the deliverance of the human soul, Paul so emphatically protested. See Ki si rri > i ion.
h. In reference to the opinion- of the Pharisees con- cerning the freedom of the "-HI. a difficulty arises from the \eiy prominent position which they occupy in the
accounts of Josephus, whereas nothing vitally essential to the peculiar doctrines of the Pharisees seems to de- pend on those opinions, .-mil some ol lo- expressions are Greek, rather than Hebrew. "There were three secis
of the Jews," he says. •• which had dill', rent conceptions
respecting human affairs, of which one was called Phar- second Sadducees, and the third Essenes. The
Pharisees say that some things, and not all things, are tin- work of fate: hut that some things are in our own power to he and not to he. But the Essenes declare that fate- rules all things, and that nothing happens to man except by iis decree. The Sadducees, on the other hand, take away fate, holding thai it is a thing of naught, and that human affairs do not depend upon it ; hm in their estimate all things .are in the power of OUT-
- 1\ . -. as being ourselvi s the causes of our good things, and meeting with evils through our own inconsiderate- f. xviii, 1, 3j comp. War, ii, 8, 14). On read- ing this passage, and the others which bear on the same subject in Josephus's work-, the suspicion natu- rally arises that he was hia— ed by a de-ire to make the Greeks believe that, like the Greeks, the Jews had phil- osophical sects among themselves. At .any rate ids words do not represent the opinions as they were really held by the three religious parties. We may feel cer- tain thai the influence of faU wa- not the point on which discussions respecting free-will turned, though there may have been differences as to the way in which the interposition of God in human affairs was to be regarded. Thus the ideas of the Essenes are likely to have been expressed in language approaching the words of Christ (Matt. x. 29, 30; \ i. 25, 34 I, and it is very difficult to believe that the Sadducees, who .ac- cept,,! the authority of the Pentateuch and other 1 ks
of the ( ). '1'.. excluded ( hid. in their conception, ti'otn all
influence on human actions. On the whole, in reference to this point, the opinion of Gratz {<,<s.-h !,■/,/, derjuden, iii. 509) seems not improbable, that the real difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees was at first prac- tical and political, lie conjectures that the wealthy and aristocrati, -al Sadducees iii their wars and negotia- tions with the Syrians entered into mallei- ,,1 policy and calculations of prudence, while the zealous Phari- sees, disdaining worldly wisdom, laid stress on doing what seemed right, and on leaving the event to God;
and that this led lo difference- in formal theories and
metaphysical statements. The precise nature of those differences we do not certainly know, as no writing of a Sadducee on the subject has been preserved by the .lews. and on matters of this kind it is unsafe to trust unre- servedly the statements of an adversary.
c. In reference to the spirit of proselytism among the Pharisees, there is indisputable authority for the state- ment that it prevailed to a very great extent at the lime of Christ i Matt, xxiii. 15); and attention i- now called to it on .account of its probable importai in having paved the way for the early diffusion of Chris- tianity. The district of Palestine, which was long in proportion to its breadth, and which yet, from Dan to Beersheba, was only 160 Koman miles, or not quite 148 English miles long, and which is represented as having been civilized, wealthy, and populous 1000 years before Christ, would under any circumstances have been too -mill lo continue maintaining the whole growing popu- lation of its children. But, through kidnapping (Joel iii. 6), through leading into captivity by military in- cursions and \ ictorious enemies (2 Kings xvii, 6; xviii, 11: xxiv. 15; Amos i. 6, 9), through (light pier, xliii. 1 -7), through commerce (Josephus, Ant. xx, 2, :>). and probably through ordinary emigration, Jews al the time of Chri.-i had become scattered over the fairest portions of the civilized world. < >n the day of Pentecost, that
ureal festival on which the Jews suppose M s to have
brought the perfect law down from heaven (Festival Prayers for Pentecost, p. 6), .lews .are said to have bet n assembled with one accord in one place iii Jerusalem, ••from every region under heaven." Admitting that this was :m Oriental hyperbole (comp. John xxi. 25), there must have been some foundation for ii in fact: and the enumeration of the various count rie- from w hich .lews are said to have heen present gives a \ ivid idea Of the widely-spread existence ol Jewish communities.
Now it i- not unlikely, though it cannot be proved from Josephus (.1"/. xx, ■_>. :>,), that missions and organized
PHARISEE
•;;
PHARISEE
attempts to produce conversions, although unknown to Greek philosophers, existed among the Pharisees (De Wette, Exee/etisches llandbueh, Matt, xxiii, 15). But, at any rate, the then existing regulations or customs of synagogues afforded facilities which do not exist now either in synagogues or Christian churches for present- ing new views to a congregation (Acts xvii, 2; Luke iv, 1G). Under such auspices the proselytizing spirit of the Pharisees inevitably stimulated a thirst for in- quiry, and accustomed the Jews to theological contro- versies. Thus there existed precedents and favoring circumstances for efforts to make proselytes, when the greatest of all missionaries, a Jew by race, a Pharisee by education, a Greek by language, and a Roman citizen by birth, preaching the resurrection of Jesus to those who for the most part already believed in the resurrec- tion of the dead, confronted the elaborate ritual-system of the written and oral law by a pure spiritual religion ; and thus obtained the co-operation of many Jews them- selves in breaking down every barrier between Jew, Pharisee, Greek, and Roman, and in endeavoring to unite all mankind by the brotherhood of a common Christianity. See Proselyte.