CHAPTER V.

THE TALMUD, AND OTHER RABBINICAL WORKS.

IN coming to the Talmud we pass from the region of apocryphal or half-authorised works to that vast compilation which, though never formally sanctioned as a binding rule, became the accepted standard of Jewish faith and practice. In order that we may correctly estimate its value in our present inquiry, it is necessary to give a brief account of its origin and nature. But in doing so I must once more disclaim all pretence of independent Rabbinical knowledge. I can only follow those who have made a special study of this department of learning, and present to the reader some of the more important results which have been won by their labours.

The remote origin of the Talmud must be sought in the peculiar character which was impressed upon the Jewish nation by the bitter experience of the Babylonian captivity. After the return to the land of their forefathers, it was the predominant aim of those to whom the direction of affairs had been entrusted to establish a polity based upon a strict observance of the Mosaic Law. That this end might be accomplished it was necessary to make provision for instructing the people in the Law, and for applying the ancient rules to the altered circumstances of the time and to the varying needs of a progressive life. Hence arose a class of men learned in the Scriptures (Sopherim, scribes), under whose influence the Canon

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was gradually formed, and a body of interpretation was accumulated, which, being orally transmitted, formed a traditional law side by side with the written code.1 According to the fancy of later times, Moses himself had given with each commandment an explanation which was to be committed to memory and handed on to succeeding generations; and in this way, although doubtful cases still remained which were to be solved by certain rules of exegesis and settled by the voice of the majority, a mass of tradition was preserved which had no feebler claim to divine authority than the text of the Pentateuch itself. The recipients of this tradition after the captivity are said to have been the men of the great synagogue,' -a term which occurs for the first time in Pireqé Aboth,3 about the close of the second century of our era. It is not necessary to discuss here the various opinions which have been held respecting the nature and functions of this supposed corporation. Whatever these may have been,

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1 See the origin and course of this development treated, among other works, in Jost's Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Sekten: Erste Abth. Leipzig, 1857, Erstes Buch. Kuenen's Relig. of Israel, chs. viii. and ix.

2 See the whole process described in the preface of Maimonides to Seder Zera'im, translated by Pressel, article Thalmud,' in Herzog's Encyk., S. 647 8q.

3 i. 1.

Up to a recent period the most plausible view was, I think, that of Jost. He supposed that the men of the great synagogue were all who presided over the study of the law in Judea down to the time of Simeon the Just, and that the Jerusalem synagogue received the name of 'great' because the less important synagogues throughout the country looked to it for direction in the regulation of their public services (Gesch. d. Jud. und s. Sekt. i., S. 42). Kuenen, by a fresh investigation of the subject, has completed the labours of previous critics, and obtained results possessing a high degree of probability; and as his pamphlet is not very accessible to the English reader, a brief sketch of his line of argument may be found interesting. (The pamphlet is entitled, Over de mannen der groote synagoge. Bijdrage van A. Kuenen. Ove1gedrukt uit de Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde 2de Reeks, Deel vi. Amsterdam, 1876). From the history of

the words attributed to its members admirably sum up the labours of those earnest men who wrought the Mosaic institutions so deeply into the national life: Be deliberate in pronouncing judgment; train up many disciples; and make a hedge for the law.'1 Simeon the Just, who was high-priest in the time of Alexander the Great or somewhat later, is said to have been one of the last survivors of the great synagogue, and to have handed on the tradition to Antigonus of Socho; and he in turn transmitted the word Cenéseth, with its Greek equivalent ovvaywyn, he infers that the writer who first invented the term Cenéseth haggedolah had in his mind the idea of some definite assembly, in all probability that of a religious meeting (pp. 20-22). Among the assemblies mentioned in the Old Testament, that whose proceedings are recorded in Neh. viii.-x. could alone be referred to under this name, and would moreover by this name be exactly described (pp. 23, 24). Now the men of the great synagogue' are actually identified with this assembly in Midrash Ruth, fol. 45 c. (pp. 25, 26). Certain expressions, moreover, contained in Neh. ix. 5-37 are ascribed by Rabbinical writers to the same set of men (pp. 26, 27). Further, the number of the men is variously given by the Rabbis as 85 or 120. Now the men who subscribed the covenant in Neh. x. amount to 84; and as the list of the Levites begins with a vau, it is probable that a name has fallen out, and that the original number was 85. To obtain the larger number we may add 35 names from viii. and ix., or else resort to the list of families that returned from Babylon, in Ezra ii. and viii. This agreement can hardly be accidental (pp. 28, 29). It seems, then, that this was the assembly which was in the first instance denoted by the term the great synagogue.' Hence it must follow that the Talmudical representation is unhistorical; for the assembly in the time of Nehemiah was not legislative, and was not organised into a permanent corporation (pp. 30, 31). An obvious difficulty arises from the fact that in Pireqé Aboth it is said that Simeon the Just was of the remnants of the great synagogue; for the meeting convened by Ezra and Nehemiah was held about 440 B.C., whereas Simeon was high-priest, at the earliest, about 300 B.C. (p. 34). To this two answers may be given. First, before the time of the redactor of the Mishnah the original meaning of the expression may have been somewhat modified (p. 35). Secondly, the Jewish chronology placed the destruction of the Temple 112 years before the Seleucid era, leaving only 52 years for the period of subjection to the Persians. The Talmudists repeatedly represent Simeon the Just as a contemporary of Alexander the Great; and therefore, according to this chronology, Simeon may very well have been a member of the assembly held in the time of Nehemiah (pp. 36, 37).

