Stoning was apparently the usual method of inflicting the death penalty in Biblical times whenever burning was not specifically called for.[6] It was carried out outside the camp or town or at the gate,[7] by the people or mob, without any other ceremony[8] than the casting of the first stone by the witnesses.[9] In post-Biblical times, we find that according to John x, 31, “the Jews took up stones again to stone” Jesus. According to Acts vii, 57f, Stephen, the protomartyr of the Church, was stoned, but whether by the uprising of the mob or by judgment of the court, is not clear.[10] According to Luke xx, 6, the chief priests and the scribes and elders feared to suggest that John the Baptist was not a prophet, because if they did so “all the people will stone us.” In a passage which is admittedly a Christian interpolation in Josephus, we are told that the Sadducean high priest Anan (62 C. E.) removed James, the brother of Jesus, and some others by stoning, after a semblance of a legal trial.[11] In the Rabbinic literature also, there are incidental references to actual cases of stoning, which may seem to imply that in the earliest Rabbinic period lapidation was carried out in the simple manner described in the Bible. In the Mishna,[12] it is stated that a priest who ministered in the Temple in a state of ritual impurity was beaten on the skull by the young priests, with blocks of wood.[13] In early Rabbinic times, the death penalty by stoning was undoubtedly carried out. Rabbi Eleazar ben Jacob (1st cent. C. E.) states that as an exemplary measure, the Jewish court (_Beth Din_) in Grecian days, imposed the sentence of stoning on one who rode on horseback on the Sabbath.[14] Tosefta Sanhedrin ix, 5, mentions a definite case of a man going out to be stoned. Tradition states further that Ben Satda, later wrongly identified with Jesus[15], was stoned.[16] The Beth Din in Jerusalem is also said to have inflicted the death penalty by stoning for a case of apparent incest and for another gross crime.[17] But whether any of these cases of stoning was carried out in the Pharisaic method of precipitation described in the Mishna Sanhedrin vi, 4, is not clear from the sources.[18] It may be asked what basis there was for the Pharisaic modification of lapidation to precipitation. In a war with Edom, captive Edomites were killed by being precipitated from a rock.[19] Two Jewish mothers who had circumcised their children during the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes are said to have been killed by being hurled from the wall of the city.[20] The false witnesses who accused Susanna were similarly dealt with.[21] The gospel according to Luke relates that the people of Nazareth wished to cast Jesus headlong from the brow of the hill whereon their city was built.[22] Precipitation was therefore a well recognised modification of lapidation, and not a sheer invention of the Rabbis.