Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/476

 respecting it." (Pesachim, fol. 49, col. 2.) Here, then, the unlearned are branded as liars, whose word is not to be depended upon—as rogues, unfit to be trusted with property—as murderers, with whom it is unsafe to walk by the way-side. Can contempt or insult add more? Yes; rabbinic contempt had one insult more galling than these, and that was to put them on a level with Gentiles, and this it has done by forbidding public notice to be given, if any thing which they had lost should be found. Now, we fear not to assert, that this one passage is fatal to the claims of the oral law. There is not a particle of resemblance in it to the merciful and just religion made known by Moses. It is the effusion of a mind intoxicated with self-conceit and arrogance. The authors of the oral law were determined, so far as they could, to lay it down as a maxim, not only that no wisdom, but no truth, no honesty, and no humanity, was to be found, except amongst themselves, and their disciples; they wished to have the monopoly of all moral virtue, as well as of all learning. We ask both the learned and the unlearned, whether it be possible that such a law could have emanated from the God of Israel? But there is not only excessive arrogance, there is also gross injustice in their law. It is ordained, first, that in a court of law, the cause of the learned is to be heard before the cause of the unlearned; this is in itself most unjust, but is not to be compared with what follows. The oral law forbids the appointment of an unlearned man as guardian to orphans; can any thing be more oppressive? Suppose that an unlearned man, on his death-bed, thinks of a guardian for his orphan children, and looks to a brother, or an intimate friend, as unlearned as himself, but whose worth, and honesty, and affection, he has long known and valued; the oral law forbids him to make such an appointment; and if he has no learned friend—and how, where such a law exists, is it ever possible that the learned and the unlearned should be friends?—he must die with the agonizing thought, that his children must be left to the guardianship of a perfect stranger. Is it possible to conceive anything more oppressive, unjust, or cruel? But the oral law is not content with this; it will not permit an unlearned man, even in his lifetime, to recover property that has been lost. Whoever finds it may keep it. The law for other people is, that if any thing be found, the finder is to have proclamation made in the city, or, if the majority of the inhabitants be Gentiles, in the synagogue, that the loser may hear of it. But the poor Amhaaretz is excluded from the benefit of this command. It may, however, puzzle the reader, how the finder is to know whether the thing which he has found belongs to a learned or an unlearned man. One of the commentators has solved this difficulty in the following manner:—