Read the article on this subject in the Jewish Encyclopedia for fuller list of Roman proselytes. Notice here first, the different degrees of proselytism; secondly, the attitude of the synagogue toward the convert, favorable or unfavorable in different periods of its history, varying with its changing relations with the outside world. Based on the laws given to Noah (Genesis ix) the Tannäim deduced seven Noachian rules, which they regarded as obligations binding on all mankind. To these humane laws strangers living in their midst must conform. For they felt this sense of responsibility to those not of their religion.
Brass Coin of Nerva, 96 C. E.
MARKING THE WITHDRAWAL OF CERTAIN ABUSES IN CONNECTION WITH THE JEWISH TAX.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AKIBA.
Love and Law.
The man who now came to the fore was of a different mould—the famous Rabbi Akiba. He was born in Palestine in the year 50 C. E. that is, some 20 years before the Temple fell. Many a pretty legend is woven around his life. Have you ever realized that it is only around great men that legends most luxuriantly grow? Imagination does not seek to picture incidents in the lives of the commonplace. Not only poor, but ignorant, Akiba despised scholars and scholarship. One day, so runs the story, this humble shepherd met Rachel, the beautiful daughter of his master, Kalba Sabua, and fell in love with her. Angry at his daughter's attachment for this boor, the rich Kalba disinherited her. Her sweet self-sacrifice in sharing poverty with him rather than wealth without him, roused the noblest qualities dormant in Akiba's nature. She was determined to bear yet further privation that he might become a scholar in the Law. For it was to his ignorance, rather than to his poverty, that the father had objected. Among no people was illiteracy so great a disgrace as among the Jews, and among none did learning simply, confer so much honor. So at her urgency, he reluctantly left his home to sit at the feet of the Rabbis of the Schools. The chronicles of chivalry furnish pretty stories of knights-errant hieing forth at the bidding of fair ladies to make conquests in distant fields of battle. Akiba went forth at Rachel's bidding; and is not the mastery of knowledge a victory as renowned as that of war? A wonderful pupil he became, for he had the gift of enthusiasm. But while he was winning renown at the Academy, she, alone and at a distance, was battling with poverty, at one time having to sell her hair to buy food for her child. But still the self-sacrificing woman would not permit his return.