Gamaliel

“ Gamaliel, the Pharisee and doctor of the law at whose feet St. Paul was brought up, were discovered, according to the legend, in the year 415, at a spot distant from Jerusalem about twenty miles, and called Caphargamala, or "the borough of Gamaliel," supposed to have been his residence. To Lucian, an aged priest of the church at that place, a revelation had been made by Gamaliel in the visions of the night, that his reliques lay there with those of the Proto- martyr, preserved by him on the morrow of the martyrdom, and deposited in the sepulchre prepared for himself ”

“ What thinkest thou of the prophet of Nazareth who was crucified?”
The wise and venerable Gamaliel was astounded at the gravity and earnestness of his favorite assistant in making an inquiry which seemed of such trivial importance. He toyed with the long fringe of his robe for a moment, and cast an inquiring glance into the face of Serenus as if to divine his meaning. It hardly occurred to him that his most eminent follower, aforetime promoted to be his assistant, could have any sympathy, or even remote interest, in the feeble faction of the Galilean; but the question demanded an answer. ”

“ In the circumstances, the King’s voice struck with such a peculiar languor upon Gamaliel’s ear, that it acted like a sedative upon his nerves. There never was a better illustration of the [202] force of example upon a weak mind. Had the King and his companions ranted and raved, and called for their cloaks and their horses, the landlord would inevitably have fallen upon his knees and craved forgiveness of them. ”

“ The cairn, however, was examined in vain, but at an adjacent spot three cists were brought to light inscribed with the names of Stephen, Gamaliel, and Nicodemus. The reliques of the Protomartyr were quickly dispersed, with great devotion, and were brought by Orosius, as we learn from Bede, to Western Europe. It is probable that those of Gamaliel, from their connexion with so remarkable a legend, were regarded with much veneration. ”

“ The simplest and the surest way was to send for the soldiers. Thereby he would guard against risk. But Gamaliel never was a friend of simplicity. Besides, his guests might prove not to be royalty at all. They might be merely a pair of proscribed aristocrats. In that case, he would lose two wealthy patrons on the first day of [43] their sojourn; a thing not in the least consonant with his ideas. In the case of the King, that would be all well and good. There would be a fine reward for his pains. But in the matter of a cavalier, there was no such great solatium. ”

“ Men at Gamaliel had called him a Puritan. He chafed at the term, feeling in himself no hostility or distrust of life. It was the sly, mechanical travesty of these things, peeping out of their talk, which offended him. To-night he had seen this travesty offered to a great audience of men and women. Brooding on a secret which had painted [Pg 86] the butterfly and tuned the note of an English bird, he had seen it to-night, for the first time, as a punctual gluttony. ”

“ The last observation relates to King Agrippa's complaisance to Paul, and Gamaliel's advice. I cannot answer for Agrippa's meaning: but certainly he meant but little; and if this matter is to be tried by his opinion, we know that he never did turn Christian. As for Gamaliel, 'tis probable that he saw great numbers of the people engaged zealously in favour of the apostles, and might think it prudent to pass the matter over in silence, and not to come to extremities. ”

“ On the death of the slave he mourned for him as for a relative. Gamaliel appears to have had some mathematical knowledge. In fixing the new moon and the holidays dependent on it, he was guided more by astronomical calculations than by the evidence of witnesses that they had or had not seen the new moon. ”

“ He had put an innocent confidence in the honesty of Mr Gamaliel; and I have little doubt that the owners winked at the amiable Jew’s transactions, or they would never have set a green hand like Brandon [67] to overlook the business. Gamaliel supplied the stores cheaper than anyone else, and that was all the pious merchants of Bristol cared for. The crew might starve to the bone and rot with scurvy,—crews did, as a rule—but the investors got their percentage, and the ship would come into port somehow. Meanwhile, the owners’ agent took upon himself to suffer along with the men. ”

