- tency, but they did it in the face of the tradition, which says,
that when an oath is sworn to another person absolution cannot be given except in his presence. When Zedekiah demanded absolution, they should have refused, and told him that it was contrary to the oral law; but, whether from fear or from self-interest, they acceded to the king's wish, and helped hint to commit perjury: and these are the men who have handed down the oral law; what trust, then, can be placed in their word, when they disregard an oath? The story is either true or false. If true, then all the members of the Sanhedrin were guilty of perjury,—if false, then the Talmud has handed down a falsehood as truth, and in neither case is it worthy of credit. Surely it is time for the chosen people of God to use the reason which God has given, and to examine the grounds upon which they profess Judaism. The ignorant and the thoughtless may retain their profession as a mere matter of prejudice, but it would be very strange if any, who think religion worth a thought, should still adhere to a system for which there is not only no evidence, but against which there is evidence so satisfactory. According to the Talmud itself, and on its own showing, the persons whose office it was to guard the traditions in the days of Zedekiah were men who transgressed those traditions, and made themselves guilty of perjury; what warrant, then, have the Jews for believing that those men did not change the traditions, and hand down mere inventions of their own? What was there to restrain them from such conduct, if they could free themselves from the obligation of an oath by the name of the God of Israel?
But as the men who handed down the traditions are described by their own successors as wicked and ungodly persons, so the traditions which they have handed down are of the same character, and, as we have said, if generally acted upon, would rend asunder all the ties of human society, and beget universal distrust and suspicion. The oral law plainly and unequivocally allows a man to swear to his neighbour that he will do or leave undone something that his neighbour requires, and then to get absolution from that oath and do the contrary. It is true that it requires this to be done in the presence of the other person, but that does not much alter the matter. Whether Zedekiah divulged what he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar to keep secret, in his presence or behind his back, is a thing of very little consequence; the oath is just as much and as really broken, and the results might be just as pernicious and injurious. Take, for example, the case of a manufacturer who communicates to his servant some important secret in his trade, and for his own security binds him by an oath not to divulge it. In a little time, the servant, for some reason or other, finds it convenient or profitable to make this secret known, and goes to a wise man, summons the manufacturer to be present, gets absolution, and
