Chapter XXXII: Book V: The Jew and the Talmud (1)

INTRODUCTORY

Among all the various evidential arguments adduced in support of the truth of Christianity, many of them of a most weighty character and capable of an almost indefinite expansion, the history of the Jewish people, their wonderful past and their present condition, their numbers, their books, their ever-growing influence in the world of the twentieth century, must be considered as the most striking and remarkable.

The Christianity of the first century was surely no new religion; it was closely knit to, bound up with, the great Hebrew tradition. The sacred Hebrew tradition was the first chapter--the preface, so to speak--of the Christian revelation.

The early or pre-Christian details of the Jewish story are well known and generally accepted. The Old Testament account of the Jewish race historically is rarely disputed.

Less known and comparatively little regarded is the subsequent history of the Chosen People; over the records of their fate, after the final and complete separation of Judaism and Christianity, an almost impenetrable mist settled, and the story of the fortunes of the remnant of the Jews who survived the terrible exterminating wars of Titus and Hadrian has been generally neglected by the historians of the great Empire.

Very few have even cared to ask what happened to that poor remnant of vanquished Jews: all that is commonly known is that a certain number survived the great catastrophes, and that their scattered descendants, in different lands, appear and reappear all through the Middle Ages--a wandering and despised folk, generally hated and hating.

But these are still with us, and among us; that they occupy in our day and time a peculiar, a unique position of power and influence which they have gradually acquired in all grades of modern society in many lands is now universally recognized.

This subsequent history of the fortunes of the Jewish people from the dates of their final separation from the Christian community, and the great catastrophes of the years of grace A.D. 70 and A.D. 135, constitutes a piece of supreme importance in the evidential history of the religion of Jesus; and yet, strange to say, it is, comparatively speaking, unknown and neglected.

It will be seen, as the pages of this wonderful story are turned over, how the guiding hand of the Lord, though in a different way, just as in the far-back days of the desert wanderings, has been ever visible in all the strange sad fortunes of the people, once the beloved of God.

The Jews of the twentieth century, numbering perhaps some ten or eleven millions, although scattered over many lands, constitute a distinct race, a separate people or nation. While during the Christian centuries _all_ other races--peoples--nations--without a single exception have become extinct, or have become fused and merged with other and newer races and peoples, they, the Jews, have _alone_ preserved their ancient nationality, their descent, their peculiar features, their individuality, their cherished traditions--_absolutely intact_.

* * * * *

It does not seem ever to have been remarked that the rise and influence of the great Rabbinic schools of Palestine and Babylonia, at Tiberias and Jamnia, at Sura and Pumbeditha--schools devoted to the study of the Torah (the Law) and the other books of the Old Testament, were coincident with the rise and influence of the Gnostic schools, schools in which the Old Testament was generally reviled and discredited. Is it too much to assume that echoes from the great Rabbinic teaching centres reached and sensibly influenced the Christian masters in their life and death contest with Gnosticism, a contest in which the Old Testament, its divine origin and its authority, was ever one of the principal questions at stake?

* * * * *

Nor is it an altogether baseless conception which sees that the reverence and love of at least a large proportion of earnest Christian folk for the Old Testament books, a reverence and a love that for more than eighteen hundred years has undergone no diminution or change, are in large measure due to the reverential handling, to the patient tireless studies of the great Rabbinical schools of the early Christian centuries--to the passionate, possibly exaggerated, love of the Jew for his precious book.

Though men guess it not, surely echoes from those strange Jewish schools of Tiberias and Sura, whose story we are about to relate, have reached the hearts of unnumbered Christians to whom the Jewish schools in question and their restless toil, all centering in the Holy Books in question, are but the shadow of a name?

I

THE HISTORY OF THE THREE WARS WHICH CLOSED THE CAREER OF JUDAISM AS A
NATION

In the wonderful Jewish epic--so closely united to the Christian story--which stretches already over several thousand years, the history of the three last awful wars which led to their extinction as a nation, though not as a people, is merely a terrible episode in the many-coloured records of the wonderful race.

But these wars are specially important, for they were the earthly cause of the great change which passed over the fortunes of the Jews. Since the last of the three wars they have ceased to be a separate nation, and have become a wandering tribe scattered over the earth; but though wanderers, they are now more numerous, more influential in the world, than they had ever been even in the days of their greatest grandeur and magnificence.

The curious religious mania which seems to have possessed them, and which led them to revolt against the far-reaching power of the Roman Empire, is in some respects a mystery. We can only very briefly recount here the state of parties in Jerusalem, the centre of the nation, for a few years before the revolt which led to the first great war.

In the year B.C. 63 the Roman commander Pompey established the Roman rule over Judæa; from B.C. 6 the Jewish province, still preserving a partial independence, was governed by procurators sent from Rome, and by a native Herodian dynasty. The Palestinian Jews were roughly made up in this period of three parties:

(1) The _Sadducees and Herodians_, who occupied most of the high offices and the priesthood.

(2) The _Pharisees_. Strict Jews, loving with a devoted love the Torah or Mosaic Law; on the whole not favourable to the Roman and Herodian rule, but generally quiet and peace-loving. These included dreamers--men quietly longing for the promised Messiah, Essenes, and later, towards the end of the period we are speaking of, Christian Jews.

