Jacob Neusner-The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70 Parts I II III -Brill1971

T H E R A B B I N I C T R A D I T I O N S

A B O U T T H E P H A R I S E E S

B E F O R E 7 0

PART I

T H E M A S T E R S

THE RABBINIC TRADITIONS ABOUT THE PHARISEES

BEFORE 70

P A R T I

THE MASTERS

B Y

J A C O B N E U S N E R P r o f e s s o r o f Re l ig ious Studies

B r o w n U n i v e r s i t y

L E I D E N

E . J . B R I L L 1 9 7 1

Copyright 1971 by E. j . Brill, Leiden, Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission from the publisher

PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

For Morton Smith

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Preface XIII

P A R T O N E

THE MASTERS

List of Abbreviations xiv

Transliterations xvi

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. THE CHAINS OF PHARISAIC TRADITION 1 1 i. To Lay on Hands 1 1 ii. Decrees 1 3 iii. Moral Apophthegms 1 5 iv. Conclusion 22

III. SIMEON THE JUST 2 4 i. Traditions 2 4 ii. Synopses 4 4 iii. Conclusion 5 7

IV. ANTIGONUS OF SOKHO. YOSI B. YO'EZER AND YOSI B. YOHANAN 6 0 i. Antigonus of Sokho 6 0 ii. Traditions of Yosi b. Yo'ezer and Yosi b. Yohanan. 61 iii. Synopses 7 7 iv. Conclusion 81

V . JOSHUA B. PERAHIAH AND NITTAI THE ARBELITE. JUDAH B. TABBAI AND SIMEON B. SHETAH 82 i. Joshua b. Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite 82 ii. Traditions of Judah b. Tabbai and Simeon b. Shetah 8 6 iii. Synopses 1 2 2 iv. Conclusion 1 3 7

V I . SHEMA'IAH AND ABTALION 1 4 2 i. Traditions 1 4 2 ii. Synopses 1 5 5 iii. Conclusion 1 5 8

VIII T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

VII. YOHANAN THE HlGH PRIEST, HONI THE ClRCLER, AND OTHERS MENTIONED IN CONNECTION WITH PHARISAISM BEFORE HlLLEL 160 i. Yohanan the High Priest 160 ii. Honi the Circler 176 iii. Others 182

VIII. MENAHEM. SHAMMAI 184 i. Menahem 184 ii. Traditions of Shammai 185 iii. Synopses 204 iv. Conclusion 208

IX. HILLEL 212 i. Traditions 212 ii. Synopses 280 iii. Conclusion 294

X. SHAMMAI AND HILLEL 303 i. Traditions 303 ii. Synopses 333 iii. Conclusion 338

XI. GAMALIEL 341 i. Traditions 342 ii. Synopses 370 iii. Conclusion 373

XII. SIMEON B. GAMALIEL 377 i. Traditions 377 ii. Synopses 384 iii. Conclusion 386

XIII. OTHER PHARISEES BEFORE 70 389 i. Mentioned in Connection with Shammai 389

1. Dositheus of Kefar Yatmah 389 2. Baba b. Buta 389 3. Yo'ezer >Ish HaBirah 391 4. Sadoq 392 5. Yohanan the Hauranite 392

ii. Mentioned in Connection with Hillel 392 1. BeneBathyra 392 2. Gedva 392

TABLE OF CONTENTS I X

3. Ben He He and Ben Bag Bag 392 4. Shebna 393 5. Jonathan b. 'Uzziel 393

iii. Mentioned in Connection with Gamaliel I 394 1. Admon and Hanan 394 2. Hanina b. Dosa 394 3. Yohanan the Scribe 396

iv. Others 396 1. Honi the Circler, Grandson of Honi the Circler

(Abba Hilqiah) 396 2. Joshua b. Gamala 396 3. "Rabbi" Ishmael b. Phiabi and Eleazar b. Harsom 397 4. Hananiah Prefect of the Priests 400 5. Nahum the Mede and Hanan the Egyptian . . . 413 6. Zekhariah b. Qevutal and Zekhariah b. HaQassav 414 7. Measha, Nahum the Scribe, Simeon of Mispah,

Judah b. Bathyra, 'Aqavyah b. Mehallel, Hananiah b. Hezeqiah b. Gorion, Abba Yosi b. Hanan, and Yohanan b. Gudgada 415

PART TWO

THE HOUSES

List of Abbreviations xin Transliterations xv

XIV. INTRODUCTION 1

XV. TANNAITIC MIDRASHIM 6 i. Mekhilta de R. Ishmael 6 ii. Mekhilta de R. Simeon b. Yohai 9 iii. Sifra 11 iv. Sifre 30 v. Midrash Tannaim 39

XVI. MISHNAH-TOSEFTA AND SOME Beraitot 41 i. Zera'im 41 ii. Mo'ed 120 iii. Nashim 190 iv. Neziqin 234 v. Qodashim 239 vi. Toharot 253 vii. Collections of Houses-Disputes in Mishnah-Tosefta 324 viii. Tables 344

X T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

P A R T T H R E E

CONCLUSIONS

List o f A b b r e v i a t i o n s x i v

Transl i terat ions x v i

X V I I . INTRODUCTION 1

X V I I I . INTERMEDIATE UNITS OF TRADITION : TYPES AND FORMS 5 i. Lega l Trad i t ions 5

A . S tandard Legal F o r m 5 B . Test imonies 1 4 C. Debates 1 6 D . Narrat ives 2 3

1 . Historical I n f o r m a t i o n in S tandard Legal F o r m . . . 2 4 2 . Epist les 2 5 3 . Ord inances 2 5 4 . Chains and Lists 2 7 5 . Precedents 2 8 6 . Context s 3 1 7 . F irs t -Person A c c o u n t s 3 3 8 . I l lustrat ions and P r o o f s 3 5 9 . Histories o f L a w s 3 8

E. Legal Exegeses 3 9 1 . Scr iptura l References 3 9 2 . Exegeses 4 0 3 . Proof - texts 4 2 4 . F r o m Exegesis t o Chria 4 2

ii. A g g a d i c Tradi t ions 4 3 A . Stor ies 4 3

1 . A l l u s i o n s t o Stor ies 4 3 2 . S h o r t B iographica l References 4 5 3 . B iographica l and Historical Stor ies 4 7

B . Sayings 5 5 1 . ' T ' - S a y i n g s 5 6 2 . Say ings N o t in a N a r r a t i v e Set t ing 5 6 3 . A p o p h t h e g m s 5 9 4 . " W o e " - S a y i n g s . . . 6 1 5 . F o r m u l a i c Say ings 6 1

C. A g g a d i c Exegeses 6 2 1 . Scr iptura l References 6 2 2 . Exegeses 6 2 3 . P r o o f - T e x t s 6 3

4 . F r o m Exegesis t o Fable 6 4 iii . S u m m a r y o f F o r m s a n d Types 6 4 iv . S o m e C o m p a r i s o n s 6 9 v . Hi s tory o f F o r m s 8 9

X I X . SMALL UNITS OF TRADITION AND OTHER MNEMONIC PATTERNS . . 1 0 1 i. I n t r o d u c t i o n 1 0 * ii. Per icopae w i t h o u t F o r m u l a e o r Patterns 1 0 6 iii. Per icopae w i t h F o r m u l a e o r Patterns 1 1 4

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S XI

iv . Smal l Units o f Trad i t i on 1 1 9 1 . F ixed Oppos i tes 1 1 9

a. L iab le v s . Free 1 2 0 b . Unclean v s . Clean 1 2 0 c. P r o h i b i t v s . P e r m i t 1 2 2 d. Unfit v s . F i t 1 2 2 e. Midras vs. Terne-Met 1 2 3 f. Inside v s . O u t s i d e ; Past v s . F u t u r e ; A b o v e v s . B e l o w . 1 2 3

2 . Balance o f M e t e r 1 2 4 3 . Balance o f M e t e r and C h a n g e o f Le t ter 1 2 5

v . Syntactical and M o r p h o l o g i c a l Changes E q u i v a l e n t in Func t ion t o Smal l Uni ts o f T r a d i t i o n 1 2 6 1 . Tense and N u m b e r 1 2 6 2 . Dis t inct ion v s . N o Dis t inct ion {And v s . Or) 1 2 6 3 . Reversa l o f W o r d - O r d e r 1 2 8 4 . S tatement o f l a w + / N e g a t i v e 1 2 9 5 . Negat ive Statement + P e r m i t 1 3 2 6 . >P in Second L e m m a 1 3 4

v i . Differences in W o r d - C h o i c e 1 3 4 v i i . N u m b e r - S e q u e n c e s 1 3 6 v i i i . Houses-Disputes N o t in Precise Balance 1 3 8 ix. S u m m a r y o f Smal l Uni ts o f T r a d i t i o n and O t h e r M n e m o n i c

Patterns 1 4 0 x. O r a l Transmiss ion: Def in ing the P r o b l e m 1 4 3 xi . O r a l Tradi t ions 1 6 3

X X . VERIFICATIONS 1 8 0 i. I n t r o d u c t i o n 1 8 0 ii. Per icopae w i t h o u t Veri f icat ions be fore ca. 2 0 0 A . D . (Mishnah-

Tosefta) 1 7 5 iii . Veri f icat ions o f Y a v n e h 1 9 9

1 . El iezer b . Hyrcanus 1 9 9 2 . J o s h u a b . Hananiah 2 0 0 3 . El iezer + J o s h u a 2 0 1 4 . El iezer +

