For instance there might be, as there certainly was, more than one period when the group of beliefs centring on the Messiah rose into exceptional prominence, and were held with more than usual fervour. And, again, the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, and the final overthrow of the Jewish national polity in A.D. 135, had a profound influence upon Pharisaic belief, by laying additional stress on faithfulness to the divine will, and by causing deeper reflection upon the mystery of that will as shown in the suffering of Israel. The Pharisees deplored, with sincerest grief, the loss of the Temple and the cessation of its services. But they were well able to learn the lesson of a worship and a religious life, for which such external means were needless. And they did learn it with wonderful rapidity. So, too, for individuals according to temperament, some elements of the general belief would have more importance than others; and there would be, further, a great variation in the strength of conviction with which the beliefs were held, as also in the character of those who held them. It is clear that such a general conception of religion could open a way for the faults of pride and hypocrisy, charged against the Pharisees, as it also could open the way for the virtues of humble piety and sincere devotion. It probably did the one. It certainly did the other. There were good, bad, and indifferent Pharisees, as there are good, bad, and indifferent Christians. And all that I am concerned with at present is the general Pharisaic consensus of belief, thought, and feeling upon divine things. If I have described it correctly, then it represents the underlying meaning of the Haggadah; and whatever is contained in the Haggadah is intended to illustrate, or enforce, or make prominent, some aspect of those beliefs. It matters nothing that there is endless variety, and frequent contradiction, in what the Haggadists say, _i.e._ in the form in which they clothe their thoughts; nor that they make statements which are extravagant, or impossible, or absurd, or grotesque, or even occasionally, in appearance at least, irreverent. What really was in their mind was the underlying religious truth or ethical principle which they sought to illumine. That was their serious intention; and it is not a denial of this if it be admitted that, like all interpreters who use the method of allegory, they occasionally let their fancy run riot, and indulged in freaks of exposition whose connection with religion is not obvious.[18] Trivialities of that kind, however, may be left out of account.