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 were as familiar with Koheleth as the young men of Alexandria, and Simeon, according to the Talmudic story (Bereshith Rabba, c. 91), quoted Eccles. vii. 12a with a prefix ( 'as it is written') proper to a Biblical quotation. From another Talmudic narrative (Baba bathra, 4a) it would seem that Koheleth was cited in the time of Herod the Great as of equal authority with the Pentateuch, and from a third (Shabbath, 30b) that St. Paul's teacher, Gamaliel, permitted quotations from our book equally with those from canonical Scriptures. Like the Song of Songs, however, it called forth a lively opposition from severe judges. The schools of Hillel and Shammai were divided on the merits of these books. At first the Shammaites, who were adverse to them, carried a majority of the votes of the Jewish doctors. But when, after the destruction of Jerusalem, Jewish learning reorganised itself at Jamnia (4-1/2 leagues south of Jaffa), the opposite view (viz. that the Song and Koheleth 'defile the hands'—i.e. are holy Scriptures) was again brought forward in a synod held about 90, and finally sanctioned in a second synod held  118. The arguments urged on both sides were such as belong to an uncritical age. No attempt was made to penetrate into the spirit and object of Koheleth, but test passages were singled out. The heretically sounding words in xi. 9a were at first held by some to be decisive against the claim of canonicity, but—we are told—when the 'wise men' took the close of the verse into consideration ('but know that for all this God will bring thee into the judgment'), they exclaimed, 'Solomon has spoken appropriately.'

This first synod or sanhedrin of Jamnia has played an important part in recent arguments. According to Krochmal, Grätz, and Renan, one object of the Jewish doctors was to decide whether the Song and Koheleth ought to be admitted into the Canon. It seems, however, to have been satisfactorily