This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... of thirty, and died at the age of about eighty-five. It is difficult to harmonize the many anecdotes, found in Talmudic and midrashicliterature, relating to J udah's intercourse with an emperor named Antoninus (see Jaw. Encvc. i. 656) with the accounts of the various bearers of that name; and they therefore can not be used in a historic account of J udah's life and activity. However, as Marcus Aurelius visited Palestine in 175, and Septirnius Severus in 200, there is a historical basis for the statement that Judah came into personal relations with some one of the Antonines; the statement being supported by the anecdotes, although they may report more fiction than truth. In many of these narratives references to the emperor apply really to the imperial representatives in Palestine. The assumption that not Judah I., but his grandson, Judah II., is the patriarch of the Antonine anecdotes (so Graetz) seems untenable in view of the genHis Pa.tri-eral impression made by the personalarchate. ity of the patriarch; the tradition doubtless refers to Judah I. The splendor surrounding Judah's position, a splendor such as no other incumbent of the same oflice enjoyed, was evidently due to the favor of the Roman rulers. Although the PalestinianJcwsl1ad to contend with serious diflicnlties, and were persecuted during the patriarch's tenure of ofiice, covering more than rifty years, yet it was on the whole a period of peace and one favorable to the activity of the academy. Judah 1., who united in himself all the qualifications for internal and external authority, was naturally the chief personage of this period, which was destined, in virtue of its importance, to close the epoch of the Tannaim, and to inaugurate definitely with...