an entirely new phase after the disastrous termination of the third of these terrible revolts. From the year of our Lord 134-5 they ceased to be a nation and became wanderers over the earth.
Yet in numbers and influence they can scarcely be said to have diminished. They amalgamated with no nation; they remained a marked and separate people, and so they continue to this day, though well-nigh eighteen long and troubled centuries have passed since the great ruin.
To what earthly cause is this marvellous preservation of the Jews to be attributed? Unhesitatingly we reply, Not to the rise of Rabbinism,—it had long existed among the Chosen People,—but to the development and consolidation of Rabbinism and to the famous outcome of Rabbinism, the Talmud.
The traditional history of Rabbinism and the beginning of the marvellous Rabbinic book, the Talmud, is given in the Mishnah treatise "Pirke Aboth" (Sayings of the Fathers). It is as follows:—
Moses received the written Law (the Torah) on Mount Sinai. He also received from the Eternal a further Law, illustrative of the written Law. This second Law was known as the "Law upon the lip." This was never committed to writing, but was handed down from generation to generation. Moses committed this oral Law to Joshua; Joshua committed it to the Elders; the Elders committed it to the Prophets; the Prophets handed on the sacred tradition of "the Words of the Eternal" to the Men of the Great Synagogue. These last are regarded as the fathers of "Rabbinism." Maimonides tells us that these fathers of "Rabbinism" succeeded each other (to the number of 120), commencing with the prophet Haggai, B.C. 520, who in the Talmud is described as the Expounder of the oral Law. The last member of the "Great Synagogue" was Simon the Just, circa B.C. 301.
After Simon the Just a succession of eminent teachers known as the "Couples" handed down the sacred traditions of the "Law upon the lip" to the time of Hillel and Shammai, when we approach to the Christian era. Hillel, according to the Talmudic tradition, is said to have lived 100 years
