Chapter III. What the Doctrines or Institutions of the Pharisees Were

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Among the doctrines of the Pharisees, the first and almost principal one which writers mention is that they assigned all things to fate.

[margin: There was order among the Pharisees.]

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But there can be some question about how they understood fate. Saint Epiphanius, in heresy 16, understands this heresy in the way in which it is rejected by Saint Augustine and by the whole Christian Church. For he objects that by this fate they take away the autexousion of human beings, that is, free will, and God’s just judgment, by which rewards or punishments are ordinarily decreed. For if someone, as the same Saint Epiphanius says, acts “not from himself, not freely, but by the force of fatal necessity,” what punishment is there? What reward?

Sixtus Senensis, however, in book 2 of the Bibliotheca Sancta, understands fate in the way granted by the Peripatetic philosophers, as may be seen in Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate, Plotinus On Fate, Ammonius, Psellus, and Magentinus on Aristotle’s On Interpretation; Simplicius, Themistius, and Philoponus on book 2 of Aristotle’s Physics; and also by Christian philosophers, Gregory of Nyssa On Fate, Boethius, Consolation book 4, prose 6, Julius Sirenius On Fate, and Toletus, book 2 of the Physics, chapter 6, question 11.

The words of Senensis are these: “By fate, that is, by God’s foreknowledge and immutable decree, all things happen, while the free assent of the human will nevertheless remains. For by this tempering God, the best and greatest, governs things in such a way that,

[margin: Fate; Senensis, Bibliotheca Sancta 2; Rhodiginus 5.9; Baronius, Apparatus.]

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although all things depend on his deliberation, in a human being the faculty remains intact for approaching virtue or vice.” Rhodiginus too seems to incline in this direction in book 5, chapter 9.

But I rather adhere to the opinion of Saint Epiphanius, not only because his authority is much greater, but also because it agrees more closely with Josephus concerning the Pharisees. In his Life, Josephus says that the Pharisaic heresy is near and similar to the Stoic one. It is well known from Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods and On Fate, from Seneca, Natural Questions book 2, chapter 36, from Gellius, book 6, chapter 2, and from others, what necessity of fate the Stoics established.

The same Josephus nevertheless notes two things that somewhat lighten and diminish the vanity of this foolish opinion about fate. One is in book 13, chapter 9: they did not ascribe all things to fate, but only certain things. His Greek means: “The Pharisees say that some things, and not all things, are the work of fate; some things are in our own power, to happen or not to happen.” The other is in book 2, chapter 12, where he joins fate with God and leaves something to free will: “They attribute all things to fate and to God; yet to act justly or not, they leave chiefly in the power of human beings.”

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Second, from this occasion of fate Saint Epiphanius says that these same Pharisees devoted themselves greatly to astronomy, and that from the practice of men deceived by Gentile error they fashioned Hebrew names for the planets and for the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Since these names are in Latin and Greek partly obscure and almost corrupt, I shall here try briefly either to restore or to explain them.

1. The sun: Emacaesemes. Two names are involved, Ema and Semes, that is, the Hebrew names חמה and שמש, corresponding to heat or the sun.

2. The moon: Iereach and Levanah, likewise two Hebrew words, ירח and לבנה or הלבנה.

3. Mars: Choreb Ocmol. Serarius corrects this from the Greek as Chocheb Omol: “star” (כוכב) plus a word he explains as mercy or sparing (חמול), because Mars is the star of battles and wars, in which indulgence should have a place, or because pardon should be sought from God on account of it. Or perhaps it comes rather from קמול, a word meaning “to cut down.” Today, from the color by which this star is red, or by which blood shed in war is red, it is called by the Hebrews מאדים, Maadim.

4. Mercury: Choreb Ochmod. Again this should be corrected as above from the Greek as Chocheb Ochmod: the star of wisdom (כוכב חכמות) or of desire (חמוד), because Mercury was thought to preside over trade, in which there is continual desire for gain. Today it is called מרקולים, Merkolim.

[margin: Astrology.]

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5. Jupiter: according to the earlier correction, this should be read in Latin as Chocheb Baal, in Greek as the star of Baal, that is, the principal star or the star of the Lord, כוכב בעל. Today it is called צדק, Tsedek.

6. Venus: Serua or Lued, interpreted as sowing, kindling, or shining; Serarius connects it with the Hebrew words זרוע, sowing, and להט, kindling or shining. Today it is named from splendor, נגה, Nogah.

7. Saturn: again, according to the earlier correction, Cocheb Sabeth, כוכב שבת, the star of the Sabbath. Today it is simply called שבתאי, Shabbathai.

The signs of the Zodiac are these:

1. Aries: Tele, טלא, though because of the kinship of the gutturals ה is often placed for א, so that it is also written טלה; it means a lamb or ram.

2. Taurus: Sor, שור.

3. Gemini: Thomim, תאמים.

4. Cancer: Sartan, סרטן, not fartam as in the Latin.

5. Leo: Ariyeh, אריה, and by syncope Ari, ארי, sometimes badly written in Greek.

6. Virgo: Bethulah, בתולה.

7. Libra: Moznayim, מאזנים, given once in a poorer form and once better.

8. Scorpio: Akrab, עקרב, once given corruptly, and earlier correctly.

9. Sagittarius: Kesheth, קשת.

10. Capricorn: Gedi, גדי.

11. Aquarius: Deli, דלי.

12. Pisces: Dagim, דגים.

Thus the Gentiles, as Saint Jerome says to Fabiola in letter 128 on the priestly garment, defamed heavenly things and God’s ordering by the names of idols.

