, whether it were good to ex- 
 change the calm of his hermitage for the affliction of 
 seeing the law disregarded among men, and fear of 
 Rome more powerful than Jewish national feeling. 
 As he revolved these things in his mind he caught 
 sight of an archer who aimed at a bird. The arrow 
 missed its mark, and the bird flew away unharmed. 
 Ben Yohai felt his fatalistic faith revived by the sight. 
 
 "If even a little bird cannot be slain without the 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 221 
 
 consent of God," he said, "much less need man fear 
 danger from the malevolence of men." And so he 
 went on his way." 
 
 Mystic power had come on him during the days 
 of his solitary sufferings and study. Nature seemed 
 to bend to his wishes, even passing ones. As he 
 walked through the cultivated fields he saw men and 
 women at work. His reflections on the vanity of 
 passing things revived, and he said bitterly to his 
 son : 
 
 "See these men barter eternal life for the idle 
 things of a day. They plough and reap instead of 
 studying the law, but their end will be death." 
 
 Hardly were the words uttered when the husband- 
 men fell down and died. The voice of an angel re- 
 buked the intemperate zeal of the Rabbi. 
 
 "Return to your cave," it ordered. 'Did you 
 only leave it to destroy men? ' 
 
 The wayfarers obeyed; they went back and 
 dwelt in their wild cave a year more. Then they 
 came forth and returned to it no more. 53 
 
 Though rebuked by the angel, Simon had not 
 wholly removed from his heart the bitter zeal he 
 cherished for the law. As he travelled, he came to 
 a field where men were culling the after-crop. Now 
 it was the Year of Release, when it is not lawful for 
 an Israelite to cut the after-growth of his field, which 
 is the inheritance of the poor and needy. Simon, 
 however, when a Rabbi of renown, had pronounced 
 that this precept was not binding. His decision had 
 been overruled by the majority in the Sanhedrin, and 
 therefore was valueless in religious law, but it was 
 
222 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 still quoted with approval by greedy agriculturists. 
 Simon rebuked them. 
 
 "How dare you act thus?" he asked. 
 
 "Art thou not then he who taught us?" was their 
 rejoinder. 
 
 "Even so," he answered, "others and the greater 
 number rejected my teaching, and in Israel it is the 
 ruling of the majority that makes the law. Know, 
 then, that it is written of those who break the law 
 that serpents shall sting them." 
 
 Then a multitude of serpents came and bit the 
 law-breakers. 24 He went on and, as he approached 
 Tiberias, he met Juda ben Gorion, the same who 
 had denounced him to the Roman governor. Rabbi 
 Simon looked on his enemy and said : 
 
 "Doth this man yet live?" and the traitor was 
 suddenly turned to stone. 26 
 
 A milder instance of this power was given in the 
 case of some of his old pupils near the same town. 
 They greeted him and told of the wealth they had 
 acquired, and Simon said: 
 
 "Be such things worth prizing? Lo ! I need but 
 call and all this valley shall be covered with gold." 
 So it was on the moment. Then Simon said : 
 
 "Take all you please, but I say to you that 
 whoever takes even one shall forfeit his place in 
 Paradise. 26 
 
 Somewhat similar in its contempt of earthly 
 things was his answer to the greetings of his son-in- 
 law, Phineas, himself also a mystic and wonder- 
 worker of fame. When Simon met him, Phineas 
 was struck by the wretched appearance of the once 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 223 
 
 famous master, covered with rags and afflicted with 
 grievous ulcers. 
 
 "Woe is me to see my master thus!' he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "Nay, my son," said Simon, mildly; "rather say, 
 'Joy that I see thee thus' ; for of a truth, were I 
 otherwise you would find nothing worthy of honor 
 in me. 7 
 
 Phineas dwelt in Tiberias, and Simon remained 
 there instead of going to Yamnai, the seat of the 
 Sanhedrim The air of Tiberias was mild; the town 
 abounded in hot springs, and its surroundings were 
 beautiful, but it was under a ban of superstition as a 
 residence with the stricter Jews. It had been rebuilt 
 in Roman style by Herod, on the ruins of an ancient 
 city, and the Jewish Quarter was located on the site 
 of a cemetery. For this reason the law made it un- 
 clean as a residence for priests, and the students like- 
 wise shunned it. Simon ben Yohai declared that 
 tradition promised it would yet be made clean,* 8 and 
 he realized the prediction by having the old graves 
 sought out and the bones removed to another place. 
 Then he formally pronounced the city "clean," and 
 opened his school there. His fame was widespread 
 already, and crowds came to study at his feet. 
 Tiberias became a centre of Jewish learning, which 
 later overshadowed Yamnai and every other seat of 
 instruction in Palestine. 
 
 The fame of Ben Yohai as a worker of wonders 
 grew rapidly with the renewal of his active teaching. 
 The Talmud, by a bold flight, represents him as even 
 making the will of the Roman emperor bend to 
 
224 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 his mystic powers. It tells how Marcus Aurelius 
 designed to renew the edicts of Hadrian against the 
 Jewish rites, and that, in their despair, the people 
 besought Rabbi Simon to go in person to Rome and 
 plead for mercy. Simon consented on condition 
 that the son of his old colleague, Ben Josai, the same 
 who had held his peace when Ben Yohai denounced 
 Roman ways in the Sanhedrin, should go with him. 
 josai feared some evil, but yielded at the prayers of 
 the people. Simon and the son of Josai set out on 
 their embassy. 
 
 He did not count on entreaties for the success of 
 his mission. The Talmud tells how on his way he 
 met a demon, Tamalion, and him he commanded to 
 take possession of the daughter of the emperor. 
 When the envoys reached the capital they found all 
 its people in sorrow for the fate that had fallen on the 
 imperial House. The daughter of Aurelius had sud- 
 denly become a maniac. Physicians were unable to 
 alleviate the mysterious malady. The emperor was 
 inconsolable at the affliction in his family. Simon 
 applied for an audience with the emperor in the name 
 of his people. It was near being haughtily refused, 
 but Aurelius suddenly remembered the reputation 
 for strange powers enjoyed by his Eastern subjects. 
 
 "The Hebrews have skill in medicine and in 
 magic," he said, "perhaps this man may cure my 
 daughter. Let him be admitted." 
 
 "Peace to thee, O lord," said Simon when he 
 entered the council-chamber. 
 
 "There is no peace where sorrow dwells," was the 
 caesar's answer. 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 225 
 
 "What can thy heart desire in vain, mighty Em- 
 peror?" asked Ben Yohai. 
 
 "My daughter's restoration to health," was the 
 reply. 
 
 "If thy daughter's illness be the only cloud on the 
 august face of caesar, let him be cheerful now," said 
 the Rabbi, "for, by the living God of Israel, I will 
 restore her to health." 
 
 "If thou canst," exclaimed the emperor, "thou 
 mayest name what price thou wiliest and it shall be 
 thine, though it be all the treasure of Rome. But 
 beware of mocking my grief! If thou failest, not 
 only thy life, but the lives of a thousand of thy He- 
 brew countrymen, shall pay the forfeit." 
 
 "Show me the maiden and thou shalt see the 
 power of the Lord God of Israel," was Ben Yohai's 
 answer. 
 
 The emperor brought him to his daughter's room. 
 She was a raving maniac, and spurned her father's 
 caresses and entreaties with insane fury. Simon 
 approached and fixed his eyes on hers. Gradually 
 the fury died out of her face, her eyes grew calm, and 
 were fixed with an entreating look on Simon's face. 
 He then commanded the evil spirit to leave her, and 
 Tamalion obeyed. The princess threw herself into 
 her father's arms, cured completely. Aurelius kept 
 his word. The Jewish envoys were sent to the im- 
 perial treasury and bidden to take whatever they 
 desired. They passed through and saw with sadness 
 the plundered treasures of Jerusalem, carried away 
 years before by Pompey and Titus. They shed 
 tears over the sacred vessels, but they touched them 
 
226 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 not. Simon asked to see the record of edicts. He 
 took therefrom the decree of persecution already 
 prepared against the Jewish people. This he laid 
 before the emperor as his reward. Aurelius cheer- 
 fully granted his desire and withdrew the edict. 29 
 
 After Ben Yohai's settlement in Tiberias a gradual 
 change came over his mind. The bitterness of his 
 zeal gave way to mildness. His sayings are thor- 
 oughly racy of the soil of Palestine, but they are 
 stamped with a liberality very unlike the spirit which 
 doomed to death the offenders against the usage of 
 the Year of Release. A few examples will illustrate 
 this: 
 
 "He does not sin who bows before an idol through 
 force." 30 
 
 "Religion can never be a cloak for evil deeds. 
 Unjustly gotten goods are not sanctified if offered 
 for sacred uses." 31 
 
 'The glory of the Lord accompanies the righteous 
 to every land" is significant of the change which had 
 come over Ben Yohai from the time he identified 
 Palestine with the full observance of religion. 32 
 
 Simon's attachment to the Jewish law was deep 
 and lasting. In the troubled times in which his life 
 was cast, many of the Rabbis feared to maintain the 
 traditions of constant study and discussion of its 
 precepts which had been so large a part of national 
 life at an earlier period. They feared to draw down 
 fresh persecutions from the jealousy of the Roman 
 rulers if they drew crowds of disciples around their 
 schools. They admitted the need of educating the 
 youth of the nation in the law, but they feared the 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 227 
 
 risk. They excused their timidity by the plea that 
 God would Himself provide for the preservation 
 of His law, and that efforts were not needed on 
 their part for such a result. They sought, by 
 casuistry, to minimize the duties prescribed for 
 faithful Hebrews by their own law, and they held 
 that the laws of the dominant heathen power 
 had no moral force over Jewish conscience. They 
 looked with indulgence on crimes of violence or 
 fraud against the heathen, and bred hypocrisy 
 among the people by teaching that outward obedi- 
 ence was all that was desirable from Jews to the 
 foreign rulers. Simon held a braver course. 
 
 "Respect authority and be quick to obey," he 
 said, which is almost the same as the precept, "Fear 
 God and honor the king." 
 
 "Be gentle with the young and friendly to all 
 men," was the complement of his precept. 33 
 
 Yet he urged the strict observance of those 
 regulations which rested on the Jewish law itself as 
 ardently. 
 
 "One should not speak of worldly affairs on the 
 Sabbath," 34 and, "If all the people would but keep 
 two Sabbaths properly their salvation would be at 
 hand," 3i are maxims in the thorough spirit of Juda- 
 ism. He illustrated his meaning by a curious par- 
 able : 
 
 "The Fifth Book of Moses (*. e., the written 
 law)," he said, "appeared before the throne of 
 mercy. It pleaded its cause: 'King Solomon hath 
 destroyed my power over the people by his con- 
 tempt of me. The law forbids many wives to a 
 
228 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 man, yet King Solomon hath taken exceeding 
 many. It says the King shall not keep many 
 horses, yet he keeps horses in exceeding number. 
 It forbids to lay up much store of silver or of gold, 
 yet Solomon is insatiable for gold and silver. Even 
 as a man's testament loses force when part of it is 
 made void, so am I made void among the people 
 since the King has broken part of my precepts.' 
 
 But the Lord comforted the Book and said : 
 
 "Solomon and hundreds like Solomon shall pass 
 away, but not a jot of thee shall pass or be for- 
 gotten." 36 
 
 Simon urged from this the constant study of the 
 imperishable law of God as the highest duty. 
 
 "He who, as he walks, stops his contemplation of 
 the law to speak of the beauty of flower or field, 
 sins," 3T is his maxim on this head. 
 
 Human diligence must co-operate with God's will. 
 'To live up to the law," he adds, "is better than 
 to know the law." S8 
 
 On another point his dislike of usury, which was 
 forbidden to Jews among themselves, was expressed 
 in the command : 
 
 "A borrower shall not be the first to salute when 
 he meets him who hath lent to him, nor shall he 
 so salute through other men's agency." 39 
 
 The precepts of general morality laid down in his 
 sayings are marked with a stamp of mildness very 
 unlike the character of his early bitter zeal. Ex- 
 perience had evidently softened the harshness of his 
 temper, and the Christ-like tone of his later utter- 
 ances is remarkable. 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 229 
 
 "Life is earnest, and it is sin to be frivolous in a 
 world of sorrow. ' ' 40 
 
 "Love is a jewel in Heaven's treasury which 
 every man can win if he seek it truthfully." " 
 
 "It is a higher duty to honor parents than to make 
 offerings to the Lord. If a man be poor he sins not 
 when he offers nothing, but, rich or poor, he must 
 pay the debt of honor to his parents." " 
 
 "Speak ill of no man, however evil be the times; 
 even though children do not honor father or 
 mother," " shows how strongly Simon regarded the 
 obligations of children to parents. He classes its 
 neglect as the worst form of social demoralization. 
 
 "It is worse to rob a man of his good name than 
 of his money, ' ' is another injunction against slander. 44 
 
 "Rather throw thyself into a furnace than bring 
 thy fellow-man to shame." " 
 
 "If thou hast wronged another, confess thy wrong 
 aloud, but if thou hast helped him, let thy kindness 
 be hidden " is very like the precept, "Let not thy 
 right hand know what thy left hand doeth. 46 
 
 "Confession of sin should be whispered, lest 
 others hear and afterward bring the penitent to 
 shame." 47 
 
 "It is unworthy of man to make earthly things 
 his aim, even though they be the necessaries of 
 life." 49 
 
 "The proud man is an idolater. He worships 
 what is of no worth [himself]." 49 
 
 "A sinful soul lives in fear; for conscience is its 
 constant accuser. A pure soul needs not fear, for 
 piety is its guardian." 60 
 
230 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "A stainless name is better than a priestly 
 crown," 61 and, 
 
 ' ' Great is work, it honoreth a man," " a are two more 
 of his precepts. The latter he carried out in his 
 own practice by daily carrying his own satchel to his 
 school, notwithstanding his dignified position. It 
 was given in answer to the criticism of this habit by 
 some of his pupils. 
 
 "It is the punishment of liars to be disbelieved 
 even when they speak truth," " is a pithy adage 
 which may refer to the men who had offered Bar 
 Kochba to Israel as the Messiah. In the movement 
 for independence lying promises had beguiled the 
 people, and the just causes of complaint had been 
 forgotten in the falsehoods which were coined to 
 accompany them. Akibah and his fellows had seen 
 visions and dreamed dreams, and they had given 
 them to the people as revelations. 
 
 "Dreams are but echoes of idle words, — grains of 
 fact on the straw of fancy," was Ben Yohai's pithy 
 remark. 64 
 
 An example of a moral precept as illustrated by a 
 tale is interesting as a specimen of the literary forms 
 of Eastern people : 
 
 "A ship was crowded with passengers, each in his 
 place. One sat apart and was sullen and silent. 
 Suddenly he took an auger and began to bore 
 through the vessel's side. The other passengers saw 
 his work and asked what he meant. 
 
 "'It is not your business,' said the man; 'you 
 have your places and I have mine. I have paid for 
 it. Can I not do as I like with my own ? ' 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 23 1 
 
 " 'Not so,' the passengers cried, ' for thy deed will 
 destroy us all with thee. The waters will come on 
 us as well as on thee.' 
 
 "Thus," said Rabbi Simon, "if one man in a city 
 sins and is not restrained, the other people of that 
 city must share in the punishment of his sin." " 
 
 These quotations give an idea of the form taken 
 by the mental activity of the Jewish race. Widely 
 as it differs from Western forms of expression, Ori- 
 ental wisdom is not the less genuine. Among the 
 Hebrews the proverbs which are the delight of all 
 Eastern people take on a certain authoritative tone 
 from the intimate connection between the scholars, 
 or wise men, and the expounders of the divine law. 
 It is this rather than any other cause which has 
 made literature so great a power among the Jewish 
 race in all ages, as it continues to be to-day. 
 
 An anecdote of Simon's career as a judge shows 
 that his practice was in keeping with his preaching. 
 
 When holding court in Sidon, a man applied to 
 him for a divorce. The wife had reluctantly con- 
 sented to the proceeding. She loved her husband, 
 but as they had lived together for ten years without 
 children born the law granted him a right of divorce. 
 The facts in the case were easily proven. The man 
 had other wives, and children by them. Simon dis- 
 liked to separate them, and talked earnestly with 
 the man to change his mind, but to no purpose. 
 
 4 ' As you will, ' ' said the Rabbi, ' ' but since you have 
 lived together for ten years I advise you to let a feast 
 precede your divorce ; be joyful once more as on your 
 wedding day, and then, if you will, part in peace." 
 
232 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Rabbi's suggestion found favor with the man. 
 He invited his friends and gave them a feast. Old 
 wine was freely drunk by host and guests. They 
 drank the health of the woman who was about to go 
 from the house, never to return, and as the husband 
 lifted his cup, while bending his face to his wife's, a 
 sudden feeling of regret filled his heart. They had 
 been happy together, and but for his desire to have 
 children, he had no cause to send her away. But 
 as divorce her he must, she should at least not leave 
 his house like a beggar; she should have anything 
 her heart desired, though it were half his fortune. 
 
 "Choose the dearest object in my house and it 
 shall be thine," he cried. 
 
 She bade him drink more wine. 
 
 Soon the strong wine had its effect and he became 
 unconscious. Thereupon the woman took him on 
 her back and carried him to her father's house. 
 
 After drunkenness had left him and the husband 
 realized where he was, his wife said to him : 
 
 "Behold, I did as thou didst command. I took 
 from thy house the one object I hold dearest on 
 earth, — thee, my husband." 
 
 Obviously the Rabbi's ingenuity had been at work 
 to the happiness of both husband and wife. 6 " 
 
 The change which had come over Ben Yohai's 
 mind since the days when he left his cave to smite 
 transgressors of the smallest points of the law with 
 death is very striking. By a strange contrast Ele- 
 azar, his son, whose joy at leaving their mountain 
 retreat had earned the stern rebuke of Ben Yohai, 
 seemed to grow more bitter in his zeal as the years 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 233 
 
 passed over him. He scorned the Sanhedrin which 
 had refused to choose his father to preside over it. 
 He especially despised Simon, the actual president, 
 and Juda, his son. In youth Juda and Eleazar had 
 been fellow-students, and the superior abilities of 
 the latter had been acknowledged. He had humbled 
 the son of the House of Hillel before his fellows, 
 and in after years he scorned to do him honor even 
 though head of the Sanhedrin. While Ben Yohai 
 lived, he restrained the harshness of his son's char- 
 acter, but when he was gathered to his fathers Ele- 
 azar gave full sway to his antipathy to the men in 
 authority among the Jews. He professed a fanatical 
 zeal for the law, but he coupled it with a hatred for 
 his people which he veiled under the name of hatred 
 of sin. 
 
 The public law of Palestine was the Roman, 
 and Roman officials chastised law-breakers without 
 mercy. The majority of the Jewish Rabbis, while 
 insisting on the observance of the law of Moses 
 under penalty of grievous sin, made light of offences 
 against the laws of the heathen. The Sabbath- 
 breaker was accursed, but the robber or assassin, if 
 his victims were not of the House of Israel, found 
 indulgence from the Rabbis. 
 
 "A Jew is a Jew, they said, and before the Lord, 
 who is the Father of Israel, the wrongs he may do in 
 his dealing with the heathen will not be laid up 
 against him." Eleazar, whose family had been long 
 associated with the Roman officials, sternly rejected 
 this laxity of moral teaching. Israel to him was as 
 a chosen vineyard from which it was a sacred duty to 
 
234 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 root out sinners as the husbandman roots out weeds. 
 Sinners to him were sinners, whether it was the law 
 of Moses or that of Rome which they offended. 67 
 
 He did not confine his zeal on this point to 
 theory. Following the example of his grandfather, 
 he joined himself to the Roman rulers of the land, 
 and was made a captain of their soldiers. His size 
 and strength were enormous, and his earnestness in 
 carrying out the Roman laws in the fullest vigor 
 was unbounded. Since the rebellion of Bar Kochba 
 the land was full of Jewish outlaws, who supported 
 themselves by plundering travellers, and regarded 
 themselves in a sense as patriots in their resistance 
 to the hated foreign law. Eleazar hunted down this 
 band without mercy. His knowledge of the country 
 and the ways of the Jewish people made him a sin- 
 gularly efficient agent for the Roman government. 
 No man could deceive his vigilance by smooth 
 speech, such as satisfied the Roman officials. His 
 instructions to his men were emphatic : 
 
 "Visit the houses before noon. If you find men 
 sleeping, then ask if they be scholars or laborers. 
 If they be, let them alone, for work brings sleep. 
 If they cannot show they are such, arrest them at 
 once, for surely they are robbers." M 
 
 The vigilance of Eleazar cleared the country of 
 malefactors, but it excited keen resentment in the 
 minds of the more patriotic Jews. The son of Ak- 
 ibah, Josua, sent a message to Eleazar in stinging 
 language. 
 
 "Vinegar, son of wine, how long wilt thou con- 
 tinue to deliver God's people to death? " M 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 235 
 
 "I only destroy the weeds in the vineyard," was 
 the short reply, to which Rabbi Josua rejoined : 
 
 "Leave the owner of the vineyard [God] to de- 
 stroy the weeds." 60 
 
 The nickname given by Josua soon became com- 
 mon among the people. One day a countryman 
 applied it to him in public. Eleazar was angry and 
 bade his men seize the insulter. 
 
 "His impudence shows him a robber," he said, 
 and the man was taken to prison. 
 
 After a while his anger cooled, and he went to the 
 prison to release the offender. He learned he had 
 been just executed as a robber. Remorse seized 
 him and he wept. The jailer, who was a Hebrew, 
 to console him, told him that the man executed had 
 been guilty of an atrocious crime against a Jewish 
 maiden, which merited death by the law of Moses, 
 so that his punishment on another charge was sub- 
 stantial justice. 
 
 "Rejoice, my soul," said Eleazar, "for, after all, 
 I was in the right." 81 
 
 The occurrence, however, made a deep impression 
 on his mind. He resigned his position among the 
 Roman soldiers, and sought reconciliation with his 
 countrymen. A curious statement in the Talmud 
 may either symbolize his change of heart or tell of 
 an actual surgical operation. It says that he was so 
 fat that he had his stomach opened by surgeons and 
 many layers of tissue removed." He gave him- 
 self up afterwards to prayer and penances. Gradu- 
 ally the people recognized him again as a Rabbi 
 and teacher, and his fame grew in the land. He 
 
236 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 continued his hostility, however, to the president 
 of the Sanhedrin. 
 
 "The Messiah will not come," he said, "till all 
 judges and officials have disappeared from the con- 
 gregation of Israel." 6S 
 
 This was in accord with the utterances of Ben 
 Yohai against Simon, the president of his day. 
 
