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Judaism and the Grand ''Christian'' Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace
E. P. Sanders Interpretation 1985 39: 357 DOI: 10.1177/002096438503900404 The online version of this article can be found at: http://int.sagepub.com/content/39/4/357

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Judaism and the Grand "Christian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace

E. P. SANDERS

Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture, Oxford University Professor of Religious Studies, McMaster University

The body of Rabbinic material that has been relied upon for the view that Pharisaism was legalistic points rather toward confidence in God's grace and toward obedience as one's appropriate response.

IRST CENTURY JUDAISM has, on the whole, had a remarkably bad press. There have been apologists, such as Josephus and George Foot Moore; 1 but the Gospels above all, and following them other Christian authors, have depicted Judaism in the time of Jesus as an unfortunate religion, one wide open to the attacks of any reformer who believed in love, mercy, and grace. 2 Further, many Jewish scholars have joined their Christian colleagues in criticism of aspects of ancient Judaism. T h e description ofJudaism, as we shall see, has seldom been objective. It has been tainted with either polemic against Judaism (or aspects of it) or apologetics for it. In an attempt to avoid or minimize bias, I should indicate my own starting viewpoint: Judaism is one of the world's great religions, and as such, it is presumably noble in its main goals and intentions. Professing Jews have been human beings and therefore subject to frailty and mis1. George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era The Age of the Tannaim, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19271930). 2. See E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism- A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 3 3 - 5 9 .

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direction. Thus Jews have run the full gamut from utter depravity to sainthood. It is possible, however, to study a religion or a way of life and to reach some conclusions about the professed values and the attainment of them at any given time. Even great religions have their bad moments (witness the later crusades), and concrete study of a given period may reveal that unfortunate elements have taken over even the noblest faith. I shall divide discussion by focusing on major groups in the first century: priests, Pharisees, common people. We shall consider first the negative view of each group and then the positive, noting the bias of our sources as we go. T h e conclusion will attempt to reach fair generalizations.
T H E NEGATIVE VIEW

The Priests. Before the birth of Jesus the priests were already accused of impiety and, indeed, of heinous sin: They wrought confusion, son with mother and father with daughter; They committed adultery, every man with his neighbour's wife . . . . They plundered the sanctuary of God, as though there was no avenger. They trode the altar of the Lord, (coming straight) from all manner of uncleanness; And with menstrual blood they defiled the sacrifices, as (though these were) common flesh (Psalms of Solomon 8:9-14). These charges are from the time of the invasion by Pompey in 63 B.C., and they are directed against the Hasmonean priest/kings, who may well have "transferred" money from the temple to the state and who could be depicted as coming to the altar straight from battle, and thus impure. T h e pious author or authors doubtless belonged to a group which wished to extend the period during which a menstruating woman was considered impure; and they could thus accuse the priests, who kept the biblical law (Lev. 15:19), of being made unclean by contact with "menstrual blood." The charges of adultery and incest are hard to evaluate, though we should note that accusations of sexual immorality are very common in religious polemic (see Paul's accusations of Gentiles in Rom. 1:1832). There are similar charges in other literature. In the Dead Sea Commentary on Habakkuk the "Wicked Priest" is accused of committing abominable deeds and defiling the temple (IQpHab 12.8). This priest, whose identity is not quite certain, was one of the Hasmonean priest/kings. The Covenant of Damascus accuses the priests of having intercourse with women who are menstruating and of incest (CD 5.68; cf. 4.18). According to Mishnah Niddah 4.2, the Pharisees accused the "daughters of the Sadducees" of not observing the correct rules concerning purification 358
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Judaism and the Grand "Christian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace
Interpretation

