(Mk 24%=Mt 9%, ete.), and strict observance o the Sabbath (Mk 27%=Mt 12), Lk 13:05. 1415. Jn 5-16 045), The traditions of the elders were even more binding than the commandments of the written law (Mk 78). In later Jewish writings we find similar statements. The written law had to be explained in accordance with tradition. ‘The sword comes upon the world for suppression of judgment; and for perversion of judgment; and for explaining Torah not according to canon (tra- dition).’+ ‘Words of Soferim are akin to words of Torah and more beloved than words of Torah, for (Ca 1?) Thy Love is better than Wine.’ It is added that whereas the Torah contains both light and weighty precepts, the words of the Soferim are all of the Teter class (Rabbi Jochanan in Taylor, op. cit. 105). ‘It is a greater crime to teach con- sgt d to the precepts of the scribes than contrary to the Torah itself’ (Sanhedrin xi. 3 in Schiirer, GJV®* ii. 390 [HJUP 11. ii. 12)). No contradiction was allowed to anything that had once been introduced and laid down by the fathers (Ant. XVIII. i. 3).
The Pharisees were thus the strictly legal party among the Jews. Their piety was strictly legal ; the essence of religion consisted in the accurate knowledge and scrupulous observance of the law and tradition, which were the norm of all life, national, social, and individual. The Sadducees, while they had a tradition of their own, utterly rejected the traditions to which the Pharisees were so much attached.
(2) Immortality of the soul, resurrection of the body, and future retribution. According to Josephus, the Pharisees taught that every soul is incorruptible, but that only those of good men
over into another body, while those of the wicked are punished with eternal suffering (BJ
Il. viii. 14). They held that there is an immortal vigour in souls, and that under the earth there are rewards and punishments for those that have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; that for
the latter there has been appointed an everlasting prison, but the former have the power to return to life (Ant. xvul. i. 3f.). In the above passages
Josephus does not represent the Pharisees as
* Such expressions as ‘the soribes of the Pharisees’ (Mk τὸ, *the Pharisees and their scribes’ (Lk &*), ‘the soribes of the Pharisees’ part’ (Ac 23%), show that there were also non-Ihart βαῖο scribes.
+ Pirke Aboth ¥. 13; eee Taylor, Savings of the Jewish Fathers
PHARISEES
PHARISEES
believing in the transmigration of souls, but as holding the doctrines, common to Judaism since Dn 193, of a resurrection of the body and of a future retribution. The Psalms of Solomon also speak only of a resurrection of the righteous. The sinner ‘falleth ; verily grievous is his fall, and he shall not rise again ; the destruction of the sinner is for ever. But they that fear the Lorp shall rise again unto life eternal, and their life shall be in the light of the Lorp, and it shall fail no more’ (315: 16, ‘The life of the righteous is for ever. But sinners shall be taken away unto destruction’ (13%), ‘Therefore is their inherit- ance hell and darkness and destruction... . But the saints of the Lorp shall inherit life in glad- ness’ (14° ; οὗ, 154-45). The Sadducees denied the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the
y: Ἵ
(3) Messianic expectations. The doctrine of the resurrection was 8 cardinal doctrine with the Pharisees, because of its close connexion with their Messianic hopes. They looked for a literal reign of God upon earth, when the power, of which they were meanwhile deprived, would be in their hands ; for the Messianic kingdom was to be the kingdom of the saints, and they were the saints. In the Psalms of Solomon we have a good account of these hopes as cherished by them shortly before our Saviour’s birth. The Messiah, who is not Divine, is the son of David, and is raised up by God, whose vicegerent he is upon earth. He de- livers Israel from the supremacy of the Gentiles (i.e. the Romans), whom he destroys with the word of his mouth, and thrusts out the sinners (i.e. the Sadducees) from the inheritance of God. He reigns over Israel, evidently in Jerusalem, which he purges and makes holy as in the days of old ; the Gentiles also become subject to him. Pure from sin him- self, there is no sea in his day in the people’s midst; they are ΒΟΥ and the sons of their God. Though his kingdom is really an earthly kingdom, nothing is said of material blessings.* But that their hopes were occasionally of a very materialistic nature, is evident from the prospect which, according to Josephus, they held out to
, the eunuch (Ant. xvm. ii. 4). Naturall the Sadducees were wholly indifferent to suc Messianic expectations.
(4) Angels and Spirits. The Sadducees denied that there was either angel or spirit; the Pharisees confessed both (Ac 238).
(5) Divine providence and freedom of man’s will. According to Josephus, the Pharisees, while making everything dependent on fate and God, taught that the doing of what is right or wrong is for the most part in man’s own power, but that fate also co-operates in ora action (BJ It. viii. 14), They maintained that all things are done by fate, and yet admitted a measure of freedom to man, so that he contributes to the divinely willed result (Ant. Xv. i. 3); or, as it is put in another sara (XII. ν. 9), they taught that some things,