Rabbis and Non-Rabbis: The Mishnaic Portrayal of Judaean Society

Though there is much ambiguity over who exactly the rabbis who created the Mishnah in the late second or early third century were, the text they produced shows clearly enough that one of their main activities was the production of traditional Jewish law. Time and again the Mishnah quotes the legal opinions of various rabbis who seem to have lived, according to the Mishnah, within the period of a century to a century and a quarter after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 c.e.. Quite typical of the entire Mishnah is the listing of multiple rabbinic legal views on a given matter: for example, Rabbi Eliezer said one thing; the sages said another.

According to the Mishnah, not only did rabbis come up with a range of legal opinions regarding traditional, biblically based ritual practices (and in fact all areas of biblical law), but they also debated their opinions, engaged in discussion with colleagues, taught students, and in some cases voted on the law. As I have argued elsewhere, the legal role that the Mishnah most often claims the rabbi actually held was that of a jurist, in the model of a Roman jurist, who issued rulings on ambiguous matters of ritual law.Footnote ⁶ The handful of cases in which the Mishnah imagines individuals coming before the rabbi or rabbis for a ruling suggest that the rabbis intended their rulings to be followed by Judaeans more widely.Footnote ⁷

When looking out at the bulk of Israelite, or Judaean (Jewish), society, however, the rabbis saw a diversity of subgroups, none of which actually followed their opinions or directives.Footnote ⁸ According to the Mishnah, Israelite society included: Samaritans (, kutim); “the people of the land” (, ‘amme ha'areṣ); “sinners” (, ‘overe ‘averah), and the “people of” (, bene or , anše) a particular city or town.Footnote ⁹ These groups varied in the degree to which the rabbis considered them part of the people of Israel. And the rabbis saw themselves interacting with these different groups in different ways: from the rabbinic point of view, they were all distinct groups who differed precisely in matters of traditional ritual practice.

Of all the groups in the Mishnah, the Samaritans were the least connected to the people of Israel. At times the rabbis did consider them part of the people of Israel, as they observed most of Israel's rituals and interacted with other Israelites in normal social intercourse, yet they also considered them explicitly not part of Israel, on par with Gentiles.Footnote ¹⁰ For the rabbis, what made the Samaritans distinct is that some of their ritual practices differed—most significantly, their worship at a different temple.Footnote ¹¹

In contrast to the Samaritans, the sinners, the ‘amme ha'areṣ, and the people of a particular city or town were considered more integral to the people of Israel and had more meaningful interactions with those in the rabbinic group in the Mishnah. It seems likely that when using these terms the rabbis had in mind the majority of Judaeans, the complex mix of which a number of scholars term “common” Judaism.Footnote ¹² But even in the case of these groups, their practices were at odds in critical ways with what the rabbis considered correct.

The ‘am ha'areṣ (), literally, one of the “people of the land” (a biblical term), was largely defined by what the rabbis considered nonobservance in the realm of ritual purity and tithing. Those in this group are portrayed as intermingling freely with those whom the mishnaic rabbis consider to follow their law more closely, and in some instances, the ‘amme ha'areṣ were even part of the same family as rabbinic Jews. Yet they formed a distinct group precisely because they chose not to perform certain rituals as the rabbis believed they should.Footnote ¹³ In a similar manner, sinners, or ‘overe ‘averah—if they are indeed to be seen as a distinct group—were understood to violate agricultural rules.Footnote ¹⁴

