clothes (on account of their possible impurity) - to which one authority adds other
particulars, which, however, were not recognised by the Rabbis generally as of primary
importance.25
17. Jos. Ant. xvii. 2. 4.
18. Chag. ii. 5, 7; comp. Tohor. vii. 5.
19. For ex. Kidd. 33
b.
20. Bekh. 30.
21. Abba Saul would also have freed all students from that formality.
22. Bekhor. 30.
23. Comp. the suggestion as to the significant time when this alteration was introduced,
in 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 228, 229.
24. Dem. ii. 2.
25. Demai ii.3.
These two great obligations of the 'official' Pharisee, or 'Associate' are pointedly referred
to by Christ - both that in regard to tithing (the vow of the Neeman);26 and that in regard
to Levitical purity (the special vow of the Chabher ).27 In both cases they are associated
with a want of corresponding inward reality, and with hypocrisy. These charges cannot
have come upon the people by surprise, and they may account for the circumstance that
so many of the learned kept aloof from the 'Association' as such. Indeed, the sayings of
some of the Rabbis in regard to Pharisaism and the professional Pharisee are more
withering than any in the New Testament. It is not necessary here to repeat the well-
known description, both in the Jerusalem and the Babylon Talmud, of the seven kinds of
'Pharisees,' of whom six (the 'Shechemite,' the 'stumbling,' the 'bleeding,' the 'mortar,' the
'I want to know what is incumbent on me,' and 'the Pharisee from fear') mark various
kinds of unreality, and only one is 'the Pharisee from love.'28 Such an expression as 'the
plague of Pharisaism' is not uncommon; and a silly pietist, a clever sinner, and a female
Pharisee, are ranked among 'the troubles of life.'29 'Shall we then explain a verse
according to the opinions of the Pharisees?' asks a Rabbi, in supreme contempt for the
arrogance of the fraternity. 30 'It is as a tradition among the pharisees31 to torment
themselves in this world, and ye t they will gain nothing by it in the next.' The Sadducees
had some reason for the taunt, that 'the Pharisees would by-and-by subject the globe of
the sun itself to their purifications,'32 the more so that their assertions of purity were
sometimes conjoined with Epicurean maxims, betokening a very different state of mind,
such as, 'Make haste to eat and drink, for the world which we quit resembles a wedding
feast;' or this: 'My son, if thou possess anything, enjoy thyself, for there is no pleasure in
Hades,33 and death grants no respite. But if thou sayest, What then would I leave to my
sons and daughters? Who will thank thee for this appointment in Hades?' Maxims these
to which, alas! too many of their recorded stories and deeds form a painful commentary. 34
26. In St. Luke xi.42; xviii. 12; St. Matt. xxiii. 23.
27. In St. Luke xi. 39, 41; St. Matt.
xxiii. 25, 26.
28. Sot. 22 b; Jer. Ber. ix. 7.
29. Sot. iii. 4.
30. Pes. 70 b.
31. Abhoth de R.
Nathan 5.