the social and religious affairs of all the Jews in the diaspora. They
improved educational methods, and were pioneers in the popularization of
learning. By a large collection of Case Law, that is, decisions in
particular cases, they brought the newer Jewish life into moral harmony
with the principles formulated by the earlier Rabbis. The Gaonim were
the originators or, at least, the arrangers of parts of the liturgy.
They composed new hymns and invocations, fixed the order of service, and
established in full vigor a system of _Minhag_, or Custom, whose power
became more and more predominant, not only in religious, but also in
social and commercial affairs.

The literary productions of the Gaonic age open with the _Sheeltoth_
written by Achai in the year 760. This, the first independent book
composed after the close of the Talmud, was curiously enough compiled
in Palestine, whither Achai had migrated from Persia. The Sheeltoth
("Inquiries") contain nearly two hundred homilies on the Pentateuch. In
the year 880 another Gaon, Amram by name, prepared a _Siddur_, or
Prayer-Book, which includes many remarks on the history of the liturgy
and the customs connected with it. A contemporary of Amram, Zemach, the
son of Paltoi, found a different channel for his literary energies. He
compiled an _Aruch_, or Talmudical Lexicon. Of the most active of the
Gaonim, Saadiah, more will be said in a subsequent chapter. We will now
pass on to Sherira, who in 987 wrote his famous "Letter," containing a
history of the Jewish Tradition, a work which stamps the author as at
once learned and critical. It shows that the Gaonim were not afraid nor
incapable of facing such problems as this: Was the Mishnah _orally_
transmitted to the Amoraim (or Rabbis of the Talmud), or was it
_written down_ by the compiler? Sherira accepted the former alternative.
The latest Gaonim were far more productive than the earlier. Samuel, the
son of Chofni, who died in 1034, and the last of the Gaonim, Hai, who