A slightly more complex picture is presented by the mishnaic category of “the people of” a given city or town, a subgroup noted originally by Stuart Miller. In a handful of examples in the Mishnah, this group engages in traditional ritual practices, but in ways deemed slightly incorrect.Footnote ¹⁵ This group was unique in the mishnaic imagination, however, because the rabbis interacted directly with them, giving them instruction on how to practice properly. In one example, in m. Šabb. 3:4, the people of Tiberias construct pipes in a certain way so that cold water passes through the hot springs and is thereby heated. The sages () then say to them: “If [we are dealing with this situation] on the Sabbath, these waters have the status of water heated on the Sabbath, and they are forbidden for use in bathing or drinking; if on the festival day, they have the status of water heated on the festival day, and they are forbidden for use in bathing but permitted for use in drinking.” The sages here are radically restricting the use of this water to drinking on the festival and forbidding its use entirely on the Sabbath. As Moshe Simon-Shoshan has pointed out in this example, the story never says whether the people followed the rabbinic ruling.Footnote ¹⁶ They certainly did not consult the rabbis before building their pipes. The finding by many scholars that the rabbis were not especially powerful or influential among most Judaeans (a view espoused here) suggests that the people of Tiberias would have had no reason to heed the rabbinic ruling.Footnote ¹⁷ Yet the rabbis see their role as providing instruction to these townspeople. The same is true for the people of Jericho. In both m. Pesaḥ. 4:8 and m. Menaḥ. 10:8, the people of Jericho engage in a variety of agricultural practices that the rabbis deem incorrect, and the rabbis officially “object.” As in the case with the people of Tiberias, the people of Jericho never consulted the rabbis about these practices and seem unlikely to have adhered to their directives. Again, however, the rabbis imagine for themselves a role in providing instruction on how to observe in the right way.Footnote ¹⁸

Heretics and their Heresy

The group labeled “heretics,” or, minim, in the Mishnah was to a large extent similar to these various other types of non-rabbinic Judaeans. Minim, too, performed certain traditional rituals in a manner deemed incorrect by the rabbis.Footnote ¹⁹ Thus in m. Meg. 4:8, wearing the phylacteries (tefillin) in the wrong position on the hand and arm is labeled “the way of minut [heresy].”Footnote ²⁰ Similarly, in the very next paragraph, m. Meg. 4:9, engaging in the practice of blessing people, but doing so in a particular way, is also labeled “the way of minut.”Footnote ²¹ And in m. Ḥul. 2:9, minim are distinguished by an incorrect method of slaughtering. Two additional examples, m. Roš Haš. 2:1 and m. Parah 3:3, are more ambiguous, but in these cases as well, heretics and their heresy center on particular ritual practices: the declaration of the new moon and the sacrifice of the red heifer.Footnote ²²

Minim, in the eyes of the rabbis, were thus another type of Judaean. Yet in contrast to the other groups, whom the rabbis seem to have embraced (townspeople) or at least tolerated (‘amme ha'areṣ and sinners), the rabbis emphasize that minim were a threat who had to be marginalized and whose views had to be denied.Footnote ²³ In m. Parah 3:3, Rabbi Yoseh is concerned that minim will have the chance leraddot (or lirdot—)—“to chastise/rebel/dominate [you].” Though he does not specify how, he sees heretics as a danger to his fellow rabbis, and urges the latter to be on their guard not to let them gain any advantage. Other passages go even further, suggesting that the minim must be actively put in their place. A brief historical narrative in m. Ber. 9:5 claims that during the time of the temple itself (and thus before rabbinic times), “all those who concluded ritual blessings in the temple said ‘from everlasting’; when the heretics went bad [], they decreed that they should say ‘from everlasting to everlasting’”—changing the language from a single ‘olam (), literally, “world” or “eternity,” to two ‘olamot (worlds), in order to refer explicitly to both this world and the world to come. In pre-rabbinic times, in other words, the ritual authorities made a change to the ritual in order to ensure that the beliefs of the heretics were denied.Footnote ²⁴ Even in rabbinic times the rabbis saw the need to refute the ideas of heretics. In m. Sanh. 4:5, the rabbinic speaker provides a biblical exegesis about why Adam was created singular and explains that, among other reasons, this is “so that the minim do not say there are many powers in the heavens.” In all these instances, rabbis are at pains to repudiate the heretics and their views.

The notion that heretics must be put in their place even brings the rabbis, in one example, to exclude them from the regular ritual life of the people of Israel. According to m. Roš Haš. 2:1, “At first, they used to accept the testimony about the new month from anyone; but when the minim went bad [], they decreed that they would only accept it from those who were recognized.” Accepting testimony about seeing the first sliver of the new moon was a role attributed to rabbis, and this passage suggests that the rise of heretics led to rabbinic (or perhaps proto-rabbinic) restrictions on testimony. One implication is that heretics themselves could not give testimony, that they were excluded. Even the notion in this example and in m. Ber. 9:5 that the heretics somehow “went bad []” may imply that those who had once been fully a part of the people of Israel were now treated as other, as bad apples who posed a threat to the rabbis, and who had to be marginalized.Footnote ²⁵

