The Old Testament in the light of to-day; a study in moral development

Front matter

v^

Qi. *^o a^O.

THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE Light of To-day

Preface

The one thing of supreme importance in the Old Testament, actually and historically, is the idea of God — the focal point of its significance for humanity. That idea did not come in full feather, nor fall as a bolt from the blue. In a long history of progress, it presents the necessity of choice between the higher and the lower, the better and the worse. The advance of Biblical scholarship, and the change from an instructional to an educational view of revelation, have made the choice easier, so that a rich heritage need no longer prove a poor possession. The helpful teacher of the Old Testament now employs the higher achievements of Israel's religion as grave-diggers for the defunct moral crudities that have dropped by the way. The usual procedure has been to embalm them with a **Thus saith the Lord," and to carry them along until the living expire under the dead.

I cherish the modest hope that this book may help students and teachers of the Old Testament to find a new and securer place for it in the religious thought of our time. Although it embodies results of ten years of special study and practical experience in teaching, it still falls so far short of its simple purpose that I shall be the last to consider it blamed unduly if it meets with evil as well as good report.

viii PREFACE

The first draft of its contents was delivered eight years ago, at the Berkeley Summer School of Religion, as a series of lectures under the title, *' The Idea of God in the Old Testament." Since then the scope of the book has been greatly amplified. If it comes as a tardy fulfilment of the expectations of my students and friends, I hope the maturer work which it embodies will prove a partial compensation for the delay.

It has been my constant endeavor to meet, as untechnically as possible, the difficulties of men and women to whom the Old Testament is still a valuable part of the Bible, but who find it an indigestible element in the Biblical rationale of their beliefs. In my own case, as in that of others who were brought up under the traditional view of the Scriptures, a frank evaluation of the morals of the Old Testament in the light of historical criticism has proved the only effective solvent. For this reason I have not been content merely to record facts, but have applied to them the moral judgments which lie impHcit in the thought of moral progress. Not to make within the Bible those moral distinctions by which men now live their daily lives, is to cut it off from further participation in the vital concerns of mankind.

I have tried to keep the footnotes within as small a compass as possible, and yet to give the most essential evidence and references to literature. H. P. Smith's Religion of Israel^ and J. P. Peters's Religion of the Hebrews J did not appear in time to be included among

PREFACE

IX the citations of literature. A selected bibliography covering the entire field of my investigations is in contemplation for the second volume. My original plan, to cover the whole period of Hebrew religious development in one volume, had to be abandoned in the interest of a fuller and more adequate treatment. The exilic and post-exilic period will, therefore, be treated separately.

More than ordinary attention has been devoted In this volume to a study of the decalogue. A first draft of my tentative conclusions was published in the University of California Chronicle, a little over a year ago, under the title, ''The Decalogue a Problem in Ethical Development." Reprints of the article were sent to Old Testament scholars In all parts of the world with a request for an expression of opinion. There was a most generous response, which might have been even more complete had it not been for the outbreak of the great European war. The chapter on the decalogue has been rewritten and amplified In the light of this correspondence.

Now that a part, at least, of my task Is completed, my grateful acknowledgments are due to John Wells Morss, of Boston, whose more than friendly interest and encouragement have been unfailing; to my colleagues. President Charles Sumner Nash and John Wright Buckham, for wise counsel which has ever been at my service; to Karl Marti, of the University of Berne, for many helpful suggestions; to Charles F.

X PREFACE

Aked, Winston Churchill, and Charles Mills Gayley, for the advantage derived from friendly discussions of problems broached in my study ; and to Miss Clara Lyford Smith for valuable suggestions in the last stages of my manuscript, for a verification of the Scripture references, and for the preparation of an index.

I feel prompted, also, to acknowledge a long-standing debt of gratitude to my former teachers at Yale: Professor Frank C. Porter, Frank Knight Sanders, and Edward L. Curtis. The last-named has passed on, but his well-remembered kindnesses and the charm of his spirit abide.

To her whose pure and radiant self is wrought into all this book contains of strength and truth and hope, I dedicate it with infinite regret that she was not destined to see finished what we planned together.

William Frederic Bad]§:.

Berkeley, California, June, 1 91 5.

