DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELATION OF JESUS TO HIS ENEMIES.

In the three first gospels the principal enemies of Jesus are the Pharisees and scribes, who saw in him the most ruinous opponent of their institutions; together with the chief priests and elders, who, as the heads of the external temple-worship and the hierarchy founded upon it, could have no friendly feeling towards one who on every opportunity represented as the main point, the internal service of God with the devotion of the mind. Elsewhere we find among the enemies of Jesus the Sadducees (Matt. xvi. 1; xxii. 23 ff. parall. comp. Matt. xvi. 6 ff. parall.), to whose materialism much in his opinions must have been repugnant; and the Herodian party (Mark iii. 6; Matt. xxii. 16 parall.) who, having been unfavourable to the Baptist, were naturally so to his successor. The fourth gospel, though it sometimes mentions the chief priests and Pharisees, the most frequently designates the enemies of Jesus by the general expression: οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, the Jews; an expression which proceeds from a later, Christian point of view.

The four evangelists unanimously relate, that the more defined machinations of the Pharisaic-hierarchical party against Jesus, took their rise from an offence committed by the latter against the prevalent rules concerning the observation of the sabbath.