Pharisees and Saducees

PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES.

1. Importance; Sources of Knowledge.

The great importance of a proper understanding of the two parties thus named for the history of the later Judaism and of Primitive Christianity is not to be misconceived. The entire history of the Jews and of their literature from the Maccabean wars until the destruction of Jerusalem is dominated by this partizan antithesis. The history of Jesus himself and of the original Church are largely thereby conditioned, since it was particularly in conflict with the Pharisees that the doctrine, self-witness and whole active career of Jesus took shape as they did, while over against a Pharisaism which pushed its way even into Christianity the Apostle Paul had to defend the right of his mission to the gentiles, and the universality of Christian salvation. All the more serious, then, that the sources toward knowledge of those parties can be utilized only under difficulties. The Old-Testament books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, and Daniel, are pertinent merely in relation to the preliminary history of the, same. And only in sparing measure can even Old-Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (qq.v.) be employed; among the latter, chiefly the Psalms of Solomon (see Pseudepigrapha, II., 1). In the Gospels and in Acts a few dogmatic differences are mentioned as between Pharisees and Sadducees; but this allows no certain deduction respecting the fundamental and distinctive character of either party. Even the invectives of Jesus against the Pharisees have had reference to out growths of their trend, and are not to influence a judgment of their actual essence. What data Acts and the Pauline epistles contain by way of defining the Pharisaical anti-Pauline Jewish Christians, warrant only slight a posteriori deductions regarding Pharisaism. Doubtless the most valuable intelligence concerning the Pharisees and Sadducees is given by Josephus, whose data are appreciably colored cf. Baumgarten, Jahrbücher fur deutsche Theologie, IX., 616 sqq.; Paret, in TSK, 1856, pp. 809 sqq) by his own attenuated Pharisaism and by his effort to present Jewish conditions in the most favorable light before the Greek ans Roman world. Patristic data are strongly dependent on Josephus, and are, furthermore, untrustworthy. The Jewish talmudic literature is of great significance in the study of Pharisaism since it is itself elicited by the Pharisaic spirit. Yet its anecdotal details about the history of the Pharisees and Sadducees are almost wholly valueless, being conceived from the standpoint of the later Jewish scholasticism. Yet despite this dearth of sources, they still afford a fairly distinct portraiture of the two parties.

2. Derivation of "Pharisee."

The names of the two parties throw some light on the origin and character of both parties. Touching the meaning of the name "Pharisee" there can exist no doubt. The Pharisees are certainly designated as the "separated" (cf. the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan on Deut. xxxiii. 16; Josh. iii. 5)—those who by their prescriptive and ascetic sanctity hedged themselves apart from not only heathenism but also from the rest of Judaism. This explanation occurs even so early as in Suidas, in the Homilies of Clement (xi. 28), in Epiphanius (Hær., xvi. 1), and Pseudo-Tertullian (Hær., i.). The same is borne out by the abstract Perishuth, in Talmudic writings, in the signification of abstemiousness or exclusive ascetic piety; and by the Talmudic use of the term Perischin, in the reproachful sense of separatists. From the latter use and the avoidance of the term Pharisees the thoroughly Pharisaic II Maccabees one may infer that the name arose in hostile circles.

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3. Derivation of "Sadducees."

The same is also probably true of the name "Sadducees." It is a mistake to derive the same from the Stoics (Köster, TSK, 1837, p. 164); more plausible is it to explain the Sadducees as Ẓaddiḳim "the just," from their stress upon the simple law in contrast with Pharisaical traditions (Derenbourg); or their strictness in dealing penal sentences (Reville). Only on linguistic grounds, again, is there warrant for deriving the term (Gk. Saddoukaios, Heb. Ẓadduḳi), from a personal name of which no trace exists after the exile. Such a gratuitous hypothesis (Grätz, Montet, Legarde) can be justified only by extreme embarrassment. There is, on the other hand, great probability in favor of the hypothesis (Geiger), whereby the name is traced to that Zadok who was high priest in the time of David and Solomon, in whose line the high-priestly dignity continued during nearly the entire dominion of David's royal house (II Sam. viii. 17; 1 Kings i. 32; Ezek. xl. 46; Josephus, Ant., X., viii. 6). In the period after the exile, not only the high priest Joshua (Neh. xl. 11; cf. I Chron vi.; Josephus, Ant., X., viii. 6), but also, according to Josephus, all the high priests descending from him down to Menelaus, hence also all the high-priestly families of their lineage—belonged to the house of Zadok. According to this view the name "Sadducees" denotes the descendants of the high priest Zadok, together with their adherents. Which theory is also favored by analogy of the "Boëthusians," who in the Talmudic writings appear as an offshoot of the Sadducees; or as a sect akin to them. For the "Boëthusians" can be named Sadducees only through the circumstance that Herod the Great adopted the line of the Alexandrine Boëthos, whose granddaughter he married, into the succession of the high-priestly families (Josephus, Ant., XV., ix. 3). If the name Sadducees denotes the Zadokites, it is impossible to deny all actual connection with the Zadokite high-priestly families, and to identify them with the Maccabean princes and their following, who had obtained that name only by way of reproach (Wellhausen). It is probable that the name Zadokites was given to the party by their enemies; but this was possible only in case the real Zadokite high priests formed the stock of the party; so that a partizan following could then readily join the same. In this light, the two party names of Pharisees and Sadducees are distinct in so far as that the former has reference to religious aims, the latter to connection with the high-priestly nobility. This does not controvert the correctness of the given derivation; indeed, the point becomes thereby more prominent that the Pharisaical party structure took its departure from religious motives; the Sadducean, predominantly from aristocratic interests.

