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This may seem so to someone for the following reasons.
First, they are everywhere blamed so severely by Christ the Lord. For they are called hypocrites, Matthew 15:7, 22:18, and very often in chapter 23; avaricious, Luke 16:14; fools, Matthew 23:17 and 19, Luke 11:40; desirous of empty glory, Matthew 6:2 and 5, Matthew 23:5-7, Luke 11:43; outwardly clean, in the same place and verse 28; whitewashed tombs, Matthew 23:27; monuments that do not appear, Luke 11:44; full of plunder and uncleanness, Matthew 23:25; full of hypocrisy and iniquity, verse 28; blind, Luke 9:40, Matthew 15:7 and 14, 23:16, 17, 19, 24, and 26; an evil and adulterous generation, Matthew 16:4; serpents and broods of vipers, Matthew 3:7 and 23:33; and finally children of Gehenna,
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Matthew 23:15.
Secondly, Christ the Lord says very clearly in Matthew 16:11, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” And when he had explained what he meant, “then,” verse 12, “they understood that he had not said to beware the leaven of bread, but the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Thirdly, the same Christ the Lord says to the same men, Matthew 15:3: “Why do you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” He then proves this, as also in Mark 7.
Fourthly, Matthew 5:21: “Unless your justice abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” After this he teaches that they either erred or were less exact in the exposition of God’s commandments concerning homicide, verse 23; adultery, verse 28; divorce, verse 32; perjury, verse 34; and retaliation, verse 38.
Fifthly, the whole of Saint Matthew’s chapter 23 is occupied in censuring them, and likewise a large part of Saint Luke’s chapter 11, and this with the terrible “woe” repeated many times.
Sixthly, Saint Jerome, on Matthew 16, says: “The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees does not signify bodily bread, but perverse traditions and heretical doctrines.” And a little after: “This is the leaven of which the Apostle speaks, ‘A little leaven corrupts the whole lump.’ Marcion, Valentinus, and all heretics had leaven of this sort, which must be avoided in every way.” Afterward he compares heretical doctrine with leaven. The same Saint Jerome, on Isaiah
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chapter 8, says that by their deuteroses they dissipated and stained the precepts of the law. Again, in the letter to Algasia, he calls those deuteroses “old wives’ tales,” and says that “many of them are so foul that I blush to speak of them.”
Rupert, when in book 1 on Jeremiah, chapter 4, he had said that those things must be destroyed by Jeremiah which had been badly built, added: “Such, most especially, are the assemblies of the scribes and Pharisees, having the root of avarice fixed deep in the earth.” Eighthly, Saint Epiphanius and Philastrius call the Pharisees heretics; and Maldonatus, among recent writers on Matthew 3:7, says that heretics are signified through them.
Some distinction must be applied here. For some of the doctrines and institutions of the Pharisees are quite openly evil, as is clear from the things said above: the first, concerning the necessity of fate; the second, concerning the excessive efficacy of the stars; the third, concerning the transmigration of souls; the fourteenth, concerning impiety of children toward parents; the fifteenth, concerning the emptiness of oaths. But the worst and most criminal of all is the eighteenth, concerning their extreme unbelief, wickedness, and savagery toward Jesus Christ.
Some, however, are quite openly good in their own kind: the eighth and ninth, concerning prayer and fasting; the eleventh, concerning the tithing of all possessions; the sixteenth, concerning supreme honor for the ancient prophets; and the nineteenth, concerning the office of teaching and interpreting the divine law.
[margin: Distinction among Pharisaic institutions: some bad; some good.]
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For in these matters that saying of Christ the Lord in Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42 applies: “These things ought not to be omitted.” What else does this word of necessity, “ought,” signify except that those institutions of the Pharisees about which the Lord was there speaking were by no means to be neglected, and therefore were also good?
Finally, some are less openly either evil or good, such as the fourth, concerning the traditions of the elders; the seventh, concerning so great an observance of the Sabbath; the tenth, concerning such austerity in food and sleep; and the thirteenth, concerning the broadening of phylacteries and the magnifying of fringes.