Introduction

Two views of the Old Testament still contending for mastery — Source of disorder in religious education — Fact of moral growth must be admitted — Relation between general culture and religion — What moral development implies — Task of determining chronological order of materials for study — Literary chronology of the Old Testament . . xv

List of Abbreviations

CHAPTER I The Old Testament under Sentence of Life

Proposals to eliminate it from religious education — Retention desirable, but conditioned on a different use — Implied recognition of religious evolution in the Bible — Explicitly recognized by Jesus — His moral criticism of the Old Testament — Moral vision of his followers obscured by letter-worship — Historical criticism demands moral criticism — Need of a new conception of revelation — Response to the demands of a new world-view — Not faith itself, but mistaken reasons for faith under review ..... 3

CHAPTER II Moral Beginnings of Hebrew Religion

No direct sources from the time of Moses — Adaptation and expurgation of traditions — Indirect testimony of the sources — Criterion afforded by antagonism between Bedawin and Fellahin — Characteristics of Bedawin — Of Half-nomads — Of Fellahin — Nomadic survivals in Israel's religion — Ritual and institutional survivals — Nomadic reactions against agriculture — Surviving effects of primitive social institutions — Blood-revenge, marriage, concubinage, slavery 18 xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER III Moral Character of Jahveh and his Clients in the Early Literature

Character of the sources — Political origin of ideas about Jahveh — His local and intramundane character — Explanation of his extra-Palestinian appearances — Tomb versus Sheol — Evidence of Jahveh's fixedness — Resulting limitations — Distrust of his purposes — His irascibility — Attitude toward non-Israelites — Moral obligations binding only between countrymen — Current Israelite practice invested with divine sanction — Covenant idea and implications — Involves obligation to observe taboos — Immoral beliefs and consequences 54

CHAPTER IV Origin and Moral Significance of the Decalogue

Result of a long development — Two different decalogues — Relative antiquity of ritual and standard decalogues — Variant forms of standard decalogue — Addressed to men only — To be observed only by Hebrews — Discussion of individual precepts — Question about the third commandment — Ancient Sabbath a full-moon festival? — Parents and children — Origin of dual standard of sex morality — Summary — Morality by command an immoral theory — Divine legislation through human sense of right 87

CHAPTER V Pioneers of a New Era: Amos of Tekoa and Hosea ben- Beeri

Greatness of Amos — Review of earlier beliefs — Declares inseparability of religion and morality — Denunciation of the cultus — New ideas of right and wrong — Not a monotheist — Only material benefits expected of religion — Comparison of pre-exilic and N. T. beliefs — Idea of retribution — Similarity of Hosea's message — Emphasizes love; Amos, justice — Also attacks the cultus — Prophet versus priest — Lights and shadows of his message 132

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER VI The Prophet of Holiness: Isaiah ben-Amoz

Isaiah's many-sided greatness — Statesman, reformer, poet, theologian — Prophetism and its changing ideas of revelation — Possession- theory and ecstatic prophetism — Heason and reflection as channels of revelation — Character versus ceremonial — "Holy through righteousness" — The "glory" of Jahveh — New grandeur impressed upon the idea of God — Counsels of trust — Unsparingly denounces the sacrificial ritual 167

CHAPTER VII The Monojahvism of Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy not monotheistic — Alternation of Jahveh and Baal worship unhistorical — Coalescence, instead, of Canaanite and Hebrew religion — Term "baal" applied to Jahveh — Cultus attacked as Canaanite by the prophets — Worst features of Jahveh-Baal worship proscribed — The ark ignored — Evidence of many local Jahvehs — Diverse influences behind Deuteronomic reform — Moral versus ritual reform — One Jahveh, one sanctuary — Monojahvism not monotheism — Jahveh's supremacy — Summary . 187

CHAPTER VIII The Social Ethics of Deuteronomy

Prophets' relation to the ethics of D — Slavery countenanced — Its abuses mitigated for Hebrews only — Discriminations against clients and aliens — Discriminatory regulations about debts — Effect of national-god-idea upon sense of moral obligation — Preferential treatment of specified races — Feuds bequeathed — Ammonites, Moabites, Amalekites — Deuteronomic exclusivism — Humanization of earlier laws — Stepmother-marriage — Widows are victims of innovations — Social ethics evaluated by death-penalties — Effect of making idolatry a capital offence — Holiness or taboo 218

