The Life of Jesus of Nazareth | Page 6

maze of traditions which awoke
no spontaneous Amen in the moral nature, consequently there was
frequent substitution of reputation for character. The Pharisees could
make void the command, Honor thy father, by an ingenious application
of the principle of dedication of property to God (Mark vii. 8-13), and
thus under the guise of scrupulous regard for law discovered ways for
legal disregard of law. Their theory of religion gave abundant room for

a piety which made broad its phylacteries and lengthened its prayers,
while neglecting judgment, mercy, and the love of God.
10. Yet the earnest and true development in Jewish thinking was found
among the Pharisees. The early hope of Israel was almost exclusively
national. In the later books of the Old Testament, in connection with an
enlarged sense of the importance of the individual, the doctrine of a
personal resurrection to share the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom
began to appear. It had its clear development and definite adoption as
part of the faith of Judaism, however, under the influence of the
Pharisees. Along with this increased emphasis on the worth of the
individual came a large development of the doctrine of angels and
spirits. Towards both of these doctrines the Sadducees took a
reactionary position. Politically the Pharisees were theocratic in theory,
but opportunists in practice, accommodating themselves to the existing
state of things so long as the de facto government did not interfere with
the religious life of the people. They looked for a kingdom in which
God should be evidently the king of his people; but they believed that
his sovereignty was to be realized through the law, hence their sole
interest was in the obedience of God's people to that law as interpreted
by the traditions.
11. The theocratic spirit was more aggressive in a party which
originated in the later years of Herod the Great, and found a reckless
leader in Judas of Galilee, who started a revolt when the governor of
Syria undertook to make a census of the Jews after the deposition of
Archelaus. This party bore the name Cananeans or Zealots. They
regarded with passionate resentment the subjection of God's people to a
foreign power, and waited eagerly for an opportune time to take the
sword and set up the kingdom of God; it was with them that the final
war against Rome began. They were found in largest numbers in
Galilee, where the scholasticism of the scribes was not so dominating
an influence as in Judea. Dr. Edersheim has called them the nationalist
party. In matters belonging strictly to the religious life they followed
the Pharisees, only holding a more material conception of the hope of
Israel.

12. Another development in Jewish religious life carried separatist
doctrines to the extreme. Its representatives were called Essenes,
though what the significance of the name was is no longer clear.
Although they were allied with the Pharisees in doctrine, they show in
some particulars the influence of Hellenistic Judaism. This is suggested
not only by the attention which Philo and Josephus give to them, but
also by certain of their views, which were very like the doctrines of the
Pythagoreans. They carried the pharisaic demand for separateness to
the extreme of asceticism. While they were found in nearly every town
in Palestine, some of them even practising marriage, the largest group
of them lived a celibate, monastic life near the shores of the Dead Sea.
This community was recruited by the initiation of converts, who only
after a novitiate of three years were admitted to full membership in the
order. They were characterized by an extreme scrupulousness
concerning ceremonial purity, their meals were regarded as sacrifices,
and were prepared by members of the order, who were looked upon as
priests, nor were any allowed to partake of the food until they had first
bathed themselves. Their regular garments were all white, and were
regarded as vestments for use at the sacrificial meals,--other clothing
being assumed as they went out to their work. They were industrious
agriculturists, their life was communistic, and they were renowned for
their uprightness. They revered Moses as highly as did the scribes; yet
they were opposed to animal sacrifices, and, although they sent gifts to
the temple, were apparently excluded from its worship. Their kinship
with the Pythagoreans appears in that they addressed an invocation to
the sun at its rising, and conducted all their natural functions with
scrupulous modesty, "that they might not offend the brightness of God"
(Jos. Wars, ii. 8, 9). Their rejection of bloody sacrifices, and their view
that the soul is imprisoned in the body and at death is freed for a better
life, besides many features of their life that are genuinely Jewish, such
as their regard for ceremonial purity, also show similarity to