I. The Pharisees.-II. The Sadducees.-III. The Essenes
IV. The Scribes.-V. The Lawyers.-VI. The Samari-
tans.-VII. The Herodians.-VIII. The Galilæans. IX.

The Zealots.-X. The Sicarii.

I. The PHARISEES were the most numerous and powerful sect of the Jews. The precise time when they first appeared is not known but, as Josephus1 mentions the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, as distinct sects, in the reign of Jonathan (B. c. 144-139), it is manifest that they must have been in existence for some time. Calmet is of opinion that their origin cannot be carried higher than the year of the world 3820, corresponding with the year 184 before the Christian æra. They derived their name from the Hebrew verb (PHARASH) to separate; because they professed an uncommon separation from the apparel and customs of the world to the study of the law, and an extraordinary devotion to God and sanctity of life, beyond all other men. Hence one of them is represented as thanking God, that he was not as other men are; and St. Paul, in his masterly apology before king Agrippa, terms them anpipeorarn apsors, the most rigorous sect, in our version rendered the most straitest sect. (Acts xxvi. 5.) They were not restricted to any particular family or class of men: there were Pharisees of every tribe, family, and condition. The credit which they had acquired by their reputation for knowledge and sanctity of life early rendered them formidable to the Maccabæan sovereigns; while they were held in such esteem and veneration by the people, that they may be almost said to have given what direction they pleased to public affairs.2 They boasted that, from their accurate knowledge of religion, they were the favourites of heaven;3 and thus, trusting in themselves that they were righteous, despised others. (Luke xi. 52. xviii. 9. 11.)

Among the tenets inculcated by this sect, we may enumerate the following; viz.

1. They ascribed all things to fate or providence, yet not so absolutely as to take away the free will of man, though fate does not co-operate in every action. They also believed in the existence of angels and spirits, and in the resurrection of the dead (Acts xxiii. 8.): but, from the account given of them by Josephus, it appears that their notion of the immortality of the soul was the Pythagorean metempsychosis; that the soul, after the dissolution of one body, winged its flight into another; and that these removals were perpetuated and diversified through an infinite succession, the soul animating a sound and healthy body, or being confined in a deformed and diseased frame, according to its conduct in a prior state of existence. From the Pharisees, whose tenets and traditions the people generally received, it is evident that the disciples of our Lord had adopted this philosophical doctrine of the transmigration of souls; when, having met with a man who had been born blind, they asked him whether it were the sins of this man in a pre-existent state which had cased the Sovereign Disposer to inflict upon him this punishment. To this inquiry Christ replied, that neither his vices or sins in a pre-existent state, nor those of his parents, were the cause of this calamity. (John ix. 1-4.) From this notion, derived from the Greek philosophy, we find that during our Saviour's public ministry, the Jews speculated variously concerning him, and indulged several conjectures, which of the ancient prophets it was whose soul now animated him, and performed such astonishing miracles. Some contended that it was the soul of Elias; others of Jeremiah; while others, less sanguine, only declared in general terms that it must be the soul of one of the old prophets by which these mighty deeds were now wrought. (Matt. xvi. 14. Luke ix. 19.)

1 Ant. Jud. lib. xiii. c. 5. § 9.

bound to bless the Jews, and make them all partakers of the 2. The Pharisees contended that God was in strict justice terrestrial kingdom of the Messiah, to justify them, to make them eternally happy, and that he could not possibly damn rived from the merits of Abraham, from their knowledge of any one of them! The ground of their justification they de God, from their practising the rite of circumcision, and from the sacrifices they offered. And as they conceived works to be meritorious, they had invented a great number of supererogatory ones, to which they attached greater merit than to the observance of the law itself. To this notion St. Paul has some allusions in those parts of his Epistle to the Romans in which he combats the erroneous suppositions of the Jews. 3. The Pharisees were the strictest of the three principal sects that divided the Jewish nation (Acts xxvi. 5.), and affected a singular probity of manners according to their system, which however was for the most part both lax and corrupt. Thus, many things which Moses had tolerated in civil life, in order to avoid a greater evil, the Pharisees determined to be morally right; for instance, the law of retaliation, and that of a divorce from a wife for any cause. (Matt. v. 31. et seq. xix. 3—12.) During the time of Christ there were two celebrated philosophical and divinity schools among the Jews, that of Schammai and that of Hillel. On the question of divorce, the school of Schammai maintained, that no man could legally put away his wife except for adultery: the school of Hillel, on the contrary, allowed a divorce for any cause (from Deut. xxiv. 1.), even if the wife found no favour in the eyes of her husband,-in other words, if he saw any woman who pleased him better. The practice of the Jews seems to have gone with the school of Hillel. Thus we read (in Ecclus. xxv. 26.), "If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh; give her a bill of divorce and let her go;" and in conformity with this doctrine, Josephus, who was a Pharisee, relates that he repudiated his wife who had borne him three children, because he was not pleased with her manners or behaviour.

