size and ornaments of the huts on the feast of tabernacles he rejects as wholly unwarranted by the Mosaic injunctions.

Anan's theory of the Sabbath was far more strict than that of the rabbins. Jews living in a heathen city were not permitted to go out of their houses at all on that day; and in a Jewish town they might only go from their houses a distance of two thousand ells, and that within the limits of the town. Circumcision was not allowed on the Sabbath, since the wound might require some aid of healing, which was on that day unlawful. Sexual connection on that day was strictly prohibited. The Talmudists, on the contrary, had made sexual intercourse a duty on the Sabbath day, supporting themselves on the word of Isaiah, which says that the Sabbath should be a delight. No fires were allowed by Anan to be kept on the Sabbath. The Talmudists had explained the verse in Exodus (xxxv. 3), to prohibit the kindling of fires on that day, but not their preservation after they were kindled. Lamps might be kept lighted, if they were only lighted before the set of the sun. Bread, too, might be baked on the Sabbath if only the process of baking were commenced early enough. Against these evasions Anan's voice was decided -- they were simply profanations; and the Caraites not only sat in cold and in darkness on the eve of their day of rest, but avoided in their walks on that evening the sight of any lighted chamber. Nothing warm on that day, whether for food or for comfort, should be allowed to the faithful.

In other points of practical observance, the commentary of Anan departed widely from the rabbinical teaching. In the list of impure birds, he included common poultry, aud would not suffer a cock or a hen to be brought to the altar as an offering. All fowls sipping water and sitting upon their broods are impure. The command to wear phylac teries he explained to mean that the sacred words should be fixed in the head and in the heart. His construction of the law of divorce and the law of inheritance was different from

that of the rabbins, though we are not enabled to know in exactly what particulars. Indeed, from the fragmentary character of the accounts of Anau's special interpretations upon the Pentateuch, it is difficult to draw out the Mosaic statutes as he arranged them, or to know how many of the Talmudic glosses he distinctly rejected.

Beside these separate hints of Anan's exegesis and ritual teaching, we may notice three positive positions and directions which his teaching gave in the formation of his sect:

1. He announced the right of all new religious teachers, of all religious reformers, to a respectful hearing: they were not to be dismissed as fanatics, or stigmatized as blasphemers, but to be judged according to their purpose and their claim. Caraism has never been intolerant of the prophets of other faiths, and has used no violence to suppress their extravagances. It has preferred to live in peace with the men of other creeds, and even with hostile Jews. To this day, the stranger, of whatever lineage, is welcomed and kindly treated in the Caraite communities of Constantinople and Jerusalem, and is allowed to learn from them their own state and hope-a privilege which intercourse with orthodox Jews will not give him.

2. Anan announced the right and the duty of free inquiry, whether upon the extent of the clear Mosaic statutes, or upon the meaning of the dark passages of the scripture. In their free inquiry, there should be no respect of persons, no deference to authorities and no fear of men. Brother may

differ from brother and father from son; and the difference is good, if it is a proof of honesty and freedom. The teaching of Anan did not consolidate Caraism into an unchangeable doctrine, but allowed variations; and later writings of the sect distinctly charge that its founder was not infallible and had taught some errors with his truths. Sahl, a Caraite, writing in A. D. 950, says: "Say then not, how shall we come to the practice of the law, since the sons of the scriptures are so discordant with each other? Whom of our leaders shall we follow ? Know rather that the sons of the

scripture do not say: We are your leaders.' They have not exhibited their views to force the people to go after their way; they would only be known as investigators, seekers, interpreters, availing themselves of the labors of their faithful predecessors. They say to their brethren: Search, examine, press in, and decide, and then practise that which is established by your own knowledge and proof."

3. And with these principles of free speech and free inquiry, Anan proclaimed the duty of missionary labor and the dignity of the prophetic office. Himself an exile for the sake of the faith, he enjoined his followers to sacrifice comfort and earthly advantage in the propagation of their truth, not to fear abuse and persecution, but to strive unto the end. Family ties were not to hinder missionary zeal. Anan's counsel to his followers was substantially that of Jesus to his disciples. Unlike the rabbins, he encouraged the gathering in of proselytes from the heathen world, and would not allow that the promises of the Bible were confined to Israel after the flesh. His missionaries wandered not only in the lands where the Jews had their seats, but were found in lands where the Hebrew tongue and ritual had become obsolete. Jerusalem was only the head and centre of the sect. It was not a simple schism only, but the beginning of a new religious community. Makrisi derives the name Caraism from the missionary zeal of the sect. They were the criers, the preachers. The Caraites were not, however, willing to allow this theory of their name.

