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C O M M E N T A R Y O N M I DR A S H R A B B A
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
OXFORD ORIENTAL MONOGRAPHS
This series of monographs from the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of

Oxford, makes available the results of recent research by scholars connected with
the Faculty. Its range of subject matter includes language, literature, thought,
history, and art; its geographical scope extends from the Mediterranean and
Caucasus to East Asia. The emphasis is more on specialist studies than on works
of a general nature.
Editorial Board
Professor Julia Bray, Laudian Professorial Fellow in Arabic
Dr Dominic Brookshaw, Associate Professor of Persian Literature
Professor Bjarke Frellesvig, Professor of Japanese Linguistics
Dr Elizabeth Frood, Associate Professor of Egyptology
Professor Henrietta Harrison, Professor of Modern Chinese Studies
Professor Christopher Minkowski, Boden Professor of Sanskrit
Professor Alison G. Salvesen, University Research Lecturer in Hebrew
Dr Robert Thomson, formerly Calouste Gulbenkian Professor
of Armenian Studies
Commentary on
Midrash Rabba in the
Sixteenth Century
The Or ha-Sekhel of Abraham ben Asher
BENJAMIN WILLIAMS
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Benjamin Williams 2016
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2016
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
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You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work
Acknowledgements
It is a pleasure to be able to express my gratitude to Professor Joanna

Weinberg for her guidance, patience, and encouragement in the years
I spent under her supervision. I cannot thank her enough for intro-
ducing me to Midrash Rabba when I began my undergraduate studies
and, in time, for encouraging me to look also to the commentaries at
the bottom of the page.
In writing the present volume, it was also my privilege to learn
from the scholars participating in a wealth of projects associated with
the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and the Hebrew
and the Jewish Studies Unit. The Jews and Judaism in the Early
Modern Period seminar series and the European Seminar on
Advanced Jewish Studies were particularly valuable sources of inspir-
ation. Poring over Hebrew manuscripts in Professor Malachi Beit-
Arié’s Codicology and Palaeography Master Classes is among my
fondest memories of graduate study.
This research is founded on the assistance and kindness of the staff
of the Oriental Reading Room, recently the Special Collections Read-
ing Room and now the David Reading Room, for whom no com-
mentary has been too voluminous and no tome too weighty. I cannot
sufficiently express my gratitude for their reliability and help.
I am indebted to my colleagues and friends at King’s College
London, the John Rylands Research Institute, Wadham College, and
the Parish of Cowley St John for their support. I would particularly like
to thank Katharina Keim, Claire Malone-Lee, and Sister Edmée, S.L.G.,
for their valuable comments on drafts of this book, and Martin Conway
for helping me to access the German scholarship on Pseudo-Rashi.
This study has grown with the support of my family who have
always inspired me with a love of learning and a fascination with
Scripture. No one is more fortunate than I to have a mother who has
helped me so much to pursue my studies. The unfailing support of
John is, more than anything else, the reason I have been able to carry
out this project; without his encouragement, it would never have been
finished.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 11/8/2016, SPi
Contents
List of Figures ix
Introduction to Midrash Rabba and its Readers 1

1. Midrash in the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire 9
2. Midrash Rabba and Its Commentaries 21
3. From Safed to Venice—Abraham ben Asher and
the Publication of the ʾOr ha-Sekhel 46
4. Abraham ben Asher’s Commentary—An Examination
of Selected Texts 64
5. Pseudo-Rashi’s Commentary on Genesis Rabba 139
6. Conclusion: The ʾOr ha-Sekhel and Its Reception 164
Appendices
Appendix 1. Genesis Rabba 39:1 (ʾOr ha-Sekhel, f. 81a–b) 179
Appendix 2. Genesis Rabba 18:4 (ʾOr ha-Sekhel, f. 47a) 182
Appendix 3. Genesis Rabba 60:13 (ʾOr ha-Sekhel,
ff. 122b–123a) 183
Appendix 6. Solomon le-Vet ha-Levi on Genesis Rabba 69:1
(ff. 74b–75b) 189
Appendix 7. Samuel Yafeh on Genesis Rabba 69:1 (vol. 1,
ff. 401b–402a) 191
Bibliography 193
Figures 211
Index 221
List of Figures
Figure 1. Map. 212

Figure 2. The title page of the ʾOr ha-Sekhel (Venice, 1567).
Courtesy of The Bodleian Libraries, The University of
Oxford. Shelfmark: Opp. Fol. 152, f. 1a. 213
Figure 3. ʾOr ha-Sekhel (Venice, 1567), ff. 107b–108a. Courtesy
of The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. Shelfmark:
R 2 65 A 4288. 214
Figure 4. Daniel Bomberg’s editio princeps of the complete
Babylonian Talmud (Venice, 1519/20–23), tractate Ketubot,
ff. 33b–34a. Courtesy of The National Library of Israel,
Jerusalem. Shelfmark: R 2 35 V 4087. 216
Figure 5. The editio princeps of Jacob ibn Ḥ abib’s ʿEin Yaʿakov vol. 1
(Salonica, 1516), ff. 45b–46a. Courtesy of The National
Library of Israel, Jerusalem. Shelfmark: R 2 75 A 870. 218
Introduction to Midrash Rabba
and its Readers
The aim of this study is to investigate the reception of midrash,

