tractate

A tractate is a formal written treatise dealing with a particular subject. The term is used across religious, scholarly, and historical contexts to designate a self-contained work that surveys a topic at some length, but is typically shorter than a full book. In English, tractate is a relatively formal or antiquarian word and is often encountered in discussions of classical or religious literature.

Etymology and usage: tractate derives from Latin tractatus, meaning a handling, treatment, or treatise. The sense of a deliberated, systematic discussion about a subject has carried into modern usage, where tractates may appear in academic or religious corpora as named divisions within a larger body of work.

In Judaic literature: In Jewish tradition, a tractate (Masekhet in Hebrew) is a major division of the Mishnah and the Talmud. Each tractate is a self-contained treatise on a topic such as ritual law, civil law, or ritual purity, and it is further subdivided into chapters and legal discussions. The Talmud is commonly organized into tractates, which collectively form the orders (Sedarim) of the Mishnah and Gemara. Examples include tractates on Shabbat, Berakhot, and Eruvin. The term “tractate” conveys both the formal structure and the topic-specific focus of these classic Jewish texts.

Other uses: Outside Judaism, tractate historically referred to a formal treatise within philosophy, theology, or law. In modern English, shorter religious or political pamphlets are usually called tracts rather than tractates, though the broader sense of a extended, systematic treatise remains valid in scholarly contexts.

Overall, tractate denotes a deliberately organized, topic-centered written work, most prominently used in the description of Jewish rabbinic literature but applicable to other disciplines as well.