written law alone. They differed also respecting the import of the law. For while the Pharisees sought a double sense in Scripture, one obvious and of the words, another recondite and of the things, the Sadducees taught that nothing is contained in the law besides that which the words imply. Differing from both, the Essenes generally considered the words of the law as in themselves quite unimportant, and the things expressed by them as images of sacred and heavenly things. To these were added other contests of equal importance, especially on the law's punishments and rewards; which the Pharisees, referring them both to body and soul, carried beyond this life, but the Sadducees thought them bounded by it. The Essenes took a middle course, admitting future rewards and punishments, but confining them to their souls; bodies being considered as made of malignant matter for the imprisonment of souls.1

§ 8. Although these factions disputed with each other upon points of so much moment, mutual injuries do not appear to have been inflicted by them on religious grounds. This forbearance, however, no one acquainted with those times will ascribe to generous and wellfounded principles. The Sadducees depended for influence and authority upon the upper classes, the Pharisees upon the people. It was, therefore, scarcely possible with either sect to make a hostile attack upon the other without very great hazard. If, too, they had attempted any movement of a political tendency, the Romans would unquestionably have inflicted no light punishment on those who broke the peace. The Sadducees, we may add, were well-mannered people, averse from all disturbance and altercation by the very discipline which they followed.2

§ 9. The Essenes could more easily avoid contention with the others, because they lived, for the most part, in retired places, and remote from intercourse with mankind. This sect, which was dispersed over Syria, Egypt, and the neighbouring countries, looked upon religion as placed in silence and meditation; and endeavoured, by a stricter kind of life, and by various observances, borrowed, it would seem, from the Egyptians, to attain a higher degree of virtue. Yet they were not all of the same sentiments. Some lived in celibacy, and made it their care to instruct and educate the children of others. Others married wives-not to gratify their natural propensities, but solely to propagate

3

pretation of it they delivered down only by word of mouth to the succeeding generations.'-Prideaux, Connexions, Lond. 1720, i. 256. S.]

[For an account of the three Jewish sects, see Ja. Trigland, Syntagma Trium Scriptorum illustrium (viz. Jo. Scaliger, Joh. Drusius, and Nicol. Serarius), de Judeorum Sectis, Delft, 1702, 2 vols. 4to. After these, Ja. Basnage, Hum. Prideaux (in their Jewish histories), and the authors of Introductions to the books of the N. Test. (and of works on Jewish Antiquities), and many others, have described these sects,

some more, and some less successfully. Mosheim, de Rebb. Christ. &c. p. 46.]

2 [See Commentt. de Rebb. Chr. &c. p. 48, where Dr. M. proves from Josephus (Antiq. Jud. xviii. 1, and xiii. 10), that the Sadducees were all men of wealth; and (from his Bell. Jud. ii. 8) that they had little sympathy for others. Dr. M. thinks he finds the picture of a Sadducee in the rich man described, Luke xvi. 19. Schl.]

$ See Lu. Holstenius, Notes on Porphyry, de Vita Pythagoræ, p. 11, ed. Kuster.

the human race. Those who lived in Syria held that God may be propitiated by victims and sacrifices, although they must be offered in a very different manner from that which prevailed among the Jews: whence it appears, they did not reject wholly the Mosaic law in its literal sense. But such as dwelt in the desert parts of Egypt denied that any other sacrifice was required by God than a composed mind given up to meditation on heavenly things: which shows that they put an allegorical sense upon the whole Jewish law.

§ 10. The Therapeuta, of whom Philo wrote a whole book,3 are commonly reckoned a branch of the Essene family; whence arose that well-known distinction of the Essenes into practical and theoretical. But whether this classification is correct may be doubted. For I can see nothing in the customs or institutions of the Therapeutæ from which it can certainly be collected that they sprang from the Essenes, nor has Philo so represented them. Who can deny that other fanatical Jews, besides Essenes, might have come together and formed a society? But I agree entirely with those who think the Therapeuta to have been Jews, desirous of passing for true disciples of Moses, not Christians, or Egyptians. In reality, they were wild and melancholy enthusiasts, who led a life equally removed from the law of Moses and right reason.

1

4

[Josephus, de Bell. Jud. ii. 8, § 13. Schl.]

2 See Mosheim's note on Cudworth's Essay, de vera Notione cœnæ Domini, p. 4, subjoined to his Intellectual System.

3

Philo, de Vita contemplativa, in his Works, p. 889.

