These two subjects go together; for the answer to the one is the answer to the other. The teaching is that of the rigidly orthodox Pharisaic type; observance of the Law is the one thing needful. This is vividly brought out whenever Judith’s piety is extolled; her strictness with regard to the dietary laws is described in xii. 1-9 (see also x. 5, xi. 12-15); when at last she sits down at the banquet of Holofernes it is said: “She took and ate and drank before him what her servant had prepared” (xii. 19). Her fasting and observance of the feast-days is mentioned in viii. 6: “And she fasted all the days of her widowhood, save the eves of the sabbaths, and the sabbaths, and the eves of the new moons, and the new moons, and the feasts and joyful days of the house of Israel” (cp. iv. 13). Ritual ablutions are referred to in x. 3, xii. 7, 9, her devotion to prayer in the whole of chapter ix., and incidentally in viii. 31, xi. 17, xii. 6, xiii. 3, 4, 7, 10. It is strange that there is no reference to almsgiving. Further, zeal for the Temple is shown in iv. 2, 3, iv. 11-15, v. 19, viii. 21, 24, ix. 1, 8, 13, xvi. 20; and the duty of mourning in viii. 5, 6, xvi. 24. The sin of withholding their dues from the priests is emphasized in xi. 13. Pharisaic particularism is to be discerned in viii. 20, ix. 14, xvi. 17; proselytism in xiv. 10; and eternal punishment on the Gentiles in xvi. 17. The worship of the One God of Israel, and the teaching concerning Him, is of course insisted upon throughout. It will thus be seen that, although much of the teaching is that of traditional Judaism, certain specifically Pharisaic doctrinal points stand out conspicuously; this, it may be said in passing, makes our book important for the study of pre-Christian Judaism. The main purpose of the book is, therefore, clearly to inculcate and to forward Pharisaic Judaism; and at the time when this book was written (see the next section) this was extremely needful; for although there were some things in the Pharisaic presentation of Judaism which were not conducive to spiritual religion, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that Pharisaism was the one and only bulwark against heathenism in those days, and the upholder of a true monotheistic faith. It has been truly pointed out by Elbogen[401] that “the Pharisees are usually described as the party of narrow legalistic tendencies, and it is forgotten how strenuously they laboured against the Hellenizing movement for the maintenance of Monotheism; it is forgotten that they built up religious individualism and purely spiritual worship; that it was through them more especially that belief in a future life was deepened; and that they carried on a powerful mission (propaganda).”