Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/203

 of amulets or charms, and that even on the Sabbath-day. That such charms are near akin to magic or witchcraft is plain from the nature and purpose of the manufacture, and from the undisguised use of the word "charms;" but there is a passage in Rashi's commentary on another Talmudic treatise, which puts this beyond all doubt; we therefore give both the text and the commentary—

"Our rabbies have handed down the tradition that Hillel the elder had eighty disciples, of whom thirty were as worthy as Moses our master to have the Shechinah resting upon them. Thirty others were as worthy as Joshua the son of Nun that for them the sun should stand still. Twenty were in the middle rank, of whom the greatest was Jonathan the son of Uziel; and the least of all was Rabbi Johanan ben Zachai. Of this last-named rabbi it is said, that he did not leave unstudied the Bible or the Mishna, Gemara, the constitutions, the Agadoth, the niceties of the law and the Scribes, the argument, a fortiori, and from similar premises, the theory of the change of the moon, Gematria, the parables taken from grapes and from foxes, the language of demons, the language of palm-trees, and the language of the ministering angels," &c. (Bava Bathra, fol. 134, col. 1.) This was pretty well, considering that he was the least of the eighty; what then must have been the knowledge of the others? This tradition alone, from its gross exaggeration, would be sufficient to mark the character of the rabbies as false witnesses. It is plainly a fable, such as one might expect in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," but not in a law that professes to have come from God. It is another proof that the account of the oral law is a mere fiction. But our object in quoting the passage here, is to point out its connexion with charms and amulets. It tells us, that this rabbi understood the language of the ministering angels? Now what use was this? Rashi tells us in his commentary, to conjure or to adjure them: that is, to compel them to serve him, when he adjured them; that is, by their means to act the part of a conjuror. It may perhaps be said,