Juda

, or Jehuda, Hakkadosh, or the Saint, a rabbi celebrated for his learning and riches, according to the Jewish historians, lived in the time of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, whom he made a proselyte to Judaism, and it was by his order that Jehuda compiled the Mishna, the history of which is briefly this: The sect of the Pharisees, after the destruction of Jerusalem, prevailing over the rest, the study of traditions became the chief object of attention in all the Jewish schools. The number of these traditions had, in a long course of time, so greatly increased, that the doctors, whose principal employment it was to illustrate them by new explanations, and to confirm their authority, found it necessary to assist their recollection by committing them, under distinct heads, to writing. At the same time, their disciples took minutes of the explanations of their preceptors, many of which were preserved, and grew up into voluminous commentaries. The confusion which arose from these causes was now become so troublesome, that, notwithstanding what Hillel had before done in arranging the traditions, Jehuda found it necessary to attempt a new digest of the oral law, and of the commentaries of their most famous doctors. This arduous undertaking is said to have employed him forty years. It was completed, according to the unanimous testimony of the Jews, which in this case there is no sufficient reason to dispute, about the close of the second century. This Mishna, or first Talmud, comprehends all the laws, institutions, and rules of life, which, beside the ancient Hebrew scriptures, the Jews supposed themselves bound to observe. Notwithstanding the obscurities, inconsistencies, and absurdities with which this collection abounds, it soon obtained credit among the Jews as a sacred book. But as the Mishna did not completely provide for many cases which arose in the practice of ecclesiastical law, and many of its prescriptions and decisions were found to require further comments and illustrations, the task of supplying these defects was undertaken by the rabbis Chiiam and Oschaiam, and others, disciples of Jehudah; who not only wrote explanations of the Mishna, but made material additions to | that voluminous compilation. These commentaries and additions were collected by the rabbi Jochanan ben Eliezer, probably in the fifth century, under the name of the “Gemara,” because it completed the Mishna. This collection was afterwards called the Jerusalem Gemara, to distinguish it from another of the same kind made in Babylon, at the beginning of the sixth century. ¹