[58] The word clearly shows the immense effect of the Hellenic Conquest. There were two forms of Sanhedrin--the Greater, numbering seventy-one souls; and the Lesser, consisting of twenty-three. Both were composed of the three orders Priests, Levites, and common Israelites. The Greater Council claimed, and would again claim, supreme jurisdiction over the king, the high priest, the prophets, and the people, and “strangulation was the mode of execution for any learned man who rebelled against their words” (Hilchoth Mamrun, i. 2). Anti-Talmudic writers strongly object to this upstart aristocracy, when Moses (Deut. xvii.) ordained a supreme council consisting of the “Priests the Levites” (not the Priests _and_ the Levites), together with the judge, or chief civil governor; the ecclesiastical element remaining in the family of Aaron, whilst the magistracy fell to the lot of Joshua. But when they assert, “It is quite absurd, and if the subject were not so grave it would be ludicrous, to hear the Rabbinists exclaiming that the Law of Moses is unchangeable, when they themselves have changed all its main provisions and made an entirely new religion,” the Jew may fairly retort that the Pauline modifications extending to radical changes had the same effect upon Christianity. [59] According to the system of Sir William Jones, this name would be written Saffúriyeh, but not, as travellers generally do, Saffúreh or Saffuriyyeh. [60] The sun has often stood still in history; but how often did the historian understand what the sun standing still really means? As Spinoza remarked, “Not even in their dreams had they ever thought of parhelia”; and one of his editors quotes the French drummer-boy in Switzerland, “Nous sommes ici au bout du monde! Ici on touche le soleil de la main!” In the twelfth century Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela found the grave of Rabenu Hakkadosh (R. Yahúda) near “Suffurieh, the Tsippori of antiquity,” and evidently never heard the legend, “They are buried in the mountain, which also contains numerous other sepulchres.” In his day Tiberias contained only fifty Jews. [61] See Cérnach David, Editio princeps (Prague, 1592), fol. 43. [62] Similarly the Mormons “pointedly condemn those who make the contents of the Bible typical, metaphysical, or symbolical, ‘as if God were not honest when He speaks with man, or uses words in any other than their true acceptation,’ or could ‘palter in a double sense.’” This return to Hebrew lines of thought is not a little curious, and it may be remarked that every fresh branch put forth by the tree of “Protestantism,” as it is called, invariably reverts more and more to the old type. Indeed, whenever in these days we hear of a new “religion” having been born into the world, we may determine, _à priori_, that it is more Jewish than its predecessors. And traces of the same operation may be found amongst the Hindu Sikhs and the Muslim Babees.