course known from the Bible in its earlier portions, and from history in the later parts. Then the
author goes on into the future: the New Jerusalem, the conversion of the remnant of the gentiles,
the resurrection of the righteous, and the Messiah.
There is a great deal about the punishment of sinners and the reward of the righteous, who never
display an attitude of Christian forgiveness towards sinners. "What will ye do, ye sinners, and
whither will ye flee on that day of judgement, when ye hear the voice of the prayer of the
righteous?""Sin has not been sent upon the earth, but man of himself has created it." Sins are
recorded in heaven. "Ye sinners shall be cursed for ever, and ye shall have no peace." Sinners may
be happy all their lives, and even in dying, but their souls descend into Sheol, where they shall
suffer "darkness and chains and a burning flame." But as for the righteous, "I and my Son will be
united with them for ever."
The last words of the book are: "To the faithful he will give faithfulness in the habitation of
upright paths. And they shall see those who were born in darkness led into darkness, while the
righteous shall be resplendent. And the sinners shall cry aloud and see them resplendent, and they
indeed will go where days and seasons are prescribed for them."
Jews, like Christians, thought much about sin, but few of them thought of themselves as sinners.
This was, in the main, a Christian innovation, introduced by the parable of the Pharisee and the
publican, and taught as a virtue in Christ's denunciations of the Scribes and Pharisees. The
Christians endeavoured to practise Christian humility; the Jews, in general, did not.
There are, however, important exceptions among orthodox Jews just before the time of Christ.
Take, for instance, "The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs," written between 109 and 107 B.C.
by a Pharisee who admired John Hyrcanus, a high priest of the Hasmonean dynasty. This book, in
the form in which we have it, contains Christian interpolations, but these are all concerned with
dogma. When they are excised, the ethical teaching remains closely similar to that of the Gospels.
As the Rev. Dr. R. H. Charles says: "The Sermon on the Mount reflects in several instances the
spirit and even reproduces the very phrases of our text: many passages in the Gospels exhibit
traces of the same, and St. Paul seems to have used the book as a vade