Chapter XXXIII: Book V: The Jew and the Talmud (2)

And these precious writings, and the wonderful body of rule and tradition, oral and written, which had gathered round them, the Halachah and Haggadah of the Scribes, collected during the previous four or five centuries,--these were saved from the awful wreck, and a group of devoted Jews gathered them together, and with them at once proceeded to train up a new and a yet greater and more influential people than had ever before worshipped the Eternal of Hosts, even in the golden days of their mighty kings David and Solomon; but the foundation stories of the grandeur of the new Israel were not to be built with human materials. No army, no strong fortress, no stately city, not even a visible temple made with hands after the fashion of the glorious lost House of God, were for the future to rank among the proud and cherished possessions of the Jew. Only the Divine Law given him direct from God the One Supreme, the Everlasting, for the future was to represent to the Jew home and hearth, family and nation, City and Temple.

If the Jews--the scattered harassed remnant who survived the bloody Roman war of Titus--would with heart and soul keep the precepts of the Divine Law, what mattered insult and cruelty, human scorn and malice, suffering and misery for a little season; for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the beatitude which awaited the Jew who loved the Torah. This was the teaching of that group of fervid and devoted men who, so to speak, arose out of the ashes of the ruins of Jerusalem and the Temple. And the sad remnant of the people hearkened to this teaching, and with heart and soul revered the Law, the Torah of their God.

All this is no mere rhetoric, strange though it reads: it is plain unvarnished history.

Undismayed by the crushing ruin of A.D. 70, the chief Rabbinic leaders, when Jerusalem was destroyed, re-established their schools at Jamnia (Jabne), a town close to the sea, south of Joppa. They had little sympathy with the extreme party of Nationalists, the Zealots; for they saw that any serious conflict with Rome was utterly hopeless, so they diverted the thoughts and aspirations of the survivors of the great revolt into other channels. The cult of the Law henceforward must be the work of Israel. They were wonderfully successful, and soon infused into the heart of the Chosen People something of their burning zeal; for what they taught, they maintained, were the very words and commands of the Eternal of Hosts.

A great master, Jochanan ben Zacchai, soon made the new school of Jamnia a notable centre of the new work. We use the term “new”; for although Rabbinism and the scientific study of the Law had existed long before the events of A.D. 70, it received a fresh and striking impulse when the Temple and City existed no longer.

Round the chair of Jochanan gathered quickly a band of faithful disciples who shared in the quiet enthusiasm of the great master, and in the last twenty-five or thirty years of the fatal century which had witnessed the terrible victory of Titus, the real foundations of the Talmud, which united and bound together the Chosen People for centuries, which preserved them from disintegration and welded them once more into one great race, were laid.

Rome allowed this new spirit to grow up among the remnant of the people she had crushed, and made no effort to interfere with the Jamnia Rabbinic school. The statesmen of the Empire were quite content that the restless people, so long a danger to the State, should turn its attention to other matters unconnected with aspirations after independence. It was no doubt with some contempt that they witnessed the growth of the new spirit among the turbulent nation. It was nothing to Rome--this singular devotion to an old Law and a traditional revelation which the Jew considered divine. They little thought that the Jew and his ancient Law would outlive the mighty Empire of which they were so proud, and that the despised and crushed race and its cherished belief would influence in a marvellous way the civilized world for hundreds of years after Rome had become the mere shadow of a name.

The great Jewish revolt of A.D. 117 had little influence upon the fortunes and wonderful growth of the Rabbinic schools, the chief seat of which was in Palestine. The scenes of that rebellion and its ghastly punishment were far removed from Palestine, and what happened in Cyrene, Egypt, and Cyprus only slightly affected the dwellers in the old Land of Promise.

But the next revolt--the rebellion we have termed the third great Jewish war--had a different scene. Once more Palestine witnessed a dangerous and bloody war, when Bar-cochab, a mistaken enthusiast and patriot, raised again the standard of rebellion against Rome, and, asserting that he was the long-looked-for Messiah, gave this last formidable Jewish rising the character of a religious war.

As a rule the great masters of the new Rabbinic schools were out of sympathy with the Zealots who had risen against Rome in this last disastrous revolt; but one of their number, the famous Rabbi Akiba, curiously enough, had espoused their cause, and certain others of the more eminent Rabbinic teachers, no doubt owing to his influence, had rallied to the cause of Bar-cochab in the desperate and hopeless struggle.

Rabbi Akiba occupies among the early group of founders of the Talmud, who flourished from _circa_ A.D. 70 to _circa_ A.D. 190, perhaps the most prominent position. He was even termed the “second Moses,” so sought after were his teachings and expositions of the sacred Law, and its subsequent explanations and additions--the Halachah. He gathered round him not only a host of younger pupils, but among his disciples were numbered a group of Rabbis who became subsequently the chief teachers of their day and time. It has been often asked what induced this great Rabbinic scholar and teacher to throw in his lot with a wild enthusiast like Bar-cochab, and to support that impostor’s baseless claim to be recognized as the promised Messiah.

The answer perhaps is that Akiba, in common with others of the new school of Rabbinism, which aimed at restoring the fallen Judaism by means of an enthusiastic devotion to the Divine Law, recognised that in Christianity must be sought and found the most dangerous foe to the Rabbinic conception of the Chosen People. After the fall of the City and Temple, and the breaking up of every national and religious bond, there was grave danger that the Jewish people would become absorbed among the Gentile Christians. It is probable that already some of the Rabbis were secretly persuaded of the truth of the Gospel story. Rabbi Akiba was, however, one of the most energetic opponents of Christianity, and he welcomed the appearance of the pseudo-Messiah Bar-cochab as a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.