 "The man who lacks knowledge of the law had 
 better not discuss the law," '* and, 
 
 "It is as much a duty not to discuss what one 
 does not understand as to discuss what one under- 
 stands." " 
 
 Rabbi Juda, the son of Simon and his successor 
 as president, could not pardon the attacks of Eleazar. 
 He branded him as "The evil-doer who destroyed 
 many of the seed of Israel." 6S Phineas ben Yares, 
 the son-in-law of Ben Yohai, also refused to have 
 anything to do with Eleazar, and his life was em- 
 bittered by frequent criticisms. 
 
 A tale in the Talmud may illustrate his position 
 and the feelings of the people towards him. 
 
 Once, it runs, Rabbi Eleazar was riding from 
 Migdol Goser, and, as he came to a river, he dropped 
 the rein to let his mule eat grass. Pride and glad- 
 ness filled his heart as he thought of how much 
 learning was his. As he pondered on the decision 
 of his masters, a misshapen man passed that way 
 and saluted him, but Eleazar paid no heed to the 
 salute. The man made a sharp comment on his 
 rudeness, and Eleazar was angry. 
 
 "Are all the people in thy town as ugly as thou? " 
 he asked. 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 237 
 
 "I know not," the man replied, "but if my body 
 does not please thee, thou art at liberty to ask my 
 Maker why He hath made me an ugly vessel." 
 
 The answer made Eleazar conscious of the ill grace 
 of his words. He sprang from the mule and humbly 
 begged the man's pardon. 
 
 "I will not pardon thee," said the man, "until 
 thou hast made complaint to my Maker of the ugli- 
 ness of His handiwork." 
 
 He walked on, followed by Eleazar, who again 
 begged to be forgiven ; for, according to the law, he 
 had to receive the man's forgiveness ere he could 
 hope to be forgiven by God. 87 But the man was 
 obdurate, and there was nothing left for Eleazar but 
 to keep up his plea until they reached the city, and 
 there ask the man's pardon publicly : should the latter 
 persist in his refusal, the conscience of the Rabbi 
 would be clear, as the humility would offset the 
 offence. The town was Eleazar's rabbinical seat, 
 and the people, having expected him, had gathered 
 in numbers to salute him 
 
 "Hail, our Rabbi and our Master! " they cried. 
 
 "Whom call ye Rabbi and Master?" the ugly 
 man asked. 
 
 "He who follows thee," the people replied. 
 
 "If he is a Rabbi," said the man, "then may 
 there be none like him in Israel! " 
 
 They asked him why, and he told what had taken 
 place on the road. 
 
 "Yet we beg of thee to forgive him," the elders 
 pleaded, "for he is a great man and learned in the 
 law." 
 
238 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "For your sake, then, will I forgive him, but on 
 condition that he never do such a thing again," said 
 the man. 
 
 When Rabbi Eleazar heard these words a great 
 joy filled his heart, and forthwith he preached a 
 sermon in the public square, the burden of which 
 was mercy and forgiveness. "Let man ever be 
 yielding as a reed and not hard and unbending as 
 the cedar," he cried. 68 
 
 This anecdote illustrates the mingled respect and 
 dislike with which the son of Ben Yohai was re- 
 garded. His father had died in 165, and the people 
 bore his body to the cave where he and Eleazar had 
 dwelt so long. It became a pilgrimage for the re- 
 ligious among the people, for Ben Yohai's fame was 
 great as a worker of miracles. It has lasted. A 
 correspondent of the Alliance Israelite Universelle 
 in 1888 says: 
 
 "During the month of April, Jewish pilgrims 
 leave this city [Damascus] for the purpose of cele- 
 brating the thirty-third day of Omer at Mitan, where 
 they visit the tomb of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai. It 
 is a touching sight to behold invalids of every de- 
 scription undertaking the long journey, full of hope 
 and firm in the faith that the proximity of the sacred 
 tomb will cure them of all their infirmities." 
 
 Eleazar felt keenly his position, and his health de- 
 clined through grief. He found his end approaching 
 and he knew that his body would not be allowed to 
 rest with his father's. He called his faithful wife 
 and told her his wishes. 
 
 "I have been a proud man all my days and have 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 239 
 
 done what was right in my eyes without fear. I have 
 never failed to correct my course when I thought I 
 had erred, but the men around me will not forgive 
 me. Meanly they have acted during my life, and 
 meanly they will do when I am no more. I know 
 they will not accord my body the respect due to my 
 learning- and the honor due to the son of Ben Yohai. 
 I charge thee, dear and faithful wife, to make no 
 announcement of my death, nor to bury my body, 
 but, wrapping it in the shroud, thou shalt put it on 
 the floor of the attic. Fear neither decomposition 
 nor other ill; for neither will come so long as the 
 secret is kept and my body remains undisturbed." 
 
 Tearfully the Rabbi's wife promised to fulfil his 
 request, and while the ashes of Ben Yohai were 
 resting in the cave of Meran that had sheltered him 
 and his son for so many years, the body of Eleazar 
 lay in the garret, unknown and unmourned by any 
 but his faithful wife, whose love had out lasted death. 
 
 After many years," 9 however, the secret became 
 known to the Rabbis. It is said that Ben Yohai 
 appeared in a dream to the Rabbis and said to them : 
 
 "I have a little dove in your midst and you refuse 
 to bring it to me." 
 
 The Rabbis investigated: they found the body 
 and carried it with ceremony to the cave of Meran, 
 "to let a worthy son rest by the side of a worthy 
 father," as the Talmud has it. 70 
 
 After Rabbi Eleazar's burial, Rabbi Juda the 
 Prince sent a messenger to the widow asking her 
 hand in marriage. She answered that she would 
 count such an alliance a personal degradation." 
 
24O JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The prince persevered ; he sent another message : 
 
 "Thy husband may have been more learned than 
 I, but he was not more charitable; he did not excel 
 me in works of practical righteousness," was his 
 plea. 
 
 'Whether he was more learned than thou," she 
 replied, "I know not; I am a woman and unable to 
 judge; but for practical righteousness thou couldst 
 never hope to be counted his equal ; for he under- 
 went bodily pain to serve humanity, while thou but 
 givest of thine abundance." " 
 
 Thus the enmity between the son of Ben Yohai 
 and the son of the House of Hillel continued even 
 after the former's death. The rivalry between Juda 
 and Eleazar dated from boyhood. 
 
 Once, when both were students, Eleazar had pub- 
 licly affronted the son of the president of the San- 
 hedrim He told him contemptuously that he did 
 not comprehend the subject which he was discussing 
 before the school." juda on his return home com- 
 plained to his father, the president. The latter 
 answered : 
 
 "Take not this to heart, my son; Eleazar is very 
 learned, but remember he is a lion and the son of a 
 lion, while thou art a lion, but the son of a fox." 7 * 
 
 This remark expresses the policy of the House of 
 Hillel. It was not force, but diplomacy, that had 
 maintained it in power and wealth so long. It was 
 diplomatic skill, the cunning of the fox, that had 
 carried its fortunes through the storms of Roman 
 conquest and of Shammaitic intrigue in the Sanhe- 
 drin itself. That skill had made the Davidic descent, 
 
RABBI SIMON BEN YOHAI 24 1 
 
 which could not be taken away, to be regarded 
 
 as the first qualification for the presidency. Ben 
 
 Yohai might be more learned than Simon, but he 
 
 could not claim descent from David. Simon may 
 
 well have felt that in the condition of Israel the skill 
 
 of the fox was more desirable than the roar of the 
 
 lion, and he impressed the lesson on his son. 
 
 Did the prince follow his father's advice? Did he 
 
 employ the cunning of the fox in his dealings with 
 
 Jew and heathen? Did he hold tenaciously the 
 
 dignity bequeathed to him by his father? Did he 
 
 make the House of Hillel great? The life of the 
 
 prince shall answer these questions. The work he 
 
 executed stands to-day as a marvel, and will last as 
 
 long as the Jewish race. 
 16 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 
 
 THE title of Prince, associated with the name of 
 Rabbi Juda alone, in Jewish history, is not an 
 empty form. It is true that it was officially borne 
 by every president of the Sanhedrin, but in Juda 
 alone it carried a certain half-royal character that be- 
 longed neither to his predecessors nor his successors. 
 His succession to the office at the age of twenty-five 
 was due not to his talent as a teacher or judge, but 
 mainly to the hereditary principle which had been 
 gradually introduced among the people by Hillel 
 and his family. Among the learned doctors who 
 constituted the national assembly, the young presi- 
 dent was accepted as chief, as a prince is allowed to 
 occupy his father's throne. His bearing, his char- 
 acter, and his weaknesses were those of a prince 
 rather than of a scholar or judge, such as other 
 masters in Israel. His life-work, too, was in keep- 
 ing with his character. It has been felt in the life 
 of the Jewish race through centuries and its result 
 made the title a part of his name. As the great 
 Frankish emperor remains the great Charles (Charle- 
 magne) through history, so is Rabbi Juda "the 
 prince" in Hebrew annals. 
 
 242 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRTNCE 243 
 
 A few words of explanation are needed to make 
 clear the actual office of Juda. Under the last 
 Jewish kings of Palestine, the Sanhedrin, an assembly 
 of learned doctors of the law, selected for their 
 learning by choice of its own members, was practi- 
 cally both the Supreme Court and the Legislature 
 of the Jewish nation. The Law of Moses was su- 
 preme for all Jews, king and peasant alike. It 
 might not be added to or diminished by human 
 authority. It had, however, to be interpreted and 
 applied in the changing circumstances of ages, and 
 the right of such interpretations and special applica- 
 tion was vested in the Sanhedrin alone. The major- 
 ity of that body pronounced what the law was, and 
 from that law there was no appeal. A king might 
 obey the law or defy it, but the Jewish people could 
 not conceive him as making it. The priests and 
 Levites, even the High Priest, were equally destitute 
 of such power. The ceremonial prescribed by the 
 law was their care, — not its teaching. The learned 
 men from whom the members of the Sanhedrin were 
 chosen were Rabbis, or teachers. Jews of any class 
 might enter their ranks by study and attending the 
 lectures of the Rabbis in which the decisions of the 
 past on everything connected with the law were 
 taught orally. Writing was reserved mainly for the 
 Scriptures themselves; the comments on them were 
 preserved by constant memorizing and repetition, as 
 the Celtic Druids transmitted their lore in other 
 lands. 1 
 
 When Palestine fell under the Roman sway, the 
 new masters left the Sanhedrin intact. The law of 
 
244 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Rome was supreme, as in other parts of the empire, 
 and Roman citizens obeyed no other, but in the in- 
 ternal affairs of the Jewish people, the Sanhedrin 
 was left to direct as under the Hebrew kings. Its 
 external powers were not enforced by Rome, but 
 the Roman authorities were willing to leave their 
 Jewish subjects to their own customs and rites. 
 Hillel had become president of the Sanhedrin in the 
 days of Herod. He was of the stock of David, and 
 when the sceptre of political power was taken from 
 Judah, the presidency became all the more important 
 in the minds of patriotic Hebrews. Hillel had won 
 it by his intellectual abilities and learning. He 
 transmitted it to his family, who retained it rather by 
 diplomatic skill than legal learning. Their Davidic 
 descent was magnified as a qualification for the 
 leadership in Israel apart from personal talents, and 
 the wealth which Hillel had transmitted to his 
 family aided materially in the election of successive 
 presidents. Gamaliel II. decreed that adherence to 
 the House of Hillel should be a necessary qualifica- 
 tion for admission to the Sanhedrin. 3 His son 
 Simon surrounded his office with new forms and 
 ceremonies well calculated to impress the popular 
 mind. When, on the death of Gamaliel, Ben Yohai, 
 the most famous Rabbi of his day, attempted to dis- 
 pute the election of Gamaliel's son, he was defeated 
 by the votes of his colleagues. When Simon ben 
 Gamaliel came to die, his son, the youthful Juda, 
 was put in his seat without opposition as the natural 
 head of the congregation of Israel. 
 
 Juda was born in a time of calamity for his people. 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 245 
 
 Tradition tells that it was on the day of the execu- 
 tion of Akibah, the last champion of Jewish inde- 
 pendence. 3 His father, Simon, and the chief Rabbis 
 of his party had not joined in the revolutionary 
 movement and were not molested by the victorious 
 Romans. Hadrian, however, vigorously proscribed 
 the exercise of the Jewish religion or rites in Palestine 
 after the defeat of Bar Kochba. Toleration of the 
 religion of conquered peoples was the usual policy 
 of Rome, but Hadrian departed from it in this case. 
 In the stubborn resistance of the Jews to Roman 
 rule, he recognized the workings of their religious 
 faith. Though he could not comprehend its work- 
 ings, he saw its results, and he strove to root out 
 the practices of the Jewish law, that he might 
 make the Jews as other races. Circumcision was 
 strictly forbidden, among other rites, but Simon 
 ben Gamaliel, however yielding in political affairs, 
 was a strict adherent of the Law of Moses, and his 
 infant son was duly circumcised. It came to the 
 knowledge of the authorities, and punishment was 
 threatened. Simon's wife went to Rome and ap- 
 pealed for mercy to the wife of the emperor Anto- 
 ninus. She obtained pardon for her family, and 
 Antoninus even revoked the edicts against the 
 Jewish religion. 4 This circumstance contributed 
 not a little to the popularity of the child among 
 the people, who saw in him a sun rise again in 
 Palestine. 
 
 Simon, his father, spared no pains in preparing his 
 son for the office which awaited him. He educated 
 him carefully in all the lore of his time, both Jewish 
 
246 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 and Roman. He learned many languages and sci- 
 ences. 6 Greek was his favorite of foreign tongues, 
 but Hebrew was the special object of his admira- 
 tion. He hated the Aramaic jargon which prevailed 
 in Palestine, and when he grew to man's estate 
 nothing but the pure Hebrew tongue was spoken in 
 his house. The very servants spoke it with elegance." 
 When scholars used Aramaic in his presence he was 
 outspoken in his displeasure. 
 
 "Why speak that jargon," he said, "when one 
 has Hebrew or Greek at his command? " ' 
 
 He also studied the physical sciences of Greece, 
 and, with all his patriotic feelings for his native 
 tongue, he did not hesitate to give preference to the 
 astronomers of Greece over those of Palestine. 8 
 
 The Hebrew law was naturally the largest part of 
 the education of one who was to be a prince among 
 his people. His father sent him to the various 
 schools in succession. The first Rabbi whose lec- 
 tures he attended was the famous Ben Yohai, who 
 had been the rival of his father. In his school he 
 had to face cutting sarcasm from his schoolfellow, 
 Eleazar, the son of Ben Yohai, who took delight in 
 humbling the pride of the House of Hillel in his 
 person. When the haughty Juda complained of 
 this treatment to his diplomatic father, the latter 
 bade him remember that though a lion he was the 
 son of a fox. Other distinguished masters helped 
 to store his mind with Jewish lore. Among them 
 were Mair, Juda and Jacob ben Corshe. 9 It was 
 with a mind well stored that he assumed the office 
 of president at the death of his father in 165, though 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 247 
 
 a Patriarch of twenty-five was indeed an innovation 
 in the Council of Israel. 
 
 The prince accepted his election as a matter of 
 right divine. One rival, he admitted, might have a 
 better claim, but only one, and that was one who 
 made no pretence to seek the office. The Jewish 
 colony in Babylonia, which had been settled there 
 since the captivity, was regarded as the legitimate 
 aristocracy of the Hebrew race. They enjoyed a far 
 greater degree of liberty under the Parthian kings 
 than was the lot of their co-religionists in Palestine. 
 A prince descended from David ruled the Baby- 
 lonian Jews with kingly power under Parthian su- 
 zerainty. His descent from the Prophet King was 
 more direct than Juda's, as it came through the 
 male line. 10 Juda declared that he would recog- 
 nize his right to the presidency of the Sanhedrin if 
 he should come to claim it. 
 
 "For no man would I do," he said, "what the 
 Sons of Bethyra did for my ancestor Hillel, when 
 they yielded the presidency to him. Were I in 
 their place, I would not have given it up. To no 
 man would I resign it except Huna the prince of 
 the captivity came here to demand it. To him I 
 would give place." " 
 
 There was a good deal of diplomacy as well as 
 pride in this assertion. The recognition of descent 
 from the royal prophet as the necessary qualification 
 for the presidency of the Sanhedrin was a principle 
 which could only confirm the authority of the House 
 of Hillel. There was no likelihood that the aged 
 prince of the captivity would ever come to ask the 
 
248 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 votes of the Jewish doctors in the Sanhedrin. How- 
 ever, the prince's proclamation was made the occa- 
 sion of a mortification to him at a later date. The 
 old Huna died, and his body was carried for burial 
 to the land of his fathers. One of the Rabbis, 
 Hiyah the Babylonian, learned of the arrival of 
 Huna's body in Palestine. He went at once to the 
 Sanhedrin when the prince was addressing its mem- 
 bers, and informed him that Huna was here. The 
 prince staggered and nearly swooned. Hiyah re- 
 lieved his fears by explaining, " Huna is here in his 
 coffin."" The prince, however, would not forgive 
 the insult. He forbade Hiyah his house, and it 
 was years before he allowed him to return to it. 
 The sons of Hiyah repaid the prince's severity with 
 interest. At a feast one of them was asked to 
 speak, and he told the company : 
 
 "The Messiah will not come till there is neither a 
 prince in Babylon nor one in Palestine." " 
 
 The feeling which made Juda refer repeatedly to 
 his descent was not mere conceit. When he scoffed 
 at the insolence shown to his grandfather by the 
 famous Rabbi Josua on the ground that it was not 
 for a smith to argue with a prince, it was not a mere 
 expression of personal pride. He looked on himself 
 as the natural ruler of his people, and he felt that 
 loyalty to his house was a moral duty for every con- 
 scientious Jew. The continuance of the rule of the 
 House of David was, he believed, a necessity for the 
 ultimate well-being of Israel. It was to support its 
 dignity that he was ready to admit his inferiority to 
 a foreigner in Babylon, provided he possessed Davidic 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 249 
 
 descent. To no other would he condescend to bend 
 or apologize. With all his pride of birth Juda was 
 affable to the multitude. He gave freely of his vast 
 wealth, and the people adored him, whatever oppo- 
 sition he might have to meet from rival Rabbis or 
 offended dignitaries. He was skilled in the art of 
 diplomacy, too, and if his learning did not dazzle 
 the Sanhedrin, he knew how to make it endorse the 
 policy which he deemed suitable to the needs of 
 the people. He was emphatically a prince in his 
 ways. 
 
 His policy in the limited sphere which Roman 
 power left to him was that of his great ancestor 
 Hillel. He had no thought of building up a king- 
 dom in Palestine or emulating the patriotic fervor of 
 Akibah. His object was to secure the perpetuity 
 of the religion and language of his race, not the in- 
 dependence of Palestine. A cosmopolitan Jewish 
 people, he hoped, might continue to exist though a 
 Jewish nation could not be maintained. He sought 
 to mould the law, of which he was the guardian, to 
 the changed conditions that must come when that 
 people should be spread over the world instead of 
 being dwellers in the narrow limits of Palestine. 
 
 Though zealous for the Jewish law, he cared little 
 for the ceremonial of the Temple worship, which 
 to the national party in Palestine was the centre of 
 religion itself. He practically annulled as obsolete 
 the laws referring to priestly service in the Temple. 14 
 He placed the education of children in the right path, 
 — above mere ceremonies. 
 
 "Interrupt not the teaching of the children, even 
 
250 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 were it for rebuilding the Temple," was a maxim of 
 hrs, 15 and, 
 
 "The world depends on the breath of the school- 
 children." ,6 
 
 What teaching meant was summed up in the law: 
 
 "Every one is bound to instruct his children in the 
 ways of the land wherein he dwells." " 
 
 This was a bold regulation for the times when 
 the narrow thought of many Rabbis identified the 
 land of Palestine with the observance of the law in 
 its fulness. Equally so was his precept for moral 
 conduct. 
 
 "Observe three things in thy conduct and thou 
 shalt never sin : Know there is an Eye everywhere 
 that seeth thee, an Ear that heareth thee, and a 
 Hand that registers every wrong of thine." " 
 
 Whatever opposition J uda experienced in his own 
 time, later generations recognized the wisdom of the 
 Prince's laws. His decisions were given precedence 
 over those of all other masters except his father, 
 Simon. Even the famous Rabbi Mair's authority 
 had to yield to that of his pupil, Juda the Prince, in 
 the schools of the Rabbis who interpreted the law 
 for the scattered people of Israel. 19 
 
 The whole policy of the prince in his legislation, as 
 it may be seen from the foregoing, was to make the 
 law of Israel more flexible in its application. Origi- 
 nally given to a pastoral people dwelling in one small 
 land, many of its regulations could not be carried out 
 in other circumstances. The ingenuity of many gen- 
 erations of disputing doctors had elaborated these 
 local and temporary laws almost to the dignity of 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 25 1 
 
 divine commands. Man was made for the Sabbath, 
 not the Sabbath for man, in their eyes. Juda, like 
 Hillel, strove to give the questions of local ceremonial 
 and pedantic deduction their fitting place as acces- 
 sory, not essential, to the due observance of the law. 
 He looked to the people scattered over the earth 
 rather than to the land of Palestine. For this 
 reason, though religious in practice, he was rather 
 unfriendly to the sacerdotal class. The Rabbi class 
 to which he belonged had nothing in common with 
 the priesthood of Aaron. The public worship which 
 centred in the Temple was the province of the 
 priests in Israel and that alone. The learned men, 
 the Rabbis, or teachers, were the judges, the legis- 
 lators, and even the preachers of the law. The 
 Temple had perished, the priests had little practical 
 importance, and Juda cared little for their favor. 
 He showed no special zeal for the restoration of 
 the Temple, the dearest wish of the priests and 
 the nationalists. He even urged the abolition of the 
 Fast day instituted to recall its destruction on the 
 ninth day of the month of Abh. Though the oppo- 
 sition in the Sanhedrin prevented this bold meas- 
 ure, 20 it shows the policy of the prince clearly that 
 he proposed it. He would not even admit priests, 
 however learned in the law, to the dignity of Rabbi. 
 He refused it to the learned astronomer and doctor, 
 Mar Samuel, apparently on no other grounds. 21 He 
 restricted the power of giving the degree of master 
 to himself instead of leaving it to the discretion of 
 other Rabbis. 22 
 
 The tendency of Juda's legislation was shown 
 
252 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 further by the modifications he introduced in the 
 Sabbath observance. It had been developed to 
 fantastic proportions by the casuistry of earlier 
 doctors. Faithful Jews might have no fire kindled 
 on that day or touch objects used on other days. 
 These prohibitions were abolished by the Sanhedrin 
 under Juda's rule. The regulation which obliged 
 travellers to halt and prostrate themselves at the 
 hours of prayer was in force among the Jews of his 
 day, as among the Mohammedans of ours. The 
 prince pronounced it needless. A traveller should 
 pray, but might pray as he travelled. 2 " Travel on 
 the Sabbath was permitted and the heating of food. 24 
 In fasting, he also lessened the minute details of the 
 national Rabbis. 
 
