SCHOOLS, LEARNING, LEARNED MEN, &C.In the midst of their calamities and depression, the Jews have all along paid some attention to their language and religion; but dispersed as they are, and without a country of their own, they cannot be expected to have such national establishments as univities; yet in almost every considerable town on the continent, where they are in any great numbers, schools are formed under the auspices of their presiding or dominant Rabbies, who confer titles on their scholars, or on others that deserve them. They appear to have two degrees analogous and most probably taken from the usages at universities; the one, Rabbi, nearly equivalent to B. A., and the other, Morenu Rab, answering to Doctor. These appear to be of modern institution, and to have commenced about A. D. 1420; previous to which the latter term is not found, and the distinction is supposed to have become necessary, in order to prevent the irregular conducting of marriages and divorces, which every one presumed to do, in consequence of the title of Rabbi, although not sufficiently informed or qualified for the office. The origin of these schools was evidently the Sanhedrim in the temple; by whose determination the laws were explained, and all the Mosaic institutions were reduced to minute and actual practice. The form, period, and manner of all ceremonies and observances, were by them established and handed down to successive Sanhedrims, who, as intricate circumstances and questions arose, gradually enlarged the code, and provided for both ex

traordinary and ordinary situations. Their peculiar form and number, sometimes seventy-one, sometimes twenty, and at other times only three, together with all their minute allotments and jurisdictions, may be found in Selden's work De Synedriis, which is an astonishing monument of learning and industry.

The disturbances related by Josephus, proved so destructive of all order, that the heads of the Sanhedrim, who were styled the Princes or Primates, became afraid to exercise their functions; and criminal jurisdiction, as far at least as implicated the punishment of death, was abandoned by them to the executive power, and the assembly followed their primate to whatever place he retired. Thus we find them wandering from the temple into Jerusalem; from thence, some time before the destruction of the temple, into Jabne, which Selden labours much to place in Galilee; and afterwards to many other places until the time of Antoninus Pius, when they were at Tebariah or Tiberias. After this they lost all power as Sanhedrim, but it seems they still kept up the schools, and those in Palestine or Judea still regulated the feast of the new moon from ocular observation, according to the ancient custom, until about A. D. 355, when Hillel the second, called Hillel the Prince, foreseeing the speedy annihilation of the schools in Judea, established the calendar, comprising the feasts of the new moon, and the arrangement of the equinoxes and solstices, according to the calculation of Rab Ada, who flourished A. D. 243, and which

hold good to this day. We find the first mention of an assembly or school with a primate, but without any judicial power, except in religious matters, about A. D. 219, when D. Ganz states,* that Rab going to Babylon, found an assembly there with Rab Shiloh at its head; as likewise one at Neardai, or Naharda, with Shomuel as their primate. He therefore went and established the famous school at Sura, which is said to be Aram Soba, and which Bochart will have to be in Syria; but the situations of these places seem to be involved in much obscurity, as is also that of Pombeditha, another famous school, and, like the others, the seat of the various compilers of the Talmud.†

An annual, or some other periodical assembly of all the heads of these schools or colleges, appears to have been occasionally held at Babylon, since we find a relation of ceremony and precedence, with respect to the seating of the Primate from Sura on the right hand of the Prince of Captivity, who resided at Babylon, while the President from Pombeditha sat on the left; and the author of Shalsheleth Hakabalah relates, that the latter always addressed the Primate of Sura by the title Rabbi, which the other was not obliged to give to the Primate of Pombeditha. It was at the college of Sura

*In his Tsemach David.

† Cellarius places them in Chaldæa, and on the left bank of the Euphrates." Judaicis etiam scholis insignes urbes in his alveorum ripis fuerunt Sora vel Sura, Naharda, Pombeditha Schephithib, Kupha."-PATRICK's Cellarius, 2d edit. p. 101.

that the Talmud is said to have been, completed and finished; and if so, the hypothesis of this place's being in Syria is groundless, it being known that the Talmud is from Babylon; although this name is only attached to it in contradistinction from the Jerusalem Talmud, and from its being the subject of tradition and study in all the schools of Babylon, and rehearsed at the periodical meetings before mentioned.

These colleges were destroyed about A. D. 1038, when the Jews suffered much from the Saracens, &c. since which time we find no formal or regular college any where established, but every learned man, who could collect a number of persons to join him, formed a school in any place where they may have settled: and Spain, Portugal, France, and Germany, as well as Egypt, Arabia, Cyprus, and the Greek islands, all possessed schools, and produced great and learned men for some time afterwards, till superstition, malice, or prejudice, banished them. Cordova, Toledo, Barcelona, Lisbon, Narbonne, Troyes, Mayence, Cyprus, Cairo, Alexandria, &c. &c. are likewise said to have possessed schools under the auspices of men famous for learning and piety; and Frankfort, Prague, Hamburgh, Cracow, Furth, and many other places in Germany and Poland, now have, or lately had, schools.*

* An establishment was likewise formed in Copenhagen in 1803, for the instruction of Jewish youth. It is a species of free school, and well endowed; and in the end of the year 1805 the number of the pupils was forty. Another

With regard to their learning, it may be remarked, that though literature was not very general among the latter Jews, and though an exclusive study of profane learning was discouraged, yet that its absolute lawfulness was questioned, as some have asserted, does not appear; for after the holy writings, which were the primary object of study among the learned, the sciences, we are told, "were also zealously encouraged; nay, the law positively enacted, that the Sanhedrim should consist of men who must be acquainted with Geometry, Mensuration, Astronomy, Physics, Metaphysics, Anatomy, Medicine, &c.* And the Talmud, in almost every page, evinces sentiments uttered by men who were very far from novices in all the various branches of knowledge of those times. The peculiar and very nice distinctions laid down in Zeraim,† shew great proficiency in agriculture, and do no small credit to their mathematical knowledge in the geometrical arrangements there laid down.

"Their transcendent wisdom in Astronomy is evident from the regulation respecting the feast of the new moon, and the regulation of their calendar. Their knowledge of anatomy and zootomy is evin

school of the same kind, and with the same object in view, was lately established at Brunswick by M. Jacobson, privy counsellor of finances there; and both these schools, as far as I can learn, are yet in existence.

* Vide Maimonides, cap. Sanhedrim.

† i. e. The first of the six classifications of the Talmud, which treats of first fruits and the managements of agri

culture.