The principal writers concerning the Therapeute are mentioned by J. A. Fabricius, Lux Salutar. Evang. toti orbi exor, c. iv. p. 55. [The Therapeute wished to pass for disciples of Moses, notwithstanding their wide departure from him. They gave up all their property, and betook themselves to retired situations, where they lived in solitary huts, without sacrifices, without any external worship, and without labour; mortifying their bodies by fasting, and their souls by unceasing contemplation, in order to bring their heaven-born spirits, now imprisoned in bodies, into light and liberty, and fit them better for the celestial mansions after death. They assembled together every seventh day of the week; when, after hearing a discourse, and offering prayers, they ate together, feeding on salt and bread and water. This meal was followed by a sacred dance, which they protracted through the night, and till the dawn of day. At first, the men and women danced apart; afterwards, guided by inspiration, they danced together, and laboured, by violent movements, outeries, songs, and voices, to express the love of God then working in their souls. Into such follies can human nature run, when ignorant of God and of the nature of man. It is still debated

whether these Therapeuta were Christians, Jews, or heathen philosophers. Eusebius (H. E. ii. 17) regarded them as Christian monks, established in Egypt by St. Mark; and many Romish writers, to support the high antiquity of monkery, defend this opinion. The whole of this controversy may be seen in the Lettres pour et contre la fameuse question, si les solitaires appellés Thérapeutes, dont a parlé Philon le Juif, étoient Chrétiens. Paris, 1712, 12mo. The chief advocates of this opinion are B. de Montfaucon, in the Notes to his French translation of Philo, and M. le Quien, Oriens Christianus, ii. 332. On the other hand, Scaliger, Chamier, Lightfoot, Daillé, the two Basnages, Prideaux, Ittig, Buddeus, Mosheim, Baumgarten, and recently J. A. Orsi (Hist. Eccles. i. 77), and Mangey (Preface to Philo's Works), have maintained that they were Jews, and of the sect of Essenes. J. J. Lange, in a Dissert. published in 1721, maintained, upon very slender grounds, that they were oriental philosophers, of melancholy temperament, who had imbibed some Jewish notions. And Jablonsky, in an essay on the subject, accounts these solitaries Egyptian priests, addicted to astrology and other sacred sciences of the Egyptians.' Mosheim, de Rebb. Chr. p. 46, &c. abridged by Schlegel.—Mosheim pertinently observes (Com. de Rebb. &c. p. 50), 'The Christian monks, who evidently originated in Egypt, borrowed their peculiarities from the practical Essenes; for nothing can be more similar than the rules and regulations

§ 11. It was impossible that any one of these sects should inculcate and promote true piety and virtue. The Pharisees, as our Saviour often lays to their charge, disregarding internal purity, by a certain vain ostentation, and an austere kind of life, sought popular applause they ascribed also more authority to the inventions and institutions of older times than to God's most holy precepts.' The Sadducees gave strength to iniquity and every lust, by discarding future rewards and punishments. The Essenes, a fanatical and superstitious tribe, making piety consist in a holy sort of idleness and contempt of the human race, loosened the ties that bind men to each other.

§ 12. When those who assumed the name and the prerogatives of the wise were involved in such darkness and altercations, who can doubt that the people's religion and piety were utterly debased? Sunk in total ignorance of heavenly things, the humbler classes reckoned upon pleasing God by due attention to the sacrifices, ablutions, and other ceremonies prescribed by Moses. From this twofold source flowed those polluted morals and that profligate life which characterised the greater part of the Jews while Christ lived among them." Hence our Saviour compared the people to sheep wandering without a shepherd; and their teachers to blind men who would show a way to others which they do not know themselves."

§ 13. To these stains on the character of the Jews when Christ came among them must be added, upon all accounts, the fondness of many among them for the theory of the world's origin, which was taught by the oriental philosophers, and for the Cabbala, as their nation calls it, that philosophy's most indubitable offspring. That many Jews were infected with this system, both the sacred books of the New Testament, and the early history of Christian affairs, will allow no one to disbelieve.6 It is also certain that the founders of several Gnostic sects were Jews. The followers of this philosophy must necessarily have differed from the other Jews in their views of the God of the Old Testament, as also of Moses, of the creation, and of the Messiah. For they held the creator of the world to be a different being from the Supreme God; and believed, that the Messiah was to destroy the domination of the former over the human race.

[Although the word cabbala be now restrained to signify the mystical interpretations of the Scriptures only, and, in the common usage of speech now among the Jews, they alone are called Cabbalists who give themselves up to these dotages, yet, in the true and genuine meaning of the word, the Cabbala extends to all manner of traditions, which are of the interpretative part of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Cabbalists is the general name of all those who professed the study and knowledge of them. Prideaux, Connexions, i. 278. S.] See J. C. Wolf, Biblioth. Ebraica, vol. ii. 1. vii. c. i. § 9, p. 206.

From such opinions arose a monstrous system, widely different from the genuine religion of the Jews.