after the menstrual period. Thus he priesthood had plenty of critics. The high priest plays a major role in the Gospels, since it is he who interrogates Jesus (Mark 14:60; Matt. 26:62; cf. J o h n 18:15-24), but the trial scene does not offer a view of the religious and moral character of the high priest or of the priesthood in general. That comes, however, in the temple scene: T h e statement that "you have made it a den of robbers" (Mark 11:17) has made an indelible impression on subsequent Christians and Jews alike. T h e priests have been depicted as exploiting their office to "rip o f f the pious who brought sacrifices and, consequently, as being commercial and impious. Years ago a Jewish scholar, I. Abrahams, wrote that "When Jesus overturned the money-changers and ejected the sellers of doves from the Temple he did a service to Judaism." 3 Joachim Jeremas offers the standard Christian evaluation: T h e priests "misuse their calling . . . by carrying on business to make profit." 4 Recently another Jewish scholar, Nahman Avigad, describes the priests of the time of the Jewish War (A.D. 66-70) as having "abused their position . . . through nepotism and oppression." 5 Thus it is not at all difficult to draw a completely negative picture of the priests around the time of Jesus (in this case the evidence spans the period from approximately 65 B.C. to A.D. 70): They were insincere and impious, using their inherited positions for personal gain; they were not even scrupulous to keep the laws; they committed gross immorality. At the same time, we should note the source of these accusations: They all stem from enemies. 1. T h e authors of the Psalms of Solomon belonged to a pious group obviously out of power and deeply resentful of the Hasmonean government. This is clear in Psalms of Solomon 17:68, where the Jewish leaders are accused of casting "us" out and of establishing a worldly monarchy. As Gray put it, "we are dealing with a strongly partisan work. Neither the righteousness of the righteous, nor the sinfulness of the sinful, must be accepted too literally." 6 2. T h e authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls belonged to a pious group which had broken entirely with the Jerusalem establishment and which had been
3. I. Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospel, First and Second Series (Cambridge: University Press, 1917, 1924; repr. New York: KTAV, 1967), I, 88. 4. Joachim Jeremas, New Testament Theology I: The Proclamation of Jesus, Eng. trans. (London: SCM, 1971), p. 145. 5. Naham Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1983), pp. 13031. I evaluate these charges and discuss the role of trading in connection with the temple in Jesus and Judaism (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 6 1 - 6 7 . 6. G. Buchanan Gray, "The Psalms of Solomon," in The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: University Press, 1913), p. 628.

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persecuted by at least one of the Hasmonean priest/kings. 3. T h e Pharisees were the principal opposition "party" to the Sadducees, who dominated the chief priesthood after the destruction of the Hasmoneans by Herod. 4. T h e early Christians were subject to persecution by the chief priests (e.g., Acts 4:6; 5:17) and wanted to depict Jesus as having been executed at the behest of an iniquitous leadership. The Pharisees. T h e negative view of the Pharisees is derived largely from the New Testament. There is, first and foremost, Matthew 23, with its repeated refrain of "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," and especially verse 23: T h e Pharisees tithe minor herbs but neglect the weightier matters of scripture, justice, mercy, and faith. They wash the outside of dishes, but within they are full of "dead men's bones and rottenness" (Matt. 23:2528). Up to the Passion narrative, the Pharisees are Jesus' principle opponents, and they are depicted as harrassing him about trivia: letting his disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, allowing them to eat without washing their hands, and the like (Mark 2:24; 7:15). This has led naturally to depicting them as concerned only with externalism, triviality, and legalistic observance. A great deal of effort has been expended in the attempt to prove, on the basis of Rabbinic literature, that the Pharisees were in fact legalistic.7 It has long been thought (though not entirely correctly) that Rabbinic literature (all written after A.D. 70) represents the views of pre-70 Pharisaism. Early Rabbinic literature is largely concerned with the details of observing the law, and these details can be brought forward as proving a preoccupation with legalistic minutiae. This argument, however, gives inadequate attention to the question of literary genre. A law code is necessarily concerned with legal detail, but that does not prove that its authors were legalists in the pejorative sense (escaping moral responsibility by casuistry, valuing trivia more highly than "weightier matters," preoccupied with soteriological bookkeeping). A fair study of early Rabbinic literature shows that the view that the rabbis believed in counting deeds for determining salvation is not correct, that the "trivia" were pursued on the basis of higher commitments (loyalty to God, who gave the commandments), and that the great religious abstractions (love, mercy, grace, repentance, and forgiveness) were given preeminent place by the rabbis. 8 Thus Rabbinic literature must be dropped from the material which
7. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 3359. 8. Ibtd., pp. 125-82; 233-38.

