the fact that questions as to the canonicity of certain books were still undecided within the lifetime of Josephus himself.”[216] But wrong and contrary to fact as this theory was, upon it nevertheless was founded the Hebrew Canon as we have it at the present day. For various reasons,[217] the Rabbis had determined to exclude certain books from the Canon of the Old Testament,[218] and their will held the day not only in their own times, but also reasserted itself, all unconscious of this though their descendants may be, in later times in certain parts of the Christian world. The formation of the Hebrew Canon was thus virtually a _fait accompli_ by about A.D. 100, the official _imprimatur_ being in all probability given at what is called the Council of Jabneh (Jamnia). That this was a council in the ordinary sense of the word may well be doubted; but there is sufficient evidence to show that Jabneh was a seat of Jewish scholarship even before the destruction of the Temple. After this event the Sanhedrin removed to Jabneh and was presided over by Jochanan ben Zakkai, the greatest of the Jewish scribes during the period immediately succeeding the fall of Jerusalem; he was followed by Gamaliel II. It must be fairly obvious that any discussions as to the canonicity of books among the Jewish religious leaders must have taken place in Jabneh where the Sanhedrin was, and where the greatest Jewish scholars would be assembled. That such discussions did take place is amply witnessed to by passages in the Mishna. So that although it cannot be actually proved that the final and authoritative formation of the Hebrew Canon took place at “the council of Jabneh,” it is reasonably certain from the evidence we have that the discussions on the canonicity of certain books held by the Sanhedrin assembled at Jabneh resulted in what came to be regarded as the formal and official fixing of the Canon.[219] How far, in the gradual settlement of the question, the Rabbis acted on their own initiative, and in how far they were merely registering and crystallizing the popular verdict articulated by usage is difficult to say. To maintain that the latter alone was decisive makes it hard to understand why such books as Ecclesiasticus, Judith and Tobit, to mention a few of the “apocryphal” books only, were excluded; on the other hand, we cannot believe that popular usage counted for nothing. Most probably the whole question was one of compromise in which by degrees Rabbinical logic, based upon their theory alluded to above, forced popular usage to give way to the official position which became finally and irrevocably fixed by the Sanhedrin at Jabneh.