With the definitions and explanations of such an ex- tensive and gorgeous ritual as that of the .Mosaic law. with the application and adaptation thereof to all the vicissitudes of the commonwealth, with the different degrees of holiness and uncleanness attached to the per- formance or neglect of each precept and rite, with the diverse dispositions and idiosyncrasies of the multitude about the respective merits of outward observances and a corresponding inward feeling, the Pharisees would
PHARISEE
74
PHARISEE
have been superhuman if they had escaped the ex- travagances which in the course of time have more or eloped themselves in the established religions based u] a more spiritual code and ;i less formal rit- ual. Thus the enactmenl thai "the flesh of quadru- peds musl nol I oked or in any way mixed with
milk for food," deduced from injunctions in Exod. xxiii, 19; xxxiv. 26; Dent. xiv. 21 ; <>r the enactment about "the compulson recitation of the Skema twice a day." i. e. the declaration about the unity of the Deitj (Deut v i. i 9 . al a stated time; or the discussion on "the lighting of candles on the eve of the Sabbath," which is the duty of every Jew ; or "the interdict to eat an egg which had been laid on any feast-day, whether such daj was or was nol the day after the Sabbath," has its parallel in other and later systems. The Christian Church, without any basis for it in the N. T., has at times employed a casuistry which may fairly compete with that of the Pharisees, who had to define an in- spired code of minute rites and ceremonies. From Pe- ter Lombard to Gabriel Biel the question was warmly discussed among all the Christian casuists, What is to be done with a mouse which has eaten of the conse- crated wafer? The Established Church of England has deduced from the words "Let all things be done de- cently and according to order" 1 1 Cor. xv, 40) the pettj regulation that "no man shall cover his head in the church or chapel in the time of divine service, except he have some infirmity, in which case let him wear a nightcap or coif" (Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiasti- cal, xviii i : has enacted I hat " no minister, when he cel- ebrateth the communion, shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel, under pain ofsuspen- P.xxvii); that "upon Wednesdays and Fridays weekly, though they be not holy-days, the minister, al
the accust ed hours of service, shall resort to the
church or chapel, and, warning being given to the peo- ple by tolling of a bell, shall say the litany prescribed
in the Bool? of Com n Prayer: whereunto we wish
every householder dioelling within half a mile of th cliurch to come or send om at th least of his household fit to join with the minister in prayers" (xv); and that "no ecclesiastical person shall wear any coif or wrought nightcap, but only plain nightcaps of Mack silk, satin, i : ... in private houses and in their studies the said persons ecclesiastical may use any comely and scholar-like apparel, provided that it lie not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not in their doublet and hose, without coats or cassocks; and that they wear not any Light-colored stockings" (lxxiv). This, how- ever, only shows the tendency of all ritualism to degrade the human intellect by minute requisitions. That the multitudinous and detailed rites and ceremonies imposed by the Mosaic law. .and amplified by the requirements of time, should have given rise among many l'har- formalism, outward religiousness, self-compla- tentation, superstition, and hypocrisy, was to he expected, judging from the general tendency of gor- tualism in more modern days. A learned Jew :iu i -I them rather the holiness of works than hypocritical holiness (" Werkheiligkeit, nichl Scheiu- heiligkeit," Herzfeld, Geschichtt des Volfces Tsrael, iii. B59). \i any rate they must he regarded as having been Bome of the most intense formalists whom the world ha- ever seen ; and. looking at the average stand- ard of excellence among mankind, it is nearly certain that men whose lives were -pent in the ceremonial ob- servances of the Mishna would cherish feelings of self- complacencj and spiritual pride not jiM died by intrinsic
ral e\ic Hence. The supercilious contempt towards
the poor publican, and towards the tender penitential love that bathed I hrist's fei I with tears, would he the natu- ral result ol Buch a system of life. We are therefore
not surprised that our Saviour saw these pernicious features in the rank- of Pharisaism, and that he found
occasion to expose and to reprove most unsparingly
their externalism (Matt, xxiii, ".'7; I, tike \ii. ."''.'i and
hypocrisy I Matt, xxiii. 13). But to conclude from this that all the Phariset - were either si Lf-rigbb on- and su- perstitious, or a set of hypocrites, is as unjust a- it would he to brand every section in modern churches with the infirmities and extravagances of -which indi- vidual members are guilty, and which are cither de- nounced bj their own more enlightened and spirituallv- minded brethren, or exposed by the opposing sections. The language which the Pharisees themselves em- ployed to denounce the proud, the formalists, the self- righteous, and the hypocrites in their own sect. is, to say the least, quite as Btrong a- that which our Sav- iour used. In confirmation of this, we need only give