p. 671 | The Pharisee

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 6, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 42.

The Pharisee.

ONE or two quotations may help to show how truly this picture of the Pharisee—that given in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican—was taken from life. Thus, the following prayer of a rabbi is recorded: “I thank thee, O Lord, my God, that thou hast put my part with those who sit in the academy, and not with those who sit at the corners [money-changers and traders]. For I rise early and they rise early. I rise early to the words of the law and they to vain things. I labor and they labor; I labor and receive a reward, they labor and receive no reward; I run and they run; I run to the life of the world to come and they to the pit of destruction.” Even more closely parallel is this thanksgiving, which a rabbi put into the mouth of Israel: “Lord of the world judge me not as those who dwell in the big towns [such as Rome], among whom there is robbery, and uncleanness, and vain and false swearing.” Lastly, as regards the boastful spirit of Rabbinism, we recall such painful sayings as those of Rabbi Simeon ben Joachi, notably this, that if there were only two righteous men in the world, he and his son were these; and if only one, it was he.—Dr. Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.