The life and work of St. Paul

GAMALIEL AND THE SCHOOL OF TtJBINGEST. 70S
of St. Luke ia founded on a mass of errors. 1
Gamaliel, like St. Paul, was a Pharisee, the
son of Pharisees, and it was doubtless Ms nobleness and candour of disposition which
Impressed the Apostle with the better elements of Pharisaism. The fiery zeal of a
youthful Tarsian may have led him for a time to adopt the more violent tone of the
school of Sharamai, and yet might have been very far from obliterating the effects of
previous teaching. But, in point of fact, even a Hillel and a Gamaliel, in spite of their
general mildness, would have described themselves without hesitation as " exceedingly
zealous for the traditions of the fathers." Their concessions to expediency were either
concessions in their conduct to the heathen, or concessions to necessity and the general
interest. 2 The difference between the two Pharisaic schools was not nearly so wide as
that between the two great Jewish sects. The Pharisees were beyond all question allied
to the Zealots in political sympathies, while the Sadducees had natural affinities with
the Herodians. In what we know of Gamaliel, we trace a spirit, a tone, a point of view,
which eminently resembles that of his far greater pupil. His decision that soldiers in
war time, and all people engaged in works of mercy, duty, or necessity, might be
exempted from the more stringent Sabbatical traditions; his concession of rights of
gleaning to the poorer brethren; 8 his direction that the "Peace be with you"
should be addressed even to pagans on then- feast days 4 are all exactly analogous to the
known sentiments of the Apostle ; while the just, humane, and liberal regulations which
he laid down to prevent the unfairness of husbands towards divorced wives, and of disobedient
children towards their mothers, are identical in spirit to those which St. Paul
applies to similar subjects. The story that he bathed in a bath at Ptolemais which was
adorned with a statue of Aphrodite, and answered the reproaches of a min with the
remark that the statue had evidently been made for the bath, and not the bath for the
statue, belongs not to him but to his grandson, with whom he is perpetually confused.
5 To the latter is also due the wise and kindly rule of burying the dead in
simple white linen, instead of in costly robes. Yet so close was the unity of
doctrine which bound together the successive hereditary presidents of the school of
Hillel, that we may look on any anecdote of the younger Gamaliel as fairly illustrative
of the views of the elder; and the ai-gument of Gamaliel II., that, if he were to
be excluded from the enjoyment of every place which had been defiled by the
rights of idolatry, he would not be able to find any place to live in at all, reminds
us of more than one passage in St. Paul's argument about meats offered to idols.
We may therefore regard it as a significant fact that, in spite
of these liberal
principles, Gamaliel of Jabue sanctioned the use of the "curse against heretics," 6
1 The precept, of Gamaliel, " Get thee a teacher, eschew that which is doubtful, and do not
multiply uncertain tithes " (Pirke Abh6tJi,l,lS\, might have emanated from Shammai himself. In
fact, the difference between the two schools existed far more in infinitesimal details than in
fundamental principles.
*
nViyn ^sm
pjrn
for the good order of the world," Gittin, v. 5. (Derenbourg, Palestine, p.
189.) It is difficult, however, to account for Gamaliel I. having a figure engraved on his seal if that
story belongs to him.
3 Sse Dr. Ginsburg, s. v., in Kltto's Cyd., and Gratz, Gesck. d. Juden, ill. 274, sq. ; Jost, Gesck.
d. Judenthums, i. 281 ; Frankel, Hodegsttea in MiscJinam, 67 ; Derenbourg, Palestine, 239, sq.
* In Jer. Btracli6th, ix. (Schwab, p. 159), there is a story that meeting a beautiful Pagan woman
he uttered to her the ShalOm,
"
alaikh. Is it possible ? " is the amazed remark of the Gemara. " Did
not E. Zeira say, on the authority of R. Jos6 bar E. Hanina, and B. Ba or R. Hiya, on the authority
of E. Jochanan, that one ought not to express admiration for Pagans 1 " (a rule based on a sort of
jeu des mots derived from Deut. rii. 3). The answer is that Gamaliel only admired her as he might
have admired a beautiful horse or camel, exclaiming that Jehovah had made beautiful things in the
universe. The Talmudist then proceeds to excuse Gamaliel for the enormity of looking at a woman,
on the ground that it could only have been unexpectedly in a narrow street.
5 Abhdda Zara, f. 44, 2. Conybeare and Howsoa, Krenkel, Lewin, and others, confuse the
anecdotes of this Gamaliel (Borzaken, or " the Elder ") and Gamaliel II., as also does Otho, Lex,
Rabb., a. v. (Etheridge, Hebr. Lit., p. 45).
6 O'yon roil Berachdth, f. 28, 2. Its first sentence is, " Let there be no hope to them that
apostatize from the true religion ; and let heretics (minim), how many soever they be, all perish xa
la a moment." The actual author of this prayer was Samuel the Little (Ha-faWn). (Gratz, iv. 105