the Sanhedrin. Gamaliel was not then often give tithes by conjecture." The president of the Sanhedrin, but was a first two seem to have been levelled at the teacher and doctor of the law, "held in use or abuse of private judgment in matreputation among all the people." It was ters of religion. Gamaliel urges the immainly through his instrumentality and portance of following the counsel of “the influence that the Sanhedrin was induced wise," that is, the duty of submission to to set the Apostles at liberty after a slight the decision of the synagogue. His sec punishment, with the solemn injunction ond saying is in some respects parallel to not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus"How long halt ye between two masa charge which the Apostles, however, ters?" The third saying seems to refer declined to obey (Acts v. 33-42). The ad- to a different matter. Its meaning is, do vice which Gamaliel gave the council on not often give tithes on mere guesswork, that occasion was: "Refrain from these or at haphazard; for if a person gives men and let them alone; for if this coun- more than required he will be regarded as sel or this work be of men it will be over- prodigal or a hypocrite, but if less than is thrown; but if it be of God, ye will not be right he commits sin, and will be conable to overthrow them, lest haply ye be demned as avaricious. found even to be fighting against God."

No historical weight whatever is to be attached to the legend which affirms that Gamaliel ultimately became a convert to Christianity. The story of his having been buried in Pisa, where the grave of St. Gamaliel is still pointed out, is of course wholly mythical. The death of Gamaliel took place about eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem. He is often styled Gamaliel the Elder, to distinguish him from R. Gamaliel II., of whom we shall speak shortly. Of Gamaliel I. it is said, "when Gamaliel the Elder died the glory of the law ceased, and purity and sanctity died." His presidency of the Sanhedrin was distinguished by a considerable number of reforms in Jewish usages, and by the display of a considerable friendliness of spirit towards the Gentiles, even towards such as were still attached to pagan rites and ceremonies.

Rabban Gamaliel was not long able to maintain the passive attitude towards Christianity which he recommended on that occasion. An interesting discussion on the peculiarities of the Messianic age, which took place between him and one of his disciples, not improbably the Apostle Paul, has been preserved in one of the treatises of the Talmud (Shabbath, 30 b), and is translated in full in my work on "The Book of Koheleth," pp. 22-25. The principal argument made use of in that discussion on the Christian side was founded on the statement in Eccl. i. 7, "There is nothing new under the sun." The disputant on that side seems to have maintained that it was absurd to regard the physical changes in nature spoken of by the prophets as signs of the Messianic period to have been meant literally; which position he sought to confirm by the Simeon the son of Gamaliel was, accordauthority of the Book of Ecclesiastes. ing to Josephus, a man of great wisdom Gamaliel contended that those predictions and reason, and capable of restoring pubwere to be literally accomplished, and that lic affairs by his prudence when in a crittheir fulfilment might rationally be ex-ical condition (Life, § 38). Josephus states pected, but that the Messianic age had not that Simeon was personally unfriendly arrived, since such changes had not taken towards himself, and, consequently, that place. writer's account of Simeon (which in some Gamaliel in his later years was more respects is unfavorable) cannot be implicdecidedly opposed to the Christian reli-itly relied on. He appears to have begion, as is proved by the fact that he was chosen some years later as nasi or prince of the Sanhedrin. His sayings preserved in the "Pirke Aboth" point in the same direction: "Make to thyself a master, and remove thyself from doubt, and do not

Rabbi, my master or my lord, was the ordinary title given to the Jewish doctors of Palestine. Rab, master, is especially used of the Jewish doctors of Babylon. Rabban, our master or our lord, is a title given to some seven or eight of the descendants of Hillel. The great scholars of the period which closed honor. Their simple names were regarded as in

with Hillel and Shammai received no similar titles of

themselves sufficiently honorable.

He

longed to the peace party in the closing
years of the Jewish commonwealth.
was killed at or shortly before the capture
of Jerusalem. A saying of his is pre-
served in the treatise "Aboth : "
"All
my days I have grown up among the wise,
and have not found aught good for a man
but silence; not learning but doing is the
important thing, for every one who multi-
plies words brings forth sin." The mean
ing of this aphorism is more profound thar
that of the English proverb," Speech is
silver, silence is golden." or than the par
allel proverb of another rabbi (R. Joshua)