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CHAPTER IX The First Great Heretic: Jeremiah of Anathoth

Some facts of personal history — Probably not a supporter of Deuteronomy — Opposes its misuse by the inviolability party — Champions reform of character against reform of ritual — The temple no palladium — Shiloh : an appeal to history — False criterion for judging prophets — Issue between dogma and ethics — Jeremiah denies Mosaic origin of sacrifice — An ethical monotheist — Implicitly an individualist — The new covenant 258

CHAPTER X The Repudiation of Ritual Religion by the Pre-Exilic Prophets

Repudiation of sacrifice the distinction of Israel's religion — Calling the witnesses — Distortion of their testimony by later editors — Protest of a Psalmist — Atonement by sacrifice a priestly doctrine — Prophets tolerate sacrificial system for its social uses — Abuses of the system — Deuteronomic sacrifice accords with prophetic ideas — Exploitation of Deuteronomic regulations by the Jerusalemite priesthood — Misdevelopment inaugurated by Ezekiel^ — Conclusion 281

Appendix

A. "Jehovah" and "Jahveh" 313

B. Duhm on Jer. 8 : 8 315

Index of Scripture Citations 321

INTRODUCTION

Two views of the Old Testament still contend for mastery among the adherents of Christianity. The one regards it as a sort of talisman, miraculously given and divinely authoritative on the subject of God, religion, and morals, in every part. The other regards it as a growth, in which the moral sanctions of each stage of development were succeeded and displaced by the next higher one.

A former generation called into question chiefly the historical difficulties presented by the traditional view. The present generation is troubled by the crudity of its moral implications, and by what Matthew Arnold rather severely characterized as "its insane license of affirmation about God/' Even the late Henry Drummond, who came close to the thinking youth of his day, observed that the difficulty which young men had in accepting the Old Testament was no longer intellectual, but moral.

Under the traditional scheme of the Bible its moral content is all of one piece. To quote one of its defenders, "The Bible itself knows of but one kind of inspiration, and that is an inspiration which extends to every chapter, verse, word, and syllable of the original Scriptures, using the mind and mouth, the heart and hand of the writers, guiding them in the least particu-

XVI INTRODUCTION

lar, guarding them against the least blunder, and making their utterance the very word of God to our souls. . . . The Scripture and the entire Scripture, claims to be, and is in fact, altogether exempt from errors or mistakes of any sort."^

A certain well-known Bible Institute, recently incorporated under the laws of California, contains the following item in its statement of doctrine: ''The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are without error or misstatement in their moral and spiritual teachings and record of historical facts. They are without error or defect of any kind." To this statement of belief "every officer, teacher, and worker must subscribe once a year," and "failure to insist upon the promulgation of these doctrines . . . constitutes ground for suit for the reversion of money contributed for the erection of the building and the return of same to the original donors or their heirs."

While he believes with the same intensity in the high mission of the Bible, the modern historical student cannot subscribe to any such view of its contents. He feels called of God to start with the facts, not with a dogma. Where the traditionalist sees one unbroken plain of heaven-descended perfect morality, the thoughtful man of to-day finds "a land of hills and valleys," as the Deuteronomist said of Palestine. It is one thing to have a strong faith in the inspiration of the Bible ; quite another, to make it serve in the place 1 J. H. Brookes, Anti-Higher Criticism, p. 334.

INTRODUCTION xvii

of man's equally God-given intelligence. Jesus taught, and human history illustrates, the fact that men must struggle for the truths which they hope to possess. This was as true of the Israelites as of those who study the record of their struggle to-day. Refusal to recognize the obvious stages of moral progress by which Israel, under divine guidance, wrought out its high destiny, is not only to rob the Old Testament of its human interest and dramatic appeal, but to make it a serious stumbling-block to those who need its passion for righteousness in their own lives.

