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====Traditional interpretations of the Law by the Pharisees====
====Traditional interpretations of the Law by the Pharisees====
Sometimes the ingenuity of the Pharisaic doctors was directed to lighten the burden of the precept as in regard to the Sabbath, i.e. a person was permitted to go much farther than a Sabbath day's journey if at some time previous he had deposited - within the legal Sabbath day's journey of the place he wished to reach - bread and water; this point was then to be regarded as the limit of his house, and consequently from this all distances were to be ceremonially reckoned. The great defect of Pharisaism was the minute refinements they introduced into the Law, resulting in making sin purely external and obeying the Law burdensome and hurtful. An act was right or wrong was subjective; if a man rode on his donkey on the Sabbath, he didn’t break the law regarding the “Sabbath Day’s rest”, as he was considered “resting” on the donkey. But if he carried a switch with which to compel the donkey to move, he was considered guilty because he had laid a burden upon the animal.
Sometimes the ingenuity of the Pharisaic doctors was directed to lighten the burden of the precept as in regard to the Sabbath, i.e. a person was permitted to go much farther than a Sabbath day's journey if at some time previous he had deposited - within the legal Sabbath day's journey of the place he wished to reach - bread and water; this point was then to be regarded as the limit of his house, and consequently from this all distances were to be ceremonially reckoned. The great defect of Pharisaism was the minute refinements they introduced into the Law, resulting in making sin purely external and obeying the Law burdensome and hurtful. An act was right or wrong was subjective; if a man rode on his donkey on the Sabbath, he didn’t break the law regarding the “Sabbath Day’s rest”, as he was considered “resting” on the donkey. But if he carried a switch with which to compel the donkey to move, he was considered guilty because he had laid a burden upon the animal.
==Character==
Because the ideal of the Pharisees was high, and because they reverenced learning and character above wealth and civil rank they had a tendency to despise those who did not agree with them, as in ''John'' 7:49: "This multitude that knoweth not the law are accursed." The distinction between the Pharisees and the the "people of the land" (''am ha-'arets'') began with the distinction that had to be kept between the Jews and the Gentiles who had entered the land as colonists or intruders. These would, during the Babylonian captivity, almost certainly speak Western Aramaic, and would certainly be heathen and indulge in heathen practices. They were the "people of the land" whom the returning exiles found in possession of Judea.
Mingled with them were the few Jews that had neither been killed nor deported by the Babylonians, nor carried down into Egypt by Johanan, the son of Kareah. As they had conformed in a large measure to the habits of their heathen neighbors and intermarried with them, the stricter Jews regarded them as under the same condemnation as the heathen and shrank from association with them. During the time of Jesus the name was practically restricted to the ignorant Jews whose conformity to the law was on a broader scale than that of the Pharisees. Some have, however, dated the invention of the name later in the days of the Maccabean struggle, when the ceremonial precepts of the Law could with difficulty be observed. Those who were less careful of these were regarded as ''am ha-'arets''.
The distinction as exhibited in the Talmud shows an arrogance on the part of the Pharisaic chabher that must have been galling to those who, though Jews as much as the Pharisees, were not Puritans like them. A ''chabher'' - i.e. a Pharisee - might not eat at the table of a man whose wife was of the ''am ha-'arets'', even though her husband might be a Pharisee. If he would be a full ''chabher'', a Pharisee must not sell to any of the ''am ha-'arets'' anything that might readily be made unclean. If a woman of the ''am ha-'arets'' was left alone in a room, all that she could touch without moving from her place was unclean. It should be noted that the evidence for this is Talmudic, with limited historical value.
===New Testament Account===
====Their Scrupulosity====
Traces of their scrupulosity are found in the Gospels. The special way in which the ceremonial sanctity of the Pharisees exhibited itself was in tithing, hence the reference to their tithing "mint and anise and cummin" (Mt 23:23). In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, one of the things that the Pharisee plumes himself on is that he gives tithes of all he possesses (Lk 18:12). He is an example of the Pharisaic arrogance of those "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and set all others at nought." Their claiming the first seats in feasts and synagogues (Mt 23:6) was an evidence of the same spirit.
