The third, ‘philosophical,’ party, mentioned by Josephus generally along with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, namely the Hssenes, belonged to an entirely different world. This was a small ascetic sect, permeated with mysticism, and holding some extremely strange notions, the origin of which is still an unsolved problem. From a social point of view, the community of goods was the most char- acteristic feature of their organization. They employed themselves in agriculture and various handicrafts, but would have absolutely nothing to do with commerce. At least the majority of them renounced marriage. They acknowledged the temple, and sent votive gifts to it, but re- jected entirely animal sacrifice. They held the Law in very high esteem. They believed in the immortality of the soul, but did not teach the re- surrection of the body, because they regarded connexion with the body as a species of bondage for the soul. The doctrine of angels played a ereat part in their system. Among their many peculiar customs, those which express a veneration for the sun are the most notable, because they show most clearly that we cannot completely account for this sect from Judaism itself. What is genuinely Jewish in their opinions and customs comes nearest to Pharisaism, but the differences are too great for Essenism to be set down as a degenerate offshoot from it. This small, peaceful body never probably had very much weight. See, further, art. ESSENES in vol. i.
* Of, Mt 2223, On the question to what extent the Sadda-
cees recognized the Torah alone as Holy Scripture, as several of the Church Fathers assert, see Schiirer, GJV 8 ii. 411 ff.
54 NEW TESTAMENT TIMES
NEW TESTAMENT TIMES
vi. EDUCATION AND CULTURE.—Regarding the education of Jewish children we have only scanty information. According to the Bab. Talmud (Baba bathra, 21a), Joshua b. Gamaliel (probably the high priest who held office A.D. 63-65) ap- pointed teachers for boys in every province and every city, and children were brought to these when they were six or seven years of age. Ac- cording to Shabbath i. 3, the synagogue attendant (hazzan) was required on Sabbath to teach children to read. Josephus (¢. Apion. i. 12) and Philo (ed. Mangey, ii. 577) speak as if it was customary for the Jews, even as children, to learn the Law. But this can refer only to the circle of the scribes and the educated classes, and not to the mass of the people. For if children learned in the boys’ school to read the Law, and if this accomplishment was general, it would have been superfluous to have the Hebrew text translated into Aramaic at the synagogue service (see above, p. 47%). The latter custom was manifestly due to the circumstance that the common people no longer understood Hebrew. When, therefore, Jesus, the carpenter's son (Mt 13%), was able to read and expound the Bible text (Lk 446), this would naturally strike the people as something unusual and excite their wonder. But it is impossible to decide with cer- tainty how large the circles were that possessed rolls of the Law (1 Mac 1°). As little are we informed as to the number that were able to write, although it is evident that the growth of ¢om- merce and the increasing pursuit of a business life must have contributed largely to the spread of this accomplishment (Lk 165). There is no mention of any regular instruction of girls, a branch of education which was not enjoined in the Law.*
The higher education consisted in the stricter circles of a deeper study of the Law, especially the special enactments that had been orally trans- mitted. The student selected some eminent legal expert as his teacher. Thus, for instance, the two famous exegetes Judas and Matthias were very
- popular teachers of youth at the time of Herod
Seine
the Great (Jos. Ant. XVII. vi. 2); the disciples of Hillel and Shammai formed two well - defined schools of interpreters of the Law. St. Paul studied at Jerusalem under Gamaliel (Ac 223), ete. After his course of instruction was complete, the disciple was reckoned among the Wise (n’9n), as opposed to the unlearned (x17, 7.e. the Gr. idiérns).+ Yet the detailed statements contained in the Talmudic writings as to the instruction in these higher schools (wy1~7 ‘nz), and as to the organization of teachers and pupils, are not to be transferred simpliciter to the time of Christ, for without doubt the conditions subsequent to the destruction of the State must have influenced the development of things.+
But there were other circles in which the higher education had a somewhat different character, in- clining more towards the worldly culture of the time, as was the case in great measure with the Hellenistic Jews. As a matter of course, it was the nobility and the courtiers that favoured this culture. A good example of such an education presents itself in the person of Josephus, a scion of the leading temple aristocracy, related on his mother’s side to the Hasmonean royal family. According to his own account (Vita, 2f.), he com- menced even as a child to read the Law, and speedily made such progress that, when a boy of fourteen, he used to be consulted by the leading
* Later Jews deduced from the word ‘sons’ in Dt 1119 that the Law did not require the instruction of daughters (Bacher, Die Agada der Tannwiten, ii. 372).