It IS, however, only right to observe that, in spite of the rules ana restrictions created by the Kabbis, the sabbath does not seem to have been felt practically to be a day of burden and gloom, to those living under them. ' The sabbath is celebrated by the very people wlio did observe it, in hundreds of hymns, which would fill volumes, as a day of rest and joy, of pleasure and delight, a day in which man enjoys some presentiment of the pure bli.s8 and hajjpiness which are stored up for the righteous in the world to come. To it such tender names were ajjplied as the " tjueen Sab- b;ith," the " Bride Sabbath," and the " holy, dear, beloved Sabbath" (Scliechtor, JQIi iii. 703, or ap. Monteliore, Ilibb. Lixt. 507 ; cf. the hymns quoted b}' Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 1896, pp. 133-137).
iv. Summary. — It appears, from what has been said, that, so far as wo can trace the sabbath back among the Hebrews, it was a day sacred to J", and also a day, presupposing the agricultural period, marked by cessation from labour in the house and in the lield : it had thus essentially a 2'hilanthropic character, the duty enjoined on it, as Wellh. has said, being less that the Israelite should rest him.self, than that ho should give others rest. Whatever the sabbath may have been in its primitive form, wo 111.13' f*^*^' ^^^e that this philanthropic a]iplicatiou of it is of Israelite origin. As sacred to J", religious olwervances,
• Of. Schurer, II. 893-400, 412-414. The tractates Snablmth &nA' Enlbin are translated, in Sola and Itaphael's Eujittem Treatuen 0/ the Mijihna (1843), pp. 34-lKi; and, with copious notes, in Surenhusius' Muchna (11109), ii. 1-77, 78-134. There is also a pretty full alistract of SItahbdth In ICdersheim, L\ft and Times, ii. 77-11?.; and a separate ed. In Ueb., with useful introd. and glossary, by II. L. .Straj:k, Lpz. 1800. See, further, the nianv Taliii. piu-sa^'es tr. bv Wetstein (iVou. Test.) on Mt 122.6 10,' i,k 141 etc. ; and conip. also W. H. Bennett, The ilMnah (U UtuttratiTtg the OospcU, 1884, p. 6311.
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SABBATH
SABBATH
at first simple and nidimentary, afterwards such as would sprin" naturally out of a more educated and maturer religious feeling, were attached to it, — special sacrifices, gatherings for worship in the temple, private prayer and meditation, and ulti- mately services in the synagogues. On its prac- tical side, it was essentially an institution ' made for man.' Its intention was to gi^•e a rest from laborious and engrossing occupations, and from tlie cares and anxieties of daily life, and at the same time to secure leisure for thouglits of God. The restrictions attaclied to it were meant to be inter- preted in the spirit, not in the letter. It had not essentially an austere or rigorous character ; it was never intended that actions demanded by duty, necessity, or benevolence should be proscribed on it. Jts ,'^im was rather to counterajjL-ll'e deaden- ing infliicnce. up()" l"i^l' hmly snij^^sn^il, oTTiever- i'Tit^rriiiptpil daily Tfiil, and of r^jifiniiniijj jjhaniptinn in secular pursuits. I)ut as time went on, an anxious and ultimatelj' a superstitious dread of pro- faning the sabbath asserted itself ; the spiritual was subordinated to the fonnal, restrictions were multiplied, till at length those which were really important and reasonable were buried beneath a crowd of regulations of the pettiest description. The general attitude taken towards the sabbath by our Lord was, while accommodating Himself to such observances as were consistent with its real purpose {e.g. worshipping or teaching in the syna- gogue), or otherwise innocent (p. 320" n.), to free it iToni those adventitious accretions with which the • tradition of the elders ' had encrusted it. Tlie sabbath, He emphatically declares (Mk 2^), 'was made for man, not man for the sabbath.' * In particular, deeds of mercy were no infringement of its sanctity : it was ' lawful to do good on the sabbath day' (Mt 12'=). Nor was the sabbath, as the Rabbis seemed to make it, an end in itself, for the sake of which men should be subjected to a number of needless and vexatious rules ; it was a means to an end, the good of God's people, and this end was best promoted by a reasonable liberty in the interpretation of the statutes relating to it ; the multiplication of rules tended really not to pre- serve its essential character, but to destroy it.
The injunction Mt 2420 (' Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on a sabbath'; the clause is not in the II Mk lai») rests probably upon the supposition either that the Christians addressed, bein^ still resident in Judiea, would not, at the time contemplatea, have yet cast off their Jewish Bcniples, or (Hessey, p. 174 f.) that impediments would be thrown in the way of their flight by the Jews around them. Jn ;.n * My Father worketh even until now (viz. without interruption), and 1 work," bears upon the relation which — not an ordinary man, but — Christ Himself holds towards the sab- hath : He does not by works of mercy break the sabbath any more than God the Father does by His sustaining providence, which operates continuously on the sabbath not less than on other dai s (ct. IlnshUh li. i 11 ; tr. Wunsche, 48 : liaclier, i. 84 f., -jasf.).