Cecilia was a noble Roman lady, who belonged to a family of senatorial

rank; her father apparently was a pagan, or if a Christian at all was

a man of the world rather than an earnest believer, for he gave his

daughter in marriage to a young patrician, one Valerianus, a pagan,

but a pagan of the highest character. Cecilia was a devoted Christian:

at once she induced her husband and his brother Tiburtius to abjure

idolatry. Accused of Christianity at a moment when the Government

of the Emperor Marcus was determined to stamp out the fast-growing

religion of Jesus, the two brothers were condemned to death, and they

suffered martyrdom in company with the Roman officer who presided at

their execution, and who, beholding the constancy of the two young

patricians, embraced the faith which had enabled them to witness their

good confession.

Cecilia shared in their condemnation. The Government, however, dreading

the example of the death of so prominent a personage in Roman society,

determined to put her to death as privately as possible. She was

doomed to die in her own palace. The furnaces which heated the baths

were heated far beyond the usual extent, and Cecilia was exposed to

the deadly and suffocating fumes. These failed in their effect: after

being exposed in her chamber for a night and a day to these fumes, she

was still living, apparently unharmed. The Prefect of the city, who

was in charge of Cecilia’s execution, then gave orders to a lictor to

decapitate the young Christian lady who persistently refused to abjure

her religion.

There is nothing improbable in the story, which goes on to relate

how the executioner, unnerved with his grim task, inflicted three

mortal wounds, but Cecilia, though dying, yet breathed and preserved

consciousness.

The Roman law forbade more than three strokes with the sword, and she

lived on for two days and nights, during which long protracted agony

she was visited by her friends, among whom was a Bishop Urbanus, not

the Urbanus Bishop of Rome, as the “Acts” with some confusion tell us,

but another Urbanus, probably a prelate of some smaller see.

After she had passed away, her body with all care and reverence was

laid in a sepulchral chamber which subsequently became part of the

great Cemetery of Callistus. The martyr was interred evidently in

a vault or crypt which belonged to her illustrious family; several

inscriptions belonging to Christian members of the gens Cæcilia have

been found in the immediate vicinity of S. Cecilia’s grave. Less than

a quarter of a century after her martyrdom, the subterranean cemetery

in which the Cæcilian vault was situated became part of the general

property of the Roman congregations. Callistus, afterwards Bishop of

Rome, held a high office under Bishop Zephyrinus, and he was set over

the cemetery, which was subsequently called after him, the Cemetery of

Callistus. At the beginning of the third century--as in the Vatican

Crypt, where the earliest Bishops of Rome had been deposited round the

body of S. Peter, there was no more room for interments--Callistus

arranged the sepulchral chamber known as the Papal Crypt to be the

official burying-place of the Bishops of Rome. The chamber in which S.

Cecilia was laid was close by this Papal Crypt. De Rossi graphically

expresses this: “Ce n’est donc pas sainte Cecile qui fut enterrée parmi

les Papes, c’est elle au contraire qui fit aux Papes du III^{me} siècle

les honneurs de sa demeure funèbre.” (From Allard.)

* * * * *

We will trace the story of the celebrated Roman saint through the ages.

The statement contained in the “Acts of S. Cecilia” of her interment

in the Cemetery of S. Callistus no doubt is accurate, although the

hand of a somewhat later “redactor” is manifest, for the cemetery only

obtained its title of “Callistus” some thirty years after the martyrdom

of the saint. S. Cecilia at once seems to have won a prominent place

among the martyrs and confessors of the persecution of Marcus Aurelius.

This is accounted for not only by the dramatic scenes which a generally

accepted tradition tells us were the accompanying features of her

passion, but also by the high rank and position of the sufferer and her

generous bequest to the Roman congregations.

Towards the close of the fourth century S. Cecilia’s crypt was among

the popular sanctuaries specially cared for by Pope Damasus, much

of whose work is still, in spite of centuries of neglect, clearly

visible. Damasus’ work here was by no means confined to decoration,

but included elaborate arrangements for the visits of pilgrims to the

shrine, such as a special staircase and considerable masonry work to

secure the walls and approaches. Somewhat later, Pope Sixtus III,

A.D. 432-40, continued and amplified the decoration and constructive

improvements of his predecessor Damasus.

The decorations and paintings of this crypt, as at present visible,

clearly date from the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. De

Rossi considers that the existence of these successive decorations,

and the fact that various works, constructive as well as ornamental,

were evidently at different epochs executed here, tell us that this is

an historic sepulchral chamber highly venerated by many generations of

pilgrim visitors.

From very early times, most probably from the days of the Emperor

Marcus, there has been a church traditionally constructed on the site

of an ancient house, the house of the martyr Valerian, Cecilia’s

husband. Recent investigations, have gone far to substantiate the

ancient tradition, for beneath the existing Church of S. Cecilia

portions of an important Roman house of the second century have come to

light.

The church, originally a private house of prayer, at a very remote

period became a public basilica. It had fallen into a ruinous

condition, and was rebuilt by Pope Paschal I in the ninth

century. This restoration of the old basilican church no doubt

suggested to Paschal his inquiry after the remains of the loved martyr

in whose memory the church had been originally dedicated. The dramatic

and well-authenticated story of the finding of the body by Paschal is

as follows:

II

The great translation of the remains of the 2300 martyrs and confessors

from the catacombs into the city for the sake of protecting these

precious relics from barbarian pillage took place in the days of Pope

Paschal I (ninth century). When this translation was going

on, Paschal made an inquiry after the burying-place of S. Cecilia.

Although the lengthy entry in the _Liber Pontificalis_ makes no mention

of any special reason for this investigation, there is no doubt but

that the restoration work which was being carried on at the basilica

of the saint across the Tiber suggested it to the Pope. The tomb of

the famous saint could not be found, although for centuries it had

been emphatically alluded to in several of the Pilgrim Itineraries,

and in the yet more ancient “Guide,” subsequently copied by William of

Malmesbury several centuries later.

[Illustration: A REPLICA OF MADERNO’S EFFIGY OF S. CECILIA--AS SHE WAS

FOUND--IS IN THE NICHE OF THE S. CALLISTUS CATACOMB CHAMBER--WHERE THE

BODY ORIGINALLY WAS DEPOSITED]

It was about the year of grace 821, after long and fruitless searching

for the lost tomb, and when he had come to the conclusion that the

body of S. Cecilia had been carried away probably by Astolphus and

the Lombards in their destructive raids, and that the tomb had been

destroyed, that Pope Paschal early one morning, while listening to the

singing of the Psalms in the great Vatican Basilica, fell asleep; as

he slept he saw the form of a saint in glory; she disclosed her name,

“Cecilia,” and told him where[133] to look for her tomb.

Acting upon the words of the saint in the vision, he found at once the

lost tomb, and when the coffin of cypress wood was opened, the body

of Cecilia was seen unchanged, still wrapped in the gold-embroidered

robe in which she had been clothed when her loving friends laid her to

rest after her martyrdom, with the linen cloths stained with her blood

folded together at her feet.

She lay in the position in which she had passed away. Those who had

buried her, left her thus--not lying upon the back like a body in a

tomb, but upon the right side, with her knees drawn together and her

face turned away--her arms stretched out before her. In her touching

and graceful attitude she seemed as though she was quietly sleeping.

Just as he found her, in the same coffin with the robe of golden

tissue and the blood-stained linen folded by her feet, Pope Paschal

reverently deposited her in a crypt beneath the altar of her church in

the Trastevere district, simply covering the body with a thin veil of

silk.

Nearly eight hundred years after (A.D. 1599), Sfondrati,

titular Cardinal of the Church, while carrying out some works of

restoration and repair in this ancient Church of S. Cecilia, came upon

a large crypt under the high altar. In the crypt were two ancient

marble sarcophagi. Responsible witnesses were summoned, and in their

presence the sarcophagi were carefully opened. In one of these the body

of S. Cecilia lay just as it had been seen eight centuries before by

Pope Paschal I--in the same pathetic attitude, robed in gold

tissue with the linen cloths blood-stained at her feet.

Every care was taken by the reigning Pope Clement VIII to

provide careful witnesses of this strange discovery; among these were

the famous scholars Cardinal Baronius and Bosio; the greatest artist of

the day, Stefano Maderno, was summoned to view the dead saint and to

execute the beautiful marble portrait which now lies in the recess of

the Confession beneath the high altar of the well-known church in the

Trastevere at Rome. In an inscription, Maderno, the artist, tells how

he saw Cecilia lying incorrupt and unchanged in her tomb, and how in

the marble he has represented the saint just as he saw her.[134]

The second sarcophagus found by Cardinal Sfondrati in the crypt of the

Church of S. Cecilia beneath the high altar, was also opened by him. It

was found to contain the bodies of three men, who had clearly suffered

violent deaths--two of them had been decapitated, and the third had

evidently been beaten to death by a horrible means of torture sometimes

used--the “plumbatæ”--leathern or metal thongs loaded with lead; one of

these, which evidently had been used in the death-scene of a martyr,

was found in a crypt of this cemetery. These three were no doubt the

remains of SS. Valerianus (the patrician husband of S. Cecilia),

Tiburtius his brother, and the Roman officer Maximus, whose remains,

brought no doubt by Pope Paschal I from the Prætextatus Cemetery where

we know they had been interred, were deposited by him in the crypt of

the Church of S. Cecilia close to the body of the famous martyr with

whom they were so closely and gloriously connected.

The story of the discovery and certain identification of the original

sepulchral chamber of S. Cecilia is vividly told by De Rossi with

great detail. It was one of his important “finds.” With the tradition

before him--with the clear references in the pilgrim traditions--the

great archæologist was sure that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of

the sepulchral chamber of the Popes or Bishops of Rome of the third

century, must be sought the crypt where S. Cecilia lay for more than

six centuries.

First he discovered that adjoining the official Papal Crypt was another

chamber, evidently of considerable size, in which a luminare[135] had

been constructed, but the chamber and the luminare were choked up with

earth and ruins. He proceeded to excavate the latter; as the work

proceeded, the explorers in the neighbourhood of the chamber came upon

the remains of paintings.

Lower down, almost on the level of the chamber, these paintings

became more numerous and more distinct. The work of digging out went

on slowly; more paintings had evidently once decorated that ruined

and desolate chamber of death--one of them, a woman richly dressed,

obviously represented S. Cecilia. Another of a bishop inscribed with

the name of S. Urbanus, the bishop connected with the story of the

saint. The paintings were of different dates, some as late as the

seventh century. A door which once led into the Papal Crypt was found:

remains of much and elaborate decorative work were plainly discerned,

work of various ages, belonging some of it to the fifth, sixth, and

seventh centuries.

In one of the walls of the chamber a large opening had been originally

constructed to receive the sarcophagus of the martyr.

All showed clearly that this had once been a very famous historic

crypt, the resort of many generations of pilgrims, and its situation

answered exactly to what we read in the Pilgrim Itineraries, in the

_Liber Pontificalis_, and in other ancient authorities as the situation

of the original burying-place of S. Cecilia. The subjects, too, of the

dim discoloured paintings pointed to the same conclusion.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the sepulchral chamber De Rossi

counted some twelve or thirteen inscriptions telling of Christian

members of the “gens Cæcilia” who had been buried there--all testifying

to the fact that originally this portion of the great group of the

so-called “Callistus” Catacomb was the property of the noble house in

question, and that probably at an early date it had been made over to

the Christian Church in Rome. The saint and martyr therefore had been

laid amidst the graves of other members of her family.[136]

In the chain of testimony which has been brought together one link

seems to call for an elucidation. How is it that Pope Paschal

I failed at first to discover the sepulchral chamber of S.

Cecilia, considering it lay so close to the famous Papal Crypt, and

in fact communicated with it? The answer is that no doubt at some

time previous to his research the crypt of S. Cecilia had certainly

been “walled up,” “earthed up,” or otherwise concealed to protect

this revered sanctuary from the prying eyes and sacrilegious hands of

Lombards and other barbarian raiders. It must be remembered that for

centuries the tomb of S. Cecilia had been one of the principal objects

of veneration in this great cemetery. Signs of this later work of

concealment were also discovered by De Rossi.

De Rossi, in his summing up, comes to the conclusion that no doubt

whatever rests upon the identification of the original burying-place

of S. Cecilia, and that the sepulchral chamber discovered by him

adjoining the Papal Crypt was the spot where her sarcophagus lay for

centuries--the actual chamber which was subsequently adorned and made

accessible by Pope Damasus; which was further decorated by several of

his successors in the papacy; and which was visited and venerated by

successive generations of pilgrims from all lands.

In the ninth century the sarcophagus containing the sacred remains was

translated as we have seen by Pope Paschal I, and brought to

the ancient Basilica of S. Cecilia in the Trastevere, where it has

rested securely ever since. In the year 1699 it was seen and opened

and its precious contents inspected by Pope Clement VIII, by

Cardinal Sfondrati, by Cardinal Baronius, by Bosio and others, as we

have related.

After the translation in the ninth century, the original crypt, in

common with so many of the catacomb sanctuaries, was deserted and

allowed to go to ruin--utterly forgotten until De Rossi rediscovered it

and reconstructed its wonderful history.

Writing in the earlier years of the twentieth century, Marucchi, the

follower and pupil of De Rossi, in his latest work on the Catacombs,

reviews and fully endorses the conclusions of his great master on the

question of the tradition of S. Cecilia’s tomb.

What we stated at the beginning of this little study is surely amply

verified. S. Cecilia and her story no longer belong to mere vague and

ancient tradition, but live in the pages of scientific history.

III

We will cite another example, and a yet more striking one, of the light

thrown by the witness of the catacombs on important questions which

have been gravely disputed, in connection with the history of the very

early years of Christianity.