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points to a negative view of the Pharisees, and we are left with the Synoptic Gospels. About these it should be observed that the early Christian movement, or at least some sections of it, found the heirs of the Pharisees to constitute the most formidable competition. I cite a small but significant point: Matthew several times refers to "their synagogues," apparently indicating thereby the synagogues dominated by the opponents of (or competition of) the Christian movement (e.g., Matt. 4:23; 9:35). It is in "their synagogues" that the persecution of the early Christian missionaries takes place (Matt. 10:17). In Matthew 23, directed against "the Pharisees," Jesus is depicted as saying that "you" will scourge the evangelists in "your synagogues." This reflects not the lifetime ofJesus but the situation of one wing of the early church. We see here the hostile and competitive context of part of the early Christian mission, and so we realize that the attacks on the Pharisees are not disinterested description but more likely the sort of polemic that two contenders often mount against each other. The Common People. Here the negative view comes from Rabbinic literature. Hillel is reported to have said that no common person (Kam ha-arets) can be pious (hasd) (Aboth 2.5; ET 2.6), and we also read of certain restrictions placed on relations between the "associates" (those who were strict with regard to purity and tithing) and the common people. Thus Mishnah Demai 2.3: An associate may not be the guest of a common person, nor receive him unless the latter changes his garment. This rule has to do with ritual purity, which the associates were concerned to keep as part of their program to live secular life as if it were life in the temple, thus sanctifying all of life. Despite the nobility of the intention, it implies a criticism of the common people for not being strict or pious enough, and thus it may be read as an attack on their level of observance. The rabbis favored their own brand of piety and in doing so implicitly depicted the common people as relatively impious. This depiction is obviously partisan. A thorough investigation of Rabbinic comments on the common people reveals that the rabbis granted that the commoners were members of Israel in good standing and would share in the world to come. 9 Nevertheless, from reading Rabbinic literature we would have no idea of the devotion and piety of the common people. Summary. All the evidence which we have thus far considered has its setting in a party program of some sort or other, which led to denigration of others. We should pause for a moment to consider the nature of polemic
9. Ibid., pp. 155-57.

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and the degree to which it is not fair description of the other from the other's point of view. I offer an example from a dispute between Paul and Peter. Peter had come to Antioch and had eaten with gentile converts to the Christian movement. After the arrival of a message from James, however, Peter withdrew and ate only with Jews. Paul writes, "the other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel. . ." (Gal. 2:13-14, NIV). Should we allow this to persuade us that Peter was two-faced, a man-pleaser and untrue to the gospel? Let us reverse the situation in Antioch. Let us suppose that Peter first ate only with Jews and, when Paul sent a message, changed and began to eat with Gentiles. Paul would not then have called him a hypocrite but would have applauded his aligning his behavior with the gospel. James might have called him a hypocrite for changing his practice to suit present company. So what was Peter really? He was a man torn between two commitments. We understand nothing about him by calling him a hypocrite or untrue to the gospel. We should assume that he was doing the best he could in difficult circumstances and that he was persuaded by James's emissaries that he was hurting his mission to the circumcised by eating with Gentiles. T h e passage is polemical and is not descriptive of Peter's own motivation and intention. We can see through the passage to a historical conflict of major significance: T h e early church was a Jewish messianic movement, some of the chief spokesmen of which were involved in a mission to Gentiles', and this led to anguish and conflict. We should note that Paul too was caught in the conflict between competing principles and commitments. It was he who enunciated the principle of living like a Jew to win Jews and like a Gentile to win Gentiles (I Cor. 9:1923). For him to criticize Peter because he could not do both simultaneously shows that he did not, in the heat of the moment, put himself in the shoes of the fisherman.10 T h e negative depictions of the priests, Pharisees, and common people which we have just surveyed are no less biased and uninformative than Paul's accusation of Peter. We may be able to look through the polemic and find out some things about priests, Pharisees, and common people; but the polemic itself cannot be taken as straightforward reporting.
T H E POSITIVE VIEW

The principal positive depictions of all three groups are found in the writings of Josephus. Josephus was a Palestinian Jew, who was born around A.D. 3738 and who died early in the second century. He was a
10. T h e example is taken from Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 33738.

