event · E0200
Cessation of classical semicha ביטול הסמיכה
The end of the third chain. Classical judicial ordination — valid only in Eretz Yisrael, channeled through the Nasi, targeted by Roman decree since Hadrian — was still being performed in Rabbi Yochanan's circle, but dwindled with the Sanhedrin and the Nesiut and ceased entirely in the late Roman period. No source records a final ordination: tradition and scholarship bracket the end between the mid-fourth century and the abolition of the patriarchate c. 425 CE. From then on no court could judge dinei kenasot, and every later rabbinate — Bavel's included — operated without semicha, until the failed Tzfat restart of 1538.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- ביטול הסמיכה
- Also known as
- End of classical ordination
II. When
- Traditional
- chain understood to fail around the generation of Hillel II, c. 4120 AM
- Academic
- between the mid-4th century and the suppression of the Nesiut c. 425 CE
- Date range
- c. 360–425 CE
- Duration
- ≈65 years
- Precision
- disputed
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classical semicha was valid only in Eretz Yisrael: "there is no semicha outside the Land" — one may not ordain outside the Land even if the ordainers were themselves ordained in it. This region rule is why Bavel's sages bore the title Rav rather than Rabbi, and it made the chain's survival hostage to conditions in Roman Palestine. | rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| Ordination became institutionally bound to the Nesiut: originally "each one would appoint his own students," but in honor of the house of Hillel it was enacted that no one be ordained except with the permission of the Nasi. When Rome suppressed the Nesiut, the mechanism of ordination went with it. | rabbinic tradition | ★★★★☆ | |
| Ordination was still being performed in the amoraic period in Eretz Yisrael: the sugya shows Rabbi Yochanan's circle ordaining, and preserves the songs sung at the ordinations of Rabbi Zeira and of Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi — evidence the chain reached at least the late third and early fourth centuries. | rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| By the Rambam's day the chain was long broken: he writes of ordination in the past tense, proposes that "if all the sages in Eretz Yisrael agreed" ordination could be reinstituted, explains that the sages' anguish over semicha was "so that the laws of fines not cease from Israel" — and closes, "and the matter requires resolution." | rabbinic tradition | ★★★★★ | |
| No source records the last ordination. Medieval authorities placed the end around the generation of Hillel II (c. 360 CE); Roman law under Theodosius I outlawed ordination on pain of death, and the institution can be traced no later than c. 425 CE, when Theodosius II stripped Gamliel VI and suppressed the patriarchate. The date range here presents that span honestly rather than choosing a year.
The AM range 4120–4185 renders 360–425 CE schematically; precision is marked disputed because the traditional and scholarly endpoints differ and no source states a final ordination.
|
tradition external reconstruction | ★★★☆☆ |