Another collection similar to the Mishna and arranged on the same plan, was called _Tosephta_ (addenda). This contains for the most part commentaries on Scripture and much of what has been called Agada (p. 187). Read article "Prof. Schürer on Life Under the Law," by Israel Abrahams in _Jewish Quarterly Review_, vol. xi., and "The Law and Recent Criticism," Schechter, vol. iii. "The Mishna is for the most part, free from the blemishes of the Roman code. There are fewer contradictory laws, fewer repetitions, fewer interpolations than in the digests: ... as regards a certain outspokenness in bodily things ... its language is infinitely purer than that of the mediaeval casuists."--E. DEUTSCH, _The Talmud_, J. P. S. A. _Theme for discussion_: What is Revelation, and how did the sages apply it to the Oral Law? (See "Ethics of the Fathers," ch. i), Sabbath Afternoon Service, Prayer Book.) Chronological Table. =Emperors of Rome.= | =Rabbis of the Academies.= | Antoninus Pius 138 | Rabbi Mair and Simon b. | Yochai flourished 140 Marcus Aurelius 161 | Jehuda ha-Nasi, Pres. of | Sanhedrin 165 Commodus 180 | Jehuda ha-Nasi compiles | Mishna 189 Alexander Severus 222-235 | Rab opens Academy at | Sora 220 Diocletian 284 | Mar Samuel, Judge at | Nehardea, about 225 Constantine 320 | Academy of Pumbaditha 247 | Rab Huna dies 297 Constantius 337-363 | Neo-Persian Dynasty 226 Constantine's anti-Jewish decrees 315 Council of Nicea widens gulf between Judaism and Christianity 325 CHAPTER XXXII. BABYLONIA AND ITS SCHOOLS. Ever since the Bar Cochba war, the numerical centre of gravity of the Jews had shifted to Babylonia, and soon after the compilation of the Mishna in Palestine, Babylonia became the religious centre too. This fertile country, in which history began, lay between the Euphrates and Tigris, with the Persian Gulf at the south. The name Babylon is sometimes used in Jewish annals to include the surrounding lands, with a southwestern boundary, as far as the Arabian Desert. This second "Land of Israel" had been a home for the Jews since the first forced exile there in the year 600 B. C. E., in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. From Babylon came both Ezra and Hillel, though in the four centuries intervening between these two men, we hear nothing of Jewish life in Babylon. Babylon's Varied Rulers.