The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible in use at the time of Christ, reveals the same tendency toward paraphrasing or spiritualizing the anthropomorphic phrases of the older Bible. In this translation the "image of God" of the older Hebrew literature becomes "the glory of God," and "the mouth of God" is expressed by "the voice of the Lord." The Septuagint was written more than a century before the birth of Jesus, and we may safely assert that at the beginning of our era the Jews not only affirmatively proclaimed the doctrine of divine unity and pure spirituality, in relation to the person and character of Jehovah, but that they boldly and indignantly denied and denounced any attempt to make of God a man or to attribute to Him human qualities. But when we say "the Jews," we mean the dominant religious sect of the nation, the Pharisees. We should not forget, in this connection, that the primary difference between the Sadducees and the Pharisees was in the varying intensity with which they loved the Law of Moses and adhered to its teachings. We have seen in Part II of this volume that the Mishna, the oral law, was really more highly esteemed by the Pharisaic Jews than was the Mosaic Code. But the Sadducees planted themselves squarely upon the Pentateuch and denied that the traditions of the Scribes were of binding force. "The Sadducees were a body of aristocrats opposed to the oral law and the later developments of Judaism." Now what views, we may ask, did the Sadducees entertain of the possibility of God appearing to men in the flesh? In other words, what was their notion, at the time of Christ, of the anthropomorphisms of the Pentateuch, which was their ultimate guide and standard in all matters of legal and religious interpretation? These questions are important in this connection, since Caiaphas and the large majority of his colleagues in the Great Sanhedrin were Sadducees and held the fate of Jesus in their hands. Candor compels us to admit that we believe that the Sadducees agreed with the Pharisees that Jehovah was a pure and sinless spirit. But we feel equally sure that their knowledge of the Pentateuch, in which at times anthropomorphism is strongly accentuated, taught them that Jehovah had not only appeared in the flesh among men in olden times, but that it was not at all impossible or unreasonable that He should come again in the same form. But this much is certain: that in determining whether Jesus could be both man and God the Sadducees would be disposed to ignore the traditions of the Pharisees and "the later developments of Judaism," and appeal direct to the law of Moses. Jesus Himself, if He had been disposed to make a defense of His claims, and His judges had been disposed to hear Him, would have appealed to the same legal standard. Christ more than once manifested a disposition to appeal to the Mosaic Code, as a modern citizen would appeal from mere statutes and the decisions of the courts, to the constitution, as the