The separation between the party of the rabbins and the new Sadducee became soon complete. There were mutual criminations and anathemas, and Anan excepted from his charity the "Gaons" of the school and the rulers of the synagogue. He forbade his disciples from visiting their houses or their places of worship, from eating with them, marrying with them, or having any, except the most formal, intercourse with them. He chose Jerusalem and Mount Zion, not only as the sacred place which might bless his new sect by its

traditions, but as the site most removed from rabbinical intrigue. Yet from this "seat of the Caraites," he sent his disciples to the Talmudic seats, to disturb the ease and security of the teachers of tradition, and break the chains which rabbinism had bound around the Jewish church. In some instances these missionaries were drawn into the snares of the rabbins, and consented to compromise the new faith with the old, so that other messengers had to be sent to watch the first messengers and bring them back to the faith.

Anan died in Jerusalem in 765, five years after his schism was fairly decided. In this short time he had gathered around him a numerous community and had organized branches of his sect in Egypt, West Africa, Syria, Babylon, and Persia. The first name given to the sect was that of Ananites, as the disciples of Christ were called Christians. But as the sect increased, and as in the exercise of free inquiry its teachers came to differ, a distinction was made. between the Caraites in general and the Ananites in special. The later writers mention four peculiarities of the Ananites: that they were willing to study the Mischna of the Talmud; that they reckoned the month from the sight of the moon's crescent, instead of from the conjunction of the moon and earth; that they had a different construction of some statutes; and that they denied the right of the elders and the exilarchs to any special authority. The same phenomenon appears in the Christian church, in which a sect are separated from the church and called "Christians," to signify, not their general belief, but their peculiar opinion and practice.

The son of Anan, Saul by name, assumed the title of exilarch and Nasi (or prince), at his father's death, but was insignificant both as a leader and as a writer. His literary labor, so far as we know, was confined to "Notes upon the Decalogue," in which he attempted to show that all the statutes of Moses were contained in the ten commandments. His son Josiah, a grandson of Anan, was still more insignificant. The teaching of the founder of Caraism was not perpetuated in the line of his household, but by his more

eminent disciples, Malich ben Harmala and Nissi ben Noah. Of Malich we know comparatively little. He speculated upon the doctrine of the resurrection which Anan had quietly borrowed from the rabbins, and maintained that not all the dead would be raised at the last day, but only those who had been favored with the divine revelations. Of Nissi ben Noah we have a fuller account. He was a companion and friend of Anan, and shared his studies at Bazra. His early life was one of hardship, privation, and wandering, in which his resolute determination to master the learning of the schools prevailed over every hindrance. He became expert in the tongues, learned Hebrew and Aramaic from the rabbins, Greek and Latin from the priests; in Babylon studied the Masora; examined works of philosophy and logic; investigated religious systems; till in the end, by his own restless thirst for knowledge, he was brought to the Holy City, the head and mother of the Caraite household. When he came to Jerusalem, as he says, he found everything in confusion. There was no orderly system of doctrine, and the interpretations of scripture were as various as the interpreters. Anan had been dead only fifteen years, and already his work was threatened with ruin and seemed to be almost beyond recovery. Nissi resolved to write a commentary on the literal sense of scripture, and, unlike his predecessors in the sect, to write it in Hebrew and not in the Aramean, which had become the shame rather than the honor of the ancient people. The name of the great work of Nissi ben Noah was Bitan ha-Maschilim, the "Palace of the Teachers." It was a comprehensive explanation of the Mosaic laws and a complete institute of Caraite theology, showing its positive and its negative side alike. It denounces, without stint the rabbins and their teaching, calling them wranglers, brawlers, and blasphemers. The preface is curious, from its detailed statement of preliminaries to be settled in the profitable study of every book, whether of scripture or of secular wisdom. These preliminaries are eight in number: to know 1. the purpose and end of the