9. The school of Hillel followed in the footsteps of Hellenistic Judaism in accentuating the ethical element in the law;(1342) so naturally it encouraged proselytism as well. The Midrash preserves the following Mishnah, handed down by Simeon ben Gamaliel, but not contained in our Mishnaic Code: “If a _Ger_ desires to espouse the Jewish faith, we extend to him the hand of welcome in order to bring him under the wings of the Shekinah.”(1343) Both the Midrash and the early Church literature reveal traces of a Jewish treatise on proselytes, containing rules for admission into the two grades, which was written in the spirit of the Hellenistic propaganda, but was afterward rewritten and adopted by the Christian Church. The school of Shammai in its rigorous legalism opposed proselytism in general, and its chief representative, Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, distrusted proselytes altogether.(1344) On the other hand, the followers of Hillel were decidedly in favor of converting the heathen and were probably responsible for many Haggadic passages extolling the proselytes. Thus the verse of Deutero-Isaiah: “One shall say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel” is peculiarly applied in the Midrash. The first half, we are told, denotes two classes of Israelites, those who are without blemish, and those who have sinned and repented; the second half includes the two classes of proselytes, those who have become full Jews (_Gere ha Zedek_) and those who are merely worshippers of God (_Yir’e Shamayim_). A later Haggadic version characteristically omits the last, recognizing only the full converts (_Gere Emeth_) as proselytes.(1345) The following parable in the spirit of the Essenes illustrates their viewpoint. In commenting upon the verse from the Psalms: “The Lord keepeth the strangers,” the story is told: A king possessed a flock of sheep and goats and noted that a deer joined them, accompanying them to their pasture and returning with them. So he said to the herdsmen: “Take good care of this deer of mine which has left the free and broad desert to go in and out with my flock, and do not let it suffer hunger or thirst.” Likewise God takes special delight in the proselytes who leave their own nation, giving up their fellowship with the great multitude in order to worship Him as the One and Only God, together with the little people of Israel.(1346) Similarly the Biblical verse concerning wisdom: “I love them that love me, and those that seek me earnestly shall find me”(1347) is referred to the proselytes, “who give up their entire past from pure love of God, and place their lives under the sheltering wings of the divine majesty.” All these Midrashic passages and many others are but feeble echoes of the conceptions of the Hellenistic propaganda, which were so ably set forth by Philo and the Book of Asenath.