20
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
Talmud (otherwise known as the Talmud of
Jerusalem) and the Babylonian Talmud.'
To give any account of the multifarious contents
of either Talmud, even of that of Jerusalem, which
is much shorter and simpler than
that of Babylon,
would be a work of great length and difficulty, al-
most amounting indeed to a translation of the huge
work with the commentaries upon it. Briefly, it
consists (in both Talmuds) of a series of discussions
upon the several Halachoth contained in the Mish-
nah. In the course of these discussions, all manner
of digressions interrupt the argument, -
personal
anecdotes, speculations upon points of theology or
philosophy, fragments of history, scraps of science,
folklore, travellers' tales-in short, anything and
everything that could be supposed to have even the
remotest connection with the subject under discussion
are brought in, to the grievous perplexity of the
reader. To add to the difficulty, this chaotic mass
is printed in an unpointed text, with no stops except
at the end of a paragraph, and no sort of mark to
distinguish the various elements one from the other.
And, finally, the language of the two Gemaras (based
' The Hebrew names are `Talmud Jerushalmi,' and 'T. Babli '
re-
spectively. I do not know why the former is called T. Jerushalmi ;
because, of the various schools in which it was developed, probably none,
certainly none of any importance, had its seat in Jerusalem. It is usually
understood that residence in Jerusalem was forbidden to Jews after the
last war, in 135 A.D. Yet it is stated (b. Pes. 113a) that R. Jo}ianan, one
of the founders of the Palestinian Gemara, cited a tradition " in the name
of the men of Jerusalem." On the whole, however, it seems to me
most
probable that the Palestinian Talmud was merely called after the-name of
the capital city, as indeed the T. Babli may be said to have been called after
the name of the capital city of the land where the chief Rabbinical schools
of the East flourished for centuries.
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