John Lightfoot on Luke 10:25

Some few Notes concerning the Jewish Doctors.

The word lawyer we meet with in Matthew 22:35, where the Syriac hath it a scribe. So Luke 7:30; as also in this place, and chapter 11:45. Nor without reason, when he in St. Matthew, one of them which was a lawyer, is said to be, Mark 12:28, one of the scribes.

However there seems some difficulty from a passage in our evangelist, where woe unto you scribes, and Then answered one of the lawyers, seems to make some distinction betwixt them. As to this, we shall make some remarks in its proper place. In the mean time let it not seem tedious to the reader, if we discourse some things concerning the doctors of the law, with the various classes and orders of them, that we may the better judge of that sort of men of which we have so frequent mention in the holy Scriptures. And,

I. It is not unknown how the name scribe was a general title given to all the learned part of that nation, as it is opposed to the rude and illiterate person. "If two persons eat together, and are both scribes, they each of them say grace singly for themselves: but if one of them be a scribe, and the other an illiterate person, the scribe saith grace, and it sufficeth for the other that is unlearned."

Indeed, the first original of the word scribes did more peculiarly signify the numberers. "The ancients were called numberers, because they numbered all the letters of the law..." The Gloss gives another reason out of the Jerusalem Talmud; namely, "because they numbered all the points and contents of the law, as the forty principal servile works save one," &c.

Should we indeed grant that the first original of the word had such narrow bounds as this, yet does not this hinder but that it afterward enlarged itself so far as to denote any person learned in the law, and every doctor of it; nay, that it extended itself even to the schoolmasters that taught children: if not to the very libellarii, those whose business it was to write out bills of divorce and forms of contracts, &c. Of which two there is mention made amongst the ten sorts, whereof if none should happen to be in a city, it was not fit for any disciple of the wise to abide in it.

II. That the fathers of the Sanhedrim were more emphatically called the scribes is so well known that it needs no confirmation. That passage in the evangelist sufficiently shews it; "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat": that is, on the legislative bench, or in the Sanhedrim: where also the Sadducees that were of that council are called scribes: and the scribes are distinguished there from the Pharisees, not that they were not scribes, but because all the scribes there were not Pharisees.

III. There was a certain degree of doctors or scribes that were in the Sanhedrim, but were not members of it: these are commonly called those who gave judgment in the presence of the wise men, fit for the office of legislators, but not yet admitted. Such were Simeon Ben Azzai, and Simeon Ben Zumah. Such also was Simeon the Temanite, of whom we have made mention elsewhere, (out of Sanhedrin, fol. 17. 2) He judged in the presence of the Sanhderim, sitting upon the ground. He did not sit on the bench with the fathers, as not being one of their number, but on the seats below, nearer the ground: him the fathers consulted in difficult matters. A shadow of which we have in England of the judges, men learned in the laws, who have their seats in our house of lords.

Whether he that was particularly called the wise man was of the number of the fathers, or only of this kind of judges, I shall not at present dispute, but leave the reader to judge from this story: "Rabban Simeon Ben Gamliel was the president of the Sanhedrim: R. Meir was chacam, or the wise man; and R. Nathan, the vice-governor." Now when Rabban Simeon had decreed something that disparaged R. Meir and R. Nathan, "Saith R. Meir to R. Nathan, I am the chacam [or the wise man], and thou art the vice-president. Let us remove Rabban Simeon from the presidency, then thou wilt be the president, and I the vice-president."

There is nothing more common, and yet nothing more difficult than that saying, "The school of Hillel saith so and so, and the school of Shammai so: but the wise men say otherwise." It is very obscure who these wise men should be. If we should say the Sanhedrim, it is plain that one part of it consisted of the Shammaeans, and another part of the Hillelites. If so, then it should seem that these wise men are those judges of whom we have spoken: unless you will assign a third part to the Sadducees, to whom you will hardly attribute the determination of the thing, and much less the emphatical title of the wise men. But this we leave undecided.

IV. Let us a little inquire out of the Sanhedrim; we shall find variety of scribes and doctors of the law, according to the variety of the law itself, and the variety of teaching it. Hence those various treatises amongst the Rabbins; the Micra, Misna, Midras, Talmud, Agadah, &c.

