Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/47

Rh decision is according to so and so") occur in the Babylonian Talmud are a later addition. They belong to the Halakhoth Gedoloth, and are consequently, at the earliest, of the 8th century, but are probably of even much later date.

Editors. — The editorship of the Palestinian Talmud is generally, after Maimonides, ascribed to Habbi Yohanan (b. Napha). But this, if literally taken, is a gross mistake, as that teacher (ob. 279) died more than a hundred years before the latest Amora (c. 450) mentioned in that Talmud. A similar error is made with respect to the editor or editors of the Babylonian Talmud, whose names are given as Rab Asshi (see ) (ob. 427) and Rabina (ob. 550), and who lived still much earlier than the last teachers mentioned in that Talmud (8th century). But it ought to be remembered that when the ancients speak of editors of books of such a mixed character as the Mishnah, the Zohar, both Talmuds, &c., they mean the person or persons who gave the first impulse to the collection or redaction of such books. In this sense, certainly, Rabbi Yoḥanan was the editor of the Palestinian and Rab Asshi and Rabina were the editors of the Babylonian Talmuds. For, whilst the first of the latter pair went more than once through the discussion of the whole Mishnah by the Amoraim from 190 to his time (c. 427), the latter supplemented the collection down to his own time (550). As regards the Babylonian Talmud, the Amoraim were succeeded by a new order of men called Saboraim (ותלמור לסס), i.e., "opiners," who ventured only occasionally to revise and authenticate the sayings of their predecessors. The last of these Saboraim were Rab ˤIna (or Giza) and Rab Simona (c. 550–590). In any case neither the one Talmud nor the other was written down, slight private notes excepted (ותלמור תורק ), before the close of the 6th century, if then. The apparently insurmountable difficulty of keeping such vast masses of literature in the head is removed when one takes into consideration that both teacher and student had means of help to their memory fully corresponding to the vastness of the literature. In the first place, they had the numbers already occurring in the Mishnah (e.g., five must not separate the heave-offering on account of the benediction to be recited in connexion with the act; Terumoth i, 1), &c. Secondly, they had names. Since to the sayings of the Talmud were generally attached the names of those who uttered them, saying and name became in the memory of the student identical. If somebody who had heard a certain saying from somebody, who in his turn had heard it from somebody else, was mentioned in the Talmud, all other sayings, however unlike these in nature, if they had only the same link of tradition, were recited on the same occasion: e.g., in the Palestinian Talmud, Megillah iv. 1, "says Rabbi Ḥaggai, says Rabbi Shemuel b. Rab Yiṣḥaḳ," &c.; T. B., Berakhoth, leaf 3b, &c., "says Rabbi Zeriḳa, says Rabbi Ammi, says Rabbi Yehoshuaˤ b. Levi," &c. Thirdly, other oral traditions, which went by the order of the Pentateuch, received in the written Pentateuch vast aids to memory. Fourthly, the Mishnah (although itself not written down), by its divisions, subdivisions, and sub-subdivisions, became, in its turn, a mighty aid to memory. Fifthly, as regards the Babylonian Talmud, there are additional means of aiding memory in existence, for every now and then one meets with a Mnemosynon (Siman), which strings together the order of subjects (e.g., T. B., Berakhoth, 32a, last line). Both in MSS. and printed editions these Simanim are given in brackets. Rapoport and his followers would have us believe that these mnemonic phrases are late inventions, but they have as yet failed to make good their assertions. See T. B., Shabbath 104a, and T. B., ˤErubin, 54b, where these Simanim are positively mentioned early in the 4th century; cf. Rashi in loco.

Value.—The value of the Talmuds may be estimated by the fact that they contain the Mishnah in various recensions and a large portion of the contents of Midrashic collections, and in addition comprise a vast amount of Sopheric literature not to be found in the canonical Mishnah and Agadic matter not to he found in the known Midraskim, and have thousands of notices on secular knowledge of all kinds. Here, however, the reader ought to be again reminded that, whilst the Babylonian Talmud, the one of much larger extent, contains a great deal more Judæo-religious matter, the Palestinian Talmud—of much smaller extent—is of much greater value for the historian, the geographer, the numismatist, and other students.

Vicissitudes of the Talmud.—Whilst the Babylonian Talmud commanded the attention of a hostile world, and was proscribed, mutilated, and condemned, and finally delivered over to the flames by popes and kings, the Palestinian Talmud suffered still more from one single enemy — neglect. Thousands of copies of the former recension were destroyed in the course of time, but, this Talmud being studied in all parts of the world, the few copies surviving became the means of an endless supply. Not so as regards the Palestinian Talmud, which found no students, or but few, after the closing (c. 450) of the Jewish academies in Palestine; and we have even to thank the enemies of traditional Judaism, the Ḳaraites, who used it in controversy with their Rabbanite opponents, for the preservation of some copies of it. By degrees the neglect of the book became so great that whole chapters of treatises, whole treatises of orders, and almost two whole orders themselves, disappeared, and are lost to this day.