itself from the lower desires and appetites and gives virtue the first place. The word of God to Abraham: "Know that thy seed shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs," means that the love of virtue dwells in the body, not as its home, but that it should regard itself as a stranger in a strange land. The sacrifices commanded by the Law, although obligatory on the believer, are not of value for their own sake; they are symbols of the state of the soul in repentance, when it frees itself from sin and is thus rendered acceptable to God.

In spite of the fact that Philo himself was a loyal and conscientious observer of the Law, it is doubtful whether a history of Jewish religion should take further account of him. His philosophy was not that of the Jewish Scriptures, but was the Platonic dualism, putting soul and body into sharp opposition, positing also a great gulf between God and his creation, a gulf that can be crossed only by the mediating Logos which was already a figure of Greek speculation. Philo, in fact, belongs at the beginning of Christian thought rather than at the end of Jewish, for his influence on Christian theology and on Christian exegesis is marked and may be said to have endured to the present day. We can hardly doubt that his emphasis of the allegorical meaning of the Law helped to undermine its force as law. If, in fact, the important thing was the allegory, why not keep the allegory and let the literal meaning go? Christianity answered by rejecting the Law as a system of rules while retaining it as a divine revelation. And though we cannot say that the allegorical interpretation was rejected by the Jews who retained the Law as a rule of life, no doubt there was a sharp reaction against Hellenism, so sharp that the day when the Greek translation was made was regarded by the Rabbinical authorities as a day of calamity parallel to that which saw the manufacture of the golden calf.

Leaving the Hellenistic Jews and turning to those of Palestine, we note that the most significant feature of society is the sharp opposition between Pharisees and Sadducees. We have already met the Pharisees as the strict observers of the

Law. The conflict between them and their enemies came (according to Josephus) in the time of John Hyrcanus. The Sadducees seem to have been adherents of the Maccabean house, and it is probable that we have an important document from a member of this party in the first book of Maccabees. The object of the author is evidently to set forth the merits of the ruling family, and this he does by a plain, unvarnished narrative of the deeds of the heroic brothers who deserved so well of the nation. His piety is of the good, old-fashioned sort such as we discover in Ben Sira. The miraculous interposition of angels on which other narratives of the period love to dwell are absent from his story, but this is not because he doubts the presence of the God of Israel with his people to deliver them in time of peril. He thinks that Antiochus was brought to a realising sense of his sin against Jerusalem by the illness which befell him (I Mac. 6 : 12), regards the death of Nicanor as an example of the divine retribution (7:47), and treats similarly that of Alkimus, the Hellenising high priest who tore down the temple wall (9:55). He makes the piety of Judas evident by describing his preparations for battle (3 : 56; 4 : 9 and 30), and justifies his slaughter of his male prisoners by pointing out that it is strictly according to the Law. He shows us that Jonathan's title to the high-priesthood is exactly the same as that of Alkimus, whom the Chasidim were so ready to recognise, the appointment in each case having come from the Syrian monarch (10: 20). His hatred of renegade Jews is genuine, and he takes pains to show that the woes of Israel were due to them rather than to the gentiles (11: 21, 25). He rarely blames the stricter party, and then only mildly, as when he condemns them for trusting in Alkimus (7: 13 f.).

The emphasis laid on the piety of Simon Maccabeus shows the mind of the author, for he dwells on the fact that it was Simon who expelled the heathen from Gazara, cleansed the city from idols, and settled observers of the Law there, entering the city, moreover, with the singing of Psalms (13:47 ff.). The action of the Jewish Council in making

Simon general and leader of the nation was ratified by the divine blessing which followed, for in the days of Simon "they tilled their ground in peace and the earth gave her increase, and the trees of the field their fruit; the old men sat in the streets communing of good things, and the young men put on glorious and warlike apparel. .. He made peace in the land and Israel rejoiced with great joy, for every man sat under his vine and his fig-tree and there was none to fray them. . . . Moreover he strengthened all those of the people that were brought low; the Law he searched out and every contemner of the Law and every wicked person he took away; he beautified the sanctuary and multiplied the vessels of the temple" (14:8-15). If this be a fair example of Sadducean opinion, the members of this party were not lacking in devotion to Israel's ideals.

