all depended on prayer, repentance, and good works. Indeed, otherwise that repentance,

on which Rabbinism so la rgely insists, would have had no meaning. Moreover, it seems

as if it had been intended to convey that, while our evil actions were entirely our own

choice, if a man sought to amend his ways, he would be helped of God.67 It was, indeed,

true that God had created the evil impulse in us; but He had also given the remedy in the

Law.68 This is parabolically represented under the figure of a man seated at the parting of

two ways, who warned all passers that if they chose one road it would lead them among

the thorns, while on the other brief difficulties would end in a plain path (joy).69 Or, to

put it in the language of the great Akiba:70 'Everything is foreseen; free determination is

accorded to man; and the world is judged in goodness.' With this simple juxtaposition of

two propositions equally true, but incapable of metaphysical combination, as are most

things in which the empirically cognisable and uncognisable are joined together, we are

content to leave the matter.

The other differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees can be easily and briefly

summed up. They concern ceremonial, ritual, and juridical questions. In regard to the

first, the opposition of the Sadducees to the excessive scruples of the Pharisees on the

subject of Levitical defilements led to frequent controversy. Four points in dispute are

mentioned, of which, however, three read more like ironical comments than serious

divergences. Thus, the Sadducees taunted their opponents with their many lustrations,

including that of the Golden Candlestick in the Temple.71 Two other similar instances are

mentioned.72 By way of guarding against the possibility of profanation, the Pharisees

enacted, that the touch of any thing sacred 'defiled' the hands. The Sadducees, on the

other hand, ridiculed the idea that the Holy Scriptures 'defiled' the hands, but not such a

book as Homer.73 In the same spirit, the Sadducees would ask the Pharisees how it came,

that water pouring from a clean into an unclean vessel did not lose its purity and

purifying power.74 If these represent no serious controversies, on another ceremonial

question there was real difference, though its existence shows how far party-spirit could

lead the Pharisees. No ceremony was surrounded with greater care to prevent defilement

than that of preparing the ashes of the Red Heifer.75 What seem the original ordinances,76

directed that, for seven days previous to the burning of the Red Heifer, the priest was to

be kept in separation in the Temple, sprinkled with the ashes of all sin-offerings, and kept

from the touch of his brother-priests, with even greater rigour than the High-Priest in his

preparation for the Day of Atonement. The Sadducees insisted that, as 'till sundown' was

the rule in all purification, the priest must be in cle anliness till then, before burning the

Red Heifer. But, apparently for the sake of opposition, and in contravention to their own

principles, the Pharisees would actually 'defile' the priest on his way to the place of

burning, and then immediately make him take a bath of purification which had been

prepared, so as to show that the Sadducees were in error.77 78 In the same spirit, the