hedge () about the Law." The hedge was made; its construction was regarded as the main function of Rabbinism; it excluded all light from without and all egress from within; but it was so carefully cultivated that the shrine itself was totally disregarded. The Oral Law was first exalted as a necessary supplement to the Written Law; then substituted in the place of it; and finally identified with the inferences of the Rabbis. The Pentateuch was disparaged in comparison with the Mishna, the Mishna in comparison with the voluminous expansions of the Gemara. Supported by the False Decretals of Judaism which asserted that the Oral Law had been handed down by Mosaic succession through a chain of recipients, the Scribes proceeded to make disobedience to their decisions more perilous than disobedience to a moral commandment.5 "The voice of the Rabbi is as the voice of God." "He who transgresses the words of the Scribes throws away his life." "Scripture is like water, the Mishna like wine; the Gemara like spiced wine."

6

1 Siphri, 40, a.; Aboth, iv. 17; Yoma, f. 72; Weber, Alt. Theol. 39; Weill, i. 96.

2 Lev. xviii. 30. "Make a mishmereth to my mishmereth.” Yebamoth, f. 21 (Taylor on Aboth, i. 1). Yet the Rabbis pointed to Adam's "neither shall ye touch it as an addition to God's command, and therefore a misapplication of the "hedge about the law."

Similarly the very name Jehovah, in its true pronunciation, disappeared in consequence of the crude superstition with which it was nominally protected. It is now pronounced with the vowels of Adonai.

4 The divinity of the Oral Law, or "Law upon the Mouth" (Thora shebeal P) was based on perversions of Deut. xvii. 8-12; xviii. 15-20, just as the Papal tyranny was based on a perversion of Matt. xvi. 19. See the preface to the Yad Hachazaka of Maimonides, and his comment on Sanhedrin, c. 10. The word "mouth" (A.V. "tenor") in Ex. xxxiv. 27 was explained to refer to the Oral Law. Aboth, i. 1; Weill. iii. 262-266. In Ex. xxiv. 12, they say that the five clauses refer to (1) The Decalogue, (2) The Thora, (3) The Mishna, (4) The Khethubin, (5) The Gemara, which were all taught to Moses on Sinai! The term, "Law on the Mouth," i.e. Oral Law, is found very early. Zunz, Gottesd. Vorträge, 45.

5 To prove this they quoted Scripture for their purpose. Thus in Eccles. xii. 12 they altered ", "books," into ", "scribes," and 17, “study,” into ", "derision." 'Erubin, f. 21, 2. In Eccl. x. 8, we find "whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." Now the words of the wise are a hedge to the law, and the bite of a serpent is incurable. Shabbath, f. 110, 1. On the other hand, as Rashi says, the punishment of death is not threatened to many of the commands and prohibitions of the law. Comp. Berakhoth, f. 4, 1. Aqiba was ready to die of thirst rather than to neglect the words of the wise" by not washing his hands before eating. 'Erubin, f. 21.

Fetish-worship becomes Casuistry.

63

"The Scripture is as salt, the Mishna as pepper, the Gemara as spice."1 "There is no salvation," said Rab, "for the man who passes from the study of the Halakha to that of Scripture."2 "Men learned in Scripture are only as the tendrils of the vine; the Mishna students are the grapes; the students of the Gemara are the ripe clusters." 3 "The study of Scripture is non-meritorious; the study of the Mishna deserves a reward; the study of the Gemara is an unapproachable virtue." "He who only studies the Scriptures is but an 'empty cistern.' 4 "Words of Scribes," said Rabbi Johanan," are akin to words of the Law, and more beloved." 5 It will be seen how easy was the step to the contemptuous setting aside of the whole meaning of Holy Writ. For Scripture History we find the gross substitution of the fictions. that Israel is sinless, and holy, and never committed idolatry; that Rebecca, and Rachel, and Leah were never actuated by any but the purest motives; that Reuben never committed incest; that Judah took the daughter of "a merchant," not of a "Canaanite;" that the Twelve Patriarchs were all immaculate; that they never meant to murder their brother Joseph until he tried to lead them into Baal-worship; that Tamar was a daughter of Shem, and was perfectly nnocent; that it was only the Proselytes, not the Israelites, who worshipped the golden calf; that neither Aaron's sons, nor Samuel's sons, nor Eli's sons, were really guilty. David, Bathsheba, Josiah, are all excused from blame, and so step by step by the aid of an exegesis which began in fetish worship and ended in casuistry, Scripture was first placed upon an idol's pedestal and then treated with contumely by its own familiar priests.

