in
this Semitic dialect. It was the same with many of the Apocrypha (IV.
Book of Macc. xvi. ad calcem, &c.). In fine, the sects issuing
directly from the first Galilean movement (Nazarenes, _Ebionim_, &c.),
which continued a long time in Batanea and Hauran, spoke a Semitic
dialect (Eusebius, _De Situ et Nomin. Loc. Hebr._, at the word [Greek:
Choba]; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 3; St. Jerome, _In
Matt._, xii. 13; _Dial. adv. Pelag._, iii. 2).]

[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, xi. 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Baba
Kama_, 82 _b_ and 83 _a_; _Sota_, 49 _a_ and _b_; _Menachoth_, 64 _b_;
comp. II. Macc. iv. 10, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._ XX. xi. 2.]

[Footnote 5: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1.]

[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, _loc. cit._; Orig., _Contra Celsum_, ii.
34.]

[Footnote 7: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1; Talmud of Babylon,
_Menachoth_, 99 _b_.]

Neither directly nor indirectly, then, did any element of Greek
culture reach Jesus. He knew nothing beyond Judaism; his mind
preserved that free innocence which an extended and varied culture
always weakens. In the very bosom of Judaism he remained a stranger to
many efforts often parallel to his own. On the one hand, the
asceticism of the Essenes or the Therapeutae;[1] on the other, the fine
efforts of religious philosophy put forth by the Jewish school of
Alexandria, and of which Philo, his contemporary, was the ingenious
interpreter, were unknown to him. The frequent resemblances which we
find between him and Philo, those excellent maxims about the love of
God, charity, rest in God,[2] which are like an echo between the
Gospel and the writings of the illustrious Alexandrian thinker,
proceed from the common tendencies which the wants of the time
inspired in all elevated minds.

[Footnote 1: The _Therapeutae_ of Philo are a branch of the Essenes.
Their name appears to be but a Greek translation of that of the
_Essenes_ ([Greek: Essaioi], _asaya_, "doctors"). Cf. Philo, _De Vita
Contempl._, init.]

[Footnote 2: See especially the treatises _Quis Rerum Divinarum Haeres
Sit_ and _De Philanthropia_ of Philo.]

Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the strange scholasticism
which was taught at Jerusalem, and which was soon to constitute the
Talmud. If some Pharisees had already brought it into Galilee, he did
not associate with them, and when, later, he encountered this silly
casuistry, it only inspired him with disgust. We may sup