Pharisaism, Its Aim and Its Method

by R. Travers Herford

First, I will take the Pharisaic doctrine[14] of repentance and restoration, because it is on this that the antagonism of Paul is most pronounced, and the injury done by his method of treatment most serious. There is not in the Rabbinical literature a strict and clearly defined theological doctrine of repentance and restoration; but there is a general belief that the way of repentance is always open, by which a sinner may come back to God, and that God will forgive that sinner simply because he has repented. I will illustrate this by a few quotations from Rabbinical, that is, Pharisaical works.

In the Pesikta de R. Cahana (p. 165ª ed. Buber) the following occurs:—"The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Jeremiah (the prophet), 'Go and say to Israel, Repent.' He went and said to Israel ('Repent'). They said to him, 'Master, how can we repent? With what face can we come before God? Have we not angered him? Have we not provoked him? Those mountains and hills upon which we have worshipped false gods, are they not still standing?' Jeremiah came before the Holy One, blessed be He, and told Him. He answered, 'Go and say to them, If ye come to me, is it not to your Father in Heaven that ye come? For I have been a father unto Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.'"

Again, in the same work (p. 163^b) R. Eleazar says: "It is the custom in the world that a man will insult his neighbour publicly, and afterwards seek to be reconciled to him. The other will say to him, 'Thou didst insult me publicly, and wouldst be reconciled between me and thee (i.e. privately). Go and bring those in whose presence thou didst insult me, and I will be reconciled to thee.' But the Holy One, blessed be He, doeth not so; but though a man stand and revile and blaspheme him in the open street, the Holy One says to him, 'Repent between thee and me, and I will receive thee.'"

A story is told (b. A. Zar. 17ª) of a man who was a particularly gross sinner, and who in the midst of his sins was struck with terror and remorse when it was said to him "Eleazar b. Dordaia will not be received in repentance." His frantic efforts to persuade some intercessor to plead for mercy on him are described in a passage too long to quote; but I translate the conclusion, which runs thus:—"Then he said, The matter hangeth only upon me (i.e. I must seek mercy for myself). He laid his head between his knees and groaned with weeping, until his soul departed from him; and there came a voice from heaven saying, 'R. Eleazar b. Dordaia is summoned to the life of the world to come.'" The purpose of that story is simply to teach that even the vilest sinner can repent, and that, if he does, he will be forgiven. It should be observed that the Talmud means by a sinner one who does definitely wicked actions—a sinner morally, not theologically. It should also be observed that, in the above story, the idea of an intercessor, by whom God might be moved to pardon, is pointedly rejected. The sinner does not plead either the merits of the Fathers, as might have been expected, or the merits of Christ, as according to Paul he ought to have done, if his peace with God were to be made. That he was forgiven, and that anyone in like case would be forgiven upon repentance, is the emphatic declaration of Pharisaic belief.

The Rabbis were fond of moralising upon the case of Manasseh, the idolatrous king; and the following passage contains one of the lessons they drew from it (j. Sanh. 28^c). Manasseh, after he had been carried captive to Babylon and sat in prison there, said to himself: "'I remember how my father caused me to read in the house of assembly this verse (Deut. iv. 30), "When thou art in tribulation, and all these things shall befall thee, in the latter days thou shalt return to the Lord thy God and shalt hearken to His voice. For the Lord thy God is a merciful God; He will not fail thee, nor destroy thee, nor forget the covenant He made with thy fathers." Lo, I will say that, now. If God hear me, it is well; if not——.' But the ministering angels desired to shut the windows of heaven, so that the prayer of Manasseh might not ascend to the Holy One, blessed be He. For they said before Him, 'Lord of the worlds, wilt thou receive in penitence a man who has set up an image in thy sanctuary?' He answered them, 'If I received not him in penitence, lo, I bar the door against all penitents.' What, then, did the Holy One do? He made an opening beneath His throne of glory, and He heard his prayer. And this is what is written (2 Chron. xxxiii. 13), 'And he prayed unto Him, and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem.'"

I have given these stories just as they stand, with their quaint and childish notions, because they reflect very clearly the fixed belief of their authors that man is not prevented from finding forgiveness and peace from God. He can always repent; and, if he does, God will always forgive him. That this belief makes possible a sort of easy presumption of forgiveness is a danger of whose reality the Pharisees were well aware; and they were careful to warn against it. But they never wavered in their belief that forgiveness did always follow on sincere repentance; and that no sinner need ever remain cut off from God by the barrier of his sin. The definite precepts of the Torah were divine commandments, certainly. But they did not make the Pharisee feel that if he disobeyed them there was no longer any hope for him, any possibility of ever finding his way back to the love of God. The passages I have quoted, and there are many others, and scores and hundreds of sayings about repentance which all teach the same lesson, are the utterance of Pharisees, of men who were steeped to the lips in Rabbinism, who gloried in the Torah, who delighted in the abundance of its precepts, and the consequent casuistry of the schools, and who felt in their hearts that love of God which they did their best to show forth by serving the Lord with gladness in the doing of His commandments.

However great be the difference between the Pharisee and the Christian in the form given to their respective conceptions of religion, the contents of their spiritual experience were to this extent alike, that for each there was, and is, the sense of personal relation to, and communion with, the Divine Being. For the Christian, at least for most Christians, the medium of that communion is Christ. For the Pharisee there is no medium; but there is, as the guide to show the way, and the light to shine upon it, the Torah. The Pharisee did not bring to his religious conceptions the penetrating power of analysis which has been applied by Christian theologians. There has never been a Pharisee who could have done what Paul or Augustine did in this respect, unless it was Maimonides. There will therefore not be found in Pharisaic literature the subtle distinctions of justification, sanctification, prevenient grace, etc., which abound in the great Christian writers.

But, none the less, the main terms are found, and the spiritual realities thereby signified were known in Pharisaic experience. Grace was known. The Holy Spirit was known. Faith was known. These and other of "the deep things of God" were objects of real experience and devout contemplation. Pious fancy played round them, and represented them in parable and allegory; but they were seldom if ever made the subject of close philosophical examination, nor were they formulated in defined doctrines.