James ii. 1-8.); vain and ambitious of popular applause, they offered up long prayers' in public places, but not without a self-sufficiency of their own holiness (Matt. vi. 2-5. Luke xviii. 11.); under a sanctimonious appearance of respect for the memories of the prophets whom their ancestors had slain, they repaired and beautified their sepulchres (Matt. xxiii. 29.); and such was their idea of their own sanctity, that they thought themselves defiled if they but touched or conversed with sinners, that is, with publicans or tax-gatherers, and persons of loose and irregular lives. (Luke vii. 39. xv. 1. e seq.)

But, above all their other tenets, the Pharisees were conspicuous for their reverential observance of the traditions or decrees of the elders: these traditions, they pretended, had been handed down from Moses through every generation, but were not committed to writing; and they were not merely considered as of equal authority with the divine law, but even preferable to it. "The words of the Scribes," said they, "are lovely above the words of the law: for the words of the law are weighty and light, but the words of the scribes are ALL weighty." Among the traditions thus sanctimoniously observed by the Pharisees, we may briefly notice the following: 1. The washing of hands up to the wrist before and after meat (Matt. xv. 2. Mark vii. 3.), which they accounted not merely a religious duty, but considered its omission as a crime equal to fornication, and punishable by excommunication. 2. The purification of the cups, vessels, and couches used at their meals by ablutions or washings (Mark vii. 4.); for which purpose the six large water-pots mentioned by St. John (ii. 6.) were destined. But these ablutions are not to be confounded with those symbolical washings mentioned in Psal. xxvi. 6. and Matt. xxvii. 24. 3. Their fasting twice a week with great appearance of austerity (Luke xviii. 12. Matt. vi. 16.); thus converting that exercise into religion which is only a help towards the performance of its hallowed duties. The Jewish days of fasting were the second and fifth days of the week, corresponding with our Mondays and Thursdays: on one of these days they commemorated Moses going up to the mount to receive the law, which according to their traditions, was on the fifth day or Thursday; and on the other, his descent after he had received the two tables, which they supposed to have been on the second day or Monday. 4. Their punctilious payment of tithes (temple-offerings), even of the most trifling thing. (Luke xviii. 12. Matt. xxiii. 23.) 5. Their wearing broader phylacteries and larger

1 Bucher, after a very antient Hebrew manuscript ritual, has given a long and curious specimen of the "vain repetitions" used by the Pharisees. See his Antiquitates Biblica ex Novo Testamento selectæ, pp. 240-244. Vitembergu, 1729. 4to. 2 Jerusalem Berachoth, fol. 3. 2. as cited by Dr. Lightfoot on Matt. xv. (Works, ii. p. 199.) The whole of his Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations on that chapter is singularly instructive. The collection of these traditions, by which the Jews made the law of God of none effect, is termed the Talmud: of which, and of its use in illustrating the Holy Scriptures, an account has already been given. On the traditions of the modern Jews (which illustrate very many passages of the New Testament,) the reader may consult Mr. Allen's Modern Judaism, chap. viii. to xv. pp. 140-280.

fringes to their garments than the rest of the Jews. (Matt. xxiii. 5.) These phylacteries were pieces of parchment or the dressed skin of some clean animal, inscribed with four paragraphs of the law, taken from Exod. xiii. 1—10. and xiii. 11-16. Deut. vi. 4-9. and xi. 13-21. all inclusive; which the Pharisees interpreting literally (as do the modern rabbins) Deut. vi. 8. and other similar passages, tied to the fronts of their caps and on their arms. The fringe was ordered by Moses, as we read in Numb. xv. 38, 39. He, therefore, who wore his phylactery and his fringe of the largest size, was reputed to be the most devout.1

With all their pretensions to piety, the Pharisees entertained the most sovereign contempt for the people; whom, being ignorant of the law, they pronounced to be accursed. (John vii. 49.) Yet such was the esteem and veneration in which they were held by the people, that they may almost be said to have given what direction they pleased to public affairs and hence the great men dreaded their power and authority. It is unquestionable, as Mosheim has well remarked, that the religion of the Pharisees was, for the most part, founded in consummate hypocrisy; and that, at the bottom, they were generally the slaves of every vicious appetite, proud, arrogant, and avaricious, consulting only the gratification of their lusts, even at the very moment when they professed themselves to be engaged in the service of their Maker. These odious features in the character of the Pharisees caused them to be reprehended by our Saviour with the utmost severity, even more than he rebuked the Sadducees; who, although they had departed widely from the genuine principles of religion, yet did not impose on mankind by a pretended sanctity, or devote themselves with insatiable greediness to the acquisition of honours and riches.2