But great though the influence of Akiba was, for he persuaded some Jews, he evidently did not carry the bulk of the Rabbinic teachers with him, for the Talmud execrates the name of Bar-cochab, though it ever mentions the name of Akiba with the deepest and tenderest veneration. The great learning and the devoted behaviour of the loved teacher under the most excruciating tortures which accompanied his execution by the Roman government, saved his memory from the bitter reproaches with which the Talmud speaks of Bar-cochab and the authors of the last ill-fated and useless revolt.[159]

Akiba is ever remembered as one of the greatest of this wonderful group of Talmud founders, as well as a very noble martyr.

Rabbi Akiba’s work was not limited to exposition and explanation and elaborate discussions in the academies of the traditional Halachah or oral comments on the Law of Moses. He was virtually the first[160] who attempted to codify and arrange the vast accumulation of these Halachah and Haggadah, and to reduce them into something like order and arrangement. Some years after Akiba’s death, about the middle of the second century, his most famous disciple, the Rabbi Meir, who is known in the Talmud as the “Light of the Law,” took up his master Akiba’s work, and went on with arranging and codifying the Halachah, introducing, however, many more Halachah into his codification, and supplementing and illustrating his expositions with many interesting traditions (Haggadah)[161]; thus preparing the way for the more elaborate collection or recension of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi--the Holy--who is known in the Talmud as “Rabbi”--_the_ Rabbi _par excellence_. “Rabbi’s” great work of codification may be dated about the years A.D. 200-19, or thereabouts.

The work of “Rabbi,” somewhat enlarged and recast, is with us still. It represents fairly the Mishnah which was used as the text of the great Gemara[162] commentaries compiled in the schools of Palestine and Babylonia[163] between the end of the second century and the last years of the sixth century. The Mishnah of “Rabbi,” which was largely based upon the collections of Rabbi Akiba and his disciple Rabbi Meir, and the Gemaras of Palestine and Babylonia,[163] compiled in centuries three, four, five, and six, make up the Talmud.

There was a strict traditional interdiction which dated back at least to the centuries which followed the Return from the Exile, if not earlier, against ever committing the Halachah and the discussions of the Scribes upon the Halachah to _writing_. The latest Jewish scholars have decided that to a certain extent the interdiction was removed by “Rabbi” in the very early years of the third century, or at the close of the second century.

We may assume, then, with tolerable certainty that “Rabbi” in his old age reduced the great collection of Halachah to writing, transgressing, in a way, the ancient tradition which forbade this. He seems to have considered that the prohibition, if maintained in its ancient strictness, might endanger the preservation of the precious teaching.

“Rabbi” did not entirely abrogate the interdiction, for the oral method of instruction continued during the period of the Gemara discussions in Palestine and in Babylonia: the teacher alone using the _written_ Halachah, which made up the redaction of the Mishnah by “Rabbi” as a guide; the pupils, however, always repeating the lesson _orally_.

Before the fall of Jerusalem the great Sanhedrim was the ultimate resort for decisions in the law, though it is true that as a rule it accepted the Law as developed by the great teachers; but still, “from thence,” _i.e._ from the Sanhedrim, as the Mishnah says, “proceeded the Law for all Israel.” But after A.D. 70 the great Sanhedrim ceased to exist. This of course gave a very marked increase in prestige and power to the acknowledged leading Rabbis or Masters in the Rabbinic schools.

The principal task of these doctors was to teach the Law. The ideal was that every Israelite should have a knowledge of this Divine Law. Of course, this ideal was unattainable, but the famous Rabbis without doubt gathered round them great numbers who longed for special instruction in what had come to be looked on as the glory and hope of their race. “Bring up many scholars” was a famous ancient saying.

The instruction in the Palestinian schools of Jamnia and Lydda, and a little later more especially at Tiberias, and also in the famous Babylonian schools such as Sura,[164] Nehardea, and Pumbeditha, consisted in a continual exercise of the memory. The oral Law before the days of “Rabbi,” at the close of the second century, was never committed to writing, the teacher repeating his matter again and again. This invariable method of teaching in the Rabbinical schools was the origin of the term _Mishnah_ (repetition).[165]

The system of teaching was absolutely different from that of our modern colleges and universities. The masters of the various schools did not confine themselves to giving lectures which the pupils could take down. Here all was busy life, excitement, debate; question was met by question, and countless questions and answers were given, wrapped up in allegory, parable, and legend,--of course under the guidance and direction of the head of the academy.

A most interesting picture of the inner life and organization of the Rabbinical schools or academies in which the Talmud was slowly and deliberately composed is given in the vast and scholarly Jewish Encyclopædia (completed in the year 1906). A very brief précis of this is attempted here. The date of the picture in question is as late as the tenth century, and refers especially to a comparatively late period in the Rabbinical work; but much of it goes back to the time of the Amoraim, the earliest Rabbis of the Gemara, who were the teachers from the first part of the third century.

It may be taken as an account and general description of the method in which the two versions of the Talmud were composed, in Palestine as well as in Babylonia, in such academical centres of Rabbinism as Sura and Tiberias. The picture especially refers to the Babylonian academies of Pumbeditha and Sura, but without doubt a very similar procedure was followed in the Palestinian academy of Tiberias.

The students or disciples appear to have assembled twice every year, the discussion and instruction lasting four weeks.