4. Further, they interpreted certain of the Mosaic laws most literally, and distorted their meaning so as to favour their own philosophical system. Thus, the law of loving their neighbour, they expounded solely of the love of their friends, that is, of the whole Jewish race; all other persons being considered by them as natural enemies (Matt. v. 43. compared with Luke x. 31-33.), whom they were in no respect bound to assist. Dr. Lightfoot has cited a striking illustration of this passage from Maimonides. An oath, in which the name of God was not distinctly specified, they taught was not binding (Matt. v. 33.), maintaining that a man might even swear with his lips, and at the same moment annul it in his heart! So rigorously did they understand the command of observing the Sabbath-day, that they accounted it unlawful to pluck ears of corn, and heal the sick, &c. (Matt. xii. 1. et seq. Luke vi. 6. et seq. xiv. 1. et seq.) Those natural laws which Moses did not sanction by any penalty they accounted among the petty commandments, inferior to the ceremonial laws, which they preferred to the former, as being the weightier matters of the law (Matt. v. 19. xv. 4. xxii. 23.), to the total neglect of mercy and fidelity. Hence they accounted causeless anger and impure desires as trifles of no moment (Matt. v. 21, 22. 27-30.); they compassed sea and land to make proselytes10 to the Jewish religion from among the Gentiles, that they might rule over their consciences and wealth: and these proselytes, through the influence of their own scandalous examples and characters, they soon rendered more profligate and abandoned the New Test. vol. ii. p. 355. To this popular notion of a transmigration of souls, Dr. H. ascribes the alarm of Herod, who had caused John the Baptist to be beheaded, when the fame of Christ's miracles reached his court; but, on comparing Matt. xvi. 6. with Mark viii. 15., it appears that

Herod was a Sadducee, and, consequently, disbelieved a future state. His alarm, therefore, is rather to be attributed to the force of conscience which haunted his guilty mind in despite of his libertine principles.

See Rom. i.-xi. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 2. §4. De Bell. Jud lib. ii. c. 8. § 4. Justin. Dialog. cum Tryphon. Pirke Aboth.

8 Life of himself, § 76. Grotius, Calmet, Drs. Lightfoot, Whitby, Dod dridge, and A. Clarke (on Matt. v. 30. et seq. and Matt. xix. 3. et seq.) have all given illustrations of the Jewish doctrine of divorce from rabbinical writers. See also Selden's Uxor Hebraica, lib. iii. c. 22. (Op. tom. ii. col. 782-786.)

2 The high reputation and influence of the Pharisees are strikingly illustrated by the following anecdote:-When Alexander Jannæus lay on his death-bed, about eighty years before the Christian æra, his queen Alexandra having expressed great anxiety on account of the exposed state in which herself and sons would be left, the dying monarch recommended her to court the Pharisees, and delegate part of her power to them. Alexandra followed this advice; and the Pharisees, availing themselves of 9"A Jew sees a Gentile fall into the sea, let him by no means lift him the opportunity, made themselves masters of the government, and dis-out: for it is written, Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy posed of every thing as they pleased. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xiii. c. 15. neighbour. But this is NOT thy neighbour." Works, vol. ii. p. 152. 5. c. 16. § 1. Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. 4. 3 Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 2. §4. 10 Justin Martyr bears witness to the inveterate malignity of the proseIbid. lib. xiii. c. 5. § 9. lib. xviii. c. 2. §3. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 14. lytes of the Pharisees against the name of Christ, at the beginning of the Acts v. 38, 39. second century. "Your proselytes," says he to Trypho the Jew (p. 350.); Ibid. lib. xviii. c. 1. § 3. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 14. lib. iii. c. 8. § 5. "not only do not believe in Christ, but blaspheme his name with twofold The author of the Book of Wisdom (ch. viii. 20.) seems to allude to the more virulence than yourselves. They are ready to show their malicious same doctrine, when he tells us, that, being good, he came into a body un zeal against us; and, to obtain merit in your eyes, wish to us reproach, and defiled. torment, and death." See further Dr. Ireland's Paganism and Christianity compared, pp. 21-23.