1 Pireqé Aboth, i. 1.

it to the five pairs,' who in succession presided over the schools of scriptural learning.1

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A new epoch is reached with the distinguished Hillel, who is pronounced by Grätz" to be the first founder of Talmudical Judaism.' The dates of his birth and death are uncertain; but he lived till a few years after the beginning of the Christian era. He was born in Babylonia, and although, according to tradition, deriving his lineage on the mother's side from the house of David, is said to have spent his youth in needy circumstances. In course of time he removed to Jerusalem, and became an ardent hearer of Shemaiah and Abtalion, who stood at the head of the Pharisaic school. Graced with a sweetness of temper which won the heart, and equipped with a learning that ensured respect, he attained at last, about 31 B.C., the highest dignity to which he could aspire, and was appointed president, it is said, of the Sanhedrin, but more probably of the school of law. In this office he was associated first with Menahem, but, after the retirement of the latter, with Shammai. Shammai was a man of harder character than Hillel, and more rigid in his interpretations of the law; and the divergent tendencies which appeared, though without mutual estrangement, in the leaders, manifested themselves in their successors in two bitterly hostile schools. It is, however, with the activity of Hillel in promoting the development of legal tradition that we are here concerned. He is said to have introduced greater method into the study of the law by collecting under eighteen titles the regulations which

1 According to Jost the Sanhedrin derived its origin from the time of Simon the Maccabee, and first assumed a definite form under John Hyrcanus (Gesch. d. Jud. u. s. Sekt. i. S. 123-4, 231, 272). From this time he dates the distinct beginning of the oral law, although it rested upon earlier usage (S. 128, 273).

2 Gesch. d. Juden, iv. S. 16.

had hitherto been distributed under 613, viz., 365 prohibitions according to the number of days in a year, and 248 positive commandments according to the number of parts in the human body. The mass of traditional enactments he endeavoured to reduce to system, and to bring under the application of general principles. He sought to mediate between the Pharisaic and Sadducean positions by establishing a relation of dependence between the written and the traditional code. On the one hand he conceded to the Sadducees that nothing was valid which had not its foundation in Scripture; but on the other hand he contended that the full scope of Scripture was not to be ascertained by a hard and literal exegesis. He accordingly devised seven rules of interpretation, in conformity with which the Rabbinical development of the law ought to proceed; and he thereby not only provided a higher sanction for the existing tradition, but paved the way for that method of discussion and inference which properly bears the name of Talmud.2

Hillel was succeeded by his grandson Gamaliel, through whom his influence passed to the Apostle Paul. Gamaliel's son and successor, Simeon, perished at the siege of Jerusalem. A distinguished disciple of Hillel's, however, Yochanan ben Zakkai, still survived. Inheriting the broad principles of his school, he was opposed to the war party, whose ill-directed zeal he foresaw would only bring about the destruction of the city and temple. He therefore sought and obtained the friendship of the

1 See these collected in Jost, Gesch. d. Jud. u. 8. Sekt. i. Anhang, S. 451 sq.

2 For the above see especially Grätz, Gesch. d. Jud. iii. S. 172 sq. and Jost, Gesch. d. Jud. u. s. Sekt. i. S. 254 sq. The reader who is limited to English may see the account in Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church by A. P. Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster, Third Series, London, 1876, p. 447 sq.