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 leaver of Herod (Mark viii. 15.), is by another termed (Matt. xvi. 6.) the leaven of the Sadducees.

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,2 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

1 Prideaux's Connection, part ii. book v. (vol. ii. pp. 365-368.) Jennings's Jewish Antiquities, book i. ch. xii. (pp. 244–246.), where the different opinions of former writers concerning the Herodians are enumerated; as also in Elsley's Annotations on the Gospels, vol. i. pp. 342-346. vol. ii. p. 15. Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon, pp. 290, 291. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book i. ch. iv. § 4. (Works, vol. i. pp. 126, 127.)

2 He was a native of Gamala in the province of Gaulonitis.

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 Zelota 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 sica, which they concealed under their garments, and privately stabbed the objects of their malice.3 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.1

1 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. i. § 1. 6. lib. xx. c. v. § 2. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. xvii. §7-9. lib. vii. c. viii. §1. The Theudas mentioned in Acts v. 36. must not be confounded with the Theudas or Judas referred to by Josephus (Ant. lib. xx. c. v. 1.) Theudas was a very common name among the Jews; and the person mentioned by the sacred historian was probably one of the many leaders who took up arms in defence of the public liberties, at the time of Cyrenius's enrolment and taxation, at least seven, if not ten, years before the speech delivered by Gamaliel. (Acts v. 34-40.) He seems to have been supported by smaller numbers than the second of that name, and (as the second afterwards did) perished in the attempt; but as his followers were dispersed, and not slaughtered, like those of the second Judas, survivors might talk much of him, and Gamaliel might have been particularly informed of his history, though Josephus only mentions it in general terms. See Dr. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book ii. ch. vii. (Works, vol. 405-413.) Dr. Doddridge on Acts v. 36.

PP.

Apparatus Biblicus, vol. i. p. 239.

3 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xx. c. viii. § 10.

4 Ibid. lib. xx. c. viii. § 6. De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. c. xiii. § 5. Dr. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book ii. ch. viii. (Works, vol. i. pp. 414-419.)

SECTION III.

ON THE EXTREME CORRUPTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, BOTH IN RELIGION AND MORALS AT THE TIME OF CHRIST'S BIRTH.

General Corruption of the leaders of the Jewish nation—of their chief priests, and other ministers of religion-its deplorable effects on the people-state of the Jews not resident in Palestine. THE preceding chapters' will have shown that the political state of the Jews was truly deplorable. Although they were oppressed and fleeced by various governors, who exercised the most rigorous authority over them, in many instances with peculiar avarice, cruelty, and extortion, yet they were in some measure governed by their own laws, and were permitted to enjoy their religion. The administration of their sacred rites continued to be committed to the high priest and the sanhedrin; to the former the priests and Levites were subordinate as before and the form of their external worship, except in a very few points, had suffered no visible change. But, whatever comforts were left to them by the Roman magistrates, they were not allowed to enjoy them by their chief priests and popular leaders, whom Josephus characterises as profligate wretches, who had purchased their places by bribes or by acts of iniquity, and maintained their ill-acquired authority by the most flagitious and abominable crimes. Nor were the religious creeds of these men more pure: having espoused the principles of various sects, they suffered themselves to be led away by all the prejudice and animosity of party (though, as in the case of our Saviour, they would sometimes abandon them to promote some favourite measure); and were commonly more intent on the gratification of private enmity, than studious of advancing the cause of religion, or promoting the public welfare. The subordinate and inferior members were infected with the corruption of the head; the priests, and the other ministers of religion, were become dissolute and abandoned in the highest degree; while the common people, instigated by examples so depraved, rushed headlong into every kind of iniquity, and by their incessant seditions, robberies, and extortions, armed against themselves both the justice of God and the vengeance of men.

Owing to these various causes, the great mass of the Jewish people were sunk into the most deplorable ignorance of God and of divine things. Hence proceeded that dissoluteness of manners, and that profligate wickedness which prevailed among the Jews during Christ's ministry upon earth; in allusion to which the divine Saviour compares the people to a multitude of lost sheep, straying without a shepherd (Matt. x. 6. xv. 24.), and their teachers, or doctors, to blind guides, who professed to instruct others in a way with which

1 See particularly pp. 96-105. of the present volume.

VI. Sect. III.] Jewish People at the Time of Christ's Birth. 373 they were totally unacquainted themselves.1 (Matt. xv. 14. John ix. 39, 40.)

2

More particularly, in the New Testament, the Jews are described as a most superstitious and bigoted people, attached to the Mosaic ritual and to the whimsical traditions of their elders, with a zeal and fanaticism approaching to madness. They are represented as a nation of hypocrites, assuming the most sanctimonious appearance before the world, at the corners of crowded streets uttering loud and fervent strains of rapturous devotion, merely to attract the eyes of a weak and credulous multitude, and to be noticed and venerated by them as mirrors of mortification and heavenly-mindedness; devoured with ostentation and spiritual pride; causing a trumpeter to walk before them in the streets, and make proclamation that such a rabbi was going to distribute his alms; publicly displaying all this showy parade of piety and charity, yet privately guilty of the most unfeeling cruelty and oppression; devouring widows' houses, stripping the helpless widow and friendless orphan of their property, and exposing them to all the rigours of hunger and nakedness; clamouring, The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! making conscience of paying tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, to the support of its splendour and priesthood, but in practical life violating and trampling upon the first duties of morality,-justice, fidelity, and mercy, as being vulgar and heathenish attainments, and infinitely below the regard of exalted saints and spiritual perfectionists. Their great men were to an incredible degree depraved in their morals, many of them Sadducees in principle, and in practice the most profligate sensualists and debauchees; their atrocious and abandoned wickedness, as Josephus testifies,3 transcended all the enormities which the most corrupt age of the world had ever beheld; they compassed sea and land to make proselytes to Judaism from the Pagans, and, when they had gained these converts, soon rendered them, by their immoral lives and scandalous examples, more depraved and profligate than ever they were before their conversion. The apostle tells them, that by reason of their notorious vices their religion was become the object of calumny and satire among the heathen nations. The name

of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you! (Rom. ii. 24.) And in his Epistle to Titus he informs us that the Jews in speculation indeed acknowledged a God, but in practice they were atheists; for in their lives they were abominably immoral and abandoned, and

1 Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. book i. part i. chap. ii., and also his Commentaries on the Affairs of Christians before the time of Constantine the Great, vol. i. introd. chap. ii. 2 For the following picture of the melancholy corruption of the Jewish church and people, the author is indebted to Dr. Harwood's Introduction to the New Testament (vol. ii. pp. 58. 61.), collated with Pritii Introductio, p. 471. et seq., and verifying also the several authorities referred to by him.

3 Joseph. Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 1314. Hudson. Again, says this historian, "They were universally corrupt, both publicly and privately. They vied which should surpass each other in impiety against God and injustice towards men." Ibid.

4 The superstitious credulity of a Jew was proverbial among the heathens. Credat Judæus Appella. Horat. Epictetus mentions and exposes their greater attachment to their ceremonies than to the duties of morality. Dissertationes, lib. i. p. 115. edit. Upton. See also Josephus contra Apion. p. 480. Havercamp.