In the month Elah at the close of the summer, and in the month Adar at the end of the winter, the disciples desiring instruction in the sacred Law journeyed to the academy, say of Sura, or of Pumbeditha, from their various abodes, having carefully studied and prepared during the previous five months the special treatise of the Mishnah announced at the academy at the close of the preceding session by the head of the Rabbinic school as the subject for discussion at the next session.

They at once presented themselves on arriving at Sura to the head of the academy, who proceeded to examine them on the treatise of the Mishnah fixed beforehand.

They sat in the following order or rank: seventy of the senior or principal pupils were placed nearest to the head, or president, of the school, the number seventy being a reminiscence of the great Sanhedrim.

Behind these seventy sat the other disciples and members of the academy.

The foremost row--the seventy--recited aloud the subject-matter of the discussion and of instruction which were to follow; they recited, too, any passage which seemed to require especial consideration, which they debated among themselves, the “head,” or president, all the while silently taking notes of the debate.

The “head” after this lectured generally on the treatise, the subject of the discussion, adding an exposition of those special passages which had given rise to the debate.

Sometimes in the course of his lecture the “head” asked a question as to how the disciples would explain a certain Halachah. The question had to be answered by the scholars he chose to name. After the answer or answers had been received the “head” added his own exposition of the Halachah in question.

Subsequently one of the “seventy” senior students gave an address, summing up the arguments which had arisen out of the theme--the Halachah--which they had been considering.

In the fourth week of the session the “seventy” and other of the students were examined individually by the “head” of the academy.

Questions received from various quarters were also discussed for final solution. The “head” listened, and finally formulated his decisions, which were written down. The results of the meeting of the academy during the month of session were finally signed by the “head” of the academy.

* * * * *

The details and comments contained in the foregoing sections of the Fifth Book (“The Jew and the Talmud”) are mainly confined to the great official work of Rabbinic Judaism known as the Talmud, made up of the Mishnah and its commentary, the Gemara.

But besides this vast compilation, it must be borne in mind that there exists an enormous mass of Rabbinic literature outside the Talmud, such as the non-canonical Mishnah, the Targumim, the Midrashim, the Kabbala, etc. Some of this dates from a very early period, and possesses a high authority among the recognized Jewish teachers.

Most of these extra-Talmudical writings are Haggadic in character.

V

THE TEXT OF THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

All this mighty superstructure of “Mishnah and Gemara,” which occupied so many of the greatest and most earnest minds in Israel for several centuries, was built up on the foundations of a Law (Torah) recognised as given by God Himself. The Books containing this Law (Torah), the Pentateuch, were accepted as divine in the course of the five centuries which intervened between the return from exile and the Christian era. The Pentateuch at first constituted the canon of Jewish Scripture. Its acknowledgment, though, no doubt dates from a much older period--long before the days of the Exile. We do not, however, possess sufficient historical data to define accurately the position which the Law held in pre-exilic Israel. To the Pentateuch was subsequently added the writings of the Prophets and the sacred works belonging to the older pre-exilic history of Israel. The canon of Scripture was completed and acknowledged much in its present form certainly 200 years before the age of Jesus Christ.

But although the prophets and other writings belonging to the pre-exilic period had been subsequently added to the Torah (the Law of Moses), it is certain that they never were placed quite on a level with it.

THE MASSORAH

After the question--What constituted the canonical writings, the Divine Word?--was finally and authoritatively settled, the next step was to ensure the preservation of the sacred text which contained the Divine Revelation. The Scribes had determined what were the canonical books. The text of these books was handed over to another group of scholars known as the Massoretes. The precise chronology of these various steps is unknown.

The word “Massorah” comes from the Hebrew “Masar,” to give something into the hand of another so as to commit it to his trust. The work and duty of the Massoretes--the authoritative custodians of the sacred text--was to safeguard it, so as to protect it from any change. This they did effectually by “building a hedge round it.” To do this, they carefully registered all the phenomena in the ancient manuscripts, the reason for and meaning of many of which were not understood; but they were carefully noted and preserved. Some words were found which had been dotted over; some were spelt with large, some with smaller letters; some words and expressions were archaic, that is, belonging to a much earlier date in their history; some were suspended above the line; some sentences contained peculiar expressions: such-like phenomena and peculiarities in the ancient MSS. were diligently recorded by the Massoretes,--none were overlooked.

Other textual notes were carefully made, such as the number of verses in each sacred book. The middle verse and word of each great section in each book and even in the whole Bible were also recorded. All important words were noted; the number of times that each letter of the alphabet occurs in each division in each book and in the whole Bible were diligently written down. All this, and very much more of such curious statistical information, was registered by the Massoretes so as to lock and interlock every letter, word, and line into its place, that the original text of the ancient MSS. might be preserved and faithfully reproduced and handed down by any copyist who followed the direction of the Massorah.

That some of this curious elaborate work was done, that some of this vast hedge[166] round the Law was planted _before_ the fall of the City and Temple in A.D. 70, is fairly certain. But there is no doubt that the extremely complicated and exhaustive work of the Massoretes to ensure the preservation of the ancient text was really elaborated and completed in those centuries after the Christian era when the composition of the Mishnah and Gemara occupied the attention of the great Rabbinic academies which arose after the ruin of the City and Temple, in Palestine and in Babylonia.

This very brief sketch of the Massorah will give some idea of how exceedingly precious in the eyes of the Jew for many centuries has been the text of his loved Scriptures.

