Position Among The "Smaller Treatises"
Ancient authorities mention especially seven such treatises, which are doubtless the earliest ones; and among these the tractate containing the rules on the writing of the "books" occupies a particularly prominent place on account of the importance of its contents. The name as well as the form of the smaller treatises indicates that they originated in the period of oral tradition which was dominated by the Talmud and the Midrash, so that these treatises are doubtless of great antiquity, some of them having been compiled in their main outlines before even the final redaction of the Talmud in the 6th century. This theory holds good with regard to the treatise Sefer Torah also, to which the treatise Soferim bears an especially close relation.
Read more about this topic: Soferim (Talmud)
Famous quotes containing the words position, smaller and/or treatises:
“One reason—perhaps the chief—of the virility of the Roosevelts is [their] very democratic spirit. They have never felt that because they were born in a good position they could put their hands in their pockets and succeed. They have felt, rather, that being born in a good position, there is no excuse for them if they did not do their duty by the community.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“[T]here is a Wit for Discourse, and a Wit for Writing. The Easiness and Familiarity of the first, is not to savour in the least of Study; but the Exactness of the other, is to admit of something like the Freedom of Discourse, especially in Treatises of Humanity, and what regards the Belles Lettres.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)