4. The Manner in which the Sopherim Transmitted their Wo)-L — Their great reverence for the divine law, tlieir extraordinary modesty and humility, as well as their fear lest any of their writings should be raised to the dignity of Holy Writ, prevented the scribes, or Sophe- rim, from embodying their expositions and enactments in separate treatises. This is the reason why there are no books of the scribes extant, and wh)' they most scru- pulousl}' abstained from dogmatizing, so much so that the phrase the laws of the scribes (C"iS1D ri^btl) does not occur. It was the later doctors of the law (D^SJri = j'ojuoc'(cV}(T(coXo() who canonized the opinions of the scribes (0^^310 "'Til), which, it was claimed, had been transmitted orally and through diverse signs.
These signs (C^Ji^D) or indications (d'^'TTil) the scribes are said to have put down in the margins of the cop- ies of the Hebrew Scriptures to indicate to them the interpretations and definitions which their predeces- sors, contemporaries, and they themselves put on cer- tain passages, and these signs are held to have formed the foundation of the Keri and Kethib,ple}ic and defec- tive, etc., of later times. Thus, for instance, from Exod. xxi, 8 they deduce that it is the bounden duty of the master to marry his maiden who was sold to him for this purpose, though the law tolerates an alternative, and to indicate this opinion the scribes put in the mar- gin against m"'^ nh "ifN, "whom he will not be- troth," the word t? with 1 instead of N, i. e. ivhoni he ought to betroth (comp. Bekoroth, 13 a ; Rashi on Exod. xxi, 8). Again, in liCv. xxv, 29, 30, it is enact- ed that if a house in a walled city has been sold and is not redeemed within a year, it becomes the absolute property of the purchaser. Now, the scribes defined the phrase ivalled city to mean a city which had walls in the time of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, though these walls were afterwards removed; and to indicate this the}'- put in the margin against l^^2'^^ xb ^lUX, "which had a wall," the word lb with 1 instead of X, i. e. rvhich has no ivall noiv (comp. Erachin, 32 a; She- buoth, 16 a; Rashi on Lev. xxv, 30, 31; Maimonides, lad Ila-Chezaka Ililchoth Shemita Ve-Jobel, xii, 15). They concluded from Lev. xxiii, 4 that the proclama- tion or fixing of the new moon devolved upon the su- preme court at Jerusalem (Mishna, Rosh-hashanah, i, 8, 9; ii, 5, 7), and to indicate this the scribes wrote the defective DPiX, "ye shall pronounce," i.e. lUlipO, "it is sanctified" [see New Moon], instead of the plene CniX. The scribes also indicated that certain com- mandments are not to be restricted to Jerusalem, but are to be kept wherever the Jews reside, by writing in such instances the defective Cw''R3'i3''2, i. e. in your desolations, instead of the plene dl'^nSIIJIO, your dwellings (Lev. xxiii, 14, 31). These signs are the ba- sis of the Masorah, and account for many of the various readings which obtained in the course of time. For further information on this most important branch of the Sopheric work, we must refer to the elaborate treat- ise of Krochmal, entitled More Neboche Ila-Zeman, sec. xiii, p. 161, etc.
5. The A uthority of the Sopherim. — Though the scribes of this period themselves did not issue their expositions of what they believed to be the doctrines of Holy AVrit with the declaration that " except every one do keep them whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall per- ish everlastingly," or "except a man believe them faithfully, he cannot be saved," but simply stated them as their opinions about the teachings of the divine law, j'et the doctors of the law who succeeded the Sopherim accepted these expositions as final, and decreed that whosoever gainsa3's their authority commits a capital offence. As the penalty attached to the violation of some of the Mosaic injunctions and prohibitions was not very serious, inasmuch as the law distinguished be- tween the diverse kinds of transgression, while there is no distinction made in the Sopheric enactments, since the same amount of guilt and the same kind of punish- ment were incurred in case any one of their precepts was violated, the sages of the Mishna remark, " To be against the words of the scribes is more piniishable than to be against the words of the Bible ; he who, in order to transgress the Scriptures, says phylacteries are not enjoined in Holy Writ, is acquitted, but he who says that there ought to be five compartments in the phy- lacteries, thus adding to the decisions of the scribes, is guilty" (Sanhedrin, xi, 3). Hence also the Talmudic exposition of Eccles. xii, 9, which is as follows : " Above these, my son, beware ; of making many books there is no end ;" i. e. my son, take care of the decisions of the
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scribes above the words of the Bible, for in the words of Scripture there are both (Tl'^V) injunctions and (S? nUJiT) prohibitions [the transgression of some of these involves only a slight punishment], while the trans- gression of any one of the precepts of the scribes is a capital offence. And if thou shouldest say, seeing that they are so weighty, Whv are they not written down? [reply] "To make many books there is no end" (Erubin, 21 b). It is probable, however, that these bold state- ments, which appear to exalt the expositions of men above the Word of God, are really due to the succeeding period, which we will characterize in its place, and to which we relegate much that relates to the office and its influence.