 "Burden not the congregation with over many 
 fasts," was his dictum." 
 
 Another important ruling was that circumcision, 
 which had been absolutely required of every Jewish 
 family, might be omitted in case of danger to life. 88 
 The older Rabbis admitted that this and similar 
 ceremonial laws might be omitted to save life, but 
 on no other grounds. Juda enlarged the exemption 
 by decreeing that danger to life warranted its use. 27 
 
 It need not be thought that with all his wealth and 
 official dignity Juda carried out these measures with- 
 out opposition. The graybeards of the Sanhedrin 
 felt their professional pride offended by the legis- 
 lative activity of one whom they regarded as but a 
 boy. His Davidic descent, though honorable, they 
 did not count as filling Juda with wisdom like theirs. 
 By old practice, election to the council depended 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 253 
 
 solely on personal merit, as in the Catholic Church 
 to-day any priest, or even a layman, may be raised to 
 the Papal office. They favored not the claim of the 
 prince to give the rabbinical dignity at his personal 
 will alone. They recalled how his grandfather had 
 been deposed from office by a vote of the Assembly, 
 and they did not fail to remind him of the fact when 
 his autocratic manners were too freely exercised. 
 Criticism of his pride and his inferiority in learning 
 to the famous masters was common in the schools. 
 A certain Bar 'Haninah criticised his pronunciation 
 of Hebrew as not according to the correct Baby- 
 lonian standard. Juda told him he would never 
 make him a Rabbi till he returned to his masters 
 in Babylon." 8 He had to call in the medical service 
 of Mar Samuel to whom he had refused the same 
 honor, and he tried to excuse his action to the phy- 
 sician. The latter sarcastically told him: 
 
 "It is written in the Book of Adam that 'Samuel 
 shall be not a Rabbi, but a sage through whom the 
 prince shall be healed.' 
 
 It was the gibe of a scholar, and Juda bore it 
 patiently." 
 
 It was different with Bar Kappara, a celebrated wit, 
 who took occasion at a feast to insult him in his own 
 house. The son-in-law of the prince asked Bar 
 Kappara to frame a riddle for him to repeat before 
 the guests. The malicious wit made one, the solu- 
 tion of which was insulting to his host. Juda never 
 forgave the affront, and in after years when Bar 
 Kappara sought the rabbinical office he was curtly 
 refused. 30 
 
254 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The opposition he had to encounter in the San- 
 hedrin to his legislative reforms was strong. When 
 he sought to lessen the rigors of the Sabbath ob- 
 servance, the nationalists told him : 
 
 "Thou permitted what thy ancestors prohibited." 31 
 
 The prince met the objection boldly: 
 
 "Hezekiah destroyed the brazen serpent that 
 Moses made in the desert because the people of his 
 day adored it as a god. There were other worthy 
 kings and destroyers of idols who feared to destroy 
 that serpent. Hezekiah's merit, then, is special to 
 him alone. So is my work peculiar to me, and I fulfil 
 what my ancestors began." 32 
 
 The nationalists took another course. They pro- 
 posed changes more radical than those of the prince. 
 They suggested the emancipation and admission to 
 Jewish citizenship of the serfs, the Nethinim, who 
 had been a subordinate body for centuries.' 3 The 
 prince opposed it on the ground of expediency. 
 Another proposition submitted was to declare that 
 the Davidic descent of those who had remained in 
 Palestine was purer than that of the children of the 
 captivity in Babylon. This was in keeping with the 
 narrow tribal sentiment which would identify Jewish 
 faith with Palestine. It also aimed at the title of 
 Juda; for his ancestor, Hillel, was one of the cap- 
 tivity. The prince opposed it with all his power. 
 
 "You would put thorns in my eyes," he told the 
 Rabbis, and they yielded to his will. 34 
 
 In a more friendly fashion a famous Rabbi, Jona- 
 than ben Amran, conveyed a rebuke to the princely 
 president. During a year of famine, the latter 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 255 
 
 opened his grain stores to all students of the law. 
 He forbade the Men of Earth, the ignorant rabble, 
 to enter with them. Jonathan made his way in dis- 
 guise and said : 
 
 "Master, give me to eat, for I hunger." 
 
 And the prince asked, ' ' Hast thou read the law ? ' ' 
 
 And Jonathan said, "I have not." 
 
 "Hast thou read the Mishnah? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then how can I feed thee who hast not fed thine 
 own people? " 
 
 "Master," said Jonathan, "thou wouldst feed a 
 dog or a raven. Feed me likewise, for I, too, am a 
 creature of God." 
 
 And the prince gave him alms. But when Jona- 
 than had gone the prince repented and said : 
 
 "Woe is me! I have fed a Man of Earth." 
 
 But one of his disciples told him it was Jonathan, 
 his disciple, who would fain conceal his learning. 
 The prince changed his mind when he heard this 
 and he said : 
 
 "Now let all men enter my stores and be fed, 
 for it is not for man to discriminate between God's 
 creatures for his own caprice." 3b 
 
 In other ways he showed a kindly temper, unlike 
 the character which the hostile critics of his power 
 gave him. 
 
 He was willing to learn from his own pupils and 
 acknowledged it freely. 
 
 "I have learned much," he said, "from my 
 teachers, more from my equals, but most of all from 
 my pupils." " 
 
256 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 When the king, Artaban, 37 sent him a jewel as a 
 gift, the prince returned a scroll of Scripture. The 
 king was surprised and sent him a message: 
 
 "I have given thee a jewel of price, and thou 
 sendest me a thing of less value than the case that 
 holds it." 39 
 
 "Nay," the prince replied, "thou hast sent me a 
 gift which I must guard, but I have sent thee one 
 which will guard thee, as it is written, 'It will guide 
 thee wherever thou goest.' " 3 ' 
 
 With the members of his race who professed their 
 belief in Christ as the Messiah, Juda maintained 
 friendly relations. He evidently regarded them as 
 countrymen and brothers in the Law of Moses. It 
 is recorded that at his table he asked once a Chris- 
 tian friend to say the blessing over the wine, which, 
 among the Jews, was regarded as a high honor to a 
 guest. So high was it that by custom a fine of 
 forty pieces had to be paid as an offering by any 
 guest who declined the duty offered. The blessing 
 included an acknowledgment of the rite of circum- 
 cision which had ceased, at least as an obligation, 
 among the Christian Jews. The prince then coupled 
 his invitation with the assurance that he would pay 
 the fine himself if his guest had any scruples about 
 repeating the form of prayer. The Christian assured 
 him that he had none. 40 
 
 The relations between Juda and the Roman rulers 
 of Palestine must not be passed over. The Talmud 
 represents him as holding long conferences with the 
 emperor Antoninus. It is impossible to say if he 
 really met the emperor, and the hyperbole of the 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 257 
 
 story cannot be reduced to historic accuracy, 41 but it 
 is so interesting as a specimen of Jewish philosophy 
 at the time that we give the dialogue. 
 
 Antoninus said to the master: " 
 
 "It is easy for man to evade judgment for sin after 
 death. The body can plead, 'It is the soul that 
 hath sinned, for since it left me I have no more de- 
 sire than a stone.' The soul can say, 'Since it left 
 the body it is stainless, sinless, and free. ' 
 
 The master replied : 
 
 ' ' I will answer thee by a parable. A king placed 
 two guards in his garden, one blind and one lame. 
 The lame man said to the blind, 'I see much fair 
 fruit ; carry me to it and we will eat.' So the blind 
 bore the lame man to the tree and they stole the 
 fruit and ate it. And later the king came and 
 saw that the fruit was gone, and he asked the guards 
 where the fruit was he had put under their care. 
 And the lame man asked, 'Could I walk to steal it? ' 
 and the blind man said, 'Have I eyes to see it?' 
 Then the king put the lame man on the shoulders 
 of the blind man and he punished them as one man. 
 Even so will the Lord, blessed be His name, put 
 again the soul within the body and judge them to- 
 gether as they have deserved when together." " 
 
 Again Antoninus asked the Master: 
 
 "Why does the sun rise in the east?" and the 
 master told him that if it rose in the west he might 
 ask the same question. 44 
 
 The emperor then asked advice on a personal 
 
 matter. He told him he desired two things from 
 
 the senate, but that they would only grant one 
 17 
 
258 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 request. He desired the succession of his son se- 
 cured, and also that the province of Tiberias should 
 be made a Roman community. The master called 
 two men. He made one mount the shoulders of the 
 other, and then gave him a dove. He next bade the 
 lower man tell the other to release the bird. An- 
 toninus comprehended the hint and said : 
 
 "I will ask the senate to recognize my son, and 
 then bid my son to enroll Tiberias as a province." " 
 
 Another anecdote tells how the emperor sent the 
 master a sack of gold covered with wheat each day, 
 and the Master said to him : 
 
 "I need it not; I have grain and gold enough." 
 
 And Antoninus bade him take it for his children, 
 that they might give it in tribute to his own chil- 
 dren. 46 The suggestion in this tale is manifest. 
 
 It has been seen that the policy of Juda in the 
 Sanhedrin was mainly directed to making the yoke 
 of the law lighter on the people and loosening the 
 bonds which held them in Palestine. It was not in 
 his power, had he willed it, to stem the tide of emi- 
 gration which was carrying the Jewish race away 
 from its ancestral home. The superior profits of 
 foreign trade, made easy by the extension of the 
 Roman dominion from the Euphrates to the Atlan- 
 tic, drew keen Hebrew emigrants away. The op- 
 pression at home which followed the campaigns of 
 Hadrian stimulated the movement. The Jews 
 streamed from their native land in the days of Juda, 
 as the dense population of Europe has poured across 
 the Atlantic in our own day. The patriotic senti- 
 ments of the prince, his faith in the future of his 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 259 
 
 people, made him seek every means to prevent the 
 scattered children of Israel from losing their nation- 
 ality and being lost among other races as the king- 
 dom of Israel had melted away in the old days. 
 
 To this end it seemed to him the most effective 
 means would be to make a literature for the Jewish 
 people. Down to his time, though study and mental 
 activity were pre-eminent in Juda, little attention 
 had been paid to literature or written thought. 
 Writing was reserved for the sacred Scriptures. 
 The interpretations of the law, the sayings of the 
 wise, the story of the people since the captivity, 
 were handed down by word of mouth from genera- 
 tion to generation. The schools of the Rabbis in 
 Palestine had preserved the wisdom and history of 
 the past by careful repetition. The Jews of other 
 lands near could come there to share in them as 
 Hillel had come from Babylon, but with the exodus 
 that was going on there was small likelihood that 
 the schools themselves could continue long. It was 
 harder, too, to come from Rome and Cadiz and 
 India and the other lands to which the Jews were 
 now moving than from Egypt or Babylon. 
 
 The prince determined to collect the whole body of 
 oral Hebrew lore while there was yet time and secure 
 its perpetuity by committing it to writing. To that 
 task his life was devoted, and by it he deserves to 
 be regarded as a foremost agent in the marvellous 
 preservation of nationality without a country which 
 has marked the Hebrew race from all others. 
 
 The work which he thus compiled, with the help 
 of the numerous scribes whom his wealth enabled 
 
26o JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 him to employ, is known as the Mishnah. 47 Its main 
 object is the interpretation of the Law of Moses, but 
 its character as the record of the sayings and doings 
 of so many generations gives it the nature of a rude 
 encyclopedia. It deals with the whole system of 
 human moral action; it touches on the sciences, and 
 the events of successive generations. When Rabbi 
 Juda began his task there was no Hebrew literature. 
 The Bible was not within the reach of the mass of 
 the people. The ceremonial practices of the law 
 were the greater part of their worship. They had 
 to learn practically that the God of the world is not 
 confined to temples made by hands, nor His favor 
 bounded by the narrow limits of Palestine. That the 
 knowledge of the law could be spread among them, 
 it needed more than the gatherings of a few learned 
 men in Jerusalem or Yamnai: it needed literature, 
 and as the founder of that literature Rabbi Juda the 
 Prince deserves a place among the greatest of his 
 people. 
 
 It was a colossal task for a man to gather up from 
 a hundred sources the traditions of centuries, to 
 compare and systematize the thousands of often 
 contradictory decisions that had been handed down 
 from famous doctors, to form them into a consist- 
 ent whole. Juda had no native model in his task. 
 A few, like Akibah, had written some decisions, but 
 there was no model to guide him. That his work is 
 not like the literary monuments of Greece or Rome 
 is not to be wondered at. Yet it has a style and 
 merits of its own of unmistakable worth. Its lan- 
 guage is the purest Hebrew, and in spite of the mass 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 26 1 
 
 of subjects treated, its style is uniform and terse. 
 Like other Semitic races, the Jews liked to express 
 their thoughts in short, half - enigmatic phrases. 
 Parable and simile and proverb were the common 
 form of Jewish speech. That it left room for study 
 to the listener, and called his mental activity to 
 work before its meaning could be clear, was regarded 
 as a gain rather than a loss. The Talmud was com- 
 posed according to this idea. It was to furnish food 
 for thought to others, to be elucidated and com- 
 mented on by successive generations, and so it is no 
 cause for surprise that to the modern student, be he 
 Jew or Gentile, its meaning is often hard to deter- 
 mine. Still no one can fail to admire its wide scope, 
 its classic language, its poetic form, and its grasp of 
 the varied forms of human thought. 
 
 A commentary to the Mishnah known as the Gem- 
 ara 48 was begun by the Rabbis in Babylon within 
 the lifetime of the prince, and the two combined are 
 since known as the Talmud, or Babylonian Talmud. 
 A somewhat similar work was later undertaken in 
 the Aramaic dialect of Palestine, and is known as 
 the Talmud of Jerusalem, but neither in style nor 
 matter can it rank with the Babylonian Talmud. 
 
 Though the Mishnah purports to be a summary of 
 Hebrew law, it has no resemblance to a legal treatise 
 in modern ideas. The Jewish conception of law was 
 indeed wholly different from that of the nations of 
 the West. It was no mere collection of edicts or 
 decrees of kings or senates. It was the rule of hu- 
 man life in all its manifold activities; for every hu- 
 man act has a moral character in the divine system, 
 
262 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of which a part was directly revealed to the Hebrew 
 law giver. The constitutional provisions which 
 made the interpretations of the majority of the 
 doctors of Israel a part of that law broadened out its 
 fabric to almost boundless proportions in the course 
 of ages. The cultivation of the fields, the care of 
 domestic animals, the preparation of food and cloth- 
 ing, the dwellings of men and beasts, the care of 
 health, of personal cleanliness, of social intercourse, 
 and myriad similar points foreign to our notions of 
 legislation were discussed and regulated by solemn 
 law among the people of Israel. To cast this law 
 into a literary form was the colossal work of Rabbi 
 Juda. 
 
 It is cast in systematic form, but the system is 
 widely different from the divisions and subdivisions 
 of modern science. The Rabbis had found the need 
 of system in their teaching, even when the body of 
 the law was preserved by oral tradition, but their 
 system was formed on the association of kindred 
 ideas around a particular easily remembered subject. 
 The cultivation of memory was of the highest im- 
 portance when decisions had to be handed down by 
 repetition alone. The highest praise for a teacher 
 was that his mind was a cistern which lost no drop 
 of the words poured into it. Thus the classification 
 followed in the Talmud is largely based on a mne- 
 monic system. The subjects associated in a section 
 seem often as incongruous as the union of "Papal 
 Country Seats and the Bite of the Tarantula by a 
 modern Italian writer. To the Jews of the day, 
 however, these associations seemed perfectly natural 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 263 
 
 as aids to memory, and their perpetuation in the 
 Talmud was in keeping with old habits of thought. 
 
 There are six divisions of the whole Mishnah, 
 each bearing a name indicative of its subject- 
 matter. 49 These are subdivided into a varying 
 number of Books similarly named by keywords. 
 The Books are divided into sections by numbers 
 only. The general names of the six divisions are 
 Seeds (Zeraini), Feasts {Aloed), Women {Nashim), 
 Wrongs {Nezikin), Consecrations (Kodaskim), and 
 Purifications {TaJtarotJi). 
 
 The subject of the first division is the common 
 life of the mass of the people who in Palestine were 
 mostly dependent on the cultivation of the soil. 
 To the cultivator, seed-time and harvest are the 
 chief epochs of the year and "Seed " the first requi- 
 site of his work. The eleven books which make up 
 the division bear the names, Blessings, Cultivation, 
 Uncertain Things, Blending, Sabbath Year, Ablu- 
 tions, Tithes, Second offerings, Dough, Birds, and 
 First Fruits, respectively. 
 
 The first prescribes the numerous forms of prayer 
 to be used in ordinary life, and is subdivided into 
 nine sections. The book "Cultivation' describes 
 the times and places for sowing and reaping and the 
 provision for the needy which the agriculturist was 
 bound to leave at harvest-time. "Uncertainty" 
 deals with the subject of when the fruits of the earth 
 are fit for human use by the Mosaic law. ' ' Blending' ' 
 prescribes the manner of crossing plants and ani- 
 mals, and of woolen and linen in dress. The ten 
 sections of the "Sabbath Year" deal with the 
 
264 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 regulations of periodic fallowing prescribed in Deuter- 
 onomy. "Ablutions" in eleven sections describes 
 the offerings due to the Aaronic priesthood from cul- 
 tivated fields. "Tithes," in five sections, prescribes 
 the amount and conditions of the "tenths" of the 
 fields and flocks which had to be paid for the suste- 
 nance of the tribe of Levi. "Second Offerings," in 
 five sections, deals with the portion of the harvest 
 which had to be eaten in Jerusalem, and "Dough," 
 in three sections, speaks of the offerings to the priests 
 on account of bread-making. "Buds" gives the 
 rules for determining at what age fruit of trees should 
 be held fit for human food, and "First Fruits " tells 
 themethods of harvesting and using the first products. 
 The second division, "Feasts," deals with the 
 festival and fast days prescribed in the law, their 
 mode of observance, and other particulars. "Sab- 
 bath," its first book, describes the law of observance 
 of the seventh day of rest, in twenty-four sections, 
 and "Erubin," the second book, continues it in ten 
 sections as to the distance of travelling on that 
 day. The third book, "Passover," prescribes the 
 observances required for the passover. The fourth, 
 "Shekels," the tax to be paid by the people. The 
 three following books give the rules for observing 
 the other great festivals, namely, Atonement, the 
 Tabernacles, and New Year. "Festivals," the 
 seventh book, gives general laws for all feasts, as 
 the ninth, "Fasts," does for all days of penance. 
 The tenth regulates the observance of Purim, the 
 eleventh that of half-holidays, and the twelfth that 
 of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 
 
' RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 265 
 
 The third division of the Mishnah deals with the 
 relations between the sexes: Marriage, divorce, 
 dowries, engagements, rights of married people, and 
 their duties. Its books are: 
 
 1. "Sisters-in-law," referring to the rule requiring 
 brothers to marry such in case of widowhood. 2. 
 Marriage contracts. 3. Vows. 4. Abstainer, the 
 continence required of married persons. 5. Adul- 
 tery. 6. Divorce. 7. Sanctifications. 
 
 The fourth division, "Wrongs," has ten books. 
 The "First Gate" deals with damages for offences, 
 the "Second Gate," with borrowing, renting, giving 
 in trust, and articles found by the way. The "Last 
 Gate" gives the laws of deeds, gifts, and inheritance. 
 The fourth book, "Council," the administration of 
 the law, the duties of Judges, and the constitution 
 of legal courts. The fifth describes the various 
 legal penalties for crimes. The sixth treats of oaths, 
 their nature, and form. The seventh, "Common 
 Law," of the weight to be attached to precedence 
 and usage in the courts. The eighth, "Idolatry' 
 and its punishment. The ' ' Books of the Fathers ' ' is 
 made up of moral precepts and maxims of the sages 
 of Israel. "Decisions " is the tenth book, and is a 
 record of such by various distinguished judges. 
 "Consecrations," the fifth division, contains eleven 
 books: namely, offerings of animals, offerings of 
 fruits and liquids, diet and food. The "First- 
 Born," prescribing the action to be followed in the 
 matter of first births, both in human beings and 
 animals. "Values," that is, the money price to be 
 paid for redemptions of the former under the 
 
266 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Levitical law. "Exchanges," how to act in the 
 matter of substitution of profane for consecrated 
 animals under the same law. 'Destruction," how 
 the penalty of death may be incurred and in what 
 cases it may be commuted. "Malfeasance," pre- 
 scribing penalties for the theft of sacred things. 
 "Sacrifice," describing the rites of worship in the 
 Temple. "Measures," a minute description of the 
 Temple, its site, buildings, treasures, guards, and 
 pilgrim services therein. The last book, "Nests," 
 relates to the doves and other birds prescribed as 
 offerings for the poor among the people. 
 
 The sixth Mishnah division, "Purifications," 60 
 embraces twelve books named, respectively, "Ves- 
 sels," "Tents," "Skin Diseases," "the Red Cow" 
 (i. e., the sacrifice of that animal prescribed in Num- 
 bers), Purifications, of impurities in detail, "Wells," 
 waters used in purification of men and things. 
 "Separation," of married people at certain periods. 
 "Capacities," objects which make other things un- 
 clean by contact. * ' Fluxes, " " the Bath, " " Hands ' 
 and "Stalks " or "Shells." All of these deal with 
 the impurities mentioned in the Mosaic law. They 
 describe their nature, how they may be incurred by 
 men or inanimate objects, how the uncleanness may 
 be removed by purification, and the various forms of 
 the purifications themselves. 
 
 Wide is the usage of subjects embraced by these 
 heads. They are far from giving the full contents 
 of the Mishnah. It is the record of the thoughts of 
 the Jewish race, not only on these points of law and 
 doctrine, but on all subjects in any way connected 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 267 
 
 with them. The Rabbis wove their judgments and 
 thoughts into fables and similes, like all Easterners. 
 They found hidden meanings in the words and 
 actions appearing indifferent in themselves, and they 
 delighted in exercising their minds in such researches. 
 The whole life of the people finds illustrations in the 
 anecdotes or parables in which learned Rabbis de- 
 cided how many yards it was lawful to walk on the 
 Sabbath or at what age the fruit of the olive might 
 be pressed for oil. If Akibah could draw countless 
 precepts from every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 
 as his colleagues said, it passes calculation to guess 
 what subjects might fall within the scope of the 
 whole body of the Law. 
 
