I. The School

I. THE SCHOOL
THE LITERATURE
Ursinus, Antiquitates Hebraicae Scholastico-Academicae, Hafniae 1702 (also in Ugolini’s Thesaurus, vol. xxi.).
Pacht, De eruditione Judaica (dissertatio, quam praeside A. G. Waehnero examini submittet auctor J. L. Pacht), Gotting. 1742. It specially treats, pp. 50-55: de ludis puerorum.
Andr. Georg Waehner, Antiquitates Ebraeorum, vol. ii. (Gottingae 1742), pp. 783-804: de eruditione Ebraeorum.
Ant. Theod. Hartmann, Die enge Verbindung des A. T. mit dem Neuen (1831), pp. 377-384.
Gfrörer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, i. 186-192.
Winer, RWB., arts. “Kinder” and “Unterricht.” Still more literature is here given.
Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Jisrael, iii. 243, 266-268.
Keim, Gesch. Jesu, i. 424 sqq.
Diestel, art. “Erziehung,” in Schenkel’s Bibetlex. ii. 172 sq.
Ginsburg, art. “Education,” in Kitto’s Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature.
S. R. Hirsch, Aus dem rabbinischen Schulleben. Frankf. a. M. 1871 (Progr.).
Elias van Gelder, Die Volksschule des jüdischen Alterthums nach talmudischen und rabbinischen Quellen. Berl. 1872 (Leipziger Dissertat.).
Leop. Löw, Die Lebensalter in der jüdischen Literatur (Szegedin 1875), pp. 196 sqq., 407 sqq.
Mos. Jacobson, Versuch einer Psychologie des Talmud (Hamburg 1878), pp. 93-101.
Jos. Simon, L’éducation et l’instruction des enfants chez les anciens Juifs d’après la Bible et le Talmud, 3rd ed. Leipzig 1879, O. Schulze.
Hamburger, Real-Enc. für Bibel und Talmud, Div. i. art. “Erziehung,” Div.ii.arts. “Lehrer,” “Mizwa,” “Schule,” “Schüler,” “Unterricht.”
According to the statement of Josephus, Moses had already prescribed “that boys should learn the most important laws, because this is the best knowledge and the cause of prosperity.”[1552] “He commanded to instruct children in the elements of knowledge (reading and writing), to teach them to walk according to the laws, and to know the deeds of their forefathers. The latter, that they might imitate them; the former, that growing up with the laws they might not transgress them, nor have the excuse of ignorance.”[1553] Josephus repeatedly commends the zeal with which the instruction of the young was carried on. “We take most pains of all with the instruction of children, and esteem the observation of the laws and the piety corresponding with them the most important affair of our whole life.”[1554] “If any one should question one of us concerning the laws, he would more easily repeat all than his own name, Since we learn them from our first consciousness, we have them, as it were, engraven on our souls; and a transgression is rare, but the averting of punishment impossible.”[1555] In like manner does Philo express himself: “Since the Jews esteem their laws as divine revelations, and are instructed in the knowledge of them from their earliest youth, they bear the image of the law in their souls.”[1556] “They are taught, so to speak, from their swaddling-clothes by their parents, teachers, and those who bring them up, even before instruction in the sacred laws and the unwritten customs, to believe in God the one Father and Creator of the world.”[1557] Josephus boasts of himself, that in his fourteenth year he had already so accurate an acquaintance with the law, that the high priest and chief men of Jerusalem used to come to him to learn particulars respecting the law.[1558] In view of all this testimony it cannot be doubted, that in the circles of genuine Judaism boys were from their tenderest childhood made acquainted with the demands of the law.[1559] That this education in the law was, in the first place, the duty and task of parents is self-evident. But it appears, that even in the age of Christ, care was also taken for the instruction of youth by the erection of schools on the part of the community. It does not indeed say much. when later tradition fells us that Simon ben Shetach already prescribed that children (תינוקות) should frequent the elementary schools (בית הספר).[1560] For this Simon ben Shetach is quite a point of meeting for all kinds of myths. In any case however, in the period of the Mishna, and therefore at latest in the second century after Christ, the existence of elementary schools is assumed. There are e.g. legal appointments with regard to the חַוָּן (servant of the congregation), who instructs children (תינוקות) in reading on the Sabbath.[1561] Or it is ordained, that an idle man shall not keep a school for children, לא ילמוד אדם רוק סופרים.[1562] Or it is appointed, that in certain cases the testimony of an adult with respect to what he saw as a child (קטן) in the elementary school (בית הספר) is valid.[1563] Hence the later tradition, that Joshua ben Gamla (= Jesus the son of Gamaliel) enacted that teachers of boys (מלמדי תינוקות) should be appointed in every province and in every town, and that children of the age of six or seven should be brought to them, is by no means incredible.[1564] The only Jesus the son of Gamaliel known to history is the high priest of that name, about 63-65 after Christ (see above, vol. i. p. 201). It must therefore be he who is intended in the above notice. As his measures presuppose a somewhat longer existence of boys’ schools, we may without hesitation transfer them to the age of Christ, even though not as a general and established institution.
