Note: I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for the grant which made possible my study of the Pirqei 'Avot (PA) manuscripts at the Bodleian, and thus the preparation of the present paper.

The 'Avot de-Rabbi Natan (ARN) edition referred to throughout the following pages is that by Solomon Schechter (Vienna, 1887; reprint ed. New York, 1945 and 1967). ds = Diqduqei soferim (talmudic variant readings), by Raphael Rabinowitz (New York, 1976). t plus a number following it (e.g., t 20) refers to a Bodleian pa manuscript in the numbering of Charles Taylor in his Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (cf. n. 5, below).

Whether the Pairs are historical or historicizations has no bearing on this paper; what is attributed to these teachers is what we are analyzing.

1. And perhaps also of Yohanan ben Zakkai himself, if we adopt the reading of his saying in Version a of Arn (p. 58), thus: “(a) If thou hast wrought much in thy study of Torah, take no credit for thyself, (b) for to this end wast thou created: (c) for men were created only on condition that they study Torah.” Contrast the reading in pa 2:8, beginning. Note also Version b, pp. 58, 66. On 'asah torah, cf. Abramson, Shraga, “Mi-leshon ḥakhamim,” Leshonenu 19 (5714): 61 ff.Google Scholar

2. Cf. Hoffmann, David, Die erste Mischna (Berlin, 1881–1882), pp. 26fGoogle Scholar. (Hebrew version, Berlin, 1913, p. 33); Finkelstein, Louis, Mavo lemassekhtot Avot ve-Avot d'Rabbi Natan (New York, 1950), p. 42Google Scholar; Goldin, Judah, “Mashehu 'al beit midrasho shel Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai,” in Harry A. Wolfson Jubilee Volume, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1965), Hebrew vol., pp. 72ff.Google Scholar

3. Cf. Albeck, Chanoch, Mishnah, Nashim (Jerusalem, 1954), p. 342Google Scholar, top. Perhaps under the influence of Isa. 6:3 or Ezek. 21:32. See now a suggestion for an interesting new example, Sussman, Yaakov, “The Boundaries of ‘Eretz Israel’” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 45 (1976): 250Google Scholar, n. 258. On the subject of stylization, cf. also Fischel, H. A., Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy (Leiden, 1973).Google Scholar

4. Cf. Bickerman, E. J., “The Maxim of Antigonus of Socho,” Harvard Theological Review 44 (1951): 153–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. For this translation, cf. Julius Theodor's note in Gen. R. 50:3, p. 519, to line 5; Taylor, Charles, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (New York, 1969)Google Scholar, “Notes on the Text,” p. 137; Kutscher, E. Y., Words and Their History (Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 90–91Google Scholar. With “accepting the sentence,” contrast Adam's behavior, in Pesiqta Rabbati (ed. Friedmann, Meir, Vienna, 1880), p. 26bGoogle Scholar (Resh Laqish), after sentence was passed. On what is expected of relatives of convicted persons, cf. M. Sanhedrin 6:6.

6. Cf. Goldin, Judah, “The Three Pillars of Simeon the Righteous,” in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 27 (1958): 43ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Note the very beginning of pa 1:1 on the transmission of the oral plus the written Torah, as recognized by the commentators.

8. Cf. Schürer, Emil, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1898–1902), 2: 388Google Scholar; Ginzberg, Louis, “Meqomah shel ha-halakhah,” in 'Al halakhah ve-'aggadah (Tel Aviv, 1960), p. 22Google Scholar; Finkelstein, Louis, The Pharisees (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 606ffGoogle Scholar; idem, Ha-perushim (New York, 1950), n. 119Google Scholar (pp. 33f.). But see also idem, Pharisaism in the Making (New York, 1972), pp. 175–86.Google Scholar

9. Cf. Goldstein, J. A., I Maccabees (New York, 1976), pp. 65–66, 170.Google Scholar

10. Cf. Baron, S. W., Social and Religious History of the Jews, 16 vols. to date (Philadelphia and New York, 1952), 2: 38ff. and notes ad loc.Google Scholar

11. Cf. Ginzberg, Louis, “Meqomah shel ha-halakhah,” pp. 22ff.Google Scholar

12. Cf. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972)Google Scholar, s.v. “Avot.”

13. pa 1:4. The translation “home” is deliberate, to state that our concern is not with real estate property, but with chez toi.

