this statement, it would appear that there had been always a class of
persons qualified to be teachers and judges, and a pretty numerous class
too, from the time of Moses; but it is very extraordinary that their
office should have continued fifteen hundred years without a name, and
that the nation should never have felt the inconvenience, nor remedied
it until the last few years of their existence; and it is more
extraordinary still that so large and important a body should never once
be mentioned in the law or the prophets. The land must perfectly have
swarmed with them. Thirty thousand would have been a large proportion to
the population of the land of Israel; but David made this number in one
day; and we cannot suppose that he exerted his right only once in his
life, nor that all the other doctors neglected the duty of raising up
disciples; and the oral law tells us that before the time of Hillel
every one thus promoted had the right of promoting others:—
בראשונה היה כל מי שנסמך סומך לתלמידיו , וחכמים חלקו כבוד להלל הזקן
והתקינו שלא יהא אדם נסמך אלא ברשות הנשיא וכו׳ ׃
“At first every promoted person could promote his disciples; but the
wise men gave the honour to Hillel the elder, and ordained that no man
should promote except by permission of the prince (the Nasi).” According
to this, the number must have been very great; and yet that they should
have continued so long without a name, and without any mention whatever
by any of the inspired writers, is perfectly incredible. But there are
in the account itself various particulars which excite suspicion.
David’s extensive work of promotion in one day entirely exceeds the
limits of probability, no matter how the promotion took place, whether
by laying on of hands, or by command, or by letter: for if we grant that
he devoted the entire four-and-twenty hours of that day to the work,
still, in order to make up the number of thirty thousand, it will be
necessary to believe that he promoted at the rate of twelve hundred and
fifty an hour, or twenty in every minute. One such notorious untruth
discredits the whole account in which it is found. But, farther, the
admission that the right of conferring the dignity of doctor was taken
from those who had possessed it, and restricted to those who obtained
permission from the prince, shows that the ordinance of promotion was
not derived from Moses, but was an invention of men. If it had been of
Moses, the wise men could have had no authority to take it away, neither
is it at all likely that the numerous possessors of the right, and least
of all, the disciples of Shammai, would have quietly resigned it. We
must suppose either that the wise men altered an ordinance of Moses, and
thereby committed a great sin, or that the ordinance of promotion was a
mere human invention. By the latter supposition the whole story of the
continued existence of this class of doctors is given up; and by the
former supposition the charge of disregard for the law of Moses is fixed
upon the wise men, and the value of their testimony taken away. Lastly,
the account of the manner of promotion is at variance with the
above-quoted assertion of the Baal Aruch. The oral law, says that the
doctors were promoted in the following manner:—
לא שיסמכו את ידיהם על ראש הזקן , אלא שקורין לו רבי ואומרים לו הרי אתה
סמוך ויש לך רשות לדון אפילו דיני קנסות ׃
“They not only laid their hands upon the head of the elder, but also
saluted him with the title, Rabbi, and said to him, Behold thou art
prompted, and hast authority to judge, even in cases of mulct.” Here the
conferring the title of Rabbi is made an integral part of the act of
promotion, whereas the Baal Aruch says that the title of Rabbi was not
in use until after the time of Hillel. The assertion, therefore, that
the office of Rabbi existed without the name, even from the time of
Moses, is not only unsupported by any proof from the inspired writings,
but is inconsistent with other assertions of the rabbies themselves; and
is, besides, found very close to a palpable untruth, and is therefore
unworthy of credit. Thus the antiquity of the rabbinic office is
destroyed, and appears to be a comparatively new invention: so that
those who profess the religion of the rabbies cannot pretend to have the
religion of Moses or of their forefathers, but that of a new set of
teachers, who did not arise until a very few years before the
destruction of the second temple. One of the common objections of modern
Jews against Christianity is, its novelty. They say that we have got a
new religion, whereas they have the ancient religion; that we follow a
new teacher, but that they follow Moses. The foregoing examination shows
how little ground they have for such a boast. If novelty be a valid
objection, they must confess that the religion of the rabbies is false.