 The colossal proportions of the task impress us 
 very strongly even at present, but its difficulty was 
 enormously greater than we can at first sight com- 
 prehend in an age when literary composition was in 
 its infancy. The task of the Athenian prince who 
 collected and edited the scattered ballads that under 
 the names of Iliad and Odysey have been the founda- 
 tion of all our Western literature seems small, in- 
 deed, beside that of Rabbi Juda in Palestine. He 
 had a far wider range of subjects, which called for 
 close investigation in every part, not the ballad 
 history of a famous campaign, as his task. He put 
 a system all his own into the mass to which he thus 
 gave literary form. He dwelt not much upon pre- 
 cise dogmas and took little heed of the hair-splitting 
 casuistry of the meaning of words and laws which 
 other Rabbis delighted in. He did not enter much 
 into metaphysical speculations on abstract points. 
 
268 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 His object is apparent: it is to record all that he 
 could gather of the experience of the past of his 
 race, which might bear on the conduct of his own 
 and future generations of his people. The text of 
 Scripture itself is the framework of his compilation. 
 The Word of God to him was the unchangeable Law. 
 The comments of men, even the wisest, were but 
 partial elucidations of its full meaning. Those he 
 collected were to guide man in his path through life 
 practically from the cradle to the grave, to direct his 
 aspirations and the work of his mind and hands, his 
 spiritual and intellectual as well as his material life. 
 His planting and reaping, his eating and sleeping, 
 his joys and his sorrows, all are regulated by definite 
 laws, and in all faith recognizes protection from on 
 high and the rewards and chastisements that fall 
 from the Father's hand for human action. For this 
 reason, the Talmud goes into minute details of daily 
 life. It recalls the ways and the men of former days 
 and shows how some lived after the heart of God 
 Himself, and how far others failed to do so. It tells 
 of hopes that were realized and hopes that failed 
 among the people, of its errors and its true judg- 
 ments. It discusses the meaning of the text of 
 Scripture itself, and points out what remained for 
 further analysis and comment. Its matter is no less 
 than the material, intellectual, and moral life of a 
 people. 
 
 That in his work the Prince had thoroughly en- 
 tered into the spirit of the Hebrew race has been 
 proved by the reception accorded to it. In his own 
 lifetime the Gemara was commenced as a commen- 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 269 
 
 tary on it in Babylon, and the two have since been 
 combined into the Talmud as the literary and moral 
 guide of the Jewish race. The comments on the 
 Talmud since are beyond reckoning. Indeed, the 
 intellect of the race in literary work mainly centred 
 around the work of Rabbi Juda. In widely sepa- 
 rated lands the scattered children of Israel pondered 
 over its pages, as, in earlier days, they had crowded 
 the schools of the Rabbis. Its spirit kept their 
 faith living, and strengthened them to endure perse- 
 cution. Neither Jewish history nor Jewish religion 
 can be understood without a knowledge of the Tal- 
 mud. At times the reverence which surrounded it, 
 made the reading of it of even greater merit than 
 the reading of the Scriptures. Through centuries 
 the race survived as a dweller in lands not its own, 
 as the subjects of alien masters. It was not bodily 
 strength or endurance that carried them through, 
 but the intellectual force which they drew from their 
 literature. In study the Jew forgot his slavery ; he 
 recognized a higher power than that of the tempo- 
 rary oppressor, and he lightened his load by the 
 hope of a brighter future. When all around threat- 
 ened destruction, he asked the advice of the men of 
 old from the pages of the Talmud. Their answer 
 was, "Learn, endure, and pray." These counsels 
 have been the staff which supported the Jewish race 
 from Hadrian's to our own time. The remarkable 
 national existence which has been preserved for 
 eighteen centuries without a country may fairly be 
 said to be due in great part to the Talmud. 
 
 Were it not for the Talmud, the spirit of which 
 
270 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 permeated the Jewish heart, the Jew could never 
 have manifested his unshaken fidelity to the Word 
 of God. Without the Talmud, the power of which 
 fortified his soul, the Jew could not have endured 
 his ages of martyrdom. Without the Talmud, the 
 knowledge of which gave him ever-increasing faith, 
 the Jew could hardly have withstood the tempta- 
 tions to the renunciation of his religion. Without 
 the Talmud, the light of which illumined the dark- 
 ness of nigh two thousand years' wanderings, the 
 Jew could not to-day show a history which is the 
 grandest expression of tragedy the world has seen. 
 
 Where else shall we find a tragedy the scenes of 
 which are so varied ; the time of which has lasted 
 so long; the actors of which included so many 
 heroes, kings, sages, men and women, old and 
 young, who rose again, day after day, night after 
 night, only to face the same hisses, the same jeers, 
 the same curses, and to meet the same hand that 
 struck them to the ground? 
 
 If the Jews have survived the atrocious treatment 
 of their fellow-men, have borne the moments of sor- 
 row and despair in the dark ages, it is because they 
 had faith ; because they read the written word and 
 believed its promises. And the book that contained 
 the elucidation and reassertion of these promises was 
 the Talmud, the foundation of which was laid by 
 Rabbi Juda, whose memory will last as long as the 
 Hebrew language." 
 
 The prince did not neglect the interests of his 
 own house in the ardor of literary work. He steadily 
 increased the powers of the patriarchate among his 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 27 1 
 
 countrymen. Down to Hillel, the president and 
 Judge in the Sanhedrin had been nearly equal in 
 power, and both depended for office on the will of 
 the majority in that body. The superior authority 
 of the patriarch had been established by Hillel. 
 Rabbi Juda made himself practically the master of 
 the national council. He claimed the sole right of 
 selecting its members. He decreed its decisions, 
 and when near his end he named not only his own 
 successor, but also the Judge and Lector. He for- 
 bade, in the name of the law itself, any one to set 
 up as a Messiah henceforth. 
 
 "Read his name Liar, not Star of Jacob," was his 
 sentence on the memory of Bar Kochba. 6 * 
 
 The power which the Sanhedrin had long exer- 
 cised over the Jewish people thus became centred 
 in the person of Juda the Prince. The patriarchs 
 who succeeded him were recognized by the Roman 
 authorities as pontiffs and heads of the Jewish peo- 
 ple throughout the empire. Taxes were laid on the 
 various Jewish congregations for the maintenance of 
 the patriarchate and enforced by the Roman officials. 
 Juda himself was a great man in Syria. Foreign 
 kings sent him messages and gifts, and he often de- 
 clined the latter in regal fashion. The intercourse 
 between the Jewish Rabbi and the Roman emperor 
 has been already noted. The dignity thus attached 
 to the office of patriarch was continued for two 
 hundred years after the death of Juda. The Em- 
 peror Julian even addressed the Jewish patriarch 
 Hillel II. as "brother " when he was planning the re- 
 building of the Temple at Jerusalem. The office 
 
272 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was finally abolished by Theodosius the Great in 425. 
 Before it ended the House of Hillel had enjoyed a 
 life greater than falls to most kingly dynasties." 
 
 The family of Rabbi Juda consisted of only two 
 sons, Gamaliel and Simon, and a daughter, the wife 
 of Bar Elasa. When advanced in life and a widower 
 he sought in marriage the widow of his old opponent, 
 Eleazar ben Yohai, and, with all his wealth and honor, 
 had to undergo the humiliation of a refusal. The 
 widow declared she would regard herself as degraded 
 by an alliance with the patriarch. He found another 
 wife, however, whom he recommended to the care 
 of his children in his last instructions. His life was 
 prolonged to an advanced age though for many years 
 he suffered from continuous ill-health. The Talmud 
 says he could only sleep the time of sixty respira- 
 tions in his later days, 64 and it records how Mar 
 Samuel, whom he had long excluded from the 
 council, was called to relieve him from an affection 
 of the eyes. He had to change his abode to the 
 mountain town of Sephoris, where the last seventeen 
 years of his life were spent. Constant pain increased 
 his natural irritability to a marked degree, and the 
 shadow of opposition to his will drove him to fury. 
 Yet withal he was placable when his passion abated 
 and the love of the people surrounded him. The 
 people of Sephoris were said to have vowed to kill 
 whoever should bring the tidings of the death of 
 their adored prince. 
 
 When his end approached he named his successor 
 in autocratic style. 
 
 "Gamaliel, my son, shall be prince when I am 
 
RABBI JUDA THE PRINCE 273 
 
 dead. Simon, my son, reader, and my disciple, 
 Hama bar 'Haninah, judge in the Sanhedrin." Let 
 this be opened thirty days after my death and let 
 there be no mourning in the towns." 
 
 He gave instructions in the duties and rights of 
 his position to Gamaliel and especially advised him 
 to rule the Rabbis with a strong hand. 
 
 "Be strict with the disciples," was his warning to 
 his successor, which the latter faithfully carried out." 
 His other instructions were brief to his sons. 
 
 " Honor your mother. Make her happy, make no 
 change in your household. Joseph of Kaipha and 
 Simon of Efrath, who served me in life will arrange 
 my body for burial." 
 
 It was in the year 220 that the prince w r as gathered 
 to his fathers. 
 
 His death was widely regretted by the Jewish 
 people, who recognized in him a representative of 
 the royal house, and admired his liberality and in- 
 dustry. With all his ambition of power, Rabbi Juda 
 showed no desire to amass wealth. He regarded 
 himself as beyond the need of treasures and he dis- 
 tributed freely. 
 
 "Lord of the world," was his exclamation on his 
 death-bed, "Thou knowest I have worked both my 
 hands for the law but have not used even a finger 
 to gain temporal wealth." It was no unfitting 
 boast. When the rivalries of the moment had 
 passed, the Jewish race recognized the merits of the 
 prince ungrudgingly. 
 
 "He it was who brought forth the Law for 
 
 Israel," was the common sentence. The famous 
 18 
 
274 JEWISH FORERUNNERS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Maimonides, who codified the Talmudic laws a 
 thousand years later, did not hesitate to say of him : 
 "He was alone in his time and generation. In 
 him dwelt all the highest qualities, and those of his 
 time styled him Our Master, the Holy One." 68 
 
NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1. See Talmud Babli, Synhedrin 5 ; Talmud Jerusalemi, 
 Khilaim 9; the same, Talmud Kethuboth, div. 12, and Mid- 
 rash Rabba, Genesis, div. 33. 
 
 2. See Sotah 21. 
 
 3. It is a little perplexing to accept the general rendition 
 of the text, p"»JJSnt)3 *QTWQ\ n&ty ,Tn DV1 DV ^>32K> (Yoma 35), 
 "And it was said of Hillel that he worked and earned daily a 
 tropaicon." A tropaicon, says Rab Shesheth (Kethuboth 64), 
 is an Astira (Srar^p), and what is an Astira? Half a Sus. 
 But this was exactly what it cost to hear the daily lecture. 
 If Hillel earned but a tropaicon, which he was forced to pay 
 the doorkeeper of the academy, what did he have to live on? 
 And from the text it is evident that he had as much more for 
 himself and family. It seems to us that this bad sense in the 
 text is merely due to a mistake of the copyists and later of 
 the printer. It should read : "And he earned two tropaica 
 (p'yDID "2)." The printer failed to put the divisional marks 
 on top of the "", as may be seen in Yoma 35, where the phrase 
 rp'JJD-iD "J "1C1K miiT ""l is found, and really gives an indica- 
 tion of the other reading. 
 
 4. See " Rabbi Josua ben 'Hananiah" in this volume. 
 
 5. See Yoma 35. 
 
 6. Ibidem. 
 
 7. See Sifra to Thasriang, div. 9 ; Talmud Jerusalemi, 
 esachim, div. 6, 1 ; Tosephta Negaim ; Pesikta to Thasriang. 
 
 8. See Jerusalemi, Pesachim, div. 6, 1. 
 
 275 
 
276 NOTES 
 
 9. Ibidem, and Talmud Babli, Pesachim 69. Later Rabbis 
 praise the resignation of the Bethyrahs as an act of graceful 
 condescension. There seems to have been no condescension 
 whatever ; rather was it a religious and political necessity to 
 have a Davidic descendant in the presidential chair, consider- 
 ing also that Hillel stood much higher in the estimation of the 
 people than the Bethyrahs, who had not attended the academy 
 of the old masters, though they had had the fullest oppor- 
 tunity, being residents of Jerusalem and very wealthy, whereas 
 the Babylonian, who had struggled and suffered, could boast 
 of the advantage from the masters, Shemaiah and Abtalion. 
 
 10. See Talmud Babli, Sabbath 1 1 £. 
 
 11. See Patristic Chapters, 1. 
 
 12. See Talmud Babli, Sabbath 31 ; conf. Aboth de Rabbi 
 Nathan, div. 1. 
 
 13. See Patristic Chapters, 1. 
 
 14. Numbers 18, 7. 
 
 15. Talmud Babli, Sabbath 31. 
 
 16. The Talmud (Yoma) expresses this in the maxim, 
 Dm niO^ K^ Dm *ni, " Ye shall live by them (the laws) but 
 ye shall not die by them." 
 
 17. Talmud Babli, Sabbath 31 ; Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 1. 
 
 18. Talmud Babli, Gittin 36; Shebiith 10, 3. 
 
 19. Talmud Babli, Erachin 31. 
 
 20. Talmud Babli, Baba Metziah 75 ; Sabbath 148. 
 
 21. Sotah 48; Tosephta Sotah, div. 13. 
 
 22. Talmud Babli, Synhedrin 16. 
 
 23. Berachoth 60. 
 
 24. Derech Eretz Rabba, div. 6. 
 
 25. Talmud Babli, Sabbath 30 £, ^m jmuy DIN KfV D^Jjfj 
 
 26. Sabbath 31 a. 
 
 27. Midrash Rabba, Leviticus, div. 24. 
 
 28. Ibidem. 
 
 29. Talmud Babli, Kethuboth 67 ; Talmud Jerus, Peah, 
 div. 1. 
 
NOTES 277 
 
 30. Tosephta, Berachoth, div. 2 ; Derech Eretz Sutta. 
 
 div. 8. 
 
 31. Talmud Babli, Sabbath 16, and Sifri at the end. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1. Talmud Babli Abodah Zara (ed. 1520); En Yacobh II, 
 p. 348 (ed. 1 5 19) Hagadoth ha-Talmud (ed. 1 5 1 1) and Midrash 
 Rabba Koheleth (ed. 15 19). Compare also our note to Chap- 
 ter V. 
 
 2. This Josua ben Perachiah can hardly be the same who 
 was the colleague of Nita the Arbelite, who was the Presi- 
 dent of the Sanhedrin about one hundred years before Christ. 
 The notice in Sanhedrin 107 £, referring to Josua's harsh 
 treatment of Christ and the disapproval thereof by the Rabbis, 
 gives room to one of two suppositions, either there was in the 
 time of Christ a man of the same name, or the writer, regard- 
 less of chronology, set down the maxim not to deny salvation 
 to any one, notably not to so learned a man as Jesus, though 
 he was guilty of giving a decision without having been asked 
 by his Master to do so, and for which the loss of Paradise was 
 the penalty. But all this shows that the Rabbis frequently 
 discussed the merits and demerits of Christ who, they held, 
 was a secessionist and heretic, and could hardly be a sharer in 
 the bliss vouchsafed only to the strictly orthodox. To Jesus 
 they applied the saying of Rabbi Josua ben Perachiah, "Keep 
 away from a bad neighbor, keep no company with the godless, 
 and do not believe that they go unpunished" (Aboth I). 
 They go even so far as to discuss the form of punishment to 
 which Jesus is subjected in Hell (see Babli Rosh ha-Shanah 
 16; Jerusalemi Sanhedrin I). This harsh measure is con- 
 demned by other Rabbis, who hold that, "if thy right hand 
 pushes away a person, let thy left be ready to receive him 
 
278 NOTES 
 
 back again" (Babli Sanhedrin 107). But the strict adherents 
 to the letter of the law persisted that the action of Ben Pera- 
 chiah was justifiable. Thereupon the gentler disposed Mas- 
 ters exclaimed, "Then let no man be like Josua ben Perachia 
 who pushed away Jesus with both hands" (ibidem). This de- 
 cision seems to settle the question of the fellowship of Jesus 
 whom the Rabbis admittedly held worthy of consideration. 
 And as Jesus was not a heretic (Min), he having lived in ac- 
 cordance with the laws of Moses, the rule laid down by the 
 Rabbis as to those who are doomed to the fires of the Ge-Hin- 
 non (Hell) does not apply to Jesus (see Babli Rosh ha-Shanah 
 16). Regarding the death penalty the Talmud is equally em- 
 phatic, showing unmistakably that the condemnation of Jesus 
 did not find general approval by the later Rabbis, and such 
 Masters as Rabbi Akibah and Rabbi Tarphon are reported as 
 saying, "Had we been members of the Sanhedrin, there never 
 would have been passed a death sentence" (Mishnah Makkoth 
 1, 10). 
 
 3. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 43 and 67. 
 
 4. Josts Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, 
 Vol. I, f, p. 405. 
 
 5. Midrash Rabba Koheleth. 
 
 6. Talmud Babli Abodah Zara 1 7. 
 
 7. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 4. 
 
 8. Mishnah Rosh ha-Shanah IV, 1. 
 
 9. Talmud Babli Sotah 47 ; comp. Josts Geschichte etc. 
 
 Vol. I, p. 399. 
 
 10. Ibidem Pesachim 57; ibidem Jost. 
 
 1 1. Ibidem Sotah 22. 
 
 12. Megillath Taanith XII, 6. 
 
 13. Talmud Babli Nedarim 39; ibid, Pesachim 54; Tar- 
 gum Jonathan ben Uziel to Isaiah 42, 1, 2. 
 
 14. Talmud Babil Sanhedrin 97; Midrash Rabba Echah 
 
 11,2. 
 
 15. The eight hundred Pharisees crucified by Alexander 
 Yannai were too fresh in their memory to let the Pharisees 
 
NOTES 279 
 
 sanction such an atrocious act even though they had differed 
 as to his Messiahship. 
 
 It is evident from that alone that there were no Pharisees 
 at the trial. Such a flimsy charge as the one by which was 
 specified that Jesus called himself the "Son of God" would 
 not have been sustained by the Pharisees. Every Jew was in 
 the habit of calling God "Father." The words " Our Father" 
 (Abinu Malekeynu) and "Our Father who art in Heaven" 
 (Abinu sheba-Shamaiim) were words frequently spoken by the 
 Hebrews in their prayers. Nor was it very extraordinary to 
 call one "Son of God," since the Jews are often called "sons 
 of God," ayrhH nwfr Dns* D^l (Deut. 14 1), and also the 
 "first born and beloved son," DnSOl lmrttfl ^nt^ IV: »3 
 "J}'; TlXlp (Jer. 51, 20). The accusation of being a false 
 prophet, npc? &P3J, the Pharisees would not have sustained 
 against Jesus; for he merely deplored the sad condition of the 
 Hebrews spiritually, particularly those in power, and the Phar- 
 isees fully coincided with him in the matter. Any one could 
 see whither the Jews were drifting by their negligence of the 
 Law of God. But even had the Pharisees sided with the Sad- 
 ducees in the charge that Jesus was a "perversionist," JVDE 
 inert ; that he led people from the true faith to a false hope; 
 that he diverted the Messianic belief and incited the people to 
 rebellion against the existing authorities; had the Pharisees 
 been willing to forget so far their own interests in the interest 
 of their enemies, they could not have convicted Jesus of that 
 charge, at least without going against the plain law of Moses 
 which provides the death penalty only in cases where a person 
 had been guilty of leading the people from the faith in God 
 to the worship of idols (Deut. 13, 2-12), and no one could 
 have said such a monstrous thing of Jesus. 
 
 16. Neither the term <ti> dtras nor i>fitis \tyere are rabbinical 
 affirmatives. This form of expression is seldom met with in 
 talmudical writings. Nor is it an affirmation according to 
 Matt (26, 25) and John (18, 37). If the expression of Jesus, 
 -thou hast said," meant affirmation, it would stand in glaring 
 
280 NOTES 
 
 contradiction to the thoughts expressed in John 18, 37. There 
 is but one instance in rabbinical writings where the phrase 
 "ye have said it" (JimONp pTIN) appears, and there it is a 
 distinct negative, as is evident from the addition, "I did not 
 say so" (KrcNp i6 bMK). This is the case of a certain 
 scholar, Bar Kapara, by name, who takes it upon himself to 
 announce to the people of Sephoris the death of Rabbi Juda 
 the Prince. The Sephorites had vowed to kill the man who 
 should bring them the sad news, so much did they love the 
 Prince. It is therefore evident that, had Bar Kapara intended 
 to affirm their question regarding the Prince's death, they 
 would surely have killed him (vide Midrash Rabba Koheleth 
 7, 7; Talmud Babli Sabbath 134 a ; Talmud Jerusalemi Kil- 
 ayim 9, 4, fol. 32 a ; Talmud Babli Kethuboth 104 a). It 
 merely shows how quick-witted scholars made use of the 
 phrase to get out of serious situations. In the case of Christ 
 the reply also confirms the simple fact that he never spoke of 
 his Messiahship in public, but that it was the High Priest who 
 made the statement public for the first time. Jesus, there- 
 fore, says, "Thou hast said." 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1. Talmud Babli Rosh ha-Shanah 21; ibidem Sanhedrin 
 
 41. 
 
 2. Ibidem Succah 28. 
 
 3. Ibidem Berachoth 17. 
 
 4. Ibidem Yoma 39. 
 
 4 a. Ibidem Sotah 47, D^EH DWI ^D3 ttBKJDfl 13W. 
 
 5. Talmud Jerusalemi Succah IV, 6; Talm. Babli Pesa- 
 chim 28. 
 
 6. Palmud Babli Gittin 56. The historian Jost (Geschichte 
 des Judenthums und seiner Secten, Vol. I, p. 444) ascribes this 
 
NOTES 281 
 
 act to Josephus. This is incorrect. Josephus neither asked 
 for nor was he granted by Vespasian the favor of founding a 
 school at Yamnai. He spent the latter part of his life in 
 Rome, the pensioner of several Emperors, devoting his time to 
 the writing of his histories. Comp. Graetz' History of the 
 Jews, English translation, Vol. II. p. 288. 
 
 7. Midrash Rabba Koheleth. 
 
 8. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 4. 
 
 9. Ibidem. 
 
 10. Talmud Jerusalemi Nedarim VIII, 7. 
 
 1 1. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan. 
 
 12. Talmud Babli Berachoth 28. 
 
 13. Ibidem Sotah 49. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 1. nVWtt 'mh N^D nWDn, "Piety leads to Purity" (So- 
 tah 10). 
 
