86
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
4.
(23)
1
All who are stoned are hung, according to
Rabbi Eliezer. The Sages say None is hung except
the blasphemer and he who practises a false worship."
The corpse was hung to a cross or else to a single
beam, of which one end rested on the ground, the
other against a wall (same Mishnah). It is worth
noting that the technical word for a cross
(zi5y)
is not
used here. The Gospels, of course, say nothing about
a stoning of Jesus, and I suggest that the Talmudic
tradition is an inference from the fact that he was
known to have been hung. The inference would be
further strengthened by the application of the text,
Deut. xxi. 23,
He that is hanged is accursed of God,
a text which Paul had to disarm in reference to Jesus
(Gal. iii. 13). The Talmud knows nothing of an
execution of Jesus by the Romans, but makes it solely
the act of the Jews.
Here may be mentioned a passage which seems to
show that there was a tradition that Jesus had been
crucified.
(24) T. Sanh. ix.
7.-Rabbi Meir used to say,
What is the meaning of (Deut. xxi. 23),
For
a curse of God is he that is hung? [It is like
the case of]
two brothers, twins, who resembled
each other. One ruled over the whole world,
the other took to robbery. After a time the
one who took to robbery was caught, and they
crucified
him on
a cross.
And every one who
passed to and fro said, I It seems that the king
1
Litera
lly a worshipper of stars and planets. This is constantly used in
the Rabbinical literature as a technical term for the adherent of a false
religion, without any implication that the stars are the actual objects of
worship. Idolater is not always an equivalent term ; but, with this
explanation, it is the most convenient to use.
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