III.

To properly understand certain passages of the Gospels, it is necessary to know the value of many words frequently used in them, which characterize the state of customs and of Jewish society at that time. No longer having for us the same meaning, these words have often been misinterpreted, causing a kind of uncertainty. The understanding of their meaning explains, moreover, the true sense of certain maxims which, at first sight, seem singular.

SAMARITANS. After the schism of the ten tribes, Samaria became the capital of the dissident kingdom of Israel. Destroyed and rebuilt several times, it became, under the Romans, the head of Samaria, one of the four divisions of Palestine. Herod, called the Great, embellished it with sumptuous monuments and, to flatter Augustus, gave it the name of Augusta, in Greek Sebaste.

The Samaritans were almost constantly at war with the kings of Judah. A deep aversion, dating from the time of the separation, was perpetuated between the two peoples, who avoided all reciprocal relations. The former, in order to make the schism greater and not to have to come to Jerusalem for the celebration of the religious feasts, built for themselves a private temple and adopted some reforms. They admitted only the Pentateuch, which contained the law of Moses, and rejected all the other books that were subsequently annexed to it. Their sacred books were written in Hebrew characters of the highest antiquity. To the orthodox Jews they were heretics and, therefore, despised, anathematized, and persecuted. The antagonism of the two nations had, then, as its sole foundation the divergence of religious opinions, even though the origin of the beliefs of both was the same. They were the Protestants of that time. Even today Samaritans are still found in some regions of the Levant, particularly in Nablus and in Jaffa. They observe the law of Moses with more rigor than the other Jews and contract alliances only among themselves.

NAZARENES, a name given, under the old law, to the Jews who made a vow, either perpetual or temporary, to keep perfect purity. They bound themselves to observe chastity, to abstain from alcoholic beverages, and to preserve their hair. Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist were Nazarenes.

Later, the Jews gave this name to the first Christians, in allusion to Jesus of Nazareth.

This was also the denomination of a heretical sect of the first centuries of the Christian era, which, in the same way as the Ebionites, from whom it adopted certain principles, mixed the practices of Mosaism with the Christian dogmas, a sect that disappeared in the fourth century.

PUBLICANS. In ancient Rome, this was the name given to the knights who leased the public taxes, charged with the collection of imposts and revenues of every kind, whether in Rome itself or in the other parts of the Empire. They were like the general lessees and tax-farmers of the old regime in France, who still exist in some regions. The risks to which they were subject caused eyes to be closed to the riches that they often acquired and that, on the part of some, were the fruits of extortions and scandalous profits. The name of publican was later extended to all who superintended the public moneys and to the subaltern agents. Today this term is used in a pejorative sense, to designate financiers and unscrupulous business agents. It is sometimes said: “Greedy as a publican, rich as a publican,” with reference to riches of base alloy. Of all the Roman domination, the impost was what the Jews most reluctantly accepted and what caused the most irritation among them. From this arose several revolts, the matter being made a religious question, since it was considered contrary to the Law. There was even formed a powerful party, at the head of which was placed a certain Judas, surnamed the Gaulonite, having as a principle the non-payment of the impost. The Jews, then, abominated this and, as a consequence, all those who were charged with collecting it, whence the aversion they bore toward the publicans of all categories, among whom there might be found very estimable persons, but who, by virtue of their functions, were despised, as were those who maintained relations with them, who found themselves struck by the same reproof. Prominent Jews considered it a compromise to have intimacy with them.

THE TOLL-COLLECTORS were the collectors of low rank, charged chiefly with the collection of entry duties into the cities. Their functions corresponded more or less to those of customs employees and the receivers of barrier duties. They shared in the repulsion that weighed upon the publicans in general. This is the reason why, in the Gospel, the word publican is frequently encountered alongside the expression people of ill repute. Such a qualification did not imply that of debauchees or vagabonds. It was a term of contempt, synonymous with people of bad company, people unworthy of associating with distinguished persons.

