as scribes, and
honored as rabbis[169] or teachers. In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah
these specialists in the law constituted a titled class, to whom
deference and honor were paid. Ezra is designated "the priest, the
scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord, and
of his statutes to Israel".[170] The scribes of those days did valuable
service under Ezra, and later under Nehemiah, in compiling the sacred
writings then extant; and in Jewish usage those appointed as guardians
and expounders of the law came to be known as members of the Great
Synagog, or Great Assembly, concerning which we have little information
through canonical channels. According to Talmudic record, the
organization consisted of one hundred and twenty eminent scholars. The
scope of their labors, according to the admonition traditionally
perpetuated by themselves, is thus expressed: _Be careful in judgment;
set up many scholars, and make a hedge about the law_. They followed
this behest by much study and careful consideration of all traditional
details in administration; by multiplying scribes and rabbis unto
themselves; and, as some of them interpreted the requirement of setting
up many scholars, by writing many books and tractates; moreover, they
made a fence or hedge about the law by adding numerous rules, which
prescribed with great exactness the officially established proprieties
for every occasion.

Scribes and rabbis were exalted to the highest rank in the estimation of
the people, higher than that of the Levitical or priestly orders; and
rabbinical sayings were given precedence over the utterances of the
prophets, since the latter were regarded as but messengers or spokesmen,
whereas the living scholars were of themselves sources of wisdom and
authority. Such secular powers as Roman suzerainty permitted the Jews to
retain were vested in the hierarchy, whose members were able thus to
gather unto themselves practically all official and professional honors.
As a natural result of this condition, there was practically no
distinction between Jewish civil and ecclesiastical law, either as to
the code or its administration. Rabbinism comprized as an essential
element the doctrine of the equal authority of oral rabbinical tradition
with the written word of the law. The aggrandizement implied in the
application of the title "Rabbi" and the self-pride manifest in
welcoming such adulation were especially forbidden by the Lord, who
p