Emperors, kings, and Popes in all lands and in every age have warred against it in each succeeding century. It was forbidden, cursed, often publicly burnt.
To give an average example of the spirit with which it was universally condemned by Christians, we would refer to a letter of Pope Honorius iv to the Archbishop of Canterbury (A.D. 1286), in which he speaks of the Talmud as "that damnable Book," desiring him "to see that it is read by no one, since all evils flow out of it."
At last, after it had been put out about 1000 years, in the dawn of the Reformation a great Christian scholar arose who defended it. Reuchlin, the most eminent Hellenist and Hebraist of his time, remonstrated against the wild and ignorant prejudice with which Christian men regarded this wonderful compilation. Long and bitter was the controversy, but the patient scholar, although formally condemned for his noble advocacy of the great Jewish book, in the end triumphed, and the Talmud this time was not burned but printed, and since Reuchlin's time has been allowed to live on unmolested. In our day and time it has come to be regarded as one of the great works of the world, although among Christian folk its contents are comparatively unknown; while its surpassing influence in the past is acknowledged in the scholar community, which recognizes neither land nor race.
It has been curiously suggested that the Talmud contains many of the divine sayings of our Lord recorded in the Gospels. The fact really is, that while some few of the beautiful words of Christ are without doubt to be found in the Talmud, it is only such sayings as are common to other great teachers and thinkers, such as Seneca and the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. However, it is more than probable that the Child Jesus was conversant with some of the more striking maxims of the early Rabbis and teachers, such as Hillel and the elder Gamaliel, and that occasionally sayings of theirs are repeated in the Gospel teaching. But it is beyond all doubt that the general spirit of Rabbinism which lives through the pages of the Talmud—in the Mishnah and Gemara—was absolutely at variance with the spirit of Jesus Christ and His disciples.