XII T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

2. J u d a h b . Baba 2 1 0 3 . J u d a h b. Ba thyra 2 1 0 4 . Eliezer b . S h a m m u ' a 2 1 1 5 . El iezer b . J a c o b 2 1 1 6. Doseta i b . Y a n n a i 2 1 1 7 . Y o s i b . Halafta 2 1 1 8. Y o s i b . Halafta and J u d a h b. Ilai 2 1 3 9 . Y o s i b . Halafta and M e i r 2 1 3 1 0 . Y o s i b . Halafta and S i m e o n b. Y o h a i 2 1 3 1 1 . S i m e o n b. Y o h a i 2 1 4 1 2 . M e i r 2 1 5 1 3 . M e i r and J u d a h b. Ilai 2 1 5 1 4 . J u d a h b . Ilai 2 1 7 1 5 . S i m e o n b . Gamal i e l 2 1 8 1 6 . Nathan 2 1 9

v . Veri f icat ions o f the Circ le o f J u d a h the Patr iarch 2 2 0 1 . T h e Circ le o f J u d a h the Patr iarch in G e n e r a l 2 2 0 2 . S i m e o n b . Eleazar 2 2 0 3 . O t h e r s 2 2 2

v i . T h e P r e - 7 0 Pharisees at Y a v n e h 2 2 3 v i i . T h e P r e - 7 0 Pharisees at Usha 2 3 1 v i i i . Conc lus ion 2 3 4

X X I . HISTORY OF THE TRADITIONS 2 3 9 i. T h e Miss ing Trad i t ions 2 3 9 ii. T h e Rabbinic Hi s tory o f Pharisa ism: T h e E a r l y Masters . . 2 3 9 iii. T h e M a t t e r o f Hil lel 2 5 5 iv . Gamal ie l and S i m e o n . Y o h a n a n b. Z a k k a i 2 7 2 v . T h e Y a v n e a n S t r a t u m 2 8 1 v i . T h e Ushan S t r a t u m 2 8 2 v i i . T h e L a w s 2 8 6

X X I I . SUMMARY : THE RABBINIC TRADITIONS ABOUT THE PHARISEES BEFORE 7 0 3 0 1

APPENDIX: BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFLECTIONS 3 2 0

I N D I C E S I . BIBLE II. APOCRYPHA, PSEUDEPIGRAPHA, QUMRANIAN WRITINGS III . JOSEPHUS I V . MISHNAH V . TOSEFTA V I . MEKHILTA, SIFRA, SIFRE, MIDRASH TANNAIM V I I . PALESTINIAN TALMUD V I I I . BABYLONIAN TALMUD I X . M l D R A S H I M AND OTHER COMPILATIONS X . GENERAL INDEX

P R E F A C E

My thanks go to the American Council of Learned Societies for a research fellowship in 1970-1 and to Brown University for a summer study grant and sabbatical leave in the same academic year. I am further indebted to Brown University for bearing the substantial costs of typing the manuscript several times, preparing indices, and numerous other research expenses.

My students, David Goodblatt, Robert Goldenberg, Gary Porton, Shamai Kanter, William Scott Green, my friends, Brevard S. Childs, Wayne Sibley Towner, Robin J . Scroggs, and Wayne A. Meeks, and my colleagues, Horst R. Moehring and Ernest S. Frerichs, all read the manuscript and made important suggestions. The effort to systematize and generalize results, in volume III, was suggested by Professors Childs, Towner, and Meeks. My teacher Morton Smith deserves much of the credit for whatever success this project may have attained. Mrs. Marion Craven typed the manuscript with requisite care and patience. The contribution of my publisher, E. J . Brill, is self-evident. To all I express sincere appreciation.

I alone bear responsibility for errors of fact or judgment.

Providence, Rhode Island JACOB NEUSNER

23 December 1970 25 Kislev 5731 The tenth anniversary of my father's death.

L I S T O F A B B R E V I A T I O N S

A h . = A h i l o t ' A r a k h . = ' A r a k h i n A R N = A v o t deRabbi Natan A . Z . =

L I S T O F A B B R E V I A T I O N S XV

Tos . = Tosefta T . Y . = T e v u l Y o m *Uqs. = 'Uqsin y. = Y e r u s h a l m i , Palestinian

T a l m u d Y . T . = Y o m T o v

Y a d . = Y a d a i m Y e v . = Y e v a m o t Z a b . = Z a b i m Zech. = Zechar iah Z e r . = Zera ' im Z e v . = Z e v a h i m

TRANSLITERATIONS

>

= B

= G

= D

= H

= W

= Z

= H

= T = Y

= K

= L

= M

= N

= s

<

= p =

= Q = R

= s

= S

= T

CHAPTER ONE

I N T R O D U C T I O N

While several generations of scholars have produced histories of Palestinian Jewry and Judaism in the period of the Second Temple, none has systematically analyzed from formal, redactional, synoptic or comparative, and literary-critical perspectives the Pharisaic-rabbinic traditions copiously cited in the composition of those histories. Consequently, rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees are cited as though we knew how they were shaped and handed on, to what degree they may be relied upon for accurate historical information, where and when they were given the form in which we now have them. But we do not have that information. Here I propose not to provide a new account of Pharisaism, but merely to bring to bear upon rabbinic traditions about the Pharisaic masters of the Second-Temple period some of the critical techniques commonplace in the study of other sources pertaining to the history of the same time and place.

The usefulness of this undertaking is readily apparent. Few histories of the period attempt more than a primitive and precritical analysis of the pertinent Pharisaic-rabbinic materials, and this despite the considerable achievements of scholarship in other aspects of the study of ancient Jewish and Christian literature. New Testament scholars customarily give careful attention to critical considerations when using New Testament materials for historical purposes. But they quote Talmudic stories as contemporary, first-hand, accurate historical accounts. They would not think, when discussing a story about Jesus, of neglecting its internal signs of development or of ignoring several versions of the same story in their attempt to discover what, if anything, can be said about actual events. Yet they cite rabbinic stories of what rabbis said and did as if critical considerations important in New Testament studies simply do not apply. In this they are abetted by Jewish historians who in a pseudorthodox spirit maintain the pretense that wherever or whenever a story was finally written down, whether in third-century Babylonia or tenth-century Italy, said story accurately and reliably relates the exact details of what really happened in the time of which it speaks. From the moment a Pharisaic master or rabbinic sage said or did something, it is supposed, a process Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, 1 1

2 I N T R O D U C T I O N

automatically was set into motion orally to record, then orally to transmit, an exact detailed historical account of the saying or the event. The relationship between the event and the story that purports to preserve it is never investigated; it is simply supposed to be perfect correspondence.

The historical question thus has predominated to the exclusion of critical study of traditions; but critical study is a priority for formulating, then finding and evaluating the answers to, historical questions. We cannot speculate, for instance, on who was Simeon the Just or Hillel, if we have not first of all considered whether and how we know anything at all about Simeon the Just or Hillel. We certainly cannot innocently amalgamate Pharisaic-rabbinic stories with those deriving from other sources, e.g. Josephus, Ben Sira, and the Synoptic Gospels, and come up either with a harmonious "life" of a man whose name occurs in several ways in several sets of materials, or with an account of an event, institution, or practice alluded to in them.

Here historical questions will not be raised at all. In no instance do I propose to speculate on what saying or event may have originally given rise to the "original" rabbinic tradition, the remnants or later developments of which are now in our hands. Such questions include these: When and why did the Pharisees emerge? What was their historical context? the course of their evolution and development? the nature and provenance of their doctrines and distinctive institutions? (See Ellis Rivkin, "Prolegomenon,"///^/^ and Christianity\ ed. W. O. E. Oesterly, H. Loewe and E. I. J . Rosenthal [Repr. N.Y., 1969], p. xii). We shall make no effort to define what one generally means by "Pharisees" or "Pharisaism." Anonymous sayings, and those attributed to masters after 70 about conditions before 70 are not considered, unless either the named masters or the Houses of Shammai and Hillel are directly referred to.

The difficult question of the meaning of perushim in M. Hag. 2 : 7, b. Sot. 22b, b. B.B. 60b, Tos. Ber. 3 : 25, M. Yad. 4 : 6-7, Tos. Yad. 2 : 20, 4 : 8, b. Yoma 19b, y. Yoma 1 : 5, Tos. Hag. 3 : 35, b. Nid. 33b, Tos. Yoma 1 : 8, M. Mak. 1 : 6, Sifre Deut. 190, and in the various other texts examined by Ellis Rivkin in "Defining the Pharisees" {Hebrew Union College Annual40-41,1969-70, pp. 205-249) is not raised. Rivkin's careful analysis of the ways in which perushim is used seems to me impeccable in all but two respects.

First, he does not distinguish among the texts before him according to the authorities to whom sayings are attributed and the compilations

I N T R O D U C T I O N 3

in which they occur, nor does he analyze the literary and formal qualities of those texts. He takes for granted that all texts accurately describe what really was said and done.

Second, his discussion therefore tends to slide across the line between philological analysis, on the one side, and historical judgment, on the other, producing the impression of a less critical, and more fundamentalist, approach than is explicitly claimed at the outset. From a generally persuasive analysis of the use of PR in various texts, Rivkin proceeds to make groundless "historical" statements, e.g., "The Pharisees did not make the laws of ritual purity rigorous for themselves but for the priests." However, having at the outset excluded evidence pertinent to such statements deriving from other traditions and collections, he seems to me without justification in coming to any historical conclusions at all.

On one page, for instance, he refers to constructing "the tannaitic definition of the Pharisees from the texts that have met the criteria of authenticity" (p. 246). Without telling us what is meant by "authenticity," he proceeds, on the very next page, to offer not an account of the Tannaitic definition, but the following manifestly historical judgment:

The Pharisees were a scholar class dedicated to the supremacy of the twofold Law, the Written and the Unwritten. They actively opposed the Sadducees who recognized only the Written Law as authoritative, and they sought dramatic means for proclaiming their overriding authority. Their unwritten laws ... were operative in all realms: cultus, property, judicial procedures, festivals, etc The Pharisees were active leaders who carried out their laws with vigor and determination. They set the date for the cutting of the


The Pharisees once liberated from the limited, circumscribed, and rare usage of prusim and identified as the hakhamim sofrim can reclaim their identity as that scholar class that created the concept of the two-fold Law, carried it to triumphant victory over the Sadducees, and made it operative in society (p. 248).

Rivkin then rapidly cites Josephus, Antiquities 13 : 297, 408, Philip-pians 3:5,6, Galatians 1:14, Matthew 23:2, and Mark 7: 5,9, and concludes :

The hitherto discordant sources are now seen to be in agreement. Josephus, Paul, the Gospels, and the tannaitic literature are in accord that the Pharisees were the scholar class of the twofold Law, nothing more, nothing less.

