Strong in this consciousness he lives on, a willing wanderer and a stranger among the various nations of the earth, hated and hating,—feared but at the same time honoured; ever increasing in numbers, in wealth, and influence. His hand is in each group of statesmen, now publicly, more often hidden, but always there: he is yet greater in the exchanges and marts of the nations; the finance of every civilized country is more or less guided by him, more or less subject to his dictation and supervision.
Who now, men ask, is this ever-present changeless Jew? What is the secret of his power and ever-growing influence? The second great awakening—the awakening to the grandeur of his true position in the world’s story—when all seemed lost, when his Temple and City were destroyed, when he became at once homeless, landless, an outcast hated, even despised, as far as we can see, was the work of the Doctors and Rabbis of Tiberias in Galilee, and of Sura and other centres in Babylonia, in the years which followed the crushing ruin of A.D. 70. It was the work of the compilers and teachers of the Mishnah and Gemara which together made up the Talmud. We may now and again wonder at the curious and startling assertions of the Mishnah, and even smile at some of the marvellous extravagances of the Gemara; but when we ponder over the wonderful story of the Jew during the eighteen centuries which have passed since the desolation of A.D. 70, we dare not mock at the Talmud.
When we consider the whole question of what we have termed “the great awakening” of the Jewish people after the sudden and tremendous ruin of the City and Temple; the complete change in the heart of the Jew; the abandonment of the old dream of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel; the adoption of a spiritual kingdom in its place: when we remember the universal reverence for, the implicit obedience which very soon began to be paid to, the teaching of the Mishnah and Gemara—the Talmud—a reverence and an obedience which completely changed the life, the views, the hopes of the scattered race in all lands,—we ask the pressing question: Whence came all this—the mighty change, the enthusiasm which has never paled or waned? The Mishnic Rabbis—the Gemara teachers, numerous, able, and devoted though they were, some few of them men of lofty genius and profound scholarship, do not account for this amazing result.
The “Talmud,” the outcome of these famous Rabbinic schools of the early Christian centuries, with its wild extravagances, its many beautiful thoughts, its peculiar and rigid system, touched the heart of the Jew, and bound together this people condemned to wander through the ages without a home, a country, a nationality, with a link no time, no human hate or scorn has been able to break or even to loose.
The strange weird Book was God’s mysterious instrument by which He has chosen to preserve intact the people He once loved—loves still—until the day, perhaps still far distant, dawns when the Jew, with eyes opened at last, shall look on Him whom they pierced.
IV
THE TALMUD
One[156] who loved with a love passionate, though not always discriminating, this vast wondrous compilation which has so marvellously affected the fortunes of the Chosen People, has written the following words: “The origin of the Talmud is coeval with the return from the Babylonish Captivity (some five centuries before Christ). One of the most mysterious and momentous periods in the history of humanity is that brief span of the Exile. What were the influences brought to bear upon the captives during that time we know not. But this we know, that from a reckless, lawless, godless populace they returned transformed into a band of Puritans.... The change is there, palpable, unmistakable—a change we may regard as almost miraculous. Scarcely aware before of the existence of their glorious national literature, the people now began to press round these brands plucked from the fire, the scanty records of their faith and history, with a fierce and passionate love, a love stronger than that of wife and child. These same documents, as they were gradually formed into a canon, became the immutable centre of their lives, their actions, their thoughts, their very dreams. From that time forth, with scarcely any intermission, the keenest as well as the most practical minds of the nation remained fixed upon them. Turn it, and turn it again, says the Talmud with regard to the Bible, for everything is in it.”
After the fall of the City and the burning of the Temple in A.D. 70 the wonderful records of the Jew and his Book (the Talmud) are all clear and definite. How it was composed, who compiled it, and why it was put out, all this belongs to history, and forms a most important though little known chapter in the annals of the Chosen People; in some respects also it is a most weighty piece of evidential history—perhaps the most weighty—possessed by Christianity.
But some of the materials out of which the great Book (the Talmud), which has so enormously influenced the fortunes of the Chosen People for so many centuries, was composed, existed before the catastrophe of A.D. 70. We will briefly examine what we know of the ancient materials of the Talmud; the examination will be of the highest interest.