 2. The Hillelite school held with the ancient masters, 
 Shemaiah and Abhtalion, that "man liveth by the laws — 
 Di"Q TWO* btfl Dm 'ni — but he shall not die by (on account 
 of) them." The Chassidaic races, on the other hand, held 
 that one should die rather than break the law: as it is written 
 (Deuteronomy 6, 4), "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with thy whole heart and with thy whole life"; the words 
 •'thy whole life" signify that thou shalt not break the law of 
 God though thy life be taken from thee, bt3U l^DK "pETD: ^33 
 "pK'QJ J1K. Berachoth 61. 
 
 3. Ibidem. The Chassidaic maxim was, "Practical right- 
 eousness is preferable to study," ilB>J»n N^K ip'JJH Vninn vhl 
 (Patristic Chapters). 
 
 4. See Berachoth 34. 
 
 5. Ibidem, 3, 11, 12, 13. 
 
282 NOTES 
 
 6. Talmud Babli, Berachoth 24. 
 
 7. Ibidem 18. 
 
 8. Taanith 25. 
 
 9. Midrash Rabba, Koheleth 1. 
 
 10. Taanith 25. 
 
 11. Talmud Babli, Berachoth 33. 
 
 12. Taanith 24. 
 
 13. I believe there is a play on the name, and WS really 
 stands for N^K or SO-JTK, "'tis here." 
 
 14. This story found many doubters. The Talmud is not 
 quite ready to vouch for its truth, and thinking the unbelievers 
 in this miracle entitled to some consideration, the Rabbis put 
 in the guarded phrases— DlKtW pEMD :Dn01S B>"1 "And 
 some (of the Rabbis) say, the beams were joined" (by the car- 
 penter, of course). (See Taanith 24.) This certainty solves 
 the problem in a rational and practical manner. But to throw 
 cold water on a proposition which is intended to perpetuate 
 the belief in the extraordinary powers of the Rabbis, particu- 
 larly those of the Chassidaic-pharisaic sect, would not be in 
 harmony with the spirit of the Talmud. Wherefore an 
 addition is made to sustain the miracle, though it does not 
 directly contradict what the "Some" say, as quoted above. 
 The witness in the case is a certain holy man by the name of 
 Plimo (Second Century A.C.), who unequivocally testifies as 
 to the projection of the beams. "I have seen that house," 
 says Plimo (Taanith 24), "and the beams projected to the meas- 
 ure of an ell on each side. And the people told me that this 
 house was 'beamed' by the prayer of Rabbi 'Haninah ben 
 Dosa"; Vi!>Bn3 KDY1 p KWn »m ITVpP HT rV3- By this it 
 will be seen that the miracle is based upon "hearsay," while 
 the main facts in the case, namely the projection of the beams, 
 is supported by the "best evidence." 
 
 15. Here again some one evidently casts doubt upon the 
 veracity of the report. "How came Rabbi 'Haninah by goats, 
 since he was poor?" some doubting Rabbi asks. "And our 
 sages have said," he continues, "that small cattle are not 
 
NOTES 283 
 
 raised in Palestine." (Taanith 24.) But he/e again a witness 
 is found who gives a plausible explanation. Says Rabbi 
 Pinehas: It happened that a man stopped at 'Haninah's house 
 and left there some chickens, which 'Haninah's wife found, 
 and of which she at once informed her husband. 
 
 "We can eat neither the chickens nor the eggs which the 
 chickens have laid ; they are not ours," he said. 
 
 And thus it came to pass that a great many eggs accumu- 
 lated from which came many chickens, much to the annoyance 
 of the saint and his wife; but they touched them not as food. 
 However, to rid themselves of the chickens they sold them 
 and with the proceeds bought goats. Some time after this the 
 original owner of the chickens came back that way, and Rabbi 
 'Haninah heard him say to a fellow-traveller: "In this place 
 have I lost my chickens." 
 
 "Couldst thou identify them?" asked the Rabbi. 
 
 "Aye, Rabbi, I can do that easily," the man replied, and 
 forthwith described the chickens. Thereupon the Rabbi told 
 the man of the disposition he had made of the chickens, and 
 bade him take the goats instead, which the man gladly ac- 
 cepted. And these were the goats, the Talmud adds, which 
 carried bears upon their horns. (Ibidem.) 
 
 16. HNUJ n^liru DHpon JV2 aintlPD, "Since the destruc- 
 tion of the Temple, prophecy has been abolished" (Baba 
 Bathra fol. 9), is indicative of this policy. It was precisely this 
 idea which the Rabbis advanced against Christianity. Grant- 
 ing that Jesus was a prophet, the Rabbis held that he had no 
 authority to dissolve the old dispensation and to place in its 
 stead a new form, nny» "Ol Enni? 'ftttTI N"3J TX (Megillah 2 b). 
 But since, by the testimony of Jesus himself, he had not come 
 to destroy but to fulfil, those claiming and advocating a new 
 form in his name were deceivers. 
 
 17. Talmud Babli, Yebamoth 121. 
 
284 NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 1. Talmud Babli Hagigah 14. 
 
 2. Patristic Chapters II, 19. 
 
 3. Josephus Belli Jud. IV. 1, 3; Ant. XVII, 21, 3. 
 
 4. Talmud Babli Sabbath 114; ibidem 147: Aboth de 
 Rabbi Nathan 14; Midrash Rabba Koheleth p. 101. 
 
 5. Talmud Jerusalemi Shebiith 1 ; ibidem Terumoth at the 
 end. 
 
 6. Talmud Babli Baba Metziah 59. 
 
 7. Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer I. 
 
 8. Talmud Babli Gittin 56; Midrash Rabba Koheleth, 
 7, ir. 
 
 9. Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer II. 
 
 10. Ibidem. 
 
 11. See Chapter III this volume. 
 
 12. The historian Graetz errs in stating that Gamaliel II 
 disciplined Eliezer ben Hyrkanos as one opposed to his au- 
 thority in matters which had been decided by Ben Zakkai. 
 Such could not have been the case, inasmuch as Gamaliel II 
 was placed upon the presidential chair by Ben Zakkai himself, 
 and Eliezer opposed nothing enacted by his Master. It was 
 Josua ben 'Hananiah who forced the President to pronounce the 
 ban over Eliezer, and as we believe, much against his inclination. 
 
 13. Talmud Babli Baba Metzia 59 a. 
 
 14. See Chapter I this volume. Hillel says, "So have I 
 heard it from the mouth of Shemaiah and Abtalion." 
 
 15. The reference to the "bread-fruit tree," Dlin, is a very 
 happy one and makes the meaning quite obvious, since it 
 points to an historical fact. The time of Eliezer's trial took 
 place shortly after the destruction of the second Temple, about 
 seventy years after Christ, hence Eliezer's reference to the 
 bread-fruit tree which requires seventy years for maturing and 
 the bearing of fruit. 
 
 16. Patristic Chapters I, 1 ; Abodah Zara 36, the statement 
 
NOTES 285 
 
 is found that Moses was shown every jot and tittle of the Law, 
 and all that which the learned men in coming generations would 
 add and explain ; min ^ipi TWO*? Pl"3"pn nN"li"U}> 1ftta 
 
 tnro D'Tnyp noi onsiD *pnpni. 
 
 17. The notice, "Rabbi Eliezer, the Shammathite, for he was 
 of the House (i.e., of the opinion) of Shammai," VTUX> "iTy^N '31 
 "•NOC TV 30 im (see Talmud Jerusalemi Shebiith I, at the end ; 
 ibidem Terumoth V, 4), indicates that the strict Shammaites 
 suited Eliezer's ideas far better than those of the lenient Hil- 
 lelites, and from what we know of his character, there is no 
 doubt but that he was "a Shammaite in the House of Hillel." 
 
 18. Josua had a secret contempt for the wealthy Gamaliel, 
 and once this became manifest in a very unpleasant form to 
 Gamaliel, when he was forced to beg pardon of the learned 
 blacksmith, who, though he forgave the public insult to which 
 the President had subjected him, cried, UTIJO nnKK> Tl"6 ilN, 
 "Woe to the generation whose leader thou art" (Talmud 
 Babli Berachoth 36). 
 
 19. Rabbi Eliezer had often reminded Akibah of his 
 former occupation, which was that of a cattle herder, by say- 
 ing, "Thou hast not demonstrated to me thy fitness of even 
 herding cattie," np3 "jmb nyjn t& P"ljtt. Akibah took the 
 rebuke good-naturedly, and said, " No, I am not fit even to 
 herd sheep" |N¥ >]!)lb l^DXl (Talmud Babli Yebamoth 16). 
 
 20. A later hand evidently added the words, poo piyi 
 plEiyi, "And they have remained in the same bent position." 
 There is no doubt but that this is a mere figure of speech; for 
 Roman legions soon after swept over the country and de- 
 stroyed every school in the land and nearly every Jewish home 
 as well. But the two divisions in Israel have remained unto 
 this day. There are even now many who waver between the 
 parties, and are loth to identify themselves with either the 
 zealots or with those who have foresworn the ancient faith al- 
 together. These remain religiously inert until awakened by a 
 force with which they had thitherto not reckoned. 
 
 21. Exodus XIII, 2. 
 
286 NOTES 
 
 22. Talmud Babli Baba Metziah 59 a. 
 
 23. Talmud Jerusalemi Pesachim VI, 4. 
 
 24. Ibidem. 
 
 25. fun I^NE^ DTK. "An improper person" might readily 
 confound the decisions, and thus bring chaos where order was 
 desired most. For it was necessary to report to Eliezer the 
 whole proceedings, and as an ignorant person could not possi- 
 bly give an accurate rendition, people might say, the Rabbis 
 condemned Eliezer unjustly. Akibah particularly desired to 
 lessen the shock to his Master and take the cruel sting from 
 the awful message. It was no small matter, this anathemizing 
 so great a man as Rabbi Eliezer, the most learned and the 
 most pious man in Israel of that day. And though the ban 
 was conditioned upon recantation, Akibah rightly feared that 
 the shock might prove fatal to Eliezer's life, in which case a 
 whole world of learning would be destroyed, ^3 DK THTO NVOJ1 
 1^3 OTiyn. The Rabbis accorded as great a veneration to the 
 person of the scholar as to his learning, and the later Rabbis, 
 disregarding the causes of this unfortunate occurrence, give un- 
 stinted praise to Rabbi Eliezer, min "IDD T3J3 "iTy^N *T\ riDCW. 
 "With the death of Rabbi Eliezer the book of the law was 
 hidden," they say (Rabbi Sotah 49). Their utmost severity 
 is directed against Akibah, who, they say, "deserved to be 
 burned by the fire of God for bearing to the great Rabbi 
 the tidings of the ban," ftSHW 2"mw N"lfj "6 tvn iriK TC^n 
 D1p£^>. The expression Dlpdi? HSn^ T'PiriJ^ is not quite 
 clear. If Akibah did his simple duty, why should he have 
 merited punishment, and meriting punishment, why should it 
 have been that of immolation (nD , ")£>)? But in this seeming 
 censure of the Rabbis there is at once expressed the high 
 degree of Akibah's worth, and of the even greater worth of 
 Rabbi Eliezer. So holy was the latter that none but an angel 
 should have borne the message of his ban to him. In usurp- 
 ing to himself the right of an angel, Akibah became subject to 
 the conditions governing a "service angel." The service angels 
 are created in the fire stream (Nehar di Nur) for service unto 
 
NOTES 287 
 
 Jehovah and perish immediately after their work is accom- 
 plished, being engulfed in the Nehar di Nur (see Hagigah 13). 
 Akibah, therefore, should have been burned by the heavenly 
 fire. That which saved him was the distinction of having 
 served and studied under Rabbi Eliezer. As such his physi- 
 cal condition became superior to that of a service angel, and 
 his life was spared. "Leave him alone," the word went forth, 
 "he hath served a great man," CWE> ^nJ D1K *6 IITjn V1IDN 
 (see Talmud Babli Erubin 54 a). 
 
 26. Talmud Babli Baba Metziah 59. 
 
 27. Ibidem Baba Kama 91. 
 
 28. Patristic Chapters II, 16. 
 
 29. Talmud Babli Sotah 48. The words, flS li> {J«S5> >ft fo 
 "6d3, "He who hath bread in his basket," etc., seem to come 
 from the same source whence came those lustrous sentences 
 reported by Matthew (6, 26), "Behold the birds of the heaven, 
 that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; 
 and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not of much 
 more value than they?" . . . "Consider the lilies of the field, 
 how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet I say 
 unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
 like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the 
 field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
 shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" 
 
 The utterances of Rabbi Eliezer and those of Jesus seem 
 more than a coincidence, they are wonderfully alike, they could 
 not be more so, in aim at least, if uttered by the same person 
 or by one who was on terms of familiarity with the person and 
 his thoughts. Did Eliezer repeat authentic utterances? It is 
 more than probable. His master, Ben Zakkai, came upon the 
 scene less than half a century after the birth of Christ; he 
 knew; he had heard from eye-witnesses of the Man of Galilee. 
 But it was a matter over which careful men spoke in hints and 
 whispers, and the diplomatic Ben Zakkai was the last person 
 to express himself in terms that would remind of Jesus or 
 which might be construed as betraying a leaning toward the 
 
288 NOTES 
 
 doctrines of the "Minim" (Christians). Eliezer, on the other 
 hand, had no diplomatic considerations. In fact, he may have 
 looked upon his excommunication as an unjust act equal to the 
 condemnation of Christ by the Sadducees. To him the life, 
 words, acts and sufferings of Jesus were intensely significant. 
 He associated with the followers of Christ; he was, in fact, 
 one of them, and he did not hesitate to promulgate doctrines 
 which he thought fair and noble. It is not strange, therefore, 
 to find him repeat almost verbatim the words of Jesus. If we 
 compare a few of the maxims of Eliezer with the words of 
 Christ, we are at once struck with their wonderful similarity, 
 and no sane person will assert that Jesus repeated what Elie- 
 zer had said. Thus we find that Jesus warns against the put- 
 ting away of a wife for any cause other than adultery (Matt. 5, 
 32), and in another place he praises the institution of marriage 
 as a divine injunction. Rabbi Eliezer is ready with the same 
 thought, in almost the same words, rra-ll PP"IB3 pDlJ? I^K^ $>3 
 D^l 1D1K> "6fcO, "He who puts away his wife, and liveth not 
 with her in accordance with the Law of God (and the law of 
 nature), is as one who sheds (human) blood" (Babli Yebamoth 
 63). Jesus preaches forgiveness of sin, bliss of Paradise for 
 the righteous and the repentant sinner, but punishment for 
 the non-repentant. Eliezer says, "In the coming world the 
 Lord will sit in the circle of the righteous, who will point with 
 their finger at him, saying, ' He is our God, our hope and our 
 salvation'" (Babli Taanith 31). And again (Shebuoth 39), 
 "Those who repent, the Lord will cleanse; but he will not 
 cleanse those who do not repent," )y^> npr N^ D'QB^ ripy 
 D^y. Jesus condemns set phrasesof prayers and showy devo- 
 tion (Matt. 6, 5). Eliezer holds that prayers at set times and in 
 public, spoken in set phrases, are not devotion, ]}2p in?sn nt^iyn 
 D^IJnn ln^Qn PS (Berachoth 29). Jesus praises a heathen in 
 whose heart the faith has taken firm root, holding that salvation 
 is to be universal to those who come to God with a contrite 
 heart. Eliezer says, "The dispersion of Israel was for the 
 purpose of increasing the number of converts to the faith in 
 
NOTES 289 
 
 the God of Israel," am Offbv lBmrpfc* *13 N^tf fonts* rh»\ t6 
 (Pesachim 87). In another place (Kiddushin 31, 32), Eliezer 
 tells of the filial devotion of a heathen who would not disturb 
 his father's sleep, though by doing so he might have gained a 
 large sum of money. Obviously Eliezer had found no such 
 devotion to the Lord's commandment among the Israelites. 
 Does not this strikingly remind of the words of Jesus, "Verily 
 I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Is- 
 rael" (Matt. 8, 10)? And so these analogies run through the 
 Talmud like a sparkling, murmuring brook 'midst green 
 meadows. And if we follow the brook to its source, we are 
 brought face to face with facts which set at rest many doubts, 
 principal amongst which is the question as to the "Sermon on 
 the Mount." Jesus actually delivered that wonderful form of 
 divine truth in his own matchless manner, and while some of 
 the thoughts had been with the learned men in Israel long be- 
 fore him, none had ever given or sought to give them as com- 
 pactly and concisely and with such force as Jesus. Some 
 gifted person had retained the form and context and repeated 
 them toothers. Ben Zakkai knew them, and Eliezer, through 
 close contact with the Christians, absorbed them so thoroughly 
 that he embodied most of them in his discourses. (Conf. what 
 we wrote on this subject in Chapter II.) 
 
 30. The expression, *"fiMfl ^K" TO^HD nnK, "one of the 
 disciples of Jesus of Nazareth," does not necessarily mean that 
 James (or Jacobus) was an immediate disciple of Christ; but 
 in the sentence following that passage the expression is found, 
 '■Own IB* "OniD^ "p, "thus taught me Jesus of Nazareth," 
 and this certainly points to a personal intercourse with Christ. 
 The non-expurgated editions of the Talmud and the En Yacobh 
 have these references in full (vide Babli Abodah Zarah 17, 
 edition 1520; En Yacobh II, p. 348, ed. 1415 ; Hagadoth ha- 
 Talmud ad loco, ed. 1 5 1 1, and in the En Yacobh, ed. Saloniki), 
 the close contact of James with Jesus is emphasized by the 
 words, nSWl It" "6 1DN "P, "So was I told by Jesus of Naz- 
 areth"; conf. also the Midrash Rabba Koheleth (ed. 15 19), 
 
290 
 
 NOTES 
 
 where the term 1£}» D15W0 is found and points to the authentic- 
 ity of the words of James. 
 
 31. Midrash Rabba Genesis, div. 13; Talmud Jerusalemi 
 Sanhedrin, div. VII. 
 
 32. Talmud Babli Abodah Zarah 16 and 17. 
 
 33. Ibidem. 
 
 34. The Talmudic commentators are sorely perplexed re- 
 garding the identity of the person designated as "WD, "Some- 
 body"; some believe him to be identical with Absalom, the re- 
 bellious son of David; others think it is Solomon, who had 
 fallen from grace and whom they would not mention by name. 
 Even Balaam and Titus come under speculative consideration. 
 The truth of the matter is, the Rabbis of those days did men- 
 tion the name of Jesus, and men like Eliezer and others had 
 no hesitancy in referring to him by his name. Later the times 
 and with them the sentiment changed, and some of the copy- 
 ists substituted the pseudonym for Jesus. There are several 
 such pseudonyms for Jesus, the "John Doe" terms, as it were; 
 but the students had not the least doubt as to who the person 
 so designated was. This fiction was resorted to by the Rab- 
 bis partly out of fear for the supersensitive censor of Chris- 
 tian governments, to whom the "Jesus" in a Hebrew book 
 seemed placed for blasphemy. The Jewish people had suf- 
 fered so much at the hands of Christians in the name of Jesus 
 that the name became significant of horror, and Jewish schol- 
 ars refrained from mentioning it in their discussions (see Josts 
 Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, Vol. I, p. 394). 
 The question asked by the visiting Rabbis, whether " Peloni " 
 had a share in the bliss of Paradise, certainly points to Jesus. 
 Had they meant any other person Eliezer would not have 
 evaded the question. But in his state of mind he was unwill- 
 ing to give a definite answer. 
 
 35. Tosephtah Yebamoth III, 3 ; Talmud Babli Yoma 66 a. 
 
 36. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 68 £. 
 
 37. Talmud Jerusalemi Sotah, at the end. 
 
 38. Talmud Babli Gittin 63. 
 
NOTES 291 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 1. Talmud Babli Berachoth 27; Bechoroth 36. 
 
 2. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 14. 
 
 3. Talmud Jerusalemi Yebamoth 3. 
 
 4. Talmud Babli Berachoth 58. 
 
 5. Ibidem Megillah 3. 
 
 6. Ibidem Pesachim 49. Aaron, the brother of Moses, 
 was the ancestor of the priests. 
 
 7. Ibidem Kethuboth 12 and 13; ibidem Sotah 20. 
 
 8. Ibidem Sabbath 153; Jerusalemi Sabbath I, 6; Babli 
 Abodah Zara 61 ; ibidem Baba Bathrah 60. 
 
 9. Babli Berachoth gives the impression that it was Akibah 
 who assisted against Josua; but ibidem 28 it is stated that 
 Simon ben Yohai, a disciple of Akibah, asked the question. 
 The chances are that master and disciple had an under- 
 standing in the matter, to down Josua. 
 
 10. Ibidem Berachoth 27; Jerusalemi Bechoroth 36. 
 
 1 1. See supra. 
 
 12. Talmud Babli Pesachim 53. 
 
 13. Ibidem Taanith 7. 
 
 14. Megillath Taanith XII, 29. 
 
 15. Tosephtah 'Hagigah. 
 
 16. Ibidem. 
 
 17. Midrash Rabba Genesis div. 64. 
 
 18. Koheleth IX, 4. 
 
 19. Midrash Rabba Esther at the end. 
 
 20. Spart X, 11. Hadrian was afraid of the Parthians, 
 and in order to prevent them from going to war with the 
 Romans, he conceded to them two provinces. 
 
 21. We shall not repeat here the talmudical form, which 
 though surpassing in poetic grace, must of necessity be substi- 
 tuted by our less perfect rendition. We refer the reader to 
 either the original, Talmud Babli Chulin 59 and 60, or to 
 Winter and Wuensche's excellent translation of these passages 
 
292 NOTES 
 
 in the German language (Geschichte der Jiidischen Literatur, 
 Vol. I, p. 344)- 
 
 22. Script, hist. Augusti, by Flavius Popiscus; Midrash 
 Rabba Genesis div. 64. 
 
 23. Talmud Babli Bechoroth 8 and 9. 
 
 24. The Romans called the rebellious Hebrews, particu- 
 larly the terrible Siccarees, snakes. Conf. also Chapter III, 
 this volume. 
 
 25. We call attention to the fact that this conversation 
 took place before the Bar Kochba revolution, about the year 
 123 A.C. The rebellion, started about 131 A.C., lasted a little 
 over two years. This would bring Rabbi Josua's answer 
 very near an exact statement of facts, namely that the He- 
 brews could not get on a war footing short of seven years. 
 Hadrian's information was that the rebellion would take place 
 in a shorter time. He did not believe it, because when he 
 visited Syria a year or two before he had found everything in 
 perfect order and so reported to the Senate (see Chapter VII). 
 Did Rabbi Josua seek to mislead him by telling him the 
 truth? We think so. 
 
 26. Rashi Bechoroth 8. 
 
 27. The text contains the expression D£> "ION, "he uttered 
 the tetragrammaton," by means of which he flew into the air. 
 But in our presentation we have followed the commentator 
 "M'harsha," who lays special stress upon the fact that "the 
 Rabbi fought the battle of Israel's faith against the heathen 
 philosophers, and that there was no folly in his speech," 
 
 rwi nnoy nav6 xa *6k !ftm j?n nm hv ww "im» rwi vh 
 
 irnJlON (M'harsha to Bechoroth 8). 
 
