That we may fully appreciate the tension of the situation let us cast a single glance at the character of the Scribes. Edersheim has written these wonderfully graphic lines about them: He pushes to the front, the crowd respectfully giving way, and eagerly hanging on his utterances, as those of a recognized authority. He has been solemnly ordained by the laying on of hands; and is the Rabbi, "my great one," Master, amplitudo. Indeed, his hyper-ingenuity in questioning has become a proverb. There is not measure of his dignity, nor yet limit to his importance. He is the "lawyer," the "well-plastered pit," filled with the water of knowledge, "out of which not a drop can escape," in opposition to the "weeds of untilled soil" of ignorance. He is the divine aristocrat, among the vulgar herd of rude and profane "country people," who "know not the law," and are "cursed." Each scribe outweighed all the common people, who must accordingly pay him every honor.... Such was to be the respect paid to their sayings that they were to be absolutely believed, even if they were to declare that to be at the right hand which was at the left, or vice-versa.[311] What could, then, be more terrific than the hatred of such a character for an unlettered Galilean who descended from the mountains of His native province to rebuke and instruct the "divine aristocrats" in religious matters and heavenly affairs? Imagine his rage and chagrin when he heard these words: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness.... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"[312] "His exquisite irony," says Renan, "His stinging remarks, always went to the heart. They were everlasting stings, and have remained festering in the wound. This Nessus-shirt of ridicule which the Jew, son of the Pharisees, has dragged in tatters after him during eighteen centuries, was woven by Jesus with a divine skill. Masterpieces of fine raillery, their features are written in lines of fire upon the flesh of the hypocrite and the false devotee. Incomparable traits worthy of a Son of God! A god alone knows how to kill in this way. Socrates and Molière only grazed the skin. The former carried fire and rage to the very marrow."[313]