The jubilee of the introduction of the Penny Post into England was not
reached till 1890. It is difficult to realize the state of affairs before
this reform became part of our everyday life. That less than three-quarters
of a century ago the scattered members of English families were, in a
multitude of cases, practically dead to one another, may incline one to
exaggerate the insignificance of the means of communication in times yet
more remote. Certainly, in ancient Judea there were fewer needs than in the
modern world. Necessity produces invention, and as the Jew of remote times
rarely felt a strong necessity to correspond with his brethren in his own
or other countries, it naturally followed that the means of communication
were equally _extempore_ in character. It may be of interest to put
together some desultory jottings on this important topic.
The way to Judea lies through Rome. If we wish information whether the Jews
knew anything of a regular post, we must first inquire whether the Romans
possessed that institution. According to Gibbon, this was the case.
Excellent roads made their appearance wherever the Romans settled; and "the
advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence and of conveying their
orders with celerity, induced the Emperors to establish throughout their
extensive dominions the regular institution of posts. Houses were
everywhere erected at the distance only of five or six miles; each of them
was constantly provided with forty horses, and by the help of these relays
it was easy to travel a hundred miles a day along the Roman roads. The use
of the posts was allowed to those who claimed it by an Imperial mandate;
but, though originally intended for the public service, it was sometimes
indulged to the business or con-veniency of private citizens." This
statement of Gibbon (towards the end of chapter ii) applies chiefly, then,
to official despatches; for we know from other sources that the Romans had
no public post as we understand the term, but used special messengers
(_tabellarius_) to convey private letters.
Exactly the same facts meet us with reference to the Jews in the earlier
Talmudic times. There were special Jewish letter-carriers, who carried the
documents in a pocket made for the purpose, and in several towns in
Palestine there was a kind of regular postal arrangement, though many
places were devoid of the institution. It is impossible to suppose that
these postal conveniences refer only to official documents; for the Mishnah
(_Sabbath_, x, 4) is evidently speaking of Jewish postmen, who, at that
time, would hardly have been employed to carry the despatches of the
government. The Jewish name for this post was _Bê-Davvar_, and apparently
was a permanent and regular institution. From a remark of Rabbi Jehudah
(_Rosh ha-Shanah_, 9b), "like a postman who goes about everywhere and
carries merchandise to the whole province," it would seem that the Jews had
established a parcels-post; but unfortunately we have no precise
information as to how these posts were managed.
Gibbon's account of the Roman post recalls another Jewish institution,
which may have been somehow connected with the _Bê-Davvar_. The official
custodian of the goat that was sent into the wilderness on the Day of
Atonement was allowed, if he should feel the necessity--a necessity which,
according to tradition, never arose--to partake of food even on the
fast-day. For this purpose huts were erected along the route, and men
provided with food were stationed at each of these huts to meet the
messenger and conduct him some distance on his way.
That the postal system cannot have been very much developed, is clear from
the means adopted to announce the New Moon in various localities. This
official announcement certainly necessitated a complete system of
communication. At first, we are told (_Rosh ha-Shanah_, ii, 2), fires were
lighted on the tops of the mountains; but the Samaritans seem to have
ignited the beacons at the wrong time, so as to deceive the Jews. It was,
therefore, decided to communicate the news by messenger. The mountain-fires
were prepared as follows: Long staves of cedar-wood, canes, and branches of
the olive-tree were tied up with coarse threads or flax; these were lighted
as torches, and men on the hills waved the brands to and fro, upward and
downward, until the signal was repeated on the next hill, and so forth.
When messengers were substituted for these fire signals, it does not appear
that they carried letters; they brought verbal messages, which they seem to
have shouted out without necessarily dismounting from the animals they
rode. Messages were not sent every month, but only six times a year; and a
curious light is thrown on the means of communication of the time, by the
legal decision that anyone was to be believed on the subject, and that the
word of a passing merchant who said that "he had heard the New Moon
proclaimed," was to be accepted unhesitatingly. Nowadays, busy men are
sometimes put out by postal vagaries, but they hardly suffer to the extent
of having to fast two days. This calamity is recorded, however, in the
Jerusalem Talmud, as having, on a certain occasion, resulted from the delay
in the arrival of the messengers announcing the New Moon.
