{Jewish Sects and Orders}
THE LAWYERS. The Lawyer of the New Testament, taking his name (nomikos) from the law (nomos), is by many reckoned almost or quite the same as Scribe. But the word occurs in classical Greek for a person skilled in the practice of law, and our translators seem to have intended a professional man in the modern sense. Nor is there any reason against this. The Mosaic laws would have to be enforced on Jews and Jewish jurisprudence was by no means abolished under the Roman supremacy, but the Jews were allowed, except in capital cases, to administer their own laws among themselves - witness Jesus's trial before Caiaphas; Pilate's words, "Take Him yourselves and judge Him according to your law"; the trial of Stephen; the mission of Saul to Damascus. Professional counsel would therefore be needed, as in modern ecclesiastical law, and more especially under the intricate system fostered by the Pharisees and Scribes. Such we may conclude was the Jewish Lawyer - a professional assistant in court, and not merely a theological doctor or expositor. Of course he might be a Scribe as well, one belonging to that profession, but with special training and duties, just as in olden times in England an ecclesiastical lawyer might be a clergyman. This may explain how the man who asked Jesus about the great commandment of the Law is by one evangelist called a Lawyer (Matthew 22:35), and by another a Scribe (Mark 12:28). The Lawyers, like the Pharisees, fell under Jesus's rebukes for their unprinciples professional conduct, and in one place they are said to have "rejected God's purpose for themselves" (Luke 7:30).
Zenas (Titus 3:13) may have been either a Jewish lawyer in the above sense, or a Greek jurist; probably the latter.
To the theocratic belief which was the life of the Jewish polity, the accession of a foreign, half-heathen dynasty like that of Herod to the throne of David must have been a cruel shock. The scepter had "departed from Judah," and yet, in the popular belief, "Shiloh" had not come! In such circumstances the time-serving and politic would strive to make the best of the reigning family, and themselves gaining the solid advantage, while all truly pious Jews would mourn, and the more heedless or fanatical would wildly rebel. Hence it was one and the same condition of affairs which gave rise at the one extreme to the Herodian sect, and at the other ot the Zealots, the Galileans, and the Sicarii.