(3) _Zealots_--including adventurers, the Sicarii (or assassins), a wild turbulent clique (or sect), and a confused medley of disorderly folk, making up a formidable party of enthusiasts, expecting the early advent of a Messiah who should restore the past glories of the Jewish race; these were usually fierce revolutionaries, intensely dissatisfied with the state of things then prevailing; hating Rome and the Herodian dynasty favoured by Rome with a fierce hatred.

These Zealots had a very large, though disorderly, following among the people.

In A.D. 66 the revolt broke out in the Holy City. Florus, the Roman Procurator (or Governor), whose conduct during the early stages of the great revolt is inexplicable, left the city, leaving behind him only a small garrison; the revolt spread not only in Palestine and in parts of the neighbouring province of Syria, but far beyond--notably in the great city of Alexandria, where a large Jewish colony dwelt. Scenes of terrible violence were common, and fearful massacres are recorded to have taken place in various centres of population where Jews were numerous; the revolt became serious, and the Imperial Legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, took the field against the insurgents. He seems to have been a thoroughly incompetent commander, and failed completely in his efforts to regain possession of Jerusalem, the headquarters of the revolutionary party. Gallus retreated, suffering great loss. The failure of Gallus inflicted a heavy blow upon Roman prestige.

To put an end to the serious and widespread revolt, in the year of grace 67 Vespasian, one of the ablest and most distinguished of the Roman generals, was appointed to the supreme command in Syria.

Gradually, as the result of a terrible campaign, Vespasian restored quiet in Palestine and the neighbouring region, and laid siege to the Holy City, where the Zealots had established what can only be termed a reign of terror.

In the following year, A.D. 68, the violent death of the Emperor Nero, and the state of confusion that followed his death throughout the Empire, determined Vespasian to pause in his operations, and for a short period Jerusalem was left in the hands of the Zealots. The brief reigns of the Emperors Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were followed by the sudden election of Vespasian to the Empire in the year 69, the electors being for the most part his own devoted and disciplined legions in Syria.

Vespasian soon after his election returned to Rome, and the Empire, now under his strong rule, was once more united and quiet. He left behind him in Palestine as supreme commander his eldest son Titus, a general of great power and ability.

The siege of the revolted Jerusalem was once more pressed on; an iron circle now encircled the doomed city, which, in addition to its wonderful memories of an historic past, was one of the strong fortresses of the world.

The history of the siege and the eventual fall and ruin of the famous Jewish capital, with all its nameless horrors, has been often told and retold; but the sad episode of the burning of the Temple, with all its eventful consequences, must be briefly touched on.

Why was this world-famous sanctuary--then standing in all its marvellous beauty, with its matchless treasures, some of them environed with an aureole of sanctity simply unequalled in the story of the nations in the sphere of Roman influence--ruthlessly destroyed, and its wondrous treasures swept out? This was not the usual policy of far-seeing Rome.

According to Josephus, the burning of the Temple was the result of accident, and was not owing to any premeditated plan or order issuing from the Roman commander-in-chief.

Modern scholars,[145] however, believe that a passage from the lost _Histories of Tacitus_ has been discovered which describes how a council of war was held by Titus after the capture of Jerusalem in which it was decided that the Temple ought to be destroyed, in order that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might be more completely stamped out.

In the Talmud[146] the burning of the Temple is ascribed to the “impious Titus.”

The cruelties which are associated with the storming of Jerusalem--the loss of life and the subsequent fate of the prisoners captured by the victorious army of Titus--make up a tale of horror which perhaps is unequalled in the world’s history; there is, however, no doubt that the awful scenes of carnage and the fate of the defenders who survived the fall of the city were in large measure owing to the obstinate defence and irreconcilable hatred of the party of Jewish Zealots who provoked the war and for so long a time had been masters in the hapless city.

The result of the siege by Titus may be briefly summed up as follows. The Temple and the City of Jerusalem were absolutely razed to the ground, and may be said to have completely disappeared; only the mighty foundations of the magnificent Temple remained. These still are with us, and after nearly two thousand years bear their silent witness to the vastness and extent of the third Temple. It is no exaggeration which describes it as one of the most magnificent buildings of the Old World.

For some fifty-two years--that is, from A.D. 70 to A.D. 122--a vast heap of shapeless ruins was all that remained of the historic City of the Jews and its splendid Temple. In one corner of the ruins during this period of utter desolation the Tenth Legion (Fretensis) kept watch and ward over the pathetic scene of ruin.

In the year of grace 122, under the orders of the Emperor Hadrian, a new pagan city, known as Ælia Capitolina, slowly began to arise on the ancient site. This new city will be briefly described in due course.

The year following the awful catastrophe which befel the Jewish nation witnessed one of the most remarkable of the long series of “triumphs” which usually marked the close of the successful Roman wars.

In A.D. 71, Titus, with his father Vespasian and brother Domitian, with extraordinary pomp and a carefully arranged pictorial display, entered Rome. This triumph was adorned with a long train of captive Jews, some of whom were publicly put to death as part of the great show. Among the more precious spoils of the fallen city were conspicuously displayed some of the celebrated objects rescued by the victors out of the burning Temple,--such as the famous seven-branched sacred candlestick; the golden table of shewbread; the purple veil which hung before the Holy of Holies; and the precious Temple copy of the Torah--the sacred Law of Moses.