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priest by birth, as well as an aristocrat. He claims to have studied all the major religious parties of Judaism and to have joined the Pharisees. 11 During the first revolt, he at first aided in the defense of Galilee but defected to the Romans when defense became impossible. He wrote The Jewish War shortly after 70 with the support of the Flavian imperial family, and the work was apparently intended to discourage other revolts by emphasizing the invincibility of Roman arms. Late in the century, after he lost imperial support, he wrote The Jewish Antiquities, a lengthy work of explanation and defense of Judaism. We also have from him an autobiography (The Life) and an answer to criticisms ofJudaism (Against Apion). We shall briefly recount his descriptions of the three groups which were considered in the first section. The Priests. Josephus attributes the administration of Jewish law to the priests, and his discussions indicate that they administered it fairly and evenhandedly. They exercised "a strict superintendence of the Law and the pursuits of everyday life; for the appointed duties of the priests include general supervision, the trial of cases of litigation, and the punishment of condemned persons" (Against Apion II. 187). After the deaths of Herod and Archelaus, he writes, "the constitution became an aristocracy, and the high priests were entrusted with the leadership of the nation" (Antiquities XX.251). Josephus' detailed and circumstantial accounts of concrete events show that these summaries of the priests' authority are largely accurate, for it is always the chief priests who undertake mediation between the Roman government and the nation of Israel, and it is always they who are held responsible by the Romans for the good behavior of the people. 12 Further, we learn that they had no small influence with the Jewish people, even when they had to calm the crowds after a massacre by Roman troops. At the behest of Florus, the last Roman procurator, they even managed to persuade "the multitude" to leave Jerusalem and go along the road to meet arriving Roman troops. There was another massacre, however, and revolutionary forces then took charge. Even so their influence did not altogether evaporate. T h e former high priest, Ananus, had enough authority and influence to offer real resistance to the Zealots and their Idumaean allies, who took Jerusalem only with great difficulty. According to Josephus, eighty-five hundred died defending the temple
a n d t h e high priest against t h e i n s u r g e n t s (War IV.313). J o s e p h u s corni l . Josephus, The Life 1 12. All quotations from Josephus are from the Loeb Classical Library edition (London/Cambridge, Mass.: William Heinemann/Harvard Univ. Press, 1926-1965). 12. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 31417.

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ments: "the overthrow of the walls and the downfall of the Jewish state dated from the day on which the Jews beheld their high priest, the captain of their salvation, butchered in the heart of Jerusalem" (War IV.318). He further proposes that, had Ananus lived, the Jews could have obtained favorable terms from the Romans, "for he was an effective speaker, whose words carried weight with the people . . ." (War IV.321). We earlier noted the very hostile criticism of the priests at the time of Pompey's invasion, criticism voiced by the out-of-power pietists who stand behind the Psalms of Solomon. We have another picture of the same priests, or at least priests of the same generation, in Josephus. He writes: Pompey was filled with admiration for the invariable fortitude of the Jews, and in particular for the way in which they carried on their religious services uncurtailed, though enveloped in a hail of missiles. Just as if the city had been wrapt in profound peace, the daily sacrifices, the expiations and all the ceremonies of worship were scrupulously performed to the honour of God. At the very hour when the temple was taken, when they were being massacred about the altar, they never desisted from the religious rites for the day
(War 1.148).

Finally, we note Josephus' statement about the intercessory prayers offered by himself and the other priests: "prayers for the welfare of the community must take precedence of those for ourselves; for we are born for fellowship, and he who sets its claims above his private interests is specially acceptable to God" (Against Apion 11.196). From Josephus, then, one attains quite a different overall picture of the priests from that which emerges from the Psalms of Solomon, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Gospels. One sees not insincere abusers of high office and callous usurpers who cynically milked the people but earnest and devoted servants of the Lord and his temple who sought only the welfare of the people and who were faithful to their commission and ordination, even to death. We shall, in part three, note that not all of the priests in Josephus come off so well, and we shall ask whether or not generalizations about the priests can usefully be made. Just now we should note that Josephus had axes to grind and that he may also be accused of partisanship. (1) He was himself a priest. (2) He wished to depict the Jews as basically loyal to Rome, except for a radical fringe. (3) He therefore wanted to deny that the official Jewish leadership had anything to do with the revolt. 13
13. See, e.g., Shaye J.D. Cohen Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition VIII (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979), pp. 154, 2 4 0 - 4 1 .

