[6] The action of Jesus in casting out devils was not in itself a ground of controversy with the Pharisees, since they did the same; and moreover neither side questioned the genuineness of the exorcisms of the other. But it appears from Mark iii. 22-30 that the Pharisees alleged that Jesus performed his cures by the help of Beelzebub the prince of the devils; and Jesus denounced them as guilty of the sin against the Holy Spirit, for their malicious slander in ascribing to diabolic agency what was due to power from God. Then follows the famous declaration: "Whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin" (Mark iii. 29). This is the foundation for the doctrine of the unpardonable sin, in Christian theology. It rests entirely on a misunderstanding of the phrase, "hath never forgiveness," a misunderstanding already apparent in Matt. xii. 32, where it is said that such a one "shall not be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come." The phrase in Mark, "hath never forgiveness," is the key to the real meaning of the saying of Jesus. The Christian reader, finding the phrase only in this one passage, naturally supposes that it is very exceptional and carries some tremendous meaning. But, in fact, it is a Jewish idiom applicable in ordinary circumstances. In the Talmud, j. B. Kama 6^c, is a passage dealing with injuries and affronts from one man to another. A Rabbi suggests a method of reconciliation; upon which another Rabbi comments: "This will do where it is not a case of slander; but if he has put forth a bad name against his fellow-man, _he hath not forgiveness for ever_." There is here no question of a sin which God will not pardon, but of an affront which man will not, or does not, pardon. It is only a way of saying that slander is one of the hardest of all offences to forgive. The Rabbi who said this never dreamed of an unpardonable sin as Christians have imagined it. The unvarying doctrine in Pharisaic theology on the subject of forgiveness is that God always forgives those who repent when they repent (see on forgiveness in Chapter IV.). The term rendered "for ever" is used in the Talmud in connections which preclude all idea of theological meaning. Thus, j. M. Kat. 83^d, of the rent garments of the mourner, "They do not sew the pieces together _for ever_." The declaration of Jesus accordingly is not the intimation that there is a sin which God will never forgive, but the denunciation of malicious slander by a justly indignant man. The phrase, "is guilty of an eternal sin," is only an expansion of "hath never forgiveness." It is worth noting in this connection that the references to Jesus in the Talmud do not