 28. Babli Berachoth 9. 
 
 29. Ibidem Bechoroth 9 a. 
 
 30. Midrash Rabba Echah XLIII. 4. 
 
 31. Ibidem. 
 
 32. Talmud Jerusalemi Sanhedrin IV. 
 
 33. Ibidem. 
 
 34. Talmud Babli Chulin 59. 
 
NOTES 293 
 
 35. Ibidem Yebamoth 87 ; Maaser Sheni div. 2 at the end. 
 
 36. Midrash Rabbi Genesis, div, 61. 
 
 37. Ibidem Leviticus, div. 34. 
 
 38. In the utterances of Rabbi Josua is found a remarka- 
 ble similarity to those of Eliezer with whom he holds that one 
 should have faith in God's Providence for sustenance (JKD 
 'JNTO TiT N'H TiTl). Evidently both men drank at the same 
 fountain, one sooner, the other later. 
 
 39. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 99; Tosephta Oheloth div. 16. 
 
 40. Ibidem Pesachim 68. 
 
 41. Ibidem Sotah 20 (HOIK' TDn — N^HD PTIfi). 
 
 42. Ibidem Sanhedrin 105; Tosephta Sanhedrin div. 13. 
 
 43. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 3a; Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 
 div. 18. 
 
 44. Ibidem 'Hagigah 5 (pro» £ 'inn .*10). 
 
 45. See Chapter X, this work. 
 
 46. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 3 a\ Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 
 div. 18. 
 
 47. ibidem Sotah 49 (mtrnm nvy ntan yie>.T"i nosw). 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1. Talmud Babli Berachoth 58, "All the sages in Israel 
 are like peelings of garlic in comparison with this bald one, 
 and he is Rabbi Akibah son of Joseph, and his father was a 
 righteous proselyte." (pn XSW\ VSN&2 >isf? btiTW* '03n ^3 
 
 pro m rwi rcun ejDv p ntpv "an Kim nt mpo.) 
 
 2. Talmud Babli Pesachim 49. 
 
 3. Ibidem Nazir 35. 
 
 4. Ibidem Kethuboth 62; Nedarim 50. 
 
 5. She married him on condition that he become a student 
 of the Rabbi (Eliezer ben Hyrkanos)31 -IlS n^TN "]b JOBTtpB \X, 
 and upon his promise she lived with him secretly, nEHp^N 
 
294 
 
 NOTES 
 
 NyrVU ^. The marriage was legal, since the consideration 
 might have been money, contract or coition, IOC P|D3 or iiK*}. 
 The knowledge of this fact caused Rachel's father to drive her 
 from his house (Babli Kethuboth 62). The version in Neda- 
 rin 50 differs from the above in one particular. There it is 
 said that she betrothed herself to him, pp£ ntnpJVX, and after 
 her expulsion from her father's house went to live with Aki- 
 bah, ,tS nn^DJriW'l, consummating the marriage in legal form, 
 ntTSJ irb rWpDI iTlDJ (comp. Babli Kiddushin 3 a and Ibidem 
 Si>). 
 
 6. Talmud Jerusalem Sabbath IV, I. 
 
 7. The "Golden City" (2ilT IV TJ?) was evidently a very 
 large golden medallion on which in bas-relief were the pictures 
 of Jerusalem and the Temple, brilliant with many precious 
 jewels. This was worn upon the breast pendent from a 
 golden chain around the neck. It was this jewel that excited 
 the envy of Gamaliel's wife. This jewel was a mark of dis- 
 tinction, and was worn only by those who had merited the 
 "Crown of the Law." By her devotion, Rachel had given to 
 Israel a great Master of the Law and was therefore worthy to 
 wear the "Golden City." This explanation seems to be con- 
 firmed by Nedarin 50, where the expression 3HT b& "VJf is 
 found instead of tCHY! D^BTP. Or is Akibah's promise to 
 his wife indicative of his future revolutionary activity, of the 
 time when a revolutionary coin — nn» JQDD — shall have its 
 value, Jerusalem be a city of gold, and Rachel a princess in 
 Israel? Who could adequately measure the plans and ambi- 
 tions of this strange character of that day? 
 
 8. The historian Graetz is wrong in stating that Akibah 
 studied first under Nahum of Gimsu and then under Eliezer. 
 Nahum's school was of a higher order. There the latest de- 
 cisions were discussed, and a certain independent exegetical 
 exposition taught for which a preparatory knowledge of the 
 tradiiional law was required, and this Akibah could have got- 
 ten only in Eliezer's school. Afterwards he attended the lec- 
 tures of Nahum, from whom he learned the method of apply- 
 
NOTES 295 
 
 ing certain grammatical rules in the explanation of Holy Writ. 
 He then joined the two systems which constitute the character- 
 istic features of his work. (Comp. Yebamoth 16; Josts Ge- 
 schichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, Vol II, p. 59.) 
 9. Talmud Babli Yebamoth 16. 
 
 10. Midrash Rabba Song of Songs I, 3. 
 
 11. Ibidem. 
 
 12. "With whom dost thou busy thyself?" XT' bv SDyO "•»• 
 
 13. ni3^n k M r^n fan ppi yip b bv wmb T*w. 
 
 14. Talmud Babli Nazir 35. 
 
 15. Talmud Babli Yebamoth 62 speaks of three hundred 
 disciples, while Nedarin 50 and Kethuboth 62 give the num- 
 ber of disciples that accompanied Akibah as twelve thousand. 
 The latter statement seems impossible from the fact that such 
 an army would have excited the suspicion of Rome and 
 caused the instant arrest of Akibah. The references, there- 
 fore, must mean that Akibah had that many sympathizers, men 
 he had prepared for the coming struggle with Rome. 
 
 16. From the Talmudic texts it is impossible to ascertain 
 (without correction of the reading) the exact number of years 
 Akibah studied at either of the schools. The historian Jost 
 (Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, Vol. II, p. 59), 
 maintains a lofty silence on this point. Perhaps he did not 
 know and therefore did not attempt to draw the matter under 
 historical consideration. The historian Graetz (History of the 
 Jews, Vol. II, p. 351-352, English translation), assuming it to 
 be of importance regarding the revolutionary activity of Aki- 
 bah, refuses to accept the authority of 'Hagigah 12, where it is 
 stated that he studied twenty-two years. There the number 
 is given in the figures D'Ot? 3"3. But, according to Kethu- 
 both 62, Akibah spent "twice ten years" (per "HD nn) at 
 each of the schools. Assuming that there is a mistake in the 
 text, and that "HD "HJ1 stands for "iD'nri, which is twelve, 
 it would be incorrect grammatically, since "lD ,- in is masculine 
 and "HD is feminine, as is also pJB>. The only place where 
 Abikah's period of study at each school is given as twelve 
 
296 NOTES 
 
 years is found in Nedarim 50, pj£> '""ID 'mil, is more accurate. 
 But how reconcile the different readings? I am inclined to 
 look upon the figure "HD as a Rabbinical interpolation to ex- 
 aggerate the constancy between Rachel and Akibah, and that 
 the text should properly read p:t? THD, " two years." For if 
 we consider that Akibah went to Jerusalem about fifteen years 
 before the destruction of the second Temple, how could he 
 have studied twenty-two years in the holy city? How could 
 he, after another twenty two years, receive the greater part of 
 the vast estate of Calbah Shebuah? For even if the latter 
 survived the attack of the Roman destroyer, which is doubtful, 
 there was no fortune left to him. He had no ships richly 
 laden in the harhor, mention of which is made in the Talmud 
 (Jerusalemi Nedarin 50). Whereas if Akibah had studied two 
 years at each school and then returned a famous scholar, 
 which, considering his fine mind, is quite possible, he would 
 have found his father-in-law in possession of his great wealth. 
 Besides, no man could have been active for nearly half a cen- 
 tury, as Akibah is said to have been, and not be known to 
 Calbah Shebuah, who hearing of his son-in-law's acquired 
 fame would have hastened to take him to his heart. 
 
 17. Nahum was from the town of Gimsu, but was styled 
 "Gamsu" because of his saying. (Talmud Babli Taanith 21.) 
 
 18. See Supra. 
 
 19. The expression nnitO^ U DJ seems to me to be the 
 watchword of a class stoicism, more fatalistic than of pious 
 resignation. It was just such a motto that was needed to en- 
 courage the supreme effort for the unequal struggle and fortify 
 the patriots against torture and death; that is, "come what 
 may, we will fight for freedom." 
 
 20. Talmud Babli Taanith 21; ibidem Sanhedrin 108; 
 Jerusalemi Peah 88. 
 
 21. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 12; Midrash Rabba Gene- 
 sis I, 1. 
 
 22. Talmud Babli Nedarim 50. 
 
 23. Evidendy Calbah Shebuah lived a secluded life in his 
 
NOTES 297 
 
 palace in the same town where his daughter lived in a hovel. 
 The text has the word KJID^, which means a small place. 
 If it had been in the holy city itself, the word D^fW would 
 have been mentioned. 
 
 24. Talmud Babli Nedarin 50; ibidem Kethuboth 62. 
 
 25. Ibidem Zebachim 13; Tosephta to Sanhedrin div. 1. 
 
 26. Talmud Jerusalemi Shebiith V, 7. 
 
 27. Ibidem Nedarin IX, 5. 
 
 28. Ibidem Baba Kama VIII, 6. 
 
 29. Ibidem Nedarim IX, 5. 
 
 30. Patristric Chapters III, 13-16. There were evidently 
 some Rabbis who objected to this rule, and one of them told a 
 fine bit of satire against Akibah, who often jested about those 
 unable to control their passions. One day, so the legend runs, 
 Satan, in the form of a beautiful woman, approached Rabbi 
 Akibah, to seduce him to sin. Akibah was seized with sinful 
 desires and followed Satan. When they had gone some dis- 
 tance the seducer revealed his identity and said, " If the heav- 
 enly hosts had not enjoined upon me to spare thee for the sake 
 of thy learning, I should have made of thy blood two running 
 wells, •'JttD pmn "|ft-6 rvm^ ; that is, I should have exposed 
 thee to public ridicule and killed thee morally." (Talmud 
 Babli Kiddushin 81.) 
 
 31. Patristic Chapters III, 13. 
 
 32. Ibidem III, 15. 
 
 33. Ibidem III. 18. 
 
 34. It was a great effort, and was called by Akibah's con- 
 temporaries "Mishnayoth de Rabbi Akibah," also "Middoth 
 de Rabdi Akibah." This system was later adopted by all 
 other writers, notaby Rabbi Juda, the Prince. 
 
 35. Talmud Jerusalemi Shekalim V, 1. 
 
 36. The word DTiD is held to be the Notarikon or initials 
 of the words trilD (plain interpretation), TED (hint, an explana- 
 tion based upon the intrinsic value, either in position or in 
 numeric value of a letter or word, and is also termed NnDDJ 
 (geometric), KTH (exegesis or homiletical explanation), and 11D 
 
298 NOTES 
 
 (secret or mystic interpretation) to which belongs the cabalistic 
 form of placing the scattered letters of the Tetragrammaton, 
 by means of which the adepts were thought to be able to 
 perform miracles. 
 
 37. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 14. 
 
 38. See "Josua ben Hananiah." 
 
 39. Talmud Babli Abodah Zara 55. 
 
 40. NJ1D N^nn? seems to indicate some strategic point of 
 the Romans, probably a town near a Roman camp. 
 
 41. Tny 2vb worn Tnjn fa. 
 
 42. Talmud Babli Berachoth 60. 
 
 43. Ibidem Abodah Zara 54. 
 
 44. Ibidem 55. 
 
 45. Ibidem Sabbath 8. 
 
 46. Ibidem Baba Kama 1 13. 
 
 47. See "Josua ben 'Hananiah." 
 
 48. Talmud Babli Baba Bathra 10. 
 
 49. Talmud Babli Abodah Zara 20, m 1 ^^ fTTnin pn£> 
 !"6 21D31 ; comp. Seder ha-Doroth ad loco. 
 
 50. Conversions of Romans to Judaism were not at all 
 rare. Poppaea, the wife of Nero, was a Jewess, and was 
 buried by that Emperor in accordance with Jewish rites (Taci- 
 tus Annalium Lib. XVI, 6, "Post finem ludicri, Poppaea 
 mortem obiit. . . Corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos; 
 sed regum externorum consuetudine, dissertum odoribus con- 
 ditur, tumuloque Iuliorum insertur." Juvenal says, "They 
 listen to the whisperings of old Jews, to the mumblings of old 
 Jewesses, with devout attention" (VI, 541). "Those whom 
 dreams have made anxious, seek consolation in the Jewish re- 
 ligion" (ibidem 544). 
 
 51. Talmud Babli Nedarin 66. 
 
 52. Talmud Jerusalemi Rosh ha-Shanah 56. 
 
 53. The Rabbinical legend of Bar Kochba's origin is 
 very curious. According to it the Jewish leader was the child 
 of a princess in Arabia of Jewish race as well as her husband, 
 though both were black in color. The child, however, was 
 
NOTES 299 
 
 born white. The Moorish prince suspected his wife of infi- 
 delity, and debated whether he ought not to put both her and 
 the child to death. Hadrian, before becoming Emperor, had 
 been Governor of Syria and had visited the Jewish prince's 
 house, and possibly had been unduly intimate with his wife. 
 Still the Moor hesitated, and he consulted Akibah, who at the 
 time happened to come to his house, as to what he ought to 
 believe. The Rabbi was struck with the possible political ad- 
 vantages to be realized for his own plans from control of a son 
 of the proudest house of Rome. Such a one, trained in the 
 wild life of the desert, might become a suitable leader in ma- 
 ture life for his adopted countrymen against the Roman le- 
 gions. His crafty mind soon suggested how this might be 
 done, even while the distracted Moor was urgently asking 
 what he thought. It was commonly said of him that he could 
 find a reason for anything, and on this occasion he found a 
 plausible one for the appearance of a white infant in a dark- 
 skinned household. 
 
 He asked if there were perchance statues or pictures of 
 white color in the royal bedchamber, and when the Moor re- 
 plied there were, the Rabbi quoted Jacob's stratagem for mak- 
 ing Laban's sheep bring forth white or spotted sheep at his 
 will. The simple warrior accepted the explanation and reared 
 the boy as his own. When grown to manhood his mother, who 
 possibly had been so instructed beforehand, sent her son to 
 Akibah, whose plot was then ripe for an outbreak in Judea. 
 
 Akibah's keen vision at once recognized in him, who com- 
 bined with gigantic physical powers a fervent patriotism 
 implanted by his mother's teachings, a fitting leader for the 
 Jewish rebels. He brought him out before the people as their 
 heaven-sent leader, and the people obeyed his word. 
 
 The Unknown demanded a test of their sincerity. He re- 
 quired that all who were ready to go forth to batde should 
 show their indifference to pain by cutting off a finger on the 
 right hand of each. Two hundred thousand at once complied. 
 Then the elder men remonstrated that it was not well to maim 
 
300 NOTES 
 
 soldiers. They suggested that instead of mutilation each re- 
 cruit should be required to tear a young cedar up by the roots 
 as a test. Two hundred thousand more tore up cedars and 
 piled them before their leader. 
 
 It may well be that people asked who is this man whom 
 Akibah, the foremost sage in Israel, so honors? What is his 
 name? Whence does he come? Akibah's answer silenced 
 these inquiries as he had silenced the jealous fears of the 
 Moorish prince. His name was Bar Kochba, the Son of the 
 Star, the Star of Jacob, come according to prophecy to crush 
 the enemies of the Lord and his people, the Messiah. It was 
 enough to know that the "Star of Jacob" had arisen and to 
 obey him. The Messiah had no birthplace; he needed no 
 name; for all Holy Names were his. 
 
 None ventured to question this decree of the greatest sage 
 in Israel, especially at a time when the coolest were throbbing 
 with the hope of national freedom and glory. The people ac- 
 cepted the leader, though he looked rather a demi-god of the 
 heathen pantheon than a Hebrew. 
 
 Some there were who knew Hadrian, and wondered in their 
 hearts at the resemblance between the Roman persecutor and 
 the supposed Messiah. Their suspicions spread among the 
 people. 
 
 Bar Kochba was neither morally nor intellectually great. 
 He was only a splendid warrior, fierce of soul, mighty of frame. 
 When his power decayed the people began to call him not 
 Son of the Star, Bar Kochba, but Son of Lies — Bar Kozeba. 
 Akibah may well have reflected how much of truth was in the 
 popular name; for was not Hadrian to himself the very Arch- 
 Liar who had broken all promises to Israel? 
 
 In years long afterwards, when the aspiration for national 
 independence had been long quenched in Jewish breasts, a 
 man arose in the Council of Israel which still maintained a 
 precarious authority under Reman rule. This was Rabbi Ju- 
 dah, the Prince, the lineal descendant of Hillel. Judah placed 
 the solemn ban on any Jew who should henceforth presume to 
 
NOTES 301 
 
 appropriate to mortal the title of "Star of Jacob" (see Midrash 
 Rabba Genesis, Parshah 75; ibidem Numbers chapter V; 
 ibidem Lamentations II, 2; Talmud Babli Gittin 57). 
 54- 3p]H3 3313 -pri. 
 
 55. See Dio Cassius I, 69. 
 
 55 a. Midrash Rabba Echah II, 2, 3T13 K^« 3313 npn hit- 
 55^. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 74, DH3 mot' ^Xl DH3 Til. 
 
 56. Ibidem Berachoth 61 ; ibidem Pesachim 1 12. 
 
 57. Ibidem Berachoth 61. 
 
 58. Ibidem Berachoth 16. "With all thy soul, even if thy 
 soul be taken from thee on account thereof." I^SN "|t?SJ ?33 
 
 59. Ibidem. 
 
 60. " Monuments are not erected over the graves of the 
 righteous; their sayings are their monuments." mt^QJ DV1J? }'N 
 DJ11DT DH Dnnm D'pHvi? (Midrash Rabba Genesis div. 82). 
 
 61 . Ibidem div. 23. 
 
 62. Jv!>JJ3 m33DB> H3xta nf>na. Comp. Aboth de Rabbi 
 Nathan div. II. 
 
 63. Talmud Babli Baba Metziah 62. 
 
 64. Ibidem. 
 
 65. Ibidem Yoma 85. This utterance is enhanced by the 
 further statement that the sinner is not he who transgresses 
 against the personality of the deity, by philosophical specula- 
 tion, but he who sins against man by unkindness and injustice. 
 The former finds forgiveness, if he seeks it, on the day of 
 Atonement, "ID3D DniSSn DV- The latter, that is he who 
 offends his fellow-man, must ask his pardon ere he can hope 
 to be forgiven, 1T3I1 T1K IWVB> IV- 
 
 66. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 15. 
 
 67. Ibidem Sotah 17. 
 
 68. Ibidem Sanhedrin 77. 
 
 69. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan III. 
 
 70. Tosephta Berachoth 58. 
 
 71. Talmud Babli Kethuboth 62. Rabbi Akibah's daugh- 
 ter imitated the self-sacrifice of her mother for the sake of the 
 
302 NOTES 
 
 Law, living alone while her husband, Ben Azzai, devoted him- 
 self to study, \y*tt\ W1 W p& .t6 SH3y WpJJ '311 fiTTD 
 
 wm Haw id tok naiya n!?tn N^m "ina K^m 'bwk no&n. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 1. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 15, »jnit lSD3 N'3^py "31 fifths 
 
 nonnn vyb lEnnoji min. 
 
 2. It is not certain what was his real name. Mair was 
 merely titular and signified that he was "an Enlightener." 
 He was also referred to by the Chaldaic-speaking Rabbis as 
 "Nehorai," which also means a bearer of light, one who had 
 intellectual ability to explain the Law. DJ N"lpJ rpfl VRO '31 
 
 nabm D^con *T£bn *j»y Tnao n^ntj> »mvu *3i p (Talmud 
 
 Babli Sabbath 147; ibidem, Erubin 13). 
 
 3. Ibidem Gittin 57; Tacitus historia I, 2; ibid. II, S. 
 
 4. Rabbi Mair derives the word 111D (Lamentations 4, 15) 
 from the Greek avpelv, to pull, to drag away (Midrash Rabba, 
 Leviticus, chapter 14, 2). 
 
 5. Talmud Babli Erubin 13, ntOOl "linn KOtf bv "HOIK KIIW 
 
 d"jq ib nMioi kod ninta byi cjs ii>. 
 
 6. Vide Sepher Shaarai Teshubah by Rabbi Hai Gaon. 
 
 7. Midrash Rabba Koheleth 82, riJOX 1J3 DIN ID^ cbiyb 
 
 ni)pi mpa. 
 
 8. Talmud Babli Gittin 24. He is termed n?3? (from the 
 Latin libellarius a writer of books); he was an author who 
 wrote for others; that is, he cared more for the gain than the 
 glory. 
 
 9. Midrash Rabba Koheleth II, 18. 
 
 10. Talmud Babli Erubin 13. 
 
 1 1. Ibidem Sanhedrin 14. 
 
 12. Ibidem Erubin 13. 
 
 13. Ibidem Sanhedrin 24, 1T3 1T pITlttl Dnn "Ifl "Ipiy. 
 
NOTES 303 
 
 14. The dignity of " Haham," or academic reader, was evi- 
 dently instituted by Simon the son of Gamaliel II. Before 
 that time there was but a JJllfl, interpreter, and this office 
 did not equal the dignity of Haham (see Babli Berachoth 27; 
 comp. Jost's Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten 
 II, 1 10). 
 
 15. Talmud Jerusalemi Moed Katon III, 1 fol. 81 a. 
 
 16. Talmud Babli Baba Bathra 8. 
 
 17. There never was a time in the history of the Jews when 
 the ]*1Nn DJ? — "das Landvolk," as the German has it — was 
 educationally superior to the teachers of the Law, from Moses 
 down to the last of the Rabbis, yet there is no record to show 
 that they were condemned on account of their ignorance. 
 "Am ha-Aretz" must mean, therefore, a materialist, a sensual- 
 ist, a man whose mind centered on earthly pleasures, an Epi- 
 cure. 
 
