The history of the Jews: From the war with Rome to the present time

The word Talmud has several meanings, which are most nearly rendered by ‘study,’ or ‘learning.’ There are two books so called—the Jerusalem and the Babylonian. Each of these is made up of two parts—the Mishna, or repetition,—it being, as it were, a reissue of the Mosaic law,—and the Gemara, or complement, the critical expansion of the Mishna. The Mishna of both Talmuds is the same, the Gemaras different: that of the Babylonian being the larger as well as the more diversified. They are encyclopædias of the Jewish knowledge of their day, and deal with civil and criminal, as well as moral and religious questions, law, science, metaphysics, history, and general literature.

The Mishna was compiled by Rabbi Judah, called Hakkadosh, or ‘the Holy,’ who lived in the reign of Antoninus Pius. It is written in very pure Hebrew. But as many things are introduced into it which have foreign names, there is a frequent occurrence of Latin and Greek phrases. The Gemara of the Jerusalem Talmud, which is believed to have been completed about the end of the fourth century, is written in what is called the Eastern Aramæan: that of the Babylonian, which is at the least a century, and probably two centuries, later, in Western Aramæan.

The origin of the Mishna is declared to be as follows. While Moses was with God in Sinai, He communicated to him a twofold law, written and oral.[248] The latter Moses repeated to Aaron, who delivered it to Eleazar and Ithamar; they to the Seventy Elders; they to the prophets; and the prophets to the synagogues. In this manner it was passed on from generation to generation, to the time of the great Jewish doctor Hillel, who lived shortly before the birth of Christ. He digested the great mass of precepts under six heads, still, however, without committing them to writing; which, it was believed, would have been contrary to the intention of the Divine Giver. Under the more formal shape which it had now assumed, the Oral Law was passed on till the time of the destruction of Bethor, and the final dispersion of the Hebrew people. Then, as we have seen, Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh, perceiving that the restoration of the Jews to their ancient status was not to be looked for, and fearing that the consequence of this would be the total loss of the ‘Law of the Mouth,’ as it was called,—conceiving also that the peculiar circumstances of the case justified him in breaking the rule that had been so long observed,—embodied the traditions in a volume which might be preserved for ever, secure from addition or change.

His countrymen endorsed this belief, and accepted the Mishna with the most profound respect. It had scarcely been issued, when commentaries began to be written upon it by learned Rabbins; which, about the end of the third century, were collected into a volume by Rabbi Jochanan Ben Eliezer, and called the Gemara. The style in which this is written is harsh, much inferior to that of the Mishna; and even the best Hebraists are unable to expound satisfactorily some portions of it. This obscurity was probably the reason why another Gemara was set on foot by the Mesopotamian Jews, about a century after the issue of the Jerusalem Talmud. The work was begun by Rabbi Asa or Asche, and carried on to the time of Rabbi Jose, about A.D. 500. There is some variety of opinion as to the date of its completion; but Laurence is generally thought to have proved satisfactorily that it cannot be later than the beginning of the sixth century. Christian commentators commonly prefer the Jerusalem Talmud,[249] as containing less of fabulous and frivolous matter; but the preference of the Jews is for that of Babylon.

The Mishna is divided into six principal heads, or Orders, as they are called. Each Order is divided into a variety of titles or treatises, and these again into chapters and sections. The six Orders are: I. Zeraim, or Seeds; II. Moed, or Festivals; III. Nashim, or Women; IV. Nezikin, or Injuries; V. Kodashim, or Holy Things; and VI. Taharoth, or Purifications.

