BOOK V a Baba Mez. ва b St. Mark ix. 35; St. Luke xiv. 11; xviii. 14 • St. Matt. xxiii. 13-33 the point! As his soul passed from the body he had exclaimed: 'Pure, pure,' which the Voice from Heaven applied to the state of the Rabbi's soul; and immediately afterwards a letter had fallen from heaven to inform the sages of the purpose for which the Rabbi had been summoned to the heavenly assembly, and afterwards another enjoining universal mourning for him on pain of excommunication. a Such daring profanities must have crushed out all spiritual religion, and reduced it to a mere intellectual display, in which the Rabbi was always chief-here and hereafter. Repulsive as such legends are, they will at least help us to understand what otherwise. might seem harsh in our Lord's denunciations of Rabbinism. In view of all this, we need not discuss the Rabbinic warnings against pride and self-seeking when connected with study, nor their admonitions to humility. For, the question here is, what Rabbinism regarded as pride, and what as humility, in its teachers? Nor is it maintained that all were equally guilty in this matter; and what passed around may well have led the more earnest to energetic admonitions to humility and unselfishness. But no ingenuity can explain away the facts as above stated, and, when such views prevailed, it would have been almost superhuman wholly to avoid what our Lord denounced as characteristic of Pharisaism. And in this sense, not with Pharisaic painful literalism, but as opposed to Rabbinic bearing, are we to understand the Lord's warning to His own not to claim among brethren to be 'Rabbi,' or 'Abba,' or 'guide.' The Law of the Kingdom, as repeatedly taught, was the opposite. As regarded aims, they were to seek the greatness of service; and as regarded that acknowledgment which would come from God, it would be the exaltation of humiliation. b 2 It was not a break in the Discourse,3 rather an intensification of it, when Christ now turned to make final denunciation of Pharisaism in its sin and hypocrisy. Corresponding to the eight Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount with which His public Ministry began, He now closed it with eight denunciations of woe. These are the forthpouring of His holy wrath, the last and fullest testimony against those whose guilt would involve Jerusalem in common sin and com See the quotations to that effect in Schöttgen, Wetstein, and Wünsche ad loc. 2 Hac clausula (ver. 11) ostendit, se non sophistice litigasse de vocibus, sed rem potius spectasse (Calrin). 3 Keim argues at length, but very in conclusively, that this is a different Dis course, addressed to a different audience at a different time. 4 Although St. Matt. xxiii. 14 is in all probability spurious, this woe' occurs in St. Mark xii. 40, and in St. Luke xx. 47. THE 'WOES' UPON PHARISAISM. mon judgment. Step by step, with logical sequence and intensified pathos of energy, is each charge advanced, and with it the Woe of Divine wrath announced. The first Woe against Pharisaism was on their shutting the Kingdom of God against men by their opposition to the Christ. All knew how exclusive were their pretensions in confining piety to the possession of knowledge, and that they declared it impossible for an ignorant person to be pious. Had they taught men the Scriptures, and shown them the right way, they would have been true to their office; but woe to them who, in their position as leaders, had themselves stood with their back to the door of the Kingdom, and prevented the entrance of others. 411 CHAP. IV Yoma 29 a The second Woe was on their covetousness and hypocrisy. They made long prayers, but how often did it only cover the vilest selfish- Ber. 326; ness, even to the 'devouring' of widows' houses. We can scarcely expect the Talmud here to furnish us with illustrative instances, and yet at least one such is recorded; and we recall how often broad Sot. 20 a, phylacteries covered fraudulent minds. с e b f C &c. Horaj. 13 a d Yeb. 47 a, e ; Nidd. 136 Tacit. Seneca in Civit. Dei vi. Hist. v. 5; The third Woe was on their proselytism, which issued only in making their converts twofold more the children of hell than themselves. Against this charge, rightly understood, Judaism has in vain sought to defend itself. It is, indeed, true that, in its pride and exclusiveness, Judaism seemed to denounce proselytism, laid down strict rules to test the sincerity of converts, and spoke of them in Yet the bitter comgeneral contempt as a plague of leprosy.' a plaint of classical writers, the statements of Josephus, the frequent allusions in the New Testament, and even the admissions of the Rabbis, prove their zeal for making proselytes-which, indeed, but for its moral sequences, would neither have deserved nor drawn down the denunciation of a woe.' Thus the Midrash, commenting on the words: the souls that they had gotten in Haran,' refers it to the converts which Abraham had made, adding that every proselyte was to be regarded as if a soul had been created.h2 To this we may add the pride with which Judaism looked back upon the 150,000 Ber. R. 39, Gibeonite converts said to have been made when David avenged the sin of Saul; the satisfaction with which it looked forward to the 2 Sam. For passages in proof, see Wetstein ad loc. Any one who would see how Jewish ingenuity can, for the purpose of misrepresenting the words of Christ, put a meaning even on Jewish documents which they can never bear, is advised to August. De 111 f Ant. xviii. 3.5x2. 4; Jewish War ii. 17. 10 &c.; 20. 2; Life 23 * Gen. xii. 5 ed. Warsh. p. 72 a, end xxi. 1 &c.; Yebam. 