CHAPTER III.

THE PERIOD OF THE PUBLICATION OF THE TALMUD.

When the Jewish Christians fled to Pella, at the time of the destruction

of Jerusalem, their brethren the rabbinists were very angry with them,

and probably accused them of want of patriotism, as we know they did

afterwards, because they did not enlist in the army of the false

Messiah, Bar-Cochba. However, during the first Christian centuries the

separation between them was not quite so wide and marked as after the

publication of the Talmud. The Talmud itself testifies that asperities

were occasionally smoothed over by continual intercourse and exchange of

thought on religious and other topics. Yes, even friendship was

possible. It is related that a heretic sent once on one of his own

feasts an imperial coin as a present to R. Juda Nasia. (Abodah Zarah

5._b_). The feeling of resentment against Jewish Christians gradually

diminished. This may be seen from the following amusing story. A certain

heretic once annoyed R. Joshua ben Levi whilst he was reading the

Scriptures, probably with questions as to the meaning of a Messianic

prophecy. R. Joshua, believing that there is a certain moment in the day

when God is angry, because it is written, "For His anger endureth but a

moment" (Ps. xxx. 5), and believing too that this moment is indicated

by a curious natural phenomenon, when the comb of a cock gets red, he

tied a cock to the foot of the bed and patiently watched for the sign,

so that he might have a good opportunity of cursing the heretic during

the moment of God's anger. But before that moment came he fell asleep,

and when he awoke he noticed that the cock's comb remained white as

before, so he concluded that it was not right to curse any one, for it

is written "The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all

His works" (Ps. cxlv. 9). Again "Also to punish the just is not good."

(Prov. xvii. 26) (Abodah Zarah 4_h_.)

The two classes used generally to meet in a public library called

[Hebrew: bi avidan] or in another place of assembly called [Hebrew: bi

netzrafi] and we may rightly infer that some, at all events, of the

beautiful sayings in the Talmud which resemble N. T. passages are due to

the influence of the Hebrew Christians upon the rabbis in their

discussions with them during the time when the Talmud as such, or at

least the Gemara, was only in the course of formation. One passage will

suffice to show that the rabbis during this period were well acquainted

with the N. T. There was once a discussion between R. Gamaliel and a

Christian (called a philosopher) with regard to the law of inheritance.

The Christian maintained that inasmuch as a woman is placed on an equality

with a man in the N. T., she has an equal right with her brother to inherit

the parental property. To that Gamaliel replied by quoting Matt. v. 17,

with a very slight alteration to suit his purpose. [Hebrew: ana lo

lemifhat min oryata demoshe etiti velo leosfi al oryata demoshe etiti.]

"I have not come to destroy the law of Moses, nor have I come to add to

the law of Moses" (Shabbath 116 b). Moreover, the fact that some Rabbis

at that time thought that the Evangelium should be burned--and also

Hebrew Christian books generally--proves that they were acquainted with

the contents, but does not shew that they were very bitterly hostile to

their brethren, and they may have even referred to gnostic writings.

Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, probably R. Tarphon mentioned in

the Talmud, is well known.

It was otherwise after the Babylonian Talmud was finished in the fifth

century. This huge building--which Scribes, Tanas, Amoras, and later

gaons, tosafits, and quite a number of commentators in successive

generations have reared up--was like the Tower of Babel, and brought

confusion within the ranks of the Jews. The following is the language of

one who took a leading part in laying one stone upon another: What is

Babel? R. Johanon said: It is confused in the Scripture, confused in the

Mishnah, and confused in the six orders of the Talmud. "He hath set me

in darkness as they that be dead of old" (Lam. iii. 6). Rav Yirmiah

said: This refers to the Babylonian Talmud. It formed an iron partition

between Judæo-Christians and their brethren. While formerly tradition

was only handed down by word of mouth, and many were liable to forget or

disregard it, when once it was written, codified and taught in the

synagogues and schools to all except women, the poor, unenlightened

people in their joy at being at last able to read the oral law, which

was pretended to have been given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai at the

same time as the written law, clave to it with all the enthusiastic

ardour of their souls, and refused to have anything to do with the

Gospel or the Christian religion.

