The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

Sect. IV. The Scribes and Doctors.

Thus was the State Religion of the Jews, and thus stated and setled. The ground∣work was pretended traditions from Moses expounding the written Law, delivered from hand to hand in the Sanhedrins of several congregations: the superstructure was legisla∣tive and practical senses made hereupon, and determined for the use of the people by the Sanhedrin: Now they that had to deal in these determinations, were called The Scribes, and those were divided into four ranks.

• 1. The Nasi and Ab deth din, that is, President and Vice-president, who were the spe∣cial Treasurers of the Cabbalah, which they pretended did descend from Moses.
• 2. The whole Sanhedrin it self, which made their Canons and constitutions out of this Cabbalah, and did impose them upon the people.
• 3. Those men of the Sanhedrin or others that kept Divinity Schools, and read publick Lectures in explication of these traditions, as Hillel, Shammai Gamaliel, Tyrannus, or Tur∣nus, Acts 22. 3. & 19. 9. &c.
• And 4. Those that expounded these Laws, as the publick preachers in their Syna∣gogues.

According to which several acceptations the word Scribe is to be construed in the New Testament, sutable to the scope of the place, and to the occasion whereupon the word is used. As 1. in that division of the Sanhedrin into chief Priests and Scribes and Elders, Mat. 26. 3. the Scribes are here peculiarly to be understood, either for the President and Vice-president, the Receivers and deliverers of the Cabbalah, or for those that kept Di∣vinity Schools: for properly all the members of the Sanhedrin were Elders, and all of them were Scribes: and yet this distinction is used to difference these Scribes in the sense mentioned from the rest of the company, and the Elders of the people from the Elders of the Priesthood. 2. In that passage, The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses chair, Mat. 23. 2. the word Scribes meaneth the whole Sanhedrin who sate in the chair of Judica∣ture. And in this sense is the word taken in that common and ordinary phrase which the Hebrew Authors infinitely use, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The words of the Scribes. 3. In such passages as these, The Scribes say Elias must first come: and He taught as one having au∣thority, and not as the Scribes: and, A Scribe taught to the Kingdom of Heaven bringeth out of his Treasure things new and old, &c. the word is more properly to be understood for their publick teachers.

And so it is to be construed in this passage that we have in hand, Mark 2. 6. There were certain of the Scribes sitting there; which Luke expoundeth Doctors of the Law, out of every Town of Galilee, &c. For Scribes and Doctors were terms convertible, as Luke 5. 17. with vers. 21. and so were Scribes and Lawyers, Matth. 22. 35. with Mark 12. 28.