of a kind of composition, after which come the various Sibylline
poems, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of John, the Ascension of
Isaiah, and the Fourth Book of Esdras.

[Footnote 1: Jude Epist. 14.]

In the history of the origin of Christianity, the Talmud has hitherto
been too much neglected. I think with M. Geiger, that the true notion
of the circumstances which surrounded the development of Jesus must be
sought in this strange compilation, in which so much precious
information is mixed with the most insignificant scholasticism. The
Christian and the Jewish theology having in the main followed two
parallel ways, the history of the one cannot well be understood
without the history of the other. Innumerable important details in the
Gospels find, moreover, their commentary in the Talmud. The vast Latin
collections of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Buxtorf, and Otho contained
already a mass of information on this point. I have imposed on myself
the task of verifying in the original all the citations which I have
admitted, without a single exception. The assistance which has been
given me for this part of my task by a learned Israelite, M. Neubauer,
well versed in Talmudic literature, has enabled me to go further, and
to clear up the most intricate parts of my subject by new researches.
The distinction of epochs is here most important, the compilation of
the Talmud extending from the year 200 to about the year 500. We have
brought to it as much discernment as is possible in the actual state
of these studies. Dates so recent will excite some fears among persons
habituated to accord value to a document only for the period in which
it was written. But such scruples would here be out of place. The
teaching of the Jews from the Asmonean epoch down to the second
century was principally oral. We must not judge of this state of