Surely the most careless and conventional reader cannot fail to see that there is a wide difference between the standpoint of the prophets, which is so purely spiritual, and that of the writers and redactors of the Priestly Code, whose whole interest centred in the sacrificial and ceremonial observances. Nor is the intrinsic nullity of the sacrificial system less distinctly pointed out in the New Testament. The better-instructed Jews, enlightened by Christ's teaching, could give emphatic testimony to the immeasurable superiority of the moral to the ceremonial. The candid scribe, hearing from Christ's lips the two great commandments, answers, "Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, ... and to love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."[360] And our Lord quoted Hosea with the emphatic commendation, "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice."[361] And on another occasion: "But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless."[362] The presenting of our bodies, says St. Paul, as a living sacrifice is our reasonable service; and St. Peter calls all Christians a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice.[363] "It is impossible," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins;" and he speaks of the priests "daily offering the same sacrifice, the which can never take away sins."[364] And again:-- "To do good and to distribute forget not: for with _such_ sacrifices God is well pleased."[365] The wisest fathers of Jewish thought in the post-exilic epoch held the same views. Thus the son of Sirach says: "He that keepeth the law bringeth offerings enough."[366] And Philo, echoing an opinion common among the best heathen moralists from Socrates to Marcus Aurelius,[367] writes, "The mind, when without blemish, is itself the most holy sacrifice, being entirely and in all respects pleasing to God."[368] And what is very remarkable, modern Judaism now emphasises its belief that "neither sacrifices nor a Levitical system belong to the essence of the Old Testament."[369] Such was the view of the ancient Essenes, no less than of Maimonides or Abarbanel. Modern Rabbis even go so far as to argue that the whole system of Levitical sacrifice was an alien element, introduced into Judaism from without, tolerated indeed by Moses, but only as a concession to the immaturity of his people and their hardness of heart.[370] Such, too, was the opinion of the ancient Fathers,--of the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Cyril, and Theodoret, who are followed by such Roman Catholic theologians as Petavius and Bellarmine.[371]