In civil cases, however, it is not necessary that the two witnesses should agree very closely as to the time and place. Thus, if of two witnesses to a loan one should say, "A lent B a jar of oil," the other, "He lent him a jar of wine"; or, if one should say, "I was present when the money was paid at Jerusalem," the other, "I saw it paid at Hebron"; or, if one should say, "I saw it paid in the month of Nisan," the other, "I saw it paid in Iyyar," their testimony would be void. But if one says he saw it paid in the upper and the other in the lower story; or if he says on the first of the month and the other on the second of the month, such evidence is within the limit of fair mistake and the testimony stands. Even less does a disagreement as to circumstances other than time and place affect the testimony; for instance, if one say the money is black from usage, the other that it was new, this would be regarded as an immaterial circumstance, and the testimony would stand. Where the two witnesses vary only in the matter of quantity, the lesser quantity is sufficiently proved.[138] One of the strangest provisions of Hebrew law was the requirement that the testimony of each witness to the transaction should cover the entire case. This was a Talmudic rule resulting from Rabbinic construction of the Mosaic ordinance, requiring at least two witnesses to establish a crime. The doctors of the law construed the rule to mean that the testimony of each witness was to be complete within itself and to extend to the whole case. Hebrew law did not permit the use of circumstantial evidence in criminal prosecutions. Only eyewitnesses of the crime were competent. Under English and American law a crime may be proven by any number of witnesses, each of whom testifies to a separate fact which constitutes a link in the chain of circumstantial evidence. But this method of proof was forbidden by both the Pentateuch and the Talmud. Under Hebrew law the capital crime of kidnaping was made up of the two elements of Abduction and Selling. The testimony of two witnesses--one to the fact of Abduction, the other to the fact of Selling--was insufficient to convict. Each had to testify to the facts of both Abduction and Selling. This Talmudic rule of criminal procedure was undoubtedly based upon a supreme regard for the sanctity of human life and upon the fact that the Hebrews rejected circumstantial evidence altogether in proving crime. The extreme of the rule is declared by Mendelsohn when he says: "And even where there appeared a legal number of duly qualified witnesses, the testimony was insufficient to convict, unless they agreed not only with regard to the prisoner's offense, but also with regard to the mode of committing it. Rabbinic law does not subject a person to capital, nor even to corporal punishment, unless all witnesses charge him with one and the same criminal act, their