But he has
sterner words. Pharisees, the separatists, the religious men, who think
themselves holier than any one else; and Sadducees, materialist men of
the world, who sneer at the unseen, the unknown, the heroic, come to him.
And for Pharisee and Sadducee--for the man who prides himself on
believing more than his neighbours, and for the man who prides himself on
believing less--he has the same answer. Both are exclusives, inhuman,
while they are pretending to be more than human. He knew them well, for
he was born and bred among them, and he forestalls our Lord's words to
them, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath
to come?"
At last his preaching of common morality is put to the highest test. The
king--the tyrant as we should call him--the Herod of the day, an usurper,
neither a son of David, nor a king chosen by the people, tries to
patronize him. The old spirit of his forefather Aaron, of his forefather
Phineas, the spirit of Levi, which (rightly understood), is the Spirit of
God, flashes up in the young priestly prophet, in the old form of common
morality.
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