796 BOOK V a Ab. Sar. 24 a b Midr. on Eccl. v. 11 Shev. iv. 13 and 35 b times of Messiah as those of spontaneous conversion to the Synagogue; and the not unfrequent instances in which a spirit favourable to proselytism is exhibited in Jewish writings,' as, also, such a saying as this, that when Israel is obedient to the will of God, He brings in as converts to Judaism all the just of the nations, such as Jethro, Rahab, Ruth, &c. But after all, may the Lord not have referred, not to conversion to Judaism in general, but to proselytism to the sect of the Pharisees, which was undoubtedly sought to the compassing of sea and land? The fourth Woe is denounced on the moral blindness of these guides rather than on their hypocrisy. From the nature of things it is not easy to understand the precise allusion of Christ. It is true that the Talmud makes the strangest distinction between an oath or adjuration, such as by heaven' or by earth, which is not supposed to be binding, and that by any of the letters of which the Divine Name was composed, or by any of the attributes of the Divine Being, when the oath is supposed to be binding. But it seems more likely that our Lord refers to oaths or adjurations in connection with vows, where the casuistry was of the most complicated kind. In general, the Lord here condemns the arbitrariness of all such Jewish distinctions, which, by attaching excessive value to the letter of an oath or vow, really tended to diminish its sanctity. All such distinctions argued folly and moral blindness. The fifth Woe referred to one of the best-known and strangest Jewish ordinances, which extended the Mosaic law of tithing, in most burdensome minuteness, even to the smallest products of the soil d Maaser.i.1 that were esculent and could be preserved, such as anise. Of these, according to some, not only the seeds, but, in certain cases, even the Maaser. iv. leaves and stalks, had to be tithed. And this, together with grievous 5 f Jer. Dem. 21 d omission of the weightier matters of the Law: judgment, mercy, and faith. Truly, this was to strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!' We remember that this conscientiousness in tithing constituted one of the characteristics of the Pharisees; but we could scarcely be prepared for such an instance of it, as when the Talmud gravely assures us that the ass of a certain Rabbi had been so well trained as to refuse corn of which the tithes had not been taken!fl And experience, not only in the past but in the present, has only too plainly shown, that a religious zeal which expends itself on 1 The learned Danzius has collected all that can be said on that subject in Meuschen, Nov. Test. ex Talm. illustr., pp. 649-666. But in my opinion he exag gerates his case. THE FINAL 'WOES ON THE CITY AND PEOPLE. trifles has not room nor strength left for the weightier matters of the Law. From tithing to purification the transition was natural.' It constituted the second grand characteristic of Pharisaic piety. We have seen with what punctiliousness questions of outward purity of vessels were discussed. But woe to the hypocrisy which, caring for the outside, heeded not whether that which filled the cup and platter had been procured by extortion or was used for excess. And, alas for the blindness which perceived not, that internal purity was the real condition of that which was outward! Woe similarly to another species of hypocrisy, of which, indeed, the preceding were but the outcome: that of outward appearance of righteousness, while heart and mind were full of iniquity-just as those annually-whited sepulchres of theirs seemed so fair outwardly, but within were full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Woe, lastly, to that hypocrisy which built and decorated sepulchres of prophets and righteous men, and by so doing sought to shelter itself from share in the guilt of those who had killed them. It was not spiritual repentance, but national pride, which actuated them in this, the same spirit of self-sufficiency, pride, and impenitence which had led their fathers to commit the murders. And were they not about to imbrue their hands in the blood of Him to Whom all the prophets had pointed? Fast were they in the Divine judgment filling up the measure of their fathers. a 413 CHAP. IV And thicker and heavier than ever before fell the hailstorm of His denunciations, as He foretold the certain doom which awaited their national impenitence. Prophets, wise men, and scribes would be vv. 34-36 sent them of Him; and only murder, sufferings, and persecutions would await them--not reception of their message and warnings. And so would they become heirs of all the blood of martyred saints, from that of him whom Scripture records as the first one murdered, down to that last martyr of Jewish unbelief of whom tradition spoke in such terms-Zechariah,2 stoned by the king's command in the Keim, with keen insight, characterises the Woe which contrasts their proselytising zeal with their resistance to the progress of the Kingdom; then, the third and fourth which denounce their false teaching, the fifth and sixth their false attempts at purity, while the last sets forth their relations to those forerunners of Christ, whose graves they built. 2 We need scarcely remind the reader that this Zechariah was the son of Jehoi- Court of the Temple, whose blood, as legend had it, did not dry up those two centuries and a half, but still bubbled on the pavement, when Nebuzar-adan entered the Temple, and at last avenged it. And yet it would not have been Jesus, if, while denouncing certain judgment on them who, by continuance and completion of the crimes of their fathers, through the same unbelief, had served themselves heirs to all their guilt, He had not also added to it the passionate lament of a love which, even when spurned, lingered with regretful longing over the lost. They all knew the common illustration of the hen gathering her young brood for shelter, and they knew also what of Divine protection, blessing, and rest it implied, when they spoke of being gathered under the wings of the Shechinah. Fain and often would Jesus have given to Israel, His people, that shelter, rest, protection, and blessing-but they would not. Looking around on those Temple-buildings-that House, it shall be left to them desolate! And He quitted its courts with these words, that they of Israel should not see Him again till, the night of their unbelief past, they would welcome His return with a better Hosannah than that which had greeted His Royal Entry three days before. And this was the 'Farewell' and the parting of Israel's Messiah from Israel and its Temple. Yet a Farewell which promised a coming again; and a parting which implied a welcome in the future from a believing people to a gracious, pardoning King! |