[57] Most of these remarks are taken from the Introduction to the Traité des Berakhoth (Benedictions) du Talmud de Jérusalem et du Talmud de Babylone, traduit pour la première fois en Français par Moïse Schwab, attaché à la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, mdccclxxi.).
[58] The word clearly shows the immense effect of the Hellenic Conquest. There were two forms of Sanhedrin—the Greater, numbering seventy-one souls; and the Lesser, consisting of twenty-three. Both were composed of the three orders Priests, Levites, and common Israelites. The Greater Council claimed, and would again claim, supreme jurisdiction over the king, the high priest, the prophets, and the people, and “strangulation was the mode of execution for any learned man who rebelled against their words” (Hilchoth Mamrun, i. 2). Anti-Talmudic writers strongly object to this upstart aristocracy, when Moses (Deut. xvii.) ordained a supreme council consisting of the “Priests the Levites” (not the Priests and the Levites), together with the judge, or chief civil governor; the ecclesiastical element remaining in the family of Aaron, whilst the magistracy fell to the lot of Joshua. But when they assert, “It is quite absurd, and if the subject were not so grave it would be ludicrous, to hear the Rabbinists exclaiming that the Law of Moses is unchangeable, when they themselves have changed all its main provisions and made an entirely new religion,” the Jew may fairly retort that the Pauline modifications extending to radical changes had the same effect upon Christianity.
[59] According to the system of Sir William Jones, this name would be written Saffúriyeh, but not, as travellers generally do, Saffúreh or Saffuriyyeh.
[60] The sun has often stood still in history; but how often did the historian understand what the sun standing still really means? As Spinoza remarked, “Not even in their dreams had they ever thought of parhelia”; and one of his editors quotes the French drummer-boy in Switzerland, “Nous sommes ici au bout du monde! Ici on touche le soleil de la main!” In the twelfth century Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela found the grave of Rabenu Hakkadosh (R. Yahúda) near “Suffurieh, the Tsippori of antiquity,” and evidently never heard the legend, “They are buried in the mountain, which also contains numerous other sepulchres.” In his day Tiberias contained only fifty Jews.
[61] See Cérnach David, Editio princeps (Prague, 1592), fol. 43.
[62] Similarly the Mormons “pointedly condemn those who make the contents of the Bible typical, metaphysical, or symbolical, ‘as if God were not honest when He speaks with man, or uses words in any other than their true acceptation,’ or could ‘palter in a double sense.’” This return to Hebrew lines of thought is not a little curious, and it may be remarked that every fresh branch put forth by the tree of “Protestantism,” as it is called, invariably reverts more and more to the old type. Indeed, whenever in these days we hear of a new “religion” having been born into the world, we may determine, à priori, that it is more Jewish than its predecessors. And traces of the same operation may be found amongst the Hindu Sikhs and the Muslim Babees.
[63] Hagadah, from Hagah, to declare or describe, to invent or imagine, is applied to any illustration, historical or fabulous. Halakah, from Halak, to walk, is a rule of conduct, anything prescriptive of the peculiarities of Jewish life.
[64] See the Mishnah, fifth part, tract Edonyoth, i., §§ 5 et seq. This is a fair answer to the host of contradictions and the general charge of inconsistency levelled by anti-Talmud writers against the Oral Law, and it enables the modern Rabbi to make almost any assertion that he pleases concerning disputed points. Thus one will find in the Talmud that Christians should be put to death, the other that they should be treated like brothers. This is certainly very convenient.
[65] It is still a disputed point whether the two Targums (versions or translations of the Pentateuch) on the Pentateuch, attributed to the proselyte Onkelos, or Ankelos, and to the Jew Jonathan bin Uzzul, were written by contemporary students in the Rabbinical Schools of Jerusalem within the half-century before Christ, or were worked out like the Septuagint by the Babylonian Maturgemanin (interpreters) of the fourth century. The later the date the better in order to account for such Græcisms and Latinisms as Ardiphene (Rhodaphne, oleander), Polimarkin ([Greek: Πολεμαρχος: Polemarchos]), Sapuklatoría (Speculators), and Oktaraia (Octariones, præfecti militares). In the Targum of Jerusalem we read “a band of Saracens.”
[66] Vie de Hillel, par M. le Grand Rabbin Trínel (1867).