TALMUD

The traditionary or unwritten laws of the Jews. It is called unwritten, to distinguish it from the textual or written law; and, is in fact, the interpretation wliich the rabbins affix to the law of Moses, which embodies their doctrine, polity, and ceremonies, and to which many of them adhere more than to the law itself. The word is derived from Heb. lamad, he taught. The Talmud, therefore, is a book or volume, which contains such doctrines and duties as are taught to the Jews by their own authorized teachers, the ancient rabbins. There are two Talmuds, that of Jerusalem and that of Babylon; not to mention those of Onkelos and Jonathan, which are rather paraplirases than volumes of traditionary doctrines. The Talmud of Jerusalem consists of two parts — the Gemara, and the Mishna. The Mishna signifies a doubling or reiteration; the Gemara, a work brougiit to perfection or completed, — from the Chaldee gamar, to finish or complete. Tlie Gemara and the Mishna together, strictly speaking, form the Talmud; but the rabbins are wont to designate the Pent a teuch of Moses the first part of the Talmud, and which is simply the law. The second part is the Mishna, which is a more extensive explication or amplification of the law; and the third part, the Gemara, as finishing and completing it. The Mishna is the work of Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh, 120 years alter the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. It is written in a tolerably pure style, and its reasonings are much more solid than those of the Gemara, whicli the Jewish doctors, it is stated, have stuffed with dreams and chimeras, and many ignorant and impertinent questions and disputations. The Gemara was written about 100 years afterwards by Rabbi Jochanan, the rector of the school at Tiberias. These two works form the Jerusalem Talmud. But the Talmud of Jerusalem is le esteemed than the Talmud of Babylon formed by Rabbi Asa or Aser, who had an academy for forty years at a place called Sara, near Babylon, whence it was denominated the Babylonish Talmud. It is this Talmud which the Jews more frequently consult; and it is especially esteemed by those Jews who live beyond the Euphrates, from the circumstance that it>as' compiled at Babylon. Rabbi Asa was called to his fathers before this celebrated commentary on the Mishna was completed; but it was finished by his disciples (some say liis children) about 600 years after Christ. "With the exception of the sacred authors, these Talmuds, after the Chaldee paraphrases, are the most ancient books of doctrine po e ed by the Jews. A converted Jew in the year 12a8 detected several errors in the Talmud, which he laid before Pope Gre1206 * TANGENT. gory IX., who required the archbishops of France and the kings of Spain and Portugal to seize and burn all such books of the Jews, and twenty cartloads of Hebrew books were accordingly burnt in France alone. Pope Paul IV. and Clement VIII. also signalized themselves in destroying all the Talinudic books that could be found, and many you sand volumes of the Talmud were by their orders juridically condemned to the flames. These acts, worthy of Roman pontiffs, might have suggested that famous list, entitled Libri Frokibitooum, which afterwards received much augmentation; and among the many heretical works enumerated might be found Add is on's Spectator. The 'J'almud of Jerusalem was printed in one vol. folio, and that of Babylon in twelve and fourteen vols, folio, which we find in a bookseller's catalogue thus described, " Talmud Babylonicum Hebraicum integrum ex Sapientum Script is et Responsis compos i tum a Rab. Aser, add it is Comment. Rab. Sal. larch i, et Rab. Mosis Maim on i dis, Hebraice, 14 torn, folio, Amstelodami, 1644." Two curious works on the traditions and doctrines of the Jews, and selections from the Talmud, were written by Peter Stehelin andW. Wotton; the former entitled Traditions of the Jews, with the Expositions and Doctiines of the Rabbins contained in the 2'alTifud and other Rabbinical Writings, 2 vols. 8vo. 1742; the latter. Miscellaneous Discotcrses relating to the Traditions and Usages of the Scribes and Pharisees in our Saviour's Time, 2 vols. 8vo. 1718. (See the Enc. Metropolitan a; Wolff, Bibl. ii. C58.; Eisenmenger, Das Entdeckte Judenthum,• Remarks on the study of it in Quart. Rev. vol. xliii.) [s. 1219]