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the mechanical ritualistic functions of indifferent and formalizing priests.

There were then, so to speak, two Judaisms, growing ever wider and wider apart. On one side the men of the Talmuds, the learned men, laics all of them, rulers of the synagogue and belonging to the Pharisaic party. On the other side the priests, occupying an elevated rank, rulers of the Temple and even of the Sanhedrin, forming an incredulous, Epicurean, almost impious aristocracy, a sacerdotal caste apart from the people and the national sentiment represented by the Zealots, who were enthusiastic laymen. The Sadducees would have no innovators nor innovations; the official routine sufficed for them. It was they first who detached Jesus from Judaism. The sight of the irreligion and moral carelessness of those who were in possession of the Temple itself, the haughty impiety of those who represented the race of Aaron, first began to persuade Jesus of the necessity of abrogating the Law.

Luther lost all his illusions at Rome. In the same way Jesus learned much from his visits to Jerusalem. His rupture with

the Temple preceded his rupture with the Pharisees. It must, then, have been effected during the visits which he made to the holy city during his Galilean ministry; and this first separation marks his entrance upon the second phase of his ministry, for it was soon followed by the second.

Up to this time he had been a Jewish reformer; henceforth he was to be the destroyer of Judaism. The latter, under its sacerdotal form, inspired in him a repugnance with which its Pharisaic form was shortly also to inspire him. It was necessary that the sacrifices should be abolished. The fulfilling, of which he often spoke, would in this case be an abolition. Here again Jesus adheres to Essenism, and develops an idea which he received from the Essenes, for they were entirely indifferent to the Temple, all of them considering it as impious and profaned.

On his return to Galilee after these journeys to Jerusalem, Jesus used to resume his work of preparation for the kingdom; but we have now arrived at a time where he could not again resume it: the rupture with the Pharisees was now in

its turn about to be precipitated. Jesus was to separate himself from them. In fact, he had for a long time been separate from them. He had thought himself still of their number, doing nothing else than accentuate the liberality of the best among them. But now he perceived to what an extent he actually repudiated them, and with them all Judaism.

CHAPTER IX

OPPOSITION TO JESUS

JESUS preached a long time in Galilee

without encountering the slightest opposition. Rabbis were going about the country; he was one of them; they were all free, and no preacher was disturbed by any one in the exercise of his ministry. Exhortations and cures attracted some people and left others indifferent, and the little Jewish world none the less went on its every-day life.

But the success of Jesus was such that at last it excited both jealousy and fear. On certain days the people came in crowds to hear him.1 Certain Pharisees who had been far from attaining such success, saw all this with displeasure; and from this to finding Jesus in error, insisting that his success was not sound, and investigating his life, discovering in it omission of rites

1 Matt. iv. 25; Mark ii. 4; Luke v. 1, viii. 4, 19, xi. 29, xii. 1; etc.

and errors of practice or of doctrine, was not very far. Jesus perceived that he was being spied upon, suspected; that his liberality was criticised; and the time came when he was obliged to hide himself.1

He had already been repelled from Nazareth; and he had certainly been very sensitive to the aloofness of his own compatriots. The Nazarenes, who had known him as a child, persisted in remaining unbelieving. They had seen Jesus grow up in their village; they remembered the carpenter's bench, his sisters were married in the town, his brothers did not believe,2 and decidedly he could not be a prophet in his own country: he admitted that himself. On the border of the lake, Chorazin and Bethsaida had also refused to yield to him. But it was above all from the Pharisees that gradually came the most overt opposition, that which was destined to take on formidable proportions and pursue Jesus to the very end.

In the presence of this new opposition,

1 Matt. xiii. 14-16; Mark iii. 7, ix. 29, 30.

2 John vii. 5.

8 Matt. xi. 21, 24; Luke x. 12-15; Matt. xii. 41, 42; Luke xi. 31, 32, xviii. 8.

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