PHARISEES (from the Hebrew parush, division, separation) — Tradition constituted an important part of the theology of the Jews. It consisted of a compilation of the interpretations successively given to the meaning of the Scriptures and made into articles of dogma. Among the doctors it constituted a subject of interminable discussions, most often over mere questions of words or of forms, in the manner of the theological disputes and the subtleties of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. From this arose different sects, each of which claimed to have the monopoly of truth, detesting one another, as is wont to happen. Among these sects, the most influential was that of the Pharisees, which had as its chief Hillel, a Jewish doctor born in Babylon, founder of a celebrated school, where it was taught that faith should be placed only in the Scriptures. Its origin goes back to 180 or 200 years before Jesus Christ. The Pharisees, at various times, were persecuted, especially under Hyrcanus, sovereign pontiff and king of the Jews, Aristobulus, and Alexander, king of Syria. The latter, however, granted them honors and restored their goods, so that they reacquired their former power and preserved it until the ruin of Jerusalem, in the year 70 of the Christian era, the time at which their name was extinguished, in consequence of the dispersion of the Jews. They took an active part in the religious controversies. Servile fulfillers of the exterior practices of worship and of the ceremonies; full of an ardent zeal for proselytism, enemies of innovators, they affected great severity of principles; but, under the appearances of meticulous devotion, they concealed dissolute customs, much pride, and, above all, an excessive craving for domination. They held religion more as a means of reaching their ends than as an object of sincere faith. Of virtue they possessed nothing beyond the exteriorities and the ostentation; nevertheless, by both, they exercised great influence over the people, in whose eyes they passed for holy creatures. Hence their being very powerful in Jerusalem. They believed, or at least pretended to believe, in Providence, in the immortality of the soul, in the eternity of punishments, and in the resurrection of the dead. (Chapter IV, no. 4.) Jesus, who esteemed above all simplicity and the qualities of the soul, who, in the law, preferred the spirit, which gives life, to the letter, which kills, applied himself, throughout his whole mission, to unmasking their hypocrisy, on account of which he had in them fierce enemies. This is the reason why they joined themselves to the chief priests to incite the people against him and to eliminate him. [See Phariseeism.]

SCRIBES, a name given, at first, to the secretaries of the kings of Judah and to certain intendants of the Jewish armies. Later, it was applied especially to the doctors who taught the law of Moses and interpreted it for the people. They made common cause with the Pharisees, whose principles they shared, as well as the antipathy that the latter bore toward innovators. Hence Jesus involved them in the reproof he cast upon the Pharisees.

SYNAGOGUE (from the Greek synagogê, assembly, congregation). There was a single temple in Judea, that of Solomon, in Jerusalem, where the great ceremonies of worship were celebrated. The Jews, every year, went there on pilgrimage for the principal feasts, such as those of the Passover, of the Dedication, and of the Tabernacles. It was on the occasion of these feasts that Jesus also used to go there. The other cities did not possess temples, but only synagogues: buildings where the Jews gathered on the Sabbath, to make public prayers, under the leadership of the elders, of the scribes, or doctors of the Law. In them were also held readings of the sacred books, followed by explanations and commentaries, activities in which any person could take part. This is why Jesus, without being a priest, taught on the Sabbath in the synagogues. Since the ruin of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, the synagogues, in the cities inhabited by them, serve them as temples for the celebration of worship.

SADDUCEES, a Jewish sect, which formed around the year 248 before Jesus Christ and whose name came to it from that of Sadoc, its founder. They did not believe in immortality, nor in resurrection, nor in good and evil angels. Nevertheless, they believed in God; but, expecting nothing after death, they served him only with a view to temporal rewards, to which, according to them, divine providence was limited. Thinking thus, they had the satisfaction of the physical senses as the essential object of life. As to the Scriptures, they held to the text of the old law. They did not admit tradition, nor any interpretations whatever. They placed good works and the pure and simple observance of the Law above the exterior practices of worship. They were, as can be seen, the materialists, the deists, and the sensualists of the time. A sect that was not numerous, but that counted within its bosom important personages and became a political party constantly opposed to the Pharisees.

ESSENES or ESSEANS, also a Jewish sect founded about the year 150 before Jesus Christ, in the time of the Maccabees, and whose members, dwelling in a kind of monasteries, formed among themselves a sort of moral and religious association. They were distinguished by gentle customs and by austere virtues, they taught the love of God and of neighbor, the immortality of the soul, and believed in the resurrection. They lived in celibacy, condemned slavery and war, put their goods in common, and devoted themselves to agriculture. Opposed to the sensual Sadducees, who denied immortality; to the Pharisees of rigid exterior practices and of merely apparent virtues, the Essenes never took part in the quarrels that made antagonists of those two other sects. By the kind of life they led, they greatly resembled the first Christians, and the principles of morals that they professed led many persons to suppose that Jesus, before beginning his public mission, had belonged to their community. It is certain that he must have known it, but nothing proves that he had affiliated himself with it, all that has been written in this respect being, therefore, hypothetical. n

THERAPEUTAE (from the Greek therapeutai, formed from therapeuein, to serve, to care for, that is: servants of God, or healers); they were Jewish sectarians contemporary with the Christ, established chiefly in Alexandria, in Egypt. They had much relation with the Essenes, whose principles they adopted, applying themselves, like the latter, to the practice of all the virtues. They were of extreme frugality in their feeding. Also celibates, devoted to contemplation and living a solitary life, they constituted a true religious order. Philo, a Jewish Platonic philosopher of Alexandria, was the first to speak of the Therapeutae, considering them a sect of Judaism. Eusebius, Saint Jerome, and other Fathers of the Church think that they were Christians. Whether such, or whether Jews, what is evident is that, in the same way as the Essenes, they represent the connecting link between Judaism and Christianity. [1] The death of Jesus, supposedly written by an Essene, is an entirely apocryphal work, whose sole purpose was to serve as support for an opinion. It carries within itself the proof of its modern origin.