It is quite possible to cull from the Talmud, especially from one section (the Pirke Aboth, _i.e._, decisions of the Fathers) a set of maxims which breathe a high and grave morality, which enjoin temperance, chastity, gentleness, love of country, earnestness in the study of God's law, contempt for wealth, celebrity, and power; but the general spirit is cold, formal, casuistical, and the decisions are, on the whole, determined by considerations of interest and expediency. In short, errors of every kind,--errors of interpretation, errors in the foundations of moral truth, errors in the representation of God's attributes, errors originating in the grossest superstitions, and above all in narrow, bitter, exclusive prejudices,--bear an overwhelming proportion to the whole compilation, and belong unquestionably to that Talmudic atmosphere in which we are told that the pure and lofty spirit of our Master attained its natural development. It is true that the second portion of the Talmud, the Gemara, presents those characteristics in an exaggerated form; but the first part, the Mishna, is replete with a casuistry so trifling and repulsive as to make a continuous perusal almost impossible, save to one who has some special motive for the study. It contains not less than 4,008 mishnaioth, that is, decisions or precepts, of which the largest proportion is attributed to Hillel or his followers. Out of this vast collection it would be difficult to fix upon any consecutive series of maxims, say fifty, which would approve themselves to the moral sense. Widely as our Lord's teaching differs from that of the Greek or the Asiatic, far more does it differ from that of His Hebrew contemporaries: it belongs altogether to a different sphere, the sphere in which the human spirit was emancipated from all narrow, dark, exclusive prejudices, and all its powers developed by that Spirit which rested on Him without measure, which He received as man, and which He bestowed as God.