consecrated at the Exode of the children | name of Ghemara, or complement, comof Israel.

prises Halaca, or rabbinical logic; the Agada which may be compared to the rhetoric or poetical and imaginative part of the Hebrew philosophy; and the Cabbala, which contains that transcendental spiritual philosophy, which is supposed to be the highest form of human thought, together with a species of magic. The Cabbala makes use of four different alphabets. The figurative Cabbala attaches a hieroglyphical value to the forms of letters, and is derived from an Egyptian source. The speculative Cabbala considers the numeric value of the letters which compose the words of the sacred text, the words of which each word contains the initials, and the anagrams of each word. The practical Cabbala teaches the construction of talismans; and the dogmatic Cabbala tells of the creation of the world, the orders of the heavenly hierarchy, the power of evil spirits, the thirty-two ways of wisdom, the fifty gates of prudence, the sacred and ineffable Name.

The Talmud may compete with the "Constitutions" of Loyola for the right to be considered the most irresistible organ ever forged for the subjugation of the human will. It stands quite alone, its age and origin considered, as a means of perpetuating a definite system of religious bondage. By the "Constitutions," while the education of the young is committed as far as possible to the subtle manipulation of the Order of Jesus, the decisive appeal to the obedience of the neophyte is made, once, and for all, at a fixed opportunity. When made as directed by the founder, it is said never to have been known to fail. But the Talmud not only awaits the infant at birth, and regulates every incident of that event (even to the names of the angels that are to be inscribed on the door, and the words on the four corners of the apartment), but anticipates each circumstance from the earliest moment of probability. In every relation of life, in every action, in every conceivable cir- It is stated by the rabbins that it takes for food, dress, habit, lan- a study of from five to ten hours per day guage, devotion, relaxation—it pre- for seven years to attain a preliminary scribes almost every word to be uttered, knowledge of the Talmud. The difficulty and almost every thought to be con- is not diminished by the existence of two ceived. Its rule is minute, omnipresent, inflexible. Its severity is never relaxed. To borrow an illustration from the foundry; the Jewish mind, subjected while in a fusible state to the iron mould, has been at once chilled and case-hardened by its pressure.

cumstance

distinct codes, or versions, known as the Talmud of Jerusalem and that of Babylon, in which the Mishna is the same (although some of the treatises are now to be found only in the one version); but the Ghemara is entirely different. There are also supplementary works of authority equal to the Mishna.

The Talmud, or "Doctrine," contains, according to the Jewish creed, in the first The Talmud is divided into six orders; place, the actual words of the oral law, which relate to agriculture, festivals, wodelivered to Moses on Mount Sinai with, men, damages, holy things, and purificaand in explanation of, the Mikra, or tions. In these six orders, the Talmud written law, contained in the Pentateuch. of Babylon includes 68 tracts, divided The "Constitutions of Mount Sinai," into 617 sections; 26 of these tracts are handed down by an unbroken succession without Ghemara. The present Heof high priests and elders, were only fully brew editions of the Talmud of Jerusacommitted to writing when the persecu- lem contain only the first four orders, tion of the people had become such as to and the tract "Nidda" of the sixth; alraise a fear of their being otherwise for- though, according to Maimonides, they gotten. To this, "all whatsoever," the contained in his time five entire orders. Scribes and Pharisees, who "sit in The first order of the Talmud is the Moses' seat, bid you observe," which SEDER ZERAIM, containing laws relating Christ enjoined His hearers to "observe to seeds. It opens, however, with the and do," is added an enormous mass of important treatise Beracoth, or Benediccomment, illustration, explanation, discussion, and argument, of which it is difficult to form an idea. The text is called the Mishna, Deuterosis, or Second Law. The comment, under the general

* Matt. xxiii. 2.