====Their Hypocrisy====
Closely akin to this is the hypocrisy of which the Pharisees were accused by our Lord. The primary meaning of the word "hypocrite" is essentially "actors," or "poseurs", one who puts up a false front. In a time when religion is persecuted, as in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, or despised as it was in the Hellenizing times which preceded and succeeded, it would be the duty of religious men not to hide their convictions. The tendency to carry on this public manifestation of religious acts after it had ceased to be protest would be necessarily great. The fact that they gained credit by praying at street corners when the hour of prayer came, and would have lost credit with the people had they not done so, was not recognized by them as lessening the moral worth of the action. Those who, having lived in the period of persecution and contempt, survived in that when religion was held in respect would maintain their earlier practice without any ''arriere-pensee''. The succeeding generation, in continuing the practice, consciously "acted." They were poseurs. Their hypocrisy was none the less real that it was reached by unconscious stages. Hypocrisy was a new sin, a sin only possible in a spiritual religion, a religion in which morality and worship were closely related. Heathenism, which lay in sacrifices and ceremonies by which the gods could be bribed, or cajoled into favors, had a purely casual connection with morality; its worship was entirely a thing of externals, of acting, "posing." Consequently, a man did not by the most careful attention to the ceremonies of religion produce any presumption in favor of his trustworthiness. There was thus no sinister motive to prompt to religion. The prophets had denounced the insincerity of worship, but even they did not denounce hypocrisy, i.e. religion used as a cloak to hide treachery or dishonesty. Religion had become more spiritual, the connection between morality and worship more intimate by reason of the persecution of the Seleucids.
====Talmudic classification====
The Talmud to some extent confirms the representation of the Gospels. There were seven classes of Pharisees: (1) the "shoulder" Pharisee, who wears his good deeds on his shoulders and obeys the precept of the Law, not from principle, but from expediency; (2) the "wait-a-little" Pharisee, who begs for time in order to perform a meritorious action; (3) the "bleeding" Pharisee, who in his eagerness to avoid looking on a woman shuts his eyes and so bruises himself to bleeding by stumbling against a wall; (4) the "painted" Pharisee, who advertises his holiness lest any one should touch him so that he should be defiled; (5) the "reckoning" Pharisee, who is always saying "What duty must I do to balance any unpalatable duty which I have neglected?"; (6) the "fearing" Pharisee, whose relation to God is one merely of trembling awe; (7) the Pharisee from "love." In all but the last there was an element of "acting," of hypocrisy. It is to be noted that the Talmud denounces ostentation; but unconsciously that root of the error lies in the externality of their righteousness; it commands an avoidance of ostentation which involves equal "posing."
==Jesus' Relationship to the Pharisees==
====Pharisaic Attempts to Gain Christ Over====
The attitude of the Pharisees to Jesus - just as it was with John the Baptist - critical. They sent representatives to watch His doings and His sayings and report. They seem to have regarded it as possible that He might unite Himself with them, although it was possible that they assumed His affinities lay with the Essenes. Gradually their criticism became opposition. This opposition grew in intensity as He disregarded their interpretations of the Sabbatic law, ridiculed their refinements of the law of tithes and the distinctions they introduced into the validity of oaths, and denounced their insincere posing. At first there seems to have been an effort to cajole Him into compliance with their plans. If some of the Pharisees tempted Him to use language which would compromise Him with the people or with the Roman authorities, others invited Him to their tables, which was going far upon the part of a Pharisee toward one not a ''chabher''. Even when He hung on the cross, the taunt with which they greeted Him may have had something of longing, lingering hope in it: ''"If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him"'' (Mt 27:42 King James Version). If He would only give them that sign, then they would acknowledge Him to be the Messiah.
====Reasons for Pharisaic Hatred of Christ====
The opposition of the Pharisees to Jesus was intensified by another reason. They were the "Democratic Party" of their day; their whole power lay in the reputation they had with the people for piety. The Lord denounced them as hypocrites; in one of the most powerful denuciations of a religious sect, Jesus rails against them in ''Matthew'' 23, accusing them of deliberately keeping people from the Kingdom of Heaven and a relationship with God:
:''"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in."''
:''"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."''
:''"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."''
Moreover He had secured a deeper popularity than theirs. At length when cajolery failed to win Him and astute questioning failed to destroy His popularity, they combined with their opponents, the Sadducees, against Him as against a common enemy.
====Jesus' denunciation of the Pharisees====
On the other hand, Jesus denounced the Pharisees more than He denounced any other class of the people. This seems strange when we remember that the main body of the religious people who actively looked for the Messiah had belonged to the Pharisees, and His teaching and theirs had a strong external resemblance. It was this external resemblance, united as it was with a profound spiritual difference, which made it incumbent on Jesus to mark Himself off from them. All righteousness with the Pharisees was external, it lay in meats and drinks and divers washings, in the tithing of mint, anise and cummin; and above all in the public show. Jesus placed religion on a different footing and removed it into another region. With Him it was the heart that must be right with God and not merely the external actions; not only the outside of the cup and platter was to be cleansed, but the inside first of all. It is to be noted that, as written in the ''Acts'', the Pharisees were less antagonistic to the apostles when their Lord had left them after the Resurrection.
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