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 (νομικοι, teachers of the law) and scribes appear to be synonymous terms, 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. The 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

2

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

a

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 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

1 Mémoire sur l'Etat actuel des Samaritains, par M. Silvestre de Sacy. Paris, 1812. 8vo. See also Joan. Christoph. Friedrich, Discussionum de Christologia Samaritanorum Liber. Accedit Appendicula de Columba Dea Samaritanorum. Lipsie,

1521.8vo.

ג

expect a prophet, whom they term Hathab; but, say they, "there is a great mystery in regard to Hathab, who is yet to come. We shall be happy when he comes." The report of their worshipping a dove is groundless; nor is it true that they deny the resurrection of the dead, or the existence of angels. They admit, however, that they recite hymns and prayers that Jehovah would pardon the dead, and the priest purifies them by prayer.

The Samaritans have a catalogue of the succession of their high priests from Aaron to the present time. They believe themselves to be of the posterity of Joseph by Ephraim, and that all their high priests descended from Phinehas; whereas the Jews have not one of that family. They boast that they have preserved the Hebrew characters which God made use of to promulgate his law; while the Jews have a way of writing from Ezra, which is cursed for ever. And indeed, instead of looking upon Ezra as the restorer of the law, they curse him as an impostor, who has laid aside their old characters to use new ones in their room, and authorised several books that were written to support the posterity of David.

Several attempts have been made to convert these Samaritans; but they have been oppressed instead of being made Christians, and they are reduced to a small number rather by misery than by the multitude of those who have been converted. Nay, they seem more stubbornly wedded to their sect than the Jews, though these adhere rigorously to the law of Moses. At least Nicon, who lived after the twelfth century, when setting down the formalities used at the reception of heretics, observes, that if a Jew had a mind to be converted, in order to avoid punishment or the payment of what he owed, he was to purify himself, and satisfy his creditors before he was admitted. But the Samaritans were not received before they had been instructed two years, and were required to fast ten or fifteen days before they professed the Christian religion, to attend at morning and evening prayers, and to learn some psalms; others were not used with so much rigour. The term of two years which was enjoined to the Samaritan proselytes, is an argument that they were suspected, and the reason why they were so was, that they had often deceived the Christians by their pretended conversion.1

VI. The HERODIANS were rather a political faction than a religious sect of the Jews; they derived their name from Herod the Great, king of Judæa, to whose family they were strongly attached. They were distinguished from the other Jewish sects, first, by their concurring in Herod's plan of subjecting himself and his people to the dominion of the Romans; and secondly, in complying with the latter in many of their heathen practices, such as erecting temples with images for idolatrous worship, raising statues, and instituting

1 Lewis's Origines Hebrææ, vol. iii. pp. 57-59. In pp. 59-65. he has printed a letter, purporting to have been written by the Samaritans at Shechem in the seventeenth century, and sent by them to their brethren in England, by Dr. Huntington, some time chaplain to the Turkey Company at Aleppo, and afterwards Bishop of Raphoe, in Ireland.

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games in honour of Augustus; which symbolising with idolatry upon views of interest and wordly policy is supposed to have been a part at least of the leaven of Herod, against which Jesus Christ cautioned his disciples (Mark viii. 15.); consequently they were directly opposed to the Pharisees, who, from a misinterpretation of Deut. xvii. 15. maintained that it was not lawful to submit to the Roman emperor, or to pay taxes to him. But Herod and his followers, understanding the text to exclude only a voluntary choice, and not a necessary submission where force had overpowered choice, held an opinion directly contrary, and insisted that in this case it was lawful both to submit to the Roman emperor, and also to pay taxes to him. How keen then must have been the malice of the Pharisees against Christ, when they united with their mortal enemies the Herodians, in proposing to him the ensnaring question, whether it was lawful to give tribute to Cæsar or not? (Matt. xxii. 16.) If our Redeemer had answered in the negative, the Herodians would have accused him to the Roman power as a seditious person; and if in the affirmative, the Pharisees were equally ready to accuse him to the people, and excite their indignation against him, as betraying the civil liberties and privileges of his country. It is further probable that the Herodians, in their doctrinal tenets, were chiefly of the sect of the Sadducees, who were the most indifferent to religion among the whole Jewish nation; since that which is by one evangelist called the leaven of Herod (Mark viii. 15.), is by another termed (Matt. xvi. 6.) the leaven of the Sadducees.1

VII. The GALILEANS were a sect that originated from the Pharisees, A. D. 12, when Archelaus was banished, Judæa reduced into a Roman province, and a census taken by Quirinius or Cyrenius president of Syria (to which province Judæa was attached). On this occasion, Judas the Galilæan, or Gaulonite, as he is also called, exhorted the people to shake off this yoke, telling them, that tribute was due to God alone, and consequently ought not to be paid to the Romans; and that religious liberty and the authority of the divine laws were to be defended by force of arms. In other respects his doctrines appear to have been the same as those of the Pharisees. The tumults raised by these pernicious tenets were indeed suppressed (Acts v. 37.); but his followers, who were called Galilæans, continued secretly to propagate them, and to make proselytes, whom they required to be circumcised. As the same restless disposition and seditious principles continued to exist at the time when the apostles Paul and Peter wrote their Epistles, they took occasion thence to inculcate upon Christians (who were at that time generally confounded with the Jews), the necessity of obedience to civil authority, with

singular ability, truth, and persuasion. See Rom. xiii. 1. et seq. 1 Tim. ii. 1. et seq. 1 Pet. ii. 13. et seq.1

The ZEALOTS, so often mentioned in Jewish history, appear to have been the followers of this Judas. Lamy is of opinion that the JUST MEN whom the Pharisees and Herodians sent to entangle Jesus in his conversation, were members of this sect. (Matt. xxii. 15, 16. Mark xii. 13, 14. Luke xx. 20.)2 Simon the Canaanite, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ, is called Zelotes, (Luke vi. 15.): and in Acts xxi. 20. and xxii. 3. (Gr.) we find that there were certain Christians at Jerusalem, who are denominated ZEALOTS. But these merely insisted on the fulfilment of the Mosaic law, and by no means went so far as those persons, termed Zelotæ or Zealots, of whom we read in Josephus's history of the Jewish war.

VIII. The SICARII, noticed in Acts xxi. 38. were assassins, who derived their name from their using poniards bent like the Roman sice, which they concealed under their garments, and privately stabbed the objects of their malice. The Egyptian impostor, also mentioned by the sacred historian, is noticed by Josephus, who says that he was at the head of 30,000 men, though St. Luke notices only 4000; but both accounts are reconciled by supposing that the impostor (who in the second year of Nero pretended to be a prophet) led out 4000 from Jerusalem, who were afterwards joined by others to the amount of 30,000, as related by Josephus. They were attacked and dispersed by the Roman procurator Felix.4