to any profane use. Such monstrous hypocrisy, or such palpable self-delusion, as are implied in this doctrine, are scarcely to be credited of any set of persons who did not find their interest in it-or if the general wickedness of the times did not render it, as a means of evading the simplest and plainest duties, only too palatable to the world at large. Yet this explanation of the doctrine is capable of being confirmed by the testimony of the Rabbins themselves; and I shall produce the necessary proofs of it by and by.

In the mean while this breach of the fifth commandment, as authorized by the law of tradition, has a case in point, in the breach of the third also-which is just as strongly insisted on, Matthew xxiii. 16-22. All these distinctions tended alike to refine away the sanctity of oaths; and, consequently, to sap the foundations not merely of a religious veneration for the name and the attributes of God, but of mutual faith and trust among men-for which there can no longer be any safeguard, when oaths, the most deliberate and solemn of the modes of conviction, are no more of any effect. Amidst all such distinctions between one oath, which was good, and another, which was nothing, we may trace a common feature of resemblance, which proves, more than any thing, the impurity of their origin; and that they were the contrivances of fraud and cunning-invented for the purpose of deceiving. That mode of swearing, which was a priori the most natural and probable, is in each instance pronounced good for nothing-and that, which was the most unnatural, and the least likely to occur, is in every instance alone made binding. But, which of these distinctions would be most serviceable for the sake of deception, nobody can question.

For the proof of the explanation referred to, the reader may consult the authorities in the margin . This one passage from Maimonides would be sufficient to establish it : Si quis... ita dixisset, sit―mihi Corban ista massa panis ... atque idem exinde massam illam panis comedisset, hic

Pococke. Not. Miscell. ad Portam Mosis cap. ix. Maim. De Jurejur. Dithmari. vi. 15. Annott.

sane prævaricatione obstringeretur; quamvis eadem massa panis reliquis hominum licita fuisset $. Vide, however, the other cases which he supposes in the same passage. Hence, that maxim of the Talmud, Votum (scilicet, Corban) etiam in legem cadit juramentum, non item-Corban might excuse from the obligation of written precepts-an oath, could not and it must have been some such practical knowledge of the perversion of this kind of vow which, according to the testimony of Theophrastus, induced the Tyrians, neighbours of the Jews, to forbid it expressly by law among themselves t.

....

St. Chrysostom's account of it approaches very nearly to the above. They taught, says he ", the young men, under a cloke of piety, to despise their parents . . . . If any parent said to his son, Give me this sheep which thou hast-or this calf-or any other such thing-they used to say, This is Corban for God-with which thou wishest to be obliged by me-and thou canst not receive it. And so it was that a double evil was committed: for neither did they bring it to God, and yet, as if they intended to bring it, they deprived their parents of it—both mocking their parents under pretence of God, and God, under pretence of their parents.

The account of Origen is not equally correct; and yet he confesses he should never have discovered it, such as it is, if he had not been taught it by a native Jew v.

It sometimes happened, says he, that the lenders of money, meeting with unreasonable borrowers, who were able, but not willing, to repay them the loan, dedicated what was due to them to the account of the poor, for whom contributions used to be cast into the treasury, according to his ability, by each of those who were willing to communicate unto them. They said, therefore, sometimes to the borrowers, according to their own language, It is Corban, that is, a gift, what thou owest to me; for I have dedicated it to the account of the worship due to God, viz. unto the poor. Upon that, the borrower as indebted no longer to

De Sacrorum Abusu. iv. 9. Jos. Contra Apion. i. 22. ▾ Comm. i. 245.

Oper. ii. 325.

men but to God, and to the worship due to him, was as it were compelled, even though against his inclination, to repay the loan......

