Legalism was joined with sacramentarianism, doubling the power of the priest.
From the theology of John Murray, who like Ballou has been called "the father of American Universalism," he differed in that he divested Universalism of every trace of Calvinism and opposed legalism and trinitarian views.
While in his zeal for legalism he virtually adopts the standpoint of Pharisaism, he is at one with Jewish Hellenism in substituting belief in the soul's immortality for the doctrine of a bodily resurrection.
The book, which is post-exilic, may therefore be grouped with another Midrash, the Book of Ruth, which also appears to represent a current of thought opposed to the exclusive spirit of Jewish legalism.
As an oriental work among an oriental people the moral and spiritual influence of the Talmud has rested upon its connexion with a history which appealed to the imagination and the feelings, upon its heterogeneity of contents suitable for all moods and minds, and upon the unifying and regulative effects of its legalism.