Christ and contemporary society

Among the historical problems that can most fascinate a thinking mind, one of the most interesting, and at the same time deeply instructive, is undoubtedly the question of the relationship in which our Lord Jesus Christ stood to the society and people around Him. Being the Savior of all mankind, He, however, first and most of all appeared as the Deliverer of His people, who were prepared for the reception of Him by a long historical process of higher education and, just before His coming, were animated by the most enthusiastic expectations of the appearance of the long-promised Messiah. How did it happen that this very people, dear to Him in flesh and spirit, did not recognize His appearance, and not only did not accept Him as the Messiah, but also became very hostile towards Him. ending in the horrors of death on the cross? Let's try to briefly answer this question. 1 There is no doubt that the reasons for this amazing phenomenon are very complex and they are deeply rooted in the historical destinies and character of the Jewish people. This people experienced so many historical vicissitudes that by the time of the appearance of Christ they no longer resembled the people they were, for example, in the times of David and Solomon. Then he stood at the pinnacle of his political power and national self-awareness: the highest promises given to his forefathers were actually realized before him, and he, as the foremost ruler in the best part of the cultural and historical world, could, apparently, look to the future with the brightest hopes. In the rapturous psalms of David, the highest ideal of the spiritual life of the people found its fullest expression, so that, striving for its implementation, he at the same time directly moved towards that final ideal, which was contained in the promise of the Messiah, who with His appearance was supposed to complete the process of the historical life of the chosen people by introducing them into the family of the rest of humanity, which was supposed to form one indivisible brotherhood. But historical life never follows a linear path, and after the brilliant flowering of religious and political life, turmoil and vicissitudes began, which cast a dark shadow over the subsequent centuries of the history of the chosen people. First came division, which immediately dealt a cruel blow to the political power of the people, who began to exhaust their strength in fruitless civil strife, and then captivity, during which the life of the people was preserved, so to speak, by a thread, not torn only due to the special providence of God, and these facts produced a profound change in both its character and historical destiny. Under the influence of difficult historical trials, the former glorious ideal of spiritual perfection faded, and the political ideal began to come to the fore. Now, when all questions were focused on preserving their existence from the surrounding strong enemies, and when the Jewish people, having lost their independence, became just a toy in the hands of the strong rulers around them, who alternately laid their heavy hand on them, he could only indulge in hopes for a better future. Meanwhile, centuries after centuries passed, and the situation of the people not only did not improve, but rather became more and more difficult. All the signs showed that the fulfillment of the promise of the coming of the Messiah was nearing, and meanwhile reality became increasingly gloomy and bleak, and finally, instead of the advent of the glorious Messianic kingdom, came the heavy rule of Rome with its cruel, increasingly suppressive regime. The abomination of desolation settled in the holy land and a cry of despair burst from the chests of the people, which was reflected in modern literature. 2 It was even more offensive to the moral sense of the people that the glorious throne of David, their historical glory and pride, passed into the hands of the hated Edomites - the Herods, these sworn enemies, who more than once revealed all their hatred of the Jewish people in the most malicious manner. 3 Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that thoughts were lost in conjecture about the inscrutable destinies of God’s providence and despair crept into the most courageous hearts. It was not for nothing that it seemed to many that the earth itself had fallen under a curse, due to which the dew of blessing no longer descended on it, its fruits lost their aroma and taste, and the fields stopped producing harvests. 4 Severe historical disasters serve as the best test of the vitality of this or that people. One people completely falls under their weight and becomes a victim of despair and apathy, which serve as clear signs that its historical role has ended and it has been thrown out of the boundaries of historical existence by the historical process; the other, on the contrary, has such vitality that no disasters are able to suppress him and he knows how to adapt to the most diverse and difficult conditions of existence. It is precisely this vitality that has always distinguished the chosen people, which in this respect constitutes no less a historical problem than in many others, making them an exceptional people even in the eyes of skeptical historians. More than once the heavy, merciless hand of powerful conquerors fell upon him, proud of the fact that they wiped out entire peoples and states from the face of the earth, and this same hand scattered him like dust throughout the world, in which he, apparently, should have disappeared like a grain of sand, and yet he constantly emerged alive and self-aware from under the heavy hand of these conquerors, and in the scattering not only did not disappear without a trace, but, on the contrary, he himself had an enormous influence on the world around him, undermined the very foundations of his worldview and even seized into his own hands important functions of the socio-cultural life of peoples, so it can be said that even during the times of the Roman Empire, captive Judea captivated its conqueror. And this amazing vitality was reflected in the fact that, despite the gloomiest reality, the Jewish people did not completely lose hope for a better future, but on the contrary, as if in defiance of this reality, they moved the very center of their existence from the present to the future and lived not so much in the present reality, but rather in hopes and dreams about the future. And it is clear, in view of historical circumstances, what color these hopes and dreams should have received. There were, of course, many people who, under the influence of the surrounding bleak reality, abandoned all thoughts about the possibility of returning to better conditions of earthly existence and began to think more about spiritual blessings, looking for them to replace the lost earthly blessings. Such people renounced all family and social ties and went to deserted deserts, where they indulged in the most ascetic way of life. This trend found expression in essayism, which developed something like Jewish desert living; but it embraced only an exceptional minority. The majority of the people, on the contrary, instinctively clung to the land and earthly goods, and since reality did not give them satisfaction in this regard, they were transported in thought to the future and in it they sought for themselves that satisfaction that they did not find in present life. The soul of this trend was the rabbinate, and since it constitutes the most essential factor in resolving the issue we are considering. then it is necessary to dwell on its characteristics further. The first traces of rabbinism or scribes, as a separate class, can be found soon after the return of the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity. Its appearance was caused by an urgent need of life. Upon returning to their old ashes, the Jewish people presented the most deplorable sight: they were a people broken politically and spiritually, having neither a state nor a religious organization. To continue its existence, it was necessary to restore both, and its valiant leaders Ezra and Nehemiah took up this task, creating for themselves a circle of like-minded people who equally cared about the interests of the people. They understood that for the revival of the Jewish people, for whom, due to their supreme purpose and national character, religious interests have always constituted the most