Besides the proclamation of the New Moon, other official documents must
have been despatched regularly. "Bills of divorce," for instance, needed
special messengers; the whole question of the legal position of messengers
is very intimately bound up with that of conveying divorces. This, however,
seems to have been the function of private messengers, who were not in the
strict sense letter-carriers at all. It may be well, in passing, to recall
one or two other means of communication mentioned in the Midrash. Thus we
read how Joshua, with twelve thousand of his warriors, was imprisoned, by
means of witchcraft, within a sevenfold barrier of iron. He resolves to
write for aid to the chief of the tribe of Reuben, bidding him to summon
Phineas, who is to bring the "trumpets" with him. Joshua ties the message
to the wings of a dove, or pigeon, and the bird carries the letter to the
Israelites, who speedily arrive with Phineas and the trumpets, and, after
routing the enemy, effect Joshua's rescue. A similar idea may be found in
the commentary of Kimchi on Genesis. Noah, wishing for information, says
Kimchi, sent forth a raven, but it brought back no message; then he sent a
dove, which has a natural capacity for bringing back replies, when it has
been on the same way once or twice. Thus kings train these birds for the
purpose of sending them great distances, with letters tied to their wings.
So we read (_Sabbath_, 49) in the Talmud that "a dove's wings protect it,"
i.e. people preserve it, and do not slay it, because they train it to act
as their messenger. Or, again, we find arrows used as a means of carrying
letters, and we are not alluding to such signals as Jonathan gave to David.
During the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Emperor had men placed
near the walls of Jerusalem, and they wrote the information they obtained
on arrows, and fired them from the wall, with the connivance, probably, of
the philo-Roman party that existed within the doomed city.
In earlier Bible times, there was, as the Tell-el-Amarna bricks show, an
extensive official correspondence between Canaan and Egypt, but private
letter-writing seems not to have been resorted to; messages were
transmitted orally to the parties concerned. This fact is well illustrated
by the story of Joseph. He may, of course, have deliberately resolved not
to communicate with his family, but if letter-writing had been usual, his
brothers would naturally have asked him--a question that did not suggest
itself to them--why he had never written to tell his father of his
fortunes. When Saul desired to summon Israel, he sent, not a letter, but a
mutilated yoke of oxen; the earliest letter mentioned in the Bible being
that in which King David ordered Uriah to be placed in the forefront of the
army. Jezebel sends letters in Ahab's name to Naboth, Jehu to Samaria. In
all these cases letters were used for treacherous purposes, and they are
all short. Probably the authors of these plots feared to betray their real
intention orally, and so they committed their orders to writing, expecting
their correspondents to read between the lines. It is not till the time of
Isaiah that the references to writing become frequent. Intercourse between
Palestine on the one hand and Babylon and Egypt on the other had then
increased greatly, and the severance of the nation itself tended to make
correspondence through writing more necessary. When we reach the age of
Jeremiah, this fact makes itself even more strongly apparent. Letters are
often mentioned by that prophet (xxix. 25, 29), and a professional class of
Soferim, or scribes, make their appearance. Afterwards, of course, the
Sofer became of much higher importance; he was not merely a professional
writer, but a man learned in the Law, who spread the knowledge of it among
the people. Later, again, these functions were separated, and the Sofer
added to his other offices that of teacher of the young. Nowadays, he has
regained his earlier and less important position, for the modern Sofer is
simply a professional writer. In the time of Ezekiel (ix. 2) the Sofer went
abroad with the implements of his trade, including the inkhorn, at his
side. In the Talmud, the scribe is sometimes described by his Latin title
_libellarius_ (_Sabbath_,11a). The Jews of Egypt, as may be seen from the
Assouan Papyri, wrote home in cases of need in the time of Nehemiah; and in
the same age we hear also of "open letters," for Sanballat sends a missive
of that description by his servant; and apparently it was by means of a
similar letter that the festival of Purim was announced to the Jews (Esther
ix., where, unlike the other passages quoted, the exact words of the letter
of Mordecai are not given). The order to celebrate Chanukah was published
in the same way, and, indeed, the books of the Apocrypha contain many
interesting letters, and in the pages of Josephus the Jews hold frequent
intercourse in this way with many foreign countries. In the latter cases,
when the respective kings corresponded, the letters were conveyed by
special embassies.
