with some changes was the spoken language. These changes consisted of numerous Syriac words and forms, which were introduced by the close connexion which existed between Palestine and the Syrian empire. Thus arose the Syro-Chaldee language, which became general amongst the Jews, and was the tongue in which our Saviour subsequently spoke and taught. The Galileans being nearest to Syria, spoke with a particularly broad Syriac pronunciation, and employed a profusion of gutturals, which often occasioned the strangest mistakes in Jerusalem.*

Religious sects and parties.-Under the early 16 Maccabean princes we find two important parties amongst the Jews of Jerusalem and Judæa, who subsequently exercised a great political as well as religious influence in the state; these were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It appears that after the death of Simon the Just, and the dissolution of the great synagogue, there arose a body of doctors, who made it their business to study and descant upon those traditions and laws which Ezra and the other members of the great synagogue had allowed in addition to the Scriptures. These doctors began to incorporate their own opinions and additions into this collection of ancient traditions, and their example was followed by their successors. The body of traditions rolled on like a snowball from one generation to another, increasing still faster as it grew larger. These traditions were

* In these languages the sense depends in a very great measure upon the pronunciation. A woman of Galilee tried in her peculiar dialect to say to a judge, "My lord, I had a picture which they stole, and it was so great that if you had been placed in it your fect would not have touched the ground." By this figure of speech she meant to tell the judge that the picture was higher than he was; but by her wretched pronunciation she seemed to him to say, Sir, slave, I had a beam, and they stole thee away, and it was so great, that if they had hung thee on it thy feet would not have touched the ground."

In the second century after Christ these traditions were grown to such an enormous bulk as to utterly set at nought

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rejected in toto by the Sadducees, but regarded by the Pharisees as of equal if not of superior authority to the Scriptures themselves. We may therefore presume that these two parties were formed very soon after the dissolution of the great synagogue, and the first collection of the traditions. Subsequently fresh points of difference sprung up between the two sects, and these require a more detailed account.

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The Pharisees were the largest and most distinguished sect. Their name signifies separated," or "set apart." Their doctrines were based either on tradition, or else on a mystic and allegorical interpretation of the Scripture. Three of these doctrines deserve mention. (1.) They believed in the resurrection of the body. They conceived that the soul after death abode in a subterranean place, named Sheol, or Hades, which was divided into two parts: viz. Paradise, or the abode of the good, and Gehenna, or the abode of the wicked; and they believed that, at the coming of the Messiah, all the dead would return to this world, but that only the good would share the happiness of Christ's kingdom. (2.) They believed in angels and spirits, who had a certain order or rank, and were subject to seven archangels. (3.) They taught the merit of external righteousness, and satisfied themselves with outward good works. They enjoined constant washall attempts to preserve them in the memory of man. They were therefore committed to writing, and the whole were digested and arranged in six large volumes by Rabbi Judah. This digest of the traditions was called the Mishnah, and was received with the greatest veneration by the Jews, who regarded it as a copy handed down by memory from father to son, of all that God had told Moses on Mount Sinai, in addition to the written law. The learned Jews employed themselves in writing voluminous comments on the Mishnah, and these comments were called the Gemara. The Mishnah and Gemara together are called the Talmud. That made by the Jews in Judæa is called the Jerusalem Talmud; that made by the Jews in Babylonia is called the Babylonian Talmud. Both Talmuds have thus the same Mishnah, but a different Gemara.

ings and purifications; strict fasts; wordy prayers in the streets and synagogues; frequent almsgiving; and a rigid observance of the sabbath, in which they clung to the minutest externalities, but wholly rejected the spirit of the law. To notice all their peculiarities would be to copy out the traditions. It will be sufficient to say that they stood high in the estimation of the people, for they well knew the art of acquiring popular fame by fair appearances, and strict adherence to the law. In the time of Christ they were divided into two schools. At a later period they subsided into mere Rabbinism, and most of the Jews of the present day belong to the Pharisaic party.

