It is needless to say that the treatment accorded the venerable literary compilation was due to bitter prejudice and crass ignorance. This is well illustrated by the circumstance that when, in 1307, Clement V was asked to issue a bull against the Talmud, he declined to do so, until he had learned something about it. To his amazement and chagrin, he could find no one who could throw any light upon the subject. Those who wished it condemned and burned were totally ignorant of its meaning and contents. The surprise and disgust of Clement were so great that he resolved to found three chairs in Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee, the three tongues nearest the idiom of the Talmud. He designated the Universities of Paris, Salamanca, Bologna, and Oxford as places where these languages should be taught, and expressed the hope that, in time, one of these universities might be able to produce a translation of "this mysterious book."[63] It may be added that these plans of the Pope were never consummated.
The Message and Mission of the Talmud.—To appreciate the message and mission of the Talmud, its contents must be viewed and contemplated in the light of both literature and history. As a literary production it is a masterpiece—strange, weird, and unique—but a masterpiece, nevertheless. It is a sort of spiritual and intellectual cosmos in which the brain growth and soul burst of a great race found expression during a thousand years. As an encyclopedia of faith and scholarship it reveals the noblest thoughts and highest aspirations of a divinely commissioned race. Whatever the master spirits of Judaism in Palestine and Babylon esteemed worthy of thought and devotion was devoted to its pages. It thus became a great twin messenger, with the Bible, of Hebrew civilization to all the races of mankind and to all the centuries yet to come. To Hebrews it is still the great storehouse of information touching the legal, political, and religious traditions of their fathers in many lands and ages. To the Biblical critic of any faith it is an invaluable help to Bible exegesis. And to all the world who care for the sacred and the solemn it is a priceless literary treasure.
As an historical factor the Talmud has only remotely affected the great currents of Gentile history. But to Judaism it has been the cementing bond in every time of persecution and threatened dissolution. It was carried from Babylon to Egypt, northern Africa, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, and Poland. And when threatened with national and race destruction, the children of Abraham in every land bowed themselves above its sacred pages and caught therefrom inspiration to renewed life and higher effort. The Hebrews of every age have held the Talmud in extravagant reverence as the greatest sacred heirloom of their race. Their supreme affection for it has placed it above even the Bible. It is an adage with them that, "The Bible is salt, the Mischna pepper, the Gemara balmy spice," and Rabbi Solomon ben Joseph sings:
"The Kabbala and Talmud hoar
Than all the Prophets prize I more;
For water is all Bible lore,
But Mischna is pure wine."
More than any other human agency has the Talmud been instrumental in creating that strangest of all political phenomena—a nation without a country, a race without a fatherland.
CHAPTER II
HEBREW CRIMINAL LAW—CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