Ecclesiastical historians of the highest rank have gravely doubted

the truth of the story of the martyrdom of S. Felicitas and her seven

sons[137] in the days of the Emperor Marcus about the middle of the

second century. The splendid constancy in the faith of the mother and

of her hero sons, in the opinion of these grave and competent critics

was a recital almost entirely copied from the record of the Maccabean

mother and her seven brave sons, and so the Passion of S. Felicitas and

her sons has been generally consigned to the shelf of early legendary

Christian history; few historians would venture to quote as genuine

this pathetic and inspiring chapter of the persecution of the Emperor

Marcus. It is regarded as a piece of literature, devised in the sixth

century or even later, and quite outside serious history.

But recent investigations in the great subterranean city of the Roman

dead have completely changed this commonly held view, and the episode

in question must now take its place among the acknowledged Christian

records of the middle of the second century. She belonged to the ranks

of the great ladies of Rome; her husband, of whom we know nothing,

was dead, but Felicitas and her sons were well known in the Christian

community of the capital, where she was distinguished for her earnest

and devoted piety.

Her high rank gave her considerable influence, and she was in

consequence dreaded by the pagan pontiffs. These high officials, aware

of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus’ hostility to the Christians, laid

an information against the noble Christian lady as belonging to the

unlawful religion. They represented her as stirring up the wrath of the

immortal gods by her powerful influence among the people. Marcus at

once directed the Prefect of the city, Publius, to see that Felicitas

and her sons sacrificed in public to the offended deities. This was in

the year of grace 162.

The “Acts of the Passion,” from which we are quoting here, no doubt

with very little change represent the official notes or _procès-verbal_

of the interrogatory at the trial.

The Prefect Publius at first with great gentleness urged her to

sacrifice, and then finding her obdurate, threatened her with a public

execution.

Finding persuasion and threats of no avail, Publius urged her,

“If she found it pleasant to die, at least to let her sons live.”

Felicitas replied that they would most certainly live if they refused

to sacrifice to idols, but if they did sacrifice, they would surely

die--eternally.

The public trial subsequently took place in the open Forum; again the

Roman magistrate urged the mother to be pitiful to her sons, still in

the flower of their youth, but the brave confessor, turning to the

young men, told them to look up to heaven--there Christ with His saints

was waiting for them: “Fight,” she said, “my sons, the good fight for

your souls.”

The young men in turn were placed before him. The Prefect in the

name of the Emperor offered them each a splendid guerdon and coveted

privileges at the Imperial court if they would only consent to

sacrifice publicly to the gods of Rome. One and all of the seven

refused, preferring to die with their noble mother, choosing the other

guerdon, the alternative guerdon offered in the name of the great

Emperor, the fearful and shameful deaths to which an openly professing

Christian in the days of Marcus was condemned by the stern Roman law.

The interrogatory and the noble answers of mother and sons as contained

in the “Acts of the Passion of S. Felicitas,” are at once a stirring

and pathetic recital.

The final condemnation naturally followed. The death sentences were

confirmed by the Emperor, and sternly carried out.

Felicitas and her seven sons suffered martyrdom,[138] and through pain

and agony passed to their rest and bliss in the Paradise of their

adored Master Christ.

Around these “Acts” a continual war of criticism has been waged: the

question has by no means as yet been positively decided.

Tillemont hesitatingly expresses an opinion that they have not all

the characteristics of genuine “Acts.” Bishop Lightfoot is yet more

positive in his view that they are not authentic. Aubé repeats a

similar judgment. On the other hand, De Rossi, Borghesi, and Doulcet

accept them as genuine. But all are agreed that they are very ancient.

The interrogatory portion is no doubt a verbatim extract from the

original _procès-verbal_.

The piece appears to have been originally largely written in Greek,

but Gregory the Great, who refers to it, speaks of another and better

text which we do not possess. One striking indication of its great

antiquity is that no mention is made of the tombs of the martyrs. Had

these “Acts” dated even from the fifth century this would not have been

omitted, for in the fifth century the martyrdoms had obtained great

celebrity.

A very early mention of these tombs, however, we find in the so-called

“Liberian” or “Philocalian” Catalogue, which was partly composed or

put together not later than the year of grace 334. The alternative name

of the Catalogue is derived from Filocalus, the famous calligrapher of

Pope Damasus, who most probably was the compiler of the work, which

consists of several tracts chronological and topographical of the

highest interest, some originally doubtless composed at a very early

date. It contains, among other pieces, a Catalogue of Roman Bishops,

ending with Liberius, and a piece termed “Depositio Martyrum,” in which

the burying-places of the seven sons of Felicitas are carefully set

out. This ancient memorandum has been of the greatest assistance to De

Rossi and Marucchi in their identification of the original graves of

the “seven.”

When De Rossi had penetrated into the cemetery of Prætextatus on the

Appian Way, he came upon what was evidently a highly decorated chamber,

once lined with marble, and carefully built and ornamented. It was,

he saw, an historic crypt of the highest interest. The vault of the

chamber was painted, and the fresco decorations were still fairly

preserved. The paintings represented garlands of vines and laurels and

roses, executed with great taste and care; the style and execution

belonged to work which must be dated not later than the second century.

Below the beautifully decorated vault was a long fresco painting of the

Good Shepherd with sheep; one sheep was on his shoulders. This painting

has been sadly interfered with by a loculus, or grave, of later date,

probably of the fourth or fifth century; on the loculus in question

could still be read the following little inscription--perfect save for

the first few letters:

. . MI RIFRIGERI JANUARIUS AGATOPUS FELICISSIM

. . . MARTYRES

Some sixth-century Christians, anxious to lay their beloved dead close

to the martyrs, had caused the wall of the chamber to be cut away, for

the reception of the body, regardless of the painting, and then while

the plaster was still fresh had cut these words of prayer, which may

be translated, “May Januarius, Agatopus,[139] and Felicissimus refresh

(the soul of ...).” Agatopus and Felicissimus were two of the deacons

of Pope Sixtus II, who had (probably in the same catacomb)

suffered martyrdom, A.D. 258. Their sepulchral chambers were

subsequently identified.

The question at once presented itself to De Rossi--was not this

chamber ornamented with paintings clearly of the second century, the

crypt where S. Januarius had been laid? All doubt on this point was

subsequently cleared up, for eventually in many fragments the original

inscription which Pope Damasus had caused to be placed over the door or

near the altar was found. The inscription ran thus:

BEATISSIMO · MARTYRI

JANUARIO

DAMASUS · EPISCOP ·

FECIT

The body of S. Felicitas the mother was laid in the cemetery in the

Via Salaria Nova which bears her name. After the Peace of the Church

towards the end of the first quarter of the fourth century, a little

basilica was erected over the spot in the catacomb in question where

the remains of the martyred mother had been deposited. As late as

A.D. 1884, while digging the foundations of a house, the

little basilica was discovered--in Marucchi’s words, “on y reconnut

aussitôt le tombeau de S^{te} Felicité.” Paintings of the mother and

her sons adorn the walls. Beneath the basilica was a crypt in which the

Salzburg Itinerary tells us lay her youngest son S. Silanus: the words

of this Pilgrim Itinerary run thus: “Illa pausat in ecclesia sursum et

filius ejus sub terra deorsum.”

At the end of the eighth century Pope Leo III translated the

remains of the mother and son to the Church of S. Suzanna, near the

Baths of Diocletian, where they still rest.

In the Philocalian or Liberian Calendar, A.D. _circa_ 334, an

entry appears under the heading of “Depositio Martyrum,” telling how

two more of the seven martyred sons of Felicitas were buried in the

Cemetery of S. Priscilla, namely, SS. Felix and Philip.

After the Peace of the Church, the basilica subsequently known as S.

Sylvester was erected over a portion of the great Priscilla Cemetery,

and many of the bodies of the more famous martyrs were brought up from

the subterranean galleries and chambers and buried in conspicuous

places in the new Basilica of S. Sylvester; amongst these were the

remains of the two sons of Felicitas, SS. Felix and Philip. This is

carefully described in the Pilgrim Itineraries or Guides. These two

well-known martyrs were deposited under the high altar of S. Sylvester.

In the second Salzburg Itinerary, known as “De locis SS. Martyrum,”

they are thus specially mentioned: “S. Felicis [_sic_] unus de septem

et S. Philippus unus de septem,” and in William of Malmesbury, copying

from a much older Itinerary, we read, “Basilica S. Silvester ubi jacet

marmoreo tumulo co-opertus ... Martyres ... Philippus et Felix.”

Marucchi thinks he can point out the tomb in the subterranean crypt

where the two originally were laid.

The three remaining sons of Felicitas, namely, SS. Alexander, Vitalis,

and Martialis, were interred in the cemetery of the Jordani on the

Via Salaria Nova. This cemetery, owing to its state of ruin and

the difficulty of pursuing the excavating work, has only been very

partially explored; but Marucchi believes he has found a broken

inscription referring to “Alexander, one of the seven brothers.” It is

probable that other traces of the loculi of these three will come to

light when this large but comparatively little known catacomb, which

is in a very ruinous and desolate condition, is carefully examined: at

present large portions of it are quite inaccessible.

The second Salzburg Itinerary “De locis SS. Martyrum” specially guides

the pilgrim to tombs of these three thus: “propeque ibi” (alluding to

the Basilica of S. Chrysanthus and Daria built over a portion of the

Cœmeterium Jordani) “S. Alexander et S. Vitalis, sanctusque Martialis

qui sunt tres de septem filiis Felicitatis ... jacent.” William of

Malmesbury in his transcript of an ancient Itinerary also mentions

them, as do other of the Pilgrim Guides.

In the celebrated “Monza” Catalogue and in the “Pittacia,” or small

labels, belonging to the phials which contained a little of the sacred

oils which were burnt before the tombs of the more eminent confessors

and martyrs (the phials of oils which were sent by Pope Gregory the

Great (A.D. 590-604) to Theodelinda the Lombard Queen), the

names of Felicitas and six of her martyred sons occur.

In the “Pittacia” or labels they are grouped topographically together,

as we have given them above, Felicitas’ being in a separate label,

Januarius also in a separate label, then the two groups together as

above, the “two” and the “three.” There is a reason for S. Silanus,

who was buried with his mother in the cemetery named after her, being

absent from this “Monza” Catalogue, and from the labels on the phials

of oil. His body, as the “Liberian” Catalogue informs us, was missing

for a season from its original loculus, it having been stolen away, but

was subsequently recovered and replaced.

The suspicion of the legendary character of the story of the martyrdom

of S. Felicitas and her seven sons is largely traceable to the

conclusions of some critical scholars (by no means of all) that the

“Acts of S. Felicitas” and her sons are not authentic, that is, that

they are not a contemporary piece, but were compiled at a somewhat

later and uncertain date. It is, however, by the most trustworthy of

these critics conceded that they are very ancient.

But granting these conclusions are accurate and that the “Acts,” in

the strict sense of the word, are not authentic, the circumstances

of the Passion and the martyrdom of the mother and her heroic sons

rest on other authorities outside and quite independent of the

“Acts”--authorities of the highest value and absolutely unquestioned.

Of these the testimony of the catacomb tombs of the mother and her

seven sons, a somewhat novel witness, is the one we have especially

brought forward here.

It is an evidence unchangeable, and which admits of no subsequent

revision or addition. In its special department it is perhaps the

strongest piece of testimony that can be brought forward, and much of

this strange unexpected witness was unknown until quite lately--until

these forgotten cemeteries were partially explored by competent and

indefatigable scholars of our own day and time.

There are, besides, other important “pieces,” which for want of space

have not been quoted here, bearing on the same subject, namely, on

the historical existence of S. Felicitas and her seven sons, and their

brave witness and consequent martyrdom in the days of the Emperor

Marcus Antonius, such as, inscriptions of Pope Damasus, a homily in

honour of S. Felicitas by Pope Gregory the Great, and a laudatory

notice by S. Peter Chrysologus, Archbishop of Ravenna, A.D.

433-54, etc.

PART III

EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN THE CATACOMBS

I

In this section we will give at some length what these (same) catacombs

tell us of the _thoughts_ of the early Christian congregations on some

of the more important problems dealing with death and with the life

beyond the grave, and incidentally with the early Christian view on the

question of the communion of saints.

The scanty remains of the literature of this early period, as we have

already hinted, valuable though they are, partake rather of the nature

of scholars’ researches and conclusions. What we find painted and

graved on the million graves of this vast subterranean God’s Acre tells

us in simple popular language exactly what the Christian folk, who

lived and worked and suffered in the two centuries which followed the

martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, thought and felt on these momentous

points.

The graves in this silent city, perhaps numbering some three, four, or

even five millions, belong to all ages, to every rank and order. There

are crypts containing the remains of members of the Imperial family,

of men and women of senatorial and of the most exalted rank among the

proud patrician houses. There are graves of merchants and traders,

of the very rich, of the very poor; there are innumerable graves of

freedmen, of the vast class too of the sad-eyed slave.

Here, too, are not a few tombs of men and women who gave up all,

even dear life, for the Name’s sake, and who, because they professed

unswerving faith in the divine Son of God, through pain and agony

passed to their rest in the Paradise of God.

Some of the ruined graves were once strikingly adorned; very many of

them being made of costly marbles and beautifully decorated, while

around these sepulchral memorials of the great and wealthy are found

numberless graves roughly though lovingly fashioned.

Of the epitaphs and inscriptions carved and painted on these graves,

some are exquisitely worked, evidently by professional artists. Many

more, however, were rudely and hurriedly painted or scratched on the

plaster or stone tablet which closed in the shelf in the wall in which

the dead was laid.