If the distance of time that elapsed between Moses and Jesus of Nazareth
constitute a fair ground of objection, it is as valid against the
rabbies as against the Lord Jesus. Nay, if supposed novelty be the
reason why they reject Christianity, they must now reject the religion
of the rabbies, and embrace that of Christ. We have proved that the
religion of the rabbies is a novelty, and every one knows that one
peculiar feature in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth was, that he
opposed the rabbinic doctrines, that is, he opposed novelty: this
opposition, therefore, is presumptive evidence that the Lord Jesus
retained the ancient religion, and has on that very account a claim upon
all those who profess to venerate antiquity. At all events the charge of
novelty can be as fairly urged against Rabbinism as against
Christianity, and every Jew who urges it, is, if he be in earnest about
truth, bound to compare Christianity with the law and the prophets, in
order to ascertain whether it be a new religion or not. One thing is
certain, that the ordinances of no religion can be farther from the
Mosaic appointment than those of Rabbinism. The Rabbinists have rejected
the religious teachers appointed by Moses, and have chosen others, who
cannot pretend even to any degree of antiquity; and not only so, but
even when the possibility of having regularly appointed rabbies ceased,
they preferred those, who in fact have no authority at all, to those
teachers appointed in the law. The oral law makes promotion necessary to
the exercise of the rabbinical office, and limits the ceremony of
promotion by two conditions, first, that it be conferred with the
consent of the נשיא, as we have seen above, and, secondly, that it be
performed in the land of Israel:—
אין סומכין זקנים בחוצה לארץ ואע׳׳פ שאלו הסומכין נסמכו בארץ ישראל , אפילו
היו הסומכין בארץ והנסמך בחוץ לארץ אין סומכין ׃
“Elders are not promoted anywhere, except in the land of Israel; even
although the promoters should have been promoted there themselves. Yea,
though the persons conferring the promotion be in the land, if the
person to be promoted be outside the land, the promotion is not to take
place.” Now it is plain that these conditions cannot be fulfilled. The
great majority of the present rabbies have never been in the land of
Israel; and even if they had been, there has not been a נשיא prince for
many a century. For centuries, therefore, there has not been a rabbi
promoted to the office as the oral law requires; and yet the Jews,
rather than have the priests, the sons of Levi, still keep up the shadow
of the rabbinical office. A more determined opposition to the
institutions of Moses cannot be imagined. First, the Jewish people
rejected the ordinance of Moses, and devised an order of teachers of
their own, limited by certain conditions. Then God, in great mercy, made
the fulfilment of those conditions impossible. He took away the prince,
he drove them out of the land of Israel, to give them, as it were, an
opportunity, yea, to compel them to return to his own appointment: but
in vain. Although the Jews cannot fulfil the conditions of their own
devising, and could fulfil God’s appointment, they refuse the latter,
and have invented something newer still, and that is, an order of
religious teachers, who have not even the qualifications required by the
oral law. Truly this is to transgress, for the mere sake of
transgressing. How, then, can the Jews pretend to be disciples of Moses,
or assert that the Mosaic law is unchangeable? Now, for near two
thousand years they have lived in disobedience to one of Moses’ simplest
commandments, and have changed one of the essential institutions of the
law. The most superficial reader of the writings of Moses must see, that
a charge of prime importance was assigned to the family of Levi, not
only as respected the ministration in the temple, but also with regard
to the instruction of the people. God in His providence has deprived
them of the former. The Jews themselves, by rejecting the commands of
Moses, have taken away the latter office, and thus have destroyed not
only the interior, but actually demolished the external form of the
Mosaic edifice. It is, therefore, as we have said, a most difficult
problem to account for the profession which modern Jews make of zeal for
the law of Moses, and one which well deserves the consideration of the
Jews themselves. Why should they profess to be disciples of Moses, when
they openly trample upon his commands, and reject both the substance and
the form of his religion? If they really believe that obedience to the
law of Moses is necessary to salvation, they ought instantly to
reinstate the family of Levi in their office. But if they prefer the new
religion of the rabbies to the old religion of Moses, then they ought
honestly to say so; and not go on halting between two opinions. And they
ought to do this, not merely to avoid the charge of inconsistency before
men, but to satisfy their own consciences before God. How can any man
reasonably hope to be saved by a religion whose commands he constantly
transgresses, and never intends to obey? And yet this is exactly the
case with the Rabbinists with regard to the law of Moses. There have
been attempts at reform amongst the Jews, but we have never heard of any
who intended to restore the family of Levi to their office; and yet,
without this, there is no return to the Mosaic institutions.
