tice of making marks on the skin, the compilers of the Gemara introduce a tradition, according to which Rabbi Eliezer asked the question, "Did not Ben Stada bring magical spells from Egypt in a cut which was upon his body?" His argument was that as Ben Stada had done this, the practice might be allowable. The answer was that Ben Stada was a fool, and his case proved nothing. Upon the mention however of Ben Stada, a note is added to explain who that person was, and it is for the sake of this note that the passage is quoted.

The two names Ben Stada and Ben Pandera evidently refer to the same person, and that that person is Jesus is shown clearly by the fact that we sometimes meet with the full name "Jeshu son of Pandera," also Jeshu son of Stada." It seems that the question was argued in the schools which of the two familiar designations (son of Stada, son of Pandera) was the correct one. One of the two appellations appeared to be necessarily false. Which was correct?

The subject treated was that the son of Stada had brought charms with him out of Egypt in an incision in his flesh. Thereupon some one objects: the designation Ben Stada is false; he was the son of Pandera. No, says Rab Hisda (a Babylonian teacher, A. D. 217-309), Stada was the name of the husband (of his mother), Pandira the name of her paramour. To call him either the one or the other is therefore correct. To this however is objected that this cannot be true, because the husband is known to have been called Paphos ben Jehudah. Stada must have been not the father but the mother. But how can that be, because the mother was called Miriam the dresser of women's hair? As rejoinder to this follows the conclusion: Of that we are aware, but she is also called Stada, by her nickname. Insomuch as she had a paramour, she was given the "sobriquet" Stada, which consists of the words stath da, i. e., she has gone aside, from her husband. Thus

at least the word is explained in the Babylonian Academy at Pumbeditha.

Various attempts have been made to explain the two names Ben Stada and Ben Pandira (also written Pandera, or Pantira). But none of the suggested explanations solves the problem. We leave the two names as relics of ancient Jewish mockery against Jesus, the clue to whose meaning is now lost.

Mention has also been made of Miriam (of which Mary is the equivalent). She is called m'gaddla nashaia, i. e., a women's hairdresser. How came the Talmud to bestow this epithet upon the mother of Jesus, for whom elsewhere it has the characteristic designation of adulteress? That Jesus's mother was named Mary, was known to the Jews; that she had born Jesus out of wedlock, was maintained by them. Then they heard a noted Christian woman of Jesus's time often spoken of, who was named Mary of Magdala. What was more natural for those who had already long ceased to ascertain more particularly at the mouth of Christians the history of Jesus, than by this Mary (of) Magdala simply to understand Jesus's mother, especially since their knowledge was confined to one Mary? She was reported to be a great sinner. This harmonized in a twofold way with their assumption, for, that Jesus's mother was a sinner, was maintained by them with the utmost certainty, and now they obtained, as they supposed, actual confirmation of this from the Christians. Miriam (of) Magdala was accordingly the mother of Jesus, and by a name-play the Magdala was turned into m'gaddla nashaia, i. e., women's hairdresser.

In the Talmudic passage quoted above we are told that Stada's (i. e., Mary's) lawful husband was Paphos ben Jehudah. Now of this Paphos, who lived a century after Jesus, the Talmud Gittin 90a narrates the following:

"There is a tradition, Rabbi Meir used to say: 'Just as

there are various kinds of taste as regards eating, so there are also various dispositions as regards women. There is a man into whose cup a fly falls and he casts it out, but all the same he does not drink it [the cup]. Such was the manner of Paphos ben Jehudah, who used to lock the door upon his wife, and go out.'”

All we learn from this passage directly with regard to Paphos ben Jehudah, a contemporary of Rabbi Akiba, is that he locked up his wife; we are, however, led to conclude, indirectly, that she ultimately proved unfaithful to her tyrannical spouse. What, then, was more simple than for a story-teller to connect this with the details of unfaithfulness found in his Jeshu repertoire? The erring wife was just like Miriam; before long she actually became Miriam, and finally Paphos ben Jehudah was confidently given as Miriam's husband! So they had it in later times, and the great Talmudic commentator Rashi (died A. D. 1105) comments thus upon our passage: "Paphos ben Jehudah was the husband of Mary, the women's hairdresser. Whenever he went out of his house into the street, he locked the door upon her, that no one might be able to speak with her. And that is a course which became him not; for on this account there arose enmity between them, and she in wantonness broke her faith with her husband."

