SECT. 23-25. ] IN PROMISES AND THREATENINGS. 509
doors of his adversaries; and let posterity be astonished at his day. Let him be accursed out of the mouth of Addiriron and Athariel, from the mouth of Sandalphon and Hadraniel, from the mouth of Ansisiel and Pathiel, from the mouth of Seraphiel and Sagansael, from the mouth of Michael and Gabriel, from the mouth of Raphiel and Mesharethiel. Let him be accursed from the mouth of Zazabib, and from the mouth of Havabib, who is the great God; and from the mouth of the seventy names of the great King; and from the mouth of Tzorlak the great chancellor.” (These names, partly signi- ficant and partly insignificant, coined to strike a terror into the minds of weak and distempered persons, they invent and apply at their pleasure to angels, good and bad; not unlike the monstrous names which the Gnostics gave to the Alons,—who borrowed many things from the tradition of the Jews, and returned them again unto them with an improvement. But they proceed.) “ Let him be swallowed up, as Korah and his company; and let his soul depart with fear and terror. Let the rebuke of the Lord slay him, and let him be strangled like Ahithophel. Let his leprosy be as the leprosy of Gehazi, neither let there be any restoration of his ruin. Let not his burial be in the burials of Israel, Let his wife be given to strangers, and let others humble her at his death. Under this curse let such a one, the son of such a one, be, with his whole in- heritance. But unto me and all Israel let God extend his peace and blessing. Amen.”
24. Now, because it is certain that this is a form of the greatest and last anathema, of a final and total excommunication, and yet he who is devoted is everywhere said to be nonin, “muchram,” and under the cherem, it is almost evident that these three degrees are not distinguished, as is commonly supposed,—namely, that the shammatha should exceed the cherem, and that only the. niddui, the highest and extremest sentence in this solemn form being so often called the cherem. Shammatha, therefore, is only a general name for the expulsion of a person, sometimes with the niddui, and sometimes with the cherem; which yet I do not suppose was always thus horrid and fierce.
_ 25, To add unto the terror of this sentence, they used to accom- pany the pronouncing of it with the sound of trumpets and horns, as the Targum says Barak did in his cursing of Meroz, Judges v. 23, “ He shammathised him with four hundred trumpets.” And herein have they been imitated by the church of Rome, in their shaking of candles, and ringing of bells, on the like occasion.
~ Lhave not reported these things as though, for matter and man- ner, they wholly belonged unto the penalties of the law that were of divine institution. Many things in the manner of their performance, as they are now expressed by the rabbins, were certainly of their own
510 THE SANCTION OF THE LAW [EXERC. XXI.
arbitrary invention. When their use amongst them first began is unknown, though it be not improbable that sundry things of this nature were practised by them before the destruction of the second temple, when they had mixed many of their own superstitions with the worship of God, as is evident from the gospel.
26, But this also is certain, that God in sundry cases had ap- pointed that some transgressors should be separated from the con- gregation, devoted to destruction, and cut off; an instance of the execution of which institution we have, Ezra x. 7, 8, “ They made proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves together unto Jerusalem ; and that whosoever would not come within three days, ac- cording to the counsel of the princes and the elders, all his substance should be devoted, and himself separated from the congregation of those that had been carried away.” A double penalty is here threatened upon disobedient persons. The one concerned the per- son of such an one: nbina DARD m3) s7;—“ He shall be separated from the congregation of the captivity;’ that is, of Israel then re- turned out of captivity. And this was the niddui, or expulsion from sacred communion, which we before described: he should be esteemed as an heathen. Secondly, As to his substance, iwaDyea pom —*« All his substance (his goods and possessions) should be anathematized,” —devoted, put under cherem, taken away for sacred uses. Hence some have made this distinction between the three degrees of ex- communication :—First, the niddui concerned only the person, and his separation from sacred offices; cherem had also confiscation of goods attending it, the substance of the transgressor being devoted ; and shammatha was accompanied with the death of the devoted person ;—which carnal penalties being removed under the gospel, that great and sore revenge which disobedient sinners are to expect from the hand of God at the last day is substituted by our apostle in the room of them all, Heb. x. 28, 29.
27. Civil penalties next succeed, and they were of three sorts; —first, Corporeal; secondly, Such as respected the outward estate and condition of the offender; thirdly, Capital.