rabbinic Bible interpretation, in the early modern period. Midrash
is the method of expounding Scripture that flourished in Palestinian
centres of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity. In the centuries follow-
ing their redaction, collections of midrash (midrashim) came to be
read in medieval Jewish communities in the Latin West and through-
out the Muslim world. A moment of particular vitality in the study of
rabbinic Bible interpretation can be observed when midrashim were
first printed in the sixteenth century. The assiduous study of these
new volumes in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Poland is evident in
the publication of many new commentaries written to accompany
them. These latter demonstrate both how their authors read midrash
and how they anticipated their readers would do so. As valuable
sources of information about the reception of rabbinic Bible inter-
pretation in the early modern period, sixteenth-century commentar-
ies on midrash form the subject of this book.
To introduce early modern commentaries on rabbinic Bible inter-
pretation, we will begin here with an initial consideration of the
nature of midrash. We will present the ten midrashim that comprise
Midrash Rabba, the popular collection of midrashic expositions of
the Pentateuch and Five Megillot that circulated widely in the six-
teenth century, and examine the status these works attained in the
communities in which they were first printed. We will then introduce
the commentaries that were composed as guides to these new books
in order to examine how their authors aspired to lead readers towards
a proper understanding of the rabbis’ expositions of Scripture.
2 Commentary on Midrash Rabba in the Sixteenth Century
As the rabbinic method of Bible interpretation, midrash takes for
granted the perfection of the Written Torah, its divine origin and its
reliable transmission from Moses through successive generations of
authoritative tradents. No textual detail of the Torah, therefore, is
treated as superfluous, unimportant, or misplaced; every element of
the text is suffused with meaning. Midrash is the means by which the
rabbis of late antiquity determined this meaning and disclosed it.
Using exegetical techniques particular to the midrashic method and
authoritative traditions about the interpretation of scriptural verses,
the rabbis examined the details of the biblical text and expounded the
meanings they discovered latent within it.1
The midrashim redacted between the third and the seventh cen-
turies CE are, along with the Mishnah, Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud,
and Babylonian Talmud, fundamental works of rabbinic Judaism.2
Among the expositions of the Pentateuch belonging to this period are
Genesis Rabba and Leviticus Rabba. They contain interpretations
attributed to authorities dating up to approximately 400 CE and their
redaction belongs to the decades following. Genesis Rabba includes
extended portions of continuous exposition of the biblical text of this
book, which sometimes provide one or more explanations of each
verse or even of individual words or letters. These exegetical units
alternate with collections of homilies (petiḥ ot) relating to the initial
verses of the Torah portions read week by week according to the
synagogue lectionary. These latter shed light on the words of the
Torah by drawing them together with verses from the Writings and
the Prophets and explaining the relationship thereby established
1
See further Fishbane, M., ‘Midrash and the Meaning of Scripture’ in Fishbane,
M., Weinberg, J. (eds), Midrash Unbound: Transformations and Innovations (Oxford,
2013), pp. 1–24; Alexander, P., ‘The Bible in Qumran and Early Judaism’ in Mayes, A.
(ed.), Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study
(Oxford, 2000), pp. 35–62; Stemberger, G., ‘From Inner-Biblical Interpretation to
Rabbinic Exegesis’ in Paget, J., Schaper, J. (eds), The New Cambridge History of the
Bible vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 190–217; Lerner, M., ‘The Works of Aggadic
Midrash and the Esther Midrashim’ in Safrai, S. (ed.), The Literature of the Sages vol. 2
(Assen, 2006), pp. 133–229; Bakhos, C., ‘Jewish Midrashic Interpretation in Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’ in Hauser, A., Watson, D. (eds), A History of
Biblical Interpretation vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, 2009), pp. 113–40.
2
See further Alexander, P., ‘Using Rabbinic Literature as a Source for the History
of Late-Roman Palestine: Problems and Issues’ in Goodman, M., Alexander, P. (eds),
Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine (Oxford, 2010), pp. 9–11.
Introduction 3
between them.3 Midrash Leviticus Rabba is composed entirely of such
homilies, each chapter elucidating the first part of an extended bib-
lical passage by associating it with selected verses from elsewhere in
the canon.4
Expositions of the Five Megillot are also among the midrashim
redacted during the rabbinic period.5 Lamentations Rabba is com-
prised of thirty-four petiḥ ot and a continuous exposition of the five
chapters of this book. It focuses on key events associated with the
Ninth of Av, the date assigned for the reading of Lamentations in
the synagogue, and above all the destruction of the First and Second
Temples.6 In Ruth Rabba, dated by Stemberger to 500 CE, petiḥ ot are
interspersed in an otherwise continuous interpretation of the story of
Ruth as the journey of the archetypal convert to Judaism.7 Song of
Songs Rabba expounds this book as an account of the love of God and
Israel, a relationship manifest in the giving of the Torah on Sinai and
in its contemporary interpretation by the rabbis. The use of expos-
itions from Genesis and Leviticus Rabba suggests Song of Songs
Rabba postdates the composition of these midrashim and that it
may have been redacted during the sixth century.8
3
Studies of particular midrashim in Genesis Rabba will be cited in Chapters 4 and
5. See also Reuling, H., After Eden: Church Fathers and Rabbis on Genesis 3:16–21
(Leiden, 2006), pp. 221–32; Morris, P., ‘Exiled from Eden: Jewish Interpretations of
Genesis’ in Morris, P., Sawyer, D. (eds), A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical
and Literary Images of Eden (Sheffield, 1992), pp. 117–66; Heinemann, J., ‘The
Structure and Division of Genesis Rabba’ (Heb.) Bar-Ilan 9 (1972), pp. 279–89.
4
Heinemann, J., ‘Profile of a Midrash: The Art of Composition in Leviticus Rabba’
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 31 (1971), pp. 141–50; Visotzky, B.,
Golden Bells and Pomegranates: Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah (Tübingen,
2003); Samely, A., ‘Literary Structures and Historical Reconstruction: The Example
of an Amoraic Midrash (Leviticus Rabbah)’ in Goodman, M., Alexander, P. (eds),
Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine (Oxford, 2010), pp. 185–216.
5
The Five Megillot are the books read on Pesaḥ (Song of Songs), Shavuʿot (Ruth),
the Ninth of Av (Lamentations), Sukkot (Qohelet (Ecclesiastes)), and Purim (Esther).
6
See particularly Hasan-Rokem, G., Stein, B. (tr.), Web of Life: Folklore and
Midrash in Rabbinic Literature (Stanford, 2000).
7
Stemberger, G., Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch 9th edn (Munich, 2011), p. 351;
Lerner, M., The Book of Ruth in Aggadic Literature and Midrash Ruth Rabba 3 vols.
(Heb.) unpublished PhD dissertation (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1971).
8
Stemberger, G., Einleitung, pp. 349–51; Fishbane, M., The JPS Bible Commentary:
Song of Songs (Philadelphia, 2015), pp. 263–6; Fishbane, M., ‘Midrash and the
Meaning of Scripture’, pp. 21–3; Boyarin, D., Intertextuality and the Reading of
Midrash (Bloomington, Ind., 1990), pp. 105–16; Rapp de-Lange, B., ‘The Love of
Torah: Solomon Projected into the World of R. Aqiba in the Song of Songs Rabbah’ in
Brenner, A., Van Henten, J. (eds), Recycling Biblical Figures (Leiden, 1999),
Midrashim that reached their current form after the foundational
works of rabbinic Judaism were redacted include expositions of
further biblical books, collections of homilies relating to the liturgical
year, and anthologies that gather exegetical material spread over the
corpus of rabbinic literature into commentaries on particular biblical
books of the Bible.9 Qohelet Rabba, rich in citations of earlier rabbinic
material, has been dated to the eighth century.10 Esther Rabba is a
composite text; while the initial sections (1 to 5) may be dated around
500 CE, the second part (sections 6 to 10) has been ascribed to the
eleventh century.11 Deuteronomy Rabba and the second parts of
Exodus Rabba and Numbers Rabba belong to the wider corpus of
Tanḥ uma or Yelammedenu midrashim, so named after the attribu-
tion of homilies to Rabbi Tanḥ uma b. Abba and the use of the
recurrent formula ‘let our rabbi teach us’ (yelamedenu rabenu) to
introduce halakhic expositions.12 Deuteronomy Rabba is variously
dated between 450 CE and 800 CE, the uncertainty arising partly
because different versions of the text are extant.13 According to
Shinan, Exodus Rabba attained its current form by the combination
of a tenth-century exposition of chapters 1 to 14 with an earlier
midrash on the remaining chapters (15 to 52).14 Numbers Rabba
likely achieved its present form not in Palestine but among the Jewish
communities of southern France which, particularly through the
pp. 272–91; Rapp de-Lange, B., ‘Partnership between Heaven and Earth: The Sage as
Religious Role Model in Canticles Rabbah’ in Schwartz, J., Poorthuis, M. (eds), Saints
and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity (Leiden, 2003), pp. 139–62.
9
Mack, H., ‘The Later Midrashim’ (Heb.) Maḥ anayim 7 (1994), pp. 138–51;
Elbaum, J., ‘On the Character of the Late Midrashic Literature’ (Heb.) in Proceedings
of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies vol. 3 (Jerusalem, 1986), pp. 57–62.
10
Kiperwasser, R., ‘Structure and Form in Kohelet Rabbah as Evidence of its
Redaction’ Journal of Jewish Studies 58 (2007), pp. 283–302; Kiperwasser, R., ‘Toward
a Redaction History of Kohelet Rabbah: A Study in the Composition and Redaction of
Kohelet Rabbah 7:7’ Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010), pp. 257–77; Stemberger, G.,
Einleitung, pp. 352–3. Stemberger notes Hirschman’s earlier dating of Qohelet Rabba
to the sixth or seventh century. See Hirschman, M., Midrash Qohelet Rabbah:
Chapters 1–4 (Heb.) unpublished PhD thesis (Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982).
11
Lerner, M., ‘The Works of Aggadic Midrash and the Esther Midrashim’,
pp. 176–229.
12
Bregman, M., The Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature (Heb.) (Piscataway,
2003), pp. 180–4.
13
Stemberger, G., Einleitung, pp. 339–41.
14
Shinan, A. (ed.), Midrash Shemot Rabbah: Chapters I–XIV (Heb.) (Jerusalem,
1984), pp. 12, 23–4.
Introduction 5
activities of Moses ha-Darshan, became prominent centres of mid-
rashic study in the eleventh century.15
Although the ten aforementioned expositions of the Pentateuch
and Five Megillot are structured in different ways, assumed their
current form at different times, and were redacted in varying geo-
graphical locations, they are now most often encountered in a single
collection entitled Midrash Rabba. The association of these texts
with one another was a gradual process which culminated in the
publication of the ten works together in Venice in 1545. In the decades
prior to this, two separate collections of ‘rabba’ midrashim on the
Pentateuch and the Megillot circulated in manuscript and in printed
editions.
The earliest extant copies of Midrash Rabba on the Pentateuch are
fifteenth-century Sephardic manuscripts. In late medieval Spain, the
popularity of ‘rabba’ midrashim among other midrashic works is
suggested by the inventories of books confiscated in 1415 from the
Jewish community of Jaca. While many ‘rabba’ midrashim are listed,
halakhic midrashim (such as the Mekhilta de-R. Ishmael on Exodus,
Sifra on Leviticus, and Sifre on Numbers and Deuteronomy) are all
but absent—only a single copy of Sifre is mentioned.16 The extant
manuscripts which gather the five ‘rabba’ midrashim on the Penta-
teuch testify to a particular way of reading and studying these texts in
late medieval Iberia in the form of an elucidation of the whole
Pentateuch. A number of these manuscripts appear to have emerged
from the same location, some written on paper bearing the same
watermark; two seem to have been copied by the same scribe.17
15
Mack, H., The Mystery of Rabbi Moses ha-Darshan (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 2010),
pp. 171–87.
16
Gutwirth, E., Dolander, M., ‘Twenty-Six Jewish Libraries from Fifteenth-
Century Spain’ The Library 6 (1996), pp. 34–53. See also Bonfil, R., Rabbis and Jewish
Communities in Renaissance Italy (Oxford, 1990), pp. 306, 309.
17
Ms. NLI 24 5977 and ms. Bodleian Opp. Add. Fol. 3. The most complete of
these manuscripts (including ms. Jerusalem NLI 24 5977, mss. Bodleian Opp. Add.
Fol. 3 and Opp. Add. Fol. 51, and ms. Sassoon 920) may be supplemented by a
number of damaged manuscripts which may once have contained the whole of
Midrash Rabba on the Pentateuch, but whose original extent is unknown, for instance,
ms. JTS 5014 and ms. NLI 8 515. See Bregman, M., ‘Midrash Rabba and the Medieval
Collector Mentality’ in Stern, D. (ed.), The Anthology in Jewish Literature (Oxford,
2004), p. 205 n. 28. On the similarities between these manuscripts and their origins,
see also Shinan, A. (ed.), Midrash Shemot Rabbah, pp. 25–6; Beit-Arié, M., Catalogue
of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: Supplement of Addenda and
Corrigenda to Vol. 1 (A. Neubauer’s Catalogue) (Oxford, 1994), p. 454 on ms. Bodleian
Midrash Rabba on the Pentateuch continued to be copied and read
by Sephardim who settled in the Ottoman Empire following the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain at the decree of Ferdinand and
Isabella in 1492. As a result of the edict, ostensibly intended to
prevent Jewish converts to Christianity (conversos) from ‘backsliding’
to the practice of Judaism through association with their former co-
religionists, Spanish Jews sought refuge in Portugal, Navarre, North
Africa, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire.18 Among the exiles who
settled in Constantinople were the printers David and Samuel Naḥmias.
Their Spanish hometown is not known. The Ibn Naḥmias family was a
famous family of Toledo, though David and Samuel may have been
connected with the Hebrew printing trade at Híjar.19 It was at their press
in Constantinople that, in 1512, the earliest known printed edition of a
midrash was published—Midrash Rabba on the Pentateuch. In 1514,
they also issued the editio princeps of the five ‘rabba’ midrashim on the
Five Megillot.
An extensive corpus of commentaries was printed after the publi-
cation of these midrashim. Among the earliest was the ʾOt ʾEmet of
Meir Benveniste of Salonica (Salonica, 1565), a catalogue of correc-
tions to many newly printed midrashic works. Soon afterwards,
Opp. Add. Fol. 51 (no. 2335); Benayahu, M., ‘R. Samuel Yafeh Ashkenazi’s Eulogy for
his Father, R. Isaac Yafeh’ (Heb.) Kovez ʿal Yad 8 (1976), p. 445 n. 136, p. 457 n. 2. On
the study of the Bible in late medieval Spain, see Lawee, E., ‘The Reception of Rashi’s
Commentary on the Torah in Spain: The Case of Adam’s Mating with the Animals’
The Jewish Quarterly Review 97 (2007), pp. 33–66; Gross, A., ‘Spanish Jewry and
Rashi’s Commentary on the Pentateuch’ (Heb.) in Steinfeld, Z. (ed.), Rashi Studies
(Ramat-Gan, 1993), pp. 27–55; Talmage, F., ‘Keep Your Sons from Scripture: The
Bible in Medieval Jewish Scholarship and Spirituality’ in Thoma, C., Wyschogrod, M.
(eds), Understanding Scripture: Explorations of Jewish and Christian Traditions of
Interpretation (New York, 1987), pp. 81–101; Kanarfogel, E., ‘On the Role of Bible
Study in Medieval Ashkenaz’ in Walfish, B. (ed.), The Frank Talmage Memorial
Volume vol. 1 (Haifa, 1993), pp. 151–66; Breuer, M., ‘Keep Your Children from
Higgayon’ (Heb.) in Gilat, Y., Stern, E. (eds), Michtam le-David: Rabbi David Ochs
Memorial Volume (1905–1975) (Ramat-Gan, 1978), pp. 242–61.
18
Kedourie, E., ‘Introduction’ in Kedourie, E. (ed.), Spain and the Jews: The
Sephardi Experience 1492 and After (London, 1992), p. 13; Segre, R., ‘Sephardic
Settlements in Sixteenth-Century Italy: A Historical and Geographical Survey’ Medi-
terranean Historical Review 6 (1991), pp. 112–37; Beinart, H., Green, J. (tr.), The
Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (Oxford, 2002), pp. 49–54.
19
Jewish Encyclopedia s.v. ‘Ibn Naḥ mias’; Offenberg, A., ‘The Printing History of
the Constantinople Incunable of 1493: A Mediterranean Voyage of Discovery’ British
Library Journal 22 (1996), pp. 221–35; Allan, N., ‘A Typographical Odyssey: The 1505
Constantinople Pentateuch’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, third series, 1 (1991),
pp. 343–52.
Introduction 7
Abraham ben Asher of Safed published the ʾOr ha-Sekhel (Venice,
1567), the book on which we will focus in this study.20 Abraham ben
Asher intended to produce a series of volumes to elucidate the whole
of Midrash Rabba. Only the first of these was published, an edition of
Genesis Rabba which includes the author’s lengthy, discursive expos-
ition along with a composite text of a medieval commentary on the
midrash.
The midrashim and commentaries printed during the sixteenth
century came to circulate beyond centres of Sephardic Jewry in the
Ottoman Empire. Many were reprinted at the great Hebrew presses of
Venice, notably that of Daniel Bomberg whose books were said to be
‘shipped by sea to Jews in all parts of the world, in Africa, Ethiopia,
the Indies, Egypt and to other places where Jews live’.21 Among the
most influential editions of Midrash Rabba was the text printed in
Cracow in 1587–88. This included the newly composed commentary
and textual corrections of Issachar Berman b. Naphtali ha-Cohen of
Szczebrzeszyn, the Matnot Kehunah. It is Issachar’s commentary that
has appeared most frequently on the pages of successive editions of
Midrash Rabba; recent printed editions still display his commentary
and their text bears the marks of the emendations he proposed.
In the chapters that follow, we will assess the reception of Midrash
Rabba in the sixteenth century with a particular focus on the Seph-
ardic communities in which its midrashim were first printed. In the
first chapter, we will examine the primary contexts in which midrash
was encountered in the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire. We will
then turn to the editions and commentaries of Midrash Rabba that
were produced in Constantinople, Salonica, Safed, Pesaro, Venice,
and Cracow. In the second part of this study, we will focus on
Abraham ben Asher and his ʾOr ha-Sekhel, examining the Jewish
communities in the Ottoman Empire in which he lived and worked
as a communal rabbi, and the world of Hebrew printing in Venice
where his book was produced. The fourth chapter will analyse exem-
plary passages from Abraham ben Asher’s commentary. Finally, we
will consider the most innovative element of his composition of
the ʾOr ha-Sekhel: the compilation and publication of an exposition
20
A convenient online reproduction is currently available at the Digitized Book
Repository of the National Library of Israel.
21
Nielsen, B., ‘Daniel van Bombergen, a Bookman of Two Worlds’ in Hacker, J.,
Shear, A. (eds), The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia, 2011), p. 70.
on Genesis Rabba attributed to the most celebrated medieval com-
mentator on the Bible and the Babylonian Talmud—Solomon ben
Isaac of Troyes (Rashi, 1040–1105).
As a result of this examination, it becomes possible to establish the
relationship between Abraham ben Asher’s modes of interpreting
midrash and those of his contemporary exegetes, and thereby to
shed light on the reception of rabbinic Bible interpretation in the
works of sixteenth-century commentators. It also becomes clear that
the ʾOr ha-Sekhel occupies an important place in the history of the
reception of midrash in its own right. It is distinguished by Abraham
ben Asher’s commentary, a most extensive and comprehensive
exposition of Genesis Rabba. As the editio princeps of ‘Rashi’s’ com-
mentary and the first printed book in which a midrash and commen-
taries appeared on the same page, it had an enduring influence on the
content and presentation of future prints of Midrash Rabba. The
presence of commentaries became a regular feature of later editions
and Abraham ben Asher’s text of ‘Rashi’s’ commentary often
appeared on their pages. In the ensuing chapters, therefore, this
study will seek to determine how sixteenth-century commentators
understood rabbinic expositions of the Hebrew Bible and to uncover
the significance of Abraham ben Asher’s work at a moment of
creativity and innovation in the study of Midrash Rabba.
1
Midrash in the Sixteenth-Century

