chief elders, their contemporaries, and by others that
after succeeded them, been a gathering together from
their first return to Jerusalem, as they could be re-
covered from the memories of the ancients of their
nation, who had either seen them practised themselves
before the captivity, or had been informed concerning
them by their parents, or others who had lived before
them all these, and whatsoever else was pretended
to be of the same nature, Ezra brought under a re-
view; and having, after due examination, allowed
such of them as were to be allowed, and settled them
by his approbation and authority, they gave birth to
what the Jews now call their oral law. For they d
own a twofold law; the first the written law, which is
recorded in the holy Scriptures; and the second the
oral law, which they have only by the tradition of
their elders. And both these, they say, were given
them by Moses from Mount Sinai; of which the former
only was committed to writing, and the other deliver-
ed down to them, from generation to generation, by
the tradition of the elders. And therefore holding
them to be both of the same authority, as having both
of them the same divine original, they think them-
selves to be bound as much by the latter as the for-
mer, or rather much more: for the written law is,
they say, in many places obscure, scanty, and defec-
tive, and could be no perfect rule to them without
the oral law; which containing, according to them, a
full, complete, and perfect interpretation of all that is
written in the other, supplies all the defects, and solves
all the difficulties of it. And therefore they observe
the written law no otherwise than according as it is
expounded and interpreted by their oral law.
hence it is a common saying among them, that the
covenant was made with them, not upon the written
law, but upon the oral law. And therefore they do
in a manner lay aside the former to make room for

And

d Vide Buxtorfium de Opere Talmudico, & Synagogam Judaicam ejusdem, & Maimonidis Præfationem ad Seder Zeraim.

e Maimonidis Præfatio ad Seder Zeraim. Buxtorfii Synagoga Judaica, e. 8, & ejusdem Recensio Operis Talmudici. Shickardi Bechinath Happerushim. disp. 1, sec. 1. Hottingeri Thesaurus, lib. 2, c. 3, sec. 3. Lightfoot's Harmony of the Four Evangelists, sec. 23.

the latter, and resolve their whole religion into their traditions, in the same manner as the Romanists do theirs, having no farther regard to the written word of God than as it agrees with their traditionary explications of it, but always preferring them thereto, though in many particulars they are quite contradictory to it; which is a corruption that had grown to a great height among them even in our Saviour's time; for he chargeth them with it, and tells them (Mark vii, 13,) that "they made the word of God of none effect through their traditions." But they have done it much more since, professing a greater regard to the latter than the former. And hence it is, that we find it so often said in their writings, that the words of the scribes are lovely above the words of the law; that the words of the law are weighty and light, but the words of the scribes are all weighty; that the words of the elders are weightier than the words of the prophets, (where, by the words of the scribes and the words of the elders, they mean the traditions delivered to them by their scribes and elders;) and, in other places, that the written text is only as water, but the Mishnah and Talmud (in which are contained their traditions) are as wine and hippocrass: and, again, that the written law is only as salt, but the Mishnah and Talmud as pepper and sweet spices. And, in many other sayings, very common among them, do they express the high veneration which they bear towards the oral or traditionary law, and the little regard which they have to the written word of God in comparison of it, making nothing of the latter but as expounded by the former, as if the written word were no more than the dead letter, and the traditionary law alone the soul that gives the whole life and essence thereto. And this being what they hold of their traditions, which they call their oral law, the account which they give of its original is as followeth.

For they tell us, that at the same timef when God gave unto Moses the law on Mount Sinai, he gave

f Perke Avoth, c. 1. Præfatio Maimonidis in Seder Zeraim in Pocockii Porta Mosis, p. 5, 6, &c. Buxtorfii Recensio Operis Talmudici. David Ganz. Zacutus in Juchasin, &c.

