Of equal importance, and equally affecting the whole fabric of social and religious life, are the Mosaic laws upon the strength of which the second condition was exacted. These laws, which so rigidly enforce the eschewing of unclean food and defiling objects, even without the amplifications and expansion which obtained in the course of time, extend to and affect almost every action in public life, and every movement in family inter course. Thus not only are numbers of animals proscribed as food, but their very carcases are branded as unclean, and he who touches them is temporarily defiled, and pollutes every one and every thing wherewith he comes in contact (Lev. v. 2 ; xi.) A man that has an issue not only de files everything upon which he lies, sits, or which he touches, hut his very spittle is polluting (Lev. xv. 1-13). The same is the case with a man who comes in contact with a corpse (Num. xix. 14-22), with a woman in menstruum and child-birth (Lev. xii. r-S ; xv. 19-30, and with a husband after conjugal intercourse (ibid., xv. 18). Individuals thus defiled were forbidden to come into the sanctuary (Num. xix. 20), and were visited with the severe punish ment of excision if they ate the flesh of peace-offer ing (Lev. vii. 20, 21). Now the slightest reflection upon the workings of these laws will show that thousands upon thousands were daily unclean ac cording to the Mosaic institutions, that these thou sands of unclean men and women legally defiled myriads of people and things by contact with them, either wittingly or unwittingly, and that it there fore became absolutely necessary for those who were conscientiously desirous of discharging their religious duties in a state of legal purity to adopt such precautionary measures as would preclude the possibility of violating these laws. Hence the Jewish canons ordained that since one does not know whether he has been defiled by contact with any unclean person or thing, every CYiaber or member of the Pharisaic association is to wash his hands before eating his ordinary food, second tithes, or the heave-offering ; to immerse his whole body before he eats the portions of holy sacrifices ; and to bathe his whole body before touching the water absolving from sin, even if it is only his hands which are unclean. If one immersed himself for ordinary food, and designed it only for ordinary food, he could not eat second tithes ; if he immersed for second tithes, and meant it only for second tithes, he could not eat of the heave-offering ; if he im mersed for the heave-offering, and meant by it the heave-offering, he was not allowed to eat the por tions of the holy sacrifice ; if he immersed for the holy sacrifice, and meant it for the holy sacrifice, he could not as yet touch the water absolving from sin ; but he who immersed for the more important could share in the less important' (Hishxa, Chagiga, ii. 5, 6). This gave rise to four degrees of purity, and to four divisions in the Pharisaic associations, so that every Umber (12r1) or member belonged to that rank whose prescriptions of purity he prac tised. Each degree of purity required a greater separation from the above-named Mosaic defile ments. The impure subjects themselves were the fathers of impurity, that which was ouched by them was designated the first generation f impurity, what was touched by this again was railed the second generation of impurity, and so on. !Cow ordinary food, the first degree of holiness, Became impure when touched by the second gene ration ; heave-offering, the second degree of holi less, became defiled when touched by the third ;eneration ; the flesh of sacrifices, the third degree )f holiness, when coming in contact with the fourth ;eneration, and so on. These degrees of purity even to be separated from each other, as the over degree was impure in respect to the higher )ne. The same removal, both from defilement without and the different gradations within, was •.equired of ;ach member of the Pharisaic order :orresponding to the degree to which he belonged. Hence the garments of an ntn Am Ha elretz [or a a sinner, as he is termed in :he N. T., who neglected to pay the tithes and Thserve the laws of Mosaic purity] defile the Phan. lee [i. e., him who lived according to the first degree if purity], the garments of a Pharisee defile those who eat of the heave-offering [i. e., the second degree], the garments of those who eat the heave sffering defile those who eat the sacred sacrifices e., the third degree], and the garments of those who eat the sacred sacrifices defile those who touch the water absolving from sin [i. e., the fourth de ;rree]' (comp. Mishna, Chagiga ii. 7 with Taharoth vii. 5).
The above-mentioned two conditions exacted from candidates for membership of the Pharisaic association are thus expressed in the Illishna:—` He who takes upon himself to be conscientious, tithes whatever he eats, and whatever he sells, and what ever he buys, and does not become the guest of an Am Ha-Aretz [i. a non-Pharisee] ; . . . and he who takes upon himself to become a member of the Pharisaic association must neither sell to an Ana Ha-Arelz moist or dry fruit, nor buy of him moist fruit, nor become the guest of an Am Ha Aretz, nor receive him as guest, in his garments, into his house (Dona/ ii. 2. 3, with Matt. xxiii. 23 ; Luke 12). It is in accordance with this regulation that Christ enjoins that an offender is to be re garded as an heathen man and publican' (Matt. xviii. 17), that the apostle Paul commands not to eat' with a sinner (r Cor. v. 1), and it is for this reason that Christ was upbraided by the Pharisees for associating and eating with publicans and sin ners (Matt. ix. 9-I1 ; xi. 19 ; Mark ii. 16 ; • Luke v. 30 ; vii. 34), with the neglectors of tithes and the transgressors of the laws of purity, which was not only in violation of the then prevailing Phari saic and national law, but contrary to the Mosaic enactments. But he came to teach that, not that which goeth into the mouth [i. e., untithed food or edibles handled by Levitically unclean persons] defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man' (Matt. xv. 1) ; and that it is not outward washing but inward purity which is acceptable, for which reason he sat down to meat with a Pharisee, and did not first wash before dinner' (Luke xi. 37-40) ; which, as we have seen, was in contravention of the very first degree of purity among the association. It must, however, be remarked, that the Jews were not peculiar in their laws of purity and defilement.