“ I seek only one thing in this world—to be righteous, to know the whole 24secret of God, to be a perfect son of Abraham. Let it cost what it will, I follow where the wise Gamaliel shall take me, even to the end of the long road to truth.”
Then the teacher bowed his head and prayed that the great Jehovah of the fathers would bless and enlighten the youth from Tarsus who was to be for many months in the cloister of Gamaliel.
25 IV
IN RABBI GAMALIEL’S SCHOOL The person who is a real hero in spirit and nature can be a hero at school as well as anywhere else. ”

“ For to fear her or reject her when there is no appearance of evil in her would be to rebel against the Holy Ghost, and to render oneself unworthy of divine succour, as Gamaliel said of the Apostles in the Council of the Jews. ”

“ Many interesting particulars have been given regarding the journey of these learned men to Rome and their sojourn there. The impression made by the capital of the world upon Gamaliel and his companions was an overpowering one, and they wept when they thought of Jerusalem in ruins. In Rome, as at home, Gamaliel often had occasion to defend Judaism in polemical discussions with pagans, and also with professed Christians. In an anecdote regarding a suit which Gamaliel was prosecuting before a Christian judge, a converted Jew, he appeals to the Gospel and to the words of Jesus in Matt. ”

“ Torah; say little and do much (34) ; and receive all men with a cheerful countenance."
(34) Or "promise little." Be like Abraham, who promised only
bread, but brought a "calf tender and good" (Genesis XVIII, 5
and 7) .
16. Rabban (35) Gamaliel said, "Provide thyself with a teacher; be quit of doubt (36) ; and accustom not thyself to give tithes (37) by a conjectural estimate."
(35) "Our teacher," "our master," a title given only to the presidents of the Sanhendrin, Gamaliel being the first to be thus known. Gamaliel was a grandson of Hillel and a teacher of Paul. See Strack, Einleitung, p. ”

“ In fact those who prove to be heroes in later life are almost always heroes in their school-days. This youth who had come to Jerusalem from Tarsus of Cilicia did not have to wait for some occasion, with all the world looking on, before he could rise to heroic actions. He found a chance to be heroic even in the quiet uneventful cloisters of Gamaliel’s school. All the boys and young men who gathered round this famous teacher very soon knew that a brave fellow and a real, born leader had joined their ranks. ”

“ Gamaliel II. became Johanan ben Zakkai’s successor, and rendered immense service in the strengthening and reintegration of Judaism, which had been deprived of its former basis by the destruction of the Temple and by the entire loss of its political autonomy. He put an end to the division which had arisen between the spiritual leaders of Palestinian Judaism by the separation of the scribes into the two schools called respectively after Hillel and Shammai, and took care to enforce his own authority as the president of the chief legal assembly of Judaism with energy and often with severity. ”

“ Gamaliel explains it to be as much as we may hold in our closed hand, and yet on either side a portion is visible) . 1 If its tone was thin, or heavy, or harsh, it is valid, for all tones were considered proper in a cornet. The schoolmen sent a message to the father of Samuel: ("One has fulfilled his duty if he bored a hole in a horn and blew it. That is self-evident! for in every cornet a hole must surely be bored." Said R. Ashi: "If one bored a hole through the bony substance inside the horn (which ought to be removed) , are we to suppose that one substance causes an
p. ”

“ In far Provence, where the treasure and her husband and children lived, what disasters might not occur, while the sun was shining and wit sparkling in jovial Paris? With the lovely inconsistency of love, the mother declares at one moment that her passion is all joy and the delight of it far, far outweighs the care and trouble, at the next that life is only wretchedness for those who have a great devotion. ”

“ Magnificence, gorgeousness, all France, garments loaded and slashed with gold, jewels, a blaze of fires and flowers, a jam of coaches, cries in the street, torches flaring, poor folk thrust back and run over ”

“ You see yourself in everything I say about others and think I am finding fault with you, when I find fault with any one.” “God is not more incomprehensible than you; but if he is not more just, it is hardly worth while believing in him.” ”

