Rabbi Chiya רבי חייא

The Gemara gives his answer thus. I sow flax, from the flax I weave nets, with the nets I trap deer, the meat I give to orphans, from the hides I make parchment; on the parchment I write the five books of the Torah and go to a town that has no teachers; I teach five children the five books and six children the six orders of the Mishnah, and I tell each of them: teach what you have to your fellows. So the Torah will not be forgotten in Israel.

This is not a parable. The point is that from the sowing to the finished student runs a chain of entirely earthly acts, and no link can be skipped.

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, hearing of it, said: how great are the deeds of Chiya. Ketubot records his praise separately.

Together with his sons he collected the baraitot — rulings of the tannaim that did not enter the Mishnah. A "baraita not taught in the house of Rabbi Chiya and Rabbi Oshaya" is treated in the Talmud as doubtful: their collections were the standard.

He stands on the border of two eras: chronologically the last of the tannaim, and one of the first whom the amoraim cite.