In Bodleian MS Opp. Add. 4to, 62 (Neubauer 1065), fol. 107v, Yose ben Yohanan is quoted first and then Yose ben Yoezer (momentary scribal lapse?).

14. Cf. Bendavid, Abba, “‘Al sifrei 'atiqot: Beit She'arim,” Leshonenu la-'am 23 (5732): 248.Google Scholar

15. Equals the “gods of others,” i.e., of gentiles; cf. Lieberman, Saul, Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, Shabbat (New York, 1962), p. 294Google Scholar and n. 35 ibid.

16. The biblical expression (Job 30:23) is beit mo'ed; the same occurs in The War of the Sons of Light Against Sons of Darkness, ed. Yadin, Yigael (Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1955), p. 272 (3:4).Google Scholar

The reading beit ha-va'ad as reference to scholars' meeting-place: B. Sanhedrin 97a, and so too Haggadoth hatalmud (Jerusalem, 1961, photocopy of ed. Constantinople, 1511), p. 112b (citing R. Judah ben Batyra).

The reading of M. Soṭah 9:15 = B. T. Soṭah 49b, beit va'ad, should be beit ha-va'ad as in Haggadoth hatalmud, p. 80a; note also Massekhet Derekh ‘Ereṣ, ed. Higger, Michael (New York, 1935), p. 244Google Scholar. Soṭah 9:131 and Sanhedrin 11:165 of Jacob ibn Ḥabib, 'Ein Ya'aqov (New York, 1955)Google Scholar also read beit ha-va'ad.

T. Megillah 3(4):5, ed. Lieberman, Saul, p. 354Google Scholar, similarly, beit ha-va'ad (and note also Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, pp. 1168–69).

On the reading meqom ha-va'ad in B.T. Sanhedrin 31 b, cf. ds ad loc. (that the MS reading is le-veit ha-va'ad). The reading meqom ha-va'ad in M. Rosh ha-Shanah 4:4 occurs also in Codex Kaufmann, MSS Parma and Paris, and ed. Lowe, W. H. (Cambridge, 1883)Google Scholar; in ed. Naples the whole statement of R. Joshua ben Qorhah is omitted, but is quoted immediately (li-meqom ha-va'ad) in the commentary which follows. See further Epstein, J. N., Mavo le-nusaḥ ha-Mishnah (Jerusalem, 5708), pp. 488–89.Google Scholar

On beit ha-va'ad and beit ha-midrash, cf. Ginzberg, Louis, Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud (Hebrew), 4 vols. (New York, 1941–1961), 3: 175Google Scholar. Cf. Alon, Gedalia, Studies in Jewish History (Hebrew), 2 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1957–1958), 2: 299–300.Google Scholar

On Immanuel of Rome's use of the saying “Let thy home be a meeting-place for the Sages,” cf. his Maḥbarot, ed. Jarden, Dov, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1957), 2: 392, line 214.Google Scholar

17. Version a, p. 27; Version b, p. 28.

18. Cf. Xenophon Oeconomicus 3.12.

19. Cf. Albeck, , Mishnah, Neziqin (1953), p. 493 (on 1:5).Google Scholar

20. For similar construction, cf. M. Bava Batra 9:7.

21. The addition in Codex Kaufmann of “when his wife is niddah, menstruant,” although followed by several authorities, is not to be adopted (cf. S. Schechter in his Introduction to Arn pp. xvii–xx, and Appendix 4). That reading is itself an attempt to make sense out of the third clause of ben Yohanan's saying.