• Dr. Lightfoot's Works, vol. ii. pp. 568, 569. Dr. Harwood's Introd to

was termed a libation, the victim was instantly led to the slaughter. To this circumstance St. Paul, knowing the time of his martyrdom to be very near, has a very striking allusion; representing this rite, which immediately preceded the death of the victim, as already performed upon himself, implying that he was now devoted to death, and that his dissolution would speedily follow. I am now ready to be offered, says he (2 Tim. iv. 6.): literally, I am already poured out as a libation; the time of my departure is at hand. A similar expressive sacrificial allusion occurs in Phil. ii. 17. Yea, says the holy apostle, and if I be POURED OUT upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. In this passage he represents the faith of the Philippians as the sacrificial victim, and compares his blood, willingly and joyfully to be shed in martyrdom, to the libation poured out on occasion of the sacrifice.1

After the usual portions of the victims had been burnt on the altar, or given to the officiating priests, the remainder was either exposed by the owner for sale in the market, or became the occasion of giving a feast to his friends, either in the temple or at his own house. Meat of this description, termed dura, or meats offered to idols, in Acts xv. 29., was an abomination to the Jews; who held that not only those who partook of such entertainments, but also those who purchased such meat in the market, subjected themselves to the pollution of idolatry. The apostle James, therefore, recommends, that the Gentile Christians should abstain from all meats of this kind, out of respect to this prejudice of Jewish Christians; and hence he calls these meats are, pollution of idols, that is, meats polluted in consequence of their being sacrificed unto idols. (Acts xv. 20., compare also 1 Cor. viii. 1. 4. 7. 10. x. 19. 28.) It appears from Judg. ix. 27. that feasting after sacrifice in the temples of idols was not unknown to the Shechemites.

as appears from Psal. ii. 12. There is an idolatrous rite mentioned by Ezekiel, called the putting the branch to the nose (Ezek. viii. 17.), by which interpreters understand, that the worshipper, with a wand in his hand, touched the idol, and then applied the wand to his nose and mouth, in token of worship and adoration. There appears to be this difference, however, between the idolatry of the Jews and that of other nations, viz. that the Jews did not deny a divine power and providence; only they imagined that their idols were the intermediate causes, by which the blessings of the supreme God might be conveyed to them; whereas the heathens believed that the idols they worshipped were true gods, and had no higher conceptions, having no notion of one eternal, almighty, and independent Being.

In the account of the decisive triumph of true religion over idolatry, related in 1 Kings xviii., we have a very striking delineation of the idolatrous rites of Baal; from which it appears that his four hundred and fifty priests, or prophets, as they are termed, employed the whole day in their desperate rites. The time is divided into two periods, 1. From morning until noon, which was occupied in preparing and offering the sacrifice, and in earnest supplication for the celestial fire, (for Baal was unquestionably the god of fire or the sun, and had only to work in his own element), vociferating, 0, Baal, hear us (1 Kings xviii. 26.); and, 2. They continued from noon until the time of offering evening sacrifice (the time when it was usually offered to Jehovah in the temple at Jerusalem), performing their frantic rites.

They leaped up and down at the altar, that is, they danced around it with strange and hideous cries and gesticulations, tossing their heads to and fro, with a great variety of bodily contortions; precisely as the Ceylonese do to this day." In like manner the priests of Mars among the Romans danced and leaped around the altars of that divinity, from which cir6. Singing and dancing were the general attendants of cumstance they derived their name,-Salii. And it came to some of these idolatrous rites: thus, the Israelites danced pass at noon that Elijah mocked them had not the intrepid before the golden calf. (Exod. xxxii. 19.) To this day, dancing prophet of the Lord been conscious of the divine protection, before the idol takes place at almost every Hindoo idolatrous he certainly would not have used such freedom of speech, feast. But their sacrifices were not confined to irrational while he was surrounded by his enemies: And said, Cry victims: it is well known that the practice of offering human aloud! Oblige him, by your vociferations, to attend to your victims prevailed to a great extent; and among the Ammon- suit. Similar vain repetitions were made by the heathen in ites and Phoenicians they were immolated to propitiate Moloch and Baal; and children were in some manner dedicated and devoted to them. The idolatrous worshippers are said to make them pass through the fire; denoting some rite of dedication and purification. This was most expressly forbidden to the Israelites. (Lev. xviii. 21.) In this manner Ahaz devoted his son (2 Kings xvi. 3.); but as Hezekiah afterwards succeeded his father on the throne of Judah, it is evident that he was not put to death. From the declarations of the psalmist (cvi. 36-40.), and of the prophet Ezekiel (xvi. 21. xx. 26. 31.), it is however, certain that many human victims were thus barbarously sacrificed.