tions. This tract has been translated into French, including the Ghemara, by the Abbé Chiarini, as before mentioned. It has also been translated, as regards the Mishna alone, into English, together with seventeen other treatises, by the Rev. O. A. Da Sola and Rev. M. J. Ra

phall, and published, in a second edition, in London in 1845. We may remark in lish. Erubin, or Commixtures, is the passing that the literary workmanship of this translation is slovenly. No index, or even table of contents, is to be found in the volume. There are blunders in most of the numbers prefixed to the tracts. The text is full of interpolations. They are, indeed, placed between brackets, but of their value it is impossible to judge in the absence of the Ghemara. The translation is, in places, more than questionable, and the evident aim of the entire work is to present Judaism in a light as consistent with modern opinion as possible.

and is one of those translated into Engsecond tract of the order, and defines those various combinations of "reshuth," domiciles, or limits, by means of which the extreme severity of the law of Sabbatic rest was to some extent conventionally alleviated. Pesachim, or Pasque, is No. III., and is a treatise of extreme importance and interest, containing the laws for the observance of the Paschal festival, some of which are peculiar to Palestine, while others are of general obligation. The value of this treatise to the critical student of the New Testament is extreme. It contains ten chapThe second treatise of the SEDER ters, divided into eighty-eight MischnaiZERAIM is entitled Peah, and relates to oth or sections. The fourth treatise is the rights of the poor with reference to entitled Yomah, and treats of the rites the soil of the Holy Land and its prod-proper to the tenth day of the month uce, and to the corner of the field to be left for them according to the injunctions in the Pentateuch.

The third treatise, Demai, contains laws relating to the tithe of agricultural produce, and to the heave offering. The fourth, Kilaim, has been translated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall. It relates to the mixtures of different species forbidden by the law: whether in the breeding and the harnessing of cattle, the weaving of textile fabrics, or the sowing of the ground. Shebiith, the fifth treatise, treats of the Sabbatic year, the unbroken revolution of which, from the very date of the Exodus, forms the master key to the chronology of the historic and prophetic books of Scripture. Tract VI., Teroomoth, relates to the.heave offering. Tracts VII. and VIII., entitled Maaseroth and Maasa Sheni, contain the laws which regulate the first and the second tithes. Shalah, No. IX., contains laws relating to the offering of a cake of the first dough, as enjoined in Numbers XV. 20. Orlah, No. X., relates to the fruit of newly-planted trees, which must not be eaten during the first three years, and which is consecrated on the fourth. Lastly, Bikurim, No. XI., contains laws relating to the first fruits. It is to be regretted that the fact that these laws are considered as in abeyance while the Jews are out of Palestine, has been allowed to cause the neglect of their translation.

SEDER MOED, or the Order of Festivals, is the second division of the Talmud, and consists of twelve tracts or treatises. Of these the first, Sabboth, relates to the due observance of the Sabbath Day. It contains twenty chapters,

Ethanim, or Tisri, the day of Reconciliation, the most solemn festival of the Jewish year. Of this highly valuable tract only the eighth chapter is to be found in the English translation, for the alleged reason that the first seven relate exclusively to the service of the Temple. A Latin translation of this treatise, by Ugolin, with the Tosaphta, or comment of Rabbi Chija, a work held to be of equal authority with the Mishna itself, forms the portion of the General Catalogue of the British Museum Library devoted to the Latin versions of the Talmud. The eight chapters contain sixtyone Mischnaioth. Tract No. V., Shekalim, relates to the capitation tax of half a shekel, and contains important information as to weights and measures. It is not translated into English. No. VI, Succah, contains the regulations for the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles. This treatise is one of those to which Maimonides refers, as showing the necessarily coeval antiquity of the Mikra and the Mishna, or the written and oral law. Thus it is the latter only which excepts women, sick persons, and travellers from the full obligation of eating, drinking, and sleeping for seven entire days and nights, in booths which must be com posed of vegetable substance, and neither of wool, hair, nor silk; and which orders that no such tabernacle shall be less than ten palms in height, or than seven by seven in area. The seventh,

