AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 45 of God are supposed to have been closely allied to the oriental philosophy on that subject; while to the prince of darkness, and his associates and agents, they attributed an influence over the world and the human race so predominant as scarcely to leave a superior degree of power even to the Deity himself. Of various terrific conceits, founded upon this notion, one of the principal was, that all the evils and calamities which befal the human race were to be considered as originating with this prince of darkness and his ministering spirits, who had their dwelling in the air, and were scattered throughout every part of the universe. Their notions also, and manner of reasoning, respecting angels, or ministers of divine providence, were nearly allied to those maintained by the Babylonians or Chaldæans, as may be readily perceived by those who will give themselves the trouble to investigate the subject. But on no one point were the sentiments of the Jews of that day more estranged from the doctrine taught by their prophets than on what regarded the character of their Messiah. The greatest part of the Jewish nation were looking with eager desire for the appearance of the deliverer whom God had promised to their fathers. But their hopes were not directed to such a one as the scriptures described: they expected not a spiritual deliverer to rescue them from the bondage of sin and Satan, and to bestow upon them the blessings of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, peace days of Rabbi Jehuda, no part of the moral law had ever been committed to writing for public perusal. In every generation, the president of the Sanhedrim, or the prophet of his age, for his own private use, is said to have written notes of the traditions which he had heard from his teachers; but he taught in public only from word of mouth and thus each individual wrote for himself an exposition of the law and the ceremonies it enjoined, according to what he had heard. Thus things were situated till the days of Rabbi Jehuda. He observed that the students of the law were gradually diminishing, that difficulties and distresses were multiplying, that the kingdom of impiety was increasing in strength and extending itself over the world, while the people of Israel were driven to the ends of the earth. Fearing lest, in these circumstances, the traditions would be forgotten and lost, he collected them all, arranged them under distinct heads, and formed them into a methodical code of traditional law. Of this book, entitled the MISHNA, copies were speedily multiplied and extensively circulated; and the Jews at large received it with the highest veneration. See MR. ALLEN'S Modern Judaism, ch. iii. p, 22—36, where the reader will find numerous quotations from the Rabbis, showing how this (supposed) oral law is by them extolled above the written law of Moses-just as the Papists in later ages have made void the doctrine of Christ and his apostles by the traditions of the fathers. with God, the adoption of children into his family, and the hope of an eternal inheritance in the world to come; they looked for a mighty warlike leader, whose talents and prowess might recover for them their civil liberty. Fondly dreaming of a temporal kingdom for their Messiah, their carnal minds were so riveted under the dominion of this master prejudice, that, in general, their hearts were blinded to the real scope of the law and the prophets. It is abundantly manifest, from the New Testament scriptures, that at the time of Christ's appearance the Jews were divided into various sects, widely differing in opinion from each other, not merely on subjects of smaller moment, but also on those points which enter into the very essence of religion. Of the Pharisees and Sudducees, the two most distinguished of these sects, both in number and respectability, mention is made in the writings of the evangelists and apostles. Josephus, Philo, and others, speak of a third sect, under the title of the Essenes; and it appears, from more than one authority, that several others of less note were to be found among them. The evangelist Matthew notices the Herodians, a class of men who, it seems highly probable, had espoused the cause of the descendants of Herod the Great, and contended that they had been unjustly deprived of the greater part of Palestine by the Romans. Josephus makes mention also of another sect, bearing the title of Philosophers, composed of men of the most ferocious character, and founded by Judas, a Galilean-a strenuous and undaunted asserter of the liberties of the Jewish nation. They maintained that the Hebrews, the favourite people of heaven, ought to render obedience to God alone, and consequently were continually stimulating one another to throw off the Roman yoke and assert their national independ ence. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, the three most powerful of the Jewish sects, were cordially united in sentiment respecting all those fundamental points which constituted the basis of the Jewish religion. All of them, for instance, rejected with detestation the notion of a plurality of gods, and would acknowledge the existence of but one Almighty Power, whom they regarded as the Creator of the universe and believed to be endowed with the most absolute perfection and goodness. AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 47 They were equally agreed in the opinion that God had selected the Hebrews from amongst all the other nations of the earth as his peculiar people, and had bound them to himself by an unchangeable and everlasting covenant. With the same unanimity they maintained the divine mission of Moses; that he was the ambassador of heaven, and consequently that the law delivered at Mount Sinai, and promulgated by his ministry, was of divine original. It was also the general belief among them that in the books of the Old Testament were contained ample instructions respecting the way of salvation and eternal happiness; and that whatever principles or duties were inculcated in those writings must be reverently received and implicitly obeyed. But an almost irreconcileable difference of opinion, and the most vehement disputes, prevailed among them, respecting the original