Moses, as it was understood, and adhered in teaching and practice to the traditional ordinances.

In principle it was the same liberty which the Romish Church accords to its professing members

- only with much wider application, since the debatable ground embraced so many matters of

faith, and the liberty given was not only that of private opinion but of public utterance. We

emphasise this, because the absence of authoritative direction and the latitude in matters of faith

and inner feeling stand side by side, and in such sharp contrast, with the most minute

punctiliousness in all matters of outward observance. And here we may mark the fundamental

distinction between the teaching of Jesus and Rabbinism. He left the Halakhah untouched,

putting it, as it were, on one side, as something quite secondary, while He insisted as primary on

that which to them was chiefly matter of Haggadah. And this rightly so, for, in His own words,

`Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth,'

since `those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile

the man.'85 The difference was one of fundamental principle, and not merely of development,

form, or detail. The one developed the Law in its outward direction as ordinances and

commandments; the other in its inward direction as life and liberty. Thus Rabbinism occupied

one pole - and the outcome of its tendency to pure externalism was the Halakhah, all that was

internal and higher being merely Haggadic. The teaching of Jesus occupied the opposite pole. Its

starting-point was the inner sanctuary in which God was known and worshipped, and it might

well leave the Rabbinic Halakhoth aside, as not worth controversy, to be in the meantime `done

and observed,' in the firm assurance that, in the course of its development, the spirit would

create its own appropriate forms, or, to use a New Testament figure, the new wine burst the old

bottles. And, lastly, as closely connected with all this, and marking the climax of contrariety:

Rabbinism started with demand of outward obedience and righteousness, and pointed to

sonship as its goal; the Gospel started with the free gift of forgiveness through faith and of

sonship, and pointed to obedience and righteousness as its goal.

In truth, Rabbinism, as such, had no system of theology; only what ideas, conjectures, or fancies

the Haggadah yielded concerning God, Angels, demons, man, his future destiny and present

position, and Israel, with its past history and coming glory. Accordingly, by the side of what is

noble and pure, what a terrible mass of utter incongruities, of conflicting statements and too

often debasing superstitions, the outcome of ignorance and narrow nationalism; of legendary

colouring of Biblical narratives and scenes, profane, coarse, and degrading to them; the

Almighty Himself and His Angels taking part in the conversations of Rabbis, and the discussions

of Academies; nay, forming a kind of heavenly Sanhedrin, which occasionally requires the aid of

an earthly Rabbi.86 The miraculous merges into the ridiculous, and even the revolting.

Miraculous cures, miraculous supplies, miraculous help, all for the glory of great Rabbis,87 who

by a look or word can kill, and restore to life. At their bidding the eyes of a rival fall out, and are

again inserted. Nay, such was the veneration due to Rabbis, that R. Joshua used to kiss the

stone on which R. Eliezer had sat and lectured, saying: `This stone is like Mount Sinai, and he

who sat on it like the Ark.' Modern ingenuity has, indeed, striven to suggest deeper symbolical