of the Tannaim like Meir, claimed the right to study what we should now
term secular sciences. The width of Meir's sympathies may be seen in his
tolerant conduct towards his friend Elisha, the son of Abuya. When the
latter forsook Judaism, Meir remained true to Elisha. He devoted himself
to the effort to win back his old friend, and, though he failed, he
never ceased to love him. Again, Meir was famed for his knowledge of
fables, in antiquity a branch of the wisdom of all the Eastern world.
Meir's large-mindedness was matched by his large-heartedness, and in his
wife Beruriah he possessed a companion whose tender sympathies and fine
toleration matched his own.

The fourth generation of Tannaim is overshadowed by the fame of Judah
the Prince, _Rabbi_, as he was simply called. He lived from 150 to 210,
and with his name is associated the compilation of the Mishnah. A man of
genial manners, strong intellectual grasp, he was the exemplar also of
princely hospitality and of friendship with others than Jews. His
intercourse with one of the Antonines was typical of his wide culture.
Life was not, in Rabbi Judah's view, compounded of smaller and larger
incidents, but all the affairs of life were parts of the great divine
scheme. "Reflect upon three things, and thou wilt not fall into the
power of sin: Know what is above thee--a seeing eye and a hearing
ear--and all thy deeds are written in a book."

The Mishnah, which deals with things great and small, with everything
that concerns men, is the literary expression of this view of life. Its
language is the new-Hebrew, a simple, nervous idiom suited to practical
life, but lacking the power and poetry of the Biblical Hebrew. It is a
more useful but less polished instrument than the older language. The
subject-matter of the Mishnah includes both law and morality, the
affairs of the body, of the soul, and of the mind. Business, religion,