The story of the great triumph is still with us, graved upon the marble of the slowly crumbling Arch of Titus,--the traveller may still gaze upon the figure of the great general, crowned by Victory, in his triumphal car driven by the goddess Rome, and upon the same imperial figure borne to heaven[147] by an eagle. Still the carved representation of the sacred candlestick of the seven branches, and the golden table, are beheld by the Christian with mute awe; by the Jew with a mourning that refuses to be comforted. But the sacred things[148] themselves over which brood such ineffable memories are gone.

The fall of Jerusalem, the utter destruction of the Holy City, the burning of the Temple, really sealed the fate of the Jews as a separate nation. The centre of the chosen race existed no longer. The sacred rites, the daily sacrifice, and the offering ceased for ever. The great change in Judaism we are going to dwell upon must be dated from the year 70. But more terrible events had yet to happen before the Jew acknowledged his utter defeat, and recognized that a great change had passed over him and had finally altered the scene of his cherished hopes and glorious anticipations.

Two more bloody wars had to be fought out before the Jew settled down to his new life--the life to be lived by the Chosen People for a long series of centuries, the life he is living still, though more than 1800 years have come and gone since Titus brought the sacred Temple treasures from the ruined city to grace the proud Roman triumph.

Under Trajan in A.D. 116-7, and again under Hadrian in A.D. 133-4, the Zealot party of the defeated but still untamed people again rose up in arms against the mighty Empire in the heart of which they dwelt.

We will rapidly sketch these last disastrous revolts. The spirit of unrest and of hatred of the Roman power--the wild Messianic hopes which had inspired the party of Zealots in Jerusalem in the first war which had ended so disastrously--still lived in the great Jewish centres of population outside the Holy Land, in countries where the desolation which succeeded the events in 70 had not been acutely felt.

The Palestinian Jews for a time were apparently hopelessly crushed, but the Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria were still a powerful and dangerous group. It is impossible now to indicate the precise causes of the formidable rising of A.D. 116-7. The absence of Trajan and his great army in the more distant regions of Asia, and the news that the Roman arms had met with a serious check in that distant and dangerous campaign, seem to have given the signal for an almost simultaneous Jewish uprising in the Cyrene province, in the city of Alexandria, and in Cyprus.

We do not possess any very exact details here. The revolt was generally characterized by horrible cruelties on the part of the Jewish insurgents, and we read of fearful massacres perpetrated by the revolted Jews. The insurrection spread with alarming rapidity, and became a grave danger to the Empire. At first we only hear of several successes and victories. In the cities of Alexandria and Cyrene a reign of terror prevailed; but, as was ever the case when Rome in good earnest put forth her disciplined forces, the insurgents found themselves outnumbered and out-generalled. Two of the most distinguished of the imperial commanders, Marcius Turbo and Lucius Quietus, conducted the military operations. The war--for the Jewish revolt of A.D. 116-7 assumed the proportions of a grave war--lasted well-nigh two years; but the insurgents were in the end completely routed.

The numbers of slain in this wild and undisciplined outburst of Jewish fury, according to the records of the historians of the war, are so great that we are tempted to suspect them exaggerated. In Cyrene and the neighbouring districts the number who perished is given as twenty-two thousand; the loss of life in Alexandria, Egypt, and Cyprus seems to have been equally terrible. But even granted that the numbers of Jews who perished in this fanatical rebellion have been, from one cause or other, exaggerated, it is certain that the numbers of the slain were enormous, that the power and influence of the Chosen People suffered a terrible check as the result of this rising, and that in the great cities of Cyrene and Alexandria the Jewish population of these centres--large and flourishing communities, possessing great wealth and influence, distinguished for their high culture and learning--were almost annihilated. The results of the insane revolts of A.D. 116-7 were indeed disastrous to the fortunes of this extraordinary and wonderful people.

* * * * *

But the end was not yet. Another bloody war, with all its fearful consequences, had to be waged between the Jew and the Empire before the Chosen People finally resigned itself to the new life it was destined to live through the long centuries which followed. The old spirit of restlessness, of wild visionary hopes of some great one who should arise in their midst, still lived among the more ardent and fervid members of the now scattered and diminished people.

The exciting causes of the last great revolt have been variously stated. It is probable that the conduct of Hadrian in his latter years had become less tolerant, while a persecuting spirit more or less prevailed in his government. Among other irritating measures devised by Rome, the ancient rite of circumcision apparently was forbidden. But the immediate cause of the Jewish uprising no doubt was the steady progress made in the building of the new city, Ælia Capitolina, on the site of Jerusalem and the Temple.

That a pagan city, with its theatres, its baths, its statues, should replace the old home of David and Solomon; that a Temple of Jupiter should be built on the site of the glorious House of the Eternal of Hosts; that the very stones of old Jerusalem and her adored sanctuary should be used for the construction of the new city of idols--was indeed especially hateful to the proud and fanatic Jew. Sacrilege could go no further. Rapidly the insurrection which began in Southern Judæa spread. Once more the Holy Land, especially in the southern districts, became the scene of a fierce religious war; Bethia, a fortress some fifteen miles from Jerusalem, became the central place of arms of the fierce insurgents, but the revolt spread far beyond the districts of Palestine.

