INTRODUCTION
17
distinguished in the Rabbinical literature. For this
purpose I will briefly refer to the chief
representative works of that literature.
Pre-eminent among them all stands the Talmud ;
and after what has been already said, it will not be
difficult to explain the general nature of this colossal
work. Bearing in mind that the main task of
Rabbinism was to ascertain and define Halachah, it
will be evident that in the course of years, and by
the labours of many contemporary and successive
Rabbis, a large number of decisions upon questiofs
of Halachah gradually accumulated. Some of these,
dating from far -
off antiquity, were undisputed ;
others were subjected to keen examination and
scrutiny before being pronounced to be really
Halachah. But, while many decisions were rejected,
for want of a sufficient basis of authority, the
number of those that were accepted increased with
every generation of teachers. More than once,
during the first two centuries of our era, attempts
were made to codify and arrange the growing mass
of Halachah, the confusion of which was increased
by the fact that the whole was carried in the memory
alone, not put down in writing. The work of codifi-
cation, attempted by Aqiba and others, was finally
completed by Rabbi Jehudah ha-Qadosh (the Holy),
usually known as Rabbi
par excellence;
and the
collection which he formed is known as the Mishnah.
The date of its completion is usually given as 220
A.
D., or thereabouts. Mishnah denotes both
°
teach-
ing' and ' repetition ' ; and the work so called pro-
fessed to be the repetition, in enlarged form, of the
Torah of Moses. The Mishnah is a collection of
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