been tendered to a Jew. The Congress of Jewish notables held in Budapest in 1868 appointed Kohut its secretary. Notable among his literary labors falling in this period is his study entitled "Etwas über die Moral und Abfassungszeit des Buches Tobias," originally published in Geiger's Jüd. Zeit. vol. x., several monographs in the Z. D. M. G. which developed his original thesis concerning Persian influence on Judaism, and his "Kritische Beleuchtung der Persischen Pentateuch-Uebersetzung des Jakob ben Joseph Tavus" (Leipzig, 1871). Among his literary remains are to be found materials for a critical edition of the Persian text of this version. In 1872 he was elected chief rabbi of Pécs, Hungary, remaining there eight years. By this time his reputation as a Hungarian orator had spread so far that many noted statesmen and church dignitaries came to hear him from distant towns. Dictionary of the Talmud About 1873 Kohut began to compile his Dictionary of the Talmud, entirely in German, encouraged by the promise of a Christian nobleman to bear all costs of publication. He had proceeded as far as the third letter of the alphabet when he found that the work was assuming such gigantic proportions as to preclude the possibility of its being confined within the projected limits. Arduous as the merely mechanical labor of copying the manuscript was, he rewrote what he had written, intending to publish the original text of the old 'Aruk, with a German commentary. On the advice of Leopold Zunz and Salomon Buber, however, who argued that the 'Aruk, being a national classic, ought to be compiled in Hebrew throughout, he again rewrote the work in that language, the labor of copying occupying two more years. It is this trait of untiring patience, which scorned all obstacles, that made the publication of vol. I, in 1878, possible. His Maecenas, in the meantime, had died, and Kohut was left to bear the burden of expense alone, save for the subvention of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna and of the Cultusministerium in Berlin. He called his work Aruch Completum or 'Aruk ha-Shalem, and its production occupied twenty-five years of his life. The first four volumes were printed during his residence in Hungary, and the last four during his sojourn in America, covering a period of fourteen years (Vienna, 1878–92); the supplement appearing from a New York press; and the whole work aggregating more than