The

In the course of one century, Judaism disclaimed all relationship with the new religion, made new by the teachings of Paul of Tarsus. It continued along traditional lines, still praying and hoping for the great future to come and for the Messiah to appear. ideal was not exhausted. It continued to grow in the Jewish consciousness, offering solace and consolation in many periods of suffering and trial. The fact, however, remains that the immediate success of Christianity can be accounted for only when we consider the intense Messianic hope that existed among the Jewish people during the period of Roman supremacy. Thus we have the phenomenon of a Jewish ideal, developed on Jewish soil, which has influenced Jewish life and habit, and has been influenced by them, giving birth to a creed which, becoming later antagonistic to its parent, assumes an entirely separate existence.

CHAPTER III

THE TALMUDIC PERIOD

The Talmud-Halachah and Haggadah-The Halachah the Main Element-The Position of the Haggadah undefined-The Messiah Idea in the Talmud not settled-The Hope Intensest after the Destruction of Jerusalem-Johanan ben Zakkai's Insistence that Judaism is Law-The Apocalypses of Baruch and Ezra-The_Supernatural Element emphasized-Baruch's Idea of the Resurrection-The Hadrianic Revolt-The Messiahship of Bar-Cochba repudiated by the Rabbis-The Early Tannaim silent on the Messianic Ideal-The "Messianic Woes "-Israel's Sufferings increase The Wars of Gog and Magog The Messiah Son of Joseph-Elijah— The Person of the Messiah-Political Independence-Conversion of the Gentiles-The Future Jerusalem-A New Covenant of the Law-The Belief in Resurrection-The Feast of the Righteous-The Date of the Messiah's Arrival-Calculation of the Date discouragedJulian the Apostate-His Offer to rebuild the Temple not received with Enthusiasm-Moses of Crete-Salutary Influence of the Extravagant Picture of Messianic Times drawn by the Rabbis.

The Talmud, as is well known, contains two elements-Halachah and Haggadah, law and legend, legal discussion and homiletic interpretation.

"It is only after a time," says Emanuel Deutsch,' "that the student learns to distinguish between two

mighty currents in the book-currents that at times flow parallel, at times seem to work upon each other, and to impede each other's action: the one emanating from the brain, the other from the heart-the one prose, the other poetry-the one carrying with it all those mental faculties that manifest themselves in arguing, investigating, comparing, developing, bringing a thousand points to bear upon one and one upon a thousand; the other springing from the realms of fancy, of imagination, feeling, humor, and above all from that precious combination of still, almost sad, pensiveness, with quick catholic sympathies, which in German is called Gemüth. . . . The first-named is called 'Halachah' (Rule, Norm), a term applied both to the process of evolving legal enactments and the enactments themselves. The other, 'Haggadah' (Legend, Saga), not so much in our modern sense of the word, though a great part of its contents come under that head, but because it was only a 'saying,' a thing without authority, a play of fancy, an allegory, a parable, a tale, that pointed a moral and illustrated a question, that smoothed the billows of fierce debate, roused the slumbering attention, and was generally-to use its own phrase-a 'comfort and blessing.'

Whatever the Talmud is, it is not a book of theology. The many theological doctrines contained in its Haggadic portions are casual and incidental, subordinate to its principal content, the Halachah. Law was the main concern of the Talmudists, the discus

sion of philosophy and theology, a pastime and diversion. The Halachah is the fundamental element of the Talmud; it was of binding authority, while the Haggadah is merely an interpretation and digression from the elaborate legal discussions, and carried little authority with the people. Even the Rabbis themselves regarded its study as unimportant, rebuking the sage who gave too much time to homiletic or philosophic discussion.❜

This loose and indefinite position of the Haggadah has caused much perplexity to modern thinkers who have attempted to reconstruct, from the Talmud, the religious philosophy of its sages. The Rabbis required conformity in practice, not so much in belief, and, accordingly, allowed to the imagination the same freedom in speculation about transcendental matters as was allowed under the system of the Scribes. Only such as publicly denied the cardinal principles of the Jewish religion were placed outside of

the fold, and even they were not persecuted for their beliefs. This phase of the Talmudic literature is a most interesting phenomenon, especially when we consider it in conjunction with the rapid development of dogmatics taking place contemporaneously in Christianity.

The same indefiniteness is to be noticed in the interpretation which the Rabbis gave to the popular hope for a Messiah. It is true, in the Talmud and the Midrashim, the hope finds a more prominent and detailed expression than any other Jewish belief and dogma, but the conception itself of a Messiah varies so much with individual Rabbis, and the divergence of opinion with regard to its details is so great, that its form remains. loose and unlimited. Even the philosophers of the middle ages differed greatly in their conception of the hope, so that, though their legal codes were accepted as binding by all Israel, their philosophic theories about the dogmas of Judaism were never taken to be