The Confounding of the Jewish Sects and the Exposure of Their Vices Before the People

The Sanhedrin, for all its rage against Jesus Christ for the humiliation of its members before the people, thought it best to keep silent for the time being, and not to undertake any open violence against Him. This seeming magnanimity was prompted by fear of the people, who loved Jesus. Meanwhile, the wounded pride of the scribes could not remain entirely idle even for a short while; within a few minutes a new plan against the God-man was drawn up, whose inventors and executors were, as one might easily guess, the Pharisees (Mt 22:15). Learning that He continued to converse with the people in the Temple, the hypocrites agreed to send to Him several men of their own persuasion, to entrap Him in some word. The well-known freedom of speech and openness with which Jesus Christ always expressed His thoughts was a pledge of their success. It only remained to devise a question as plausible as it was dangerous, and to put it in such a way as not to reveal the purpose behind it. Such a question suggested itself of its own accord—it was the question of the tribute, which for twenty years (since Judea’s conversion into a Roman province) had been paid to Caesar, and had troubled the mind and conscience of the Jews, and for some imprudent patriots (Judas the Galilean and his associates, for instance) had been the occasion of bloody revolt against the Romans. Notwithstanding the failure and grievous consequences of that revolt, the greater part of the people, guided by the promptings of the Pharisees and their own self-regard, still held that the tribute paid to the Romans was the result of unlawful oppression, and contrary to the spirit of the Mosaic religion. For an Israelite, they thought, bound to acknowledge Jehovah alone as his king, there ought to be but one lawful tax, collected for the Temple of Jehovah (Ex 30:12–16). Those who thought otherwise (the Herodians and part of the Sadducees) had no support among the people, and were reckoned as apostates, drawn to the side of the Gentiles by advantage or by fear. It was on this very subject that it was resolved to question Jesus. He who acted as the Messiah, it seemed, ought to be able to settle a question everyone asked and no one had fully settled—the question of the tribute; all the more so, since everyone expected that the Messiah’s coming would change their relations with the Romans.

The Pharisees, of course, hoped to hear from Jesus Christ an answer hostile to the Romans, for they supposed that He, in His capacity as Messiah, sought an earthly kingdom, and would, for this, further the freeing of a people unwilling to pay tribute to the Romans. But in that case Jesus Christ’s answer would have been the strongest pretext for the Pharisees to accuse Him before the Roman procurator. To forbid, or to call unjust, the tribute paid to the Romans meant, in their eyes, being a disturber of the public peace. For this crime the Roman procurators punished all the more strictly and readily, the harder it was to accustom the Jews, like other peoples, to paying tribute. Yet the Pharisees would have lost nothing even had Jesus Christ, against their expectation, answered the question of the tribute in the Romans’ favor: by this He would Himself have turned the people away from Him, who could in no way conceive that the Messiah would ever command them to pay tribute to the Gentiles. A third possible answer to the question of the tribute the Pharisees probably did not find; and indeed, it was not easy to conceive of one.

For greater success in their cunning, the Pharisees invited the Herodians to join them. This sect, distinguished by its inclination toward pagan culture and manners128, disagreed with the Pharisees on many points, the latter being overly attached to everything native to their own land: on the matter of the tribute, precisely, the Herodians maintained the opposite of the general opinion, holding it lawful129. But it was precisely because of their opposition that they were now useful to the Pharisees—in case Jesus Christ, as they hoped, should not approve the tribute. For the Pharisees themselves to accuse Him before the Roman authority for this patriotic act would have been to draw upon themselves the hatred of the people, whose love the Pharisees prized greatly; the Herodians, however, could do this without any unpleasant consequences to themselves. Besides, an accusation from the Herodians, as courtiers devoted to the house of Herod, and consequently to Caesar, would carry far more weight with the Roman procurator, who had many reasons not to trust the Pharisees in their professed zeal for the Romans.

As tempters, disciples of the Pharisees were chosen (Mt 22:16), so as not to arouse suspicion. They were instructed to mingle with the crowd surrounding Jesus Christ, and to feign piety and attentiveness to His teaching. Having done so, the young hypocrites, after a few unimportant questions, turned the conversation with Christ in the direction they needed. «Teacher,—thus began one of the hypocrites—we should especially like to know Your opinion on one matter. Almost no one speaks of it openly, but we know that for You truth is above all things; You have never regarded persons, nor feared dangers, but have taught the truth, as befits a Teacher of Israel».

Such flattery already betrayed itself strongly before the Lord, who did not love praise.

«Tell us, how does the tribute collected for Caesar seem to You? In paying it, do we, of the people of God, not make ourselves slaves of the Gentiles—do we not offend our own conscience? Should we pay it,—he added, lowering his voice—or not pay it?»