“ And when he makes intimate confession of the workings of the theory in his own person and life, this is the result: ‘It is said, “Man is the lord of creation.” Man is the lord of suffering, my friend. There is no clearer proof of the non-existence of God than life.... If you could read in my soul, you would be terrified.... There is not in all the universe a creature more unhappy than I. People think me happy. ”

“ One should go further, and endeavor to understand how they arrive at them, and to do this, one should be ever alive to the vast community of human nature, and the infinite threads and strands that bind together our hearts and the hearts of even those who appear most different from us. It is this power of comprehension, this effort at comprehension, of others’ point of view, which leads to the wonderful gentleness of tone that makes a great part of Darwin’s charm: ‘You are mistaken in thinking that I ever said you were wrong on any point. ”

“ Then there is art, beauty of human creation, to some a resource so great that it overcomes not only tedium but even misery and acute suffering. To this lady with the dead heart beauty makes no appeal whatever. ”

“ But my ego cries out for God simply for itself, and if it is to vanish like a dewdrop in the sun, words cannot express my utter indifference to the well-being of the race, of the world, and of the universe. ”

“ With all her passionate thought and affection, I do not find that she gave much heed to the one interest which was positive in Maurice’s life, his desire to achieve enduring beauty for the delight of men. When a life is devoured by this longing, it measures all things and all people by their sympathy with it and contribution to it. It is perhaps just here that Eugénie failed to evoke the entire response she looked for from her brother’s heart. To be sure, when his writings were gathered together after his death, she expressed great interest and some enthusiasm. ”

“ Who has analyzed the passing of friendship more delicately than she? “It is said that women never love each other. I do not know. There may be deep affections that last only a short time. But I have always mistrusted these, for myself and for those I love. Nothing is sadder than a bit of death in the heart. Therefore, when I see an affection dying, [191] I set to work to rekindle it with all my power.” Hers also is this perfect expression of a heart inclined to tenderness: “Our affections are born one of another.”
Yet, as with Maurice, in all these relations God was first. ”

“ The sister also kept a journal. But while Maurice’s was addressed to himself or to curious posterity, hers was addressed only to him; even after death had snatched him from her, only to him. All her inmost thoughts go there, all her hopes, all her sorrows, and to pour them out to him is the great preoccupation of her life. She can say to him things she cannot say to others. He will understand. ”

“ But nature is never all to her, never enough for her. She must have God. Either she sees Him as the whole life and beauty of it all, hears his voice in the breeze and in the storm, feels his hand in the motion of flowers and of stars, or she turns away from the beauty of earth as too apt to distract from the beauty of heaven. “The sky to-day is pale and languid like a fair face after a fever. This look of languor is full of charm. ”

“ At any rate, they have, at their best, the freshness of first thoughts, the careless brilliancy of a high-bred, keen-witted woman, talking in her own parlor, indifferent to effect, yet naturally elegant, in her speech, as in her dress and motion.
With what vivacity she touches everything and everybody about her, “a certain sprightly folly that (I thank God) I was born with” she calls it, but it is only folly in the sense of making dull things gay and sad things tolerable. See how she finds laughter in the imminence of sea peril. ”

“ Thus the roses strewn over the abyss make it only deeper and blacker and more horrible. Others may take pleasure in her vivacity, may laugh at her stories and applaud her wit. She takes no pleasure and finds the applause and laughter utterly hollow. Man delights her not nor woman either. ”

“ Do not imagine that her solitude meant always quiet, however. Such outward peace perhaps fosters inward turbulence, at any rate leaves room for it. Hearts unvexed by the world’s rash hurry have tempests and revolutions and tumults all their own. How many strange soul-combats go on in quiet tenements! How many fierce struggles pass unperceived and unrecorded, perhaps not worth recording, yet of immense significance to those who conquer or succumb! ”