might now ask: "For what purpose is this accursed "valley?" It is impossible not to be struck with awe, as thus, for the first time, in this primæval vision there is disclosed to us, not, indeed, the name (for no names could be admitted, from the nature of the work), but the locality which afterwards was to furnish forth the most terrible imagery that the world has ever known. It was the glen of the sons of Hinnom, the Valley of Gehenna.

And then the scattered allusions of the ancient prophets are gathered into one point, and the angelic guide announces to Enoch that it is the vale reserved for those who are accursed forever, where they who have blasphemed God shall be gathered together for punishment, where the Judgment shall be pronounced, and the just shall be severed from the bad. Until the Judgment there is some deeper pit of fire, reaching by subterranean channels down to the deep Dead Sea, from time to time, as it was believed, vomiting forth columns of sulphurous smoke.1

Its hopes.

And thence the seer 2 wandered on towards those eastern hills which close the horizon beyond the Jordan valley, and looked into the wild woodlands and farreaching desert of Arabia, and his view was lost in the mountains of myrrh and frankincense and trees of all manner of foliage in some blessed land far away, overhanging the Erythræan sea. The Judgment itself is described more clearly than ever before. The Ancient of Days, more especially in this book called by the affecting name of "the Lord of "spirits; convenes all the race of mankind before Him, and by His side is "the Chosen,' "8"the Son of

1 Dillmann, 132. Probably CalEnoch lxii.

lirhoë.

2 Enoch xxviii. xxix.

8 See note at the end of Lecture XLVIII.

"Man," "whose name was known to Him before the "birth of the sun, or of the stars;" and with the severer images of Judgment are combined those figures of an inexhaustible goodness which are soon to receive an application that shall be immortal. "There is near "him a spring of righteousness which never fails, and "round it are springs of wisdom; and all that are 'thirsty drink of these springs, and become full of "wisdom and have their habitations with the right"eous, the chosen, and the holy." It is the first distinct intimation of a Deliverer who shall appear with the mingled attributes of gentleness and power, not, as in the older prophets, reigning over Israel, but as taking part in the universal judgment of mankind.2

3

From these and like figures was furnished forth the imagery from which four at least of the Books of the Christian Scriptures have largely drawn; and one, the Epistle of St. Jude, by direct quotation of a splendid passage which is not unworthy of the impressive context to which it is transferred. Nor was there wanting

a keen glance of historical insight. As in the vision of Milton's Adam, the Patriarch surveys, under the figure of a wandering flock, the fortunes of the Chosen People, down to the last trials, thinly veiled, of the contemporary Asmonean princes.

Yet, perhaps, even more remarkable than these germs of the religious doctrine of the last age of Judaism and the first age of Christianity are the emphatic reiterated statements in which, as the Father of Science, he is led through all the

Its science.

1 Enoch xlvi.-xlviii.

2 There is a doubt whether the "similitudes" which contain this representation are not of a later date (Colani, Les Espérances Messianiques, 334). But Ewald (v. 360)

leaves them in this period, as well as the whole of the 3d Sibylline Book.

8 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20; 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5; Jude 14, 15; Rev. xx. 9-12. + Enoch lxxxix.-xci.

spheres of the universe and taught to observe the regularity, the uniformity1 of the laws of nature which, indeed, had not altogether escaped the older Psalmists and Prophets, but which had never before been set forth with an earnestness so exuberant and so impassioned. Had Western Christendom followed the example of the Ethiopic Church, and placed the Book of Enoch in its Canon, many a modern philosopher would have taken refuge under its authority from the attacks of ignorant alarmists, many an enlightened theologian would have drawn from its innocent speculations cogent arguments to reconcile religion and science. The physics may be childish, the conclusions erroneous. But not even in the Book of Job is the eager curiosity into all the secrets of nature more boldly encouraged, nor is there any ancient book, Gentile or Jewish, inspired by a more direct and conscious effort to resolve the whole system of the universe, moral, intellectual, and physical, into a unity of government, and idea, and development.

religious

II. But there was a phenomenon more certainly connected with this epoch than these doubtful tales or predictions - a phenomenon of the most fatal importance for the history of Palestine, and also of the most universal significance for the history of the The rise of coming Church. It was the appearance of re- parties. ligious parties and of party-spirit under the name of Pharisee, Sadducee, and Essene, first appearing under Jonathan, developed under John Hyrcanus, leading to fierce civil war under Alexander Jannæus, and playing the chief part in the tremendous drama which marks the consummation of this period. Of the origin of the

1 Enoch i. xvii.-xxxvi. xli. lvii. lviii. lxv.-lxviii. lxxi.-lxxxi.

2 Josephus, Ant., xiii. 5.

The

first of these three famous names there can be no doubt. The idea which had never been altogether absent from the Jewish nation, and which its peculiar local situation had fortified and justified, of "a people1 "dwelling alone;" which had taken new force Pharisees. and fire under the stern reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah; which sprang into preternatural vigor in the Maccabean struggle, had now reached that point at which lofty aspirations petrify into hard dogmatic form, at which patriots become partisans and saints are turned into fanatics, and the holiest names are perverted into by-words and catch-words. There was one designation of this tendency which had preceded that of "Pharisee," in the time of Judas Maccabæus, and which already showed at once the strength and the weakness of the cause. It was that of the Chasidim, or, as in the Greek translation, Assideans, "the Pious." It was they who furnished the nucleus of the insurgents under Mattathias; it was they whose obstinate foolhardiness vexed the great soul, whose narrow selfishness cost the life, of Judas. With him all notice of the party passes from sight, but to reappear under his descendants in the "Pharisee or "Separatist the school or section of the nation, which sometimes seemed almost to absorb the nation itself, and which placed its whole pride and privilege in its isolation from intercourse with the Gentile world.2 The name of Pharisee, which has acquired so sinister a sound to modern Christian ears, has been bandied to and fro by various parties to describe the characteristics of their opponents. Sometimes, as in the mouth of Milton, it has been applied "to the scarlet Prelates, insolent to "maintain traditions." Sometimes, as with a playful

1 Num. xxiii. 1.

2 See Lecture XLVIII.

critic amongst our modern poets, it has been applied to "our British Dissenters." In these contradictory comparisons there is a common element of truth in regard to the rigid separation from the outside world, and the claims to superior sanctity which have sometimes marked alike the pretensions of the hierarchy and of Puritanism. It may also be said that in their constant antagonism to the established priesthood and government of Palestine, the Pharisees, whilst "Conformists to every particular of the law, were "Nonconformists" in their relation to the more moderate principles of the Asmonean dynasty. But these imperfect comparisons fail to exhaust their position. They were more than a sect. They were emphatically the popular party, which had the ear of the Jewish public, whose statements won an easier hearing than was granted to any words that came from the lips of King or Priest. They were the true children1 of the age." They "were the religious world." It was a matter both of principle and policy to multiply the external signs by which they were distinguished from the Gentile world or from those of their own countrymen who approached towards it. They styled themselves "the sages or "the associates." Tassels on their dress; scrolls and small leather boxes fastened on forehead, head, and neck, inscribed with texts of the law; long prayers offered as they stood in public places; rigorous abstinence; constant immersions; these were the sacramental badges by which they hedged themselves round. And in order to clothe these and all like peculiarities of practice and doctrine with a divine authority, there now entered into their teaching that strange

66

1 Ewald, v. 366; Josephus, Ant., xvii. 2, 4.

2 Kitto, iii. 696.