Such a question was bound to please the simple-hearted people exceedingly, for the matter asked about concerned everyone, from the high priest to the lowliest slave. The very praise of Jesus was also pleasing to the people, who in fact thought of Him just as the scribe had hypocritically said.

But the Knower of Hearts at once understood the tempters’ purpose. «How long will you go on,—He said with indignation — trying to test Me, you hypocrites?!.. Show Me the coin used to pay the tribute» (Mt 22:18–19).

The Pharisees handed Him a denarius—a Roman coin bearing the image of Caesar.

The Lord took the coin, looked at the image and the inscription, and, handing it back, asked: «Whose image is this, and what inscription?» «Caesar’s»—the Pharisee answered, not knowing what would come of his answer.

«What then—the Lord answered — give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God» (Mt 22:21). (The one, that is, does not contradict the other: for Caesar demands what is his own, and does not forbid what belongs to God.)

This answer astonished everyone, for it was fashioned, so to speak, out of nothing. The scribes themselves had to admit that it was said most thoughtfully and wisely. The Lord paid, it seemed, no attention whatever to the foundation of the question—to Caesar’s rights over the Jews—and, contrary to the Pharisees’ wish, said not a word about those rights; but neither, plainly, had they asked about that. What they had asked, on the contrary—whether tribute should be given to Caesar, whether it contradicted conscience and religion—was resolved so clearly and satisfactorily, so much in keeping with the people’s temper (the man of the East loves short, positive answers and cannot bear abstract reasoning), and even with the maxims of the rabbinic learning of that time (among the rabbinic jurists it had long been accepted as an incontestable truth: whoever’s coin it is, his is the kingdom)130, that the Pharisees had nothing left to do but fall silent and withdraw.

News of the Pharisees’ disgrace at once spread among the scribes, who were always numerous in the Temple. To the Sadducees this circumstance seemed a favorable occasion to test their own strength as well, so that, by a victory over Jesus Christ, they might humble at the same time the pride of the Pharisees, their constant rivals and enemies. Perhaps they even wished to find out whether Jesus Christ, so bitterly insulted by the Pharisees, might not approve the teaching of their own sect, might show some inclination toward Sadducism; in that case they would have had to exchange their hatred of Him for sympathy, or at least to suspend further persecution131. Such a hope might have been grounded in the fact that Jesus Christ, while constantly rebuking the Pharisees, spoke less often and less severely against the Sadducees. Whatever purpose the Sadducees may have had, however, their temptation held no personal danger for Jesus Christ: they wished to do battle with learning alone. The subject chosen for the contest was the very one that constantly arose in the disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees—the resurrection of the dead. Jesus Christ constantly and publicly taught that the souls of men are immortal, and that all the dead must one day rise again. To refute this truth the Sadducees chose the strongest of their objections, one probably reckoned unanswerable in their disputes with the Pharisees. And so, as men with no secret designs dangerous to Jesus Christ, they went straight to the matter.

«Teacher! Moses said (Deut 25:5–10; Gen 38:8) that if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother (Mt 22:24). As a consequence of this law, the following happened: there were seven brothers; the first, having married, died, and, having no children, left his wife to his brother; the second, taking her, likewise died childless; in like manner the third and the fourth died—even to the seventh. Finally, after them all, the wife died too. The question is (the Sadducee continued): which of the seven husbands will she be wife to (Mt 22:28) when all rise again? All seven (he added) had her» (Mt 22:23–33; Mk 12:18–27; Lk 20:27–39).

What the matter was tending toward, and why this strange case of the wife was proposed, had to be guessed. Such was the usual manner of the rabbis in their disputations: pointing to some example, giving only hints, without drawing out the distinct inferences and conclusions to which a man of the East cannot accustom himself. In our own manner of expressing thought, the force of the Sadducean objection lay in the following: ‘In the books of Moses there is not only no proof whatever of the immortality of souls, but there is even something that flatly contradicts the teaching on the resurrection of the dead—namely, the law of levirate marriage. If the dead rise again (as the Pharisees, and You, teach), then the wife given as an example must, by the law of levirate marriage, belong either to all seven husbands, or to none, which is equally absurd; but so absurd a law (as the law of levirate marriage turns out to be, in relation to immortality) Moses—the wisest, divinely inspired lawgiver—could not have given; therefore, by Moses’s own teaching, there is no resurrection of the dead, and we, in rejecting the teaching of immortality, are entirely right.’ The reasoning was not, it seems, without force: only it assumed an unproved and false notion—that the sensible bond of marriage remains in force even after the resurrection of the dead, in the future life, between those persons who were spouses in the present life. And not all the Pharisees admitted this latter opinion either132, while Jesus Christ approved of neither the one view nor the other. This made it all the easier to answer the sophism.

