table torrent of righteous indignation, through which flashed
the lightning of scorching invective, accompanied by thunder peals of
divine anathema.

"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the
kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither
suffer ye them that are entering to go in." The Pharisaic standard of
piety was the learning of the schools; one unversed in the
technicalities of the law was accounted as unacceptable to God and
veritably accursed.[1133] By their casuistry and perverted explications
of scripture they confused and misled the "common people," and so stood
as obstacles at the entrance to the kingdom of God, refusing to go in
themselves and barring the way to others.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows'
houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive
the greater damnation."[1134] The avarice of the Jewish hierarchy in our
Lord's lifetime was an open scandal. By extortion and unlawful exaction
under cover of religious duty the priestly rulers had amassed an
enormous treasure,[1135] of which the contributions of the poor, and the
confiscation of property, including even the houses of dependent widows,
formed a considerable proportion; and the perfidy of the practise was
made the blacker by the outward pretense of sanctity and the
sacrilegious accompaniment of wordy prayer.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and
land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold
more the child of hell than yourselves." It is possible that this woe
was directed more against the effort to secure proselytes to Pharisaism
than that of converting aliens to Judaism; but as the latter was
thoroughly degraded and the former disgustingly corrupt, the application
of our Lord's denunciation to either or both is warranted. Of the Jews
who strove to make proselytes it has been said that "out of a bad
heathen they made a worse Jew." Many of their converts soon became
perverts.

"Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the
temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the
temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the
gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall
swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift
that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blin