In the Talmud are embodied those rules and institutions--interpretations
of the civil and canonical laws contained in the Old Testament--which
were transmitted orally to succeeding generations of the Jewish
priesthood until the general dispersion of the Hebrew race. According to
the Rabbis, Moses received the oral as well as the written law at Mount
Sinai, and it was by him communicated to Joshua, from whom it was
transmitted through forty successive Receivers. So long as the Temple
stood, it was deemed not only unnecessary, but absolutely unlawful, to
commit these ancient and carefully-preserved traditions to writing; but
after the second destruction of Jerusalem, under Hadrian, when the
Jewish people were scattered over the world, the system of oral
transmission of these traditions from generation to generation became
impracticable, and, to prevent their being lost, they were formed into a
permanent record about A.D. 190, by Rabbi Jehudah the Holy, who called
his work _Mishna_, or the Secondary Laws. About a hundred years later a
commentary on it was written by Rabbi Jochonan, called _Gemara_, or the
Completion, and these two works joined together are known as the
(Jerusalem) _Talmud_, or Directory. But this commentary being written in
an obscure style, and omitting many traditions known farther east,
another was begun by Rabbi Asche, who died A.D. 427, and completed by
his disciples and followers about the year 500, which together with the
Mishna formed the Babylonian Talmud. Both versions were first printed at
Venice in the 16th century--the Jerusalem Talmud, in one folio volume,
about the year 1523; and the Babylonian Talmud, in twelve folio volumes,
1520-30. In the 12th century Moses Maimonides, a Spanish Rabbi, made an
epitome, or digest, of all the laws and institutions of the Talmud.
Such, in brief, is the origin and history of this famed compilation,
which has been aptly described as an extraordinary monument of human
industry, human wisdom, and human folly.
By far the greater portion of the Talmud is devoted to the ceremonial
law, as preserved by oral tradition in the manner above explained; but
it also comprises innumerable sayings or aphorisms of celebrated Rabbis,
together with narratives of the most varied character--legends regarding
Biblical personages, moral tales, fables, parables, and facetious
stories. Of the rabbinical legends, many are extremely puerile and
absurd, and may rank with the extravagant and incredible monkish legends
of mediæval times; some, however, are characterised by a richness of
humour which one would hardly expect to meet with in such a work; while
not a few of the parables, fables, and tales are strikingly beautiful,
and will favourably compare with the same class of fictions composed by
the ancient sages of Hindústán.
It is a singular circumstance, and significant as well as singular, that
while the Hebrew Talmud was, as Dr. Barclay remarks, "periodically
banned and often publicly burned, from the age of the Emperor Justinian
till the time of Pope Clement VIII," several of the best stories in the
_Gesta Romanorum_, a collection of moral tales (or tales "moralised")
which were read in Christian churches throughout Europe during the
Middle Ages, are derived mediately or immediately from this great
storehouse of rabbinical learning.[55]
[55] In midsummer, 1244, twenty waggon loads of copies of the
Talmud were burnt in France. This was in consequence of,
and four years after, a public dispute between a certain
Donin (afterwards called Nicolaus), a converted Jew,
with Rabbi Yehiel, of Paris, on the contents of the
Talmud.--See _Journal of Philology_, vol. xvi, p.
133.--In the year 1569, the famous Jewish library in
Cremona was plundered, and 12,000 copies of the Talmud
and other Jewish works were committed to the
flames.--_The Talmud_, by Joseph Barclay, LL.D., London,
1875, p. 14.
The traducers of the Talmud, among other false assertions, have
represented the Rabbis as holding their own work as more important than
even the Old Testament itself, and as fostering among the Jewish people a
spirit of intolerance towards all persons outside the pale of the Hebrew
religion. In proof of the first assertion they cite the following passage
from the Talmud: "The Bible is like water, the Mishna, like wine, the
Gemara, spiced wine; the Law, like salt, the Mishna, pepper, the Gemara,
balmy spice." But surely only a very shallow mind could conceive from
these similitudes that the Rabbis rated the importance of the Bible as
less than that of the Talmud; yet an English Church clergyman, in an
article published in a popular periodical a few years since, reproduced
this passage in proof of rabbinical presumption--evidently in ignorance
of the peculiar style of Oriental metaphor. What is actually taught by
the Rabbis in the passage in question, regarding the comparative merits
of the Bible and the Talmud, is this: The Bible is like water, the Law is
like salt; now, water and salt are indispensable to mankind. The Mishna
is like wine and pepper--luxuries, not necessaries of life; while the
Gemara is like spiced wine and balmy spices--still more refined luxuries,
but not necessaries, like water and salt.
With regard to the accusation of intolerance brought against the Rabbis,
it is worse than a misconception of words or phrases; it is a gross
calumny, the more reprehensible if preferred by those who are acquainted
with the teachings of the Talmud, since they are thus guilty of wilfully
suppressing the truth. In the following passages a broad, humane spirit
of toleration is clearly inculcated:
"It is our duty to maintain the heathen poor along with those of our own
nation."
"We must visit their sick, and administer to their relief, bury their
dead," and so forth.
"The heathens that dwell out of the land of Israel ought not to be
considered as idolators, since they only follow the customs of their
fathers."
"The pious men of the heathen will have their portion in the next
world."
"It is unlawful to deceive or over-reach any one, not even a heathen."
"Be circumspect in the fear of the Lord, soft in speech, slow in wrath,
kind and friendly to all, even to the heathen."
Alluding to the laws inimical to the heathen, Rabbi Mosha says: "What
wise men have said in this respect was directed against the ancient
idolators, who believed neither in a creation nor in a deliverance from
Egypt; but the nations among whom we live, whose protection we enjoy,
must not be considered in this light, since they believe in a creation,
the divine origin of the law, and many other fundamental doctrines of
our religion. It is, therefore, not only our duty to shelter them
against actual danger, but to pray for their welfare and the prosperity
of their respective governments."[56]
[56] Introductory Essay to _Hebrew Tales_, by Hyman Hurwitz;
published at London in 1826.
Let the impartial reader compare these teachings of the Rabbis with the
intolerant doctrines and practices of Christian pastors, even in modern
times as well as during the Middle Ages: when they taught that out of
the pale of the Church there could be no salvation; that no faith should
be kept with heretics, or infidels: when Catholics persecuted
Protestants, and Protestants retaliated upon Catholics:
Christians have burned each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did!
It will probably occur to most readers, in connection with the
rabbinical doctrine, that it is unlawful to over-reach any one, that the
Jews appear to have long ignored such maxims of morality. But it should
be remembered that if they have earned for themselves, by their
chicanery in mercantile transactions, an evil reputation, their
ancestors in the bad old times were goaded into the practice of
over-reaching by cunning those Christian sovereigns and nobles who
robbed them of their property by force and cruel tortures. Moreover,
where are the people to be found whose daily actions are in accordance
with the religion they profess? At least, the Rabbis, unlike the
spiritual teachers of mediæval Europe, did not openly inculcate immoral
doctrines.