The inscriptions are for the most part in Latin, but in the first

and in much of the second century the words are often in Greek. In

some instances the two languages are curiously mingled, the epitaph

beginning in one tongue and ending in another: occasionally the Latin

words are written in Greek characters.

Various corrupt ways of spelling are not unusual, the ordinary rules of

grammar are not unfrequently broken. Indeed, as is observable in some

of the Latin poetry of the early Christian centuries where the rules

of classical prosody are ignored, so here in the prose used by the

children of the people a similar disregard of language and spelling is

observable. It was the beginning of the popular patois which eventually

crystallized into modern Italian.

There is a curious and interesting difference between the epitaphs of

the catacombs written when Christianity was a proscribed religion, when

those who embraced it were liable to more or less bitter persecution,

and the epitaphs of the latter years of the fourth as of the following

centuries. Men wrote in those first three Christian centuries in the

dark and lonely corridors and chambers where their loved dead were

laid, not for any human eye to read, save their own when they visited

that sacred God’s Acre,--just a name--or an emblem of their dearest

hopes, a little picture of the Good Shepherd and His sheep, a word

or two of sure hope and joyous confidence in the eternal future--and

nothing more. Very short, very simple, very touching are these early

Christian epitaphs. The great and noble set out no pompous statement of

the rank and position of their dead: we read little of the piety and

goodness of the many saintly ones whose remains rested in those long

silent corridors.

But in the cemeteries (mostly above ground) of the last years of

the fourth and in the following centuries, when the Church enjoyed

peace, and when a different spirit brooded over the works and days of

Christians, we begin to meet with those foolish tasteless phrases which

as time went on became more and more in fashion, telling of the dead

one’s rank and position, of the goodness and holiness and devotion of

the deceased.

Dean Stanley quotes an epitaph in the cloisters of his loved Abbey of

Westminster, which he says reminded him of the catacomb inscriptions in

a way which none other of the pompous and elaborate epitaphs in that

noble English home of the great dead had done. It is of a little girl,

and runs thus:

“Jane Lister · deare childe.”

The first and most prominent feature in the life of the Christians of

the first three centuries which the inscriptions of the catacombs make

clear to us was their intense conviction of the reality of the future

life.

The epitaphs speak of the dead as though they were still living. They

_talk_ to the dead. They felt that there was a communion still existing

with them--between them and the survivors--a communion carried on under

new conditions, and finding its consolation in incessant mutual prayer.

They were assured that the soul of the departed was united with the

saints--that it was with God, and in the enjoyment of peace, happiness,

rest; so often the little epitaph breathes a humble and loving prayer

that they, the survivors, might soon be admitted to a participation

in these blessings. Sometimes the survivors invoked the help of the

prayers of the departed, since they knew that the soul of the departed

lived in God and with God; they thought that the prayers of a soul in

the presence of God would be a help--must be a help--to those whose

time of trial was not yet ended.

Dr. Northcote well summarizes all this: “In a word, they realized

most intensely that all the faithful, whether in the body or out of

the body, were still living members of one mystical body, the body of

Christ; that they formed one great family, knit together in the closest

bonds of love; and that this love, stronger than death, had its proper

work and happiness in prayer--prayer of the survivors for those who had

gone before, prayer of the blessed for those who were left behind.”

(_Epitaphs of the Catacombs_, chap. v.)

This deeply rooted belief in the life beyond the grave; this intense

conviction that the division between this life and the life beyond

the grave does not sever the claim of affection and love, never

interrupt--no, not for an hour--the interchange of loving offices.

We will quote a very few of the older epitaphs painted or graved upon

the marble or stone tablet or on the thick plaster-work which closed in

the shelf in which the dead were deposited.

On some of these tablets we read simply the name of the dead; on others

the name is accompanied with a Christian emblem, such as an anchor,

the mystic fish, the ἰχθύς--each letter of which refers closely to the

Saviour: (ι) Jesus, (χ) Christ, (θ) God, (ύ) the Son, (ς) the Saviour;

the palm branch, the token of the victory over death; the dove, symbol

of a Christian soul, occasionally of the Holy Ghost; this dove or

bird was a favourite emblem of the soul, the idea being that the soul

resembled a bird of passage dwelling for a season here and then flying

away beyond the seas to a brighter, serener home. Very often we come

upon the figure of the Good Shepherd, sometimes with a lamb in His arms.

II

De Rossi tells us how he had studied over fifteen thousand of these

epitaphs, and that every year about five hundred more were deciphered.

We will copy a very few of these:

“To dear Cyriacus--sweetest son--Mayest thou live in the Holy

Spirit.”

“Matronata--who lived a year and 32 days--Pray for thy parents.”

“Bolosa--may God refresh thee--In Christ.”

“Sweet Faustina--mayest thou live in God.”

“Peace to thy soul, Oxycholis.”

“Agape, thou shalt live for ever.”

“Filumena--thy spirit is in peace.”

“Baccis, sweet soul in the peace of the Lord, a virgin--Her

father to his sweetest daughter.”

“Victorina is in Peace and in Christ.”

“Amerinus to his dearest wife Rufina; may God refresh thy

spirit.”

“His parents made this for their good and sweetest son Felix....

May Christ receive thee in peace.”

“Porcella sleeps here in peace.”

“Severa; mayest thou live in God.”

“Farewell, my dear one, in peace with the Holy souls; Farewell

in Christ.”

Never a word of sorrow on these graves of the dead--never a word of

repining--never a regret that they have been taken away. Only just a

few words telling of their sure hope for their dear ones, and a prayer

to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit to keep them in their loving

guardianship.

[Illustration: SEPULCHRAL INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE ROMAN CATACOMBS]

We must dwell a little on the question of the testimony which these

epitaphs of the first age of Christianity bear on the practice of

the living asking for the _help_ of those who had passed within the

veil. There is no doubt but that at a later period and all through the

Middle Ages this was the practice, and it has led to results which true

theologians generally deplore. The question here is--How far was this

the practice of the Church of the first days?

Now there is no doubt whatever but that the mediæval Church from

very early times taught that the prayers of great saints possessed

a peculiar efficacy, and in the uneducated mind this shaded into

something like a belief that these saints possessed some actual power

of themselves to interfere in and to influence human affairs. We shall

presently quote some of S. Augustine’s views here.

In the case, however, of the early Christians whose thoughts are

reflected in their great City of the Dead, the case was very different.

They believed so intensely in the continuance of life after death that

they maintained their communion with the departed by an interchange of

prayers.

S. Cyprian, a great theologian and a cautious teacher, believed that

the blessed dead were anxious for those whom they had left behind. Now,

granting that this was the common feeling of Christians in respect to

their dear dead ones whom they believed were dwelling close to God and

His Christ, we can well conceive how natural it was for them to ask

them for their prayers--for were they not dwelling close to God and His

Christ to Whom their prayers must be addressed? Thus in the Church of

the first two hundred and fifty years this communion, largely made up

of the constant interchange of prayer between the living and the dead,

rested on this family and friendship bond, and on no other. The formal

invocation of saint and martyr as of some specially powerful soul

belongs to a later date. It was not the teaching, certainly not the

_general_ teaching, of the Church of the catacombs.

But even in the catacombs it appears that very soon the custom crept

in of crowding round the grave of some famous martyr, as though some

special virtue belonged to the spot where the saint’s remains had been

deposited; and the little chamber where the hallowed remains of a

hero or heroine of the faith lay, was soon filled with graves--graves

excavated utterly without any regard to the paintings or decorations

which adorned the chamber and its original tomb, paintings and

decorations which were ruthlessly cut away to make room for new

loculi where the dead might rest close to the remains of the saint or

martyr.[140]

The point, however, which especially concerns us here is the testimony,

repeated many thousand times, which the catacombs bear to the

perfect confidence of the early Christians in the continuance of life

beyond the grave. To the faithful dead--to the believers in Jesus

Christ--there was no break caused by death, for them life went on as

it had done aforetime; conscious life went on after death, only under

different and happier conditions.

To appreciate the striking change in the conception of death--the most

important event in the life of man on earth--it will be interesting to

glance at the testimony supplied in the same period by pagan epitaphs.

A very brief examination will suffice to show what an impassable gulf

separated the Christian from the pagan conception.

What at once catches our attention in any study of pagan epitaphs is

the complete want of any hope beyond the grave. All the elaborate pagan

pictures of the future life popularized in Greek circles by the Homeric

poems, and in Latin society by the exquisite verses of Vergil, when

brought face to face with the stern reality of the tomb are simply

blotted out--are treated as purely fables.

Death, in these pagan epitaphs, the true expressions of popular pagan

belief in the first three centuries of the Christian era, is ever

viewed as an enemy; is described as an everlasting sleep, and the grave

is represented as the last eternal home.

It has been well said that this melancholy idea was conveyed in the

quiet sadness of that one word “Vale,” or in the more impassioned

repetition of it, “Vale, Vale dulcissima--semper in perpetuo vale.”

Farewell, farewell, sweetest one--for ever farewell. Now and again a

favourite pagan formula was summed up in two words--“fuisti; vale.”

Some of the pagan epitaphs are playfully sarcastic, as: “Ah, weary

traveller, however far you may walk, you must come here at last.” Some

even make a mock at death, bidding others enjoy themselves while they

live. “Live for the present hour, drink and play, for you are sure of

nothing, only what you eat and drink is really yours.” “Fortune makes

many promises but keeps none of them; live then for the present hour,

since nothing else is really yours.” Some epitaphs are bitter: “I lived

as I like, but I don’t know why I died.” “Here it is, so it is, nothing

else could be.”

Here an inscription on a young woman’s grave mourns her early death:

“I lift up my hands against the God who took me away at the age of

twenty, though I had done no harm.” A father thus grieves for the loss

of his child: “The fates judged ill when they robbed me of you.” Father

and mother often write themselves down as most wretched, most unhappy

(“miserrimi-infelicissimi”). Sometimes they use these sad and cheerless

terms of their dead children. Mothers now and again describe themselves

as “left to tears and groans,” or as “condemned to perpetual darkness

and daily sad lamentation.” Parents lament their dead child thus: “Our

hope was in our boy; now all is ashes and mourning.” Frequently these

mourn for their dead children as follows: “They have died without

having deserved it.” Another parent bewails the child’s death in these

terms: “Neither talent, nor amiability, nor loving winning ways, have

been of any avail to prolong the child’s days; in spite of all this, he

has become the foul prey of the cruel Pluto.”

On very many indeed of pagan tombs undoubtedly there is evidence of

much love and deep affection for the departed, but there is no gleam

of hope of reunion or of happiness in another life; indeed, as a rule,

there is no other life hinted at. If any venture to look beyond the

grave--which is rarely the case--all _beyond_ the grave is dark and sad

and melancholy.

The following words put into the mouth of a dead girl well voice this

general feeling: “Here I lie, unhappy girl, in darkness.” “Traveller,

curse me not as you pass,” moans another inscription, “for I am in

darkness and cannot answer.”

III

The wonderful change in popular feeling as shown in the Christian

epitaphs when contrasted with the pagan epitaphs of the same period is

indeed startling! What we read in the Roman City of the Dead tells us

something of the spirit which dwelt in these companies of believers in

the Name. This _something_ is sufficient to account for the new life

led by so many, for the superhuman courage displayed by the army of

martyrs and confessors, for the ultimate victory, some two hundred

years later, of the religion of Jesus.

We who live in what is perhaps the evening of the world’s story--we

mark the glowing words of the New Testament writings, the fervid

exhortations and noble resolves of men like Clement of Rome, Ignatius,

and Polycarp--the saintly teachings of great theologians like Irenæus,

Tertullian, and Cyprian.

And as we read, we feel that these writers were evidently intensely

persuaded of the truth of such sublime and soul-stirring assertions;

we know, too, that these writers and teachers lived the beautiful life

they taught,--that they died, many of them, with a smile on their lips

and a song in their hearts.

But what of the People--the common folk, the ordinary everyday citizen;

the slave and the little trader of the thousand cities of the Empire,

the soldier of Rome, and the patrician of Rome--what did _they_ think

of all this?--these new strange words, these sunlit hopes, these

glorious golden promises of the great teachers of Christianity?

The catacombs give us the answer. In quite late years, slowly,

painfully, the antiquary and the scholar have opened out the secrets

of the long-hidden City of the Dead which lies all round immemorial

Rome, and, thanks to their labours, from words and pictures graven and

painted on a million graves, comes to us, across the many centuries,

the answer with no uncertain voice.

Yes, the People--the slave and the trader, the soldier and the

noble--believed the words of the New Testament writings, and accepted

the teaching of the early Christian teachers, and believing, struggled

to lead the life the Master loved. None for a moment would dare to

doubt the mighty power of this strange weird testimony of a million

tombs; it is indeed a voice from a thousand graves.

Then, too, what may be termed the terminology, that is the words and

expressions used in these vast cemeteries for all that is connected

with death and burial, teaches the same truth--that for a believer in

the Name, all the gloom and dread and horror usually associated with

death are absent in these short epitaphs.

The catacomb inscriptions and pictures, besides their overwhelming

testimony to the belief of the early Christians in the continuance of

life after death, in the immortality of the soul, a testimony expressed

in a countless number of ways, bear their witness to some of the more

important dogmas of the Christian faith.

* * * * *

The extreme brevity of the inscriptions and the necessarily small

space allotted to the pictures and emblems graven and painted on the

sepulchral slabs, for the most part very small, of course preclude

anything like any complete enunciation even of the principal Articles

of the Christian faith: still what we find on these slabs tells us with

no uncertain voice in whom these early congregations believed, and to

whom these fervent prayers were addressed. Each of the Persons of the

ever-blessed Trinity are named in many of these epitaphs.