Further examples suggest that the rabbis saw heretics as a threat not only to themselves but also to the majority of Israel who ought to be following rabbinic dictates. The two examples in m. Meg. 4:8–9 mentioned above, which state that wearing phylacteries or giving a blessing in a certain way is “the way of minut,” seem to assume that an adherent of the rabbinic system of traditional practice might be tempted to engage in these practices, to follow this “way,” but must not. Heresy (minut), according to the language of these examples, is a dangerous path that must be avoided. The labeling of this particular group's practices as “heresy” thus defines the boundaries of all of Israel who observe the way of life put forth in the Torah and transmitted, interpreted, and developed by the rabbis. To go down the path of heresy is to cross over the boundary to the outside, to be at odds with those who are correct, and to join the group that has “gone bad.”Footnote ²⁶

But why did the rabbis of the Mishnah consider only this particular group to have “gone bad” and thus to require discrediting and repudiation? What made the heretics unique and deserving of such treatment? A number of the examples already quoted suggest that what differentiates heretics from the rest of the non-rabbinic Israelites is that not only do they engage in practices that are wrong, but they hold incorrect views. Heretics are to be marginalized because, like the rabbis themselves, they actively take positions—wrong positions—on matters of traditional Judaean culture and practice. What I am suggesting is similar to what Christine Hayes has recently argued, that minim hold a different legal approach, or as she puts it, “legal epistemology,” from the rabbis.Footnote ²⁷ Yet even if Hayes is correct and such a distinction in approach is detectable, the mishnaic texts themselves frame heresy not in terms of a consistent legal approach but, more simply, in terms of the very fact of holding a divergent opinion.Footnote ²⁸

Perhaps the best example of this way of defining heretics occurs in m. Parah 3:3, mentioned above, a passage within a larger mishnaic narrative about how the red heifer ritual used to be performed in the Jerusalem temple when it still existed. In the course of recounting the ritual, the rabbinic narrator describes a somewhat convoluted procedure of using a contraption tied to a (living) ram's horns to spill sacred ashes out of a vessel. It is at this point that, in a relatively typical rabbinic move, Rabbi Yoseh interrupts the narrator to express concern over what the minim might say: “Do not give the minim room to chastise/rebel/dominate you [leraddot or lirdot]. Rather, [those performing the ritual] took the ashes out themselves and sanctified them [by mixing them in water].”Footnote ²⁹ At the heart of the social conflict presumed by Rabbi Yoseh (that the minim attempt to chastise, rebel, or dominate) lies a particular view of how ritual was once performed in the temple. The Mishnah never says what the alternative view of the minim was, but the very fact that the conflict centers on opinions about the past suggests that they held one. Rabbi Yoseh takes for granted that the heretics would disagree with the narrator's version of events, and that they hold a different opinion.Footnote ³⁰

The very same issue of divergence of view appears to be at stake in two additional examples centering on ritual practice, also mentioned above. In m. Ḥul. 2:9, there is a concern that slaughtering in a certain way, “into a hole in the ground,” will yeḥaqqeh ()—“entrench,” “support,” or “mimic the ways or laws of”—the minim. This again implies a concern over the minim’s views, particularly if this verb means “entrench” or “support,” as in the view of traditional commentator Rashi. Practicing in a certain way will support or entrench the minim by following their view.Footnote ³¹ A further example in m. Roš Haš. 2:1 is slightly more ambiguous but seems to link heresy with differing positions on ritual practice as well. This example, as mentioned earlier, centers on the testimony needed to sanctify ritually the new month. According to this passage: “Originally [the Court] accepted witness testimony about the new moon from anyone; when the minim went bad, they [the Court] decreed that they would only accept the testimony from those who are recognized.” This quasi-historical narrative suggests that at some point in the past the minim went bad, and this somehow forced those in charge of the ritual to change it.Footnote ³² Subsequently, only those who were known to the Court—and thus not heretics—were accepted as witnesses. Though the mishnaic version of this passage does not detail the rabbinic complaint against the heretics, in the toseftan parallel (t. Roš Haš. 1:15) what is at stake is precisely a divergence of opinion about calendrical matters.Footnote ³³

