Hillel

, the elder, surnamed Hassaken, was born at Babylon, of poor parents, but of the royal stock of David, in the year 112 B. C. After residing forty years in Babylon, where he married, and had a son, he removed with his family to Jerusalem, for the purpose of studying the law. Shemaiah and Abdalion were at that time eminent doctors in Jerusalem. Hillel, unable on account of his poverty to gain a regular admission to their lectures, spent a considerable part of the profits of his daily labour in bribing the attendants to allow him a place at the door of the public hall, where he might gather up the doctrine of these eminent masters by stealth; and when this expedient failed him, he found means to place himself at the top of the building near one of the windows. By such unwearied perseverance he acquired a profound knowledge of the most difficult points of the law; in consequence of which his reputation gradually rose to such an heignt, that he became the master of the chief school in Jerusalem. In this station he was universally regarded as an oracle of wisdom scarcely inferior to Solomon, and had many thousand followers. He had such command of his temper, that no one ever saw him angry. The name of Hillel is in the highest esteem among the Jews for the pains which he took to perpetuate the knowledge of the traditionary law. He arranged its precepts under six general classes; and thus laid the foundation of that digest of the Jewish law which is called the Talmud. Hillel is said to have lived to the great age of one hundred and twenty years. Shammai, one of the disciples of Hillel, deserted his school, and formed a college of his own, in which he taught dogmas contrary to those of his master. He rejected die oral law, and followed the written law only, in its literal sense. Hence he has been ranked among the Karaites. The schools of Hillel and Shammai long disturbed the peace of the Jewish church by violent contests, in which, however, | the party of Hillel was at last victorious. Hillel, we have yet to mention, laboured much to give a correct edition of the sacred text, and there is an ancient ms Bible which bears his name ascribed to him, part of which is among the Mss. of the Sorbonne. ¹