JEW. 
5 . xi, is called' “ a fabbath day’s journey." But, to avoid 
tliefe troublefome obfervances, one of their moll common 
methods in this cafe is, to confound two houfes together, 
and by that means blend two of thefe {paces of 2000 cu¬ 
bits into one dillance : thus, two houfes which adjoin to 
each other are confidered with them as but'one dwelling; 
for men that eat of the fame bread with them are conli- 
dered as of the fame lioufehold ; and if, after walking 2000 
cubits, a man takes one of the three repafts ufually eaten 
on the fabbath, he may then walk 2000' more, becaufe 
the latter are then thought to be blended with the former, 
and to make but one Angle dillance of 2000. This arti¬ 
fice they call erubin, i. e. mixture. 
There does not remain any thing more to be faid con¬ 
cerning their feftivals, except it be, that the word fabbath 
is fometimes taken for the whole week ; and that, as the 
Jews never fuller three days together to pals without af- 
iembling in their lynagogues, Mondays and Fridays are a 
fort of feafts with them. Some indeed, that they might 
fpend them more holily, accuftomed thentfelves to fall on 
thofe particular days ; and fuel) was the Pharifee, who 
laid he failed “ twice in a week Luke xviii. 12. But 
on Saturday they never failed ; on the contrary they fed 
better, and were better drefled, than on the other days of 
the week ; it was a day of- rejoicing, rather than a day of 
humiliation, and continues fo even to this hour. They 
think themlelves obliged to attend the fynagogues ; and, 
when they go thither, it is with fo much apparent gravity 
and attention, that they do not even falute any perfon 
by the way. They never ate on thofe days till their re¬ 
turn home, which gave rife to the obfervation of jofephus, 
“ that on fynagogue-days they never ate before noon 
and this leems to be the reafon why St. Peter, told the Jews 
on the day of Pentecofl, that the apoltles could not be 
drunk, as they fuppofed, “feeing it was but the third 
hour of the day,” Acls ii. 15. that is, according to our 
mode of computation, about nine o'clock in the morning. 
Previous to the deftruftion of the temple, the Jews ne¬ 
ver entered into it but with the molt profound refpe< 5 t, 
and took care not to look too intently upon the eaftern 
gate. No body fat in it but the princes,of the laoufe of 
David ; they alone had this privilege. The Jews were 
even forbidden to have any cane, or money to negociate 
with, or even {hoes on, when they went up to the moun¬ 
tain where the temple Hood ; and they took great care, 
•when they were upon it, to fnake off the duff from their 
feet,.and never fpit but in their handkerchiefs. Maimon. de 
Domo elecla, cap. vii. They could never go acrofs the 
temple in order to (horten their way; much lei’s were they 
buffered to make a thoroughfare of it by carrying any 
thing through it. The priefts always went barefooted 
into it, and it is highly probable that all the Jews did the 
fame. The ivomen had a feparate place to themlelves, as 
they have in the fynagogues to this day, where they are 
lhut up in pews furrounded with lattices, through which 
they look. It was common among the Jew’s, when they 
prayed, to turn themfelves towards the temple. Daniel 
did fo; and this is, perhaps, what we are to underffand 
by Hezekiah’s “ turning his face to the waH,” i.e. towards 
the temple. Maimon. de Tabern. lib. v.ii. cap. i. The re- 
fpect which the Jews entertain for this mode, will not 
permit them, even at this day, to place their beds in the 
pofition in which the temple was; nay, they avoid pla¬ 
cing themlelves fo on all occalions, except fuch wherein 
they think the turning towards the temple to be an in¬ 
dubitable tellimony of re fpect. 
The Jews have now no places of worfhin but the fyna¬ 
gogues, where they affemble to pray and read the Scrip¬ 
tures. They offer no facrifices in them, becaufe they 
have always thought it unlawful to offer lacrifice in any 
other place than Jeruftlem. Formerly they went thither 
in the morning, after dinner, and at night; and always 
flood. On their feftivals and Tafts they ufed to pray in 
public places in the iarne pollute, efpecially the Pharilees, 
who did it with a great deal of affectation. 
