Jesus’s First Visit to the Temple
Cunningham Geikie, in his "Life of Christ," commenting on the first visit of Jesus to the temple, says: "In the school in which Jesus was found, a number of Rabbis were present, perhaps because it was the Passover season. The gentle Hillel—the Looser—was perhaps still alive, and may possibly have been among them. The harsh and strict Shammai—the Binder—his old rival, had been long dead. Hillel's son, Rabban Simeon, and even his greater grandson, Gamaliel, the future teacher of St. Paul, may have been of the number, though Gamaliel would, then, like Jesus, be only a boy. Hanan or Annas, son of Seth, had been just appointed high priest, but did not likely see him, as a boy, whom he was afterwards to crucify. Apart from the bitter hostility between the priests and the Rabbis, he would be too busy with his monopoly of doves for the temple, to care for the discussions of the schools, for he owned the shops for doves on Mount Olivet, and sold them for a piece of gold, though the Law had chosen them as offerings suited for the poorest from their commonness and cheapness. Among the famous men, then, apparently, living in Jerusalem, was Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zacchai, afterwards reputed a prophet, from his once crying out—when the temple gate opened of itself—"Temple, temple, why do you frighten us? We know that thou wilt shortly be destroyed, for it says—'Open, Lebanon, thy gates, and let fire devour thy cedars.'" Jonathan Ben Uzziel, the Targumist, revered by his nation; Rabbi Ben Buta, who, though of Shammai's school, was almost as mild as Hillel, and, like him, had a great reputation for Rabbinical sanctity; now blind these many years, for Herod had put out his eyes; Dosithai of Jethma, a zealous opponent of Herod; Zadok, who had taken part in the rising of Judas the Gaulonite; Boethus, father of one of Herod's wives—the second Mariamne—once high priest, and now the head of the courtly Herodian and Roman party; Nicodemus, who afterwards came to Jesus by night, and the rich Joseph of Arimathea,—in a grave given by whom Jesus was afterwards to lie, were all apparently, then alive. But we can only conjecture in whose presence Jesus sat, for dates are sadly wanting."