(The reading be-'ishto niddah is reported as a Rashi or French version. Is it possible that this reading, an attempt at softening the impact and brusqueness of the accepted reading, is due partly to fears of heresy? Avoiding overmuch talk with one's wife even when she is not niddah, might well lead to more and more withdrawal from his wife. In the first half of the eleventh century in Christian France and then again in the twelfth century, attacks on traditional marriage—Bogomilism, Catharism—were a real danger to the Established Church; and perhaps beyond the Church too a threat or influence was felt. This suggestion is tentative of course, for the subject requires thorough investigation by a medievalist.)

22. Note threeness in the rhetoric here too: “(a) he brings evil upon himself, (b) neglects the study of Torah, and (c) in the end what he inherits is Gehenna.”

23. Note the way Version a, p. 35, puts it: “‘And talk not overmuch with ha-'ishah’: even with his own wife, and needless to say with his fellow's wife! For so long as a man talks over much with ha-'ishah, he brings evil …,” etc. No word of “they [the Sages] said,” or, “hence the Sages said.” Note the reading in Version b, p. 35, end paragraph of chap. 15.

24. B. T. Nedarim 20a; Kallah, , ed. Higger, Michael (New York, 1936), p. 193Google Scholar; Derekh 'Ereṣ, ed. Higger, p. 276. What caused the downfall of fallen angels: Kallah, p. 230.

25. Derekh, Ereṣ, ibid.; B. T. Nedarim, ibid. Is there any connection between this view and that in Version a of Arn, chap. 31, p. 92, which associates man's heels with the angel of death? Cf. Ginzberg, L. in Goldin, J., The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan (New Haven, 1955), p. 204, n. 30Google Scholar. Professor Saul Lieberman once called my attention to this interpretation in Rosen, R. Joseph, Zaphnath PaneahGoogle Scholar: see ed. Kasher, M. M. (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 116ffGoogle Scholar. ad Arn, and cf. notes ibid.

26. Derekh 'Ereṣ, ibid.; cf. the reading in Al-Nakawa, Israel, Menorat ha-ma'or, ed. Enelow, H. G., 4 vols. (New York, 1932), 4: 56Google Scholar. And note the warning to a scholar (talmid ḥakham) in B.T. Berakhot 43b, toward bottom (cf. ds ad loc.).

27. But cf. the Hebrew (Sefer Ben Sira ha-Shalem, ed. Segal, M. Z. [Jerusalem, 1953], pp. 284, 287).Google Scholar

28. Ecclus. 42: 12–14. Segal, p. 287, calls attention to Josephus, Contra Apionem 2.201 (see Lcl ed. 1:372, n. 4).

29. Act as Job acted? Version a of Arn, pp. 12–13; Version b, pp. 8–9.

30. Ecclus. 9:5, 7–9.

31. Cf. Samuel ben Uceda, Isaac, Midrash Shemuel (New York, 5708), p. 18Google Scholar, line 8, quoting Abarbanel (for this spelling, cf. Leiman, S. Z., “Abarbanel and the Censor,” Journal of Jewish Studies 19 [1968]:49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 1); but Abarbanel also relates the statement to giving of charity.

32. B. T. 'Eruvin 53b (bottom).

33. Cf. above n. 23.

34. Cf. Weiss, D. H., “The Use of הנק in Connection with Marriage,” Harvard Theological Review, 57(1964): 244ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Yevamot 14:1; Ketubbot 5:2; Soṭah 3:8—note Codex Kaufmann; Giṭṭin 8:8, bis; Qiddushin 2:1, 3:1, 2, 5, 6, 10; Bava Batra 3:3 (context supports Yalon); 10:1 (ditto); 10:7 (ditto); Horayot 1:7, bis; ‘Arakhin 6:2, Keritot 2:4. In these Yalon reads la-'ishah, while Kasovsky reads le-'ishah. On calling attention to the significance of the definite article in “related” nouns, cf. Tosefot Yom Tov ad M. Ketubbot 1:1, s.v. “betulah.” And in the commentary of R. Joseph ibn Shoshan—fourteenth cent.; cf. Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v. “Ibn Shushan”—Bodleian MS Mich. 265, [Neubauer 385], fol. 44v) there is explicit emphasis that ha-'ishah, because of the definite article, refers to wife, “for if reference is to other women, what sense does overmuch make?”