essential element of life, it is necessary first of all to restore the foundation on which their entire life rested, namely the law of Moses, or rather the law of God, as it was expressed in the books of Moses and the prophets. It was necessary to collect these books and make them the property of social and religious life. But if it was difficult to collect them, then it is even more difficult to make them accessible to the understanding of the people, who during the Babylonian captivity managed to so forget their native, ancient sacred Hebrew language, supplanted by Chaldean-Aramaic, that they needed when reading St. scriptures translators, and then interpreters. And this need led to the formation of a special class of rabbis, i.e. teachers, scribes or interpreters, 5 which over time acquired enormous importance in the life of the people. At the same time, however, two schools of thought emerged, which subsequently led to the formation of two famous sects, which divided the intelligentsia of the Jewish people among themselves. In one direction, in order to revive the spiritual life of the people, it was necessary to return to the original basis, namely the Law of Moses, as cleared of all subsequent historical layers. Only this law, which expresses the essence and basis of theocracy, can serve as a starting point for national revival. This trend, the main exponent of which was Zadok, 6 developed into a special sect of the Sadducees. But although this trend showed historical vitality, it could not fully correspond to the real needs of the socio-religious life of the people. It was a kind of rationalism that sought to cleanse religious life of what it considered unnecessary layers. But by this he revealed his one-sidedness. To return directly to the Pentateuch of Moses, in order to then make it the basis of the socio-religious life of a people who had lived through centuries of varied historical life with its extraordinary trials and disasters, which inevitably left their indelible imprint on it, meant taking an unnatural step back and crossing out the entire intermediate history. Only a movement that did not attach any value to history, did not understand its meaning, and did not really understand the urgent needs of the spiritual life of its people could do this. That is why the Sadducees were never popular, were not in close contact with the people, did not take their vital interests to heart, and always remained cold aristocrats, exclusively pursuing the interests of their hierarchical class. As a result, it is not surprising that in the eyes of the people another direction of rabbinism received more significance, namely, the one that held exactly the opposite view, that for the revival of the life of the people the Mosaic Pentateuch alone is not enough, but it is necessary to take into account all the results of subsequent development, all the tradition that constitutes the historically formed interpretation for the law and is therefore a necessary “fence” for it. This trend, which also developed into a special sect, served as the basis for the formation of the class of Pharisees, famous for its significance in the life of the Jewish people, who considered it their pride that they were the builders of an insurmountable fence for the law and created a special system of righteousness, which alone could revive and preserve the socio-religious life of the people. This class of rabbis cannot be denied a certain amount of historical sense, insofar as they understood that the life of the people is governed not by one written law, no matter how perfect it may be, but by a whole system of complex rules and regulations, as the result of the relationship between law and life, ideal and reality, that customary law that underlies all legislation, to which it is necessary to turn for an explanation of the written law in its application to various cases requiring a certain interpretation, and which and constitutes “tradition” in the broadest and deepest sense of the word. Recognizing the need for tradition, the Pharisees thereby revealed in themselves the presence of that national spirit, which is precisely brought up on the basis of historical traditions and which makes it possible to penetrate deeper into the soul of the people and find in it the emerging needs that need to be satisfied. From this it becomes clear why the Pharisees stood much closer to their people and enjoyed immeasurably more popularity than their rivals, the Sadducees. In them the people saw their true teachers and leaders and treated them with the greatest respect and trust. The very title of rabbi-Pharisee received very high significance in the eyes of the people, and indeed the rabbinate gradually developed into a great force, the influence of which affected the entire life of the people. Deprived of political independence and without his own state authorities, he clung all the more forcefully to his religious and social leaders. There was no such phenomenon in public or private life that was not affected by the influence of the rabbinate. Rabbis occupied all the highest and most important positions - from the high priesthood to the leaders and representatives of synagogues. These were teachers, priests, judges, magistrates and doctors of their people. But their influence penetrated even deeper, even capturing the area of ​​family life. Without the advice and participation of the rabbis, not a single family event took place, such as the birth of a child, circumcision, education, marriage or burial, no family or public celebration was performed, no business was undertaken, no contract was concluded, and not even an animal was killed for food. They “knitted and decided” in the full sense, i.e. they forbade and allowed, as they thought was more consistent with the known rules. They were, as one researcher put it, the eyes, ears, brains and nerves of their people, who occupied the position of strictly supervised children in relation to them. 7 The enormous influence of the rabbinate became all the more natural because the rabbis did not form some closed caste, but were sons of the people themselves. Access to the rabbinate was open to everyone, and it often happened that the son of the poorest Jew became a famous and influential teacher of the law. A lot of sympathy was aroused among the people for this class by the fact that, according to the basic rule, rabbis performed all their duties without any monetary remuneration. The famous Hillel, who himself achieved the rabbinate from a position of extreme poverty, said: “whoever derives self-interest from the words of the law, his life will be taken away from the world.” 8 Not a single teacher, preacher, judge or doctor among the rabbis could receive money for their services. In fact, this great law was not always observed, and the rabbis knew how to benefit from their position, receiving money for the time that they lost in private services and which could have been devoted to the study of the law, but in general the people had an idea of ​​rabbis as people who performed their ministry free of charge. They mostly supported their existence by craft, which, to say to the credit of the Jewish people, was by no means held in such contempt among them as among the classical peoples of antiquity, but was considered a completely honorable occupation and compatible with any position. Teaching your son a craft was considered one of the primary duties of parents. “Whoever does not teach his son a craft,” said Rabbi Yehuda, “does the same as if he were teaching him to steal.” Therefore, each of the rabbis knew some kind of craft, which gave him the opportunity to exist; of the greatest of them, the famous Hillel, it is known that he also lived by the labor of his hands. Some of them were engaged in shoemaking, others in blacksmithing or metalworking, and we can see a famous example of this in ap. Pavle, who, having been raised in the environment of the rabbinate, was at the same time familiar with the craft - making tents and all kinds of linen and woolen products. Of course, this noble rule was not always carried out in reality, and we know that by the time of Christ the rabbis were far from distinguished by the modesty and simplicity that befitted their title. Their influential position opened up many ways for them to enrich themselves, and they did not neglect to use them. One of these ways was to marry rich brides. On this score, there were very definite