GAONS, an order of Jewish doctors who appeared in the East after the closing of the Talmud. The word gaons signifies excellent or sublime; as in the divinity schools we
formerly had irrefragable, sublime, resolute, angelic, and subtle doctors. The Gaons succeeded the Seburans, about the beginning of the sixth century. Chanan Meischia was the head of the "Excellents," and restored the academy of Pandebita, which had been shut up for thirty years.