A disciple of the rabbies may perhaps think, that he can retort this
argument upon the Christians, and say that Jesus of Nazareth was not of
the tribe of Levi. Certainly he was not; but as the Messiah, the
prophets foretold that he was to be of the tribe of Judah: and as the
Messiah, promised and appointed of God, he has a right to the obedience
of all, both Jew and Gentile. If he had been only an ordinary prophet,
he would have had a divine right to teach the people and to require
their obedience; for, besides the priests, God also appointed prophets,
but to the prophetic office the rabbies do not lay claim. The Lord
Jesus, on the contrary, claimed not only the prophetic character, but
asserted that he was the Messiah, and proved the truth of his claims by
exhibiting miraculous powers, and especially by his resurrection from
the dead. As a prophet, therefore, and above all, as the Messiah, his
teaching in no wise interfered with the office of the priests: and his
conduct, as recorded in the New Testament, shows that, though in
determined and constant opposition to the Pharisees, the advocates of
the oral law, he never lifted up his voice against the office of the
priesthood. On the contrary, when occasion offered, he showed a
scrupulous regard for the commandments of Moses respecting the priests;
as for instance when he healed the leper, he “said onto him, See thou
tell no man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priests, and offer the
gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” (Matt. viii. 4.)
And this conduct is perfectly conformable to one professed object of the
Lord Jesus, which was to vindicate the authority of the law against the
unauthorized additions of men. He professed himself the defender of the
Mosaic law, and opposed the whole system of the Rabbinists, on the
professed ground that they made it void by their traditions. The
objections, therefore, which we have brought against the oral law, as
overturning the institutions of Moses, cannot be applied to the
doctrines or conduct of the Lord Jesus Christ. He never opposed the
priests, never interfered with their office, never diminished aught from
their authority. In these most important respects, the doctrine of Jesus
of Nazareth is necessarily more agreeable to the law of Moses than the
traditions of the Pharisees, who have forcibly altered that great
institution of Moses, the Levitic priesthood, and have themselves
usurped the office and the rights of the priests. Modern Judaism is
directly in opposition to the Mosaic law, and has at present no excuse
for its opposition. The Jews of the dispersion cannot possibly keep its
requirements concerning the promotion of rabbies; their adherence,
therefore, to that system has now the appearance of mere gratuitous and
wilful hatred to the law of Moses. They profess to know the family of
the priests, and could therefore restore them to their office, if they
pleased. What is there to prevent them? Nothing but the want of love for
Moses and his institutions. We are convinced that many of the Jews have
never considered this matter, or they would not act as they do. The
habits of thought induced by early education, the customs of their
nation for two thousand years, have drawn a sort of veil over their
understandings, so that they have not been able to see the palpable
inconsistency of professing a zeal for Moses, whilst they do homage to
principles which cut up his institutions by the roots. Until the priests
be reinstated in their functions and their rights, as the divinely
appointed teachers of religion, the Jews can have no ground whatever to
pretend that they are disciples of Moses. They are, at present, nothing
but partisans of the sect of the Rabbinists. And if they choose to
persevere in their attachment to this sect, they are bound, as honest
men, to renounce all profession of regard for the law of Moses.
No. XLIII.
SANHEDRIN.
