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16 prepared, &c. A compendium of his (Joseph Caro's) Commentary on Arba Thurim, which is called Beth Joseph, whence also it is accustomed to be called The Short or Abridged Book. Brought out at Venice, 1567, fol. &c.

"Afterwards the same book, with additions, annotations, and new expositions, rites and ceremonies received in the Synagogues of the German Jews, saw the light, under the care of Moses Iserles, of Cracow, A.D. 1578, and the same in 1580 and 1594, fol."

I have a volume, or part of another edition 1775 before me, entitled "Sententiæ Rabbinorum collectæ a R. Joseph Karo. Inter cetera juris Hebraici capita in libro Shulchan Aruch dicto per R. Mosen Iserles emendato atque suppleto. In linguam Latinam vertit C. Q. Meyer, Edi curavit atque additiones adjecit C H. Stuck.—Halæ Magdeburgicæ 1775, 8vo."

One of the "Emendations " may be thus translated. "But even should he have children, and betroth himself to his deceased wife's sister, he may marry her immediately after the seven days' mourning; for she will have more care for the children of her sister than another will have." This passage is not to be found in the first edition.

This "Emendation" so audaciously and deceptively quoted before the Royal Commission by Dr. N. Adler, the Chief Rabbi of the German Jews in England, as if it had formed a part of the original Shulchan Aruch itself, is based upon the spurious interpolation in the Mishna in the Treatise Yebamoth, tacked on, so to speak, at the end of Chapter iv. § 13. This remarkable edition with the "Emendations" by Moses Iserles, printed in 1580, enables us to arrive at an approximation to the dates at which the corruptions were made. Thus the most gross interpolation, namely, that in the Treatise Yebamoth, at the end of Chapter IV., § 13, is certainly subsequent to the year 1509, in which R. Ob. Bartenora's celebrated Commentary was written, which does not comment upon it, although it comments upon all the passages to which it is utterly antagonistic: while it was certainly interpolated on or before the year 1578: as this "Emendation," of that date, to the Shulchan Aruch, is solely and entirely based upon it.

That the perpetrations of these gross corruptions, in the book-s in the hands of some of the European sects of the Jews, resulted from the apostatizing example set by Pope Alexander VI. (the infamous Borgia) in granting those Dispensations to the two kings, Emanuel of Portugal and Ferdinand II of Sicily; the one to marry his deceased wife's sister,