The adoration or worship which idolaters paid to their gods did not consist barely in the sacrifices which they offered to them, but likewise in prostrations and bowings of the body; thus Naaman speaks of bowing in the house of Rimmon. (2 Kings v. 18.) It was also a religious ceremony, to lift up the hand to the mouth and kiss it, and then, stretching it out, to throw as it were the kiss to the idol: both this and the former ceremony are mentioned in 1 Kings xix. 18. And so Job, in order to express his not having fallen into idolatry, very elegantly says, If I beheld the sun while it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart had been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, &c. (Job xxxi. 26, 27.); for to kiss and to worship are synonymous terms in Scripture,

Parkhurst's Gr. Lexicon, p. 621. Harwood, vol. ii. pp. 219, 220. Drs. Clarke and Macknight on the passages cited.

The Egyptians had several cities, which were termed Typhonian,such as Heliopolis, Idithya, Abarei, and Busiris,-where at particular seasons they immolated men. The objects thus devoted were persons of bright hair and a particular complexion, such as were seldom to be found among that people. Hence we inay conclude that they were foreigners; and it is probable that while the Israelites resided in Egypt, the victims were chosen from their body. They were burnt alive upon a high altar, and thus sacrificed for the good of the people: at the conclusion of the sacrifice, the priests collected their ashes, and scattered them upwards in the air, most likely with this view, that, where any of the dust was wafted, a blessing might be entailed. By a just retribution, Moses and Aaron were commanded to take ashes of the furnace (which in the Scriptures is used as a type of the slavery of the Israelites, and of all the cruelty which they experienced in Egypt), and to scatter them abroad towards the heaven (Exod. x. 8, 9.), but with a different intention, viz. that where any the smallest portion alighted, it might prove a plague and a curse to the ungrateful, cruel, and infatuated Egyptians. Thus there was a designed contra t in these workings of Providence, and an apparent opposition to the superstition of the times. Bryant, on the Plagues of Egypt, p. 116. On the prevalence of human sacrifices in ancient times, see vol. i. p. 5. and

hu.e.

the time of our Saviour, who cautions his disciples against them in Matt. vi. 7.7-For he is a god-the supreme God; you worship him as such; and, doubtless, he is jealous of his own honour, and the credit of his votaries. Either he is talkinghe may be giving audience to some others; or, as it is rendered in the margin of our larger Bibles,-he meditateth-he is in a profound reverie, projecting some godlike scheme-or he is pursuing-taking his pleasure in the chase-or he is on a journey-having left his audience chamber, he is making some excursions or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.-Absurd as these notions may appear to us, they are believed by the Hindoos, to each of whose gods some particular business is assigned, and who imagine that Vishnoo sleeps for months in the year, while others of their deities are often out on journeys or expeditions. Accordingly the priests of Baal cried aloud, and cut themselves, after their manner. This was not only the custom of the idolatrous Israelites, but also of the Syrians, Persians, Indians, Greeks, Romans, and, in short, of all the ancient heathen world. Hence we may see the reason why the Israelites were forbidden to cut themselves, to make any cuttings in their flesh for the dead, and to print any marks upon themselves. (Deut. xiv. 1.

On the subject of the idolatrous worship of the heathens, the editor of Calinet's Dictionary has accumulated much interesting information. See the Fraginents, particularly Nos. 107. 185. 212, 213. This is the marginal rendering, and most correct, of 1 Kings xviii. 26. From the statement of a Ceylonese convert to Christianity (who was formerly one of the principal high-priests of Budhoo) Dr. A. Clarke has described the manner and invocations of the pagan inhabitants of that island (Comment. on 1 Kings xviii.), to which we are indebted for part of the present elucidation of the rites of Baal; and his account is confirmed by Dr. John Davy, in his Travels in Ceylon.

Jain dederat Saliis (a saltu nomina ducunt)

Armaque et ad certos verba canenda modos.-OVID. Fast. iii. 387, 388. On the custom of dancing around the altars of the gods, the reader will find much curious information in Lomeier's treatise De veterum Gentilium Lustrationibus, cap. 33. pp. 413. et seq.

The infuriated worshippers of Diana all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." (Acts xix. 34.) Not to multiply unnecessary examples, see an illustration of these vain, repetitions in the Heautontimoreumenos of Terence, act v. scene 1. We are informed by Servius that the ancient heathens, after supplicating the particular deity to whom they offered sacrifice, used to invoke all the gods and goddesses, lest any one of them should be adverse to the suppliant. Servius in Virgil. Georg. lib. i. 21. (vol. i. p. 178. of Burmann's edition, Amst. 1746. 4to.) For a remarkable instance of the "vain repetitions" of the modern Mohammedans, see Dr. Richardson's Travels in the Mediter ranean, &c. vol. i. pp. 462-464. Ward's History, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 324.

