ics:

Christians have burned each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did!

It will probably occur to most readers, in connection with the
rabbinical doctrine, that it is unlawful to over-reach any one, that the
Jews appear to have long ignored such maxims of morality. But it should
be remembered that if they have earned for themselves, by their
chicanery in mercantile transactions, an evil reputation, their
ancestors in the bad old times were goaded into the practice of
over-reaching by cunning those Christian sovereigns and nobles who
robbed them of their property by force and cruel tortures. Moreover,
where are the people to be found whose daily actions are in accordance
with the religion they profess? At least, the Rabbis, unlike the
spiritual teachers of mediaeval Europe, did not openly inculcate immoral
doctrines.

II

LEGENDS OF SOME BIBLICAL CHARACTERS.

There is, no doubt, very much in the Talmud that possesses a recondite,
spiritual meaning; but it would likely puzzle the most ingenious and
learned modern Rabbis to construe into mystical allegories such absurd
legends regarding Biblical personages as the following:

_Adam and Eve._

Adam's body, according to the Jewish Fathers, was formed of the earth of
Babylon, his head of the land of Israel, and his other members of other
parts of the world. Originally his stature reached the firmament, but
after his fall the Creator, laying his hand upon him, lessened him very
considerably.[57] Mr Hershon, in his _Talmudic Miscellany_, says there
is a notion among the Rabbis that Adam was at first possessed of a
bi-sexual organisation, and this conclusion they draw from Genesis i,
27, where it is said: "God created man in his own image, male-female
created he him."[58] These two natures it was thought lay side by side;
according to some, the male on the right and the female on the left;
according to others, back to back; while there were those who maintained
that Adam was created with a _tail_, and that it was from this appendage
that Eve was fashioned![59] Other Jewish traditions (continues Mr.
Hershon) inform us that Eve was made from the thirteenth rib of the
right side, and that she was not drawn out by the head, lest she should
be vain; nor by the eyes, lest she should be wanton; nor by the mouth,
lest she should be given to garrulity; nor by the ears, lest she should
be an eavesdropper; nor by the hands, lest sh