One might expect this epistolary activity to display itself at an even more
developed stage in the records of Rabbinical times. But this is by no means
the case, for the Rabbinical references to letters in the beginning of the
common era are few and far between. Polemic epistles make their appearance;
but they are the letters of non-Jewish missionaries like Paul. This form of
polemical writing possessed many advantages; the letters were passed on
from one reader to another; they would be read aloud, too, before
gatherings of the people to whom they were addressed. Maimonides, in later
times, frequently adopted this method of communicating with whole
communities, and many of the Geonim and other Jewish authorities followed
the same plan. But somehow the device seems not to have commended itself to
the earliest Rabbis. Though we read of many personal visits paid by the
respective authorities of Babylon and Palestine to one another, yet they
appear to have corresponded very rarely in writing. The reason lay probably
in the objection felt against committing the Halachic, or legal, decisions
of the schools to writing, and there was little else of consequence to
communicate after the failure of Bar-Cochba's revolt against the Roman
rule.
It must not be thought, however, that this prohibition had the effect we
have described for very long. Rabbi Gamaliel, Rabbi Chananiah, and many
others had frequent correspondence with far distant places, and as soon
as the Mishnah acquired a fixed form, even though it was not immediately
committed to writing, the recourse to letters became much more common.
Pupils of the compilers of the Mishnah proceeded to Babylon to spread its
influence, and they naturally maintained a correspondence with their
chiefs in Palestine. Rab and Samuel in particular, among the Amoraim,
were regular letter-writers, and Rabbi Jochanan replied to them. Towards
the end of the third century this correspondence between Judea and
Babylon became even more active. Abitur and Abin often wrote concerning
legal decisions and the doings of the schools, and thereby the
intellectual activity of Judaism maintained its solidarity despite the
fact that the Jewish people was no longer united in one land. In the
Talmud we frequently read, "they sent from there," viz. Palestine.
Obviously these messages were sent in writing, though possibly the bearer
of the message was often himself a scholar, who conveyed his report by
word of mouth. Perhaps the growth of the Rabbi's practice of writing
responses to questions--a practice that became so markedly popular in
subsequent centuries--may be connected with the similar habit of the
Roman jurists and the Christian Church fathers, and the form of response
adopted by the eighth century Geonim is reminiscent of that of the Roman
lawyers. The substance of the letters, however, is by no means the same;
the Church father wrote on dogmatic, the Rabbi on legal, questions.
Between the middle of the fourth century and the time of the Geonim, we
find no information as to the use of letters among the Jews. From that
period onwards, however, Jews became very diligent letter-writers, and
sometimes, for instance in the case of the "Guide of the Perplexed" of
Maimonides, whole works were transmitted in the form of letters. The
scattering of Israel, too, rendered it important to Jews to obtain
information of the fortunes of their brethren in different parts of the
world. Rumors of Messianic appearances from the twelfth century onwards,
the contest with regard to the study of philosophy, the fame of
individual Rabbis, the rise of a class of travellers who made very long
and dangerous journeys, all tended to increase the facilities and
necessities of intercourse by letter. It was long, however, before
correspondence became easy or safe. Not everyone is possessed of the
postmen assigned in Midrashim to King Solomon, who pressed demons into
his service, and forced them to carry his letters wheresoever he willed.
Chasdai experienced considerable difficulty in transmitting his famous
letter to the king of the Chazars, and that despite his position of
authority in the Spanish State. In 960 a letter on some question of
Kasher was sent from the Rhine to Palestine--proof of the way in which
the most remote Jewish communities corresponded.
The question of the materials used in writing has an important bearing on
our subject. Of course, the ritual regulations for writing the holy books,
the special preparation of the parchment, the ink, the strict rules for the
formation of the letters, hardly fall within the province of this article.
In ancient times the most diverse substances were used for writing on.
Palm-leaves (for which Palestine of old was famous) were a common object
for the purpose, being so used all over Asia. Some authorities believe that
in the time of Moses the palm leaf was the ordinary writing-material.
