Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/421

 olive, is to be flogged, even though be did not boil them." (Hilchoth Maakhaloth Asuroth, c. ix. i.) Here the oral law determines generally, that it is unlawful to boil meat in milk, or to make any use of meat so boiled, and sentences the transgressor to a severe and degrading corporal punishment, and yet this determination is altogether an invention of men, for which there is not the slightest authority in the Word of God. The prohibition of Moses is confined to one single case, which is exactly defined: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk," but there the prohibition ends, for the specification of one particular shows that that alone is intended, and necessarily excludes all others. To give some colour to the unwarranted extension, it is asserted that

"Kid includes the young of kine, of sheep, and of goats, so that to particularize, the word goat is added as 'a kid of the goats.'" And so Rashi also affirms in his commentary. Aben Ezra, however, has saved us the trouble of giving a refutation of our own, for he says—

"This is not so, for nothing is called kid except the young of the goats; and in Arabic the word has the same signification, and is never applied to any other species. But there is a difference between kid and kid of the goats, for the former is larger, and it is necessary for the latter still to be with the goats; and the same thing is true of, which is used in the same way. It is by tradition that the wise men received, that Israel should not eat meat in milk." (Comment. in Exod. xxiii. 19.) Thus Aben Ezra, himself a most learned rabbi, confesses that the words of the written law restrict the prohibition to one particular case, and that the rest is mere matter of tradition. Of course if it could be proved that this tradition came from God through Moses, it would be equivalent to the written law, but there is no attempt to prove anything of the kind. The authors of the oral law calculated throughout upon the blind credulity of their followers, and therefore here, as elsewhere, there is an entire absence of proof. Indeed, the tradition itself bears the plain mark of forgery. How can any one possibly be