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Some of them, as Pliny in book 1, chapter 3, thought that various forms of animals were truly present in the sky, and that seeds sometimes fell from them upon land and sea. Yet, as Macrobius says in book 1, chapter 19, on the Dream of Scipio, all these images and names were made by human choice. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, in book 8 against astrology, chapter 5, and Theodorus Gramineus, in his work on the sphere, chapter 3, rightly wish that either all of them, or at least a large part of them, be changed by Christians into better and more honorable names. See Saint Gregory on Job, book 4, chapters 6 and 7. But because of Pharisaic astrology, this is enough in this place.

Third, Josephus, book 2, chapter 12, says that they spoke of a migration or transmigration of souls: not of all souls, but of the souls of good men, which remain and enter the bodies of good men. The souls of the wicked, however, they said, were immediately punished with eternal torment. From the first part of this doctrine there arose the many reports of men concerning Christ, and yet by that very fact they testified that he was endowed with goodness and excellence, because they thought the soul of one of those men whom they believed to be very good had entered into his body. Thus in Matthew 16:14 they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

[margin: Transmigration of souls; eternal punishments and rewards.]

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Josephus, cited a little above, says again in book 18, chapter 2, in Greek, as the recent interpreter translates: “They believe souls to be immortal, and that judgments are passed upon them beneath the earth; then rewards come to each according to the merit of virtue or malice; the latter are condemned to everlasting prisons, while for the former there is an easy return to life.”

Fourth, they strongly urged the traditions of the elders, Matthew 15:2 and following, Mark 7:1 and following. Some of the ancient heretics said that these traditions were all the books of the Old Testament, as the Manichees did; others said they were only some of them, as the Ptolemaeans did according to Saint Epiphanius, book 1, heresy 33. Our own Innovators, however, either all of them or almost all of them, both Lutherans and Calvinists, want all the traditions which exist in the Christian Church to be these traditions, if they are not written in the Bible itself.

But first it must be known that the Jewish opinion is that a twofold law was delivered by God to Moses, and by Moses himself to Joshua, and by Joshua then to others. One is the law which was written and is called by them thorah bichtab; the other was not written, but handed down by mouth, and is called thorah schebehalpeh, just as in Justinian, book 1 of the Institutes, laws are written and unwritten.

[margin: Traditions; what the traditions of the Pharisees were.]

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Secondly, the same Hebrews think the former law is simple and literal, and they call it peschat, as Elias explains in the Tishbi; the latter they think mystical and spiritual. Thirdly, from this division of the law the Masoreth and Cabala also arose. I have said more about these in my work on Joshua, when I asked whether Joshua received the cabala from Moses.

Fourthly, there were at last certain rabbis among the Jews who decreed and prescribed various things, as though necessary or very useful for the worship of God, the observance of the law, and the salvation of the soul. These are called either gezeroth hazekenim, that is, the decrees or ordinances of the elders, or misnaioth, that is, repetitions, as it were secondary laws or laws added in a secondary way to the law of Moses. Rambam says much about these in the preface to his Iad or Hand, at the beginning of the first volume; so too the author of the book Arba Turim, Recanati, and the book of the one hundred blessings. I have discussed the four kinds of traditions celebrated among the Jews in book 1 of the Maccabees, chapter 2, page 629, and book 2, chapter 1, page 782.

Hence also comes the Jewish Talmud, whose two parts are the Mishnah and the Gemarah, although sometimes that common name is given to one of the two parts almost as its own proper name, as Elias shows in the cited book. The Mishnah is the “repetition,” as it were the text itself; the Gemarah is the “completion” or consummation, as it were the gloss and commentary itself. And these latter gezeroth hazekenim and misnaioth

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are called by the Lord “the traditions of the elders,” or “of men,” in Matthew 15 and Mark 7. Saint Epiphanius, in the Ptolemaean heresy, number 33, says: “The traditions of the elders are called by the Jews repetitions.” What sort of traditions these were can be understood in two ways: from certain examples, and from the book of Mishnaioth itself, which exists in various forms. Here I shall keep to the former method, as I began, by noting those traditions which the holy Gospels supply.

1. They did not in any way take food with common or unwashed hands, Matthew 15:2, Mark 7:3, Luke 11:37.

2. While eating they also washed themselves often, as can be gathered from the water jars set out at the wedding feast of Cana in Galilee, John 2; and what was done there is said to have been according to “the purification of the Jews.” Hence Saint Mark says that they wash their hands frequently. Because the Greek has pygme, the recent interpreter Beza translates it “to wash with the fist.” “The Pharisees,” he says, “and all the Jews, unless they wash their hands with the fist, do not eat.” Truly an interpretation worthy of being beaten with fists. For by what reasoning are hands washed with a fist?

It is better to say that pygme is here an adverb, like kyklo and parresia, and means frequently, zealously, and diligently, the metaphor being taken from boxers and boxing, which is called pygme. In boxing the fists are thrown often, with great effort and diligence.

[margin: Various traditions of the Pharisees: 1 and 2; washing the hands often.]

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Thus to do something pygme is to do that very thing repeatedly, often, and vigorously. So we see in a certain ancient writer cited by Suidas, though not named - who nevertheless, from the matter itself, seems to be Procopius - that a cognate word takes on adverbial force. From this Casaubon concludes against Beza, though otherwise he praises him, as we shall see below: “Certainly I would no more think that pygme nipsasthai in that place should be interpreted ‘to wash with the fist’ than that, in the earlier passage, pyx oryxantes should mean ‘digging with the fist.’”