Olive-leaves, again, were thick and hard, while carob-leaves (St. John's
bread), besides being smooth, long, and broad, were evergreen, and thus
eminently fitted for writing. Walnut shells, pomegranate skins, leaves of
gourds, onion-leaves, lettuce-heads, even the horns of cattle, and the
human body, letters being tattooed on the hands of slaves, were all turned
to account. It is maintained by some that leather was the original
writing-material of the Hebrews; others, again, give their vote in favor of
linen, though the Talmud does not mention the latter material in connection
with writing. Some time after Alexander the Great, the Egyptian papyrus
became common in Palestine, where it probably was known earlier, as Jewish
letters on papyrus were sent to Jerusalem from the Fayyum in the fifth
century B.C.E. Even as late as Maimonides, the scrolls of the Law were
written on leather, and not on parchment, which is now the ordinary
material for the purpose. That the Torah was not to be written on a
vegetable product was an assumed first principle. The Samaritans went so
far as to insist that the animal whose hide was needed for so holy a
purpose, must be slain Kasher. Similarly with divorce documents. A Get on
paper would be held legal _post factum_, though it is not allowed to use
that material, as it is easily destroyed or mutilated, and the use of paper
for the purpose was confined to the East. Some allowed the Book of Esther
to be read from a paper copy; other authorities not only strongly objected
to this, but even forbade the reading of the Haftarah from paper. Hence one
finds in libraries so many parchment scrolls containing only the Haftarahs.
The Hebrew word for letter, Iggereth, is of unknown origin, though it is
now commonly taken to be an Assyrian loan-word. It used to be derived from
a root signifying to "hire," in reference to the "hired courier," by whom
it was despatched. Other terms for letter, such as "book," "roll," explain
themselves. Black ink was early used, though it is certain that it was
either kept in a solid state, like India ink, or that it was of the
consistency of glue, and needed the application of water before it could be
used. For pens, the iron stylus, the reed, needle, and quill (though the
last was not admitted without a struggle) were the common substitutes at
various dates.
We must now return to the subject with which we set out, and make a few
supplementary remarks with regard to the actual conveyance of letters. In
the Talmud (_Baba Mezia,_ 83b) a proverb is quoted to this effect, "He who
can read and understand the contents of a letter, may be the deliverer
thereof." As a rule, one would prefer that the postman did not read the
correspondence he carries, and this difficulty seems to have stood in the
way of trusting letters to unknown bearers. To remove this obstacle to free
intercourse, Rabbenu Gershom issued his well-known decree, under penalty of
excommunication, against anyone who, entrusted with a letter to another,
made himself master of its contents. To the present day, in some places,
the Jewish writer writes on the outside of his letter, the abbreviation
[Hebrew: beth-cheth-daleth-resh-''-gimel], which alludes to this injunction
of Rabbenu Gershom. Again, the Sabbath was and still is a difficulty with
observant Jews. Rabbi Jose ha-Cohen is mentioned in the Talmud (_Sabbath_,
19a) as deserving of the following compliment. He never allowed a letter of
his to get into the hands of a non-Jew, for fear he might carry it on the
Sabbath, and strict laws are laid down on the subject. That Christians in
modern times entrusted their letters to Jews goes without saying, and even
in places where this is not commonly allowed, the non-Jew is employed when
the letter contains bad news. Perhaps for this reason Rabbenu Jacob Tarn
permitted divorces to be sent by post, though the controversy on the
legality of such delivery is, I believe, still undecided.
Besides packmen, who would often be the medium by which letters were
transmitted, there was in some Jewish communities a special class that
devoted themselves to a particular branch of the profession. They made it
their business to seek out lost sons and deliver messages to them from
their anxious parents. Some later Jewish authorities, in view of the
distress that the silence of absent loved ones causes to those at home, lay
down the rule that the duty of honoring parents, the fifth commandment,
includes the task of corresponding when absent from them. These peripatetic
letter-carriers also conveyed the documents of divorce to women that would
otherwise be in the unpleasant condition of being neither married nor
single. Among the most regular and punctual of Jewish postmen may be
mentioned the bearers of begging letters and begging books. There is no
fear that _these_ will not be duly delivered.
Our reference to letters of recommendation reminds us of an act, on the
part of a modern Rabbi, of supererogation in the path of honesty. The post
is in the hands of the Government, and, accordingly, the late Rabbi
Bamberger of Wurzburg, whenever he gave a Haskamah, or recommendation,
which would be delivered by hand, was wont to destroy a postage stamp, so
as not to defraud the Government, even in appearance. With this remarkable
instance of conscientious uprightness, we may fitly conclude this notice,
suggested as it has been by the modern improvements in the postal system,
which depend for their success so largely on the honesty of the public.