GAMALIEL VI.:

The last patriarch. The decree of the emperors Honorius and Theodosius II. (Oct. 17, 415) contains interesting data concerning him. By this decree the patriarch was deprived of all the higher honors which had been given him, as well as of the patriarchate, because he had permitted himself to disregard the exceptional laws against the Jews, had built new synagogues, and had adjudged disputes between Jews and Christians. With his death the patriarchal office ceased, and an imperial decree (426) diverted the patriarchs' tax ("post excessum patriarchorum") into the imperial treasury. Gamaliel VI. appears to have been a physician. Marcellus, a medical writer of the fifth century, mentions a remedy for disease of the spleen which had been discovered not long before by "Gamalielus Patriarcha."

Bibliography:
  • Grätz, Gesch. 3d ed., iv. 360, 450.
S. S. W. B.
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