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The Disbanding of the Sanhedrin, 358 CE


Around 200 CE, Yehudah ha-Nasi (the Prince) compiled the Mishna from the various interpretative efforts and judicial compilations of the Rabbinic schools of the first and second centuries. The Roman government regarded Yehudah as their own paid government official with the status of Prefect, yet the government become increasingly antagonistic to the Jewish leadership. The government repeatedly attacked the Jewish calendar as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. Eventually the fixing of the Jewish calendar by observation of the New Moon was supplanted by a 'secret' method of astronomical calculation (the 19 year Babylonian cycle).[1]

In 358 CE, Emperor Theodosius forbade the Sanhedrin to assemble in reaction to previous Emperor Julian’s pro-Jewish stance. An Arithmetic Jewish Calendar was adopted at clandestine and perhaps the Sanhedrin’s last meeting. Growing disunity over fixing of the Jewish calendar between the Jews of Syrian Antioch and of Palestine compelled Nasi Rabbi Hillel II to publish the astronomical (calculations) principles for regulation of the Jewish calendar.[2] The Jews of Arabia did not accept this ruling. They continued to require human sighting of moon and stars, later leading to use of crescent as an identifying political symbol.

In 425 CE, Rabbi Gamliel VI, the last patriarch or Nasi passed away. Rabbi Gamliel was a descendant of the Tanna, Hillel I (d. 10 C.E.), who was a descendant of King David. Rabbi Gamliel was a renowned physician and respected by the Emperor Theodosius II. This did not prevent Theodosius II from abolishing the position of Nasi when Gamliel died without a male heir, thus ending the last semblance of Jewish national organization in Israel.[3]

References

  1. Israel Time-Line, Lloyd Thomas
  2. ibid.
  3. ibid.