decrees, of which the object was to prevent all intercourse with Gentiles;31 and it
furnished leaders or supporters of the national movement.
28. Comp. Ab ii. 5.
29. Shabb. 31 a.
30. Ber. R. 70.
31. This celebrated meeting, of which, however, but scant and incoherent notices are left
us (Shabb. i. 7 and specially in the Jer. Talmud on the passage p. 3 c, d; and Shabb. 17 a;
Tos. Shabb. i. 2), took place in the house of Chananyah, ben Chizqiyah, ben Garon, a
noted Shammaite. On arriving, many of the Hillelites were killed in the lower room, and
then a majority of Shammaites carried the so-called eighteen decrees. The first twelve
forbade the purchase of the most necessary articles of diet from Gentiles; the next five
forbade the learning of their language, declared their testimony invalid, and their
offerings unlawful, and interdicted all intercourse with them; while the last referred to
first fruits. It was on the ground of these decrees that the hitherto customary burnt-
offering for the Emperor was intermitted, which was really a declaration of war against
Rome. The date of these decrees was probably about four years before the destruction of
the Temple (See Grätz, Gesch. d. Juden, vol. iii. pp. 494 -502). These decrees were
carried by the influence of R. Eleazar, son of Chananyah the High-Priest, a very wealthy
man, whose father and brother belonged to the opposite or peace party. It was on the
proposal of t his strict Shammaite that the offering for the Emperor was intermitted (Jos.
Jew. War ii. 17. 2, 3). Indeed, it is impossible to over-estimate the influence of these
Shammaite decrees on the great war with Rome. Eleazar, though opposed to the extreme
party, one of whose chiefs he took and killed, was one of the leaders of the national party
in the war (War ii. 17. 9, 10). There is, however, some confusion about various persons
who bore the same name. It is impossible in this place to mention the various Shammaites
who took part in the last Jewish war. Suffice it to indicate the tendency of that School.
We have marked the rise of the Nationalist party in Galilee at the time of Herod's first
appearance on the scene, and learned how mercilessly he tried to sup press it: first, by the
execution of Ezekias and his adherents, and afterwards, when he became King of Judæa,
by the slaughter of the Sanhedrists. The consequence of this unsparing severity was to
give Rabbinism a different direction. The School of Hillel which henceforth commanded
the majority, were men of no political colour, theological theorists, self-seeking Jurists,
vain rather than ambitious. The minority, represented by the School of Shammai, were
Nationalists. Defective and even false as both tende ncies were, there was certainly more
hope, as regarded the Kingdom of God, of the Nationalists than of the Sophists and
Jurists. It was, of course, the policy of Herod to suppress all national aspirations. No one
understood the meaning of Jewish Nationalis m so well as he; no one ever opposed it so
systematically. There was internal fitness, so to speak, in his attempt to kill the King of
the Jews among the infants of Bethlehem. The murder of the Sanhedrists, with the
consequent new anti-Messianic tendency o f Rabbinism, was one measure in that
direction; the various appointments which Herod made to the High-Priesthood another.
And yet it was not easy, even in those times, to deprive the Pontificate of its power and
influence. The High-Priest was still the rep resentative of the religious life of the people,
and he acted on all occasions, when the question under discussion was not one
exclusively of subtle canon-law, as the President of the Sanhedrin, in which, indeed, the
members of his family had evidently seat and vote.32 The four families33 from which,
with few exceptions, the High-Priest - however often changed - were chosen, absorbed
the wealth, and commanded the influence, of a state-endowed establishment, in its worst
times. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance to make wise choice of the High-Priest.