We find many instances of the formula of the ancient creeds, “In God

and in Christ.” This distinct enumeration of the two first Persons

of the Blessed Trinity bears witness to the Catholic faith of the

composers of the epitaphs.

Nor is the Third Person of the Trinity absent from these epitaphs. We

read on some for instance: “In the Holy Spirit of God”; “Mayest thou

live in the Holy Spirit.” Even the mention of all three Persons of the

Blessed Trinity has been found engraved on these sepulchral tablets.

What, however, is most striking in these early records of the belief

of the Christian congregation is the testimony they bear--a testimony

repeated an innumerable number of times--to the primitive belief in the

supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. We find again and again such formulas

as “In the name of Christ”; “In God the Lord Christ”; “In God Christ”;

“The great God Christ” (“Deo Magno Christo”). In the earliest epitaphs

the most common symbol is the fish, painted, carved, or written at the

beginning or end of the epitaph, not as part of the sentence, but as

a complete formula in itself. Now this was a declaration of faith in

“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”; the letters which form the Greek

word Ichthus, as we have explained, being the initials[141] of the

words of this formula.

There is no doubt that from the earliest times the _fish_ was an

acknowledged symbol of our Lord. It became at once a sacred “tessera”

or sign--quite unintelligible to the pagan and official world, but to

the believer a most precious symbol, containing with striking brevity

and yet with striking clearness, a complete précis, so to speak, of the

creed, a profession of facts as far as related to the Saviour.

* * * * *

The catacombs are full of Christ. It was to Him that the Christians

of the age of persecution ever turned: it was on Him they rested--in

gladness and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; in the days of

danger--and these were sadly numerous in the first two centuries and a

half--and in the hour of death. It was from His words they drew their

strength. In the consciousness of His ever-presence in their midst,

they suffered gladly for His sake. With His name on their lips they

died fearlessly, joyfully passing into the Valley of the veiled Shadow.

On the tablet of marble or plaster which closed up the narrow shelf

in the catacomb corridor where their poor remains were reverently,

lovingly laid, the dear name of Jesus was often painted or carved.

* * * * *

The catacombs are full of Christ. We have spoken several times of the

paintings on the walls and ceilings of the corridors and chambers.

There is great variety of these, the Old and New Testament supplying

the majority of subjects. But by far the favourite subject of

representation--certainly the leading type of Christian art in the

first days--was the figure of the “Good Shepherd.” It does not only

appear in the City of the Dead. It was often graved upon chalices used

in the holy Eucharist. It was traced in gold upon glass, it was moulded

upon lamps, it was carved upon rings. But it is to the catacombs that

we must go to find it in its most varied and pathetic forms--now

painted in fresco upon the walls of the corridors and chambers where

the dead lie so thickly; now roughly, now more carefully carved on

countless tablets; now sculptured upon the more costly sarcophagi.

Sometimes the Shepherd is represented with one sheep, at times with

several; some listening to His voice--some turning listlessly away.

We come upon it in a thousand places on the tombs themselves--in the

little chapels or oratories leading out of the corridors where the more

distinguished among the dead sleep. It is the favourite symbol of the

Christian life and faith.

This constantly recurring figure of the Good Shepherd with His sheep

in the catacombs throws much light on this deeply interesting and at

the same time important question--What were the thoughts of that early

Church in Rome respecting Christ and His teaching?

We must remember they lived very near the times when the greatest

figure in history lived on earth, and talked with men. We shall do well

to bear in mind that the first generation of these Roman Christians

were taught by Peter and by Paul, and that through most of the second

century men lived whose fathers must have seen and listened to these

great servants of the Divine Master, certainly to their immediate

disciples.

The form in which they loved best to think of this Almighty Saviour was

as “the great Shepherd of the sheep”--the Shepherd of the First Epistle

of S. Peter--the Shepherd of S. Luke and of S. John.[142]

A great and eloquent writer[143] in one of his most suggestive works

does not hesitate to speak of what he terms the popular religion of

the first Christians as the religion of “the Good Shepherd.” He says

they looked on that figure and it conveyed to them all they wanted. And

then he adds sorrowfully that “as ages passed on ‘the image of the Good

Shepherd’ faded away from the mind of the Christian world, and other

emblems of the Christian faith took the place of the once dearly loved

figure.”

“Instead of the good and gracious Pastor, there came the omnipotent

Judge, or the Crucified Sufferer, or the Infant in His mother’s arms,

or the Master in His parting Supper.”

All these later presentments of the Divine Saviour emphatically are

beautiful and true, but they are _not_ what the first Christians

especially dwelt on. These loved to think of Him first and chiefest as

“the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep.”

Among the many pictured figures of the “Good Shepherd” in the catacomb

sepulchral galleries, the Shepherd is occasionally represented with a

kid or a goat in place of a sheep in His loving arms: “And other sheep

I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and there

shall be one fold, one shepherd.” The catacomb theology, as expounded

by the catacomb teachers, went beyond even these gracious words, when

it represented the creature on the shoulders of the Master, as not a

lamb but a kid--not a sheep but a goat. These Christians of the first

day were persuaded that their Master’s mission on earth was “not to

repel but to include, not to condemn but to save; they believed in His

tender compassion and boundless charity.”[144]

This sweet and loving view provoked the indignant remonstrance of the

stern Tertullian (_circa_ A.D. 200). On this harsh protest of

the great African Father Tertullian, Matthew Arnold founds one of his

most touching poems:

“He saves the sheep--the goats He doth not save:

So spake the fierce Tertullian.

But she sighed:

The infant Church, of love she felt the tide

Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave,

And then she smil’d, and in the Catacombs,

With eye suffused, but heart inspired true,

She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew,

And on His shoulder not a lamb but kid.”

AN APPENDIX TO THE EPITAPHS, ETC., OF THE CATACOMBS

The wish to be buried in the immediate vicinity of a saint or

confessor, though perhaps especially marked in the subterranean

cemeteries of Rome, was not peculiar to the Christians of the very

early centuries. Many other instances could be quoted, from the days of

the old prophet of Bethel who wished his bones to lie beside the bones

of the man of God who came out of Judah (1 Kings xiii. 31) down to

King John, who is said to have requested that he might be interred at

Worcester directly between the bodies of SS. Oswald and Wulfstan.

S. Augustine’s _De curâ pro mortuis gerendâ_ is a peculiarly

interesting treatise. The great bishop discusses at some length this

question, and his words throw considerable sidelight upon the growing

practice of the invocation of saints.

The treatise, written about A.D. 421, was a reply to a question

addressed to him by S. Paulinus of Nola, a very saintly and devoted

man, but at the same time, in common with not a few holy men of his

time, superstitious and often sadly mistaken in his exaggerated

devotion to the noble army of martyrs who had played so well the part

of pioneers in the recent days of bitter persecution.

S. Paulinus had been asked by a certain widow to allow her son to be

buried in the church of the martyr S. Felix at Nola. He said he had

granted her prayer, believing that this longing desire of faithful

souls that their dear ones should be laid close to the remains of a

saint was based not merely on an illusion but on some real need of the

soul. But S. Paulinus evidently was uncertain here, so he asks the

great teacher Augustine--Did it really help one who was dead to be

buried near a saint?

S. Augustine’s reply on the whole was cautious: he remarked that if a

man had lived righteously, to be buried close to a saint could not

possibly be of any use to his soul; again, if his life had been evil,

it would be equally useless.

Everything connected with the burial of the dead, Augustine concluded,

has really more connexion with the survivors than with the dead. He

explains this connexion thus: “When we think of the spot where our

dear one lies, and that spot is in the immediate neighbourhood of the

grave of a saint, we think at once of the saint in question, and we

ask for his or her prayers for our dear dead one.” But if such prayers

be not asked for, Augustine sees no advantage in such a neighbourhood.

(Adjuvat defuncti spiritum, non mortui corporis locus, sed ex loci

memoria vivus affectus.)

The famous North African theologian then proceeds to discuss the

question: “How do martyrs help men?” He says: that they do help them

is certain; then, are these saints, through the virtue of the power

they possess, present in many places, or are they always dwelling in

the home allotted to them--far away from mortal dwellings, but at the

same time praying for those who ask for their intercession? And he

adds that, God hearing their prayers, through the ministry of angels,

grants at His good pleasure to those who have sought the prayers of the

saints, the consolations these saints ask for them.

This seems to be the substance of S. Augustine’s reply to S. Paulinus

of Nola, but he carefully guards his words by adding: “All this,”

namely, the extent of the power of saints who are dead, “is too lofty a

question for me to answer positively. It is too obscure.”

“I should like to ask the question of those who really know, for

possibly there is some one who possesses this knowledge,” curiously

added the great thinker and loving theologian.

BOOK V

THE JEW AND THE TALMUD

INTRODUCTORY

Among all the various evidential arguments adduced in support of the

truth of Christianity, many of them of a most weighty character and

capable of an almost indefinite expansion, the history of the Jewish

people, their wonderful past and their present condition, their

numbers, their books, their ever-growing influence in the world of

the twentieth century, must be considered as the most striking and

remarkable.

The Christianity of the first century was surely no new religion; it

was closely knit to, bound up with, the great Hebrew tradition. The

sacred Hebrew tradition was the first chapter--the preface, so to

speak--of the Christian revelation.

The early or pre-Christian details of the Jewish story are well known

and generally accepted. The Old Testament account of the Jewish race

historically is rarely disputed.

Less known and comparatively little regarded is the subsequent history

of the Chosen People; over the records of their fate, after the

final and complete separation of Judaism and Christianity, an almost

impenetrable mist settled, and the story of the fortunes of the remnant

of the Jews who survived the terrible exterminating wars of Titus and

Hadrian has been generally neglected by the historians of the great

Empire.

Very few have even cared to ask what happened to that poor remnant of

vanquished Jews: all that is commonly known is that a certain number

survived the great catastrophes, and that their scattered descendants,

in different lands, appear and reappear all through the Middle Ages--a

wandering and despised folk, generally hated and hating.

But these are still with us, and among us; that they occupy in our day

and time a peculiar, a unique position of power and influence which

they have gradually acquired in all grades of modern society in many

lands is now universally recognized.

This subsequent history of the fortunes of the Jewish people from the

dates of their final separation from the Christian community, and

the great catastrophes of the years of grace A.D. 70 and

A.D. 135, constitutes a piece of supreme importance in the

evidential history of the religion of Jesus; and yet, strange to say,

it is, comparatively speaking, unknown and neglected.

It will be seen, as the pages of this wonderful story are turned over,

how the guiding hand of the Lord, though in a different way, just as in

the far-back days of the desert wanderings, has been ever visible in

all the strange sad fortunes of the people, once the beloved of God.

The Jews of the twentieth century, numbering perhaps some ten or eleven

millions, although scattered over many lands, constitute a distinct

race, a separate people or nation. While during the Christian centuries

_all_ other races--peoples--nations--without a single exception have

become extinct, or have become fused and merged with other and newer

races and peoples, they, the Jews, have _alone_ preserved their

ancient nationality, their descent, their peculiar features, their

individuality, their cherished traditions--_absolutely intact_.

* * * * *

It does not seem ever to have been remarked that the rise and influence

of the great Rabbinic schools of Palestine and Babylonia, at Tiberias

and Jamnia, at Sura and Pumbeditha--schools devoted to the study of

the Torah (the Law) and the other books of the Old Testament, were

coincident with the rise and influence of the Gnostic schools, schools

in which the Old Testament was generally reviled and discredited. Is it

too much to assume that echoes from the great Rabbinic teaching centres

reached and sensibly influenced the Christian masters in their life and

death contest with Gnosticism, a contest in which the Old Testament,

its divine origin and its authority, was ever one of the principal

questions at stake?

* * * * *

Nor is it an altogether baseless conception which sees that the

reverence and love of at least a large proportion of earnest Christian

folk for the Old Testament books, a reverence and a love that for more

than eighteen hundred years has undergone no diminution or change,

are in large measure due to the reverential handling, to the patient

tireless studies of the great Rabbinical schools of the early Christian

centuries--to the passionate, possibly exaggerated, love of the Jew for

his precious book.

Though men guess it not, surely echoes from those strange Jewish

schools of Tiberias and Sura, whose story we are about to relate, have

reached the hearts of unnumbered Christians to whom the Jewish schools

in question and their restless toil, all centering in the Holy Books in

question, are but the shadow of a name?

I

THE HISTORY OF THE THREE WARS WHICH CLOSED THE CAREER OF JUDAISM AS A

NATION

In the wonderful Jewish epic--so closely united to the Christian

story--which stretches already over several thousand years, the

history of the three last awful wars which led to their extinction as

a nation, though not as a people, is merely a terrible episode in the

many-coloured records of the wonderful race.

But these wars are specially important, for they were the earthly cause

of the great change which passed over the fortunes of the Jews. Since

the last of the three wars they have ceased to be a separate nation,

and have become a wandering tribe scattered over the earth; but though

wanderers, they are now more numerous, more influential in the world,

than they had ever been even in the days of their greatest grandeur and

magnificence.

The curious religious mania which seems to have possessed them, and

which led them to revolt against the far-reaching power of the Roman

Empire, is in some respects a mystery. We can only very briefly recount

here the state of parties in Jerusalem, the centre of the nation, for a

few years before the revolt which led to the first great war.

In the year B.C. 63 the Roman commander Pompey established the

Roman rule over Judæa; from B.C. 6 the Jewish province, still

preserving a partial independence, was governed by procurators sent

from Rome, and by a native Herodian dynasty. The Palestinian Jews were

roughly made up in this period of three parties:

(1) The _Sadducees and Herodians_, who occupied most of the high

offices and the priesthood.

