III. THE ESSENES are not once mentioned in the sacred writings, though they formed a considerable community in he time of our Saviour. They studiously courted retirement, evoted themselves to agriculture, and affected great simpliity and innocence of manners. They had a community of goods, and were unusually strict in the observance of the sabath. They believed that all things were governed by fate; hat the soul was immortal, and that there was a future state of retribution. *

IV. THE SAMARITANS are frequently mentioned in the ooks of the Old Testament. The following account of them s collected from Lampe and Kuinoel, by Bloomfield :

The Samaritans were descended from the remnant of the sraelites not carried away into captivity, and afterwards inermixed with Gentiles from the neighbouring parts of Asyria, especially the Cuthi, who had come to colonize and Occupy the vacant situations of the former inhabitants. In his new colony idolatry was introduced and permitted from he very first; yet so as to worship Jehovah in conjunction with the false gods, 2 Kings xvii. 29. When afterwards Cyus permitted the Jews to return from captivity and rebuild their temple, the Samaritans, who wished to form an union in religious matters with the Jews, requested that the temple might be erected at the common labour and expense of both nations. But Zerubbabel, and the other Jewish rulers, rejected their request, urging that Cyrus had committed the work to them only, and had charged the governors of Samaria to keep away from the place, and only assist the Jews out of the public revenues of the province. The Samaritans, however, said they were at liberty to worship there, since the temple had been erected for the worship of the Supreme Being by all the human race. † When the Samaritans had received this repulse from the Jews, they felt much mortified, and laid wait for revenge; they endeavoured to obstruct the restoration of the temple, and the increase and prosperity of the new Jewish state, by various methods. Hence originated a mutual hatred between the nations, which was afterwards kept up and increased by the revolt of Manasseh, and the erection of the temple on Mount Gerizim.For Manasseh, a brother of Jaddus the High Priest, had, contrary to the laws and customs of the nation, taken in marriage the daughter of Sanballat, the Ruler of Samaria (Neh. xiii. 23, seq.), and when the Jews, indignant at this, had

*Prideaux has given a very full account of this sect, Connex. A. A. C. 107. † See Esdr. iv. 2; Jos. Ant. xi. 4.

See Esdr. and Jos. Ant. just referred to.

ordered that he should divorce her as an alien, or no longer approach to the altar and the sacred institutions, he fled to his father-in-law, a High Priest, who alienated many from the religious worship of the Jews, and by gifts and promises drew over great numbers, and even some of the priests, to the Samaritan party. But now that the temple was erected on Mount Gerizim, still greater contentions arose between the Jews and Samaritans concerning the place of divine worship. For the Samaritans denied that the sacred rites at Jerusalem were pure and of divine ordination: but of the temple on Mount Gerizim they affirmed that it was holy, legitimate, and sanctioned by the presence of the Deity. The Samaritans, moreover, only received the books of Moses. The rest of the sacred books (since they vindicated the divine worship at Je rusalem) they rejected, as also the whole body of the tradi tions, keeping solely to the letter. From these causes the Jews were inflamed to the most rancorous hatred towards this rival nation; insomuch that to many of them the Samaritans were objects of greater detestation than even the Gentiles. See Luke x. 33. It is no wonder, then, that there should have been such a constant reciprocation of injuries and ca lumnies as had served to keep up a perpetual exasperation between the two nations. The fault, however, was not all on the side of the Jews: for (as we learn from Bartenora ad Roschaschana ii. 2, cited by Schoettgen) the Samaritans inflamed this enmity by taking every opportunity of injuring or at least offering provocations to the Jews. The following anecdote may serve as an example:-" When the time of the new moon was just at hand, the Jews had a fire kindled on the highest mountains, to warn those who were afar off of the exact time of the novilunium. What did the Samaritans do? Why, in order that they might lead the Jews into an error, they themselves, during the night-time, kindled fires on the mountains. Therefore, the Jews were obliged to send out trusty and creditable persons who should give out the time of the new moon, as observed by the Jerusalemitish Sanhedrin, or defined by other persons to whom that office was committed.” — The Samaritans, however, did not entertain so much hatred towards the Jews, as the latter did towards the former: nor did they deny towards them the offices of humanity. See Luke ix. 53; x. 32. Jesus, however, disregarded, nay discountenanced, this hatred, and as he did not hesitate to eat with tax-gatherers, so neither did he avoid intercourse with Samaritans. In the estimation of a Jew, the

* Recensio Synoptica Annot. Sac. pp. 110, 111.

very name of a Samaritan comprised madness, and malice, and drunkenness, and apostacy, and rebellion, and universal detestation. When they were instigated with rage against our blessed Lord, the first word their fury dictated was, Samaritan." Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil!" And it is remarkable that the amiable and benevolent son of Sirach uses this expression in his writings-"Two nations my soul hateth, the Samaritans and the Philistines" (Ecclus. I. 26), a signal and affecting proof, how far the wisest and best of men among the Jews were carried away with the national prejudices.

