_ r 7 in its extent than had ever
^ '~" fallen to the lot of any Nasi, even any member of his house ^^ since the days of Hillel. This - may be due perhaps not so >_ much to his vast erudition as 3 to his wealth, which enabled =- him to become the supporter ' of hundreds and thousands of ^ poor youths, who, after they ?^ had sat at his feet, went out all over the Jewish abodes to ~^ sound aloud the praises of their \J noble master and teacher in •-'/j Israel. But Judah hak-Ko- A, desh has far greater claims for i% our consideration : he has built ^ himself a far more enduring ■j'- monument as the Moses of later Rabbinism (q. v.), as the com- piler of the Mishna (q. v.), or code of traditional law, the em- bodiment of all the authorized
^#
'fonil.s nf'Seirt Ydnula."
2 Ono nf fV,n T /.,.;»„„ i. . , „ interpretations of the Mosaic
.v-irh Zer^llU^rNo; ^V;'" ifc'S 'Ts^f^' I ''''■ ^^ ^^''"^'^^""^" the decisiolis of the learned, and the
he whose sons irr^ s.ii,„i„,i" » Vi ; ■ , 1^ '■''"I'** precedents of the courts or schools— a sort oi Jevish Pan-
sons are alluded to (but mmamed) as aiding | dects. " In attempting this Herculean task," says Eth-
JUDAH JUDGHAN
1055
jUDAis:\r
eridge (T/ifrod. Jewish Lit. p. 88), " he may have been moved by the peculiar condition of the Jewish communi- ty. They were a scattered people, liable at any hour to the renewal of a wasting persecution, and maintaining their religious standuig in the presence of an ever-ad- vancing Christianity, and in defiance of the menaces of a world which always viewed them with hatred. Their schools, tolerated to-day, might to-morrow be under the imperial interdict, and the lips of the Rabbins, which now kept the knowledge of the law, become dumb by the terror of the oppressor. These circumstances possessed him with the apprehension that the traditional learning received from their fathers woidd, without a fixed me- morial, at no distant time be either greatly corrupted or altogether perish from among them. It was his wish also to furnish the Hebrew people with such a docu- mentary code as would be a sufficient guide for them, not only in the affairs of religion, but also in their deal- ings with one another in civil life, so as to render it un- necessary for them to have recourse to suits at law at the heathen tribunals. In addition to these motives, he was probably actuated also by the prevailing spirit of codification, which was one of the characteristics of the age. Legal science was in the ascendant, and the great law-schools of Rome, Berytus, and Alexandria were in their meridian ; and Judah, who loved his law better than they could theirs, wished to give it the same advantages of simplification, system, and immutability which such jurists as Salvius Julianus had accomplished for the Roman laws in the time of Hadrian, and Ulpian was laboring at in his own day." The Mishna is divi- ded into six parts {sedarim) : the first treats of agricul- ture, the second of festivals, the third of marriages, the fourth of civil affairs, the fifth of sacrifices and religions ceremonies, and the sixth of legal purification. The text was published with short glosses at Amsterdam (1G31, 8vo), and often reprinted, with more or less ex- tensive commentaries, at Amsterdam, Venice, Constan- tinople, etc. (See a list of the editions, translations, etc., in Fiirst, Biblioth. Juchtica.') His last days Judah hak-Kodesh spent at Sepphoris, whither he removed on account of his failing health. The exact date of his death is not known, but it must have occurred between 190 and 194. He is frequently spoken of as a friend and contemporary of one of the emperors Antoninus, generally supposed to be Marcus Aurelius, but Griitz and other critics are inclined to doubt the possibility of an intimate relation between this head of the Jewish Church and a Roman emperor. See, however, Bodeck, M. A . A ntoninus cds Freund u. Zeitgennsse des R. Jehuda ha-Nasi (Lpz. 1868) ; Contemp. Rev. 1869, p. 81 sq. ; Griitz, Geschichte d. Juden, iv, 240 sq. See also Schneeberger, Life and Works of Rabbi Jehuda ha-Nasi (Berl. 1870) ; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. u. s. Sekten, ii, 425 sq. (J. H.W.) Judah Judghan, the Persian, one of the most celcljratpd of the Karaites, afterwards himself the found- er of an irideiiendent Jewish sect, flourished probably about the first half of the 9th century, in the city Ha- madan, in Persia. His opponents say of him that he was of low descent, and that his early years were spent as a tender of camels, but the learning he displayed and his intimate knowledge of Mohammedanism make this report doubtful. We know nothing definitely of him until he appeared before his countrymen with the dec- laration that he was the forerunner of the jMessiah, and preached the doctrine of free-wiU, and non-intervention of God in mundane affairs. He also argued that Sab- baths and festivals were no longer to be kept, as they had been done away ^vith by the dispersion of the cho- sen people, enjoining, however, at the same time, a life of strict asceticism. Preaching, as he did, under the verj' shadow of Mohammedanism, doctrines very much akin to it (comp. IMutazilites), he found ready con- verts, and his followers increased rapidly. They contin- ued faithful even after his decease, believing (like the Shiitcs of Ali) that he did not die a natural death, and that he was to reappear and give to Judaism a new law.