The explanation just given is confirmed from the Syriac text, in which “to wash” is betilaith, just as in Luke 1:39 “to go away” is betilaith, “with haste.” Moreover, Saint Epiphanius, in heresy 15, the heresy of the scribes, twice uses the same adverb in this sense.

So that we may have some image of such frequent and careful washing, hear a few things from the ten requirements which the cited book of the hundred blessings teaches must be done whenever food is taken. “First, one must not eat without the table set. Secondly, the hands must first be washed and dried; otherwise the bread which is eaten is judged unclean. The manner of washing the hands is this: one must stand while washing the hands, and not lean on a wall or on any support. Pure water must be chosen, not salty or corrupt water, which a dog would disdain to drink.

[margin: The Jewish manner of washing hands.]

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“Water must be poured over the hands three times. At the first pouring the fingers are to be lifted upward; at the later pourings they are to be lowered. The hands are to be raised together, not one after the other. Thirdly, in the washing of the hands the left hand must serve the right like a servant. Nor will it be enough if, without water, you wipe your hands well with a napkin, or if you come to the table with unwashed hands and, using a spoon, do not touch the food with your bare hand. If someone wishes to come to the table from the privy, he is bound to wash his hands twice.” I omit the rest.

3. “From the marketplace,” says Saint Mark, chapter 7, verse 4, “unless they are baptized, they do not eat.” Because in the marketplace there was a gathering of various people - Jews and Gentiles, and Jews either clean or unclean - they washed themselves as soon as they returned home, lest perhaps they had been polluted by someone’s touch. Indeed, as the verb “baptize” seems to suggest, they immersed their whole body in water. So Plutarch says in the book On Superstition, “Baptize yourself into the sea.” From this came the Hemerobaptists; and from the Pharisees came Banus, that hermit under whose discipline Flavius Josephus placed himself as a youth. Josephus records at the beginning of his Life that Banus was accustomed to wash himself often, day and night, in cold water for purity.

[margin: Jewish baptisms.]

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4. In the same place Saint Mark says: “There are many other things which have been handed down to them to observe: the washings of cups, pitchers, bronze vessels, and couches.” For “pitchers,” Beza, wishing to say something new, put “sextarii,” although even in the old glossary the word means a little jar; elsewhere it means a measure or small vessel. Others say it is anything that can be scraped out, such as a stone water jar. And in Syriac this Greek word is retained here, as other Greek words are elsewhere.

Why, in the same way, did Beza not put “copper pot,” “kettle,” or “large vessel” for “bronze vessels”? For the Greek word denotes a kitchen vessel. By “couches” understand the beds on which people reclined when taking food, from which come the dining rooms called triclinia. So too in Matthew 23:28, and where Luke 11:40 speaks of dishes or basins. And today, around the feast of Passover, what washings of their bodies and of almost all their household goods do the Jews not perform? Johannes Pfefferkorn narrates them fully in his little book on their Passover.

5. They did not take food with sinners either, Matthew 9:11. For when the Pharisees saw Christ the Lord reclining with sinners, they said to his disciples, “Why does your master eat with publicans and sinners?”

6. Indeed, they did not even wish to be touched by sinners, Luke 7:39. When the Pharisee saw Mary Magdalene wiping the Lord’s feet with the hair of her head

[margin: 4. Other washings; 5. Food with sinners; 6. Contact.]

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and kissing them, he said within himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman it is who touches him, because she is a sinner.” There still remain today certain Jews on an island in the Red Sea who, if they see any foreigner there, immediately cry out, “Do not touch.” Mention of them will be made later in due course.

7. Among them there flourished an excessive observance of the Sabbath, to such a degree that they did not want the sick to be healed on it, Luke 6:7 and John 9:16; nor did they want those who had been healed to carry home on their shoulders the bed on which they had lain sick, John 9:10; nor did they want the hungry to pluck ears of grain and rub them for eating, Matthew 12:2.

Moses of Kotzi and Rambam, volume 1, folio 143, report that the general works forbidden to all on the Sabbath were thirty-nine, but that the special works forbidden to certain persons were more numerous, and that among these is counted תלוש, the pulling up of a growing thing. Synesius, writing to Evoptius, reports that there was a Jew on a ship who, when a storm had even arisen, laid down the rudder which he had been holding on the very evening of the Preparation, and through that whole night and the following day remained wonderfully motionless and read a book of the law.

Origen, in book 4 On First Principles, reports of the Dositheans that they kept Sabbath rest in such a way that whatever posture, place, or position each of them was found in on that day - whether standing, sitting, inside, or outside - he remained in the same state.

[margin: Sabbath.]

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Saint Jerome, imitating that passage of Origen in his letter to Algasia and speaking about the Pharisees, says: “Because it is commanded that on the Sabbath days each person sit in his own house and not go out or walk from the place where he lives, when we begin to press them according to the letter, so that they do not lie down, do not walk, do not stand, but only sit if they wish to keep the commandments, they are accustomed to answer: Rabbi Akiba, Simon, and Hillel, our teachers, handed down to us that we may walk two thousand feet on the Sabbath, and other things of that sort, preferring the doctrines of men to the doctrine of God. We do not say that one must always sit on the Sabbath and not withdraw from the place in which one has been occupied, but that what is impossible in the law, where it is weakened by the flesh, must be fulfilled by spiritual observance.”

