BOOK 5 &c. V with His Resurrection Jesus could not have spoken to the Sadducees; they would have been unintelligible at that time even to His own disciples. He met the cavil of the Sadducees majestically, seriously, and solemnly, with words most lofty and spiritual, yet such as they could understand, and which, if they had received them, would have led them onwards and upwards far beyond the standpoint of the Pharisees. A lesson this to us in our controversies. The story under which the Sadducees conveyed their sneer was also intended covertly to strike at their Pharisaic opponents. The Deut. xxv. ancient ordinance of marrying a brother's childless widowa had more and more fallen into discredit, as its original motive ceased to have influence. A large array of limitations narrowed the number of those on whom this obligation now devolved. Then the Mishnah laid it down that, in ancient times, when the ordinance of such marriage was obeyed in the spirit of the Law, its obligation took precedence of the permission of dispensation, but that afterwards b Bechor. i.7 this relationship became reversed. Later authorities went further. Some declared every such union, if for beauty, wealth, or any other than religious motives, as incestuous, while one Rabbi absolutely prohibited it, although opinions continued divided on the subject. But what here most interests us is, that what are called in the Talmud the Samaritans,' but, as we judge, the Sadducees, held the opinion that the command to marry a brother's widow only applied to a betrothed wife, not to one that had actually been wedded. This gives point to their controversial question, as addressed to Jesus. • Yebam. 39 b d Jer. Yebam. i. 6. This seems also to have been the view of the School of Shammai 2 A case such as they told, of a woman who had successively been married to seven brothers, might, according to Jewish Law, have really happened. Their sneering question now was, whose wife she was to be in the Resurrection. This, of course, on the assumption of the grossly materialistic views of the Pharisees. In this the Sadducean cavil was, in a sense, anticipating certain objections of modern materialism. It proceeded on the assumption that the relations of time would apply to eternity, and the conditions of the things seen hold true in regard to those that are unseen. But perchance it is otherwise; and the future may reveal what in the present we do not see. The reasoning as such may be faultless; but, perchance, some The Talmud bears that the woman must have no child at all-not merely no son. 2 Jer. Yebam. 6 b, relates what I regard as a legendary story of a man who was thus induced to wed the twelve widows of his twelve brothers, each widow pro mising to pay for the expenses of one month, and the directing Rabbi for those of the 13th (intercalatory) month. But to his horror, after three years the women returned, laden with thirty-six children, to claim the fulfilment of the Rabbi's promise! THE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING OF THE RESURRECTION. IV 401 a St. Matt. xxii. 29, 30, thing in the future may have to be inserted in the major or the CHAP. minor, which will make the conclusion quite other! All such cavils we would meet with the twofold appeal of Christ to the Word' and to the Power of God-how God has manifested, and how He will manifest Himself-the one flowing from the other. In His argument against the Sadducees Christ first appealed to the power of God. What God would work was quite other than they imagined: not a mere re-awakening, but a transformation. The world to come and parallels was not to be a reproduction of that which had passed away-else why should it have passed away-but a regeneration and renovation; and the body with which we were to be clothed would be like that which Angels bear. What, therefore, in our present relations is of the earth, and of our present body of sin and corruption, will cease; what is eternal in them will continue. But the power of God will transform all-the present terrestrial into the future heavenly, the body of humiliation into one of exaltation. This will be the perfecting of all things by that Almighty Power by which He shall subdue all things to Himself in the Day of His Power, when death shall be swallowed up in victory. And herein also consists the dignity of man, in virtue of the Redemption introduced, and, so to speak, begun at his Fall, that man is capable of such renovation and perfection—and herein, also, is the power of God,' that He hath quickened us together with Christ, so that here already the Church receives in Baptism into Christ the germ of the Resurrection, which is afterwards to be nourished and fed by faith, through the believer's