Gamaliel represented in this circle of scholars that desire for unity and authority which might regulate from one center the entire religious and national life of the people. His brother-in-law, Eliezer, son of Hyrcanus, represented the other party, namely, those who maintained their own views and refused to submit to universally binding enactments. From his earliest youth Eliezer had devoted himself to the acquirement of Halachas, and these he impressed so firmly on his memory that, as he himself said, not a grain of them should be lost. His teacher, Jochanan, therefore called him "a sealed cistern which lets no drop pass." It was in accordance with this method that Eliezer taught at Lydda (Diospolis), a place which had formerly been a race-course. When he was questioned as to a law, he either replied as he had been taught by his teachers, or openly acknowledged "I do not know; I have not been told." During his stay once in Cæsarea Philippi in Upper Galilee, thirty questions were put to him for decision, to which he replied, "To twelve of these I can give the decision which has been handed down to me; for the other eighteen I have no tradition." Being asked whether he only taught what had been handed down to him, he replied, "You compel me now to impart something which has not been communicated to me; for know that in my whole life I have never taught a single word which has not been handed down to me by my teachers." In order to escape troublesome questions which he did not know how to answer, he would put cross-questions from which could be seen his disinclination to discuss the matter. He was once asked whether an illegitimate child could succeed to property, and he asked in return, "Whether it would be legally considered as a brother." To the question whether one might paint a house white after the destruction of the Temple, he put the cross-question whether one would paint a grave, thus keeping firm to his rule never to pronounce a decision which had not been made certain to him by oral tradition. To the keenest deductions he usually opposed the simple reply, "I have not heard it." In order to maintain this peculiar view, he seems to have impressed on his pupils, "Keep your children from searching (Higayon); let them rather be brought up on the knees of the wise."