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 V.

must have been many months after I had heard him discourse in the Galilæen synagogue that I again saw Jesus the Nazarene. We in Jerusalem had our own concerns to think of.

At this time the long monopoly of rule by the Sadducees was gradually being broken. Of the three divisions of the Sanhedrim, that of the ordinary Israelites had become almost entirely composed of the Pharisees; I myself had been elected as one of that party, and even in the other two sections of the Priests and of the Levites, many, especially among the latter, held with the Pharisees. Nor was this without influence upon the political issues of the times. The Sadducees, being the sacerdotal party, had no cause why they should be dissatisfied with the position they held in the State under the Romans; but we of the Pharisees felt far otherwise about the national hopes for deliverance.