Although the name of this author is not known, his date can be fixed approximately. Among the 16 authorities quoted in the part which has been designated above as the treatise DER proper, none lived later than Judah haNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah. The Yerushalmi quotes a teaching, found in the DER, with the formula "Tene be-Derekh ha-Eretz"; from this it appears that in the time of the Amoraim a tannaitic collection of the name "Derekh Eretz" was known, and there is no reason to consider this worth to be different from our DER. Nor is there any cogent reason for not considering this treatise as the source of the many quotations from Baraitas in Talmud Bavli which also appear in DER, although it must be admitted that a great many of the quotations existed in different collections of Baraitas, and that the Talmud drew sometimes from one source and sometimes from another. Therefore, a contemporary of Rebbi (about 160-220)—not Rebbi himself—may have been the author of DER, the first three sections being added much later. A collection known as "Hilkhot Derekh Eretz" existed even in the school of Rabbi Akiva; but, as the term "Hilkhot" indicates, it was composed entirely of short teachings and rules of behavior and custom, without any references to Jewish Scripture and tradition. It is even highly probable that the treatise was based on the older collection, and that the work of the later editors consisted merely in the addition to the old rules of illustrations from the Bible and from history. For example, in the old collection there was a rule, "No one must enter the house of another without due announcement." This teaching was amplified by a later editor, who added: "This rule of behavior is taught out of the mouth of God Himself, who stood at the gate of paradise and called to Adam, 'Where are you?'" and to this is added the story of a journey of Jewish scholars to Ancient Rome, and how they comported themselves there. It is characteristic of this treatise that in order to emphasize its rules, it relates many stories of the private life of the Tannaim. A most interesting one is the following, which is used as an illustration to the rule, always to be friendly and obliging:  Stories of this nature lend a peculiar charm to DER. The version of the treatise found in Machzor Vitry is different from that in the editions of the Talmud.