Origen further adds in the same place: “But what the law says, not to lift a burden on the Sabbath day, seems to me impossible. For from this the teachers of the Jews, as the holy Apostle says, were rolled down into endless fables, saying that it is not considered a burden if someone has shoes without nails, but that it is a burden if someone has boots with nails. And if someone carries something over one shoulder, they judge it to be a burden; but if over both shoulders, they deny that it is a burden.”

8. They fasted frequently, Matthew 9:14 and Luke 5:33. Certainly Banus, the teacher of Josephus Flavius, took in the wilderness only such things as grew of themselves.

[margin: Fasting.]

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And that boastful Pharisee in Luke 18 says that he fasted twice in the Sabbath, that is, on two days in each week. Saint Epiphanius, in heresy 16, explains that these were the second and fifth weekdays.

9. Similarly the Pharisees prayed frequently, Luke 5:33; according to Saint Epiphanius, heresy 16, they prayed continually. And Matthew 23:14 and Luke 6:2 show that they made long prayers, as is also apparent in Cether Malcouth and in the Jerusalem Talmud, where prayer, or thephillah, is treated. They also prayed in synagogues and on the corners of streets, Matthew 6:5; see Rambam, volume 1, folios 67 and 73.

10. To these fasts and prayers must be referred that extremely austere and extraordinary manner of life which Saint Epiphanius narrates about them in the same heresy 16. First, some of them took upon themselves an exercise of virginity or continence lasting four, eight, or ten years. Josephus, in his Life, says that at the age of thirty he kept his wife inviolate.

In this struggle to guard chastity they used such contention and labor that they made continual prayers, lest anything bodily should happen to them, or lest some emission should perhaps befall them secretly and unexpectedly in sleep. Some made for themselves little narrow beds, one span wide, in which they would place themselves in the evening, so that if sleep should perhaps overwhelm them, they would fall to the ground and thus, roused again from sleep, return to prayer and live a sleepless life as far as possible. Others gathered sharp stones and pebbles and put them under themselves, so that, being painfully pricked by them, they would never sink into deep sleep but would force themselves to keep watch. Some even used thorns as a bed. These things are from Saint Epiphanius.

[margin: Prayer; austerity of life.]

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11. They gave tithes to God from all their possessions, even the smallest: mint, dill, cumin, rue, and every kind of herb, Matthew 23:23, Luke 11:42, and Luke 18:12. Saint Epiphanius says in the cited place that they tithed, gave firstfruits, offered thirtieth and fiftieth portions, consecrated sacrifices, and paid vows. There were also some to whom tithes were owed and brought as to priests, yet who did not accept them, as Josephus narrates of himself in his Life.

12. They also placed very great effort on bringing certain people from Gentilism and idolatry to the Jewish religion. This is what the Lord says in Matthew 23: they went around sea and dry land to make one proselyte. For such a coming over or access by which Gentiles were initiated into the Jewish sacred rites, the Talmudists say that three things were necessary — מילה וטבילה ודם של קרבן — circumcision, baptism, and the blood of an offering, that is, a bloody victim.

They add, however: “If it is a woman, only baptism and offering will be necessary.” And again, because today the Jews do not have an altar or sacrifices, they add that for men, until the rebuilding of the temple for which they hope, baptism and circumcision are sufficient; for women, only baptism. Rambam explains this more fully in volume 2, folio 137, in Issure Biah, chapter 13, where he teaches

[margin: Tithes; proselytes; what was necessary for making a proselyte.]

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how in the times of David and Solomon, when many thousands of Gentiles received the worship of God and the Jewish religion, they were not circumcised but were only baptized; and that this same baptism was also to be given to the Gentiles in the times of the Messiah. We see the same in the Christian Church: it was given formerly, and is now given daily, even in the farthest regions of the rising and setting sun, India, Japan, and Peru - praise and glory to Christ Jesus, the Messiah himself.

13. They broadened their phylacteries and enlarged their fringes, Matthew 23:5, where in Greek the words “of their garments” or “of their cloaks” are added. These phylacteries raise three questions.

First, what were they? Saint Epiphanius, in heresy 15, says: “Those who wish to speak exactly are accustomed to transfer the name phylacteries to purple marks. For this reason the Lord, according to them, called them phylacteries. The following words also indicate the phrase and meaning of the expression, and the fringes of their cloaks: so that he calls the hems and borders fringes, but the signs and marks of the purple itself phylacteries. For he says, ‘having broadened your phylacteries and enlarged the fringes of your cloaks.’ For each person had certain fringes and borders on the four corners of his cloak, tied from the very thread, at the time when they were living continuously or practicing virginity.”

Others, however, hand down that all these were slips of paper, or rather parchments, which they tied to the forehead

[margin: What phylacteries were.]

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and with which they crowned the head around both ears, so to speak.

The second question is: what was written on them? Saint Chrysostom and Saint Jerome, on Matthew 23, think that the Decalogue was usually written on them. The Jewish rabbis, however, say that four sections from Scripture were written there. The first is: “Sanctify to me every firstborn that opens the womb,” and so forth, Exodus 13:7-11. The second is in the same chapter: “When he has brought you in,” from verse 7 to verse 17. The third is: “Hear, Israel: the Lord God of Israel, the Lord is one,” Deuteronomy 6. The fourth is: “If therefore,” Deuteronomy 11:13-19.

The Jews still keep this custom today. They secretly carry around a little crown for the head, usually made from leather, which they fasten with two knots. In the first knot, which is at the forehead, those written little parchments are enclosed. In the second, nothing is enclosed, but they tell the tale that it was shown to Moses by God.

