(D) The word Thalmud, fignifies Doctrine, and is emphati. cally given to this work, as being a compleat fyftem or body of it, or of the religion and morals of the Jews. They have two of that name and import, viz. this of Jerufalem, which is the shortest and more obfcure of the two; as likewife the more ancient by near one century; and that of Babylon, of which we shall speak in its proper place. It is properly a comment upon the Mishnah of Judah Hakkadofh; and the occafion of its writing was as follows:

Judah had fcarce finished his own work, before he had the mortification to fee a collection of traditions quite different from his, published under his nofe by one Rabbi Chua, with the Chaldee title of Bara-Zijethoth, or Extravagants, which was afterwards inferted in the Mishnah, in order to make that piece more compleat. It had, indeed, two confiderable de fects, viz. 1ft, It only collected the various traditions and fentiments of the Jewish doctors, without enquiring which of them was most to be preferred; which confirm the conjecture, that Judah had only collected what he found ready

R. 70

written to his hand. And, 2dly, It was fo concife as to be in fome measure useless, because it reached but to few doubtful cafes, in comparison of the many queftions that began by this time to be in vogue among the Jeaus. To remedy thefe defects it was that thofe three great men wrote this comment upon it, which being compiled in Judea, and for the Jews that lived in those parts, as well as in the Hebrew then in ufe, was ftiled the Gemarrah, or Perfection; and this and the Mihnah together made that which is called the Thalmud of Jerufalem.

Neither Jews nor Chriftians are agreed about the time of its being finished; fome placing it about 150, others about 200, and Buxtorf 230 years after the destruction of Jerufalem (16); that is, about the 300th year of Chrift. Its mentioning the emperor Dioclefian, fhews that it must have been compiled in or after the reign of that emperor; but Morinus is of opinion, from feveral barbarous terms he has obferved in it, which are of Vandalic or Gothic extract, that it did not appear till the 5th century (17). Thus much for the Jerufalem

(37) Exereit. Bibl. l. ii. Exer

Thalmud;

Thalmud; which, being ftill found not only too fuccinct, on account of the fmall number of cafes and quotations from the Jewish doctors, as well as too obfcure, by reason of the barbarous terms it had borrowed from other nations, gave birth to the Babylonish one, of which we are now going to speak.

This laft was compiled by Rabbi Afe, a very learned difciple of the great Jochanan, but who left the academy of Tiberias, and went to prefide at that of Sora, near Babylon, where he continued in that dignity about 40 years, during which he compiled his Gemarrah, or comment upon the Mishnah of Judah the faint; and from the place where he wrote it, it came to be ftiled the Babylonish Thalmud, or, more probably perhaps, because it was done for the ufe of the Babylonih, or the Jews on the other fide of the Euphrates. Afe did not live to finish it; but this was done by his fons; and fome of his difciples gave the concluding hand to it; fo that it became a vaft body or collection of traditions, concerning the canon laws of the Ferus, and of all the queftions relating to the Jewish law, wherein the Mishnah is the text, and the Gemarrah the comment upon it.

400 books;

The Jews in general prefer this Babylonish Thalmu, on account of its clearnefs and fulnefs, much above that of Jerufalem; and tho' it is stuffed with ridiculous fables and ftories, yet they will not fuffer any one to call it in queftion without the cenfure of herefy. Infomuch that they even give this book the preference to the facred ones; for these they com pare to water, the Mishnah to wine, and the Gemarrah to the choiceft wine t. They own all three to be equally of divine authority; but the laft to be preferable in point of clearnefs, and without the help of which the former is but as a dead letter. We shall difpenfe with giving a farther account of that voluminous work, and only observe that the learned Maimonides hath given us an excellent abridgement of it, in which he hath thrown out all that was puerile and ridiculous, and confined himself to the collection of the most material cafes and decifions that are contained in it. This epitome, which he ftiles Yad Khazachah, or Stronghand, is therefore much preferable to the Thalmud itself, as being one of the most compleat bodies of the Jewish laws that ever was wrote; not fo much on account of the dig. nity and importance of the fubject, as of the clearness of