§ 14. The outward forms of worship established by Moses were less corrupted than the other parts of religion. Yet very learned men have observed that various rites were introduced even into the temple itself, for any traces of which we may vainly seek in the divine laws. After the Jews, in fact, saw the sacred rites, as well of the neighbouring nations as of the Greeks and Romans, not a few ceremonies, with which the gods were worshipped, seemed so attractive as to overcome the fear of adopting them, and of making them ornamental additions, as it were, to the rites of God's appointment.1

2

§ 15. Various causes may be assigned for this great corruption of a nation which God had selected for his peculiar people. In the first place, their fathers had brought back with them from Chaldea and the adjacent countries into Palestine many foolish and vain opinions, wholly unknown to the founders of the nation. From the time, too, when Alexander the Great conquered Asia, the manners and opinions of the Greeks had found a passage not only to the Persians, Syrians, and Arabians, but likewise to the Jews, who were before unacquainted with literature and philosophy.3 The journeys also commonly made by individuals of their nation into neighbouring countries, especially Egypt and Phoenicia, in quest of gain, caused various errors and fancies of the pagan nations to spread among the Hebrews. Lastly, Herod the Great and his sons, as likewise the Roman procurators and soldiers, undoubtedly planted in the country many foreign institutions and pollutions. Other causes will readily occur to those who are not unskilled in Jewish history from the times of the Maccabees.

§ 16. But, notwithstanding their numerous faults, the people universally professed great fondness for the law of Moses, and carefully guarded it from the least curtailment: hence were erected over all the country sacred buildings, known by the Greek name of Synagogues, in which the people met for prayer and for hearing public expounders of the law. Nor were the greater towns without schools, in which lettered men taught youth both divine and human knowledge. These institutions, no one can doubt, must have done much to keep the law inviolate, and to check in some degree the growth of ripening vices.

§ 17. The Samaritans, who worshipped on mount Gerizim, were oppressed by the same evils as the Jews, though otherwise divided from them by a virulent hostility, nor were they less the authors of their own calamities. It appears, from the history of those times, that Samaritan society was not behind Jewish in suffering from the machinations of factious men, although it had not, perhaps, an equal

1 See Joh. Spencer, de Legibus ritual. veter. Ebræorum, t. ii. lib. iv., where he treats particularly of Jewish rites, borrowed from the Gentiles, and not to be found in the law of God.

riis Egyptiorum, p. 206. Nor does Josephus conceal this fact, Ant. Jud. iii. 7, § 2.

[Le Clerc, Epist. Crit. ix. p. 250. Schl.] See Camp. Vitringa, de Synagoga Vetere, 1. iii. c. v. and l. i. c. v. vii. [Prideaux, Con? See Tho. Gale, on Jamblichus de myste- nexions, &c. pt. i. b. vi. anno 445. Tr.]

number of religious sects. That this people's religion was worse than the Jewish, Christ himself signifies. Yet they seem to have had more correct views of the offices of the Messiah than the greater part of the Jews. Upon the whole, although everything related by the Jews of their opinions cannot be taken as the truth, yet it is undeniable, that the Samaritans adulterated the pure doctrines of the Old Testament with a profane alloy of pagan errors.3

§ 18. The narrow limits of Palestine could not contain a nation so very numerous as the Jews. Hence, when our Saviour was born, there was hardly any considerable province, in which were not found many of that people who lived by traffic and other arts. These Jews, in countries out of Palestine, were protected against popular violence and injuries, by the laws and by the injunctions of the magistrates.1 Yet they were, in most places, exceedingly odious to the mass of people, on account of their striking singularity in religion and manners. Upon the whole, it came undoubtedly from a special providence of the great Supreme, that a people which had the guardianship of true religion, the worship, namely, of one God, should be spread over nearly all the earth, as if to shame superstition everywhere by their example, and in a manner to prepare the way for Christian truth.

CHAPTER III.

THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST.

§ 1. The birth of Christ- § 2. His childhood and youth - § 3. His precursor, John B.— §4. His subsequent life-§ 5. He appoints twelve apostles, and seventy disciples§ 6. Reason of this number-§7. Fame of Christ out of Judea - § 8. Success of his ministry§ 9. His death - § 10. His resurrection and ascension to heaven.

§ 1. So many and so virulent diseases of the human race demanded a divine physician. From heaven, therefore, when Herod the Great's reign was near its close, did God's own Son descend in Palestine, and, assuming human nature, became a spectacle to mortals of a teacher that could not err, and who besides, although their king, should answer for them in the divine judgment-hall. In what year salvation thus shone upon the world, the most persevering efforts of

1 John iv. 22.

2 John iv. 25. The principal writers concerning the Samaritans, are enumerated by J. G. Carpzov, Critica Sacra Vet. Test. pt. ii. cap. vi. p. 595. [The most valuable are Chr. Cellarius, Hist. gentis Samarit. in his Diss. Acad. p. 109, &c. Joh. Morin, Antiq. Eccles. orient. Ja. Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, t. ii. lib. ii. c. 1-13. H. Reland, de Samaritanis, in his Diss. Miscell. pt. ii. (H. Pri

deaux, Connexions), and Baumgarten, Geschichte der Religionspart. p. 274, &c. Schl.]

See Ja. Gronovius, Decreta Romana et Asiatica pro Judæis, ad cultum divinum per Asia Minoris urbes secure obeundum, Lugd. Bat. 1712, 8vo. [For a candid and faithful account of the state of the Jews, both in Palestine and out of it, the English reader is referred to Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History, pt. i. vol. i. ch. ii.—vi. Tr.]