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Judaism

and the Grand "Christian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace

Interpretation

The Pharisees. Josephus has two substantial descriptions of the Jewish parties. The Pharisees are discussed in War 11.162-63, and Antiquities XVIII. 1215. In the earlier account, they are named second and given only a paragraph. T h e Essenes are named first and receive forty-three (War II. 11962). Nevertheless the Pharisees are called "the first," which is usually taken to mean "the most important," though it could mean "the oldest." They are said to be "the most accurate interpreters of the laws," to believe in both fate and free will, and to teach that the soul is immortal. In the Antiquities they are given pride of place and their beliefs are spelled out in greater detail. From these descriptions they emerge as devoted to God and his law. In summarizing statements in the Antiquities, Josephus attributes great power and influence to the Pharisees. They are said to have the "support of the masses" (XIII.298), to be followed with regard to prayer and worship (XVIII. 1215), and to be believed "even when they speak against a king or high priest" (XIII.288). In such statements there is implicit praise of their religious and ethical goals. As Morton Smith has pointed out, by the nineties, when the Antiquities was composed, the Pharisees had emerged as the leaders of Judaism. T h e great influence which Josephus assigns to them before 70, therefore, may be part of his general apologetic effort to depict the leaders of Judaism as not rebellious and so to win support from Rome for Israel's new leaders. Thus we may suspect the historian of exaggeration, at least of their influence. 14 The Common People. Josephus several times discusses the laws, practices, and beliefs of Jews, that is, of Jews in general rather than of one party or another. T h e most compact and convenient discussion is in a late work, Against Apion 11.164-295. This section has the additional advantage of not including point-by-point discussion of very many of the particular laws (though some are emphasized) but instead focuses on the basic principles. In the first place, Josephus emphasizes the unity of the Jewish people in keeping the law. It is obedience to the law which produces the "admirable harmony" of the Jews (11.179). Religion (literally, "piety towards God") is the motive of actions and words (171). This is so throughout the nation: "Even our womenfolk and dependents would tell you that piety must be the motive of all our occupations in life" (181). Another way of putting this
14. See Morton Smith, "Palestinian Judaism in the First Century" in Israel, Its Role in Civilization, ed. Moshe Davis (New York, 1956), pp. 6 7 - 8 1 ; repr. in Essays in Greco-Roman and Re fated Talmudic Literature, ed. Henry Fischel (New York: KTAV, 1967), pp. 183-97.

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is that God in his grace has revealed his law and bestowed numerous blessings. The Jews naturally respond by worshipping him, and worship takes the form of "the practice of virtue" (192, 197-98). In part of this discussion, Josephus attributes the ability to perform the law to God's grace: "We should beseech God not to give us blessings, for He has given them spontaneously and put them at the disposal of all, but for capacity to receive, and, having received, to keep them" (197). Jewish fulfillment of the law includes hospitality to foreigners, unlike the laws of some Greek city states (25960); and consideration must be shown "even to declared enemies" (211). All Jews, argues Josephus, both know and observe the law. People in other nations find it necessary to employ professional lawyers (17678), but that is not so of the Jews. Moses provided that once each week people "should desert their other occupations and assemble to listen to the law and to obtain a thorough and accurate knowledge of it" (175). Knowledge and training lead to observance: . . . should anyone of our nation be questioned about the laws, he would repeat them all more readily than his own name. The result, then, of our thorough grounding in the laws from the first dawn of intelligence is that we have them, as it were, engraven on our souls. A transgressor is a rarity; evasion of punishment by excuses an impossibility (Against Apion II. 178). The strongest argument for universal observance is the Jewish readiness to meet death rather than to transgress the law. Josephus devotes appreciable space to this point. Even the Spartans surrendered their laws when they lost their liberty and independence (227), while Jews remained loyal to theirs "notwithstanding the countless calamities in which changes of rulers in Asia have involved us" (228). "Has anyone," he asks, "ever heard of a case of our people, not I mean, in such large numbers, but merely two or three, proving traitors to their laws or afraid of death," even when faced with death by torture? (232-33). His answer is "no": Jews face "death on behalf of [their] laws with a courage which no other nation can equal" (234). He returns to the theme: "And from these laws of ours nothing has had power to deflect us, neither fear of our masters, nor envy of the institutions esteemed by other nations" (271); "Robbed though we be of wealth, of cities, of all good things, our Law at least remains immortal; and there is not a Jew so distant from his country, so much in awe of a cruel despot, but has more fear of the Law than of him" (277). This is the description of a noble religion indeed, one in which the mass of the people, not just the professionally pious and the especially devout, recognized the love and mercy of God and responded to him by studying 366
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and observing his commandments, even in the face of torture and death. The setting of this description is in an apologetic work, one explicitly formulated to answer calumny against the Jews and their "constitution" (the law). Exaggeration is readily proved: It is not true that all Jews everywhere agree with one another (17071, 179), nor that no Jew ever defected, but preferred death (232-33), nor that there was not a single Jew who feared the law more than a despot (277). Does this apologetic and exaggerated setting destroy the value of the section for understanding the piety of the mass of Israel? It is now time to try to find the reality behind the arguments of enemies and apologists.
I N SEARCH O F F A I R GENERALIZATIONS