unto him also the interpretation of it, commanding him to commit the former to writing, but to deliver the other only by word of mouth, to be preserved in the memories of men, and to be transmitted down by them, from generation to generation, by tradition only; and from hence the former is called the written, and the other the oral law. And, to this day, all the determinations and dictates of the latter are termed by the Jews' constitutions of Moses from Mount Sinai, because they do as firmly believe that he received them all from God, in his forty days converse with him in that mount, as that he then received the written text itself: that, on his return from this converse, he brought both of these laws with him, and delivered them unto the people of Israel in this manner. As soon as he was returned to his tent, he called Aaron thither unto him, and first delivered to him the text, which was to be the written law, and after that the interpretation of it, which was the oral law, in the same order as he received both from God in the mount. Then Aaron arising, and seating himself at the righthand of Moses, Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, went next it; and being taught both these laws, at the feet of the prophet, in the same manner as Aaron had been, they also arose, and seated themselves, the one on the left-hand of Moses, and the other on the right-hand of Aaron; and then the seventy elders, who constituted the Sanhedrim, or great senate of the nation, went in, and, being taught by Moses both these laws in the same manner, they also seated themselves in the tent; and then entered all such of the people as were desirous of knowing the law of God, and were taught it in the same manner: after this, Moses withdrawing, Aaron repeated the whole of both laws, as he had heard it from him, and also withdrew; and then Eleazar and Ithamar repeated the same; and, on their withdrawing, the seventy elders made the same repetition to the people then present; so that each of them having heard both these laws repeated to them four times, they all had it thereby firmly fixed in their memories: and that then they dispersed themselves among the whole congregation, and communicated to

1

all the people of Israel what had been thus delivered unto them by the prophet of God: that they did put the text into writing, but the interpretation of it they delivered down only by word of mouth to the suc ceeding generations: that the written text contained the six hundred and thirteen precepts into which they divide the law, and the unwritten interpretations, all the manners, ways, and circumstances, that were to be observed in the keeping of them: that, after this, towards the end of the fortieth year from their coming up out of the land of Egypt, in the beginning of the eleventh month (which fell about the middle of our January,) Moses calling all the people of Israel together, acquainted them of the approaching time of his death; and therefore ordered, that if any of them had forgot aught of what he had delivered to them, they should repair to him, and he would repeat to them anew what had slipped their memories, and farther explain unto them every difficulty and doubt which might arise in their minds concerning what he had taught them of the law of their God: and that hereon, they applying to him, all the remaining time of his life, that is, from the said beginning of the eleventh month till the sixth day of the twelfth month, was employed in instructing them anew in the text, which they call the written law, and in the interpretations of it, which they call the oral law and that, on the said sixth day, having delivered to them thirteen copies of the written law, all copied out with his own hand, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy, one to each of the twelve tribes, to be kept by them throughout their generations, and the thirteenth to the Levites, to be laid up by them in the tabernacle before the Lord; and having moreover then anew repeated the oral law to Joshua his successor, he went, on the seventh day, up into Mount Nebo, and there died; that, after his death, Joshua delivered the said oral law to the elders who after succeeded him, and they delivered it to the prophets, and the prophets transmitted it down from each other, till it came to Jeremiah, who delivered it to Baruch, and Baruch to Ezra, by whom it was delivered to the

men of the great synagogue, the last of whom was Simon the Just: that by him it was delivered to Antigonus of Socho, and by him to Jose the son of Johanan, and by him to Jose the son of Joezer, and by him to Nathan the Arbelite, and Joshua the son of Perachiah, and by them to Judah the son of Tabbai, and Simeon the son of Shatah, and by them to Shemaiah and Abtalion, and by them to Hillel, and by Hillel to Simeon his son, who is supposed to have been the same that took our Saviour into his arms when he was brought to the temple to be there presented to the Lord at the time of his mother's purification; and by Simeon it was delivered to Gamaliel his son, (the same at whose feet Paul was brought up,) and by him to Simeon his son, by him to Gamaliel his son, and by him to Simeon his son, and by him to Rabbah Judah Hakkadosh his son, who wrote it into the book which they call the Mishnah.

But all this is mere fiction, spun out of the fertile invention of the Talmudists, without the least foundation, either in Scripture, or in any authentic history for it. But since all this is now made a part of the Jewish creed, and they do as firmly believe their traditions to have thus come from God in the manner I have related, as they do the written word itself, and have now, as it were, wholly resolved their religion into these traditions, there is no understanding what their religion at present is without it. And it is for this reason that I have here inserted it.

But the truth of the matter is this: after the death of Simon the Just, there arose a sort of men, whom they call the Tanaim or the Mishnical doctors, that made it their business to study, and descant upon those traditions which had been received and allowed by Ezra and the men of the great synagogue, and to draw inferences and consequences from them, all which they ingrafted in the body of these ancient traditions, as if they had been as authentic as the other; which example being followed by those who after succeeded them in this profession, they continually added their own

g Zemech David. Juchasin Shalsheleth Haccabala. Buxtorfii Lexicon Rabbinicum, p. 2610, 2611.