PREFACE

Was sich nie und nirgends hat
begeben, das allein veraltet nie.


The term Rabbinic was applied to the Jewish Literature of
post-Biblical times by those who conceived the Judaism of the
later epoch to be something different from the Judaism of the
Bible, something actually opposed to it. Such observers held that
the Jewish nation ceased to exist with the moment when its
political independence was destroyed. For them the Judaism of the
later epoch has been a Judaism of the Synagogue, the spokesmen of
which have been the scholars, the Rabbis. And what this phase of
Judaism brought forth has been considered by them to be the