What then the lender used to do to the borrower some of the children sometimes did to their parents; and said to them, whatsoever thou mightest be benefited in by me, father or mother, this know that thou receivest from the Corban; upon the footing of the poor who are dedicated to God. Upon that, the parents when they heard that it was Corban, dedicated to God, which they were giving to them, were no longer willing to receive it from their children, though they might be altogether in want of necessaries. The elders, therefore, delivered such a tradition to the laity -that, whosoever should say to his father, or his mother, that what is given to any of them is Corban, and a gift, the same was no longer a debtor to his father or mother, in giving the things which are wanted for the necessaries of life.

To return, then, from this digression. It may now be considered evident that St. Mark, beginning his account of our Saviour's reply, vii. 6. begins with the latter part of it first; and, therefore, that what follows from vii. 9. to 13. either was repeated in the course of the reply, or is given by way of recapitulation. And this I believe to have been the case; as the following comparison of his account with St. Matthew's, beginning from the point where they first agree, perhaps will shew.

I. To set aside the historical matter, Mark vii. 3. 4. the question of the Pharisees, vii. 5. may still be correctly recorded, as well as at Matthew xv. 2. If the Pharisees came to our Lord in a body, then, unless they spoke by one man, both forms of the question might be put-or, what is equally probable, as the substance of both questions is the same, meaning that the interrogators came to our Lord, on such and such an occasion, to put such and such a demand, that this fact is represented in the shape of a direct interrogation may be due to the principle of the ancient historical simplicity; according to which every thing is stated directly

7-9.

II. The latter part of our Lord's reply, Matt. xv. admits of being harmonized with Mark vii. 6-8. thus:

The account will then be concluded by Mark vii. 8: for the allusion to the washings of cups and quarts is critically in reference to what was premised at vii. 3. 4; and on that ground alone might justly be considered a part of what was actually said. It is more necessary to remark that, with vii. 8. the Evangelist suspends the thread of the discourse; and when he resumes it at vii. 9. it is with the historical premonition, καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς: which might as well be rendered, He said, moreover, unto them, as, And he said to them ; the first, a mode of speaking proper for a recapitulation, and the second, one proper for a continuation.

We may suppose, then, that by the pause at vii. 8. the Evangelist designed to imply that Jesus made an end of speaking there; and what follows from vii. 9. was intended to explain vii. 8. The command of God was not renounced or broken, by holding the tradition of men, in the washing of cups and quarts-which were mere formalities, and so far purely indifferent-but in the much more serious instance of the perversion of the vow of Corban, and in such instances as resembled that. This was what our Saviour

meant; and what St. Mark knew him to mean; and what, therefore, by citing the first part of the reply (which, otherwise, he might not have referred to at all) he considered it necessary to explain. This part of St. Mark, then, viz. vii. 9-13. must be harmonized with Matthew xv. 3-6. and the way to harmonize them is as follows:

which will ensue upon it with equal emphasis and propriety; for it is in the nature of irony to dwell on a subject, and to repeat the same thing in other words. Why do ye, also, transgress the commandment of God, for the sake of your tradition? With reason do ye annul the commandment of God, that ye may observe your tradition.

III. xv. 4. 5.

vii. 10. 11.

Between these there is no other difference, except that the former says, ὁ γὰρ Θεὸς ἐνετείλατο, and the latter, Μωσῆς ó yap ele. Both, however, point to the same commandment, and the same commandment of God—and the reason why St. Mark ascribes it in part to Moses, and St. Matthew ascribes it to God, is that the passage, which follows, is made up of two quotations, one from the decalogue, actually the words of God, the other from Exodus xxi. 17. Lev. xx. 9. one of the precepts of Moses, as such.

IV.

xv. 6.

Καὶ ἠκυρώσατε τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ διὰ τὴν παράδοσιν ὑμῶν.

vii. 12. 13.

Καὶ οὐκέτι ἀφίετε αὐτὸν οὐδὲν ποιῆσαι τῷ πατρὶ αὑτοῦ ἢ τῇ μητρὶ αὑτοῦ· ἀκυροῦντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ τῇ παραδόσει ὑμῶν, ᾗ παρεδώκατε. Καὶ παρόμοια τοιαῦτα