The Sadducees were the aristocratic Epicureans 18 of Jewish society. Many of them gave up their lives to learned ease and pleasure, others taught high moral truths. They rejected not only all tradition, but also all the Scriptures excepting the five books of Moses. They denied the immortality of the soul and punishment after death, and they disbelieved in the existence of angel or spirit. They also taught that virtue must not seek a reward, and that men ought to serve God and keep his commands irrespective of hope and fear. From this general opposition to the Judaism of their age, they were only followed by the wealthy few. A small number of the Jews in the present day still hold many of the doctrines of the Sadducees: they are called Karaites, and acknowledge the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures, but reject the traditions. They chiefly live in the East and in Southern Russia.

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Political history resumed.-To return в. c. 106- 19 to the political history. We have seen the establishment of the independent kingdom of Judæa under the Maccabean princes finally settled in the reign of Hyrcanus I. We have now to read of domestic broils ending in civil war; of Pharisees and Sadducees stepping forward as political factions; of the rise of the Herodians and supremacy of the Romans; and lastly, of the progress of a mad and suicidal oppo

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sition of the Pharisees, first to their own princes, and afterwards to the Romans, which ultimately led to the declension of the Maccabean power, and finally to the utter downfal of the Jewish nation.

Civil dissensions fomented by the Pharisees.— Hyrcanus was a Pharisee, but in his old age one of his own party told him that he ought to lay down the high priesthood; insinuating that his mother's character was not sufficiently good to permit her son to fill the sacerdotal office.* Hyrcanus in a transport of rage became a Sadducee. He died shortly afterwards, leaving the kingdom to his wife; but his son Aristobulus I. seized the government and threw his mother into prison, where she died of hunger. Aristobulus then placed the royal diadem on his head, and assumed the title of king. He subdued the district of Ituræa in the north of Peræa, but on his return, being jealous of his brother Antigonus, he ordered him to be assassinated, and shortly afterwards died in an agony of remorse. Alexander Jannæus, the next in succession, then ascended the throne. His reign was a series of petty wars upon his neighbours, varied by civil war and dissensions at home. The Pharisees had become the most dangerous enemies of the state, and the populace was at their command. At the feast of tabernacles, whilst Alexander in virtue of his high priesthood was sacrificing at the altar, the multitude became riotous and pelted him with citrons. Above all, they repeated the same insulting insinuations which had been originally made against the mother of Hyrcanus. They charged him with being descended from a slave, and denied his right to the priesthood. Alexander in reply_commanded his troops to fall upon the mob, and 6000 were slain. To prevent the recurrence of such insults for the future, he railed in the court of the priests from the approach of the crowd, and raised a body-guard of

*According to the Mosaic law no one could fill the office of high priest unless the character of his mother was free from the slightest imputation.

foreign mercenaries. He then endeavoured to divert the people from these internal divisions, by invading Peræa a second time. At first he was victorious, but after three years suffered the loss of his entire army. The discontent of the Pharisees was now shared by the whole nation. The people openly rebelled, and for six years maintained a bloody civil war. In vain Alexander sought an accommodation. They replied that the only condition on which they would come to terms, was that he should put himself to death. In the madness of hatred they applied to Syria for succours. An army of Jews and Syrians overthrew Alexander, and cut to pieces his mercenaries to a man, and he himself was obliged to flee to the mountains. A sudden revulsion of feeling now took place. Many of the rebels pitied the misfortunes of their king, and espoused his cause. The Syrians returned to Damascus, and Alexander with the aid of his new adherents defeated the rebels and marched to Jerusalem. He executed terrible vengeance on his enemies, for he crucified 800 in one day, and massacred their wives and children before their eyes. Such were the early horrors which attended Jewish faction, and at length ruined the nation. Having thus regained his throne, Alexander extended his conquests in Perea, and died at Jerusalem four years afterwards.

Domination of the Pharisees: decline of the 21 Maccabean power. Before his death Alexander urged upon his wife Alexandra, that the only way of retaining the throne was to give up the government to the Pharisees. Accordingly Alexandra appointed her son Hyrcanus II. to the high priesthood, placed the administration in the hands of the Pharisees, and then ascended the throne as queen, and thus had the kingdom whilst the Pharisees had the power. This policy insured peace, and Alexandra had the additional satisfaction of seeing her husband buried by his old enemies with the utmost splendour. The Pharisees then began to revenge themselves upon those who had