There are also precepts about the quality of those parchments and the whole manner of writing those sentences. “First, the parchment must be from a clean domestic animal or wild animal; then it must be whole, with no hole in it and no place through which ink might run. The writing must be on that side of the parchment which had touched the flesh of the animal. They must be written with the right hand, even if the writer is otherwise ambidextrous. But if someone can use only the left hand, that will stand in place of the right. If someone cannot write in a straight line unless some line has first been drawn,

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he may draw one first. If any one of the letters already written is entirely erased, so that a child who is not foolish cannot read it, it will be unfit; but if the child can still read it, it is fit. In the upper part of the phylacteries themselves, no more empty space is to be left than the letter lamed requires; in the lower part, no more than final caph and nun require. The entire writing of those same phylacteries must be enclosed in four lines. Yet it is not necessary that a line be drawn between the written lines.

“When someone wears them on his head, he must not approach any cemetery within the space of four cubits. If sacred Bibles or those phylacteries are present anywhere, it is not lawful for a husband to know his wife unless either they are carried elsewhere, or are placed inside one vessel, and that vessel again inside a second, and that one inside a third.” These and many other things are found in Rabbi Moses of Kotzi, Rabbi Jacob, the author of Arba Turim, and others; Oleaster includes some of them on Exodus 13, question 3.

Why are they called phylacteries? Among the Hebrews they are called טוטפות, totaphoth, and certain Hebrews say that this is an Egyptian word meaning spectacles; Oleaster approves this. But nearly all translate it as frontlets. In the Chaldaic language, however, they are commonly called תפילין, tephillin or tephillah. Some derive this from תפל, a verb meaning to join, as Baal Aruch wishes, as though they join us to God, just as certain mystical rabbis teach about thephillah, that is, prayer; and they join God’s law and God himself to us. Or, as Elias in the Tishbi prefers, it comes from פלל, the verb for prayer; they also speak of the tephillah of the hand and of the head.

Why they are translated in Greek as phylakteria, which the Latins retain, is explained in two opinions.

[margin: Whence phylacteries are named.]

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Since phylassein means “to guard” and phylassesthai means “to be guarded,” some think they are so called because they were certain remedies and amulets against the destructive terrors, plagues, and snares of demons. Thus Horapollo, book 1 of the Hieroglyphics, chapter 24, calls those things phylacteries by which, even without any letters, certain people guard themselves, so that no demonic thing may touch them.

So too Saint Jerome on Matthew 23 says: “They called those little Decalogue slips phylacteries because whoever had them would, as it were, have them for his own guard and defense.” Some in Saint Epiphanius, whom he rejects, say the same. From this notion, however, the word is used in a bad sense and condemned by the Trullan Synod: those “phylactery-makers” who, as Balsamon interprets, by the deceit of the demon give to those deceived by it certain bonds woven of silk threads, which are also called periapta. Saint Augustine, in sermon 215 On Time, calls them diabolical phylacteries.

In a good sense, however, Saint Gregory wrote to Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, in book 12, letter 7: “We have taken care to send phylacteries to our most excellent son, King Adaloald, that is, a cross with wood of the holy cross of the Lord, and a reading from the holy Gospel enclosed in a Persian case.”

Others, however, say they were so named because they guarded the memory of God, of his law, and of his commandments, and were, as it were, a perpetual memorial so that no sin would be committed. And this is more consistent

[margin: Canon 61.]

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with the text from which the Jews derived their use and observance of these things, Deuteronomy 6:8 and Exodus 13:16, where in Deuteronomy, in place of totaphoth, there is set זכרון, zecaron, that is, as the Seventy translated it, a memorial. And so Aben Ezra also explains it.

Two further little questions could be added here. The first is whether all Jews were bound to wear such inscribed plates or little parchments literally. Saint Jerome says that the Pharisees interpreted the matter badly. The second is whether those sacred objects which some wear hanging from the neck - amulets, for example the beginning of Saint John’s Gospel, some small cross, and the like - are condemned here. Beza asserts that they are condemned, citing the Synod of Antioch; and Saint Jerome also seems altogether to condemn them in this same place.

To the first question Abulensis, on Matthew 23, questions 40, 41, and 44, replies with Saint Jerome that there was no commandment by which the Jews were bound to these phylacteries. On the second, something has been said elsewhere by the same Abulensis, question 38 on the same chapter of Saint Matthew; by our Gretser in book 2 On the Cross, chapter 29, book 4, chapter 47; by our Del Rio in the books of the Disquisitions on Magic; and by me in a certain little discourse about these matters. For now this is enough: the Pharisees, so that they might display a greater religion toward God, were accustomed to make those parchments broader. This is what it means to broaden the phylacteries.

Saint Jerome says in the cited place: “The Pharisees wrote on parchments the Decalogue of Moses,

[margin: Del Rio, Disquisitions on Magic, cited.]

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that is, the ten words of the law, folding them and binding them on the forehead, and making, as it were, a crown for the head, so that they might always move before the eyes. The Indians, Persians, and Babylonians still do this today.”

There are two Hebrew names for fringes. One occurs in Numbers 15:38-39, ציצים, tsitsith. The other occurs in Deuteronomy 22:12, גדילים, gedilim. Whatever may be said about those phylacteries, it is certain that these fringes were prescribed, as Abulensis indicates in the questions just cited, so much so that even our Lord and Savior himself wore fringes, Luke 8:44.

They were worn first as a reminder of the divine commandments, as is said in Numbers 15. Secondly, they gave the Jewish people some distinction in dress from other nations, so that, just as circumcision gave a sign of the Jewish people on their bodies, their clothing too would have some difference.