We possess no MSS. of the Hebrew Bible older than the first half of the ninth century. The reason of the non-existence of any very ancient MSS. is probably owing to the fact of the Jews being in the habit of burying old and worn-out copies of the Scriptures lest the worn material, the valuable parchment or papyrus, should be employed for any secular purpose. The text we now possess is, however, certainly that which was current in the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era, and there is little doubt that it accurately represents a much older text.

The Massoretic notes, something of the general purport of which is described above, are written above and below the three columns into which usually each page of the MS. of the Scriptures is divided. These notes are termed the “Massorah Magna”; while on the margin and between the columns are more Massoretic notes. These are termed the “Massorah Parva.”

The composition of these notes, which included every phenomenon of the text, as well as a vast number of interesting statistical facts bearing on the text, went on for well-nigh a thousand years, and eventually they amounted to an enormous bulk of material. It became in time absolutely impossible to write down anything approaching to the whole of the Massorah in any single MS. Hence, whenever a new copy of the Scriptures was ordered by an individual or a community, the Massoretic scribes were in the habit of transcribing only so much of the Massorah as they deemed of especial importance and interest, or as much of the Massorah as they considered a fair equivalent for the price paid for the MS. Thus it has come about that there is no single MS. of the Old Testament which contains the whole or anything approximating to the whole Massorah. The present scholarly editor of the Massorah (Dr. Ginsberg) has some seventy-two ancient MSS. of the Old Testament collected in the British Museum, from which he is gathering the different Massoretic notes for the monumental work on which he is engaged.

The mass of material put together by successive generations of scribes is so enormous that much of it has been even gathered into separate treatises; it having been found in old time simply impossible to find space for it in any codex, although all manner of abbreviations and signs to compress the notes into a smaller compass have been devised by the ancient scribes.

* * * * *

Such was the Massorah, that marvellous and unique apparatus devised by the Rabbis for the preservation of the ancient text of the Scriptures. A brief sketch showing the estimation in which these Scriptures, or at all events the Law proper, the Pentateuch, was held by the great Rabbinical schools, is indispensable to this little study on the Talmud.

VI

CONCLUDING MEMORANDA

THE TALMUDICAL VIEW OF THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURE

We read in the Mishnah such statements as the following: “He who asserts that the Torah is not from heaven has no part in the world to come.” (Sanhedrim, x. 7.)

As time went on this view of inspiration was held with increasing strictness. At first the commands of “the Law” were all that was signified in such a saying as the one just quoted, but gradually the whole Pentateuch was included in this assertion of the direct Divine authority; in the Mishnah we read startling sayings, such as we have already given, viz.: “He who says that Moses wrote even one word of his own knowledge is a denier and despiser of the Word of God.” (Sanhedrim, 99.) Even the last verses of Deuteronomy which tell of the death of Moses were affirmed to have been written by Moses himself,--having been dictated to him by Divine revelation.

The only point in dispute was whether the whole Torah was given to Moses by God complete at once, or handed to him by volumes. (Gittin 60_a_.)

In course of time Divine inspiration was taught as belonging to the Prophets and the Hagiographa, to the Mishnah, the Talmud, and even to the Haggadah.

A very singular _anticipatory_ revelation was believed to have been made on Sinai to the prophets. In “Shemoth Rabba” we read: “What the prophets were about to prophesy in every generation they receive from Mount Sinai.” The revelation was apparently made to the souls of those about to be created. And so Isaiah is represented as saying: “From the day that the Torah was given on Mount Sinai, there I was and received this prophecy,--and now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me.”[167]

The Talmud conta ins a somewhat similar curious teaching as regards “Miracles”--the course of creation was not disturbed by them, _they were all primarily existing, as well as pre-ordained_. They were “created” at the end of all things, in the gloaming of the sixth day. Creation, together with these so-called exceptions, once established, nothing could be altered in it. The laws of nature went on by their own immutable force, however much evil might spring therefrom.

THE TALMUD--ITS STORY THROUGH THE AGES

The wonderful Jewish book--the Talmud--cannot complain of neglect or of oblivion. Never has any writing in the whole human history been so hated and hunted down. It has been proscribed and burnt again and again. Before the marvellous compilation was fully completed the Emperor Justinian, in A.D. 553, condemned it by name. Then for more than a thousand years anathemas, edicts of the sternest condemnation, were issued against the Jewish sacred volume which has done so much for the Chosen People.

Emperors, kings, and Popes in all lands and in every age have warred against it in each succeeding century. It was forbidden, cursed, often publicly burnt.

To give an average example of the spirit with which it was universally condemned by Christians, we would refer to a letter of Pope Honorius IV to the Archbishop of Canterbury (A.D. 1286), in which he speaks of the Talmud as “that damnable Book,” desiring him “to see that it is read by no one, since all evils flow out of it.”

At last, after it had been put out about 1000 years, in the dawn of the Reformation a great Christian scholar arose who defended it. Reuchlin, the most eminent Hellenist and Hebraist of his time, remonstrated against the wild and ignorant prejudice with which Christian men regarded this wonderful compilation. Long and bitter was the controversy, but the patient scholar, although formally condemned for his noble advocacy of the great Jewish book, in the end triumphed, and the Talmud this time was not burned but printed, and since Reuchlin’s time has been allowed to live on unmolested. In our day and time it has come to be regarded as one of the great works of the world, although among Christian folk its contents are comparatively unknown; while its surpassing influence in the past is acknowledged in the scholar community, which recognizes neither land nor race.

