fact, while the Pharisees, on the other hand, were the common people; proud of their unblemished descent from Abraham, exclusive, formal, self-righteous, strict observers of external rites and ceremonies, even beyond the requirements of the law. 20. Such were the chief sects among the Jews. There were others but they were of minor importance. Both Sadducees and Pharisees looked for a deliverer; not, however, such a one as God had promised; but a powerful warrior and a vindicator of their national liberties, a king, a ruler. All placed the sum of religion in an observance of the Mosaic ritual, and in certain duties toward their countrymen. All excluded the rest of mankind from the hope of salvation, and, of course whenever they dared, treated them with hatred and inhumanity. To these fruitful sources of vice, must be added the various absurd and superstitious opinions concerning the Divine Nature, {29} genii, magic, etc., which they had imbibed from surrounding nations. 21. Samaritans.--The Samaritans [Sa-mar-i-tans] were colonists sent by the king of Assyria [As-syr-rya], Shalmaneser [Shal-ma-ne-zer,] to people the land after he had carried captive the Israelites, in the latter part of the eighth century, B. C. They were a mixed people from various eastern nations, conquered by this same king--and they brought with them their various forms of national idolatry. A plague breaking out among them, however, led them to petition for a priest of the god of the country, to teach them the old form of worship. He was stationed at Bethel [Beth-el,] and the Samaritans endeavored to combine a formal reverence of God with the practice of their own idolatrous rites. After the captivity of Judah, they sought an alliance with the returned Jews (536 B. C.,) with whom they intermarried. On Ezra enforcing the Mosaic law against mixed marriages--three-quarters of a century later--Manasses [Ma-nas-ses,] a Jewish priest, who had married the daughter of Sanballat [San-bal-lat,] chief of the Samaritans, headed a secession at Shechem [Shek-em.] The Samaritans taught the Mosaic ritual and erected a rival temple to that at Jerusalem, on Mount Gerizim [Ger-i-zim]. This mixed community before the time of the Savior began to claim descent from the patriarchs and a share in the promises. Their religion was less pure than that of the Jews, as they adulterated the doctrines of the Old Testament with the profane rites of the pagan religion. 22. Such was the state of the world--such the condition of the Jews at the time of Messiah's birth; and surely that condition justified the pity and also the stern reproofs--nay, the severe rebukes administered, as we shall see, by the Son of God in the course of his ministry. NOTES.