and heart, the Talmud was gradually constructed, but two names are
prominently associated with its actual compilation. These were Ashi
(352-427) and Rabina (died 499). Ashi combined massive learning with
keen logical ingenuity. He needed both for the task to which he devoted
half a century of his life. He possessed a vast memory, in which the
accumulated tradition of six centuries was stored, and he was gifted
with the mental orderliness which empowered him to deal with this
bewildering mass of materials.

It is hardly possible that after the compilation of the Talmud it
remained an oral book, though it must be remembered that memory played a
much greater part in earlier centuries than it does now. At all events,
Ashi, and after him Rabina, performed the great work of systematizing
the Rabbinical literature at a turning-point in the world's history. The
Mishnah had been begun at a moment when the Roman empire was at its
greatest vigor and glory; the Talmud was completed at the time when the
Roman empire was in its decay. That the Jews were saved from similar
disintegration, was due very largely to the Talmud. The Talmud is thus
one of the great books of the world. Despite its faults, its excessive
casuistry, its lack of style and form, its stupendous mass of detailed
laws and restrictions, it is nevertheless a great book in and for
itself. It is impossible to consider it further here in its religious
aspects. But something must be said in the next chapter of that side of
the Rabbinical literature known as the _Midrash_.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE TALMUD.