Pharisees

“ Love ye one another, said you; and yet, the Pharisees, who call themselves your priests, caused, and to this hour continue to cause, torrents of Christian blood to flow. I do not share the belief of the reformers, but I remain with them body and soul so long as they combat the cruelties, the iniquities and the idolatries of the Roman Church! ”

“ However, I will come down to a time when the Pharisees, if they ever became such as the New Testament represents them, must have long acquired that character. Here is a prayer which dates from the second century of our era, and is part of the liturgy still in daily use:—"Lord of the worlds! not trusting in our righteousness, do we cast our entreaties down before Thee, but trusting in Thine abundant mercies. Who are we? What is our life? What is our virtue? What is our righteousness? What is our deliverance? What is our strength? ”

“ Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent.
13 Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.
15 Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to insnare him in his speech.
16 And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. ”

“ The knowledge thus obtained will throw light upon many passages in the New Testament; but it will be chiefly [4] valuable if it helps the reader to realise that the Pharisees were "men of like passions with us," men with souls to be saved, who cared a great deal for the things of the higher life, men who "feared God and worked righteousness," and who pondered deeply upon spiritual problems, though they did not solve them on Christian lines, nor state the answers in Christian terms. ”

“ Pharisaism and Jesus
It is from the New Testament that the ordinary Christian reader gets his ideas about the Pharisees. There is mention in the Gospels of frequent encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees; and the Epistles of Paul contain much severe comment on the Pharisaic conception of religion. No one, who desires to understand what the Pharisees themselves meant by their religion, can afford to pass by, without careful examination, these records of unfavourable criticism ”

“ But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto them. They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? And he said unto them. Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? ”

“ The practice of the Pharisees; they made clean the outside. In those things which fell under the observation of their neighbours, they seemed very exact, and carried on their wicked intrigues with so much artifice, that their wickedness was not suspected; people generally took them for very good men. ”

“ Do the Pharisees deserve the sweeping condemnation heaped upon them by Christ and his followers?
In marked contrast to the diatribes of Jesus is the testimony of Josephus: “Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly [plainly] , and despise delicacies in diet, and they follow the conduct of reason; and what that prescribes to them as good for them, they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice.... ”

“ CHAP.⁠VII.
1 The Pharisees finding fault with his disciples
⁠ for eating with unwashen hands, Christ reproveth them of hypocrisy, and of making void the commandments of God by the traditions of men: 14 he teacheth that a man is defiled, not by that which entereth in, but by that which cometh out of him: ⁠ 24 he healeth the daughter of a Syro-phenician woman; ⁠ 31 and a man that was deaf and had an impediment in this speech.. THEN [140] came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. ”

“ The Pharisees strive to observe reason's dictates in their conduct, and at the same time they pay great respect to their ancestors; and they have such influence over the people because of their virtuous lives and their discourses that they are their friends in divine worship, prayers, and sacrifice. ”

“ And when they returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, the Pharisees said to them: ‘Why have not you brought him?’ – And the officers answered, ‘No one man has ever spoken like this man.’ - The Pharisees told them “Have you also got deceived? Have you seen any of the superiors or of the Pharisees believing him? ”

“ It was remarkable that while these Pharisees were often boasting how bright their light burned, in order to get the praise of men, the humble travelers, whose steady light showed their good works to others, refused all commendation, and the brighter their light shined before men, so much the more they insisted that they ought to glorify not themselves, but their Father which is in heaven. ”

“ Whence the excellent preacher, being overtaken by violent persecution from Pharisees and Sadducees, endeavoured to divide among themselves those whom he saw to be violently united against himself, when he cried out, saying, Men, brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees ”

“ In the third generation the waves radiated from the primal fire have cooled in their passage through time; the original momentum tends to be exhausted. Now is the period of the smug Pharisees profiting by the martyrdoms of their ancestors, babbling rhetorically—between two pleasures—of their fidelity to the faith of their fathers. ”

“ The passages I have quoted, and there are many others, and scores and hundreds of sayings about repentance which all teach the same lesson, are the utterance of Pharisees, of men who were steeped to the lips in Rabbinism, who gloried in the Torah, who delighted in the abundance of its precepts, and the consequent casuistry of the schools, and who felt in their hearts that love of God which they did their best to show forth by serving the Lord with gladness in the doing of His commandments. ”

“ Owing to the fact that generations of Christians have seen the early history of the Scribes and Pharisees almost wholly through glasses coloured by early controversy, it is hard to be fair to the Pharisees. Taken at their best they probably represent the highest form of a religion based on codified ethics which the world has ever seen. ”