Some nevertheless make a certain distinction between these two names, as though the first signified a cluster of many threads gathered into a little ball and hanging from the edge of the garment, such as we call zotten in German, as in curls of hair, in which Cicero said that he saw dripping fringes on Piso; and the second signified the threads themselves, which are called fransen in German and franges in French. The Seventy, however, simply rendered the former passage as “fringes” and the latter likewise. Still, I do not know how it happened that certain Gentiles almost imitated this kind of garment,

[margin: Fringes, what they are.]

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as Homer reports of Nestor in book 10 of the Iliad.

Therefore, just as the Pharisees made their phylacteries broader, so too they made their fringes larger. For this is what it means to “magnify” them, as is understood from its conjunction with phylacteries, although elsewhere, sometimes in Varro and Pliny, “to magnify” means to boast magnificently and to raise up with praises, and likewise in Euripides’ Bacchae. In this good sense the Blessed Virgin sang in Luke 1, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” as even Henry Stephanus among the Innovators teaches, in his book on the Latinity of Lipsius, that our Interpreter correctly rendered it.

But Saint Jerome adds here something marvelous about our Pharisees. “They made great fringes,” he says, “and tied very sharp thorns in them, so that as they walked and sat they would sometimes be pricked, and by this admonition, as it were, be drawn back to the duties of the Lord and the service owed him.”

Now since the Hebrew gedilim by its own force shows that the fringes ought to be great, the Pharisees nevertheless made them still greater. The Jews still wear these fringes today. For they have a little garment, made square, which covers the back and breast and is open at the sides, as certain small hair-shirts usually are, or as some garments would be if you removed the sleeves. From the four lowest corners of this little garment hang the same number of little cords, and in each of them there are five knots, in memory, as they say, of the five

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books of Moses. Sometimes, when they pray among their own people, they put it over their other garments; otherwise they are accustomed to cover it beneath them, attributing to it some force against wicked concupiscence, as Oleaster reports on Numbers 15. Ridiculous, unless they mean that this happens through the memory of the divine law itself, which restrains that raging desire.

14. On the piety owed by children toward parents, they taught as follows, Matthew 15:5: “Whoever says to father or mother, ‘Whatever gift is from me will profit you,’ and he does not honor his father or mother.” How much difficulty these words contain all the interpreters declare, and most recently Maldonatus, after bringing forward many interpretations, follows one of them, that of Strabus, Hugh, and Lyra, until he finds a better.

Leaving these aside, I think the sense is this, which the transposition of one word, “is,” made here by someone or other, has rendered so obscure: “It is a gift, whatever of mine will profit you.” That is, you Pharisees teach this doctrine contrary to the divine doctrine: that anyone may say to anyone, but especially a son to a parent in need of help, “It is a gift,” or “It is offered to God,” or “Let everything by which I can benefit you be vowed and dedicated to God.”

For first, this is the force of the Greek words: “A gift, whatever from me you may be helped by.” Secondly, this meaning and this order of words are clearly seen in Saint Mark, chapter 7, verse 11:

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“Corban, that is, a gift, whatever from me may have profited you.” Thirdly, interpreters have commonly rendered Corban in Greek as a gift, and our interpreter as a gift or offering, something offered to God, as in Leviticus 1:2 and following, Hebrews 5:1 and 8:3.

Fourthly, in the tractate of the Jewish Talmud on oaths and vows, this formula of vowing is still expressly read: “Let every thing be a gift, or anathema to God, that can be pleasing to you from me,” or “that can benefit you from me,” as Masius rightly noted on Joshua 6. There is also that excellent passage in Theophrastus, in the book On Laws, that the Tyrians forbade anyone to swear foreign oaths, and that among these Josephus, in book 1 Against Apion, page 927, records the oath called Kosban.

15. On the obligation of oaths themselves the same men taught as follows, Matthew 23:16: “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound.” And verse 18: “Whoever swears by the altar, or by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift, or by the gift which is upon it, is bound.” These were fixed formulas of swearing among the Jews, just as also that formula in Matthew 5:35, “by Jerusalem,” and “by one’s head,” by which Jews still swear according to Rambam, volume 1, folio 23, in Halecah Thalmud Hatthorah, chapter 7. The Jerusalem Talmud may also be consulted in Sanhedrin, and again Rambam on other sayings, volume 3, folios 374, 375, and 381.

[margin: Oaths.]

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16. On their love toward the ancient prophets, Matthew 23:29: they built the tombs of the prophets, adorned the monuments of the just, and said, “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their associates in the blood of the prophets.” And Luke 11:47-48. But more on this again below.

17. On their disposition toward Saint John the Baptist: some received his baptism, Matthew 3:7; some rejected it, Luke 7:30. Yet they held him in the highest regard, and with great honor they undertook an embassy to him, to learn who he was, whether the Christ, or a prophet, John 1:19 and 24.

18. On the affection of the same men toward Christ the Lord: they themselves acknowledged in general that the Christ was the son of David, Matthew 22:42. But they did not know that our Jesus was that very Christ and the Son of God, Saint Epiphanius says; indeed, they denied it most obstinately and shamelessly, and opposed him by every means they could.

First, they accused him of violating the law because of the Sabbath violated in those ways which were indicated above from Matthew 12:2, Luke 6:7, John 9:15, and elsewhere. Secondly, they blamed him because he transgressed the traditions of the elders: by not washing his hands before food, or at least by not teaching his disciples that their hands must be washed;

[margin: The prophets; John the Baptist; Christ.]

