olive, is to be flogged, even though be did not boil them." (Hilchoth Maakhaloth Asuroth, c. ix. i.) Here the oral law determines generally, that it is unlawful to boil meat in milk, or to make any use of meat so boiled, and sentences the transgressor to a severe and degrading corporal punishment, and yet this determination is altogether an invention of men, for which there is not the slightest authority in the Word of God. The prohibition of Moses is confined to one single case, which is exactly defined: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk," but there the prohibition ends, for the specification of one particular shows that that alone is intended, and necessarily excludes all others. To give some colour to the unwarranted extension, it is asserted that
(
Hebrew characters)
"Kid includes the young of kine, of sheep, and of goats, so that to particularize, the word goat is added as 'a kid of the goats.'" And so Rashi also affirms in his commentary. Aben Ezra, however, has saved us the trouble of giving a refutation of our own, for he says—
(Hebrew characters)
"This is not so, for nothing is called kid except the
young of the goats; and in Arabic the word has the same
signification, and is never applied to any other species. But
there is a difference between kid and kid of the goats, for
the former is larger, and it is necessary for the latter still
to be with the goats; and the same thing is true of (Hebrew characters),
which is used in the same way. It is by tradition that the
wise men received, that Israel should not eat meat in milk."
(Comment. in Exod. xxiii. 19.) Thus Aben Ezra, himself
a most learned rabbi, confesses that the words of the written
law restrict the prohibition to one particular case, and that
the rest is mere matter of tradition. Of course if it could
be proved that this tradition came from God through Moses,
it would be equivalent to the written law, but there is no
attempt to prove anything of the kind. The authors of the
oral law calculated throughout upon the blind credulity of
their followers, and therefore here, as elsewhere, there is an
entire absence of proof. Indeed, the tradition itself bears
the plain mark of forgery. How can any one possibly be-