* * * * *

It has been curiously suggested that the Talmud contains many of the divine sayings of our Lord recorded in the Gospels. The fact really is, that while some few of the beautiful words of Christ are without doubt to be found in the Talmud, it is only such sayings as are common to other great teachers and thinkers, such as Seneca and the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. However, it is more than probable that the Child Jesus was conversant with some of the more striking maxims of the early Rabbis and teachers, such as Hillel and the elder Gamaliel, and that occasionally sayings of theirs are repeated in the Gospel teaching. But it is beyond all doubt that the general spirit of Rabbinism which lives through the pages of the Talmud--in the Mishnah and Gemara--was absolutely at variance with the spirit of Jesus Christ and His disciples.

To take two notable examples--the position of women and the exclusive position of Israel. The Gospel teaching is completely different on the position of women from what we find in the authoritative teaching of the Talmud treatises. With our Lord the woman was the equal in all respects of the man, in this world and in the world to come.[168] The striking inferiority of women in Israel is brought forward again and again in the sayings of the great Rabbis. We would quote a very few of their authoritative Talmudical teachings here:--

R. Meir--second century (Mishnah): “A man is bound to repeat three benedictions every day.” One of these was, “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, who hast not made me a woman.”

And again: “Are not slaves and women in the same category? The slave is more degraded.”

“Blessed is the man whose children are sons, but luckless is he whose children are daughters.” (Baba-Bathra.)

“The testimony of one hundred women is only equal to the evidence of one man.” (Yevamoth.)

The stern exclusiveness of Israel is pressed constantly in the Talmud. This is diametrically opposed to the New Testament teaching so conclusively formulated by S. Peter (Acts x. 34, 35): “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.”

While in the Talmud we read--

“Almsgiving exalteth a nation [that is, Israel], ... but benevolence is a sin to nations,”--that is to say, for the Gentiles to exercise charity and benevolence is sin. (Compare Baba-Bathra, fol. 10, col. 2.)

And again: “All Israelites have a portion in the world to come.” (Sanhedrim, fol. 90, col. 1.) “The world was created only for Israel; none are called the children of God but Israel, none are beloved before God but Israel.” (Gèrim.)

“Three things did Moses ask of God”:--1. “He asked that the Shekinah (the glory of God) might rest upon Israel.” 2. “That the Shekinah might rest upon none but Israel.” 3. “That God’s ways might be made known unto him: and all these requests were granted.” (Cf. Berachotk, fol. 7, col. 1.)

Such teachings as these from the Talmud might be multiplied indefinitely.

THE AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE OF THE TALMUD ON JUDAISM

The influence of the Talmud on Judaism has been measureless.

In the second, third, fourth, fifth, and part of the sixth centuries which followed the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the Rabbinic schools of Palestine and Babylonia, where “the great book” was thought out and compiled, became for the scattered people new centres, where the old sacred learning was not only carried on, but made to shine with a yet greater splendour--a splendour never possessed in any of the ages of its long story.

And when the Book (the Talmud) was finally completed in the sixth century it was recognized throughout the scattered Jewish people as having put new life and new meaning into the sacred writings, which to a certain extent, especially in the case of the Ritual Law, naturally, after the fall of the Temple and the Holy City, had lost much of their power and special application.

Then, as time went on, “the Book” became the strongest bond of union between the exiles of the West and East; between the Jews of Rome and Constantinople, of Alexandria and the distant East. And later, when the old Empire of Rome was dissolved and the Teutonic tribes had become masters of the Western world, the Talmud was still the bond of union between all the Jews of “the Dispersion” through the Middle Ages.

Thus the Talmud has for centuries been the link which has welded into one great people all the scattered Jewish race. For every professing Jew has felt that the great compilation embodied all the ancient cherished traditions of the people, and was persuaded that the Talmud in some respects was equal to the Bible, especially as a source of instruction and decision in the problems of religion.

It has preserved and fostered for some fifteen hundred years in the “Dispersion” that spirit of deep religion and strict morality which has kept the Jewish people separate and intact; and be it remembered under the most unfavourable external conditions, for, with certain rare exceptions, since the days of the Emperor Constantine and the victory of Christianity the Jew has been generally hated, despised, persecuted, an exile and a wanderer over the face of the earth.

In the Jewish race the study of the Talmud has awakened and stimulated intellectual activity in an extraordinary degree. Its study has given to the world of letters a vast number of scholars, men of the loftiest character, belonging to the first rank of philosophers and writers, whose works, limited though they mostly are by the Rabbinic area of thought and speculation, have been of high service to civilization.

Among these great ones issuing from the Jews of no one land, and who form a numerous band, it is difficult in this brief study to particularize even the most distinguished, but the following names will at once occur to any competent scholar as prominent examples of famous men of the Rabbinic school, whose works have shed real light on the so-called dark mediæval period:--

Raschi A.D. _circa_ 1040-1105

Maimonides " " 1135-1204

D. Kimchi " " 1158-1235

The names, however, of distinguished scholars and writers of the Rabbinic school who have arisen during the last fifteen centuries in different lands might be multiplied almost indefinitely.

And this people is with us still, more influential, probably more numerous, than at any period of its immemorial history. The numbers at the present day are variously computed as amounting to from seven to eleven millions.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE TALMUD ON CHRISTIANITY

But not only among the Jewish peoples of the “Dispersion” has this strange and wonderful book exercised a surpassing influence, but even among the Christian nations of the world has its spirit percolated, and in a remarkable way has influenced and coloured certain important phases of religious thought and belief.