36. Note the high praise for “entertaining guests” by a number of Amoraim in B. T. Shabbat 127a (and in name of R. Yohanan, enlargement of M. Pe'ah 1:1; cf. Baer, Seligmann, Seder 'Avodat Yisra'el [Redelheim, 1868], pp. 38–39).Google Scholar

37. Even cynics and Bernard Shaw do not advocate cruelty, though they may quarrel with the popular notion of what constitutes charity. Plutarch Moralia 235E (“Sayings of Spartans,” 56), quotes the following: “A beggar (epaitēs) asked alms of a Spartan, who said, ‘If I should give to you, you will be the more a beggar (mallon ptōcheuseis); and for this unseemly conduct of yours he who first gave to you is responsible, for he thus made you lazy.’” (See also Artemidorus Oneirocritica 3.53 [trans. White, R. S., (Park Ridge, New Jersey, 1975), pp. 171–72]Google Scholar.) And yet (235F, 60), “Only in Sparta does it pay to grow old”! Respect or reverence for the old has nothing to do with charity, of course. But at least it reveals the possibility of civilized attention to others existing without the presence of compassion for the unfortunate.

38. Cf. B. T. Yevamot 63b and B. T. Sanhedrin 100b (see Ben Sira, ed. Segal, p. 75, on what he numbers 11:36), and note that in Sanhedrin this view is said to be the view of Rabbi (Judah the Prince) also! In The New Yorker, 07 23, 1979, p. 37Google Scholar, Ved Mehta reports his father quoting the following Punjabi saying to his mother:

Those who have not been born of your blood

Come into your house

And separate the real blood brothers.

39. The prooftext is provided by Version b of Arn (p. 33), Job 31:32, “My doors [dlty, i.e., delatai] I opened to the wayfarer.” My former student, Mary Rose D'Angelo, once observed that there was also a play on words here, dlt (dalet) = 4 and dlt (delet) = door. In several MSS at the Bodleian (Mich. 507 [ol. 665], fol. 4r; see also t 25 [5b] and t 26) the commentary adds that the poor may be enabled to enter in one door and go out another, so that those standing by the entrance may not see him leave, to his embarrassment. See also Arn, p. 138, line 14 from bottom.

40. Cf. Ginzberg, L., Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia, 1909–1938), 5: 248, n. 223.Google Scholar

41. Note also Tobit 2:2 (or 4:7ff.), dated fourth century B.c. by Bickerman, E. J., Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1976), 1: 55.Google Scholar

