before the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and thus to have been a contemporary of Herod the Great.
Very little really is known of the "Men of the Great Synagogue," or of the ten "Couples" who succeeded them; little more than their names has been preserved. It is scarcely probable that in each generation only a pair of specially distinguished scholars should have lived. Most likely just ten names were known, and they were formed into five pairs or couples of contemporaries, after the fashion of the last and most famous pair, Hillel and Shammai. But from the times of Hillel and Shammai we have abundant historical testimony as to the existence and labours of the Rabbinic schools. Well-nigh all that we have related in the above passage is purely traditionary. There is no doubt a basis of truth in the account we have given, but the contemporary history is too scanty for us to describe this relation in the treatise "Pirke Aboth," which thus connects the Mishnah compilation in a direct chain with Moses, as anything more than a widely circulated legendary and traditional story.
We can, however, certainly assert that the foundations of the teaching of the school of Rabbinism which, after the great ruin of the year of Grace 70, began to exercise a paramount influence over the fortunes of the Jewish race, were laid at a very early period, several hundred years before the Christian era.
There is no doubt that Hillel and Shammai founded or, more accurately speaking, developed the existing Rabbinic schools and gathered into them large numbers of disciples. The great development of Rabbinism which is ascribed to the two famous teachers Hillel and Shammai was evidently owing to the complete absorption of Palestine by Rome, under the baleful influence of the royalty of Herod the Great; these causes were gradually undermining Judaism, not only in a political but also in its religious aspect. Hillel and Shammai were fervid and earnest Jews, and were determined to infuse a new religious spirit into the nation. Still, it is more than probable that all this early Rabbinism would scarcely have been more than a school of curious literary speculation, and
