Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/354

 name will not do more than the Greek to prove the antiquity of the tribunal, for it never once occurs in the Bible, and it would be very strange, if this council had existed from the time of Moses, that it should never once be mentioned. The High Court of Parliament does not hold a more important place in the history of this country, than the Sanhedrin must have done in the history of Israel, if it had really existed: how then are we to account for the fact, that neither the historians nor the prophets of Israel ever make the most distant allusion to its being? If the rabbies speak truth, the prophets, the high priests, and the kings of Israel, were mere ciphers compared with the Sanhedrin, for it had supreme power over them all, and could try, condemn, and execute them, and yet they are mentioned again and again, and the Sanhedrin passed by in mysterious silence! There are two books of Kings, and two of Chronicles, relating the history of the Royal rulers of Israel, but the Supreme Council of the nation, the rulers of kings and priests, the foundation-stone of the law, the pillar of religion, have never obtained even a casual notice! Is this at all probable? Would it be possible to write a history of the British Constitution without ever once mentioning the existence of the Parliament? And yet this is what has happened, according to the rabbies to the essential feature of the Constitution of Israel. Neither the lawgiver, nor the historians, nor the prophets, have said one word about it.

The rabbies have felt the necessity of finding something or other in the written law, that would look like the recognition of the Sanhedrin, and have therefore fixed on two passages which they think will serve their cause. One is that to which we have already alluded, "Thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days." (Deut. xvii. 9.) We have already said sufficient to show that this passage is totally irrelevant, and now add one remark more, which is in itself decisive, and that is, that the constitution of the Sanhedrin, as described in the oral law, is altogether at variance with the conditions laid down in this passage. The oral law says—

"The command is, that there should be in the great Sanhedrin, priests and Levites, for it is said, 'Thou shalt come to the priests, the Levites.' But if they find none, yea, though they be all mere Israelites, this is lawful." (Hilchoth Sanhedrin, c. ii. 2.) According to this the Sanhedrin was to consist of three distinct classes, priests, Levites, and Israelites; but Moses does not say