together, ad hoc, from time to time, whether the number of its members was fixed, and on what conditions and by whom they were appointed. Upon these points the Rabbis of the Talmud had no certain tradition, perhaps no tradition at all. That the conception of the Great Synagogue was modelled upon the pattern of the Assembly in Neh. x. only means that the Rabbis had no better guide for their imagination in reconstructing what nevertheless must have been. And the same reason which prompted the calling of that historical council, under Nehemiah, would suggest that the natural tribunal from time to time would be a similar council of elders and learned men. This is all that is required to give a historical basis to the traditions concerning the Great Synagogue. Less than this leaves the facts unexplained; more than this opens the way for the discrepancies which have been used for discrediting those traditions altogether. I believe we are therefore warranted in retaining the name of the Great Synagogue, to mean in the first instance Ezra and those who supported him, and then those who in later times exercised authority on his lines and in his spirit.

Now it is nowhere stated in the Rabbinical literature, so far as I know, that the Sopherim of the early times were identical with the Men of the Great Synagogue. But they are closely associated, they seem to stand on the same level of antiquity, and, what is still more important, no distinction is drawn between their several functions, except that the Men of the Great Synagogue ordained (tikkĕnu) certain things, while the Sopherim only taught and expounded. As just stated, there is no agreement amongst scholars upon the question whether the Great Synagogue was a real body or not; but of the existence of the Sopherim there is no room for doubt. And the Sopherim are the key (if I am right) to the meaning of the term, "Men of the Great Synagogue." That term represents the Sopherim acting together as a council to decide religious questions; a council not necessarily permanent, but called together from time to time as occasion might require. But it would be a council of Sopherim, not of all the leading men of the nation. The authority in public matters was, under the Persian governor, in the hands of the priestly aristocracy, whose interests lay in other directions besides that of the study of Torah. What was done by the Sopherim, and those with and for whom they worked, was done privately and without official sanction. The Rabbinical tradition which mentions the Zūgōth, or pairs, and calls one the Nasi and the other the Ab-beth-din, and implies that the one was president and the other vice-president of the Sanhedrin, is certainly incorrect. The Nasi was never the president of the Sanhedrin, in times when the Sanhedrin was still the great council of the State. But it may very well have been the case that in the meetings of the Sopherim, in other words, the Great Synagogue, there were a president and a vice-president; and that the names recorded in pairs in the Talmud are the names of some of the later of these officers. I should add that this explanation of the meaning of the term, "Men of the Great Synagogue," and the identification with them of the early Sopherim, is only a theory of my own; but it is the result of long consideration of the problem.

In an often-quoted passage from the treatise of the Mishnah called the Pirké Abōth, three sayings are ascribed to the Men of the Great Synagogue: "Be deliberate in judgment; make many disciples; make a hedge for the Torah." It will be of use at this point to consider these sayings, because they throw light upon the development of the religion of Torah in the particular direction indicated by the name Pharisaism.

To prove that these dicta were actually uttered by the Men of the Great Synagogue is impossible. But it is admitted that they are very ancient; and the tradition which places them at the forefront of the development of Rabbinism has this much in its favour, that they logically belong there. Either they date from a time not remote from Ezra, or they express the opinion of some later teacher as to the aims and methods of those who in that early time were responsible for the training of the people in the religion of Torah. This latter interpretation is possible; but the form in which the brief statement is made clearly shows that the Rabbis who compiled the Mishnah had no suspicion that the dicta in question were the utterances of a later teacher. If they had had such a thought they would have expressed it thus: "Rabbi so-and-so said that the Men of the Great Synagogue had said, etc." There is no hint that the three maxims are anything else but an old tradition; and the fact that these and no more are ascribed to the Men of the Great Synagogue indicates, by its very moderation, some reason for so ascribing them. A capricious inventor would have attributed much more to so ancient an authority, in order to obtain for his inventions the sanction of high antiquity. There is really nothing improbable in the transmission, even from the time of Ezra, of these bare fragments of ancient teaching. Their contents are in keeping with this supposition; and, if they were a later invention, they nevertheless accurately describe what the men of Ezra's time must chiefly have had at heart. They are instructions to do certain things, and are addressed to persons who had some special responsibility in reference to the Torah. We have seen that the central idea of Ezra's reformation was to make the Torah the inspiring and controlling influence in Jewish life, both national and individual. To this end it was needful that the people should be taught, that they might know what was in the Torah, i.e. what God had given for their instruction; also that they should be able to appeal to competent authority for the settlement of doubtful points. The Torah was the source of divine truth and divine justice, and both must be made accessible to those whose life as a conscious service of God depended on them. The shrine in which the divine treasure was contained must be kept safe from injury, as if it were protected by a fence.

The three maxims, ascribed to the Men of the Great Synagogue, were intended, as it would seem, for the guidance of teachers and expounders of Torah. They were the lines which the Sopherim collectively agreed upon, for their own practice as interpreters and judges. Deliberation in judgment is the key to the casuistry of the Talmud, and in the main justifies that casuistry. For what does it amount to except the desire to study a question from every possible point of view, and to take into account every possible, even though improbable, contingency?

To make disciples, in the sense of imparting knowledge of Torah, has always been the aim and the practice of Rabbinical Judaism; a fact to which the Talmud bears ample witness. The names, Torah, Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash, all imply the idea of teaching and learning—study as regarded either by the student or the instructor. In this larger relation, the minor one of discipleship to a particular teacher holds but a small place. Equally the ancient Scribe or the later Rabbi was enjoined not to make adherents of himself, but to impart to all whom he could influence the knowledge of divine truth which he possessed.

To "make a hedge about the Torah" is a famous phrase that has been much misunderstood. It certainly does not imply any intention to make a rigid system of precept in which all the spiritual freedom enjoyed by the enlightened soul in communion with God should be lost. The Talmudic Rabbis, who entirely endorsed the maxim, never read in