JEWSauthorities to force their husbands to grant them divorces, as they had
been doing, it also indicates the way this kind of religious authority
favored autonomy and the creation of communal boundaries.^99
The establishment of the gaonate was the result of a long devel-
opment that lasted from the late sixth until the early eighth century.
After 730 the gaon of Sura achieved precedence over his colleague at
Pumbaditha, probably because the rabbis opposed to the house of
Bostanai had fled to Sura. Academic assemblies were still held at Sura
twice each year in Adar and Elul to deliberate and decide on new
interpretations and decrees and to respond to questions sent by foreign
Jewish communities. Towards the middle of the eighth century, two
major gaonic legal compendia were produced. lOO The judge of the
Rabbinic court (A. dayyan) drew his authority from both the gaon
and the exilarch, but he still chose two associates from the local com-
munity himself to form the beth din, the main business of which was
still to confirm valid deeds, marriage contracts, letters of divorce, and
bills of sale and to act as notary.
Ultimately, the religious authority of the gaonate over the com-
munity was created by the schools themselves. The survival of the
schools as institutions and of the religious court system in the early
Islamic period contributed to the rise of the gaonate that had begun
with the suppression of the exilarchate at the end of the Sasanian
period. The Islamic conquest provided a catalyst for these pre-Islamic
tendencies, not by recognizing the gaonate, but by neglecting to in-
tervene in the conflict with the exilarchs from which the gaons emerged
as the real religious authorities in the community.
MESSIANIC OPPOSITION
Exilarchs were not the only opponents of Rabbinic authority. As
previously indicated, even in the Talmudic period there were objections
to the way the rabbis ruled the community for the Sasanians. The
rabbis' self-serving use of the courts, the exploitation of their knowl-
edge of the law, and their collaboration with the Sasanian authorities
to collect taxes and to apprehend criminals provoked strong resent-
ment. According to R. Papa (d. 375), the activity of the Persian police
chief (M.P. gezirpat) would cease when there were no Jewish judges.
Although Neusner interprets this in an ethical sense, the causal rela-
tionship between Rabbinic legal administration and Sasanian oppres-
99 Mann, "Responsa," p. 122.
100Ibn Daud, Book of Tradition, pp. 47-48.