Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/530

Rh 508 MIS I S Both books are divided into Piskoth (paragraphs), of which Sipherc on Numbers has 161, whilst that on Deuteronomy has 357. The ancient division into Boraithoth cannot now be accurately traced. The work commences now at Numbers v. 1, and goes to the end of Deuteronomy. The passages anonymously given in Siphcre are ascribed by the Babylonian Talmud 1 to R. Shime on b. Yohai, the favourite disciple of R. Akibah, and the reputed author of the Zoluir. But although he is no doubt the virtual author of Siphcre, seeing that most Boraithoth which are to be found therein are his, he cannot be, technically speaking, its author. For, in the first place, he is not only repeatedly named in the book, but several times actually contradicted by others ; and, secondly, there are several passages, anonymously given, in the book, which can only be the result of &quot;Talmudic&quot; study, and must be consequently pos terior to the composition of the Talmud. The fact is that Siphcre, like the other works of the &quot;oral law,&quot; was not written down before the 6th century. It ought to be mentioned here that the rabbis of the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries, and even somewhat later, speak also of another Siphcre which they variously designate as Siphere Panim Shcni, Siphcre shcl Panim Sheni, Siphcre Bemid- bar Sinai, Siphere Zutta, and Siphere simply. To judge from the extracts which have come down to us, that work must not only have been of much later date, but also of far less value than the work in our hands. Siphcre appeared for the first time in 1545, and with a Latin translation by Blasius Ugolinus, in his Thesaurus, &c. (vol. xv.), in 1744, both at Venice, and in folio. The third edition appeared at Hamburg in 1789, and the fourth at Sulzbach in 1802, both in 4to. The fifth edition, with the commentary Zcrd Abraham, appeared in two volumes, of which the first was printed at Dyhernfurt in 1811 and the second at Radawell in 1820, both in folio. The sixth and best edition is that of Friedmann (Vienna, 1864), and the seventh is that of Lemberg, 1866, both in 8vo. Boraitho. There is also a fifth piece of Mishnic literature known specially by the name Boraitho. Besides the Boraithoth constituting Tosephto, Mckhilto, Siphro, and Siphcre, there are hundreds of other Boraithoth to be found scattered about in both Talmuds. These are, however, mere fragments of the vast Mishnayoth (entire Mishnic works 2 ) composed by Bar Kappara, Rabbi Hiyya, and hundreds of other teachers, which in course of time must have perished. There is, however, enough left of the Mishnah, canonical and non-canonical, to prove the correctness of the cabbalistic remark that Mishnah is the equivalent of Neshamah (soul). This is no mere trifling based on the fact that the two words (HJC^D, nOt^J) accidentally consist of the same letters ; it is rather an enunciation of an intrinsic truth : what the soul (Neshamah) is to the body, the Mishnah is to Mosaism. The soul gives life to the body, and the Mishnah gives life to the Pentateuch. For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life ! (S. M. S.-S.) MISKOLCZ, capital of the Cis-Tisian county of Borsoa, Hungary (43 6 N. lat., 20 49 E. long.), is picturesquely situated in a valley watered by the Szinva, 90 miles north east from Budapest, with which, as also with Debreczen and Kassa (Kaschau), it is directly connected by railway. Miskolcz is one of the most thriving provincial towns in the kingdom, and has many fine buildings, including Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist churches and schools, a Minorite convent, synagogue, Hungarian theatre, hospital, royal and circuit courts of law, salt and tax offices, and the administrative bureaus for the county. There are manufactories of snuff, porcelain, boots and shoes, and prepared leather, and both steam and water mills. The trade is chiefly in grain, wheaten flour, wine, fruit, cattle, hides, honey, wax, and the agricultural products of the neighbourhood. The great fairs, held five times a year, are much resorted to by strangers from a distance. Not far from the town are stone quarries and iron mines. At the end of 1880 the (civil) population amounted to 24,343, of whom the majority were Magyars by nationality. During the 16th and 17th centuries Miskolcz suffered much from the desolating hordes of Ottomans who then ravaged the country, as also from the troops of various Transylvanian princes and leaders, especially those of George Rakoczy and Emeric Tokblyi. In 1781, 1843, and 1847 it was devastated by fire, and on the 30th August 1 878 a great portion of the town was laid in ruins by a terrific storm. (See HUNGARY, vol. xii. p. 374.) MISREPRESENTATION. See FRAUD. 