about whom the oracle was consulted. Cornelius Agrippa1 tells us likewise, that the manner of some was to pour melted wax into a cup containing water, which wax would range itself into order, and so form answers, according to the questions proposed.2 2. Divination by arrows was an antient method of presaging future events. Ezekiel (xxi. 21.) informs us that Nebuchadnezzar, when marching against Zedekiah and the king of the Ammonites, and coming to the head of two ways, mingled his arrows in a quiver, that he might thence divine in what direction to pursue his march; and that he consulted teraphim, and inspected the livers of beasts, in order to determine his resolution. Jerome, in his commentary on this passage, says that "the manner of divining by arrows was thus : They wrote on several arrows the names of the cities against which they intended to make war, and then putting them promiscuously all together into a quiver, they caused them to be drawn out in the manner of lots, and that city, whose name was on the arrow first drawn out, was the first they assaulted.”3 This method of divination was practised by the idolatrous Arabs, and prohibited by Mohammed, and was likewise used by the antient Greeks and other nations.5 3. Divination by inspecting the liver of slaughtered animals was another mode of ascertaining future events, much practised by the Greeks and Romans, by the former of whom it was termed 'Haroσxonia, or looking into the liver. This word subsequently became a general term for divination by inspecting the entrails of sacrifices, because the liver was the first and principal part observed for this purpose. To this method of divination there is an allusion in Ezekiel xxi. 21.6 1 De occult. Philos. 1. i. cap. 57. 2 Dr. A. Clarke on Gen. xliv. 5. Burder's Oriental Customs, vol. i. p. 54. 3 On this subject see some curious information in the Fragments supplementary to Calmut, No. 179. 4 Koran, ch. v. 4. (Sale's Translation, p. 94. 4to. edit.) In his preliminary dis course, Mr. Sale states that the arrows, used by the idolatrous Arabs for this purpose, were destitute of heads or feathers, and were kept in the temple of some idol, in whose presence they were consulted. Seven such arrows were kept in the tem ple of Mecca, but generally in divination they made use of three only, on one of which was written My LORD hath commanded me, on another, My LORD hath forbidden me,-and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they regarded it as an approbation of the enterprise in question; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed them and drew over again, till a decisive answer was given by one of the others. These divining arrows were generally consulted before any thing of moment was undertaken, as when a man was about to marry, to undertake a journey, or the like. (Sale's Prel. Disc. pp. 126, 127.) 5 Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. i. pp. 359, 360. 6 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 339, 340. The practice of "divination from the liver is very old, and was practised by the Greeks and Romans, till Christianity banished it, together with the gods of Olympus. In Eschylus, Prometheus boasts of having taught man the division of the entrails, if smooth, and of a clear colour, to be agreeable to the gods; also the various forms of the gall and the liver." (Stollberg's History of Religion, vol. iii. p. 436.) Among the Greeks and Romans, as soon as a victim was sacrificed, the entrails were examined. They began with the liver, which was considered the chief seat; or, as Philostratus expresses himself, (Life of Apollonius, viii. 7. § 15.) as the prophesying triped of all divination. If it 4. Rabdomancy, or divination by the staff, is alluded to by the prophet Hosea (iv. 12.); it is supposed to have been thus performed: The person consulting measured his staff by spans, or by the length of his finger, saying, as he measured, "I will go, or, I will not go ; I will do such a thing, or, I will not do it ;" and as the last span fell out, so he determined. Cyril and Theophylact, however, give a different account of the matter. They say that it was performed by erecting two sticks, after which they murmured forth a certain charm, and then, according as the sticks fell, backwards or forwards, towards the right or left, they gave advice in any affair.1 SECTION II. ACCOUNT OF THE JEWISH SECTS MENTIONED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. I. The Sadducees.-II. The Pharisees.-III. The Essenes.-IV. The Scribes and Lawyers.-V. The Samaritans.-VI. The Herodians.-VII. The Galileans and Zealots.-VIII. The Sicarii. I. THE sect of the SADDUCEES derived its name from Sadok, a pupil of Antigonus Sochæus, president of the sanhedrin or great council; who flourished about two hundred and sixty years before the Christian æra, and who inculcated the reasonableness of serving God disinterestedly, and not under the servile impulse of the fear of punishment, or the mercenary hope of reward. Sadok, misunderstanding the doctrine of his master, deduced the inference that there was no future state of rewards or punishments. Their principal tenets were the following: 1. That there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit (Matt. xxii. 23. Acts xxiii. 8.), and that the soul of man perishes together with the body. 2. That there is no fate or overruling providence, but that all men enjoy the most ample freedom of action; in other words, the absolute power of doing either good or evil, according to their own choice; hence they were very severe judges. 