BM 504 I>4&t A A . d - ID — ~D 9 CD 9 - z^ 9 7 ZD 2 6 ^ 3 The Library University of California, Los Angeles i^ta r Special Series No. 3 THE TALMUD BY EMANUEL DEUTSCH PHILADELPHIA The Jewish Publication Society of America 1S95 Reprinted from ' Literary Remains of the Late Emanuel Deutsch, London, 1S74. PRESS OF EDWARD STERN & CO., INC., PHILADELPHIA. on THE TALMUD' What is the Talmud ? What is the nature of that strange production of which the name, imperceptibly almost, is beginning to take its place among the household words of Europe ? Turn where we may in the realms of modern learning, we seem to be haunted by it. We meet with it in theology, in science, even in gen- eral literature, in their highways and in their by- ways. There is not a handbook to all or any of the many departments of biblical lore, sacred geogra- phy, history, chronology, numismatics, and the rest, but its pages contain references to the Talmud. The advocates of all religious opinions appeal to its dicta. Nay, not only the scientific investiga- tors of Judaism and Christianity, but those of Mohammedanism and Zoroastrianism, turn to it in their dissections of dogma and legend and cere- mony. If, again, we take up any recent volume of archaeological or philological transactions, whether we light on a dissertation on a Phoenician altar, or a cuneiform tablet, Babylonian weights, or Sas- sanian coins, we are certain to find this mysterious word. Nor is it merely the restorers of the lost idioms of Canaan and Assyria, of Himyarand Zoro- astrian Persia, that appeal to the Talmud for assis- ^ This article appeared in the (2uarterly Rcoieiv for Octo- ber, 1867, vol. cxxiii., No. z^fi. 916 4 THE TALMUD tance ; but the modern schools of Greek and Latin philology are beginning to avail themselves of the classical and post-classical materials that lie scat- tered through it. Jurisprudence, in its turn, has been roused to the fact that, apart from the bear- ing of the Talmud on the study of the Pandects and the Institutes, there are also some of those very laws of the Medes and Persians — hitherto but a vague sound — hidde-n away in its labyrinths. And so too with medicine, astronomy, mathe- matics, and the rest. The history of these sciences, during that period over which the composition of the Talmud ranges — and it ranges over about a thousand years — can no longer be written without some reference to the items preserved, as in a vast buried city, in this cyclopean work. Yet, apart from the facts that belong emphatically to these respective branches, it contains other facts, of larger moment still : facts bearing upon human cul- ture in its widest sense. Day by day there are excavated from these mounds pictures of many countries and many periods. Pictures of Hellas and Byzantium, Egypt and Rome, Persia and Pales- tine ; of the temple and the forum, war and peace, joy and mourning ; pictures teeming with life, glow- ing with color. These are, indeed, signs of the times. A mighty change has come over us. We, children of this latter age, are, above all things, utilitarian. We do not read the Koran, the Zend-Avesta, the Vedas, with the sole view of refuting them. We look upon all literature, religious, legal, and otherwise, when- THE TALMUD soever and wheresoever produced, as part and par- cel of humanity. We, in a manner, feel a kind of responsibility for it. We seek to understand the phase of culture which begot these items of our inheritance, the spirit that moves upon their face. And while we bury that which is dead in them, we rejoice in that which lives in them. We enrich our stores of knowledge from theirs, we are stirred by their poetry, we are moved to high and holy thoughts when they touch the divine chord in our hearts. In the same human spirit we now speak of the Talmud. There is even danger at hand that this chivalresque feeling — one of the most touching characteristics of our times — which is evermore prompting us to offer holocausts to the Manes of those whom former generations are thought to have wronged, may lead to its being extolled somewhat beyond its merit.. As these ever new testimonies to its value crowd upon us, we might be led into exaggerating its importance for the history of man- kind. Yet an old adage of its own says : "Above all things, study. Whether for the sake of learn- ing or for any other reason, study. For, whatever the motives that impel you at first, you will very soon love study for its own sake." And thus even exaggerated expectations of the treasure-trove in the Talmud will have their value, if they lead to the study of the work itself. For, let us say it at once, these tokens of its ex- istence, that appear in many a new publication, are, for the most part, but will-o'-the-wisps. At first 6 THE TALMUD sight one would fancy that there never was a book more popular, or that formed more exclusively the mental centre of modern scholars, Orientalists, theologians, or jurists. What is the real truth? Paradoxical as it may seem, there never was a book at once more universally neglected and more uni- versally talked of. Well may we forgive Heine, when we read the glowing description of the Talmud contained in his " Romancero," for never having even seen the subject of his panegyrics. Like his countryman Schiller, who, pining vainly for one glimpse of the Alps, produced the most glowing and faithful picture of them, so he, with the poet's unerring instinct, gathered truth from hearsay and description. But how many of these ubiquitous learned quotations really flow from the fountain- head.