and the prophetic teaching, which from the earliest times attempted the correction of those ideas, on the other, yet the difficulty of reconciling the two was limited to individual thinkers, or gave employment to the speculative casuistry of the Rabbinic schools, rather than disturbed the general mind or affected the general practice.
Probably we may say that the practice was superior to the theory of marriage. Theoretically the Jews, who were the contemporaries of Christ, were polygamists. As disciples of Moses they could be nothing else. The study of their sacred literature confirmed them in a theoretical acceptance of polygamy; and the strong continuous influence of human depravity always secured a certain amount of polygamous practice. Herod the Great had no less than ten wives, and though this was regarded as unusual yet it was admittedly lawful. Indeed, the Rabbis, following their favourite method of giving precise shape to everything, laid it down that eighteen wives
