*

The existence of any such body as "the Great Synagogue," is, to say the least of it, far from being established by uncontrovertible testimony. For a full statement and criticism of the evidence the reader may be referred to Dr. Ryle's Canon, etc., already mentioned. An interesting article on the other side will be found in the Jewish Quarterly Review,† by Dr. Samuel Krauss. The last member of "the Great Synagogue" is said to have been Simon the Just. As we have seen in the body of this work some placed him in the early Greek period: others, with more truth, at the end of the third century B.C. While the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, Josephus, and Philo, are silent as to the existence of the Great Synagogue, the Jewish treatise Pirke Aboth (a part of the Mishnah which goes to constitute the oldest part of the Talmud) is the earliest testimony in their favour. Then the succession from Moses to Simon is

thus given :- "Moses received the Law from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue. Simon the Just was of the remnants of the Great Synagogue."§ Thereupon comes the succession of individuals or pairs who carried on the traditions from Simon's death. It is impossible to determine the chronology of all these with precision. We here give (a) the direct succession, which preserved a species of ecclesiastical continuity from Simon as far as Gamaliel I., and (b) a supplementary list of leading teachers flourishing within (approximately) the same limits, in the case of most of whom there are preserved sayings in early Jewish writings.

||For notices of many of them I may refer to Wolf, Bibliotheca Rabbinica, four vols., Hamburg, 1721, also to Dr. C. Taylor's Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, Cambridge, 1897 (2nd ed.), and to the Translation of the Treatise Chagigah, Cambridge, 1891, by the present writer.

Judah ben Bethera and his brothers Joshua

and Simeon, who seem to have yielded.
the presidency to Hillel on his coming

Shammai, his great rival, who was for a
time his pupil.

Simeon ben Hillel, president either with or
next after his father. Hillel is supposed
to have died about 13 A.D.

Gamaliel 1.† (called also Gamaliel the elder,
or simply Gamaliel) ob. 52 A.D.

35-30

30

(b) Other Leading Teachers of the same Period. Zadok and Baithus (or Boethus), said to have been pupils of Antigonus of Sokho, but their existence is doubtful.

Admon, a judge along with Chanen ben Abishalom, and a contemporary of Abtalion.

Choni ha-Maagal (the charioteer), fl. 63 B.C.

*It is significant that he is at once the first who bears a Greek name, and also a connecting link between Simon the Just, a strict upholder of the Law, and Zadok (if indeed there was such a person), said by tradition to be the founder of the Sadducees.

† Acts 5. 34-40; 22. 3.

Akbia ben Mahalalel, a contemporary of Hillel.

(Jochanan) ben Bag Bag,* a contemporary of Hillel and Shammai.

Samuel ha-katan (Samuel the Little), a pupil of Gamaliel. It has been sought to identify him with St. Paul, the suggestion being supported by the similarity of meaning between ha-katan and Paulus (little), and by the fact that both were pupils of Gamaliel I. But there is no further evidence, unless it be that while St. Paul before his conversion persecuted the Christians, so this Samuel is credited with the authorship of eighteen curses directed against the Minim (the Rabbinic expression for heretics, Christians).

Chanina ben Dosa, a contemporary of Gamaliel. He saw the destruction of the second Temple.

Chananyah ben Hezekiah ben Goren. He lived before the destruction of the Temple, and defended from alleged inconsistencies with the Law certain passages in the Book of Ezekiel. Had it not been for his exposition of the case, that book (says the tradition) would have been withdrawn from the Canon.

Jochanan ben Ha-Chorani lived before the destruction of the Temple, and is said to have put an end to strife between the schools of Hillel and Shammai.

Baba ben Bota, a pupil of Shammai.

Jochanan ben Zakkai. He is said to have been a pupil of both Hillel and Shammai, and to have lived for five years after the destruction of the Temple.

Nechunyah ben ha-Ķanah, a pupil of Jochanan ben Zakkai; fl. before 70 A.D.

(Abba Chelķiah, a grandson of Choni ha-Maagal. It is not however certain that he falls within this period.)

* Also called Ben He He, a name considered identical with the above on the Jewish principle of permitting the substitution of letters, so long as their several numerical values shall leave the value of the whole unaffected.

APPENDIX C.

THE DATE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL.

THE Book of Daniel, if we accept its traditional date, stands

apart from the literature treated of in the body of this work.

That date has been challenged by (a) unbelievers, (b) certain Christian writers.

Two views are taken :

(i.) The book is simply the product of the times of the Maccabees (circ. 167-164 B.C.), the writer making more or less use of traditional stories (Haggadoth). His purpose was to warn against apostacy to Hellenism, and to encourage under Seleucid persecution.

(ii) The book in its present shape has suffered more or less from interpolations (e.g. chap. 11) and other alterations. These apart, the date to be assigned to its original form may well be the traditional one, viz., soon after the Persian Empire had established itself.

The former is the view now generally taken by the assailants of the traditional date. But much of what appears below will apply to either alternative. Hereupon follow--

(A) Arguments in defence of the traditional date, accompanied in most cases by the rejoinder of its assailants.

(B) Objections, other than those thus dealt with in A, to the traditional view.

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(A.)

I. Universally accepted by a catena of Christian writers. (See Fuller, Speaker's Comm., vi. 222, for details.)

Ans. This does not preclude re-investigation, aided by modern scientific methods.

II. Josephus (c. Apion. i. 8) says that the Canon was closed in the days of "Artaxerxes" (the Ahasuerus of Esther. See Ryle, Canon, etc., p. 172).

Ans. Josephus may have been mistaken.

III. External evidence

(a) Ezek. 14. 20; 28. 3.

(b) Zech. 1. 18-21 (Fuller in Speaker's Comm. vi. p. 213a adds Zech. 6).

6. 23 1 Macc. 1. 54 Dan. 9. 27. Also there are references to Daniel in 3 Macc. 6 and 4 Macc. 16. 21; 18. 12.

(c) 1 Macc. 2. 59, 60 refers to Dan. 3. 27,

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(d) The existence of the book is indicated by Story of Susanna (Judgment of Daniel), Song of the Three Children, Bel and the Dragon.

(e) Sibylline verses, iii. 388 ff. refer to LXX. Version of Dan. 7. 7, 8, 11, 20, and 7. 613 to verses 23, 24. Alexandrian and Palestinian Jews of second century B.C. very ignorant of each other's literature or institutions. Improbable therefore that a Palestinian work of the time of Epiphanes would make any impression on, or even be known to, the presumably Egyptian Jew, who was author of Sibylline passages. J. E. H. Thomson (Thinker, iii. 493) argues that these Sibylline references to Daniel are not later than B.C. 170.

(f) Book of Enoch, in a section (Book of Similitudes) not later than B.C. 210 (for argument see J. E. H. Thomson