42. See bdb on ‘nw and ‘ny (pp. 776–77). On Version a of arn also undertaking interpretation of ‘nw, cf. ibid., p. 34. Of course, I am not denying that bny bytk (bnei beitekha, on which cf. Kutscher, E. Y., Hebrew and Aramaic Studies [Jerusalem, 1977], p. 92Google Scholar [of Hebrew part]) has the meaning of “servants, stewards,” as both pa commentators (e.g., Vitry, Maimonides, etc.) and modern scholars say (e.g., Melamed, E. Z., “Li-leshonah shel massekhet 'Avot,” Leshonenu 20 [5716]: 110–11Google Scholar; Ginsberg, H. L., Koheleth [Hebrew, Tel Aviv-Jerusalem, 1961], p. 68Google Scholar; Albright, W. F., “Abram the Hebrew: A New Archaeological Interpretation,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 163 [10 1961], p. 47Google Scholar and nn. 54–56). Note how the amora Raba quotes the saying in B. T. Bava Meṣi'a 60b. But that need not always be the case: note the expression in the context of Version a of arn, pp. 34–35 (top). On benei beito = his wife, cf. Lieberman, S., Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, Pesaḥim, p. 627Google Scholar, lines 48–49. In his Commentary to the Mishna Shabbat (Jerusalem, 1976, p. 384)Google Scholar, Abraham Goldberg notes the meaning “guests.” For the expression brbyy, see Lev. R. 25:8, p. 584, line 5 and note, ad loc. and cf. Lieberman, S., ad loc., pp. 877–78Google Scholar. See further Kutscher, E. Y. in Rosenthal, Franz, ed., An Aramaic Handbook, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1967), vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 55bGoogle Scholar, and again Kutscher, , Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, p. 66Google Scholar. For Persian title vispuhr = Aramaic, bar baita, ibid., p. 16 of Hebrew part.

43. Version b of arn, p. 33. Like master like dog! (Beasts belonging to saints, saintly like their masters: Version a of arn, p. 38.) On opening the doors to rich and poor alike, cf. Samuel ben Isaac Uceda, Midrash Shemuel, p. 17, nine lines from bottom.

44. Note also the expression in M. Yoma 1:1, beito zo'ishto (his house-home = his wife). See also R. Yose in B. T. Shabbat 118b (toward bottom). A scholar (talmid ḥakham) should not be conversing with any woman (even his wife, his daughter, his sister) out of doors: B. T. Berakhot 43b, bottom; and cf. ds ad loc. (This does not appear in Derekh ‘Ereṣ, ed. Higger, p. 116.) “Scholaris, qui loquitur cum puella, non praesumitur dicere Pater Noster” (Adriaan Beverland, 1654?–1712, The Law Concerning Draped Virginity [Paris, 1905], pp. 132–33 quoting Baldo).Google Scholar

45. That such attempts at harmonization occur, can be seen in arnb, second paragraph, p. 28, on “Let thy home be a meeting-place for the Sages,” compared with arna, p. 33, lines 2 and 3 of the comment on “And let the poor be members of thy household.” Note a scribal lapse in MS Bodleian Opp. 245 (ol. 422) (Neubauer 390), fol. 21v, “Let thy home be wide open, a meet-ng-place for the Sages!”

46. arn speaks of Abraham's hospitality to all, and how he surpassed Job in hospitality: how he ran forth looking for guests; how he served them with dishes they never before tasted (could not afford)! The midrash on Abraham's entertaining the three wayfarers (Gen. 18: 1ff.) is in Mekhilta, ‘Amaleq 3 (ed. Lauterbach, 2:178 and parallels).

The indefatigable emphasis on charity and hospitality in Judaism (and later, Christianity too) in Greco-Roman centuries, is not just relief of the poor for reasons of policy or politics, or quid pro quo beneficence. (The phenomenon of public gifts to the state, or polis or even some collegia to establish funds and foundations, etc., is an entirely different subject; see Hands, A. R., Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome [London, 1968]Google Scholar. See especially his Chapter 5 on the poor.) Emphasis obviously reflects the need to emphasize, that people may not be responding spontaneously as they should. Nevertheless, the tireless rhetoric reveals what has become a fixed value within a moral “system.” In this, even a scholar may have to be taught a lesson or two: Lev. R. 9:3, pp. 176ff. Cf. n. 54 below.

47. This view is perhaps in the back of the mind of Joseph ibn Shoshan (n. 35 above): u-vi-qeṣarah (the husband is to speak briefly). In Version b of arn, p. 126, one view has it that women are lazy (dawdlers) and the prooftext offered is that of Abraham ordering Sarah, “Quick now, three measures” (etc.). Note how in B. T. Bava Meṣi'a 87a the Abraham-order to Sarah of Gen. 18 is interpreted as support for the view that women are less generous than men (cf. Sifrei Num. 110, p. 115), and this is referred to by Samuel ben Isaac Uceda, Midrash Shemuel, p. 18, lines 12ff. But this is not what I am driving at.