Outside of the realm of ritual practice, the centrality of the heretics’ views is even more pronounced. In the examples in which the minim deny the existence of the next world (m. Ber. 9:5) and allow for multiple powers in heaven (m. Sanh. 4:5), the Mishnah frames their false positions specifically as views on metaphysical matters. In both cases there is a concern with what the heretics “say”; they “say that there are multiple powers in heaven” and they “say that there is only one world.” The Mishnah presents their positions as statements, in the same paradigm as rabbinic legal opinions, which are also “said.” While the rabbis may indeed be concerned about the specific beliefs that these heretics purportedly hold, since matters of belief are generally irrelevant in the Mishnah, I suggest that what is especially important for the rabbis in these cases is that the minim hold divergent views. Their views on metaphysical matters are parallel or even equivalent to legal positions, and their holding incorrect views in these areas, as well, contributes to their being marked as heretics.Footnote ³⁴

This reading of what distinguishes heretics from other non-rabbis in the Mishnah gains additional strength from the implied relationship in the Mishnah between heretics and the related category of sectarians. Sectarians in the Mishnah are distinct from heretics, and, as Shaye Cohen has shown, they are largely understood to have existed in the past.Footnote ³⁵ Martin Goodman, Joshua Ezra Burns, and Jodi Magness have put forth arguments suggesting that such groups did indeed continue to exist in the rabbis’ own day, yet from the Mishnah's perspective, the sectarian groups—the Sadducees, Boethusians, and perhaps Pharisees—seem to have lived only before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.Footnote ³⁶ Despite treating them as unique groups from different periods, the Mishnah seems to consider the heretics and the sectarians loosely homologous, and this relationship sheds further light on the rabbinic construction of heresy.Footnote ³⁷

The connection, in the rabbinic understanding, between these two problematic groups can be seen in the narrative in m. Parah 3:1–11 about how the red heifer used to be offered in temple times. The reference to heretics of the rabbis’ own day in m. Parah 3:3, mentioned earlier, is quite similar to a reference to Sadducees () in temple times in 3:7; the Mishnah treats the two groups as parallel threats in the present and the past.Footnote ³⁸ Elsewhere in the Mishnah, the relationship between the two groups appears as well in the attribution to the heretics of the view that there is only one world, presumably meaning that there is no afterlife, which likely derives in some way from the similar view of the Sadducees, described by Josephus, that the soul does not continue on after death (B.J. 2.164–65 and A.J. 18.16). Even if the precise views on metaphysical matters are not identical, the very notion that a Judaean group can be defined by divergent views on metaphysical matters—a relative rarity in the Mishnah—seems to stem from the importance of these aspects of Judaean culture in defining different sects in earlier times. Rabbinic minim are therefore similar to the sectarians of the past. An additional parallel between groups appears outside of the text of the Mishnah itself, in the relationship between interconnected passages in the Mishnah and the Tosefta. In the example of the threat to the testimony of the new moon, the shift between “heretics,” who pose a challenge to the ritual in m. Roš Haš. 2:1, and the “Boethusians” (sectarians), who attempt to trip up the sages in the parallel in t. Roš Haš. 1:15, further suggests a slippage between the two categories in the minds of the rabbinic authors and tradents.

