Sumchus סומכוס

After Rabbi Meir's death Rabbi Yehuda haNasi barred his disciples from the study house—"they come not to learn but to dispute". Sumchus entered anyway. The dialectic for which Meir's school was famous reached its limit in him: forty-eight reasons on either side of anything.

In law he left the rule still argued about: "money in doubt is divided", against the general "the claimant must bring the proof". The Mishnah and the baraitot cite him as the last voice of the generation that remembered Rabbi Meir alive.