"When he commenced his teaching the Jews had many traditions accumulated for ages and transmitted orally. He collected and wrote them down, accompanying them with commentaries intended to reconcile the legends with the sacred writings. He founded a school which attracted universal admiration.
"At the epoch when he lived religious spirit fermented; by the side of the philosophical sects of Greece, Christianity developed; Gnosticism grafted its poetical reveries on monotheism, and differences multiplied.
"Many Jews were converted to the gospel under one form or another. Akiba remained faithful to the Mosaic belief. He was so profoundly absorbed in the mystery of the divine essence, that the angels wished to chastise him for his presumption in wishing to know all, to penetrate all. God restrained the wrath of these messengers, and said to them:--
"'He is worthy of meditating on my grandeur.'
"Devout as was Akiba, he excelled in modern science. He destroyed by his criticisms many things which his contemporaries called miraculous, rejected the prodigious pretensions credited by superstition, and was pleased to demonstrate the immutability of the laws of nature.
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"Contrary to the other rabbis, he rejected the belief in eternal punishment. One day, when travelling, having with him a cock and an ass, he arrived at a village, and went in vain from door to door asking hospitality.
"'God doeth all things well,' said he. This was his favourite saying. Then he entered a deep forest, where he sought by the light of his lantern a place to repose. The wind put out his light, and he lay down repeating, 'God doeth all things well.' Just then a wild-cat strangled his cock and a wolf came and tore his ass in pieces; still Akiba repeated 'God doeth all things well.'
"In reality, though he had met these misfortunes he had saved his life, which had been surely lost had he slept in the village. His humility and confidence in God were his chief characteristics.
"Once Akiba appeared in great spirits at the bedside of a dying man who lamented his approaching end, and whose friends were weeping around his bed. When asked the cause of his gayety,--