institutions of learning. A very ancient synagogue, built, it was believed, by King Jeconiah, existed in Nehardea. At Huzal, near Nehardea, there was another synagogue, not far from which could be seen the ruins of Ezra's academy. In the period before Hadrian, Rabbi Akiva, on his arrival at Nehardea on a mission from the Sanhedrin, entered into a discussion with a resident scholar on a point of matrimonial law (Mishnah Yeb., end). At the same time there was at Nisibis, in northern Mesopotamia, an excellent Jewish college, at the head of which stood Judah ben Bathyra, and in which many Judean scholars found refuge at the time of the persecutions. A certain temporary importance was also attained by a school at Nehar-Peqod, founded by the Judean immigrant Haninah, nephew of Joshua ben Hananiah, which school could have become the cause of a schism between the Jews of Babylonia and those of Judea and Israel, had not the Judean authorities promptly checked Hananiah's ambition. Founding of academies Among those that helped to restore Jewish learning, after Hadrian, was the Babylonian scholar Nathan, a member of the family of the exilarch, who continued his activity even under Judah the Prince. Another Babylonian, Hiyya bar Abba, belonged to the foremost leaders in the closing age of the Tannaim. His nephew, Abba Arika, afterward called simply Rav, was one of the most important pupils of Judah. Rav's return to his Babylonian home, the year of which has been accurately recorded (530 Seleucid era, 219 CE), marks an epoch; for from it dates the beginning of a new movement in Babylonian Judaism—namely, the initiation of the dominant rôle which the Babylonian academies played for several centuries. Leaving Nehardea to his friend Samuel of Nehardea, whose father, Abba, was already reckoned among the authorities of that town, Rav founded a new academy in Sura, where he held property. Thus, there existed in Babylonia two contemporary academies, so far removed from each other, however, as not to interfere with each other's operations. Since Rav and Samuel were acknowledged peers in position and learning, their academies likewise were accounted of equal rank and influence. Thus both Babylonian rabbinical schools opened their lectures brilliantly, and the ensuing discussions in their classes furnished the earliest stratum of the scholarly material deposited in the Babylonian Talmud. The coexistence for many decades of these two colleges of equal rank originated that remarkable