correspondents, sometimes to communities or groups of communities. These
Letters and other compilations containing Halachic (or practical)
decisions were afterwards collected into treatises, such as the "Great
Rules" (_Halachoth Gedoloth_), originally compiled in the eighth
century, but subsequently reedited. Mostly, however, the Letters were
left in loose form, and were collected in much later times.

The Letters of the Gaonim have little pretence to literary form. They
are the earliest specimens of what became a very characteristic branch
of Jewish literature. "Questions and Answers" (_Shaaloth u-Teshuboth_)
abound in later times in all Jewish circles, and there is no real
parallel to them in any other literature. More will be said later on as
to these curious works. So far as the Gaonic period is concerned, the
characteristics of these thousands of letters are lucidity of thought
and terseness of expression. The Gaonim never waste a word. They are
rarely over-bearing in manner, but mostly use a tone which is persuasive
rather than disciplinary. The Gaonim were, in this real sense,
therefore, princes of letter-writing. Moreover, though their Letters
deal almost entirely with contemporary affairs, they now constitute as
fresh and vivid reading as when first penned. Subjected to the severe
test of time, the Letters of the Gaonim emerge triumphant.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

GAONIM.

Graetz.--III, 4-8.

Steinschneider.--_Jewish Literature_, p. 25.