Chapters on Jewish Literature | Page 8

Palestinian schools closed.
The Talmud is accordingly not one work, but two, the one the literary
product of the Palestinian, the other, of the Babylonian Amoraim. The
latter is the larger, the more studied, the better preserved, and to it
attention will here be mainly confined. The Talmud is not a book, it is a
literature. It contains a legal code, a system of ethics, a body of ritual
customs, poetical passages, prayers, histories, facts of science and
medicine, and fancies of folk-lore.
The Amoraim were what their name implies, "Expounders," or
"Discoursers"; but their expositions were often original contributions to
literature. Their work extends over the long interval between 200 and
500 C.E. The Amoraim naturally were men of various character and
condition. Some were possessed of much material wealth, others were
excessively poor. But few of them were professional men of letters.
Like the Tannaim, the Amoraim were often artisans, field-laborers, or
physicians, whose heart was certainly in literature, but whose hand was
turned to the practical affairs of life. The men who stood highest
socially, the Princes of the Captivity in Babylonia and the Patriarchs in
Palestine, were not always those vested with the highest authority.
Some of the Amoraim, again, were merely receptive, the medium
through which tradition was handed on; others were creative as well.
To put the same fact in Rabbinical metaphor, some were Sinais of
learning, others tore up mountains, and ground them together in keen
and critical dialectics.
The oldest of the Amoraim, Chanina, the son of Chama, of Sepphoris
(180-260), was such a firm mountain of ancient learning. On the other
hand, Jochanan, the son of Napacha (199-279), of dazzling physical
beauty, had a more original mind. His personal charms conveyed to
him perhaps a sense of the artistic; to him the Greek language was a
delight, "an ornament of women." Simon, the son of Lakish (200-275),
hardy of muscle and of intellect, started life as a professional athlete. A

later Rabbi, Zeira, was equally noted for his feeble, unprepossessing
figure and his nimble, ingenious mind. Another contemporary of
Jochanan, Joshua, the son of Levi, is the hero of many legends. He was
so tender to the poor that he declared his conviction that the Messiah
would arise among the beggars and cripples of Rome. Simlai, who was
born in Palestine, and migrated to Nehardea in Babylonia, was more of
a poet than a lawyer. His love was for the ethical and poetic elements of
the Talmud, the Hagadah, as this aspect of the Rabbinical literature
was called in contradistinction to the Halachah, or legal elements.
Simlai entered into frequent discussions with the Christian Fathers on
subjects of Biblical exegesis.
The centre of interest now changes to Babylonia. Here, in the year 219,
Abba Areka, or Rab (175-247), founded the Sura academy, which
continued to flourish for nearly eight centuries. He and his great
contemporary Samuel (180-257) enjoy with Jochanan the honor of
supplying the leading materials of which the Talmud consists. Samuel
laid down a rule which, based on an utterance of the prophet Jeremiah,
enabled Jews to live and serve in non-Jewish countries. "The law of the
land is law," said Samuel. But he lived in the realms of the stars as well
as in the streets of his city. Samuel was an astronomer, and he is
reported to have boasted with truth, that "he was as familiar with the
paths of the stars as with the streets of Nehardea." He arranged the
Jewish Calendar, his work in this direction being perfected by Hillel II
in the fourth century. Like Simlai, Rab and Samuel had heathen and
Christian friends. Origen and Jerome read the Scriptures under the
guidance of Jews. The heathen philosopher Porphyry wrote a
commentary on the Book of Daniel. So, too, Abbahu, who lived in
Palestine a little later on, frequented the society of cultivated Romans,
and had his family taught Greek. Abbahu was a manufacturer of veils
for women's wear, for, like many Amoraim, he scorned to make
learning a means of living, Abbahu's modesty with regard to his own
merits shows that a Rabbi was not necessarily arrogant in pride of
knowledge! Once Abbahu's lecture was besieged by a great crowd, but
the audience of his colleague Chiya was scanty. "Thy teaching," said
Abbahu to Chiya, "is a rare jewel, of which only an expert can judge;
mine is tinsel, which attracts every ignorant eye."

It was Rab, however, who was the real popularizer of Jewish learning.
He arranged courses of lectures for the people as well as for scholars.
Rab's successor as head of the Sura school, Huna (212-297), completed
Rab's work in making Babylonia the chief centre of Jewish learning.
Huna tilled his own fields for a living, and might often be met going