d those rules and institutions--interpretations
of the civil and canonical laws contained in the Old Testament--which
were transmitted orally to succeeding generations of the Jewish
priesthood until the general dispersion of the Hebrew race. According to
the Rabbis, Moses received the oral as well as the written law at Mount
Sinai, and it was by him communicated to Joshua, from whom it was
transmitted through forty successive Receivers. So long as the Temple
stood, it was deemed not only unnecessary, but absolutely unlawful, to
commit these ancient and carefully-preserved traditions to writing; but
after the second destruction of Jerusalem, under Hadrian, when the
Jewish people were scattered over the world, the system of oral
transmission of these traditions from generation to generation became
impracticable, and, to prevent their being lost, they were formed into a
permanent record about A.D. 190, by Rabbi Jehudah the Holy, who called
his work _Mishna_, or the Secondary Laws. About a hundred years later a
commentary on it was written by Rabbi Jochonan, called _Gemara_, or the
Completion, and these two works joined together are known as the
(Jerusalem) _Talmud_, or Directory. But this commentary being written in
an obscure style, and omitting many traditions known farther east,
another was begun by Rabbi Asche, who died A.D. 427, and completed by
his disciples and followers about the year 500, which together with the
Mishna formed the Babylonian Talmud. Both versions were first printed at
Venice in the 16th century--the Jerusalem Talmud, in one folio volume,
about the year 1523; and the Babylonian Talmud, in twelve folio volumes,
1520-30. In the 12th century Moses Maimonides, a Spanish Rabbi, made an
epitome, or digest, of all the laws and institutions of the Talmud.
Such, in brief, is the origin and history of this famed compilation,
which has been aptly described as an extraordinary monument of human
industry, human wisdom, and human folly.

By far the greater portion of the Talmud is devoted to the ceremonial
law, as preserved by oral tradition in the manner above explained; but
it also comprises innumerable sayings or aphorisms of celebrated Rabbis,
together with narratives of the most varied character--legends regarding
Biblical personages, moral tales, fables, parables, and facetious
stories. Of the rabbinical legends, many are extremely puerile and
absurd, and may rank with the extravagant and incredible monkish