Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/187

 and argued against its wickedness, how triumphantly would they have shown that a law that teaches and encourages magic could not have been given by God? The existence of one such passage would have been sufficient, in their eyes, to condemn the whole Christian system. Let, then, the Jews deal with the oral law in the same way. Let them judge it and its fables by an appeal to Moses and the prophets. But let them remember that in this, as in many other instances, the New Testament agrees with the law of Moses, whilst the oral law differs from both. The New Testament classes witchcraft along with idolatry, and other sins which exclude from the joys of eternal life. "The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galat. v. 19-21.) In this case, then, where the oral law leads you away from the doctrine of Moses, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth brings you back again.

This is, however, not the only fable contained in that short law concerning the members of the Sanhedrin. We are told, besides, that no one was allowed to sit in that council "unless he understood the seventy tongues." Now we would ask every disciple of the oral law calmly to consider this statement, and then say what he thinks of its veracity. Did he ever hear or know of scholars in the present times acquainted with seventy languages, and that so perfectly as to be able to converse with and examine witnesses, and form a judgment upon their evidence, without the aid of an interpreter? Surely, the study of languages is as much cultivated in the present day as it was then, and there are at least as many facilities for their acquisition. The system of grammar is now fully developed. The art of printing has made it easy to obtain foreign books. Lexicons and other apparatus may be procured, and yet, with all these facilities, we much doubt whether there be, in the whole world, one single person possessing that knowledge of languages here ascribed to every individual member of the Sanhedrin. According to the oral law, there always had been, in Israel, seventy-one such persons at least, but probably more; for as a member died, or became superannuated, another was found ready to succeed him. But the wonder is here made still more wonderful, for there were not only seventy-one persons acquainted with seventy languages, but those persons were also acquainted, as Rambam tells us, with medicine, astronomy, and all the existing systems of idolatry, and moreover skilled in magic. And, besides all this, all these persons were fine handsome fellows, "Men of stature, men of good appearance."