What makes the two groups especially similar in the Mishnah is the way both are treated as utterly marginal. Daniel Boyarin has argued that while the sectarians of the past saw themselves as small embattled groups that possessed the truth, and others, including Philo and Josephus, saw them as parts of the larger body of Israel, the early rabbis effected an “epistemic shift” in the way they understood the relationship between sectarians and others in Israel.Footnote ³⁹ For the rabbis, sectarians were heretics who were marginalized. Boyarin sees this in the abstract law in m. Nid. 4:2, which says that daughters of Sadducees who follow in the ways of their fathers have the status of Samaritans—part of Israel, but ultimately not a part.Footnote ⁴⁰ Perhaps stronger evidence for this way of thinking about sectarians comes from mishnaic accounts of how ritual used to be performed in the temple. In the Mishnah, in contrast to the Tosefta, sectarians are never imagined to have been in the temple.Footnote ⁴¹ Further, on more than one occasion, the Mishnah recalls steps taken in the course of the procedure to ensure that the ritual was not done in accordance with the sectarian view (m. Menaḥ. 10:3, Parah 3:7, and perhaps Yoma 1:3–5). In m. Menaḥ. 10:3, the rabbis imagine an elaborate procedure in which the entire people from a given region would gather and in the course of the ritual publicly affirm what the rabbis see as the correct version of the ritual. According to the narrative, the person cutting the barley for the ‘omer () offering to be made in the Temple would ritually ask, “With this sickle?” “With this basket?” “On the Sabbath?” and, “Shall I cut?” and the large crowd of Israelites would ritually shout out, “Yes!” or, “Cut!” By publically, vocally, and ritually affirming what the rabbis consider the correct way to do the ritual, the mishnaic passage imagines that the Boethusians, who “say that the cutting of the ‘omer is not done immediately after the first festival day [of Passover],” were regularly put in their place. The Mishnah thus wishes to suggest that the majority of Israel worshipped in the temple in the correct way, while the sectarians, like the heretics in m. Ber. 9:5, were marginalized and their view publically undermined. The Mishnah's rabbis remembered the sectarians of the past in the mold of heretics.Footnote ⁴²

If sectarians in the Mishnah are thus essentially the heretics of the past, what defines them as heretical is their divergent legal views on various matters. According to various passages, sectarians hold distinct views on matters of purity (m. Yad. 4:6–7), damages (m. Yad. 4:7), judicial procedure (m. Mak. 1:6), and ritual practice (m. Menaḥ. 10:3, Parah 3:7). The category of sectarian in the Mishnah, a close relative to that of heretic, further suggests that what marks off heretical groups to be marginalized is their divergence of legal opinion and view.Footnote ⁴³

This way of defining heresy (and sectarianism) in terms of legal opinion should not be particularly surprising, given that creating legal opinion was the rabbis’ primary interest, which defined them and provided the basis for their authority claims over all of Israel. The rabbis thus constructed the category of heretic in their own image, imagining minim as anti-rabbis. This was not, however, simply a matter of projecting their own way of thinking onto others and onto the larger society. By defining heretics as those who hold false and dangerous views, the rabbis rhetorically asserted the truth and validity of their own views.Footnote ⁴⁴ Moreover, by arguing that heretics must be—and in the past were indeed—marginalized, the rabbis were affirming that their own legal views were normative.Footnote ⁴⁵ They were implying that rabbinic views and the obligation to adhere to those views helped define what it meant to be part of the people of Israel; anyone who challenged rabbinic lawmaking by offering their own views was on the margins.Footnote ⁴⁶ The small minority of marginalized heretics, further, demarcated the boundary of the larger Judaean society for the rabbis. Within their figurative social map, this boundary marked by heresy constructed the various others who simply practiced incorrectly as a single body, ultimately dependent on the rabbis to determine what was correct. The Israelite “majority,” in the rabbinic imagination at least, did not dispute rabbinic views, even if it did not yet follow those views in practice.

Turning the Gaze Inward

Complementing their construction of a fringe of heretics among the larger people of Israel, the rabbis turned their heresiological gaze inward as well, toward the rabbinic group itself. Comparison between this inward-looking heresiology and their outward-looking heresiology reveals a startlingly different way of constructing heresy. This difference, I suggest, uncovers the seams in the rabbinic fashioning of their own role in and relationship to the larger society, seams that stem from the disjuncture between what the rabbis would have liked to have been and what their social reality was.

On three occasions in the Mishnah—in two stories purportedly about what actually happened among rabbis and one narrative about how a ritual used to take place in temple times—the rabbis apply the paradigm of heresy within their own group, to a rabbi with a divergent opinion. However, since difference of opinion is so central to the rabbinic enterprise, a tension arises in these cases between marginalizing a divergent view and the value of legal multivocality. Ultimately the tension is resolved, in two of the cases, by suggesting that among rabbis a difference of views is tolerated but not a divergence in practice. Among rabbis, there must be a unity of practice.Footnote ⁴⁷

The direct application of the heresiological mindset occurs in two of the three examples, the story of ‘Aqavyah ben Mehallalel, a sage who is excommunicated, and the narrative about the “rebellious elder.”Footnote ⁴⁸ ‘Aqavyah is not given the title “rabbi,” yet the multiple mentions throughout the Mishnah of his legal opinions establish firmly that he was indeed a contributing member of the rabbinic group.Footnote ⁴⁹ In m. ‘Ed. 5:6–7, however, four of his views are considered problematic:

At issue in this case are ‘Aqavyah's legal opinions that diverge from what appears to be the opinion of the majority of the other rabbis (named only “they”). The tipping point that spurs his colleagues to act appears to be his claim about what happened in the past, yet it seems more likely that it is the difference of opinion that leads them to marginalize him through excommunication, or ostracism. Indeed, in the subsequent paragraph, which goes back to his deathbed, ‘Aqavyah urges his own son to recant these opinions, since the son only received them from a lone individual, not from the majority—at stake is the divergence of legal opinion.Footnote ⁵²

This very same move to marginalize a lone member of the rabbinic group because of a similar divergence in opinion occurs in the narrative of what is most likely a fictional ritual based loosely on Deut 17:8–13, the dissuasion and capital punishment of the “rebellious elder” () in m. Sanh. 11:2–4. Here too, the rabbinic, or proto-rabbinic, colleagues begin with attempts to cause the elder to recant his view:

This rebellious elder, as can be seen in the passage, differs precisely on a position he takes, that which he “teaches.”Footnote ⁵³ This divergence of opinion is not tolerated, and he is brought before courts, each more imposing than the one before it, within the temple in a ritual that seems designed to affirm the unitary position held by the rest of the proto-rabbinic group. The final stage at the end of the narrative, moreover (for the time being I skip over a crucial section), occurs when the Court puts him to death for espousing and teaching this incorrect view:

The quoted portions of the narrative sound like the same heresiological impulse as we find in the story of ‘Aqavyah. There is a scholar who holds an incorrect opinion and teaches this opinion. At first there is an assertion of a uniformity of legal opinion through attempts to make him conform, and in the end he is marginalized in an extreme way, in this case by being put to death.Footnote ⁵⁴

While both examples seem to evince a move to marginalize a rabbi or proto-rabbi for holding an opinion against that of a unified majority, in the end this impulse is allayed, and the apparent reversals in attitude highlight the tension inherent in the attempt itself to treat a lone rabbi as heretical for holding a divergent view. In the case of ‘Aqavyah, the reversal happens when Rabbi Judah jumps in with his opinion about what happened: “Rabbi Judah said: ‘God forbid that ‘Aqavyah was excommunicated. For the temple courtyard was never locked before anyone in Israel as great in wisdom and fear of sin as ‘Aqavyah ben Mehallalel. Rather, whom did they excommunicate?’ Eliezer ben Ḥanokh, who contested the validity of the laws of hand purity. . .” (m. ‘Ed. 5:6). Rereading the end of the episode, Rabbi Judah claims that there was indeed an excommunication, but it was not of ‘Aqavyah. Rabbis do not treat their own in this way over a difference of opinion. Eliezer ben Ḥanokh was a true heretic, a non-rabbi who doubted the validity of an entire body of tradition (therefore holding his own, non-rabbinic, legal views), and it is appropriate to marginalize him.Footnote ⁵⁵

The narrative of the rebellious elder goes back on its initial heresiological move in a different way. Here, when describing the elder's return to his hometown after enduring multiple courts insisting that he is wrong, the narrative adds a crucial action that leads to his deserving the death penalty:

Until this point in the narrative, teaching in order that people follow his opinion in practice was not at issue—indeed the way the court bullies him about the incorrectness of his view suggests that the issue is the divergence of the view itself. Yet the Mishnah appears to insert this issue in order to backtrack from the notion that simply holding a divergent view is problematic. Holding the view, and even teaching the view, is not problematic. Only promulgating that view for others to act on in practice must be avoided. Considering that the Mishnah records thousands of divergences of opinion that are in no way troubling, it is ultimately impossible for the rabbis to uphold the notion of heresy among their own, and so the Mishnah shifts this impulse onto the matter of practice. Only in the realm of practice is rabbinic divergence not tolerated.