48. Cf. the Mekhilta reference in n. 46, above.

49. Cf. Goldin, J., “Of Change and Adaptation in Judaism,” History of Religions 4 (1965): 282–83, 285–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. The following is a tentative translation and interpretation of the passage:

“Another interpretation of ‘Do not talk overmuch with the wife’: [for] he brings disgrace on himself. How so? In the first week [of their married life?], she comes to where he is. [Subsequently,?] when she hears him coming into the courtyard, she goes into a room [and] from the room into the triclinium [i.e., a room with the couches for dining, in the interior: cf. the imagery – pa 4:16]. He follows after her, and in his presence she “uncovers” her head and he enters into long conversation with her. What caused him to disgrace himself? His having entered into long conversation with her.” Cf. also the translation and interpretation by Anthony Saldarini, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, Version B (Leiden, 1975), p. 110.

Something like a man's losing face seems to be involved here—at first the husband plays the dominant role, but by prolonging conversation with his wife, the text implies (or seems to imply), that she gets the upper hand and he has to beg for her favors. A woman, of course, is not to “uncover” (cf. The Torah [Philadelphia, 1962], Lev. 10:6, note)Google Scholar her head in public (cf. M. Ketubbot 7:6; M. Bava Qamma 8:6; see also Krauss, Samuel, Talmudische Archäologie, 2 vols. [Leipzig, 1910], 1:651Google Scholar, n. 874, and Qadmoniyyot ha-Talmud, 2 vols. [Tel-Aviv, 1945], vol. 2, pt. 2, 274–78)Google Scholar; but the expression here seems to suggest that she is brazen in her demands on her husband (not waiting for him to make the proper overtures or forcing him to sue at length). Unfortunately, several specific points are still unclear to me. Going from room to room and the husband following after her, may also be part of the humiliation he is subjected to, and long conversation may refer to the husband's entreating.

51. And yet, cf. Semonides (seventh cent. b.c. as translated by Arthur, M. in Pomeroy, S. B. (Goddesses, Whores. Wives, Slaves [New York, 1975]), p. 52Google Scholar, lines 3–4: “For whosever wife she is, she won't receive graciously//Into the house a friend who comes to visit.” (In the Oxford Book of Greek Verse, chosen by Murray, Gilbert et al. [Oxford, 1954], pp. 161ff., these lines are not included.)Google Scholar

52. Cf. above, n. 18; and cf. Taylor, C., Sayings, 1:140Google Scholar, top. Note also Lacey, W. K., The Family in Classical Greece (Ithaca, 1968), pp. 158 (bottom)ff., 167ffGoogle Scholar. See also Pomeroy, , Goddesses, p. 74Google Scholar. Though he speaks of the Roman woman (“The Silent Women of Rome”), Sir Finley, M. I.'s essay in his Aspects of Antiquity ([London, 1977], pp. 124ff.)Google Scholar is instructive also for our subject. In The New Yorker, loc. cit. (n. 38 above), Ved Mehta quotes a Punjabi quatrain his father recited to his mother:

Yours is a life without help,

The same is your story:

Milk under your veil,

Always water in your eyes.

A suggestion has been made to me orally that entertaining in the ordinary Greek home was unlikely because Greek houses were small. But surely ordinary houses in Judea and Jewish Palestine were hardly more spacious than their Greek counterparts.

53. T. Berakhot 6(7):18, ed. Saul Lieberman, p. 38; see also Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, p. 120, and now also Wieder, Naphtali, “‘Al ha-berakhot ‘goy, ‘eved, ‘ishah,’ ‘behemah,’ ‘u-vur,’” Sinai 85 (1979): 97–118.Google Scholar

54. As we said above, n. 46, second paragraph (see also n. 55, end). See especially Hands, Charities, chaps. 3–6. Here may well lie the crucial difference between pharisaic charity and Hellenistic (-Roman): in the former, all sorts of persons are to be invited in; cf. Version b of arn, p. 34.

