grammar, and this only for the Babylonian Talmud, was made by the late learned S. D. Luzzatto. It exists in Italian (Padua, 1865), German by Krüger (Breslau, 1873), English by Goldammer (New York, 1876), and Hebrew by Lerner (St Petersburg, 1880). Of more value, however, is Nöldeke's Mandaitic Grammar, although it stands in connexion with the Babylonian Talmud only in an indirect way. (c) Commentaries.—Commentaries on the greater portion of the Babylonian Talmud are extant, by the famous Rabbenu Ḥananeel of Kairwan, the teacher of Riph (q.v.) by Rashi (q.v.), and by the descendants and disciples of this latter commentator, who composed the Tosaphoth. All these are included in the latest Talmud edition of Vilna. It is asserted by Rabad II. (q.v.) that the whole (B.) Talmud had been commented on in Arabic. As regards the commentaries on the Palestinian Talmud, it ought to be said that the Pene Mosheh, &c., by R. Mosheh Margaliyyoth, and the Ḳorban Ha'edah, &c., by R. David Fränkel (the teacher of Mendelssohn), make more than one commentary on the whole, and they are embodied in the Zhitomir edition (1860–67). (d) Methodology.—Among the many Introductions to the Babylonian Talmud that of R. Shemuel Hannagid must now be considered the first, not only in time but also in value. There was indeed an earlier, and perhaps a still more valuable one in existence (see Saadia), but it is now unfortunately lost. As regards the Palestinian Talmud, the only one in existence is that by the late Z. Frankel (Breslau, 1870, 8vo). The author was a most learned man, but somewhat confused in his diction. (e) Translations.—Renderings of isolated treatises of the Babylonian Talmud exist in Latin, Ugolini, Thesaurus, xix., Zebaḥim and Menaḥoth, and xxv., Synhedrin; [1] in French, e.g., Berakhoth, by Chiarini (Leipsic, 1831, 8vo); and in German, e.g., Berakhoth, by Rabe (Halle, 1777, 4to), regard being had also in both to the same treatise of the Palestinian recension, and again by Pinner (1842); Baba Meṣˤa, by Sammter (1876), both at Berlin and in folio; "Abodah Zarah, by Ewald (Nuremberg, 1866, 8vo); Taˤanith, by Straschun (Halle, 1883); Megillah and Rosh Hasshanah, by Rawicz (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1884 and 1886). The assertion that the whole of this Talmud has been translated into Spanish has yet to be proved. As regards the Palestinian Talmud, Ugolini's Thesaurus contains the following treatises in Latin:—Pesahim (vol. xvii.); Sheḳalim, Yoma, Sukkah, Rosh Hasshanah, Taˤanith, Megillah, Hagigah, Beṣah, Moˤed Katan (vol. xviii.); Maˤaseroth, Maˤaser Sheni, Hallah, ˤOrlah, Bikkurim (vol. xx.); Synhedrin, Makkoth (vol. xxv.); Kiddushin, Sotah, Kethuboth (vol. xxx.). M. Schwab (of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) has undertaken a French translation of the entire Palestinian Talmud, which is now in progress; from this Berakhoth has been translated into English (London, 1886, 4to).
Editions.—The editions of the Palestinian Talmud, in what was then called its entirety, are only four:—(a) Venice, 1523, without any commentary; (b) Cracow, 1609, with a short commentary, the text apparently from a different MS. from that used for the editio princeps; (c) Krotoschin, 1866, with a short commentary differing from that of Cracow: these three editions are each comprised in one volume; (d) the fourth edition came out at Zhitomir, with commentaries by different men (see Commentaries above). All these editions are in folio. Of the editions of isolated treatises, which are not a few, we will only mention those of Berakhoth (Vienna, 1874) and Peah and Demai (Breslau, 1875, both in 4to), with a new commentary by Z. Frankel. The editions of the Babylonian Talmud are so numerous that they would require several entire sheets for enumeration. There is in existence an approximately good treatise on them (see Variæ Lectiones, vols. i. and viii.). We will only name three of the entire editions:—(1) the editio princeps, Venice, 1520–23, [2]—which, though disfigured by numerous misprints, was not mutilated by the censor; (2) the edition of Basel (1578–81), which omits ˤAbodah Zarah altogether, and has a cheering (?) notice in Latin; [3] (3) the latest edition, now printing at Vilna, with old commentaries hitherto unpublished. Of isolated treatises, which may be counted by more than hundreds, we will only mention one (the Portuguese of at least Berakhoth), the existence of which was asserted in the last century (Paḥad Yiṣḥaḳ, s.v. רק בב) then again called in question in our own times, but positively proved by the present writer from an early work composed at the time when but few editions of the Talmud existed. It Is the Zeraˤ Abraham (Camb. MS. Ti. 6. 50, leaf 59b). Materials for the critical edition of the Babylonian Talmud from an ancient MS. formerly in the monastery of Pfersee, but now in the Royal Library of Munich, and other MSS. and early prints of isolated treatises in various public and private libraries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, have been collected and are being published by Rabbinovicz. Of this important work fifteen volumes, containing the following treatises, have already come out:—the whole Seder Zeraˤim (1867); Beṣah, Ḥagigah, Moˤed Katan (1869); Sukkah, Taˤanith (1870); Rosh Hasshanah, Yoma (1871); ˤErubin (1873); Pesaḥim (1874); Shabbath (1875); Megillah, Sheḳalim (1877); Synhedrin (1878); ˤAbodah Zarah, Makkoth, Shebuˤoth, Horayoth, ˤEduyyoth (1879); Baba Bathra (1881); Baba Kamma (1882); Baba Meṣiˤa (1883); Zebaḥim (1884); Menaḥoth (1886)." [4] All these were printed in 8vo and at Munich, except vol, ix., which came out at Mainz.
