rd thy God of Israel,
under whose wings thou art come to take refuge,"(1335) were applied by the
Pharisean leaders to all who joined the faith as Ruth did. So it became a
technical term for converts to Judaism, "to come, or be brought, under the
wings of the divine majesty" (Shekinah).(1336) Philo frequently expresses
the idea that the proselyte who renounces heathenism and places himself
under the protection of Israel's God, stands in filial relation to Him
exactly like the born Israelite.(1337) Therefore Hillel devoted his life
to missionary activity, endeavoring "to bring the soul of many a heathen
under the wings of the Shekinah." But in this he was merely following the
rabbinic ideal of Abraham,(1338) and of Jethro, of whom the Midrash says:
"After having been won to the monotheistic faith by Moses, he returned to
his land to bring his countrymen, the Kenites, under the wings of the
Shekinah."(1339) The proselyte's bath in living water was to constitute a
rebirth of the former heathen, poetically expressed in the Halakic rule:
"A convert is like a newborn creature."(1340) The Paulinian idea that
baptism creates a new Adam in place of the old is but an adaptation of the
Pharisaic view. Some ancient teachers therefore declared the proselyte's
bath more important than circumcision, since it forms the sole initiatory
rite for female proselytes, as it was with the wives of the
patriarchs.(1341)

9. The school of Hillel followed in the footsteps of Hellenistic Judaism
in accentuating the ethical element in the law;(1342) so naturally it
encouraged proselytism as well. The Midrash preserves the following
Mishnah, handed down by Simeon ben Gamaliel, but not contained in our
Mishnaic Code: "If a _Ger_ desires to espouse the Jewish faith, we extend
to him the hand of welcome in order to bring him under the wings of the
Shekinah."(1343) Both the Midrash and the early Church literature reveal
traces of a Jewish treatise on proselytes, containing rules for admission
into the two grades, which was written in the spirit of the Hellenistic
propaganda, but was afterward rewritten and adopted by the Christian
Church. The school of Shammai in its rigorous legalism opposed proselytism
in general, and its chief representative, Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, distrusted
proselytes altogether.(1344) On the other hand, the followers of Hillel
were decidedly in favor of converting the heathen and were probably
responsible for many Haggadic passages e