sixty-one Mischnaioth. Tract No. V., Shekalim, relates to the capitation tax of half a shekel, and contains important information as to weights and measures. It is not translated into English. No. VI., Succah, contains the regulations for the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles. This treatise is one of those to which Maimonides refers, as showing the necessarily coeval antiquity of the Mikra and the Mishna, or the written and oral law. Thus it is the latter only which excepts women, sick persons, and travellers from the full obligation of eating, drinking, and sleeping for seven entire days and nights in booths which must be composed of vegetable substance, and neither of wool, hair, nor silk; and which orders that no such tabernacle shall be less than ten palms in height, or than seven by seven in area.* The seventh, or, according to the arrangement of the Jerusalem Talmud, the eighth, tract of this order, which is also to be found in the English translation, is entitled Yom Tob, or Festivals. It is often called the Egg, from the word with which it commences. It explains those acts which are prohibited on the Sabbath, but allowed on other festivals. No. VIII. (or VII.) is Rosh Hashana, or the New Year. It enumerates the four periods at which, for different purposes, the year commences; the mode of observing the new moon, and thus determining the Festivals, in Palestine; and the solemnities proper to the occasion.

The ninth treatise of the second order is entitled Taanith, or Fasts. It treats of the mode of observance of public Fasts; whether annual and permanent, or occasional, such as that of three days which the Bethdin of Jerusalem was bound to institute if the new moon of the month Cisleu (the lunation corresponding as nearly as possible with our November) arrived without rain having fallen. The remarkable series of historic calamities which occurred on the two fatal days of the Jewish Calendar, the 17th Tamuz and the 9th of Ab, are mentioned in this tract. No. X. is Tract Meguilah, or the Roll of the Book of Esther, which primarily treats of the mode of observing the Feast of Lots, or Purim, but contains many

Many details of the Temple service are preserved in this tract; such as the number of times and the mode in which the trumpets were to be blown daily, and on the festivals. The ordinary number of these signals was twenty-one; on the Sabbath twenty-seven; on the eve of the Sabbath, during the Feast of Tabernacles, forty-eight. The great rejoicing with which the solemnity of water-drawing during the festivals referred to in the twelfth chapter of Isaiah was accompanied, is also described in the treatise Succah. It forms one of the eighteen translated into English by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall.

regulations as to the service of the Synagogues and other matters. The treatise Moed Katon, or the middle days of festivals, is No. XII. in the Jerusalem Talmud and No. XI. in the arrangement of Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall, who have translated this as well as the five last-named tracts. The three untranslated chapters of the treatise Haghiga, relating to the sacrifices on festivals, close this order of the Talmud.

SEDER NESHIM, the third order, contains seven treatises relating to women. Of these the first, Yebammoth, contains 16 chapters and 130 Mischnaioth, which enter into the minutest details as to the peculiar Jewish precept of Yeboom, or the obligation of marrying the childless widow of a brother; with the alternative disgrace of the performance of the Chalitzah, or removal of the shoe of the recalcitrant, referred to in the Book of Ruth. Several portions of this Book are so offensive to all feelings of delicacy that they have been left untranslated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall, and either printed in Hebrew, or represented by asterisks alone. Treatise Sotah, No. II., containing 9 chapters and 67 Mischnaioth, relative to the administration of the water of separation to the wife suspected of infidelity to her husband, has also failed to find an English dress. No. III., Ketuboth, contains the laws relative to marriage-contracts, dowries, and the mutual rights, duties, and relations of husband and wife. It may be remarked here that no limit is prescribed to the number of wives allowed; but that the provisions as to priority of the claim of widows on the property of the deceased husband extend to four, which is also the legal number under the law of Islam. We have this tract in English. No. IV., Nedarim, relating to the vows made by females, which the father or the husband has power to annul, is untranslated, as well as Tract VI., Nazir, containing nine chapters relating to vows of abstinence, whence we have retained the word Nazarite. No. V., treatise Gittin, contains 9 chapters and 75 Mischnaioth, relating to the Get, or bill of divorce, to which we have referred on another page. The order is closed by the treatise Kedushin, or Betrothing, which would seem properly to precede, or form part of, the tract Ketuboth. It speaks of the acquisition of a wife by purchase as well as by marriage-contract, and by the voie de fait; also of the purchase of male and female slaves. Both Gittin and Kedushin are translated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall.

SEDER NEZIKIN, called also SEDER JESHUоTH, the fourth order, contains eight tracts in the Jerusalem Talmud, all of which, except the last chapter of the tract Maccoth (which treats of corporal punishments) are accompanied, together with

Ghemara of Rabbi Jo184-indicates that of the These treatises are first,

those of the preceding orders, by the hanan, whose date-he was born A.D. close of the Talmud of Jerusalem. second, and third, the Baba Kama, Baba Meziah, and Baba Bathra, or first, middle, and last Gate,' which originally constituted one tract, and which contained civil laws. They derive their name from the Oriental custom of administering justice at the gate of the city. Fourthly, the Tract Sanhedrin, consisting of 11 chapters and 71 Mischnaioth, contains ceremonial laws, and treats of the municipal and provincial councils and of the Great Bethdin, or Sanhedrin, at Jerusalem. Macooth, No. V., treats of corporal punishments, of false witnesses, and of the cities of refuge for the involuntary homicide. Shebuoth, No. VI., contains precepts for the administration of oaths. Avoda Zara, in 5 chapters and 50 sections, treats of idolatry, heresy, and the inciters to either. This treatise is one that has suffered much from the censure imposed by Rome, so soon as her theologians became able to read the Hebrew pages, or from the omissions made by the Jews themselves in fear of the same censure. No. VIII., Horaioth, treats of such errors in judgment committed by the Great Sanhedrin as required a sin-offering. To the above-named tracts the Talmud of Babylon adds, in this order, IX., Edioth, or testimonies, which consists of laws, which trustworthy testimony declares to have been adopted by the Great Sanhedrin; and Aboth, No. X., which contains the ethical maxims of the Fathers of the Mishna. None of these tracts are included in the English translation.

