cessation of sacrificial worship had become all-important. He gave the principal prayer, consisting of eighteen benedictions, its final revision, and declared it every Israelite’s duty to recite it three times daily. He was on friendly terms with many who were not Jews, and was so warmly devoted to his slave Tabi that when the latter died he mourned for him as for a beloved member of his own family. He loved discussing the sense of single portions of the Bible with other scholars, and made many fine expositions of the text. With the words of Deut. xiii. 18 he associated the lesson: “So long as thou thyself art merciful, God will also be merciful to thee.” Gamaliel died before the insurrections under Trajan had brought fresh unrest into Palestine. At his funeral obsequies the celebrated proselyte Aquila (Akylas Onkelos), reviving an ancient custom, burned costly materials to the value of seventy minae. Gamaliel himself had given directions that his body was to be wrapped in the simplest possible shroud. By this he wished to check the extravagance which had become associated with arrangements for the disposal of the dead, and his end was attained; for his example became the rule, and it also became the custom to commemorate him in the words of consolation addressed to the mourners (Kethub. 8 b). Gamaliel’s son, Simon, long after his father’s death, and after the persecutions under Hadrian, inherited his office, which thenceforward his descendants handed on from father to son.
3. Gamaliel III., son of Jehuda I. the redactor of the Mishna, and his successor as Nasi (patriarch). The redaction of the Mishna was completed under him, and some of his sayings are incorporated therein (Aboth ii. 2-4). One of these runs as follows: “Beware of those in power, for they permit men to approach them only for their own uses; they behave as friends when it is for their advantage, but they do not stand by a man when he is in need.” Evidently this was directed against the self-seeking of the Roman government. Gamaliel III. lived during the first half of the 3rd century.
4. Gamaliel IV., grandson of the above, patriarch in the latter half of the 3rd century: about him very little is known.
5. Gamaliel V., son and successor of the patriarch Hillel II.: beyond his name nothing is known of him. He lived in the latter half of the 4th century. He is the patriarch Gamaliel whom Jerome mentions in his letter to Pamachius, written in 393.
6. Gamaliel VI., grandson of the above, the last of the patriarchs, died in 425. With him expired the office, which had already been robbed of its privileges by a decree of the emperors Honorius and Theodosius II. (dated the 17th of October 415). Gamaliel VI. was also a physician, and a celebrated remedy of his is mentioned by his contemporary Marcellus (De Medicamentis, liber 21). (W. Ba.)
GAMBETTA, LÉON (1838–1882), French statesman, was born
at Cahors on the 2nd of April 1838. His father, a Genoese, who
had established himself as a grocer and had married a Frenchwoman
named Massabie, is said to have been his son’s prototype
in vigour and fluency of speech. In his sixteenth year young
Gambetta lost by an accident the sight of his left eye, which
eventually had to be removed. Notwithstanding this privation,
he highly distinguished himself at the public school of Cahors,
and in 1857 proceeded to Paris to study law. His southern
vehemence gave him great influence among the students of the
Quartier Latin, and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy
of the imperial government. He was called to the bar in 1859,
but, although contributing to a Liberal review, edited by
Challemel Lacour, did not make much way until, on the 17th
of November 1868, he was selected to defend the journalist
Delescluze, prosecuted for having promoted the erection of a
monument to the representative Baudin, who was killed in
resisting the coup d’état of 1851. Gambetta seized his opportunity
and assailed both the coup d’état and the government with an
eloquence of invective which made him immediately famous.
In May 1869 he was returned to the Assembly, both by the first circumscription of Paris and by Marseilles, defeating Hippolyte Carnot for the former constituency and Thiers and Lesseps for the latter. He elected to sit for Marseilles, and lost no opportunity of attacking the Empire in the Assembly. He was at first opposed to the war with Germany, but when satisfied that it had been forced upon France he did not, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote supplies, but took the patriotic line of supporting the flag. When the news of the disaster at Sedan reached Paris, Gambetta called for strong measures. He himself proclaimed the fall of the emperor at the corps législatif, and the establishment of a republic at the hôtel de ville. He was one of the first members of the new government of national defence, becoming minister of the interior. He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and conduct the government from some provincial city. This advice was rejected from dread of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was despatched to Tours, but when this was seen to be inefficient Gambetta himself (7th October) quitted Paris in a balloon, and upon arriving at Tours took the supreme direction of affairs as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by M. de Freycinet, then a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he displayed prodigies of energy and intelligence. He speedily organized an army, which might possibly have effected the relief of Paris if Metz had held out, but the surrender of Bazaine brought the army of the crown prince into the field, and success was impossible. After the defeats of the French near Orleans early in December the seat of government had to be transferred to Bordeaux, and when Paris surrendered at the end of January, Gambetta, though resisting and protesting, was compelled to submit to the capitulation concluded with Prince Bismarck. He immediately resigned his office. Elected by nine departments to the National Assembly meeting at Bordeaux (on the 1st of March 1871) he chose to sit for Strassburg, which by the terms of the treaty about to be submitted to the Assembly for ratification was to be ceded to Prussia, and when the treaty was adopted he resigned in protest and retired to Spain.
He returned to France in June, was elected by three departments in July, and commenced an agitation for the definitive establishment of the Republic. On the 5th of November 1871 he established a journal, La République française, which soon became the most influential in France. His orations at public meetings were more effective than those delivered in the Assembly, especially that made at Bordeaux on his return, and that at Grenoble on the 26th of November 1872, in which he spoke of political power having passed to les nouvelles couches sociales. When Thiers, however, fell from power in May 1873, and a Royalist was placed at the head of the government in the person of Marshal MacMahon, Gambetta gave proof of his statesmanship by unceasingly urging his friends to a moderate course, and by his tact and parliamentary dexterity, no less than by his eloquence, he was mainly instrumental in the voting of the constitution in February 1875. This policy he continued during the early days of the now consolidated Republic, and gave it the appropriate name of “opportunism.” It was not until the 4th of May 1877, when the peril from reactionary intrigues was notorious, and the clerical party had begun a campaign for the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, that he delivered his famous speech denouncing “clericalism” as “the enemy.” On the 16th of May Marshal MacMahon, in order to support the clerical reactionaries, perpetrated his parliamentary coup d’état, and on the 15th of August Gambetta, in a speech at Lille, gave him the alternative se soumettre ou se démettre. He then undertook a political campaign to rouse the republican party throughout France, which culminated in a speech at Romans (September 18, 1878) formulating its programme. MacMahon, equally unwilling to resign or to provoke civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and form a moderate republican ministry under the premiership of Dufaure.
When the resignation of the Dufaure cabinet brought about the abdication of Marshal MacMahon, Gambetta declined to become a candidate for the presidency, but gave his support to Grévy; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies (January 1879). This position, which he filled with much ability, did not prevent his occasionally descending from the presidential chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an amnesty to the
