Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/259

 has committed some grievous crime, but because he has been wanting in respect either to the rabbi's person or his words. The most absolute autocrat never made a law more despotic.

But some one will say, that the rabbi has the power of forgiving if he please, and that the oral law recommends him to do so. It is true that if the affront be given in private, he has this power, and is told to forgive, but not so if it be offered in public, he has then no choice. He is bound to excommunicate the offender. That we may not appear to act unfairly, we will give the whole passage:—

"Although a wise man has the power to excommunicate on account of his honour, yet it is not to be praised in the disciple of a wise man who does so. On the contrary he ought to shut his ears against the words of an unlearned man (am-haaretz), and not to attend to them, according as Solomon has said in his wisdom, 'Take no heed to all the things that are spoken.' (Eccles. vii. 21.) And such was the custom of the saints of old, who heard their reviling, but did not answer; and not only so, but they pardoned the reviler, and forgave him. The greatest of the wise men used to glory in their good deeds, and say, that they had never excommunicated nor anathematized any man on account of their honour, and this is the way in which the disciples of the wise men ought to walk. In what case is this to be applied? When they have been despised or reviled in secret. ''But if the disciple of a wise man be despised or reviled by any man publicly, it is unlawful for him to forgive any affront to his honour, and if he forgive he is to be punished, for this is a contempt of the law. He is on the contrary, to avenge and keep the thing in mind, like a serpent, until the offender entreat to be forgiven.''" (Ibid. c. vii. 13.) The great