After having been ordained in violation of a Roman edict, Jose fled to Asia Minor, where he stayed till the edict was abrogated. Later he settled at Usha, then the seat of the Sanhedrin. As he remained silent when his fellow pupil Simeon bar Yohai once attacked the Roman government in his presence, he was forced by the Romans to return to Sepphoris, which he found in a decaying state. He established there a flourishing school; and it seems that he died there.