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  CROWN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY

  VOL. XXXV
  HERFORD'S PHARISAISM




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  PHARISAISM

  ITS AIM AND ITS METHOD


  BY

  R. TRAVERS HERFORD, B.A.

  AUTHOR OF
  "CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH"


  WILLIAMS & NORGATE
  14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
  NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

  1912




PREFACE


Most of the contents of the following pages were given as lectures in
Manchester College, Oxford, in the autumn of 1911. I have thought it
better to confine myself within the limits of what I then said, rather
than to expand and recast the lectures into a complete monograph on the
Pharisees. My aim throughout has been to present and make clear the
Pharisaic conception of religion, the point of view from which they
regarded it, and the methods by which they dealt with it. It is far more
important that the reader, especially the Christian reader, should
understand the meaning of Pharisaism than that he should be presented
with a survey of all the details, theological, ethical, historical, and
other, included in the wide field of the Pharisaic literature. I am not
without hope that a small book may be read where a large one would be
passed by, and that the ends of justice--in this case justice to the
Pharisees--may thereby be the better attained. I have not sought to
write a panegyric on them, but, so far as may be possible for one who is
not a Jew, to present their case from their own standpoint, and not, as
is so often done, as a mere foil to the Christian religion. This is one
reason why I have not referred to the writings of other scholars, except
in the one case of Weber. He is typical of them all in their attitude
towards Rabbinical Judaism. Even the fine work of Oesterley and Box,
_The Religion and Worship of the Synagogue_, though it is written in a
spirit of courtesy, and with a sincere desire to understand the
Rabbinical position and to recognise whatever is good in it, yet judges
it by the standard of the Christian religion. Something was still left
to be done, by way of treating Pharisaism fairly, that is, without
either contempt or condescension; and that "something" I have tried to
do--whether successfully or not, the candid reader will judge.

In conclusion, I tender my thanks to the Hibbert Trustees, to whom I owe
the opportunity of delivering the lectures, and to the authorities of
Manchester College, Oxford, for the invitation to do so.

          R. TRAVERS HEREFORD.

  STAND, MANCHESTER,
      _April 1912_.




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                              PAGE

  1. HISTORICAL SKETCH                         1

  2. THE THEORY OF TORAH                      57

  3. PHARISAISM AND JESUS                    112

  4. PHARISAISM AND PAUL                     173

  5. SOME POINTS OF PHARISAIC THEOLOGY       226

  6. PHARISAISM AS A SPIRITUAL RELIGION      282

  INDEX                                      336




PHARISAISM




CHAPTER I

HISTORICAL SKETCH


The subject to which in the following pages I shall invite the reader's
attention is one which may seem to promise but little of living
interest, and still less of religious worth. The Pharisees are presented
in the New Testament in no favourable light; and the average Christian
has not much further acquaintance with them. Yet, though the name be now
disused, the principles of Pharisaism have been maintained down to the
present day; and it is these, more than anything else, which have kept
Judaism as a living religion. That Pharisaism should wear an unpleasing
aspect in the New Testament is not surprising; for it was not in the
nature of things that the adherents of the old religion should
understand or be understood by those of the new, in the times when they
parted company. And there has not been much attempt at mutual
understanding in all the centuries since. Christianity could by no
possibility have remained in union with Pharisaism; what Jesus began,
and what Paul completed, was a severance as inevitable as it was
painful. But it was painful because it was the dividing, not of the
living from the dead, but of the living from the living. The Judaism of
the Pharisees, from which Christianity tore itself away, was no obsolete
formalism, but a religion having the power to satisfy the spiritual
wants of those who were faithful to it. The form in which its religious
ideas were expressed is peculiar, and to Christians by no means
attractive. While, therefore, the Christian has usually but little
inclination to inquire into the real significance of Pharisaism, and but
scanty means of informing himself even if he were so inclined, the fact
remains that such knowledge is necessary if he would rightly understand
the attitude of the New Testament to the older religion.

Pharisaism is usually judged from the outside, as seen by not very
friendly eyes; and, even of those Christians who have studied the
Pharisaic literature and who thus know it to some extent from the
inside, there are few who seem able to imagine what it must have been to
those whose real religion it was. No one but a Jew, of whom it may be
said that the Talmud runs in his blood, can fully realise the spiritual
meaning of Pharisaism; but sympathy can show even to a Christian much of
that meaning, and it is on the strength of that sympathy that I rest my
hope of carrying out my present task. Briefly, I wish to show what
Pharisaism meant to the Pharisees themselves, as a religion having a
claim to be judged on its own merits, and not by comparison with any
other. The knowledge thus obtained will throw light upon many passages
in the New Testament; but it will be chiefly valuable if it helps the
reader to realise that the Pharisees were "men of like passions with
us," men with souls to be saved, who cared a great deal for the things
of the higher life, men who "feared God and worked righteousness," and
who pondered deeply upon spiritual problems, though they did not solve
them on Christian lines, nor state the answers in Christian terms.

