Hillel

Hillel, called HABABLI ('the Babylonian') and HAZAKEN ('the Elder'), one of the greatest and most influential doctors of the Jewish law, was born about 60 B.C. in Babylonia, of poor parents, but in the female line of royal (Davidian) descent. When forty years old—so runs the Talmudic account—he migrated into Palestine for the purpose of studying the law under Shemaia and Abtalion, the great masters of the period. Five or six years after Herod had mounted the throne Hillel was elected president of the sanhedrim. The range of his acquirements is said to have been immense, embracing not only Scripture and tradition, but nearly all branches of human and superhuman knowledge. Yet he was one of the meekest, most modest, kind, and simple-hearted men. Hillel was the first who collected the numberless traditions of the oral law, and arranged them under six heads (see MISHNA). Between him and his contemporary Shammai and their respective followers there arose a spirit of keen rivalry, the latter being advocates of greater strictness and rigour in the interpretation of the law. Hillel died about 10 A.D. His doctrine has often been compared with the early teaching of Jesus. See Delitzsch's Jesus and Hillel (3d ed. 1879).