Lev. xix. 28.) For the heathens did these things not only by pretending that certain divinities uttered oracles. The in honour of their gods, but also in testimony of their grief for the loss of any of their neighbours. The Scythians, as we are informed by Herodotus, were accustomed to slash their arms on the death of their kings; and it is not improbable that some similar custom obtained among some one of the neighbouring nations. The modern Persians to this day cut and lacerate themselves, when celebrating the anniversary of the assassination of Hossein, whom they venerate as a martyr for the Moslem faith.2

Cornelius Agrippa1 tells us likewise, that the manner of science, and by means of certain rites, to evoke the spirits some was to pour melted wax into a cup containing water, of the dead from their gloomy abodes, and compel them to which wax would range itself into order, and so form an- disclose information on subjects beyond the reach of the swers, according to the questions proposed.2 human powers: of this description, probably, was the sorce2. Divination by arrows was an ancient method of presag-rer Bar-Jesus, mentioned in Acts xiii. 6-11. There also ing future events. Ezekiel (xxi. 21.) informs us that Nebu- were others, such as Simon the sorcerer (Acts viii. 9.); who chadnezzar, when marching against Zedekiah and the king having some knowledge of natural philosophy and astrology, of the Ammonites, and coming to the head of two ways, abused that knowledge and deceived the common people by mingled his arrows in a quiver, that he might thence divine pretending to foretell future events, from the motions and apin what direction to pursue his march; and that he consulted pearances of the planets and stars, and to cure certain disteraphim, and inspected the livers of beasts, in order to de- eases by repeating certain phrases, &c. So prevalent was termine his resolution. Jerome, in his commentary on this the practice of sorcery among the Jews, that many of their passage, says that "the manner of divining by arrows was elders, judges, or rabbies, are said to have attained such a thus:they wrote on several arrows the names of the cities proficiency in magic or sorcery, as to surpass even those who against which they intended to make war, and then putting made it their profession.'0 them promiscuously all together into a quiver, they caused them to be drawn out in the manner of lots, and that city, whose name was on the arrow first drawn out, was the first they assaulted." This method of divination was practised by the idolatrous Arabs, and prohibited by Mohammed, and was likewise used by the ancient Greeks, and other nations.5

3. Divination by inspecting the liver of slaughtered animals was another mode of ascertaining future events, much practised by the Greeks and Romans, by the former of whom it was termed 'Haтσn, or looking into the liver. This word subsequently became a general term for divination by inspecting the entrails of sacrifices, because the liver was the first and principal part observed for this purpose. To this method of divination there is an allusion in Ezekiel xxi. 21.6

4. Rabdomancy, or divination by the staff, is alluded to by the prophet Hosea (iv. 12.); it is supposed to have been thus performed: The person consulting measured his staff by spans, or by the length of his finger, saying, as he measured, "I will go, or, I will not go; I will do such a thing, or, Í will not do it ;" and as the fast span fell out so he determined. Cyril and Theophylact, however, give a different account of the matter. They say that it was performed by erecting two sticks, after which they murmured forth a certain charm, and then, according as the sticks fell, backwards or forwards, towards the right or left, they gave advice in any affair.'

In the later period of the Jewish history, we meet with many persons among the Jews, who pretended to be sorcerers. This class of persons dealt in incantations and divinations, and boasted of a power, in consequence of their deep

1 De occult. Philos. 1. i. cap. 57.

p. 54.

2 Dr. A. Clarke on Gen. xliv. 5. Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. i. On this subject see some curious information in the Fragments supplementary to Calmet, No. 179. Koran, ch. v. 4. (Sale's translation, p. 94. 4to. edit.) In his preliminary discourse, Mr. Sale states that the arrows, used by the idolatrous Arabs for this purpose, were destitute of heads or feathers, and were kept in the temple of some idol, in whose presence they were consulted. Seven such arrows were kept in the temple of Mecca, but generally in divination they made use of three only, on one of which was written, My LORD hath commanded me,-on another, My LORD hath forbidden me,-and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they regarded it as an approbation of the enterprise in question; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed-them and drew over again, till a decisive answer was given by one of the others. These divining arrows were generally consulted before any thing of moment was undertaken as when a man was about to marry, to undertake a journey, or the like. (Sale's Prel. Disc. pp. 126, 127.)

Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. i. pp. 359, 360.