It ought not to be impossible to do this in compass of a small book; and
I hope that, when I have done, I shall have left with the reader some
clear idea of who the Pharisees were and what they stood for, and a more
just appreciation of them than is indicated by the word "hypocrites." I
can at least say how they appear to me, as the result of exploring their
literature, which has been to me the fascinating study of thirty years.

In this first chapter I shall survey the history of the development of
Pharisaism, from its source in Ezra to its final literary embodiment in
the Talmud. The following chapter will deal with the theory of Torah,
and Pharisaism as the system intended to put that theory into practice.
Then I shall consider Pharisaism in reference, firstly, to Jesus, and,
secondly, to Paul. Some general points of Pharisaic theology will be
dealt with in the fifth chapter; and in the concluding one I shall try
to present Pharisaism as a spiritual religion.

I proceed now to the historical survey of the development of Pharisaism.

A great Rabbi, Resh Lakish, who lived in the third century A.D., uttered
the saying that, "when the Torah was forgotten, Ezra came up from
Babylon and re-established it; when it was forgotten again, Hillel came
up from Babylon and re-established it; and when it was forgotten again,
R. [H.]ija and his sons came up from Babylon and re-established it" (b.
Succ. 20th). The meaning of that remark is that _Pharisaism_ traced its
origin back to Ezra; for it was the Pharisaic tradition which counted
Hillel, and R. [H.]ija, and the Talmudic Rabbis generally amongst its
exponents. And while no one would say that Ezra was a Pharisee, it is
true that he was the spiritual ancestor of the Pharisees more than of
any other element in post-exilic Judaism. In the time of Christ, Judaism
was represented by Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Apocalyptists,
Hellenists; and all could claim a share in the inheritance of Israel.
But the Sadducees had little reason to set up a descent from Ezra; and
what was peculiar to Apocalyptists and Hellenists (two terms which of
course overlap) was entirely unconnected with him. Pharisaism alone was
the result of his work; and Pharisaism alone survived, to carry down
through the centuries the spiritual treasure of Israel. Moreover, of all
the elements in Judaism, Pharisaism is the one which was least affected
by foreign influences. What it borrowed, from Greece or Rome, from
Persia or Egypt, it fused into its own mould, or merely treated as
unimportant curiosities; it never wavered for a moment in its
allegiance to its own ground principle, never swerved from the line of
development of which Ezra had marked the beginning, and for which he
might be said to have stated the formula. The Talmud shows the traces of
contact with Greek language and Roman law, gives glimpses of men of many
nations, from Babylonians to Goths and even Germans (j. Jom. 45^b). But,
from one end to the other, it is the embodiment of a principle which
Ezra was the first to introduce; and like a huge tree it has all grown
from the seed which he planted. If Ezra could have looked forward and
seen what the Talmud became, the vision would have filled him with
delight; also, with deep thankfulness to God that he had been the means
of giving to Israel what Israel needed.

I will reserve for the next chapter the explanation of the theory of
Torah, which is the key to the whole system of Pharisaism in general,
and to the work of Ezra in particular. But without some reference to
that theory I cannot show what it was that Ezra did, and that the
Pharisees carried on. If some of the statements I make appear to be
unfounded or improbable, I ask the reader to suspend his judgment on
them till I come to the theory which, as I believe, justifies them.

Ezra was the first who seriously took in hand the problem of the future
of Israel after the great convulsion of the Exile. For nearly a century
after the time, 536 B.C., when liberty to return had been given, the
small band of Jews in and around Jerusalem had maintained with
difficulty their place as a nation and the religion of their fathers.
Subjects of the Persian king, like their neighbours, they were exposed
to dangers, both political and religious, against which they were ill
able to guard. They had the Temple as the central point of their
religion; but the Temple was no protection against the influence of
contact with "the peoples round about," nor did the performance of its
ritual give any lead in the direction of a new religious development.
Till Ezra came, the Jews did hardly more than mark time, if indeed they
were not gradually losing ground. If Ezra had not come, it is
conceivable, and indeed highly probable, that Judaism would have
disappeared altogether.

The significance of the work of Ezra is this, that he stopped the
process by which the religious vitality of Israel was draining away, and
he gave a lead, opened a new line of development, turned the thought and
energy of his people into a direction where progress was possible almost
without end.

His reformation was carried out with a severity which would have been
impossible unless he had had the support of Nehemiah, armed as governor
with the authority of the Persian king. And the success he achieved was
only won in