1 Sopherim, f. 15, 2. Comp. Vayikra Rabba, c. 36.

2 Chagiga, f. 10, 1.

3 'Erubin, f. 21, 2. The very world would be in danger if the Mishnas only were consulted in legal decisions. Sota, f. 21, 1; Baba Metzia, f. 33, 1. See these and other quotations in Weber, l. c. 102-106; Weill, i. 91; Chiarini, Théorie du Judaïsme, i. 202–206.

1. Sota, f. 22, 1.

5 Berakhoth, f. i. 7.

6 Sanhedrin, f. 55, 56. "Whoever says that Reuben, the sons of Samuel, David, and Solomon, have sinned is decidedly in error." Sanhedrin, f. 55, 56. See all the original passages of the Talmud quoted in Weber, Altsyn. Theol. 55, 56.

Nor is this all: the exegesis of the Scribes not only reversed the history of Scripture, but, as our Lord said, deliberately set aside the plain meaning of the laws which they professed to deify. We have already noticed how they abolished the humane provision of Moses for the slave who did not wish to be separated from his family. In the same way Hillel by his legal fiction of "the Prosbol," 1 found it easy to nullify the fundamental Mosaic provision of the Sabbatic year. "He did it," says the Talmud, "for the good order. of the world;" and by a still more transparent collusion he set aside the Levitical law about the sale of houses.2 The Pharisees by their rule of "Mixtures" managed in a similar way to get rid of everything which was inconvenient in the Sabbath observances. These accommodations may have been in themselves excusable; but thus to violate a Law which they pretended all the while to regard as infinitely sacred, was an encouragement to the grossest hypocrisy, and can only be classed with the transparent frauds of an ignorant Paganism.3

Even where the Rabbinic misinterpretations were only theoretical they were marked by the same sacrifice of the spirit to the letter. In the treatise Sanhedrin it is argued that the man who made all his children pass through the fire to Moloch would be guilty of no sin, because Moses only said "thy seed" and not "all thy seed." "There was," says the Talmud, "an unimpeachable disciple at Jabne who could adduce a hundred and fifty arguments in favour of the clean

1 Gittin, v. 5. Derived from πρὸς βουλῇ (πρεσβυτέρων). In order to evade the Mosaic law of the remission of debt in the Jubilee year the creditor presented "before the council" a certified agreement that he would at any time have the right to claim his debt. Sheb. x. 3, 4; Gittin, f. 36, 1, quoted by Edersheim, Prophecy and History, p. 279. In earlier times according to Sheb. x. 8, the creditor might remit the debt but stand with his hand open to receive it! it utterly nullified Deut. xv. 2. Even the Rabbis were startled by this sacrifice of the Mosaic law to convenience. Jost, Judenth. i. 266. See Hamburger II. s.v. Prosbul. It was nothing more than praevaricatio—a collusive agreement.

2 Lev. xxv. 29, 30; Erachin. ix. 4. See Derenbourg, p. 189.

3 Luzzato not only admits that the Rabbinic scholars did violence to the natural sense, but even says that this was done on the principle of "preferring general utility to exegetic verity." He quotes Cicero (de Juvent. i. 38), "Omnes leges ad commodum reip. referri oportet, et eas ex utilitate communi, non ex scriptione, quae in literis est, interpretari.'

Sanhedrin, f. 64, 2; Chiarini, ii. 229.

"

Chiefs of the Schools.

65

ness of creeping things."1 "No one is appointed a member of the Sanhedrin who is not ingenious enough to prove from the Law that a creeping thing is ceremonially clean."2 "God so gave the Law to Moses that a thing may be pronounced clean or unclean in forty-nine different ways." "3

III. The builders of this vast inverted pyramid of exegesis, which so seldom explained and so often explained away, were many in number. The most eminent among them were Hillel; Shammai; Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai; Rabbi Aqiba; and Rabbi Juda the Holy.

1. The Rabbis love to dwell on the life of "the sweet and noble HILLEL,"-his Babylonian extraction; his voluntary poverty; his life as a porter; his being found on a Sabbath morning by Shemaia and Abtalion half frozen in the window of their school; his varied learning; his whole day's argument with the Benî Bethyra, and the victory which he finally won by appealing to the "decision" of his teachers; his elevation to the post of President; his imperturbable meekness; his profound and witty utterances; his humanism; his sacrifice even of the truth to avoid a quarrel with the school of Shammai; his famous summary of the whole law under the rule of love to our neighbour.6 His services were mainly two-namely, Classification and Hermeneutics. He reduced to Six Orders-the first oral basis of the future Mishna-the chaotic mass of rules which had gathered round the 613 Mosaic precepts. He also drew up the seven exegetic rules -perhaps due to the infiltration of Greek logic-which were the basis of all later developments of the Oral Law. Hence,

5

1 'Erubin, f. 13, 2.

