iii. Some of the distinguishea' Doctors of the Law of the period, and their tenets.—As the presidents and vice-presidents of the chief seat of learning during the whole of this period are given in chro nological order in the article EDUCATION, we shall here only mention such of the doctors of the law as have influenced the Jewish mind and the re ligious opinions of the nation, and by their teach ing prepared the way for Christianity. Foremost among these doctors of the law are to be men tioned :— a. Antigonus of Soho 03.c. 200-170), whose famous maxim given in the article SADDUCEES, according to tradition gave rise to Sadduceeism and Boethusianism [SADDucEEs], and who received the traditions of the fathers from Simon the Just, and transmitted them to his successors (Aboth. i. 3).
b. Jose b. Joeser, of Zereda, and his companion Jose b. Jochanan, of Jerusalem, who were the first of the four pairs (malt) that headed the Sanhedrim and the doctors of the law as president and vice president (B.c. 17o-14o). Jose b. Joeser was a priest, and played an important part in the Mac caban struggles. He was the spiritual head of the Chasidim (Mishna Chagz:ga,ii. 7), also called Scribes (wax-Lards., Maccab. Vii. 12, 13 ; Maccab. vi. 18), who afterwards developed themselves into the Essenes [CHAsinim ; ESSENES], was among the company of Assideans who were mighty men of Israel, even all such as were voluntarily devoted unto the law,' and the high-priest of the sixty who were slain by Bacchides through the treach ery of Alcimus Maccab. 42 ; vii. 12-16, with Chagiga, 18 b ; Bereshith .Rabba, Pericope nr6lri sec. lxv.) The grand maxim of Jose b. Joeser was : Let thy house be the place of as sembly for the sages, sit in the dust of their feet, and eagerly drink in their words' (Aboth. i. 4). Bearing in mind the distracted state of the Jewish people at that time, and the fearful strides which Hellenism made among the highest sacerdotal functionaries, and which threatened to overthrow the ancestral doctrines, this solemn admonition of the martyr that every household should form itself into a band of defenders of the faith, headed by sages—i.e. scribes, or doctors of the law—and that every Israelite should strive to be instructed in the relig,ion of his forefathers (the phrase to be en veloped in the dust of their feet,' has its origin in the ancient custom of disciples sitting on the ground and sometimes in the dust at the feet of their teachers), will be appreciated. This will also ex
plain the maxim of his colleague Jose b. Jochanan Let thy house be wide open, let the poor be thy guests, and do not talk too much with women ' (Aboth. i. 5). To erect a wall of partition between the apostate Hellenists who desecrated the sanctu ary, and the faithful, as well as to prevent the residence of Jews among the Syrians, and check Hellenistic luxuries, these two doctors of the law enacted that contact with the soil of any foreign country, and the use of glass utensils, impart Levi tical defilement (Sabbath, 14. b). These rigorous laws of Levitical purity laid the foundation of the withdrawal of the Essenes from the community at large, and of the ritual and doctrinal difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees, as hitherto the differences of these two parties were chiefly political. Hence the remark in the Mishna, since the death of Jose ben Joeser of Zereda, and Jose ben Jochanan of Jerusalem, the unity in the schools has ceased' (Sota, ix. 9).
c. Jochanan, the high-priest and governor of Jerusalem, ben Simon, ben Mattathias, commonly called John Hyrcanus 03.c. 135- to6), was a distin guished Pharisaic scribe or doctor of the law. The enactments which he passed, as recorded in the Mishna, show his endeavours to render the temple service uniform, his humane feelings, and desire to al leviate the unnecessary burdens of the law. Though Ezra, to punish the Levites for their backwardness in returning from Babylon, deprived them of their tithes or transferred them to the priests (Ezra ii. 36-42 ; viii. ; Neh. vii. 43-45, with Mishna Maser Sheni, v. 15 ; Sota, ix. lo ; Babylon Tal mud ,ebamoth, 86 b ; Kethuboth, 26 a), yet the formula consisting of Dent. xxvi. 13-15, and called confession OM), in which the Israelite had to de clare in the temple before God that he had paid the tithes to the Levite, continued to be recited at the time of the evening sacrifice on the last day of Passover. There was also a custom of singing every morning in the temple Ps. xliv. 23-26 as part of the hymnal service, and of wounding the sacri fices on their head for the blood to run into their eyes, so as momentarily to blind them in order that they might be bound easily. Moreover, up to the time of Jochanan the high-priest= John Hyrcanns, the people worked during the middle days of the festivals [PAssOvER; TABERNACLES, FEAST OF].