We have moved a long way from the allegation that our problem is merely to study the use of perushim in some tannaitic materials.

It must therefore be stressed that our purpose is to examine traditions about pre-70 masters and the Houses of Shammai and Hillel, not to compose a history of the people and movements referred to in those traditions. At the end, to be sure, I offer some judgments as to what those traditions may tell us about the historical movement to which they refer, but there the main effort is to suggest a perspective on the nature of the traditions themselves.

To do more than that one must pay attention not only to the disparate materials in which the Pharisees appear, but also to those in which they are absent. The problem then is to construct a picture of the whole of Palestinian Judaism. Such a construction may cast doubt on Rivkin's opening proposition (p. 205):

The Pharisees played a decisive role in the history of the Jews and in the development of Judaism. All contemporary sourcesJosephus, the New Testament, and the tannaitic literatureattest to this fact.

Since important contemporary sources produced by Jews, such as the QumranJan writings, Philo, Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical collections, and contemporary writings of non-Jews who knew something about Palestine, e.g. Tacitus, Pliny, know nothing about the Pharisees, let alone their "decisive role" in the history of Judaism, one must wonder how well that fact is attested. Further, the two extra-rabbinic testimonies referred to by Rivkin come from authorities who themselves claimed to have been Pharisees, Josephus and Paul, or from circles evidently affected by the presence of Pharisees and engaged in debates with them, the Synoptic story-tellers. So we may readily agree that for the Pharisees' rabbinic heirs, on the one side, and for


people who claimed to have been part of their group, or for circles confronted by Pharisaic or rabbinic criticism, on the other side, Pharisaism indeed played a decisive role. All produced records showing the importance of Pharisaism for their own situation. The fact which is well attested therefore is not the one introduced at the outset. That fact may also be true. It remains to be investigated. But, I repeat, the sole interest here is to study the shape and structure of some rabbinic traditions. My purpose is to undertake to provide a small part of the information historians require for further consideration of the history of pre-70 Pharisaic Judaism in its historical setting.

Since our concern is not to reconstruct the history of pre-70 Pharisaism, we shall not be concerned with the endless theories of historians about actual historical relationships between the Pharisees and others mentioned by Josephus on the one side, and the Pharisees and others before 70 referred to in Talmudic literature, on the other; likewise between the Pharisees of rabbinic tradition and those in the literature commonly alleged to be Pharisaic, composed before 70 and now preserved in languages other than Hebrew and Aramaic. Thus, for instance, we may bypass efforts to identify Baba b. Buta with the sons of Baba (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 260-6), by G. Allon, {Mehqarim beToledot Yisrcfell [Tel Aviv, 1957], p. 39), and the still more convoluted efforts to identify Pollion the Pharisee with Abtalion or Hillel {Antiquities 15:3-4, 370), and Samaias {Antiquities 14:172-4, 175-6), the disciple of Pollion the Pharisee (15:3-4, 370) with Shema'iah, Shammai, Simeon b. Shetah, and pretty much anyone else who can be found in rabbinic traditions pertaining to the first century B.C. These efforts seem to me primitive and pointless, but it is not our problem to correct them. Anyone who consults the vast secondary literature concerning pre-70 Pharisaism will find many wonderful surprises. He will find out that after Hillel, Simeon and Jonathan b. cUzziel were heads of the Pharisaic court; that Ben He He was the convert whom Hillel won over while standing on one foot; and numerous other marvels. In general I have found few points of formal or substantive congruence, let alone contact, between the rabbinic traditions about pre-70 Pharisees and other literature pertaining to them. One may well hypothesize that if such non-rabbinic works as are generally assigned to Pharisaism are in fact Pharisaic, then the rabbinic traditions in general are not. But that hypothesis requires investigation by those competent to do so; here I hope merely to examine part of the rabbinic documentation.


This work continues the inquiry begun in Development of a Legend: Studies on the Traditions Concerning Yohanan ben Zakkai (Leiden, 1970). Having examined the traditions on the first Pharisaic-rabbinic hero after 70,1 determined to study the materials on the antecedent Pharisaic masters before proceeding to subsequent problems. The early masters differ greatly from the ones that follow Yohanan. But even more important, the conditions for the redaction, preservation and transmission of sayings of masters before 70 radically differ from the conditions prevailing afterward. We have in Hebrew or Aramaic no Pharisaic documents finally redacted before 70, and in those coming afterward it is difficult to locate and verify pericopae likely to have been given final form before the destruction. The traditions about the pre-70 masters contain not the slightest hint that the exact words of sayings now before us were orally formulated and handed on from master to disciple. The picture changes with Gamaliel I. While he and his son Simeon never refer to Hillel, Gamaliel II does refer to Simeon, and we have some credible recollections, coming after 70, of Gamaliel I as well. Now none of the masters prior to Gamaliel I was personally known to post-70 authorities. Hence no one after 70 could claim to have heard precisely what they had said. Consequently, the fact that we have so few credible lemmas and still fewer tales about them indicates two things: first, that the overwhelming majority of the sayings and tales we do have come from post-70 teachers; second, that these teachers did not freely invent material about early teachers, but for the most part reported what they had heard. It will therefore seem that the war of 66-73 and destruction of Jerusalem led to a radical break in whatever processes of transmission of traditions had flourished beforehand. Some Pharisaic authorities died in the war. The political conditions of Pharisaic life vastly changed afterward. Nearly all pericopae before us derive in their present form from the years after 70, a great many from those after 140 or even later. On the face of it, therefore, the historical value of the rabbinic traditions of pre-70 Pharisaism is not apt to be considerable. As we shall see, the later rabbis frequently developed what they had, and sometimes invented what they needed, in conformity with their imagination of affairs before 70, and these facts make it still more difficult to recover much, if any, usable historical information. All this does not diminish the historical interest of the traditions, but the period to which they accurately testify often is likely to be later than the period of which they claim to speak. Nonetheless, it seems to me important to supply


a thorough account of materials pertaining to men and institutions in the period before the destruction, before proceeding to layers of traditions which are apt to produce far more credible data. Perhaps these results will seem primarily, though not wholly, negative, but a useful contribution may consist of delineating the range of our ignorance and raising various sorts of as yet unanswered questions.

I shall attempt critically to analyze the traditions. Later, scholars may distinguish those pericopae reflecting the inner life of Pharisaism from stories about heroes retrospectively created or anachronistically adopted by the Pharisees as their own. Here, as I said, we shall seek no definition of what one means by "Pharisee" and "Pharisaic" at all. From the materials various tentative definitions may emerge, to be further tested against the whole body of evidence. For now, we merely begin to seek a way to characterize and comprehend complicated traditions preserved in rabbinic literature about men and heroes in Pharisaism before 70.

My comments on the pericopae of the named masters (Part I) are divided into three parts: 1. Classification: legal, moral, theological, narrative, biographical; 2. Setting: the document in which a story is now preserved, the school responsible for its compilation, the later masters who tell the story or refer to it, thus supplying a terminus ante quern; 3. Analysis of contents: is the story or saying unitary or composite? If the latter, what are the units of the composition? Do we detect a peculiar tendency reflecting later issues or concerns? At the end of each unit a synopsis will allow comparison of the several versions of the same story or saying, and the changes occuring after the first appearance of the pericope will be investigated. In stories appearing in earlier collections and then cited later on, my sole interest pertains to the context of the later citation. Only in the synopses do I discuss variations in readings and in details in the several successive versions of the same story.

The chief issue in the synoptic studies of part I is this: Did the several versions of the same pericope arise separately, or did one depend upon the other? The question is important, for if the versions arose separately, then we cannot say details in one but not in the other were necessarily added later and are therefore fictitious even in terms of the original account. If on the other hand one account clearly depended upon another, then details added in the dependent one certainly did not occur in the earlier version. Where it seems possible to account for variants in pericopae appearing in successive compilations, I try to do so.


Existing translations which seem to me satisfactory have been copied, though with much alteration. My own translations are as literal as I could make them, at the expense of stylistic felicity, sometimes even of perfect clarity. Where I depart from the literal Hebrew to supply an idiomatic translation, I include either a consonantal transcription or a literal translation, so that the Hebrew text may be readily constructed. I have given the Hebrew consonants for out-of-the-ordi-nary words, particularly where these vary from one version to the next. My translations should not, therefore, be considered apart from the practical purpose which they are meant to serve. Babylonian Talmudic translations not my own are attributed to the translator by name; these are all drawn from the Soncino Press translation; I use the reprint of the London, 1938, edition. But I have made changes throughout. I have compared Albeck's Mishnah text1 to MS Kaufmann, and generally record the differences where these seem important. Synoptic studies invariably are based not on translations but on the Hebrew texts. In general, however, I try to preserve consistent translations of the same words in different versions, to facilitate synoptic comparisons. Words supplied in the translation not appearing in the original are bracketed. Transliterations of Hebrew words are in parentheses.

Collections are categorized in the following way:

I. Tannaitic Midrashim i. School of R. Ishmael ii. School of R. cAqiba

II. The Circle of Judah the Patriarch i. Mishnah ii. Tosefta

III. Materials attributed to Tannaim in the Gemarot of Palestine and Babylonia

i. Palestinian Talmudic traditions attributed to Tannaim ii. Babylonian Talmudic traditions attributed to Tannaim

(Beraitot) IV. Amoraic Traditions

i. Amoraic sayings in the Palestinian Talmud ii. Amoraic sayings in the Babylonian Talmud

V. Avot deRabbi Natan

1 H. A l b e c k , SiSab Sidre Mishnah ( J e r u s a l e m , 1 9 5 4 et. seq. , v o l s I - V I ) .


VI. Later Collections i. Genesis Rabbah ii. Lamentations Rabbati iii. Leviticus Rabbah iv. Pesiqta deRav Kahana v. Pesiqta Rabbati vi. Tanhuma vii. Qohelet Rabbah viii. Numbers Rabbah ix. Deuteronomy Rabbah X. Song of Songs Rabbah xi. Midrash on Psalms xii. Other Collections

Thus, in the case of Simeon the Just, Sifre Num. 22 is marked I. i. 1, = A source in a Tannaitic midrash (I), produced in the school of R. Ishmael (i), first in the sequence of sources in that collection pertaining to the master at hand (1).

