This pompous appellation appears, indeed, for the first time among the Jews contemporary with Christ. "They love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the market-places, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi." Proud of their titles and learning, they laid claim to the foremost rank in society. _A wise man_, say they, _should be preferred to a king; the king takes the precedence of the high priest; the priest of the Levite; the Levite of the ordinary Israelite. The wise man should be preferred to the king, for if the wise man should die he could not easily be replaced; while the king could be succeeded by an Israelite of any order_.[198] Basing the social status on this maxim we are not astonished to find in the Talmud[199] that at a certain time twenty-four persons were excommunicated for having failed to render to the rabbi the reverence due his position. Indeed, a very small offense was often sufficient to call forth maledictions from this haughty and intolerant dignitary. Punishment was mercilessly inflicted wherever there was open violation of any one of the following rules established by the rabbis themselves: If any one opposes his rabbi, he is guilty in the same degree as if he opposed God himself.[200] If any one quarrels with his rabbi, it is as if he contended with the living God.[201] If any one thinks evil of his rabbi, it is as if he thought evil of the Eternal.[202] This self-sufficiency was carried to such an enormous extent that when Jerusalem fell into the hands of Titus, who came against it armed with the sword of vengeance of Jehovah, Rabbi Jehudah wrote with an unflinching pen: "_If Jerusalem was destroyed, we need look for no other cause than the people's want of respect for the rabbis._"[203]