80
CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD
in the outer chamber, so that they may see
him and hear his voice, but he does not see
them. And one says to him, "Say to me
what thou saidst to me in private," and he
says it to him. And another ss-?s to him,
How shall we forsake our God wbo is in
heaven, and practise false worship ? " If he
repents, it is well. If he says, Such is our
duty and thus it becomes us to do," the
witnesses, who hear from outside, bring him
to the Beth Din and stone him. And thus
they did to Ben Stada in Lad, and they
hung him on the eve of Pesah.
Commentary.-The
legal procedure to be used in
the case of a deceiver, who has tempted others to
apostasy, is set forth in the Mishnah almost in the
same words as in the first of the above extracts.
These are from the Tosephta and the Gemaras, the
passage (20) being contained in the Palestinian
Gemara, while (21) is from the Babylonian Gemara.
The Mishnah does not contain the reference to Ben
Stada ; but it is important to notice that the Tosephta
(19) does contain the name, and thus establishes the
fact that the curious and exceptional legal procedure
to be followed in the case of a deceiver was associ-
ated with the case of Ben Stada (Jesus, see above (1) ),
at a time before the Tosephta was completed. This
fact lends some support to the hypothesis of Laible,
(J. C. im Talmud, p. 76), that the legal procedure
referred to was really based upon the case of Jesus,
as traditionally reported. In all the passages given
above, it is stated that the concealment of witnesses,
in order to trap the accused, is only practised in the
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