Ottoman Empire
Abraham ben Asher, a sixteenth-century rabbi and scholar of Safed,

provided his contemporaries with an innovative means of studying
midrash. In his work entitled ʾOr ha-Sekhel, ‘The Light of the Intel-
lect’, Midrash Rabba was printed for the first time accompanied by
commentaries. Abraham ben Asher ambitiously conceived of this
magnum opus as a series of volumes comprising not only the com-
plete text of Midrash Rabba, but also his own extensive commentary
and that attributed to Rashi on Genesis Rabba. Only the first book of
this series was published, a weighty volume which Abraham ben
Asher subtitled Maʿadenei Melekh, ‘The Delights of the King’. This
unique edition of Genesis Rabba, printed in Venice in 1567, is the
subject of the present study.
To read the ʾOr ha-Sekhel is to encounter Abraham ben Asher’s
own conception of the significance of Midrash Rabba, for the author’s
guiding hand is evident in almost every element of this book’s
production. His influence extended beyond the composition of his
own commentary to the compilation of manuscripts of Pseudo-Rashi
on Genesis Rabba and even to the arrangement of these texts on the
printed pages of the ʾOr ha-Sekhel. It is Abraham ben Asher’s own
juxtaposition of the midrashic text with the commentaries he himself
selected and compiled that lends the ʾOr ha-Sekhel its particular
significance.
For all the distinctiveness of this composite book, however, the
midrash and the commentaries it contains were not the only texts of
their kind to be published at this time. The sixteenth century wit-
nessed the production of numerous prints of Midrash Rabba and
several commentaries in quick succession. These first emerged from
post-expulsion centres of Sephardic Jewry in the Ottoman Empire. In
Constantinople, the editiones principes of Midrash Rabba on the
Pentateuch and the midrashim on the Five Megillot were printed in
1512 and 1514 respectively. In Salonica, the scholars Judah Gedaliah
and Meir Benveniste compiled glosses and comments on midrashim,
printed in 1564 and 1593. At the same time in Safed, both Abraham
ben Asher and Moses Alsheikh wrote commentaries on Genesis
Rabba.
The ʾOr ha-Sekhel, therefore, can be considered as part of an
extensive programme of composing and publishing commentaries
to accompany the earliest printed editions of Midrash Rabba. These
expositions furnish unique evidence of the ways in which these were
studied. They are testimony to the great significance that was attached
to Midrash Rabba and to establishing the correct meaning of its
midrashim. Because such commentaries were produced not only in
centres of Jewry in the Ottoman Empire, but also in Venice and in
Cracow, they provide valuable insights into how scholars of diverse
locations found a common cause in the exposition of new and
popular books of midrash.
In order to understand the outpouring of newly composed com-
mentaries that accompanied the publication of the first editions of
Midrash Rabba, it is first necessary to recognize the widespread and
popular interest in midrash that framed the production of these
books. In the sixteenth century, midrash was sought out and encoun-
tered in a variety of contexts, including Rashi’s Commentary on the
Bible, the Yalkut Shimʿoni, the diverse aggadic compilations and
anthologies printed or compiled at this time, as well as in ethical
and kabbalistic treatises. In this chapter, I will point to the signifi-
cance of two primary settings in which midrashic exposition of the
Bible was employed in the sixteenth century: in sermons and in the
related genre of the homiletic commentary. We will turn in particular
to the Ottoman centres of Sephardi Jewry in which the first mid-
rashim were printed and the first sixteenth-century commentaries on
midrash were written. By means of the testimonies of two commen-
tators active at this time, Samuel Yafeh of Constantinople and
Moses Alsheikh of Safed, we will observe how a popular interest in
midrash in homiletic contexts lay behind the production of some
sixteenth-century commentaries on Midrash Rabba, including the ʾOr
ha-Sekhel of Abraham ben Asher.
Midrash in the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire 11
One of the most explicit descriptions of the widespread enthusiasm
for midrash at this time comes from the pen of Samuel Yafeh of
Constantinople, a prominent figure among sixteenth-century com-
mentators. Among his voluminous expositions of midrashim and the
aggadot of the Palestinian Talmud is his Yefeh Toʾar. The first tome, a
commentary on Genesis Rabba, was printed posthumously in 1597.1
In the introduction, Samuel Yafeh testified to the popularity of
aggadah among his contemporaries:
My soul is consumed with longing2 for words of aggadah that attract the
heart of man,3 and also to reflect the desire of the many people that
come each Sabbath to hear the sermon. Their soul desires to hear words
of aggadah more than words of halakhah, as it says [in b.Sotah 40a] in
the account of R. Ḥ iyya b. Abba and R. Abbahu.4 I turned my attention
to all the midrash aggadah I could find in the Bavli and the Yerushalmi
and elsewhere in order to look among it and to gather my lily from their
valleys. But when I came to the threshold of the gates of Midrash Rabba
on the Torah, the father of all collections of midrash aggadah, I found
the door locked as I found no interpretation except for the briefest
pamphlet of difficult words derived from the ʿArukh.5 And even though
some writers adduced some sections of this Midrash in their homilies,
such as Abraham Bibago and Isaac Arama, not even one out of sixty
aggadot was cited.6 As for those which were mentioned, they were not
careful to explain the true meaning of the text, but rather explained its
1
In Venice; see Benayahu, M., ‘Rabbi Samuel Yafeh Ashkenazi and Other Com-
mentators of Midrash Rabba: Some Biographical and Bibliographical Details’ (Heb.)
Tarbiz 42 (1972–73), p. 431. See also Benayahu, M., ‘Rabbi Samuel Yafeh Ashkenazi’s
Eulogy’, pp. 435–49.
2
Cf. Psalm 119:20.
3
Cf. Mekhilta de-R. Ishmael Va-Yasaʿ 6 (ed. Lauterbach, J., vol. 1, p. 247); Sifre
Deuteronomy 317 (ed. Finkelstein, L., p. 359).
4
‘R. Abbahu and R. Ḥ iyya b. Abba once came to a place; R. Abbahu expounded
Aggada and R. Ḥ iyya b. Abba expounded legal lore. All the people left R. Ḥ iyya b.
Abba and went to hear R. Abbahu, so that the former was upset. [R. Abbahu] said to
him: “I will give you a parable. To what is the matter like? To two men, one of whom
was selling precious stones and the other various kinds of small ware. To whom will
the people hurry? Is it not to the seller of various kinds of small ware?” ’ Epstein, I.
(ed.), Cohen, A. (tr.), The Babylonian Talmud: Sotah (London, 1936), p. 197.
5
The lexicon of Nathan b. Yeḥ iel (1035–c.1110).
6
An allusion to the principle of bitul be-shishim, that an element diluted to a ratio
of one part in sixty is considered negligible. See Talmudic Encyclopedia s.v. ‘Bitul be-
Shishim’.
general sense according to the lesson they wanted to get across, even if it
were for rhetorical use.7
Samuel Yafeh, faced with a pervasive demand for aggadah, particu-
larly in the context of sermons, sought to respond by composing a
commentary on ‘Midrash Rabba on the Torah’. He implied that there
was a relationship between these oral and literary approaches to
the exposition of aggadah. Yet, he did not specify precisely how ‘the
desire of the many people that come each Sabbath to hear the sermon’
related to his composition of such a written commentary. Did he
anticipate that these same people would read his work? Or perhaps
we should surmise that the Yefeh Toʾar reflects the content of Samuel
Yafeh’s own sermons?
In order to understand the relationship between the popular
demand for aggadah in sermons and the production of some of the
sixteenth-century commentaries on Midrash Rabba, we must turn to
the testimony of Moses Alsheikh of Safed. Alsheikh is most famous
for his voluminous and learned homiletic commentaries on books of
the Bible.8 In the preface to his exposition of the Pentateuch, the
Torat Mosheh, he details his study of midrash by way of last-minute
preparation for his Sabbath sermons:
From my childhood the extensive study of the Talmud in the yeshivah
nurtured me like a father,9 thrusting and parrying in the disputes of
7
‘‫גרסה נפשי לתאבה מילי דאגדתא המושכת לבו של אדם גם להפיק רצון הרבים הבאי׳]ם[ מדי שבת‬
‫בשבתו לשמוע הדרשה מפי נפשם חפצה לשמוע דברי אגדה יותר מדברי הלכה כאשר אמרו במסכת סוטה‬
‫פ׳]רק[ אלו נאמרין בעובדא דרבי חייא בר אבא ור׳ אבהו סבותי את לבבי על כל מדרש אגדה אשר מצא ידי‬
‫בבבלי ובירושלמי וזולתם לרעות בגניהם וללקוט שושני מעמקיהם ובבואי אצל מפתן שערי מדרש הרבות על‬
‫התורה אשר הוא אבי כל מדרשי האגדות מצאתי הפתח סגור כי לא מצאתי בו פי׳]רוש[ זולת מעט מזער‬
‫ממלות הקשות אשר באו בספר הערוך ואף כי קצת מהמחברים הביאו מקצת מאגדות המדרש הזה בתוך‬
‫דרושיהם כמו דרך אמונה ובעל העקדה לא זכרו אחד מששים מהאגדות וגם באותן שהביאו לא שתו לב לביאור‬
.‫’אמתת הבנת כונת האדגה רק לפרש כללותה לפי הדרוש המכוון להם הן יהיה דרך דרש או פי הלצי בלבד‬
Yafeh, Samuel, Yefeh Toʾar vol. 1 (Venice, 1597), f. 1b; final section as translated in
Hacker, J., ‘The Intellectual Activity of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire during the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’ in Twersky, I., Septimus, B. (eds), Jewish
Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), p. 115.
8
Alsheikh wrote commentaries on every biblical book except Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehe-
miah, and Chronicles. It also seems that he wrote an exposition of Genesis Rabba, no
longer extant. Pachter, M., Homiletic and Ethical Literature of Safed in the 16th
Century (Heb.) unpublished PhD dissertation (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
1976), pp. 260, 262; Alsheikh, Moses, Torat Mosheh (Venice, 1601), f. 3b. See also
Shalem, S., Rabbi Moshe Alsheikh (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 1966), pp. 24–5.
9
Job 31:18.
Abbaye and Rava as far as ‘Hoba’,10 speculative analysis (ʿiyun)11 by
night and halakhah by day, with the voice of the archers,12 arrows of
victory,13 understand[ing] the tradition every morning,14 thereafter
[turning] to the posekim [halakhic decisors] until sunset, replying
according to the halakhah to those who ask what is relevant.15 I only
appointed a fixed time for [the exposition of] midrashic and plain
explanations when the Lord sent me good fortune16 and lightened me
with time to find rest17 from halakhah on the sixth day. For every
Sabbath the people would come to me to expound to them according
to the Torah, the Holy Scriptures, which they would read, each para-
shah at the appointed time...18
In several of his works, Alsheikh further claimed that his Sabbath
sermons, in turn, were the source of the material he later presented in
the form of exegetical commentaries. (The many tomes of biblical
commentary which came from the pen of Moses Alsheikh belie his
suggestion that the exposition of ‘midrashic and plain explanations’
was but a small part of his weekly duties that were otherwise so
dominated by halakhic study.) For instance, in the introduction to
10
Genesis 14:15.
11
On the use of ʿiyun, which Boyarin describes as a method of talmudic inquiry
incorporating Aristotelian logic, among the Spanish exiles, see Boyarin, D., ‘Moslem,
Christian, and Jewish Cultural Interaction in Sefardic Talmudic Interpretation’
Review of Rabbinic Judaism 5 (2002), pp. 1–33; Boyarin, D., Sephardi Speculation:
A Study in Methods of Talmudic Interpretation (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 1989); Ravitsky, A.,
Aristotelian Logic and Talmudic Methodology: The Application of Aristotelian Logic in
the Commentaries on the Methods of Jewish Legal Inference (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 2009);
Ravitsky, A., ‘Talmudic Methodology and Aristotelian Logic: David ibn Bilia’s Com-
mentary on the Thirteen Hermeneutic Principles’ Jewish Quarterly Review 99 (2009),
pp. 184–99; Ravitsky, A., ‘Talmudic Methodology and Scholastic Logic: The Com-
mentary of R. Abraham Elijah Cohen on the Thirteen Principles’ (Heb.) Daʿat 63
(2008), pp. 87–102; Toledano, S., The Talmudic Methodology of Rabbi Bezalel Ash-
kenazi (Heb.) Tarbiz 78 (2009), pp. 479–520; Dimitrovsky, H., ‘An Unknown
Chapter in the Relations between the Nagid Isaac Sholal and Rabbi Jacob Berab’
(Heb.) Shalem 6 (1992) pp. 83–163; Bentov, H., ‘Methods of Study of Talmud in the
Yeshivot of Salonica and Turkey after the Expulsion from Spain’ (Heb.) Sefunot 13
(1971–78), pp. 5–102.
12 13 14
Judges 5:11. 2 Kings 13:17. Isaiah 28:19.
15 16 17
m.Avot 5:7. Genesis 27:20. Psalm 32:6.
18
‘‫כי מנעורי גדלני כאב עסק התלמוד מרבה בישיבה יוצא ובא בהוייות אביי ורבא עד חובה הלילה עיון‬
‫והיום הלכה בקול מחצצים חצי תשועה הבין שמוע׳ בבקר בבקר ואחריו אל הפוסקים עד בא השמש ואל‬
‫ש ו א ל כ ענ י ן ל ה ש י ב כ ה ל כ ה ו ל א ל ב י ה ל ך ל ע ש ו ת ק ב ע מ ד ר ש ו ת ו פ ש ט י ם ז ו ל ת י א ש ר הק ר ה ה ׳ ל פ נ י א ל ה ׳ ו י א ר‬
‫לי לעת מצוא מנוחה מההלכה ביום הששי כי מדי שבת בשבתו יבא אלי העם לדרוש להם על פי התורה מקראי‬
...‫ ’קדש אשר יקראו אותם במועדם‬Alsheikh, Moses, Torat Mosheh (Constantinople, 1593),
f. 1b.
his commentary on the book of Daniel, the Ḥ avatselet ha-Sharon, we
read,
[The Lord] has given me a congregation of the community of Israel, a
fellowship that pays attention to my voice, in order to listen and learn
each Sabbath...and the day after, by the mercy of God, I write [my
sermon] down with pen and paper. So it happened that, as time went
on, [the commentary] was written from beginning to end...19
For Moses Alsheikh, the public exposition of the Torah and other
books read in the synagogue, including the Five Megillot, Job, Prov-
erbs, Psalms, and Daniel,20 was part of a threefold process. Beginning
with his study of ‘midrashic and plain explanations’ on a Friday to
prepare for his Sabbath sermon, he later committed individual hom-
ilies to writing until, owing to the cycle of the lectionary, he had
completed commentaries on whole biblical books.
Alsheikh was not alone in producing written versions of his hom-
ilies or recasting them as commentaries. The sixteenth century saw an
outpouring of such homiletic expositions, which Hacker has even
described as the main ‘literary creation of the scholars and the
educated circles’ of the post-expulsion Sephardic communities of
the Ottoman Empire.21 Shalem considers the composition of such
works as a trend which arose first in Salonica among a group of
scholars associated with Joseph Taitazak and later spread to Safed.22
19
‘...‫ויתן לי ]ה׳[ קהל עדת ישראל חברים מקשיבים לקולי למען ישמעו ולמען ילמדו מדי שבת בשבתו‬
...‫ ויהי כי ארכו הימים וימצא כתוב מראש ועד סוף‬.‫’וממחרת השבת אני כותב על הספר בדיו בחמלת ה׳ עלי‬
Alsheikh, Moses, Ḥ avatselet ha-Sharon (Constantinople, 1564), second page of the
author’s introduction (unpaginated). Similar words are also found in his introduc-
tions to his commentaries on Song of Songs, Esther, and the Torah. See his Shoshanat
ha-ʿAmakim (Venice, 1591), f. 2a; Masʾat Mosheh (Venice, 1601), f. 1b; Torat Mosheh,
f. 7a. See Pachter, M., Homiletic and Ethical Literature, pp. 265–6 nn. 24, 25. See
Saperstein, M., Jewish Preaching, 1200–1800: An Anthology (London, 1989), p. 14.
20
Hacker, J., ‘The Intellectual Activity’, p. 112.
21
22
Shalem, S., ‘The Exegetical and Homiletical Method of R. Moses Alsheikh’s
Commentaries on the Bible’ (Heb.) Sefunot 5 (1961), p. 201. Taitazak’s students
included, according to Cooper, Isaac Adarbi (c.1510–c.1584), Solomon Alkabez
(c.1505–1584), Moses Almosnino (c.1515–c.1580), Moses Alsheikh (d. after 1593),
Isaac Arollia, Joseph Karo (1488–1575), Samuel de Medina (1506–89), and Eliezer
Ashkenazi (1513–86). Pachter’s study of homiletic exegesis in Safed traces the devel-
