corrupted through the interpolation of gross traditions and the critical judgments
of different schools, when Rabbi Ashi, with the assistance of his friend and
disciple, Abina, undertook the labour of sifting the old from the new, and
introducing order into chaos.
Ashi was appointed to the headship of the school of Sora at the age of twenty-
three, and under his rule Sora became the head-quarters of Rabbinism in the
East. When he entered on the redaction of the Mishna and Gemara, he began by
assembling yearly at the great feasts the most learned Hebrews, and examining
them with respect to their traditional practices and expositions. He then called
together his disciples every spring, and gave out to them a particular treatise of
the Mishna; in the autumn they again came before him with all the information
relative to it they had collected in the interval. This he personally investigated,
and reduced into shape. The Mishna being composed of sixty-three treatises, he
was thus engaged for upwards of thirty years. The final revision occupied him
twenty-two years. At the time of his death (in his seventy-fifth year) the work
was all but completed; the last touches were given by his friend, Rabbi Abina.
The Mosaic is the written law of the Jews; the Mishna, the oral. The latter is the
very basis of Judaism, is its civil, religious, and juridico-political code,—an
explanation and amplification of the Mosaic. It was developed out of the
authoritative decisions of the schools and of certain distinct and well-
authenticated traditions which were traced back to Sinai itself. Thus there were
two chief sections, or parts: Halacoth, the rabbinical decisions, and Haggadah,
the traditional narratives and popular illustrations. Of the great bulk of the
former the reputed author is Hillel, the head of the Sanhedrim in the early part of
Herod the Great’s reign, but, probably, he only collected them. Maimonides
arranges them under five heads:—
a. Mosaic and Scriptural;
b. Mosaic and traditional;
c. Dicta and decisions generally received, but doubtful;
d. Decisions of the wise, given by them as “hedges of the law;” and
e. Counsels of prudence, which it was well to follow, though they had no legal
authority.
The Haggadic narratives are generally of a light and amusing character, though