participation in the Sacrament of fellowship with His Body and Blood." Nor ought questions here to rise, like dark clouds, such as of the perpetuity of those relations which on earth are not only so precious to us, but so holy. Assuredly, they will endure, as all that is of God and good; only what in them is earthly will cease, or rather be transformed with the body. Nay, and we shall also recognise each other, not only by the fellowship of the soul, but as, even now, the mind impresses its stamp on the features, so then, when all shall be quite true, shall the soul, so to speak, body The reproach 'Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures,' occurs in almost the same form in the discussions of the Pharisees with the Sadducees on the Resurrection which are recorded in the Talmud. This also supports our contention, that the best parts of the latter are taken from the N. T. 2 Through the Resurrection of Christ resurrection has become the gift of uniVOL. II. D D versal humanity. But, beyond this general BOOK V itself forth, fully impress itself on the outward appearance, and for the first time shall we then fully recognise those whom we shall now fully know, with all of earth that was in them left behind, and all of God and good fully developed and ripened into perfectness of beauty. But it was not enough to brush aside the flimsy cavil, which had only meaning on the supposition of grossly materialistic views of the Resurrection. Our Lord would not merely reply, He would answer the Sadducees; and more grand or noble evidence of the Resurrection has never been offered than that which He gave. Of course, as speaking to the Sadducees, He remained on the ground of the Pentateuch; and yet it was not only to the Law but to the whole Bible that He appealed, nay, to that which underlay Revelation itself: the relation between God and man. Not this nor that isolated passage only proved the Resurrection; He Who, not only historically but in the fullest sense, calls Himself the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, cannot leave them dead. Revelation implies, not merely a fact of the past-as is the notion which traditionalism attaches to it—a dead letter; it means a living relationship. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.' The Sadducees were silenced, the multitude was astonished, and even from some of the Scribes the admission was involuntarily wrung: Teacher, Thou hast beautifully said.' One point, however, still claims our attention. It is curious that, as regards both these arguments of Christ, Rabbinism offers statements closely similar. Thus, it is recorded as one of the frequent sayings of a later Rabbi, that in the world to come there would be neither eating nor drinking, fruitfulness nor increase, business nor envy, hatred nor strife, but that the just would sit with crowns on their heads, and feast on the splendour of Ber. 17a, the Shechinah. This reads like a Rabbinic adaptation of the saying of Christ. As regards the other point, the Talmud reports a discussion on the Resurrection between Sadducees,' or perhaps Jewish heretics (Jewish-Christian heretics), in which Rabbi Gamaliel II. at last silences his opponents by an appeal to the promise that ye may prolong your days in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give unto them '-' unto them,' emphasises the Rabbi, not 'unto you.' Although this almost entirely misses the spiritual meaning conveyed in the reasoning of Christ, it is impossible to mistake its Christian origin. Gamaliel II. lived after Christ, but at a period when there was lively intercourse between Jews and towards the end Deut. xi. 9 1 The similar reference to Exod. vi. 4 by a later Rabbi seems but an adaptation b of the argument of Gamaliel II. (See both in Sanh. 90 b). THE QUESTION OF THE SCRIBE. Jewish Christians; while, lastly, we have abundant evidence that the Rabbi was acquainted with the sayings of Christ, and took part in the controversy with the Church. On the other hand, Christians in his day-unless heretical sects-neither denied the Resurrection, nor would they have so argued with the Jewish Patriarch; while the Sadducees no longer existed as a party engaging in active controversy. But we can easily perceive, that intercourse would be more likely between Jews and such heretical Jewish Christians as might maintain that the Resurrection was past, only spiritual. The point is deeply interesting. It opens such further questions as these: In the constant intercourse between Jewish Christians and Jews, what did the latter learn? and may there not be much in the Talmud which is only an appropriation and adaptation of what had been derived from the New Testament? 