“The work of this Sanhedrin consisted in committing to paper that which had before been entrusted to memory and had perpetuated itself by tradition--the jurisprudence of the Jews, the various interpretations of the Law by the principal doctors, and the rules of man’s duty; in other words, all that was called the Oral Law. Thus the Synod began by transgressing a principle of Israelitism, which until those days had decreed that the supplementary code should never be written, and hence indeed its vulgar name. In this point the Œcumenical Council followed the example of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138), the adopted father of Antoninus Pius, who also commanded the jurist Salvius Julianus to draw up the _Edictum Perpetuum_, or fixed code, and the _Responsa Prudentium_, which before his time formed an unwritten corps of doctrine embodying legal decisions and precedents. The book, which was compiled by R. Yahúda, with the adhesion of the Jewish majority, received the name of Mishnah, ‘doubling,’ or repetition of the Law, and its principles became obligatory upon all men.” The great work was completed, according to some, about A.D. 119; David Ganz prefers A.D. 219, or a short time before the compiler’s death; whilst others contend that R. Yahúda collected the principles of the code, and that the nation accepted it by order of Gamaliel, his son, and successor in the princely dignity of _Nashi_ and presidency of the Sanhedrin;[61] “and others again make it of still later date. At all events, it is the most ancient composition known to the Jews after the Law and the Prophets.”