be understood in the sense of
irony. "Honor your wife, that you may be rich in the joy of your home,"
says the Talmud; and there was a proverb: "Is thy wife little? then bow
down to her and speak." The Son of Sirach said: "He that honoreth his
mother is as one that layeth up treasure ... and he that angereth his
mother is cursed of God."

As among all other Eastern peoples, the education of Jewish girls was
greatly neglected; but it can hardly be said that they were losers on
that account. They were simply saved a great deal of profitless labor
which fell upon their brothers. The learning of the Jews, so far as
higher education was concerned, did not add much either to the grace or
the enjoyment of life. It was pedantry of the driest and dreariest kind.
It consisted of interminable glosses upon the Law and of the "traditions
of the elders." It exercised no faculties of the mind excepting the
memory and such powers of reasoning as are employed in subtle casuistry.
There was in it nothing of art or science, or even of history, except
Jewish history. Greek learning was abhorred by the strictly orthodox.
They said the command was that a man's study should be on the Law day
and night; if anyone therefore could find time between day and night he
might apply it to Gentile literature. There were schools in abundance;
but they are spoken of only in relation to boys. In the fundamental
moral precepts, however, and in the highest national ideals, the Jewish
girls were no less thoroughly trained than were their brothers. Ozias
testified to Judith, who with feminine strategy and masculine courage
overthrew Holophernes: "This is not the first day wherein thy wisdom is
manifested; but from the beginning of thy days all the people have known
thy understanding, because the disposition of thy heart is good." Of the
chaste Susanna it was said that, her parents being righteous, they
taught their daughter according to the Law of Moses. Timothy owed his
early training to his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. The
Israelitish mother, in the dawn of her children's intelligence,
carefully taught them the lore of the ancient Scriptures and instructed
them in the principal tenets of the Jewish faith. There never existed
another nation that cared so thoroughly for the training of its young in
the doctrines of morality and in those national memories which are
efficacious in the perpetuation of an ardent patriotism. In all this the
girls were privileged equally with the boys. As Edersheim says: "What
Jewish fathers and mothers were; what they felt towards their children;
and with what reverence, affection, and care the latter returned what
they had received, is known to every reader of the Old Testament. The
relationship of father has its highest sanction and embodiment in that
of God towards Israel; the tenderness and care of a mother in that of
the watchfulness and pity of the Lord over his people."

Religion was the breath of Jewish life. It is absolutely impossible to
touch on Hebrew history, customs, or ideals, in any period or to any
extent, and not to come into contact with Hebrew religion. This, as we
know, was full of burdensome ritual and formalities; the Law, with all
its elaborate ramifications, governed the minutiae of daily existence.
Yet it is again necessary to be careful not to judge too broadly of
Jewish life by the rules which the Talmud shows were laid down by the
rabbis. The Pharisees, who made the formalities of religion their one
business in life, could observe all the multitudinous feasts and fasts,
all the ritual of washings, and bear in mind the innumerable
possibilities of breaking the Sabbath--such, for example, as
accidentally treading on a ripe ear of grain, which would be the act of
threshing; but that the common people lived thus straitly is impossible
of belief, and for this reason they were held in contempt by the
strictest sect. How some of these troublesome laws related to the women
is suggested by Edersheim; "A woman (on the Sabbath) must not wear such
headgear as would require unloosing before taking a bath, nor go out
with such ornaments as could be taken off in the street, such as a
frontlet, unless it is attached to the cap, nor with a gold crown, nor
with a necklace or nose-ring, nor with rings, nor have a pin in her
dress. The reason for this prohibition of ornaments was, that in their
vanity women might take them off to show them to their companions, and
then, forgetful of the day, carry them, which would be a 'burden.' Women
were also forbidden to look in the glass on the Sabbath, because they
might discover a white hair and attempt to pull it out, which would be a
grievous sin; but men ought not to use looking-glasses even on weekdays,
because this was undignified. A woman may walk about her own court, but
not in the street, with false hair."

