Note 58 — Chapter IV · THE JEW AND THE TALMUD

The word clearly shows the immense effect of the Hellenic Conquest. There were two forms of Sanhedrin—the Greater, numbering seventy-one souls; and the Lesser, consisting of twenty-three. Both were composed of the three orders Priests, Levites, and common Israelites. The Greater Council claimed, and would again claim, supreme jurisdiction over the king, the high priest, the prophets, and the people, and “strangulation was the mode of execution for any learned man who rebelled against their words” (Hilchoth Mamrun, i. 2). Anti-Talmudic writers strongly object to this upstart aristocracy, when Moses (Deut. xvii.) ordained a supreme council consisting of the “Priests the Levites” (not the Priests and the Levites), together with the judge, or chief civil governor; the ecclesiastical element remaining in the family of Aaron, whilst the magistracy fell to the lot of Joshua. But when they assert, “It is quite absurd, and if the subject were not so grave it would be ludicrous, to hear the Rabbinists exclaiming that the Law of Moses is unchangeable, when they themselves have changed all its main provisions and made an entirely new religion,” the Jew may fairly retort that the Pauline modifications extending to radical changes had the same effect upon Christianity.