GAMALIEL I. - Tannaite (v.) of the first generation, patriarch in the years c. 25-50 A.D., called the "Elder" to distinguish him from his namesake grandson. He bears the honorary title of rabban, the teacher par excellence. In Acts 22:3 ff. Paul says, in his speech to the Jews, that he had been brought up and instructed at the feet of G. in the exact observance of the law of the fathers, zealous with the same zeal that they all had at that time. According to Acts 5:30 ff. the Apostle stirs up the wrath of the Jews by exalting Jesus. Then one of the council intervenes, G. by name, a Pharisee, a doctor of the Law, honored by all the people, who admonishes his colleagues: "Take no notice of these men (the Apostles), and let them go; for if their undertaking is of human origin, it will come to nothing. But if it is from God, you will not be able to destroy it, and you run the risk of fighting against God himself." The Apostles were beaten and then released. Later hagiography holds G. to be a saint (Clement, Recogn., I, 65 ff.).
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Eugenio Zolli
GOSPEL OF GAMALIEL
An apocryphon in which a pseudo-G. narrates what he claims to have seen and heard in the company of Jesus.
P. Ladeuze drew attention to it in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 7 (1916), pp. 245-68, with the dissertation Apocryphes évangéliques coptes: pseudo-Gamalei; Evangile de Barthélemy. These are fragments, which E. Revillout published in 1904 in Cairo, in Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire. There, in fragment 15 (P. Ladeuze, p. 253; E. Revillout, p. 57) one reads: « I, G., the following even in the midst of the crowd ». The text follows mainly the Synoptics, but John is also used. Although it has much in common with the Gospel of Bartholomew (v.; PO 2, 210), Ladeuze nevertheless concludes: « We therefore believe that we have before us parts of a new Gospel » (p. 267). To date, however, an edition of this apocryphon is lacking.
Urbano Holzmeister