Chald. גמרה from גמרperficere, consummare.GEMARA. The word Gemara signifies Complement, Perfection. The Rabbins call the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, The Law, without any other addition. Next to this they have the Talmud, which is divided into two parts, whereof the first, which is only an application of the Law to particular cases, together with the decision of the old Rabbins thereupon, is called Mishna, or second Law, or Deuteroses: the other part, which is a more extensive application of the same Law, is a collection of determinations by such Rabbins, as are more modern than the Mishna. They term it Gemara, Perfection, Finishing, because they consider it as an explanation of the Law, to which there can be no farther additions made, and after which nothing more can be desired.
There are two Gemaras, or two Talmuds, that of Jerusalem, and that of Babylon. That of Jerusalem was compiled, according to the Jews, about the end of the second or third Century, by a celebrated Rabbin, whose name was Jochanan; but Father Morinus, a famous Critick, maintains, that the Jews make the Gemara to be of too great antiquity, and that it was not finished till about the seventh Century. The Jews have little value for this Jerusalem Talmud, by reason of its obscurity. The Babylonish Gemara is, as the Rabbins say, more modern. It was begun by a Jewish Doctor, whose name was Ase, and continued by Marmar and Mar, his Disciples or Sons.
The Gemara, with respect to the Mishna, is what the Comments of our Divines are to us upon the Master of Sentences, or Saint Thomas’s Sum; with this difference only, that the Jews allow their Doctors a much greater authority than we do ours. They believe, that the Gemara contains nothing but the Word of God, preserved in the tradition of the Elders, and transmitted without alteration from Moses, down to Rabbi Judah the Holy, Jochanan, Ase, and Jose, and the other compilers of the Talmud; who did not begin to reduce it into writing, till they were afraid it would be corrupted by the several transmigrations and persecutions to which their Nation was subject. See the Article TALMUD.