on Sabbaths, New Moons, and Feast Days, and even on the Mondays and Thursdays; and of
that, by the same authority, of preaching on the three great festivals about those feasts. Further,
they ascribe to Moses the arrangement of the priesthood into eight courses (that into sixteen to
Samuel, and that into twenty-four to David), as also, the duration of the time for marriage
festivities, and for mourning. But evidently these are vague statements, with the object of tracing
traditionalism and its observances to primaeval times, even as legend had it, that Adam was
born circumcised,48 and later writers that he had kept all the ordinances.
47. Comp. here especially the detailed description by Herzfeld (u. s. vol. iii. pp. 226, 263); also the
Introduction of Maimonides, and the very able and learned works (not sufficiently appreciated) by Dr.
H. S. Hirschfeld, Halachische Exegese (Berlin, 1840), and Hagadische Exegese (Berlin, 1847). Perhaps I
may also take leave to refer to the corresponding chapters in my `History of the Jewish Nation.'
48. Midr. Shochar Tobh on Ps. ix. 6. ed. Warshau, p. 14 b; Abde R. Nath. 2.
But other principles apply to the traditions, from Moses downwards. According to the Jewish
view, God had given Moses on Mount Sinai alike the oral and the written Law, that is, the Law
with all its interpretations and applications. From Ex. xx. 1, it was inferred, that God had
communicated to Moses the Bible, the Mishnah, and Talmud, and the Haggadah, even to that
which scholars would in latest times propound.49 In answer to the somewhat natural objection,
why the Bible alone had been written, it was said that Moses had proposed to write down all
the teaching entrusted to him, but the Almighty had refused, on account of the future subjection
of Israel to the nations, who would take from them the written Law. Then the unwritten
traditions would remain to separate between Israel and the Gentiles. Popular exegesis found this
indicated even in the language of prophecy.50
49. Similarly, the expressions in Ex. xxiv. 12 were thus explained: `the tables of stone,' the ten
commandments; the `law,' the written Law; the `commandments,' the Mishnah; `which I have written,'
the Prophets and Hagiographa; `that thou mayest teach them,' the Talmud - `which shows that they
were all given to Moses on Sinai' (Ber. 5 a, lines 11-16). A like application was made of the various
clauses in Cant. vii. 12 (Erub. 21 b). Nay, by an alternation of the words in Hos. vii. 10, it was shown that
the banished had been brought back for the merit of their study (of the sacrificial sections) of the
Mishnah (Vayyik R. 7).
50. Hos. viii 12;comp. Shem. R. 47.
But traditionalism went further, and placed the oral actually above the written Law. The
expression,51 `After the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel,'
was explained as meaning, that God's covenant was founded on the spoken, in opposition to
the written words.52 If the written was thus placed below the oral Law, we can scarcely wonder
that the reading of the Hagiographa was actually prohibited to the people on the Sabbath, from
fear that it might divert attention from the learned discourses of the Rabbis. The study of them
on that day was only allowed for the purpose of learned investigation and discussions.53 54
51. Ex. xxxiv. 27.
52. Jer. Chag. p. 76 d.