The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-03-29
GLASSES EXISTING
 WHEN JESUS CAME Dr. Mathews Delivered Inter- eSting Lecture Last Night SOME CRISP OBSERVATIONS Pharisees, sadducees, Herodans and the Masses Descrlbed-"The People
 to Whom Jesus came,'
 Theme of Lecture.
SOME CRISP OBSERVATIONS

Theme of Lecture.
 The subject of Dr. Smaller Mathews lecture at the First Baptist church last night was. "The People To Whom Jesus Came" Dr. Mathews said that Josephus was our chief authority and that he was greatly given to exaggeration by adding a few ciphers to his Egures for show. The number of cities, towns and yil- lages, said the speaker while not so numerous as Josephus says were very many. All around Palestine were splen- did Graeeo-Roman asathen cities.
 We are still teaching Graeeo- Roman culture and the world has been con- quered by this culture since the third century B. c. The Robbins noted this Greek civilization and drew a sharp dis tinction between the Semitic and Greek Judea was the only spot in the Roman Empire which did not yield to the Greek. The Pharisees began about POO B, C. and the Scribes a little earlier.
 A Mixture.
 The Scribe, he remarked, was a cross between a theological professor and a stenographer with a little mixture of lawyer The Greek culture came into Palestine and the high priest got to wearing Greek clothes and practicing athletics. But the Seribes waged a great war against the innovations in the Mac eabbean revolt. They were excessively pous and allowed themselves to be cut to pieces rather than fight on the Sab bath. Mattathias and his sons, however leavened this extreme piety with some common sense. In their beginning the Scribes had a splendid conscience. Out of these as sort of church the Phari- sees came-some six thousand of them They were learned and become leaders They married religion and morality and gave law for every minute detail of life even to how to wash ones hands and the heat one could use in cooking on the Sabbath.
 They had thirty-four classes of things that could be done on the Sabbath. They were much as some of our fathers who would not let us boys whistle on Sunday in New England.
 Jesus Joins Issue.
 Jesus joined issue with these Pharisees who could quote whole pages of laws for life's details and had a tremendous job on his hands, They entered into a hor- rible conspiracy to kill him. It was this opposition to the Pharisees which really lead to his death. It was more than q personal struggle. It was a contest be- tween two forms of religion to be found all through history, viz: that which is legalistic in spirit ritualistic in form and conceves of God as great bookkeeper; and that which is merciful in spirit, free in form and conceives of God as Father Pharisees were too pious to be merciful but must do God service by measuring out punishment for the violation of their law for life.
 Gentlemen of Leisure.
 The sadducees, said the speaker were gentlemen of leisure who had no relig- ion except as they caught it from the pharisees. They had control of the priests and the temple and conducted 1t as a religious trust for reverence.
 They went into the sheep-raising busi- ness and decided that only such sheep as they raised were eligible for sacrifice in the temple
 They also controlled the temple money and changed the coin of commerce into it with heavy discount. It was a trust of graft in the name of religion. Jesus drove them out for making the Fathers house a den of grafters They died out with the destruction of the temple. Ju- daism in it's pharisaic form was the religion.
 The Essenes.
 Of the essenes we know but little. They were a secret organization with long cer- emonies of initiation They did not marry but adopted other peoples children. They did not believe in oaths. They wore white robes, worked in the fields; lived in d condition of communism and were to Ju- daism much what monks have been in all religions.
 The Political Rascals.
 The Herodians, pr. Mathews said, were a set of political raseals pitched with
  site of the pharisees in everything and vet conspired with them against Jesus.
 Besides these were the millions of so- called common people or, people of the land" in the phrase of the day. They lived in dirt houses which could be dug through or rains could wash away. There are very few Jewish ruins in Palestine today but all are Greek and Roman. The Jews were not architects and stone builders. These people of the land, ac- cording to the bookkeeping religion of the day, were not pous
 The pharisees kept books in religion and if any had an excessive balance of merits he could transfer the excess to the less righteous.
 Jesus protested against all this and said religion consisted in being right yourself The pharisees said: "The people of the land" were doomed because they knew not the law and it seems that most of the poor creatures believed 1t. They were the despised masses, the sheep with out q shepherd. Pharisees thought they