opment of these commentaries from the ‘first generation’ of authors, including Jacob
Berab I (c.1474–1546), Moses di Trani (1500–80), Joseph Karo, Joseph Sagis (d. 1572),
and Israel di Corial (d. 1577) (and the later scholars Moses Najara (c.1508–81) and
Abraham Laniado (c.1545–after 1620)), to Solomon Alkabez, Elisha Gallico, and his
These scholars employed and developed modes of interpretation
inherited from their fifteenth-century Iberian predecessors.23 For
instance, they frequently structure expositions around the enumer-
ation and subsequent resolution of difficulties that arise in the course
of a particular text, a mode of interpretation famous for its use by
Arama and Abravanel.24 Their expositions are expressed in a struc-
ture related to a particular form of the Sephardic sermon which,
according to Saperstein, ‘began to crystallize at the end of the fifteenth
students Samuel Aripol and Samuel Uceda (born 1540), and Moses Alsheikh. See
Cooper, A., ‘An Extraordinary Sixteenth-Century Biblical Commentary: Eliezer Ash-
kenazi on the Song of Moses’ in Walfish, B. (ed.), The Frank Talmage Memorial
Volume (Haifa, 1993), p. 131; Pachter, M., Homiletic and Ethical Literature, pp. vii–
xii. On the nature of the mode of exposition of these scholars, see Hacker, J., ‘The
Intellectual Activity’, pp. 110–16; Tirosh-Samuelson, H., ‘The Ultimate End of
Human Life in Postexpulsion Philosophic Literature’ in Gampel, B. (ed.), Crisis and
Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391–1648 (New York, 1997), pp. 223–54; Frisch, A.,
‘A Re-Evaluation of Jewish Biblical Exegesis of the 16th–19th Centuries’ (Heb.) in Rapel,
D. (ed.), Studies in Bible and Education Presented to Prof. Moshe Ahrend (Jerusalem,
1996), pp. 122–41. On the exegesis of Joseph Taitazak, see Sack, B., ‘R. Joseph Taitazak’s
Commentaries’ (Heb.) Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 7 (1988), pp. 341–55;
Sermoneta, J., ‘Scholastic Philosophic Literature in Rabbi Yoseph Taitazak’s “Porat
Yosef” ’ (Heb.) Sefunot 11 (1971–7), pp. 135–85; Shalem, S., ‘The Exegetic Method of
R. Yosef Taitazak and His Circle: Its Nature and Its Form of Inquiry’ (Heb.) Sefunot 11
(1971–7), pp. 115–34. On Moses Almosnino, see Regev, S., Oral and Written Sermons in
the Middle Ages (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 55–71, 121–9, 200–20; Saperstein, M.,
Jewish Preaching, pp. 217–39; Ben-Menahem, N., ‘The Writings of Rabbi Mosheh
Almosnino’ (Heb.) Sinai 10 (1946–7), pp. 268–85. On Moses Alsheikh, see Shalem,
S., Rabbi Moshe Alsheikh; Shalem, S., ‘The Exegetical and Homiletical Method of
R. Moses Alsheikh’s Commentaries’, pp. 151–206; Shalem, S., ‘The Life and Works of
Rabbi Moses Alshech’ (Heb.) Sefunot 7 (1963), pp. 179–97; Shalem, S., ‘Thought and
Morals in the Commentaries of R. Moses Alsheich’ (Heb.) Sefunot 6 (1962),
pp. 197–258; Jacobs, L., Jewish Biblical Exegesis (New York, 1973), pp. 144–52; Bland,
K., ‘Issues in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Exegesis’ in Steinmetz, D. (ed.), The Bible in the
Sixteenth Century (Durham, N.C., 1990), pp. 50–67. On Solomon Alkabez, see Walfish,
B., ‘Kosher Adultery? The Mordecai–Esther–Ahasuerus Triangle in Midrash and Exe-
gesis’ in Crawford, S., Greenspoon, L. (eds), The Book of Esther in Modern Research
(London, 2003), pp. 111–36. On Isaac Adarbi, see Cooper, A., ‘The Message of
Lamentations’ Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 28 (2001), pp. 1–18. On
Eliezer Ashkenazi, see Cooper, A., ‘An Extraordinary Sixteenth-Century Biblical Com-
mentary’, pp. 129–50.
23
Pachter, M., Homiletic and Ethical Literature, pp. 107, 113, 277.
24
See Saperstein, M., ‘The Method of Doubts’ in McAuliffe, J., Walfish, B., Goering,
J. (eds), With Reverence for the Word (Oxford, 2010), pp. 139–43, 146; Saperstein, M.,
Jewish Preaching, pp. 74–5.
century’.25 This framework gave prominence both to a verse from the
biblical reading dictated by the lectionary (the noseʾ) and to an
accompanying aggadic or midrashic quotation (the maʾamar) chosen
by the preacher.26 These citations would be followed first by the
exposition of the noseʾ and then of the maʾamar.27 The written form
in which the content of such an oral sermon could be recast became a
genre of its own, serving as a literary device used by authors to frame
their exegetical insights.28 Thus the ‘homiletic literature’ of the six-
teenth century includes not only material originating in oral sermons
and later recast in written form, but also ‘texts written in sermon form
but never intended for delivery, and texts in which material originally
part of a sermon is incorporated within another genre’,29 such as the
homiletic commentary on Scripture.
The majority of sixteenth-century homiletic expositions were col-
lections of sermons or commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. At least
one commentary on Midrash Rabba, however, also appears to fall
within the corpus of homiletic literature. This is the aforementioned
Yefeh Toʾar of Samuel Yafeh. The expositions contained in this work
closely resemble those in Yafeh’s collection of homilies, the Yefeh
ʿEinayim (Venice, 1631). In these sermons, Yafeh sometimes replaces
the explanation of the rabbinic maʾamar with the simple instruction
that the reader should turn to the Yefeh Toʾar and read it there.30 On
25
Saperstein, M., Jewish Preaching, p. 22. On the development of the Sephardic
sermon, see also Horovitz, C., ‘Darshanim, Derashot and Derashah Literature in
Medieval Spain’ in Beinart, H. (ed.), Moreshet Sepharad: The Sephardi Legacy vol. 1
(Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 383–98.
26
Hacker, J., ‘The Intellectual Activity’, pp. 112–14; Saperstein, M., Jewish Preach-
ing, pp. 63ff.
27
Saperstein, M., Jewish Preaching, pp. 69–71, Hacker, J., ‘The “Sefardi” Sermon in
the 16th Century—between Literature and Historical Source’ (Heb.) Peʿamim 26
(1986), p. 121. As Solomon Alkabez (c.1505–84) explains, ‘It is the custom to speak
first about the verses and then about the maʾamar’ (translated from Alkabetz’s Dera-
shot in Saperstein, M., Jewish Preaching, p. 67).
28
Dan, J., Ethical and Homiletical Literature (Heb.) (Jerusalem, 1975), p. 36. See
also Saperstein, M., Jewish Preaching, pp. 7–26; Hacker, J., ‘The “Sefardi” Sermon’,
pp. 108–27; Dan, J., Ethical and Homiletical Literature, pp. 26–46.
29
Saperstein, M., Jewish Preaching, p. 13.
30
The sermons of the Yefeh ʿEinayim generally follow the aforementioned struc-
ture, citing a verse from the parashah and a passage of aggadah, then expounding each
in turn. In Yafeh’s sermons, the final section may be introduced by phrases such as,
‘And after this I will interpret all of the aggadah mentioned [above] by pinpointing all
its uncertainties (sefekot)’ (Yafeh, S., Yefeh ʿEinayim (Venice, 1631), f. 2b). At this
point, however, Yafeh sometimes omits the explanation of the aggadah and directs the
other occasions, the exposition he gives in a sermon is almost iden-
tical to the material in his commentary.31 While it is not possible to
demonstrate similarities between Samuel Yafeh’s Yefeh Toʾar and any
oral sermons he delivered, his commentaries on Midrash Rabba and
his written homilies are closely related.
It is in the context of the homiletic mode of exposition so popular
in the sixteenth century that we can understand the significance of
Samuel Yafeh’s wish to ‘reflect the desire of the many people that
come each Sabbath to hear the sermon’ by writing a commentary.
While other commentators framed their exegetical insights on Scrip-
ture in homiletic form, Samuel Yafeh responded to a widespread
enthusiasm for the rabbinic exposition of the Bible by writing a
homiletic commentary entirely focused on the systematic interpret-
ation of Midrash Rabba.
Samuel Yafeh’s preface reveals that, in doing so, he also had a
polemical purpose. In the aforementioned comment, he criticized
‘some writers...such as Abraham Bibago and Isaac Arama’ for their
apparently selective use of midrash and aggadah, unfaithfulness to its
‘true meaning’, and biased interpretation according to their own
agenda. Hacker suggests that Solomon le-Vet ha-Levi, Abraham
Shalom, Meir Arama, and Joseph Taitazak were among scholars
who followed in the footsteps of Bibago and Isaac Arama in their
modes of expounding on Scripture.32 In a number of the collections
of sermons and homiletic commentaries written by these figures and
others, the interweaving of biblical commentary and rabbinic aggadah
reader to the Yefeh Toʾar instead. For instance, in the homily on Parashat Lekh Lekha,
the formula introducing the explanation of the maʾamar is interrupted: ‘It is necessary
to pinpoint some specific matters in [the aggadah]. They are written in my Yefeh
Toʾar, along with their resolution and an explanation of the whole aggadah according
to my knowledge and according to the knowledge of a few of the interpreters “whence
you may see them” (Numbers 23:13)’ (Samuel Yafeh, Yefeh ʿEinayim, f. 5a). The Yefeh
Toʾar on Genesis Rabba 31:1 does indeed contain such a list of ‘pinpoints’ (f. 233b).
For further examples, see his homilies on Parashat Va-Yera (f. 8b) and Parashat Ḥ ayei
Sarah (f. 11a).
31
Compare Samuel Yafeh’s homily on Parashat Va-Yetse (Yefeh ʿEinayim, ff. 16b–
17a), for which the maʾamar is Genesis Rabba 74:17, and his comments on this midrash
in the Yefeh Toʾar (Genesis Rabba 74:15 in Yafeh, Samuel, Yefeh Toʾar vol. 1, ff. 429b–
430a). The material has been rearranged. In the homily, Samuel Yafeh presents all of the
problems he finds in the pericope (dikdukim) at the outset, while in his commentary in
the Yefeh Toʾar he discusses selections of difficulties and their solutions in turn.
32
served as a vehicle for philosophical expression.33 As Tirosh-
Samuelson writes,
The most favored mode of Jewish self-expression for postexpulsion
philosophically trained scholars, and the major vehicle for the dissem-
ination of postexpulsion philosophy, was not the digest or the com-
mentary but traditional Jewish hermeneutics, the genre of scriptural
exegesis and homily, both oral and written. Philosophers wrote many
biblical commentaries and homilies and creatively interwove philoso-
phy with rabbinic aggadah and Kabbalah. The shift from exposition of
philosophic texts, more prevalent before the expulsion, to philosophic
exegesis of sacred texts, more prevalent after the expulsion, reflected this
conscious theological position: revealed religion perfects natural human
reason and the divinely revealed Torah contains all human reason
because it is identical with the infinite wisdom of God.34
33
For an example of such philosophical exposition, see Solomon le-Vet ha-Levi’s
interpretation of Genesis Rabba 69:1, discussed in Chapter 4.
34
Tirosh-Samuelson, H., ‘The Ultimate End’, p. 233. Similarly, Hacker notes that,
amongst Jewish scholars of the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire, the composition
of technical works on philosophy and logic, the translation of non-Jewish philosoph-
ical texts into Hebrew, and the composition of commentaries or supercommentaries
on, for instance, the Aristotelian-Averroean corpora, ‘was modest in comparison with
that which had been the case in Spain’. Many such works—including those of scholars
otherwise known for their homiletic writings—remained in manuscript or have been
lost because, along with medieval technical philosophical treatises, they were not
printed in the Ottoman Empire at this time. For instance, Almosnino’s commentaries
on Al-Gazali’s The Intentions of the Philosophers (the Migdal ʿOz, ms. Parma 1218, ms.
Madrid Acad. Heb. 6) and on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Penei Mosheh, ms.
Bodleian Mich. 409) remain in manuscript, and his commentary on the Long Com-
mentary on Aristotle’s Physics by Averroes is not extant. Almosnino’s commentary on
Avot (Pirkei Mosheh (Salonica, 1563)), the Five Megillot (Yedei Mosheh (Salonica,
1571)), and his collection of sermons (Meʾamets Koaḥ (Venice, 1588)), however, were
all printed in the sixteenth century (Hacker, J., ‘The Intellectual Activity’, pp. 118–19;
cf. p. 116; Tirosh-Samuelson, H., ‘The Ultimate End’, pp. 363 n. 47, 232). Davidson
outlines a diversity of views on philosophical study, emphasizing the continuity of
approaches from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century. On the one hand, some
scholars saw philosophical study as legitimate and philosophical truths as latent
within the Torah. Others emphasized the fallibility of human reason and saw the
study of the Torah and the observance of the mitzvot as leading to human perfection
rather than the study of philosophy (Davidson, H., ‘Medieval Jewish Philosophy in the
Sixteenth Century’ in Cooperman, B. (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century
(Cambridge, Mass., 1983), p. 121; see also Hacker, J., ‘Agitation against Philosophy in
Istanbul in the Sixteenth Century: Studies in Menachem de Lonsano’s Derekh
Ḥ ayyim’ (Heb.) in Dan, J., Hacker, J. (eds), Studies in Jewish Mysticism, Philosophy,
and Ethical Literature Presented to Isaiah Tishby on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday
(Jerusalem, 1986), pp. 507–23). On the use of philosophy in sermons in pre-expulsion
Spain, see for instance, Saperstein, M., ‘Sermons as Evidence for the Popularization
of Philosophy in Fifteenth-Century Spain’ in his Your Voice Like a Ram’s Horn
(Cincinnati, 1996), pp. 75–87.
Another random document with
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Fig. 35.—19 specimens of Purpura lapillus L., Great
Britain, illustrating variation.
(1) Felixstowe, sheltered coast; (2), (3) Newquay,
on veined and coloured rock; (4) Herm, rather
exposed; (5) Solent, very sheltered; (6) Land’s End,
exposed rocks, small food supply; (7) Scilly, exposed
rocks, fair food supply; (8) St. Leonards, flat mussel
beds at extreme low water; (9) Robin Hood’s Bay,
sheltered under boulders, good food supply; (10)
Rhoscolyn, on oyster bed, 4–7 fath. (Macandrew);
(11) Guernsey, rather exposed rocks; (12) Estuary of
Conway, very sheltered, abundant food supply; (13),
(14) Robin Hood’s Bay, very exposed rocks, poor food
supply; (14) slightly monstrous; (15), (16), (17)
Morthoe, rather exposed rocks, but abundant food
supply; (18) St. Bride’s Bay; (19) L. Swilly, sheltered,
but small food supply. All from the author’s collection,
except (10).
The common dog-whelk (Purpura lapillus) of our own coasts is an
exceedingly variable species, and in many cases the variations may
be shown to bear a direct relation to the manner of life (Fig. 35).
Forms occurring in very exposed situations, e.g. Land’s End, outer
rocks of the Scilly Is., coasts of N. Devon and Yorkshire, are stunted,
with a short spire and relatively large mouth, the latter being
developed in order to increase the power of adherence to the rock
and consequently of resistance to wave force. On the other hand,
shells occurring in sheltered situations, estuaries, narrow straits, or
even on open coasts where there is plenty of shelter from the waves,
are comparatively of great size, with a well-developed, sometimes
produced spire, and a mouth small in proportion to the area of shell
surface. In the accompanying figure, the specimens from the
Conway estuary and the Solent (12, 5) well illustrate this latter form
of shell, while that from exposed rocks is illustrated by the
specimens from Robin Hood’s Bay (13, 14). Had these specimens
occurred alone, or had they been brought from some distant and
unexplored region, they must inevitably have been described as two
distinct species.
Fig. 36.—Valves of Cardium edule from the four upper
terraces of Shumish Kul, a dry salt lake adjacent to the
Aral Sea. (After Bateson.)
Mr. W. Bateson has made[195] some observations on the shells of

