says, "My sister died," so as to enable her to be married to her brother-in-law. A man also is not to be believed on his own assertion, when he says, "My wife died," as it is possible he may wish to marry her sister.[1]
"Whilst the spirit of prophecy continued, (says the Rev. J. B. Smith, D.D., in his Manual of Theology), there were no religious sects amongst the Jews; the authority of the Prophets preventing difference of opinion. The different sects afterwards sprang up gradually after the return from the Babylonish captivity."
After a time the Scribes or Rabbins became divided into two Houses (from Beth a house) or Schools of thought, Beth Hillell, Beth Shammai. The former are said to have adhered strictly to the Divine Law, while the latter were prone to relax in respect of various parts of it. With regard to divorce it was the same, but we cannot say to which of them it was that our Lord said "Ye make the Law of God of none effect through your traditions;" but that Dr. Smith states, that the Scribes, the Doctors of the Law, usually belonged to the Sect of the Pharisees.
The fact to which I wish to draw attention, and to maintain, is, that from those seven chapters, and one section alone § 8 from Chapter IV., I have quoted in extenso all the legitimate sections of the Treatise Yebamoth which, in the whole Treatise, bear in any way upon the subject of marriage with a deceased wife's sister; and they apparently exhaust the subject; and that if any single sentence, of any section quoted, can be held to authorise such marriage, it cannot be genuine and of the date of our Saviour's Ministry; and that any passage of a later date upon the subject cannot have the authority of Antiquity, but is simply what a Hebrew would call bosh: for our Lord's censures of the "traditions" were very numerous, very specific and very severe. Our Lord seemed never to lose an opportunity when, whether from accident or otherwise, it arose: yet when the Sadducee (Matthew xxii., 23-34) brought under His notice the whole subject of the Yeboom, and certainly carried it out to the (n—1)th, though the occasion was so favourable for censure, if any existed in the carrying out of the law of the Yeboom by the Jews at that time, not a word of censure was given!!
Your Honourable House, therefore, may rest well assured, that the numerous sections quoted herein, from those eight chapters, seem to
- ↑ These sentences, as well as in chapter X., § 5, are spurious.