-' Too often and too palpably it is merely — to use Samson's agricultural simile — those ancient and well-worked heifers, the "Tela ignea Satanae," the "Abgezogener Schlangenbalg," and all their venomous kindred, which are once more being dragged to the plough by some of the learned. We say the learned : for as to the people at large, often as they hear the word now, we firmly believe that numbers of them still hold, with that erudite Capucin friar, Henricus Seynensis, that the Tal- mud is not a book, but a man. "Ut narrat Rab- binus Talmud" — "As says Rabbi Talmud " — cries he, and triumphantly clinches his argument ! And of those who know that it is not a Rabbi, how many are there to whom it conveys any but the vaguest of notions 1 Who wrote it } What is THE TALMUD 7 its bulk ? Its date ? Its contents ? Its birthplace ? A contemporary lately called it " a sphinx, towards which all men's eyes are directed at this hour, some with eager curiosity, some with vague anxiety." But why not force open its lips ? How much longer are we to live by quotations alone, quotations a thousand times used, a thousand times abused? Where, however, are we to look even for primary instruction ? Where learn the story of the book, its place in literature, its meaning and purport, and, above all, its relation to ourselves ? If we turn to the time-honored "Authorities," we shall mostly find that, in their eagerness to serve some cause, they have torn a few pieces off that gigantic living body ; and they have presented to us these ghastly anatomical preparations, twisted and mutilated out of all shape and semblance, say- ing, Behold, this is the book ! Or they have done worse. They have not garbled their samples, but have given them exactly as they found them ; and then stood aside, pointing at them with jeering countenance. For their samples were ludicrous and grotesque beyond expression. But these wise and pious investigators unfortunately mistook the gargoyles, those grinning stone caricatures that mount their thousand years' guard over our cathe- drals, for the gleaming statues of the Saints with- in ; and, holding them up to mockery and derision, they cried, These be thy gods, O Israel ! Let us not be misunderstood. When we com- plain of the lack of guides to the Talmud, we do not wish to be ungrateful to those gfreat and earn- 8 THE TALMUD est scholars whose names are familiar to every student, and whose labors have been ever present to our mind. For, though in the whole realm of learning there is scarcely a single branch of study to be compared for its difficulty to the Talmud, yet, if a man had time, and patience, and knowl- 'edge, there is absolutely no reason why he should not, up and down ancient and modern libraries, gather most excellent hints from essays and treatises, monographs and sketches, in books and periodicals without number, by dint of which, aided by the study of the work itself, he might arrive at some conclusion as to its essence and tendencies, its origin and its development. Yet, so far as we know, that work, every step of which, it must be confessed, is beset with fatal pitfalls, has not yet been done for the world at large. It is for a very good reason that we have placed nothing but the name of the Talmud itself at the head of our paper. We have sought far and near for some one special book on the subject, which we might make the theme of our observations — a book which should not merely be a garbled translation of a certain twelfth century " Introduction," inter- spersed with vituperations and supplemented with blunders, but which from the platform of modern culture should pronounce impartially upon a pro- duction which, if for no other reason, claims re- spect through its age, — a book that would lead us through the stupendous labyrinths of fact, and thought, and fancy, of which the Talmud consists, that would rejoice even in hieroglyphical fairy-lore, THE TALMUD 9 in abstruse propositions and syllogisms, that could forgive wild outbursts of passion, and not judge harshly and hastily of things, the real meaning of which may have had to be hidden under the fool's cap and bells. We have not found such a book, nor anything ap- proaching to it. But closely connected with that circumstance is this other, that we were fain to quote the first editions of this Talmud, though scores have been printed since, and about a dozen are in the press at this very moment. Even this first edition was printed in hot haste, and without due care ; and every succeeding one, with one or two insignificant exceptions, presents a sadder spectacle. In the Basle edition of 1578 — the third in point of time, which has remained the standard edition almost ever since — that amazing creature, the Cen- sor, stepped in. In his anxiety to protect the " Faith " from all and every danger — for the Talmud was supposed to hide bitter things against Christian- ity under the most innocent-looking words and phrases — this official did very wonderful things. When he, for example, found some ancient Roman in the book swearing by the Capitol or by Jupiter "of Rome," his mind instantly misgave him. Surely this Roman must be a Christian, the Capitol the Vatican, Jupiter the Pope. And forthwith he struck out Rome and substituted any other place he could think of. A favorite spot seems to have been Persia, sometimes it was Aram or Babel. So that this worthy Roman may be found unto this day swearing by the Capitol of Persia or by the Jupiter 10 THE TALMUD of Aram and Babel. But whenever the word "Gentile " occurred, the Censor was seized with the most frantic terrors. A " Gentile " could not possi- bly be aught but a Christian ; whether he lived in India or in Athens, in Rome or in Canaan ; whether he was a good Gentile — and there are many such in the Talmud — or a wicked one. Instantly he christ- ened him ; and christened him, as fancy moved him, an "Egyptian," an "Aramaean," an "Amale- kite," an "Arab," a "Negro;" sometimes a whole "people." We are speaking strictly to the letter. All this is extant in our very last editions. Once or twice attempts were made to clear the text from its foulest blemishes. There was even, about two years ago, a beginning made of a " criti- cal " edition, such as not merely Greek and Roman, Sanscrit and Persian classics, but the veriest trash written in those languages would have had ever so long ago. And there is — M. Renan's unfortunate remark to the contrary notwithstanding' — no lack of Talmudical MSS., however fragmentary they be for the most part. There are innumerable varia- tions, additions, and corrections to be gleaned from the Codices at the Bodleian and the Vatican, in the Libraries of Odessa, Munich, and Florence, Ham- burg and Heidelberg, Paris and Parma. But an evil eye seems to be upon this book. This cor- rected edition remains a torso, like the two first volumes of translations of the Talmud, commenced at different periods, the second volumes of which ^ '• On sait qu'il ne reste aucun manuscrit du Talmud pour controler les editions imprimees." — Les Apdtres, p. 262. THE TALMUD II never saw the light. It therefore seemed advisable to refer to the Editio Princeps, as the one that is at least free from the blemishes, censorial or typo- graphical, of