We have seen that all the evidence is biased one way or another. Dispassionate and disinterested description of fundamental beliefs and ways of life was even rarer in the ancient world than it is todayand today it is rare enough. We can never entirely overcome the limitations imposed by the evidence, but I think that it is possible to reach reasonable and even convincing conclusions on some crucial points. The Priests. I earlier referred to the fact that not all of Josephus' references to the priests were favorable. It will be useful to cite some examples in order to help us attain perspective on his bias. He tells us that the high priests Ananias (A.D. 4759) . . . had servants who were utter rascals and who, combining operations with the most reckless men, would go to the threshing floors and take by force the tithes of the [ordinary] priests; nor did they refrain from beating those who refused to give. The chief priests were guilty of the same practices as his slaves, and no one could stop them (Antiquities XX.20607). This does not quite save the reputation of Ananias, who evidently condoned the practice. Further, other members of the aristocratic priestly houses ("the chief priests") are directly said to have committed robbery. In the years just preceding the revolt, the high priesthood became something of a political football, and high priests came and went with considerable frequency. King Herod Agrippa II deposed one Jesus as high priest and appointed another. Each priest "collected a band of the most reckless sort and it frequently happened that after exchanging insults they went further and hurled stones" (Antiquities XX.213). We see that Josephus, despite his undoubted partiality to the priestly caste, was capable of pointing out the grave failings of some of its members. This perhaps makes us more willing to credit his general view of the 367
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priesthood, namely, that its members were conscientious and devout. It is noteworthy that the result of the theft of tithes was that some of the priests, many of whom depended completely on the tithes, starved to death (Antiquities XX.207). They did not, it appears, resort to theft in turn. Thus the corruption into which some of the aristocratic priests fell seems not to have infected the lower orders. It is worth noting that the Ananus whose death was so bemoaned by Josephus, and to whose memory he dedicated a moving panegyric (War IV.31922), was the same Ananus who was a Sadducee and who had James the brother of Jesus executed. T h e action, Josephus notes, caused offense to those who were "strict in observance of the law" probably the Pharisees 15 and as a result the high priest was deposed. In this context Josephus remarks that the Sadducees were "savage" in judgment and that Ananus shared that character. Besides, he was "rash in his temper" (Antiquities XX. 199-203). We see that even the priest whom Josephus most lauds was not immune from criticism. We can grant that his tribute to Ananus made him out to be a greater and more democratic statesman than he was, and that there may have been no small number of the priests who were not as devoted as could be desired, and yet find that Josephus has not substantially misled us. On the whole the priests were devoted to the service of God and took seriously their role as intercessors for Israel and, further, for the other nations of the world. 16 The Pharisees. Evidence about the Pharisees in the time of Jesus which is both detailed and firm is hard to obtain. From Josephus we learn that they believed in some form of life after death and that they were "strict" in observance of the law. 17 We can take these two general points as completely firm. Supporting evidence may be quickly cited: (1) Josephus, who says that he himself followed the views of the Pharisees (Life 12), believed in "a renewed existence" (Against Apion 11.218; cf. War III.374) and in the immortality of the soul (Against Apion 11.203). (2) He repeats the term "strict" or "accurate" so often in his discussions of the Pharisees that we must accept that he took it as a primary fact. (3) Paul had been a Pharisee, and in the context of that description of himself he says that he
15 I am indebted to my colleague A. I. Baumgarten for this suggestion. T h e word "strict" or "accurate" (akribeia) and its cognates are consistently used for the Pharisees: A I. Baumgarten, "The Name of the Pharisees," JBL 102 (1983), 4 1 1 - 2 8 . 16 When the priests refused to continue the sacrifices for Rome, war was "officially declared". War 11.409-10 17 Life after death: War 11.162-63; Antiquities XVIII. 14. "Strict", see n. 15.

