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book_n	age_n	time_n	write_v	2,053	5	5.4074	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44410	A discourse concerning Lent in two parts : the first an historical account of its observation, the second an essay concern[ing] its original : this subdivided into two repartitions whereof the first is preparatory and shews that most of our Christian ordinances are deriv'd from the Jews, and the second conjectures that Lent is of the same original.	Hooper, George, 1640-1727.	1695 (1695)	Wing H2700; ESTC R29439	185,165	511

by their Great Rabbi and who is now their Oracle it is allow'd by Morinus himself (a) Ex●●● 6. Cap. to have been Read in their Synagogues in Justinian's time together with the Law and the Prophets and to be meant by him in his Edict b dated in the year of our Lord 548. And if it had then that Authority with the Jews it must be suppos'd to have risen up to it after some considerable Tract of Time and not to have been compil'd in the Memory of Man unless we too will fall into the Rabbinical Fable and make it to have been held so highly Sacred at its first appearance It might therefore well have seen the Light an hundred or two hundred years before and yet not have been particularly mention'd either by Epiphanius or St. Jerom as not being of that singular Repute in their time above other Collections of the same Nature For that this was the First Book of the Kind that was ever written the Jews indeed tell us but this Tale we may easily ghess was devis'd only to do it greater Honour and He that Believes them not in all will have no Reason to believe them in This. The word Tradition is known to signify only the Delivery of a Doctrine or Ordinance as Misnah is a Secundary Law neither of them excluding the help of Writing Neither is Tradition or Secondary Law if styl'd Oral therefore to be accounted absolutely Unwritten but only Originally not as if it were never after to be reduc'd into Writing but as not given out in it at the first delivery And although St. Augustin (c) Contra Advers Leg. Proph. 2.1 says that the Jews of that time had not their Traditions in Writing but retain'd them by Memory and deliver'd them Orally yet we may well suppose the Good Father to be deceiv'd in this by the Jews who were shy it may be of publishing the Books of this nature to the Knowledge of Christians and because they were wont in their Schools to deliver their Lessons to their Scholars without Writing as many other Professors in many places still do might therefore pretend they never us'd any For that such Traditions had been written long before even in the Apostolick Times we are competently assur'd from the Epistle attributed to Barnabas where some of the Customs which Rabbi Juda's Misnah gives are expresly mention'd and as deliver'd in Writing d From this Testimony of St. Barnabas it seems to be plain against the Assertion of St. August in and the Modern Opinion of the Jews that there was some kind of written Misnah in the first Age of Christianity as it is very probable also that this present Misnah of Rabbi Jehudah's might be extant at the latter end of the Fourth Age the time of that now mention'd Father and of Epiphanius and St. Jerom. But besides though these two last Authors do not mention this very Book yet as they both understood the Jewish Learning well so they let us understand that this Traditional Part of it was then in high Esteem with them cited for Unquestionable Authority and reputed of very great Antiquity St. Jerom speaking of Jewish Traditions in St. Paul's time says e that a great number of such they continued to have in his He for his part supposing them to be the same under the name of Secondary f Ordinances and adds that if they were ask'd for Example how they came to take the Liberty of a Sabbath Journey when their Law commanded them to sit in their House they were ready to justify themselves by that other their Traditional Authority and to answer that Rab Akiba and Simeon and Hillel Names famous in the Present g Collection had allow'd them to walk Two Thousand Feet on that Day two thousand Cubits saith h the Talmud Such Traditions as these he says their Doctors read of certain days of the Week and the Phrase for it was The Wisemen i read the Secondary Law So much does St. Jerom bear Witness of some Misnaical Memoirs then held very Sacred and of their Doctors Commenting upon them Epiphanius is more particular concerning the Age of those Traditions and to refute Marcion who suppos'd the Old Testament it self to be the Traditions the Pharisees retain'd while they pass'd by Mercy and Judgment He k bids him inquire whence they came and he shall find that they were otherwise descended from David or Adda after the Return from Babylon and from Akiba who liv'd before that Captivity as well as from the Sons of Asamoneus who were 190. years before our Saviour Writing also against Ptolomy the Valentinian who supposes the same Traditions our Saviour reproves that particularly whereby a Parent was unreliev'd under the pretence of a Corban to be found in the five Books of Moses and affirms the Pentateuch to consist of the Law of God the Ordinances of Moses and the Traditions of the Elders he tells him that for what relates to the Elders he is not able to justify it by the Scripture for the Traditions of the Elders are no where extant in the Law and that this his strange conceit proceeds from his Ignorance in those matters For says he the Traditions of the Elders are by the Jews call'd Secondary Instructions and they are four the First bears the Name of Moses as some of their Traditions do now the Second is of Rabbi Akiba as they call him the third of Adda or Juda and the fourth of the Sons of Asamoneus But where in the five Books of the Pentateuch is that of the Corban mention'd by our Saviour to be found you cannot shew it Your Assertion therefore falls to the ground that saying of the Corban no where appearing in the Pentateuch Now hence we see first that the Traditions which the Jews had in Epiphanius his time were the same in his Judgment which were in our Saviour's time Secondly that those Traditions in probability were not then kept unwritten for otherwise our Author would have taken another course with Ptolomy's Ignorance and have told him that those Traditions were so far from being writ down in the Pentateuch that they were not yet written at all And thirdly we may conjecture from his manner of Expression that the Jews had four Misnah's distinct then and that the Compilation or Digest of them and of some later added is the Misnaioth we now have Such an Account do these Fathers give us of the reputed Authority of the Jewish Traditions about the year of our Lord 400. But further that some of them were not unwritten in the Apostolical Age we have before seen from Barnabas his Epistle and that they were in great vogue in our Saviour's time is apparent from the Gospels as also from Josephus m that there were such Customs which had obtain'd a long while in Johannes Hyrcanus his Days above a 100. Years before our Saviour and which they of that time had receiv'd from their Fathers not written in the Laws of Moses for