Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/445

ISRAEL 429 turn in introducing numerous and thorough-going innova tions ; but the conservatives R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and R. Ishmael ben Elisha were in truth more liberal-minded than the leaders of the party of progress, notably than R. Akiba. Even the Ultramontanes have never hesitated at departures from the usage of the ancient and mediaeval church ; and the Pharisaic rabbins were guided in their innovations by liberal principles no more than they. The object of the new determinations was simply to widen the domain of the law in a consistent manner, to bring the individual entirely under the iron rule of system. But the Jewish communi ties gave willing obedience to the hierarchy of the rabbins ; Judaism had to be maintained, cost what it might. That the means employed were well adapted to the purpose of maintaining the Jews as a firmly compacted religious com munity even after all bonds of nationality had fallen away cannot be doubted. But whether the attainment of this purpose by incredible exertion was a real blessing to them selves and the world may very well be disputed. One consequence of the process of intellectual isolation and of the effort to shape everything in accordance with hard and fast rules and doctrines was the systematiza- tion and codification of juristic and ritual tradition, a work with which a beginning was made in the century following the destruction of Jerusalem. Towards the end of the 2d century the Pharisaic doctrine of Hillel as it had been further matured by Akiba was codified and elevated to the position of statute law by the patriarch Rabban Judah the Holy (Mishna). 1 But this was only the first stage in the process of system itizing and fixing tradition. The Mishna became itself the object of rabbinical comment and supple ment ; the Tannaim, whose work was registered in the Mathnetha (Mishna, Seurepwcris = doctrine), were followed by the Arnoraim, whose work in turn took permanent shape in the Gemara ( = doctrine). The Palestinian Gemara was reduced to writing in perhaps the 4th or 5th century; unfortunately it has been preserved to us only in part, but appears to have reached the Middle Ages in a perfect state (comp. Schiller-Szinessy in the Academy, 1878, p. 170 sqq.}. Even thus the process which issued in the production of the Talmud was not yet completed ; the Babylonian Amoraim carried it forward for some time longer, until at last at the rise of Islam the Babylonian Gemara was also written down. In the 5th century Palestine ceased to be the centre of Judaism. Several circumstances conspired to bring this about. The position of the Jews in the Roman empire had changed for the worse with the elevation of Christianity to be the religion of the state; the large autonomy which until then they had enjoyed in Palestine was now restricted ; above all, the family of the patriarchs, which had come to form a veritable dynasty, became extinct. 2 But this did not make an end of what may be called the Jewish church- state ; henceforward it had its home in Babylonia. From the period of the exile, a numerous and coherent body of Jews had continued to subsist there ; the Parthians and Sassanidse granted them self-government ; at their head was a native prince (Resh Galutha, can be clearly traced from 2d century A.D. onwards) who, when the Palestinian patriarchate came to an end, was left without a rival. This 1 The Mishna succeeded almost, but not quite, in completely doing away with all conflicting tendencies. At first the heterodox tradition of that time was also committed to writing (R. Ishmael hen Elisha) and so handed down, in various forms (collection of the Baraithas, that is, of old precepts which had not been received into the Mishna, in the Tosephtha). Nor did the active opposition altogether die out even at a later period ; under favouring circumstances it awoke to new life in Karaism, the founder of which, Anan ben David, lived in Babylonia in the middle of the 8th century. 2 Comp. Gothofredus on Cod. Tkeod., xvi. 8, 29, ad voc. "post excessum patriarcharum." remarkable relic of a Jewish commonwealth continued to exist until the time of the Abassides. 3 Even as early as the beginning of the 3d century A.D. certain rabbins, at their head Abba Areka (Rab) had migrated from Palestine and founded a settlement for learning in the law in Babylonia. The schools there (at Pumbeditha, Sora, Nahardea) prospered greatly, vied with those of Palestine, and continued to exist after the cessation of the latter, when the patriarchate became extinct; thus they had the last word in the settlement of doctrine. Alongside of the settlement of tradition went another task, that of fixing the letters of the consonantal text ol the Bible (by the Massora), its vowel pronunciation (by Massora, the punctuation), and its translation into the Aramaic vernacular (Targum). Here also the Babylonians came Targums. after the Palestinians, yet of this sort of erudition Palestine continued to be the headquarters even after the 5th century. With this task, that of attaining to the greatest possible conformity to the letter and of continuing therein, the inner development of Jewish thought came to an end. 4 The later Hebrew literature, which does not fall to be considered here, contributed very few new elements ; in so far as an intellectual life existed at all among the Jews of the Middle Ages, it was not a growth of native soil but proceeded from the Mahometan or Latin culture of indi viduals. The Kabbala at most, and even it hardly with justice, can be regarded as having been a genuine product of Judaism. It originated in Palestine, and subsequently flourished chiefly in the later Middle Ages in Spain, and, like all other methodized nonsense, had strong attractions for Christian scholars. 17. Something still remains to be said with reference The dis- to the diaspora. We have seen how it began ; in spite of persion, Josephus (Ant., xi. 5, 2), it is to be carried back not to the Assyrian but merely to the Babylonian captivity ; it was not composed of Israelites, but solely of citizens of the southern kingdom. It received its greatest impulse from Alexander, and then afterwards from Caesar. In the Gra?co-Roman period Jerusalem at the time of the great festival presented the appearance of a veritable Babel (Acts ii. 9-11); with the Jews themselves were mingled the proselytes (Acts ii. 11), for even already that religion was gaining considerable conquests among the heathen ; as King Agrippa I. writes to the emperor Caius (Philo, Leg at. ad Gaium, sec. 36), "Jerusalem is the metropolis not only of Judaea but of very many lands, on account of the colonies which on various occasions (eVt /catpSv) it has sent out into the adjoining countries of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, and Ccelesyria, and into the more remote Pamphylia, Cilicia, the greater part of Asia Minor as far as to Bithynia and the remotest parts of Pontus ; likewise into Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, ^Etolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, most parts (and these the fairest) of the Pelopcn- nesus. Nor are the Jewish settlements confined to the mainland only ; they are found also in the more important islands, Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. I do not insist on the countries beyond the Euphrates, for with few exceptions all of them, Babylon and the fertile regions around ii, havo Jewish inhabitants." In the west of Europe also they were not wanting ; many thousands of them lived in Rome. In those cities where they were at all numerous they during the imperial period formed separate communities ; Josephus has preserved a great variety of documents in which the Roman authorities recognize their rights and liberties (especially as regards the Sabbath rest and the observance of festivals). Of greatest importance was the 3 See Ndldeke, Tdbari, 68, 118, and Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, i. 188, ii. 176. 4 Comp. F. Weber, System der altsynagogalen pala&tinischen Theo- logie, Leipsic, 1880.