GAMALIEL. This name, which in Old Testament times fig ures only as that of a prince of the tribe of Manasseh (Num. i. I0, etc.), was hereditary among the descendants of Hillel. Six per sons bearing the name are known.
I., a grandson of Hillel, and like him designated the Elder, by which is apparently indicated that he was a mem ber of the Sanhedrin. According to tradition Gamaliel succeeded his grandfather and his father as Nasi, or president of the Sanhe drin. Though this tradition does not correspond with historic fact, and merely reflects later conditions after A.D. 70, it is at any rate certain that Gamaliel took a leading position in the Sanhe drin, and enjoyed the highest repute as teacher of the Law. He was the first to whose name was prefixed the title Rabban (Master, Teacher). It is related in Acts (v. 34 sqq.) that he intervened in the Sanhedrin in favour of the Disciples of Jesus and in this con nection he is referred to as a Pharisee of wide repute. In the Mish na (Gittin iv. 1-3) he is spoken of as the author of certain legal ordinances affecting the welfare of the community. His func tion as a teacher is proved by the fact that the Apostle Paul boasts of having sat at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts xxii. 3) . Of his teaching, beyond the saying preserved in Aboth. i. 16, which enjoins the duty of study and of scrupulousness in the observance of religious ordinances, little is elsewhere preserved. His renown in later days is summed up in the words (Mishna, end of Sotah) : "When Rabban Gamaliel the Elder died, regard for the Torah (the study of the Law) ceased, and purity and piety died." 2. GAMALIEL II., grandson of Gamaliel I. To distinguish him from the latter he is also called Gamaliel of Jabneh. In Jabneh (Jamnia), where during the siege of Jerusalem the scribes of the school of Hillel had taken refuge by permission of Vespasian, a new centre of Judaism arose under the leadership of the aged Johanan ben Zakkai, a school whose members inherited the au thority of the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem. Gamaliel II. became Jo hanan ben Zakkai's successor, and rendered immense service in the strengthening and reintegration of Judaism, which had been deprived of its former basis by the destruction of the Temple and by the entire loss of its political autonomy. He put an end to the division which had arisen between the spiritual leaders of Palestinian Judaism by the separation of the scribes into the two schools called respectively after Hillel and Shammai. Gamaliel was recognized by the Roman Government as Patriarch. He de voted special attention to the regulation of the rite of prayer, which after the cessation of sacrificial worship had become all important. He gave the principal prayer, consisting of eighteen benedictions, its final revision, and declared it every Israelite's duty to recite it three times daily. He died before the insurrec tions under Trajan. His son, Simon, long after his father's death and after the persecutions under Hadrian, inherited his office, which thenceforward his descendants handed on from father to son.
III., son of Jehuda I., the redactor of the Mishna, and his successor as Nasi (Patriarch). The redaction of the Mishna was completed under him, and some of his sayings are incorporated therein (Aboth ii. 2-4) . Gamaliel III. lived during the first half of the third century.
IV., grandson of the above, patriarch in the latter half of the third century : about him very little is known.
V., son and successor of the Patriarch Hillel II.: beyond his name nothing is known of him. He lived in the latter half of the fourth century.
VI., grandson of the above, the last of the patriarchs, died in 425. (W. BA.; G. H. B.).