“ The Pharisees were more numerous, more commonplace and more popular. They were, in fact, the great popular sect. They were of more recent origin than the Sadducees, their history going back only about a century and a half before the time of Jesus. Their name, which means "exclusive" or "elect," "set apart," sufficiently indicates their character. ”

“ For the Pharisees send to John, after the priests and levites who came from Jerusalem, men who came to ask him who he was, and enquire, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? After making this enquiry they straightway come for baptism, as Matthew records, and then they hear words suited to their quackery and hypocrisy. But the words addressed to them were very similar to those spoken to the multitudes, and hence the necessity to look carefully at both speeches, and to compare them together. ”

“ Each had the defects of his qualities, but the defects of the Pharisee were, to superficial sight, of a more patent and troublesome sort than those of his rival. To be always dreadfully in earnest makes a man a distinctly uncomfortable companion. The ‘zeal’ of the Pharisees might make them pious and devout, might render them first-rate martyrs, and even very tolerable bigots, but hardly, under any circumstances, good courtiers. ”

“ And the wise are without knowledge, and the understanding as those who are without discernment. For the multitude of their deeds [301] is nothing, and the days of their life are a breath before Thee" (b. Joma. 87b, mentioned by R. Joḥanan) . Christians usually get their notion of what a Pharisee's prayer was like from Luke xviii. 11, 12; and I do not deny that Pharisees may sometimes have prayed after that manner. Nevertheless, what I have just recited is more true to the real spirit of Pharisaism than the prayer in the Parable. ”

“ The Pharisees and Sadducees Of the two first-named schools, the Pharisees have the reputation of being the most accurate expositors of the laws, and owe to this [356] their position as the leading sect. They attribute everything to Fate and God; yet they admit that to act rightly or otherwise rests for the most part with men, though in each action Fate is an auxiliary. [357] Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment. ”

“ The gospels generally have left upon the minds of men an impression unfavourable to the Pharisees. They contain denunciations attributed to our Lord and assigned—with obvious injustice in some cases—to the scribes of this sect. It is to be remembered that the Pharisees were the only sect of the Jews who survived in Christian times and that the Pharisees were never a homogeneous body possessed of a definite policy or body of doctrine. ”

“ Note, Many are kept off from their duty by that which they are ashamed to own, but which they cannot hide from Jesus Christ: yet it is probable that the Pharisees had whispered what they thought among themselves, to help to harden one another ”

“ It appears that this Pharisee did not believe in Christ, for he will not own him to be a prophet (v. 39) , and yet our Lord Jesus accepted his invitation, went into his house, and sat down to meat, that they might see he took the same liberty with Pharisees that he did with publicans, in hopes of doing them good. And those may venture further into the society of such as are prejudiced against Christ, and his religion, who have wisdom and grace sufficient to instruct and argue with them, than others may. ”

“ And thou hast least loved me, because thou hast least known thy sins: therefore, because thou hast least known thine offences, thou art least forgiven.” So this proud Pharisee had an answer to delay his pride. And think you not, but that there be amongst us a great number of these proud Pharisees, which think themselves worthy to bid Christ to dinner; which will perk, and presume to sit by Christ in the church, and have a disdain of this poor woman Magdalene, their poor neighbour, with a high, disdainous, and solemn countenance? ”

“ CHAP.⁠XV.
1 The Pharisees murmur at Christ for receiving sinners. 3 The parable of the lost sheep, 8 and piece of silver; 11 and of the prodigal son. THEN [488] drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, [489] and eateth with them.
3 ¶ And he spake this parable unto them, saying,
4 [490] What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? ”

“ And in these she served God; that was it that put a value upon them and an excellency in to them. The Pharisees fasted often, and made long prayers, but they served themselves, and their own pride and covetousness, in their fastings and prayers; but this good woman not only did that which was good, but did it from a good principle, and with a good end; she served God, and aimed at his honour, in fasting and praying. Note, [1.] Devotion is a thing we ought to be constant in; other duties are in season now and then, but we must pray always. ”

“ They were much in fasting and prayer, and giving of alms; they were punctual in observing the ceremonial appointments, and made it their business to teach others; they had such an interest in the people that they ought, if but two men went to heaven, one would be a Pharisee; and yet our Lord Jesus here tells his disciples, that the religion he came to establish, did not only exclude the badness, but excel the goodness, of the scribes and Pharisees. We must do more than they, and better than they, or we shall come short of heaven. ”

“ They say that the long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic-looking body-snatchers, with the indescribable hats on, and a long curl dangling down in front of each ear, are the old, familiar, self-righteous Pharisees we read of in the Scriptures. ”