A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Synodals are due of common right to the bishop only, so that, if they be claimed or demanded by the archdeacon, or dean and chapter, or any other person or persons, it must be on the foot of composition or prescription.—Id.

And if they be denied where due, they are recoverable in the spiritual court. And, in the time of Archbishop Whitgift, they were declared upon a full hearing to be spiritual profits, and as such to belong to the keeper of the spiritual see vacant.—Id.

Constitutions made in the provincial or diocesan synods were also sometimes called synodals, and were in many cases required to be published in the parish churches: in this sense the word frequently occurs in the ancient directories.

TABERNACLE. Among the Hebrews, a kind of building, in the form of a tent, set up by the express command of God, for the performance of religious worship, sacrifices, &c. (Exod. xxvi., xxvii.)

TABERNACLES, FEAST OF. A solemn festival of the Hebrews, observed after harvest, on the fifteenth day of the month Tisri, instituted to commemorate the goodness of God, who protected the Israelites in the wilderness, and made them dwell in booths when they came out of Egypt. The pyx, or box in which the reserved host is placed on Romish altars, is called in the Missal the Tabernacle.

TALMUD. (Signifying doctrine.) A collection of the doctrines of the religion and morality of the Jews. It consists of two parts: 1. The Misna, or text; literally repetition: that is, a repetition or supplement to the Divine law; which they pretend was delivered to Moses on the mount, and transmitted from him to the members of the Sanhedrim. 2. The Gemara, (perfection, or completion,) which is the commentary. The origin of this work is as follows:—

Judah the Holy had no sooner completed the Misna, but one Rabbi Chun, jealous of his glory, published quite contrary traditions; a collection of which was made under the title of Extravaganta, and inserted with the Misna, in order to compose one and the same body of law.

Notwithstanding that the collection made by Judah seemed to be a complete work, yet two considerable faults were observed in it: one, that it was very confused, the author having reported the opinions of different doctors, without naming them, and determining which of these opinions deserved the preference: the other, (which rendered this body of canon law almost useless,) that it was too short, and resolved but a small part of the doubtful cases and questions that began to be agitated among the Jews.

To remedy these inconveniences, Jochanan, with the assistance of Rab and Samuel, two disciples of Judah the Holy, wrote a commentary upon their master’s work. This is called the Talmud of Jerusalem; either because it was composed in Judea, for the use of the Jews that remained in that country, or because it was written in the common language spoken there. The Jews are not agreed about the time that this part of the Gemara, which signifies Perfection, was made. Some believe it was two hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem; others reckon but a hundred and fifty; and maintain that Rab and Samuel, quitting Judea, went to Babylon, in the two hundred and nineteenth year of the Christian era. However, these are the heads of the second order of doctors, called Gemarists, because they composed the Gemara. (See Gemara.)

There was also a defect in the Jerusalem Talmud, for it contained the opinions of but a small number of doctors. For this reason the Gemarists, or commentators, began a new explication of the traditions. Rabbi Asa, who kept a school at Sora, near Babylon, where he taught forty years, produced a commentary upon Judah’s Misna. He did not finish it; but his sons and scholars put the last hand to it. This is called the Gemara, or Talmud, of Babylon, which is preferred before that of Jerusalem. It is a very large collection, containing the traditions, the canon law of the Jews, and all the questions relating to the Law.