12th century, consider the rules given in the Pentateuch against the idolaters of Canaan as a obligatory law of perpetual force.

The reference to chapter 13 of Deut. is especially interesting because the Talmudists denied the authority of this particular chapter for the past also.

For it was taught: There never was and never will be a disobedient and rebellious son. Why was the law (Deut. 21, 18-21) converning him written down? Investigate and find reward.

For it was taught: There never was and never will be an outlawed town. Why was the law (Deut. 13, 13-18) concerning it written down? Investigate and find reward.

For it was taught: There never was nor will be a house struck by leprosy. Why was the law concerning it (Lev. 14, 33 ff.) written down? Investigate and find reward. Sanhedrin 71a; N. and W. 123.

Thus the passage in the Talmud declares without further ado that the law in Deut. 13 was taught only theoretically, but never was and never would be practised. Thus the Talmud makes out three whole chapters of the Pentateuch as null and void, as citing cases that never happened in the past, and still less likely to happen in the future.

Notwithstanding this, the Mishna and Talmud devote extensive treatises with executive provisions to these three chapters of the law. (Sanhedrin 68 b, 111 b, Mishnah treatise Negaim 12 and 13. Likewise Maimonides in the code of law Mishne Torah, Mamrim, section 7; Akum 4; Tumath Zaraath 14.) The Talmud, then, declares that the practical use of the three chapters of the law is out of the question; it was unthinkable in the past and would be so in the future. Nevertheless the theoretical study of the executive provisions remained meritorious. No relic of antiquity is thrown on the scrap heap, and, just as in the evolution of all law the previous stages are quoted, so the study of these and similar chapters, grown obsolete, is regarded as pleasing to God.

This clearly expressed principle not to discard ancient thought, but to leave it in its place even though it had practically lost all authority, because the study of whatever was taught once remains meritorious: this idea dominated the authors of the Mishna and Talmud as well as all the codifiers of later

times, from the Mishne Torah of Maimonides to the Shulchan Aruch. They are ignorant of this fundamental doctrine and of the views of the Talmudists and Rabbis, who because of the mere presence of some rule in the Talmud or Shulchan Aruch infer that it was actually applied in the practice of the time.

Again it is evident from all this that it is wrong to mis apply the term Gentiles indiscriminately to all non-Jewish peoples referred to in the Talmudic precepts and laws.

In the spirit of Jewish theology we must distinguish between civilized races and degraded idolaters. The seven Noachian commandments completely embrace the fundamental principles of Christianity and Mohammedanism, both of which, according to the Jewish views and doctrines, were to be recognised as truely national religions. Any Christian or Mohammedan who observes the dictates of humanity in his religion is, as a matter of course, in his quality as Ger Toshab, as a sojourner-proselyte, on an equal footing with every Jew.

His bread, his wine and his oil are clean (for use); one must not overreach him, nor keep him out of anything, nor owe him his wages over night, his place of residence must not be inferior or near the frontier, but you must settle him in a fine place of residence, in the middle of the land of Israel, in a place where his trade supports him, for thus it is written (Deut. 23, 17): 'He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppross him'. Gerim, Section 3.

Likewise Sifre on Deut. 259. And this conception of the status of the peoples other than Israel is common to the whole Jewish legal literature, and is to be met with in the authors of all centuries.

"Wherefore if ye hearken .. (Deut. 7, 12.) What goes before? "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people" (Deut. 7, 7). This means > Not because you are more in number than any people, not because you observe commandments (divine precepts) more than they do, for the nations observe commandments that were not given to them (as they were given to you) better than you, and they exalt my name more than you, for it is written (Malachi 1, 11): "For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles." Tanchuma on Deut. Par. Ekev; N. and

God showed himself even more complaisant to Moses. "Is respect of persons (partiality) of any consequence before me, whether an Israelite or a Goy, a man or a woman, a slave or a woman slave? If somebody hath fulfilled a commandment the reward is close at hand; for it is written (Psalm 36, 7): Thy righteousness is like the great mountains. Yalkut Shimeoni I, 76 on Lech Lecha; N. and W. 6.

It is written (Psalm 132, 9): Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy. 'Thy priests,' these are the righteous of the nations of the world (Gentiles), for they are priests of the holy one, blessed be he! in this world as e. g. Antoninus and his associates Yalkut on Isaiah c. 26, number 429, page 785; N. and W. 7.

The sixteenth commandment is, that it is incumbent on us to keep the sojourner-proselyte alive, and to save him from distress, i. e. if he falls into a river, or a ruin crushes him, to make every effort to rescue him, and when he has fallen ill to endeavor to bring about his recovery; how much more is this incumbent upon us if he is one of our brethren, an Israelite, or a proselyte of justice, particularly if it is a matter of life and death which abrogates even the Sabbath.

