Part 5 (1/2)

[Footnote 2: _Testam of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Levi 6]

[Footnote 3: Matt xxvii 46; Mark xv 34]

[Footnote 4: Jewish translations and commentaries of the Talmudic epoch]

The schoolmaster in the sues[1] Jesus frequented little the higher schools of the scribes or _sopherim_ (Nazareth had perhaps none of them), and he had none of those titles which confer, in the eyes of the vulgar, the privileges of knowledge[2] It would, nevertheless, be a great error to inorant Scholastic education a us draws a profound distinction, in respect of personal worth, between those who have received and those who have been deprived of it It was not so in the East, nor, in general, in the good old ti to our isolated and entirely individual life, those reh the schools, was unknown in those societies where e, was transmitted by the perpetual intercourse of man with man The Arab, who has never had a teacher, is often, nevertheless, a very superior man; for the tent is a kind of school always open, where, froreat intellectual and even literary movement The refinement of manners and the acuteness of the intellect have, in the East, nothing in common e call education It is the men from the schools, on the contrary, who are considered badly trained and pedantic In this social state, ignorance, which, a us, condes and of great originality

[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Shabbath_, i 3]

[Footnote 2: Matt xiii 54, and following; John vii 15]

It is not probable that Jesus knew Greek This language was very little spread in Judea beyond the classes who participated in the governans, like Caesarea[1] The real ue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrehich was then spoken in Palestine[2] Still less probably had he any knowledge of Greek culture This culture was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in the same malediction ”he who rears swine, and he who teaches his son Greek science”[3] At all events it had not penetrated into little towns like Nazareth Notwithstanding the anathema of the doctors, some Jews, it is true, had already e of the Jewish school of Egypt, in which the atteamate hellenism and Judaism had been in operation nearly two hundred years, a Jew--Nicholas of Dauished men, one of the best infore Josephus was destined soon to furnish another example of a Jew completely Grecianized But Nicholas was only a Jew in blood Josephus declares that he hi his conteypt was detached to such a degree from Jerusalem that we do not find the least allusion to it either in the Talmud or in Jewish tradition Certain it is that Greek was very little studied at Jerusaleerous, and even servile, that they were regarded, at the best, as a mere womanly accomplishment[5] The study of the Laas the only one accounted liberal and worthy of a thoughtful man[6] Questioned as to the time when it would be proper to teach children ”Greek wisdom,”

a learned rabbi had answered, ”At the tiht; since it is written of the Law, Thou shalt study it day and night”[7]

[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Shekaliilla_, halaca xi; _Sota_, vii 1; Talilla_, 8 _b_, and following]

[Footnote 2: Matthew xxvii 46; Mark iii 17, v 41, vii 34, xiv 36, xv 34 The expression [Greek: e patrios phone] in the writers of the tinates the Semitic dialect, which was spoken in Palestine (II Macc vii 21, 27, xii 37; _Acts_ xxi 37, 40, xxii

2, xxvi 14; Josephus, _Ant_, XVIII vi 10, xx sub fin; _BJ_, prooeainst Appian_, I 9; _De Macc_, 12, 16) We shall show, later, that some of the documents which served as the basis for the synoptic Gospels ritten in this Semitic dialect It was the same with many of the Apocrypha (IV

Book of Macc xvi ad calce directly from the first Galileantime in Batanea and Hauran, spoke a Semitic dialect (Eusebius, _De Situ et Nomin Loc Hebr_, at the word [Greek: Choba]; Epiph, _Adv Haer_, xxix 7, 9, xxx 3; St Jero_, iii 2)]

[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, xi 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Baba Kama_, 82 _b_ and 83 _a_; _Sota_, 49 _a_ and _b_; _Menachoth_, 64 _b_; co]

[Footnote 4: Jos, _Ant_ XX xi 2]

[Footnote 5: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i 1]

[Footnote 6: Jos, _Ant_, _loc cit_; Orig, _Contra Celsum_, ii

34]

[Footnote 7: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Menachoth_, 99 _b_]

Neither directly nor indirectly, then, did any ele beyond Judaism; his mind preserved that free innocence which an extended and varied culture aleakens In the very bosoer to many efforts often parallel to his own On the one hand, the asceticism of the Essenes or the Therapeutae;[1] on the other, the fine efforts of religious philosophy put forth by the Jewish school of Alexandria, and of which Philo, his conteenious interpreter, were unknown to him The frequent resemblances which we find between him and Philo, those excellent maxims about the love of God, charity, rest in God,[2] which are like an echo between the Gospel and the writings of the illustrious Alexandrian thinker, proceed from the common tendencies which the wants of the time inspired in all elevated minds

[Footnote 1: The _Therapeutae_ of Philo are a branch of the Essenes

Their name appears to be but a Greek translation of that of the _Essenes_ ([Greek: Essaioi], _asaya_, ”doctors”) Cf Philo, _De Vita Contempl_, init]

[Footnote 2: See especially the treatises _Quis Rerum Divinarum Haeres Sit_ and _De Philanthropia_ of Philo]

Happily for hie scholasticisht at Jerusalem, and which was soon to constitute the Talht it into Galilee, he did not associate with them, and when, later, he encountered this silly casuistry, it only inspired hiust We may suppose, however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to hiiven utterance to aphorisous to his own By his poverty, so meekly endured, by the sweetness of his character, by his opposition to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was the true master of Jesus,[1] if indeed it may be perinality as his

[Footnote 1: _Pirke Aboth_, chap i and ii; Talm of Jerus, _Pesachim_, vi 1; Talm of Bab, _Pesachim_, 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 30 _b_ and 31 _a_; _Joma_, 35 _b_]

The perusal of the books of the Old Testament made much impression upon him The canon of the holy books was composed of two principal parts--the Law, that is to say, the Pentateuch, and the Prophets, such aspossess theesis was applied to all these books; and it was sought to draw fro that was not in thee