VII
(A) AN APPENDIX ON THE "HAGGADAH"
Before closing this little sketch of the Talmud and of the very early Rabbinical writings, it will be well to give a somewhat more detailed explanation of one of its more important features, which we have already somewhat lightly touched upon—the "Haggadah."
It is not too much to say that the widespread, the lasting popularity of the mighty book—the Talmud—is largely owing to this special kind of exposition, which includes the Historical, the Legendary, the Homiletical, and the Comforting. It is absolutely peculiar to the Talmud; there is nothing resembling it in the official or acknowledged writings belonging to any other religious system.
In the Exile and in the lengthened period which directly followed the Exile, i.e. in the five centuries which intervened between the "Return from the Exile" and the Christian era, the Chosen People had learned, as we have noticed, to love their Scriptures with a great love, a love that may be termed a passion. It was then that the sacred books became, and for long centuries remained, the centre of their lives. The study of these books, the study which included research, investigation, exposition, application to every event in their lives, to every possible contingency which might happen to them, is known as Midrash.
Legendary history which clustered round the events related in the sacred books, details not chronicled in the text of the books, but carefully treasured up, preserved and handed down, circumstances more or less interesting and important connected with the lives of the principal Biblical personages, were gradually gathered together, were carefully sifted out and discussed by the scribes and doctors of the law, and if finally received as authentic by the great Jewish teachers,
- [Footnote: Old Testament is an incomparable monument of history, archæology,
and philology. The deeper signification of these sacred records, which in the hearts of earnest Christians constitutes their exceeding preciousness, finds little place, alas, in the cheerless conception of the brilliant French scholar.]