Among Christian peoples the Talmud is virtually unknown; to well-nigh every individual in the Christian nations it is but the shadow of a name, to the great majority scarcely even that; and yet the profound, the awful reverence for the Old Testament Scriptures which lives among all Christian folk, a reverence that often shades into a passionate love, though they guess it not, springs largely out of the teachings of that great Rabbinic book the _Talmud_, the very name of which so many have scarcely heard.

For the Mishnah and Gemara which make up the Talmud, the thousand treatises which have been written by learned Rabbis at different periods during the last sixteen hundred years of the Jewish Dispersion, are simply all comments upon, explanations and developments of traditions and history bearing upon the Old Testament Scriptures, the one precious heritage of the Jew handed down from generation to generation of the Chosen People from time immemorial.

This story of the changeless love of the Hebrew race for their ancient writings and records, which the Jew is never weary of reiterating, came to him direct from God Almighty, and has found an echo in unnumbered Christian hearts, and so it has come to pass that the Old Testament Scriptures--the Torah (the Law) of Moses, the Prophets, and the other sacred books--are received to this day with a deep reverential love as the expression of the will of the Eternal of Hosts, alike in Christian Churches as in the Jewish Synagogues.[169]

VII

(_A_) AN APPENDIX ON THE “HAGGADAH”

Before closing this little sketch of the Talmud and of the very early Rabbinical writings, it will be well to give a somewhat more detailed explanation of one of its more important features, which we have already somewhat lightly touched upon--the “Haggadah.”

It is not too much to say that the widespread, the lasting popularity of the mighty book--the Talmud--is largely owing to this special kind of exposition, which includes the Historical, the Legendary, the Homiletical, and the Comforting. It is absolutely peculiar to the Talmud; there is nothing resembling it in the official or acknowledged writings belonging to any other religious system.

In the Exile and in the lengthened period which directly followed the Exile, _i.e._ in the five centuries which intervened between the “Return from the Exile” and the Christian era, the Chosen People had learned, as we have noticed, to love their Scriptures with a great love, a love that may be termed a passion. It was then that the sacred books became, and for long centuries remained, the centre of their lives. The study of these books, the study which included research, investigation, exposition, application to every event in their lives, to every possible contingency which might happen to them, is known as _Midrash_.

Legendary history which clustered round the events related in the sacred books, details not chronicled in the text of the books, but carefully treasured up, preserved and handed down, circumstances more or less interesting and important connected with the lives of the principal Biblical personages, were gradually gathered together, were carefully sifted out and discussed by the scribes and doctors of the law, and if finally received as authentic by the great Jewish teachers, were written down[170] and handed on from generation to generation.

This work and study especially connected with the non-legal portions of the Scriptures known as “Haggadah,” certainly received a mighty impulse in the times of the Scribes before the Christian era, and reached its highest development in the famous Academies of Palestine and Babylonia which arose after the events of A.D. 70. We may roughly compute this great period of the development of the “Haggadah” as reaching from A.D. 72-100 to A.D. 500 or 550. The _creative_ Haggadic activity may be said to have ceased after this last date.

Although “Haggadic” notices or comments appear not unfrequently in the exclusively legal section of the Pentateuch, they belong more especially to those Scriptures which treat of history, narrative, and teaching--including, of course, the prophetic writings. In the first instance the “Haggadic” Midrash confined itself to the simple exposition of the Scripture text, but it very soon developed into comments of a very varied nature, not unfrequently into homilies inculcating religious truths and moral maxims, into disquisitions on the past and future glories of Israel; roughly speaking, the “Haggadah” on a passage or section of the canonical Scriptures endeavoured, by penetrating beneath the mere literal sense, to arrive at the spirit of the Scripture in question. In the Talmud (Sanhedrim Treatise) it has been well compared to a hammer which awakens the slumbering sparks of a rock.

Legendary additions, of course, form an important part of the Haggadah, but these ancient traditions or legends by no means, as some suppose, constitute the bulk of this vast and wonderful commentary on the canonical or acknowledged Scriptures.

Among the sources where we find this curious Biblical literature which has been a very important link in the Talmud chain which has been the great bond of union of the scattered Jewish race for so many centuries, of course primarily must be reckoned the Mishnah and the two Gemaras, the Palestinian and the Babylonian, which constitute the Talmud. Here are found many of those “Haggadic” comments which naturally are regarded with the deepest reverence, as they have received the seal of approval of the doctors of the great Academies of Sura, Pumbaditha, and Tiberias, who flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era.

But there are “Haggadic” notices of great antiquity and in still larger numbers preserved in writings which form the non-canonical Mishnah, works subsidiary and auxiliary to the Mishnah proper, some of which even date from the second and third century or even earlier, and have ever possessed among the learned Jews a very high authority. For example, in the Targums (Targumim) are very many pieces of an “Haggadic” nature, not a few evidently of a remote antiquity and of the highest interest.

It is, of course, impossible in the limits of such a brief sketch of so vast a subject to give any adequate illustration of this vast collection of Haggadah; we will simply quote two or three examples taken from the Palestine Targum on the Torah on the Book of Deuteronomy, where the original text is expanded by words of tradition or legend, by homiletics, by words of teaching, of comfort and encouragement.