3. They paid no regard whatever to any tradition, adhering strictly to the letter of Scripture, but preferring the five books of Moses to the rest. It has been conjectured by some writers that they rejected all the sacred books but those of 4 had a fine, natural, red colour; if it was healthy, and without spots; if it was large and double; if the lobes turned outwards; they promised themselves the best success in their undertakings: but it portended evil if the liver was dry, or had a band between the parts, or had no lobes. It was also considered an unfortunate omen if the liver was injured by a cut in killing the victim. (Matern. of Cilano, Roman Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 164.) Rosenmüller. Burder's Orien tal Literature, vol. ii. p. 185. 1 Selden de Diis Syris. Synt. 1. cap. ii. p. 28. Godwin's Moses and Aaron, p. 216. Pococke and Newcome, in loc. Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. i. p. 359. (Edinb. 1804.) 2 Josephus de Bell. Jud. lib. i. c. 8. in fine. Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. i. § 4. Moses, because Jesus Christ preferred to confute them out of these. But this hypothesis is no proof: for, though Josephus frequently mentions their rejecting the traditions of the elders, he no where charges them with rejecting any of the sacred books; and, as he was himself a Pharisee, and their zealous antagonist, he would not have passed over such a crime in silence. It is further worthy of remark, that our Saviour, who so severely censured the Sadducees for their other corruptions, did not condemn them for such rejection. In point of numbers, the Sadducees were an inconsiderable sect; but their numerical deficiency was amply compensated by the dignity and eminence of those who embraced their tenets, and who were persons of the first distinction. Several of them were advanced to the high priesthood. They do not however appear to have aspired, generally, to public offices. Josephus affirms that scarcely any business of the state was transacted by them; and that, when they were in the magistracy, they generally conformed to the measures of the Pharisees, though unwillingly, and out of pure necessity; for otherwise they would not have been endured by the multitude.2 II. The PHARISEES were the most numerous, distinguished, and popular sect among the Jews; the time when they first appeared is not known, but it is supposed to have been not long after the institution of the Sadducees, if indeed the two sects did not gradually spring up together. They derived their name from the Hebrew word Pharash, which signifies separated, or set apart, because they separated themselves from the rest of the Jews to superior strictness in religious observances. They boasted that, from their accurate knowledge of religion, they were the favourites of heaven;3 and thus, trusting in themselves that they were righteous, despised others. (Luke xi. 52. xviii. 9. 11.) Among the tenets inculcated by this sect, we may enumerate the following, viz. They ascribed all things to fate or providence, yet not so absolutely as to take away the free-will of man, though fate does not co-operate in every action. They also believed in the existence of angels and spirits, and in the resurrection of the dead (Acts xxiii. 8.): but, from the account given of them by Josephus, it appears that their notion of the immortality of the soul was the Pythagorean metempsychosis; that the soul, after the dissolution of one body, winged its flight into another; and that these removals were perpetuated and diversified through an infinite succession, the soul animating a sound and healthy body, or being confined in a deformed and diseased frame, according to its conduct in a prior state of existence. From the Pharisees, whose tenets and traditions the people generally re1 Acts v. 17. xxiii. 6. Josephus Ant. Jud. lib. xiii. c. 10. § 6, 7. lib. xviii. c. 1. § 4. 2 Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. i. § 4. 3 Ibid. lib. xvii. c. 2. § 4. 4 Ibid. lib. xiii. c. 5. § 9. lib. xviii. c. 2. § 3. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 14. Acts v. 38, 39. 5 Josephus Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. 1. § 3. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 14. lib. iii. c. 8. § 5. The author of the Book of Wisdom (ch. 8. 20.) seems to allude to the same doctrine, when he tells us, that, being good, he came into a body undefiled. VOL. III. 47 ceived, it is evident that the disciples of our Lord had adopted this philosophical doctrine of the transmigration of souls; when, having met a man who had been born blind, they asked him whether it were the sin of this man in a pre-existent state which had caused the Sovereign Disposer to inflict upon him this punishment. To this inquiry Christ replied, that neither his vices or sins in a pre-existent state, nor those of his parents, were the cause of this calamity. (John ix. 1 -4.) From this notion, derived from the Greek philosophy, we find that during our Saviour's public ministry, the Jews speculated vari ously concerning him, and indulged several conjectures, which of the antient prophets it was whose soul now animated him, and performed such astonishing miracles. Some contended that it was the soul of Elias; others of Jeremiah; while others, less sanguine, only declared in general terms that it must be the soul of one of the old prophets by which these mighty deeds were now wrought. (Matt. xvi. 14. Luke ix. 19.)1 Lastly, the Pharisees contended that God was in strict justice bound to bless the Jews, and make them all partakers of the terrestrial kingdom of the Messiah, to justify them, to make them