The real source of disorder in our religious education is this artificial doctrinal coordination of different stages of moral development, contained within the Bible. For while in most universities and theological seminaries the substance and spirit of Old Testament scholarship find expression in terms adequate to the intelligence and needs of our time, the great mass of religious instruction outside exhibits little more than forced accommodation to the new standards. The result is moral confusion, anguish of soul, and ultimate indifiference. Granting that distinctions of fact underlie distinctions of worth, it scarcely is necessary to enlarge upon the viciousness of a method that ignores not only stages of religious development within the Old Testament, but loses sight also of essential differences between the Old and the New.

Until a substantial moral inequality between the Old and the New Testament is recognized in Biblical inxviii INTRODUCTION

struction, the student will have difficulty in seeing that the former is developmentally as well as historically subordinate to the latter. The differences between successive periods of Old Testament religion, and between the Old Testament as a whole and the New Testament as a whole, are differences of growth, and consequently of moral authoritativeness. With respect to much in Hebrew religion the student has done his full duty when he has traced its origin and assigned it a place in the development of human thought. There are intellectual conceptions, moral ideals, motives, and rites, which, in spite of their divine sanctions, have fortunately forever fallen below our moral horizon. With respect to still other areas of Old Testament thought, historical study will leave men disinclined to attempt any spiritual appropriation of what belongs so completely to the past. The process of discrimination involved in such study will free them from the false obligation to justify the unjustifiable, and in the language of Job, to "speak unrighteously for God." Their moral no less than their intellectual difficulties with the Bible will vanish in direct proportion to their willingness to make room for the cancellations of development in matters religious as well as scientific.

For a just appreciation of the facts of moral development in Hebrew religion, it is necessary to realize at the outset that religion and general culture were practically inseparable in antiquity. In their reactions upon each other this is true to-day. But the further one goes

INTRODUCTION xix

back into the beginnings of human history, the more the different forms of authority which regulate men's actions are seen to merge into one. What we now call morals is in the earliest times represented by a body of tribal customs rigidly enforced upon all members of the community by discipline and habit. What we now call civil law is represented by a series of prohibitions and punishments unsparingly enforced by all members of the tribe upon the refractory. What we now call science is represented by a series of myths and legends, giving supernatural reasons for tribal customs and the fierceness with which any infractions of those customs were to be punished. What we now call religion was a part of all three sets of facts, and its chief practical manifestation was a disposition to provide existing practices with divine sanctions. Since religion in primitive times was not a body of abstract beliefs, but concretely a part of almost all that we would class as general culture in the form of tribal institutions and customs, and since primitive culture undeniably has, by a long process of evolution, developed into modern civilization, it follows inevitably that religion has shared with civilization this process of progressive development. It passed by stages from the crudest expressions of the religious instinct, in nature, ancestor, and fetish worship, to the exalted form in which it has expressed itself in the teachings of Jesus.

When, therefore, we speak of the development of morals and religion, or of the moral content of religion.

XX INTRODUCTION

we are using an elliptical term and really mean the development of the morally religious man. The truth of this is obvious, and it implies that the development of the morally religious man is at the same time the development of the rational man, the artistic man, the civilized man. No less is the history of moral ideals in Hebrew religion a history of human growth, which exhibits on the one hand a process in man ; on the other, a progress in idea and institution. The process is the growing fitness of the vehicle of revelation. The progress is the growing moral perfection of the religion. Needless to say, the conception of revelation that underlies this study regards it as an illumination from within, not as a communication from without; as an educative, not as an instructional, process.

The materials which must form the basis of our study lie embedded in the literature of the Old Testament. They are in the form of religious ideas, hopes, and rites, set forth in terms of Hebrew history, life, and institutions. This mass of ideas cannot, of course, be reduced to a systematic theology such as was formerly in fashion. One can trace the course of a river, but one may not treat it as a lake. So the religious progress of Israel may be traced like a river through the highlands and lowlands of Israel's literature. It may be described in order, but not set forth systematically as a unified theology. Obviously we must know the historical sequence in which that literature grew up, and the political and cultural environment which determined its changing social ideals, for

INTRODUCTION xxi

". . . every fiery prophet of old time, And all the sacred madness of the bard, When God made music through them, could but speak His music by the framework and the chord."

