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.