over by Moses, and so on by successive generations of judges, contemporaneous with and following the Biblical period. From the time of Simon the Just (about 300 B. C.) to the time of Rabbi Juda the Nasi (about 200 A. C.)> the compiler of the Mishnah, there was an unbroken sequence of Judges and Rabbis who expounded and interpreted the law, and the account of whose personality and judicial decisions rests upon no mere vague tradition, but is well estab lished and authenticated. The Influence of Torah on Ancient Custom. It appears, then, that among the Israelites true law, in the strictly political sense of the term, as " a command from the supreme political authority in the state, addressed to the persons who are the subjects of that authority," first came into being in theTorah, which contained the commands of the su preme authority strengthened by Divine sanction. As soon as such supreme authority comes into power in any community, all the cus toms and rules which were in force and which are not abolished by it, impliedly re ceive its sanction and become true law. For the supreme authority in a state has the power to change unwritten law by the enact ment of new laws, if it so please; and when ever the old law is left unchanged it must be presumed to be acceptable to the supreme law-making authority, and may in that sense be said to be given by that authority. (See Sheldon Amos, " The Science of Law," p. 49.) The Torah, for instance, desires to abolish the numerous local sanctuaries in Palestine and to fix one place, Jerusalem, as the religious center of the people. It enacts therefore (Deut. xii, 8) : "Ye shall not do after all the manner that we do here this day, everyone whatsoever is right to his own eyes," and then proceeds (ibid., 13, 14), "Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall
choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee." In this case the old custom is abolished by the new law. But in such matters as the forms of marriage and divorce, the holding of slaves, the forms of purchasing and conveying land, etc., the Torah silently adopts the old customs, and they thereby receive equal sanction with the newly enacted laws. The wisdom of Moses is exhibited in his adoption of many of the old customs which were so deeply ingrained in the people that it would have been impossible by mere legis lative enactment to abolish them. Often did Moses call his people " stiffnecked," and for no other reason than that they preferred their old laws and regulations to his innovations, although the latter were made with Divine sanction. It is always easier to follow the old habits of body and mind than to strike out into a definite new path which association and cus tom have not yet rendered familiar. Hence in many cases the Mosaic law adopted in toto the old common customs that preceded it; in other cases, such as divorce for in stance, the old law was merely modified but not abolished entirely; hi but few cases was the old law abrogated and an entirely new command substituted. Those ancient customs which are not incorporated in the Mosaic code and express ly adopted by it were, as we have seen, pre served by oral tradition. They were made permanent and fixed as rules of action and conduct by the decisions of the various legal tribunals that were established among the ancient Hebrews. The decisions of the patriarch in matters affecting his household were the germs of these customs; the deci sions of the village councils or councils of elders, of the priests and the courts of three all combined to develop the customary law and fix it firmly. Nothing is so tenacious as ancient custom and tradition in maintaining its sway over the habits and life of a people.