«Is it not precisely from this,—the Lord said to the Sadducees—that your error arises: that you do not know the true meaning of the Scriptures, and have no correct notion of the omnipotence of God? Your very manner of thinking about the state of the future life is absurd and false. To marry, to be given in marriage, belongs only to the present life, in which the senses rule. But there nothing sensual exists, and so there is no marriage either. The children of the resurrection will be children not of the flesh, but of God; their state will be like that of the angels.»

This remark alone would have sufficed to confound the Sadducees, since it entirely refuted the Sadducean objection along with its very foundation. But the Lord probably saw the possibility of leading some of the Sadducees out of their error133, and so was not content with refuting the objection alone, but added, for His part, a most convincing proof of immortality.

«Just as unjust—He continued—is your thought that there is nothing in the Law of Moses about the resurrection of the dead and the life to come. Have you never read those passages where God’s appearance to Moses is described? What does God call Himself there? «I am — He says — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob». But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; therefore to Him all are alive» (Ex 3:6; Lk 20:37).

The Sadducees were silent. The proof Jesus Christ had adduced, apart from its unexpectedness (among the Sadducees it was held certain that the books of Moses contained no such indications of immortality), stood out for a depth and spirituality of meaning unseen in the reasonings of the rabbis, which were for the most part petty and weak134. Everyone involuntarily felt that God would indeed not have called Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had these holy men altogether ceased to exist. Some of the Sadducees expressed their approval aloud, before the people (Lk 20:39), who rejoiced all the more, since Jesus’s triumph over the Sadducees seemed to them a triumph of their own.

The Sadducees’ unsuccessful attempt encouraged the Pharisaic scribes once more, and awakened in them a desire to enter into dispute with Jesus. Having conferred among themselves (Mt 22:34), they chose one (Mt 22:35)—the most skillful and reliable lawyer among them, who, however, as events would show, had not only a mind for judging weighty matters, but also a heart for receiving the truth. Jesus’s earlier answer to the Sadducees, as St Mark observes, had already pleased him greatly, and he took upon himself the task of testing Jesus, probably with a better intention than his associates supposed135.

The question the lawyer proposed touched on a favorite subject—the dispute over the commandments. The Pharisees constantly divided the commandments into great and small; likewise, they all agreed that under the great commandments were to be understood all the ceremonial laws, and under the lesser ones, the rules of morality. But which was the greatest commandment—on this they could by no means agree: some held it to be the law of the sabbath, others the law of circumcision, and so on. The source of these inquiries and disputes was not only the inclination toward subtleties and sophistry natural to the Pharisees, but in part also necessity: on the opinion of which was the greatest commandment depended which commandment might be set aside in case of a so-called conflict, or contradiction, of duties.

«The first of all the commandments—the Lord answered—is this: Listen, O Israel: our God is the Lord, the one and only — therefore love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (Deut 6:5)! This commandment is greater than all others.

The second, like it, is this commandment: love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19:18)!

There is no other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.» (This is the very substance of the whole Law!)

This answer was the best possible, though it did not include the numerical division of the commandments to which the lawyers were accustomed. It was precisely because the Pharisees counted and measured the commandments, instead of penetrating to their spirit and fulfilling them in deed, that they could not agree on which was the greatest.

Not without particular intent, in pronouncing the commandment of love for God, did Jesus Christ mention the oneness of God. This was so that the Jews, when He called Himself the Son of God, should not interpret His words as though He preached two gods. In refutation of this slander it is now said plainly and forcefully that the oneness of God is the first thought one must hold in fulfilling one’s duties.

Jesus’s answer fully satisfied the wish of the scribe who had put the question: «Indeed, Teacher, You have spoken the perfect truth; besides the God we confess there is no other; and to love Him with all one’s heart, with all one’s mind, with all one’s soul, and with all one’s strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself—this is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices!»

To hear such sound judgment from the mouth of a Pharisee scribe, spoken from the heart and with force, was a rare occasion. The Lord, throughout the whole of His ministry, had heard few such sound judgments. «You are not far from the Kingdom of God!» He said to the scribe (Mk 12:34). A bright look, full of mercy, confirmed this verdict. All the more distressing was it for the rest of the Pharisees to hear from their own colleague words that smacked of open betrayal of their sect, which constantly maintained that tradition stood above Scripture, and rites mattered more than commandments.