Influence of the Talmud.—It must be admitted by every critical student of history that the Talmud has not merely been the means of keeping alive the religious idea among the Jews, but has formed their strongest bond of union. When, after the fall of the city of Jerusalem and its temple, and the expatriation of the Jews from Palestine, a goodly portion of the Mosaic law lost its application, the Talmud became the spirit which put fresh life into the letter which
- ↑ Various writers assert that there exist many books containing Latin translations of various treatises of the Babylonian Talmud. Upon examination these books turn out to contain either a translation only of Mishnic treatises with or without excerpta from, and with or without scholia on, Gemara, or disputations which introduce small pieces of Gemara. The utmost they contain is a chapter or two translated from Gemara itself (as, for example, "Edzard, Aboda Sara," &c., Hamburg, 1705–10, 4to, which contains Gemara of the first two Peraḳin).
- ↑ The paging of this has been followed in all subsequent editions.
- ↑ Nunc ab omnibus iis quæ contra religionem Christianam faciebant recognitum, et juxta mentem Sacri concilii Tridentini expurgatum et approbatum, ut non modo citra impietatem verum etiam cum fructu a nostris legi possit.
- ↑ The notes in the first fourteen volumes go under the name of ותלמור תורק, whilst those of the fifteenth volume have the title of ותלמו, in memory of the late Abraham Merzbacher, who not merely proved the Mæcenas of this publication during his lifetime, but left a considerable sum for its continuation and completion.
Umani, Dei Umili), and, on his mother's side, of the Tappuḥim, i.e., De Pomis, to which thecelebrated author of the Lexicon Ṣemah David belonged. Rabbenu Nathan's father and grandfather, like Rabbenu Nathan himself and his brother's descendants, were, no doubt, papal court Jews (and not linendrapers, as the latest editor of the ˤArukh, by misreading and misinterpreting the somewhat hard verses of his author, contrives to show). This lucrative position furnished them with ample means not only for their noble charities to congregational institutions (a synagogue, religious bath, &c.), but also with the leisure necessary for the pursuit of Talmudic studies. Rabbenu Nathan was resh kallah (rector of the Jewish university), and unquestionably the greatest Talmudist, even as he was the poorest Hebrew poet, in Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries. As regards his teachers we know four, three of whom he attended, whilst he studied and digested the works of the fourth so well that, though personally unknown to one another, they may be justly called master and disciple. His first teacher was his own father; his second teacher, from whom Rabbenu Nathan no doubt obtained his thorough knowledge of Babylonian habits, was R. Maṣliah of Sicily, who had been a hearer of the greatest "gaon" of Pumbaditha; his third teacher was R. Mosheh b. Ya'aḳob b. Mosheh b. Abbun of Narbonne (or Toulouse; better known under the name of R. Mosheh Haddarshan); and the fourth was Rabbenu Ḥananeel of Kairwan. He owed so much to this teacher that as soon as the ˤAruhk had appeared most people took it for granted that Rabbenu Ḥananeel had lived at Rome, and accordingly called him "a man of Rome—"Ish Romi"; see MS. Brit. Mus. Add. 27,201, leaf 73b, and Tosaphoth, passim. (That Rabbenu Gershom, Rabbenu Mosheh ותלמור and others were his teachers, as Rapoport, loc. cit., asserts, is a fiction.) Rabbenu Nathan, in his ˤArukh, does not merely' explain the foreign (i.e., Aramaic, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Arabic) words occurring in the Targums, Talmuds, and Midrashim, but the subject-matter also, and thereby proves himself a doubly useful guide. In this, although he had been preceded by no less a personage than the Gaon Semah b. Paltoi (fl. 870), who also composed such an ˤArukh, Rabbenu Nathan was virtually the first, as the Gaon's work had been early lost. The assertion that the fourth of the four men captured by the Spanish admiral (see below, p. 39) was R. Nathan Habbabli, that he lived in Narbonne, and that he also composed a similar ˤArukh, rests on a misunderstanding, as the quotation in the Yoḥasin clearly shows. The passages there given under R. Nathan Habbabli are taken vertatim from the ˤArukh of our author (compare the article ותלמור &c.). That Rome has been at times called in Jewish writings "Babel," and that consequently Habbabli may mean "the Roman," is clear from the writings of the New Testament. We will only add here a few words concerning the bibliography of the book. Of the ˤArukh exist so far ten editions, the first of which came out undated, but before or about 1480. The seventh edition was enriched by the physician R. Binyamin Musaphia's Musaph, i.e., Additamenta (Musaphia was a Greek and Latin scholar), and the latest edition by Dr Kohut is now in progress. As regards the MSS. of this remarkable lexicon the best copies are to be found partly in the University Library, Cambridge (Add, 376, which has all the verses of the author and additamenta by R. Shemuel Ibn ותלמור, and Add. 471–72), and partly at the Court Library, Vienna {Cod. cvi. 1 and 2). The latter were carried off by Napoleon I. to Paris in 1809, but in 1815 were returned to Vienna.