1 Synhedrin, 86a. 2 According to T. B., Hayigah, 14a, there existed at one time no less than six or seven hundred Mishnah orders. MISSAL, 3 the book containing the liturgy, or office of the mass, of the Latin Church. This name (e.g., Missale Gothicum, Francorum, Gallicanum Vetus) began to super sede the older word Sacramentary (Sacramentarium, Liber Sacramentorum) from about the middle of the 8th century. At that period the books so designated contained merely the fixed canon of the mass or consecration prayer (actionem, precem canonicam, canonem actionis), and the variable collects, secretse or orationes super oblata, prefaces, and post-communions for each fast, vigil, festival, or feria, of the ecclesiastical year ; for a due celebration of the Eucharist they required accordingly to be supplemented by other books, such as the Antiphonarium, afterwards called the Graduate, containing the proper antiphons (introits), responsories (graduals), tracts, sequences, offertories, com munions, and other portions of the communion service designed to be sung by the schola or choir, and the Lection- arium (or Epistolarium and Evangelistarium) with the proper lessons. Afterwards missals began to be prepared contain ing more or less fully the antiphons and lessons as well as the prayers proper to the various days, and these were called missalia 2^lenaria. All modern missals are of this last de scription. The Missale Romanum ex decreto SS. Concilii Tridentini restitution, now in almost exclusive use through out all the churches of the Latin obedience, owes its present form to the council of Trent, which among its other tasks undertook the preparation of a correct and uniform liturgy, and entrusted the work to a committee of its members. This committee had not completed its labours when the council rose, but the pope was instructed to receive its report when ready and to act upon it. The &quot; reformed missal &quot; accordingly was promulgated by Pius V. on July 14, 1570, and its universal use enjoined on all branches of the Catholic Church, the only exceptions allowed being in the case of churches having local and independent liturgies which had been kept in unbroken use for at least two centuries. 4 It has subsequently undergone slight revisions under Clement VIII. (1604) and Urban VIII. (1634); and various new masses, both obligatory and permissive, universal and local, have been added by the competent authority. Although the Roman is very much larger in bulk than any other liturgy, it need hardly be explained that the com munion office to which it relates is not in itself inordinately long. By much the greater part of it is contained in the &quot; ordinary &quot; and &quot; canon &quot; of the mass, usually placed about the middle of the missal, and occupies, though in large type, only a few pages in any printed copy. The work owes its bulk and complexity to two circumstances. On the one hand, in the celebration of the sacrifice of the mass practically nothing is left to the impulse or discretion of the officiating priest ; everything what he is to say, the tone and gestures with which he is to say it, the cut and colour of the robe he is to wear is carefully prescribed either in the general rubrics prefixed to the text, or in the running rubrics which accompany it. 5 On the other hand, the Roman, like all the Western liturgies, is distinguished 3 Missalis (sc., liber), Missale, from Missa ; see vol. viii. p. 652. 4 The English missal consequently continued to be used by English Catholics until towards the end of the 17th century, when it was superseded by the Roman through Jesuit influence. The Galilean liturgy held its ground until much more recently, but has now suc cumbed under the Ultrainontanism of the bishops. 5 In all the older liturgies the comparative absence of rubrics is conspicuous and sometimes perplexing. It is very noticeable in the Roman Sacramentaries, but the want is to some extent supplied by the very detailed directions for a high pontifical mass in the various texts of the Ordo Romanus mentioned below. That there was no absolutely fixed set of rubrics in use in France during the 8th century is shown by the fact that each priest was required to write out an account of his own practice (&quot;libellum ordinis&quot;) and present it for approbation to the bishop in Lent (see Baluze, Cap. Reg. Franc., . 824, quoted in Smith s Diet, of Chr. Antiq., ii. 1521).