later ages. Well does the Talmud supplement the Horatian " Habent sua fata libelli," by the words " even the sacred scrolls in the Tabernacle." We really do not wonder that the good Capucin of whom we spoke mistook it for a man. Ever since it existed — almost before it existed in a palpable shape — it has been treated much like a human being. It has been proscribed, and imprisoned, and burnt, a hundred times over. From Justinian, who, as early as 553 A.D., honored it by a special interdictory Novella,^ down to Clement VIII. and later — a space of over a thousand years — both the secular and the spiritual powers, kings and emperors, popes and anti-popes, vied with each other in hurling anathemas and bulls and edicts of wholesale confiscation and conflagra- tion against this luckless book. Thus, within a period of less than fifty years — and these forming the latter half of the sixteenth century — it was publicly burnt no less than six different times, and that not in single copies, but wholesale, by the wagon-load. Julius III. issued his proclamation against what he grotesquely calls the " Gemaroth Thalmud," in 1553 and 1555, Paul IV. in 1559, Pius V. in 1566, Clement VIII. in 1592 and 1599. The fear of it was great indeed. Even Pius IV., in giv- ing permission for a new edition, stipulated expressly 1 Novella 146, Us.p\ 'E^paiwv (addressed to the Prsefectus Praetorio Areobindus). 12 THE TALMUD that it should appear without the name Talmud. " Si tamen prodierit sine nomine Thalmud tolerari deberet." It almost seems to have been a kind of Shibboleth, by which every new potentate had to prove the rigor of his faith. And very rigorous it must have been, to judge by the language which even the highest dignitaries of the Church did not disdain to use at times. Thus Honorius IV. writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1286 anent that "damnable book" {liber davuiabilis), admonishing him gravely and desiring him "vehemently" to see that it be not read by anybody, since " all other evils flow out of it." — Verily these documents are sad reading, only relieved occasionally by some wild blunder that lights up as with one flash the abyss of ignorance regarding this object of wrath. We remember but one sensible exception in this Babel of manifestoes. Clement V., in 1307, before condemning the book, wished to know something of it, and there was no one to tell him. Whereupon he proposed — but in language so obscure that it left the door open for many interpretations — that three chairs be founded, for Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, as the three tongues nearest to the idiom of the Talmud. The spots chosen by him were the Uni- versities of Paris, Salamanca, Bologna, and Oxford. In time, he hoped, one of these Universities might be able to produce a translation of this mysterious book. Need we say that this consummation never came to pass .'' The more expeditious process of destruction was resorted to again and again and again, not merely in the single cities of Italy and THE TALMUD 13 France, but throughout the entire Holy Roman Empire. At length a change took place in Germany. One Pfefferkorn, a miserable creature enough, be- gan, in the time of the Emperor Maximilian, to agitate for a new decree for the extermination of the Talmud. The Emperor lay with his hosts be- fore Pavia, when the evil-tongued messenger arrived in the camp, furnished with goodly letters by Kunigunde, the Emperor's beautiful sister. Maxi- milian, wearied and unsuspecting, renewed that time-honored decree for a confiscation, to be duly followed by a conflagration, readily enough. The confiscation was conscientiously carried out, for Pfefferkorn knew well enough where his former coreligionists kept their books. But a conflagra- tion of a very different kind ensued. Step by step, hour by hour, the German Reformation was draw- ing nearer. Reuchlin, the most eminent Hellenist and Hebraist of his time, had been nominated to sit on the Committee which was to lend its learned authority to the Emperor's decree. But he did not relish this task. " He did not like the look of Pfefferkorn," he says. Besides which, he was a learned and an honest man, and, having been the restorer of classical Greek in Germany, he did not care to participate in the wholesale murder of a book "written by Christ's nearest relations." Perhaps he saw the cunningly-laid trap. He had long been a thorn in the flesh of many of his contemporaries. His Hebrew labors had been looked upon with bitter jealousy, if not fear. Nothing less was con- 14 THE TALMUD templated in those days — the theological Faculty of Mayence demanded it openly — than a total " Revision and Correction " of the Hebrew Bible, "inasmuch as it differed from the Vulgate." Reuchlin, on his part, never lost an opportunity of proclaiming the high importance of the " Hebrew Truth," as he emphatically called it. His enemies thought that one of two things would follow. By officially pronouncing upon the Talmud, he was sure either to commit himself dangerously — and then a speedy end would be made of him — or to set at naught, to a certain extent, his own previous judgments in favor of these studies. He declined the proposal, saying, honestly enough, that he knew nothing of the book, and that he was not aware of the existence of many who knew anything of it. Least of all did its detractors know it. But, he continued, even if it should contain attacks on Christianity, would it not be preferable to reply to them ."