JOHANN BEN ZAKKAJ. - Tannaite (v.) of the first half of the 1st century A.D. The title Rabbân, "our master," by which he is designated, denotes the authority he enjoyed. He was Hillel (v.), but also of Shammai. A native of Arab in Galilee, he was head of the tribunal for 18 years; around 30 A.D. he was called to be part of the great tribunal of Jerusalem. There he held his lessons in an open square in the shade of the Temple. In opposition to the Sadducees, he made the opinions of the Pharisees (v.) prevail in theory and practice.
The accounts according to which J., a pacifist since the outbreak of the war against the Romans, would have left Jerusalem in a coffin and would have reached Vespasian to predict his appointment as emperor, are of a legendary nature. Also of little historical value is the claim that 40 years before the national catastrophe J. would have said, upon seeing the Temple, whose doors opened by themselves: "O Temple, O Temple, why do you tremble and make us tremble? We know that you must perish!" The Roman official who was favorable to J. seems to be M. Antonius Julianus, lieutenant of Judea during the war period, mentioned by Minucius Felix (Octav., 33, 4) as the author of a work De Iudaeis.
Toward the end of the war (ca. 70), J. founded a school at Jamnia (v.) and there prepared, through new institutions that sometimes met with opposition from the priestly circles, the transition from sacrificial worship, which had fallen with the Temple, to spiritual worship.
On his deathbed J. had a vision of King Hezekiah, to whom he had a seat brought. With J.'s death, it was said, the splendor of wisdom was extinguished forever.