Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/360

 *nistered to the suspected adulteress, except by the Great Council. Neither is an addition made to the city nor to the courts. Neither are armies led forth to the wars of permission; nor the elders led forth to measure in the case of a slain person (Deut. xxi. 1, &c.), except by command of the Great Council, for it is said, 'Every great matter they shall bring to thee.' (Exod. xviii. 22.)" (Hilchoth Sanhedrin, c. v. 1.) Such is the power and jurisdiction attributed by the rabbies to the Sanhedrin, and which we have now to consider. The mere reading over of these details is sufficient to convince any reasonable man that the whole affair is a waking dream of some man or men, intoxicated with the love of dominion. No man in his senses can believe that God could be the author of a despotism so dreadful over the minds and bodies of men. In the first place, here is an aristocracy of seventy persons, described as having supreme jurisdiction over the King, the High Priest, the Prophets, and the people—possessing the power not only to judge individuals, but to pass sentence on whole cities and tribes, and utterly to destroy them if they pleased—and this without any other law or precedent to guide them than their own will—and, inasmuch as they were self-elective, subject to no control whatever, either of the king or the people. We have heard much of corrupt corporations lately, but any thing at all equal to the self-elective corporation of the Sanhedrin we never heard of, excepting another college of seventy-one, the grand council of another oral law of later date. It is vain to say that this body was controlled by the law of Moses. When the Sanhedrin existed there was no law of Moses, but their own will. They expounded the law as they liked; and as we saw in our last, were not bound even by the decisions of their predecessors: and if any man dared to think for himself or to dispute their interpretation, he was strangled:—

"Strangulation was the mode of execution for any learned man, who rebelled against their words. (Hilchoth Mamrim, c. i 2.) They had thus the power to make the law say what they liked: and there was no power on earth to control them. If they had been appointed by the king, or elected by the people, they would have been responsible for the abuse of their power; but they elected their members, and could be deposed by none but themselves. A despotism so complete and so dreadful, so inimical to personal security, and so subversive of all liberty of conscience, could never have been created by God, but must necessarily be the offspring of the distempered brain of man. We can hardly believe that many Jews, except the Talmudistic zealots, who might hope to be made members wish for the restoration of the Sanhedrin; and