* " Burning is but a ruffianly argument {Bacchanten-Argumejtt)." Whereupon a wild out- cry was raised against him as a Jew, a Judaizer, a bribed renegade, and so on. Reuchlin, nothing daunted, set to work upon the book in his patient hard-working manner. Next he wrote a brilliant defence of it. When the Emperor asked his opinion, he repeated Clement's proposal to found Talmudical chairs. At each German university there should be two professors, specially appointed for the sole purpose of enabling students to become acquainted with this book. "As to burning it," he continues, in the famous Memorial addressed to THE TALMUD I5 the Emperor, "if some fool came and said, Most mighty Emperor! your Majesty should really sup- press and burn the books of alchymy [a fine ar- gumentuni ad hominevt] because they contain blasphemous, wicked, and absurd things against our faith, what should his Imperial Majesty reply to such a buffalo or ass but this : Thou art a ninny, rather to be laughed at than followed ? Now be- cause his feeble head cannot enter into the depths of a science, and cannot conceive it, and does understand things otherwise than they really are, would you deem it fit to burn such books ?" Fiercer and fiercer waxed the howl, and Reuch- lin, the peaceful student, from a witness became a delinquent. What he suffered for and through the Talmud cannot be told here. Far and wide, all over Europe, the contest raged. A whole literature of pamphlets, flying sheets, caricatures, sprang up. University after University was appealed to against him. No less than forty-seven sittings were held by the theological Faculty of Paris, which ended by their formal condemnation of Reuchlin. But he was not left to fight alone. Around him rallied, one by one, Duke Ulrich of Wiirtemberg, the Elector Frederick of Saxony, Ulrich von Hutten, Franz von Sickingen — he who finally made the Colognians pay their costs in the Reuchlin trial — Erasmus of Rotterdam, and that whole brilliant phalanx of the "Knights of the Holy Ghost," the "Hosts of Pallas Athene," the "Talmiitp/iili," as the documents of the period variously styled them : they whom we call the Humanists. l6 THE TALMUD And their palladium and their war-cry was — oh! wondrous ways of History — the Talmud! To stand up for Reuchlin meant, to them, to stand up for " the Law ; to fight for the Talmud was \.o fight for the CJnirch! " Non te," writes Egidio de Viterbo to Reuchlin, "sed Legem: nopz Tha/mud, sed EcclesiatnP' The rest of the story is written in the " Epistoloe Obscurorum Virorum," and in the early pages of the German Reformation. The Talmud was not burnt this time. On the contrary, its first com- plete edition was printed. And in the same year of Grace 1520 a.d., when this first edition went through the press at Venice, Martin Luther burnt the Pope's bull at Wittenberg. What is the Talmud ? Again the question rises before us in its whole formidable shape; a question which no one has yet answered satisfactorily. And we labor in this place under more than one disadvantage. For, quite apart from the difficulties of explaining a work so utterly Eastern, antique, and thoroughly sui generis, to our modern Western readers, in the space of a few pages, we labor under the further dis- ability of not being able to refer to the work itself. Would it not indeed be mere affectation to pre- suppose more than the vaguest acquaintance with its language or even its name in many of our readers .'* And while we would fain enlarge upon such points as a comparison between the law laid down i:i it with ours, or with the contemporary THE TALMUD IJ Greek, Roman, and Persian laws, or those of Islam, or even with its own fundamental Code, the Mosaic : while we would trace a number of its ethical, ceremonial, and doctrinal points in Zoroastrianism, in Christianity, in Mohammedanism ; avast deal of its metaphysics and philosophy in Plato, Aristotle, the Pythagoreans, the Neoplatonists, and the Gnostics — not to mention Spinoza and the Schellings of our own day ; much of its medicine in Hippocrates and Galen, and the Paracelsuses of but a few centuries ago — we shall scarcely be able to do more than to lay a few disjecta membra of these things before our readers. We cannot even sketch, in all its bearings, that singular mental movement which caused the best spirits of an entire nation to concentrate, in spite of opposition, all their energies for a thousand years upon the writing, and for another thousand years upon the commenting, of this one book. Omitting all detail, which it has cost much to gather, and more to suppress, we shall merely tell of its development, of the schools in which it grew, of the tribunals which judged by it, of some of the men that set their seal on it. We shall also introduce a summary of its law, speak of its metaphysics, of its moral philosophy, and quote many of its proverbs and saws — the truest of all gauges of a time. We shall, perhaps, be obliged occasionally to ap- peal to some of the extraneous topics just men- tioned. The Talmud, like every other phenome- non, in order to become comprehensible, should be considered only in connection with things of a 1 8 THE TALMUD similar kind : a fact almost entirely overlooked to this day. Being emphatically a Corpus Juris, an encyclo- paedia of law, civil and penal, ecclesiastical and in- ternational, human and divine, it may best be judged by analogy and comparison with other legal codes, more especially with the Justinian Code and its Commentaries. What the uninitiated have taken for exceptional " Rabbinical " subtleties, or, in matters relating to the sexes, for gross offences against modern taste, will then cause the Talmud to stand rather favorably than otherwise. The Pandects and the Institutes, the Novellae and the Responsa Prudentium should thus be constantly consulted and compared. No less should our English law, as laid down in Blackstone, wherein we may see how the most varied views of right and wrong have been finally blended and harmonized with the spirit of our times. But the Talmud is more than a book of laws. It is a microcosm, embracing, even as does the Bible, heaven and earth. It is as if all the prose and the poetry, the science, the faith and speculation of the Old World were, though only in faint reflections, bound up in it in mice. Comprising the time from the rise to the fall of antiquity, and a good deal of its after- glow, the history and culture of antiquity have to be considered in their various stages. But, above all, it is necessary to transport ourselves, following Goethe's advice, to its birthplace — Palestine and Babylon — the gorgeous East itself, where all things glow in brighter colors, and grow into more fantas- tic shapes : — • THE TALMUD I9 " Willst den Dichter du verstehen, Musst in Dichter's Lande gehen." The origin of the Talmud is coeval with the re- turn from the Babylonish captivity. One of the most mysterious and momentous periods in the history of humanity is that brief space 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 religion of Zerdusht, though it has left its traces in Judaism, fails to ac- count for that change. Nor does the Exile itself account for it. Many and intense as are the remi- niscences of its bitterness, and of yearning for home, that