The whole Talmudic doctrine of magic does, however, explain the reason why the Scribes and Pharisees were so little moved by the real miracles of Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. Their minds were fully possessed with faith in the power of cabalistic magic, they therefore were insensible to the real displays of divine power. They were in the same state of mind as Pharaoh and his magicians, who looked on the miracles of Moses as a mere proof of magical skill, and hardened their hearts. Even when they confessed “This is the finger of God,” they were not converted. Pharaoh still persisted in his resistance. And so it was with the Scribes and Pharisees. When the Lord had raised Lazarus from the dead, “then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees in council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.” They acknowledged the fact of the miracles, but did not receive their evidence, for they believed that the study of the book of Jetzirah would enable them to do greater. No miracle, therefore, could convince them. But besides this, their hearts were corrupt, and they had apostatized from the law of Moses; they therefore did not love the truth. They had turned aside to charms and magic, and asking counsel of demons; and when men do this, the understanding becomes darkened, so that it is rendered impervious to the light. Their unbelief, therefore, becomes an evidence to the truth of Christianity. If such transgressors of the law of Moses, and such unblushing relaters of falsehood had believed, it would have cast a shade of suspicion over the whole Gospel history. If the men, who say that Rabba created a man, and the two other worthies created a calf every week, had appeared as witnesses for the truth of Christianity, the miracles of the Gospel would have appeared in one category with these most absurd fictions. But when such men appear as the enemies and persecutors of Jesus, it testifies that He was not one of them, and that as they were bad men, and loved a false system, his doctrine must necessarily have had something good in it, or they would not have opposed it.