views among the Jews, energetically, of course, supported by the rabbis themselves. Giving your daughter to a rabbi was considered a great blessing, and marrying a rabbi's daughter meant getting closer to the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, rabbis through marriage could become related to the richest families, which happened quite often. Others went even further and took part in large commercial and industrial enterprises, and became so rich through them that they became financial princes among their people, increasingly poorer from the extortions of the Roman tax collectors. This advantageous position gave the class of rabbinical Pharisees an extraordinary power with which the Herodian kings and even the Romans themselves had to reckon. By the time of the birth of Christ, the class of rabbinical Pharisees was at the height of its prosperity, and, according to Josephus, they numbered more than six thousand people. He notes that their influence was especially strong on women, as they were most prone to religious enthusiasm, 9 and as a result of this, it is self-evident that the entire intimate side of family life was open to them, i.e. at their disposal was the main pulse in the life of the people. With such enormous influence, the Pharisee rabbis could bring great benefit to the people, introducing into their lives the principles of God's law and preparing them to accept the Messiah who was about to appear. Unfortunately, the consciousness of precisely their importance among the people led to the fact that they gradually began to develop into a separate class, for which their class interests were increasingly put forward at the expense of the interests of the whole people. Among them, class pride began to develop noticeably, inseparable from a disdainful attitude towards the rest of the people. Being the only class in whose hands was the knowledge of the law, they began to place themselves on an equal footing with Moses, the patriarchs and the prophets. According to their explanation, the patriarchs and prophets were of such importance because they themselves were rabbis or scribes and successively passed on their legalistic learning from generation to generation. Isaac, according to their book wisdom, studied at the school of Seth, Jacob attended the rabbinical school of Eber, and Joseph was all the more famous because he supplemented his rabbinical scholarship with Egyptian wisdom. Therefore it is not surprising. that their pride knew no bounds and they taught that the rabbis were as pleasing to God as incense burned before Him. For Israel, they should be more valuable than father and mother, because parents matter only in this world, and rabbis both in this and in the future. In terms of their dignity, they placed themselves even above kings, for is it not written: “Through me kings reign?” From here, living or eating with rabbis was considered the greatest happiness. To dine with them was to enjoy a glimpse of heavenly greatness, for the rabbi's table is nobler than the table of kings and his crown is more glorious than the royal crown. 10 The class pride of the rabbinate was not limited to this, but, developing further, bordered on blasphemy. According to the Mishnah, to say anything not in favor of the rabbinate was to commit a greater crime than to blaspheme the words of the law. The words of the rabbis should be revered above the words of the prophets, and as proof of this, even miracles were told, supposedly performed in confirmation of the sayings of the rabbis. One of them (Rabbi Eliezer), having encountered an objection to his opinion, cried out: “Let this tree prove that I am right!” - and the tree was immediately uprooted and thrown a hundred cubits from its place. When the objectors noticed that the tree could not yet prove anything, the rabbi exclaimed: “Let this river give evidence in my favor!” - and the river immediately turned its course and went back. When the opponents continued to argue even after that that the river did not at all prove the truth of Eliezer’s saying, the rabbi, losing his temper, cried out: “In that case, if the truth is on my side, let the walls of this school confirm it!” And as soon as he spoke, the walls actually began to collapse and would have crushed all those arguing if Rabbi Joshua had not come to the rescue, who threateningly said to the walls: “What do you care if the sons of the wise argue among themselves? Don't fall!“ - and the walls, obeying the word of the rabbi, did not fall, although they did not quite fall into place to forever testify in favor of Eliezer, in which position they remained forever. Seeing that the movement of the walls did not convince the opponents, Eliezer turned to heaven itself to resolve the dispute: “If I am right, let heaven testify!” And then a voice (baf-kol) came from heaven and said: “Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer? He is always right! ". 11 Finally, the learned-class pride of the rabbinate did not stop there either. In the Talmud there is an extremely characteristic, but at the same time deeply blasphemous story about how, without the participation of rabbis, issues are sometimes not resolved even in heaven, which, it should be noted, the rabbis depicted completely like their book schools. Once, according to this story, the question of the cleansing of lepers arose in heaven, and at the same time it happened discord between God and angels. The dispute threatened to drag on, and finally the disputants came to the idea of ​​seeking mediation from Ramvan, the son of Nakhmanov, who was considered the greatest expert on the issue of leprosy and himself usually said about himself: “I have no equal on issues regarding leprosy.” Therefore, Ramwan's soul was brought to the heavenly academy, and he decided the matter in accordance with the opinion of God. Upon the return of Ramvan's soul to earth, his name became extremely exalted and miracles were subsequently performed at his tomb. 12 And so, in the hands of what class of people was the spiritual life of the Jewish people at the time of the appearance of the Messiah. If he reached such monstrous absurdities in his class conceit, then obviously he was on the wrong path, and the whole people were following him. From the falsity of his self-awareness, a false worldview had to be developed, and since the main subject of his study was law, religion - the most important functions of people's life, then unfortunately this lie had to be expressed here. And indeed, the entire worldview of the rabbis was permeated with precisely a monstrous lie - either in the sense of a retreat or a complete distortion of the truth. They, like the whole people, lived in anticipation of the imminent coming of the Messiah - but it goes without saying that their Messiah could no longer be what He seemed to be in the broadcasts of the law and the prophets, as well as in the minds of spiritually enlightened people, namely the Messiah in the coloring of the modern rabbinate. They themselves were devoted to earthly interests, and they pictured the Messiah for themselves in an earthly shell. According to the prevailing belief among the rabbis, and through them among the entire Jewish people, with the exception of individual, spiritually enlightened people, the Messiah was simply expected in the person of a famous ruler who was to establish a kingdom unparalleled in its power and splendor. Even the very idea of ​​His heavenly origin was not widespread; the majority imagined that it would be a great human hero who would lead them to victory over all enemies, and, of course, above all over those cruel pagans who now ruled over the people of God. With the detailed development of this idea, along with grains of true prophecy, it included whole masses of legendary fictions and exaggerations, which constituted one of the most characteristic features of rabbinism. Thus, everyone agreed that His birthplace should be Bethlehem, and that He should come from the tribe of Judah; but then fictions and distortions begin, aimed at exalting the Messiah from the outside in accordance with the crudely sensual ideas of the rabbis themselves. According to these ideas, the appeared Messiah himself will not know about his messianic dignity until Elijah comes, accompanied by other prophets, and anoints Him as king. Until then He will live hidden from the people. According to the best rabbis, His appearance was delayed by the sins of the people, and “He would have come if the Jews had repented even for one day.” He must appear for the first time in Galilee, because the ten tribes of Israel, the first to suffer from external enemies, were also the first to receive deliverance. The Messiah has the power to liberate the people by force of arms and subjugate the whole world to him. "How beautiful," exclaims the Jerusalem Targum, "is King Messiah, who comes from the house of Judah! He girds his loins, steps out and commands the battle to begin against His enemies, and beats their kings and leaders, and there is no one so powerful who could withstand Hero. He stains the mountains with the blood of his beaten enemies; His clothes, stained with their blood, are like clusters of purple grapes." The slaughter will be so great that “the beasts of the field will feed on the bodies of those killed for twelve months, and the birds of the air will feed on them for seven years.” 