Cardium edule taken from a series of terraces on the border of
certain salt lakes which once formed a portion of the Sea of Aral. As
these lakes gradually became dry, the water they contained became
salter, and thus the successive layers of dead shells deposited on
their borders form an interesting record of the progressive variation
of this species under conditions which, in one respect at least, can
be clearly appreciated. At the same time the diminishing volume of
water, and the increasing average temperature, would not be without
their effect. It was found that the principal changes were as follows:
the thickness, and consequently the weight, of the shells became
diminished, the size of the beaks was reduced, the shell became
highly coloured, and diminished considerably in size, and the
breadth of the shells increased in proportion to their length (Fig. 36).
Shells of the same species of Cardium, occurring in Lake Mareotis,
were found to exhibit very similar variations as regards colour, size,
shape, and thickness.
Unio pictorum var. compressa occurs near Norwich at two similar
localities six or seven miles distant from one another, under
circumstances which tend to show that similar conditions have
produced similar results. The form occurs where the river, by
bending sharply in horse-shoe shape, causes the current to rush
across to the opposite side and form an eddy near the bank on the
outside of the bend. Just at the edge of the sharp current next the
eddy the shells are found, the peculiar form being probably due to
the current continually washing away the soft particles of mud and
compelling the shell to elongate itself in order to keep partly buried at
the bottom.[196]
The rivers Ouse and Foss, which unite just below York, are rivers
of strikingly different character, the Ouse being deep, rapid, with a
bare, stony bottom, and little vegetable growth, and receiving a good
deal of drainage, while the Foss is shallow, slow, muddy, full of
weeds and with very little drainage. In the Foss, fine specimens of
Anodonta anatina occur, lustrous, with beautifully rayed shells. A few
yards off, in the Ouse, the same species of Anodonta is dull brown in
colour, its interior clouded, the beaks and epidermis often deeply
eroded. Precisely the same contrast is shown in specimens of Unio
tumidus, taken from the same rivers, Ouse specimens being also
slightly curved in form. Just above Yearsley Lock in the Foss, Unio
tumidus occurs, but always dwarfed and malformed, a result
probably due to the effect of rapidly running water upon a species
accustomed to live in still water.[197] Simroth records the occurrence
of remarkably distorted varieties in two species of Aetheria which
lived in swift falls of the River Congo.[198]
A variety of Limnaea peregra with a short spire and rather strong,
stoutly built shell occurs in Lakes Windermere, Derwentwater, and
Llyn-y-van-fach. It lives adhering to stones in places where there are
very few weeds, its shape enabling it to withstand the surf of these
large lakes, to which the ordinary form would probably succumb.[199]
Scalariform specimens of Planorbis are said to occur most
commonly in waters which are choked by vegetation, and it has been
shown that this form of shell is able to make its way through masses
of dense weed much more readily than specimens of normal shape.
Continental authorities have long considered Limnaea peregra
and L. ovata as two distinct species. Hazay, however, has
succeeded in rearing specimens of so-called peregra from the ova of
ovata, and so-called ovata from the ova of peregra, simply by placing
one species in running water, and the other in still water.
According to Mr. J. S. Gibbons[200] certain species of Littorina, in
tropical and sub-tropical regions, are confined to water more or less
brackish, being incapable of living in pure salt water. “I have met,”
says Mr. Gibbons, “with three of these species, and in each case
they have been distinguished from the truly marine species by the
extreme (comparative) thinness of their shells, and by their colouring
being richer and more varied; they are also usually more elaborately
marked. They are to be met with under three different conditions—
(1) in harbours and bays where the water is salt with but a slight
admixture of fresh water; (2) in mangrove swamps where salt and
fresh water mix in pretty equal volume; (3) on dry land, but near a
marsh or the dry bed of one.
“L. intermedia Reeve, a widely diffused E. African shell, attaches
itself by a thin pellicle of dried mucus to grass growing by the margin
of slightly brackish marshes near the coast, resembling in its mode
of suspension the Old World Cyclostoma. I have found it in vast
numbers in situations where, during the greater part of the year, it is
exposed to the full glare of an almost vertical sun, its only source of
moisture being a slight dew at night-time. The W. Indian L. angulifera
Lam., and a beautifully coloured E. African species (? L. carinifera),
are found in mangrove swamps; they are, however, less independent
of salt water than the last.”
Mr. Gibbons goes on to note that brackish water species
(although not so solid as truly marine species) tend to become more
solid as the water they inhabit becomes less salt. This is a curious
fact, and the reverse of what one would expect. Specimens of L.
intermedia on stakes at the mouth of the Lorenço Marques River,
Delagoa Bay, are much smaller, darker, and more fragile, than those
living on grass a few hundred yards away. L. angulifera is unusually
solid and heavy at Puerto Plata (S. Domingo) among mangroves,
where the water is in a great measure fresh; at Havana and at
Colon, where it lives on stakes in water but slightly brackish, it is
thinner and smaller and also darker coloured.
(c) Changes in the Volume of Water.—It has long been known that
the largest specimens, e.g. of Limnaea stagnalis and Anodonta
anatina, only occurred in pieces of water of considerable size.
Recent observation, however, has shown conclusively that the
volume of water in which certain species live has a very close
relation to the actual size of their shells, besides producing other
effects. Lymnaea megasoma, when kept in an aquarium of limited
size, deposited eggs which hatched out; this process was continued
in the same aquarium for four generations in all, the form of the shell
of the last generation having become such that an experienced
conchologist gave it as his opinion that the first and last terms of the
series could have no possible specific relation to one another. The
size of the shell became greatly diminished, and in particular the
spire became very slender.[201]
The same species being again kept in an aquarium under similar
conditions, it was found that the third generation had a shell only
four-sevenths the length of their great grandparents. It was noticed
also that the sexual capacities of the animals changed as well. The
liver was greatly reduced, and the male organs were entirely lost.
[202]
K. Semper conducted some well-known experiments bearing on