55. Rostovtzev, M. I., Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World. 2 vols. (Oxford, 1964), 2: 1118–21Google Scholar (I owe this reference to Professor J. Frank Gilliam). For a picture of domestic felicity by a first century a.d. Stoic, cf. Lutz, C. E., “Musonius Rufus,” in Yale Classical Studies 10 (1947): 96–101Google Scholar; but still no word about inviting others to share with family. We are not talking of inviting friends, but of others = strangers, anyone in need.

56. See also Plutarch Moralia 769 (“A Dialogue on Love,” pp. 23–24).

57. Nevertheless, see Damascus Covenant 6:21, but see also Ginzberg, Louis, An Unknown Jewish Sect (New York, 1976), p. 202Google Scholar. Reference to pagans giving alms in Late Antiquity, in anecdote, in The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, trans. Ward, Benedicta (Oxford, 1975), p. 38, no. 131.Google Scholar

58. Josephus War 2.166 (LCL 2:387; and on “peers,” cf. Thackeray's note b ibid.). As for early emphasis on Oral Torah, cf. J. Goldin in Altmann, Alexander, ed., Biblical Motifs (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), pp. 138–46, 149–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59. Note later Shemaiah in pa 1:10, Version b of arn, p. 46, first part of second paragraph. And note the variety of explanations of why one should “love work,” in Version a, pp. 44–45.

60. Miss Rhoda Grady suggests to me that in his saying Yose ben Yoezer speaks of the home in terms of receiving, whereas Yose ben Yohanan talks of the home as a place of giving. As to gemilut ḥasadim, cf. the reference in n. 6, above.

61. I am not referring back to the saying of Simeon the Righteous in pa 1:2, for he is not speaking of Torah and gemilut ḥasadim in their later sense (cf. again the reference in n. 6, above). As for Shammai's saying (pa 1:15), note the meaning of qeva' in both versions of arn (pp. 47 and 56)—hence, despite the third clause which may or can be an aspect of gemilut ḥasadim (arn, pp. 48, 57), the first clause is not speaking of study of Torah.

62. B. T. Bava Qamma 17a, end of chap. 1 (see ibid, on the two tribes). Al-Nakawa, Menorat ha-ma'or, first chapter (on ṣedaqah, charity), opens with this passage.

For further thought: Though the name Yose is not uncommon both in literary texts and inscriptions, is it coincidence or is it significant that both leaders are called Yose (or, Yosef); that the one who wants the home to be a meeting-place for scholars is from Ṣeredah, while the one who wants the home to be wide open is from Jerusalem? Is there some remote, however slight connection between the popular name Yose and that soubriquet formula (M. Sanhedrin 7:5), “Yose [God] damn Yose?” (Cf. Epstein, J. N., “Li-leshon nezirut,” Sefer Magnes [Jerusalem, 1938], p. 11.Google Scholar) Was Yose(f) ben Yoezer known as ḥasid she-bi-khehunah (the pious one of the priesthood, M. Ḥagigah 2:7), because though a priest he esteemed the sages? But see Frankel, Zacharias, Darkhei ha-Mishnah (Warsaw, 1923), pp. 33–34Google Scholar and Albeck, , Mishnah, Neziqin, p. 485Google Scholar. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai called his disciple, R. Yose the priest, ḥasid(pa 2:8). Coincidence? Note the second clause in his saying, pa 2:12. What of R. Yose Qatunta, whoever he was (M. Soṭah 9:15; cf. Hyman, Aaron, Toldoth Tannaim Ve' Amoraim, 3 vols. [London, 1910], 2: 741–42)?Google Scholar