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148 "

Academies in Palestine Accents in Hebrew

Tin; .IKWISII

celebrated disoiple of Akilm. Jose l)cen

ti'apliiiijr.

Only with

Iioii

irniil

lliilfifia,

(lilliciilly

had

ciuilil

Gamaliel cslalilisli his anchit this piipil of Akiba. who faioutslioiu' him in liarniiifr. Simon's of the Sanhedrin. son.Jiulali I., however, was fortunate eiiouu'h to unite with liis inherited rank the indisputable reputation of a distinguished combination of j;reat importance under scholar, a JiD.vu, in whom "'Porali and the circumstances. were combined, was the man ajipointed to diirnity close an important epoch and to lay the foundation of a new one. The academy at Sepphoris, to which eminent students from Babylonia also (locked, erected an indestructible monument to itself tliroiiirh Judah's activity in editinir the Mishnali. which attained to canonical standinjr as the authentic colh'ction of SiiDiiii Ih'Ii

Movements

tliority

"

the leiial traditions of relii;ious ]>ractis<'. In the !Mishnah, the com])letioii of which was accomplished soon after the death of its author or editor (about 219). the schools both of Palestine and of Babylonia received a recofruized te.xt-book, upon which tlic lectures and the debates of the students were thenceforward founded. The recojinition of I{al)bi .Tudah's !Mishiiali marksaslron.il dividinir line in the history of the Academies and their teachers: it indicates the transition from the age of the T.xx.i.i to that of the A.Moii.MM. After .ludah's death Sejiphoris did not lon.s remain the .seat of the jiatriarch and the Academy. Gamaliel III., the inipretentious son Centers of a distiniruished father, became paof Learn- tiiarch: but l.Ianiiia lien Hama slicing, ceeded him as liead of the school, and introduced the new order of thin.irs that conuuenced with the completion of the ^lislinail. In Hanina's lifetime the last mi.irnition of the Sanhediin occurred. His ])upil. .loii.w.vN n. N.M"i'. ., settled in TiiiKUi.vs. and the patriarch .ludah II. (•iraudson of .ludah I.) soon found himself cotnIx'Heil to remove to that city. The imiiosinij personality and unexam]iled leaniini; of .lohanan rendered Tiberias for a loni; |ieriod the umlispnted center of Palestinian .ludaism. the magnet which attracted Babylonian students. When .Johanan died in 279 this is the only settled date in the whole ehronolo.sy of the Paicstiniau amoraim the renown of the Tiberias Academy was so firmly established that it suffered no deterioration under his successors, although none of them eipialed him in learning. For a time, indited. C.KsAHK.v came into prominence, owin.ir solely to the influence of Ilosn.v.. who lived there in the first half of the third century, and exercised the duties of a teacher contemporaneously with the Church father. Origen. with whom he had personal intercourse. After .lohanan's death the school at Ca'sarea attained a new sfandin.sr under his pupil Abbahu; and throu.iihout the whole of the fourth century the opinions of the "sages of Ca'siirea were taken into respectful aeci>unt, even in Tiberias. Sepphoris also resumed its former importance as a seat of learning; and eminent men worked there in the fourth century, long after the di.saster to the city wrought by the forces of the enii)eror Gallus. From the beginning of the third century there had been an academy at Lvnn.v in Judea. or "the South. " as .Judea was then called. This academy now gained a new reputation as a school of traditional learning. From if came the teacher to whom .Jerome owed his knowletlge of Hebrew and his in,sight into the "Hebra'a Veritas." But neither Ctvsarea. Sepphoris. nor Lyddu could detract from the renown of Tiberias.

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ENCYCLOPEDIA

148

Tilierias aeoordinirly remained the abode of the head of .Inilaism in Palestine anil, in a certain sense, of the .ludaism of the whole Konian empire, as well as the seat of the Academy, which coiKsidered itself the successor of the ancient Sanhedrin. The right of ordination which, since Simon ollicial

ben Gamaliel, the patriarch alone had exercised (<'ither with or without the consent of the Council of Sages), was later on so regulated th.al the degree could only be conferred by the palriarch and council conjointly. The ivatriarchal dignity had meanwhile become worlilly, as it were; for exceptional learning was by no means held to be an es.seiitial attribute of its possessor. The Academy of Tiberias,

whose unordained mcndiers were called luiberim (associates), never lacked men. of more or less ability, who labored and taught in the manner of .Johanan. Among these may be UK'nlioncd Kleazar b. Pedat, Ann and Assi. Iliyya bar Abba. Zeira, Samuel b. Isaac. .Jonah. .Jose. .Jeremiah. Mani. the son of .Tonah. and .Jose b. Aliin. who constitute a series of brilliant names in the field <>f the Ilalakah. In the dejiartmenf of the lla.irgadah always highly jirized and popular in Palestine the renown of Tiberias was also greatly augmented by many prominent and produ<t)ve workers, from the conteniporarii's and ])upils of .Iiihanan down to Tanliuma b. Abba, who was illustrious as a collector and an editor of liag-

—

gadic

The

—

liti'rature.

imiieiishable

monument to the school of Tibeit is commonly called,

rias is the Palestinian or. as

The Jerusalem Talmud,

the .Jerusalem Talmud, of which .lohanan b. Xajiiiaha laid the foundation; for which reason he is generally styled,

although erroneously, its redactor or author. In jioinl of fact, however, this work was not completed imtil nearly a century and a half after .lohanan's death; and its close is undoubtedly connect<d with the extinction of the patriarchal ollice (about 42.")). But Tiberias did not therefore cease to be a seat of h'arning. although very little of its subse(|Uent activity is known. According toa Babylonian le.irend, a scion of the Babylonian exilarch's house tied to Tiberias in the first third of the sixth century, and there became a rfsh jiirkd (iipt(of7)fX("'/f hea<l of the school); a hun-

=

dred years later a Syiian bishop made an appeal to the sages of Tiberias for the purpose of inducing Du Xuwa.s. the .Jewish king of South Arabia, to cease his persecution of the Christians there. Further importance was gained by Tiberias as the seat of the .Masoretic traditions anil innovations; for there in the seventh century was The Tibe- introduced that system of punctuation

rian Punc- which wasdestined toaid soefliciently tuation. in the proper reading and understanding of the Biblical text.

which achieved universal recognition,

This system, is

called the

"Tiberian iiunctuation." .t Tiberias flourished, about the miildli' of the eighth century, the Masorite Phinehas, called also Hosh Yi-shibah"(" Head of the Academy "). and Asher he Ancient, or the Great, forefather of five generations of Jlasorites (Xehemiah, Jloses, Asher. Moses, and Aaron), was to a certain extent his confemiiorarv. The last-named Aaron ben Jloses ben Asher (liriefly called Ben Asher), a contemporary of Saadia. brought the Tiberian school of Masorites to a distinguished end. Tiberias thereafter ceased to jilay any part in .Jewish learning, until, in the twelfth century, it enierired for a brief period, and again in the si.xteenth century, when it became the oliject of the pious ambition of Don Joseph Nasi of Naxos. I

^V. B.