to Moses, and by him handed down along with the written Torah. The question here again is not as to the historical facts of the development of the Rabbinism out of the O.T., but only of the view which the Rabbis themselves held of the connexion between them. And that view was, that after the time of the men of the Great Synagogue, those whose names are recorded as teachers taught by word of mouth the Torah as it was now written, together with such interpretation of it-not written, but handed downas would serve to apply it to cases not distinctly provided for in the scriptures. It was, as always, the Torah of Moses that was taught and expounded; and the object was, as always, to teach men how they ought to "Love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and strength and might." Historically, we distinguish between the prophetical and the legal elements in the contents of the O.T. The Rabbis made no such distinction. In their religious instruction they distinguished between 'halachah' (precept) and haggadah' (edification), terms which will be more fully explained below. For the purposes of halachah' they interpreted the whole of Scripture from the legal standpoint; and, in like manner, for the purposes of 'haggadah' they interpreted the whole of Scripture from the didactic standpoint, in neither case making any difference between the several books of the O.T., as legal, historical or prophetic.

On the legal side, the task to which Rabbinism, from the days of Ezra to the closing of the Talmud, devoted itself with all its strength and ingenuity and patience, was to develop a set of rules for the right conduct of life, a code of laws, wherein the original

teaching of Moses should be applied to every conceivable event, act and duty of daily life. Historically, the founder of Jewish Legalism was Ezra, to whose mind was ever present the supreme necessity of guarding the national religion from those corruptions and laxities which had brought about the exile, and who saw no better protection against the recurrence of such a danger than an authoritative code, which should state either in speech or writing-the divine commands which the Jewish people were to obey. If by the “Men of the Great Synagogue" we are to understand Ezra and those who worked on his lines, with him and after him, then we can understand the saying ascribed to that ancient assembly, "Make a hedge for the Torah" (Aboth, i. 1). The Torah is the divine teaching given to Moses and handed down by him; and the hedge is the Legalism, the outward form of law and precept, in which henceforth it was to be preserved. The Talmud indicates its view of the work of Ezra, and also of the connexion between his work and that of the Rabbis by saying (b. Succ. 27): "In the beginning, when the Torah was forgotten, Ezra went up from Babylon and founded it; again it was forgotten and Hillel the Babylonian1 went up and founded it; again it was forgotten and Rabbi Hija and his sons went up and founded it." In other

1 Hillel was no doubt the founder of Rabbinism in the stricter sense, for he introduced the exegetical rules on which the Rabbinical casuistry is founded. But Ezra is the true founder of that Legalism, of which Talmudic Rabbinism is the logical result. To compare Hillel with Jesus on the ground of their gentleness is to ignore the fact that Hillel did more than anyone else had done to organise that Tradition of the Elders which Jesus denounced. In their conception of the form of religion, Jesus and Hillel stood at opposite poles of thought.

words, both the Legalism of Ezra, and the Rabbinism of which Hillel was the first representative, are the outward form of the Torah, the divine teaching given to Moses; and in every detail, every minutest precept which Rabbinical ingenuity developed, there is assumed as the ground of all the primal religious duty, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might."

Whether the form of definite precept and precise rule is the best adapted to promote the living of a righteous life is not here the question. Right or wrong, better or worse, it is the form which the Rabbis chose for the expression of their conception of the religious life. And the whole system of Rabbinism is misjudged, unless it be carefully and constantly borne in mind that it is all an expansion of the idea of human service of God, under the form of precept. What is usually called 'empty formalism,' 'solemn trifling' and the like, deserves a nobler name; for it is whether mistaken or not-an honest effort to apply the principle of service of God to the smallest details and acts of life. That, in practice, such a conception of religious life might lead to hypocrisy and formalism is undeniable, and the Talmud itself is perfectly well aware of the fact. But that it necessarily leads to hypocrisy, that it is impossible on such lines to develop a true religious life, the whole history of Judaism from the time of Hillel downwards is the emphatic denial. The great Rabbis whose work is preserved in the Talmud were not hypocrites or mere formalists, but men who fully realised the religious meaning of what was expressed in the form of legal precept and apparently trivial

regulation. They were under no mistake as to what it all meant; and the heroism which has marked the Jewish people through all the tragic history of eighteen Christian centuries has found its divine inspiration in the Torah as the Rabbis interpreted it. To them it was the word of God, in all its fulness and depth; and no Jew who thoroughly entered into the spirit of the Rabbinical conception of religious life ever felt the Torah a burden, or himself bound as by galling fetters. Paul doubtless spoke out of the depths of his own experience; but he does not represent the mind of the great leaders of Rabbinism. And the system of thought and practice which bears that name is unfairly judged if it is condemned on the witness of its most determined enemies. Judged on its own merits, and by the lives and words of its own exponents and defenders, it is a consistent and logical endeavour to work out a complete guide to the living of a perfect life, and whatever verdict may be passed upon that endeavour, the right word is not failure.

The foundation, then, of Rabbinism is the precept, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy might. The method is tradition. This is indicated by the names which the Rabbis themselves gave to the mass of religious precept which they taught, viz., Massōreth (D), and less frequently Qăbbālā.1 The same fact

1 Massōreth, or Massōrah, from D to hand over, deliver; more fully, D'upin 'D, napádoσis Tŵv TрeσBUтéρwv (Mark vii. 5). Qăbbālā, from p to receive, cp. Mark, ib. 4, & mapéλaßov кpaтeiv, which they have received to hold. The term Massorah is also used in a special sense to designate the apparatus criticus devised by the Jewish Grammarians for the fixing of the text of Scripture. The term Qabbala likewise has a specialised meaning when used to denote the system of Theosophy or secret doctrine, set forth in the books 'Jetzirah' and 'Zohar.'

is shown by the formula to be found on every page of the Talmud, in which a precept is expressed, “Rabbi A. says, in the name of Rabbi B,” or, “Rabbi A. says that Rabbi B. says that Rabbi C. says, etc." Some authority must confirm the dictum of every teacher, the authority, viz., of some previous teacher, or else the authority of the Torah interpreted according to some recognised rule. No teacher could base his teaching merely on his own authority; and the fact that Jesus did this, was no doubt one of the grievances against him on the part of the Jews. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time .... but I say unto you, etc. (Matt. v. 21, 22), implies the disavowal of the Rabbinical method; and the statement (Matt. vii. 28, 29) that Jesus taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes, was certainly cause sufficient that the people should be astonished at his teaching, and that the scribes should be incensed and alarmed.

The question naturally arises here, How could new teaching find a place where, in theory, nothing was valid unless it had been handed down? That new teaching did find a place is evident, if only from the fact that the modest volume of the O.T. was expanded into the enormous bulk of the Talmud, to say nothing of the Midrash; while, on the other hand, the principle of receiving only what rested on the authority of tradition was jealously upheld and resolutely enforced. For want of a clear understanding of the relation between the new and the old in Rabbinism, that system has been condemned as a rigid formalism, crushing with the dead weight of antiquity the living forces of the soul, and preventing