INTRODUCTION
29
Johai, who himself took part in the last war.No
one would dream of crediting the assertion that for
seven years the vineyards in Palestine needed and
received no other manure than the blood of those
slain in the war. But the story that young Ishmael
b. Elisha was carried captive to Rome, and discovered
there and released, is in every way probable. Ishmael
b. Elisha was the name of two very well-known
Rabbis, one the grandson of the other, and the
younger being the contemporary and rival of Aqiba.
Nothing is more likely than that stories of the lives
and adventures of these men should have been
told
amongst their friends and remembered in later times.
Such stories must of course be judged on their own
merits. But if they are in themselves reasonable and
probable, there is nothing to discredit them in the
mere fact that they are found in works like the
Talmud and Midrash, embedded in a mass of
Haggadic speculation. Neither Talmud nor Midrash
were intended primarily to teach history ; but from
the manner of their origin and growth, they could
hardly fail to show some traces of contemporary
history. Therefore, in place of condemning as apo-
cryphal all and sundry of the allusions to historical
personages and events contained in the Talmud and
Midrash, we may and ought to distinguish amongst
them. And perhaps we may make some approach to
a general canon of criticism on the subject, if we say
that in the literature referred to, the
obiter dicta
are
of most value as evidence of historical fact ; or, in
other words, there is more reason to suspect exaggera-
tion or invention in statements which appear to form
part of the main line of the argument, than in those
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