79. Jer. Ber. 9 a, about the middle.
82. Pes. 53 b.
80. u. s.
81. Jer. Sanh x. 1.
83. Gitt. 62 a.
84. Horay. 13 a.
85. Sanh.90 b line 3 from top.
86. See for example Bahba Mets 85 b and 86 a.
88. Babha Mets 86 a.
87. Ber. R. 96. towards close
Such daring profanities must have crushed out all spiritual religion, and reduced it to a
mere intellectual display, in which the Rabbi was always chief - here and hereafter.
Repulsive as such legends are, they will at least help us to understand what otherwise
might seem harsh in our Lord's denunciations of Rabbinism. In view of all this, we need
not discuss the Rabbinic warnings against pride and self-seeking when connected with
study, nor their admonitions to humility.89 For, the question here is, what Rabbinism
regarded as pride, and what as humility, in its teachers? Nor is it maintained that all
were equally guilty in this matter; and what passed around may well have led more
earnest to energetic admonitions to humility and unselfishness. but no ingenuity can
explain away the facts as above stated, and, when such views prevailed, it would have
been almost superhuman wholly to avoid what our Lord denounced as characteristic of
Pharisaism. And in this sense, not with Pharisaic painful literalism, but as opposed to
Rabbinic bearing, are we to understand the Lord's warning to His own not to claim
among brethren to be 'Rabbi,' or 'Abba,' or 'guide.'90 The Law of the Kingdom, as
repeatedly taught,91 was the opposite. As regarded aims, they were to seek the
greatness of service; and as regarded that acknowledgment which would come from
God, it would be the exaltation of humiliation.
89. See the quotations to that effect in Schöttgen, Wetstein, and Wünsche ad loc.
90. Hac clausula (ver. 11) ostendit, senon sophistice litigasse de vocibus , serem points
spectasse (Calvin ).
91. St. Mark ix. 35; St. Luke xiv. 11; xviii. 14.
It was not a break in the Discourse,92 rather an intensification of it, when Christ now
turned to make final denunciation of Pharisaism in its sin and hypocrisy. 93
Corresponding to the eight Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount with which His public
Ministry began, He now closed it with eight denunciations of woe.94 These are the
fourthpouring of His holy wrath, the last and fullest testimony against those whose guilt
would involve Jerusalem in common sin and common judgement. Step by step, with
logical sequence and intensified pathos of energy, is each charge advanced, and with it
the Woe of Divine wrath announced.
92. Keim argues at length, but very inconclusively, that this is a different Discourse,
addressed to a different audience and at a different time.
93. St. Matt. xxiii. 13-33.