Section IV. Damages: including a great part of the civil and
criminal law. It treats of the law of trover, of buying and
selling, and the ordinary monetary transactions. Further, of the
greatest crime known to the law, viz., idolatry. Next of witnesses,
of oaths, of legal punishments, and of the Sanhedrin itself. This
section concludes with the so-called "Sentences of the Fathers,"
containing some of the sublimest ethical dicta known in the history
of religious philosophy.
Section V. Sacred Things: of sacrifices, the first-born, etc.; also
of the measurements of the Temple (Middoth).
Section VI. Purifications: of the various levitical and other
hygienic laws, of impure things and persons, their purification,
etc.[53]
_Recensions._--The Talmud exists in two recensions: the Jerusalem and
the Babylonian. These two editions represent a double Gemara; the first
(Jerusalem) being an expression of the schools in Palestine and redacted
at Tiberias about 390 A.D.; the second (Babylonian) being an expression
of the schools in Babylonia and redacted about 365-427 A.D.
The Mishna, having been formed into a code, became in its turn what the
Pentateuch had been before it, a basis of discussion and development.
The Gemara of the Jerusalem Talmud embodies the critical discussions and
disquisitions on the Mishna by hundreds of learned doctors who lived in
Palestine, chiefly in Galilee, from the end of the second till about the
middle of the fifth century of the Christian era. The Gemara of the
Babylonian Talmud embodies the criticisms and dissertations on the same
Mishna of numerous learned doctors living in various places in
Babylonia, but chiefly those of the two great schools of Sura and
Pumbaditha.[54] The Babylonian Talmud is written in "West Aramæan," is
the product of six or seven generations of constant development, and is
about four times as large as that of the Jerusalem Talmud, which is
written in "East Aramæan."[55] It should be kept clearly before the mind
that the only difference between these two recensions is in the matter
of commentary. The two sets of doctors whose different commentaries
distinguish the two Talmuds dealt with the same Mishna as a basis of
criticism. But decided differences are noticeable in the subject matter
and style of the two Gemaras represented by the two recensions of the
Talmud. The discussions and commentaries in the Jerusalem Talmud are
simple, brief, and pointed; while those of the Babylonian Talmud are
generally subtle, abstruse, and prolix. The dissertations in the
Jerusalem Talmud are filled to overflowing with archæology, geography,
and history, while the Babylonian Talmud is more marked by legal and
religious development.
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