In this world there are many Cæsars. Our Queen, our country, our family ties, our business occupations, all are involved in the command to "render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." No faith however sublime, no prayers however devout, can set a man free from the obligation imposed upon him, to do his duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call him. "If any man provide not for his own, he is worse than an infidel."

But while we are zealous for all these public and private considerations, as viewed from the side of temporal interests, let us never forget to acknowledge Him by Whom kings reign and prosperity is

secured.

1 Tim. v. 8.

We ourselves are His every bit as much as the coin was Cæsar's. Our bodies are stamped with His Image, our souls redeemed by Christ's Blood, our lives sanctified by His Holy Spirit; and for all these several blessings we are called not merely to give, but to give back-to make a return for-what we have received: as creatures, to Him Who created us; as redeemed, to the Redeemer; as regenerated and sanctified, to Him Who hath washed us in the laver of regeneration, and renews us day by day Titus iii. 5. with the spirit of holiness.

NOTES.

1 Cf. i. 96, 97 for further characteristics of the two parties.

2 тayideów, to ensnare, or entrap. ȧypévw, to take in hunting. 3 Aldáσkaλe, Rabbi, a deferential acknowledgment that they were prepared to "sit at His feet."

4 "To regard the person of any one hardly conveys the meaning of the original βλέπειν εἰς πρόσωπον. It is to look at the external circumstances of any one: the position, wealth, influence, etc. πрóσшжоν was the persona, the mask an actor wore, the character he assumed.

5 Pontius Pilate was so unpopular that he usually resided at Cæsarea, and only came occasionally to Jerusalem, as at the Passover, when his presence would be required in case of disturbThe same motives, to a less degree perhaps, influenced

ances.

the Herods.

6 It was accidental that this particular coin bore the Emperor's head, for out of deference to Jewish prejudice this was usually omitted, and only the name and title engraved on it.

7 Not dóre, but åródoтe, "pay back."

LVI.

Sadducean Difficulties.

S. MARK XII. 18-27.

20. Now

18. Then come unto Him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked Him, saying, 19. Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21. And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22. And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. 23. In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife

sees;

shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. 24. And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? 25. For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. 26. And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27. He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

THE chief actors in the last scene were Phariin this they are Sadducees. It has been a common practice to condemn both in the same breath and in unmeasured terms; but such a course is hardly justifiable. The Pharisee, whichever way we look at him, has something reprehensible in His character. The Sadducee, on the contrary, though

holding doctrines from which the Christian instinct naturally recoils, has in him much that may enlist our sympathy. Modern writers speak of him commonly as a freethinker, or sceptic, or infidel; he met with a more generous reception at the hands of our Lord. It is quite true that Christ condemned Sadducean tenets, and warned people against them, but there is none of the scathing denunciations with which xxiii. 13-33. He repelled the hypocritical Pharisee. He read their hearts, and saw that many of them were honest men with honest doubts, to whom the common arguments appealed to by their brethren carried no conviction.

S. Matt.

S. Mark

xii. 13.

S. Matt. xxii. 18.

Winer,
Real-Wör-

terbuch, s.
Sadducäer.

Joseph.

In illustration of this contrast of treatment we need refer only to the controversy about the Tributemoney, and to this on the Resurrection. Of the Pharisees in the former He asks indignantly, "Why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites?" To the Sadducees in the latter He offers the firm but gentle remonstrance, "Do ye not therefore err?"

Now, the Sadducean tenets were, for the most part, negative. They are well summed up by S. Paul in the words, "The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit." It was on the first of these questions that they engaged in Acts xxiii. 8. dispute with our Lord in the Temple. They dis

Antiq.

xviii. 1. 4. Wars,

ii. 8. 14.

believed in the immortality of the soul, but the

90 b.

point on which they raised the present controversy was the resurrection of the body. It was provoked, no doubt, in a measure by the strong materialistic views held by the Pharisees, who even disputed whether a man would rise in the very clothes in Synhed. which he had been buried; and we cannot but think that they wished to expose their rivals by the somewhat coarse and grotesque form in which they shaped their inquiry. They appealed to a law1 which had received the sanction of Moses, and been Deut. xxv. 5. generally recognised as Divine.

If, as common Pharisaic

Seven brethren in succession, they imagined,2 had married the same woman. teaching implied, even physical human relationships would be reproduced in the risen life, "whose wife shall she be of the seven?" They thought that if they could show that a restoration of these earthly conditions in another world was simply impossible, the whole theory of the resurrection would fall to the ground. Jesus might have replied that by the Jewish law she was the real3 wife of the first, and if marriage ties were to be preserved hereafter she would continue so; but He chose rather to give a full and complete answer to the whole question. He told them that they erred in their general denial of the resurrection through ignorance of Scripture.*

Jer. Cheth,

35 a.