this point. He separated[203] specimens of Limnaea stagnalis from
the same mass of eggs as soon as they were hatched, and placed
them simultaneously in bodies of water varying in volume from 100
to 2000 cubic centimetres. All the other conditions of life, and
especially the food supply, were kept at the known optimum. He
found, in the result, that the size of the shell varied directly in
proportion to the volume of the water in which it lived, and that this
was the case, whether an individual specimen was kept alone in a
given quantity of water, or shared it with several others. At the close
of 65 days the specimens raised in 100 cubic cm. of water were only
6 mm. long, those in 250 cubic cm. were 9 mm. long, those in 600
cubic cm. were 12 mm. long, while those kept in 2000 cubic cm.
attained a length of 18 mm. (Fig. 37).
An interesting effect of a sudden fall of temperature was noticed
by Semper in connection with the above experiments. Vessels of
unequal size, containing specimens of the Limnaea, happened to
stand before a window at a time when the temperature suddenly fell
to about 55° F. The sun, which shone through the window, warmed
the water in the smaller vessels, but had no effect upon the
temperature of the larger. The result was, that the Limnaea in 2000
cubic cm., which ought to have been 10 mm. long when 25 days old,
were scarcely longer, at the end of that period, than those which had
lived in the smaller vessels, but whose water had been sufficiently
warm.
Fig. 37.—Four equally old shells

of Limnaea stagnalis,
hatched from the same mass
of ova, but reared in different
volumes of water: A in 100, B
in 250, C in 600, and D in
2000 cubic centimetres.
(After K. Semper.)
CHAPTER IV
USES OF SHELLS FOR MONEY, ORNAMENT, AND FOOD—CULTIVATION OF
THE OYSTER, MUSSEL, AND SNAIL—SNAILS AS MEDICINE—PRICES GIVEN
FOR SHELLS
The employment of shells as a medium of exchange was