Sanhedrin, f. 17, 1. Quoted in Hershon's Genesis, p. 54.

3 This latter quotation is from the post-Talmudic tract, Sopherim, c. 16; and it is proved (!) from Cant. ii. 4, because in that verse (by Gematria) the 49. See Pesikhta Rabbathi, f. 23, 1; Eisenmenger, Entd. Jud. i. 454; Deyling, Obs. Sacr. iii. 140.

ודבלו word

4 Ν (ἡγούμενος).

5 Bitsa, f. 20, 1. Hillel and Shammai were the last of the "couples" (Zougoth) who succeeded to the leadership of the schools after the death of Simon the Just. The previous couple, Shemaia and Abtalion, were the first to receive the title of "Exegete" (Darshan).

On this see Tob. iv. 16; Jost, Judenth. i. 259.

F

like Ezra, he is called a restorer of the Law, for his rules. rendered it possible always to rediscover the Oral Law even if it was forgotten, and to maintain it against the Sadducees on grounds nominally scriptural. His extraordinary merits secured the Patriarchate to his descendants for four hundred and fifty years, and he must be regarded as the earliest founder of the Talmudic system.3 The Jews themselves deplored the bitter and sterile confusion which began in his school and that of Shammai. The pupils of these schools were the first to display that fondness for pompous titles which is reprobated in the Gospels. A modern Jewish historian has had the extraordinary boldness to assert that Jesus "was a Rabbi of the school of Hillel." The sentence has been seized with avidity by those who desired to diminish the greatness or depreciate the originality of Christ. Let it here suffice to say

1 Sukka, f. 20, 1. In the wailing at his death they cried, "Oh, the pious! oh, the scholar of Ezra!" Sanhedrin, f. 11, 1. The very remarkable story of his elevation to the presidency of the schools is related in Pesachim, f. 66, (Hershon, Genesis, p. 327). The Sanhedrin is first mentioned under Hyrcanus II. (Jos. Antt. xiv. 9), but may be referred to in 2 Macc. i. 8, 10; iv. 44; xi. 27.

The patriarchs of the house of Hillel were, according to Hamburger (s.v. Nassi) 1. Hillel. 2. Rabban Simeon. 3. Rabban Gamaliel I. 4. Rabban Simeon II. 5. Rabban Gamaliel II. of Jabne. 6. Rabban Simeon III. of Sepphoris. 7. Rabbi (Judah Hakkodesh). 8. R. Gamaliel III. 9. R. Judah II. 10. R. Gamaliel IV. 11. R. Judah III. 12. R. Hillel II. 13. R. Gamaliel V. 14. R. Judah IV. 15. Gamaliel VI. He is called Batraa, "the last." The office of Nasi was abolished by Theodosius (Cod. Theod. de Jud. i. 22) after a continuance of 446 years, A.D. 415. The people themselves were weary of the pride and exactions of the patriarchs.

On the life and work of Hillel, see Budaeus, Philos. Ebr. 104–112; Grätz, iii. 172-178, 186-205; Derenbourg, 176-193; Jost, Gesch. d. Isr. iii. 112118; Jost, Judenthum, 254-270; Weber, Altsyn. Theol. passim ; Friedländer, Geschichtsbilder, 19-29. The chief Talmudic passages about his life and doings are Berakhoth, f. 60; Joma, f. 35; Qiddushin, f. 71, 1; Sukka, f. 20, 1; Sota, f. 28, 2; Pesachim, f. 66, 2; Sanhedrin, ii. 1; Baba Bathra, f. 144, 1; Bereshith Rabba, c. 33, 98. See Fürst, Kultur und Lit. pp. 11-15. The schools of Hillel and Shammai only produced two books, the Megillath Taanith, and a book about the Maccabees (M. Beth Hasmonaim) no longer

extant.

The Nazarenes applied Is. viii. 14, "He shall be for a stone of stumbling to both the houses of Israel," to the schools of Hillel and Shammai, "quod, per traditiones et devrepéreis suas, Legis praecepta dissipaverint atque mutaverint; et has esse duas domos quae Salvatorem non receperint." Jer. ad loc.

5" Jesus

war ein Pharisäer der auch in den Wegen Hillel's ging."Geiger, Das Judenth. i. 117. "Hillel scheint sein Vorbild und Musterbild gewesen zu seyn." - Friedländer, Geschichtsbilder, p. 32. "Hillel fut le vrai maître de Jésus."-Renan, Vie de Jésus, p. 35.