106
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
permission from his uncle, R. Ishmael, to study Greek
philosophy. Permission was refused by the quotation of
Josh. i.
8,
Thou shalt meditate thereon
[the book
of
the Law] day and night, and the command, 'Go,
seek a time when it is neither day nor night, and
therein study Greek philosophy.'
Jacob of Chephar Sama or Sechanja is evidently a
Christian ; but, no less evidently, he cannot have been
a contemporary of Jesus, still less identical with James
(Jacob) the brother of Jesus, as
has been suggested.
The latter was put to death somewhere about the
year 44
A. D.
; and R. Ishmael was only a boy when
Jerusalem was captured in A.D. 70.
Jacob was an
extremely common name, and no identification with
any known Christian is possible. The place to which
this Jacob belonged is called variously Chephar Sama
and Ch. Sechanja. The first is thought to be the
modern Khefr Sumeia, and the second the well-known
Sichnin (modern Suchnin) ; as these two places are
only nine miles apart, Jacob
may quite well have been
associated with both. In a passage which will be
examined presently, this same Jacob is said to 'lave
talked with R. Eliezer b. Horqenos, in the High
Street of Sepphoris, and to have communicated to
him a saying of Jesus.
[See below, p.
138
and
especially p.
143]. If we suppose that Jacob was,
roughly speaking, about the same age as It. Eliezer,
he would belong to the third generation of Christian
disciples, hardly to the second.
As to the details of the story, there is little variation
among the several versions given above. In all, the
Christian proposes to heal the sick man in the name of
Jeshu ben Pandira, i.e. as the Palestinian Gemara (30)
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