Gama'liel

Gama'liel (Gaml'el, 'my rewarder is God'), a Hebrew name, the most celebrated bearer of which is Gamaliel I., or the Elder (so called to distinguish him from his grandson), probably the one mentioned in the New Testament, at whose feet St Paul learned the 'law.' Both here and in the Talmudical writings he appears only in his capacity of a teacher of the law and a prominent Pharisaic member of the Sanhedrim; of the circumstances of his life we know little but that he taught early in the 1st century, and that he interposed on behalf of the apostles of Christianity. He was the son of Simeon, and grandson of Hillel (q.v.). Laws respecting the treatment of the Gentiles, due directly or indirectly to Gamaliel's influence, show unusual breadth and toleration. The Gentile, it was enacted, should henceforth, like the Jew, be allowed the gleanings of the harvest-field; of his poor the same care was to be taken, his sick were to be tended exactly as if they belonged to the Jewish community. Tolerant, peaceful, as free from fanaticism on the one hand as on the other from partiality for the new sect, he seems to have placed Christianity simply on a par with the many other sects that sprang up in those days and disappeared as quickly; and he exhorts to long-suffering and good-will on all sides. When Gamaliel died (about seventeen years before the destruction of the Temple) 'the glory of the law' was said to have departed. The story of his conversion to Christianity, we need scarcely add, is as devoid of any historical foundation as that of the transmission of his bones to Pisa. Yet his name has been placed on the list of Christian saints, his day being the 3d of August.