This the Almighty said (Lev. 25, 35): And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Moses ben Nachmann (1250) in Spain, Sefer Mizwoth, number 16 of the Comandments; N. and W. 8.

Concerning a Nochri who zealously practises the seven commandments of the children of Noah, take care. It is forbidden to deceive him; give him back what he has lost, and do not slight him, but honour him more than an Israelite who does not study the Torah. Juda ben Samuel of Worms (1200), Sefer Chassidim, number 358; N. and W. 8.

Look at the seven Noahian commandments, &c. From this passage (of the Talmud) we may gather that the law of all those who observe the seven commandments is binding on us as our law is binding on them, and as a matter of course, the law of all those peoples who are restrained by religious and secular statutes. Thus Meïri of blessed memory. Menachem Meiri (about 1300 at Perpignan), Schitta Mekubbezeth on Baba Kamma 38b; N. and W. 9.

N. and W. add:

This decision is clear: The Christian peoples are placed on a footing of equality with Jews in respect of all laws of intercourse and all pecular matters, by a Rabbi writing in France about 1300 A. D. The category of the Goy who is no idolater is by no means an invention of the Talmudists as a make-shift in order to build

a bridge and to find a compromise between old rude times and later ones with milder manners and enlightened views. The Goy, the non-Israelite, the alien who is no idolater is met with in the remotest time of Jewish history, was at home in the Jewish State, and numerous essential provisions of the law in the Pentateuch are devoted to him. Palestine, the small country, about 600 English miles long and 40 miles broad, with a large population that lived exclusively on agriculture and the produce of the soil accommodated in its palmy days, in the reign of Solomon, 153,000 strangers (II. Chron. 2, 16). King Solomon employed them in the public works of the commonwealth. In the courts of the kings, pagan strangers held offices and dignities (I. Sam. 21, 8; 22, 9; II. Sam. 5, 19; 11,3).

The law of naturalization (Ezek. 47, 22) is of great importance; it runs thus:

So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you; and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord God.

Now the question is: who is the "Ger" (stranger) who, upon the occupation of Palestine, was to receive territory on the same basis as Israelites? The expression "Ger" implies without doubt an alien, for a distinction is always made between the "Ezrach" and the "Ger" (e. g. Lev. 16, 29), between the "House of Israel" (Beth Yisrael) and the “stranger" (Ger), between the "community of the children of Israel" and the "Ger" (Num. 15, 26). The "Ger" was not a proselyte either. In Deut. 14, 21 one reads the precept: "Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayst sell it unto an alien." Consequently the "Ger" was not subject to the religious law that was binding on the Israelites.

In Deut. 14, 21, it says: Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself; (thou shalt give it) unto the stranger that is in thy gates, i. e. to

the sojourner-proselyte who undertook not to worship idols, but who eats carrion i. e. meat of cattle that dieth of itself. Rashi on Deuteronomy 14, 21; N. and W. 156.

To this "Ger", then, applies the fundamental charter, "One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger" (Ex. 12, 49; Lev. 24, 22; Num. 15, 15; Deut. 1, 16). Wherever the lawgiver touches on the law of the stranger, he sounds a note of sympathy that touches the heart: "He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless, and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deut. 10, 18; 19.) And again we read in Lev. (19, 33; 34): "And if a stranger (Ger) sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers (Gerim) in the land of Egypt". The reference to their having been strangers in Egypt shows distinctly that it is a question of aliens in race and religion, just what the Hebrews were in Egypt. As if the ancient lawgivers had had a foreboding of the damp dungeons with their pestilential exhalations and the cruel camps of internment in which the nations of the 20th century have penned aliens, they are particularly careful to provide for wholesome places of residence being assigned to strangers (Sifre on Deut. 23).1

One of the curses in Deuteronomy runs thus: "Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow" (Deut. 27, 19). The six cities of refuge in case of unpremeditated manslaughter a Mosaic measure against bloodfeud, vendetta are also open to the stranger (Num. 35, 15). Michaelis, Mosaic Law (2d edition 1793, II, p. 399), states:

(1) Thus the believing Christian Johannes Nickel (The Old Testament and Charity. Münster 1913, page 49) testifies: Seen in its true motives the aloofness of the Israelites from aliens, as is evident from the facts, did not spring from narrow-minded, fanatical hate of strangers, but was determined by fear for the purity of the belief in God and the strict observance of the Mosaic cult laws. Where such fear was unnecessary they did not hesitate to practise the general precepts of charity and mercy towards aliens as well.