classes and creeds, yet the average Pharisee was a man of the
most elevated religious ideals, who misunderstood Jesus, but
who, in turn was misunderstood by him. Huxley, in his
_Evolution of Theology_, says, "of all the strange ironies in
history, perhaps the strangest is that 'Pharisee' is current
as a term of reproach among the theological descendants of
that sect of Nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those
primitive Puritans, would never have come into existence."
Such great teachers and men of sterling quality and golden
utterance as Antigonus of Soko (I, 3), Hillel (I, 12-14; II,
5-8), Jochanan ben Zakkai (II, 9-19), Gamaliel, whose pupil
was Paul, the apostle (I, 16), and Judah, the Prince (II, 1),
whose sayings grace the pages of _Abot_, were, as Loeb points
out, of the Pharisaic school or party. There is naturally a
large literature on the Pharisees. Herford's _Pharisaism_
deserves careful perusal. See, also, Josephus (ed.
Whiston-Margoliouth), _Antiq._, XIII, 10.6, XVIII, 1, 2-4;
Schurer, _History of the Jews_, etc., II, ii, p. 14 _et seq._;
_Jewish Encyclopedia_ and literature mentioned there; Geiger,
_Judaism and Its History_, p. 102 _et seq._, and Friedlander,
G., _The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount_, p. 34 _et
seq._




DESCRIPTION

The _Sayings of the Jewish Fathers_ is the oldest collection of
ethical dicta of the Rabbis of the _Mishnah_ (9). It is a Rabbinic