PHARISAISM
Pharisaism
The most characteristic type of Palestinian Judaism at the time of Christ. This group is to be thought of as the remnant of the traditional culture of the ancient Hebrews. Scorched by the memory of the long struggle between their fathers’ and other cultures which resulted in the unhappy Captivity, these descendants took on a more militant nationalism and a more rigid loyalty to traditional customs, teaching their children in schools of their own (the Synagogue) the religion of the ancient sacred covenant. Since their ways separated sharply from their brethren in the dispersion and from the less nationalistic minded at home they acquired the party name (from the second century B.C.) “Pharisees.” Their leaders were devout students of the written and oral traditions which they regarded as the Divine Will (Torah). To this tradition they added detailed codes of rigorous religious living. Popular among the masses they were comparatively few in number although powerful in influence. Pharisaism was a book-centered religion, strongly monotheistic, intensely legalistic, teaching a national and social gospel of redemption by an expectant supernatural visitation. The term “Pharisaic” unfortunately has acquired a sinister meaning, probably due to certain N.T. statements linking Pharisees with hypocrites. R. T. Herford in his Pharisaism (1912) and The Pharisees (1924) has shown thit this religious party was preeminently spiritually minded even though legalistic and not sufficiently understood by Christian traditionalists. — V.F.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
PHARISAISM
Mat 6:2; Mat 6:16; Mat 12:2; Mat 23:4; Mat 23:13; Mat 23:23; Mat 23:27; Jam 1:26
–SEE Formalism, RELIGION
Sanctimony, RELIGION
Self-righteousness, SELF-JUSTIFICATION