[1552] Antt. iv. 8. 12: Μανθανέτωσαν δὲ καὶ οἱ παῖδες πρώτους τοὺς νόμους μάθημα κάλλιστον καὶ τῆς εὐδαιμονίας αἴτιον.
[1553] Apion. ii. 25: Καὶ γράμματα παιδεύειν ἐκέλευσε [scil. τοὺς παῖδας], περί τε τοὺς νόμους ἀναστρέφεσθαι καὶ τῶν προγόνων τὰς πράξεις ἐπίστασθαι, τὰς μὲν ἵνα μιμῶνται, τοῖς δʼ ἵνα συντρεφόμενοι μήτε παραβαίνωσι μήτε σκῆψιν ἀγνοίας ἔχωσι. On γράμματα = the elements of knowledge (reading and writing), see Passow’s WB. s.v.
[1554] Apion. i. 12: Μάλιστα δὲ πάντων περὶ παιδοτροφίαν φιλοκαλοῦντες, καὶ τὸ φυλάττειν τοὺς νόμους καὶ τὴν κατὰ τουτους παραδεδομένην εὐσέβειαν ἔργον ἀναγκαιότατον παντὸς τοῦ βίου πεποιημένοι.
[1555] Apion. ii. 18: Ἡμῶν δʼ ὁντινοῦν εἴ τις ἔροιτο τοὺς νόμους, ῥᾷον ἂν εἴποι πάντας ἢ τοὔνομα τὸ ἑαυτοῦ. Τοιγαροῦν ἀπὸτῆς πρώτης εὐθὺς αἰσθήσεως αὐτοὺς ἐκμανθάνοντες ἔχομεν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὥσπερ ἐγκεχαραγμένους, καὶ σπάνιος μὲν ὁ παραβαίνων, ἀδύνατος δʼ ἡ τῆς κολάσεως παραίτησις.
[1556] Legat. ad Cajum, § 31, Mang. ii. 577. Θεόχρηστα γὰρ λόγια τοὺς νόμους εἶναι ὑπολαμβάνοντες, καὶ τοῦτο ἐκ πρώτης ἡλικίας τὸ μάθημα παιδευθέντες, ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἀγαλματοφοροῦσι τὰς τῶν διατεταγμένων εἰκόνας.
[1557] Legat. ad Cajum, § 31, Mang. ii. 577: Δεδιδαγμένους ἐξ αὐτῶν τρόπον τινὰ σπαργάνων ὑπὸ γονέων καὶ παιδαγωγῶν καὶ ὑφηγητῶν, καὶ πολὺ πρότερον τῶν ἱερῶν νόμων καὶ ἔτι τῶν ἀγράφων ἐθῶν, ἕνα νομίζειν τὸν πατέρα καὶ ποιητὴν τοῦ κόσμου θεόν.
[1558] Vita, 2.
[1559] In Christian communities also children were instructed in the Holy Scriptures. Comp. 2 Timothy 3:15 : ἀπὸ βρέφους ἱερὰ γράμματα οἶδας.
[1560] Jer. Kethuboth viii. 11 (32c above).
[1561] Shabbath i. 3.
[1562] Kiddushin iv. 13.
[1563] Kethuboth ii. 10.
[1564] Bab. Baba bathra 21a: “Rab Judah said in the name of the Rabbi: Truly it may be remembered to this man’s credit! Joshua ben Gamla is his name. If he had not lived, the law would have been forgotten in Israel. For at first, he who had a father was taught the law by him, he who had none did not learn the law.… Afterwards it was ordained, that teachers of boys should be appointed in Jerusalem.… But he who had a father was sent to school by him, he who had none did not go there. Then it was ordained, that teachers should be appointed in every province, and that boys of the age of sixteen or seventeen should be sent to them. But he whose teacher was angry with him ran away, till Joshua ben Gamla came and enacted, that teachers should be appointed in every province and in every town (בכל מדינה ומדינה ובכל עיר ועיר), and children of six or seven yean old brought to them.”
The subject of instruction, as already appears from the above passages of Josephus and Philo, was as good as exclusively the law. For only its inculcation in the youthful mind, and not the means of general education, was the aim of all this zeal for the instruction of youth. And indeed the earliest instruction was in the reading and inculcation of the text of Scripture. Hence the elementary school was called simply the בֵּית הַסֵּפֶר, because it had to do with the book of the Thorah, or as is once expressly declared, with the text of Scripture (the סִקְרָא) in distinction from בֵּית הַמִּדִרָשׁ, which was devoted to further “study.”[1565] It was therefore at bottom only the interest in the law, which made instruction in reading pretty widely diffused. For since in the case of the written Scripture (in distinction from oral tradition) great importance was attached to its being actually read (see below on the order of public worship), elementary instruction in the law was necessarily combined with instruction in reading. A knowledge of reading must therefore be everywhere assumed, where a somewhat more thorough knowledge of the law existed. Hence we find even in pre-Christian times books of the law in the possession of private individuals.[1566] On the other hand however the difficult art of writing was less general.[1567]
[1565] Jer. Megilla iii. 1 (73d): “R. Pinchas said in the name of R Hoehaiah that there were 480 synagogues in Jerusalem, and each had a Beth-Sefer and a Beth-Talmud, the former for the Mikra (the text of Scripture), the latter for the Mishna (the oral tradition).”