In one striking particular this third Jewish war differed from the first and second revolts. In the earlier uprisings it was the _hope_ of the appearance of a conquering Messiah which inspired the fanatical insurgents. In the third revolt a false Messiah actually presented himself, and gave a new colour and spirit to this dangerous insurrection.

The hero of the war--the pseudo-Messiah known as Bar-cochab (the son of a Star)--is a mysterious person; his name appears to have been a play upon his real appellation, and was assumed by him as representing the Star pictured in the famous prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 17): “I shall see him,” said the seer of Israel, “but not now.... There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” Was this pseudo-Messiah simply an impostor, a charlatan, or did he really believe in his mission? The Talmud generally execrates his memory, but the principal doctor of that age, Rabbi Akiba, at a time when the Doctors of the Law had begun to exercise a paramount influence among the Jewish people, believed in him with an intense belief, and supported him in his Messianic pretensions.

Many, but by no means all, of the great Rabbis of the day seem to have supported this Bar-cochab, and the Talmud tells us that not a few of them endured martyrdom at the hands of the victorious Roman government. All contemporary history of this war is, however, confused,--the Talmud notices are especially so; the details are simply impossible to grasp.

Of the bravery of Bar-cochab there is no doubt; he perished before the end of the war, and some time after Rabbi Akiba, his most influential supporter, was put to an agonizing death by the victors.

Of Rabbi Akiba’s sincerity there are abundant proofs. His memory was ever held in the highest honour by his countrymen. He was reputed to be the most learned and eloquent of that famous generation of Jewish teachers. The strange mistake he made in recognizing the false Messiah Bar-cochab is hard to account for.

As in the case of the two first famous Jewish wars, the Roman power seems at first to have underrated this rebellion, which, however, soon assumed a most formidable character. The general commanding in the Syrian provinces proving incapable, the ablest of the imperial generals, Sextus Julius Severus, was summoned from his command in distant Britain to Judæa. The Roman tactics employed were generally similar to those adopted by Trajan’s generals in the second Jewish war of A.D. 116-7. Severus avoided any so-called pitched battle, but advanced gradually, attacking and besieging each of the rebel garrisons, thus gradually wearing out the impetuosity and ardour of the fanatical insurgents. The war lasted from two to three years. The devastation, the result of this war, was evidently very awful, and the numbers of the slain seem to have been enormous. We read of 50 armed places being stormed, 985 villages and towns being destroyed; 580,000 men were said to have been slain, besides many who perished through hunger and disease: the numbers of slain in another account are, however, only given as amounting to 180,000. One cannot help coming to the conclusion that all these numbers are considerably exaggerated. Judæa, however, there is no doubt, especially in the southern districts, became literally a desert; wolves and hyenas are stated to have roamed at pleasure over the ravaged country; the south of Palestine became a vast charnel-house, and the present barren appearance of the country indicates that some terrible catastrophe has at some distant period passed over the land.[149]

The sternest measures effectually to stamp out all traces of revolt on the part of the Jewish nation were adopted by the Roman government after the close of the campaign. Numbers of the fugitives were ruthlessly put to death. Many were sold into slavery. No Jew was ever allowed to approach the ruins of the Holy City. Once in the year, on “the day of weeping,” such of the hapless race who chose were suffered to come and mourn for a brief hour over the shapeless pile of stones which once had been a portion of their sacred Temple.

For a time a bitter persecution throughout the Empire punished this last formidable uprising; but these rigorous measures were very soon relaxed when all fear of another outbreak had passed away, and the Jews, or what remained of the people, were suffered to live as they pleased, to worship after their own fashion, and to pursue the study of their loved Law unmolested.

M. de Champagny (_Les Antonins_, livre iii. chap, iii.) estimates the number of Jews who perished in the three great wars of A.D. 70, of A.D. 116-7, and of A.D. 132-3-4 roughly as follows: Under _Titus_, about two millions; under _Trajan_, about two hundred thousand; under _Hadrian_, about one million.[150]

The third war was termed in the Babylonian Talmud “the War of Extermination.”

II

(_a_) RABBINISM

We have described the three fatal wars at some length, because the wonderful history of the Jewish race entered upon an entirely new phase after the disastrous termination of the third of these terrible revolts. From the year of our Lord 134-5 they ceased to be a nation and became wanderers over the earth.

Yet in numbers and influence they can scarcely be said to have diminished. They amalgamated with no nation; they remained a marked and separate people, and so they continue to this day, though well-nigh eighteen long and troubled centuries have passed since the great ruin.

To what earthly cause is this marvellous preservation of the Jews to be attributed? Unhesitatingly we reply, Not to the rise of Rabbinism,--it had long existed among the Chosen People,--but to the development and consolidation of Rabbinism and to the famous outcome of Rabbinism, the Talmud.

