could have concocted such elaborate imbecilities, if we did not remember
that the priests of every religion have always bestowed their ability
and leisure on matters of no earthly interest to anyone but themselves.

Travelling on the Sabbath was strictly forbidden, except for a distance
of two thousand cubits (1,000 yards) from one's residence. Yet if a
man deposited food for two meals on the Friday at the boundary of that
"journey," the spot became his dwelling-place, and he might do another
two thousand cubits, without incurring 'God's wrath. If a Jewish
traveller arrived at a place just as the Sabbath commenced, he could
only remove from his beasts of burden such objects as it was lawful to
handle on the Lord's Day. He might also loosen their gear and let them
tumble down of themselves, but stabling them was out of all question.

The Rabbis exercised their ingenuity on what was the smallest weight
that constituted "a burden." This was fixed at "a dried fig," but it was
a moot point whether the law was violated if half a fig were carried
at two different times on the same Sabbath. The standard measure for
forbidden food was the size of an olive. If a man swallowed forbidden
food of the size of half an olive, and vomited it, and then ate another
piece of the same size, he would be guilty because his palate had tasted
food to the prohibited degree.

Throwing up an object, and catching it with the same hand was an
undoubted sin; but it was a nice question whether he was guilty if he
caught it with, the other hand. Rain water might be caught and carried
away, but if the rain had run down from a wall the act was sinful.
Overtaken by the Sabbath with fruit in his hand, stretched out from
one "place" to another, the orthodox Jew would have to drop it, since
shifting his full hand from one locality to another was carrying a
burden.

Nothing could be killed on the Sabbath, not even insects. Speaking
of the Christian monks, Jortin says that "Some of them, out of
mortification, would not catch or kill the vermin which devoured them;
in which they far surpassed the Jews, who only spared them upon the
Sabbath day." This interesting fact is supported by the authority of
a Kabbi, who is quoted in Latin to the effect that cracking a flea and
killing a camel are equally guilty. Dr. Edersheim evidently refers to
the same authority in a footnote. On the whole this regulation against
the killing of vermin must have been very irksome