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by eating with sinners; and the like, concerning which above from Matthew 9 and 15, Mark 7, Luke 7, and Luke 19:39.

Thirdly, they interpreted Christ the Lord’s words and deeds badly, attributing them to vainglory, John 8:13: “You bear witness about yourself”; and even to the devil, Matthew 9:34 and 12:24: “By the prince of demons he casts out demons.” Similar things occur in the Jerusalem Talmud, tractate Avodah Zarah, and Rambam, volume 1, folio 10.

Fourthly, they objected that he usurped for himself the things that belong to God, such as the forgiveness of sins, Luke 5:21. Fifthly, they very often tempted him and tried to catch him in speech: through disputes, arguments, and contentions, John 8; through cunning questions about dismissing wives, Matthew 19:3; about Caesar’s tax, Matthew 22:15-16; about the judgment of the adulteress, John 8:4-5; and through requests for miracles, Matthew 12:38 and 16:1.

Sixthly, they attempted to destroy him, Matthew 21:45 and John 4:1, and more openly John 7:32, when they sent certain officers and soldiers to seize him. Seventhly, they seized him, sending a cohort into the garden where he then was, John 18:3; and they procured his death through false testimonies and through Pilate, as, although it is nowhere said by name, it seems to be gathered from Mark 14:53, 55, and 15:1. After his death they tried to prevent his resurrection and the prediction concerning it, Matthew

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27:62. Finally, they gravely and cruelly persecuted his doctrine, disciples, and followers, John 7:47-48, 52; 9:22 and 34; 12:19 and 42. Because of this, Nicodemus was afraid and came to Christ himself by night, John 3.

19. They sat upon Moses’ chair, Matthew 23. First, “chair” is taken either properly, for a material seat, whether it is made of wood, gold, or stone, or tropically. Euthymius thought that it is taken here properly, as in 2 Esdras 8:4. Others reject this, because in those ancient times it was not the custom among the Jews that a man who read or interpreted Scripture should go up into a platform or sit on some seat, but rather that he should rise and stand.

This can be confirmed first from that very passage, cited by Euthymius for a material pulpit, 2 Esdras 8, where Esdras read the book of the law standing, with Mattathias, Semeia, and others standing beside him. Secondly, Christ the Lord, Luke 4:16, “entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day according to his custom, and rose to read.” Thirdly, Acts 13:16: in the synagogue of Antioch, “Paul rose and, motioning with his hand for silence, said, ‘Men of Israel.’” Fourthly, the same custom exists today among the Jews, and formerly also among Christians, 1 Corinthians 14:30. Fifthly, those who heard the word of God stood, Judges 3:20; and among Christians formerly, as Saint Augustine testifies in homily 16. How much more, then, those who proclaimed it?

[margin: Moses’ chair.]

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Still, the custom of sitting was more usual everywhere for teachers when they taught in schools, synagogues, and temples, even among the Jews. First, when Christ the Lord, in Luke 4, had read a place from Scripture and had folded up the book, he sat down, verse 20, and then began to teach, as is explained in the following verses.

Secondly, “when the same Lord saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him; and opening his mouth, he taught them,” Matthew 5:1-2. He taught the crowds sitting from a little boat, Luke 5:3. Again, verse 17: “And it happened on one of the days, and he himself was sitting and teaching.” Again John 8:1: “Sitting, he taught them.”

Thirdly, when he was twelve years old, “he was sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and questioning them,” Luke 2:46. If the boy was sitting in the midst of the teachers, then the teachers themselves were sitting too. Indeed, painters depict this boy as being ordered by all who heard him, admiring and astonished, to ascend to a higher chair and to teach from it. Saint Vincent, from the old proverb “Painters and poets,” rebukes them; but perhaps with too little reason. For if at times they indulge themselves in some fiction, they should not therefore always be thought to err. And indeed in this matter they have a very ancient writer as supporter, Sedulius, when he says:

In heart he seemed older, and among the teachers of the law he sat as an experienced master, a master by right.

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What, then, does the Church say? At the beginning of the Mass on the Sunday when that Gospel is read, does it not recite from Ecclesiasticus 24, “I saw him sitting upon a lofty throne”?

Fourthly, to pass over these things, the metaphorical chairs of which I shall speak later show that true chairs were used in teaching. Fifthly, Saint Augustine teaches, in book 1 On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, chapter 1, that it belongs to the authority of a master that he sit. For this reason the emperor Theodosius did not want Arsenius, the teacher, to stand before his sons, the pupils. Hence the exedrae of the ancients, and the philosophers called “chairmen”; hence among us the thrones and chairs of bishops, about which Saint Chrysostom speaks in homily 3 on Colossians 1, Saint Augustine in book 4 On Christian Doctrine, chapter 27, and on Psalm 36, exposition 3.

Hence, finally, academies and schools among the Hebrews are called ieschiboth, as though “sittings”; and disciples sit before the prophets, 4 Kings 6:2, and likewise in Pirke Avoth, chapters 3 and 5. Yet it must not be denied that sometimes and somewhere it happened, either for the sake of reverence or for some other purpose and occasion, that either teachers or learners stood, just as in the Peripatetic school they walked. And when Christ the Lord in Luke 4, Saint Paul in Acts 13, and others in 1 Corinthians 14 are said to have “risen,” that sufficiently indicates that they had previously, after the common custom of all the rest, been sitting along with them.