eternally happy, and that he could not possibly damn any one of them! The cause of their justification they derived from the merits of Abraham, from their knowledge of God, from their practising the rite of circumcision, and from the sacrifices they offered. And as they conceived works to be meritorious, they had invented a great number of supererogatory ones, to which they attached greater merit than to the observance of the law itself. To this notion St. Paul has some allusions in those parts of his Epistle to the Romans, in which he combats the erroneous suppositions of the Jews.2 The Pharisees were the strictest of the three principal sects that divided the Jewish nation (Acts xxvi. 5), and affected a singular probity of manners according to their system, which however was for the most part both lax and corrupt. Thus, many things which Moses had tolerated in civil life, in order to avoid a greater evil, the Pharisees determined to be morally correct; for instance, the law of retaliation, and that of divorce from a wife for any cause. (Matt. v. 31. et seq. xix. 3-12.) During the time of Christ, there were two celebrated philosophical and divinity schools among the Jews, that of Schammai and that of Hillel. On the question of divorce, the school of Schammai maintained, that no man could legally put away his wife except for adultery: the school of Hillel, on the contrary, allowed of divorce for any cause (from Deut. xxiv. 1.) even if. 1 Dr. Lightfoot's Works, vol. ii. pp. 568, 569. Dr. Harwood's Introd, to the New Test. vol. ii. p. 355. To this popular notion of a transmigration of souls, Dr. H. ascribes the alarm of Herod, who had caused John the Baptist to be beheaded, when the fame of Christ's miracles reached his court; but, on comparing Matt. xvi 6. with Mark viii. 15. it appears that Herod was a Sadducee, and consequently disbelieved a future state. His alarm therefore is rather to be attributed to the force of conscience which haunted his guilty mind in despite of his libertine principles. 2 See Rom. i-xi. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xvii. c. 2. § 4. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 4. Justin. Dialog, cum Tryphon. Pirke Aboth. the wife found no favour in the eyes of her husband,-in other words, if he saw any woman who pleased him better. The practice of the Jews seems to have gone with the school of Hillel. Thus, we read (in Ecclus. xxv. 26.) "If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh; give her a bill of divorce and let her go:" and in conformity with this doctrine, Josephus, who was a Pharisee, relates that he repudiated his wife who had borne him three children, because he was not pleased with her manners or beha viour! Further, they interpreted certain of the Mosaic laws most literally, and distorted their meaning so as to favour their own philosophical system. Thus, the law of loving their neighbour, they expounded solely of the love of their friends, that is, of the whole Jewish race; all other persons being considered by them as natural enemies (Matt. v. 43. compared with Luke x. 31-33.), whom they were in no respect bound to assist. Dr. Lightfoot has cited a striking illustration of this passage from Maimonides. An oath, in which the name of God was not distinctly specified, they taught was not binding (Matt. v. 33.), maintaining that a man might even swear with his lips, and at the same moment annul it in his heart! So rigorously did they understand the command of observing the sabbath day, that they accounted it unlawful to pluck ears of corn, and heal the sick, &c. (Matt. xii. 1. et seq. Luke vi. 6. et seq. xiv. 1. et seq.) Those natural laws which Moses did not sanction by any penalty, they accounted among the petty commandments, inferior to the ceremonial laws, which they preferred to the former as being the weightier matters of the law (Matt. v. 19. xv. 4. xxiii. 23.), to the total neglect of mercy and fidelity. Hence they accounted causeless anger and impure desires as trifles of no moment (Matt. v. 21, 22. 27-30.); they compassed sea and land to make proselytes to the Jewish religion from among the Gentiles, that they might rule over their consciences and wealth: and these proselytes, through the influence of their own scandalous examples and characters, they soon rendered more profligate and abandoned than ever they were before their conversion. (Matt. xxiii. 15.) Esteeming temporal happiness and riches as the highest good, they scrupled not to accumulate wealth by every means, legal or illegal (Matt. v. 1—12. xxiii. 4. Luke xvi. 14. 1 Life of himself, § 76. Grotius, Calmet, Drs. Lightfoot, Whitby, Doddridge, and A. Clarke, (on Matt. v. 30. et seq. and Matt. xix. 3. et. seq.) have all given illustrations of the Jewish doctrine of divorce from rabbinical writers. See also Selden's Uxor Hebraica, lib. iii. c. 22. (Op. tom. ii. col. 782-786.) 2 "A Jew sees a Gentile fall into the sea, let him by no means lift him out for it is written, Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbour.' But this is NOT thy neighbour." Works, vol. ii. p. 152. 3 Justin Martyr bears witness to the inveterate malignity of the proselytes of the Pharisees against the name of Christ, at the beginning of the second century. "Your proselytes," says he to Trypho the Jew (p. 350.), "not only do not believe in Christ, but blaspheme his name with twofold more virulence than yourselves. They are ready to show their malicious zeal against us; and, to obtain merit in your eyes, wish to us reproach, and torment, and death." Sce further Dr. Ireland's Paganism and Christianity compared, pp. 21–23. |