have survived in prayer and in song, yet we know that when the hour of liberty struck, the forced colonists were loth to return to the land of their fathers. Yet the change is there, palpable, unmistakable — a change which wc 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 even than that of wife and child. These same documents, as they were grad- ually 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 poetical minds of the nation remained 20 THE TALMUD fixed upon them. "Turn it and turn it again," says the Talmud, with regard to the Bible, "for everything is in it." " Search the Scriptures," is the distinct utterance of the New Testament. The natural consequence ensued. Gradually, imperceptibly almost, from a mere expounding and investigation for purposes of edification or instruc- tion on some special point, this activity begot a science, a science that assumed the very widest dimensions. Its technical name is already con- tained in the Book of Chronicles. It is "Midrash" (from darasJi, to study, expound) — a term which the Authorized Version renders by " Story. "^ There is scarcely a more fruitful source of mis- conceptions upon this subject than the liquid nature, so to speak, of its technical terms. They mean anything and everything, at once most general and most special. Nearly all of them signify in the first instance simply " study." Next they are used for some one very special branch of this study. Then they indicate, at times a peculiar method, at others the works which have grown out of these either general or special mental labors. Thus Midrash, from the abstract " expounding," came to be applied, first to the " exposition " itself — even as our terms " work, investigation, enquiry," imply both process and product ; and finally, as a special branch of exposition — the legendary — was more popular than the rest, to this one branch only and to the books that chiefly represented it. ^ See 2 Chron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27. THE TALMUD 21 For there had sprung up almost innumerable modes of "searching the Scriptures." In the quaintly ingenious manner of the times, four of the chief methods were found in the Persian word Paradise, spelt in vowelless Semitic fashion, PRDS. Each one of these mysterious letters was taken, mnemonically, as the initial of some technical word that indicated one of these four methods. The one called P \_peshat'\ aimed at the simple understanding of words and things, in accordance with the primary exegetical law of the Talmud, "that no verse of the Scripture ever practically travelled beyond its literal meaning" — though it might be explained, homiletically and otherwise, in innumerable new ways. The second, R \renies\ means Hint, i. c, the discovery of the indications contained in certain seemingly superfluous letters and signs in Scripture. These were taken to refer to laws not distinctly mentioned, but either existing traditionally or newly promulgated. This method, when more generally applied, begot a kind of vicmo7'ia tccJinica, a stenography akin to the " No- tarikon " of the Romans. Points and notes were added to the margins of scriptural MSS., and the foundation of the Massorah, or diplomatic preser- vation of the text, was thus laid. The third, D \dc7"ds]L\ was homiletic application of that which had been to that which was and would be, of pro- phetical and historical dicta to the actual condition of things. It was a peculiar kind of sermon, with all the aids of dialectics and poetry, of parable, gnome, proverb, legent^, and the rest, exactly as we 22 THE TALMUD find it in the New Testament. The fourth, S, stood for sod, secret, mystery. This was the Secret Science, into which but few were initiated. It was theosophy, metaphysics, angelology, a host of wild and glowing visions of things beyond earth. Faint echoes of this science survive in Neoplatonism, in Gnosticism, in the Kabbalah, in " Hermes Trisme- gistus." But few were initiated into these things of "The Creation " and of "The Chariot," as it was also called, in allusion to Ezekiel's vision. Yet here again the power of the vague and mysterious was so strong, that the word Paradise gradually indicated this last branch, the secret science only. Later, in Gnosticism, it came to mean the " Spirit- ual Christ." There is a weird story in the Talmud, which has given rise to the wildest explanations, but which will become intelligible by the foregoing lines. "Four men," it says, "entered Paradise. One be- held and died. One beheld and lost his senses. One destroyed the young plants. One only en- tered in peace and came out in peace." — The names of all four are given. They are all exalted masters of the law. The last but one, he who destroyed the young plants, is Elisha ben Abuyah, the Faust of the Talmud, who, while sitting in the academy, at the feet of his teachers, to study the law, kept the "profane books" — of "Homeros," to wit — hid- den in his garment, and from whose mouth " Greek song" never ceased to flow. How he, notwith- standing his early scepticism, rapidly rises to emi- nence in that same law, finally falls away and be- THE TALMUD 23 comes a traitor and an outcast, and his very name a thing of unutterable horror — how, one day (it was the great day of atonement) he passes the ruins of the temple, and hears a voice within " murmuring like a dove" — "all men shall be forgiven this day save Elisha ben Abuyah, who, knowing me, has be- trayed me" — how, after his death the flames will not cease to hover over his grave, until his one faithful disciple, the " Light of the Law," Meir, throws himself over it, swearing a holy oath that he will not partake of the joys of the world to come without his beloved master, and that he will not move from that spot until his master's soul shall have found grace and salvation before the Throne of Mercy — all this and a number of other incidents form one of the most stirring poetical pictures of the whole Talmud. The last of the four is Akiba, the most exalted, most romantic, and most heroic character perhaps in that vast gallery of the learned of his time; he who, in the last revolt under Trajan and Hadrian, expiated his patriotic rashness at the hands of the Roman executioners, and — the legend adds — whose soul fled just when, in his last agony, his mouth cried out the last word of the confession of God's unity : — " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One!' The Talmud is the storehouse of "Midrash," in its widest sense, and in all its branches. What we said of the fluctuation of terms applies emphatic^ ally also to this word Talmud. It means in the first instance nothing but "study," "learning," from lamad, to learn ; next indicating a special 24 THE TALMUD method of "learning" or rather arguing, it finally became the name of the great Corpus Juris of Judaism. When we speak of the Talmud as a legal code, we trust we shall not be understood too literally. It resembles about as much what we generally understand by that name as a primeval forest re- sembles a Dutch garden. Nothing indeed can equal the state of utter amazement into which the modern investigator finds himself plunged at the first sight of these luxuriant Talmudical wildernesses. Schooled in the harmonizing, methodizing systems of the West — systems that condense, and arrange, and classify, and give everything its fitting place and its fitting position in that place — he feels almost stupefied here. The language, the style, the method, the very sequence of things (a sequence that often appears as logical as our dreams), the amazingly varied nature of these things — everything seems tangled, confused, chaotic. It is only after a time that the student learns to distinguish between two mighty currents in the book — currents that at times flow parallel, at times seem to work upon each other, and to impede each other's action : the one emanating from the brain, the other from the heart — the one prose, the other poetry — the one carrying with it all those mental faculties that manifest themselves in arguing, investigating, comparing, developing, bringing a thousand points to bear upon one and one upon a thousand ; the other springing from the realms of fancy, of imag- THE TALMUD 2$ ination, feeling, humor, and above all from that precious combination of still, almost sad, pensive- ness with quick catholic sympathies, which in German is called Gc7JiiitJi. These two currents the Midrash, in its various aspects, had caused to set in the direction of the Bible, and they soon found in it two vast fields for the display of all their power and energy. The logical faculties turned to the legal portions in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy — developing, seeking, and solving a thousand real or apparent difficulties and contradictions with what, as tradition, had been living in the hearts and mouths of the people from time immemorial. The other — the imaginative faculties — took posses- sion of the prophetical, ethical, historical, and, quaintly enough, sometimes even of the legal por- tions of the Bible, and transformed the whole into a vast series of themes almost musical in their won- derful and capricious variations. The first-named is called " Halachah" {Rule, Norm), a term applied both to the process of evolving legal enactments and the enactments themselves. The other, " Hag- gadah " {Legend, Saga) not so much in our modern sense of the word, though a great part of its con- tents comes under that head, but because it was only a "saying," a thing without authority, a play of fancy, an allegory, a parable, a tale, that pointed a moral and illustrated a question, that smoothed the billows of fierce debate, roused the slumbering attention, and was generally — to use its own phrase — a "comfort and a blessing." The Talmud, which is composed of these two 26 THE TALMUD elements, the legal and the legendary, is divided into MiSHNAH and Gemara : two terms again of uncertain, shifting meaning. Originally indicat- ing, like the technical words mentioned already, "study," they both became terms for special studies, and indicated special works. The Mish- nah, from sJianah {tana), to learn, to repeat, has been of old translated (hor^puffn:;, second law. But this derivation, correct as it seems literally, is in- correct in the first instance. It simply means "Learning," like Gemara, which, besides, indicates "complement " to the Mishnah — itself a comple- ment to the Mosaic code, but in such a manner that in developing and enlarging, it supersedes it. The Mishnah, on its own part again, forms a kind of text to which the Gemara is not so much a scholion as a critical expansion. The Pentateuch remains in all cases the background and latent source of the Mishnah. But it is the business of the Gemara to examine into the legitimacy and correctness of this Mishnic development in single instances. The Pentateuch remained under all circumstances the immutable, divinely given con- stitution, the ivrittcji law : in contradistinction to it, the Mishnah, together with the Gemara, was called the oral, or " unwritten " law, not unlike the unwritten Greek Tij-oa!, the Roman "Lex Non Scripta," the Sunnah, or our own common law. There are few chapters in the whole History of Jurisprudence more obscure than the origin, devel- opment, and completion of this "Oral Law." There must have existed from the very beginning THE TALMUD 2/ of the Mosaic law a number of corollary laws, which explained in detail most of the rules broadly laid down in it. Apart from these, it was but natural that the Enactments of that primitive Council of the Desert, the Elders, and their suc- cessors in each period, together with the verdicts issued by the later "judges within the gates," to whom the Pentateuch distinctly refers, should have become precedents, and been handed down as such. Apocryphal writings — notably the fourth book of Ezra — not to mention Philo and the Church Fathers, speak of fabulous numbers of books that had been given to Moses together with the Pentateuch : thus indicating the common be- lief in the divine origin of the supplementary laws that had existed among the people from time im- memorial. Jewish tradition traces the bulk of the oral injunctions, through a chain of distinctly-named authorities, to "Sinai" itself. It mentions in de- tail how Moses communicated those minutiae of his legislation, in which he had been instructed during the mysterious forty days and nights on the Mount, to the chosen guides of the people, in such a man- ner that they should for ever remain engraven on the tablets of their hearts. A long space intervenes between the Mosaic period and that of the Mishnah. The ever grow- ing wants of the ever disturbed commonwealth ne- cessitated new laws and regulations at every