Yet all of them, both good and bad, both open and doubtful, are most deservedly blamed in the Pharisees, because even those which were plainly and in themselves good - much more those which were more obscurely good, or could be good - they depraved and corrupted, as almost the first argument shows. For they referred those good things rather to empty glory and ambition. “All their works,” says the Lord in Matthew 23:5, “they do in order to be seen by men”; verse 6, “They love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplace, and to be called Rabbi by men”; Luke 11:43.
Secondly, they employed much hypocrisy and simulated much holiness which they wholly lacked; the place already cited. Thirdly, they sought riches, and for the hunting of them they made prayers and certain other things,
[margin: Both bad and good were badly done by them.]
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Matthew 23:14: “You devour the houses of widows, praying long prayers.”
Fourthly, they looked around at themselves, displayed themselves, and boasted magnificently, Matthew 6 and Luke 18. Fifthly, they despised others, Luke 7 and 18. Sixthly, they superstitiously observed certain little things and freely violated others much greater. The Lord says in Matthew 23:24: “Straining out a gnat, swallowing a camel.” This proverb is taken from hotter regions, such as Judea was, where gnats frequently fly into wine vessels and cups if they stand open even for a little while; so if someone wants to drink that wine very pure, it is necessary to strain it and hold back the gnats in the strainer. In the same way, formerly at Cologne, Mainz, and elsewhere, if anything harmful or unclean happened to fall into chalices, the wine was strained, as I noted in my Moguntiacis.
Those, therefore, who feared so greatly to swallow a tiny creature, swallowed, I say, that enormous animal, the camel.
Seventhly, they very zealously pursued certain good things which were voluntarily and freely undertaken and were not necessary; but they set aside the things in the law of the Lord which were necessary and much weightier and greater, for example judgment, mercy, and faith, Matthew 23:23. For these things, which are necessary, weightier, and more useful, ought to be done; those other things, although good, are not necessary,
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and lighter, and “ought not to be omitted” if someone has imposed them on himself and has bound himself to them by a vow or by some manner of life. In this way, I take that word “ought” in the latter phrase to be repeated.
Eighthly, they imposed on others certain things which were indeed good, but heavy and burdensome, which they themselves did not touch even with a finger, Matthew 23:4. Ninthly, they did not live in accordance with their good doctrine, Matthew 23:3.
Tenthly, they were a bad example and scandal to many. For this reason, in the same place, verse 13, they shut the kingdom of heaven before men; neither did they enter it themselves, nor did they allow others to enter. Although others take this differently, it seems rightly to be understood with respect to Christ the Lord and his Church, from which the Pharisees called away very many by their example.
Saint Augustine, book 16 Against Faustus, chapter 29, refers to the same bad example what is said of the proselytes in Matthew 23:15, that they were made children of Gehenna by the Pharisees. “Not because he is circumcised,” he says, “but because he imitates their morals, a proselyte becomes a child of Gehenna.” And a little after: “A proselyte became a child of Gehenna not by hearing the words of the law from the Pharisees, but by following their deeds. Therefore what Paul says in Romans 2 could then be said to a circumcised proselyte: ‘Circumcision indeed profits, if you keep the law.’”
This exposition, however, explains only how proselytes were rendered liable to Gehenna by the Pharisees, not why they were made twice as much so as they were. Therefore the same Saint Augustine adds:
[margin: How proselytes became children of Gehenna.]
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“Because he imitated the Pharisees in not keeping the law, he became a child of Gehenna. For this reason, as far as I think, he was twice as much so as they, because he neglected to fulfill what he had undertaken by his own will: he was not born from the Jews, but had freely become a Jew.”
But even if in this way proselytes are conceded to become twice as worthy of punishment, it still does not yet follow that the Pharisees made them so. Eleventhly, then, although others say other things, the Pharisees seem to have created for their proselytes a double Gehenna because they did not take sufficient care that they cast away their former malice in Gentilism and their depravity of morals, and because they supplied to them the occasion of adding a new malice, and a corrupt example.
Then again, they relaxed the Mosaic law for them and permitted certain things which it prohibited, for example forbidden marriages. This is attested both by what Rambam wrote in volume 2, folio 137, where he treats of Din thorah lecouthim, that is, the judgment and manner of the law concerning the Cuthaeans, or Samaritans and Gentiles, and also by the complaint of certain rabbis, when they explain that the harsher things in the law of Moses, and the penalties established for those who sin, ought to be set before all who wish to come to Judaism.
