16.  The religious life which centred in the synagogue found daily expression in the observance of the law and the traditions.  In the measure of its control by the scribes it was concerned chiefly with the Sabbath, with the various ablutions needful to the maintenance of ceremonial purity, with the distinctions between clean and unclean food, with the times and ways of fasting, and with the wearing of fringes and phylacteries.  These lifeless ceremonies seem to our day wearisome and petty in the extreme.  It is probable, however, that the growth of the various traditions had been so gradual that, as has been aptly said, the whole usage seemed no more unreasonable to the Jews than the etiquette of polite society does to its devotees.  The evil was not so much in the minuteness of the regulations as in the external and superficial notion of religion which they induced.

17.  Optimism was the mood of Israel’s prophets from the earliest times.  Every generation looked for the dawning of a day which should banish all ill and realize the dreams inspired by the covenant in which God had chosen Israel for his own.  In proportion as the rabbinic formalism held control of the hearts of the people, the Messianic hope lost its warmth and vigor.  Yet the scribes did not abandon the prophetic optimism; they held to the letter of the hope, but as its fulfilment was for them dependent on perfect obedience to the law, oral and written, their interest was diverted to the traditions, and their strength was given to legal disputations.  Of the rest of the people, the Sadducees naturally gave little thought to the promise of future deliverance, they were too absorbed with regard for present concerns.  Nor is there any evidence that the Essenes, with all their reputed knowledge of the future, cherished the hope of a Messiah.  The other elements among the people who owned the general leadership of the scribes looked eagerly for the coming time when God should bring to pass what he had promised through the prophets.  While some expected God himself to come in judgment, and gave no thought to an Anointed one who should represent the Most High to the people, the majority looked for a Son of David to sit upon his father’s throne.  Even so, however, there were wide differences in the nature of the hope which was set on the coming of this Son of David.  The Zealots were looking for a victory, which should set Israel on high over all his foes.  To the rest of the people, however, the method of the consummation was not so clear, and they were ready to leave God to work out his purpose in his own way, longing meanwhile for the fulfilment of his promise.  One class in particular gave themselves to visionary representations of the promised redemption.  They differed from the Zealots in that they saw with unwelcome clearness the futility of physical attack upon their enemies; but their faith was strong, and at the moment when outward conditions seemed most disheartening they looked for a revelation