there given, the general tone of the book, which in no respect recalls the writings of the captivity, but, on the contrary, responds, by a crowd of analogies, to the beliefs, the manners, the turn of imagination of the time of the Seleucidae; the Apocalyptic form of the visions, the place of the book in the Hebrew canon, out of the series of the prophets, the omission of Daniel in the panegyrics of Chapter xlix. of Ecclesiasticus, in which his position is all but indicated, and many other proofs which have been deduced a hundred times, do not permit of a doubt that the Book of Daniel was but the fruit of the great excitement produced among the Jews by the persecution of Antiochus.  It is not in the old prophetical literature that we must class this book, but rather at the head of Apocalyptic literature, as the first model 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 intelligence by the habits of an age of much writing.  The Vedas, and the ancient Arabian poems, have been preserved for ages from memory, and yet these compositions present a very distinct and delicate form.  In the Talmud, on the contrary, the form has no value.  Let us add that before the Mishnah of Judas the Saint, which has caused all others to be forgotten, there were attempts at compilation, the commencement of which is probably much earlier than is commonly supposed.  The style of the Talmud is that of loose notes; the collectors did no more probably than classify under certain titles the enormous mass of writings which had been accumulating in the different schools for generations.