142 Hut ton Webster 



favorable and unfavorable days as the phrase y dm Job ("good 

 day") for holy day shows, the Sabbath is never so described.'^ 



The later history of the Sabbath as a tabu day culminates in the 

 exaggerations of pharisaic Judaism and the extraordinary microl- 

 ogy of the rabbinical enactmentsJ^ The Mishna enumerates no 

 less than thirty-nine principal classes of prohibited actions. Some 

 of these are regarded as belonging to as ancient a period as any 

 of the taboos found in the Old Testament ; the majority, however, 

 represent only an elaboration of the scriptural precepts. Two en- 

 tire treatises are devoted to the provisions for Sabbath observance. 

 The Shabbath is chiefly remarkable as an illustration of the subtle 

 refinements and distinctions of which the rabbis were capable. 

 Thus the prohibitions to tie or untie a knot being regarded as too 

 general, it was necessary to define the species of knots referred 

 to. A camel-driver's knot and boatman's knot rendered the man 

 who tied or untied them a sabbath-breaker ; but Rabbi Meir said, 

 " A knot which a man can untie with one hand only, he does not 

 become guilty by untying." Rabbi Jehudah, more liberal of mind, 

 laid down the rule that any knot might be lawfully tied which was 

 not intended to be permanent. The second treatise, Erubim, was 

 intended to alleviate the extreme rigor of some of the enactments 

 in the former work. Thus the limits of a " Sabbath-day's jour- 

 ney " having been fixed at two thousand cubits, the rabbis con- 

 ceded that one who before the Sabbath had deposited food for two 

 meals at the boundary thereby removed his habitation from the 

 town and made that place his new domicile. When the Sabbath 

 came he was at liberty to proceed two thousand cubits beyond it 

 though he lost the right to walk the same distance in the opposite 

 direction. These legal fictions may be most appropriately com- 

 pared with the methods of evading the Sabbatarian rules found 

 among the modern Todas (supra). 



The Jewish Sabbath appears to have been known to the Romans as 



"Jastrow, in American Journal of Theology, 1898, ii. 324 n". 



''-Cf. I Maccabees, ii. 31 sqq.; 2 Maccabees, v. 25, vi. 11, viii. 26. The 

 principal regulations in the Mishna are well summarized by Schiirer, 

 History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, div. ii. vol. ii. 96-105. 



142 



