In the Sermon on the Mount fasting is recognized as a fitting religious exercLse ; but, as in the case of prayer and almsgiving, it is essential, for its true religious quality to be preserved, that it should be practised without ostentation. The religious self- advertisement which characterized the Pharisees eviscerated these exercises of all their value. They were to be a secret betAveen a man and his God. In the most rigorous fasts washing and anointing- were forbidden [Taunith, i. 6), while they were allowed in the less severe (ib. i. 4f. ). Jesus bids His followers anoint the head and wasli the face when they fast, that no one may be able to detect that they are fasting (Mt 6'**"^^). See Fasting.
Immediately following the defence of the dis- ciples for not fasting, we have in all the Synoptics (Mt 9'8f-, Mk 2-1'-, Lk b^^^-) the sayings about the undressed cloth and the new wine in the old wine- skins. The parables are difficult ; the lesson taught is clearly the incompatibility of the new with the old, and the disaster thiat will inevitably follow any attempt to combine them. But it is by no means clear with what ' old ' and ' new ' should be identified, nor again can we assume that both parables express the same truth. It is pos- sible, though improbable, that Jesus may intend by ' the old ' the ancient piety of the Old Testa- ment, and by ' the new ' the new-fangled regula- tions of the scribes. His sense being that the old Divinely-given mode of life is being ruined by the tradition of men. But it is more likely that the u.sual view is right, according to which ' the old ' is Judaism and ' the new ' is the gosi)el. Even so, however, various interpretations are possible. L'sually it has been thought that in both sayings Jesus is defending the attitude of His disciples : you cannot expect the new spirit of the gospel to be cast in the old moulds of Judaism ; the new spirit must create new forms for itself. Weiss, however, considers that both parables constitute a defence of the attitude of John's disciples, they cannot be expected to combine the spirit of the Gospel with their legalist and ascetic habit of life (Bibl. Thcol. of NT, i. 112). It is pos.sible, however, that Beyschlag is correct in thinking that the parable of the undressed cloth on the old garment is a justification of John's disciples in fasting, while the parable of the new wine in the old bottles is a justification of the disciples of Jesus for refusing to follow their example {NT Thcol. i. 114). The two sayings are connected by 'and,' it is true, but this conjunction has in the Synop- tics a wider range of meaning than in English. Wellhausen hnds the sayings difficult. He is not disjjosed to question their authenticity, though, as already mentioned, he strikes out the sayings immediately preceding.
3. Another point in which Jesus came into con- flict with the tradition was that of Ablutions (Mk 7'"^- II). To secure that nothing ceremonially unclean should be eaten, the Jews were very scrupulous in washing the hands before meals. The laws of cleanness and uncleanness touch life so much more closely than any others, that the casuistry of the scribes naturally finds in this matter a large field of exercise. The largest of the six books of the Mishna is given up to this topic. The purification of vessels alone occupies tliirty chapters of this book. The Pentateuch itself exhibits more than the usual tendencj^ to
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casuistry in this matter, but the tradition left the Law out of sight in the elaborateness of its regulations. In the time of Jesus tradition had Itecome very strict with reference to the washing of the hands. The practice originated with the Pharisees, but was adopted by almost all the Jews. Even Mlien the hands were ceremonially clean it was necessaiy to wash them, no doubt to guard against the i>ossibility of unconscious delilement. If they were known to be unclean, tliey liad to be washed twice before a meal ; they were also waslied after l(.>od ; and some Pharisees washed even between tlie courses. The hands were lield with tlie lingers up, so that the undeanness might be Wicshed down from them ; and for the ceremony to be eti'ectual it was necessary that the water should run down to the wrist (though we should pro)»ably not translate Tri-y/j.ri, Mk 7^, 'to the wrist"; see Swete, ad lor.). In Jn 2* we read of the six stone water-jwts for the water of puritication at the marriage in Cana : and the same Gospel tells us how the Jews puritied themselves for the Passover (11^), or took precautions against defilement wliich would disqualify them from eating it (IS*).
It was therefore natural that the neglect of some of the disciples should evoke criticism : and this criticism was uttered by officials from Jerusalem who had come do^^^l to watcli the ne^v movement (Mk 7^). Xo mention is made liere of any viola- tion of the tradition on the i)art of Jesus Himself ; though in Lk 11** we are told that the Pharisee, at wliose house Jesus was eating, was surprised that He neglected this ceremony. Jesus defended His disciples by a complete repudiation of the tradition. He ix)inted out tliat its eflect was to nullify the Law rather than to establish it ; and He illustrated this from the practice of dedicating to God that which ought to have been used by a man for the support of his parents. To tliis point it will be necessaiy to return. But in con- nexion with the question of liand-washing Jesus enunciated a principle of far-reaching importance which not only set aside the tradition, but even abrogated a large section of the Law. He asserted that not that which is witliout a man can, In- going into him, defile him, but the things which proceed out of the man. The heart is the essential thing, food cannot come into contact with that ; but it is in it that evil thouglits, words, or actions have their rise, and it is these that make a man unclean. Not wliat a man eat^, but wliat he is, determines the question of his purity. Thus Jesus lifted the whole conception of cleanness and un- deanness out of the ceremonial into the ethical domain. But it is plain that this carried with it revolutionaiy conclusions, not only as to the tradi- tion, but as to the Law ; for mucli of tlie Law was occupied precisely witli tlie undeanness created by external things, and it is not improbable that St. Mark has definitely drawn this inference in his Gospel.