RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESsion seems clear enough. Rabbinic authority was established at the
cost of the miraculous powers of the earlier Amoraim. Later genera-
tions were more learned but their prayers for rain were less effective
(i.e., they were less useful for the real needs of people). It was said
that the Messiah, Ben David, would not come as long as there were
Jewish judges and officials, and that when the Messiah arrived poverty
would vanish and everyone would be rich.lol
Jews with a Messianic orientation expected Elijah to be sent as the
precursor of the Messiah (Mal. 4:5) "to lead aright the coming ages,"
restore the purity of families, bring peace, settle disputes and questions
of ritual, and explain difficult passages of Scripture. In the meantime,
Elijah appeared to favor pious people such as R. Beroka of Khuzistan,
to whom he appeared often in the marketplace of Jundishapur. He
also appeared disguised as an Arab of the desert. Those who were
called disciples of Elijah in the Talmud engaged in apocalyptic cal-
culations, and a Jew who had served in the Persian army is said to
have found a scroll in the Persian archives that said the end of the
world would begin in 531.102 A form of apocalyptic and antinomian
asceticism was associated with people who regarded the entire cere-
monlallaw as no longer obligatory after the destruction of the second
Temple, who mourned the fall of Jerusalem, and who tried to prohibit
the use of meat and wine because they had been used in the Temple
ritual. Nazarites who lived in expectation of the Messiah would only
drink wine on the Sabbath or on festivals because they believed that
the Messiah would not come then, nor would Elijah, his forerunner,
come on the eve of the Sabbath or a festival. That such expressions
were recognized as subversive is indicated by the arrest of Eliezer the
Little by the officers of the exilarch in the marketplace of Nahardea
for wearing black shoes to lament the fall of Jerusalem. 103
The rabbis discouraged bringing about the Messianic age by overt
political action because of the consequences and preferred to postpone
it. They opposed apocalyptic calculations and asceticism and diverted
Messianic hopes from a political and socioeconomic level to a moral
one. According to R. Samuel (d. 254), the only difference between the
present time and that of the Messiah was that one would no longer
101 Neusner, History, pp. 261, 280; idem, Talmudic ]udaism, pp. 36-37; Rodkinson,
Talmud, II, "Sabbath," 354; idem, XVI, "Sanhedrin," 306-7.
102 Baron, Social and Religious History, II, 318; V, 360; L. Ginzberg, "Elijah," ]E,
V, 122-26; Rodkinson, Talmud, VIII, "Taankh," 60; idem, XVI, "Sanhedrin," 303;
idem, XVIII "Abuda Zara," p. 16.
103 Newman, Agricultural Life, p. 71; Rodkinson, Talmud, Ill, "Erubin," 97-98;
idem, X "Baba Kama," 139.