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 Sebureans, about the beginning of the sixth century. Chanan Meisch-tia was the head of the "Excellents," and restored the academy of Pandchita, which had been shut up for thirty years.