Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/70

48 in the most unexpected places in the Mishnah or "Second Law," completed before 200 A.D. at Tiberias, and written in the later Hebrew. The Mishnah is the Rabbinical comment on the Law, a work divided into six orders (Seeds, Feasts, Women, Damages, Holy Things, and Purifications), including 63 tracts in all. The well-known edition of Surenhusius including the comments of Maimonides, Bartenora, and others, occupies three stout folios, and gives the Hebrew text unpointed. The great lexicon of Buxtorff is indispensable for its study. The work, as a whole, is a dry digest of the decisions of famous Rabbis on cases connected with the subjects above-named, but the incidental notices include most valuable accounts of Jewish customs during the time when Herod's Temple was still standing, taken from the remembrances of the earlier Rabbis who survived its fall, and also notices of Jewish practices, occupations, and manners during the times when the Sanhedrin sat at Jamnia, and finally at Tiberias. To these subjects—sometimes illustrated by the evidence of existing buildings, inscriptions, coins, and also by modern customs, it is proposed to draw attention under the various headings which follow. 

The government of the country under the Legate, with various local officials, assisted by Roman legions and by native auxiliaries, was in the hands of foreigners. Soldiers from Italy, Gaul, Saxony, Greece, Africa, and Asia Minor, mingled with corps of Arabs on dromedaries, guarded the frontiers, and were quartered in the towns. They have left many memorials, especially in Bashan, where the tombstones of Roman officers are numerous; and the local councils often erected memorial tablets, which speak enthusiastically of the goodness of their rulers, and attest their fealty to the Cæsars.

Under these rulers the population included the or "country folk," apparently Jews, together with pagans of Aramean and Arab origin; and an upper native class who understood Greek. There were scattered communities of Christians, living very humbly, and some of whom—Marcionites, Markosians, Ebionites, and, later on, Manicheans—were heretics; while some—like Justin Martyr's congregation at Shechem—held a purer faith, and were recruited from among Samaritans, Jews, and Greeks alike. The Jews were allowed freedom of religion, and a Sanhedrin, which was permitted to rule them in religious matters, but sternly repressed when it attempted political action, or roused rebellions like that of Rabbi Akiba at Bether. As subjects the Jews seem to have enjoyed equal rights with others, and were not only prosperous in trade, but also owned houses and lands, and became rich. Their power in Rome 