Eliezer was therefore the conservative element in the Synhedrion; he was the organ of tradition, which retained the Halachas precisely as it received them; he was the "sealed cistern" which did not permit one drop of water to run away, nor one fresh drop to find entrance. His contemporaries and successors gave him the honored name of "Sinai," a living tablet of the Law, inscribed with unchangeable precepts. Greatly as he was respected, however, as a faithful keeper of the traditional Law, he nevertheless was somewhat isolated on account of his clinging exclusively to traditions. His colleagues had gone too far on the road pointed out by Hillel to be satisfied with merely keeping the Law; they desired also to extend and develop it. Eliezer necessarily came into collision with the tendency of the times. He was most strongly opposed to his brother-in-law, Gamaliel, and his method of exclusion in striving for unity. On the one side was authority supported by a powerful will, which kept down any revolt against the law adopted; and on the other side was the secure knowledge which finds its sanction in the past. Such opposites could not be easily reconciled, nor was Eliezer the man to give up his convictions. He was in fact reproached for his unbending character, which refused to submit to others, and which made him express his opinions in harsh terms. The respect which was felt for him personally made it difficult to inform him of the fact that he was excommunicated, but Akiba once more undertook the office of conveying the unpleasant news. Dressed in black, he went to Eliezer and gently broke to him the sentence, and addressed him in these words, "It appears to me that thy comrades shun thee." Eliezer understood the hint, and took the blow without murmuring; he submitted to the excommunication, and lived apart from his friends. He took only a distant interest in the discussions pursued in Jamnia. When he heard any important decision, he used to look among the treasures of the Halachas in order to confirm or dispute it. Without exercising any influence over affairs or taking part in the development of the Law, Eliezer lived his last years in flourishing material circumstances, but in a dreary state of mind. In his misery he gave utterance to a sentence which is in marked contrast to the sentiments of his comrades. "Warm thyself," he said, "at the fire of the wise, but beware of the coals that thou dost not burn thyself, for their bite is as that of the jackal, their sting like the scorpion's, their tongues like the tongues of snakes, and their words are burning coals." These are the bitter words of a pained spirit, but they do not deny to his opponents a measure of justification.