The First Order is subdivided into eleven treatises:—

The Second Order contains thirteen treatises:—

The Third Order has seven titles:—

The Fourth Order has nine sections:—

The Fifth runs to eleven treatises, which deal with:—

The Sixth and last Order contains twelve heads, relating to:—

The Gemaras, it should be noted, are not so much commentaries on the Mishna, as a series of disquisitions on passages in Holy Scripture, or on the text of the Mishna, or possibly on some question of Jewish law. Great subtlety of thought is displayed in these discussions. Points of similarity are discovered between things which are, to ordinary observation, wholly diverse, and points of difference between things apparently quite identical. The ruling principle of the writers seems to be, that in the sacred writings, and more particularly in the Pentateuch, there is not a word, not a letter, that has not its special use and significance. Where this is not patent or easy of discovery, they hold that it is nevertheless latent in the text, and will be brought out when events have taken place, or opinions have been propounded, which were necessary to its development—as what appears to be a mere speck in a photograph may be enlarged until it is found to be in itself a complete picture. These lengthy and abstruse speculations are frequently varied by incidental anecdotes (called Haggadoth), which serve to illustrate the writer’s meaning, by allegories, proverbs and parables, or sometimes by the wildest Oriental legends, myths, and romantic tales. Some of these are extremely touching and beautiful; others absurd, frivolous, and extravagant, bordering occasionally on the profane, if not the blasphemous. There is, in fact, a strange and bizarre mixture of heterogeneous subjects. Eastern fancies are intermingled with the speculations of the Greek and Roman moralists. A celebrated writer has described the Talmud as ‘an extraordinary monument of human industry, human wisdom, and human folly.’[251] The probable explanation of this perversion of high intellect and patient study is to be found in the fact that the writers, being excluded by the peculiarity of their social and political position from handling the topics on which literary men ordinarily employ their pens, they were driven to busy themselves with the only subjects open to them. Hence too, probably, the extraordinary respect paid to the Talmuds by the Jewish people. They have ever regarded these books, and especially the Babylonian Talmud, with the profoundest reverence and affection. Indeed, they have been charged with bestowing more of their regard on them than on their own inspired Scriptures. They have a proverb, that ‘They who study the Scriptures do a virtuous, but not an unmixedly virtuous, act. They who study the Mishna perform a wholly virtuous act, and merit a reward. But they who study the Gemara perform the most virtuous of all acts.’ And again, ‘The Scriptures are water, the Mishna wine, the Gemara spiced wine.’[252]

As regards the history of the Talmuds, it is a singular fact that no notice is taken of either Mishna or Gemara by any of the Fathers belonging to the first four centuries of Church history, notwithstanding that they frequently handle the subject of Jewish tradition. Even Tertullian, when specially writing on this subject, while he speaks of the primal law given to Adam, and the laws of the Two Tables committed to Moses, makes no mention of the Mishna. Augustine, in the fifth century, does name the δευτέρωσις, or Second Law; but even he speaks of it as containing the unwritten traditions of the Jews, transmitted from one generation to another by word of mouth. We can only suppose that, although the Mishna was indeed completed before the end of the second century, the knowledge of it was for a long time confined to the learned among the Jews, and for a still longer time to the Hebrew nation generally. The same was the case as regards the completed Jerusalem Talmud. There was, in fact, no recognition of the work by Christians until the time of the Emperor Justinian, who, about the middle of the sixth century, issued a Novella, or edict, against it. He allowed the reading of Scripture in the synagogues, but prohibited that of the Mishna, as being ‘the mere invention of earthly men, who had nothing of Heaven in them.’ From his time to the sixteenth century of Christianity, popes and kings have put forth one manifesto after another, warning men against its perusal, and ordering the book itself to be suppressed, and even publicly destroyed. In 1286 Pope Honorius IV. wrote to Archbishop Peckham, requiring him to forbid the perusal of the Talmud as a ‘liber damnabilis,’ from which all of manner of evil was certain to arise. Nor were the popes content with prescribing it. In 1230 Gregory IX., following the example of his predecessor Innocent, burned twenty cartloads of it. In 1553, during the Feast of Tabernacles, all the copies that could anywhere be found were committed to the flames by order of Julius III.; and a few years subsequently, 12,000 volumes underwent the same fate by command of Paul IV. During the last half of the sixteenth century the Talmud was in this manner brought to the stake no less than six times, and was burned, not by the single copy, but by the waggonload. The Hebrew copyists of those times must have laboured hard to prevent the total disappearance of the book. But the establishment of the printing presses, and the declaration of Reuchlin, early in the sixteenth century,[253] in its favour, in the course of a generation or two put an end to the attempts to root out all traces of it.

The celebrated Maimonides, in the twelfth century, made an epitome of the laws of the Talmud, which many prefer to the Talmud itself, forasmuch as he omits the strange fables with which the original work abounds, and preserves the really valuable matter. The name of his book is Yad-ha-chazzak, or The Strong Hand. It is of great use to those who wish to gain a knowledge of Jewish laws and ceremonies.