were gradually diminishing, that difficulties and distresses were multiplying, that the kingdom of impiety was increasing in strength and extending itself over the world, and that the people of Israel were driven to the ends of the earth. Fearing lest in these circumstances the traditions would be forgotten and lost, he collected them all, arranged them under distinct heads, and formed them into a methodical code of traditional law. Of this book, entitled the Mishna, copies were speedily multiplied and extensively circulated; and the Jews at large received it with the highest veneration.†

The various ordinances contained in the Mishna be classed under the following heads.

may

I. Interpretations received from Moses, which are either implied in the written law, or elicited from it by reasoning; and these have never been controverted, but as soon as any one said, 'I have ' received it by tradition,' the point was settled.

II. Determinations which are called Constitutions of Moses from mount Sinai; which have no proof from the written law to support them, but have never been disputed. Thus when the law says, "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth," (Exod. xxi. 24.) and “Thou shalt cut off her hand," (Deut. xxv. 12.) both these passages are to be understood of pecuniary penalties.I

III. Opinions that had been formed by the

* By this term it is highly probable that the writer meant Christians, or Christianity. Eisenmenger Entecd. Jud. p. 756. as cited by Wolf. Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 674.

+ Maim. in Poc. Port. Mos. p. 35-37. p. 28-30. Wolf. Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 670. Maim. in Poc. Porta Mos. p. 38.

Raym. Mart. Pug. Fid.

thirteen ways of reasoning, and which were first controverted and afterwards determined by the majority. These controversies related to questions of minor importance, and cases of peculiar obscurity, respecting which there was no tradition.

IV. Decrees made by prophets and wise men in the several ages, to serve as a hedge and fence to the law;—that is, by carrying the prohibitions beyond the letter of the text, in order to keep the people at a greater distance from every thing that was unlawful.—Respecting cases of this kind there were sometimes divisions among the doctors, as between Shammai and Hillel, and their respective followers but when such a decree passed without controversy, it was deemed irreversible; so that even Elias himself could not abolish any one of the eighteen points which the schools of Shammai and Hillel had agreed in establishing.

V. Constitutions resembling legal decisions and the proceedings of human judicatures; by which nothing is either added to the law or taken from it. Traditions of this class are very numerous; some concerning things prohibited and permitted, some concerning pecuniary matters. Some of these regulations were made by the prophets, by Moses, Joshua, and Ezra; and others by the wise men in succeeding ages."

*

The Mishna is written in a very concise style, and consists chiefly of aphoristic sentences, which admit considerable variety of interpretations. Perspicuous as it was to the superior understanding

* Ibid. p. 44-52.

of the compiler, it was scarcely intelligible to the generality of readers. Learned men employed themselves in explaining its difficulties.* About a century after, Rabbi Jochanan, president of a school in Palestine, collected their various opinions, and compiled the Gemara or Commentary, which, added to the text of the Mishna, forms what is denominated the Jerusalem Talmud.+

The Jews in Chaldea were not satisfied with this production. The Mishna was the chief study in all their schools and colleges, and their doctors for several generations made it their text book, investigating its latent meaning, and delivering interpretations, each according to the degree of his knowledge and understanding. The expositions of some doctors were at variance with the conclusions of others; so that in process of time very different and contradictory opinions were promulgated respecting many of the Mishnic maxims and ordinances. These researches and discussions were continued to the days of Rabina and Rabbi Ashe. Rabbi Ashe undertook to make a collection of these various interpretations and conclusions. In this compilation, which bears the name of the Babylonian Gemara, and together with the Mishna forms the Babylonian Talmud, he proposed to do these four things.

I. To explain the Mishna; to state the different explications of words admitting of various senses, with the arguments by which each interpreter

* Ibid. p. 78.

+ Gedalia in Shalshal. Hakkab. apud Wolf. Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 682, 683. Raym. Mart. Pug. Fid. p. 67.

defended his own, and to shew which interpretation was the true one.

II. To pronounce sentence on every controverted case; whether concerning the Mishnic text, or its interpretation, or the consequences deduced from it, or the points dependent upon it.

III. To exhibit the conclusions elicited from the Mishna, with the foundations on which they were erected, and the arguments by which they were supported, by the learned men of every age since it had been published.

IV. To give mystical explications adapted to the sense of every chapter susceptible of such a mode of exposition: these ought not to be disregarded as mean or of little use, but to be considered as elevated to a high degree of excellence by the rare enigmas and wonderful elegancies which they contain. In these explications, when very closely examined, will be discovered many things superlatively good, so that nothing can be added to them; and great light will be thrown upon all those divine opinions and truths, which are most highly esteemed by the learned, and in which the philosophers of every age have agreed. Regarded according to their literal import, these explications will be found absurd or unintelligible in the extreme but they were so expressed by their authors for wonderful reasons; of which one was, to sharpen the understandings of students; another was, to veil them from fools whose hearts are never enlightened, and who through defect of capacity turn away from truth that is proposed to them; and a third was, that it was the custom of the

wise men to conceal their mysterious discoveries from each other.*

When the Talmud was completed by Rabbi Ashe and his coadjutors and successors, the doctors who came after them made it their sole object to understand and explain what was contained in that compilation, without presuming to add any thing to it, or to take any thing away from it.+

The preceding account is translated, with some abridgment, almost wholly from one of the most eminent modern Jewish writers, who lived in the twelfth century. But few persons, whose faith is not regulated by the canons of the synagogue, will be disposed to admit the bare assertion of Maimonides as sufficient authority for such a detail of circumstances alleged to have happened above two thousand five hundred years before he was born. He mentions no authentic records as sources from which his information had been derived; nor does he pretend to have received it by inspiration from above. It would not be surprising if some sturdy disciple of the rabbinical school, resorting to the doctrine of transmigration for a solution of this difficulty, should conjecture, or even assert, the soul of Maimonides to have been the same which formerly animated the body of Moses or Aaron, Eleazar or Ithamar, or some one of the elders of Israel, and to have retained a remembrance of events which occurred during its former embodied state! Among other minute particulars, inserted perhaps to fortify the credibility of the narrative, it

* Maimon. in Pocock. Port. Mos. p. 79-82.

+ Ibid. p. 106.