-823 
The Jews were remarkably fond of long, prayers, and 
fuperffition generally added lomething new to them; on 
which account Jefus forbade , his difciples to pray after 
that manner, as the heathen did, who thought they Ihould 
be heard for their much fpeaking. Matth. vi. 7. The Jews 
divide their prayers into feveral forts, as praifes, petitions, 
thankfgivings, which have all particular names. Belides 
prayers, the Jews had likewife benedictions among them, 
of which every one was obliged to repeat a hundred 
every day. They laid them over their bread, and over 
their wine, when they were at table. 
Faffing was praftifed with great rigour among the Jews ; 
and, inftead of thofe rich habits which they generally 
wore, they then clothed themfelves with fackcloth made 
of hair. They did not then lie upon their beds to eat as 
ufual; but fat upon the ground, in the duff, and fcattered 
alhes upon their heads. “ Whoever,” fays Maimonides 
in his treatife of Faffing, “keeps a faff, either on account 
of his own private misfortunes, or of l'ome dreadful dream, 
or of public calamities, ought not to give himfelf any 
manner of pleafure, or to walk with his head lifted up, 
or luffer joy to appear in his countenance.” Their 
faffs began in the evening, and ended the next day at the 
fame time. On fome fall-days they went barefoot, and 
neither walhed nor anointed themlelves with oil. When- 
they were at Jerusalem, they fpent the whole day in the 
temple ; but, when they were at any other place, they 
fpent it in the public placgs, where they read the Scrip¬ 
tures aloud from morning until the evening, made lon«- 
prayers, confeffed their fins, difeourfed about the misfor¬ 
tunes which had happened on the like day, upon the ac¬ 
count of which thele flails had been ellablifhed, and fome¬ 
times read nothing but the Lamentations of Jeremiah. 
They ate not any thing till after fun-fet, when the fall 
had expired ; but their great and moll folemn faffs began 
an hour before fun-fet, and continued till midnight on the 
following day, during all which time they abffained from 
food. Manual labour was not to be exercifed on their 
great faffs, at lead in the day-time; they were not then 
permitted even to walla their bodies in warm water, but 
only their hands and faces; anointings were forbidden; 
the baths Unit up, and not to be entered by any but thofe 
wliofe bufinefs it was to cleanfe them ; llioes were not to 
be worn on thole days, unlefs upon a journey; and the 
ufe of marriage was then forbidden. But there were 
fome faff-days on which they-might do all thefe thing's. 
It may feem very wonderful, fince the conllitutions’and 
traditions of the elders are fo often appealed to, and fo 
often as well as fo jultly blamed by our blefled Saviour 
in his difeourfes with the Jews, which are preferved to us 
in the writings of the evangeliffs, that the generality of 
the learned men, who have appeared in fuch numbers fince 
the reftoration of letters, have known fo little of them 
as it is plain by their writings-that they did. For, though 
here and there an inquifitive man among the Chriffians 
had looked into thofe writings of the Jews, in which thefe 
traditions have carefully been preferved ; yet their num¬ 
ber has been very fnaall,and for want of tranllations of the 
original books tlaemfelves, to which other men might ap¬ 
peal, what thefe men faid had not its due weight. Learn¬ 
ing had been propagated in Europe for above 150 years,, 
and the great writers among the ancient Greeks and Ro¬ 
mans, both Chriftian and Pagan, printed, and moll of 
the Grecian authors tranllated into Latin, before any one 
ritual title of the old genuine traditions of the Jews had 
been publilhed among us. Paulus Fagius indeed, loon 
after the reformation, fet forth the Pirke Avoth, in which 
we have, a concife hillory of the propagation of tradition 
among the Jews, with fome few apophthegms of the fir ft 
doctors from whom they reckon their traditions. But 
then that titie had little ritual.in it; lb that, wherein the- 
traditions of the elders confilted was not much better 
known. 
In 1629, Johannes Cocceius of Bremen, printed two 
Mifchnic titles, SaMedrin and Maccoth, in Hebrew and Latin, 
at 