III. The ESSENES, who were the third principal sect among the Jews, differed in many respects from the Pharisees and Sadducees, both in doctrines and in practice. They were divided into two classes: 1. The practical, who lived in society, and some of whom were married, though it appears with much circumspection. These dwelt in cities and their neighbourhoods, and applied themselves to husbandry and other innocent occupations. 2. The contemplative Essenes, who were also called Therapeuta or Physicians, from their application principally to the cure of the diseases of the soul, devoted themselves wholly to meditation, and avoided living in great towns as unfavourable to a contemplative life. But both classes were exceedingly ab'semious, exemplary in their moral deportment, averse from profane swearing, and most rigid in their observance of the sabbath. They held, among other tenets, the immortality of the soul (though they denied the resurrection of the body), the existence of angels, and a state of future rewards and punishments. They believed every thing to be ordered by an eternal fatality or chain of causes.

1 On the phylacteries and fringes of the modern Jews, Mr. Allen has collected much curious information. Modern Judaism, pp. 304-318. 83.

2 Mosheim's Commentaries on the Affairs of Christians, vol. i. p.

Although Jesus Christ censured all the other sects of the Jews for their vices, yet he never spoke of the Essenes; neither are they mentioned by name in any part of the New Testament. The silence of the evangelical historians concerning them, is by some accounted for by their eremitic life, which secluded them from places of public resort; so that they did not come in the way of our Saviour, as the Pharisees and Sadducees often did. Others, however, are of opinion, that the Essenes being very honest and sincere, without guile or hypocrisy, gave no room for the reproofs and censures which the other Jews deserved; and therefore no mention is made of them.

But though the Essenes are not expressly named in any of the sacred books, it has been conjectured that they are alluded to in two or three passages. Thus, those whom our Lord terms eunuchs, who have made themselves such for the kingdom of heaven's sake (Matt. xix. 12.), are supposed to be the contemplative Essenes, who abstained from all intercourse with women, in the hope of acquiring a greater degree of purity, and becoming the better fitted for the kingdom of God. St. Paul is generally understood to have referred to them, in Col. ii. 18. 23.; where "voluntary humility" and "neglecting the body," are peculiarly applicable to the Essenes; who, when they received any persons into their number, made them solemnly swear that they would keep and observe the books of the sect and the names of the angels with care. What is also said in the above-cited passage, of "intruding into things not seen," is likewise agreeable to the character of the Therapeutic Essenes; who, placing the excellence of their contemplative life in raising their minds to invisible objects, pretended to such a degree of elevation and abstraction, as to be able to penetrate into the nature of angels, and assign them proper names, or rightly interpret those already given them; and also to pry into futurity and predict future events. On these accounts it is highly probable that they were "vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind. Further, the tenets referred to by St. Paul, (Col. ii. 21. "touch not, taste not, handle not,") are such as the Essenes held, who would not taste any pleasant food, but lived on coarse bread and drank nothing but water, and some of whom would not taste any food at all till after sun-set: if touched by any that were not of their own sect, they would wash themselves, as after some great pollution. It has been conjectured that there might be a sodality of Essenes at Colosse, as there were in many other places out of Judæa; and that some of the Christians, being too much inclined to Judaism, migh also affect the peculiarities of this sect; which might be the reason of the apostle's so particularly cautioning the Colossians against them.2

1 Josephus, de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. 8. § 7.

2 Jennings's Jewish Antiquities, book i. c. 12. p. 243. (Edinb. 1818.) Michaelis thinks that Saint Paul alludes to the tenets and practices of the Essenes in his Epistle to the Ephesians, and in his first Epistle to Timothy. Introd. to the New Test. vol. iv. pp. 79-85. Dr. Prideaux has collected with great industry and fidelity all that Philo

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IV. There is in the Gospels frequent mention of a set of men called SCRIBES and LAWYERS, who are often joined with the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees. They seem to have been men of learning, and on that account to have had great deference paid to them (Matt. ii. 4. vii. 29.); but strictly speaking, they did not form any distinct sect. The SCRIBES generally belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, in whose traditions and explanations of the law they were profoundly skilled; and on the sabbath days "they sat in Moes' seat" and instructed the people. Originally, they had their name rom their employment, which at first was transcribing the law: but in progress of time they exalted themselves into the public ministry and became teachers of it, authoritatively determining what doctrines were or were not contained in the Scriptures, and teaching the common people in what sense to understand the law and the prophets. In short, they were the oracles which were consulted in all difficult points of doctrine and duty.