* * * * *

From the Palestine Targum on the Torah (Deuteronomy chap, xxxiii.). “And he (Moses) said: The Lord was revealed at Sinai to give the law unto His people of Beth Israel, and the splendour of the glory of His Shekinah arose from Gebal to give itself to the sons of Esau; but they received it not. It shined forth in majesty and glory from Mount Pharan, to give itself to the sons of Ishmael; but they received it not. It returned and revealed itself in holiness unto His people of Israel, and with Him ten thousand times ten thousand holy angels. He wrote with His own right hand, and gave them His law and His commandments, out of the flaming fire.”

* * * * *

“And he saw at the beginning that a place had been prepared there for a sepulchre, a place strewn with precious stones and pearls, where Mosheh the prophet, the scribe of Israel, was to be hidden, (who) as he went in and out at the head of the people in this world, so will he go in and out in the world to come; because he wrought righteousness before the Lord, and taught the orders of the judgments to the sons of Israel.”

* * * * *

“There is no God like the God of Israel, whose Shekinah and Chariot dwell in the heavens. He will be your helper. He sitteth on His glorious throne in His majesty, in the expanse of the heavens above. The habitation of Eloha is from eternity; by the arm of His power beneath the world is upborne. He will scatter your adversaries before you, and will say by His Word, Destroy them. And Israel shall dwell safely as of old according to the benediction with which Jakob their father did bless them, for whose righteousness’ sake He will cause them to inherit the good land that yieldeth corn and wine; the heavens also above them will drop with the dews of blessing and the rains of loving-kindness. Happy are you, O Israel: who of all the nations are like you, a people saved in the Name of the Word of the Lord? He is the shield of your help, and His sword, the strength of your excellency.”

* * * * *

From Deuteronomy chap. xxxiv. “Blessed be the Name of the Lord of the world, who hath taught us His righteous way. He hath taught us to clothe the naked, as He clothed Adam and Hava (Eve); He hath taught us to unite the bridegroom and the bride in marriage, as He united Hava (Eve) to Adam. He hath taught us to visit the sick, as He revealed Himself to Abraham when he was ill from being circumcised; He hath taught us to console the mourners, as He revealed Himself again to Jakob when returning from Padan in the place where his mother had died. He hath taught us to feed the poor, as He sent Israel bread from heaven; He hath taught us to bury the dead by (what He did for) Mosheh; for He revealed Himself in His Word, and with Him the companies of ministering angels: Michael and Gabriel spread forth the golden bed, fastened with chrysolites, gems, and beryls, adorned with hangings of purple silk, and satin, and white linens. Metatron, Jophiel, and Uriel, and Jephephya, the wise sages, laid him upon it, and by His Word conducted him four miles, and buried him in the valley opposite Beth Peor;--that Israel, as oft as they look up to Peor, may have the memory of their sin; and at the sight of the burying-place of Mosheh may be humbled; but no man knoweth his sepulchre unto this day.”

(_From Mendelssohn’s Oratorio_, “Elijah.”)]

VIII

(_B_) ON THE “HALACHAH” AND “HAGGADAH”

We would add a few words further explanatory of the Halachah. The Halachic Midrash (or exegesis and development of the passages of the Law) dealt with the exact purport of the various Divine commands contained in the Torah, or Law of Moses. It explained in detail how these precepts were to be carried out in common life. It professed to be nothing more than an exposition of the original Law; but in reality it contained vast additions to what was written in the Books of Moses, and claimed to possess an equal authority with the original charges contained in the Pentateuch.

Roughly, these so-called Halachic developments were divided into three classes or categories--

1. Halachah or commands traced back to Moses.

2. A great mass of Halachah--containing _traditional_ ordinances
professedly based on the original Mosaic commands, but in
reality connected with the Mosaic ordinances by the very
slightest of ties.

3. A number of enactments really only emanating from the schools
of the Scribes, but which were taught to be equally binding with
the original Pentateuch ordinances. These Halachah largely dated
from the years which preceded the Christian era; they were,
in the last half of the first century and during the second
century, codified and arranged in the Mishnah.

The general purport of the Halachic Midrash, which contains the rule of Israelitic life and which so long occupied the Scribes and their schools, was very largely connected in the first place with the elaborate network of sacrifice, and the usages which followed and preceded the many and complicated various offerings. The Halachah might fairly be called The Law and Rule of Jewish Ritual. Its subject-matter has been well and tersely summed up as follows: The Halachic Midrash sought to establish, by laws which were absolutely binding on every true Jew, the manner in which God desires to be honoured; what sacrifices are to be offered to Him, what feasts and fasts are to be kept in His honour, and generally what religious rites are to be observed by the people. Other questions are, however, discussed and resolved in the Halachah, but these other points fill after all a comparatively small space in the great legal commentary or ritual which occupies so important a place in the vast Talmud compilation.

HAGGADAH

The writer of the foregoing “study” feels that a sadly incomplete picture of the “Haggadah,” the popular division of the Talmud, has been painted. A few more remarks on this singular and important portion of the Talmud are given by way of further elucidation of this strange form of exegesis (Midrash) of the Holy Scriptures.

We have already stated that broadly the “Halachic” Midrash or exegesis belongs especially to the Books of the Pentateuch, and the “Haggadic” Midrash rather to the other Books of the Old Testament writings.

But even in the Pentateuch, _narrative and history_ occupy a wide space, and in the Pentateuch Midrash we find too a mass of Haggadic commentary on the narrative and historic portions of the five Books of Moses.

Here the “Book of Jubilees” (century 1) may be quoted as a striking instance of early Haggadic Midrash or exegesis of Scripture. It reproduces the Book of Genesis, and curiously amplifies and largely supplements the original text.

