The task of the rabbins was so to reorganise Judaism under the new circumstances that it could continue to assert its distinctive character.  What of external consistency had been lost through the extinction of the ancient commonwealth required to be compensated for by an inner centralisation proportionately stronger.  The separation from everything heathenish became more pronounced than before; the use of the Greek language was of necessity still permitted, but at least the Septuagint was set aside by Aquila (Cod.  Justinian., Nov. 146) inasmuch as it had now become the Christian Bible.  For to this period also belongs the definitive separation between the synagogue and the church; henceforward Christianity could no longer figure as a Jewish sect.  Intensified exclusiveness was accompanied by increased internal stringency.  What at an earlier period had still remained to some extent fluid now became rigidly fixed; for example, an authentic text of the canon was now established, and at the same time the distinction between canon and apocrypha sharply drawn.  The old tendency of the scribes to leave as little as possible free to the individual conscience, but to bring everything within the scope of positive ordinance, now celebrated its greatest triumphs.  It was only an apparent movement in the direction of liberty, if regulations which had become quite impossible were now modified or cancelled.  The most influential of the rabbins were indeed the least solicitous about the maintenance of what was old, and had no hesitation in introducing numerous and thoroughgoing innovations; but the conservatives R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and R. Ishmael ben Elisha were in truth more liberal-minded than the leaders of the party of progress, notably than R. Akiba.  Even the Ultramontanes have never hesitated at departures from the usage of the ancient and mediaeval church; and the Pharisaic rabbins were guided in their innovations by liberal principles no more than they.  The object of the new determinations was simply to widen the domain of the law in a consistent manner, to bring the individual entirely under the iron rule of system.  But the Jewish communities gave willing obedience to the hierarchy of the rabbins; Judaism had to be maintained, cost what it might.  That the means employed were well adapted to the purpose of maintaining the Jews as a firmly compacted religious community even after all bonds of nationality had fallen away cannot be doubted.  But whether the attainment of this purpose by incredible exertion was a real blessing to themselves and the world may very well be disputed.

One consequence of the process of intellectual isolation and of the effort to shape everything in accordance with hard and fast rules and doctrines was the systematisation and codification of juristic and ritual tradition, a work with which a beginning was made in the century following the destruction of Jerusalem.  Towards the end of the 2nd century the Pharisaic doctrine of Hillel as it had been further matured by Akiba was codified and elevated to the position of statute law by the patriarch Rabban Judah the Holy (Mishna). 1