decisions of later Rabbis were incorporated. But it was the famous
Shulchan Aruch (a prepared table) written by Joseph Caro in the
sixteenth century, that formed the most complete code of Talmudic law
enlarged to date, and accepted as religious authority by the orthodox
Jews to-day.

I have already referred to the literature that has grown out of the
Talmud. The "Jewish Encyclopedia" treats every law recognized by nations
from the Talmudic stand-point. This will give the world a complete
Talmudic point of view. In speaking of it as literature, it lacks
perhaps that beauty of form in its language which the stricter demand as
literature _sine qua non_, and yet its language is unique. It is
something more than terse, for many a word is a whole sentence. Written
in Aramaic, it contains many words in the languages of the nations with
whom Israel came in contact--Greek, Roman, Persian, and words from other
tongues.

Like the Jew, the Talmud has had a history, almost as checkered as that
of its creator. Like him it was singled out for persecution. Louis IX.
burned twenty-four cart-loads of Talmuds in Paris. Its right of survival
had often been wrested through church synods and councils. It has been
banned, it has been excommunicated, it has been made the subject of
popish bulls; but it was in the sixteenth century that the Benedictine
Monks made a particular determined effort to destroy it. Fortunately
they knew not the times. It was the age of Humanism, the forerunner of
the Reformation, and the Talmud found its ablest defender in the great
Christian humanist, John Reuchlin. He was the one first to tell his
co-religionists, "Do not condemn the Talmud before you understand it.
Burning is no argument. Instead of burning all Jewish literature, it
were better to found chairs in the universities for its exposition." The