The traditional history of Rabbinism and the beginning of the marvellous Rabbinic book, the Talmud, is given in the Mishnah treatise “Pirke Aboth” (Sayings of the Fathers). It is as follows:--

Moses received the written Law (the Torah) on Mount Sinai. He also received from the Eternal a further Law, illustrative of the written Law. This second Law was known as the “Law upon the lip.” This was never committed to writing, but was handed down from generation to generation. Moses committed this oral Law to Joshua; Joshua committed it to the Elders; the Elders committed it to the Prophets; the Prophets handed on the sacred tradition of “the Words of the Eternal” to the Men of the Great Synagogue. These last are regarded as the fathers of “Rabbinism.” Maimonides tells us that these fathers of “Rabbinism” succeeded each other (to the number of 120), commencing with the prophet Haggai, B.C. 520, who in the Talmud is described as the Expounder of the oral Law. The last member of the “Great Synagogue” was Simon the Just, _circa_ B.C. 301.

After Simon the Just a succession of eminent teachers known as the “Couples” handed down the sacred traditions of the “Law upon the lip” to the time of Hillel and Shammai, when we approach to the Christian era. Hillel, according to the Talmudic tradition, is said to have lived 100 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and thus to have been a contemporary of Herod the Great.

Very little really is known of the “Men of the Great Synagogue,” or of the ten “Couples” who succeeded them; little more than their names has been preserved. It is scarcely probable that in each generation only a pair of specially distinguished scholars should have lived. Most likely just ten names were known, and they were formed into five pairs or couples of contemporaries, after the fashion of the last and most famous pair, Hillel and Shammai. But from the times of Hillel and Shammai we have abundant historical testimony as to the existence and labours of the Rabbinic schools. Well-nigh all that we have related in the above passage is purely traditionary. There is no doubt a basis of truth in the account we have given, but the contemporary history is too scanty for us to describe this relation in the treatise “Pirke Aboth,” which thus connects the Mishnah compilation in a direct chain with Moses, as anything more than a widely circulated legendary and traditional story.

We can, however, certainly assert that the foundations of the teaching of the school of Rabbinism which, after the great ruin of the year of Grace 70, began to exercise a paramount influence over the fortunes of the Jewish race, were laid at a very early period, several hundred years before the Christian era.

There is no doubt that Hillel and Shammai founded or, more accurately speaking, developed the existing Rabbinic schools and gathered into them large numbers of disciples. The great development of Rabbinism which is ascribed to the two famous teachers Hillel and Shammai was evidently owing to the complete absorption of Palestine by Rome, under the baleful influence of the royalty of Herod the Great; these causes were gradually undermining Judaism, not only in a political but also in its religious aspect. Hillel and Shammai were fervid and earnest Jews, and were determined to infuse a new religious spirit into the nation. Still, it is more than probable that all this early Rabbinism would scarcely have been more than a school of curious literary speculation, and perhaps would not have seriously and permanently influenced the life of the Jewish people, had it not been for the awful events of the year A.D. 70. When Jerusalem ceased to exist, and the Temple was finally destroyed, then Christianity emerged from the heart of Judaism, and gathered into its fold many of the Chosen People.

FROM A DRAWING IN THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPÆDIA. (BY PERMISSION)]

What happened in the year A.D. 70 had a tremendous effect on the life of the Jews,--far more than the ordinary historian usually assigns to it. It has been tersely but truly said that, “unparalleled as were the calamities which attended the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, by far the most terrible of all was the total collapse of Judaism as a Creed, owing to the annihilation of all the divinely instituted means of access to God. The religious pulse of the nation ceased to beat, as it were, with a suddenness most appalling. We hear nothing of the Sadducees in those days, ... they were swept away like chaff before the tempest never to appear any more; but the Pharisees, to whom the Rabbis and Scribes belonged, remained steadfast, and, collecting the poor remnant of the people around them, determined to infuse new life into them.”

Mosaism was irretrievably destroyed in the year of our Lord 70, but the foundations of Rabbinism had, as we have noticed, been laid long before. It was only necessary to consolidate it, to give it shape and form, and to claim for the words of its expounders a yet higher authority than had as yet been conceded even to the written Law (the Torah). And this was done, or more accurately speaking was commenced, in the last twenty or thirty years of the first century (the years immediately following the catastrophe of A.D. 70) by the disciples of Rabban Jochanan ben Zacchai, who were certainly the earliest elaborators of the Mishnah,[151] the first and oldest part of the famous Talmud.

III

(_b_) RABBINISM

WHAT RABBINISM AND ITS BOOK, THE TALMUD, DID FOR THE JEWISH
PEOPLE

Historical summary of events leading up to the compilation and consolidation of the first part of the Talmud--the Mishnah.

After A.D. 70, when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, an extraordinary group of Rabbis or teachers of “the Law” arose--men of rare gifts, far-seeing and possessing unusual powers of communicating their enthusiasm to other men. These teachers recognized the utter hopelessness of any further war with Rome; they abandoned all expectation of seeing the Temple rebuilt; they saw that the future of Israel lay not in any restoration of its nationality as a people--that was now hopeless. But Israel alone among the people of the world possessed a Divine Law, was the inheritor of a glorious promise, a promise which they maintained belonged alone to them; no earthly misfortune could rob the Jew of this: they were the people specially beloved of God, and only by neglecting the observance of the Divine Law could they forfeit the sure and blessed inheritance reserved for them. That same Law must be their sole guide in all the various details of life--in the smallest matters as in the more important. In the rigid keeping of it they would in the end receive their great reward, the reward reserved for them, and for them alone, as the peculiar people of God the Supreme, the Almighty.

