to the
righteous. They once asked Jesus, "Who did sin, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?" Plainly, he could not have been
born blind for his own sins unless he had known a previous life.
Paul, too, says of them, in his speech at Casarea, "They
themselves also allow that there shall be a resurrection of the
dead, both of the just and of the unjust." This, however, is very
probably an exception to their prevailing belief. Their religious
intolerance, theocratic pride, hereditary national vanity, and
sectarian formalism, often led them to despise and overlook the
Gentile world, haughtily restricting the boon of a renewed life to
the legal children of Abraham.

But the grand source now open to us of knowledge concerning the
prevailing opinions of the Jews on our present subject at and
subsequent to the time of Christ is the Talmud. This is a
collection of the traditions of the oral law, (Mischna,) with the
copious precepts and comments (Gemara) of the most learned and
authoritative Rabbins. It is a wonderful monument of myths and
fancies, profound speculations and ridiculous puerilities, antique

32 Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1.33 De Bell. lib. ii. cap. 8.

legends and cabalistic subtleties, crowned and loaded with the
national peculiarities. The Jews reverence it extravagantly,
saying, "The Bible is salt, the Mischna pepper, the Gemara balmy
spice." Rabbi Solomon ben Joseph sings, in our poet's version,

"The Kabbala and Talmud hoar Than all the Prophets prize I more;
For water is all Bible lore, But Mischna is pure wine."

The rambling character and barbarous dialect of this work have
joined with various other causes to withhold from it far too much
of the attention of Christian critics. Saving by old Lightfoot and
Pocock, scarcely a contribution has ever been offered us in
English from this important field. The Germans have done far
better; and numerous huge volumes, the costly fruits of their
toils, are standing on neglected shelves. The eschatological views
derived from this source are authentically Jewish, however closely
they may resemble some portion of the popular Christian
conceptions upon the same subject. The correspondences between
some Jewish and some Christian theological dogmas betoken the
influx of an adulterated Judaism into a nascent Christianity, not
the reflex of a pure Christianity upon a receptive Judaism. It is
important to show this; and it appears from several
considerations.