The synoptic tables follow these conventions:

= identical to the primary version on the left; = omitted in a later version;

thus = words in italics are supplied in a later version, or changed in a later version from the word choice in the primary version.

The first two parts of the work provide analyses of the traditions. In the third are offered some generalizations and conclusions. There also will be found a few systematic remarks, drawing together the scattered suggestions and hypotheses developed in the context of the analyses of discrete pericopae. It seemed to me best to analyze the sources before offering an introduction to them, and I hope the reader will follow the same order. To discuss "method" apart from the sources seemed to me poor method, for one must evolve methodthe set of questions, procedures, inquiries brought to bear on any pericopesource by source and problem by problem. It is a mistake to systematize the tentative, frequently intuitive results of the analysis of discrete matter into a general statement of what must always be so; such systematization inevitably distorts those results. It imposes upon them a permanent and definitive character by no means intended at


the beginning of the inquiry. It further subjects them to tests for which they are unready. In this regard the British critics of German form-criticism have tended to claim more for form-critical results than the authors originally intended, then to challenge those artificially systematized, inflated results. Here I offer no rules and claim nothing more than to present some puzzling facts, to ask a few modest questions, perhaps to widen the range of doubt. A systematic statement of "method" would here ill serve the primitive level of the present work. Not until a critical historical account of the formation of main elements of the entire Talmudic tradition down to 600 A.D. is available can we hope to investigate some of the persistent phenomena revealed by the whole and to formulate some descriptive "laws," by which further work may be guided, and previous work may be refined and corrected.

CHAPTER TWO

T H E C H A I N S O F P H A R I S A I C T R A D I T I O N

We have three chains of Pharisaic tradition, listing the authorities of the party and assigning to them either moral apophthegms, purity decrees, or rulings on a minor aspect of the conduct of the sacrificial cult. These chains follow in probable order.

i. To LAY ON HANDS

A. Yosi b. Yo'ezer says ( }WMR) [on a Festival-day] not to lay (LSMK) [hands on the offering before it is slaughtered]. Yosi b. Yohanan says to lay [hands].

Joshua b. Perahiah says not to lay [hands]. Nittai the Arbelite says to lay [hands].

Judah b. Tabbai says not to lay [hands]. Simeon b. Shetah says to lay [hands].

Shema'iah says to lay [hands]. Abtalion says not to lay [hands]. Hillel and Menahem did not differ, but Menahem went forth, and

Shammai entered in. Shammai says not to lay [hands]. Hillel says to lay [hands]. B. The former were nasis, and the latter fathers of the court

(>BWT BYT DYN). (M. Hag. 2:2)

The opinions are in indirect discourse, "says to lay," "says not to lay." Normally "says" is followed by direct discourse.

Someone has supplied the subscription (B) that the first-named were nasis, the second-named, heads of the court, considerations which do not figure in the body of the pericope and are irrelevant to its contents. But the pattern is not exact; the first-named always should say, not to lay on hands. Yet while Yosi b. Yo'ezer, Joshua b. Perahiah, and Judah b. Tabbai, say not to do so, Shema'iah has the wrong opinion for his position in the list. The little group at the end, Hillel-Menahem, then Shammai-Hillel, is also difficult. Hillel-Menahem break the pattern; the lemma is a later insertion. In fact, Hillel should say not to lay on hands, since he was supposed to have been nasi. We shall

12 T H E C H A I N S O F P H A R I S A I C T R A D I T I O N

see a story on this very point, in which Hillel is represented as following Shammai's practice.

Clearly, in the pericope before us Hillel is presumed to be nasi, despite the wrong opinion. But if we drop the interpolation of Hillel-Menahem, we find what the form calls for, merely: Shammai/ Hillel: not to lay/lay, and that is surely the authentic reading according to the foregoing pattern. (Finkelstein, Mavo, p. 15, comes to the same conclusion for quite different reasons.) Therefore the original list had Shammai as nasi, Hillel as head of the court. The switch with Menahem (otherwise unknown) permits placing Hillel first, therefore makes him nasi, according to the subscription, so it becomes Hillel-Menahem-Shammai-Hillel.

I cannot guess why Shema'iah's opinion has been reversed. In Tos. Hag., R. Meir provides a far better solution to the problem

of making Hillel nasi in traditions which originally have him as father of the court. Tos. Hag. 2:8 (ed. Lieberman, p. 382-3, lines 40-44) is as follows:

They differed only on the laying of hands. "They are five pairs. The three of the first pairs who said not to lay

on hands, and the two of the last pairs who said to lay on hands were nasis. The second ones [mentioned] were heads of the court," so R. Meir.

R. Judah said, "Simeon b. Shetah [was] nasi. Judah b. Tabbai [was] head of the court."

Meir thus has five pairs: 1. Nasi (not to lay) + head of court (to lay) 2. Nasi (not to lay) + head of court (to lay) 3. Nasi (not to lay) - j - head of court (to lay) 4. Nasi (to lay) + head of court (not to lay) 5. Nasi (to lay) + head of court (not to lay)

Meir's list is the same as M. Hag. 2:2 as far as Shema'iah and Abta-lion. He presumably had no mention of Hillel-Menahem, for that would have made Hillel-Shammai a sixth pair. But for the last pair he had a "to lay"-Nasi in first place. Was it Shammai or Hillel? Probably Hillel, since the "not to lay"/"to lay" antithesis is primary to the tradition, and there seems no strong reason for changing the attributions. So we have two forms of the list, one which can be reconstructed from M. Hag. 2:2, the other from Meir's report. They agree for the first four pairs; for the first, the form behind M. Hag. 2:2 had Shammai not, Hillel to; while Meir had Hillel to, Shammai not. Meir's tradition can be explained as a secondary development from the other, motivat-

T H E C H A I N S O F P H A R I S A I C T R A D I T I O N 13

ed by the desire of the Hillelites to represent Hillel as head of the government, nasi. What was done to the M. Hag. tradition by inserting the Hillel-Menahem pair before Shammai and Hillel was done in Meir's tradition by simply reversing the customary order and putting Hillel before Shammai. This is neat and may be correct, but it leaves us with a second, unanswered problem: who was Menahem and how did he get in? The possibility that the last of Meir's pairs may have been, Hillel said to lay, Menahem said not to lay, and there may have been no reference at all to Shammaiwhich would be understandable if we had an old list from the House of Hillelcannot be wholly excluded. In that event Meir's list would be older and M. Hag. would represent a post-70 revision, when the Shammaites and the Hillelites, for survival's sake, combined their forces, the terms of the compromise (here) being that Shammai's name would have precedence, but the law would in general follow Hillel.

Judah [b. Ilai] differs only with reference to Judah b. Tabbai and Simeon b. Shetah. The latter, he says, was nasi.

The list of M. Hag., excluding Menahem and the subscription, could not have been shaped later than the time of Meir and Judah, since both refer to it. Judah the Patriarch follows Meir, therefore has as nasis Yosi b. Yo'ezer, Joshua, Judah, Shema'iah, and Hillel. Since he thought he descended from Hillel and referred to the Bene Bathyrans' giving up their position to Hillel and making him nasi, it was natural to explain matters as he did in the subscription. But the subscription in M. Hag. 2:2 cannot come before Meir-Judah, who do not cite it verbatim. It looks like Judah the Patriarch's summary of Meir's comment; note Epstein, Mishnah, pp. 133-4.

II. DECREES

DTNY>: (1) Yosi b. Yo'ezer of Seredah and Yosi b. Yohanan of Jerusalem decreed (GZR) [the capacity to receive] uncleanness (TWM'H) upon the land of the peoples and on glassware.

(2) Simeon b. Shetah ordained (TQN) a marriage-contract for the wife and decreed (GZR) [the capacity to receive] uncleanness upon metal utensils.

(3) Shammai and Hillel decreed (GZR) uncleanness on hands. (b. Shab. 14b)

Did not R. Ze'ira b. Abuna in the name of R. Jeremiah say, "Yosef


b. Yocezer of Seredah and Yosi b. Yohanan of Jerusalem decreed uncleanness upon the land of the peoples and upon glass utensils."

R. Yonah [Var.: Yuda] said, "Rabbi Judah b. Tabbi." R. Yosi said, "Rabbi Judah b. Tabbai and Simeon b. Shetah decreed

uncleanness on metal utensils. "Hillel and Shammai decreed concerning the cleanness of the hands."

y. Shab. 1:4 (= y. Pes. 1:6, y. Ket. 8:11)

The Babylonian her ait a is a list of decrees. I assume Simeon b. Shetah's saying has been contaminated by the reference to the ordinance (TQN) about the marriage-contract, missing in y., which is out of place here, for all are decrees and concern uncleanness. Judah b. Tabbai is absentthus following Judah b. Ilaiand the Palestinian version supplies his name, making the list Yosi + Yosi, Judah + Simeon, and Hillel -f- Shammai, in all three instances with the nasi first, hence following Meir in Tos. Hag., and (of course) placing Hillel in the nasVs position. The absence of Joshua b. Perahiah-Nittai the Arbelite is curious. The addition of the places of origin of the Yosi's suggests that this might come after M. Hag., so I should also have expected the inclusion of the absent masters. Perhaps no one had traditions on uncleanness-decrees to attribute to the men. That guess depends upon the presumption that without considerable motivation people did not make up what they did not have. But often they did, as we shall observe time and again (for one example, sayings attributed to Simeon b. Gamaliel I/Gamaliel II, in fact are made up by Meir-Judah, below, Chapter Twelve).

The representation of Shammai as nasi, Hillel second to him, is congruent to the stories of the (temporary) predominance of the House of Shammai and of the (later) rise of the House of Hillel to power. It also explains why the Houses-form nearly always puts the Shammaite House ahead of the Hillelite one, in conformity with the order of M. Hag. The later masters, coming long after the Hillelite hegemony had been well established by the patriarchate, appropriately doctored the earlier materials in the ways that have become evident.