For some five centuries, since the days of Ezra and the return of the remnant of the people from the Captivity, “the Mosaic Law,” as contained in the Pentateuch, essentially in the same form as we now have it, had been regarded by the Jew with an almost limitless reverence. The acknowledgment of its awful and binding precepts was the condition without which no one was a member of the Chosen People, or could have a share in the glorious promises reserved for them.

Their teachers insisted that the commands of “the Law” (the Torah) were in their entirety the commands of God. “He who says that Moses wrote even one verse of his own knowledge is a denier and despiser of the Word of God.” The whole Pentateuch thus came to be regarded as dictated by God. Even the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, in which the death of Moses is told, were asserted to have been written by means of a divine revelation. Some of the teachers even went further; they asserted that the complete book of the Law had been handed to Moses by God.[152]

As time went on, the other Books of the “Old Testament”--at first the writings of the older prophets and works on the pre-exilic period of Israel; then the body of the “prophets” and the other Old Testament writings, became also regarded as documents in which the will of God was revealed in a manner absolutely binding.

Round the Law (Torah) had gathered a vast number of explanatory directions, and a certain number of traditional additions known as “Haggadah.” The first of these, the directions or explanations, were known by the term “Halachah.”[153] It had become necessary, seeing that the Law of Moses was accepted as the divine code for the guidance of the Chosen People, to explain and enlarge it further, so as to apply its brief enactments to all the conditions of everyday life. Some few of these Halachah were traditionally derived from Moses himself. Others had probably been composed very early in the schools of the prophets; yet more were the work of the Scribes,[154] a numerous class of teachers which had arisen after the return from exile in the days of Ezra. These Halachah (we use the well-known expression in preference to the more accurate plural form Halachoth; the same course has been followed in that of the expression “Haggadah”) had been largely augmented in the half-century preceding the catastrophe of _A.D._ 70.

The group of eminent Rabbis who arose after the fall of the City and Temple, and who set themselves the task of reconstituting Israel on a new and purely religious basis, took these Halachah, studied them, meditated on them,--no doubt recast many of them to suit the new position of the people, now that the Temple and its complicated ritual of sacrifice and public prayer had disappeared, and framed them into an elaborate system of regulations, thus pointing out how the Law might be rigidly observed in all the relations of ordinary life.

This great and elaborate work is termed the Mishnah[155]--or “Repetition,”--the term originally derived from the method in which it was elaborated. It was not written down in the first instance, but was _repeated_ again and again by the more famous teachers and heads of schools to their pupils. The term “Mishnah” came in time to signify “the second Law,” but that was not the original meaning; it belonged to a period when the whole instruction was _oral_.

The period of the elaboration of these Halachah (rules) and Haggadah (tradition) lasted somewhere about a hundred years or a little more. The great teachers who busied themselves in this work are ordinarily termed the Mishnic Rabbis--the Talmud term for them being Tannaim.

In the last years of the second century the Mishnah or first part of the Talmud was virtually closed, and the great Rabbinic schools then busied themselves in further commenting upon and explaining the Halachah (rules) and Haggadah (traditions) of the Mishnah; these further comments and explanations are known as the Gemara.

This second part of the Talmud, known as “Gemara,”[155] the complement of the first or Mishnic portion, was the outcome of the labours of several hundred Doctors or Rabbis. Two famous schools of Rabbinical study carried on the great work of commenting on the Mishnah. The one, the Palestinian, had its headquarters in Tiberias. The chief centres of the other, the Babylonian, were Sura and Pumbeditha. In both these compilations the same Mishnah is the text on which the vast body of commentary is based. But the Gemara, or commentary, is in many cases different. The Palestinian Talmud in the form which now exists is much shorter than the Eastern or Babylonian work. The Palestinian Rabbis worked from about the year of our Lord 190; their work was closed in the middle of the fifth century. The labours of the Babylonian doctors may be dated from the last years of the second, and were closed in the middle or later years of the sixth century.

The Babylonian--the larger Talmud, containing the Mishnah and Gemara, which has come down to us fairly intact, fills some twelve large folio volumes, and covers no less than 2947 folio leaves in double columns; or in other words, 5894 pages written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Rabbinic. The nature of these vast compilations is described more in detail in a later section of this Fifth Book.

The Talmudic term for the doctors of the Gemara is Amoraim.

* * * * *

The one purpose and object of the Talmud, followed out with a changeless and restless industry by the doctors of the Mishnah and the Gemara, from the year 70 to nearly the close of the sixth century--that is to say, for a period of some five hundred years--was the _Glorification of Israel_. Law and legend, rule and tradition, massed together with rare skill, all dwell on this. The Jews, and only the Jews, were the people chosen by God. If they would but honour Him and serve Him faithfully they would in the end win the exceeding great and promised reward. The way, and the only way, to know Him and to serve Him was pointed out with unerring lucidity and a marvellous wealth of detail in the mighty compilation of the Talmud. They were strictly warned against encouraging proselytes. The ineffable blessings belonged to the Jew and to the Jew alone. Again, the exceeding great reward belonged not to the successful Jewish soldier, but to the Jew who kept the stern Law handed down from Moses to prophet, and by prophet to scribe, and by scribe to the Rabbis who compiled the Mishnah and Gemara, which together make up the Talmud. The question of revolt against Rome found no place in the Talmud teaching.

