Probably it was on this account that later Rabbis admonished the parents to take only a pious and good Jew as Sandek for their children. Christian theologians also declared that no good Christian must render such a service to a Jew. The famous Buxtorf had to pay a fine of 100 florins for having attended the Berith of a child, whose father he had employed as reader when editing the well‐ known Basel Bible. The poor reader himself, who was the cause of Buxtorf’s offence, was fined 400 florins. Of an opposite case in which a Jew served as godfather to a Christian child, we find a detailed account in Schudt’s _Merkwürdigkeiten der Juden_, a very learned and very foolish book. When the father was summoned before the magistrate, and was asked how he dared to charge a Jew with such a holy Christian ceremony, he coolly answered, because he knew that the Jew would present him with a silver cup. As to the present, I have to remark that with the Jews also the godfather was expected to bestow a gift on the child. In some communities he had to defray the expenses of the festival‐dinner, of which I shall speak presently. In others, again, he had also to give a present to the mother of the child. Much older than the institution of the Sandek is the festival‐dinner just alluded to, which was held after the ceremony. Jewish legend supplies many particulars of the dinner the patriarch Abraham gave at the Berith of his son Isaac. This is a little too legendary, but there is ample historical evidence that such meals were already customary in the times of the Second Temple. The Talmud of Jerusalem gives us a detailed account of the proceedings which took place at the Berith dinner of Elisha ben Abuyah, who afterwards obtained a sad celebrity as Acher. Considering that Elisha’s birth must have fallen within the first decades after the destruction of the Temple, and that these sad times were most unsuitable for introducing new festivals, we may safely date the custom back to the times of the Temple. The way in which the guests entertained themselves is also to be gathered from the passage referred to. First came the dinner, in which all the guests participated; afterwards the great men of Jerusalem occupied one room, indulging there in singing, hand clapping, and dancing. The scholars again, who apparently did not belong to the great men, were confined to another room, where they employed themselves in discussing biblical subjects. In later times special hymns, composed for this festival, were inserted in the grace after dinner. After the dinner, sermons or speeches used also to be given, the contents of which were usually made up of reflections on biblical and Talmudical passages relating to the event of the day. Sometimes they consisted of a kind of learned puns on the name which the child received on this occasion.