Many details of the Temple service are preserved in this tract; such as the number of times and the mode in which the trumpets were to be blown daily, and on the festivals. The ordinary number of these signals was twenty-one; on the Sabbath twenty-seven: on the eve of the Sabbath, during the Feast of Tabernacles, forty-eight. The great rejoicing with which the so

or, according to the arrangement of the Jerusalem Talmud, the eighth, tract of this order, which is also to be found in the English translation, is entitled Yom Tob, or Festivals. It is often called the Egg, from the word with which it commences. It explains those acts which are prohibited on the Sabbath, but allowed on other festivals. No. VIII. (or VII.) is Rosh Hashana, or the New Year. It enumerates the four periods at which, for different purposes, the year commences; the mode of observing the new moon, and thus determining the Festivals, in Palestine; and the solemnities proper to the occasion.

in the book of Ruth. Several portions of this Book are so offensive to all feelings of delicacy that they have been left untranslated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall, and either printed in Hebrew, or represented by asterisks alone. Treatise Sotah, No. II., containing 9 chapters and 67 Mischnaioth, relative to the administration of the water of separation to the wife suspected of infidelity to her husband, has also failed to find an English dress. No. III., Ketuboth, contains the laws relative to marriage-contracts, dowries, and the mutual rights, duties, and relations of husband and wife. It may be remarked here that no limit is prescribed to the number of wives allowed but that the provisions as to priority of the claim of widows on the property of the deceased husband extend to four, which

The ninth treatise of the second order is entitled Taanith, or Fasts. It treats of the mode of observance of public Fasts; whether annual and permanent, or occasional, such as that of three days is also the legal number under the law of which the Bethdin of Jerusalem was bound to institute if the new moon of the month Cisleu (the lunation corresponding as nearly as possible with our November) arrived without rain having fallen. The remarkable series of historic calamities which occurred on the two fatal days of the Jewish Calendar, the 17th Tamuz and the 9th of Ab, are mentioned in this tract. No. X. is tract Meguilah, or the Roll of the Book of Esther, which primarily treats of the mode of observing the Feast of Lots, or Purim, but contains many regulations as to the service of the Synagogues and other matters. The treatise Moed Katon, or the middle days of festivals, is No. XII. in the Jerusalem Talmud and No. XI. in the arrangement of Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall, who have translated this as well as the five last-named tracts. The three untranslated chapters of the treatise Haghiga, relating to the sacrifices on festivals, close this order of the Talmud.

SEDER NESHIM, the third order, contains seven treatises relating to women. Of these the first, Yebammoth, contains 16 chapters and 130 Mischnaioth, which enter into the minutest detail as to the performance of the peculiar Jewish precept of Yeboom, or the obligation of marrying the childless widow of a brother; with the alternative disgrace of the Chalitzah, or removal of the shoe of the recalcitrant, referred to

lemnity of water-drawing during the festivals referred to in the twelfth chapter of Isaiah was accompanied, is

also described in the treatise Succah. It forms one of

the eighteen translated into English by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall.

Islam. We have this tract in English. No. IV., Nedarim, relating to the vows made by females, which the father or the husband has power to annul, is untranslated, as well as Tract VI., Nazir, containing nine chapters relating to vows of abstinence whence we have retained the word Nazarite. No. V., treatise Gittin, contains 9 chapters and 75 Mischnaioth, relating to the Get, or bill or divorce, to which we have referred on another page. The order is closed by the treatise Kedushin, or Betrothing, which would seem properly to precede, or form part of, the tract Ketuboth. It speaks of the acquisition of a wife by purchase as well as by marriagecontract, and by the voie de fait; also of the purchase of male and female slaves. Both Gittin and Kedushin are translated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall.

SEDER NEZIKIN, called also SEDER JESHUOTH, the fourth order, contains eight tracts in the Jerusalem Talmud, all of which, except the last chapter of the tract Macooth (which treats of corporal punishments) are accompanied, together with those of the preceding orders, by the Ghemara of Rabbi Johanan, whose date- he was born A.D. 184 - indicates that of the close of the Talmud of Jerusalem. These treatises are first, second, and third, the Baba Kama, Baba Meziah, and Baba Bathra, or first, middle, and last "Gate," which originally constituted one tract, and which contained civil laws. They derive their name from the oriental custom of administering justice at the gate of the city. Fourthly, the Tract Sanhedrin, consisting of 11 chapters and 71 Mischnaioth,