After the three great wars--especially after the first, which closed with the destruction of the Temple--the Jew had no nationality, no country. He needed none. He had something far greater. He, and only he, was possessor of the blessed Divine Law; the solitary heir of its glorious promises.

The Talmud became the bond which linked together in one solid group the Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria, of Rome and Babylonia. Its power over the Jewish mind became boundless. It possessed indeed a wondrous fascination for every child of Israel. It impressed upon each member of the scattered race, in a way no teaching had ever previously done, the consciousness who he was, and what was the awful nature of his inheritance. Strong in this consciousness, he endured all the wrongs and persecutions, the cruel acts and yet more cruel words which have been, with rare interludes, his lot since A.D. 70. All through the subsequent ages he endured a bitter persecution, which even in our own day and time is still in many lands constantly ready to break out against him.

Strong in this consciousness he lives on, a willing wanderer and a stranger among the various nations of the earth, hated and hating,--feared but at the same time honoured; ever increasing in numbers, in wealth, and influence. His hand is in each group of statesmen, now publicly, more often hidden, but always there: he is yet greater in the exchanges and marts of the nations; the finance of every civilized country is more or less guided by him, more or less subject to his dictation and supervision.

Who now, men ask, is this ever-present changeless Jew? What is the secret of his power and ever-growing influence? The second great awakening--the awakening to the grandeur of his true position in the world’s story--when all seemed lost, when his Temple and City were destroyed, when he became at once homeless, landless, an outcast hated, even despised, as far as we can _see_, was the work of the Doctors and Rabbis of Tiberias in Galilee, and of Sura and other centres in Babylonia, in the years which followed the crushing ruin of A.D. 70. It was the work of the compilers and teachers of the Mishnah and Gemara which together made up the Talmud. We may now and again wonder at the curious and startling assertions of the Mishnah, and even smile at some of the marvellous extravagances of the Gemara; but when we ponder over the wonderful story of the Jew during the eighteen centuries which have passed since the desolation of A.D. 70, we dare not mock at the Talmud.

When we consider the whole question of what we have termed “the great awakening” of the Jewish people after the sudden and tremendous ruin of the City and Temple; the complete change in the heart of the Jew; the abandonment of the old dream of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel; the adoption of a spiritual kingdom in its place: when we remember the universal reverence for, the implicit obedience which very soon began to be paid to, the teaching of the Mishnah and Gemara--the Talmud--a reverence and an obedience which completely changed the life, the views, the hopes of the scattered race in all lands,--we ask the pressing question: _Whence_ came all this--the mighty change, the enthusiasm which has never paled or waned? The Mishnic Rabbis--the Gemara teachers, numerous, able, and devoted though they were, some few of them men of lofty genius and profound scholarship, do not account for this amazing result.

The “Talmud,” the outcome of these famous Rabbinic schools of the early Christian centuries, with its wild extravagances, its many beautiful thoughts, its peculiar and rigid system, touched the heart of the Jew, and bound together this people condemned to wander through the ages without a home, a country, a nationality, with a link no time, no human hate or scorn has been able to break or even to loose.

The strange weird Book was God’s mysterious instrument by which He has chosen to preserve intact the people He once loved--loves still--until the day, perhaps still far distant, dawns when the Jew, with eyes opened at last, shall look on Him whom they pierced.

IV

THE TALMUD

One[156] who loved with a love passionate, though not always discriminating, this vast wondrous compilation which has so marvellously affected the fortunes of the Chosen People, has written the following words: “The origin of the Talmud is coeval with the return from the Babylonish Captivity (some five centuries before Christ). One of the most mysterious and momentous periods in the history of humanity is that brief span of the Exile. What were the influences brought to bear upon the captives during that time we know not. But this we know, that from a reckless, lawless, godless populace they returned transformed into a band of Puritans.... The change is there, palpable, unmistakable--a change we may regard as almost miraculous. Scarcely aware before of the existence of their glorious national literature, the people now began to press round these brands plucked from the fire, the scanty records of their faith and history, with a fierce and passionate love, a love stronger than that of wife and child. These same documents, as they were gradually formed into a canon, became the immutable centre of their lives, their actions, their thoughts, their very dreams. From that time forth, with scarcely any intermission, the keenest as well as the most practical minds of the nation remained fixed upon them. _Turn it, and turn it again_, says the Talmud with regard to the Bible, _for everything is in it_.”

After the fall of the City and the burning of the Temple in A.D. 70 the wonderful records of the Jew and his Book (the Talmud) are all clear and definite. How it was composed, who compiled it, and why it was put out, all this belongs to history, and forms a most important though little known chapter in the annals of the Chosen People; in some respects also it is a most weighty piece of evidential history--perhaps the most weighty--possessed by Christianity.

But some of the materials out of which the great Book (the Talmud), which has so enormously influenced the fortunes of the Chosen People for so many centuries, was composed, existed before the catastrophe of A.D. 70. We will briefly examine what we know of the ancient materials of the Talmud; the examination will be of the highest interest.

