39. We also recall that Gamaliel II. was the brother-i n-law of that Eliezer b. Hyrcanos,
who was rightly suspected of leanings towards Christianity (see pp. 193, 194). This might
open up a most interesting field of inquiry.
2. The answer of our Lord was not without its further results. As we conceive it, among
those who listened to the brief but decisive passage between Jesus and the Sadducees
were some 'Scribes' - Sopherim, or, as they are also designated, 'lawyers,' 'teachers of
the Law,' experts, expounders, practitioners of the Jewish Law. One of them, perhaps
he who exclaimed: Beautifully said, Teacher! hastened to the knot of Pharisees, who m it
requires no stretch of the imagination to picture gathered in the Temple on that day, and
watching, with restless, ever foiled malice, the Saviour's every movement. As 'the
Scribe' came up to them, he would relate how Jesus had literally 'gagged' and
'muzzled'40 the Sadducees - just as, according to the will of God, we are 'by well-doing
to gag the want or knowledge of senseless men.' There can be little doubt that the
report would give rise to mingled feelings, in which that prevailing would be, that,
although Jesus might thus have discomfited the Sadducees, He would be unable to
cope with other questions, if only properly propounded by Pharisaic learning. And so we
can understand how one of the number, perhaps the same Scribe, would volunteer to
undertake the office;41 and how his question was, as St. Matthew reports, in a sense
really intended to 'tempt' Jesus.
40. εφιµωσε (St. Matt. xxii. 34). The word occurs also in St. Matt xxii. 12: St. Mark i. 25; iv.
39; St. Luke iv. 35: 1 Cor. ix. 9; 1 Tim. v. 18; 1 Peter. ii 16.
41. Comp. the two accounts in St. Matthew xxii. 34-40 and in St. Mark xii. 28-34.
We dismiss here the well-known Rabbinic distinctions of 'heavy' and 'light'
commandments, because Rabbinism declared the 'light' to be as binding as 'the
heavy,'42 those of the Scribes more 'heavy' (or binding) than those of Scripture,43 and
that one commandment was not to be considered to carry greater reward, and to be
therefore more carefully observed, than another.44 That such thoughts were not in the
mind of the questioner, but rather the grand general problem - however himself might
have answered it - appears even from the form of his inquiry: 'Which [qualis] is the great
- 'the first'45 - commandment in the Law?' So challenged, the Lord could have no
hesitation in replying. Not to silence him, but to speak the absolute truth, He quoted the
well-remembered words which every Jew was bound to repeat in his devotions, and
which were ever to be on his lips, living or dying, as the inmost expression of his faith:
'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' And then continuing, He repeated the
command concerning love to God which is the outcome of that profession. But to have
stopped here would have been to propound a theoretic abstraction without concrete
reality, a mere Pharisaic worship of the letter. As God is love - His Nature so
manifesting itself - so is love to God also love 46 to man. And so this second is 'like' 'the
first and great commandment.' It was a full answer to the Scribe when He said: ' There is
none other commandment greater than these.'
42. Ab. ii. 1; iv. 2.
43. Sanh. xi. 3.
44. Deb. R. 6.
45. St. Mark xii. 28.