 18. Talmud Jerusalemi Tehoroth VIII, 18, pKH DJ? ITJEn 
 
 19. Talmud Babli Berachoth 17. 
 
 20. Ibidem Sanhedrin, mrjlN TO nj^C "IVDVD D1NK> JDT3 
 
 21. Ibidem Abodah Zara 17. 
 
 22. Ibidem Berachoth 10. 
 
 23. Ibidem. 
 
 24. Ibidem Erubin 53. 
 
 25. Ibidem. 
 
 26. Yalkut Mishleh, paragraph 963. 
 
 27. Midrash Rabba Koheleth chapter VII, 12, and with 
 some variations in Babli Abodah Zara 18. 
 
 28. Midrash Rabba Koheleth. 
 
 29. Ibidem Genesis div. 48, i-I'DlE^a -\bn Nmpf> JT^y. 
 
 30. Ibidem Koheleth IV, 3. 
 
 31. Talmud Babli Yoma 83, »3 IDNJET K171 JJBH DIN "DP 
 
 nnn rnaiann "in. 
 
 32. Ibidem, NK'CW »JT3 rv6 l >B>DB> *m Nc6n. The Rabbis 
 believed in dreams as significant of coming events, but 
 
3°4 
 
 NOTES 
 
 dreams which were due to indigestion, that is immediately af- 
 ter eating, were not considered the workings of the alter anima, 
 and were not looked upon as divine inspirations. 
 
 33. The term iTIEJI (from the Latin notarius) means "he 
 wrote"; but may here have the double meaning of watching; 
 while writing he also watched the house of the untrustworthy 
 host. 
 
 34. Ibidem. 
 
 35. Ibidem, Sanhedrin 11, ^KHp DDD nnX »31 "6 m»K 
 
 36. nnj? nB>K3 nnnx. In Babli Minachoth 44 a story 
 is told of the same disciple quite unfit for reproduction, as it 
 fits more readily in the Decameron of Boccaccio, though the 
 Talmudic writers would cloak the story as if the student had 
 withstood the temptations of Satan, the trial of a Saint. 
 
 37. The Seder ha-Doroth refers to this fact. 
 
 38. Talmud Jerusalemi Sabbath I, 5. 
 
 39. Aboth IV, 12. 
 
 40. Talmud Babli Yebamoth 121. 
 
 41. Ibidem, Sabbath 25, rtt?jn nn TW\i h SS^S? "ID bl- 
 
 42. Ibidem Yoma 86. 
 
 43. Aboth IV, 12. 
 
 44. Midrash Rabba Koheleth I; Babli Sabbath 153. 
 
 45. Midrash Rabba Genesis div. 9. 
 
 46. Talmud Jerusalemi 'Hagigah II, 1. 
 
 47. Talmud Babli 'Hagigah 15. 
 
 48. Ibidem, rWlSO pDQ K^ »3W IDT "iriK. 
 
 49. Ibidem 14, DTIB2 1DJ3J nyZDN ; comp. our note to 
 "Akibah." 
 
 50. Ibidem 15. The resemblance of Achar to Paul has 
 been remarked by many. The difficulties of the dates are not 
 so serious as to be an obstacle to a favorable comparison. 
 They were not over-accurate in those days. Facts are cogni- 
 zable by certain references to some remarkable personage, and 
 persons may be identified by a consideration of certain facts. 
 Thus we recognize the character of Paul as described in the 
 
NOTES 305 
 
 New Testament and Achar as described in the Talmud to be 
 one. Paul was a learned Hebrew, who said of himself that he 
 sat at the feet of Gamaliel. But Gamaliel was a contemporary 
 of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, at whose feet sat Achar. Both 
 are "Inquirers" — scholars in the rabbinic academy. Both are 
 excellent Greek scholars. Both turn from the ancient concep- 
 tion that the Jew must suffer on account of the sins of the 
 fathers, must suffer on account of "Exile"; suffer in hopes of 
 the coming of a Messiah; suffer because the Jew was a crea- 
 ture apart; suffer because the small men in Judea had great 
 ambitions, and through their bickerings brought down the 
 wrath of Rome alike upon the just and the unjust. The whole 
 life of the Jew was made up of "don'ts," which "the coming 
 of the Messiah would abrogate." The esthetic mind of this 
 man — call him Paul or Achar — revolted against this thraldom, 
 against this religion of suffering called into existence by fanat- 
 ics fighting for a dead cause. The Greeks adored beauty, 
 which made them happy. The Romans loved strength, and 
 lived for power and glory. The character of this man Achar 
 and this man Paul seems to stand out as one viewed from the 
 point of their thoughts for mundane convenience. Achar rode 
 horseback on the Sabbath. Paul permitted the eating of the 
 food of the Gentiles. Achar, it is said, loved Greek song, so 
 did Paul. Achar, having delved deeply into the mysteries of 
 the metaphysics of his day, believed, as the Talmud says, in a 
 duality of divine persons — in the alter ego. Paul, too, "saw" 
 and grew firm in the faith of Jesus as the Christ. That Paul, 
 or rather Achar, firmly believed that the faith in Jesus, the 
 Christ, would bring happiness to the Jewish people, is certain. 
 It is evident that Paul desired to bring about a better under- 
 standing between Hebrew and heathen. To the Hebrew, by 
 a better appreciation of the manners of the heathens, by a less 
 strict observance of man-made laws, a newer and a freer spirit 
 would come. To the heathen, if he could be brought to be- 
 lieve in the love and mercy of God, in a faith based on vicari- 
 ous atonement, a nobler and more humane consciousness would 
 
306 NOTES 
 
 be his. Both Hebrew and heathen might join hands in the 
 knowledge that each had conceded to the other without loss to 
 either, and with great spiritual and material gain to both. 
 This appears to have been the character and the aim of Achar 
 as described in the Talmud, and this precisely is the character 
 of Paul as described in the New Testament. These analogies 
 are striking, but more remarkable is the fact that Paul is the 
 only personage of those times whose name becomes conspicu- 
 ous as a great interrogation-point by its absence. Christ and 
 his apostles are mentioned in the Talmud; in places some arc* 
 mentioned distinctly and by name; in others again the disci- 
 ples are mentioned under the general name Talmidai. All, 
 or nearly all, the Roman Emperors and the governors of Ju- 
 daea are mentioned by name; all — some directly, others sub 
 rosa — all, except Paul, the very creator of dogmatic Christi- 
 anity. But it is our firm belief — reasoning by the deductions 
 from the above suggestions, that Saul — who became another 
 in faith for which he became Pau-ul — a worker — is none other 
 than Elisha, whom the Rabbis stigmatized as Achar, Another 
 in Faith. 
 
 51. Talmud Jerusalemi Hagigah II, i; 
 
 52. Talmud Babli Sabbath 118; ibidem Chulin 2. 
 
 53. Midrash Rabba Koheleth 7. 
 
 54. Babli 'Hagigah 15. 
 
 55. Jerusalemi Kilayim at the end. 
 
 56. Babli Sotah 49. 
 
 57. Ibidem, Hagigah 15, NltDIp pi^D TNJO "Gil KE-DJ W »3 
 
 insn NinpD. 
 
 58. Aboth IV. 
 
 59. Babli Hagigah 15. 
 
 60. Aboth IV. 
 
NOTES 307 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 14. 
 
 2. Ibidem Abodah Zara 8. 
 
 3. Ibidem Berachoth 32. 
 
 4. Ibidem Sanhedrin 14. 
 
 5. Ibidem Sabbath 113; Midrash Rabba Leviticus div. 34. 
 
 6. Midrash Rabba Leviticus div. 21. 
 
 7. Talmud Jerusalemi Sanhedrin div. I, 2, fol. 19, '"JN^ "]"f\ 
 
 8. Talmud Babli Gittin 67, inHE mOTiriO rilft'nn TiriE^ 
 
 9. Ibidem Rosh ha^Shanah 18; Sifri to Deuteronomy 
 div. 31. 
 
 10. Midrash Rabba Leviticus div. 21. 
 
 11. Talmud Babli Succah 21. 
 
 12. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 18, xy^p KV101 TWin |rTlO. 
 
 13. Ibidem; comp. Babli Gittin 67, NJJOp rDK'El natri njt£» 
 
 injti'D bv pniD rasao xinK> rm 
 
 14. Talmud Babli Sabbath 33. 
 
 15. Ibidem. 
 
 16. Ibidem; comp. Midrash Rabba Genesis div. 79, 
 
 17. Talmud Jerusalemi Sabbath fol. 3. 
 
 18. Ibidem Shebbiith fol. 9. 
 
 19. Graetz, Geschichte, etc., Vol. IV, p. 492. 
 
 20. Talmud Babli Sabbath 33 £ and 34 a says that the 
 Prophet Elijah appeared at the mouth of the cave and told 
 them that the Roman Emperor had died. The simple fact 
 may be that Eleazer, who lived less secluded, had brought the 
 news of the accession to the throne of Marcus Aurelius, and 
 that it was now safe to return. 
 
 21. Ibidem Berachoth 31, p\TW VD nitfta^ DIN^ 11DX 
 
 nrn d^ijd. 
 
 22. Ibidem Sabbath 33. Here we have another remarka- 
 ble analogy to the words of Christ; comp. Matt. 10, 29. 
 
308 NOTES 
 
 23. Talmud Babli Sabbath 33. 
 
 24. Talmud Jerusalemi Shebiith 9. 
 
 25. Talmud Babli Sabbath 33. 
 
 26. Midrash Rabba Numbers div. 52. 
 
 27. Talmud Babli Sabbath 33. 
 
 28. Talmud Jerusalemi Shebiith 9, PiTny rm3DSP nj?Of 
 
 29. Talmud Babli Yoma 57. The Emperor's daughter 
 mentioned here was the beautiful Lucilla, afterwards the wife 
 of Verus. Jost (Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, 
 Vol. II, p. 93, note) mentions Christian sources according to 
 which this miracle was performed by Papis, the Bishop of 
 Hierapolis. 
 
 30. Talmud Babli Megillah 12. 
 
 31. Ibidem Succah 30. 
 
 32. Midrash Rabba Genesis div. 86. 
 
 33. " Patristic Chapters." 
 
 34. Talmud Babli Sabbath 113. 
 
 35. Ibidem 118. 
 
 36. Midrash Rabba Leviticus div. 19. 
 
 37. "Patristic Chapters" III, 7. 
 
 38. Talmud Babli Berachoth 7, iriV mm ^ ilPiet? i»1*M 
 rniOQ ; compare the maxim in the Patristic Chapters, 
 ntPJTDPI N^N ~)p*yr\ tmon &6l — the principle of human effort 
 is not centered in theorizing, but in practical righteousness. 
 
 39. Talmud Babli Baba Metziah 58. 
 
 40. Ibidem Berachoth 31, pin^ VB niN^ DIkS TIDN. 
 The word pint? means frivolous jest ; " a loud laughter be- 
 speaks a vacant mind." 
 
 41. The term D'OKTI n^O , must be understood in the 
 sense of " love of Heaven," in contradistinction to the term 
 NLSn J1NT, which means " fear of sin." 
 
 42. Talmud Jerusalemi Peah I. 
 
 43. Talmud Babli Pesachim 87. 
 
 44. Ibidem Baba Metziah 58. 
 
 45. Ibidem Kethuboth 67. 
 
NOTES 309 
 
 46. Ibidem Sotah 32. 
 
 47. Ibidem. 
 
 48. Where business is not the aim but the end of human 
 effort, it is sinful. 
 
 49. Talmud Babli Sotah 32. This bit of sarcasm, keen 
 and well applied, refers to the Patriarch Simon ben Gamaliel, 
 who was proud of his position without having commensurate 
 knowledge. 
 
 50. Midrash Rabba Numbers div. II. 
 
 51. Ibidem Koheleth. 
 
 52. Talmud Babli Nedarin 49. 
 
 53. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan 50. 
 
 54. Talmud Babli Berachoth 55. 
 
 56. Midrash Rabba "Song of Songs." 
 
 57. Talmud Babli Baba Metziah 83. 
 
 58. Ibidem, iTD"i:6 DHp 'OHpK D"J1 Kin pmo OX 'K 
 
 nvn t6^a nrrrajj w nvmay Tay kp onp son byis '« 
 
 ■TDani wn ttau k!> w ynru 
 
 59. By the term p^ p fEin the Rabbi desired to put it 
 to Eleazer that he was destroying the noble work of his father, 
 who was like good old wine. 
 
 60. Talmud Babli Baba Metzia 83. 
 
 61. Ibidem. 
 
 62. Ibidem. 
 
 63. Ibidem Sanhedrin 65. 
 
 64. Midrash Rabba "Song of Songs," 6. 
 
 65. Talmud Babli Yebamoth 65. 
 
 66. Ibidem Baba Metziah 83. 
 
 67. Ibidem Yoma 85, DniSDH DV P« DIV?? D1X ?2V nmay 
 
 man n« nxvB> ly naao. 
 
 68. Ibidem Taanith 20. 
 
 69. Ibidem Baba Metzia 83. Rabbi Samuel bar Nachmani 
 said, "Rabbi Eleazer's wife told the mother of Rahbi Jona- 
 than who told me, that Eleazer's body lay in the attic not less 
 than eighteen years nor more than twenty years." 
 
 70. Ibidem. 
 
310 NOTES 
 
 7i. 
 
 Ibidem. 
 
 72. 
 
 Ibidem. 
 
 73- 
 
 Ibidem. 
 
 74- 
 
 Ibidem. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 1. Some of the writers on this subject, in the Middle Ages 
 as well as in modern times, maintain that the Prince did not 
 write the Mishnah, but that he compiled it mentally, and it 
 was thus handed down from generation to generation, until 
 the conditions in the sixth century made it necessary to com- 
 mit it to writing. Their argument is based on the Talmudi- 
 cal principle that the oral law must not be written down, 
 
 nnan poxb ^tn fins 'N na byzw nnm (Babn Gittin 60 
 
 and Temurah 14). While others, like Maimonides, Samuel 
 ha-Nagid, Rabenu Nissim, in the Middle Ages, and Geiger, 
 Zacharias Frankel and I. H. Weiss in his excellent work Dor 
 Dor ve-Dorshov (III, 244), hold that the Prince did write the 
 Mishnah. We think this the correct opinion. 
 
 2. Talmud Babli Berachoth 28, r»33 DID pKt? T»f>n f>3 
 
 DJ3" btf- 
 
 3. Ibidem Kiddushin 72. Akibah was executed in the 
 year 137 A.C. 
 
 4. Ibidem Meilah 17. 
 
 5. Ibidem Rosh ha-Shanah 25 and 26. 
 
 6. Ibidem 26 £ and Megillah 18. 
 
 7. Ibidem Pesachim 41 ; Baba Kamma 82. 
 
 8. Ibidem Pesachim 94; Yoma 25. 
 
 9. Ibidem Yebamoth 84; MenachothiS; Erubini3; Me- 
 gillah 20; Shebuoth 13; Sabbath 147. 
 
 10. Talmud Jerusalemi Kilayim IX, 4. The Prince of the 
 Captivity was of the tribe of Judah and from the male line of 
 David, while Rabbi Juda was of the tribe of Benjamin and 
 from the female line. 
 
NOTES 311 
 
 11. Ibidem. 
 
 12. Ibidem, 
 
 13. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 38. 
 
 14. Ibidem Kethuboth 25 and 27; Taanith 17. 
 1 c. Ibidem Sabbath II. 
 
 16. Ibidem. 
 
 17. Mechilta to Parshah Bo div. 18. 
 
 18. Patristic Chapters II, 1. 
 
 19. WnnD '113 robn ; see Mebho ha-Talmud. 
 
 20. Talmud Jerusalemi Megillah I, 7; Babli Megillah 5. 
 
 21. Jerusalemi Kethuboth II, 6; Babli Megillah 22. 
 
 22. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 5. 
 
 23. Ibidem Berachoth 30. 
 
 24. Ibidem Sabbath 46 and 48; Betzah 26. 
 
 25. Ibidem Taanith 14. 
 
 26. Ibidem Yebamoth 64. 
 
 27. Ibidem; Baba Bathrah 90; Yoma 83; Pesachim 90. 
 
 28. Ibidem Kethuboth no. 
 
 29. There is no such book; but Samuel tried to show the 
 Prince that he understood the motive clearly. 
 
 30. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 5, p? "p"30 'JK. 
 
 31. Ibidem Chulin 6. The Prince permitted bathing on 
 certain fast days and the performance of labor on certain festi 
 vals (Megillah 5). He released farmers from paying tithes 
 and stopping work on the Year of Rest (Shemitah) where cer- 
 tain lands were not formerly a part of the Holy Land. 
 
 32. Ibidem. 
 
 33. The Nethinim were of Gentile origin or of Hebrew 
 mothers and Gentile fathers (see Babli Yebamoth 16; Jerusa- 
 lemi Kiddushin IV). 
 
 34. Talmud Babli Kiddushin 71, T#3 pDHPB Dnx D-V1p. 
 
 35. Ibidem Baba Bathra 8. 
 
 36. Ibidem Makkoth 10. 
 
 37. By Artaban is probably meant one of the Nabathean 
 Kings, Aretas, under whom the Judaeans fought against the 
 Romans. 
 
312 NOTES 
 
 38. The Script (Mezuzah) was probably sent in a case of 
 precious metal. The word 71B means a husk or shell, and 
 the Heathen saw no particular value in the gift. 
 
 39. Talmud Jerusalemi Berachoth 89. 
 
 40. Talmud Babli Chulin 87. 
 
 41. Rappaport, Krochmal, Jost and other historians are in 
 doubt about the identity of the Emperor who was the Prince's 
 friend. We are less concerned about the man than about the 
 fact that such an intimacy existed. Whether all the stories are 
 true is also of small importance. That the Heathen Emperor 
 consulted the Jewish sage about family affairs is probable; 
 equally probable it is that the Roman Emperor, having confi- 
 dence in the wisdom of the Patriarch, spoke to him of matters 
 of state, as Hadrian with Rabbi Josua ben Hananiah. 
 
 42. By the term "Rabbi" or Master is always meant Juda 
 the Prince (see Maimonides, Introduction to Mishnah Zeraim). 
 
 43. Talmud Babli Sanhedrin 91. 
 
 44. Ibidem. 
 
 45. Ibidem. 
 
 46. Ibidem 27; Yebamoth 49; Hagigah 14. Mention is 
 made of Mishnath de Rabbi Akibah, Mishnath de Rabbi Eli- 
 ezer ben Yacob and the seven hundred divisions of Tanaaim. 
 
 47. The word Mishnah, nJCD, is from the root mK>, and, like 
 the Aramaic NJJ1, means both to repeat, teach and learn, as the 
 word Talmud, from the root *1D$>, means to teach and to learn. 
 
 48. The word Gamarah, &OOJ, from the root 1D3, means 
 to finish or to complete, the work of the Prince. 
 
 49. The full titles of the Mishnah, its divisions and sec- 
 tions, are as follows : 
 
 Name of Series Number of Divisions 
 
 I Zeraim (D'jnt), Seeds XI 
 
 I I Moed (lyiD), Festivals XII 
 
 I I I Nashim (D^'J), Women VII 
 
 IV Nezikin (pp s ?J), Damages X 
 
 V Kodashim (D^np), Sacred Things XI 
 
 VI Teharoth (mints ), Purifications XII 
 
NOTES 313 
 
 I. Zeraim 
 
 Name of Division Number of Section 
 
 I Berachoth (ni3")3), Prayers IX 
 
 II Peah (PlKS), Corner VIII 
 
 III Demai 0ND1), Uncertain VII 
 
 IV Kilayim (0^3), Mixtures IX 
 
 V Shebiith (rvjTSt?), Sabbath Year X 
 
 VI Therumoth (ni»1"in), Offerings XI 
 
 VII Maaseroth (nnCJ'SJO), Tithes V 
 
 VIII Maaser Sheni (*iJB> "it?JJ»), Second Tithe. . . V 
 
 IX Challah (rr?n), Dough IV 
 
 X Orlah (n^lJJ), Buds, First Fruit Ill 
 
 XI Bikkurim (Dni33), First Fruit Offering .. . Ill 
 
 II. MOED 
 
 I Sabbath (MP), Sabbath XXIV 
 
 II Erubin (j^ny), Combinations X 
 
 I I I Pesachim (DTIDD), Passover X 
 
 IV Shekalim (D*!?pB>), Shekels VIII 
 
 V Yoma (NOV), The Day VIII 
 
 VI Succah (H31D), Tabernacles VIII 
 
 VII Betza (IW3), The Egg V 
 
 VIII Rosh ha-Shana (rUPfl B>N"l), New Year IV 
 
 IX Taanith (n^yn), Fasts IV 
 
 X Megillah (nb^O), The Scroll IV 
 
 XI Moed Katon (|Dp "ljn»), Minor Feast Ill 
 
 XII Hagigah (n^jn), Feast of Offering Ill 
 
 III. Nashim 
 
 I Yebamoth (n103 , ), Sisters-in-law XVI 
 
 II Khethuboth (ni3W3), Marriage Deeds XIII 
 
 III Nedarim (Dmj), Vows XI 
 
 IV Nazir (TTJ), The Nazarite IX 
 
 V Sota (nt21D), Adulteress IX 
 
 VI Gittin (fLVJ), Divorces IX 
 
 VII Kiddushin (ptmp), Betrothals IV 
 
314 NOTES 
 
 IV. Nezikin 
 
 Name of Division Number of Section 
 
 I Baba Kama (N»p K33), First Gate X 
 
 II Baba Metziah (NJPVD NM), Second Gate . . X 
 
 III Baba Bathra (Kim K33), Last Gate X 
 
 IV Sanhedrin (pinjD), Courts XI 
 
 V Maccoth (JTOD), Stripes Ill 
 
 VI Shebuoth (nW3tJ>), Oaths VIII 
 
 VII Eduyoth (ninj?), Testimonies VIII 
 
 VIII Aboda Zara (m? ITTUy), Idolatry V 
 
 IX Aboth (ni3K), Fathers V 
 
 X Horayoth (ninin), Decisions Ill 
 
 V. Kodashim 
 
 I Zebachim (DTQT), Sacrifices XIV 
 
 II Menachoth (nimD), Meat Offering XIII 
 
 III Cholin (pyin), Profane Things XII 
 
 IV Bechoroth (nVVI33), The Firstborn IX 
 
 V Arachin (p3"iy), Estimations IX 
 
 VI Themura (miDH), Exchange VII 
 
 VII Kherithoth (ninna), Excisions VI 
 
 VIII Meila (n^J»), Trespass VI 
 
 IX Thamid (Ten), Daily Sacrifice VII 
 
 X Middoth (niTJ), Measurements V 
 
 XI Kinnim (D'jp), The Birds' Nests Ill 
 
 VI. Teharoth 
 
 I Khelim (D^3), Vessels XXX 
 
 II Ohaloth (n^n«), Tents XVIII 
 
 III Negaim (D'JUJ), Leprosy XIV 
 
 IV Parah (H-IS), The Heifer XII 
 
 V Teharoth (niintO), Purifications X 
 
 VI Mikvaoth (niNlpJD), Wells X 
 
 VII Nidda (mi), The Menstruous X 
 
 VIII Machshirin (pTE>3»), Preparations VI 
 
 IX Zabim (D^T), Persons with Fluxes V 
 
NOTES 315 
 
 Name of Division Number of Section 
 
 X Tebul Yom (DV $>U0), Immersed IV 
 
 XI Yadayim (D , T), Hands IV 
 
 XII Uktzin (pvpiy), Stalks of Fruit Ill 
 
 To each of these sections a commentary by the name of 
 Gemara is appended, and to it again are added countless other 
 commentaries, to which again scholars in all ages have added 
 and are adding still glosses and comments in an apparently 
 endless chain. 
 
