himself before an impartial rabbinical court of arbitration, and submit to its decision (beginning of 1753). This only inflamed the strife. Eibeschütz proposed as his judges two rabbis, of Lissa and Glogau, men but little known, who were to add a third to their number. But the opposite party insisted that the court be composed of Joshua Falk and his colleagues. This angered Eibeschütz, who lost the calmness of mind he had hitherto maintained. At one time he desired to submit his cause to the rabbis of Constantinople, at another he proposed the Synod of the Four Polish Countries, to meet in Jaroslav late in the summer of 1753. He appears to have reckoned on obtaining a favorable sentence from this assemblage of many rabbis and influential persons. Relying on this, he believed that he could easily free himself from the compact forced upon him, of submitting to arbitration. He is said to have managed this by giving information at court that the royal prerogative had been encroached upon by this proposed appeal from the judgment of the sovereign to that of the rabbis. Both parties were therefore fined by the magistrates. This only increased his enemies, and several of his warmest supporters, former members of the communal council, renounced him, and proclaimed him, not only a heretic, but an intriguer. These opponents complained once more to the king with regard to the prevalent dissensions in the community, of which he was the cause. They could not, they said, obtain impartial judgment from him in their lawsuits, because he allowed himself to be guided in his decisions by spite and passion. The justice-loving king gave these complaints his attention. He desired to arrive at a definite conclusion with regard to the case, whether Eibeschütz was an arch-heretic, as his opponents maintained, or a persecuted innocent, as he described himself. With this in view the king ordered certain Christian professors and theologians versed in Hebrew, to give him their opinion with regard to the amulets. Eibeschütz felt uneasy at the turn affairs had taken; he feared that the matter might prove disastrous to him. To place himself in a favorable light he resolved on a course which he had hitherto hesitated to adopt--to dispose public opinion in his favor through the press. As things then stood, there was no other course open to him, and he therefore composed a defense--"The Tables of Testimony," completed Tammuz 18, end of June, 1755, the first production of his pen. As might have been expected from a man of his ability, it is skillfully worked out; and he places his case in a favorable light. But Eibeschütz was unable to convince either his impartial contemporaries or posterity of his innocence. On the contrary, his vindication, and much of the evidence adduced, clearly betray his guilt. Emden and his disciple David Gans did not fail to publish refutations, drawing attention to weak points, and throwing doubt on the testimony in favor of Eibeschütz.