source or foundation whence all religion was to be deduced. Both the Sadducees and Essenes rejected with disdain the oral law, to which the Pharisees, however, paid the greatest deference. And the interpretation of the written law yielded still further ground for acrimonious contention. The Pharisees maintained that the law as committed to writing by Moses, and likewise every other part of the sacred volume, had a twofold sense or meaning; the one plain and obvious to every reader, the other abstruse and mystical. The Sadducees, on the contrary, would admit of nothing beyond a simple interpretation of the words, according to their strict literal sense. The Essenes, or at least the greater part of them, differing from both, considered the words of the law to possess no force or power whatever in themselves, but merely to exhibit the shadows or images of celestial objects, of virtues and of duties. So much dissension and discord respecting the rule of religion, and the sense in which the divine law ought to be understood, could not fail to produce a great diversity in the forms of religious worship, and naturally tended to generate the most opposite and conflicting sentiments on subjects of a divine nature. The Pharisees, in point of number, riches, authority, and influence, took precedence of all the Jewish sects. And as they constantly manifested an extraordinary display of religion, by an apparent zeal for the cultivation of piety and brotherly love, and by an affectation of superior sanctity in their opi nions, manners, and dress, the influence which they possessed over the minds of the people was unbounded; insomuch that they may be almost said to have given whatever direction they pleased to public affairs. It is unquestionable, however, that the religion of the Pharisees was, for the most part, founded in consummate hypocrisy; and that, in reality, they were generally the slaves of every vicious appetite—proud, arrogant, and avaricious, consulting only the gratification of their lusts, even at the moment of their professing themselves to be engaged in the service of their Maker. These odious features in the character of the Pharisees drew upon them the most pointed rebukes from our Lord and Saviour; with more severity indeed than he bestowed on the Sadducees, who, although they had departed widely from the genuine principles of religion, yet did not impose upon mankind by a pretended sanctity, or devote themselves with insatiable greediness to the acquisition of honours and riches. The Pharisees admitted the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and a future state of rewards and punishments. They admitted, to a certain extent, the free agency of man; but, beyond that, they supposed his actions to be controlled by the decrees of fate. These points of doctrine, however, seem not to have been understood or explained by all the sect in the same way, neither does it appear that any great pains were taken to define and ascertain them with accuracy and precision, or to support them by reasoning and argument. The Sadducees, if we may credit the testimony of Josephus concerning them, were a sect much inferior in point of number to that of the Pharisees, but composed entirely of persons distinguished for their opulence and worldly prosperity. He also represents those who belonged to it as wholly devoid of the sentiments of benevolence and compassion towards others; whereas the Pharisees, according to him, were ever ready to relieve the wants of the indigent and afflicted. He further describes them as fond of passing their lives in one uninterrupted course of ease and pleasure; insomuch that it was with difficulty they could be prevailed on to undertake the duties of the magistracy, or any other public function. Their leading tenet was, that all our hopes and fears terminate with AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 49 the present life, the soul being involved in one common fate with the body, and, like it, liable to perish and be annihilated. Upon this principle, it was very natural for them to maintain that obedience to the divine law would be rewarded by the Most High with length of days, and an abundance of the good things of this life, such as honours, distinctions, and riches; whilst the violators of it would, in like manner, find their punishment in the temporary sufferings and afflictions of the present time. The Sadducees, therefore, always connected the favour of heaven with a state of worldly prosperity, and could not regard any as virtuous, or the friends of heaven, but the fortunate and happy. They had no bowels of compassion for the poor and the miserable; their desires and hopes centered in a life of leisure, ease, and voluptuous gratification; for such is precisely the character which Josephus gives us of them, and, indeed, it appears to be countenanced by the inspired writings—especially if, as is now generally admitted by the learned, our Lord, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke xvi.), designed in the person of the former to delineate the principles and manner of life of a Sadducee. Considering the parable in this point of view, we cannot fail to see great force and beauty in it, which do not appear upon any other hypothesis. That the rich man was intended to represent a Jew is evident from his terming Abraham his father; and his request that the latter would send Lazarus to his father's house, for the purpose of converting his brethren to a belief of the soul's immortality and the certainty of a future state of rewards and punishments, implies that during his life-time he had imagined that the soul would perish with the body, and had treated with derision the doctrine maintained by the Pharisees respecting the happiness or misery of a future state; and that the brethren whom he had left behind entertained similar sentiments-sentiments which decidedly mark them as the votaries of that impious system to which the Sadducees were devoted. The Essenes, though not particularly mentioned by the writers of the New Testament, existed as a sect in the days of our Lord, and are frequently spoken of by Josephus, who divides them into two branches; the one characterized by a life of celibacy, dedicated to the instruction and education of the child |