Dwelling on the history of Creation, the Haggadic scribe tells us how “in the twilight on the evening before the first Sabbath, ten things were created--(1) The chasm in the earth, in which Korah and his company were swallowed up. (2) The opening of Miriam’s well. (3) The mouth of Balaam’s ass. (4) The Rainbow. (5) The Manna of the Wilderness. (6) The famous Shamir, the worm which splits stones, traditionally used in the making of the Tabernacle and its furniture. (7) The Rod of Moses. (8) Alphabetic writing. (9) The writing of the Tables of the Law. (10) The stone tables on which the Ten Commandments were written.”

The devout student of the Old Testament will read with deep interest the above-quoted reference to the purely Haggadic passage taken from the “Book of Jubilees,” in which an allusion is made to the ass who reproved Balaam.

This is one of the recitals in the Old Testament Scriptures which has ever, for various reasons, been a difficulty, when regarded as a piece of actual history. Its appearance in the “Book of Jubilees” among other evidently Haggadic or purely legendary amplifications of the original text, suggests that even in the Pentateuch the inspired compiler has occasionally introduced in his narrative details which in the opinion of the very early Scribes belonged evidently to the realm of Haggadah or legend.

In the Haggadah of the Pentateuch a vast cycle of legends accompanies the original Genesis account of famous heroes of Israelitic history, such as Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and Aaron.

A good specimen of Haggadic legendary amplification is given above in the extract from the Jerusalem Targum on Deut. xxxiv., where the death of Moses and the circumstances attending his burial are related. Again, one of the canonical writings of the Old Testament, the Book of Chronicles, is a fair example of the less fanciful Haggadic historical Midrash. Here the compiler of the book in question adds to the original record of the Jewish kings a number of details not found in the Books of Kings and in the older histories of Israel.

The Haggadah specially enlarges at great length, and with much detail, the passages which even remotely refer to the future, to the angels, and to the heavenly world; it amplifies all the mystic sections which deal with the glory of the Eternal, such as the “chariot” of Ezekiel, that wonderful introductory vision of his great prophecy.

Even in the New Testament Epistles and in the “Acts,” Haggadic influence is noticeable in several well-known passages; for instance, in S. Paul’s 2nd Epistle to Timothy iii. 8, the names of the Egyptian magicians Jannes and Jambres, which do not appear in the Genesis history, are given. A still more remarkable example of Haggadic influence is the singular legendary account of the Rock in 1 Cor. x. 4, where the rock from which, at Moses’ bidding, the water gushed forth is represented as positively accompanying the Israelites during their desert wanderings. Again, in Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19, Heb. ii. 2, the Law is represented, not as given to Moses by God Himself, as related in the Pentateuch, but as reaching him through the medium of angels.

IX

WOMEN’S DISABILITIES

Among the disabilities of the women[171] of Israel nothing is more remarkable than the position they occupied in the public services of the congregation. The Inner Court of the Temple, within which the whole of the official worship was celebrated, was divided by a wall into two divisions--a Western and an Eastern. The latter (the Eastern)--the more remote from the Temple proper--was called “the Court of the Women,” not however because none but women were admitted to it, but because women as well as men were allowed to enter it.

The _Western_ division was reserved exclusively for men; in this division stood the Temple proper, including the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.

In front of the Temple, to the West, stood the great altar of burnt-offering, at which, except in the matter of incense-burning, every act of sacrifice had to be performed. In this Western division of the Inner Court the victims were slaughtered. The Temple itself with the great altar of burnt-offering was again surrounded by an enclosure, within which as a rule none but priests might enter. This enclosure was sometimes called the Court of the Priests.

The men of Israel, however, being admitted into the Western division of the Inner Court, were spectators of and so assisted at the sacrifices offered on the great altar, from which they were only separated by the enclosure--into which, however, in certain circumstances, they were admitted.

But the women were never allowed to enter the Western division of the Inner Court--never might pass the wall of separation--never as it were assist at the sacrifices and the solemn ritual of the great altar which stood at the Western entrance of the Temple.

INDEX

“Aboth,” treatise, 358 _n._ 1

Acilii Glabriones family, Crypt of, 265, 267, 268-9, 270-1;
was Pudens a member of?, 270

Acilius Glabrio, Consul, martyrdom of, 41-2, 230-1, 269

_Acta Sincera_, of Ruinart, on Martyrdom of Theban legion, 148
_n._ 1

_Acts of the Apostles_, Haggadic influence seen in, 379;
model of, 72;
on Christian assemblies, 107;
on S. Paul’s prison life at Rome, 22;
on status of women, 367 _n._ 1

_Acts of S. Cecilia_, in the light of catacomb discoveries, 289
_et seq._

_Acts of S. Hermes_, 274

_Acts of Martyrdom_, or _Acts and Passions of the Martyrs_,
archæological and literary corroboration of, 81, 82, 94
& _n._ 1
Critical estimates of, 81 & _nn._, 82, 258
Few in early days, 33, 35, 48, 53
Pagan contempt shewn in, 158
Value of, in exploring Catacombs, 226
on Numbers of Christians, 104
on Persecutions, 163

_Acts of the Martyred Slaves_, 136

_Acts of the Passion of S. Felicitas_, 299;
authenticity of, 300, 304

_Acts of Pastor and Timotheus_, tradition in, on Pudens and his
family, 263-5

_Acts of S. Valentinus_, 276