This very same conclusion appears in a third example, the story about Rabban Gamliel asserting his authority in m. Roš Haš. 2:8–9.Footnote ⁵⁶ In this narrative, Rabbi Dosa ben ’Arkhinas and Rabbi Joshua both dispute Rabban Gamliel's accepting witnesses to the new moon whose testimony is internally contradictory. Rabban Gamliel does not seem to tolerate this rabbinic dissension against his ruling and asserts the primacy of his own view: “Rabban Gamliel sent message to him, ‘I decree upon you that you must come to me with your walking stick and money on the day that is the Day of Atonement [] according to your calculation.’ ” While the story makes this a matter of Rabban Gamliel's authority, this does not appear to be authority for its own sake. Rabban Gamliel is insisting on unity within the ranks. And significantly, in order to achieve this unity, he does not force Rabbi Joshua to back down from the view he holds. Rather, he insists only that Rabbi Joshua not follow that view in practice. Whatever the primary message of the story is meant to be, the account presumes the same idea found in the case of the rebellious elder, that there must ultimately be a single, non-divergent practice among the rabbinic group itself.Footnote ⁵⁷ This, it would seem from this story, is necessary in order to maintain the boundaries of the rabbinic group and the basis of its authority.

Additional passages in the Mishnah fit with this notion of a single unified rabbinic practice.Footnote ⁵⁸ In the disputes between the houses of Hillel and Shamai, for instance, practicing according to the other house is seen, figuratively, as inducing a death sentence, thus perhaps a type of heresy.Footnote ⁵⁹ Similarly, in m. ‘Ed. 1:5, it is averred that there is a single halakhah (practice, or perhaps normative law), despite diversity of opinion. The different opinions continue to exist and be recorded, but only the single position (of the “many”) is valid, perhaps in the realm of law and certainly in the realm of practice.Footnote ⁶⁰

The Complications of Heresiology

Comparison between the way the mishnaic rabbis apply the paradigm of heresy to those within their group and the way they apply it to those outside of their group uncovers a startling disjuncture. Among others, divergence of practice is tolerated but not divergence of opinion; among themselves, divergence of opinion is tolerated, but not divergence of practice. This variance reveals the complications that arose when the rabbis projected the simple and easy model of heresy onto a society that was necessarily more intricate.

Looking outward, the mishnaic rabbis stigmatized the views of the minim as heretical in order to valorize their own views and to assert the centrality of lawmaking in general. Although the rabbis seem to have valued uniform practice, which in multiple instances they demanded of their own, they did not extend this demand to those outside of their group in the same way. They believed that all Israelites would or at least should come to observe according to their dictates, but they did not marginalize and mark as heretics those who did not. The reason for this seems to be that most others did not in fact heed the rabbis, and so in order to imagine a single unified people of Israel, the rabbis had to allow for diversity of practice. As a result, they understood that most other Judaeans were simply practicing incorrectly, and they firmly asserted their authority to instruct these other Judaeans in the proper way of observance. Small hints of evidence, including evidence of distinctive viewpoints among Christian “heretics” in the Did. apost., pointed out by Charlotte Fonrobert, suggest that the many other subgroups of Israelites (“Jews”) did indeed hold their own views.Footnote ⁶¹ Ignoring this divergence was crucial to the argument for authority implicit in the rabbinic heresiology and characterization of non-rabbis more generally.

In contrast to their construction of heresy among others, when the rabbis directed the heresiological gaze toward their own group, the same logic of heresy and orthodoxy could not hold. Though certain passages may hint at an ideal in which there was only a single legal position, rabbis had different opinions. Multiplicity of opinion is thoroughly embraced throughout the Mishnah, and it seems central to the entire rabbinic enterprise. Despite the Mishnah's own claim in ‘Ed. 1:6 that minority opinions are only preserved to forestall future iterations of the same view, it seems likely that the multiple opinions were valued as products of the rabbinic intellectual endeavor. Allowing for different opinions to exist would encourage intellectual creativity in the production of law, and the differences of view that arose must have been an integral part of the process that the rabbis could not suppress. At the same time, the rabbis seem to have felt the need to present themselves as a unified group, which they did by asserting the importance of a single practice. It seems likely that they were driven by a need for some level of internal coherence so that they could think of their legal opinions and teachings as the basis of a larger unity among the people of Israel. More than this, the rabbinic stress on uniform practice may be indicative of their goals for the future as well. Ultimately, the rabbis strove for a society in which the entire people of Israel was united in practicing according to rabbinic law.