(2.) A saying is ascribed to Simon the Just (q. v.) (B.C. 300-290),"the last of the succession of the men of the Great Synagogue, which embodies the principle on which they had acted, and enables us to trace the next stage of the growth of their system. " Our fathers have taught us," he said, "three things: to be ca^itious in judging, to train many scholars, and to set a fence about the law" {Pirke Aboth, i, 1; comp. Jost, i, 95). The_v wished to make the law of IMoscs the rule of life for the whole nation and for individual men. But it lies in the nature of every such law, of every informal, half-systematic code, that it raises questions which it does not solve. Circumstances change, while the law remains the same. The infinite variety of life presents cases which it has not contemplated. A Roman or (ireek jurist would have dealt with these on general principles of equity or polity. The Jewish teacher could recognise no principles beyond the precepts of the law. To him they all stood on the same footing, were all equally divine. All possible cases must be brought within their range, decided by tlieir authoritj\
(3.) The result showed that in this, as in other in- stances, the idolatry of the letter was destructive of the
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very reverence in which it had originated. Step by step tlie scribes were led to conchisions at which we may believe the earlier representatives of the order would have started back with horror. Decisions on fresh questions were accumulated into a complex system of casuistrj'. The new precepts, still transmitted orally, more precisely fitting into the circumstances of men's lives than the old, came practically to take their place. The " Words of the Scribes" (S'^'lSID '^'i^^'^, now used as a technical phrase for these decisions) were honored above the law (Lightfoot, I/arm. vol. i, § 77; Jost, Ju- denth. i, 93), It was a greater crime to offend against them than against the law. They were as wine, while the precepts of the law were as water. The first step was taken towards annulling the commandments of God for the sake of their own traditions. The casuistry became at once subtle and prurient, evading the plain- est duties, tampering with conscience (Matt, xv, 1-C; xxili, 16-23). The right relation of moral and ceremo- nial laws was not only forgotten, but absolutely in- verted. This was the result of the profound reverence for the letter which gave no heed to the " word abiding in them" (John v, 38).
(4.) The history of the full development of these ten- dencies will be found elsewhere. See Talmud. Here it will be enough to notice in what way the teaching of the scribes in our Lord's time was making to that result. Their first work was to report the decisions of previous rabbins. These, as we have just seen, were the JFalachoth (that which f/oes, the current precepts of the schools) — precepts binding on the conscience. As they accumulated, they liad to be compiled and classified. A new code, a second corpus juris, the Mishna {cevTEpw- atig'), grew out of them, to become in its turn the sub- ject of fresh questions and commentaries. Here ulti- mately the spirit of the commentators took a wider range. The anecdotes of the schools or courts of law, the obiler dicta of rabbins, the wildest fables of Jewish superstition (Tit. i, 14), were brought in, with or with- out any relation to the context, and the Gemara (com- pleteness) filled up the measure of the institutes of Kabbinlc law. The Mishna and the Gemara together were known as the Talmud (instruction), the "neces- sary doctrine and erudition" of everv learned Jew (Jost, Judenih. 11, 202-222).
(5.) Side by side with this was a development in an- other direction. The sacred books were not studied as a code of laws only. To search into their meaning had from the first belonged to the ideal office of the scribe. He who so searched was secure, in the language of the scribes themselves, of everlasting life (John v, 39 ; see IHrke AbotJi, 11, 8). But here also the book suggested thoughts which could not logically be deduced from it. Men came to it with new beliefs, new in form, if not in essence, and, not finding any ground for them in a lit- eral interpretation, were compelled to have recourse to an interpretation which was the reverse of literal. The fruit of this effort to find what was not there appears in the Midrushim (searchiugs, investigations) on the sev- eral books of the Old Test. The process by which the meaning, moral or mystical, was elicited was known as JIagadah (saying, opinion). There was obviously no assignable limit to such a process. It became a prov- erb that no one ought to spend a day in the Beth-ham- Midrash (" the house of the interpreter") without light- ing on something new. But there lay a stage higher even than the Hagadali. The mystical school of inter- pretation culminated in the Cabala (reception, the re- ceived doctrine). Ever}' letter, every immber, became pregnant with mj-steries. With the strangest possible distortion of its original meaning, the Greek word which had been the representative of the most exact of all sci- ences was chosen for the wildest of all interpretations. The Gematria (^yew^eTpla) showed to what depths the wrong path could lead men. The mind of the inter- preter, obstinately shutting out the light of day, moved