(2) The _Pharisees_. Strict Jews, loving with a devoted love the

Torah or Mosaic Law; on the whole not favourable to the Roman and

Herodian rule, but generally quiet and peace-loving. These included

dreamers--men quietly longing for the promised Messiah, Essenes, and

later, towards the end of the period we are speaking of, Christian Jews.

(3) _Zealots_--including adventurers, the Sicarii (or assassins), a

wild turbulent clique (or sect), and a confused medley of disorderly

folk, making up a formidable party of enthusiasts, expecting the early

advent of a Messiah who should restore the past glories of the Jewish

race; these were usually fierce revolutionaries, intensely dissatisfied

with the state of things then prevailing; hating Rome and the Herodian

dynasty favoured by Rome with a fierce hatred.

These Zealots had a very large, though disorderly, following among the

people.

In A.D. 66 the revolt broke out in the Holy City. Florus, the

Roman Procurator (or Governor), whose conduct during the early stages

of the great revolt is inexplicable, left the city, leaving behind him

only a small garrison; the revolt spread not only in Palestine and in

parts of the neighbouring province of Syria, but far beyond--notably in

the great city of Alexandria, where a large Jewish colony dwelt. Scenes

of terrible violence were common, and fearful massacres are recorded

to have taken place in various centres of population where Jews were

numerous; the revolt became serious, and the Imperial Legate of Syria,

Cestius Gallus, took the field against the insurgents. He seems to

have been a thoroughly incompetent commander, and failed completely

in his efforts to regain possession of Jerusalem, the headquarters of

the revolutionary party. Gallus retreated, suffering great loss. The

failure of Gallus inflicted a heavy blow upon Roman prestige.

To put an end to the serious and widespread revolt, in the year of

grace 67 Vespasian, one of the ablest and most distinguished of the

Roman generals, was appointed to the supreme command in Syria.

Gradually, as the result of a terrible campaign, Vespasian restored

quiet in Palestine and the neighbouring region, and laid siege to

the Holy City, where the Zealots had established what can only be

termed a reign of terror.

[Illustration: THE TEMPLE, JERUSALEM--THE HOLY PLACE BEFORE ITS

DESTRUCTION BY TITUS, A.D. 70]

In the following year, A.D. 68, the violent death of the

Emperor Nero, and the state of confusion that followed his death

throughout the Empire, determined Vespasian to pause in his operations,

and for a short period Jerusalem was left in the hands of the Zealots.

The brief reigns of the Emperors Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were

followed by the sudden election of Vespasian to the Empire in the

year 69, the electors being for the most part his own devoted and

disciplined legions in Syria.

Vespasian soon after his election returned to Rome, and the Empire, now

under his strong rule, was once more united and quiet. He left behind

him in Palestine as supreme commander his eldest son Titus, a general

of great power and ability.

The siege of the revolted Jerusalem was once more pressed on; an

iron circle now encircled the doomed city, which, in addition to

its wonderful memories of an historic past, was one of the strong

fortresses of the world.

The history of the siege and the eventual fall and ruin of the famous

Jewish capital, with all its nameless horrors, has been often told and

retold; but the sad episode of the burning of the Temple, with all its

eventful consequences, must be briefly touched on.

Why was this world-famous sanctuary--then standing in all its

marvellous beauty, with its matchless treasures, some of them environed

with an aureole of sanctity simply unequalled in the story of the

nations in the sphere of Roman influence--ruthlessly destroyed, and

its wondrous treasures swept out? This was not the usual policy of

far-seeing Rome.

According to Josephus, the burning of the Temple was the result of

accident, and was not owing to any premeditated plan or order issuing

from the Roman commander-in-chief.

Modern scholars,[145] however, believe that a passage from the lost

_Histories of Tacitus_ has been discovered which describes how a

council of war was held by Titus after the capture of Jerusalem in

which it was decided that the Temple ought to be destroyed, in order

that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might be more

completely stamped out.

In the Talmud[146] the burning of the Temple is ascribed to the

“impious Titus.”

The cruelties which are associated with the storming of Jerusalem--the

loss of life and the subsequent fate of the prisoners captured by the

victorious army of Titus--make up a tale of horror which perhaps is

unequalled in the world’s history; there is, however, no doubt that the

awful scenes of carnage and the fate of the defenders who survived the

fall of the city were in large measure owing to the obstinate defence

and irreconcilable hatred of the party of Jewish Zealots who provoked

the war and for so long a time had been masters in the hapless city.

The result of the siege by Titus may be briefly summed up as follows.

The Temple and the City of Jerusalem were absolutely razed to the

ground, and may be said to have completely disappeared; only the mighty

foundations of the magnificent Temple remained. These still are with

us, and after nearly two thousand years bear their silent witness to

the vastness and extent of the third Temple. It is no exaggeration

which describes it as one of the most magnificent buildings of the Old

World.

For some fifty-two years--that is, from A.D. 70 to A.D. 122--a vast

heap of shapeless ruins was all that remained of the historic City of

the Jews and its splendid Temple. In one corner of the ruins during

this period of utter desolation the Tenth Legion (Fretensis) kept watch

and ward over the pathetic scene of ruin.

In the year of grace 122, under the orders of the Emperor Hadrian, a

new pagan city, known as Ælia Capitolina, slowly began to arise on the

ancient site. This new city will be briefly described in due course.

The year following the awful catastrophe which befel the Jewish nation

witnessed one of the most remarkable of the long series of “triumphs”

which usually marked the close of the successful Roman wars.

[Illustration: THE “WAILING-PLACE” OF THE JEWS BEFORE THE RUINED WALLS

OF THE TEMPLE]

In A.D. 71, Titus, with his father Vespasian and brother

Domitian, with extraordinary pomp and a carefully arranged pictorial

display, entered Rome. This triumph was adorned with a long train of

captive Jews, some of whom were publicly put to death as part of the

great show. Among the more precious spoils of the fallen city were

conspicuously displayed some of the celebrated objects rescued by the

victors out of the burning Temple,--such as the famous seven-branched

sacred candlestick; the golden table of shewbread; the purple veil

which hung before the Holy of Holies; and the precious Temple copy of

the Torah--the sacred Law of Moses.

The story of the great triumph is still with us, graved upon the

marble of the slowly crumbling Arch of Titus,--the traveller may

still gaze upon the figure of the great general, crowned by Victory,

in his triumphal car driven by the goddess Rome, and upon the same

imperial figure borne to heaven[147] by an eagle. Still the carved

representation of the sacred candlestick of the seven branches, and

the golden table, are beheld by the Christian with mute awe; by the

Jew with a mourning that refuses to be comforted. But the sacred

things[148] themselves over which brood such ineffable memories are

gone.

The fall of Jerusalem, the utter destruction of the Holy City, the

burning of the Temple, really sealed the fate of the Jews as a separate

nation. The centre of the chosen race existed no longer. The sacred

rites, the daily sacrifice, and the offering ceased for ever. The great

change in Judaism we are going to dwell upon must be dated from the

year 70. But more terrible events had yet to happen before the Jew

acknowledged his utter defeat, and recognized that a great change had

passed over him and had finally altered the scene of his cherished

hopes and glorious anticipations.

Two more bloody wars had to be fought out before the Jew settled down

to his new life--the life to be lived by the Chosen People for a long

series of centuries, the life he is living still, though more than

1800 years have come and gone since Titus brought the sacred Temple

treasures from the ruined city to grace the proud Roman triumph.

Under Trajan in A.D. 116-7, and again under Hadrian in A.D. 133-4, the

Zealot party of the defeated but still untamed people again rose up in

arms against the mighty Empire in the heart of which they dwelt.

We will rapidly sketch these last disastrous revolts. The spirit of

unrest and of hatred of the Roman power--the wild Messianic hopes which

had inspired the party of Zealots in Jerusalem in the first war which

had ended so disastrously--still lived in the great Jewish centres of

population outside the Holy Land, in countries where the desolation

which succeeded the events in 70 had not been acutely felt.

The Palestinian Jews for a time were apparently hopelessly crushed, but

the Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria were still a powerful and dangerous

group. It is impossible now to indicate the precise causes of the

formidable rising of A.D. 116-7. The absence of Trajan and his

great army in the more distant regions of Asia, and the news that the

Roman arms had met with a serious check in that distant and dangerous

campaign, seem to have given the signal for an almost simultaneous

Jewish uprising in the Cyrene province, in the city of Alexandria, and

in Cyprus.

We do not possess any very exact details here. The revolt was

generally characterized by horrible cruelties on the part of the

Jewish insurgents, and we read of fearful massacres perpetrated by

the revolted Jews. The insurrection spread with alarming rapidity,

and became a grave danger to the Empire. At first we only hear of

several successes and victories. In the cities of Alexandria and

Cyrene a reign of terror prevailed; but, as was ever the case when

Rome in good earnest put forth her disciplined forces, the insurgents

found themselves outnumbered and out-generalled. Two of the most

distinguished of the imperial commanders, Marcius Turbo and Lucius

Quietus, conducted the military operations. The war--for the Jewish

revolt of A.D. 116-7 assumed the proportions of a grave war--lasted

well-nigh two years; but the insurgents were in the end completely

routed.

The numbers of slain in this wild and undisciplined outburst of Jewish

fury, according to the records of the historians of the war, are so

great that we are tempted to suspect them exaggerated. In Cyrene

and the neighbouring districts the number who perished is given as

twenty-two thousand; the loss of life in Alexandria, Egypt, and Cyprus

seems to have been equally terrible. But even granted that the numbers

of Jews who perished in this fanatical rebellion have been, from one

cause or other, exaggerated, it is certain that the numbers of the

slain were enormous, that the power and influence of the Chosen People

suffered a terrible check as the result of this rising, and that in the

great cities of Cyrene and Alexandria the Jewish population of these

centres--large and flourishing communities, possessing great wealth

and influence, distinguished for their high culture and learning--were

almost annihilated. The results of the insane revolts of A.D.

116-7 were indeed disastrous to the fortunes of this extraordinary and

wonderful people.

* * * * *

But the end was not yet. Another bloody war, with all its fearful

consequences, had to be waged between the Jew and the Empire before the

Chosen People finally resigned itself to the new life it was destined

to live through the long centuries which followed. The old spirit of

restlessness, of wild visionary hopes of some great one who should

arise in their midst, still lived among the more ardent and fervid

members of the now scattered and diminished people.

The exciting causes of the last great revolt have been variously

stated. It is probable that the conduct of Hadrian in his latter years

had become less tolerant, while a persecuting spirit more or less

prevailed in his government. Among other irritating measures devised

by Rome, the ancient rite of circumcision apparently was forbidden.

But the immediate cause of the Jewish uprising no doubt was the steady

progress made in the building of the new city, Ælia Capitolina, on the

site of Jerusalem and the Temple.

That a pagan city, with its theatres, its baths, its statues, should

replace the old home of David and Solomon; that a Temple of Jupiter

should be built on the site of the glorious House of the Eternal of

Hosts; that the very stones of old Jerusalem and her adored sanctuary

should be used for the construction of the new city of idols--was

indeed especially hateful to the proud and fanatic Jew. Sacrilege could

go no further. Rapidly the insurrection which began in Southern Judæa

spread. Once more the Holy Land, especially in the southern districts,

became the scene of a fierce religious war; Bethia, a fortress some

fifteen miles from Jerusalem, became the central place of arms of the

fierce insurgents, but the revolt spread far beyond the districts of

Palestine.

In one striking particular this third Jewish war differed from

the first and second revolts. In the earlier uprisings it was the

_hope_ of the appearance of a conquering Messiah which inspired the

fanatical insurgents. In the third revolt a false Messiah actually

presented himself, and gave a new colour and spirit to this dangerous

insurrection.

The hero of the war--the pseudo-Messiah known as Bar-cochab (the son

of a Star)--is a mysterious person; his name appears to have been a

play upon his real appellation, and was assumed by him as representing

the Star pictured in the famous prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 17): “I

shall see him,” said the seer of Israel, “but not now.... There shall

come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” Was

this pseudo-Messiah simply an impostor, a charlatan, or did he really

believe in his mission? The Talmud generally execrates his memory,

but the principal doctor of that age, Rabbi Akiba, at a time when

the Doctors of the Law had begun to exercise a paramount influence

among the Jewish people, believed in him with an intense belief, and

supported him in his Messianic pretensions.

Many, but by no means all, of the great Rabbis of the day seem to have

supported this Bar-cochab, and the Talmud tells us that not a few of

them endured martyrdom at the hands of the victorious Roman government.

All contemporary history of this war is, however, confused,--the

Talmud notices are especially so; the details are simply impossible to

grasp.

Of the bravery of Bar-cochab there is no doubt; he perished before the

end of the war, and some time after Rabbi Akiba, his most influential

supporter, was put to an agonizing death by the victors.

Of Rabbi Akiba’s sincerity there are abundant proofs. His memory was

ever held in the highest honour by his countrymen. He was reputed to

be the most learned and eloquent of that famous generation of Jewish

teachers. The strange mistake he made in recognizing the false Messiah

Bar-cochab is hard to account for.