This explanation however takes for granted two allegations of the later Tannaim, first, that Yohanan b. Zakkai took over from Shammai and Hillel and was HillePs heir; second, that the Yavnean patriarch Gamaliel was descended from Hillel. But the allegation that Yohanan b. Zakkai was HillePs continuator first occurs in M. Avot, which, as we shall see, comes later than the M. Hag.-chain. No Tannaitic


or early Amoraic authority refers to Yohanan b. Zakkai as Hillel's disciple, and it is primarily in the highly developed traditions of ARN that Yohanan's discipleship to Hillel plays a considerable role. The beraitot of b. Suk. = b. B.B. {Development, pp. 216-221), which make something of that fact, are apt to be later than, and based upon, Avot, therefore do not change matters.

More strikingly still, in all the Gamaliel-traditionspertaining either to the first or the second onewe find not the slightest allusion to the familial relationship between Gamaliel and Hillel. To the contrary, Gamaliel II-materials persistently allege that Simeon b. Gamaliel I followed Shammaite rules, certainly an extraordinary state of affairs for the "grandson" (or great-grandson) of Hillel himself. It is moreover remarkable that Simeon b. Gamaliel and Gamaliel I never occur in the Houses-materials. The heirs of Hillel (Yohanan b. Zakkai, Gamaliel) and the House of Hillel on the face of it have nothing whatever to do with one another. It may therefore be anachronistic to suppose that the Hillelites predominated because Yohanan b. Zakkai and Gamaliel II were the greatest student and the great-grandson of Hillel, respectively. It looks as if things were the other way around. They were given a relationship to Hillel because they came to power at a point at which the Hillelite House predominated, and the allegation that both were Hillelites was the condition of their leadership at Yavneh. Strikingly, while that allegation later was important, no one took the trouble to invent stories in which either authority ever cited "my master" or "my father" Hillel. As I said, no named authority from Hillel to Yavneh ever quotes Hillel. But the predominance of Hillelites at Yavneh is very well attested and may be regarded as an axiom. Nothing in the Tannaitic stratum of Yohanan b. Zakkai-materials places him into relationship with either the House of Shammai or the House of Hillel. Yohanan cites "my teachers" back to Moses, but never mentions Hillel, as early as Eliezer b. Hyrcanus (M. Yad. 4:3). This seems to me probative that the circles of Yohanan's immediate disciples had no traditions relating Yohanan to Hillel. Similarly, Gamaliel II repeatedly is given references to "the house of father," meaning Simeon b. Gamaliel I, but none to Hillel, directly or inferentially.

in . MORAL APOPHTHEGMS

1. A. Moses received the Torah from Sinai and handed it on to


Joshua, Joshua to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets handed it on to the men of the Great Assembly (KN$T).

B. They said three things, "Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Torah."

2. Simeon the Just was of the remnants of the Great Assembly. He used to say, "On three things the world stands: on the Torah,

on the [Temple-] service, and on deeds of loving kindness." 3. Antigonus of Sokho received from Simeon the Just. He used to say, "Be not like slaves that minister to the master for

the sake of receiving a reward, but be like slaves that minister to the master not for the sake of receiving a reward; and let the fear of heaven be upon you."

4. Yosi b. Yo'ezer of 0Y) Seredah and Yosi b. Yohanan of Jerusalem received from them [sic],

Yosi b. Yo'ezer says, "Let your house be a meeting-house for the Sages, and sit amid the dust of their feet, and thirstily drink in their words."

5. A. Yosi b. Yohanan of Jerusalem says, "Let your house be opened wide; and let the needy be members of your house; and do not talk much with a woman."

B. They said this of a man's own wife: how much more of his fellow's wife! Hence the Sages have said, "He that talks much with women brings evil upon himself, and neglects the study of the Law, and at the end he inherits Gehenna."

6. Joshua b. Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite received from them. Joshua b. Perahiah says, "Make for yourself a master (RB), and

get a fellow (HBR) [-disciple]; and judge any man with the balance in his favor."

7. Nittai the Arbelite says, "Keep far from an evil neighbor, and do not consort with a wicked neighbor, and do not despair of retribution."

8. Judah b. Tabbai and Simeon b. Shetah received from them. Judah b. Tabbai says, "Make not yourself like them that would

influence the judges; and when the suitors stand before you, let them be in your eyes as wicked men; and when they have departed from before you, let them be in your eyes as innocent, so soon as they have accepted the judgment."

9. Simeon b. Shetah says, "Abundantly examine the witnesses; and be cautious in your words, lest from them they learn to swear falsely."


10. Shema'iah and Abtalion received from them. Shema'iah says, "Love work; and hate mastery (RBNWT), and

seek not acquaintance with the ruling power (R$WT)." 11. Abtalion says, "Sages, give heed to your words, lest you incur

the penalty of exile, and be exiled to a place of evil waters, and the disciples that come after you drink and die, and the name of Heaven be profaned."

12. Hillel and Shammai received from them. Hillel says, "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace, and pursuing

peace, loving mankind, and bringing them near to the Torah." 13. He used to say, "A name made great is a name destroyed, and he

that increases not decreases, and he that learns not is worthy of death, and he that makes worldly use of the crown perishes"

14. He used to say, "If I am not for myself who is for me? And being for mine own self, what am I? And if not now, when?"

15. Shammai says, "Make your [study of] Torah [a] fixed [habit]. Say little and do much. And receive all men with a cheerful countenance."

16. Rabban Gamaliel says, "Make for yourself a master (RB) [= Joshua b. Perahiah's saying, above]; and keep distant from doubt; and do not tithe by guesswork."

17. Simeon his son says, "All my days I have grown up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for the person (GWP) than silence; and the expounding is not the principle, but the doing; and he that multiplies words occasions sin."

18. Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel says, "On three things the world stands: on truth, on judgment, and on peace, as it is written, Execute the judgment of truth and peace (Zech. 8:16)."

M. Avot 1:1-18 (Compare trans. Danby, pp. 446-7; no. 13 ital. = Aramaic)

The form from no. 4 to no. 12 is fixed: the names of the two who received the Torah from the foregoing, then apophthegms assigned to each, in order. The apophthegms are always triplicates; each says (>WMR) three things.

The list is heavily glossed. In no. 5, for example, we are given a qal vehomer, which then produces a saying of the sages. In no. 8, as soon as they have accepted makes specific what has already been presupposed by when they have departed. Its purpose is to rule out the possible


objection, "What if they have not accepted the judgment?"a typical sort of Talmudic quibble. Abtalion's saying is not a triplicate, but the three evil consequences make up for the absence of three separate sayings. No. 3 is expanded by the affirmative revision and the gloss, thus three. Nos. 13 and 14 are added to Hillel's saying, not a gloss but a considerable interpolation of materials, some in Aramaic, occurring elsewhere. Now it is used to say (HYH }WMR) as in nos. 2-3.

Strikingly, with Hillel and Shammai the pairs cease. Also Gamaliel, standing alone, is not said to "receive" from Hillel/Shammai, nor Simeon from Gamaliel. Gamaliel's saying follows the earlier form. Simeon's does not, for it is glossed by all my days... I have found, making an apophthegm, "There is naught better" into an autobiographical comment. But the rest of the saying conforms to the earlier pattern. Then in no. 18, Simeon his son becomes Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel and is given a statement incongruent to the foregoing form. That saying is a counterpart of Simeon the Just's, though the specification of the "three things" changes, and is glossed with a Scriptural proof-text. What is striking is the persistence of the "three things" form in the sayings that come in-between. No. 18 has been tacked on to the foregoing list to close with a parallel to no. 2.

Simeon the Just's saying is parallel to Simeon b. Gamaliel's, which clearly represents a post-135 revision of no. 2: the Torah now is truth, a philosophizing tendency; the Temple service is now replaced by justice; and deeds of lovingkindness are replaced by peace. Morton Smith observes that the basis of "the world" is no longer the coherent "brotherhood of Israel," but the pax Romana. That this conclusion balances no. 2, and not the saying in no. 1, strongly suggests that no. 2 was originally the first saying in the list, and that the saying in no. 1 is a later addition, putting at the head of the whole list the fundamental principles of the rabbinic academy as a social form.

But the fact that no. 18 was added to balance no. 2 raises the problem about no. 2 itself: Was it an integral part of the list? We saw that the fixed form characteristic of the list ("A + B received from them; A said [three sayings]; B said [three sayings]") begins only with no. 4. Thus on formal grounds there are strong reasons for thinking that nos. 2 and 3 were secondary accretions, and since the rabbinic traditions had no substantial legal materials from Simeon the Just and Antigonusindeed, ignored Antigonus and treated Simeon primarily through legendsthe case is clear. The original list began just as the rabbinic legal tradition began: with the two Yosi's. The appeal to


Simeon the Just, perhaps known from Ben Sira, was motivated by the desire to attach this legal tradition to the last great member of the legitimate Jerusalem priesthood before its fall. Simeon's function is therefore the same as that of Moses etc.,he is part of the biblical (and Ben Sira) stemma of the tradition of the law. Antigonus was put in to bridge the temporal gap between Simeon and the Yosi'sa whole century! Whence did they get him? We have no idea.

Another mystery is the beginning of no. 4: the two Yosi's received from them, when the solitary Antigonus has preceded them. This probably is confirmation of our conjecture that Simeon and Antigonus have been added. The original referent of them will have been "the men of the great synagogue"a single mythologumenon which bridged the gap from the prophets to the Pharisees. The original list was thus 1A, 4, 5A, 6, 7, 8, 9,10,11,12, and 15. That this elegant structure was broken to insert Simeon and thus claim connection with the last of the legitimate priesthood, and also to make the representation that the priesthood put the law ahead of the Temple service, indicates that the insertion was made when rivalry with the illegitimate priesthood was important, i.e. before 70, and this indication is confirmed by the fact that the Temple service is still conceived as one of the foundations of the world. So no. 2 was added before 70, and no. 3 may have come at the same time. Its development after 70 was double, as can be seen from M. Avot 2.