It is certain that the Jews cannot appeal to the law of the prophets to
defend their rejection of the old religion of Moses, and their
preference for the new religion of the rabbies. Neither Moses nor the
prophets knew anything about the rabbies. They are quite a new order of
men, never heard of until the Jewish polity was tottering to its
destruction. There is, however, another argument to which they might
appeal, in order to justify the reception of new religious teachers, and
that is, the existence of the Sanhedrin. It may be said, that when the
rabbies arose and taught, both they and their doctrines were approved by
this great council, and that this approval is sufficient to establish
the justice of their claims, and the truth of what they taught. Indeed,
the rabbinists do actually look upon the Sanhedrin as the great
foundation on which the oral law rests:—
בית דין הגדול שבירושלים הם עיקר תורה שבע׳׳פ והם עמודי ההוראת ומהם חוק
ומשפט יוצא לכל ישראל , ועליהי הבטיחה תורה שנאמר על פי התורה אשר יורוך זו
מצות עשה וכל המאמין במשה רבינו יבתורתו חייב לסמוך מעשה הדת עליהן ולישען
עליהן ׃
“The Great Council in Jerusalem is the foundation-stone of the oral law,
and the pillars of the doctrine: and from them the statute and the
judgment goes forth to all Israel. They have the warrant of the law, for
it is said, ‘According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach
thee,’ &c. (Deut. xvii. 11); which is an affirmative precept, and every
one who believes in Moses our master, and in his law, is bound to rest
the practice of the law on them, and to lean on them.” (Hilchoth Mamrim,
c. i. 1.) Here the indispensable duty of every Israelite to follow the
decisions of the Sanhedrin is plainly asserted: it becomes, then,
absolutely necessary for us to examine into the nature of the foundation
on which claims so unlimited are based. One would suppose that, at the
very least, the Sanhedrin was infallible, and could never say or do
anything wrong; for if this council was liable to error, and yet
undeviating obedience to its decisions required, whenever they went
wrong, all Israel must have gone wrong also. But yet, strange to say,
the infallibility of the Sanhedrin is not only not asserted, but plainly
denied—yea, the possibility of error unequivocally intimated, and even
provided for:—
בית דין גדול שדרשו באחת מן המדות כפי מה שנראה בעיניהם שהדין כך ודנו דין
, ועמד אחריהם בית דין אחר לסתור אותו הרי זה סותר ודן כפי מה שנראה בעיניו
, שנאמר אל השופט אשר יהיה בימים ההם אינך חייב ללכת אלא אחר בית דין
שבדורך , בית דין שגזרו גזרה או תקנו תקנה והנהיגו מנהג ופשט הדבר בכל
ישראל , ועמד אחריהם ב׳׳ד אחר ובקש לבטל דברים הראשונים ולעקור אותה התקנה
ואותה הגזרה ואותו המנהג אינו יכול עד שיהיה גדול מן הראשונים בחכמה ובמנין
וכו׳ ׃
“When a great council has decided by one of the rules, and according to
the best of their judgment, that the judgment is so and so, and has
passed sentence; if there arise after them another council of a contrary
opinion, the latter may reverse the sentence, and pass another according
to the best of their judgment, for it is said, ‘Unto the judge that
shall be in those days’ (Deut. xvii. 9); thou art, therefore, not bound
to follow any other but the existing council. But if a council decree a
decree, or ordain an ordinance, or sanction a custom, and the thing has
spread in all Israel; and there arise after them another council, which
wishes to abrogate the former things, and to root out that ordinance,
decree, or custom, it is not permitted, unless they excel the former in
wisdom and in number.” (Ibid. c. ii. 1, 2.) According to this doctrine
the Sanhedrin in one generation may teach one doctrine, and in the next
generation another Sanhedrin may abrogate all the legislative acts of
the former, and teach another doctrine, and yet, though one of the two
must necessarily be in the wrong, Israel is bound to obey both; and thus
the law is made to sanction disobedience to itself. Nay, more, the will
of God is made actually to depend upon the wit and the will of man.
Instead of being eternal and unchangeable truth, it must vary with each
succeeding generation, so that what was truth to a father, might be
falsehood to his son; and every new Sanhedrin would, in fact, have the
power to make a new law. How, then, can the Jews pretend that the Mosaic
law is unchangeable? Here it is asserted, that the Jews are to receive,
as the law of Moses, whatever the Sanhedrin may think right to teach—and
that every new Sanhedrin may overturn the doctrines of their
predecessors, and teach the very opposite; so that instead of being
eternal, the law would be one of the most changeable things in the
world, and might never last the same for even two generations. But how
can any man possibly believe, that a command so preposterous should come
from God, or that he would deliver over his people Israel, bound hand
and foot, into the power of seventy-one persons, and require
unconditional obedience, no matter whether these persons were in the
right or in the wrong? Pretensions so extravagant justly excite
suspicion, and entirely destroy the credit of those that make them. They
betray an inordinate lust of power, and savour far more strongly of
ambition than piety. It was no doubt very convenient for the members of
the Sanhedrin to be able to reverse the decisions of their predecessors.
