Several of the Rabbins whom we have named must have witnessed His advent, and have taught during His lifetime, even if they did not have a more or less direct share in His rejection and death. Considering the state of the synagogue, can we still wonder at this? Could their pride and exclusiveness, their wrangling and learning, their religious zeal and ardour, have found satisfaction in the life, the work, or the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth?

1

Hillel is said to have been succeeded by his son Simeon as president of the Sanhedrin. [This tradition perhaps really relates to the headship of the Rabbinic school;] but very little is recorded in the writings of the Jews about this Simeon. The grandson of Hillel was Gamaliel 1. (the elder), the same who gave the temperate advice which led to the suspension of the persecution of the early Church. His learning and high character gained for him not only the universal respect of the people, but also a position of great authority in the Sanhedrin. [The common Jewish tradition, indeed, represents him as president of that body; but this representation does not accord with the language used of him in the Acts (v. 34).] Deeply versed as he was in the current theological lore, he seems to have attempted to moderate the discussions between the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai. Like Hillel, who had throughout supported the government of Herod, he also abstained from political agitation; and unlike the school of Shammai, who were ardent nationalists, was not opposed to Roman supremacy. We can only briefly allude to his measures for the regulation of the Jewish calendar. The appearance of the new moon was of the greatest importance for the computation of the Jewish feasts. It had been the practice for those who first observed its appearance to hasten to Jerusalem and intimate this to the Sanhedrin, by whom they were closely questioned on the subject. To secure more certainty, and to be less dependent on unsatis

1 Shab. 15a. He is not named in the Mishna. Some have suggested that in Pirke Aboth i. a section should be transposed, and a saying assigned to Simeon ben Hillel which is now attributed to Simeon ben Gamaliel. Cf. Derenbourg, p. 271, note.

factory reports, Gamaliel laid down certain astronomical rules by which the accuracy of the witnesses might be tested and doubtful cases decided.1

The tradition that Gamaliel became a Christian rests

At

upon no solid foundation. In reality he remained to the end firmly attached to the traditions of the fathers. his decease, about eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem, it was said in the magniloquent language of the period, and perhaps not without reference to subsequent events, that the glory of the Law had departed, and that general wickedness had seized men. The recorded 2 principle of Gamaliel expresses his adherence to traditionalism, and his abhorrence of wrangling and over-scrupulousness. It is: Procure thyself a teacher; avoid being in doubt; and do not accustom thyself to give tithes by guess." In the Christian world Gamaliel is known as the teacher of the Apostle Paul.

Of Simeon the Second, the son of Gamaliel, little is known, save that he took an active part in the defence of Jerusalem, and that he opposed the wild fanaticism of the Zealots.3 The principle to which he gave utterance was : All my life have I been brought up among sages, nor have I found anything better than to keep silence,--for, to act and not to explain, is the principle and basis of all; but he who multiplieth words only induceth sin.” 4

We shall, in conclusion, make mention of a contemporary of these Rabbins, who has sometimes been identified with a Jewish ruler who appears in the New Testament, we mean Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night. A Naqdimon, or Nicodemus ben Gorion, is described in the Talmud as one of the three wealthiest men of Jerusalem (Ben Zizith and Ben Kalba Shabua being named as the other two). His name, Nicodemus, is derived by Talmudists from a miracle which is reported to have taken place in answer to his prayers. His

3 Jos. Wars, iv. 3. 9; Life, 38. [Of Simeon's death nothing is known. It may be observed that the language used about him by Josephus renders it almost impossible to suppose that he was ever president of the Sanhedrin. Comp. Derenbourg, pp. 270–272.]

+ Pirke Aboth i. 17.