A MARY-LEGEND.

In Talmud Hagigah 46 we read the following: "When Rab Joseph came to this verse (Prov. xiii. 23), 'But there is that is destroyed without judgment,' he wept. He said: 'Is there really some one who is going [away], when it is not his time?' None but this [told] of Rab Bibi bar Abbai. The Angel of Death was with him. The Angel said to his messenger, 'Go, bring me Miriam the dresser of women's hair.' He brought him Miriam the teacher of chil

dren. He [the Angel] said, 'I told thee Miriam the dresser of women's hair.' He said, 'If so, I will take this one back.' He said, 'Since thou has brought this one, let her be among the number [of the dead].'"

In this narrative we have a monstrous anachronism. Rab Joseph, who is mentioned here, was born at Shiti, in Babylonia, A. D. 259 and died in 325. Rab Bibi flourished in the fourth century. The latter can neither have seen Mary nor have been her contemporary. The Talmudic commentary Tosaphoth remarks: "The Angel of Death was with him: he related what had already happened, for this about Miriam the dresser of women's hair took place in [the time of] the second temple, for she was the mother of that so and so [i. e., Jesus], as it is said in Shabbath 104b." But the wording of the Talmud says quite distinctly that Mary lived in the very time of Rab Bibi, on which account the Angel of Death spoke with him not of one who had existed earlier, but of one actually living. Further this angel, we may note, at that very time in the presence of Rab Bibi commissions his messenger, to bring her, i. e., deliver her to death. The Tosaphoth notes on Shabbath 104 seek needlessly to remove the anachronism by the assumption that there were two women's hairdressers, named Mary. But this attempt is in vain, for nothing is known of that second Mary. Besides we must not forget that the Talmud, in relation to Jesus, has no conception of chronology, and indeed, the later the origin of notices about Jesus, the more reckless are they in their chronological lapses. The post-Talmudic Second Targum on the Book of Esther actually reckons Jesus among the ancestors of Haman, an anachronism, which Levy in his Targumic dictionary (I, 330) seeks in vain to justify. In the face of such an unfathomable error what signifies the erroneous representation that Rab Bibi lived in the time of Mary?

JESUS ALLEGED TO BE BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK.

1. The Pretended Record.

It is said in Mishnah Jebamoth iv, 132 (Gemara 49o): "Simeon ben Azai said, 'I have found in Jerusalem a book of genealogies, and therein is written: That so and so is a mamzer of a married woman, to confirm the words of Rabbi Jehoshua.""

This passage is from the Mishnah, and therefore belongs to the older stratum of the Talmud. Ben Azai flourished at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century, and was a friend and contemporary of Rabbi Akiba who was a particularly zealous opponent of the Christians. When Ben Azai reported that he had found a book of pedigrees, in which it was stated that so and so (peloni) was of spurious birth, it is certainly probable that reference is to Jesus. Unless some well-known man were intended, there would no point in referring to him; and unless there had been some strong reason for avoiding his name, the name would have been given in order to strengthen the argument founded upon the case. For it is said that Ben Azai made his statement in order "to confirm the words of Rabbi Joshua." The matter in question concerned the definition of the notion of mamzer, a predicate which the Jews only too willingly ascribed to Jesus. That the passage refers to Jesus is admitted by the Jewish scholar J. Derenbourg (in Revue des Etudes Juives, III, 293, n. 3).

It is interesting that the English translators of the Eighteen Treatises of the Mishna, rabbis De Sola and Raphall (London, 1845) have not translated this part of the fourth chapter. Why?

The original reads peloni, and is one of the twenty-eight periphrastic titles of Jesus from Jewish writings, adduced by Eisenmenger in the second chapter of the first part of his Entdecktes Judenthum.

I. e., a bastard, a predicate attributed by the Jews to Jesus.