at the

The Speech is worth a sela [a shekel], silence | Ben Zakkai was known as a firm adherent two." The saying of Simeon ben Gama- to the old Jewish traditions, and a strict liel has reference to the vain wrangling teacher of morals. He was disposed to which often occurred in the Jewish schools be friendly to strangers, although he lived during the Roman period, and which not at a time when the feeling of the Jewish unfrequently concerned matters really be- nation was aroused to desperation against ser yond the comprehension of man. Such their cruel tyrants the Romans. He el to idle talk often sorely perplexed the poor taught his disciples that there was a hope uninitiated " wayfaring men," who some- even of the salvation of the Gentiles in ree times scarcely knew how to find the way the future state. From the expression is, to the city (Jerusalem), although they ven- used in Prov. xiv. 34—“Righteousness work tured to engage in subtle questions of exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to gir theology. At an earlier period the di- the people he drew the conclusion eda vinely inspired Koheleth had found it (the theological correctness of which need necessary similarly to rebuke folly (Eccl. not here be discussed) that moral goodness x. 12-15), and to remind his hearers of the would procure the same mercy for the fact there was "a time to keep silence" Gentiles as the sin-offering obtained for (Eccl. iii. 7). The Talmud contains many | Israel (Baba Bathra, 10 b). similar warnings. The man who presumes to talk too much, even in praise of ar the Holy One of Israel, is warned that he is in danger of being "swallowed up," or "rooted out of the earth." The prophet Habakkuk says, "The Lord is in his holy Temple: let all the earth keep silence before him ;" and the Psalmist exclaims, “Silence is his praise " (Ps. lxv. 2).‡ On the wisdom of keeping silence on many its points of theological controversy the Taímud notes, "Beautiful is silence to the wise, how much more so to the fools."§ One might well compare the Latin proverb, "O! si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses!"

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ed th

f the

The learning and wisdom of Ben Zakkai attracted many disciples around him, even in those troublous times. He occupied himself chiefly in expounding the law, and in teaching the traditions which in process of time had clustered around it. He used to teach his disciples in the cool of the evening, sitting under the shade of the Temple walls. He attacked the tenets of the Sadducees; and condemned all attempts at rebellion against the Romans as wicked and foolish. Hence he occupied a position similar to that which had been assumed by Jeremiah during the Babylonian war.

Ben Zakkai was, like Jeremiah, a strong Johanan ben Zakkai and Jonathan ben advocate for peace. "Wherefore will Uzziel were contemporaries of the great ye," said he to the Zealots, "destroy the Gamaliel. They were termed respectively city, and give over the Temple to confla“the eldest" and "the youngest" of a gration?" Indignant at the iniquities group of eighty disciples who specially which prevailed among the Galileans, he attached themselves to Hillel. A later exclaimed, "O Galilee, Galilee, thou hattradition in the "Aboth R. Nathan " (ap-est the law; thine end will be to seek parently founded on the ambiguity of the employment from the hands of the robHebrew expressions denoting "eldest" bers" (Jer. Shabbath, xvi. 15 d). and "youngest") amplifies the statement, and relates that Hillel had eighty disciples, thirty of whom were worthy that the Shekinah should rest on them as it did on Moses; thirty that the sun should stand still for them as it did for Joshua; while twenty were of medium capacity, the least of whom was Johanan ben Zakkai. The latter story does not indeed harmonize with the fact that Hillel himself used to term Johanan ben Zakkai, "the father of wisdom and the upholder of the future."

• Midrash Koheleth on ch. v. 5.
t See Dr. C. Taylor's note 38 on p. 39.

According to a story told on Jewish authority, and referred to in the Talmuds, during the siege of Jerusalem the gates of the Temple, which had been duly shut and barred in the evening, were found to have mysteriously opened themselves in the morning. R. Johanan ben Zakkai rebuked the gates of the sanctuary in the following terms: " O sanctuary, sanctuary! why dost thou trouble thyself? I know of thee that thine end is to be left desolate, for Zechariah the son of Iddo prophesied long since against thee, 'Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may

This is the literal sense of the phrase rendered devour thy cedars.'" (Zech. xi. 1).*

"praise uniteth for Thee," in our A.V. See the com-
ment of Delitzsch on that passage, and also of Pe-

66

See on this passage my Bampton Lectures on Zechariah," p. 303. The Targum Sheni on Esther relates a similar legend, and states that the words were spoken by a voice from heaven when the Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.

On another occasion Ben Zakkai said to his disciples, "Go and see what is the evil way from which man should keep himself." R. Eliezer ben Hyrkanus said, "An evil eye;" R. Joshua said, "An evil companion; " R. Jose said, “An evil neighbor;" R. Simeon said, "He that borrow eth and payeth not again; he who borrows from man is like one who borrows from God [lit. "the Place"], as it is said, 'The wicked borroweth and payeth not again, but the righteous is gracious and giveth; "" R. Elazar ben Arak said, "An evil heart." Johanan ben Zakkai said, "I approve the words of Elazar ben 'Arak more than your words, for his words include yours.