the

the style, and the beautiful order in which he hath ranged them. As to the Babylonish Thalmud, there is as much difference of opinions about the time in which it was finished, as about that of Jerufalem. The Jews have greatly antedated it, as they do most of their own books; and the Chriftians were fo little acquainted with it before St. Jerom's time, that we can come at no certainty from either. Morinus hath given it the latest date of any writer, and offered feveral very probable reasons for his opinion, that it was not finished till the year 700 (18). But as it would be, doubtlefs, out of our province, as well as fwell this note to too great a bulk, were we to enter into a farther detail of this matter, we shall content ourfelves with referring fuch of our readers as are curious about that point, to the authors quoted in the margin for a farther account of it (19).

No lefs is the difference of opinions concerning the book itself. We have feen what efteem the Jews have for it; fome Chriftians come very little fhort of them, who, not content to look upon it as an inexhaustible mine of divine treasures, (from the fearch of which, nothing but the most carnal indolence, or too world

ly pride and felf-fufficiency, deters the learned) go even so far as to infinuate, that there is nothing grand or fublime in the fayings of Chrift or his apoftles but what they fetched from that divine fountain; infomuch that they will even affirm, that not only the finest parables and allegories of the gofpel, but even the Lord's prayer, are taken from the Thalmud. If you ask them how they could have thefe from a book published fo long after their time? they will answer, that they were conveyed by tradition from one doctor to another, and taught in their schools many years before, tho' not committed to writing till then t

On the other hand, one meets with a quite different fort of men, who, running into the oppofite extreme, condemn the book as deteftable and dangerous, fit only to be flung into the flames. But those pass the more equitable judgment, who, without exaggerating its authority, can yet make use of it in order to explain the facred writings, and the ancient rites and religious ceremonies of the Jews: and this is what we have endeavoured to do in feveral parts of this work, as far as we could find it of any fervice; and, as we have reason to hope, to very

Praf. in Cod. jema Thalmud.

Prid. Calmet. & al. fup, citat.

Marin.

good

good purpose, and to the fatisfaction of fuch of our readers who have not fuffered themfelves to be carried away into either extreme t. However, as we have taken upon us to obferve, that it is fraught with many abfurd and puerile notions we fhall now close this note with a few inftances of it to serve our readers as a fpecimen of the rest.

Nothing can be more abfurd, and even impious, than what they tell us of the Deity's paffing his time away before the creation, in making and an nihilating of a number of worlds, by way of effay, till he had found out the way of making one to his mind, which is that we live in his creating of the two monfters of Henoc and Leviathan on the fifth day, the former of whom was fent to range on the earth, and hath the grafs of a thousand mountains to fupply him with food; and the other confined to the fea till the day of Judgment, when it is to be killed, to make a feast for all the elect: his creating the male and female Behemoth, and killing and falting the latter for the fame ban

quet: Adam having being created an hermaphrodite, and trying in vain to affuage his luft with all the other animals, and fixing at length upon Eve. Thefe, and many more of the like nature, which a modeft Few one would think must be afhamed of, are yet fwallowed down by the vulgar; whilft

that

fome of the more fenfible of them pretend that those stories are allegorical, and contain fuch fublime mysteries as none but their greatest faints can be able or fit to attain.

What can be more childish, as well as prophane, than the ftory of the fly rabbi, who is there reported to have cheated God and the devil, by praying to the latter to carry him up to the gate of heaven, when, having once beheld the glory of the place, and happiness of the faints, he might die more eafy and quiet; and having obtained his request, and found it luckily opened, gave himfelf a fpring, and jumped into it, and fwore by its great God, that he would never come out of it; where by God was obliged to let him ftay there rather than make him forfwear himself.

Many of the rabbinic decifions are alfo found there no lefs ludicrous and abfurd; as when it introduces two women difputing in the fynagogues, about the ufe which a husband may lawfully make of them; and the rabbies anfwer pofitively that he may safely use them as he pleases; and for this reafon, that as a man that buys a fish may eat either the fore or hind part, as he likes beft, fo, &c. They are fometimes contradictory to each other; as when, instead of endeavouring to reconcile or remove the manifeft oppofition, they make a voice from heaven do it, by pronouncing both decifions