The point made against them in the New Testament is that they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. This is confirmed by the book before us when compared with the second book of Maccabees, apparently a Pharisaic document. Our book makes no reference to a resurrection or to a life beyond the grave, though the description of the death of Mattathias and of his heroic sons would have given abundant opportunity to allude to such a belief. The second book, on the other hand, not only states that Judas believed in the resurrection, but that he caused sin-offerings to be offered on behalf of the dead just because he expected them to be raised (II Mac. 12: 44). The reason why the Sadducees refused to adopt this belief was no doubt that they did not find it taught in the Pentateuch. It is probable also that this party was not affected by the extravagant hopes of the apocalypses. Adherents of the Maccabean house, they regarded the Messianic hope as reasonably fulfilled in the elevation of that dynasty to the throne. One of the Psalms, to which allusion has already been made (110), congratulates Simon that the divine decree has made him priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. In spite of this thoroughly religious tone at the outset, however, the Sad

ducean party became more and more worldly as the princes became mere temporal rulers. Hence the decline in power of the Sadducees, and their final extinction. The Roman rule disregarded any claims that might be put forward for a native Jewish prince.

The mass of the people sympathised with the Pharisaic point of view. This does not mean that the common people could be counted in the strict sense Pharisees. Punctilious adherence to a complicated law and to the casuistic traditions that gather about such a law is impossible to the man in the street. Knowledge of this tradition requires serious and prolonged study, which comparatively few men are in position to give. Strict avoidance of contact with the gentiles, which was the root principle of Pharisaism, was impracticable for those who engaged in active business in the midst of foreigners. The Pharisees themselves, that is, those who were punctilious in observing the commandments and traditions, drew a sharp line of demarcation between themselves and the mass of their coreligionists, whom they called the people of the land. They said: "This people which knows not the Law is accursed." Yet these same people of the land looked up to the Pharisees as their teachers, and were willing to follow them so far as lay in their power. Their attitude was something like the attitude of lay Christians toward members of the monastic orders, as men who have attained a sanctity to which the ordinary man cannot aspire. That the members of the party often succumbed to the temptation to emphasise ceremonial purity at the expense of ethical sincerity is evident from the New Testament; but that the party contained many serious-minded and devoted adherents to the God of Israel we must believe.

Pharisaic legalism has left its mark on a considerable literature. Hatred of the gentiles we have already seen exemplified in the book of Esther. Opposition to intermarriage with other races goes back to the time of Nehemiah, and it is emphasised in a later ordinance that any Israelite who gives his daughter in marriage to a gentile shall be stoned, and the

young woman shall be burned (Jubilees 30:7 f.). The author of Esther, it is true, allowed his heroine to become a member of Xerxes' harem. But the supplementer of the narrative, whose work is preserved in the Greek version of the book, makes her express the utmost horror of such a fate (Gr. Esther 3 26 f.). The crime of such a marriage is sacrilege, defilement of the sacred blood of Israel, and it brings all kinds of plague and curse on the nation (Jubilees 30: 14-17). Later the prohibition was made even more rigid, forbidding a Pharisee to give his daughter to any but a Pharisee.

The book of Jubilees, from which we have just drawn, shows how the most devoted adherent of the sacred code is obliged to supplement it in accordance with the ideas of his own time. The author rewrites the narrative of Genesis in order to make clear things concerning which the original text is silent. It is his conviction that there is strict correspondence between things heavenly and things earthly. Human chronology must be made to correspond with that used in heaven, else the angels will be observing Sabbath on one day, and men will be observing it on another; and so with the New Moon and other festivals (Jubilees 1:5, 14; 6: 32 f.). The feast of Tabernacles is inaugurated by Abraham instead of by Moses (16: 20-31). The Passover is commended because its observance insures against plagues for the following year (49 15). Noah observed the law of first-fruits (7: 1). The conquest of Canaan is justified on the ground that it had first been assigned by lot to Shem (10: 28-36). These specimens may show the freedom with which the Law was treated in the interest of the Law itself, or rather of the tradition which had grown up about it.

Pharisaic ideals have also coloured the narratives of Tobit and Judith. Tobit, although represented as living in the northern kingdom, sends tithes and firstlings to Jerusalem, and makes the pilgrimage thither, abstains from the food of the heathen, and shares his goods with his poorer brethren. When in exile he buries the unfortunate Jews who are the victims of persecution, braving even the wrath of the king