 50. Teharoth, Purifications, is a Talmudical euphemism, 
 since it really refers to matters which are sacerdotally inad- 
 missible, hence unclean for sacred uses. 
 
 51. See Jost's Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner 
 Secten, Vol II, p. 202. 
 
 52. Midrash Rabba Lamentations II, 2. 
 
 53. The last of the princes was Gamaliel VI, who was de- 
 posed from the princely dignity by Emperor Theodosius II., 
 in an edict dated October the 17th, 415 A.C. (see Cod. Theo- 
 dosius XIV., 22); and in a decree of 426, that same Emperor 
 ordered the subsidies which the Patriarch received from the 
 Roman Jewish Congregations to be paid into the imperial 
 treasury. 
 
 The Patriarchate embraced a period of 605 years from 1 80 
 B.C. to 425 A.C. and the reigning Patriarchs were as follows : 
 
 I Antigonus of Socho 180 B.C. 
 
 II Yose ben Yoezer 170-162 
 
 III Josua ben Perachia 130 
 
 IV Juda ben Tabbai 80 
 
 V Shemaiah and Abtalion 60 " 
 
 VI Sons of Bethyrah 35 " 
 
 VII Hillel 1 30 B.C. to 10 A.C. 
 
 VIII Simon 1 10 A.C. to 30 A.C. 
 
 IX Gamaliel 1 30-50 A.C. 
 
 X Simon II 50-70 " 
 
 
i. 
 u 
 
 316 NOTES 
 
 XI Gamaliel II 80-116 A.C. 
 
 XII Simon III 140-163 " 
 
 XIII Juda 1 163-193 " 
 
 XIV Gamaliel III 193-220 " 
 
 XV Juda II 220-270 " 
 
 XVI Gamaliel IV 270-300 " 
 
 XVII Juda III 300-330 « 
 
 XVIII Hillel II 330-365 
 
 XIX Gamaliel V 365-385 
 
 XX Juda IV 385-400 « 
 
 XXI Gamaliel VI 400-425 " 
 
 Of all these Juda the First was the Prince who gave regal 
 grandeur to his position, so that it was said of him, "From 
 Moses the Lawgiver to Rabbi we have not found wealth and 
 magnificence so combined," lrjo $b »31 nj? U^l 7\WO DllD'O 
 inN Dipm r6l-m mm (Babli Gittin 59). The Patriarchs who 
 succeeded him enjoyed also extraordinary privileges, and had 
 the actual rank of princes of the empire. Emperor Julian 
 addressed Hillel II as rbv &5e\<pbu (brother); and Emperor 
 Theodosius the Great openly took sides with Gamaliel V, who 
 was in feud with a Roman Governor in Syria (see Hieronymus, 
 De Optimo, etc.). 
 
 54. Talmud Babli Succah 26. pDB>J ^ft*® PPffi ^211 nTlJSr. 
 
 55. Haninah bar Hama, in deference to Rabbi Ephes, did 
 not accept the office until two years later, and this only after 
 the death of Rabbi Ephes. 
 
 56. That is what we understand by the phrase, mo pl"lT 
 D^TC^m (see Rabbi Kethuboth 103). 
 
 57. Talmud Babli Kethuboth 104. 
 
 58. Moses bsr Maimon, in his introduction to the Mishnah 
 Zeraim, gives a fine eulogy of the Prince, and styles him " Our 
 Master, the Holy One." 
 
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INDEX. 
 
 Aaron, High Priest, II, 15, 38, 123 
 
 Abtalion, head of Sanhedrin with Shemaiah, 20 ; one of his sayings, 
 
 179 
 
 Abuiah, Rabbi, father of Elisha ben Abuiah, 204 
 
 Acher, signification of, 206, 208 
 
 Adultery, test for, 60 
 
 Agadah, or Hagadah, the parabolic exposition of the Pentateuch, the 
 prophets, and the historic writings, 169 
 
 Antoninus, Pius, 185 ; revoked edicts of Hadrian, 245 ; conversa- 
 tions with Juda the prince, 257 
 
 Aquila, Roman convert to Judaism, 123, 133 
 
 Aramaic, the, 246, 261 
 
 Artaban, king, 256 
 
 Asmoneans, Hashmoneans, descendants of Hashmonai the priest, 
 3. 4 
 
 Babylonian, the, Hillel so called, 5, 9, 20, 211 
 
 Bar Illai, Rabbi Juda, 215 
 
 Bar Kappara, 253 
 
 Bar Kochba, the false Messiah, 42, 177, 271 
 
 Ben Abuiah, Rabbi Elisha, 204 ; his liking for Greek language and 
 culture, 205 ; branded as traitor and called "Acher," 206 ; re- 
 nounced Judaism and probably embraced Christianity, 208 ; his 
 memory, 209 
 
 Ben Akibah, Rabbi, 89 ; favorite disciple of Eliezer, 109 ; volunteer 
 messenger, 114; visit to Eliezer, 119; eulogy of, 121 ; view of 
 evening prayers, 125 ; not a Jew, 152 ; incident that determined 
 him to study, 153 ; love and marriage, 154 ; entered the school 
 of Eliezer, 154 ; his modesty, his power of analysis, 155 ; his 
 ability, 156; visit to his wife, 156; rules of interpretation, 
 160 ; joined the school of Nahum of Gamsu, 161 ; return to 
 
 319 
 
320 INDEX 
 
 Ben Akibah, Rabbi— Continued : 
 
 Rachel, 162 ; reconciliation with his father-in-law, 163 ; de- 
 cisions as judge, 164 ; his maxims, 166 ; his ambition, 167 ; 
 compared with Mohammed, 168 ; reduced the oral law to a sys- 
 tem, 169 ; arranged the Agadah, 169 ; study of magic, 169 ; his 
 teachings, 172 ; revolution against Hadrian, 173 ; takes wife of 
 Roman governor, 175 ; presents Bar Kochba as the Messiah, 
 177; evades Roman spies, 178; council at Lydda, 179; death 
 by torture, 181 ; one of his sayings, 183 ; his versatility, 267 
 
 Ben Amram, Rabbi Jonathan, rebukes Juda the prince, 254 
 
 Ben Arakh, Rabbi Elazar, 71 ; a good answer, 92 ; probably became 
 a Christian, 96 
 
 Ben Azariah, Rabbi Elazar, president of the Sanhedrin, afterwards 
 assistant, or vice-president, 127, 128, 152 
 
 Ben Azzai, Rabbi, son-in-law of Rabbi Akibah, 170 
 
 Benai (sons of) Bethyra, 8, 9, 107, 247 
 
 Ben Babba, Rabbi Judah, member of Sanhedrin at Yamnai, 188 ; 
 rigid observer of the law, 212 ; ordained Mair and Simon, 212 ; 
 slain by Roman soldiers, 213 
 
 Ben Betiach, 62, 63 
 
 Ben Dosa, Rabbi 'Haninah, compared with Ben Zakkai, 73 ; an 
 ascetic and mystic, 75 ; his sayings, 77 ; his judgments, 78 ; his 
 wife, her desire and dream, Si ; tales of his miraculous power, 
 76, 81, S2, 84, 85, 88 
 
 Ben Elisha, Rabbi Ishmael, 176 
 
 Ben Gorion, Rabbi Juda, 218, 222 
 
 Ben Hananiah, Rabbi Josua ; decision against Eliezer, 113; de- 
 fended him after his death, 121 ; his studies and subtlety, 122 ; 
 his engagement and its rupture, 123 ; an artisan, 124 ; president 
 of Court of Appeals, democratic spirit, 124 ; disputes with Ga- 
 maliel, 126 ; his travels, 128 ; put down by woman, girl, and boy, 
 129; in favor with Roman emperors, 130, 133-138; forbidding 
 fire for three days, 134 ; carried sixty academicians to Had- 
 rian for a wager, 138-142 ; contest of wits, 140 ; his sayings, 
 148 ; relations with Christians, 149, 150 ; his death, 151 
 
 Ben 'Hiyah, Rabbi Juda, revenges his father, 248 
 
 Ben Hyrkanos, Rabbi Eliezer, a scholar, brother-in-law of Gamaliel, 
 96, 97 ; stubborn in his views, 96, 106 ; excommunication, 96, 
 113; application to Ben Zakkai, 97; his father's visit to the 
 school, 100 ; opened school at Lydda, 103 ; his famous trial and 
 
INDEX 321 
 
 Ben Hyrkanos, Rabbi Eliezer — Continued : 
 
 appeal to the walls, 104 ; interpretation thereof, 1 10 ; pleads for 
 tradition, 106, 108 ; repudiates suicide, 115 ; charged with being 
 a Christian, 116 ; his denial, 119 ; death, 120 ; ban removed by 
 Rabbi Josua, and burial at Lydda, 120 
 
 Ben Illai, Rabbi, 217, 218 
 
 Ben Yohai, Rabbi Simon, son of a Jew in Roman service, 213; 
 friend and disciple of Akibah, 213 ; left his wife in order to 
 study, 214; established a school at Thekoa, 216; denounced 
 the Romans, 218 ; betrayed by spy and fled to mountains, 218 ; 
 life in cave, 219 ; mystic power, 221, 224 ; contempt of earthly 
 things, 223 ; opened school at Tiberias, 223 ; mission to Marcus 
 Aurelius, 224 ; cures the emperor's daughter, 224 ; sayings and 
 maxims, 226, 228, 229 ; form of mental activity of the Jewish 
 race, 231 ; decision in divorce, 231 ; buried in cave, 238 (a.d. 165) 
 
 Ben Zakkai, Rabbi Yochanan, favorite disciple of Hillel and founder 
 of modern Judaism, 13 ; diplomat and scholar, 55 ; his patience, 
 56 ; virtual head of Sanhedrin, 58 ; his boldness, 60 ; abolished 
 ordeal of "bitter waters," 37, 60 ; also " red cow " offering, 60 ; 
 opposed to insurrection, 63 ; left doomed city in coffin, 65 ; 
 sought refuge in the emperor's camp, 66 ; got permission to 
 found a school at Yamnai, 67 ; formed a Sanhedrin, 69 ; mourns 
 over ruin of the Temple and prophesies a spiritual temple, 68 ; 
 consolations at death of son, 71 ; his death, 72 ; choice of disci- 
 ples, 91 ; reception of Eliezer, 97 
 
 Ben Zoma, Simon, trusted agent of Josua, 131 ; parable, 132 ; his 
 death, 132 ; one of the four mystics, 170 
 
 Beruriah, wife of Rabbi Mair, 191 ; her skill in controversy, 192 ; 
 the student's stratagem, 202 
 
 Bethar, fortress, 178 
 
 Bible, translated by Aquila, 123 
 
 Cabalah, 169 
 
 Caiaphas, Joseph, 45-47 
 
 Calba Sebuah, father-in-law of Rabbi Akibah, 101, 153, i52 
 
 Captivity, the ; Introduction, x. ; the prince, or exilarch, of the 
 
 Babylonian Jews, 247 
 Christianity, a historical fact, 34 ; it is Judaism developed, 71, 117 
 Circumcision, 245, 252 
 Cyrus, king of Persia, 1 
 
322 INDEX 
 
 Divorce, 201, 231 
 Domitian, 130 
 
 Eleazar, son of Ben Yohai, 218 ; made captain of Roman soldiers, 
 234 ; his death and disposal of his body, 238 ; sarcasms, 246 ; 
 Rabbi Juda's suit of his widow, 239, 272 
 
 Exilarch, title of the prince of the Babylonian Jews, 247 
 
 Gamaliel I., Rabbi, president of Sanhedrin, 53, 5S 
 
 Gamaliel II., Rabbi, president of Sanhedrin, 70, 84, 104, no, 113, 
 
 215, 244 
 Gamaliel III., son of Juda the prince, 272 
 Gate, " the Death," 65 
 Gemara, commentary on the Mishna, 261-268 
 
 Hadrian, emperor of Rome, 131, 133, 174, 185, 245 
 
 Herod, leaned towards Sadducees, 4 ; ruled in Palestine, 5 
 
 Halakah, the oral teaching, 94 
 
 High Priests, their policy, 4 ; riches, 6 ; indifference to learning and 
 religion, 35 ; no political power, 38 ; one of them slain, 39 ; 
 Joseph Caiaphas, 45 ; intruding high priests, 3, 57 ; tyranny 
 and corruption, 61 
 
 Hillel, Rabbi : Introduction, xii ; birth, 5 ; poverty, 6 ; elected 
 president of the Sanhedrin, 9 ; Gentile teachers, 9 ; foresaw the 
 exile, 10, 28 ; Davidic descent, n, 240 ; doctrines and teachings, 
 11, 12, 14, 17, 20, 21 ; his policy, paving the way for universal 
 faith, 13 ; foundation for the work of Jesus Christ, 13, 29, 32, 
 35 ; not a reformer, 14 ; the Prosbul Act, 14, 22 ; absence of 
 the miraculous, 15 ; story of a heathen's visit to him, 15, 18 ; 
 cared more for good men than scholars, 21 ; his knowledge, 24 ; 
 his patience and meekness, 24 ; prepared the people for exile, 
 28 ; his tact, 29 ; his death, 29 ; analogy between his teachings 
 and those of Christ, 36 ; Hillelism, 68 ; policy of his house, 
 240 ; transmitted presidency to his family, 211, 244 
 
 'Hiyah, the great Babylonian, offends Juda the prince, 248 
 
 Huna, the exilarch, or prince of the captivity, 247 
 
 Hyrkan, John, High Priest, 3 
 
 Hyrkanos, visit to his son Eliezer, 100 
 
 Ishmael, Phabi, High Priest, 38, 61 
 
INDEX 3 2 3 
 
 James, disciple of the Christ, 116, 118, 119 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, his history, from the Talmud, 30 ; his descent, 
 33 ; authentic history, 34 ; an exile, 35 ; his baptism, 41 ; how 
 he began his mission, 42 ; the people not hostile to him, 43 ; 
 the High Priests saw danger to themselves in his mission, 44 ; 
 Galilean independence, 44; plot against him, 45 ; no crime to 
 proclaim himself the Messiah, 47 ; Pilate examines him, 49 ; 
 his death on the cross, 50 ; Jesus and Hillel compared, 51 ; his 
 greatness, 52 ; who are responsible for his death, 49, 52 
 
 John the Baptist, 36, 41 
 
 Josua ben Perachia repulsed Jesus, 32 
 
 Juda the prince, Rabbi ; his title, II, 242 ; his actual office, 243 ; 
 son of Gamaliel II., 244; his birth, 244 ; education, 246 ; def- 
 erence to Babylonian prince, 247 ; pride in his descent, 248 ; 
 his policy that of Hillel, 249, 250 ; his sayings, 250 ; modified 
 Sabbath observances, 252 ; opposition, 252, 254 ; rebuke of 
 Jonathan ben Amram, 254 ; friendly to Christians, 256 ; rela- 
 tions with Roman rulers, 257 ; Jewish emigration, 258 ; efforts 
 to create a Jewish literature, the Mishna, 259-269 ; systematized 
 Jewish law, 261-269 ; other work, 270 ; office of patriarch 
 abolished, 272 ; removed to Sephoris, 272 ; appointed his sons 
 to office, his death, 273 
 
 Judean Christians and friendly Jews, 22, 150, 256 
 
 Julian, emperor, 271 
 
 Julianus, joint leader with Pappus of the rebellion against Trajan, 
 
 131. 173 
 
 Ki Dor, villainous innkeeper, 198 
 
 Ki Tobh, name given to the sun by Rabbi Mair, 197 
 
 Legends, Parables, etc.: 
 
 A dangerous passenger, 230 
 
 a Jewish Lucretia, 202 
 
 Akibah shown to Adam, 156 
 
 Artaban's gift, 256 
 
 body and soul, 257 
 
 cure of Marcus Aurelius's daughter, 224 
 
 death of husbandmen, 221 
 
 dream of 'Haninah ben Dosa's wife, 81 
 
 failure of attempt to make Hillel angry, 25 
 
324 INDEX 
 
 Legends, Parables, etc. — Continued : 
 
 Fifth Book of Moses, the, 227 
 
 'Haninah ben Dosa and the block of marble, 82 
 
 Josua and the sixty academicians, 137 
 
 Ki Dor and the three Rabbis, 198 
 
 king and his twin brother, the, 190 
 
 lamp filled with vinegar, the, 83 
 
 letters of Hebrew alphabet crowned, 156 
 
 lion and the fox, the, 186 
 
 lion with bone in throat, the, 133 
 
 maiden's rescue, the, 88 
 
 princess and the spindle, the, 147 
 
 Rabbi Eleazar and the misshapen man, 236 
 
 Rabbi Josua put down by woman, girl, and boy, 129 
 
 Rabbi Mair and his friend the sun, 197 
 
 Rabbi Mair and the woman's accusation, 201 
 
 rescue of sister-in-law, 194 
 
 serpents bite law-breakers, 222 
 
 spell-bound sorcerer, the, 144 
 
 tasting of swine's flesh, 196 
 
 testimony of tree, brook, and walls, 104 
 
 traitor turned to stone, 222 
 
 two men and a dove, 258 
 
 widow Ikho and the beams, the, 85 
 
 Yokai and the bird, 220 
 Loans, innovations by Hillel, see Prosbul Act 
 Lydda, academic centre under Gamaliel II., 103, 116, 179 
 
 Maimonides, codified the Talmudic laws, 274 
 
 Mair, Rabbi, 181 ; enigmatical character, 185 ; his parables, 186 ; 
 dialectitian, literary work, 187 ; made reader in Sanhedrin, 
 188 ; threatened with excommunication, 189 ; dislike for 
 materialism, 189; his strictness, 190; his family life, 191; 
 death of his sons, 192 ; other tales and legends, 194, 196-198 ; 
 jealousies among students, 201 ; student tricking his wife, 
 202 ; goes to Sardes, 203 ; his sayings, 204 ; a woman's charge, 
 204 ; his friendship with Elisha made a charge against him, 208 ; 
 his death, 209 ; his axiom, 210 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 224 
 
 Mar Samuel, physician, 251, 253, 272 
 
INDEX 325 
 
 Materialists, 189 
 
 " Men of miracles," 86 
 
 Mercabah, the, theosophy, or mystic lore, 93 
 
 Messiah, the, expected, 41, 159, 176; the highest ideal fulfilled in 
 
 Jesus Christ, 50, 51 ; the false Messiah, 42, 177, 271 
 Minim, heretics, 33 
 Mishna, the, 260-269 
 Mohammed, Introduction, viii. ; 168 
 Mosaic Law, the, 14, 20, 23, 48, 243 
 
 Nahum of Gamsu, a famous doctor and mystic, 159; fatalist, He- 
 brew of Hebrews, 160; legend showing his sanctity, 161; 
 teacher of Rabbi Akibah, 161 
 
 Nasi, prince, 11 
 
 Oral law, or tradition, the, 31, 91, 169, 259 
 
 Ordination, by laying-on of hands, or by the kiss, forbidden by 
 
 Hadrian, 181, 185, 188, 212, 213 
 Otho-ha-Ish, name given to Christ, 32 
 
 Parables, see Legends, Parables, etc. 
 
 Paradise, or Pardes, 170, 206 
 
 Pappus, leader of rebellion against Trajan, 131, 173, 180 
 
 Passover given precedence over the Sabbath, 8, 9 
 
 Patriarch, title of the president of the Sanhedrin, 5 ; abolished, 271 
 
 Patriarchate, the, 69, 211, 271 
 
 Paul of Tarsus, 57 ; his style reflects the Agadah, 169 
 
 Pharisees, the, their teachings, 5 ; meaning of the word, 35 ; cor- 
 rupt, 39; "dyed Pharisees," 40 ; eight hundred crucified, 40; 
 not responsible for death of Christ, 53 
 
 Pilate, Pontius, fifth procurator of Judea, 33 ; Christ brought before 
 him, 48 ; examined and tries to save him, 49 
 
 Practice, a system of religious observance, 75 
 
 Prosbul Act, the, 14, 22 
 
 Rabbis, the, teachers of the Law and a sort of clergy, 2 ; inter- 
 mediate between the Sadducees and Pharisees, 4; judges, 38; 
 sometimes artisans, 6, 124 
 
 Rachel, wife of Ben Akibah, 154, 156, 162. 
 
326 INDEX 
 
 Rufus, governor of Judea, 174 ; his wife left him for Ben Akibah, 
 175 ; he retreated to fortifications, 178 ; he tortured Ben 
 Akibah, 181 
 
 Sabbath, the, 7-9 
 
 Sadducees, the, 3, 9 ; the tendency of their principles, 4 ; the local 
 
 aristocracy of Palestine, 35 ; their doctrinal position similar to 
 
 Puritans, 37 ; their main object, 39 ; loss of influence, 67 
 Sanhedrin, the, 2, 3, 5, 38, 40; the new one, 67, 69, in ; custom, 
 
 188 ; interpreters of the Law, 243, 271 
 Severus, Roman general, 178 
 Shammai, Rabbi, Introduction, xii. ; opposed Hillel, 10, 12 ; zealous 
 
 nationalist, 14 ; hated foreign element, 17 
 Shemaiah, 6, 8, 20 
 Siccarees, the, 58, 62, 205 
 
 Simon I., Rabbi, president of the Sanhedrin and son of Hillel, 58 
 Simon II., Rabbi, son of Gamaliel II., 58, 189, 244 
 Simon III., Rabbi, president of Sanhedrin, 188 ; father to Juda the 
 
 prince, 244 
 Sopherim, the, 4 
 
 Talmud, the, an encyclopedia, 31 ; Christ's name frequent in it, 32 ; 
 
 its spirit, 93 ; its composition and arrangement, 261-274. 
 Tax, the, fiscus judcrus, 130 
 Temple, the, 34, 36, 57 ; of hearts, 59 ; a spiritual, 68 ; prophecy 
 
 ceased, 86 ; destruction ordered, 176 
 
 Vespasian, emperor, 66, 69 
 
 Yam Trajanus, Trajan's day, 131 
 Yamnai, school of, 67 ; seat of new Sanhedrin, 67, 69 
 Yannai, king, crucified eight hundred Pharisees, 40 
 Year of Release, 22, 221, 226 
 
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