We are aware, however, that we are open to severe criticisms; but we trust that our remarks may neither shock the ear of the more enlightened portion of the Jewish nation, nor incur the displeasure of those, who still believe it to be a crime to urge a word respecting this time honored production. Much has been said on this subject. Whilst some have labored incessantly to enforce the divinity of the Talmud--others again, either from prejudice or other unholy motives, have set at nought the entire composition, and condemned it as useless in the present age. How far the latter may be justified in the promulgation of such sentiments, may be easily ascertained by a glance at Judaism at the present, in view of the strife and contention between the Orthodox and the Reform, with but little benefit to Judaism in general. The reader will look "on this picture and on that" and decide for himself. We might quote many authorities of high standing among the Jewish literati, such as existed formerly in the schools of Jamnia, Tiberias, Surah, Pombeditha, etc.; and in subsequent ages, those unrivalled Luminaries that appeared in Spain and France, Germany and Poland, who have recommended the study of the Talmud as a guide to the perfect understanding of the holy writings. On the present occasion we prefer citing that which has been said of its merits by other divines, differing from the Jew in faith. A celebrated Christian divine of the Catholic church who flourished in the fourth century, Aurelio Augustino, in a work called "The City of God," makes the following remarks: "For, indeed, that nation, that people, that state, that republic, the Israelites, to whom was given the eloquence of God, in no way confounded the pseudo-prophets with their true prophets. But by a unanimous consent, and differing in nothing among themselves, they recognized the latter as the depositaries of the sacred writings, and considered them the authors. These true prophets were philosophers, that is, lovers of wisdom: being themselves wise men, they were theologians, prophets, and teachers of probity and piety. Whoever therefore lives and grows wise according to their doctrines, lives and grows wise not according to the doctrines of men, but according to the _doctrines of God_, who spoke through them." "He further states, that as the love of virtue, with which these philosophers were deeply imbued, is the foundation of true belief, and the basis of all religion, so their works, coming from so pure, so enlightened, and so pious a source, are entitled to be received, not only by Jews, but by men of all creeds, as guides to the true knowledge of God and to that state of spiritual bliss, which it should be our sole aim in this life to attain," for which reason, in his first book, "_De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis_," he strongly urged the propriety of having the Talmud translated into Latin, that it might be studied in the schools of Italy.