The Samaritans, as it evidently appears from the account of them, fully stated by Origen, were, down to his day, denyers of a resurrection, and of the soul's immortality. * This was

probably the consequence of their rejecting those books of the Old Testament in which the doctrine of a future state was more clearly revealed, and taking the Pentateuch alone for their rule. The Sadducean heresy is said to have taken its rise, or its avowed and public prevalence, from Samaria; and from this very principle of rejecting the authority of the Prophets. +

V. The SCRIBES, though not forming any distinct sect, demand a notice, from the perpetual reference which is made to them in the New Testament. They were a profession of men devoted to the ministry, and to the study of sacred literature. They were the literati among the Jewsthey sat in Moses' seat- and their knowledge of the law, and of the divinity which then prevailed, obtained for them a place in the Sanhedrin, or supreme council of the nation, and qualified them to be the public and stated teachers of the people. They generally belonged to the sect of the Pharisees. They obtained their name from their original employment, which was transcribing the law. But in process of time, they exalted themselves into its public ministers and expositors; authoritatively determined what doctrines were contained in Scripture, and what were not; taught the common people in what sense to understand the law and the prophets; and were the oracles which were consulted in all difficult points of doctrine and duty.

VI. The LAWYERS mentioned in the New Testament appear to have been the same order of men as the Scies, and obtained this appellation from their having devoted themselves to the study of the law, and teaching it to the people.

VII. The ELDERS. The difference between these and * Comment. on Matth. p. 486.

†Tertullian, de Præs. Hær. p. 249.

the Scribes was only that the former were laymea, while the latter were of the Jewish clergy. They were commonly chief men in the tribes, and their judgment had great weight.

SECTION III.

THE STATE OF RELIGION AMONG THE JEWS AT THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

The two former sections of this chapter will have given the reader some idea of the state of religion among the Jews at the time of our Saviour's appearance. Errors of a most pernicious kind had affected the whole body of the people, and the more learned part of the nation was divided upon points of the highest importance. They regarded the whole of religion as consisting in the rites of the Mosaic law, and in the performance of some external acts of duty. They were unanimous in excluding from eternal life all other nations; and, as a consequence, they treated them with the utmost contempt and inhumanity when occasions offered. None of the sects were animated with the principles of true piety. The Pharisees courted popular applause, by a vain ostentation of sanctity, while they were strangers to true holiness, and inwardly defiled with the most criminal dispositions. The Sadducees, by denying future rewards and punishments, removed at once the most powerful incentives to virtue, the most effectual restraints upon vice, and thus gave new vigour to every sinful passion. As to the Essenes, they were a superstitious people, who regarded piety to God as incompatible with social attachment and duty, and dissolved, by this pernicious doctrine, the great bonds of human society.

and

From this view of the state of religion and morals among the higher classes of the people, it is easy to conceive what must have been the state of the multitude. They were sunk in the most deplorable ignorance of God, and of divine things; and had no notion of any other way of rendering themselves acceptable to the Divine Being, than by sacrifices and the other external rites of the Mosaic law. Hence proceeded the profligate wickedness which prevailed to so alarming tent during the period of our Saviour's ministry.

an ex

To this fact Josephus must be regarded as an unexcep tionable witness. This historian, then, states, that "both publicly and privately they were universally corrupt. They vied which should surpass each other in impiety against God, and

injustice towards men. The great men harassed the people, and the people studied to ruin the great."-" In one word, there never was a city that suffered such calamities, nor a race of men, from the foundation of the world, that ever was more profligate and abandoned." In another place he says, "I cannot forbear declaring my opinion, though the declaration fills me with great emotion and regret, that if the Romans had delayed to come against these wretches, the city would either have been ingulphed by an earthquake, overwhelmed by a deluge, or destroyed by fire from Heaven, as Sodom was; for that generation was far more enormously wicked than those who suffered these calamities." *

If any part of the Jewish religion were less corrupt than the rest, it was the form of external worship, established by the law of Moses. And yet a variety of rites were introduced into the service of the temple, of which no traces are to be found in the sacred writings. The institution of these additional ceremonies was owing to those revolutions which rendered the Jews more conversant with the nations round about them, than they had formerly been. For when they saw the sacred rites of the Greeks and Romans, notwithstanding the excellency and fulness of their own ritual, they were induced to adopt them in the service of the true God.

The Samaritans, who celebrated divine worship in the temple that was built on mount Gerizim, lay under the same evils that oppressed the Jews, with whom they lived in the bitterest enmity, and were also, like them, highly instrumental in increasing their own calamities. They suffered as much as the Jews from troubles and divisions fomented by the intrigues of factious spirits. Their religion was also more corrupted than that of the Jews themselves, as Christ declares in his conversation with the woman of Samaria. For they mixed the errors of the Gentiles with the sacred doctrines of the Jews, and were excessively corrupted by the idolatrous customs of the pagan nations.†

* Jewish Wars, b. v. c. 10-13, and b. vii.

+ See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Cent. I. ch. ii. Dr. Harwood has drawn a very animated picture of the depraved state of the Jews at this time, Introduction, vol. ii. pp. 58--66.