Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/494

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TALON


438


TALON


arose in the second half of the fourth centurj' the so-called Jerusalem, more properly Palestinian, Tal- mud. The usual opinion, which originated with Maimonides, that its author was Rabbi Jochanan, who lived in the third century, is untenable because of the names of the later scholars which occur in it. In the Palestinian Talmud the te.xt of the Mishna is taken sentence by sentence, and explained with in- creasingly casuistic acumen. The Baraithoth, i. e. the maxims of the Torah not found in the Mishna, as well as the legal paragraphs are always given in Hebrew, and so are most of the appended elucidations; the remainder is written in a West Aramaic dialect (G. Dalman, "Grammatik des judisch-Palastinischen Aramaisch", Leipzig, 190.5). Along with the Ha- lakha it contains rich Haggadic material. Whether the Palestinian Talmud ever included the entire Mishna is a matter of dispute. The only parts pre- served are the commentaries on the first four Sedarim (with the exception of several chapters and the treatises Eduyyoth and Aboth) and on the three first divisions of the treatise Nidda in the sixth Seder. The supposed discovery by S. Friedlander of treatises on the fifth Seder is based upon a forgery (cf. "Theo- logische Literaturzeitung", 1908, col. 513 sq., and "Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenlilndiseh. Gesellsch.", LXII, 184). The Palestinian Talmud is generally cited by giving the treatise, chapter, page, and column after the Venetian and Cracow editions, mostly also the line, indicated by j (= jerus.) or pal.; e. g. pal. Makkoth, 2 Bl. 31d .56. Many scholars cite in the same manner as for the Mishna, but this is not to be recommended.

Editions: Venice (Bomberg), 1.523-24; Cracow, 1609; Krotoshin, 1866; Zhitomir, 1860-67; Piotrkow, 1900-02. French translation by M. Schwab, 11 vols., Paris, 1879-80; F 1890.

Several treatises are printed with Latin translations inUgolini, " Thesaurus antiquitatumsacrarum", vols. XVII-XXX, Venice, 1755-6.5; Wiinsche, "Der pal- astinische Talmud in seinen haggadischen Bestand- teilen ins Deutsche iibersetzt" (Zurich, 1880).

V. Babylonian Talmud. — The Mishna is said to have been brought to Babylon by Aba Areka, gener- ally called Rab (d. 247), a pupil of Rabbi Jehuda. In the schools there it became a norm of legal religious life and a basis of juridical discussion. But while in Palestine there was a greater tendency to preserve and propagate what had been handed down, the Babylonian Amora'im developed their interpretation of the law in all directions, which explains why the Babylonian Talmud acquired a greater significance for Judaism than the Palestinian. Thus the material grew rapidly and gradually led to a codification, which was undertaken by R. Ashi (d. 427), head of the school at Sura, and by R. Abina or Rabbina (d. 499), the last of the Amoraim. The scholars who hved after him (at the end of the fifth and in the first half of the sixth centuries), called Saboraim ("those who reflect, examine", because they weighed and also completed what had been WTitten by the Amora'im), are to be regarded as those who really completed the Babylonian Talmud.

Like the Palestinian, the Babylonian Talmud does not include the entire Mishna. In the first and sixth divisions only the treatises Berakhoth and Nidda are considered; in the second division Shegalim is omit- ted, in the fourth Eduyyoth and Aboth, in the fifth Middoth, Ginnim, and half of Tamid. It is indeed questionable if the greater number of these treatises were included in the Babylonian Gemara; Eduyyoth and Aboth are excluded, by reason of the subject matter, while the remainder treat for the most part ordinances which could not be applied outside of Palestine. The Babylonian Talmud therefore in- cludes only 361-2 treatises, but is at least four times the extent of the Palestinian, although the latter deals


with 39 treatises. The Haggada is even more fully represented than in the Palestinian The language, excepting the legal paragraphs and the quotations of the older scholars and Palestinian rabbis, is that of the East Aramaic dialect of Babylonia (cf. Levias, "A Grammar of the Aramaic Idiom contained in the Babylonian Talmud", Cincinnati, 1900; M. L. Mar- gohs, "Grammatik des babylonischen Talmuds", Munich, 1910). The Babylonian Talmud is cited ac- cording to treatise, folio, and page, as the content in nearly all the editions since that of the third Bomberg one (1548) is the same, e. g. Berakh 22a. in these editions there are usually appended at the end of the fourth Seder seven small treatises, partly from Tal- mudic, partly from post-Talmudic times, among which is the post-Talmudic treatise Sopherim (direc- tions for the writer and public reader of the Torah). Among the commentaries the first place belongs to that of Rashi (d. 1105), completed by his grandson Samuel ben Me' ir (d. about 1174). Chiefly of a sup- plementary character are the works of the Tosaphists or authors of the Tosaphoth (additions), who hved in France and Germany during the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries. They give amphfications and learned explanations of certain treatises. Other commentaries are enumerated by Strack, op. cit. infra, 149-51.

The Babylonian Talmud has often been printed, but until the present time a critical edition has re- mained a desideratum. Material for this purpose is furnished by Raphael Rabbinovicz, among others, in his"Vari3P lectionesin Mischnam et inTalni.Babyl.", etc. (15 vols., Munich, 1868-86); Vol. XVI was edited by Ehrentreu (Przemysl, 1897). Serious mutilations and bungling changes in the text were caused by the Christian censorship, at first in the Basle edition (1578-81). The numerous bickerings among the Jews had the further consequence that they them- selves practised censorship. The excised passages were partly collected in small treatises, pubhsbed for the most part anonymously.

Editions. — Raphael Rabbinovicz, rCt"!" Vi' "?;N?2 Tl?;^.'?" (Ma'amaral hadpasath ha-tahnud), (Munich, 1877), a critical review of the editions of the Babylo- nian Talmud, as a whole or in part since 1484. The first complete edition appeared at Venice (Bomberg), (12 vols., 1520-23). The advantage of this edition consists in its complete character; the text itself is full of errors. A certain reputation is enjoyed by the Amsterdam edition (1644-48), in which the censured passages have been as far as possible restored. The edition of Frankfort (1720-22) served directly or in- directly as a basis for those which followed. Of the later editions may be mentioned those of Berlin (1862-68), Vienna (1864-72), and Vilna (1880-86). _ A quarto edition, the text after the iditio princeps, with the variants of the Munich manuscripts and a Ger- man translation, was begun by Lazarus Goldschmidt in 1897. Up to date 6 vols., containing the Insti- tutes I, II, IV, V, and the two first treatises of III, have appeared. Unfortunately this publication is by no means faultless. M. L. Rodkinson, "New Edi- tion of the Babylonian Talmud", New York, 1896; M. Mielziner, "Introduction to the Talmud" CCin- cinnati, 1894; New York, 1903); M. L. Rodkinson, "The History of the Talmud" (New York, 1903); H. L. Strack, "Einleitung in den Talmud" (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 139-175, containing an extensive bibliogra- phy of the Talmud and of the questions concerning it.

F. ScHtJHLEIN.

Talon, Jean, first intendant in exercise of New France, b. at Ch.llons-sur-Marne, 1625. of Philippe and Anne Beuvy; d. at Versailles, 23 Nov., 1(591. After studying at the Jesuit college of Clermont, in Paris, he embraced the career of military adminis- tration, beginning as war commissary in Flanders (1654), where he acted as intendant to Turenne's