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First, Gorionides teaches in book 4, chapter 29, that the Pharisees are called the wise men of Israel, as we have already seen above. But this must be understood in this sense: they themselves were indeed wise men, and at that time especially prominent among the wise, but they were not the only wise men, nor were there no others who had arisen before them. For who would not count the scribes among the wise? Who would not count the Essenes? Clearly the word “wise” extends more widely than scribe, Pharisee, or Essene, and can include both these and others. Thus all those who excel in doctrine and learning are called wise, just as the Jews often call their rabbis by that name.
Saint Jerome to Algasia: “The teachers of the Jews are called sophoi, that is, wise men. And when on fixed days they explain their traditions to their disciples, they are accustomed to say, ‘The wise teach the deuteroses,’ or rather, ‘the traditions.’” Hence sometimes the wise are distinguished from the scribes and others, as something more general is distinguished from those things that are more special: Matthew 23:34, “Behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes”; Isaiah 33:18 and 1 Corinthians 1:20, “Where is the wise man? Where is
[margin: Who are called wise among the Jews.]
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the scribe? Where is the investigator of this world?” Jeremiah 8:8-9.
Elias notes in the Tishbi that many later declined the name of wise men and, out of modesty, called themselves Thalmidim, as if disciples of wisdom or of the wise, just as Cicero writes of Pythagoras in book 5 of the Tusculan Disputations, and Diogenes Laertius in book 1, On Famous Men.
Second. Those whom our interpreter calls lawyers and doctors of the law are called in Greek nomikoi in Saint Matthew 22:34; Saint Luke 7:30, 10:25, 11:45-46 and 52, and 14:3; and Titus 3:13. Sometimes they are also called nomodidaskaloi, Luke 5:17, Acts 5:34, and 1 Timothy 1:7. But that they are not to be distinguished from the scribes can be clear from their office, which I will discuss a little later, and from Matthew 7:29, 17:10; Mark 12:28; Luke 7:30, 11:45; and 1 Corinthians 1:20.
Saint Epiphanius, heresy 16, says that the grammateis are interpreted as nomodidaskaloi. Immediately he adds that “with them were the same lawyers,” that is, the same men were also nomikoi, or experts in the law. Cornarius translated this badly, as if the lawyers too kept company with them, as though they were different from them and only had some association with them. They are, however, distinguished from the Pharisees; this is clear from Luke 5:17, 7:30, 11, and often in chapter 14:3. Yet sometimes the same men were Pharisees by sect and doctors of the law by office, as Matthew 22:34 says, “One of them,” that is, of the Pharisees, “a lawyer”; and Acts 5:34 says this of Gamaliel, of whom we spoke above.
Among the Hebrews, moreh, “teacher,” comes from iarah, from which also comes thorah, law.
[margin: Thalmidim. Lawyers and scribes are the same.]
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Third. Scribes are set down in Scripture in two ways: either precisely, or with some addition. Precisely, again, in two ways. For some were occupied with certain civil records, contracts, and instruments, just as notaries are among us today, as can be seen from Jeremiah 32:11 and Psalm 44:2. Others, however, were engaged in sacred books, writing them out, preserving them, and explaining them: 4 Kings 22:8-10; Ezra 1:7 and 10, and chapter 11; Jeremiah 8:8; Matthew 7:29, 17:10, 23:2; and 1 Corinthians 1:20.
These latter men were the same as the nomikoi, or lawyers, of whom I spoke a little earlier. They were distinct from the Pharisees, with whom they are often named together: distinct, indeed, but nevertheless sufficiently joined by similarity of life and teaching. See Matthew 5, 12:38, 15:1, 23:2, 13, 14, 23, and 25; Luke 5:21 and 30, 6:7; and John 8:3. And just as the same man can be both a doctor of the law and a Pharisee, so too he can be both a scribe and a Pharisee.
Hence Abulensis, on Matthew 23, question 12, briefly and clearly says:
It must be known that although scribes and Pharisees are placed here as distinct, they are not distinguished from each other as a Pharisee and a Sadducee are, or as opposites are. For no Pharisee is a Sadducee, nor the contrary, because they were separate and, as it were, opposed sects. Rather, they are distinguished as a grammarian and a dialectician are; for being a grammarian is one thing, and being a dialectician another. Yet the same man can be both a grammarian
[margin: Scribes are placed in Scripture in two ways.]
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and a dialectician. So too, being a scribe is one thing, and being a Pharisee another: being a scribe is to be wise in the law; being a Pharisee is to have a definite way of life and sect. And yet it happens that the same man is a Pharisee and a scribe, that is, learned in the law.
With an addition, however, they are not called simply scribes, but scribes of the people, Matthew 2:4 and 1 Maccabees 5:42. From this it appears that they had particular authority in relation to some business of the people, or that they especially had to consult the institution and advantage of the people, or that they were assigned to some public council of the people. Something similar seems to appear in those who are called simply elders, Matthew 27:12 and 41; chapter 28:12; and Mark 15:1, or with the addition elders of the people, 1 Maccabees 12:6 and 35; Matthew 27:1; and Luke 22:66.
Since prophecy also signifies the interpretation of divine oracles, as in 1 Corinthians 14, the Chaldean Targum sometimes translates prophets as scribes: 4 Kings 23:2; 2 Paralipomenon 35:8; Jeremiah 26:11 and 29:2.
But to which kind of scribes, precisely taken, do those belong who are sometimes attributed to kings in 2 Kings 8:18 and 20:25; 4 Kings 12:10 and 22:3? This is a question. I interpret them as interpreters of divine matters, just as today at least one notable theologian is always present with kings and princes. But Rabbi Solomon, the Chaldean Targum on Genesis 49, and the Talmudists fabricate the story
[margin: Prophets are sometimes called scribes. What royal scribes were. From what tribe scribes came.]
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that scribes came from the poor tribe of Simeon, although from Ezra it is clear that they were either often Levites, or certainly from any tribe whatever. Nor do the Talmudists assert more truly that they were established by Ezra himself, since they already existed before, and he, in his own time, was only the highest and, as it were, the chief of them all.