(printed p. 120 — Book II)
In his commentary on Saint Matthew, chapter 3, verse 7, Maldonatus, after he had explained the origin of the Pharisees and Sadducees, added: “Such today are the ministers of the Supervigilance,” or superintendents, “and similar names recently invented by those who, being called by no authority, have usurped the office of teaching and ruling the people.”
Genebrard, however, in book 2 of the Chronology, often calls the Pharisees Catholics and uses these words:
Certainly, as the Pharisees corresponded to theologians, who search thoroughly into the mysteries of Scripture, so the scribes corresponded to canonists, because they cared for civil and Mosaic laws according to the bark of the law.
Again:
There were also Catholic scribes. Hence in Matthew 23 they are said, together with the Pharisees, to have sat upon Moses’ chair, as those who had invaded it when empty, while the priests, abounding in ecclesiastical riches, neglected their office.
Beza, criticizing these words of his on Matthew 2:4, says: “Indeed you say what the matter is. For an egg is not more like an egg than you theologians and canonists are like those old Pharisees, so that with completely equal right they can be called Catholics, whether we look at the dogma of justice from works or at that foul mixture of most superstitious and most impure traditions.” So also other heretics not rarely call Catholics, and especially religious
(printed p. 121)
men, scribes and Pharisees as a term of abuse. But because I have set before myself not the sowing or harvesting of insults, but the investigation of pure truth, I think that two things must here be brought into consideration.
One is that one and the same thing, because of its different features, can by some likeness be compared now to good persons or things, now to bad ones. For example, we saw earlier that the name leaven is attributed to wicked doctrine and hypocrisy, as also in 1 Corinthians 5:6. Yet in Matthew 13:33, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.” Again, Christ the Lord is called a lion in Apocalypse 5:5; but so too the devil, in 1 Peter 5:8, “going about and seeking whom he may devour.” Solomon is a symbol of Christ the Lord, who brought true peace to the world; and yet is not every woman-loving man, and everyone who falls away from his office or religion through lust, like him?
The other point is that, speaking generally, there were various things in the Pharisees. First, there was the Jewish religion, or, as the Apostle says in Acts 26:5, the Jewish worship. Second, there was their own sect, with respect to certain particular doctrines and institutions of life, good and bad. Third, there were many and serious vices.
Therefore I now say: with respect to the first, Catholics are not badly compared to the Pharisees, because, as was said above, the Pharisees were not heretics. With respect to the second, the orders of religious men and the families of scholastic disputants can be said to be like them: the Thomist,
[margin: Melanchthon, book 2 of the Chronicle and preface to volume 9 of Luther in German, are noted. Two things are to be considered. Threefold answer to the question, points 1-2.]
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the Scotist, and the Durandist, if one considers those institutions which are either good or at least not evil in themselves. But with respect to the bad things, all impious sects can be compared with them, whether of Lutherans, Calvinists, or others.
With respect to the third, I say that all are like them who give themselves over to the same vices, of whatever religion or sect they are, of whatever state or order. For if we are hypocrites, superstitious, arrogant, ambitious, despisers of our neighbors, greedy, widening our phylacteries, magnifying our fringes, whitewashed tombs, envious, treacherous, obstinate, and covered with other Pharisaic crimes of this sort, whether Catholics or Lutherans, Calvinists, or heretics of any other stripe, we are Pharisees and, with the Pharisees, which may the most merciful Lord avert, sons of eternal Gehenna. For that word of Saint Jerome on Matthew 23 belongs to all: “Woe to you wretched ones, to whom the vices of the Pharisees have passed over.”
In this very respect, however, all bad heretics are more wicked than bad Catholics, because they join perfidy and heresy to these vices; indeed, by its rule, they often plunge themselves into these very things.