Milman relates a legend of this time which was current in the sixth

century; though it is in an exaggerated form, yet on the whole it is

quite credible. "While Menas was Bishop of Constantinople, the child of

a Jewish glassblower went to church with the rest and partook of the

sacred elements. The father inquiring the cause of his delay, discovered

what he had done. In his fury he seized him and shut him up in the

blazing furnace. The mother went wandering about the city, wailing and

seeking her lost offspring. The third day she sat down by the door of

the workshop, still weeping, and calling on the name of the child. The

child answered from the furnace. The doors were forced open, and the

child was discovered sitting unhurt amid the red-hot ashes. Subsequently

the mother and child were baptized." (Milman's "History of the Jews,"

vol. iii. p. 230.)

For several centuries we do not hear of many distinguished Jews

embracing Christianity, and though it is asserted that whole

congregations in Candia did so in the seventh century, it is not our

object to investigate this. Undoubtedly, after the rise of

Mohammedanism, the Church had enough to do to stand on her defence

against the new and even more fanatical antagonist, and the Jews were on

the whole neglected. Besides, there were scarcely any Christian teachers

who understood Hebrew, and the N. T. was not yet translated into the

sacred tongue. Yet we find one very distinguished Jewish convert in the

seventh century. This was Julian of Toledo, Primate of Spain, called by

one of his successors, "A rose among thorns." He was baptized in the

cathedral of his native place, became archdeacon in 656, Bishop in 680,

and died in 690. He was President of the Twelfth Council of Toledo when

he urged King Erwig to pass some severe laws against his former

co-religionists, prohibiting them to blaspheme the Trinity and to

possess Christian slaves. Nevertheless, the writer in the "Jewish

Encyclopædia" speaks of him "as a man of great sagacity and discretion,

prudent in judgment, very charitable, and tempering severity with

mildness," and further informs us that he used to associate with the

Jews. Consequently, he could not have been so very hostile against them.

But on this point it is necessary once for all to remark that the severe

opinion that used to be held by the Jews in general about Hebrew

Christians was, to a great extent, owing to the unfair judgment passed

upon them indiscriminately by Jewish historians. It is now acknowledged

that even the modern Gräetz was unfair in this respect. We by no means

want to exonerate the few bigots and fanatics like Nunes Henrique who

acted as spy of the Maranos, or others who agitated for the burning of

the Talmud, and strongly condemn men like Dr. Briman, so-called Justus,

the associate and abettor of the Roman Catholic Theologian Rohling at

Prague, in recent times, but it must be remembered that there is a great

difference between anti-Talmudists and anti-Semites, and that by far the

vast majority of Jewish converts, even in the ages of predominant

bigotry among Christians and Jews, have defended their brethren against

false accusations, as will be seen later on. To return from this

digression to Julian. He wrote, "Historia rebelleonis Pauli," also a

book under the title, "De comprobatione ætatis sextæ contra Judæos." The

work deals with Messianic prophecies of the Bible, in which he adopts

the chronology of the Septuagint, and addresses the Jews with these

words, "Viam perdidisti viam ergo se quere, ut per viam venias ad

salutem."

But even in that age, the eve of the so-called Middle Ages, the age of

the gaons, when there was a Prince of the Captivity in Babylon who

exercised supreme religious authority over the Jews in the East, and so

far as Spain and France, we hear occasionally a voice from the midst of

the Synagogue bearing an unwitting testimony for Christ. Cottan Mather,

in his "Faith of the Fathers," quotes the words of Rabbi Samuel Marachus

(Abbas Samuel Abbu Nasr Ibn) when speaking of the Messiah, as follows:

"The Prophet Amos mentions a fourth crime (ii. 6) of selling the Just

One for silver, for which we have been in our captivity. It manifestly

appears to me that for selling that Just One we are justly punished. It

is now 1000 years and more, and in all this we have made no good hand of

it among the Gentiles, nor is there any likelihood of our ever any more

turning to good. Oh, my God! I am afraid, lest the Jesus, whom the

Christians worship, be the Just One we sold for silver." (See "Lectures

on the Jews," p. 430, Glasgow, 1839.)