Many, no doubt, would have wished to know the later fate of this scribe. Tradition says nothing of him. One may suppose that sooner or later he felt the nearness of the Kingdom of God and, becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, justified by his own life that love for God and neighbor is the greatest of all the commandments136.

After these demonstrations of Jesus’s divine wisdom, no one dared any longer to put questions to Him. But when everyone had fallen silent, the Lord Himself began to speak with the Pharisees.

«What do you think,—He asked, about the Messiah—whose son is He to be?»

«David’s»—one Pharisee answered without long reflection, since this truth was known to every child.

«But if the Messiah—Jesus objected—is only a descendant of David, how could David (writing by inspiration) call Him his Lord? How could he write of the Messiah: the Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet? If the Messiah, by this saying, is David’s Lord, then how is He his son» (Mt 22:42–46)?

Failing to find a decisive answer, the Pharisees might nonetheless have resorted to some reasoning, and answered, for instance, that a descendant is often far greater than his ancestors, that the Messiah would be so mighty a king that David himself could and should have called Him his lord. But they, as one may guess from the circumstances, had no wish to reason publicly about a subject that led to their own disgrace. It was already entirely well known that the people held Jesus Christ to be the Messiah; He Himself, though in parables, had already made plain to the scribes who He was, and what fate awaited those who did not acknowledge Him as the Messiah. Supposing that the present question, too, would lead to the same conclusion, the Pharisees thought it best to keep silent.

The question remained unanswered. The Lord Himself did not choose to settle it, since the nearer purpose—to reduce the questioners to silence and expose their ignorance before the people—had already been achieved; and the further purpose—to give occasion for reflection on the divine dignity of the Messiah—was not to be achieved now, or all at once. If Jesus’s present hearers were not yet, in all likelihood, able to receive from Him the lofty teaching on the divinity of His person, the apostles Peter (Act 2:34) and Paul (1Cor 15:25; Hebr 1:13) would later constantly adduce David’s words, spoken here by Jesus Christ, as proof of His divinity, and would disclose their full force.

So ended the disputations with the scribes. The chief Jewish sects had now come before Jesus Christ with their temptations and questions, as if on purpose to show how paltry all their pitiful learning was before the divine wisdom of the supposed Carpenter of Nazareth. The questions they posed may now seem not so weighty or difficult, but at the time they were such that the most learned rabbis did not know how to answer them. St Mark adds that, with the scribes’ humiliation, the people’s respect and devotion toward Jesus Christ increased (Mk 12:37). Indeed, one could not help but feel pleasure and wonder at seeing how a single man had silenced, and exposed the ignorance of, everyone reckoned in Jerusalem the most learned and knowledgeable.

The rather calm tone in which the scribes, notwithstanding their disgrace, continued and resumed the conversation several times over, seemed to bear witness that their hatred of Jesus Christ had not yet reached its highest degree. In truth, it had fully ripened, and only long habit in hypocrisy made it less conspicuous. The Lord saw perfectly into the hearts of His enemies, how coarse and incorrigible they were, and so, drawing near to the end of His ministry, thought it needful, without any sparing, to expose before the people the baseness of their character and conduct, so as to warn simple souls against imitating them.

Turning to the people, He delivered that discourse of rebuke before which hypocrites will forever tremble.

«On the seat of Moses137,—thus He began—the scribes and Pharisees have taken their place. Whatever they tell you to observe, observe it, but do not act according to their deeds; for they say one thing and do another. They bind up heavy, hard-to-carry burdens138 and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will not lift a finger themselves to move them. All their deeds they do so as to be seen by others; for this very reason they widen their phylacteries139 and lengthen the tassels140 of their garments. They also love the first places at feasts and in the synagogues, to be bowed to in the public squares, and to be called: ‘teacher! teacher!’» «You,—the Lord continued, turning to His disciples—are not to follow this example: do not be called teachers141, for you have one Teacher—Christ—and you are all brothers; and call no one on earth your father142 (as the Pharisees do), for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Nor should you, like them, let yourselves be called leaders143, for you have one Leader—Christ. The greatest among you must be servant to all. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.»