Gitt. 56a; Mid. Kohel. on vii. 12.

former name is recorded to have been Bonai, and a certain Bonai is expressly named in the Talmud as one of the disciples of Jesus.' But in spite of this coincidence, we can hardly doubt that this somewhat legendary Nicodemus was not the Nicodemus of the Gospel. After the fall of Jerusalem, it is said, the daughter of Nicodemus ben Gorion was exposed to such want as to be obliged to pick up from the ground grains of barley. Then passed by Rabbi Jochanan ben Saccai, who had signed her marriage contract, in which her father had promised her a dowry of a million pieces of gold. "Unhappy nation," he exclaimed, "you could not serve God, and therefore you must serve foreign nations; you would not offer half a shekel for the temple, therefore you must pay thirty times as much to your enemies." 2

1 For the origin of the name Naqdimon, see Taan 20a; Gitt. 56a; for Bonai as a disciple of Jesus, see Sanh 43a.

2 Mechilta, Jethro, c. 2; Kethub. 666.

CHAPTER VI

HISTORY OF THE SYNAGOGUE FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM TO THE JEWISH WAR OF LIBERATION

THE destruction of Jerusalem and its sanctuary, which shook the Hebrew commonwealth to its foundation, and removed the last remainder of national independence, while it destroyed the old Sanhedrin, produced few marked changes in the synagogue. It is true that the temple rites, and those sacrifices which constituted the central point of the Old Testament economy, had now become impossible, and in consequence the priesthood gradually receded from public life; but the sacrifices had already lost much of their interest and importance. In point of fact, the religious views of Israel had undergone a gradual modification, to which the destruction of the temple, and the cessation of its ritual, served only as the completion. The people clung, indeed, with passionate tenacity, to the sanctuary and its ordinances; but what of that attachment was not purely national, belonged to the form and letter, not to the spirit and meaning, of these rites. We cannot recall a single instance in which the latter were in any proper sense discussed, or even referred to, in the religious teaching of the Rabbins. Throughout, it was the outward observance, and not the spiritual effects of any ordinance, which were made the subject of study and discussion in the Jewish colleges. Dogmatics, or any system of doctrines, were not professed in the synagogue. The doctrinal views of the sages were indeed of a loose and undefined character, and can only be gathered in an indirect manner from a consideration of their religious poetry, of their prayers, etc., to which we shall have occasion to refer more fully in the sequel.

2

It was on grounds such as those above indicated that, however much the loss of the temple was deplored by the people, its want was in reality little felt from the first. The worshippers had clung to it only as they clung to the letter of the law; and as in the latter case the traditional took the place of the written law, so in the former the synagogue, with its prayers and ordinances, took the place of the temple with its rites and sacrifices. In the present instance the change had been fully prepared. For more than two centuries the influence of the Rabbins had been steadily increasing. The synagogues had long been the proper centres of religious life to the masses, and one set of ordinances might now be substituted for another, in agreement with the wants of the times. We would even go farther, and say that in the existing state of the synagogue such a change had become necessary, and the detachment of the sole remaining member of the old economy could only promote the development of traditionalism. In reality, then, so far from being affected by the cessation of the Mosaic economy, and the removal of the Sanhedrin from the capital, Judaism afterwards not only grew, but rapidly attained its full maturity.

2

Twice before, we are told, had the Sanhedrin been obliged to change their place of meeting.1 Forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem they removed from the Chamber of Hewn Stones to the Bazaars, and subsequently from the Bazaars to Jerusalem. These Bazaars are usually identified with the Bazaars of the Sons of Hanan, which are said to have been destroyed three years before the temple, and may perhaps denote the temple market, where victims for the sacrifices were sold. [It must, however, be admitted that our authorities do not enable us to determine the site with certainty, and one passage just cited suggests that these shops were outside the city proper. The Mishna never mentions them, and indeed always speaks as though the Sanhedrin had continued to meet in the Chamber of Hewn Stones

1 Rosh ha-Shanah 31a, b.

3

Jer. Peah i. 6.

Comp. Life and Times, i. 371; Schürer, II. i. 191 ff.; Derenbourg, pp. 465-468.