13 "The Lord," says the same targum, "will take vengeance for us on the hosts of Gog. At that hour the strength of the nations will be crushed; they will be like a ship on which the rigging is torn and the mast is broken, so that it can no longer raise sails. Then Israel will divide among themselves the treasures of the nations - a great mass of spoils and riches, so that even if there are lame and blind among them, they will also receive their share." Here the idea of ​​the conquering Messiah, as it was developed by the rabbinate, appears in its entirety. In further developing this idea, the rabbinate exhausted all the power of its narrow national imagination to paint a picture of the kingdom that would be founded by the Messiah. This kingdom was depicted as a paradise, which in its splendor was supposed to surpass the primitive paradise - but this paradise would be exclusively for the Jews, and the rest of the peoples would remain only as necessary servants for the exaltation of the bliss of the “people of kings.” When depicting the very state of paradise with all its benefits, the rabbis gave full rein to their imagination and, although they tried to base themselves on the words of scripture, in understanding these words they discovered amazing freedom, or rather, arbitrariness, showing how rabbinical exegesis was capable of perverting that scripture, the study and interpretation of which to the people was the direct task of the scribes. With the advent of the kingdom of the Messiah, the rabbis said, “there will be an abundance of grain on the earth, on the top of the mountains,” 14 as David prophesied, and at the same time they added on their own that the stalks of cereals will be like palm trees or columns. And of course, such a field could seem to others very inconvenient for harvesting; but rabbinical casuistry immediately found a way out of the difficulty and declared that there would be no need for the blessed Jews to resort to the harvest, since God Himself would send them a wind from His chambers, which would directly blow pure, white flour from the ears of grain. The very grains of bread will be the size of two kidneys of the largest ox. The trees will bear fruit all year round, and the vineyards will be so abundant in fruit that one cluster can load a cart or a ship, and when such a cluster is brought home, wine will flow from it like from a barrel. 15 Such a kingdom, amazing in its wealth and abundance, must also have a capital corresponding to its greatness. Such a capital, of course, will be Jerusalem, but Jerusalem will be transformed and expanded to an extraordinary degree. For him, the mountains on which the City of David was located will not be enough. The capital of the son of David will be located on all the main historical mountains - Sinai, Tabor and Carmel, which will be wonderfully close to each other for this purpose. 16 This capital will be so large that it will cover a space that a horse can barely run from early morning until noon. It will extend to the very gates of Damascus, and some houses will be built in it that will be three miles high. 17 Its gates will be made of precious metals and pearls, the width and length of thirty cubits. The whole country around will be full of precious stones and pearls, so that the Jews will be able to come from everywhere and take as much as anyone needs. 18 Such wealth will not fail to gather into this kingdom all the sons of the dispersion, and the poorest Jew will be dressed in scarlet and fine linen, 19 as befits a royal people, and everyone will be seated at a banquet table filled with the most delicious and sweet dishes. Thus, these are the features in which Jewish rabbinism envisioned the kingdom of the Messiah. Of course, this monstrous image is largely explained historically. It was created on the rather natural assumption that the messianic kingdom should be complete retribution for the bitter reality that surrounded the chosen people. For centuries, as mentioned above, he was the plaything of strong conquerors, who humiliated and robbed him, scattered him like dust throughout the earth and looked at him with contempt, as the most worthless and pitiful people in the world. All this extremely offended the proud soul of Israel, which was accustomed to look at itself as a chosen people, destined for a great future, and since reality not only did not become clearer, but as the “fulfillment of times” approached, it seemed to become increasingly darkened, it is not surprising that the aching heart sought relief and consolation in the future, and this future, of course, was depicted in brighter terms, the darker the reality. Humiliated, conquered, plundered by a foreign government, he pictured with delight the near future when he himself would conquer all nations, subject them to every kind of humiliation and, having robbed them, collect for himself all the treasures of the world, which he would enjoy to the shame of all the goyim. And since there was no possibility for the natural, purely historical foundation of such a kingdom in the available forces of the Jewish people, he identified this glorious future with the kingdom of the Messiah, the advent of which was the most essential element of the historical aspirations of the people. But, while explaining the possibility of the origin of such a false idea of ​​​​the kingdom of the Messiah, historical circumstances, however, do not justify it. If the people, valuing above all else the interests of socio-political and economic life, could be carried away by nonsense regarding the sensual nature of the kingdom of the Messiah, then this was due to ignorance and lack of understanding of the true spirit and character of this kingdom. Another thing is his teachers, whose duty it was to study the law and explain it to the people, and if these teachers not only did not understand for themselves on the basis of what was given to them in St. The writings of the leadership of the true spirit and character of the messianic kingdom, not only did not want to be satisfied with those prophecies about it that are expressed in the scriptures, not only did not sober up the views of the dark people, teaching and explaining to them the sound words of the law and the prophets, but they themselves completely succumbed to the popular passion and even tried to find a basis and justification for it in the scripture itself, although for this it was necessary to resort to all sorts of misunderstandings and distortions and fabrications, then in relation to them such an idea was a lie and a crime, and the rabbinate contemporary with Christ was guilty of these grave sins. And this was all the more unforgivable for him because the true understanding of the kingdom of the Messiah was by no means so obscured that it was inaccessible to the understanding of the teachers of Israel. On the contrary, at this very time we meet a whole series of spiritually enlightened personalities who did not at all share the rabbinic nonsense, but expected the kingdom of the Messiah as a spiritual kingdom of righteousness and truth, such as Zechariah, Simeon, Anna, Nicodemus and others. And the mass of the people themselves did not blindly believe all these nonsense, but with their sensitive hearts responded vividly to the sermon about the true kingdom of the Messiah, so it was enough for John to appear in the desert with his sermon about the approach of the kingdom of God and the need for repentance and forgiveness as conditions for preparing