un

contains ceremonial laws, and treats of first Gospel, which speaks of the dethe municipal and provincial councils gree or term of malediction which was and of the Great Bethdin, or Sanhedrin, punishable, by the Bethdin, with stripes; at Jerusalem. Macooth, Mo. V., treats of and of the more aggravated one, which corporal punishments, of false witnesses, was punishable with excision, if and of the cities of refuge for the invol- toned for by a sin-offering, is here to be untary homicide. Shebuoth, No. VI., found. No. VIII., Mehilah, trespass, contains precepts for the administration contains laws relating to objects that of oaths. Avoda Sara, in 5 chapters have been consecrated, and converted to and 50 sections, treats of idolatry, her- profane use. No. IX., Tamid, the conesy, and the inciters to either. This tinual," treats of the daily sacrifices in treatise is one that has suffered much the Temple. No. X., Middoth, or measfrom the censure imposed by Rome, so urements, refers to the size of the temple soon as her theologians became able to of Herod, and contains a single detail as read the Hebrew pages, or from the to the difference of the dimensions of omissions made by the Jews themselves the altar built by the children of the in fear of the same censure. No. VIII., Captivity from those of its predecessor. Horaioth, treats of such errors in judg- This tract has been translated, with less ment committed by the Great Sanhedrin than absolute accuracy, by the Rev. as required a sin-offering. To the above Dr. Barclay, of Jerusalem; and pub named tracts the Talmud of Babylon lished in the Quarterly Report of the adds, in this order, IX., Edioth, or testi- Palestine Exploration Fund for January, monies, which consists of laws, which 1872. Finally, XI., Tract Kanim, nests, trustworthy testimony declares to have which closes Seder Kedeshim, relates to been adopted by the Great Sanhedrin; the birds proper for sacrifice. and Aboth, No. X., which contains the ethical maxims of the Fathers of the Mishna. None of these tracts are included in the English translation.

SEDER KEDESHIM, the fifth order, which is now only found in the Talmud of Babylon, contains eleven treatises, only one of which is translated by the authors so often cited. This is No. III., Cholin, or profane things, containing minute regulations for the slaughtering of cattle and fowl for non-sacrificial or domestic purposes. In its 12th and last chapter it declares the precept of letting the parent bird taken in a nest fly away to be obligatory both in and out of the Holy Land. The other tracts are I., Zebachim, which gives laws relating to sacrifices in general; II., Minhoth, or meat offerings, relating to the sacrifices of flour; IV., Bechoroth, or the law of the first-born; V., Erachin, valuation, relating to objects consecrated to divine worship, and to vows; VI., Tamurah, substitution, containing laws as to the exchange of consecrated animals; VII., Keritoth, or excisions, relating to offences which, if wantonly committed, are to be punished by excision from the people; that is to say, by death; and which, if inadvertently committed, entail the obligation to bring sin-offerings. In this marked division of the Mishna (referring also to the tract Macooth), is to be traced the origin of the Romish distinction between mortal and venial sins. The explanation of the difficult passage in the

The sixth and last order of the Talmud, now found only in that of Babylon, contains 12 tracts, but one of which has been translated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall. The order is entitled SEDER TAHAROTH, and consists of laws relative to legal purifications. The treatises are I., Kelim, defining things liable to contract and communicate uncleanness; II, Oholoth, relating to pollution from the dead; III., Negaim, concerning leprosy ; IV., Parah, the law of the red heifer; the perusal of which throws a flood of light on the argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and especially on the 13th verse of the 9th chapter. ‡ Tract V., Taharoth, relates to minor impurities, according to their various degrees. No. VI., Mikvaoth, contains the laws relative to the total or plunging bath necessary for certain legal purifications; and has the special characteristic that, had it been known to the theologians of this country, it would have prevented, or at all events narrowed within a rational limit, the most venomous of Protestant quarrels. No. VII., Niddah, should be read only by persons bound to stuly medicine, being devoted to certain rules not ordinarily discussed; although they ap

