Some Aspects of the Growth ofJewish Law. that underlay these many changes and modi fications of the written law. An interesting example is found in the laws relating to the taking of interest for loans. The Torah (Deut. xxiii, 20) forbids a Jew from taking interest of another Jew, although allowing interest to be taken from non-Jews. " Thou shalt not take interest from thy brother, in terest of money, interest of victuals, interest of anything that is lent upon interest; from an alien thou mayest take interest; but from thy brother thou shalt not take interest, in or der that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the acquisition of thy hand, in the land whither thou goest to possess it." This law •was easily applicable to a people living large ly in an agricultural state, with commerce undeveloped. The traditional law enforced this law of Moses vigorously; the man who loaned money upon interest was termed a blasphemer; all the parties to the interestbearing contract, the borrower as well as the lender, and even the witnesses were consid ered equally culpable. After the great dis persion of the Jews and the beginning of Christian oppression, their economic life un derwent a complete change; instead of agri culture they were forced to adopt trade and money-lending as a means of livelihood; the Mosaic law had to yield to the change of cir cumstances. At first a legal fiction was adopted by the rabbis, whereby the form of the old law was preserved : the lender was supposed to become the partner of the bor rower, in the enterprise for which the money was used, and therefore entitled to share in the profits; and this share in the profits was simply another name for interest on the loan; in course of time this form was also abandoned, and the rabbis freely acknowl edged that a Jew could take interest on money loaned to another Jew. Among oth ers, this statement of the law was formally given by the Sanhedrin that met in 1806 at the call of the Emperor Napoleon, to advise him as to matters affecting the Jewish citi zens of France.
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Influence of Foreign Law. One of the factors in the development of the Jewish law was the influence of foreign law. The Mosaic law sounds a note of warning against the proneness of the people to adopt the customs of the heathen by whom they were surrounded. " Ye shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I cast out be fore you." (Levit. xx, 23.) "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye have dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring ye, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their customs. " (Levit. xviii, 3.) From the writings of the prophets it appears that the customs of Edom and Moab, Babylon and Assyria, and all the nations round about, were striking root among the Hebrews. Many of these customs were morally abom inable, and called down the thunder of the prophetic voice; other customs affecting the daily intercourse of men were, no doubt, en tirely harmless. The assimilative qualities of the Jewish character have often been com mented on; the Jews have spoken all lan guages, have adopted all social customs, have thought the thoughts of all nations, have dressed and conducted themselves like all the civilized peoples of the earth, and yet they have remained Jews; in their laws they have been no less eclectic. The Talmud contains numerous indicia of the influence of Persian, Greek, Roman and other legal systems upon the Jewish law. The very name of the highest tribunal at Jewish law, the Sanhedrin, is Greek; the Greek language became the language of the cultured classes after the invasion of Alex ander the Great; some of the greatest liter ary remains of this era are written in Greek, the Apocrypha, the Septuagint, some of the books of the New Testament, the works of Philo and Josephus. Such technical legal terms in the Talmud as Hypotheke, Diathckc, Prosbule and Epitropos indicate the influence