[1566] Comp. 1Ma_1:56 sq. In the Mishna, Jebamoth xvi. 7, a story is told of a Levite, who died on a journey, in an inn, and whose property consisted of a stick, a travelling-bag, and a book of the law.
[1567] Comp. Winer, RWB., art. “Schreibkunst.”
Habitual practice went hand in hand with theoretical instruction. For though children were not actually bound to fulfil the law, they were yet accustomed to it from their youth up. It was made a duty of adults e.g. to enjoin children to keep the Sabbath.[1568] Children were to be gradually accustomed to strict fasting on the day of atonement one or two years before the age when it was incumbent.[1569] Certain points were even binding upon children. They were not bound indeed e.g. to the reading of the Shema and the putting on of Tephillin, but they were so to the usual prayer (the Shemoneh Esreh) and to prayer at table.[1570] Boys had to be present at the tenderest age in the temple at the chief festivals.[1571] Especially were boys bound to the observance of the feast of Tabernacles.[1572] As soon then as the first signs of manhood appeared, the growing Israelite was bound to the full observance of the law,[1573] he then entered upon all the rights and duties of a full-grown Israelite, and was henceforth a בַּר מִצְוָה.[1574] Thus the widely-diffused opinion, supported especially by the remarks of Lightfoot and Wetzstein on Luke 2:42, that the attainment of the twelfth year formed the boundary between being bound and not bound to the observance of the law, is in two respects inaccurate: first, because, a younger boy was bound by certain precepts, and next because no definite age but the signs of approaching puberty formed this boundary. Besides, when a definite age was subsequently fixed, it was not that of twelve, but of thirteen years.[1575]
[1568] Shabbath xvi. 6.
[1569]a Joma viii. 4.
[1570] Berachoth iii. 3: “Women, slaves and children are released from reading the Shema and from the Tephillin, but are bound to the Tephilla (the Shemoneh Esreh), to the Mesusa, and prayer at table.”
[1571] Chagiga i. 1: “Every one is bound to appear in the temple at the chief feasts, except the deaf, idiots, children, eunuchs, mongrels, women, unemancipated slaves, the lame, blind, sick, infirm, and generally those who cannot walk. What is here meant by a child (קָטָן)? According to the school of Shammai: Every one who cannot yet ride upon his father’s shoulder from Jerusalem to the temple mount. But the school of Hillel said: Every one who cannot yet go up from Jerusalem to the temple mount led by his father’s hand.” It may indeed be inferred from Luke 2:42, that as a rule those dwelling away from Jerusalem took part in the pilgrimages from their twelfth year.
[1572] Sukka ii. 8: “Women, slaves and children are free from the law of the feast of Tabernacles. A child however, who no longer needs his mother, is bound by it. The daughter-in-law of Shammai the elder once brought forth a son at the feast of Tabernacles. He then left the roof open and covered it in over the bed with branches for the sake of the child.” Sukka iii. 15: “A boy who is capable of shaking the lulab is bound to keep it.”
[1573] Nidda vi. 11: “A boy in whom the two hairs appear is bound to all the commands which are said in the law.” The like applies to girls, with the difference, that women neither share in all the rights nor in all the legal duties of men.
[1574] The expression Bar-Mizvah is found already in the Talmud (Baba mezia 96a below, see Levy’s Neuhebr. Wörterb. i. 258b), but was not generally used as the designation of a full-grown Israelite till the Middle Ages, see Löw, Die Lebensalter, pp. 210, 410.
[1575] Thus in the appendix (a work of the post-Talmudic period) to the treatise Aboth, Aboth v. 21: “At five years old (he comes) to the reading of Scripture, at ten to the Mishna, at thirteen (בן שלש עשרה) to the practice of the commands, at fifteen to the Talmud, at eighteen to marriage,” etc. In a special point, viz. the absolute validity of the oath, the attainment of the thirteenth year was also already appointed in the Mishna; see Nidda v. 6: “When a child is twelve years and one day old, his oaths are tested; when he is thirteen years and a day, they are valid without further ceremony.” Comp. Löw, Die Lebensalter, p. 143 sqq. Hamburger, Real-Enc. für Bibel und Talmud, Div. ii. art. “Mizva.” The material contributed by Lightfoot (Horae hebr.) and Wetzstein (Nov. Test.) on Luke 2:42 does not prove, that the twelfth year formed the boundary between obligation and non-obligation. On the one hand, only the views of individual authorities, which are opposed by other authorities, are on the whole dealt with; and on the other it is only said by them, that the strict practice of the law had to begin at twelve years of age, not that its obligation then began; so especially in the passages Joma 82a, Kethuboth 50a. Nor can more be inferred from Luke 2:42, than that at the age of twelve the strict practice of the law began.