SEDER KEDESHIM, the fifth order, which is now only found in the Talmud of Babylon, contains eleven treatises, only one of which is translated by the authors so often cited. This is No. III., Cholin, or profane things, containing minute regulations for the slaughtering of cattle and fowl for nonsacrificial or domestic purposes. In its 12th and last chapter it declares the precept of letting the parent bird taken in a nest fly away to be obligatory both in and out of the Holy Land. The other tracts are I., Zebachim, which gives laws relating to sacrifices in general; II., Minhoth, or meat offerings, relating to the sacrifices of flour; IV., Bechoroth, or the law of the first-born; V., Erachin, valuation, relating to objects consecrated to divine worship, and to vows; VI., Tamurah, substitution, containing laws as to the exchange of consecrated animals; VII., Keritoth, or excisions, relating to offences which, if wantonly committed, are to be punished by excision from the people; that is to say, by death; and which, if inad

vertently committed, entail the obligation to bring sin-offerings. In this marked division of the Mishna (referring also to the tract Macoóth), is to be traced the origin of the Romish distinction between mortal and venial sins. The explanation of the difficult passage in the first Gospel,* which speaks of the degree or term of malediction which was punishable, by the Bethdin, with stripes; and of the more aggravated one, which was punishable with excision, if unatoned for by a sinoffering, is here to be found. No. VIII., Mehilah, trespass, contains laws relating to objects that have been consecrated, and converted to profane use. No. IX., Tamid, 'the continual,' treats of the daily sacrifices in the Temple. No. X., Middoth, or measurements, refers to the size of the temple of Herod, and contains a single detail as to the difference of the dimensions of the altar built by the children of the Captivity from those of its predecessor. This tract has been translated, with less than absolute accuracy,† by the Rev. Dr. Barclay, of Jerusalem; and published in the Quarterly Report of the Palestine Exploration Fund, for January, 1872. Finally, XI., Tract Kanim, nests, which closes SEDER KEDESHIM, relates to the birds proper for sacrifice.

The sixth and last order of the Talmud, now found only in that of Babylon, contains 12 tracts, but one of which has been translated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall. The order is entitled SEDER TAHAROTH, and consists of laws relative to legal purifications. The treatises are I., Kelim, defining things liable to contract and communicate uncleanness; II., Oholoth, relating to pollution from the dead; III., Neyaim, concerning leprosy; IV., Parah, the law of the red heifer; the perusal of which throws a flood of light on the argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and especially on the 13th verse of the 9th chapter. Tract V., Taharoth, relates to minor impurities, according to their various degrees. No. VI., Mikvaoth, contains the laws relative to the total or plunging bath necessary for certain legal purifications; and has the special characteristic that, had it been known to the theologians of this country, it would have prevented, or at all events narrowed within a rational limit, the most venomous of Protestant quarrels. No.

Matt. v. 22.

The translator has provided the guards of the Temple with cushions; a somewhat tantalising luxury, as they were punished if they slept.

The De vaccá rubrá of Maimonides, and the De die expiationis of Rabbi Chija, should be studied by anyone who wishes to arrive at the point of view from which this Epistle was written.

VII., Niddah, should be read only by persons bound to study medicine, being devoted to certain rules not ordinarily discussed; although they appear to have occupied a disproportionate part of the attention of the rabbins. The objections that our modern sense of propriety raises to the practice of the Confessional apply with no less force to the subject of this tract, considered as a matter to be regulated by the priesthood. Rabbi Johanan has supplied the Ghemara to the first four chapters of the ten contained in this treatise. Tract VIII., Maksheerin, relates to the laws of purification from contact. with unclean reptiles. No. IX., Zabim, is again a medical treatise; and No. X., Tebul Yom, relates to purification on the day on which legal uncleanness is contracted.

Tract XI., Yadaim, contains rules for the purification of the hands by ablution. This is the last treatise translated by Messrs. Da Sola and Raphall. Its regulations rest on the uncorroborated authority of the Oral Law. The fact that the Mishna of this treatise contains repeated reference to the disputes of the Pharisees and the Sadducees on questions as to ablution, coupled with the mention of the subject in the Gospels, renders it extremely important that the corresponding Ghemara should be brought within the reach of the English reader. The treatise Oozekin, or Stalks, closes the list of those enumerated by the English rabbins as composing this order.

Four small additional treatises are, however, contained in the Talmud of Babylon; namely, the Avoth of R. Nathan, or Sentences of the Fathers of the Synagogue, in 41 sections. Sopherim, or the Mode of transcribing the Roll of the Law, in 21 sections; an account of which is given in Unexplored Syria;' Semahoth, or Ebel Rabbete, or the Ceremonial of Mourning, in 14 sections; Calla, or the Wife, 1 section; and Derek Eretz, a treatise on Manners, in 16 sections.

Thus the Talmud of Babylon contains 6 Sederim, or orders, 68 Mesecoth, or tracts, and 617 Perekim or sections, which we have called chapters.

Hillel the Elder, one of the most famous doctors of the Mishna, who was born at Babylon, of the royal family of David, and came to Jerusalem at the age of forty, is said to have reduced to 6 the orders of the Mishna, which, from the time of Moses to his own, had been 600. This tradition appears to commemorate the first arrangement of the independent Perekim in chapters and orders. The facts of the long existence of the numerous oral traditions; of their notation by rabbi after rabbi for private recollection, while each gave them to his disciples viva voce; of their orderly arrangement at a sub