• See cap. Ktienen's cla«4[ca1 eewiy, 'On the Men of the (}rc»t BynogOL^ie,' now occeSHiblo in Gennon in Buddo'l GwamintiU A'lhaTtdlungen, tte., von Dr. A. A'ii«n<n (1804).
doubt, however, that one of the oldest institutions of Judaism, the synagogue, goes back to the time of tzra, if not indeed to the days of the exile. The synagogue, it is important to remember, was not originally a place of worship but a place of re- ligious instruction, and indeed it is so named by a writer so late as Philo of Alexandria ( Vita Mosi.^, iii. 27, tA TrpoaiVKTfjpia ri Hepov iffriv ij otSacTKaXeia, K.T.X.). With this agrees the fact that in NT times SiSiffKeiv, to teach, is still used to express the function of the preacher in the synagogue (Mt 4^, Mk P', Lk 4" and often).* But whether we regard Ezra as the immediate founder of the synagogue or not, there can be no doubt of the fact that, by securing the recognition by the public authorities of the need of organized religious instruction, he accomjilished a work of supreme importance in the educational history of the Jews. 'The Bible became the spelling-book, the community a school, religion an aii'air of teaching and learning. Piety and education were inseparable ; whoever could not read was no true Jew. We may say that in this way were created the beginnings of popular education. In what way this took place is, it is true, wrapjied in mystery ; in the synagogue men did not learn to write and read, and the scribes were not elementary teachers. But the ideal of education for religion's sake was set up and awoke emulation, even though the goal was not reached all at once ' (Wellhausen, Isr. u. jiid. Gesch.^ p. 159).
During the whole of the period under review the early education of the Jemsh child continued, even more than before, to be the business of his parents. Elementary schools were still unknown. Now, as in much later times, it was ' the duty of the father to instruct his .son in the Torah (Kiddushin, 20'?),' a duty in which the mother took her share (Pr (i'^ 31', .Sus'). The obligation extended even to 'child- ren's children ' (Dt 4"). A noteworthy feature of the pentateuchal precepts, from the view-point of pedagogic method, is the extent to which certain religious rites are to be used as object-lessons to the children [Ex 12=«'- IS^passover) 13" (lirst-fruits), cf. Jos 4*]. Their interest and attention are first to be aroused, and only after question asked is the ex- planation of the rite to be given. In the case of the passover the question, ' What mean ye by this service?' (Ex 12=°) — now expanded to four — has re- mained as part of the ceremony to the present day.
The leading feature of the educational history of this period is tlie rise of a body of men as pro- fessional teachers. These are the SophCrim (cirb, literally ' book men '), or scribes. For the circum- stances which led during the exile to a species of literary renaissance, or rather to a new interest in the literature of the past, and thereby to the growth of a body of literati (ypaniuxTeh), — students, copyists, and teachers, — we must refer to the article Sciiliiics. We have seen, however, under what circumstances the study and the exposition of the Torah, in particular, were begun among ' the children of the captivity' in the new community at Jerusalem. From that time to the end of the Jewish state and beyond it, the ollice of the scribe was one of ever-increasing importance. But to identify, as is too often done, the scrihoa of the Persian and early Greek period with those who^e character and aims are familiar to us from the Gosjicls, is to do the former great injustice. For these ancient scribes have shared in the rehabili- tation of the late Persian and earlj- Greek perimls of Jewish history, which is so remarkable a feature of the critical scholarsliip of the day.t Here we
• For further testimony by I'liilo and Joseptuis to the teacliing funi-tion of the svnaKOnue »ee Schiirer, ////' il. ii. p. .''4.
I See. intrr a«o<, WelUuiuea, Ifoetitifcht u. jiiiMu Oet. clilchtti.p. IM.
648
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
are concerned with them only in so far as they continued the work of instruction committed to them by Ezra. Unfortunately, from the lack of historical material, it is now impossible to trace the development of education under their guidance. We know, however, that by the time of the Chronicler (1 Ch 2") they had been 'organized in regular " families," or as we should now say "guilds," an institution quite in accordance with the whole spirit of the East, which forms a guild or trades-union of every class possessing special technical knowledge' (W. R. Smith, OTJC^ p. 44). From the proverbial form of 1 Ch SS**" — ' as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar ' — we may further infer that the relation of master and pupil was by this time (c. B.C. 300) a familiar one ; which, of course, implies facilities for education other than the Levitical music schools to which the proverb is here applied.
Here we are met by one of the most interesting but difficult problems in the history of Hebrew education. Not the least important of the critical results above referred to, is the bringin^down of the compilation of our present Book of Proverbs, and so of the Golden Age of the Wisdom Litera- ture, to the Persian period. In this case, who are the ' Wise ' (o'^jn), the sages of whom this depart- ment of Hebrew literature is the characteristic and enduring memorial ? May we identify them with the older race of Sopherira, the book-men or literati of the period ? * The temptation is great. Thus the scnbes were the accredited teachers of the people (see above), and the most venerable of the traditions preserved by the fraternity from the 'men of the Great Syn.igogue' was the obligation to 'raise up many disciples' (Ab. i. 1). But the sages were also teachers (onto, D'Tj'pa Pr 5"), who address a pupil as ' my son,' and whose teaching is kno^vn as ' tlie words of the wise ' (Pr 1* 22", Ec 9" 12" ; see also the Oxf. Heb. Lex. sub d:ij). Again, the scribes formed, as we have seen, a guild or corporation. But we have abundant evidence that the sages are also to be regarded as forming a distinct fraternity (Pr 1« 13" 22" 24=3, gg lo". Cf . Cheyne, tAoJanrfio^omon.p. 123andpamm; Kiehm, Handivort. d. Bibl. Alt.^sub ' Weise't ; Kautzsch, Abriss d. Gesch. d. AT Schrifttum.i\ 1897, P. 135 flf.). Wellhausen in his recent history, while maintaining their original independence, admits that by the time of Jesus ben-Sira (B.C. 200-180) the scribes ' were scarcely any longer to be distin- guished from the sages ' {Gesch. p. 154, note 1). This admission is due to the factr— and here perhaps we have the strongest argument for the identity of the two classes — that Ben-Sira, the last of the sages, was himself a scribe. Of this there can be no doubt ; one has but to read his glowing panegyric on ' the wisdom of the scribe,' and the glory of his calling (Sir 38"-39"). It is therefore but natural that ' the best, and almost the only data, regarding the earlier scribes, are to be found in the I$ook of Ecclesiasticus, G"'- g""- U^'- 38"«-' (Wellhausen, lo:. cit).