Ethical Literature

There is no specific ethical literature as such in the biblical and talmudic period insofar as a systematic formulation of Jewish *ethics is concerned. Even the Wisdom *literature of the Bible, though entirely ethical in content, does not aim at giving a systematic exposition of this science of morals and human duties, but confines itself to apothegms and unconnected moral sayings. The same is true of the tractate *Avot, the only wholly ethical tractate of the Mishnah, which consists largely of the favorite ethical maxims of individual rabbis, and later works, such as *Derekh Ereẓ and *Kallah. The ethical principles and concepts of Judaism are scattered throughout the vast area of rabbinic literature and it was only in the Middle Ages that this data was used as the basis of ethical works and from this time ethical literature becomes a specific genre of Jewish literature.