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Updated: June 23, 2025
And so, neither as pharisee nor publican, but rather as the pharisee's shocking example, and the publican's working bee, he toils and swears his hour upon the stage, and then modestly departs to where the thrifty cease from troubling, and the thriftless be at rest.
He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained.
'I am a Pharisee, he thought; 'I did not become a priest only to associate with the nobility, but to serve the humble. He would then lock himself in, pray for the apostolic spirit, vow to give away his spaniel and empty his cellar of wine. But as a rule, just as the spirit of humility and renunciation was beginning to be awakened, Satan would send him a visitor.
It was the conflict of the priest against the prophet in ancient Judaea, of the Pharisee against the Nazarene, of the Realist against the Nominalist, of the Church against the Franciscan and the Lollard, of the Respectable Person against the Artist, of the hedge-clippers of mankind against the shooting buds.
The corners of her mouth were drawn down, her eyelids drooped, while her eyes were cast upward in a sort of sanctimonious squint. "Don't!" implored Loveday, almost hysterically. "Oh, suppose your face were to stick like that! You'd look the most abominable little Pharisee. I'd hate you!" "You like your pixie-girl best? Then, that settles it!
He knew that the land was filled with the fame of the Baptist, and it seemed an easy path to popularity, and likely to divert attention from his private sins, which had made much scandal, to patronize the religion of the masses. At this point he probably entertained much the same feeling toward the desert-prophet that led Simon the Pharisee to invite Jesus to eat with him.
There is too much preaching in the world which makes men feel better so much better, indeed, that they go about like the Pharisee, thanking God that they are not as other men, before they have any sound reason to believe that they are not as other men; because they live just such lives as other men do, as far as respectability, and the fear of hurting their custom or their character, allow them to do.
It is the Pharisee of the Scriptures, who preaches in high places, and sounds forth his charity to the poor; not the humility of the Publican, who says, 'Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. Your apparel of pretended humility is the garb of pride, and for that reason have we insisted that he discards it, when with us. His tenets we interfere not with.
The appointment was a help to prayer in the preparatory dispensation: it would be a hindrance if it were maintained still. Not in that one place, but in all places, the true worshippers pray to the Father. "The one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." The two characters are represented in deep relief: there is no confusion, and no ambiguity.
The contrast continues to the last; as the Pharisee had compared himself with all mankind, and concluded that he alone was good; so the Publican in the depth of his shame seems to count himself the only sinner. The steps are few and simple by which a sinner finds or misses the way into eternal life.
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