Chapters on Jewish Literature | Page 9

home with his spade over his shoulder. It was men like this who built
up the Jewish tradition. Huna's predecessor, however, had wider
experience of life, for Rab had been a student in Palestine, and was in
touch with the Jews of many parts. From Rab's time onwards, learning
became the property of the whole people, and the Talmud, besides
being the literature of the Jewish universities, may be called the book
of the masses. It contains, not only the legal and ethical results of the
investigations of the learned, but also the wisdom and superstition of
the masses. The Talmud is not exactly a national literature, but it was a
unique bond between the scattered Jews, an unparallelled spiritual and
literary instrument for maintaining the identity of Judaism amid the
many tribulations to which the Jews were subjected.
The Talmud owed much to many minds. Externally it was influenced
by the nations with which the Jews came into contact. From the inside,
the influences at work were equally various. Jochanan, Rab, and
Samuel in the third century prepared the material out of which the
Talmud was finally built. The actual building was done by scholars in
the fourth century. Rabba, the son of Nachmani (270-330), Abayi
(280-338), and Rava (299-352) gave the finishing touches to the
method of the Talmud. Rabba was a man of the people; he was a clear
thinker, and loved to attract all comers by an apt anecdote. Rava had a
superior sense of his own dignity, and rather neglected the needs of the
ordinary man of his day. Abayi was more of the type of the average
Rabbi, acute, genial, self-denying. Under the impulse of men of the
most various gifts of mind and heart, the Talmud was gradually
constructed, but two names are prominently associated with its actual
compilation. These were Ashi (352-427) and Rabina (died 499). Ashi
combined massive learning with keen logical ingenuity. He needed
both for the task to which he devoted half a century of his life. He
possessed a vast memory, in which the accumulated tradition of six
centuries was stored, and he was gifted with the mental orderliness

which empowered him to deal with this bewildering mass of materials.
It is hardly possible that after the compilation of the Talmud it
remained an oral book, though it must be remembered that memory
played a much greater part in earlier centuries than it does now. At all
events, Ashi, and after him Rabina, performed the great work of
systematizing the Rabbinical literature at a turning-point in the world's
history. The Mishnah had been begun at a moment when the Roman
empire was at its greatest vigor and glory; the Talmud was completed
at the time when the Roman empire was in its decay. That the Jews
were saved from similar disintegration, was due very largely to the
Talmud. The Talmud is thus one of the great books of the world.
Despite its faults, its excessive casuistry, its lack of style and form, its
stupendous mass of detailed laws and restrictions, it is nevertheless a
great book in and for itself. It is impossible to consider it further here in
its religious aspects. But something must be said in the next chapter of
that side of the Rabbinical literature known as the Midrash.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE TALMUD.
Essays by E. Deutsch and A. Darmesteter (Jewish Publication Society
of America).
Graetz.--II, 18-22 (character of the Talmud, end of ch. 22).
Karpeles.--Jewish Literature and other Essays, p. 52.
Steinschneider.--Jewish Literature, p. 20.
Schiller-Szinessy.--Encycl. Brit., Vol. XXIII, p. 35.
M. Mielziner.--Introduction to the Talmud (Cincinnati, 1894).
S. Schechter.--Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, J.Q.R., VI, p. 405,
etc.
---- Studies in Judaism (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1896),

pp. 155, 182, 213, 233 [189, 222, 259, 283].
B. Spiers.--School System of the Talmud (London, 1898) (with
appendix on Baba Kama); the Threefold Cord (1893) on Sanhedrin,
Baba Metsia, and Baba Bathra.
M. Jastrow.--_History and Future of the Text of the Talmud
(Publications of the Gratz College_, Philadelphia, 1897, Vol. I).
P.B. Benny.--Criminal Code of the Jews according to the Talmud
(London, 1880).
S. Mendelsohn.--The Criminal Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrews
(Baltimore, 1891).
D. Castelli.--Future Life in Rabbinical Literature, J.Q.R., I, p. 314.
M. Güdemann.--Spirit and Letter in Judaism and Christianity, ibid., IV,
p. 345.
I. Harris.--Rise and Development of the Massorah, ibid., I, pp. 128, etc.
H. Polano.--The Talmud (Philadelphia, 1876).
I. Myers.--Gems from the Talmud (London, 1894).
D.W. Amram.--_The Jewish Law of Divorce according to Bible and
Talmud_ (Philadelphia, 1896).
CHAPTER IV
THE MIDRASH AND ITS POETRY
Mechilta, Sifra, Sifre, Pesikta, Tanchuma, Midrash Rabbah,
Yalkut.--Proverbs.--Parables.--Fables.
In its earliest forms identical with the Halachah, or the practical and
legal aspects of the Mishnah and the Talmud, the Midrash, in its fuller
development, became an independent branch