These are only instances of regulations which were so numerous as
severely to tax the memory of those who did little else but study to
observe them. We are sure that they could not have characterized the
common Jewish life; yet there was not a man, however loose in conduct or
humble of birth, who was not well versed in the moral precepts of Moses
and in the exalted national ideals of the Prophets. In the cases--and
they were many--where this wisdom was not justified of her children, the
punctilious observance of outward forms, conjoined with the most extreme
arrogance of race, laid the Jew open to the contempt of both Greek and
Roman. Yet there was enough latent impetus and genuine religious life in
Israel to form the basis of that Christianity which was destined to
overreach Greek philosophy and to revolutionize Rome; and there are many
indications in the Gospels that the credit for the incalculable service
of preserving alive the smouldering embers of piety must, to a
predominant degree, be awarded to the mothers and daughters of Israel.
Elizabeth, no less than Zacharias her husband, was a type of many who
"walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless."
There was also one Anna whose devotion was so great that she seemed to
make the temple her constant home. Nevertheless, in religion, as in
other things, the Jewish women, as all of their sex in the ancient
world, were obliged to be content with an inferior position. In the
great temple at Jerusalem they were allowed to occupy only the second
court: to the Court of Israel, where their male relatives worshipped,
they could not penetrate. They had no occasion, however, to complain of
lack of space, for in this Court of the Women there was room for over
fifteen thousand persons; and, for their convenience, the priests had
very considerately placed therein the treasury chests. It was here that
the poor widow whom Christ eulogized cast in her "two mites." In this
court also was Solomon's Porch, where the Master, recognizing no
inequality, taught both sexes alike. In the synagogues, the women of
Palestine were obliged to occupy as inconspicuous a position as
possible, and on the way thither it was required of them that they
should take the back and less frequented streets, in order that the
minds of the men might not be diverted from sacred meditations by their
presence. This bit of hypocritical phariseeism not only indicates the
inferior plane which women were supposed to occupy, but also that,
however honored they may have been as wives and mothers, they enjoyed no
portent of that chivalry which afterward grew from and was fostered by
Christianity.

The existence of the Jewish woman was by no means secluded. She was
allowed to mingle freely in outdoor life. She accompanied her family on
their journeys to the great festivals which were held in Jerusalem.
Indeed, we read of Galilean women following Jesus into Judæa, evidently
unescorted by male relatives. Females also entertained mixed companies
in their own homes. It is probable, however, that there was more freedom
of movement among the lower-class women than was enjoyed by their
sisters of high degree. While the former dwelt in mean and small houses,
in which there was little possibility of seclusion, the latter had large
and luxurious homes, with great interior courts and special apartments
for their own use. The luxuriousness of these wealthy women rivalled
that of Rome itself. We read of one Martha, the wife of a high priest,
who, when she went to the temple, had carpets laid from her house to the
door of the temple. Upon the poorer women were imposed the hardships of
labor: "two women grinding at the mill" was a common sight in every
home.

In that momentous drama the leading figure of which was the Son of Man,
women of greatly varying character and position played a part. There
were Herodias, and Procla, the wife of Pilate: these were the highest
ladies in the land; there were Martha of Bethany, and Joanna, the wife
of Herod's steward, representing the middle class; Mary, the mother of
Jesus, from among the poor; and Mary of Magdala, from among a class of
women who were numerous in Palestine, one of whom the Gospel designates
as "a woman who was a sinner."

Of the two first mentioned little may be said in this connection, as
they were far from being Christian women, though the wife of Pilate
earned for herself the respect of all succeeding generations by pleading
for the life of Jesus.

Herodias is connected with this story only on account of the cruel
determination with which she sought and compassed the death of John the
Baptist. The grand-daughter of Herod the Great, she inherited not only
his impetuous ambition, but also his ferocity. She had been married to
Herod Philip, her uncle. This son of the first Herod was a wealthy
private resident of Jerusalem; but Herodias could not be content to
stand aside as a mere spectator of the brilliant game of governing. So
she seized the opportunity which the presence of Antipas in her house,
by her husband's hospitality, gave her to begin an intrigue, which ended
in her marital union with the tetrarch. By this conduct she trampled on
Jewish law and offended the people. Not that the severing of the
marriage bonds was a thing unusual among the Jews; indeed, the
facilities for divorce were exceedingly liberal. A man could put away
his wife for the most trifling cause. "If anyone," said the rabbis, "see
a woman handsomer than his wife, he may dismiss his wife and marry that
woman." It was considered ample cause for divorce if a wife went out
without her veil. The disciples of Hillel even went so far as to hold
that if a woman spoiled her husband's dinner, by burning or over salting
it, sufficient cause was given him, if he so chose, to put her away.
This is the point of the question with which the Pharisees came to try
Christ. "Is it lawful," said they, "for a man to put away his wife for
every cause?" So, then, that which shocked the Jews and caused them to
agree with John in his denunciation of Herod was not that the latter
divorced his first wife, the daughter of Aretas, but that he took
Herodias, she not having been put away by her husband, Philip. Here is
some very remarkable moral sophistry. It would have been right, in the
sight of Jewish law, for Herod and Philip to have exchanged wives, after
legally divorcing them for any cause which might have seemed to them
proper; but there was no law, nor was there any conceivable wrong, which
could give Herodias the right to leave her husband of her own free will.
Women could not gain divorce. So, according to the Jewish idea, the
fault of Herod consisted solely in the fact that Philip had not yet seen
fit to release Herodias. Whether or not John the Baptist concurred with
the ideas of his time on this subject we do not know; but the One who
came after him put marriage on a far higher basis and restricted divorce
to its essential cause.

Herodias plotted and achieved John's destruction perhaps as much on
account of her fear of the effect of his influence upon Herod's
ambitious projects as because