for it as a spiritual kingdom, and immediately the people rushed en masse to listen to this sermon. The scribes themselves appeared along with the people, where they heard from the great prophet a threatening denunciation of themselves as a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7); but this reproof fell on a rocky field. After all this, it is clear with what eyes the rabbis should have looked at that messianic kingdom, which Christ appeared to establish. Here two completely opposite worldviews met each other. On the one hand, the rabbis spoke with their monstrous creation, based on fiction and distortion of the word of God and supported by a painfully developed conceit, which sought fantastic retribution for historical misfortunes in sensual bliss at the expense of all other peoples - with their kingdom, which was based on the most extreme selfishness and the most extreme national exclusivity, and on the other - Christ with His preaching about a kingdom not of this world - a kingdom in which places are determined and assigned not according to national origin and tribal advantage, but according to the degree of spiritual regeneration, according to the spirit of righteousness and truth. Hence the complete opposite in the very character of the Messiah. If the rabbinical Messiah acted as a formidable conqueror, mercilessly beating his enemies and using their bodies to feed the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, then on the other hand, the true Messiah was infinitely meek and humble in heart and, expressing the spirit of His kingdom, taught that whoever hits you on one cheek must turn him the other. One can imagine how strange and offensive this situation must have seemed to the proud rabbi, who in his arrogance demanded almost divine admiration and reverence for himself! Then the whole picture painted by Christ in His Discourse on the Mount, which was, as it were, the new Sinai legislation - the new covenant, a picture expressing the true spirit and character of the kingdom of the Messiah, ran exactly counter to the favorite dreams of the rabbinate. The rabbis imagined and taught that the kingdom of the Messiah would be a kind of rabbinical academy, in which the first place would be given to them, as sages who could interpret with their minds all the subtleties of the law and the prophets, and Christ taught that the first place in the kingdom of heaven would be occupied by the “poor in spirit,” i.e. namely modest, simple, unassuming people who are aware of their spiritual poverty and wretchedness and long to find satisfaction in spiritual righteousness and truth. Next to them will be all those who need spiritual consolation and satisfaction - those who cry, those who hunger and thirst, those who are meek and pure in heart, those who are merciful and peacemakers, and most of all those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. All these are persons whose rights to the kingdom of heaven are determined by their internal dignity, and not by external advantages, and since these internal advantages have not a national, but a universal human character, it is obvious that the kingdom itself will not at all have a national, much less class, character, but will be a universal, universal kingdom. Even John the Baptist, exposing the national and class exclusivity of the Pharisees, who considered their descent from Abraham, so to speak, an open leaf for themselves to enter the kingdom of heaven, told them that they were mistaken, since God can raise children for Abraham from the stones of the desert (Matt. 3:9), therefore, does not need any high-born class to fill his kingdom. And Christ, as the true Messiah, already directly realized this truth when he praised the faith of the Roman centurion in Capernaum and predicted that many would come from the east and west and lie down with Abraham, and those who consider themselves children of Abraham would be rejected, 20 and when he called into His kingdom those outcasts, the toiling and the burdened, who were not at all taken into account by the arrogant rabbinate. One of the most unsympathetic features of the rabbinate of that time was that its representatives, absorbed in the interests of their bookish class, did not pay any attention to the true spiritual needs of the people and even treated them with extreme contempt as a pitiful “Amgaaretz” - “the people of the earth”, supposedly incapable of rising to the teachings they preached. Even less, therefore, could they pay attention to the spiritual needs of those who, among this pitiful, downtrodden, ruined and ignorant people, became completely victims of sin and wickedness, those sinners and publicans who, in addition to their personal sinfulness, usually bear the yoke of social evil, weighing on the entire people and fed in their midst by the abnormal conditions of their life. (In their boundless arrogance, the rabbis of the Pharisees considered it impious for themselves to descend into these slums of moral and social life, and they did not care that in these slums, human souls, which were also created by God and destined for endless perfection, were powerlessly struggling with the surrounding evil and perishing. That is why it seemed so strange and even blasphemous to these arrogant hypocrites when Christ, in His infinite mercy, descended into these low layers of public life and had communication with tax collectors and sinners, did not even push away repentant harlots from Himself, and generally called to Himself all those who labor and are burdened - according to the principle: it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. At first, the personality of Christ, about Whom such a universally respected prophet as John the Baptist gave such an exalted testimony, could not help but arouse some interest in the learned scribes of the Pharisees, and therefore they looked closely at Him with curiosity and one of them even appeared to Him at night in order to freely, under the cover of the darkness of the night, talk with Him about the kingdom He preached. 21 But soon both the personality of the Galilean Teacher and the ideas He preached aroused in the rabbis a feeling of arrogant disdain. After all, He Himself came from the despised Nazareth, did not study in rabbinical schools anywhere, did not belong to either the followers of Hillel or the followers of Shammai - these pillars of rabbinic scholarship in its two different directions, and was not a rabbi at all, and therefore - according to rabbinic logic - could not be Christ. Not being Himself a learned rabbi, He took His followers not from the most learned sages, whose wisdom even the angels revered, but from some ignorant fishermen from the Lake of Galilee - from among the despicable “Amgaares,” a people cursed and perished due to their ignorance of the law. But what was even more terrible in their opinion was that among His disciples He accepted one publican, this sinner of sinners, as a traitor to the theocracy and a voluntary servant of the hated Romans. All this should have led learned scribes to the conviction that the Galilean prophet was by no means the Messiah, and could not be such, for He did not at all correspond to the rabbinic idea of ​​the Messiah. This denial of the messiahship of Jesus Christ on the basis of the inconsistency of His personality and teaching with the preconceived ideas of the rabbis, however, could not completely calm the feeling of curiosity that He had touched in them. Despite this discrepancy with their favorite ideas, the rabbis could not help but notice that there is something in Jesus Christ that makes Him, in any case, an extraordinary person, and the miracles that were performed in front of thousands of people and the rumor about which thundered not only throughout St. earth, but also beyond its borders, should have made them think more than once. And this thoughtfulness could have served as the beginning of spiritual insight for them, and at the same time liberation from the yoke of a preconceived idea, if this had not been prevented by class pride, which placed a precisely developed system above the demands of reality, bookishness above life. The system developed by the rabbis represented a whole worldview that determined their attitude to religion and law itself and determined their view of the truth and character of God, His goals and relationship with people. Their goal was to make their people a people of the highest