— Woe to you—the Lord exclaimed, turning His speech to the Pharisees—scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who shut the Kingdom of Heaven before people, and neither enter it yourselves, nor allow those who wish to enter. Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who devour the houses of widows144, and turn prayer itself into an occasion for hypocrisy, drawing it out from vanity: all the heavier will be the judgment awaiting you! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who cross land and sea to win a single convert to Judaism145, and once you have won him, make him a son of hell twice as bad as yourselves! Woe to you, blind guides, who teach that if anyone swears by the Temple, it means nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the Temple, he is bound to keep his oath! Blind and senseless! Which is greater: the gold, or the Temple that sanctifies the gold? You also teach that if anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound to keep his oath. Foolish and blind! Which is greater—the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Do you not understand that whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it? And whoever swears by the Temple swears by it and by Him who dwells in it? And whoever swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by Him who sits upon it146? Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who give a tenth of every small herb147—of mint, dill, and cumin—while neglecting what is essential in the Law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness; these you ought to have practiced first, and only afterward (if you wish) attended to the rest. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel148! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who so carefully clean the outside of the cup and the dish149, while inside you are full of greed and wrongdoing! Blind Pharisee, clean first what is inside the cup, and then its outside will be clean too. To what shall I compare you—hypocrites? To whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of uncleanness150. So you too appear righteous on the outside, but inside are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness! Wretched ones! You build tombs for the prophets151 and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, «if we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the prophets’ blood.» In saying this, you yourselves bear witness that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ crimes!.. Serpents, brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Hear what the Wisdom of God declares to you through Me: «therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and drive from city to city» (Mt 23:34; Lk 11:49)152. So you will do all this, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah153, whom (such is your reverence for the Temple!) you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, amen, I tell you, all this will come upon this generation, will weigh upon the present generation, upon you and upon your children!.. Jerusalem! Jerusalem, who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a bird gathers her young under her wings154, but you were not willing! You were not willing!.. Then let it be as it must be! Behold, your house is left to you empty155… Truly I tell you, «you will not see Me from now on» (Mt 23:39), until you say, coming out to meet Me with the cry: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!156

With these words the Lord went out from the inner courts of the Temple into the outer ones, as if wishing to show that the fulfillment of His last threat was beginning even now.

After that He was no longer in the Temple.

Discourses like this one do not remain without effect, and are spoken only by those who have come into the world for this very purpose—to bear witness to the truth and to die for it (Jn 18:37). Never before had anyone spoken thus in the Temple of Jerusalem in the presence of the people. Even the rebukes of Isaiah himself (Is 1:1–20) and of Jeremiah (Jer 7:1–15) seem not so forceful in comparison with this one. Everything the Lord had, on various occasions, reproached the scribes for, was now gathered into one. After this the proud hypocrites could not forgive their Accuser: death, a cruel death, would be their answer!..

For the people, the exposure of the scribes was greatly needed. They had, at last, to see the true cause of their calamities, to learn who was leading them, and into what abyss. The time of forbearance had ended. Unwilling to disturb prematurely the existing order of things, for all its imperfections, the Lord had not until now laid bare the full baseness of the people’s teachers’ character; He had even at times upheld the importance of their office (Lk 17:14), and until now had told the people to listen to what they taught. But having shown wise condescension, it was necessary also to show unsparing severity; and this has now been shown! Not one passion was left unrebuked, not one error without reproach. The preferring of human traditions to God’s commandments, the burdening of conscience with needless demands, the perversion of the true meaning of the commandments—all of it was set forth in such a light that the truth could not fail to be seen. Above all, the base character of the scribes, their hypocrisy and their ignorance, were depicted as vividly and forcefully as human speech is able to depict anything. And all this struck the hearers all the more, because Jesus Christ spoke now no longer as an ordinary, or even an extraordinary, teacher, but as the Messiah, who, having been rejected by the synagogue, rebukes it for its unbelief and its murder of the prophets, and foretells the calamities that must inevitably follow. The words «upon you will come all the righteous blood… upon this generation» (Mt 23:35–36) shook the most fearless of hearts. The justice of the rebuke, the holiness of the One who rebuked, vouched to all alike for the inescapability of the fearful threats with which the discourse ended.

Such an exposure of Pharisaism was not without its use for Jesus’s own disciples either, still more for His future followers. The Lord saw clearly that the same vices and passions that had afflicted and brought down the Jewish church would threaten the church of grace He was founding; that among His own followers, too, new Pharisees and scribes would not fail to appear, men who love to bind up unbearable burdens and lay them on the consciences of others, without touching that weight with so much as a finger of their own, skilled at adorning their outward appearance while their inward parts are full of bones and stench—He saw this, and, in the person of the Jewish Pharisees, pronounced «woe» upon every hypocrite among Christians as well.

It is worthy of note that the Lord, in speaking of the killing of the prophets, makes no mention of His own blood, soon to be shed; He promises, notwithstanding His own death, of which the Jews would be the cause, to send them apostles and prophets once more, for their instruction. So free was He, even in this rebuke, from every personal feeling of anger or hatred! So unfailingly did He remember that the Son of Man had come not to judge the world, but to save it!