As in the case of the two first famous Jewish wars, the Roman power

seems at first to have underrated this rebellion, which, however,

soon assumed a most formidable character. The general commanding in

the Syrian provinces proving incapable, the ablest of the imperial

generals, Sextus Julius Severus, was summoned from his command in

distant Britain to Judæa. The Roman tactics employed were generally

similar to those adopted by Trajan’s generals in the second Jewish

war of A.D. 116-7. Severus avoided any so-called pitched

battle, but advanced gradually, attacking and besieging each of the

rebel garrisons, thus gradually wearing out the impetuosity and

ardour of the fanatical insurgents. The war lasted from two to three

years. The devastation, the result of this war, was evidently very

awful, and the numbers of the slain seem to have been enormous. We

read of 50 armed places being stormed, 985 villages and towns being

destroyed; 580,000 men were said to have been slain, besides many who

perished through hunger and disease: the numbers of slain in another

account are, however, only given as amounting to 180,000. One cannot

help coming to the conclusion that all these numbers are considerably

exaggerated. Judæa, however, there is no doubt, especially in the

southern districts, became literally a desert; wolves and hyenas are

stated to have roamed at pleasure over the ravaged country; the south

of Palestine became a vast charnel-house, and the present barren

appearance of the country indicates that some terrible catastrophe has

at some distant period passed over the land.[149]

The sternest measures effectually to stamp out all traces of revolt

on the part of the Jewish nation were adopted by the Roman government

after the close of the campaign. Numbers of the fugitives were

ruthlessly put to death. Many were sold into slavery. No Jew was ever

allowed to approach the ruins of the Holy City. Once in the year, on

“the day of weeping,” such of the hapless race who chose were suffered

to come and mourn for a brief hour over the shapeless pile of stones

which once had been a portion of their sacred Temple.

For a time a bitter persecution throughout the Empire punished this

last formidable uprising; but these rigorous measures were very soon

relaxed when all fear of another outbreak had passed away, and the

Jews, or what remained of the people, were suffered to live as they

pleased, to worship after their own fashion, and to pursue the study of

their loved Law unmolested.

M. de Champagny (_Les Antonins_, livre iii. chap, iii.) estimates the

number of Jews who perished in the three great wars of A.D. 70, of A.D.

116-7, and of A.D. 132-3-4 roughly as follows: Under _Titus_, about two

millions; under _Trajan_, about two hundred thousand; under _Hadrian_,

about one million.[150]

The third war was termed in the Babylonian Talmud “the War of

Extermination.”

II

(_a_) RABBINISM

We have described the three fatal wars at some length, because the

wonderful history of the Jewish race entered upon an entirely new

phase after the disastrous termination of the third of these terrible

revolts. From the year of our Lord 134-5 they ceased to be a nation and

became wanderers over the earth.

Yet in numbers and influence they can scarcely be said to have

diminished. They amalgamated with no nation; they remained a marked and

separate people, and so they continue to this day, though well-nigh

eighteen long and troubled centuries have passed since the great ruin.

To what earthly cause is this marvellous preservation of the Jews to be

attributed? Unhesitatingly we reply, Not to the rise of Rabbinism,--it

had long existed among the Chosen People,--but to the development and

consolidation of Rabbinism and to the famous outcome of Rabbinism, the

Talmud.

The traditional history of Rabbinism and the beginning of the

marvellous Rabbinic book, the Talmud, is given in the Mishnah treatise

“Pirke Aboth” (Sayings of the Fathers). It is as follows:--

Moses received the written Law (the Torah) on Mount Sinai. He also

received from the Eternal a further Law, illustrative of the written

Law. This second Law was known as the “Law upon the lip.” This was

never committed to writing, but was handed down from generation to

generation. Moses committed this oral Law to Joshua; Joshua committed

it to the Elders; the Elders committed it to the Prophets; the Prophets

handed on the sacred tradition of “the Words of the Eternal” to the

Men of the Great Synagogue. These last are regarded as the fathers of

“Rabbinism.” Maimonides tells us that these fathers of “Rabbinism”

succeeded each other (to the number of 120), commencing with the

prophet Haggai, B.C. 520, who in the Talmud is described as

the Expounder of the oral Law. The last member of the “Great Synagogue”

was Simon the Just, _circa_ B.C. 301.

After Simon the Just a succession of eminent teachers known as the

“Couples” handed down the sacred traditions of the “Law upon the lip”

to the time of Hillel and Shammai, when we approach to the Christian

era. Hillel, according to the Talmudic tradition, is said to have lived

100 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and

thus to have been a contemporary of Herod the Great.

Very little really is known of the “Men of the Great Synagogue,” or

of the ten “Couples” who succeeded them; little more than their names

has been preserved. It is scarcely probable that in each generation

only a pair of specially distinguished scholars should have lived.

Most likely just ten names were known, and they were formed into five

pairs or couples of contemporaries, after the fashion of the last and

most famous pair, Hillel and Shammai. But from the times of Hillel and

Shammai we have abundant historical testimony as to the existence and

labours of the Rabbinic schools. Well-nigh all that we have related in

the above passage is purely traditionary. There is no doubt a basis

of truth in the account we have given, but the contemporary history

is too scanty for us to describe this relation in the treatise “Pirke

Aboth,” which thus connects the Mishnah compilation in a direct chain

with Moses, as anything more than a widely circulated legendary and

traditional story.

We can, however, certainly assert that the foundations of the teaching

of the school of Rabbinism which, after the great ruin of the year of

Grace 70, began to exercise a paramount influence over the fortunes

of the Jewish race, were laid at a very early period, several hundred

years before the Christian era.

There is no doubt that Hillel and Shammai founded or, more accurately

speaking, developed the existing Rabbinic schools and gathered into

them large numbers of disciples. The great development of Rabbinism

which is ascribed to the two famous teachers Hillel and Shammai was

evidently owing to the complete absorption of Palestine by Rome, under

the baleful influence of the royalty of Herod the Great; these causes

were gradually undermining Judaism, not only in a political but also in

its religious aspect. Hillel and Shammai were fervid and earnest Jews,

and were determined to infuse a new religious spirit into the nation.

Still, it is more than probable that all this early Rabbinism would

scarcely have been more than a school of curious literary speculation,

and perhaps would not have seriously and permanently influenced the

life of the Jewish people, had it not been for the awful events of the

year A.D. 70. When Jerusalem ceased to exist, and the Temple

was finally destroyed, then Christianity emerged from the heart of

Judaism, and gathered into its fold many of the Chosen People.

[Illustration: THE TEMPLE, JERUSALEM, BEFORE ITS DESTRUCTION BY TITUS,

A.D. 70

FROM A DRAWING IN THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPÆDIA. (BY PERMISSION)]

What happened in the year A.D. 70 had a tremendous effect on

the life of the Jews,--far more than the ordinary historian usually

assigns to it. It has been tersely but truly said that, “unparalleled

as were the calamities which attended the fall of Jerusalem and the

destruction of the Temple, by far the most terrible of all was the

total collapse of Judaism as a Creed, owing to the annihilation of

all the divinely instituted means of access to God. The religious

pulse of the nation ceased to beat, as it were, with a suddenness most

appalling. We hear nothing of the Sadducees in those days, ... they

were swept away like chaff before the tempest never to appear any more;

but the Pharisees, to whom the Rabbis and Scribes belonged, remained

steadfast, and, collecting the poor remnant of the people around them,

determined to infuse new life into them.”

Mosaism was irretrievably destroyed in the year of our Lord 70, but

the foundations of Rabbinism had, as we have noticed, been laid long

before. It was only necessary to consolidate it, to give it shape

and form, and to claim for the words of its expounders a yet higher

authority than had as yet been conceded even to the written Law (the

Torah). And this was done, or more accurately speaking was commenced,

in the last twenty or thirty years of the first century (the years

immediately following the catastrophe of A.D. 70) by the

disciples of Rabban Jochanan ben Zacchai, who were certainly the

earliest elaborators of the Mishnah,[151] the first and oldest part of

the famous Talmud.

III

(_b_) RABBINISM

WHAT RABBINISM AND ITS BOOK, THE TALMUD, DID FOR THE JEWISH

PEOPLE

Historical summary of events leading up to the compilation and

consolidation of the first part of the Talmud--the Mishnah.

After A.D. 70, when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed,

an extraordinary group of Rabbis or teachers of “the Law” arose--men of

rare gifts, far-seeing and possessing unusual powers of communicating

their enthusiasm to other men. These teachers recognized the utter

hopelessness of any further war with Rome; they abandoned all

expectation of seeing the Temple rebuilt; they saw that the future of

Israel lay not in any restoration of its nationality as a people--that

was now hopeless. But Israel alone among the people of the world

possessed a Divine Law, was the inheritor of a glorious promise, a

promise which they maintained belonged alone to them; no earthly

misfortune could rob the Jew of this: they were the people specially

beloved of God, and only by neglecting the observance of the Divine Law

could they forfeit the sure and blessed inheritance reserved for them.

That same Law must be their sole guide in all the various details of

life--in the smallest matters as in the more important. In the rigid

keeping of it they would in the end receive their great reward, the

reward reserved for them, and for them alone, as the peculiar people of

God the Supreme, the Almighty.

For some five centuries, since the days of Ezra and the return of

the remnant of the people from the Captivity, “the Mosaic Law,” as

contained in the Pentateuch, essentially in the same form as we

now have it, had been regarded by the Jew with an almost limitless

reverence. The acknowledgment of its awful and binding precepts was the

condition without which no one was a member of the Chosen People, or

could have a share in the glorious promises reserved for them.

Their teachers insisted that the commands of “the Law” (the Torah)

were in their entirety the commands of God. “He who says that Moses

wrote even one verse of his own knowledge is a denier and despiser of

the Word of God.” The whole Pentateuch thus came to be regarded as

dictated by God. Even the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, in which

the death of Moses is told, were asserted to have been written by means

of a divine revelation. Some of the teachers even went further; they

asserted that the complete book of the Law had been handed to Moses by

God.[152]

As time went on, the other Books of the “Old Testament”--at first the

writings of the older prophets and works on the pre-exilic period of

Israel; then the body of the “prophets” and the other Old Testament

writings, became also regarded as documents in which the will of God

was revealed in a manner absolutely binding.

Round the Law (Torah) had gathered a vast number of explanatory

directions, and a certain number of traditional additions known as

“Haggadah.” The first of these, the directions or explanations, were

known by the term “Halachah.”[153] It had become necessary, seeing that

the Law of Moses was accepted as the divine code for the guidance of

the Chosen People, to explain and enlarge it further, so as to apply

its brief enactments to all the conditions of everyday life. Some

few of these Halachah were traditionally derived from Moses himself.

Others had probably been composed very early in the schools of the

prophets; yet more were the work of the Scribes,[154] a numerous class

of teachers which had arisen after the return from exile in the days of

Ezra. These Halachah (we use the well-known expression in preference

to the more accurate plural form Halachoth; the same course has been

followed in that of the expression “Haggadah”) had been largely

augmented in the half-century preceding the catastrophe of _A.D._ 70.

The group of eminent Rabbis who arose after the fall of the City and

Temple, and who set themselves the task of reconstituting Israel on

a new and purely religious basis, took these Halachah, studied them,

meditated on them,--no doubt recast many of them to suit the new

position of the people, now that the Temple and its complicated ritual

of sacrifice and public prayer had disappeared, and framed them into an

elaborate system of regulations, thus pointing out how the Law might be

rigidly observed in all the relations of ordinary life.

This great and elaborate work is termed the Mishnah[155]--or

“Repetition,”--the term originally derived from the method in which

it was elaborated. It was not written down in the first instance, but

was _repeated_ again and again by the more famous teachers and heads

of schools to their pupils. The term “Mishnah” came in time to signify

“the second Law,” but that was not the original meaning; it belonged to

a period when the whole instruction was _oral_.

The period of the elaboration of these Halachah (rules) and Haggadah

(tradition) lasted somewhere about a hundred years or a little more.

The great teachers who busied themselves in this work are ordinarily

termed the Mishnic Rabbis--the Talmud term for them being Tannaim.

In the last years of the second century the Mishnah or first part

of the Talmud was virtually closed, and the great Rabbinic schools

then busied themselves in further commenting upon and explaining the

Halachah (rules) and Haggadah (traditions) of the Mishnah; these

further comments and explanations are known as the Gemara.

This second part of the Talmud, known as “Gemara,”[155] the complement

of the first or Mishnic portion, was the outcome of the labours of

several hundred Doctors or Rabbis. Two famous schools of Rabbinical

study carried on the great work of commenting on the Mishnah. The one,

the Palestinian, had its headquarters in Tiberias. The chief centres

of the other, the Babylonian, were Sura and Pumbeditha. In both these

compilations the same Mishnah is the text on which the vast body of

commentary is based. But the Gemara, or commentary, is in many cases

different. The Palestinian Talmud in the form which now exists is much

shorter than the Eastern or Babylonian work. The Palestinian Rabbis

worked from about the year of our Lord 190; their work was closed in

the middle of the fifth century. The labours of the Babylonian doctors

may be dated from the last years of the second, and were closed in the

middle or later years of the sixth century.

The Babylonian--the larger Talmud, containing the Mishnah and Gemara,

which has come down to us fairly intact, fills some twelve large folio

volumes, and covers no less than 2947 folio leaves in double columns;

or in other words, 5894 pages written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Rabbinic.

The nature of these vast compilations is described more in detail in a

later section of this Fifth Book.

The Talmudic term for the doctors of the Gemara is Amoraim.

* * * * *

The one purpose and object of the Talmud, followed out with a

changeless and restless industry by the doctors of the Mishnah

and the Gemara, from the year 70 to nearly the close of the sixth

century--that is to say, for a period of some five hundred years--was

the _Glorification of Israel_. Law and legend, rule and tradition,

massed together with rare skill, all dwell on this. The Jews, and only

the Jews, were the people chosen by God. If they would but honour

Him and serve Him faithfully they would in the end win the exceeding

great and promised reward. The way, and the only way, to know Him and

to serve Him was pointed out with unerring lucidity and a marvellous

wealth of detail in the mighty compilation of the Talmud. They were

strictly warned against encouraging proselytes. The ineffable blessings

belonged to the Jew and to the Jew alone. Again, the exceeding great

reward belonged not to the successful Jewish soldier, but to the Jew

who kept the stern Law handed down from Moses to prophet, and by

prophet to scribe, and by scribe to the Rabbis who compiled the Mishnah

and Gemara, which together make up the Talmud. The question of revolt

against Rome found no place in the Talmud teaching.