law, so that every person would be obedient to the rules prescribed by law. The goal is apparently great and noble; but here everything depends on what kind of law this is, towards the implementation of which the desire is directed. And here it was discovered that the object of their care was not the highest ideal, as it was given in the law of God, which provided the human person with a certain freedom in the pursuit of spiritual perfection, but only a multitude of legalistic and ritual prescriptions. The main duties, of course, were instilled because they were engraved on granite tablets with fiery and indelible features and were accessible to the immediate mind and feeling of even the common people; but the law, which contained deep vitality and was intended to be a progressive revelation, turned into a law of ritual actions and regulations, into an intricate system of casuistry, under the influence of which the simple and majestic regulations of the Mosaic Law were transformed into a series of amazingly subtle, and at the same time amazingly empty and absurd rules and regulations. Thus, in the tablets of the Law of Moses it was commanded to observe and sanctify the Sabbath day, and on this simple and clear command rabbinic scholarship invented and piled up a whole mass of self-invented regulations. They taught that in the fourth commandment as many as thirty-nine kinds of work were prohibited, each kind in turn becoming the subject of new reasoning, interpretation, distinctions and prescriptions. Thus, one of the rules declared it was forbidden to tie or untie a knot on the Sabbath. But there are different kinds of knots, and therefore the rabbis were sophisticated in the subtle distinction between them, and seriously argued and reasoned about whether there were also such kinds of knots that, by their very nature or by the special conditions of their tying, may not be suitable for prohibition. And indeed some came to the conclusion that if the knot was of such a kind that it could be untied with one hand, then untying it was not considered a violation of the Sabbath; but such knots as those on a ship or on a loaded camel were not allowed to be touched on that day. 22 Then the regulations applied not only to work prohibited on the Sabbath, but also to cases or cases that even included the possibility of profanation of the holy day. A tailor was not allowed to go out on Friday with a needle in his clothes, or a writer with a pen, so that they, out of forgetfulness, would not leave this “burden” on themselves even after the Sabbath began. And the entire system of rabbinic legalism was filled with this kind of rules and regulations. One can imagine with what regret Jesus Christ, as an exponent of the gracious kingdom of freedom of the human person and a preacher of infinitely ideal perfection, had to relate to the rabbinical assurance that all these petty regulations constitute precisely the law of God and their exact fulfillment is pleasing to Him. Only by the strength of His love and devotion to the theocratic ideal can one measure the greatness of His disgust at this pathetic counterfeit of the true law of God. He equally condemned both the life of the Pharisees and their perversion of the law, and in their false treatment of Holy Scripture he found the secret and explanation of all the other shortcomings of their completely false system. With their petty instructions, they often ran counter to the direct commandments of God and, in the name of the former, violated the latter. 23 Moses, as a wise legislator, knowing that the family is the basis of society and the state, made respect for parents the primary duty of children, making it the main moral duty in the mutual relations of people with each other; but the Pharisees, in their class interests, placed the rabbi above the father, the teachers of wisdom regarding the rights of obedience and service were exalted above the parents, 24 and instructed the people how, under the pretext of honor and reverence for God, they could bypass the primary duties towards parents. 25 The most devoted slave of the letter, such as the Pharisees' scribes were, is precisely the person who produces the greatest violence against it. While he proclaims his devotion to the law, he at the same time invents interpretations that undermine the law at its very root, and Christ did not fail to expose this Pharisaic lie when He showed how unfaithful the Pharisees were to their own rules. The scribes were proud of the fact that they loved the law too much to teach it for a fee, 26 and at the same time they “ate the houses of widows and prayed for a long time for show” (Mark 12:40). It is not surprising that Christ warned His disciples “against the leaven of the Pharisees,” 27 and declared to them: “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” 28 Thus, the opposition between Christ and the scribes of the Pharisees captured the very essence of the matter, and over time it became more and more intensified, when it was Christ, performing works of mercy and preaching the truth of the new gospel of spiritual freedom, who powerfully destroyed all the pitiful structures of the Pharisees' scribes and rituals. Seeing this, their hostility towards the new Teacher grew and intensified every day. They considered all His actions and teachings to be a direct insult to themselves, especially since they were in complete contradiction with their ideas and views. He preached the kingdom of the Messiah, and, however, dared to have fellowship with “publicans and sinners,” from whose very shadow the rabbis fled as if from defilement; came to fulfill the law, and, however, violated the most sacred rules regarding the observance of the Sabbath. Moreover: He, a stranger from the despicable city of Nazareth, a man who had not tasted the bookish wisdom in the rabbinical schools, dared in His parables to clearly present the highly revered rabbis in an unfavorable light, and moreover, in comparison with sinners and tax collectors, as was the case in the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Publican and the Pharisee. In the first of them, the Pharisee is depicted as the eldest son, who was hard-working and obedient to his father, but showed outrageous heartlessness when he was indignant at the feast arranged by his father on the occasion of the return of the prodigal son, which brought upon himself reproach from the merciful father for the fact that in his callous heart there was no place for the feeling of joy about the return of his lost brother. 29 In the second, the Pharisee was directly brought out with all the fragrance of his hypocritical piety and self-praising righteousness next to the pitiful publican, tearfully begging for forgiveness and mercy for his sinner, 30 and of the two praying, it was the publican who emerged justified. All this outraged the Pharisees to the extreme, and the antagonism between them and Christ grew more and more. But as His teachings and works aroused more and more indignation on the part of the rabbinate, they at the same time acquired greater importance and power. In addition to ordinary deeds, He performed extraordinary and incomprehensible ones. Thus, He miraculously cast out demons, and therefore stood in complete antagonism with the dark forces of hell. Because of this, He seemed to the Pharisees an insoluble riddle. His teaching seemed false and absurd to them, but His deeds performed in confirmation of this teaching were, as it were, proofs of victorious truth. He spoke, in their opinion, as if he was blaspheming, but in His actions he was like the Messiah. Even they, in their legalistic blindness, understood that word and action must have the same root: both must be either false or true. The dilemma thus presented to them only aggravated their desperate situation. It remained for them either to suppress their hostility towards the Galilean Teacher, or to form for themselves such a view of His deeds that would not only justify this hostility, but would also require it. And they, trampling all the laws of logic, chose the latter, and decided that His deeds had as their source the same evil as His words. He performed his very miracles because he was in alliance with Satan, and if he casts out demons, it was by the power of Beelzebub. 