1. Micra, is the text of the Bible itself: its reading and literal explication.

2. Misna, the doctrine of traditions and their explication.

3. Midras, the mystic and allegorical doctrine and exposition of the Scriptures: "For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day." Now these were the ways and methods of preaching him:

I. As to the written law (for every one knows they had a twofold law, written and oral, as they call it), they had a twofold way of declaring it, viz., explaining and applying it according to the literal sense of it, for edification, exhortation, and comfort, as the apostle hath it; or else by drawing allegories, mysteries, and far-fetched notions out of it. As to the former way, the rulers of the synagogue seem to have respect to it in what they said to Paul and Barnabas: If ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. As to the latter, the instances are endless in the Jewish writings every where; so far, that they have even melted down the whole volume of the Scriptures into tradition and allegory.

It is not easily determined whether those preachers were so of a different order, that one should wholly addict himself to the plain and literal exposition and application of the Scriptures, the other only to the mystical and more abstruse way of teaching. There is no question but both these did frequently meet both in one preacher, and that in one and the same sermon: and indeed I cannot tell but that the word Agadah may sometimes denote both these ways of expounding and interpreting the law. When a certain person, being interrogated about certain traditions, could give no answer, the standers by said, Perhaps he is not skilled in the [traditional] doctrine: but he may be able to expound. And so they propound to him Daniel 10:21 to explain. To which that also agrees well enough, "The masters of the Agada or expositions, because they are 'Darshanin' [or profound searchers of the Scriptures], are honoured of all men, for they draw away the hearts of their auditors." Nor does that sound very differently as to the thing itself: On the sabbath day they discussed discussions [i.e. in the Scriptures, searching the Scriptures] "to the masters of families, who had been employed in their occasions all the week; and while they were expounding, they taught them the articles about things forbidden and things permitted them," &c.

To these kind of mystic and allegorical expositions of Scripture (if at least it be proper to call them expositions) they were so strangely bewitched, that they valued nothing more than a skill in tickling or rubbing the itching ears of their auditors with such trifles. Hence that passage, "R. Joshua said to R. Jochanan Ben Bruchah, and to R. Eleazar the blind, What new thing have you met with today in 'Beth Midras'? They answered and said, 'We are all thy disciples, and drink wholly at thy waters.' To whom he; 'It is impossible but you should meet with something novel every day in Beth Midras.'"

II. As to the oral law, there was also a twofold way of explaining it, as they had for the written law:

1. The former way we have intimated to us in these words: "The book of the Law, when it grows old, they lay up with one of the disciples of the wise men, even although he teach the traditions." The passage seems very obscure, but it is thus explained by the Gloss: "Albeit it doth not any way help the disciples of the wise men in Talmud and Gemara, but in Misnaioth and Beriathoth," that is, he that would only read the body of the traditional law, and render the literal sense of it,--and not he that would dispute scholastically, and comment upon it. For,

2. There were doctors that would inquire more deeply into the traditions, would give some accounts (such as they were), of them, would discuss difficulties, solve doubts, &c.; a specimen of which is the Talmudic Gemara throughout.

Lastly, amongst the learned, and doctors of that nation, there were the Agadici, who would expound the written law in a more profound way than ordinary, even to what was cabalistical. These were more rare, and (as it should seem) not so acceptable amongst the people. Whether these are concerned in what follows, let the reader judge: "R. Joshua Ben Levi saith, So and so let it happen to me, if in all my life I ever saw the book Agada above once; and then I found a hundred seventy-and-five sections of the law, where it is written, 'The Lord hath said, hath spoken, hath commanded.' They are according to the number of the years of our father Abraham, as it is said, To receive gifts for men, &c. A hundred forty-and-seven Psalms, which are in the Book of Psalms [mark the number] are according to the number of the years of our father Jacob; as it is written, 'Thou art holy, and inhabitest the praises of Israel.' A hundred twenty-and-three turns, wherein Israel answereth Hallelujah [to him that repeats the Hallel], are according to the number of the years of Aaron," &c. And as a coronis, let me add that passage in Sanhedrim, "If they be masters of the textual reading, they shall be conversant in the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. If they be masters of the Misna, they shall be conversant in Misna Halacoth and Haggadoth. And if they be masters of the Talmud, they shall be conversant in the traditions of the Passover, in the Passover: in the traditions of Pentecost, in Pentecost: in the traditions of the feast of Tabernacles, in the feast of Tabernacles."

These all, whom we have mentioned, were scribes and doctors and expounders of the law; but which of these may properly and peculiarly challenge to themselves the title of lawyers, whether all, or any particular class of them? The latter is most probable: but then, what class will you choose? or will you distinguish betwixt the lawyer and the teacher of the law? I had rather the reader would frame his own judgment here. And yet, that I might not dismiss this question wholly untouched, and at the same time not weary the reader with too long a digression, I have referred what is to be alleged in this matter to my notes upon chapter 11:45.