The original aim of _Abot_ was to show the divine source and authority
of the traditional law revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and to
demonstrate its continuity from Moses through Joshua, the elders, and
the men of the Great Synagogue, down to those Rabbis who lived during
the period between 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. Loeb maintains that _Abot_
was originally a composition of the Pharisaic Rabbis who wished to
indicate that the traditions held and expounded by them, and which the
Sadducees repudiated, were divine and, in time and sequence,
uninterruptedly authoritative (8). This line of continuous tradition
is plainly seen in the first two chapters. A second and probably
later purpose was to present a body of practical maxims and aphorisms
for the daily guidance of the people.


(8) _La Chaine_, etc. The Sadducees belonged to the priestly
and aristocratic families. They made light of the oral
traditions, did not believe in the future life, and were
indifferent to the independence of the Jewish nation. The
Pharisees, on the other hand, were constituted largely from
the common people; they were believers in, and strict
observers of, the traditional laws, and were ardent
nationalists. The bitter attack of Jesus on them, which has
resulted in making the word "Pharisee" synonymous with
"hypocrite" and "self-righteous person," was, to say the
least, unjust, as Herford has so lucidly pointed out in his
sympathetic study of the Pharisees. Herford, though not a
Jew, has taken up the cudgels most ably in defence of this
sect, with remarkable insight into the life and literature of
the ancient Jews. He demonstrates conclusively that though
there were hypocrites among the Pharisees, as among all