Question

It is written in the Talmud that Abaye arranged a tractate-completion celebration for his student.
What is the meaning of completing a tractate when the Talmud itself had not yet been finalized? (According to some halakhic decisors, one does not make a completion celebration over Mishnah.) Some try to prove from this that there is significance to a completion celebration even for others who did not themselves finish, since Abaye did not finish it—meaning, the student finished a “quantity of material” that Abaye himself, even though a significant part of the Talmud consists of statements quoted in his name, had not finished?