that was incredible. Inquiries were made. The rumor was
substantiated. It was learned that he healed the sick, cured the blind;
that he was in league, perhaps, with the Pharisees.

The Sanhedrim took counsel. They were Sadducees every one. The Pharisees
were their hereditary foes. Both were militant, directing men and things
as best they could. The Sadducees held strictly to the letter of the Law;
the Pharisees held to the Law, and to tradition as well. But the Sadducees
were in power, the Pharisees were not. The former endeavored in every way
to maintain their authority over the people; and against that authority,
against the aristocracy, the priesthood, and the accomplices of foreign
dominion, the Pharisees ceaselessly excited the mob. In their inability to
overthrow the pontificate, they undermined it. With microscopic attention
they examined and criticised every act of the clergy; and, with a view of
showing the incompetence of the priests, they affected rigid theories in
regard to ritualistic points. Every detail of the ceremonial office was
watched by them with eyes that were never pleased. They asserted that the
rolls of the Law from which the priests read the Pentateuch were made of
impure matter, and, having handled them, the priests had become impure as
well. The manner in which the incense was made and offered, the minutiae
governing the sacrifices, the legality of hierarchal decisions--on each and
every possible subject they exerted themselves to show the unworthiness of
the officiants, insinuating even that the names of the fathers of many of
the priests were not inscribed at Zipporim in the archives of Jeshana. As
a consequence, many of those whose rights the Pharisees affected to uphold
saw in the hierarchy little more than a body of men unworthy to approach
the altar, a group of Herodians who in religion lacked every requisite for
the service of God, and who in public and in private were bankrupts in
patriotism, morality, and shame.

The possibility, therefore, that this fractious demagogue had found favor
with the Pharisees was grave. He was becoming a force. He threatened many
a prerogative. Moreover, Jerusalem had had enough of agitators. People
were drawn by their promises into the solitudes, and there incited to
revolt. Rome did not look upon these things leniently. If they continued,
Tiberius was quite capable of putting Judaea in a yoke which it would not
be easy to carry. Clearly the Nazarene was