31 He is, therefore, according to this logic, the complete embodiment of lies - lies both in words and in deeds, and even the exorcism of demons itself is therefore only a ghost or a false maneuver - with the aim of better serving Satan. Of course, the conclusion was obviously absurd, and it was not difficult for Christ to refute it on the basis of their own rabbinic logic. In fact, "if Satan casts out Satan, then he is divided with himself: how can his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by the power of Beelzebub, by whose power do they cast out your sons? Therefore they will be your judges." 32 In this accusation, the hostility of the rabbis reached its zenith in relation to Christ, and since its basis turned out to be extremely untenable and the accusation itself was easily overthrown by Christ, the natural and only result could only be the fanatical embitterment of the rabbis against Christ and a frenzied denial of the light of divine truth. When, moreover, the divine Teacher, seeing this spiritual blindness of his opponents and the deliberate rebellion against the very source, subjected them to a threatening public exposure as hypocrites and petty literalists, who on the outside are fragrant with ostentatious piety, but on the inside look like watered-down coffins, stained with all uncleanness, then this created a complete break, and the only goal of the Pharisees became from now on to anything began to get rid of such an unbearable and dangerous Teacher for them, even if it meant resorting to bloody violence. And we see how often in the last days of Christ's life these arrogant bigots took up stones to beat Him; but since the time had not yet come for this, their bloodthirstiness could find complete satisfaction only when they, in alliance with the Sadducees, achieved before the tribunal of Pilate that the Roman governor put to death on the cross the One whom they in their frenzy called “mesites,” the seducer of the people. This was the attitude towards Christ that stood as the main constituent element of His contemporary society. namely the rabbinate of the Pharisee. Little remains to be said about the other component of this society - namely, the Sadducees. This party also produced rabbis, but the Sadducean rabbinate never acquired much importance among the people, and this is explained by the basic principles of the sect. In contrast to the Pharisees, who based their worldview on the basis of oral tradition, they, as mentioned above, strictly adhered to the letter of scripture, by which they meant only the Pentateuch of Moses. As a result, their system was much simpler, since they considered it their duty to eliminate from it everything that, in their opinion, did not have a sufficient basis in the Pentateuch and did not agree with reason. Such rationalism did not fail to entail consequences that were very dangerous for religion, and there is evidence about the Sadducees in the sense that they denied the afterlife, as not being confirmed in the books of Moses, were ironic about the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead 33 and argued that the soul perishes along with the body. 34 Even if we admit, together with one recent researcher, that not all the Sadducees, but only some of them, the most extreme exponents of the system, were guilty of such denial, 35 then in any case it cannot be denied that such extremes lie in the very spirit of the system and these extreme exponents of it were also the most consistent. It was a completely rationalistic system, and like any rationalism it necessarily led to the denial of everything supernatural. With such a basic principle of worldview, it is clear that they saw the whole meaning of their existence in this earthly life and were in a hurry to take advantage of all the benefits it provided. These were, in the full sense, the sons of this age, and therefore class egoism acted in them with even greater force than among the Pharisees. The latter often acted as heroic defenders of theocracy and laid down their heads for its maintenance (as was the case, for example, under Herod the Great); but the Sadducees had nothing to do with theocracy and considered it much more reasonable and profitable to support any existing power, without paying attention to its essence and character. Therefore, they easily reconciled with the Roman yoke and not only were not hostile to the usurpers of the Davidic throne - Herods, but tried to get closer to them, groveled in their palaces and were members of the Herodian political party. 36 By such a policy they achieved that they seized into their hands all the most important positions, both public and religious, and it is known that the highest religious post among the people, namely the post of high priest, in the time of Christ was occupied by the Sadducees from the house of Boeth, a native of Egypt. The Pharisees were forced out of these positions and occupied only the lower positions, in which, of course, they took advantage of every opportunity to demonstrate their enmity towards their happier rivals. The high priests - the Sadducees, in order to strengthen their position, formed a strong priestly party around them, which developed into an aristocratic caste proud of its wealth and position, looking with contempt at the rest of the people and shamelessly using its position for its enrichment. It is known both about the high priests themselves and their party that they did not neglect any means for their enrichment, robbed the lower priests, robbing them of their legally due share of income, imposed taxes on items necessary for sacrifices, built and maintained shops with sacrificial animals and birds, artificially raising their price to the point that the price of a dove reached up to a chervonets, and for selfish purposes allowed merchants to introduce their herds and bring their chests into the very confines of the church, making it like a den of robbers. By these wicked methods, the priestly aristocracy accumulated enormous wealth, and its main representatives, not paying any attention to the people who lived under the double yoke of the Romans and Herods, who equally ruined them and brought them to extreme poverty and unpaid debts, lived in extraordinary luxury and, like the influx of rich people, feasted brilliantly every day. About a certain Jochanan, the son of Nebedee, the Talmud reports that for the needs of his kitchen (daily?) Three hundred calves, forty cages of pigeons were consumed, and three hundred barrels of wine were consumed at the table. It is said about the high priest Ishmael ben Fabi that he had clothes made by his mother that cost one hundred minas, i.e. about three thousand rubles. And about another high priest, namely Eliezer Ben-Garsam, it is said that he had similar clothes worth an incredible amount - 20,000 min; but this clothing was so thin and transparent that the other priests did not allow him to wear it during worship, because he seemed completely naked in it. 37 The High Priesthood generally fell to an extreme degree, and this did not escape the gaze of the people, who forever imprinted their contempt for its unworthy representatives on the pages of the Talmud. “To what time,” asks Rabbi Yohanan, do the words of scripture refer: the fear of the Lord lengthens life? “To the time of the first church, which stood for 410 years and had only eighteen high priests from the first to the last. – And to what time do the words refer: and the years of the wicked will be shortened? - By the time of the second church, which stood for 420 years, and during this time three hundred high priests changed under it; for, having subtracted 85 years for the five exclusive high priests, there remains less than one year for each of all the rest. 38 And the common people, right on the streets of Jerusalem, pronounced curses on these unworthy representatives of the religion. "Curse on the house of Woef, curse on his families,” the dissatisfied shouted in the streets, “curse on the house of Ganan, curse on their viper hissing! Curse on the house of Ishmael Ben-Fabi, curse on his fists! They themselves are high priests, their sons accumulate money, their sons-in-law are their bosses, and their servants beat the people with sticks.” This desperate cry of the people was the last expression of their indignation at the violation of the highest dignity of the high priesthood by its unworthy bearers from among the Sadducees. It is clear what the relationship between Christ and this party could be. Indifferent to the religious and moral interests of the people in general, the Sadducean party, like