for the last eighteen hundred years. If from the unavoidable influence of Christian knowledge, they now reject this portion of the oral law, they declare that all their most learned rabbies have been in gross error, and that the oral law, which led them astray, is not from God, but, on the contrary, in one of its most important features, a mere copy of idolatrous heathenism.
No. XXIV.
AMULETS.
In magic and astrology we have discovered two features
common to idolatrous heathenism, and to the religion of the
oral law. We have seen that it pervades the Talmud and the
writings of the subsequent rabbies, and that it has tinctured
the language of every-day life. It occurs, therefore, as might
be expected, incidentally, when the oral law treats of other
things; and we are induced to notice one passage of this kind,
not only because it proves that faith in astrology is an essential
element in the religion of the oral law, but because it sets
before us another feature of resemblance to heathenism. In
treating of the virtues of amulets, and of the tests, whereby to
try them and those that write, the following passage occurs—
(
Hebrew characters)
"Rav Papa says, I am certain in the case of three amulets for three men; where three copies of one amulet have cured three times, then both the writer and the amulet are approved. In the case of three amulets for three men, where each performs only one cure, then the writer is approved, the amulet is not approved. In the case of one amulet for three men, then the amulet is approved, the writer is not approved. But Rav Papa asks, What is to be the decision when there are three amulets