Other nations of antiquity had similar statutes. Thus, amongst the ancient Indians, one who had an issue was obliged to bathe and pray to the sun (Mann, ii. LSI) ; among the Hierapolytans in Syria, every inmate of the house in which a death took place was thirty days unclean, and could not go to the temple during that time (Lucian, de Syr. dea, 53) ; the Greeks, too, were defiled by contact with a corpse, and could not resort to the temple (Theophrast., Charact., 16 ; Eurip., Tater., 367 ; Diog. Laer., viii. 33) ; both the Parsecs and the Greeks regarded a woman in childbirth as un clean (Kleuker, Zeizar-Averta, iii. pp. 222, 223 ; Eurip., Iplrig. Tour., 367) - and `no Egyptian would salute a Greek with a nor use a Greek knife, spits, cauldrons, nor taste the meat of an ox which had been cut by a Greek knife. They drank out of bronze vessels, rinsing them perpetu ally. And if any one accidentally touched a pig he would plunge into the Nile without stopping to undress' (iferodot. ii. 37, 41, 47).
3. The tenets and practices of the Pharisees.— To state the doctrines and statutes of the Pharisees is to give a history of orthodox Judaism ; since Pharisaism was after the return from the Baby lonish captivity, and is to the present day, the na tional faith of the orthodox Jews, developing itself with and adapting itself to the ever-shifting circum stances of the nation. Of the other two sects, viz., the Essenes and the Sadducees, the former repre sented simply an intensified form of Pharisaism [EssENEs], whilst the latter were a very small minority. The Pharisees, as the erudite Geiger has conclusively shown, were the democratic party, the true representatives of the people, whose high vocation they endeavoured to develope by making them to realise, both in their practices and lives, that ' God has given to all alike the kingdom, priesthood, and holiness' (2 Maccab. ii. 17) ; in opposition to the small cast of the priestly aristo cracy of Sadducees, who set the highest value upon their spiritual office, and who, by virtue of their hereditary rights, tried to arrogate everything to themselves, and manifested little sympathy with the people at large. Hence the Pharisaic enact ments were such as to make the people realise that they were a people of priests, a holy nation, that by becoming a diligent student of the law, and by preparing one's-self for the office of a Rabbi or teacher, every such person, though not literally of the priestly cast, may be a priest in spirit, and occupy quite as important and useful a position as if he were actually of the Aaronic order, and even arrange his mode of life according to the example of those who minister in holy things. Thus the very name 1211, which in olden times de , notes a priestly fraternity (Hos. iv. 17 ; vi. 9), and was so used by the Jews on the Maccabean coins (1111 nr-nron), was adopted by the Pharisees for their lay association. Their social meals were invested with a solemn character to resemble the social meals of the priests, made up from the sacrifices in the Temple. If the priests took care that the sacrifices which they offered up, and portions of which constituted their social meal, especially on the Sabbath and festivals, should be clean and without blemish, the Pharisees too took the utmost precaution that their meals should be free from the different degrees of defilement ; thev washed before partaking thereof; recited prayers before and after the repast, had a cup of blessing and offered incense. It is only from this point of view that some of the differences between the Phari sees and the Sadducees can be explained ; as, for instance, the ideal connection of places for Sabbatic purposes, called M11,1), adopted by the former and rejected by the latter. In consequence of the rigorous laws about the observance of the Sabbath (Exod. xvi. 29 ; Jer. xvii. 21, with Neh. xiii. 15, etc.), it was enacted that no Israelite is to walk on the Sabbath beyond a certain distance, called a Sabbath day's journey, nor carry anything from one house to another. The Sadducees, or priestly party, who celebrated their meals on the Sabbath in different places, could go from one place to another, and carry to and fro anything they liked, because they regarded these meals as constituting part of their priestly and sacrificial service, which set aside the sanctity of the Sabbath. Now the Pharisees, who made their Sabbatic repast to re semble the priestly social meals, had to encounter difficulties arising from the rigorous Sabbatic laws. The distance which they had sometimes to walk to join a company in the social meal was more than a Sabbath day's journey ; the carrying from one place to another the things requisite for the solem nities was contrary to the enactments about the sanctity of the day. Hence they contrived the ideal connection of places (zrz, which was effected as follows :—Before the Sabbath com menced (i. e., Friday afternoon), an article of food was deposited by each member in the court selected for the social gathering, so that it might thereby become the common place for all ; the streets were made to form one large dwelling-place with differ ent gates, by means of beams laid across on the tops of the houses, and doors or gates put in the front ; and meals were put in a house at the end of the distance permitted to walk, in order to con stitute it a domicile, and thus another Sabbath day's journey could be undertaken from the first terminus. By this means the Pharisees could evade the law, and, like the priests, meet together in any place to celebrate their social meals on the Sabbath, and carry anything that was wanted for its sacred festival, as they had three common meals on the Sabbath (111111* On the Friday eve the entrance of the Sabbath was greeted with a cup of wine, or the cup of blessing, over which every member recited benedictions mropy, ex pressing the holiness of the day as well as the holi ness of Israel, whom God sanctified to himself and made a people of priests, a royal nation, where upon the sacred and social meal was eaten. The second meal was eaten on noon of the Sabbath, and the third began with the setting sun, and in the middle of it the Sabbath departed. When lights were kindled, a blessing was again pronounced over a cup of wine (r3913i1), and burning incense was offered up to accompany the exit of the holy day, which was regarded as a departing friend.