* * * * *

It is certain that very early--no doubt in the far-back days of Moses--there must have existed, as we have already suggested, a number of explanatory laws which set forth in detail many of the laws and regulations broadly laid down in the original written code of the great lawgiver. Questions must have been asked again and again--To what cases in actual life the brief written precept applied, what consequences it in general entailed, and what was to be done that the commandments might be fairly, even rigidly observed. In a number of cases the original written Law gave no direct answer.

To supply this need a body of Halachah (the word Halachah, as we have stated, signifies rule, practice, custom) gathered round the written Law (the Torah). Some of these Halachah, tradition said, were given by Moses himself; others were said to have been devised by that primitive council of the desert wanderings, the elders, and by their successors, the later “judges within the gates,” referred to in the Pentateuch. As time went on the Halachah or authoritative oral Law of explanation no doubt formed an important branch of the studies pursued in those schools of the prophets founded by Samuel in the early days of the monarchy--schools of which we know so little, but which throughout the pre-exilic days evidently played a part in the life of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

On the return from the Captivity, some five centuries before the Christian era, the remnant of the nation who returned to their desolated land came back a changed people--“a band of Puritans” we have, with scarcely any exaggeration, termed them; while the Divine Law which once many, perhaps the majority, of the people neglected, the very existence of which they had ignored, almost forgotten, became the object of their passionate love.

During the period of exile, of which we know so little but in the course of which the great change to which we have been dimly alluding passed over the people, the memory of the oral Law, much of the ancient Halachah, the traditions, the sacred expositions which make up the Haggadah, were kept alive by teachers, in the first instance by the men who had been trained in the schools of the prophets. Then after the return from exile the study of all these treasured memories--some, as we have already suggested, possibly dating from the days of Moses--which surrounded the now precious Law, received a new development. The Law, the Halachah, the traditions generally known as Haggadah, were no longer the mere heritage of the scholars who composed the somewhat mysterious schools of the prophets we read of in the days of the kings, but were now regarded as the precious treasure of the whole nation.

As the Divine Law rose in public estimation its scientific study and exposition became a great and popular craft. Every individual of the nation was interested in knowing it and obeying it. A numerous and independent class or guild arose which made its investigation and study the chief business of life. These men were known as the Scribes; they became the recognised teachers of the nation. Some of them were men of independent means, but the majority practised some trade or business out of which they lived. They were tent-makers, sandal-makers, weavers, carpenters, tanners, bakers, etc., but the study of the Law was their loved occupation, and some of them attained great proficiency in their work. Such a class of men had never existed in any people before--has never made its appearance since in any nation.[157]

This study of the Law became a veritable science, a science that gradually assumed the very widest dimensions. The name given to it is “Midrash”--interpretation, and it included study, meditation, exposition, investigation, inquiry. The men of the “Return from Exile” who devoted themselves to this work took as the foundation of their labours, first the written Law of Moses, then gradually the records of the Prophets and the other writings subsequently included in the Old Testament canon; and to this material was added the oral Law, or such portion of it which had been preserved, including the sacred traditions which had been handed down from the days of Moses and his successors, and treasured up in the schools of the prophets. In this “Midrash”--for we will keep to the well-known term which generally included all this varied and comprehensive study of the Scribes who lived in the period between the Return from the Exile and the Christian era--two distinct currents can be distinguished. The first of these great currents may be termed Prose, the second Poetry. The first (the prose) is called Halachah (rules, customs); the second (the poetry), Haggadah (tradition and legend, including parable, allegory, lessons).[158]

The Halachah (rules) for a very long period were never written down, but were transmitted from teacher to teacher in an unbroken succession, orally, with many and various additions. The Haggadah (traditions) in many cases were, however, written down, and so transmitted.

Thus from the period of the Return from the Exile a vast bulk of teaching, largely unwritten, traditional, and legendary, all founded on and closely bearing on the Law (Torah), had been collected by the Scribes and their schools stretching over a period of about five centuries. Some thirty years before the Christian era Hillel, the great Rabbinic master of the period, endeavoured to reduce this great mass of teaching, oral and written, rule and tradition, Halachah and Haggadah, to some definite system and order. He did something in this direction, but died before his task was in any real way completed, and for many years nothing further was done in the way of codifying or arrangement.

Then came the great upheaval of A.D. 70, when the Holy City was razed to the ground; when it appeared as though the religion of the Jew was destroyed, now that the Temple round which all the cherished memories of the people were grouped had disappeared. Curiously enough, as it appears to men, the contrary was the case: a wonderful resurrection of religious life was the almost immediate outcome of the fall of the City and Temple.

A group of singularly able and devoted men, as we have already remarked, arose at this critical moment in Jewish history--when all seemed lost. Judaism in the year 70, when the long and bitter war with Rome was finally closed, was stripped of everything. It had lost for ever its position as a nation. Its Temple, the joy of the whole world, as their royal songman pictured it, was a heap of shapeless ruins. Its most sacred treasures were carried away to adorn an Italian triumph. The Holy City was literally razed to the ground. The promised land of their fathers was desolated. Thousands of the people were slain or reduced to slavery. Of the Jews who dwelt as strangers in Egypt, Syria, and Italy--the very name was hated and despised. Only one thing remained to the sad remnant of the Chosen People: the sacred Law of Moses, the Torah--the writings of their old prophets--their treasured Psalms--the undying records of their past glorious history.