turn. A difficulty, however, arose, unknown to other legislations. In despotic states a decree is issued, promulgating the new law. In constitutional 28 THE TALMUD States a Bill is brought in. The supreme authority, if it finds it meet and right to make this new law, makes it. The case was different in the Jewish commonwealth of the post-exilian times. Among the things that were irredeemably lost with the first temple were the " Urim and Thummim " of the high- priest — the oracle. With Malachi the last prophet had died. Both for the promulgation of a new law and the abrogation of an old one, a higher sanction was requisite than a mere majority of the legisla- tive council. The new act must be proved, directly or indirectly, from the "Word of God " — proved to have been promulgated by the Supreme King — hidden and bound up, as it were, in its very letters from the beginning. This was not easy in all cases ; especially when a certain number of her- meneutical rules, not unlike those used in the Roman schools (inferences, conclusions from the minor to the major and vice versa, analogies of ideas or objects, general and special statements, etc.), had come to be laid down. Apart from the new laws requisite at sudden emergencies, there were many of those old tradi- tional ones, for which the point cTappid had to be found, when, as established legal matters, they came before the critical eye of the schools. And these schools themselves, in their ever restless activity, evolved new laws, according to their logical rules, even when they were not practically wanted nor likely ever to come into practical use — simply as a matter of science. Hence there is a double action perceptible in this legal development. Either the THE TALMUD 29 scriptural verse forms the terminus a quo, or the terminus ad q^ieni. It is either the starting-point for a discussion which ends in the production of some new enactment ; or some new enactment, or one never before investigated, is traced back to the divine source by an outward " hint," however insig- nificant. This process of evolving new precepts from old ones by "signs," — a word curiously enough used also by Blackstone in his "development" of the law — may in some instances have been applied with too much freedom. Yet, while the Talrhudical Code practically differs from the Mosaic as much as our Digest will some day differ from the laws of the time of Canute, and as the Justinian Code differs from the Twelve Tables, it cannot be denied that these fundamental laws have in all cases been con- sulted, carefully and impartially as to their spirit, their letter being often but the vessel or outer symbol. The often uncompromising severity of the Pentateuch, especially in the province of the penal law, had certainly become much softened down under the milder influences of the culture of later days. Several of its injunctions, which had become impracticable, were circumscribed, or almost con- stitutionally abrogated, by the introduction of ex- ceptional formalities. Some of its branches also had developed in a direction other than what at first sight seems to have been anticipated. But the power vested in the "judge of those days " was in general most sparingly and conscientiously applied. This whole process of the development of the 30 THE TALMUD "Law" was in the hands of the " Scribes," who, according to the New Testament, " sit in the seat of Moses." We shall speak presently of the "Pharisees" with whom the word is often coupled. Here, meantime, we must once more distinguish between the different meanings of the word " Scribe " at different periods. For there are three stages in the oral compilation of the Talmudical Code, each of which is named after a special class of doctors. The task of the first class of these masters — the " Scribes " by way of eminence, whose time ranges from the return from Babylon down to the Greco- Syrian persecutions 220 B.C.) — was above all to preserve the sacred Text, as it had survived after many mishaps. They "enumerated" not merely the precepts, but the words, the letters, the signs of the Scripture, thereby guarding it from all future interpolations and corruptions. They had further to explain these precepts, in accordance with the collateral tradition of which they were the guard- ians. They had to instruct the people, to preach in the synagogues, to teach in the schools. They further, on their own authority, erected certain "Fences," i. c, such new injunctions as they deemed necessary merely for the better keeping of the old precepts. The whole work of these men (" Men of the Great Synagogue") is well summed up in their adage : " Have a care in legal decisions, send forth many disciples, and make a fence around the law." More pregnant still is the motto of their last repre- sentative — the only one whose name, besides those of Ezra and Nehemiah, the supposed founders of THE TALMUD 3 1 this body, has survived — Simon the Just: "On three things stands the world : on law, on worship, and on charity." After the " Scribes " — z«r' e^o/rjy — come the "Learners," or " Repeaters," also called Banaim, "Master-builders" — from 220 B.C. to 220 a.d. In this period falls the Maccabean Revolution, the birth of Christ, the destruction of the temple by Titus, the revolt of Bar-Cochba under Hadrian, the final destruction of Jerusalem, and the total expa- triation of the Jews. During this time Palestine was ruled successively by Persians, Egyptians, Syrians, and Romans. But the legal labors that belong to this period were never seriously inter- rupted. However dread the events, the schools continued their studies. The masters were mar- tyred time after time, the academies were razed to the ground, the practical and the theoretical occupa- tion with the law was proscribed on pain of death — yet in no instance is the chain of the living tra- dition broken. With their last breath the dying masters appointed and ordained their successors ; for one academy that was reduced to a heap of ashes in Palestine, three sprang up in Babylonia, and the Law flowed on, and was perpetuated in the face of a thousand deaths. The chief bearers and representatives of these divine legal studies were the President (called Nasi, Prince), and the Vice-President (Ab-Beth-Din = Father of the House of Judgment) of the highest legal assembly, the Synedrion, aramaized into San- hedrin. There were three Sanhedrins : one " Great 32 THE TALMUD Sanhedrin," two "lesser" ones. Whenever the New Testament mentions the "Priests, the Elders, and the Scribes " together, it means the Great Sanhedrin. This constituted the highest ecclesi- astical and civil tribunal. It consisted of seventy- one members, chosen from the foremost priests, the heads of tribes and families, and from the "Learned," i.e., the "Scribes" or Lawyers. It was no easy task to be elected a member of this Supreme Council. The candidate had to be a su- perior man, both mentally and bodily. He was not to be either too young or too old. Above all, he was to be an adept both in the " Law" and in Science. When people read of "law" "masters," or "doc- tors of the law," they do not, it seems to us, always fully realize what that word "law" means in Old or rather New Testament language. It should be remembered that, as we have already indicated, it stands for all and every knowledge, since all and every knowledge was requisite for the understand- ing of it. The Mosaic code has injunctions about the sabbatical journey ; the distance had to be measured and calculated, and mathematics were called into play. Seeds, plants, and animals had to be studied in connection with the many precepts regarding them, and natural history had to be ap- pealed to. Then there were the purely hygienic paragraphs, which necessitated for their precision a knowledge of all the medical science of the time. The "seasons " and the feast-days were regulated by the phases of the moon ; and astronomy — if THE TALMUD ;^;^ only ill its elements— had to be studied. And— as the commonwealth successively came in contact, however much against its will at first, with Greece and Rome, — their history, geography, and language came to be added as a matter of instruction to those of Persia and Babylon. It was only a hand- ful of well-meaning but narrow-minded men, like the Essenes, who would not, for their own part, listen to the repeal of certain temporary " Decrees of Danger." When Hellenic scepticism in its most seductive form had, during the Syrian trou- bles, begun to seek its victims even in the midst of the " Sacred Vineyard," and threatened to under- mine all patriotism and all independence, a curse was pronounced upon Hellenism : much as German patriots, at the beginning of this century, loathed the very sound of the French language ; or as, not so very long ago, all things " foreign " were regarded with a certain suS:picion in Eng- land. But, the danger over, the Greek language and culture were restored to their previous high position in both the school and the house, as indeed the union of Hebrew and Greek, "the Talith and the Pallium," "Shem and Japheth, who had been blessed together by Noah, and who would always be blessed in union," was strongly insisted upon. We shall return to the polyglot character of those days, the common language of which was an odd mixture of Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, He- brew ; but the member of the Sanhedrin had to be a good linguist. He was not to be dependent on the possibly tinged version of an interpreter. But 3 34 THE TALMUD not only was science, in its widest sense, required in him, but even an acquaintance with its fantastic shadows, such as astrology, magic, and the rest, in order that he, as both lawgiver and judge, should be able to enter also into the popular feeling about these widespread "Arts." Proselytes, eunuchs, freedmen, were rigidly excluded from the Assem- bly. So were those who could not prove them- selves the legitimate offspring of priests, Levites, or Israelites. And so, further, were gamblers, betting-men, money-lenders, and dealers in illegal produce. To the provision about the age, viz., that the senator should be neither too far advanced in age "lest his judgment might be enfeebled," nor too young " lest it might be immature and hasty ;" and to the proofs required of his vast theoretical and practical knowledge — for he was only by slow degrees promoted from an obscure judgeship in his native hamlet to the senatorial dignity — there came to be added also that wonderfully fine rule, that he must be a married man and have children of his own. Deep miseries of families would be laid bare before him, and he should bring with him a heart full of sympathy. Of the practical administration of justice by the Sanhedrin we have yet to speak when we come to the Corpus Juris itself. It now behooves us to pause a moment at those "schools and academies" of which we have repeatedly made mention, and of which the Sanhedrin formed, as it were, the crown and the highest consummation. Eighty years before Christ, schools flourished THE TALMUD 35 throughout the length and the breadth of the land ; — education had been made compulsory. While there is not a single term for "school" to be found before the Captivity, there were by that time about a dozen in common usage." Here are a few of the innumerable popular sayings of the period, beto- kening the paramount importance which public in- struction had assumed in the life of the nation : "Jerusalem was destroyed because the instruction of the young was neglected." "The world is only saved by the breath of the school-children." " Even for the rebuilding of the Temple the schools must not be interrupted." " Study is more meritorious than sacrifice." "A scholar is greater than a pro- phet." " You should revere the teacher even more than your father. The latter only brought you into this world, the former indicates the way into the next. But blessed is the son who has learnt from his father ; he shall revere him both as his father and his master ; and blessed is the father who has instructed his son." > Some of these terms are Greek, like uXrTo^, iX^o:; ; some, belonging to the pellucid idiom of the people, the Aramaic, poetically indicated at times the special arrangement of the small and big scholars, ^. ^. "Array," " Vineyard " ("where they sat in rows as stands the blooming vine ") : while others are of so uncertain a derivation, that they may belong to either language. The technical term for the highest school, for instance, has long formed a crux for etymologists. It is Kallah. This may be either the Hebrew word for " Bride," a well-known allegorical expression for science, " assiduously to be courted, not lightly to be won, and easily estranged; " or it may be the slightly mutilated Greek