Let us now see what our _Jewish_ commentator has to say on this subject (pp. 235-42, 508-10, 688-92). Whoever has not the leisure or the inclination to read the whole eleven hundred pages of Mr. Montefiore’s book will find it sufficient to read the pages given to this question, in order to obtain an adequate idea of the real spirit which prevails among our author’s following. As he repeatedly pours out the vials of his wrath in harsh and crude denunciations of the Jewish law of divorce, his tone is that of a monk just emerging, Gospel in hand, from his retreat, who has no desire to know anything whatever as to the views which prevail at the present day in the world around him. It is “to his eternal dishonour” that Hillel allowed divorce on other grounds than that of unchastity; it is “most unfortunate” for the Rabbinic law that it endorsed his decision. But “the unerring ethical instinct of Jesus led him to put his finger upon the weak spots and sore places of the established religion,” and “of all such weak spots and sore places this was the weakest and the sorest.” Hence “in no other point was the opposition of Jesus to the Rabbinic law of profounder significance” (p. 235). In this strain our author continues, with a varied selection of choice phrases. Nor does he forget to adopt from the Christian commentators the theory that the Gospels were fighting the wife’s battle; he repeats it several times, here also in a tone of harsh condemnation of Judaism and grateful praise of Jesus (p. 240 and elsewhere). It does not occur to him that the Christian commentators were driven to invent this theory because they saw that from the standpoint of our own age the prohibition of divorce is not in itself a sign of moral progress. But if the recognition of divorce on other grounds than that of unfaithfulness is “an eternal dishonour,” then of course there is no need to invent this plea of a battle for the wife’s rights, the mere prohibition being sufficient proof of “progress.” Nay, there seems to be more lost than gained by this “battle,” for if that was really the intention of the prohibition of divorce, then the prohibition must of necessity be absolute (to the exclusion even of the ground of unfaithfulness), since otherwise we are at a loss to understand why the wife, too, was not permitted to obtain a divorce on that ground. But our author himself admits that the prohibition of divorce in case of unfaithfulness had very evil results (p. 242). Where, then, is the “unerring ethical instinct”? There are other similar difficulties, and even plain inconsistencies, to be found in our author’s treatment of this subject. But we have already dwelt on it at sufficient length. Whoever reads all the related passages in the book will be satisfied that there is here neither logic nor “science,” nor true, unbiassed judgment, but such partiality to Jesus and the Gospels as the most pious Christian might envy.