TALMUD (from Heb. lamad, to learn)—i.e., study, by way of eminence—is the name of the fundamental code of the Jewish civil and canonical law, comprising the Mishna (q.v.) and the Gemara (q.v.), the former as the text, the latter as the commentary and complement. We have spoken under HALACHA. and HAGGADA of the gradual develop ment of this " oral," or, chronologically speaking, post-Mosaic code. We have also there mentioned the older collectionsupon which the Mishua was framed, and finally redacted in the form in which we now possess it. The oldest codification of Halachoth, or single ordinances, is due to the school of Hillel (q.v.), Simon ben Gamaliel the patriarch (166 A.D.) and his school carefully sifted the material thus brought together; and in the following generation, through Jehudah Hanassi (219 A.D.) and his disciples, the work was brought to its close in six portions (Sedarim), 63 treatises (Mesichtoth), and 524 chapters (Perakim), which contain the single Mishnas. A summary of its con tents is given under MLSiTNA. But besides this authoritatively compiled code, there were a number of other law collections, partly anterior to it, and not fully embodied in it, partly arising out of it—as supplements, complements, by-laws, and the like—partly portions of the ancient Midrash (q.v.); partly either private text-books composed by the masters of the academies for their lectures or enlargements of the existing Mishna. All this additional legal material was collected, not rarely together with the dissensions which begot it, under the name of Boraitoth, by Chia and his school, in the succeeding generation. Not to be confounded with them, however, are the collections of Toseftas or Great Mishnas, which, commenced at the time of Jehudah Hanassi himself, and con tinued after his death by Chija and Hoshaja, embody much of what has been purposely left out in the concise Mishna; that only embraced the final dicta and decisions. Such "additions" we possess now to 52 treatises, forming together 383 perakim, or chapters. All these different sources of the " oral law"—finally redacted before the end of the 3d C. though probably not committed to writing until 550 A.D.—belong to the period of from
about 30 B.C. to about 250 A.D. This great mass of legal matter, although apparently calculated to provide for every case, if not for all times, was yet found insufficient. The dicta of later masters, the decisions of the courts, the discussions on the meaning and purport of special traditions, the attempts at reconciling apparent contradictions in the received material, the amplifications or modifications of certain injunctions rendered' necessary by the shifting wants and conditions of the commonwealth—all these and a number of other circumstances made a further codification pereMptory.
We must not omit to state here, that this Mishna (Matlinisin), although it contained nothing but what were indigenous laws and institutions, was yet not a little influenced —if the very fact of its redaction was not indeed caused—by the spirit of the times. At Berytus, at Alexandria, at Rome, the legal schobls were then in their most vigorous stage of development, and everywhere system and method were being introduced into what till then had been a vast complex of traditional and popular institutions, decrees, and decisions. The Mishna, in all respects, fulfilled the conditions reasonably to be demanded from such a text-book as it was intended to form; it was clear, concise, com plete, and systematic, and moreover, composed in as classical a Hebrew as still could be written in those days of decadence of the " sacred language." The further development of this supplementary, oral, or second law, in fact, rather an exegesis thereof, together with the discussions raised by apparent contradictions found in the individual enactments of the Mishnic doctors, is called Gemara Discus sion, Complement, or, according to another explanation, Doctrine. Whatever the original meaning of the root (gamar), it certainly allows of all the aesignifications. This Gemara contains, apart from the Halacha (q.v.), which is generally written in Aramaic, also a vast number of non-legal, chiefly Hebrew, fragments—homiletic matter, tales, gnomes, legends, and the like—called Haggada (q.v.).