After the three great wars--especially after the first, which closed

with the destruction of the Temple--the Jew had no nationality, no

country. He needed none. He had something far greater. He, and only

he, was possessor of the blessed Divine Law; the solitary heir of its

glorious promises.

The Talmud became the bond which linked together in one solid group

the Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria, of Rome and Babylonia. Its power

over the Jewish mind became boundless. It possessed indeed a wondrous

fascination for every child of Israel. It impressed upon each member

of the scattered race, in a way no teaching had ever previously done,

the consciousness who he was, and what was the awful nature of his

inheritance. Strong in this consciousness, he endured all the wrongs

and persecutions, the cruel acts and yet more cruel words which have

been, with rare interludes, his lot since A.D. 70. All through

the subsequent ages he endured a bitter persecution, which even in our

own day and time is still in many lands constantly ready to break out

against him.

Strong in this consciousness he lives on, a willing wanderer and

a stranger among the various nations of the earth, hated and

hating,--feared but at the same time honoured; ever increasing in

numbers, in wealth, and influence. His hand is in each group of

statesmen, now publicly, more often hidden, but always there: he is yet

greater in the exchanges and marts of the nations; the finance of every

civilized country is more or less guided by him, more or less subject

to his dictation and supervision.

Who now, men ask, is this ever-present changeless Jew? What is the

secret of his power and ever-growing influence? The second great

awakening--the awakening to the grandeur of his true position in the

world’s story--when all seemed lost, when his Temple and City were

destroyed, when he became at once homeless, landless, an outcast

hated, even despised, as far as we can _see_, was the work of the

Doctors and Rabbis of Tiberias in Galilee, and of Sura and other

centres in Babylonia, in the years which followed the crushing ruin

of A.D. 70. It was the work of the compilers and teachers

of the Mishnah and Gemara which together made up the Talmud. We may

now and again wonder at the curious and startling assertions of the

Mishnah, and even smile at some of the marvellous extravagances of

the Gemara; but when we ponder over the wonderful story of the Jew

during the eighteen centuries which have passed since the desolation of

A.D. 70, we dare not mock at the Talmud.

When we consider the whole question of what we have termed “the great

awakening” of the Jewish people after the sudden and tremendous ruin

of the City and Temple; the complete change in the heart of the Jew;

the abandonment of the old dream of the restoration of the kingdom

of Israel; the adoption of a spiritual kingdom in its place: when we

remember the universal reverence for, the implicit obedience which very

soon began to be paid to, the teaching of the Mishnah and Gemara--the

Talmud--a reverence and an obedience which completely changed the

life, the views, the hopes of the scattered race in all lands,--we ask

the pressing question: _Whence_ came all this--the mighty change, the

enthusiasm which has never paled or waned? The Mishnic Rabbis--the

Gemara teachers, numerous, able, and devoted though they were, some few

of them men of lofty genius and profound scholarship, do not account

for this amazing result.

The “Talmud,” the outcome of these famous Rabbinic schools of the early

Christian centuries, with its wild extravagances, its many beautiful

thoughts, its peculiar and rigid system, touched the heart of the Jew,

and bound together this people condemned to wander through the ages

without a home, a country, a nationality, with a link no time, no human

hate or scorn has been able to break or even to loose.

The strange weird Book was God’s mysterious instrument by which He has

chosen to preserve intact the people He once loved--loves still--until

the day, perhaps still far distant, dawns when the Jew, with eyes

opened at last, shall look on Him whom they pierced.

IV

THE TALMUD

One[156] who loved with a love passionate, though not always

discriminating, this vast wondrous compilation which has so

marvellously affected the fortunes of the Chosen People, has written

the following words: “The origin of the Talmud is coeval with the

return from the Babylonish Captivity (some five centuries before

Christ). One of the most mysterious and momentous periods in the

history of humanity is that brief span 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 change

is there, palpable, unmistakable--a change we 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 than that of wife

and child. These same documents, as they were gradually 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 practical minds of the

nation remained fixed upon them. _Turn it, and turn it again_, says the

Talmud with regard to the Bible, _for everything is in it_.”

After the fall of the City and the burning of the Temple in

A.D. 70 the wonderful records of the Jew and his Book (the

Talmud) are all clear and definite. How it was composed, who compiled

it, and why it was put out, all this belongs to history, and forms a

most important though little known chapter in the annals of the Chosen

People; in some respects also it is a most weighty piece of evidential

history--perhaps the most weighty--possessed by Christianity.

But some of the materials out of which the great Book (the Talmud),

which has so enormously influenced the fortunes of the Chosen People

for so many centuries, was composed, existed before the catastrophe of

A.D. 70. We will briefly examine what we know of the ancient materials

of the Talmud; the examination will be of the highest interest.

* * * * *

It is certain that very early--no doubt in the far-back days of

Moses--there must have existed, as we have already suggested, a number

of explanatory laws which set forth in detail many of the laws and

regulations broadly laid down in the original written code of the great

lawgiver. Questions must have been asked again and again--To what cases

in actual life the brief written precept applied, what consequences

it in general entailed, and what was to be done that the commandments

might be fairly, even rigidly observed. In a number of cases the

original written Law gave no direct answer.

To supply this need a body of Halachah (the word Halachah, as we have

stated, signifies rule, practice, custom) gathered round the written

Law (the Torah). Some of these Halachah, tradition said, were given by

Moses himself; others were said to have been devised by that primitive

council of the desert wanderings, the elders, and by their successors,

the later “judges within the gates,” referred to in the Pentateuch.

As time went on the Halachah or authoritative oral Law of explanation

no doubt formed an important branch of the studies pursued in those

schools of the prophets founded by Samuel in the early days of the

monarchy--schools of which we know so little, but which throughout the

pre-exilic days evidently played a part in the life of the kingdoms of

Israel and Judah.

On the return from the Captivity, some five centuries before the

Christian era, the remnant of the nation who returned to their

desolated land came back a changed people--“a band of Puritans” we

have, with scarcely any exaggeration, termed them; while the Divine Law

which once many, perhaps the majority, of the people neglected, the

very existence of which they had ignored, almost forgotten, became the

object of their passionate love.

During the period of exile, of which we know so little but in the

course of which the great change to which we have been dimly alluding

passed over the people, the memory of the oral Law, much of the

ancient Halachah, the traditions, the sacred expositions which make

up the Haggadah, were kept alive by teachers, in the first instance

by the men who had been trained in the schools of the prophets.

Then after the return from exile the study of all these treasured

memories--some, as we have already suggested, possibly dating from the

days of Moses--which surrounded the now precious Law, received a new

development. The Law, the Halachah, the traditions generally known as

Haggadah, were no longer the mere heritage of the scholars who composed

the somewhat mysterious schools of the prophets we read of in the days

of the kings, but were now regarded as the precious treasure of the

whole nation.

As the Divine Law rose in public estimation its scientific study and

exposition became a great and popular craft. Every individual of the

nation was interested in knowing it and obeying it. A numerous and

independent class or guild arose which made its investigation and study

the chief business of life. These men were known as the Scribes; they

became the recognised teachers of the nation. Some of them were men of

independent means, but the majority practised some trade or business

out of which they lived. They were tent-makers, sandal-makers, weavers,

carpenters, tanners, bakers, etc., but the study of the Law was their

loved occupation, and some of them attained great proficiency in their

work. Such a class of men had never existed in any people before--has

never made its appearance since in any nation.[157]

This study of the Law became a veritable science, a science that

gradually assumed the very widest dimensions. The name given to it

is “Midrash”--interpretation, and it included study, meditation,

exposition, investigation, inquiry. The men of the “Return from Exile”

who devoted themselves to this work took as the foundation of their

labours, first the written Law of Moses, then gradually the records of

the Prophets and the other writings subsequently included in the Old

Testament canon; and to this material was added the oral Law, or such

portion of it which had been preserved, including the sacred traditions

which had been handed down from the days of Moses and his successors,

and treasured up in the schools of the prophets. In this “Midrash”--for

we will keep to the well-known term which generally included all this

varied and comprehensive study of the Scribes who lived in the period

between the Return from the Exile and the Christian era--two distinct

currents can be distinguished. The first of these great currents

may be termed Prose, the second Poetry. The first (the prose) is

called Halachah (rules, customs); the second (the poetry), Haggadah

(tradition and legend, including parable, allegory, lessons).[158]

The Halachah (rules) for a very long period were never written down,

but were transmitted from teacher to teacher in an unbroken succession,

orally, with many and various additions. The Haggadah (traditions) in

many cases were, however, written down, and so transmitted.

Thus from the period of the Return from the Exile a vast bulk of

teaching, largely unwritten, traditional, and legendary, all founded

on and closely bearing on the Law (Torah), had been collected by the

Scribes and their schools stretching over a period of about five

centuries. Some thirty years before the Christian era Hillel, the great

Rabbinic master of the period, endeavoured to reduce this great mass of

teaching, oral and written, rule and tradition, Halachah and Haggadah,

to some definite system and order. He did something in this direction,

but died before his task was in any real way completed, and for many

years nothing further was done in the way of codifying or arrangement.

Then came the great upheaval of A.D. 70, when the Holy City

was razed to the ground; when it appeared as though the religion of the

Jew was destroyed, now that the Temple round which all the cherished

memories of the people were grouped had disappeared. Curiously

enough, as it appears to men, the contrary was the case: a wonderful

resurrection of religious life was the almost immediate outcome of the

fall of the City and Temple.

A group of singularly able and devoted men, as we have already

remarked, arose at this critical moment in Jewish history--when all

seemed lost. Judaism in the year 70, when the long and bitter war with

Rome was finally closed, was stripped of everything. It had lost for

ever its position as a nation. Its Temple, the joy of the whole world,

as their royal songman pictured it, was a heap of shapeless ruins. Its

most sacred treasures were carried away to adorn an Italian triumph.

The Holy City was literally razed to the ground. The promised land

of their fathers was desolated. Thousands of the people were slain

or reduced to slavery. Of the Jews who dwelt as strangers in Egypt,

Syria, and Italy--the very name was hated and despised. Only one thing

remained to the sad remnant of the Chosen People: the sacred Law of

Moses, the Torah--the writings of their old prophets--their treasured

Psalms--the undying records of their past glorious history.

And these precious writings, and the wonderful body of rule and

tradition, oral and written, which had gathered round them, the

Halachah and Haggadah of the Scribes, collected during the previous

four or five centuries,--these were saved from the awful wreck, and a

group of devoted Jews gathered them together, and with them at once

proceeded to train up a new and a yet greater and more influential

people than had ever before worshipped the Eternal of Hosts, even

in the golden days of their mighty kings David and Solomon; but the

foundation stories of the grandeur of the new Israel were not to be

built with human materials. No army, no strong fortress, no stately

city, not even a visible temple made with hands after the fashion of

the glorious lost House of God, were for the future to rank among the

proud and cherished possessions of the Jew. Only the Divine Law given

him direct from God the One Supreme, the Everlasting, for the future

was to represent to the Jew home and hearth, family and nation, City

and Temple.

If the Jews--the scattered harassed remnant who survived the bloody

Roman war of Titus--would with heart and soul keep the precepts of the

Divine Law, what mattered insult and cruelty, human scorn and malice,

suffering and misery for a little season; for eye hath not seen, nor

ear heard, the beatitude which awaited the Jew who loved the Torah.

This was the teaching of that group of fervid and devoted men who, so

to speak, arose out of the ashes of the ruins of Jerusalem and the

Temple. And the sad remnant of the people hearkened to this teaching,

and with heart and soul revered the Law, the Torah of their God.

All this is no mere rhetoric, strange though it reads: it is plain

unvarnished history.

Undismayed by the crushing ruin of A.D. 70, the chief Rabbinic leaders,

when Jerusalem was destroyed, re-established their schools at Jamnia

(Jabne), a town close to the sea, south of Joppa. They had little

sympathy with the extreme party of Nationalists, the Zealots; for they

saw that any serious conflict with Rome was utterly hopeless, so they

diverted the thoughts and aspirations of the survivors of the great

revolt into other channels. The cult of the Law henceforward must be

the work of Israel. They were wonderfully successful, and soon infused

into the heart of the Chosen People something of their burning zeal;

for what they taught, they maintained, were the very words and commands

of the Eternal of Hosts.

A great master, Jochanan ben Zacchai, soon made the new school of

Jamnia a notable centre of the new work. We use the term “new”; for

although Rabbinism and the scientific study of the Law had existed long

before the events of A.D. 70, it received a fresh and striking

impulse when the Temple and City existed no longer.

Round the chair of Jochanan gathered quickly a band of faithful

disciples who shared in the quiet enthusiasm of the great master, and

in the last twenty-five or thirty years of the fatal century which

had witnessed the terrible victory of Titus, the real foundations of

the Talmud, which united and bound together the Chosen People for

centuries, which preserved them from disintegration and welded them

once more into one great race, were laid.

Rome allowed this new spirit to grow up among the remnant of the

people she had crushed, and made no effort to interfere with the

Jamnia Rabbinic school. The statesmen of the Empire were quite content

that the restless people, so long a danger to the State, should turn

its attention to other matters unconnected with aspirations after

independence. It was no doubt with some contempt that they witnessed

the growth of the new spirit among the turbulent nation. It was nothing

to Rome--this singular devotion to an old Law and a traditional

revelation which the Jew considered divine. They little thought that

the Jew and his ancient Law would outlive the mighty Empire of which

they were so proud, and that the despised and crushed race and its

cherished belief would influence in a marvellous way the civilized

world for hundreds of years after Rome had become the mere shadow of a

name.

