Huna tilled his own fields for a living, and might often be met going home with his spade over his shoulder.

It was men like this who built up the Jewish tradition.

Huna's predecessor, however, had wider experience of life, for Rab had been a student in Palestine, and was in touch with the Jews of many parts.

From Rab's time onwards, learning became the property of the whole people, and the Talmud, besides being the literature of the Jewish universities, may be called the book of the masses.

It contains, not only the legal and ethical results of the investigations of the learned, but also the wisdom and superstition of the masses.