The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

Rabbi Akiba occupies among the early group of founders of the Talmud, who flourished from circa A.D. 70 to circa A.D. 190, perhaps the most prominent position. He was even termed the “second Moses,” so sought after were his teachings and expositions of the sacred Law, and its subsequent explanations and additions—the Halachah. He gathered round him not only a host of younger pupils, but among his disciples were numbered a group of Rabbis who became subsequently the chief teachers of their day and time. It has been often asked what induced this great Rabbinic scholar and teacher to throw in his lot with a wild enthusiast like Bar-cochab, and to support that impostor’s baseless claim to be recognized as the promised Messiah.

The answer perhaps is that Akiba, in common with others of the new school of Rabbinism, which aimed at restoring the fallen Judaism by means of an enthusiastic devotion to the Divine Law, recognised that in Christianity must be sought and found the most dangerous foe to the Rabbinic conception of the Chosen People. After the fall of the City and Temple, and the breaking up of every national and religious bond, there was grave danger that the Jewish people would become absorbed among the Gentile Christians. It is probable that already some of the Rabbis were secretly persuaded of the truth of the Gospel story. Rabbi Akiba was, however, one of the most energetic opponents of Christianity, and he welcomed the appearance of the pseudo-Messiah Bar-cochab as a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.

But great though the influence of Akiba was, for he persuaded some Jews, he evidently did not carry the bulk of the Rabbinic teachers with him, for the Talmud execrates the name of Bar-cochab, though it ever mentions the name of Akiba with the deepest and tenderest veneration. The great learning and the devoted behaviour of the loved teacher under the most excruciating tortures which accompanied his execution by the Roman government, saved his memory from the bitter reproaches with which the Talmud speaks of Bar-cochab and the authors of the last ill-fated and useless revolt.[159]

Akiba is ever remembered as one of the greatest of this wonderful group of Talmud founders, as well as a very noble martyr.

Rabbi Akiba’s work was not limited to exposition and explanation and elaborate discussions in the academies of the traditional Halachah or oral comments on the Law of Moses. He was virtually the first[160] who attempted to codify and arrange the vast accumulation of these Halachah and Haggadah, and to reduce them into something like order and arrangement. Some years after Akiba’s death, about the middle of the second century, his most famous disciple, the Rabbi Meir, who is known in the Talmud as the “Light of the Law,” took up his master Akiba’s work, and went on with arranging and codifying the Halachah, introducing, however, many more Halachah into his codification, and supplementing and illustrating his expositions with many interesting traditions (Haggadah)[161]; thus preparing the way for the more elaborate collection or recension of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi—the Holy—who is known in the Talmud as “Rabbi”—the Rabbi par excellence. “Rabbi’s” great work of codification may be dated about the years A.D. 200–19, or thereabouts.

The work of “Rabbi,” somewhat enlarged and recast, is with us still. It represents fairly the Mishnah which was used as the text of the great Gemara[162] commentaries compiled in the schools of Palestine and Babylonia[163] between the end of the second century and the last years of the sixth century. The Mishnah of “Rabbi,” which was largely based upon the collections of Rabbi Akiba and his disciple Rabbi Meir, and the Gemaras of Palestine and Babylonia,[163] compiled in centuries three, four, five, and six, make up the Talmud.

There was a strict traditional interdiction which dated back at least to the centuries which followed the Return from the Exile, if not earlier, against ever committing the Halachah and the discussions of the Scribes upon the Halachah to writing. The latest Jewish scholars have decided that to a certain extent the interdiction was removed by “Rabbi” in the very early years of the third century, or at the close of the second century.

We may assume, then, with tolerable certainty that “Rabbi” in his old age reduced the great collection of Halachah to writing, transgressing, in a way, the ancient tradition which forbade this. He seems to have considered that the prohibition, if maintained in its ancient strictness, might endanger the preservation of the precious teaching.

“Rabbi” did not entirely abrogate the interdiction, for the oral method of instruction continued during the period of the Gemara discussions in Palestine and in Babylonia: the teacher alone using the written Halachah, which made up the redaction of the Mishnah by “Rabbi” as a guide; the pupils, however, always repeating the lesson orally.

Before the fall of Jerusalem the great Sanhedrim was the ultimate resort for decisions in the law, though it is true that as a rule it accepted the Law as developed by the great teachers; but still, “from thence,” i.e. from the Sanhedrim, as the Mishnah says, “proceeded the Law for all Israel.” But after A.D. 70 the great Sanhedrim ceased to exist. This of course gave a very marked increase in prestige and power to the acknowledged leading Rabbis or Masters in the Rabbinic schools.