The Palestinian Gemara was reduced
to writing in perhaps the 4th or 5th century; unfortunately it
has been preserved to us only in part, but appears to have reached
the Middle Ages in a perfect state (compare Schiller-Szinessy in
the Academy, 1878, p. 170 seq.). Even thus the process which
issued in the production of the Talmud was not yet completed;
the Babylonian Amoraim carried it forward for some time longer,
until at last at the rise of Islam the Babylonian Gemara was
also written down.
In the sth century Palestine ceased to be the centre of Judaism.
Several circumstances conspired to bring this about. The position
of the Jews in the Roman Empire had changed for the worse with the
elevation of Christianity to be the religion of the state; the
large autonomy which until then they had enjoyed in Palestine
was now restricted; above all, the family of the Patriarchs,
which had come to form a veritable dynasty, became extinct. /1/
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1. Compare Gothofredus on Cod. Theod., xvi. 8, 29, ad voc. "post
excessum patriarcharum."
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But this did not make an end of what may be called the Jewish
church-state; henceforward it had its home in Babylonia.
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