Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
under the form of a purely popular institution under the fostering care of the priesthood could and should have borne fruit, but the period of the Judges proves that those two factors of development were not sufficient, and so now two new agencies make their appearance; the Prophetic order as a distinct and regular office, constituted for the purpose of being a mouth to God and a conscience to the state, and the Kingly order for the protecting of the theocracy against hurt from without and for the establishment of peace within her borders. By David’s successes the theocracy attained unto a high degree of political significance, and by Solomon’s building of the temple the typical form of worship reached the highest point of its development. In spite, however, of prophecy and royalty, the people, ever withdrawing themselves more and more from their true vocation, were not able outwardly and inwardly to maintain the high level. The division of the kingdom, internal feuds and conflicts, their untheocratic entanglement in the affairs of the world, the growing tendency to fall away from the worship of Jehovah and to engage in the worship of high places, and calves, and nature, called down incessantly the divine judgments, in consequence of which they fell a prey to the heathen. Yet this discipline was not in vain. Cyrus decreed their return and their independent organization, and even prophecy was granted for a time to the restored community for its establishment and consolidation. Under these political developments has prophecy, in addition to its immediate concern with its own times in respect of teaching, discipline, and exhortation, given to the promise of future salvation its fullest expression, bringing a bright ray of comfort and hope to light up the darkness of a gloomy present. The fading memories of the happy times of the brilliant victories of David and the glorious peaceful reign of Solomon formed the bases of the delineations of the future Messianic kingdom, while the disasters, the suffering and the humiliation of the people during the period of their decay gave an impulse to Messianic longings for a Messiah suffering for the sins of the people and taking on Himself all their misery. And now, after it had effected its main purpose, prophecy was silenced, to be reawakened only in a complete and final form when the fulness of time had come.
§ 8.2. Judaism after the Cessation of Prophecy.—The time had now come when the chosen people, emancipated from the immediate discipline of divine revelation, but furnished with the results and experiences of a rich course of instruction, and accompanied by the law as a schoolmaster and by the light of the prophetic word, should themselves work out the purpose of their calling. The war of extermination which Antiochus Epiphanes in his heathen fanaticism waged against Judaism, was happily and victoriously repelled, and once more the nation won its political independence under the Maccabees. At last, however, owing to the increasing corruption of the ruling Maccabean family, they were ensnared by the craft of the Roman empire. The Syrian religious persecution and the subsequent oppression of the Romans roused the national spirit and the attachment to the religion of their fathers to the most extreme exclusiveness, fanatical hatred, and proud scorn of everything foreign, and converted the Messianic hope into a mere political and frantically carnal expectation. True piety more and more disappeared in a punctilious legalism and ceremonialism, in a conceited self-righteousness and boastful confidence in their own good works. Priests and scribes were eagerly bent on fostering this tendency and increasing the unsusceptibility of the masses for the spirituality of the redemption that was drawing nigh, by multiplying and exaggerating external rules and by perverse interpretation of scripture. But in spite of all these perverting and far-reaching tendencies, there was yet in quiet obscurity a sacred plantation of the true Israel (John i. 47; Luke i. 6; ii. 25, 38, etc.), as a garden of God for the first reception of salvation in Christ.
§ 8.3. The Synagogues.—The institution of the Synagogues was of the greatest importance for the spread and development of post-exilian Judaism. They had their origin in the consciousness that, besides the continuance of the symbolical worship of the temple, a ministry of the word for edification by means of the revelation of God in the law and the prophets was, after the withdrawal of prophecy, all the more a pressing need and duty. But they also afforded a nursery for the endeavour to widen and contract the law of Moses by Rabbinical rules, for the tendency to external legalism and hypocrisy, for the national arrogance and the carnal Messianic expectations, which from them passed over into the life of the people. On the other hand, the synagogues, especially outside of Palestine, among the dispersion, won a far-reaching significance for the church by reason of their missionary tendency. For here where every Sabbath the holy scripture of the Old Testament was read in the Greek translation of the Septuagint and expounded, a convenient opportunity was given to heathens longing for salvation to gain acquaintance with the revelations and promises of God in the Old Covenant, and here there was already a place for the first ministers of the gospel, from which they could deliver their message to an assembled multitude of people from among the Jews and Gentiles. (Schürer, “Hist. of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ.” Div. ii., vol. 2., “The School and Synagogue.” pp. 44–89, Edin., 1885.)
§ 8.4. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.—The strict, traditionally legalistic, carnally particularistic tendency of Post-Exilian Judaism had its representatives and supporters in the sect of the Pharisees (פְרוּשִׁים, ἀφωρισμένοι), so called because their main endeavour was to maintain the strictest separation from everything heathenish, foreign, and ceremonially unclean. By their ostentatious display of zeal for the law, their contempt for everything not Jewish, their democratic principles and their arrogant patriotism, they won most completely the favour of the people; they shared the evil fortunes of the Maccabean princes, and became the bitterest enemies of the Herodians, and entertained a burning fanatical hatred to the Romans. They held sway in the synagogues to such an extent that the names Scribes and Pharisees were regarded as almost synonymous, and even in the Sanhedrim they secured many seats. In the times of Jesus the schools of Hillel and Shammai contended with one another, the former pleading for somewhat lax views, especially in reference to divorce and the obligation of oaths, while the latter insisted upon the most rigorous interpretation of the law. Both, however, were agreed in the recognition of oral tradition, the παραδόσεις τῶν πατέρων, as a binding authority and an essential supplement to the law of Moses. In direct opposition to them stand the Sadducees, out of sympathy with the aspirations of the people, and abandoning wholly the sacred traditions, and joining themselves in league with the Herodians and Romans. The name originally designated them as descendants of the old temple aristocracy represented by the family of the high priest Zadok, and, in consequence of the similarity in sound between צַדּוּקיִם and צַדּיִקיִם, gave expression to their claim to be regarded as essentially and truly righteous because of their outward adherence to the Mosaic law. Proceeding on the principle that virtue as a free act of man has in it its own worth and reward, just as vice has in it its own punishment, they rejected the doctrine of a future judgment, denied the doctrine of a resurrection, the existence of angels and spirits, and the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge.2 The Essenes, not mentioned in the Bible, but named by Philo, Josephus, and the elder Pliny, form a third sect. Their name was probably derived from חֲסֵא, pious. The original germ of their society is found in distinct colonies on the banks of the Dead Sea, which kept apart from the other Jews, and recognised even among themselves four different grades of initiation, each order being strictly separated from the others. A member was received only after a three years’ novitiate, and undertook to keep secret the mysteries of the order. Community of goods in the several communities and clans, meals in common accompanied by religious ceremonies, frequent prayers in the early morning with the face directed to the rising sun, oft repeated washings and cleansings, diligent application to agriculture and other peaceful occupations, abstaining from the use of flesh and wine, from trade and every warlike pursuit, from slavery and taking of oaths, perhaps also abstinence from marriage in the higher orders, were the main conditions of membership in their association. The Sabbath was observed with great strictness, but sacrifices of blood were abolished, and all anointing with oil was regarded as polluting. They still, however, maintained connection with Judaism by sending gifts to the temple. So far the order may fairly be regarded, as it is by Ritschl, as a spiritualizing exaggeration of the Mosaic idea of the priestly character that had independently grown up on Jewish soil, and indeed especially as an attempt to realize the calling set forth in Exod. xix. 5, 6, and repudiated in Exod. xx. 19, 20, unto all Israelites to be a spiritual priesthood.