He was virtually the first[1] who attempted to codify and arrange the vast accumulation of these Halachah and Haggadah, and to reduce them into something like order and arrangement. Some years after Akiba's death, about the middle of the second century, his most famous disciple, the Rabbi Meir, who is known in the Talmud as the "Light of the Law," took up his master Akiba's work, and went on with arranging and codifying the Halachah, introducing, however, many more Halachah into his codification, and supplementing and illustrating his expositions with many interesting traditions (Haggadah)[2]; thus preparing the way for the more elaborate collection or recension of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi—the Holy—who is known in the Talmud as "Rabbi"—the Rabbi par excellence. "Rabbi's" great work of codification may be dated about the years A.D. 200-19, or thereabouts.
The work of "Rabbi," somewhat enlarged and recast, is with us still. It represents fairly the Mishnah which was used as the text of the great Gemara[3] commentaries compiled in the schools of Palestine and Babylonia[4] between the end of the second century and the last years of the sixth century. The Mishnah of "Rabbi," which was largely based upon the collections of Rabbi Akiba and his disciple Rabbi Meir, and the Gemaras of Palestine and Babylonia,[4] compiled in centuries three, four, five, and six, make up the Talmud.
There was a strict traditional interdiction which dated back at least to the centuries which followed the Return from the Exile, if not earlier, against ever committing the Halachah and the discussions of the Scribes upon the Halachah to writing. The latest Jewish scholars have decided that to a certain extent the interdiction was removed by "Rabbi" in
- ↑ The preliminary work of Hillel in this direction of arranging and codifying seems not to have been carried on.
- ↑ "Haggadah," as the better-known word, is substituted for the more accurate plural form "Haggadoth."
- ↑ For a full definition of these two famous terms Mishnah and Gemara, see below, p. 358, where the terms in question are explained at some length.
- ↑ The Palestinian Gemara was closed nearly a century and a half before the Babylonian Gemara was completed.