Ibid. vol. i. pp. 339, 310. The practice of "divination from the liver is very old, and was practised by the Greeks and Romans, till Christianity banished it, together with the gods of Olympus. In Eschylus, Prometheus boasts of having taught man the division of the entrails, if smooth, and of a clear colour, to be agreeable to the gods; also the various forms of the gall and the liver." (Stolberg's History of Religion, vol. iii. p. 436.) Among the Greeks and Romans, as soon as a victim was sacrificed, the entrails were examined. They began with the liver, which was considered the chief seat; or, as Philostratus expresses himself (Life of Apollonius, viii. 7. § 15.), as the prophesying tripod of all divination. If it had a fine, natural, red colour; if it was healthy, and without spots; if it was large and double; if the lobes turned outwards; they promised themselves the best success in their undertakings: but it portended evil if the liver was dry, or had a band between the parts, or had no lobes. It was also considered an unfortunate omen if the liver was injured by a cut in killing the victim. (Matern. of Cilano, Roman Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 164.) Roseninüller. Burder's Oriental Literature, vol. ii. p. 185.

Selden de diis Syris. Synt. I. cap. 2. p. 28. Godwin's Moses and Aaron, p. 216. Pococke and Newcome, in loc. Potter's Antiq. of Greece, vol. i. p. 359. (Edinb. 1804.)

Josephus relates that, at the period above referred to, there were numerous sorcerers and deceivers; who, pretending to show wonders and prodigies, seduced great numbers of people after them into the wilderness. (Ant. Jud. lib. xx. c. 8. §6. Bell. Jud. lib. iv. c. 13. §4.)

The prevalence of magic among the heathen is too well known to require any proofs. Pythagoras and other distinguished Greek philosophers took no small pains to attain the knowledge of this art: the inhabitants of Ephesus in particular were distinguished for their magical skill. And it was no small triumph of the Gospel that many of the Christian converts at Ephesus, who had previously used curious arts (Ta Tepey, which word is used by Greek writers to denote magical arts, incantations, &c.), brought their books together and burned them before all men. (Acts xix. 19.) So celebrated was the city of Ephesus for the magic art, that some particular forms of incantation derived their names from thence, and were called Epio paμara, or Ephesian Letters.11 They appear to have been amulets inscribed with strange characters, which were worn about the person for the purpose of curing diseases, expelling demons, and preserving individuals from evils of different kinds. The "books" above mentioned were such as taught the science, mode of forming, use, &c. of these charms.12

PREVIOUSLY to the Babylonish captivity there are no vestiges of the existence of any sect among the Jews. Devoted to the study of their law and to the ceremonies of their religion, they neglected those curious studies which were esteemed among other nations. The temple of Jehovah and the houses of the prophets were their principal schools; in the ordinances which he had commanded. After the capwhich they were taught how to serve the Lord and to observe tivity, we do not meet with any traces of any sects among them until the time of the Maccabean princes; when it should seem that the Jewish literati, in imitation of the sects of the Grecian philosophers, became divided in their opinions, and composed the three celebrated sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. As these sects are frequently mentioned in the New Testament, it is proposed in this section to give an account of their origin and tenets, together with those of the Herodians, who are repeatedly mentioned by Jesus Christ, and of some other minor denominations of religious parties which were in existence during the period of time comprised in the New Testament history.13

9 Robinson's Gr. Lex. voce Mays.

10 If any credit may be given to the Talmuds, twenty-four of the school of rabbi Judah were killed by sorcery; and eighty women sorceresses were hanged in one day by Simon ben Shetah. So greatly did the practice of this art prevail among them, that skill in it was required as a necessary qualification for a person to be chosen a member of their councils, whether that of seventy-one or those of twenty-three; in order that he night be the better able to try and judge the accused; whether they were really guilty of sorcery or not. Lightfoot's Works, vol. i. p. 371. vol. ii. p. 244 (folio edit.) where the passages from the Talmuds are given. 11 Biscoe on the Acts, vol. i. pp. 290-293.

12 Dr. A. Clarke, on Acts viii. 17. where some curious information relative to the Ephesian letters is collected from the lexicographers, Suidas and Hesychius.

13 The authorities principally consulted for this section are Pritii Introductio in Lectionem Novi Testamenti, cc. 33, 34. De Statu Religionis Judæorum tempore Christi, pp. 446-471. Calinet's Dissertation sur les Sectes des Juifs Dissert. tom. i. pp. 711-743. Godwin's Moses and Aaron, and Jennings's Jewish Antiquities, book i. ch. 10-13. Schulzii Archæologia Biblica, pp. 170-180. Carpzovii Antiquitates Hebr. Gentis, pp. 173 247. Pictet's Theologie Chrétienne, tom. i. pp. 627-630. and tom. iii. pp. 103-117. Jahn, Archæol. Bibl. $$ 316-320. and Ackermann, Archæol. Bibl. $$ 305-311. Beausobre's and L'Enfant's Introd. (Bp. Watson's Tracts, vol. iii. pp. 184-192.)

