Then answered Nathanael and said to Eliezer, “But is it not truly said, O son of Arak, that ‘The perfection of wisdom is repentance?’ and again, ‘When a man hath been wholly wicked, and hath repented at last, the Holy One receiveth him’? Nay, it is added that, ‘If a sinner repent, all the transgressions which he hath committed are imputed to him as merits,’ and that ‘Repentance was created before the world.’ How then is our Master wrong in receiving them that repent?” But Eliezer answered, with an austere countenance, that repentance availed nothing without works; and he quoted the saying, “No boor is a sin‐fearer; nor is the vulgar pious”; and another saying which warneth men “Not to frequent the company of the unlearned.” “Moreover,” he added, “the All‐seeing (blessed is He) alone knoweth the hearts of men, and discerneth the true repentance from the false. Wherefore none can forgive sins but God alone.” Then Nathanael, remembering how great an evil had befallen his kinswoman through the hardness of Eliezer, became exceeding wroth, and brake out into bitter accusations against the Scribes, because they despised the people of the land: “For lo,” he said, “more than half of Israel even now goeth down to the pit of destruction, and ye raise no hand to save them. Yea, when the drowning ones lift up their heads from the waters and cry saying, ‘We are alive, help us,’ then stand ye on the bank and answer, saying, ‘Down, down, ye ought not to be alive, ye are not alive.’ For ye say that ye make fences to keep in the Law; but ye make fences indeed to keep out the people from the Law. Wherefore your fences are as offences, and ye are guilty of the blood of half the nation of Israel in the sight of the Lord.” Then Eliezer arose in wrath, and as he went to the door, he turned and looked on Nathanael and said, “Like master, like scholar:” and so he went out. But when he was departed, Jonathan said to us, “Eliezer spake unadvisedly and harshly; yet is there truth in his words. For when we shun the ‘unlearned’ and the ‘vulgar,’ or the people of the land, we mean such as have not learned their duties toward God and man, which also are wholly given up to the things of earth. Such men are lovers of self, wallowing in carnal lusts: and are they not to be blamed?” To this Nathanael replied, “True, O my father; and if all the teachers of Israel were as thou art, verily Israel would be blessed. But do not the Scribes cast out many from the synagogues for small matters, even though they perform the weightier duties? Yea, I myself have heard Eliezer say many times, ‘Hasten to a light precept’; and I have seen him to be more angered for a light transgression than a heavy one. Also many of them say that a ‘vulgar’ person is one that repeateth not the daily Krishma, or weareth not phylacteries, or fringes, or doth not wait on the learned. These things do the Scribes exalt, but they pass over justice, mercy, righteousness, and truth.”