30
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
which appear to be merely illustrative notes, added
to the text and embedded in it. The purpose of
Haggadah (to which all these historical references
belong) is homiletic ; it aims at building up
religious
and moral character by every means other than the
discipline of positive precept
(see above, p.
12).
Reference to historical fact was only one, and by no
means the most important, form of Haggadah. Since
it is in Haggadah that the Rabbinical mind found the
outlet for its instinct of speculative inquiry, and the
play of its fancy and imagination, as already explained,
it is natural to expect that these will be most promi-
nent and most abundant in Haggadic passages because
most in accordance with the genius of Haggadah.
When, accordingly, we find in the midst of such
fanciful and exaggerated passages occasional state-
ments which appear to be plain, sober matter of fact,
there is the more reason to accept the latter as being
historically reliable (at least intended to be so),
because the author (or narrator) might have increased
their effect as illustrations by free invention, and has
chosen not to do so. I say that such statements may
be accepted as being at least intended to be histori-
cally reliable. They must be judged on their merits,
and where possible tested by such methods as would
be applied to any other statements professedly
historical. The narrator who gives them may have
been wrongly informed, or may have incorrectly
remembered ; but my point is that in such statements
he intends to relate what he believes to be matter of
fact, and not to indulge his imagination.
I have made this attempt to work out a canon of
criticism for the historical value of the Rabbinical
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