16 



The Talmud. 



But the changed circumstances would not adapt themselves to the 

 old laws. The Mosaic legislation proved insufficient ; it required not 

 only interpretation but supplementation. New laws had to be given, 

 new institutions established, which however had all to be based on the 

 precepts of the Mosaic law. These newly established laws, customs 

 and institutions were called the oral law, and this oral law finally gave 

 rise to the Talmud. 



We speak of the Talmud; but there are tfwoTalmuds, the Babylonian 

 and the* Palestinian Talmud. Of their difference we shall presently 

 have to speak. They have both in common the nucleus of this im- 

 mense literary accretion. This nucleus is called the Mishnah. The 

 word is derived from J-JJK^ which in post-biblical Hebrew means 

 both to teach and to learn. Mishnah means what is taught and 

 learned, i. e., instruction, and especially instruction in the traditional 

 laws and customs. At first the Mishnah was taught and learned 

 orally only, for there was a certain prejudice against writing down any 

 portion of the oral law. But in the course of time, when the mass of 

 the oral law had grown so enormously that even the most retentive 

 memory could no longer cope with it, several attempts were made to 

 reduce it to writing. We hear that there existed a Mishnah of K. 

 Akeba, one of R. Meir, two teachers who flourished in the second 

 century after Christ. But it was R. Jehudah, the descendant of 

 Hillel, and great-grandson of R. Gamaliel, at whose feet St. Paul was 

 imbibing his wisdom, who by making use of the work of his predeces- 

 sors finally succeeded in arranging the Mishnah and writing it down. 

 This was accomplished about 220 after Christ, and though nu- 

 merous additions and alterations were incorporated long after him 

 the Mishnah, nevertheless, always remained in the shape which R. 

 Jehudah had given it. He divided it into six " Sedarim " or orders; 

 each order into " Mesachtoths," or tracts; each tract into " Perakim " or 

 chapters; each chapter into paragraphs. In succinct, pithy sentences 

 the Mishnah endeavors to embody the sum total of the oral law, which 

 had accumulated from the time of Ezra to that of R. Jehudah Ha-nassi, 

 as he was called, i. e., the prince, a title which indicates the high es- 

 teem in which he was held. Such a summing up of the traditional 

 laws, customs and institutions, however, could not interrupt their 

 further development. On the contrary, it became a new stimulus. 

 After R. Jehudah Ha-nassi the Mishnah was made the text for the dis- 

 cussions and debates in the various schools. These discussions are 

 called the G-emara. The word is derived from the Aramean 