The great Jewish revolt of A.D. 117 had little influence upon

the fortunes and wonderful growth of the Rabbinic schools, the chief

seat of which was in Palestine. The scenes of that rebellion and its

ghastly punishment were far removed from Palestine, and what happened

in Cyrene, Egypt, and Cyprus only slightly affected the dwellers in the

old Land of Promise.

But the next revolt--the rebellion we have termed the third great

Jewish war--had a different scene. Once more Palestine witnessed a

dangerous and bloody war, when Bar-cochab, a mistaken enthusiast and

patriot, raised again the standard of rebellion against Rome, and,

asserting that he was the long-looked-for Messiah, gave this last

formidable Jewish rising the character of a religious war.

As a rule the great masters of the new Rabbinic schools were out of

sympathy with the Zealots who had risen against Rome in this last

disastrous revolt; but one of their number, the famous Rabbi Akiba,

curiously enough, had espoused their cause, and certain others of

the more eminent Rabbinic teachers, no doubt owing to his influence,

had rallied to the cause of Bar-cochab in the desperate and hopeless

struggle.

Rabbi Akiba occupies among the early group of founders of the Talmud,

who flourished from _circa_ A.D. 70 to _circa_ A.D. 190, perhaps the

most prominent position. He was even termed the “second Moses,” so

sought after were his teachings and expositions of the sacred Law, and

its subsequent explanations and additions--the Halachah. He gathered

round him not only a host of younger pupils, but among his disciples

were numbered a group of Rabbis who became subsequently the chief

teachers of their day and time. It has been often asked what induced

this great Rabbinic scholar and teacher to throw in his lot with a wild

enthusiast like Bar-cochab, and to support that impostor’s baseless

claim to be recognized as the promised Messiah.

The answer perhaps is that Akiba, in common with others of the new

school of Rabbinism, which aimed at restoring the fallen Judaism by

means of an enthusiastic devotion to the Divine Law, recognised that

in Christianity must be sought and found the most dangerous foe to

the Rabbinic conception of the Chosen People. After the fall of the

City and Temple, and the breaking up of every national and religious

bond, there was grave danger that the Jewish people would become

absorbed among the Gentile Christians. It is probable that already

some of the Rabbis were secretly persuaded of the truth of the Gospel

story. Rabbi Akiba was, however, one of the most energetic opponents

of Christianity, and he welcomed the appearance of the pseudo-Messiah

Bar-cochab as a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.

But great though the influence of Akiba was, for he persuaded some

Jews, he evidently did not carry the bulk of the Rabbinic teachers with

him, for the Talmud execrates the name of Bar-cochab, though it ever

mentions the name of Akiba with the deepest and tenderest veneration.

The great learning and the devoted behaviour of the loved teacher

under the most excruciating tortures which accompanied his execution

by the Roman government, saved his memory from the bitter reproaches

with which the Talmud speaks of Bar-cochab and the authors of the last

ill-fated and useless revolt.[159]

Akiba is ever remembered as one of the greatest of this wonderful group

of Talmud founders, as well as a very noble martyr.

Rabbi Akiba’s work was not limited to exposition and explanation and

elaborate discussions in the academies of the traditional Halachah or

oral comments on the Law of Moses. He was virtually the first[160]

who attempted to codify and arrange the vast accumulation of these

Halachah and Haggadah, and to reduce them into something like order

and arrangement. Some years after Akiba’s death, about the middle of

the second century, his most famous disciple, the Rabbi Meir, who is

known in the Talmud as the “Light of the Law,” took up his master

Akiba’s work, and went on with arranging and codifying the Halachah,

introducing, however, many more Halachah into his codification, and

supplementing and illustrating his expositions with many interesting

traditions (Haggadah)[161]; thus preparing the way for the more

elaborate collection or recension of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi--the Holy--who

is known in the Talmud as “Rabbi”--_the_ Rabbi _par excellence_.

“Rabbi’s” great work of codification may be dated about the years

A.D. 200-19, or thereabouts.

The work of “Rabbi,” somewhat enlarged and recast, is with us still.

It represents fairly the Mishnah which was used as the text of the

great Gemara[162] commentaries compiled in the schools of Palestine

and Babylonia[163] between the end of the second century and the last

years of the sixth century. The Mishnah of “Rabbi,” which was largely

based upon the collections of Rabbi Akiba and his disciple Rabbi Meir,

and the Gemaras of Palestine and Babylonia,[163] compiled in centuries

three, four, five, and six, make up the Talmud.

There was a strict traditional interdiction which dated back at least

to the centuries which followed the Return from the Exile, if not

earlier, against ever committing the Halachah and the discussions of

the Scribes upon the Halachah to _writing_. The latest Jewish scholars

have decided that to a certain extent the interdiction was removed by

“Rabbi” in the very early years of the third century, or at the close

of the second century.

We may assume, then, with tolerable certainty that “Rabbi” in his old

age reduced the great collection of Halachah to writing, transgressing,

in a way, the ancient tradition which forbade this. He seems to

have considered that the prohibition, if maintained in its ancient

strictness, might endanger the preservation of the precious teaching.

“Rabbi” did not entirely abrogate the interdiction, for the oral method

of instruction continued during the period of the Gemara discussions

in Palestine and in Babylonia: the teacher alone using the _written_

Halachah, which made up the redaction of the Mishnah by “Rabbi” as a

guide; the pupils, however, always repeating the lesson _orally_.

Before the fall of Jerusalem the great Sanhedrim was the ultimate

resort for decisions in the law, though it is true that as a rule it

accepted the Law as developed by the great teachers; but still, “from

thence,” _i.e._ from the Sanhedrim, as the Mishnah says, “proceeded the

Law for all Israel.” But after A.D. 70 the great Sanhedrim

ceased to exist. This of course gave a very marked increase in prestige

and power to the acknowledged leading Rabbis or Masters in the Rabbinic

schools.

The principal task of these doctors was to teach the Law. The ideal

was that every Israelite should have a knowledge of this Divine

Law. Of course, this ideal was unattainable, but the famous Rabbis

without doubt gathered round them great numbers who longed for special

instruction in what had come to be looked on as the glory and hope of

their race. “Bring up many scholars” was a famous ancient saying.

The instruction in the Palestinian schools of Jamnia and Lydda, and

a little later more especially at Tiberias, and also in the famous

Babylonian schools such as Sura,[164] Nehardea, and Pumbeditha,

consisted in a continual exercise of the memory. The oral Law before

the days of “Rabbi,” at the close of the second century, was never

committed to writing, the teacher repeating his matter again and

again. This invariable method of teaching in the Rabbinical schools

was the origin of the term _Mishnah_ (repetition).[165]

The system of teaching was absolutely different from that of our modern

colleges and universities. The masters of the various schools did not

confine themselves to giving lectures which the pupils could take

down. Here all was busy life, excitement, debate; question was met by

question, and countless questions and answers were given, wrapped up

in allegory, parable, and legend,--of course under the guidance and

direction of the head of the academy.

A most interesting picture of the inner life and organization of

the Rabbinical schools or academies in which the Talmud was slowly

and deliberately composed is given in the vast and scholarly Jewish

Encyclopædia (completed in the year 1906). A very brief précis of this

is attempted here. The date of the picture in question is as late as

the tenth century, and refers especially to a comparatively late period

in the Rabbinical work; but much of it goes back to the time of the

Amoraim, the earliest Rabbis of the Gemara, who were the teachers from

the first part of the third century.

It may be taken as an account and general description of the method in

which the two versions of the Talmud were composed, in Palestine as

well as in Babylonia, in such academical centres of Rabbinism as Sura

and Tiberias. The picture especially refers to the Babylonian academies

of Pumbeditha and Sura, but without doubt a very similar procedure was

followed in the Palestinian academy of Tiberias.

The students or disciples appear to have assembled twice every year,

the discussion and instruction lasting four weeks.

In the month Elah at the close of the summer, and in the month Adar

at the end of the winter, the disciples desiring instruction in the

sacred Law journeyed to the academy, say of Sura, or of Pumbeditha,

from their various abodes, having carefully studied and prepared during

the previous five months the special treatise of the Mishnah announced

at the academy at the close of the preceding session by the head of the

Rabbinic school as the subject for discussion at the next session.

They at once presented themselves on arriving at Sura to the head of

the academy, who proceeded to examine them on the treatise of the

Mishnah fixed beforehand.

They sat in the following order or rank: seventy of the senior or

principal pupils were placed nearest to the head, or president, of the

school, the number seventy being a reminiscence of the great Sanhedrim.

Behind these seventy sat the other disciples and members of the academy.

The foremost row--the seventy--recited aloud the subject-matter of the

discussion and of instruction which were to follow; they recited,

too, any passage which seemed to require especial consideration, which

they debated among themselves, the “head,” or president, all the while

silently taking notes of the debate.

The “head” after this lectured generally on the treatise, the subject

of the discussion, adding an exposition of those special passages which

had given rise to the debate.

Sometimes in the course of his lecture the “head” asked a question as

to how the disciples would explain a certain Halachah. The question had

to be answered by the scholars he chose to name. After the answer or

answers had been received the “head” added his own exposition of the

Halachah in question.

Subsequently one of the “seventy” senior students gave an address,

summing up the arguments which had arisen out of the theme--the

Halachah--which they had been considering.

In the fourth week of the session the “seventy” and other of the

students were examined individually by the “head” of the academy.

Questions received from various quarters were also discussed for final

solution. The “head” listened, and finally formulated his decisions,

which were written down. The results of the meeting of the academy

during the month of session were finally signed by the “head” of the

academy.

* * * * *

The details and comments contained in the foregoing sections of the

Fifth Book (“The Jew and the Talmud”) are mainly confined to the great

official work of Rabbinic Judaism known as the Talmud, made up of the

Mishnah and its commentary, the Gemara.

But besides this vast compilation, it must be borne in mind that there

exists an enormous mass of Rabbinic literature outside the Talmud, such

as the non-canonical Mishnah, the Targumim, the Midrashim, the Kabbala,

etc. Some of this dates from a very early period, and possesses a high

authority among the recognized Jewish teachers.

Most of these extra-Talmudical writings are Haggadic in character.

V

THE TEXT OF THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

All this mighty superstructure of “Mishnah and Gemara,” which occupied

so many of the greatest and most earnest minds in Israel for several

centuries, was built up on the foundations of a Law (Torah) recognised

as given by God Himself. The Books containing this Law (Torah), the

Pentateuch, were accepted as divine in the course of the five centuries

which intervened between the return from exile and the Christian era.

The Pentateuch at first constituted the canon of Jewish Scripture. Its

acknowledgment, though, no doubt dates from a much older period--long

before the days of the Exile. We do not, however, possess sufficient

historical data to define accurately the position which the Law held

in pre-exilic Israel. To the Pentateuch was subsequently added the

writings of the Prophets and the sacred works belonging to the older

pre-exilic history of Israel. The canon of Scripture was completed and

acknowledged much in its present form certainly 200 years before the

age of Jesus Christ.

But although the prophets and other writings belonging to the

pre-exilic period had been subsequently added to the Torah (the Law of

Moses), it is certain that they never were placed quite on a level with

it.

THE MASSORAH

After the question--What constituted the canonical writings, the Divine

Word?--was finally and authoritatively settled, the next step was to

ensure the preservation of the sacred text which contained the Divine

Revelation. The Scribes had determined what were the canonical books.

The text of these books was handed over to another group of scholars

known as the Massoretes. The precise chronology of these various steps

is unknown.

The word “Massorah” comes from the Hebrew “Masar,” to give something

into the hand of another so as to commit it to his trust. The work

and duty of the Massoretes--the authoritative custodians of the sacred

text--was to safeguard it, so as to protect it from any change. This

they did effectually by “building a hedge round it.” To do this, they

carefully registered all the phenomena in the ancient manuscripts,

the reason for and meaning of many of which were not understood; but

they were carefully noted and preserved. Some words were found which

had been dotted over; some were spelt with large, some with smaller

letters; some words and expressions were archaic, that is, belonging

to a much earlier date in their history; some were suspended above

the line; some sentences contained peculiar expressions: such-like

phenomena and peculiarities in the ancient MSS. were diligently

recorded by the Massoretes,--none were overlooked.

Other textual notes were carefully made, such as the number of verses

in each sacred book. The middle verse and word of each great section in

each book and even in the whole Bible were also recorded. All important

words were noted; the number of times that each letter of the alphabet

occurs in each division in each book and in the whole Bible were

diligently written down. All this, and very much more of such curious

statistical information, was registered by the Massoretes so as to lock

and interlock every letter, word, and line into its place, that the

original text of the ancient MSS. might be preserved and faithfully

reproduced and handed down by any copyist who followed the direction of

the Massorah.

That some of this curious elaborate work was done, that some of this

vast hedge[166] round the Law was planted _before_ the fall of the

City and Temple in A.D. 70, is fairly certain. But there is

no doubt that the extremely complicated and exhaustive work of the

Massoretes to ensure the preservation of the ancient text was really

elaborated and completed in those centuries after the Christian era

when the composition of the Mishnah and Gemara occupied the attention

of the great Rabbinic academies which arose after the ruin of the City

and Temple, in Palestine and in Babylonia.

This very brief sketch of the Massorah will give some idea of how

exceedingly precious in the eyes of the Jew for many centuries has been

the text of his loved Scriptures.