exceedingly common amongst uncivilised tribes in all parts of the
world, and has by no means yet become obsolete. One of the
commonest species thus employed is the ‘money cowry’ (Cypraea
moneta, L.), which stands almost alone in being used entire, while
nearly all the other forms of shell money are made out of portions of
shells, thus requiring a certain amount of labour in the process of
formation.
One of the earliest mentions of the cowry as money occurs in an
ancient Hindoo treatise on mathematics, written in the seventh
century a.d. A question is propounded thus: ‘the ¼ of 1/16 of ⅕ of ¾
of ⅔ of ½ a dramma was given to a beggar by one from whom he
asked an alms; tell me how many cowry shells the miser gave.’ In
British India about 4000 are said to have passed for a shilling, but
the value appears to differ according to their condition, poor
specimens being comparatively worthless. According to Reeve[204] a
gentleman residing at Cuttack is said to have paid for the erection of
his bungalow entirely in cowries. The building cost him 4000 Rs.
sicca (about £400), and as 64 cowries = 1 pice, and 64 pice = 1
rupee sicca, he paid over 16,000,000 cowries in all.
Cowries are imported to England from India and other places for
the purposes of exportation to West Africa, to be exchanged for
native products. The trade, however, appears to be greatly on the
decrease. At the port of Lagos, in 1870, 50,000 cwts. of cowries
were imported.[205]
A banded form of Nerita polita was used as money in certain parts
of the South Pacific. The sandal-wood imported into the China
market is largely obtained from the New Hebrides, being purchased
of the natives in exchange for Ovulum angulosum, which they
especially esteem as an ornament. Sometimes, as in the Duke of
York group, the use of shell money is specially restricted to certain
kinds of purchase, being employed there only in the buying of swine.
Among the tribes of the North-West coasts of America the
common Dentalium indianorum used to form the standard of value,
until it was superseded, under the auspices of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, by blankets. A slave was valued at a fathom of from 25 to
40 of these shells, strung lengthwise. Inferior or broken specimens
were strung together in a similar way, but were less highly esteemed;
they corresponded more to our silver and copper coins, while the
strings of the best shells represented gold.
The wampum of the eastern coast of North America differed from
all these forms of shell money, in that it required a laborious process
for its manufacture. Wampum consisted of strings of cylindrical
beads, each about a quarter of an inch in length and half that
breadth. The beads were of two colours, white and purple, the latter
being the more valuable. Both were formed from the common clam,
Venus mercenaria, the valves of which are often stained with purple
at the lower margins, while the rest of the shell is white. Cut small,
ground down, and pierced, these shells were converted into money,
which appears to have been current along the whole sea-board of
North America from Maine to Florida, and on the Gulf Coast as far as
Central America, as well as among the inland tribes east of the
Mississippi. Another kind of wampum was made from the shells of
Busycon carica and B. perversum. By staining the wampum with
various colours, and disposing these colours in belts in various forms
of arrangement, the Indians were able to preserve records, send
messages, and keep account of any kind of event, treaty, or
transaction.
Another common form of money in California was Olivella
biplicata, strung together by rubbing down the apex. Button-shaped
disks cut from Saxidomus arata and Pachydesma crassatelloides, as
well as oblong pieces of Haliotis, were employed for the same
purpose, when strung together in lengths of several yards.
“There is a curious old custom,” writes Mr. W. Anderson Smith,
[206] “that used formerly to be in use in this locality [the western coast
of Scotland], and no doubt was generally employed along the sea-
board, as the most simple and ready means of arrangement of
bargains by a non-writing population. That was, when a bargain was
made, each party to the transaction got one half of a bivalve shell—
such as mussel, cockle, or oyster—and when the bargain was
implemented, the half that fitted exactly was delivered up as a
receipt! Thus a man who had a box full of unfitted shells might be
either a creditor or a debtor; but the box filled with fitted shells
represented receipted accounts. Those who know the difficulty of
fitting the valves of some classes of bivalves will readily
acknowledge the value of this arrangement.”
Shells are employed for use and for ornament by savage—and
even by civilised—tribes in all parts of the world. The natives of Fiji
thread the large Turbo argyrostoma and crenulatus as weights at the
edge of their nets, and also employ them as sinkers. A Cypraea tigris
cut into two halves and placed round a stone, with two or three
showy Oliva at the sides, is used as a bait for cuttles. Avicula
margaritifera is cut into scrapers and knives by this and several other
tribes. Breast ornaments of Chama, grouped with Solarium
perspectivum and Terebra duplicata are common among the Fijians,
who also mount the Avicula on a backing of whales’ teeth sawn in
two, for the same purpose. The great Orange Cowry (Cypraea
aurantiaca) is used as a badge of high rank among the chieftains.
One of the most remarkable Fijian industries is the working of
whales’ teeth to represent this cowry, as well as the commoner C.
talpa, which is more easily imitated.
Among the Solomon islanders, cowries are used to ornament their
shields on great field days, and split cowries are worn as a necklace,
to represent human teeth. Small bunches of Terebellum subulatum
are worn as earrings, and a large valve of Avicula is employed as a
head ornament in the centre of a fillet. The same islanders ornament
the raised prows of their canoes, as well as the inside of the stern-
post, with a long row of single Natica.
The native Papuans employ shells for an immense variety of
purposes. Circlets for the head are formed of rows of Nassa
gibbosula, rubbed down till little but the mouth remains. Necklaces
are worn which consist of strings of Oliva, young Avicula, Natica
melanostoma, opercula of Turbo, and valves of a rich brown species
of Cardium, pendent at the end of strings of the seeds known as
Job’s tears. Struthiolaria is rubbed down until nothing but the mouth
is left, and worn in strings round the neck. This is remarkable, since
Struthiolaria is not a native Papuan shell, and indeed occurs no
nearer than New Zealand. Sections of Melo are also worn as a
breast ornament, dependent from a necklace of cornelian stones.
Cypraea erosa is used to ornament drinking bowls, and Ovulum
ovum is attached to the native drums, at the base of a bunch of
cassowary feathers, as well as being fastened to the handle of a
sago-beater.
In the same island, the great Turbo and Conus millepunctatus are
ground down to form bracelets, which are worn on the biceps. The
crimson lip of Strombus luhuanus is cut into beads and perforated for
necklaces. Village elders are distinguished by a single Ovulum
verrucosum, worn in the centre of the forehead. The thick lip of
Cassis cornuta is ground down to form nose pieces, 4½ inches long.
Fragments of a shell called Kaïma (probably valves of a large
Spondylus) are worn suspended from the ears, with little wisps of
hair twisted up and thrust through a hole in the centre. For trumpets,
Cassis cornuta, Triton tritonis, and Ranella lampas are used, with a
hole drilled as a mouthpiece in one of the upper whorls. Valves of
Batissa, Unio, and Mytilus are used as knives for peeling yams.
Spoons for scooping the white from the cocoa-nut are made from
Avicula margaritifera. Melo diadema is used as a baler in the
canoes.[207]
In the Sandwich Islands Melampus luteus is worn as a necklace,
as well as in the Navigator Islands. A very striking necklace, in the
latter group, is formed of the apices of a Nautilus, rubbed down to
show the nacre. The New Zealanders use the green opercula of a
Turbo, a small species of Venus, and Cypraea asellus to form the
eyes of their idols. Fish-hooks are made throughout the Pacific of the
shells of Avicula and Haliotis, and are sometimes strengthened by a
backing made of the columella of Cypraea arabica. Small axe-heads
are made from Terebra crenulata ground down (Woodlark I.), and
larger forms are fashioned from the giant Tridacna (Fiji).
Shells are used to ornament the elaborate cloaks worn by the
women of rank in the Indian tribes of South America. Specimens of
Ampullaria, Orthalicus, Labyrinthus, and Bulimulus depend from the
bottom and back of these garments, while great Bulimi, 6 inches
long, are worn as a breast ornament, and at the end of a string of
beads and teeth.[208]
The chank-shell (Turbinella rapa) is of especial interest from its
connexion with the religion of the Hindoos. The god Vishnu is
represented as holding this shell in his hand, and the sinistral form of
it, which is excessively rare, is regarded with extraordinary
veneration. The chank appears as a symbol on the coins of some of
the ancient Indian Empires, and is still retained on the coinage of the
Rajah of Travancore.
The chief fishery of the chank-shell is at Tuticorin, on the Gulf of
Manaar, and is conducted during the N. E. monsoon, October-May.
In 1885–86 as many as 332,000 specimens were obtained, the net
amount realised being nearly Rs.24,000. In former days the trade
was much more lucrative, 4 or 5 millions of specimens being
frequently shipped. The government of Ceylon used to receive
£4000 a year for licenses to fish, but now the trade is free. The shells
are brought up by divers from 2 or 3 fathoms of water. In 1887 a
sinistral specimen was found at Jaffna, which sold for Rs.700.[209]
Nearly all the shells are sent to Dacca, where they are sliced into
bangles and anklets to be worn by the Hindoo women.
Perhaps the most important industry which deals only with the
shells of Mollusca is that connected with the ‘pearl-oyster.’ The
history of the trade forms a small literature in itself. It must be
sufficient here to note that the species in question is not an ‘oyster,’
properly so called, but an Avicula (margaritifera Lam.). The ‘mother-
of-pearl,’ which is extensively employed for the manufacture of
buttons, studs, knife-handles, fans, card-cases, brooches, boxes,
and every kind of inlaid work, is the internal nacreous laminae of the
shell of this species. The most important fisheries are those of the
Am Islands, the Soo-loo Archipelago, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea,
Queensland, and the Pearl Islands in the Bay of Panama. The shell
also occurs in several of the groups of the South Pacific—the
Paumotu, Gambier and Navigator Islands, Tahiti being the centre of
the trade—and also on the coasts of Lower California.[210]
Pearls are the result of a disease in the animal of this species of
Avicula and probably in all other species within which they occur.
When the Avicula is large, well formed, and with ample space for
individual development, pearls scarcely occur at all, but when the
shells are crowded together, and become humped and distorted, as
well as affording cover for all kinds of marine worms and parasitic
creatures, then pearls are sure to be found. Pearls of inferior value
and size are also produced by Placuna placenta, many species of
Pinna, the great Tridacna, the common Ostrea edulis, and several
other marine bivalves. They are not uncommon in Unio and
Anodonta, and the common Margaritana margaritifera of our rapid
streams is still said to be collected, in some parts of Wales, for the
purpose of extracting its small ‘seed-pearls.’ Pink pearls are obtained
from the giant conch-shell of the West Indies (Strombus gigas), as
well as from certain Turbinella.
In Canton, many houses are illuminated almost entirely by
skylights and windows made of shells, probably the semitransparent
valves of Placuna placenta. In China lime is commonly made of
ground cockle-shells, and, when mixed with oil, forms an excellent
putty, used for cementing coffins, and in forming a surface for the
frescoes with which the gables of temples and private houses are
adorned. Those who suffer from cutaneous diseases, and
convalescents from small-pox, are washed in Canton with the water
in which cockles have been boiled.[211]
A recent issue of the Peking Gazette contains a report from the
outgoing Viceroy of Fukhien, stating that he had handed over the
insignia of office to his successor, including inter alia the conch-shell
bestowed by the Throne. A conch-shell with a whorl turning to the
right, i.e. a sinistral specimen, is supposed when blown to have the
effect of stilling the waves, and hence is bestowed by the Emperor
upon high officers whose duties oblige them to take voyages by sea.
The Viceroy of Fukhien probably possesses one of these shells in
virtue of his jurisdiction over Formosa, to which island periodical
visits are supposed to be made.[212]
Shells appear to be used occasionally by other species besides
man. Oyster-catchers at breeding time prepare a number of imitation
nests in the gravel on the spit of land where they build, putting bits of
white shell in them to represent eggs.[213] This looks like a trick in
order to conceal the position of the true nest. According to
Nordenskjöld, when the eider duck of Spitzbergen has only one or
two eggs in its nest, it places a shell of Buccinum glaciale beside
them. The appropriation of old shells by hermit-crabs is a familiar
sight all over the world. Perhaps it is most striking in the tropics,
where it is really startling, at first experience, to meet—as I have
done—a large Cassis or Turbo, walking about in a wood or on a hill
side at considerable distances from the sea. A Gephyrean
(Phascolion strombi) habitually establishes itself in the discarded
shells of marine Mollusca. Certain Hymenoptera make use of dead
shells of Helix hortensis in which they build their cells.[214] Magnus
believes that in times when heavy rains prevail, and the usual
insects do not venture out, certain flowers are fertilised by snails and
slugs crawling over them, e.g. Leucanthemum vulgare by Limax
laevis.[215]
Mollusca as Food for Man.—Probably there are few countries in
the world in which less use is made of the Mollusca as a form of food
than in our own. There are scarcely ten native species which can be
said to be at all commonly employed for this purpose. Neighbouring
countries show us an example in this respect. The French, Italians,
and Spanish eat Natica, Turbo, Triton, and Murex, and, among
bivalves, Donax, Venus, Lithodomus, Pholas, Tapes, and Cardita, as
well as the smaller Cephalopoda. Under the general designation of
clam the Americans eat Venus mercenaria, Mya arenaria, and
Mactra solidissima. In the Suez markets are exposed for sale
Strombus and Melongena, Avicula and Cytherea. At Panama Donax
and Solen are delicacies, while the natives also eat the great Murex
and Pyrula, and even the huge Arca grandis, which lives embedded
in the liquid river mud.
The common littoral bivalves seem to be eaten in nearly all
countries except our own, and it is therefore needless to enumerate
them. The Gasteropoda, whose habits are scarcely so cleanly, seem
to require a bolder spirit and less delicate palate to venture on their
consumption.
The Malays of the East Indian islands eat Telescopium fuscum
and Pyrazus palustris, which abound in the mangrove swamps. They
throw them on their wood fires, and when they are sufficiently
cooked, break off the top of the spire and suck the animal out
through the opening. Haliotis they take out of the shell, string
together, and dry in the sun. The lower classes in the Philippines eat
Arca inaequivalvis, boiling them as we do mussels.[216] In the
Corean islands a species of Monodonta and another of Mytilus are
quite peppery, and bite the tongue; our own Helix revelata, as I can
vouch from personal experience, has a similar flavour. Fusus
colosseus, Rapana bezoar, and Purpura luteostoma are eaten on
the southern coasts of China; Strombus luhuanus, Turbo
chrysostomus, Trochus niloticus, and Patella testudinaria, by the
natives of New Caledonia; Strombus gigas and Livona pica in the
West Indies; Turbo niger and Concholepas peruvianus on the Chilian
coasts; four species of Strombus and Nerita, one each of Purpura
and Turbo, besides two Tridacna and one Hippopus, by the natives
of British New Guinea. West Indian negroes eat the large Chitons
which are abundant on their rocky coasts, cutting off and swallowing
raw the fleshy foot, which they call ‘beef,’ and rejecting the viscera.
Dried cephalopods are a favourite Chinese dish, and are regularly
exported to San Francisco, where the Chinamen make them into
soup. The ‘Challenger’ obtained two species of Sepia and two of
Loligo from the market at Yokohama.
The insipidity of fresh-water Mollusca renders them much less
desirable as a form of food. Some species of Unionidae, however,
are said to be eaten in France. Anodonta edulis is specially
cultivated for food in certain districts of China, and the African
Aetheriae are eaten by negroes. Navicella and Neritina are eaten in
Mauritius, Ampullaria and Neritina in Guadeloupe, and Paludina in
Cambodia.
The vast heaps of empty shells known as ‘kitchen-middens,’ occur
in almost every part of the world. They are found in Scotland,
Denmark, the east and west coasts of North America, Brazil, Tierra
del Fuego, Australia and New Zealand, and are sometimes several
hundred yards in length. They are invariably composed of the edible
shells of the adjacent coast, mixed with bones of Mammals, birds,
and fish. From their great size, it is believed that many of them must
have taken centuries to form.
Pre-eminent among existing shell-fish industries stands the
cultivation of the oyster and the mussel, a more detailed account of
which may prove interesting.
The cultivation of the oyster[217] as a luxury of food dates at least
from the gastronomic age of Rome. Every one has heard of the
epicure whose taste was so educated that
“he could tell