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h a d b e e n zealous a n d r i g h t e o u s a c c o r d i n g to t h e law (Phil. 3 : 5 - 6 ) . (4) Paul believed in t h e r e s u r r e c t i o n , a n d h e does n o t seem to have c o m e to this o p i n i o n only as t h e result of his e n c o u n t e r with t h e r e s u r r e c t e d L o r d (for belief in t h e r e s u r r e c t i o n , see, e.g., Phil. 3:11). (5) Acts depicts Paul as claiming to have b e e n zealous for t h e law (Acts 22:3) a n d to be a Pharisee in his belief in t h e r e s u r r e c t i o n (23:6). W e r e t h e Pharisees in their zeal for t h e law "legalistic"? T h a t is, did they observe t h e law in t h e h o p e t h a t they could compile e n o u g h g o o d d e e d s to win merit a n d obligate G o d to save t h e m ? T h i s is t h e accusation t h a t g e n e r a t i o n s of Christian "historians" have t h r o w n at t h e m , b u t t h e r e is simply n o evidence for it. I have p o i n t e d o u t t h e e n d u r i n g a t t e m p t to p r o v e , o n t h e basis of Rabbinic literature, t h a t t h e Pharisees w e r e m i r e d in legalism, b u t that Rabbinic evidence points t h e o t h e r way. T h e r e is n o t space h e r e even to begin to survey t h e vast c o r p u s of Rabbinic material, a n d I shall have to be c o n t e n t to r e p e a t t h e conclusion which comes at t h e e n d of such an effort: God has chosen Israel and Israel has accepted the election. In his role as King, God gave Israel commandments which they are to obey as best they can. Obedience is rewarded and disobedience punished. In case of failure to obey, however, man has recourse to divinely ordained means of atonement, in all of which repentance is required. As long as he maintains his desire to stay in the covenant, he has a share in God's covenantal promises, including life in the world to come. T h e intention and effort to be obedient constitute the condition for remaining in the covenant, but they do not earn it. This general understanding of religion, although not systematically developed, in fact lies behind all the Tannaitic [early Rabbinic] literature. It accounts for the principal emphases in that literature, as well as for apparent contradictions on crucial points. It appears to have informed the religious thinking of the Tannaim consistently and thoroughly. 1 8 W e c a n n o t say t h a t t h e view t h a t Rabbinic l i t e r a t u r e perfectly reflects p r e - 7 0 Pharisaism is u n q u e s t i o n a b l e . T h i s is t h e b o d y of literature, however, that has b e e n relied o n for t h e view that Pharisaism was legalistic, a n d my a r g u m e n t is t h a t t h e evidence of Rabbinic material points t o w a r d s confidence in God's grace a n d o b e d i e n c e as t h e a p p r o p r i a t e r e s p o n s e . F u r t h e r , this u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e relationship between works a n d grace is so w i d e s p r e a d in t h e literature o f t h a t p e r i o d (about 200 B.C. to A.D. 200) that we m u s t a s s u m e it to have b e e n c o m m o n in t h e J u d a i s m of t h e time of

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esus. 19. Ibid., pp. 426-28. 18. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 180. 369
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The Common People. There is very solid evidence that indicates that in the first century the common people, considered as whole, hungered and thirsted for righteousness and political freedom, trusted in the promises of God, and were loyal to the law and the covenant. I again resort to enumeration. (1) They repeatedly rallied to prophets, whether to those who required righteousness and repentance (John the Baptist; for the crowds that flocked to him, see Josephus, Antiquities XVIII. 116-19), those who promised that a miracle would inaugurate the kingdom (Josephus, War 11.258-63; Antiquities XX.97-98, 167-72), or those who more quietly looked for the Kingdom of God and promised it to the meek and lowly of heart (Jesus). (2) Large numbers (Josephus, "tens of thousands") were prepared to die rather than have a statue of Caligula erected in the temple (Antiquities XVIII.262; cf. Philo, Legat. 192, referring to the same threat: "We will die and be no more, for the truly glorious death, met in defence of laws, might be called life"). One should especially note that on this occasion there was no hint of a revolt. T h e delegation of Jews carried no arms, and they offered their lives without the threat of being willing to die fighting (though Philo does, after the fact, threaten the possibility of a world-wide revolt, Legat. 21315). (3) There were numerous other instances in which large numbers of Jews indicated that they preferred death to allowing transgression and disregard of the law. Pilate, for example, introduced into Jerusalem Roman standards bearing the bust of Caesar. Taking them to be "graven images," a delegation of Jews followed him to Caesarea and lay prostrate around his house for five days and nights. He had them surrounded by troops, and they "extended their necks, and exclaimed that they were ready rather to die than to transgress the law" (War II. 16974). (4) On one point we have archaelogical evidence of widespread observance of the law. Excavations in Jerusalem have uncovered numerous miqvaoth, immersion pools, required for purification before entering the temple. Many of these were attached to private houses. 20 Further, a miqveh has been found at Masada, 21 and others are scattered around Palestine. This archaelogical evidence confirms literary evidence from Josephus that people generally kept the laws of purity. Tiberias was founded on a graveyard, which made all of its residents impure and unable to worship in the temple (without a fairly elaborate cleansing process). According to Josephus, it proved very hard to populate the city, and Herod the Tetrarch, its founder, had to use coercion and bribes. Even so, it was
20. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, pp. 139, 142. 21. Yigael Yadin, Masada: Herod's Fortress and the Zealots' Last Stand (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966), pp. 166-67.