2. The answer of our Lord was not without its further results. As we conceive it, among those who listened to the brief but decisive passage between Jesus and the Sadducees were some 'Scribes' -Sopherim, or, as they are also designated, lawyers,' teachers of the Law,' experts, expounders, practitioners of the Jewish Law. One of them, perhaps he who exclaimed: Beautifully said, Teacher! hastened to the knot of Pharisees, whom it requires no stretch of the imagination to picture gathered in the Temple on that day, and watching, with restless, ever foiled malice, the Saviour's every movement. As the Scribe' came up to them, he would relate how Jesus had literallygagged' and 'muzzled '2 the Sadducees—just as, according to the will of God, we are by well-doing to gag the want of knowledge of senseless men.' There can be little doubt that the report would give rise to mingled feelings, in which that prevailing would be, that, although Jesus might thus have discomfited the Sadducees, He would be unable to cope with other questions, if only properly propounded by Pharisaic learning. And so we can understand how one of the number, perhaps the same Scribe, would volunteer to undertake the office; and how his question was, as St. Matthew reports, in a sense really intended to 'tempt' Jesus. a 403 CHAP. IV a Comp. the two ac counts in St. Matthew and We dismiss here the well-known Rabbinic distinctions of 'heavy' St. Mark and light' commandments, because Rabbinism declared the 'light' to be as binding as 'the heavy,' those of the Scribes more 'heavy' Ab. i. 1: b We also recall that Gamaliel II. was the brother-in-law of that Elieser b. Hyrcanos, who was rightly suspected of leanings towards Christianity (see pp. 193, 194). This might open up a most inter esting field of inquiry. 2 piuwoe (St. Matt. xxii. 34). The word occurs also in St. Matt. xxii. 12; St. Mark i. 25; iv. 39; St. Luke iv. 35; 1 Cor. ix. 9; 1 Tim. v. 18; 1 Pet. ii. 15. b ii, iv. 2 BOOK V Deb. R. 6 St. Mark (or binding) than those of Scripture, and that one commandment was not to be considered to carry greater reward, and to be thereSanh. xi. 3 fore more carefully observed, than another. That such thoughts were not in the mind of the questioner, but rather the grand general problem-however himself might have answered it-appears even from the form of his inquiry: Which [qualis] is the great-the first' -commandment in the Law?' So challenged, the Lord could have no hesitation in replying. Not to silence him, but to speak the absolute truth, He quoted the well-remembered words which every Jew was bound to repeat in his devotions, and which were ever to be on his lips, living or dying, as the inmost expression of his faith: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' And then continuing, He repeated the command concerning love to God which is the outcome of that profession. But to have stopped here would have been to propound a theoretic abstraction without concrete reality, a mere Pharisaic worship of the letter. As God is love -His Nature so manifesting itself-so is love to God also love to man. And so this second is 'like' the first and great commandment.' It was a full answer to the Scribe when He said: "There is none other commandment greater than these.' But it was more than an answer, even deepest teaching, when, as St. Matthew reports, He added: on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.' It little matters for our present purpose how the Jews at the time understood and interpreted these two commandments.2 They would know what it meant that the Law and the Prophets 'hung' on them, for it was a Jewish expression (bn). He taught them, not that any one commandment was greater or smaller, heavier or lighter, than another-might be set aside or neglected, but that all sprang from these two as their root and principle, and stood in living connection with them. It was teaching similar to that concerning the Resurrection: that, as concerning the promises, so concerning the commandments, all Revelation was one connected whole; not disjointed ordinances of which the letter was to be weighed, but So noble was the a life springing from love to God and love to man. that for the moment the generous enthusiasm of the Scribe, who had previously been favourably impressed by Christ's answer to answer, 1 Meyer rightly remarks on the use of ayanhoes here, implying moral high estimation and corresponding conduct, and not pixiv, which refers to love as an affection. The latter could not have been commanded, although such pixía of the world is forbidden (St. James iv. 4), while the φιλεῖν of one's own ψυχή (St. John xii. 25) and the μὴ φιλεῖν τὸν κύριον (1 Cor. xvi. 22) are stigmatised. 2 The Jewish view of these commands has been previously explained. |