34. Levy derives it from dm#, to destroy, to root out. The Rabbinic derivations in Moed K.
17 a, are only a play upon the word.
35. Moed K. 16 a and b.
36. 1 Tim. v.
37. But there certainly were notable exceptions to this rule, even in Palestine. Among the
Babylonian Jews it did not obtain at all.
38. Moed K. 17 a; Nedar. 7 b; Pes. 52 a.
39. Moed K. 16 a.
40. Moed K. 16 a; Shebh. 36 a; Baba Mez. 59 b.
41. Buxtorf here reminds us of 1
Cor. v. 5.
42. Shebh. 36 a; Sanh. 107 printed in the Chesronoth ha -Shas, p. 25 b.
43. There our Lord is said to have been anathematised to the sound of 400 trumpets. The
passage does not appear in the expurgated editions of the Talmud.
44. Comp. 1 Cor. v. 11.
We can understand, how everyone would dread such an anathema. But when we
remember, what it would involve to persons in the rank of life, and so miserably poor as
the parents of that blind man, we no longer wonder at their evasion of the question put
by the Sanhedrin. And if we ask ourselves, on what ground so terrible a punishm ent
could be inflicted to all time and in every place - for the ban once pronounced applied
everywhere - simply for the confession of Jesus as the Christ, the answer is not difficult.
The Rabbinists enumerate twenty-four grounds for excommunication, of whi ch more
than one might serve the purpose of the Pharisees. But in general, to resist the authority
of the Scribes, or any of their decrees, or to lead others either away from 'the
commandments,' or to what was regarded as profanation of the Divine Name, wa s
sufficient to incur the ban, while it must be borne in mind that excommunication by the
President of the Sanhedrin extended to all places and persons.45
45. Jer. Moed K. 81 d, about the middle.
As nothing could be elicited from his parents, the man who had been blind was once
more summoned before the Pharisees. It was no longer to inquire into the reality of his
alleged blindness, nor to ask about the cure, but simply to demand of him recantation,
though this was put in the most specious manner. Thou ha st been healed: own that it
was only by God's Hand miraculously stretched forth,46 and that 'this man' had nothing
to do with it, save that the coincidence may have been allowed to try the faith of Israel. It
could not have been Jesus Who had done it, for they knew Him to be 'a sinner.' Of the
two alternatives they had chosen that of the absolute rightness of their own Sabbath -
traditions as against the evidence of His Miracles. Virtually, then, this was the
condemnation of Christ and the apotheosis of traditionalism. And yet, false as their
conclusion was, there was this truth in their premisses, that they judged of miracles by
the moral evidence in regard to Him, Who was represented as working them.