LAWYERS (Voxos, teachers of the law) and scribes appear to be synonymous termns, importing one and the same order of men; as St. Matt. (xxii. 35.) calls him a scribe whom St. Mark (xii. 28.) terms a lawyer. Dr. Macknight conjectures the scribes to have been the public expounders of the law, and that the lawyers studied it in private perhaps, as Dr. Lardner conjectures, they taught in the schools.1

V. The SAMARITANS, mentioned in the New Testament, are generally considered as a sect of the Jews; their origin and history have already been related, together with their antipathy to the Jews. Their principal residence is at Sichem or Shechem, now called Napolose, or Nablous, where they have one synagogue. In 1820, they were about forty in number. They celebrated divine service every Saturday. Formerly they went four times a year in solemn procession, to the old synagogue on Mount Gerizim: and on these occasions they ascended before sun-rise, and read the law till noon; but of late years they have not been allowed to do this. The Samaritans have one school in Napolose, where their language is taught. The head of this sect is stated to reside at Paris. Samaritans at Napolose are in possession of a very antient manuscript Pentateuch, which they assert to be 3500 years old; but they reject the vowel points, as a rabbinical invention. In order to complete our notice of this sect, we have subjoined their confession

The

Josephus, and Pliny have recorded concerning the Essenes. Connection, vol. ii. book v. sub anno 107. B. c. pp. 343-363. 8th edit.

1 Prideaux, vol. ii. p. 343. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book i. ch. iv. § 3. (Works, vol. i. p. 126.) Macknight's Harmony, sect. 87. vol. ii. p. 74. (2d edit. 4to.) The scribes noticed in the Old Testament, it may not be irrelevant to remark, were political officers of great weight and authority; it being their employment to assist the kings or magistrates, and to keep an account in writing of public acts or occur rences of the royal revenues, and the muster rolls of the army. (2 Sam. viii. 17. 1 Chron. xxiv. 6. 1 Kings iv. 2 Kings xix. 2. xxii. 3-10. 2 Chron. xxvi. 11.)

2 Visit of the Rev. James Connor, in 1819 and 1820, to Candia, Rhodes, Cyprus, and various parts of Syria and Palestine, annexed to the Rev. W. Jowett's Chris, tian Researches in the Mediterranean, p. 425

of faith, sent in the sixteenth century by Eleazar their high priest to the illustrious critic Scaliger, who had applied to them for that purpose; together with a few additional particulars from the Baron de Sacy's Memoir on the Samaritans.1

1. The Samaritans observe the sabbath with all the exactness required in Exodus; for not one of them goes out of the place where he is on the sabbath-day, except to the synagogue, where they read the law, and sing the praises of God. They do not lie that night with their wives, and neither kindle nor order fire to be kindled whereas the Jews transgress the sabbath in all these points; for they go out of town, have fire made, lie with their wives, and even do not wash themselves after it.-2. They hold the passover to be their first festival; they begin at sun-set, by the sacrifice enjoined for that purpose in Exodus; but they sacrifice only on Mount Gerizim, where they read the law, and offer prayers to God, after which the priest dismisses the whole congregation with a blessing. [Of late years, however, having been prohibited from ascending Mount Gerizim by their oppressors the Turks, they offer the paschal sacrifice within their city, which they consider to be within the precincts of the sacred place.]-3. They celebrate for seven days together the feast of the harvest, but they do not agree with the Jews concerning the day when it ought to begin; for these reckon the next day after the solemnity of the passover; whereas the Samaritans reckon fifty days, beginning the next day after the sabbath which happens in the week of the unleavened bread, and the next day after the seventh sabbath following, the feast of the harvest begins.-4. They observe the fast of expiation on the tenth of the seventh month: they employ the four and twenty hours of the day in prayers to God, and singing his praises, and fasting. For all except sucking children fast, whereas the Jews except children under seven years of age.-5. On the fifteenth of the same month, they celebrate the feast of tabernacles.-6. They never defer circumcision beyond the eighth day, as it is commanded in Genesis, whereas the Jews defer it sometimes longer.-7. They are obliged to wash themselves in the morning, when they have lain with their wives, or have been sullied in the night by some uncleanness; and all vessels, that may become unclean, become defiled when they touch them before they have washed.-8. They take away the fat from sacrifices, and give the priests the shoulder, the jaws, and the belly. -9. They never marry their nieces as the Jews do, and have but one wife, whereas the Jews may have many.-10. They believe in God in Moses, and in Mount Gerizim. Whereas, say they, the Jews put their trust in others, we do nothing but what is expressly commanded in the law by the Lord who made use of the ministry of Moses; but the Jews swerve from what the Lord hath commanded in the law, to observe what their fathers and doctors have invented.-11. They Mémoire sur l'Etat actuel des Samaritains, par M. Silvestre de Sacy. Paris, See also Joan. Christoph. Friedrich, Discussionum de Christologia Samaritanorum Liber. Accedit Appendicula de Columba Dea Samaritanorum. Lipsia,

1812. 8vo.

1521. 8vo.