After no. 18, M. Avot 2 begins with the yet later additions from the patriarch's circle, Rabbi, and Rabban Gamaliel III (M. Avot 2:1, 2:2ff), and then a collection of sayings of Hillel, purported ancestor of the patriarchal house, and then in Avot 2:8 comes an earlier addition to the list: Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai received [the Torah] from Hillel and Shammai. This, which does have the form of the earlier entries, clearly is what has been displaced by the intervening (inserted) patriarchal material. The pre-70 list was therefore expanded by his pupils before it was taken over by the patriarchate. From the material following M. Avot 2:8 (Yohanan's pupils and their sayings) we can see how it was developed in his school, by contrast to the patriarchal development. The Mishnah combines the two traditions.

The names on the lists compare as follows

M. Hag. 2:2 b. Shab. 14b = y. Shab. M. Avot 1:1-18 1:4

Moses J o s h u a


Elders P r o p h e t s M e n o f the G r e a t S y n a

g o g u e S i m e o n the J u s t A n t i g o n u s o f S o k h o

Y o s i b . Y o ' e z e r

Y o s i b . Y o h a n a n

J o s h u a b . Perahiah Nittai the A r b e l i t e

J u d a h b. Tabbai S i m e o n b . Shetah

Shema' iah A b t a l i o n

Hi l l e l -Menahem Shammai-Hi l le l

Y o s i b . Y o ' e z e r of Seredah Y o s i b . Y o h a n a n of

Jerusalem

[y.: J u d a h b . Tabbai a n d ] S i m e o n b. Shetah

S h a m m a i Hillel

[y.: Hillel and S h a m m a i ]

Y o s i b . Y o ' e z e r of Seredah Y o s i b . Y o h a n a n of

Jerusalem J o s h u a b. Perahiah

Nittai the A r b e l i t e J u d a h b. Tabbai

S i m e o n b. Shetah

Shema' iah A b t a l i o n

Hil lel S h a m m a i

Gamal i e l [omits : rece ived] S i m e o n b. Gamal ie l [omits :

rece ived]

[ 2 : 8 : Y o h a n a n b. Zakkai received f r o m Hillel and S h a m m a i ]

The second names in the first two pairs, Yosi b. Yohanan and Nittai the Arbelite, elsewhere are given no independent sayings whatever. They occur only in the context of the first-mentioned names, Yosi b. Yocezer and Joshua b. Perahiah. Further, Shema'iah and Abtalion are rarely separated at all, but, except in Avot, normally appear as a pair, with remarkably few independent lemmas attributed to either the one or the other. They are given common ancestry. The first two Yosi's are not supplied with places of origin in M. Hag.

M. Avot corresponds to M. Hag. where the two coincide, except in the additions of the places of origin of the Yosi's, and in the reversal of the order to Hillel-Shammai, making Hillel nasi; the subscription of M. Hag. serves the same purpose. The Babylonian version of the cleanness-decree lists does not conform.

The names tacked on to the Avot-list obviously serve to complete the story back to Moses, on the one side, and to 170 A.D., on the other. Gamaliel is made the heir of Hillel's Torah. The Simeon mentioned in the beraita in b. Shab. 15a is ignored; perhaps the compiler of the Avot-list did not know that beraita.


It is striking that, except for Hillel's (no. 13), none of the apophthegms in the M. Avot-list ever is discussed or even referred to by Tannaim or in Tannaitic collections. By contrast, the materials in M. Hag. are reworked by Judah b. Ilai and Meir. On this basis, one can hardly propose for the Avot-apophthegms a date before Judah the Patriarch (if then). This is congruent to the fact that Hillel both as ancestor of the patriarchate and as master of Yohanan b. Zakkai first turns up in the Avot-list and becomes important thereafter.

Since, as I said, no extant materials have either Simeon b. Gamaliel or Gamaliel I referring to Hillel, we may suppose that the claim of Hillel as an ancestor by the patriarchate came some time after the destruction of the Temple. My guess is that it was first alleged quite a long time later on. Judah the Patriarch's circle probably is responsible for the additions of Gamaliel and Simeon b. Gamaliel to the Avot list. Since that same circle also produced the genealogy linking Hillel to Davidpresumably because the Babylonian exilarch did the same the link between Gamaliel I and Hillel may have come some time before Judah the Patriarch, who is the first patriarch to refer to Hillel as his ancestor. The link is to be traced to the point at which the patriarchate made peace with the growing predominance of the Hillelite House, some time soon after the destruction of the Temple. Before then the Shammaites apparently predominated within Pharisaism, and Simeon b. Gamaliel probably was one of them, which accounts for the suppression of virtually all of his legal traditions. The first point at which a Hillelite claim would have served the patriarchate therefore was the time of Gamaliel II. But, since Gamaliel II is represented as following Shammaite law (e.g. b. Yev. 15b), makes no reference to Hillel, plays no role in the Hillel-pericopae or in Hillel's House's materials, as I said, and tells how his father Simeon followed Shammaite rules, the Hillelite ancestry for the patriarchate founded by Gamaliel II may not have been established until ca. 150, by which time it seems to be settled. That is the point at which Meir had to revise the form of the earlier list to make Hillel nasi.

Yosi b. Halafta, Meir's contemporary, knew nothing about b. Shab. 14b, and said the decree about the uncleanness of glassware and the land of the peoples in fact was in force (with no authority given) eighty years before the destruction of the Temple. The masters certainly recognized that the two Yosi's long antedated Hillel and Shammai. Therefore Yosi b. Halafta's tradition was separate from, and contradicted, b. Shab. He presumably knew no other. It therefore may be


that that beraita comes well after ca. 150, as the names of Palestinian Talmud's authorities suggest.

iv . CONCLUSION

The earliest chain of Pharisaic tradition probably consisted of the following names:

1. Yosi b. Yo'ezer 2. Yosi b. Yohanan

3. Joshua b. Perahiah 4. Nittai the Arbelite

5. Judah b. Tabbai 6. Simeon b. Shetah

7. Shema'iah +

8. Abtalion 9. Shammai

10. Hillel

11. Yohanan b. Zakkai

12. Yohanan's disciples

Replaced by

13. Gamaliel 14. Simeon b. Gamaliel

Of the foregoing, nos. 2 and 4 exist in the traditions only in association with nos. 1 and 3; nos. 7 and 8 are always connected. As we shall see, furthermore, the relationships between nos. 5 and 6 are extremely complex, and it looks as if separate traditions of the two masters may have been put together for a post facto explanation of the union of two originally unrelated circles of disciples.

We shall now consider in sequence the traditions of each of the masters on the list. The judgment of E. J . Bickerman is everywhere verified: "Un oubli general couvrit les stecles qui s'etaient ecoules entre Alexandre et Auguste, parce que personne n'avait plus interet a s'en souvenir." 1 For the later rabbinic continuators of the

1 El ie B ickerman, "La chaine de la t r a d i t i o n pharis ienne ," Revue biblique 5 9 ,

1 9 5 2 , p p . 4 4 - 5 4 ; p p . 4 5 - 6 .


Pharisees what happened had to be revised into what ought to have happened. They had a keen interest in the intervening period, but the likely facts of the matterthe recent origins of the Pharisaic party, probably in the second century B.C., and the Shammaite predominance in the party in the first century A.D. until the destruction of the Templewere not palatable, so new facts had to be invented both to improve the picture, and to fill out its blank spaces.

CHAPTER THREE

S I M E O N T H E J U S T

i. TRADITIONS

I.i.l. [When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Na^irite] to separate himself to the Lord (Num. 6:2)...

Rabbi Simeon the Just said, "I ate the guilt-offering of Naziriteship (NZRWT) but one, when one came from the South, of beautiful eyes, lovely appearance, with his locks in curls. I spoke to him (N'M), 'Quickly must one (MHR >YT) [should be: MH R>YT = What did you see to, why did you] destroy beautiful hair?'

"And he said (N'M) to me, 'I was a shepherd in my town. I went to fetch water from the spring. I looked at my shadow. My heart grew haughty (PHZ). It sought to remove me from the world. I said to it, 'Wicked (R$

S I M E O N T H E J U S T I l . i . l 25

been inserted later on and cannot be used to date the original composition of the pericope. Hence we have no clear idea as to when and where the story was first told, or how it was transmitted.

As we shall see, Simeon the Just is a shadowy, legendary figure. Adding his name to what may be a Judaized version of the Narcissus story is perfectly natural, just as it is Simeon the Just who represents the Jews before Alexander of Macedonia. But we certainly cannot speculate on who would originally have made Narcissus into a Nazirite or what would have provoked retelling the story in a Jewish framework.

See David Weiss Halivni, Meqorot, pp. 272-275.

Il.i.l.A. Who prepared them [the earlier red-heifer offerings]? "Moses prepared the first, Ezra prepared the second, and five [were

prepared] after Ezra," the words of R. Meir. But the sages say, "Seven since Ezra." B. And who prepared them? Simeon the Just and Yohanan the

High Priest prepared two each, and Elieho'enai b. Haqqof and Hana-mel the Egyptian and Ishmael b. Phiabi prepared one each.

(M. Par. 3:5, trans. Danby, p. 700.) Comment: This "historical" pericope contains a reference to a deed

done by Simeon (among others). What he actually did is not specified, since it is assumed that the general laws describing the red-heifer sacrifice were carried out by him as well. Elsewhere (Vl.iv.l), it is specified that he made a new ramp for each offering; that detail is omitted in the subsequent Mishnah (3:6), where it would have belonged. The Mishnaic passage before us thus contains no material of legal interest.

The terminus ante quem is made clear by the reference to Meir, hence the middle of the second century. The difference between Meir and the sages is whether Simeon the Just and Yohanan the High Priest had made one or two such offerings. Judah the Patriarch follows the sages, with two attributed to each one, one to the three others. Actually, the Tannaim could have had no very firm traditions on the subject (see my Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai, [Leiden, 19702], pp. 77-80).

The pericope is a composite, interrupted by "according to..." Were it a unitary account, it would have read, "Who had prepared them? Moses the first, Ezra the second, and five/seven after Ezra, plus names." The second (B) and who had prepared them supplies continuity broken by the report of the disagreement.