“Certainly,” they say, “it would be good for Israel if not so many proselytes were made from the Gentiles, because they are burdensome and harmful to Israel. Since they are not trained in the institutions of the Mosaic law, it happens that the Israelites learn from their deeds. Go and see how much evil was done
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in the affair of the calf, and in the graves of craving.” For Egyptian proselytes were the authors for the Israelites both of worshiping that calf and of desiring the Egyptian pots.
Twelfthly and finally, the Pharisees, together with certain good works, joined other things which were evil and which were contradicted by those very good works; and so, by actions otherwise good, they pronounced, as it were, a sentence against themselves. This is the case in chapter 23, noted above at number 16, concerning their honor for the ancient prophets and just men in relation to their mausoleums.
For the Lord used against them a most prudent syllogism, as blessed Jerome says, and it can be gathered in this way:
Whoever criticizes evil-doers and yet imitates them does evil and condemns himself. But you Pharisees criticize those who do evil and yet imitate them. Therefore.
The assumption is proved as to the first part. When you build and adorn the monuments of the prophets and saints whom your ancestors killed, you confess, both by deed and by word, that your ancestors acted wickedly. By deed, because you judge worthy of adornment those whom they judged unworthy of life; and those whom they slaughtered with murders, you honor with honors. By word, because you say, “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been their associates in the blood of the prophets.”
Now as to the latter part, the same assumption is proved, because you are of such a mind, such obstinacy and savagery,
[margin: How the Pharisees badly built the tombs of the prophets; on Matthew 23; Jeremiah 2:6, 30, 34.]
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that in a similar way you now wish to kill and to afflict with exquisite punishments the prophets, wise men, and scribes who are sent to you by God.
But the Lord expresses this latter part and its proof in various ways, suited to his purpose and to that present time. First, by concession, Matthew 23:32: “And you, fill up the measure of your fathers”; although from certain ancient Greek copies, in which the verb is past, it could be translated: “And you have filled up the measure of your fathers,” that is, by the settled purpose of your mind and by your obstinate will of wickedness, you have already equaled the depravity of your ancestors; you are already equal to them in crime and malice.
Secondly, by prediction, verse 34, corresponding to the promise already made: “Therefore behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.”
Thirdly, by a sharp comparison of both parts in Saint Luke 11:48: “Certainly you testify that you consent to the works of your fathers”; and these works are proved to be impious because “they indeed killed them, but you build their tombs,” as though they were most worthy of life and honor. And yet the very things which you condemn in your ancestors, you yourselves do. Therefore, verse 49: “And the wisdom of God said: I will send to them prophets and apostles. And some of them they will kill and persecute.”
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And thus a passage otherwise difficult is understood without difficulty. These discourses of the holy Fathers also illustrate it.
Saint Augustine, book 2 Against the Adversary of the Law, chapter 5, when he explains those words, “You are the sons of those who killed the prophets,” says: “The Lord surely called them sons by imitation of crime, not by propagation of race. For the fact that they were born from them according to the flesh could not be charged to them as a crime; rather, it was because they showed themselves like them in unbelieving cruelty. Therefore he turns and says: ‘And you, fill up the measure of your fathers.’” And afterward: “It is indeed clear, indeed manifest, that these are sons of evil men by imitation, from whom the holy and just prophets, from Abel himself whom his brother killed, down to Zacharias whom they themselves killed, endured the most impious and criminal persecutions. For how did the blood of those men who lived long before they themselves were born come upon them, unless because there is one kind, one mingling, one mass of the impious, joined together with itself by imitation?”
Saint Chrysostom, homily 75 on Matthew 5, says: “He did not say woe to them because they build, nor because they accuse their fathers, but because in doing and saying these things, they dared to condemn their fathers, while they themselves committed worse things.”
Saint Ambrose on Luke 11 says: “By building the tombs of the prophets, they accused of crime those who killed them; and by emulating similar deeds they also declared themselves heirs of paternal iniquity. Therefore it is not the building, but the emulation, that is reckoned as the crime.”
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As for the things that were objected, the explanation is either already clear from what has been said, or will certainly become clear from what will be said below. For some points require a little question.