An enormous amount of critical acumen has been expended upon the Hterary analysis of the writings of the Old Testament with a view to determining the age, or relative chronology, of its several parts. That task may now be said to be accomplished; for the uncertainties that remain do not affect large issues. As a result of this analysis, verified by linguistics, by the history of laws and institutions, by the testimony of the monuments, and by our knowledge of the history of contemporary nations, the actual and approximate dates of the various books, and of literary strata within composite books, of the Old Testament, are now known with a remarkable degree of precision. This knowledge naturally has become the basis for a reinterpretation of Hebrew morals and religion in terms of development. It is unfortunate that the Psalms cannot be used with the same assurance as other parts of the Old Testament. Their individual dates are on the whole quite uncertain, and the evidence of religious experience, or doctrine, which they contain must, therefore, be adduced as auxiliary, rather than as fundamental. The reader may occasionally find advantage in getting his chronological bearings by reference to the following table. No attempt has been made to give analytical details. These will be found in various modem treatises on Old Testament Introduction.

xxii INTRODUCTION

Literary Chronology of the Old Testament

B.C.

Moses (no authentic literary remains) c. 1 300-1 200

Early traditions and songs 1200-1000

*J Document (Jahvist). Materials scattered

through the Pentateuch and Joshua 850

*E Document (Elohist). Materials scattered

through the Pentateuch and Joshua f 750

Amos and Rosea 750- 735

Isaiah (authentic materials in chaps. 1-39) 740- 700

J and E compiled into a single document c. 650

Nahum c. 650

Zephaniah c. 630

* Deuteronomy (D) written about 650, published . . f 62 1 Jeremiah (a great part consisting of later additions) 626- 586

Habakkuk c. 600

Babylonian Exile 597- 538

Ezekiel 592- 570

Lamentations 586

Historical books up to Kings edited in the spirit

of Deuteronomy 600- 570

JE combined with D c. 560

Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah, chaps. 40-55) c. 540

Haggai and Zechariah 520

Trito-Isaiah (Isaiah, chaps. 56-66), mostly 500- 460

Job (containing later additions) c. 450 or later

Psalms (collected, edited, in large part composed).. 520- 150

* Priests' Code (P), Leviticus, etc 550-t 450

Pentateuch completed (JEDP) by addition of P. . c. 420

Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah 350- 250

Song of Songs c. 350

Book of Proverbs (containing older materials) 300 ^

Ecclesiastes c. 250

Daniel c. 165

Esther c. 150

c. circa, about. • Principal documents. t Legal codes.

THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE Light of To-day

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AJSL = American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature. AJT = American Journal of Theology. AOTB = Altorientalische Texte und Bilder.

AS = Alttestamentliche Studien.

HSAT = Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments. JBL = Journal of Biblical Literature.

LXX = The Septuagint, or Greek Version of the Old Testament. OTSS = Old Testament and Semitic Studies. PSBA = Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. RGG = Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. SBOT = Sacred Books of the Old Testament (Polychrome). ThSK = Theologische Studien und Kritiken. ZAW = Zeitschrift fiir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.

THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF TO-DAY

Chapter I The Old Testament Under Sentence Of Life

During the past generation there have been numerous proposals to eliminate the Old Testament from the religious education of the young. It is one of the ways in which the modern defection from traditionalism and authority in religion has manifested itself. The reasons most commonly urged for this step have been the following: —

1. That Christianity has no exclusive connection with Israelitish history and with Judaism. That the Jewish descent of Jesus in no way proves the dependence of the New Testament upon the Old. That in the realm of thought, Christianity was something entirely new and independent, having been prepared for quite as much by the great thinkers of Greece, Rome, and the non-Semitic Orient, as by the Hebrew prophets. That therefore it is both needless and useless to educate our youth into Christianity by the roundabout way of the Old Testament. That PauFs address at Athens, spoken to hearers who were not Jews, blazed the way for a more direct approach to the desired end.

2. That there is an element of danger in obliging the youth of our day to hold ideal Intercourse with men and women whose attitude toward life was totally different from ours, and whose social ethics stood upon a moral plane far beneath that of our time. That even the most persistent and violent exegetical and homiletical torture cannot make the Old Testament stories confess to moral standards which their writers did not know. That, in any case, it is mischievous to mingle without discrimination material from the Old and New Testaments because serious confusion of moral standards in the mind of the student is liable to ensue.

