The observance of the Sabbath was the principal point upon which was raised the whole edifice of Pharisaic scruples and subtleties. This ancient and excellent institution had become a pretext for the miserable disputes of casuists, and a source of superstitious beliefs.[1] It was believed that Nature observed it; all intermittent springs were accounted "Sabbatical."[2] This was the point upon which Jesus loved best to defy his adversaries.[3] He openly violated the Sabbath, and only replied by subtle raillery to the reproaches that were heaped upon him. He despised still more a multitude of modern observances, which tradition had added to the Law, and which were dearer than any other to the devotees on that very account. Ablutions, and the too subtle distinctions between pure and impure things, found in him a pitiless opponent: "There is nothing from without a man," said he, "that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man." The Pharisees, who were the propagators of these mummeries, were unceasingly denounced by him. He accused them of exceeding the Law, of inventing impossible precepts, in order to create occasions of sin: "Blind leaders of the blind," said he, "take care lest ye also fall into the ditch." "O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."[4] [Footnote 1: See especially the treatise _Shabbath_ of the Mishnah and the _Livre des Jubiles_ (translated from the Ethiopian in the _Jahrbuecher_ of Ewald, years 2 and 3), chap. I.] [Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, VII. v. 1; Pliny, _H.N._, xxxi. 18. Cf. Thomson, _The Land and the Book_, i. 406, and following.] [Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 1-14; Mark ii. 23-28; Luke vi. 1-5, xiii. 14, and following, xiv. 1, and following.] [Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 34, xv. 1, and following, 12, and following, xxiii. entirely; Mark vii. 1, and following, 15, and following; Luke vi. 45, xi. 39, and following.]