pear to have occupied a disproportionate | rabbi after rabbi for private recollection, part of the attention of the rabbins. The while each gave them to his disciples objections that our modern sense of pro- viva voce; of their orderly arrangement priety raises to the practice of the Con- at a subsequent period; of their commitfessional apply with no less force to the tal to writing, when persecution involved subject of this tract, considered as a mat- the oral traditions in peril; and, finally, ter to be regulated by the priesthood. of their completion by the addition of the Rabbi Johanan has supplied the Ghemara Ghemara, are of no small value in ento the first four chapters of the ten con-abling us to understand the literary histained in this treatise. Tract VIII., tory of Oriental records. The separate Maksheerin, relates to the laws of purifi- Suras of the Koran are as yet unarranged. cation from contact with unclean reptiles. The mode in which noλhoi έñixeipnoav úvaNo. IX., Zabim is again a medical trea-rážacbai тà πpúyuara & the writer of the tise; and No. X., Tebul Yom, relates to third Gospel undertook кalɛžis yрúpai; purification on the day on which legal un- and how it came to pass that the arrangecleanness is contracted. ment, and to some extent the contents, of Tract XI., Yadaim, contains rules for this narrative differ from those of the two the purification of the hands by ablution. partially corresponding Gospels, may thus This is the last treatise translated by be readily understood. Hillel was, with Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall. Its regu- his great rival and opponent Shamai, unlations rest on the uncorroborated author-der the instruction of Shemaia, about 32 ity of the Oral Law. The fact that the Mishna of this treatise contains repeated reference to the disputes of the Pharisees and the Sadducees on questions as to ablution, coupled with the mention of the subject in the Gospels, renders it extremely important that the corresponding Ghemara should be brought within the reach of the English reader. The treatise Oozekin, or Stalks, closes the list of those enumerated by the English rabbins as composing this order.

Four small additional treatises are, however, contained in the Talmud of Babylon; namely, the Avoth of R. Nathan, or Sentences of the Fathers of the Synagogue, in 41 sections. Sopherim, or the Mode of transcribing the Roll of the Law, in 21 sections; an account of which is given in "Unexplored Syria; " Semahoth, or Ebel Rabbete, or the Ceremonial of ourning, in 14 sections; Calla, or the Wife, I section; and Derek Eretz, a treatise on Manners, in 16 sections.

Thus the Talmud of Babylon contains 6 Sederim, or orders, 68 Mesecoth, or tracts, and 617 Perekim or sections, which we have called chapters.

B.C. To the contests of these two great schools very frequent implicit reference is made in the New Testament.

The first great Doctor who undertook to commit to writing, for public use, the Oral Law, was Juda the Saint, who flourished from 190 to 220 A.D. He impressed on the Talmud the permanent form of which Hillel appears to have been the author. The work became the classic authority of the schools both of Palestine and of Assyria; and all the disciples and followers of R. Juda occupied themselves with comments, glosses, and explanations of the Mishna, now reduced to the state of text. The chief and most authenticative of these early comments are known under the name of the Mekiltoth, the Tosaphtoth, and the Baraitoth. A century after the date of Juda the Saint, Rabbi Johanan, then head of the school in Palestine, compiled from these sources the Ghemara of Jerusalem. His death left his work incomplete, as will be seen by reference to the number of tracts contained in the present editions of this code of the Talmud that are without Ghemara.

The completion of the Ghemara, and the collection of that great body of comHillel the Elder, one of the most fa- ments and precepts which relates to the mous doctors of the Mishna, who was study of the Law out of the Holy Land, born at Babylon, of the royal family of were the objects that led R. Ache, and David, and came to Jerusalem at the age his fellow-labourer, R. Avina, to comof forty, is said to have reduced to 6 the mence the compilation of the Ghemara of orders of the Mishna, which, from the Babylon. The death of R. Ache is said time of Moses to his own, had been 600. to have taken place about 427 A.D., and This tradition appears to commemorate his work was completed by R. Jose, the first arrangement of the independent seventy-three years after that event. Perekim in chapters and orders. The The Talmud is referred to in the Koran facts of the long existence of the numer-(Sura 11, 53) in the words, "I delivered to ous oral traditions; of their notation by Moses the book, and the Alfarcan to be