Saul.  They take Paulus as equal to pusillus, which means “very little” or “the less,” and answers to the word Hakaton, a term of similar import.  Samuel, however, died a good Jew (see Semachoth, chap. 8), and Rabbon Gamliel Hazaken and Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah pronounced a funeral oration at his burial.  “His key and his diary were placed on his coffin, because he had no son to succeed him.” (See also Sanhedrin, fol. ii, col. 1.)

Eighteen denunciations did Isaiah make against the people of Israel, and he recovered not his equanimity until he was able to add, “The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable” (Isa. iii. 5).

Chaggigah, fol. 14, col. 1.

The Rabbis have related that there was once a family in Jerusalem the members of which died off regularly at eighteen years of age.  Rabbi Yochanan ben Zacchai shrewdly guessed that they were descendants of Eli, regarding whom it is said (1 Sam. ii. 25), “And all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age;” and he accordingly advised them to devote themselves to the study of the law, as the certain and only means of neutralizing the curse.  They acted upon the advice of the Rabbi; their lives were in consequence prolonged; and they thenceforth went by the name of their spiritual father.

Rosh Hashanah, fol. 18, col. 1.

Eighteen handbreadths was the height of the golden candlestick.

Menachoth, fol. 28, col. 2.

If a man remain unmarried after the age of twenty, his life is a constant transgression.  The Holy One—­blessed be He!—­waits until that period to see if one enters the matrimonial state, and curses his bones if he remain single.

Kiddushin, fol. 29, col. 2.

A woman marrying under twenty years of age will bear till she is sixty; if she marries at twenty she will bear until she is forty; if she marries at forty she will not have any family.

Bava Bathra, fol. 119, col. 2.

At twenty pursue the study of the law.

Avoth, chap. 5.

Rabbi Yehudah says the early Pietists used to suffer some twenty days before death from diarrhoea, the effect of which was to purge and purify them for the world to come; for it is said, “As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise” (Prov. xxvii. 21).

Semachoth, chap. 3, mish. 10.

It may not be out of place to append two or three parallel passages here by way of illustration:—­“Bodily suffering purges away sin” (Berachoth, fol. 5, col. 1).  “He who suffers will not see hell” (Eiruvin, fol. 41, col. 2).  “To die of diarrhoea is an augury for good, for most of the righteous die of that ailment” (Kethuboth, fol. 103, col. 2, and elsewhere).

The bathing season at (the hot baths of) Dimsis lasted twenty-one days.