The first who had prepared them follows a reference to the possibility that the high priest could not find remnants of the sacrifices of his predecessors, "If he did not find [remnants of the ashes of] the seven, they might make use of six, five, four, three, two, one." Then comes, "And who made them?" It is unlikely that a pericope circulated apart from the question "Who made them," e.g. in the following language, "Moses made the first, Ezra, the second..." Such a pericope, lacking an explanatory phrase to make clear that under discussion is the history of the

26 S I M E O N T H E J U S T I l . i i . l

red heifer sacrifice, would have been meaningless. The form before us, therefore, is in the language supplied by the generation responsible for the text as we have it, namely, that of Meir, or by the immediately following one. We do not know how Meir or his opposition knew how many heifers were prepared and who had made them. But we have no trace of whatever original tradition was referred to by Meir. We have merely a reference to the content of such a pericope (if any actually existed).

I cannot think of any reason that Meir's generation would have taken special interest in the red-heifer ceremony, or why Judah the Patriarch would have gone out of his way to list the names of the high priests responsible for the earlier sacrifices. Whatever contemporary considerations, if any, provoked the dispute between Meir and the anonymous opposition are not apparent, and I imagine there were none. Many historical issues elicited Meir's concern. This was simply a dispute about what had been done long, long agoin a time concerning which Pharisaic traditions supplied no reliable information whatever.

See Epstein, Mevo'ot, pp. 44-5. Il.ii.l. Simeon the Just said, "In my life (MYMYY) I have not

eaten the guilt-offering of a Nazir except once only (BLBD). The story is told concerning (MCSH B) one [man] who came to me from the south. I saw him [of] beautiful eyes, good appearance, and his locks were curled. I said (NM) to him, 'My son, Why [Lit.: What did you see to] did you destroy this lovely hair?'

"He said (NM) to me, 'I was a shepherd in my town, and I came to fill water from the river. I looked at my shadow, and my impulse (YSR) grew proud within me and besought to remove me (CBR) from the world.

" 'I said to it [my impulse], 'Evil one! You have [a right] to be jealous only of a thing which is not yours, of a thing which is destined to make (CSH) dust, worm, and maggot. Lo, it is incumbent on me [a vow] to shave you off for [the sake of ] Heaven.'

"I bent my head and kissed him on his head. I said to him, 'My son, may [people] like you, who do the will of the Omnipresent, multiply in Israel. Upon you (CLYK) is fulfilled this [Scripture], When a man or woman separates himself to vow..: (Num. 6:2)."

(Tos. Nez. 4:7, ed. Lieberman, p. 138-9, lines 32-40; Zuckermandel, p. 289, lines 9-16)

Comment: See I.i.l and synoptic studies below. The form ma^aseh b- is intruded, a peculiar addition. The form does not belong and interrupts Simeon's story. It must represent a contamination by a copyist or editor who thought any sort of story will require ma^aseh be.. .vejshe as an introductory formula. The formula does not recur in Simeon-materials.

S I M E O N T H E J U S T II . i i .2 27

II.ii.2. A. Simeon the Just heard, "The decree is annulled (BTYLT 'YBYDT') which the enemy (SN'Hlit.: one who hates) intended to bring (LHYTYH) on the Temple, and Qesgeleges (QSGLGS) has been killed, and his decrees have been annulled,' [Italics = in Aramaic] and he heard these things in the Aramaic language.

B. All the time that Simeon the Just was alive (QYYM), the western light was continual. When he died, they went and found it had gone out. Afterward, sometimes it went out, and sometimes it burned strongly.

C. The fire of the wood-offering was continual. Once they had arranged it in the morning, it would burn strongly all day long, so that they would offer on it perpetual offerings and supplementary offerings and their drink-offerings. And they would not add on it more than two pieces of wood for the twilight offering, as it is said, And the priest will burn on it... (Lev. 6:5). When Simeon the Just died, the wood-offering's power diminished, and they did not refrain from adding wood to it all day long.

D. There was a blessing in the two bread-loaves and in the show-bread. The two bread-loaves would be divided on the [festival of] Gathering (CSRT) and the show-bread was divided on the festival (RGL) among all the [priestly] watches. Some ate and were satisfied, and others ate and [even] left over, yet no more than an olive's measure came to each one. After Simeon the Just died, the blessing departed...

(Tos. Sot. 13:7, ed. Zuckermandel, p. 319, lines 9-20)

Comment: Part A comes at the end of a long list of heavenly messages delivered through an echo (BT QWL). In Simeon's instance it is merely stated that "he heard," since earlier in the chapter is specified a number of instances in which sages heard heavenly echoes; in a reference to the conclusion of prophecy with Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, it is said, "But even so, they would cause them to hear through the echo." Then, an echo heard in Yavneh announced that Hillel was worthy of receiving the holy spirit. Again, an echo announced at Yavneh that Samuel the Small was worthy of receiving the holy spirit. This is followed by Samuel the Small's dying words, and it is carefully specified that these were in Aramaic. Then, Yohanan the High Priest heard from the house of the holy of holies that the young men had conquered Antioch (in Aramaic, but not so specified as earlier). Finally, "Simeon heard..." After Simeon is mentioned, the further story in part B is told about what happened after he died. It is therefore clear from the context that the composite pericope was shaped, at the earliest, in the second century.

28 S I M E O N T H E J U S T III . i .1

Some of the materials may be later, for the explicit reference to the use of the Aramaic language (in italics) makes no sense at all here. No one here debates whether the angels speak Aramaic or not. That issue is raised elsewhere, as we shall see (III.ii.4, below) by R. Yohanan (d. 279) and Rav Judah (d. 297). It may be that a saying about what Simeon and Yohanan the High Priest had heard from heaven long circulated in Aramaic (Josephus gives it, of course, in Greek), and this was then cited to prove that the angels speak Aramaic. But the saying also circulated in Hebrew here and in IV.i.4! It seems more likely that the saying was rendered into Aramaic for the purposes of the argument in which it was cited, than that it was only afterward rendered from Aramaic into Hebrew for a reason no one can now imagine. But the second and third clauses remain in Hebrew, contrary to the subscription.

We may classify both parts as biographical references to Simeon's life. But Simeon plays a wholly passive role in Part A, and in Parts B-C-D, none at all. Like the destruction of the Temple, his death marks a major turning in the supernatural life of Israel. We cannot fruitfully speculate on the school responsible for the story in its current form. To be sure, the story could not have been shaped much before the middle of the second century, for reasons given earlier. Part A is a unitary composition. Parts B-C-D are not, for in fact the lists of various miracles that ceased to happen with Simeon's death elsewhere are augmented considerably; here we have only part of a composite of miracles attributed to the period before Simeon's death. The tendency is to attribute to Simeon and his times the glory and supernatural grace afterward denied to Israel.

Judah the Patriarch, strikingly, did not refer to Simeon the Just in his list of ancient worthies to which this passage is a supplement, M. Sotah 9:9-15. This is a remarkable omission, since others on the M. Avot- and M. Hagigah-lists are present: Yohanan the High Priest, Yosi b. Yocezer, and Yosi b. Yohanan: "When [they] died, the grapeclusters ceased." It would have been natural to include Simeon in this very context. Moreover, Tos. does preserve the Mishnaic passage (in italics): "When the first prophets died, Urim and Tummim ceased" Then comes the long passage (9:15) about the end of various blessings when not a high priest but Tannaitic sages died: Meir, Ben Zoma, Joshua, Simeon b. Gamaliel, Eleazar b. cAzariah, cAqiba, Hanina b. Dosa, Yohanan ben Zakkai, and others, down to Judah the Patriarch himself. Why not Simeon the Priest as well? I cannot say, but the omission must be regarded as noteworthy.

Megillat Ta'anit, ed. Lichtenstein, p. 344, develops the pericope into a story about Qsglgs.

III.i.1. Rabbi cUlla objected before Rabbi Mana, "Lo it is taught (TNY), Simeon the Just prepared two cows..."

(y. Sheq. 4:2, repr. Gilead, p. 16b) Comment: The context is a discussion of the high priesthood's pride

S I M E O N T H E J U S T III . i .2-3 29

and wastefulness. R. Hanina accuses the high priests of scandalous lav-ishness because they constructed new ramps for each red heifer sacrifice, rather than using existing, adequate equipment. cUlla objects that Simeon the Just had done this very thing, citing M. Par. 3:5, with the presumption that Simeon had done as was described in M. Par. 3:6 (above Il.i.l). Then, "Can you say Simeon the Just was extravagant?" The answer is that he had done so because of the importance of the heifer ceremony. In Pesiqta deR. Kahana (below, Vl.iv.l) the question is given anonymously, the answer comes from R. Abun in the name of R. Elecazar. The basis for referring to Simeon the Just, therefore, is his inclusion in the list in M. Par.

111.1.2. There we learned (TMN TNYN): Simeon the Just was of the remnants of the Great Assembly.

He would say, "On three things the world stands: Torah, cult, and deeds of loving-kindness."

And the three of them [sic] are in one Scripture (Is. 51:16): I have placed my words in your mouththis is Torah. And in the shadow of my hands I have covered youthis is [doing] deeds of lovingkindness. To teach you that whoever occupies [himself] in Torah and in deeds of lovingkindness merits sitting in the shadow of the Holy One, blessed be he.

(y. Ta. 4:2, repr. Gilead, p. 21a = y. Meg. 3:6, repr. Gilead, p. 26a)

Comment: The context is a discussion of the saying of R. Jacob b. Aha in the name of R. Yasa, "The world stands only on account of the sacrifices." Then the saying of Simeon the Just is cited as contrary evidence. The saying derives directly from Avot 1:3, with no change. What is new is the exegesis of Is. 51:16, purporting to supply a proof-text for Simeon's opinion, but mentioning only two elements. The proof-text does not appear in any earlier version of the saying. It is an anonymous augmentation, a gloss appearing only here and in the parallel, y. Meg. 3:6, which in all respects is identical. The omission of the cult is puzzling.

Clearly, the Avot saying now was available and therefore was cited. But it appears in no other Tannaitic compilation and is not referred to by a Tannaitic authoritya rule applying to all logia in the Avot-chain, as I said (p. 21).