R. Joshua, the second disciple, was deservedly held in good reputation. He was the disciple who, in company with Elazar ben 'Arak, had borne Ben Zakkai in his coffin out of the gate of Jerusalem into the Roman lines. He was a Levite, and belonged to the singers of the Temple. He was, however, compelled to follow the occupation of a smith in order to obtain his daily livelihood. Hence he occupied in some respects a middle position between the upper and the lower classes of Jewish society, and is said to have been

our master!" He said to them," May it | serpent, and all their words like coals of be the will of. God that the fear of Heaven fire." may be impressed upon you like the fear of flesh and blood!" His disciples said to him, "Is that all?" He said to them, "And would that it were even so!" (that is, that you had always such fear before you!), "for when a man is about to commit a sin, he is wont to say, If only no man would see me!" Shortly before his death, Ben Zakkai exclaimed, "Keep the vessels from uncleanness " (i.e., take them out of the house, since all the vessels are unclean which are in a house where a death occurs), "and place a chair for Hezekiah, king of Judah, for he is coming "the only one of the learned class who had (Berachoth, 28 b). That is, in accordance with a prevalent belief that dying saints were visited by the spirits of the departed, Ben Zakkai's last thoughts were that Hezekiah, the pious king of Judah, was approaching to conduct him to the judgment seat of the Eternal. It is not for us to moralize over this death-bed scene in the manner Lightfoot has done with more than questionable taste, exclaiming, "Ah! miseram ac languentem Pharisæi in morte fiduciam."

The five disciples of Ben Zakkai survived their master. Of the eldest of them, Eliezer ben Hyrkanus, Ben Zakkai once said, "If all the wise men of Israel were placed in one scale of the balance, and Eliezer ben Hyrkanus in the other, he would outweigh them all”(Aboth ii. 8 b). Eliezer ben Hyrkanus, some years after Ben Zakkai's death, was, however, placed under the ban, because of his determined opposition to the opinion of the majority of the learned men. But it is noteworthy that, notwithstanding this fact, as Jost (Geschichte der Juden) remarks, the Mishnah has preserved more of his sayings than of those of his contemporaries. An interesting collection of these on a large variety of subjects is to be found in Bacher's valuable treatise. His three sayings (preserved in the treatise "Aboth ") show that he wished his disciples to profit by his experience, and to be more ready than he was to submit to the decisions of the majority of the sages. These sayings are: "Let the honor of thy friend be dear unto thee as thine own and be not easily provoked; and repent one day before thy death [that is, repent to-day, for to-morrow thou mayest die]. And warm thyself before the fire of the wise, but beware of their coals, that thou mayest not be burnt; for their bite is like the bite of a fox, and their sting the sting of a scorpion, and their hissing like the hissing of a fiery

any hold upon the affections of the common people. He was so ugly in person that a Roman princess once asked him the impudent question, "Why is so much wisdom contained in such an unshapely vessel?" She received, however, a pungent reply, "Wine," remarked the rabbi, "is not kept in golden jars, but in earthenware vessels." Like his master, R. Joshua was a man of peace, and did all in his power to calm his countrymen during the rebellion against Roman domination in the days of Trajan. He is said to have had considerable knowledge of astronomy and to have understood some of the laws that regulate the reappearance of comets, and his knowledge of such matters enabled him during a sea voyage to save the crew from destruction. His sayings (preserved in "Aboth ") are: "An evil eye [envy], and the evil nature, and hatred of the creatures [mankind], drive a man out of the world." Compare with the last clause the more profound saying of the apostle, "He that hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him" (1 John iii. 15).

R. Jose, surnamed by his master "the pious," also said three things: "Let the wealth of thy companion be as precious to thee as thine own; prepare thyself to learn Thorah [the Holy Scriptures], for it is not an inherited possession [that is, its acquisition requires personal toil and effort]; and let all thine actions be done for the name of heaven " for the honor of God, and not for selfish ends. Dr. C. Taylor observes that an Oxford manuscript of "Aboth " here contains a reference to the blessing pronounced on Jael for the murder of Sisera, as a good illustration of the principle that an evil action done from a good motive is better in God's sight than a good action performed from evil motives.

The first of R. Jose's sayings reminds us of our Lord's remark, "If ye have not