At the first mouthful, if his oysters fed
On the Rutupian or the Lucrine bed
Or at Circeii.”[218]
The first artificial oyster-cultivator on a large scale appears to

have been a certain Roman named Sergius Orata, who lived about a
century b.c. His object, according to Pliny the elder,[219] was not to
please his own appetite so much as to make money by ministering to
the appetites of others. His vivaria were situated on the Lucrine
Lake, near Baiae, and the Lucrine oysters obtained under his
cultivation a notoriety which they never entirely lost, although British
oysters eventually came to be more highly esteemed. He must have
been a great enthusiast in his trade, for on one occasion when he
became involved in a law-suit with one of the riparian proprietors, his
counsel declared that Orata’s opponent made a great mistake if he
expected to damp his ardour by expelling him from the lake, for,
sooner than not grow oysters at all, he would grow them upon the
roof of his house.[220] Orata’s successors in the business seem to
have understood the secret of planting young oysters in new beds,
for we are told that specimens brought from Brundisium and even
from Britain were placed for a while in the Lucrine Lake, to fatten
after their long journey, and also to acquire the esteemed “Lucrine
flavour.”
Oysters are ‘in season’ whenever there is an ‘r’ in the month, in
other words, from September to April. ‘Mensibus erratis,’ as the poet
has it, ‘vos ostrea manducatis!’ It has been computed that the
quantity annually produced in Great Britain amounts to no less than
sixteen hundred million, while in America the number is estimated at
five thousand five hundred million, the value being over thirteen
million dollars, and the number of persons employed fifty thousand.
Arcachon, one of the principal French oyster-parks, has nearly
10,000 acres of oyster beds, the annual value being from eight to ten
million francs; in 1884–85, 178,359,000 oysters were exported from
this place alone. In the season 1889–90, 50,000 tons of oysters were
consumed in London.
Few will now be found to echo the poet Gay’s opinion:
“That man had sure a palate covered o’er

With brass or steel, that on the rocky shore
First broke the oozy oyster’s pearly coat,
And risq’d the living morsel down his throat.”
There were halcyon days in England once, when oysters were to

be procured at 8d. the bushel. Now it costs exactly that amount
before a bushel, brought up the Thames, can even be exposed for
sale at Billingsgate (4d. porterage, 4d. market toll), and prime
Whitstable natives average from 3½d. to 4d. each. The principal
causes of this rise in prices, apart from the increased demand, are
(1) over-dredging; (2) ignorant cultivation, and to these may be
added (3) the effect of bad seasons in destroying young oysters, or
preventing the spat from maturing. Our own principal beds are those
at Whitstable, Rochester, Colchester, Milton (famous for its ‘melting’
natives), Faversham, Queenborough, Burnham, Poole, and
Carlingford in Co. Down, and Newhaven, near Edinburgh.
The oyster-farms at Whitstable, public and private, extend over an
area of more than 27 square miles. The principal of these is a kind of
joint-stock company, with no other privilege of entrance except birth
as a free dredgeman of the town. When a holder dies, his interest
dies with him. Twelve directors, known as “the Jury,” manage the
affairs of the company, which finds employment for several thousand
people, and sometimes turns over as much as £200,000 a year. The
term ‘Natives,’ as applied to these Whitstable or to other English
oysters, requires a word of explanation. A ‘Native’ oyster is simply an
oyster which has been bred on or near the Thames estuary, but very
probably it may be developed from a brood which came from
Scotland or some other place at a distance. For some unexplained
reason, oysters bred on the London clay acquire a greater delicacy
of flavour than elsewhere. The company pay large sums for brood to
stock their own grounds, since there can be no certainty that the spat
from their own oysters will fall favourably, or even within their own
domains at all. Besides purchases from other beds, the parks are
largely stocked with small oysters picked up along the coast or
dredged from grounds public to all, sometimes as much as 50s. a
bushel being paid for the best brood. It is probably this system of
transplanting, combined with systematic working of the beds, which
has made the Whitstable oyster so excellent both as to quality and
quantity of flesh. The whole surface of the ‘layings’ is explored every
year by the dredge, successive portions of the ground being gone
over in regular rotation, and every provision being made for the well-
being of the crop, and the destruction of their enemies. For three
days of every week the men dredge for ‘planting,’ i.e. for the
transference of suitable specimens from one place to another, the
separation of adhering shells, the removal of odd valves and of every
kind of refuse, and the killing off of dangerous foes. On the other
three days they dredge for the market, taking care only to lift such a
number as will match the demand.
The Colne beds are natural beds, as opposed to the majority of
the great working beds, which are artificial. They are the property of
the town of Colchester, which appoints a water-bailiff to manage the
concern. Under his direction is a jury of twelve, who regulate the
times of dredging, the price at which sales are to be made, and are
generally responsible for the practical working of the trade. Here,
and at Faversham, Queenborough, Rochester, and other places,
‘natives’ are grown which rival those of Whitstable.
There can be no question, however, that the cultivation of oysters
by the French is far more complete and efficient than our own, and
has reached a higher degree of scientific perfection combined with
economy and solid profits. And yet, between 40 and 50 years ago,
the French beds were utterly exhausted and unproductive, and
showed every sign of failure and decay. It was in 1858 that the
celebrated beds on the Ile de Ré, near Rochelle, were first started.
Their originator was a certain shrewd stone-mason, by name Boeuf.
He determined to try, entirely on his own account, whether oysters
could not be made to grow on the long muddy fore-shore which is
left by the ebb of the tide. Accordingly, he constructed with his own
hands a small basin enclosed by a low wall, and placed at the
bottom a number of stones picked out of the surrounding mud,
stocking his ‘parc’ with a few bushels of healthy young brood. The
experiment was entirely successful, in spite of the jeers of his
neighbours, and Boeuf’s profits, which soon began to mount up at an
astonishing rate, induced others to start similar or more extensive
farms for themselves. The movement spread rapidly, and in a few
years a stretch of miles of unproductive mud banks was converted
into the seat of a most prosperous industry. The general interests of
the trade appear to be regulated in a similar manner to that at
Whitstable; delegates are appointed by the various communities to
watch over the business as a whole, while questions affecting the
well-being of oyster-culture are discussed in a sort of representative
assembly.
At the same time as Boeuf was planting his first oysters on the
shores of the Ile de Ré, M. Coste had been reporting to the French
government in favour of such a system of ostreiculture as was then
practised by the Italians in the old classic Lakes Avernus and
Lucrinus. The principle there adopted was to prevent, as far as
possible, the escape of the spat from the ground at the time when it
is first emitted by the breeding oyster. Stakes and fascines of wood
were placed in such a position as to catch the spat and give it a
chance of obtaining a hold before it perished or was carried away
into the open sea. The old oyster beds in the Bay of St. Brieuc were
renewed on this principle, banks being constructed and overlaid with
bundles of wood to prevent the escape of the new spat. The attempt
was entirely successful, and led to the establishment or re-
establishment of those numerous parcs, with which the French coast
is studded from Brest to the Gironde. The principal centres of the
industry are Arcachon, Auray, Cancale, and la Teste.
It is at Marennes, in Normandy, that the production of the
celebrated ‘green oyster’ is carried out, that especial luxury of the
French epicure. Green oysters are a peculiarly French taste, and,
though they sometimes occur on the Essex marshes, there is no
market for them in England. The preference for them, on the
continent, may be traced back as early as 1713, when we find a
record of their having been served up at a supper given by an
ambassador at the Hague. Green oysters are not always green, it is
only after they are placed in the ‘claires,’ or fattening ponds, that they
acquire the hue; they never occur in the open sea. The green colour
does not extend over the whole animal, but is found only in the
branchiae and labial tentacles, which are of a deep blue-green.
Various theories have been started to explain the ‘greening’ of the
mollusc; the presence of copper in the tanks, the chlorophyll of
marine algae, an overgrowth of some parasite, a disease akin to liver
complaint, have all found their advocates. Prof. Lankester seems to
have established[221] the fact,—which indeed had been observed 70
years before by a M. Gaillon,—that the greening is due to the growth
of a certain diatom (Navicula ostrearia) in the water of the tanks. This
diatom, which is of a deep blue-green colour, appears from April to
June, and in September. The oyster swallows quantities of the
Navicula; the pigment enters the blood in a condition of chemical
modification, which makes it colourless in all the other parts of the

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