We know very little of the actual agencies by which this process was effected. The second great code of the Jews was not finally fixed till 200 C.E. We are, however, measurably familiar with the organization of the judiciary for some two centuries before, but even here there are distressing gaps, and for the time before Hillel the tradition is neither clear nor full. All, therefore, that concerns the organization of the judicial bodies that framed and applied the Law must be conjectured, and the earliest conjectures embodied in Talmudic tradition are perhaps as good as any. The development of “houses of prayer” was a necessity where so many Jewish communities were incapacitated from sharing in the great cult ceremonies at Jerusalem, and these houses became a convenience within Palestine and Jerusalem itself. But the creation of houses of prayer demanded local organization, and with that local organization gradations of members and the establishment of local magistrates. There can be little doubt that the organization of the Greek city-state, familiar to the East for many years, became a model for these corporately organized communities. Now the judicial function inherent in the character of ancient magistrates of all descriptions might easily have been the means of originating that long series of responsa from which the later Mishnah was finally winnowed. With every increase of population, power, and governmental machinery, the judicial system increased in complexity, and the intimate relation which the civil code bore to the ancient sacred code, as well as the close penetration of life by religion, tended to render the complexity still more intricate.