Let us concede at once that there is much truth in these objections. But they also contain a subtle admixture of error. It is true that we have ceased to regard the Old Testament as the only source of New Testament Christianity. Many other currents of thought and history have poured their contents into its channel. It is true that a considerable part of the Hebrew Scriptures, as will be seen, has not only ceased to exert a positive influence upon Christian thought, but is fraught with harm where it is set forth as possessing, or ever having possessed, divine sanction. In its fundamental conception of divine requirements the legal religion of the Old Testament is irreconcilably at variance with that of the pre-exilic prophets. The priestly ritual of Leviticus has no more right to be heard upon the moral questions of our age than the book of Esther, whose ethical standards are condemned outright by the teaching of Jesus.

But when these and similar deductions have been made, the fact remains that the Old Testament is the best introduction to the New. Christian doctrines can be fully understood and fairly judged only when seen in their historical perspective, and the Old Testament alone enables us to trace their origin and growth. In order to furnish this approach, however, the Old Testament cannot be used as a fixed body of truth standing beside the New Testament. It is the record of a moral struggle that lies behind the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, and even in its best parts it rarely rose above transient statements of moral truths and principles. The doctrinal coordination of the Old and New Testaments which still holds the ground in popular religious education, is the real grievance of objectors to the Old Testament. But their proffered remedy, to drop the Old Testament out of religious education, is worse than the disorder. It would break the bond of historical continuity. Doctrinal coordination should give place to historical subordination in which the principle of development, ''first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear," receives adequate recognition. With the adoption of this attitude toward the Bible as a whole, and the Old Testament in particular, the objections mentioned above are vacated. For the harm lies not in dealing with imperfect moral standards^ but in failure to recognize them as imperfect.

It would be both unscientific and unreasonable to expect on the part of Israel's religious leaders know!- edge of the laws of evolution in advance of man's scientific study of the facts of nature and of life. It does not seem to be God's way anywhere to endow men miraculously with information which the exercise of faculties he has given them is sufficient to secure. Still, the fact that religion has shared with other interests of the human spirit the struggle from lower to higher levels did not altogether escape the attention of Biblical writers.

The unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews declared that " God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets, in many fragments and in many fashions, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son." What is fragmentary is not perfect. What is varied in fashion is not the result of divine experiment, but expresses the diversified abilities of God's spokesmen in different times and different cultural environments. They differed among themselves because each man had to answer according to his ability the particular questions which his own times were putting. The statement implies a progressive revelation, the growth of the knowledge of God among men.

The example and the teaching of the Christ determined the moral level upon which the gains of the future were to be made. The founders of Christianity recognized in his coming the culmination of the historical process, but not its ending. The writer of the Gospel of John was far along upon the stream of events, but he still saw it flowing directly out of the thought of Jesus, for he attributed to him the statement: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." There were human limits to a divine revelation, and the barriers were destined to fall only before the larger knowledge that answers a deeper need. Nineteen centuries of Christian thought and experience have become tributary to this ampler knowledge of God, and still the stream is widening on its way through broader valleys of human experience.

A study of what are held to be genuine sayings of Jesus shows that he regarded the Jewish Scriptures of his time as a preparation for himself. In other words, they were transitory in relation to himself — subject to the cancellations of development. New Testament scholars are beginning to doubt the genuineness of the saying: "Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law until all be accomplished." It is in flat contradiction with the general tenor of Jesus' teaching. But even if it were accepted, it would have to be read in the light of his definition of what he meant by the Law, as when he said: *' Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them : for this is the Law and the Prophets." Again: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and Y^ith all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole Law hangeth, and the Prophets." Reference to the chapter entitled *'The Social Ethics of Deuteronomy" will show how little the real Law had in common with this lofty evaluation of its essence. It was a virtual rejection, as wrong or irrelevant, of more than seventy-five per cent of what the Jewish doctors understood by the Law. In the face of such a fact it is superfluous to inquire what becomes of the jot and the tittle of ritual punctiliousness, or of that Bible letter-worship in the interest of which the passage is often quoted.