§1. ACCOUNT OF THE JEWISH SECTS MENTIONED IN THE NEW

TESTAMENT.

I. The Pharisees.—II. The Sadducees.-III. The Essenes

IV. The Scribes.-V. The Lawyers.-VI. The Samaritans.-VII. The Herodians.-VIII. The Galilæans.-IX.

The Zealots.-X. The Sicarii.

I. The PHARISEES were the most numerous and powerful sect of the Jews. The precise time when they first appeared is not known but, as Josephus1 mentions the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, as distinct sects, in the reign of Jonathan (B. c. 144-139), it is manifest that they must have been in existence for some time. Calmet is of opinion that their origin cannot be carried higher than the year of the world 3820, corresponding with the year 184 before the Christian æra. They derived their name from the Hebrew verb (PHARASH) to separate; because they professed an uncommon separation from the apparel and customs of the world to the study of the law, and an extraordinary devotion to God and sanctity of life, beyond all other men. Hence one of them is represented as thanking God, that he was not as other men are; and St. Paul, in his masterly apology before king Agrippa, terms them anpißerrarn apois, the most rigorous sect, in our version rendered the most straitest sect. (Acts xxvi. 5.) They were not restricted to any particular family or class of men: there were Pharisees of every tribe, family, and condition. The credit which they had acquired by their reputation for knowledge and sanctity of life early rendered them formidable to the Maccabean sovereigns; while they were held in such esteem and veneration by the people, that they may be almost said to have given what direction they pleased to public affairs.2 They boasted that, from their accurate knowledge of religion, they were the favourites of heaven; and thus, trusting in themselves that they were righteous, despised others. (Luke xi. 52. xviii. 9. 11.)

Among the tenets inculcated by this sect, we may enumerate the following; viz.

2. The Pharisees contended that God was in strict justice bound to bless the Jews, and make them all partakers of the them eternally happy, and that he could not possibly damn terrestrial kingdom of the Messiah, to justify them, to make rived from the merits of Abraham, from their knowledge of any one of them! The ground of their justification they de God, from their practising the rite of circumcision, and from the sacrifices they offered. And as they conceived works to be meritorious, they had invented a great number of supererogatory ones, to which they attached greater merit than to the observance of the law itself. To this notion St. Paul has some allusions in those parts of his Epistle to the Romans in which he combats the erroneous suppositions of the Jews.? 3. The Pharisees were the strictest of the three principal sects that divided the Jewish nation (Acts xxvi. 5.), and affected a singular probity of manners according to their system, which however was for the most part both lax and corrupt. Thus, many things which Moses had tolerated in civil life, in order to avoid a greater evil, the Pharisees determined to be morally right; for instance, the law of retaliation, and that of a divorce from a wife for any cause. (Matt. v. 31. et seq. xix. 3-12.) During the time of Christ there were two celebrated philosophical and divinity schools among the Jews, that of Schammai and that of Hillel. On the question of divorce, the school of Schammai maintained, that no man could legally put away his wife except for adultery: the school of Hillel, on the contrary, allowed a divorce for any cause (from Deut. xxiv. 1.), even if the wife found no favour in the eyes of her husband,-in other words, if he saw any woman who pleased him better. The practice of the Jews seems to have gone with the school of Hillel. Thus we read (in Ecclus. xxv. 26.), "If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh; give her a bill of divorce and let her go ;" and in conformity with this doctrine, Josephus, who was a Pharisee, relates that he repudiated his wife who had borne him three children, because he was not pleased with her manners or behaviour.

4. Further, they interpreted certain of the Mosaic laws most literally, and distorted their meaning so as to favour their own philosophical system. Thus, the law of loving their neighbour, they expounded solely of the love of their friends, that is, of the whole Jewish race; all other persons being considered by them as natural enemies (Matt. v. 43. compared with Luke x. 31-33.), whom they were in no respect bound to assist. Dr. Lightfoot has cited a striking illustration of this passage from Maimonides. An oath, in which the name of God was not distinctly specified, they taught was not binding (Matt. v. 33.), maintaining that a man might even swear with his lips, and at the same moment annul it in his heart! So rigorously did they understand the command of observing the Sabbath-day, that they accounted it unlawful to pluck ears of corn, and heal the Those natural laws which Moses did not sanction by any penalty they accounted among the petty commandments, inferior to the ceremonial laws, which they preferred to the former, as being the weightier matters of the law (Matt. v. 19. xv. 4. xxiii. 23.), to the total neglect of mercy and fidelity. Hence they accounted causeless anger and impure desires as trifles of no moment (Matt. v. 21, 22. 27—30.); they compassed sea and land to make proselytes10 to the Jewish religion from among the Gentiles, that they might rule over their consciences and wealth: and these proselytes, through the influence of their own scandalous examples and characters, they soon rendered more profligate and abandoned the New Test. vol. ii. p. 355. To this popular notion of a transmigration of souls, Dr. H. ascribes the alarm of Herod, who had caused John the Baptist to be beheaded, when the fame of Christ's miracles reached his court; but, on comparing Matt. xvi. 6. with Mark viii. 15., it appears that Herod was a Sadducee, and, consequently, disbelieved a future state. His alarm, therefore, is rather to be attributed to the force of conscience which haunted his guilty mind in despite of his libertine principles.