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Judaism

and the Grand "Christian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace

Interpretation

populated by the offscourings of Israel (Antiquities XVIII.36-38). Ritual purity is often seen as proof that Judaism was externalistic and obsessed with trivia. The important thing to remember, however, is that it is commanded in the Bible and thus was viewed as the will of God. Paul, surely no petty legalist, is depicted as observing the laws of purification before entering the temple (Acts 21:26). Whatever our present theological evaluation of purity, we can see that in the first century the observance of the purity laws indicates loyalty to God and his Torah. We also learn from the story about Tiberias that not everyone was observant. Despite the exaggeration o Against Apion II, we can be sure that there were Jews who were contemptuous of the law and who ignored it. Yet we may also be sure that the mass of the common people loved God and kept his commandments. Can we extend our conclusions to cover Judaism as a religion and a way of life which embraced an entire nation, many resident in the land and many more dispersed throughout the Mediterranean? Judaism as a Whole. I treated Josephus' discussion of Judaism in Against Apion II as evidence for the common people. He intended it more generally, as embracing "us," all Jews. Is it, despite the obvious exaggeration and idealization, true? I think that it is, and I shall cite two considerations which seem to me decisive. 1. Josephus' description focuses on motivation and principle: T h e Jews are loyal to the law because God has been gracious to them. He even gives them the power to respond to his grace by accepting and obeying his ordinances. The decisive consideration is this: Josephus derived that elevated theology from somewhere. He shows no sign of being a creative theologian himself, and here he is passing on what he perceives to be the standard view of the relationship between grace and works. This indicates, I think, that it was the standard view. That does not prove, of course, that every individual Jew always had this theology in mind nor that every act of every Jew was consciously perceived to be the response to God's grace. Yet I think that it is certain that this was the theology which Josephus had been taught, just as his claim that priests made intercession principally for others, not themselves, was the "official" priestly view. They were taught not just to be expert butchers, and not just to perform the sacrifices and the other elements of worship in a dignified way, 22 but to view their service
22. For the beauty and dignity of the service, see The Letter of Aristeas, trans. Herbert T. Andrews in The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: T h e University Press, 1913; repr. 1963), pp. 9 2 - 9 9 .

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as service to God on behalf of Israel. We find, in this section of Against Apion, the standard Jewish theology, which was generally taught and generally believed, though individuals (naturally) did not universally live up to it. 2. We know from pagan criticism of Judaism and Jews that devotion to the law was common and widespread. In the face of criticism and ridicule, and despite considerable inconvenience, they performed circumcision, kept the Sabbath, and refrained from certain foods. 23 Why did they do so? Josephus gives the answer: They feared the law more than any human. Does this prove that they were obedient only because of superstitious fear? Only if belief in God is superstitious. They feared the law because it was given by God. They trusted in his promises, they accepted the election, and they were loyal to his commandments even to death, firm in their faith that God would give them "a renewed existence." In Against Apion II, Josephus exaggerates by saying that all Jews were always loyal to the law, but the whole thrust of the argument depends on the fact that Jews were famous (or notorious) for their loyalty to their own laws. Pagan criticism confirms that this was the case. We end where we began. Not every Jew was observant, and not everyone correctly understood the great principles of the faith. Yet Judaism in the time of Jesus and Paul was a noble religion, based on belief in God's mercy and grace, and inculcating in its members virtuous action and consideration to others. Mercy, in Judaism as in Christianity, begets mercy.

23. These were the three principal points in pagan criticism, which shows that they were tenaciously observed. For bibliography, see E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), p. 117 nn. 27, 28.

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