the high priestly aristocracy in particular, did not pay attention to the Galilean Teacher, considering Him one of many rabbis who spoke from among the people and taught them this or that teaching. But she soon had to change her attitude towards Him when His action in Jerusalem during the Easter holiday directly affected the interests of the high priesthood, when it was Christ who expelled the merchants from the church, taxes from which constituted a significant source of income for this aristocracy, and thereby not only caused it property damage, but also publicly exposed the blasphemy of such an enterprise. But even this fact apparently had only a temporary significance, and was soon forgotten, especially since Christ preached mainly in distant Galilee. The Pharisaic scribes did not abandon Him with their observation even there, and every now and then they entered into debates with Him, suffering time and again defeats from the divine wisdom of the Galilean Teacher, and the Sadducees are almost completely absent from the masses of the people who followed Him, and they probably only followed Him from afar, secretly rejoicing at the defeats of their opponents. Such an attitude, however, could not continue forever, especially since Christ immediately and directly defined his attitude towards the Sadducees, when he warned His disciples equally against the leaven of both the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and when he equally called the questioners from both parties “an evil and adulterous generation,” “hypocrites who can discern the face of heaven, but cannot discern the signs of the times.” 39 After this, the Sadducees had to understand that the new Teacher of Galilee was not at all like other teachers, and before Him all lies should be dispelled and all hypocrisy exposed. Since they were no less guilty of this than their rivals, the Pharisees, in the interests of self-preservation they also did not fail to take a hostile attitude towards Christ, which manifested itself primarily in the fact that, despite their hostility towards the Pharisees, they agreed with them on the basis of mutual interest in the fight against a common enemy, and acted against Hero by all means possible for them. But while the Pharisees acted against Hero through intricate interrogation and on the basis of their church-religious institutions, the Sadducees, in accordance with their position, directly transferred the matter to political grounds, and began to incite the authorities against Hero, presenting Him as an enemy of public peace. Since they had already managed to destroy the great prophet John the Baptist, then, encouraged by this success, they began to use the same measure against Christ, and turned Herod Antipas against Hero, who, according to their slander, wanted to lay hands on Hero, although he failed to achieve this. 40 They then pursued this policy with ever greater persistence, and in the famous decision of the Sanhedrin, at which Caiaphas uttered his involuntary prophecy that “it is better for one man to suffer for all,” than to expose an entire people to the scourge of war, this policy reached its highest expression, since here the fear of a political movement was clearly expressed on the part of the Sadducean party, which could lead to a radical revolution in social relations, in which the priestly aristocracy could forever lose its advantageous position. Having resolved the issue in this sense, the Sadducees only looked for a favorable opportunity to bring the matter to an end and did not deviate from it even when they had to resort to a criminal deal with the ill-fated traitorous disciple. The high priestly trial of Christ, with its lawlessness and corrupt false witnesses, completed their policy, which precisely led to His crucifixion on the cross. This is, therefore, the relation in which Christ stood to the main classes that made up the Jewish society of His time. Both leading classes, despite the contrast of their worldview, expressed themselves in a hostile attitude towards Him, because both of these directions were false and, as such, found themselves convicted in the radiant truth of the teachings of Christ. But this naturally reveals the idleness of the question raised recently in the scientific biblical-historical literature about who is more guilty of Christ’s death on the cross - the Pharisees or the Sadducees? - Both are equally guilty, because both of them, having encountered in the face of Christ a formidable exposure of their untruth and their criminal hypocrisy, sought to get rid of Hero at any cost, even if it meant shedding innocent blood. And if during the terrible vicissitudes of the trial of Christ before the tribunal of Pilate’s Praetorium, the main characters and the main accusers were the Sadducees in the person of the high priests and elders, then we can be sure that both the Pharisees and those and others alike brought upon themselves eternal damnation when they frantically cried out: “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25) See Cunn. Geikie, Life and Words of Christ I-II Vol.; New. York 1886; Edersheim The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, I-II vol, 2 ed. London, 1884; Fairbairn, Studies on the Life of Christ, 6 ed. London 1891 etc. Cp. "Christ. Reader", issue V, art. N. N. Glubokovsky. See, for example, Psalmi Solomonis, XVII, etc. They shouted maliciously: “Destroy, destroy it to the ground” (Jerusalem) - at the most critical moment in the history of the Jewish people. Mishna, priv. at Gfrörer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, Stuttg. 1838, II, 196. Rabbi (Heb.) – teacher, from the verb rabab – to increase, increase, teach. The rabbinate had several degrees, of which the lowest was rabbi, then rabbi, and the highest degree was rabbi. Rabbani (Mark 10:51; John 20:16) is the Syrochaldean form for “my teacher.” So according to one view; in another way, their name comes from the adjective tzaddik - righteous. The issue has not yet been resolved. Gfrörer, Jahrhundert, d. Heils I, 155. See also Geikie, Life and Words of Christ, L, ch. V and VI. Schürer, Lehrbuch d. Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, 1874, p. 443. In Geikie, p. 77. See Eisetimeng e r, Judenthum entdecktes, Königsb. 1711, vol. I. 337; Geikie, Life, I, p.74 et seq. Bava Metzia 59, b. Geikie, b. 75. There's also 86, a. See Eisetimeng e r'a, I, 13, Geikie, 76. The scribes, through their exegesis, derived this monstrous idea from Deut. 32:14, which simply states that the Lord fed Israel “with fat wheat and water with wine, the blood of the vines.” This idea was derived from Isa. 2:2, which says that “in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the top of the mountains and will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will be drawn to it.” The sublimely spiritual prophecy of Isaiah was obviously subjected to the most monstrous misinterpretation from the false wisdom of the scribes. The rabbinic imagination in this regard was obviously far bolder than the imagination of our modern Eiffels, who barely dared to rise with their towers to a height of 1/4 of a mile. But what is remarkable is not this, but the fact that the rabbis cited passages from the prophets, such as Zech. 14:10, 9:1, etc. Eisenmenger, II, 839 et al. Visson is the most favorite material in antiquity, made from the finest white linen. The rich paid huge amounts of money for this material. Conversation of Nicodemus, John. 3:1–21 Sch ü rer , Neutest, Zeitschrift, p. 485. Matt. 15:3: “You transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition,” Christ denounced them. Schürer, Neutest, Zeitschrift, p. 442. Gfrörer, Jahrhund. d. Heils, II, 156–60; Schürer, 443. Matt. 16:6; Mk. 8:15; OK. 12:1. Matt. 22:23 ; Acts 4:1–2; 23:8. Antiq. XVIII, 1, 4; Bell. Jud. II, 8, 14. Edersheim, Life of Christ, I, p.315. All adherents of Herod's house were called Herodians, of whom there were many among the Jews at that time of troubles, and St. Matthew directly identifies the Sadducees with them, of course, in relation to their political views. Joma 358. Such materials were prepared from fine linen, the finest linen, and were favorite in the highest aristocratic Roman society, where huge sums of money were paid for them. It is known that Nero had a ceremonial tablecloth made of such material, for which a huge amount of money was paid (4 million sesterces - 200,000 rubles). Joma, 9, a; Geikie, I, p.346.