1. They ascribed all things to fate or providence, yet not so absolutely as to take away the free will of man, though fate does not co-operate in every action.4 They also believed in the existence of angels and spirits, and in the resurrection of the dead (Acts xxiii. 8.): but, from the account given of them by Josephus, it appears that their notion of the immortality of the soul was the Pythagorean metempsychosis; that the soul, after the dissolution of one body, winged its flight into another; and that these removals were perpetuated and diversified through an infinite succession, the soul animating a sound and healthy body, or being confined in a deformed and diseased frame, according to its conduct in a prior state of existence. From the Pharisees, whose tenets and traditions the people generally received, it is evident that the disciples of our Lord had adopted this philosophical doc-sick, &c. (Matt. xii. 1. et seq. Luke vi. 6. et seq. xiv. 1. et seq.) trine of the transmigration of souls; when, having met with a man who had been born blind, they asked him whether it were the sins of this man in a pre-existent state which had caused the Sovereign Disposer to inflict upon him this punishment. To this inquiry Christ replied, that neither his vices or sins in a pre-existent state, nor those of his parents, were the cause of this calamity. (John ix. 1-4.) From this notion, derived from the Greek philosophy, we find that during our Saviour's public ministry, the Jews speculated variously concerning him, and indulged several conjectures, which of the ancient prophets it was whose soul now animated him, and performed such astonishing miracles. Some contended that it was the soul of Elias; others of Jeremiah; while others, less sanguine, only declared in general terms that it must be the soul of one of the old prophets by which these mighty deeds were now wrought. (Matt. xvi. 14. Luke ix. 19.)6

1 Ant. Jud. lib. xiii. c. 5. § 9.

See Rom. i.-xi. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 2. $4. De Bell. Jud lib. ii. c. 8. § 4. Justin. Dialog. cum Tryphon. Pirke Aboth.

8 Life of himself, § 76. Grotius, Calmet, Drs. Lightfoot, Whitby, Dod dridge, and A. Clarke (on Matt. v. 30. et seq. and Matt. xix. 3. et seq.) have all given illustrations of the Jewish doctrine of divorce from rabbinical writers. See also Selden's Uxor Hebraica, lib. iii. c. 22. (Op. tom. ii. col. 782-786.)

2 The high reputation and influence of the Pharisees are strikingly illustrated by the following anecdote:-When Alexander Jannæus lay on his death-bed, about eighty years before the Christian æra, his queen Alexandra having expressed great anxiety on account of the exposed state in which herself and sons would be left, the dying monarch recommended her to court the Pharisees, and delegate part of her power to them. Alexandra followed this advice; and the Pharisees, availing themselves of "A Jew sees a Gentile fall into the sea, let him by no means lift him the opportunity, made themselves masters of the government, and dis-out: for it is written, Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy posed of every thing as they pleased. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xiii. c. 15. neighbour. But this is NOT thy neighbour." Works, vol. ii. p. 152. 5. c. 16. § 1. Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. 4. 3 Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 2. §4. 10 Justin Martyr bears witness to the inveterate malignity of the proselytes of the Pharisees against the name of Christ, at the beginning of the second century. "Your proselytes," says he to Trypho the Jew (p. 350.); "not only do not believe in Christ, but blaspheme his name with twofold more virulence than yourselves. They are ready to show their malicious zeal against us; and, to obtain merit in your eyes, wish to us reproach, and torment, and death." See further Dr. Ireland's Paganism and Christianity compared, pp. 21-23.

Ibid. lib. xiii. c. 5. § 9. lib. xviii. c. 2. §3. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 14. Acts v. 38, 39. Ibid. lib. xviii. c. 1. §3. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 14. lib. iii. c. 8. § 5. The author of the Book of Wisdom (ch. viii. 20.) seems to allude to the same doctrine, when he tells us, that, being good, he came into a body undefiled.

e Dr. Lightfoot's Works, vol. ii. pp. 568, 569. Dr. Harwood's Introd. to