Education began, as Josephus says, 'with the earliest infancy.' Philo speaks of Jewish youth ' being taught, so to speak, from their very swad- dling clothes by parents and teachers and inspectors, even before they receive instruction in the holy laws and unwritten customs of their religion, to believe in God the one Father and Creator of the world ' {Legat. ad Gaium, 16). 'From a babe thou hast knoM-n the sacred Avritings,' Avrites St. Paul to Timotliy (2 Ti 3^^), recalling his disciple's early ac- quaintance with the OT Scriptures. At the age of six the Jewish boy Avould go to the elementary school (Beth ha-Sepher), but before this he would have received lessons in Scripture from his parents and have learned the Sh^md and the Hallcl. From the sixth to tlie tenth year he would make a study of the Law, along with writing and arithmetic. At the age of ten he would be admitted to the higher
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school (Beth ha-Midrdsh), where he would make the acquaintance of the oral Law, beginning with the Mishna, ' repetition,' the oral traditions of the Law, At the age of thirteen he would be acknowledged by a sort of rite of confirmation as a ' Son of the Commandment' (Bar-misvdh), and from this point his further studies would depend upon the career he was to follow in life. If he was to become a Rabbi, he would continue his studies in tlie Law, and, as Saul of Tarsus did, betake himself to some famous teacher and sit at his feet as a disciple.
Although schools were thus in existence in con- nexion with the synagogues, it was not till compara- tively late that schools, in the modern sense, for the education of children by themselves, seem to have been instituted (see art. ' Education ' in HDB). They are said to have been first established by Simon beu-Shetach in the 1st cent. B.C., but this is disputed. However this may be, schools were placed upon a satisfactory and permanent footing by Joshua bgn-Gamaliel, who is said to have been high priest from A.D. 63 to 65, and who ordained that teachers of youth should be placed in every town and every village, and that children on arriv- ing at school age should be sent to them for in- struction. Of him it is said that if he had not lived, the Law would have perished from Israel. The love of sacred learning and the study of the Law in synagogue and school saved the Jewish people from extinction. When Jerusalem had been destroyed and the Jewish population had been scattered after the disastrous events of A.D. 70, the school accom- panied the people into the lands of their dispersion. Jamnia, between Joppa and Ashdod, then became the headquarters of Jewish learning, and retained the position till the unhappy close of Bar Cochba's rebellion. The learned circle then moved north- wards to Galilee, and Tiberias and Sepphoris became seats of Rabbinical training. Wherever the Jews were settled, the family gathering of the Passover, the household instruction as to its origin and history, and the training in the knowledge of tile Law, served to knit them together and to in- tensify their national feeling even in the midst of heathen surroundings.
While the great subject of school instruction was the Law, the work of the elementary school em- braced reading, writing, and arithmetic. To make the Jewish boy faiuiliar with the Hebrew charac- ters in every jot and tittle, and to make him able to produce them himself, was the business of the Beth ha-Sejjher, ' the House of the Book.' Reading thus came to be a universal accomplishment among the Jewish people, and it was a necessary qualifi- cation where the sacred books were not the exclu- sive concern of a priestly caste, but were meant to be read and studied in the home as well as read aloud and expounded in the synagogue. The case of Timothy already referred to is evidence of this ; and the Scriptures which the Jewish converts of Beroea ' examined daily' were no doubt the OT in Greek which they were trained to study for them- selves. Writing may not have been so general an accomplishment, but it must also have been in con- siderable demand. This can be inferred from the numerous copies of the Scripture books which had to be produced ; and from the prevalence of tyhilltn ('phylacteries') and 7n<'ziiz6th, little metal cases containing the Sh^md , the name of God, and texts of Scripture, fastened to the ' doorposts ' of Jewish houses, which were in use before the Apostolic Age. The simple rules of arithmetic would be wanted to calculate the weeks, months, and festivals of the Jewish year.
In the higher school, BHh ha-Midrdsh, ' the House of Study,' the contents of the Law and the Books of Scripture as a whole were expounded by the authorities. It is said to have been a rule of
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the Je^vish schools not to allow all and sundry, without regard to age, to read all the books of Holy Scripture, but to give to the young all those portions of Scripture Avhose literal sense com- manded universal acceptance, and only after they had attained the age of twenty-five to allow them to read the Avhole. Origen tells of the scruples of the Jewish teachers in regard to the reading of the Song of Solomon by the young (Harnack, Bible Reading in the Early Church, 1912, p. 30 f.)- But there was no lack of materials for reading and ex- position. In course of time there grew up tlie great and varied literature now contained in the Talmud — the Mishna, the Gemara, and the Mid- rashic literature of all sorts — narrative, illustra- tive, proverbial, parabolic, and allegorical (see I. Abrahams, Short History of Jeiuish Literature, 1906, ch. iv. ; Oesterley and Box, Religion and Worship of the Synagogue", 1911, ch. v.). _ In the school tlie children sat on the floor in a circle round the teaclier, who occujiied a chair or bench (Lk 2^8 W\ Ac 22^). The method of instruc- tion was oral and catechetical. In the schools at- tached to the synagogues of Eastern Judaism to this day, committing to memory and learning by rote are the chief methods of instruction, and the clamour of infant and youthful voices is heard re- peating verses and passages of Scripture the whole school day. This kind of oral repetition and com- mitting to memory undoubtedly occupied a large place in the earliest Christian teaching, and had an important influence in the composition of the gospel narratives. The purpose of St. Luke in writing his Gospel was that Theophilus might know more fully tlie certainty of the things con- cerning Jesus wherein he had been instructed {KaTTixvOv^) (Lk V). Apollos having been thus in- structed in the way of the Lord (Ac IS''^^) taught Avitli accuracy the facts concerning Jesus. But whilst the method had great advantages, it had also great dangers, tending to crush out all origin- ality and life, and to result in barren formalism.