On these terms, the law could never stand in the way of their own
schemes. No matter how it had been explained or understood before, they
had the power of giving a new interpretation to suit their own purpose.
It is truly wonderful how the Jews can suffer themselves to be deluded
by an imposture so exceedingly coarse. A child ought to be able to see,
that God could never require a man to renounce his understanding, and to
receive two direct contradictions as true.
The manifest absurdity of this doctrine is sufficient to prove that the
passage cited from Deut. xvii. is misinterpreted and misapplied; and a
little consideration will show that it does not refer to the Sanhedrin
at all. In the first place there is no mention of that council, nor any
thing that even implies a reference to such a body. The command of God
is, “Thou shalt come unto the _priests_, _the Levites_, and unto the
_judge_ that shall be in those days, and inquire.” It is not said to the
judges, but to the judge השופט. To these, and not to the Sanhedrin,
Moses requires absolute obedience, and that for a just and sufficient
reason, because, as we have shown in Number 2, they had the means of
obtaining an infallible answer by means of the אורים ותומים Urim and
Thummim. It was the privilege of Israel to be able to ask counsel
immediately of God; and it was therefore only rational to expect
unconditional obedience to the command of the Almighty. Such decisions
were absolutely unchangeable as God himself, for “He is not a man that
he should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent;” and no man in
his senses would have thought of getting a sentence of this kind
reversed. These words can therefore by no means apply to a tribunal
fallible in judgment, and as changeable in its opinions as in the
persons of which it was composed: but if this passage does not apply,
there is no other in the Bible which requires us to receive the decision
of the Sanhedrin as of divine authority, nor in the oral law either, for
it supposes that this council was capable of mistake. Consequently, the
Sanhedrin’s approval of the new order and new religion of the rabbies is
of no weight whatever. The Bible does not command us to believe that
they were always in the right; and they themselves tell us that they
might be in the wrong, and therefore might be in the wrong in their
approval of the rabbies.
But the truth is, that neither the Bible nor history gives us any
warrant whatever for regarding the Sanhedrin as a Mosaic institution. In
the first place, it is never once mentioned either in the Law or in the
Prophets. The word _Sanhedrin_ is Greek, and so far as it goes would
lead us to suppose that this tribunal was not instituted until some time
after the building of the second temple, and after the Greek occupation
of the land, when the Jews had become acquainted with the Greek
language. This Greek word would lead us even to suppose that the
Sanhedrin was instituted by the Greek rulers, and that they gave the
tribunal its name. If it had been an old Mosaic institution, the Jews
themselves, who hated the Greeks, and that with good reason, would never
have given it a Greek name: and even if the Greeks had assigned this
name to a Jewish tribunal, which had previously existed, the Jews would
not have adopted it. It is true that there is also a Hebrew name for
this tribunal, בית דין הגדול, “The great house of judgment,” but if this
had been the original name, it is not at all likely that the Greek name
would have supplanted it; whereas if it was a Greek institution, and
therefore had a Greek name, it is not to be wondered at that that name
should have obtained general currency, or that it should also be
translated into Hebrew. The Hebrew name will not do more than the Greek
to prove the antiquity of the tribunal, for it never once occurs in the
Bible, and it would be very strange, if this council had existed from
the time of Moses, that it should never once be mentioned. The High
Court of Parliament does not hold a more important place in the history
of this country, than the Sanhedrin must have done in the history of
Israel, if it had really existed: how then are we to account for the
fact, that neither the historians nor the prophets of Israel ever make
the most distant allusion to its being? If the rabbies speak truth, the
prophets, the high priests, and the kings of Israel, were mere ciphers
compared with the Sanhedrin, for it had supreme power over them all, and
could try, condemn, and execute them, and yet they are mentioned again
and again, and the Sanhedrin passed by in mysterious silence! There are
two books of Kings, and two of Chronicles, relating the history of the
Royal rulers of Israel, but the Supreme Council of the nation, the
rulers of kings and priests, the foundation-stone of the law, the pillar
of religion, have never obtained even a casual notice! Is this at all
probable? Would it be possible to write a history of the British
Constitution without ever once mentioning the existence of the
Parliament? And yet this is what has happened, according to the rabbies
to the essential feature of the Constitution of Israel. Neither the
lawgiver, nor the historians, nor the prophets, have said one word about
it.