e tribes, and the
remaining one deposited in the ark. The oral law Moses continually
taught in the Sanhedrim, to the elders and the rest of the people. The
law was repeated four times; but the interpretation was delivered only
by _word of mouth_ from generation to generation. In the fortieth year
of the flight from Egypt, the memory of the people became treacherous,
and Moses was constrained to repeat this oral law, which had been
conveyed by successive traditionists. Such is the account of honest
David Levi; it is the creed of every rabbin.--David believed in
everything but in Jesus.

This history of the Talmud some inclined to suppose apocryphal, even
among a few of the Jews themselves. When these traditions first
appeared, the keenest controversy has never been able to determine. It
cannot be denied that there existed traditions among the Jews in the
time of Jesus Christ. About the second century, they were industriously
collected by Rabbi Juda the Holy, the prince of the rabbins, who enjoyed
the favour of Antoninus Pius. He has the merit of giving some order to
this multifarious collection.

It appears that the Talmud was compiled by certain Jewish doctors, who
were solicited for this purpose by their nation, that they might have
something to oppose to their Christian adversaries.

The learned W. Wotton, in his curious "Discourses" on the traditions of
the Scribes and Pharisees, supplies an analysis of this vast collection;
he has translated entire two divisions of this code of traditional laws,
with the original text and the notes.

There are two Talmuds: the Jerusalem and the Babylonian. The last is the
most esteemed, because it is the most bulky.

R. Juda, the prince of the rabbins, committed to writing all these
traditions, and arranged them under six general heads, called orders or
classes. The subjects are indeed curious for philosophical inquirers,
and multifarious as the events of civil life. Every _order_ is formed of
_treatises_; every _treatise_ is divided into chapters, every _chapter_
into _mishnas_, which word means mixtures or miscellanies, in the form
of _aphorisms_. In the first part is discussed what relates to _seeds_,
_fruits_, and _trees_; in the second, _feasts_; in the third, _women_,
their duties, their _disorders_, _marriages_, _divorces_, _contracts_,
and _nuptials_; in the fourth, are treated the damages or losses
sustained by beasts or men; of _things found_; _deposits_; _usuries_;