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Therefore it seems to me that for another reason “chair” is taken in this place not properly, but tropically. For Moses’ chair would either be some one chair in which Moses himself had once properly sat, or one in which Moses was taught, or at least any chair whatever in which and from which Moses was read and taught.

Not the first, because no one tells of any one such chair, preserved from the time of Moses down to Christ the Lord. For even if it had been of stone or gold, age would not yet have destroyed it; yet the storms of so many and such dreadful wars would either have broken it to pieces or carried it elsewhere, and much more would they have burned one made of wood. Nor is it lawful to imagine that it was brought back from Persia or from elsewhere, or guarded somewhere like the sacred ark or the fire.

Not the second, because we do not read of any such single chair. And if there had been one, so many scribes and so many Pharisees could hardly have sat upon it. When time had consumed it, it would no longer have been Moses’ chair; or at least the name would have been common to several such chairs.

Not the third, because not only the scribes and Pharisees would have sat upon Moses’ chair, but also all fathers and mothers of families, since they were bound privately to teach their children the law and the ceremonies which Moses had prescribed, Exodus 12:26-27; Deuteronomy 4:9-10; 6:20; 11:19. The Sadducees also and the Samaritans would have sat in

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Moses’ chair, because in their temple on Gerizim they read and taught the law of Moses. Indeed they would claim Moses’ chair for themselves all the more, insofar as what they themselves did seemed more Mosaic: to receive Moses alone and to reject all the other writings of the prophets. So today our Lutherans and Calvinists boast that they honor the Scriptures most highly because, they say, they listen to them alone and spurn the rest.

Moreover, whenever the Pharisees sat in some chair of some synagogue, Moses’ chair would always be there. For it is clear from Matthew 23:6 and Luke 11:43 that there were several chairs in the synagogues.

But if there is a trope in this chair, what then does it signify? “The doctrine of the law,” says Saint Jerome, whom the Venerable Bede follows. But this doctrine is not to be taken in a precise and bare sense. For otherwise, as I said above, Jewish parents too would have held this chair at home, and so would everyone who in some school or synagogue had taught Moses to children or others; and the Sadducees and Samaritans would especially have arrogated it to themselves.

Therefore this chair is indeed the doctrine of the law, but taught and proposed with public and legitimate authority; or it is the public and legitimate authority of teaching and proposing the law. Thus to sit in Moses’ chair is nothing other than to have public and legitimate authority and power for teaching and explaining the Mosaic law.

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First, this appears from the things already discussed. Then it appears from this: without legitimate power it was lawful for no one to teach in the temple, as the elders and rulers object to Christ the Lord, Matthew 21:23. For when the Lord had come into the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people approached him as he taught, saying, “By what authority do you do this, and who gave you this authority?”

This authority was given first by the high priest, and then by those who had that authority from him, such as the rulers of synagogues, of whom mention is made in Matthew 5, Luke 8, and Luke 13, as Abulensis notes on Matthew 23, question 14.

In this way “seat” and “throne” of the king are also commonly taken for royal power: Genesis 41:40; Deuteronomy 17:18; 3 Kings 1:30, 37 and following; Proverbs 16:12; Jeremiah 17:25 and 22:30; Daniel 5:20; Obadiah 3. So too the seat, throne, and chair of God, Psalm 44:7; Psalm 46:9; Psalm 102:12; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 28:2; and elsewhere. So too the seat and throne of the one who was once high priest. For in that very chapter of Gorionides, about which there is a dispute between me and Drusius, Eleazar the Pharisee said to Hyrcanus: “Come down from the seat of the priesthood, and let the seat of the kingdom suffice for you,” that is, abdicate pontifical power and be content with royal power alone.

So today Saint Peter’s chair is pontifical power in the Christian Church. Fourthly, for the same reason it seems to be called the key of knowledge, Luke 11:52. For a key is the symbol of power, Isaiah 22 and Apocalypse 3.

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Fifthly, those things which will be noted below from Saint Augustine tend very much in this direction. Lyra also meant this here when he called it authority and judicial power; by this he understood ecclesiastical and spiritual power, not that which is forensic and has a civil tribunal, as Abulensis seems to have taken Lyra’s words in question 11 when he objects against them, although neither there nor in question 14 does he disagree from Lyra’s mind.

But let us hear, among the Innovators, Beza alone on Matthew 23: “The Lord signifies,” he says, “that this order of interpreting the law, of which mention occurs in Numbers 11:16, was divinely established, and therefore that the truth must be heard even from the mouth of mercenary and hypocritical teachers.”

Sixthly, Josephus, book 13, chapter 18, says that certain things were established by them, and that they handed down to the people many ordinances from the succession of the fathers which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for this reason the heresy of the Sadducees rejected them. Seventhly, in the same chapter, Matthew 23:4 and Luke 11:46, it is added that the same Pharisees and lawyers were accustomed to bind heavy burdens, so that Calvin understands by that binding excommunication, which, as in the Christian Church, so also in the old synagogue, was no light penalty, John 9:22; 2 Esdras 13:28.

But Matthew 7:29 says: “Christ was teaching as one having authority, and not as the scribes and Pharisees,” as the Syriac text says along with our Latin. Did they therefore have no authority? Some reply that authority here is called that by which someone can make laws by his own decision and authority. Others say it is the power of striking and moving not only the ears outwardly, but also minds inwardly. Others, finally, say it is the power of miracles, by which the Lord confirmed in deed what he taught in word.

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If all these are joined together, the exposition will be complete in every respect. Thus Luke 4:32 says: “They were astonished at his teaching, because his speech was with authority.”