degrees, on the other hand, took increasingly strict vows. Any one might enter "the

order" if he took, before three members, the solemn vow of observing the obligations of

the fraternity. A novitiate of a year (which was afterwards shortened) was, however,

necessary. The wife or widow of a "Chaber," and his children, were regarded as

members of the fraternity. Those who entered the family of a "Pharisee" had also to seek

admission into the "order." The general obligations of a "Chaber" towards those that

were "without" the fraternity were as follows. He was neither to buy from, nor to sell to

him anything, either in a dry or fluid state; he was neither to eat at his table (as he might

thus partake of what had not been tithed), nor to admit him to his table, unless he had

put on the garments of "Chaber" (as his own old ones might else have carried

defilement); nor to go into any burying-place; nor to give "therumah" or tithes to any

priest who was not a member of the fraternity; nor to do anything in presence of an "am

ha-aretz," or non-"Chaber," which brought up points connected with the laws of

purification, etc. To these, other ordinances, partly of an ascetic character, were added

at a later period. But what is specially remarkable is that not only was a novitiate

required for the higher grades, similar to that on first entering the order; but that, just as

the garment of a non-"chaber" defiled a "Chaber" of the first degree, that of the latter

equally defiled him of the second degree, and so on.58

To sum up then: the fraternity of the Pharisees were bound by these two vows --that of

tithing and that in regard to purifications. As the most varied questions would here arise

in practice, which certainly were not answered in the law of Moses, the "traditions,"

which were supposed to explain and supplement the Divine law, became necessary. In

point of fact, the Rabbis speak of them in that sense, and describe them as "a hedge"

around Israel and its law. That these traditions should have been traced up to oral

communications made to Moses on Mount Sinai, and also deduced by ingenious

methods from the letter of Scripture, was only a further necessity of the case. The result

was a system of pure externalism, which often contravened the spirit of those very

ordinances, the letter of which was slavishly worshipped. To what arrant hypocrisy it

often gave rise, appears from Rabbinical writings almost as much as from the New

Testament. We can understand how those "blind guides" would often be as great a

trouble to their own party as to others. "The plague of Pharisaism" was not an

uncommon expression; and this religious sore is ranked with "a silly pietist, a cunning

sinner, and a woman Pharisee," as constituting "the troubles of life" (Sot. iii. 4). "Shall

we stop to explain the opinions of Pharisees?" asks a Rabbi, in supreme contempt for

"the order" as such. "It is as a tradition among the Pharisees," we read (Ab. de R.

Nathan, 5), "to torment themselves in this world, and yet they will not get anything in

the next." It was suggested by the Sadducees, that "the Pharisees would by-and-by

subject the globe of the sun itself to their purifications." On the other hand, almost

Epicurean sentences are quoted among their utterances, such as, "Make haste, eat and

drink, for the world in which we are is like a wedding feast"; "If thou possessest

anything, make good cheer of it; for there is no pleasure underneath the sod, and death

gives no respite...Men are like the flowers of the field; some flourish, while others fade

"Like the flowers of the field!" What far other teaching of another Rabbi, Whom these

rejected with scorn, do the words recall! And when from their words we turn to the

kingdom which He came to found, we can quite understand the essential antagonism of

nature between the two. Assuredly, it has been a bold stretch of assertion to connect in

any way the origin or characteristics of Christianity with the Rabbis. Yet, when we bring

the picture of Pharisaism, as drawn in Rabbinical writings, side by side with the sketch

of it given by our Lord, we are struck not only with the life -likeness, but with the

selection of the distinctive features of Pharisaism presented in His reproofs. Indeed, we

might almost index the history of Pharisaism by passages from the New Testament. The

"tithing of mint and anise," to the neglect of the weightier matters of the law, and "the

cleansing" of the outside--these twofold obligations of the Pharisees, "hedged

around," as they were, by a traditionalism which made void the spirit of the law, and