They were then, according to the evidence adduced by Zunz, much more civilized and cultured than their unscrupulous enemies declared them to be, and they had, therefore, a good right to claim in the country of their birth perfect equality in the eyes of the law. Zunz's second great work, entitled _Beiträge zur Geschichte und Literatur_, was published in 1845. It contains a number of essays on diverse Jewish subjects, which are full of interest. In the preface to this work the author makes the following noteworthy remarks: “Jewish literature plays an important part in the general culture of the nations of antiquity, and is also closely connected with the origin and the gradual development of Christianity at large. It has likewise exercised a marked influence on past and present generations, and participating, as it did, in their common struggles and sufferings, it has become, as it were, a supplement to the entire literature of the world. And indeed, if mental activity generally may be compared to a vast and boundless sea, then Jewish literature deserves to be designated as one of the streams which flowed into it and helped it to a wider expansion.” Though, as already stated, the contents of the _Beiträge_ are of a varied description, they deal chiefly with that section of Jewish literature that owes its existence to the Jewish writers of the Middle Ages. Mention is made of a good many mediaeval Jewish commentators on the Bible and the Talmud, as well as of grammarians and moralists. Instructive remarks are made on some of them, most of whose names and writings had scarcely been known before. Here our admiration for Zunz's rare talents must be enhanced when it is observed how out of stray paragraphs and notes found in old and neglected MSS., in rare prints, or on almost illegible tombstones, he has actually created a standard book of reference, which has now become indispensable to every student of Jewish literature. In the course of his investigations in the _Beiträge_ Zunz touches on a subject which ought not to be passed over unnoticed. He refers to the crass ignorance sometimes manifested by Christian scholars in regard to Judaism and its literature. He quotes, for example, the names of a few French writers, who had published books dealing with Jewish subjects, of which they knew as little as the aforementioned Chiarini. One of them, Cupefigne by name, actually won the prize offered by the French Academy for the best essay on the subject, _L'État littéraire des Juifs dans le moyen âge_. But as a specimen of what he actually knew of the Talmud Zunz quotes the following note he found in the essay. It runs thus: _Le Gemare titre Sanhed._ _Sectio 14; le Talmud même titre_. With this kind of Talmudical knowledge says Zunz, with just indignation, a French professor has ventured to write a long dissertation on Rabbinical literature, for which he was rewarded by the most learned literary society in France with a valuable prize^[147-1].