111.1.3. DTNY: R. Simeon the Just said ('MR), "In my days I have eaten the guilt-offering of a Nazirite only once. One time a man came up to me from the South, and I saw him ruddy, with lovely eyes and a good appearence, and his curls were heaped up (MSWDRWT) in heaps and heaps (TYLY TYLYM). And I said to him, 'My son,

30 S I M E O N T H E J U S T III . i i .1

Why did you [lit.: What did you see to] destroy this beautiful hair?' "He said (NM) to me, 'Rabbi, I was a shepherd in my town, and

I went to fill the drawing of water (LML'WT >T HS'WB MYM). I saw my shadow (BWBYYH) in the water. My impulse (YSR) took pride over me and sought to destroy me (JBD) from the world. I said to it, 'Evil one! You take pride in something which is not yours. It is my duty to sanctify you to Heaven.'

"I bent my head and said to him, 'My son, may such as you, who do the will of the Omnipresent, multiply in Israel. Concerning you, Scripture says, When a man or a woman will separate himself to vow a vow...' "

(y. Ned. 1:1, repr. Gilead, p. 3a = y. Naz. 1:5, repr. Gilead, p. 5a)

Comment: The context is an inquiry into what Tannaitic authority does not approve vows of various sorts. The authorities cited are R. Judah and R. Simeon. R. Simeon says it is a sin to refrain from using wine, and his view is buttressed by the story of Simeon the Just. In y. Naz. 1:5 the context is set by the same discussion.

III.ii.1 .A. Our Rabbis taught (TNW RBNN): Throughout the forty years that Simeon the Just ministered:

(1) The lot ['For the Lord'] would always come up in the right hand. From that time on, it would sometimes come up in the right hand, sometimes in the left.

(2) And the crimson-colored strap would turn white. From that time on it would at times become white, at others not.

(3) Also, the westernmost light was shining. From that time on, it was now shining, now failing.

(4) Also, the fire of the pile of wood kept burning strong, so that the priests did not have to bring to the pile any other wood besides the two logs, in order to fulfill the command about [providing] the wood [unintermittently]. From that time on, it would sometimes keep burning strongly, sometimes not, so that the priests did not refrain throughout the day from bringing wood for the pile [on the altar].

(5) A blessing was bestowed upon the comery the two breads, and showbread, so that every priest who obtained a piece thereof as big as an olive ate it and became satisfied, some eating thereof and even leaving something over. From that time on a curse (MCWRH) was sent upon the comery two breads, and showbread, so that every priest received a piece as small as a bean: the well-bred ones withdrew their hands from it, while voracious folk took and devoured it...

S I M E O N T H E J U S T III.ii.1 31

B. Our rabbis taught (TNW RBNN): In the year in which Simeon the Just died, he said to them [that] in this year he would die.

They said, "Whence do you know that?" He replied, "On every Day of Atonement an old man, dressed in

white and wrapped in white, would join me, entering [the Holy of Holies] and leaving [it] with me. But today I was joined by an old man, dressed in black and wrapped in black, who entered, but did not leave, with me."

After the festival (RGL) [of Sukkot] he was sick for seven days and died.

C. His brethren the priests forbore to mention the [Ineffable] Name in pronouncing the [priestly] blessing.

(b. Yoma 39a-b, trans. Leo Jung, pp. 184-6) Comment: Part B may be classified as biography. The former, part A

(= II.ii.2), is an account of a change in Israel's supernatural life tied to the death of Simeon the Just. Simeon serves, like Simeon b. Shetah, to supply a date for "the good old days." The antecedent Mishnah pertains to the priestly cult on the Day of Atonement, with specific reference to the casting of lots for disposal of the sacrificial goat. A brief inquiry follows: Which Tanna is responsible for the Mishnah? Attention is drawn to available beraitot. Then comes the beraita given here as part A. This is briefly interrupted by a story about a priest who grabbed more than his share of the bread, followed by part B. Presumably the beraita could have stood as a unity, without the second superscription, Our rabbis taught, just as the final clause stands without it, rather than Our rabbis taught. When Simeon ministered ...the priests would mention the Ineffable Name; when he died, they forebore. Immediately following the conclusion of the Simeon-materials is still another beraita on the supernatural history of the cult: "In the last forty years before the destruction, the lot did not come up in the right hand, the crimson-colored strap did not turn white, the western-light did not shine, and the doors of the heikhal would open by themselves, until Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai rebuked them." This beraita obviously is a continuation of the foregoing collection, and the whole was certainly shaped together, at the earliest in the second century.

The setting is different in detail from II.ii.2, but not much different in structure. Just as earlier we found that Simeon-materials were placed in the general context of data on the supernatural, coming to an end with Yavnean masters (Samuel the Small), so here Yavneans (Yohanan ben Zakkai) are linked to Simeon the Just. We cannot, to be sure, date the final formation of the beraita to so early a date as second-century Yavneh. We may be certain only that it was in its final form by the early fourth-century, at which point the ma^aseh about the piggish priest was added, followed by the comments of Rabbah b. R. Shela and Rava.


Formally, we have quite different sorts of stories, now preserved in the separate beraitot, A and B. They were brought together to provide an account of the miracles of the time of Simeon the Just, first with regard to the cult, then with regard to his own death. Nothing in the language or contents requires us to divide the pericope into component parts: (a) when he ministered, (b) when he died. The editorial reasons for the later division are clear.

The tendency is obvious. Until Simeon the Just the high priesthood was worthy of its holy office. Afterward, some of the high priests were, and some were not. About a generation before the destruction the high priesthood became consistently unpalatable to the Pharisaic party. But we need not speculate on what "really" happened in the cult. Sayings such as these are important not for the history of the cult or the biography of Simeon, but for the study of Tannaitic attitudes toward both.

III.ii.2. A. And has it [not] been taught (WHTNY>): On the twenty-fifth of Tevet is the day of Mount Gerizim, on which one may not mourn.

B. [It is the] day on which [commemorating] the Kuteans sought [permission] to destroy the House of our God from Alexander of Macedonia.

He gave them [permission]. They came and informed Simeon the Just.

What did he do? He put on the priestly garments and cloaked himself in the priestly garments.

Some of the nobles of Israel [were] with him, [with] torches of fire in their hands, and all night they walked [from] this side and [from] that, until the morning star arose. When the morning star arose, he [Alexander] said to them [the Kuteans], "Who are these?"

They said to him, "They are Jews who rebelled against you." When he came to Antipatris, the sun came out, and these [from

one direction] met those [coming from the other side]. C. When he saw Simeon the Just, he descended from his chariot

and prostrated himself before him. They said to him, "Will such a great king as you prostrate himself before this Jew?"

He said to them, "The image (DMWT DYWQNW) of this [man] conquers before me in the midst of (BBYT) my battles."

D. He said to them, "Why have you come?" They said to him, "Is it possible that star-worshippers should mis

lead you to destroy the house in which men pray for you and for your kingdom that it [your kingdom] may never be destroyed!"

He said to them, "Who are these [to whom you refer] ?" They said to him, "These Kuteans who stand before you."

S I M E O N T H E J U S T III . i i .2 33

He said to them, "Lo, they are given into your hands." Forthwith they perforated their heels, tied them to the tails of their

horses, and dragged them over thorns and thistles until they came to Mount Gerizim. When they came to Mount Gerizim, they ploughed it and planted it with vetchjust what they had sought to do to the House of our God.

F. That day they made into a festival. (b. Yoma 69a)

Comment: This beraita, which serves as a scholion to Megillat Ta'anit, may be classified as a historical narrative in which Simeon plays a minor role, rather than as a biographical pericope. It is cited in the context of a discussion on whether the priestly garments may be worn outside of the Temple. It is introduced by "Come and hear: As to priestly garments, it is forbidden to go out in them into the province, but in the sanctuary, whether during the time of the service or otherwise, it is permitted to wear them." Then the beraita is cited as a contradiction: Simeon the Just wore the garments outside the Temple. The response is that the garments he wore were fit to be priestly garments, but were not actually so; or alternatively, the emergency justified disobeying the particular rule against wearing them outside of the Temple. Ps. 119:126 is cited a routine way of solving the problem. The whole is anonymous, but it is preceded by discussion about using the priestly garments for personal benefit, in which R. Papa, R. Mesharsheya, and R. Ashi participate.

In Megillat Ta'anit (Lichtenstein, p. 339) the day of the destruction of Gerizim is 21 Kislev; Josephus says John Hyrcanus destroyed it. We may be certain the framers of the beraita had no accurate information on the subject. The form of the beraita is similar to other Babylonian Talmudic treatments of Megillat Ta^anit pericopae (Development of a Legend pp. 180-182). The Aramaic of the Fasting-scroll is cited, followed by a long narrative, in rabbinic Hebrew, of the story underlying the simple date.

The narrative is composite. Part C is intruded, interrupting the course of the story with an extraneous detail. Then the narrative resumes with D, which ignores C ("He said to them") and could as well have followed right after part B. Part C also circulated by itself. But parts B, D, and E form a single, unitary account. Part F then refers back to the superscription, so that the form usually associated with Fasting-Scroll stories is now completed. I therefore suppose that the story in parts B, D, and E stood alone; then part C was added to include another detail about Simeon's "famous" meeting of Alexander and the Jews, in addition to that part in B. Parts A and F were supplied last of all.

As in the analysis of other materials attached to sentences from the Fasting-Scroll, we have no clue as to when or how the whole was put together. The materials did not necessarily lie before the Babylonian masters mentioned above, for the story is cited anonymously, merely in


the context of their discussion, and they do not necessarily provide a terminus ante quern. For all we know, the beraita in its current form was shaped even later than R. Ashi. We have no firm information whatever.

Simeon's role is limited to parts B and C. Part C is independent of the rest. As to B, Simeon is intruded because he is high priest, therefore in charge of affairs and expected to meet the crisis. Any other name would have served as well. But Part C makes Simeon into a supernatural figure. Stories of Alexander and an important Jew are not

Jacob Neusner-The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70 Parts I II III -Brill1971

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