4. Date of Origin.

Partizan opposition between Pharisees and Sadducees probably arose in the first decades of the Maccabean era. A Jewish tradition (in the Baraitha to Rabbi Nathan's Aboth), respecting the founding of the Sadducees' party through two pupils of Antigonus of Socho, would carry the origins back to the close of the second century B.C. But apart from other improbabilities in this account, which dates only from the Middle Ages, its chronological correctness is precluded by the certified existence of the Sadducees' cause at a considerably earlier period. According to Josephus (Ant., XIII., x. 6), an open conflict between Pharisees and Sadducees broke out as early as toward the close of the administration of Hyrcanus, about 115 B.C. But this presupposes an antecedent and quiet development of both parties, and Hyrcanus himself was brought up in the Pharisaic doctrine (Josephus, Ant., XIII., x. 5). Essentially opposite is the incidental remark of Josephus in his narrative of the last executive years of Jonathan (Ant., XIII., v. 9), that about that time there were three "sects" among the Jews: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. The origin of the Pharisees and Sadducees falls, therefore, at its latest, during the rule of Jonathan; but it can not be set back much further, since no trace of their names appears earlier to show that the parties were forming. The assumption is forbidden that they arose before the Maccabean insurrection. Nor may appeal be made to the presence of the Hasideans (see Hasmoneans, § 1) in the pre-Maccabean period. For the Pharisees are not to be identified with these. While one can date the Pharisees and Sadducees as parties back to the beginning of the post exilic period (A. Geiger, Ursprung and Uebersetzung der Bibel, pp. 26 sqq., 56 sqq., Breslau, 1857) only by resting upon conjecture, it is possible that the partizan antithesis but continued an older contention, such as might have taken shape prior to the Maccabean uprising; indeed, opposition of interests similar to these appeared in the pre-Maccabean era.

5. Relations of Pharisees and Scribes.

This first of all appears in the class distinction between the Pharisees and Sadducees. Soon after the return, there began to develop an opposition between the scribes, who insisted upon an absolutely strict prescriptive life, and the adherents of the aristocratic Pharisees high-priestly lines, who favored the gentiles. This antithesis accentuated itself in the Syrian and Hellenistic era, and led to the formation of parties during the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes. At that time the rising party of radical Hellenism, which sought to supplant Mosaic Judaism by Greek manners and customs, was withstood by the coterie of the Hasideans, who determined to adhere with the utmost rigor to the Jewish law as the unconditional norm of life. At that time the leaders of the former party were the high-priestly aristocrats; those of the second, the scribes. A similar class distinction formed the basis of the conflict between Pharisees and Sadducees. True, the Pharisees are not identical with the scribes. From Acts xxiii. 9, it appears that in the apostolic age not all scribes were Pharisees, but that there were also Sadducee or neutral scribes; and only a portion of the Pharisees consisted of scribes (Mark ii. 16; Luke v. 30). Indeed, a characteristic distinction comes forth in the very use of the two terms in the gospels. Quite often they speak of the Pharisees, where only individuals of that sect are meant (Matt. ix. 19–34, etc.). On the 10other hand, where the matter turns on particular scribes, the text mentions "certain of the scribes" (Matt. ix. 3, xii. 38, etc.). Only where the scribes are named in conjunction with the Pharisees is the general expression used for the former with reference to individuals (Mark ii. 16; Luke v. 30, etc.). On the contrary, "the scribes," without other qualification, is never used of individuals, but everywhere only of the entire category (Matt. vii. 29, xvii. 10, etc.). Hence the scribes are conceived as a class; the Pharisees as a compact party, such as is represented even in the case of individual members. Occasionally in the addresses of Jesus to the scribes and Pharisees there is to be remarked the distinctive reference to the learned legal science of the former and the prescriptive manner of life advanced by the latter. So the scribes appear as theorists in contrast with the Pharisees as practitioners. For the most part, however, the two were likely to be united in one and the same person. This close affinity between Pharisees and scribes crops out alike in Josephus, in the New Testament, and in the Talmud. Where Josephus speaks of Jewish scribes, he generally implies that they are adherents of the Pharisaic school (War, I., xxxiii. 2–3, II., xvii. 8; Ant., XVII, vi. 2). Conversely, where he brings the Pharisees into his narrative, he assumes that they make disciples and give instruction in the law, hence are scribes (Ant., XIII., x. 6). Again, certain scribes, well known and eminent in Talmudic sources, he designates as Pharisees (Ant., XV., i. 1, x. 4; Life, xxxviii.). In the New Testament, the scribes and Pharisees are now grouped together in the discourses of Jesus (Matt. v. 20, xxiii. 2 sqq.; cf. Luke vii. 30), and are introduced as acting in common (Matt. xii. 38, and elsewhere). Moreover, the two designations often vary in parallel passages, as well as in the relation of the same Gospel. Lastly, the post-Maccabean scribes of the Mishna speak of one another as the "Learned" (ḥakamim); whereas in the controversial objections of the Sadducees they are termed "Pharisees" (Judaim, iv. 6, 7, 8) and advocate Pharisaic views. From all this it is to be assumed that the Pharisees were composed of the leading scribes and their following, and were the practical exponents of the theoretical knowledge of the law.

6. Sadducees as Aristocrats.

On the contrary, the Sadducees, like the Hellenists of the pre-Maccabean era, had their nucleus in the Jewish aristocracy. Those magnates ("mighty ones"; Josephus, Ant., II., vi. 2; cf. War., I., v. 3), who as counselors of Alexander Jannæus were by him endowed with as the highest honors, but were thrust aside by Queen Salome Alexandra, were undoubtedly Sadducees. For their persecution took place under the Pharisees' rule of terror. In his general depiction of the Sadducees, Josephus says expressly that they had only the rich on their side, but not the common people (Ant., XIII., x. 6), that this doctrine won but few, but they the first in dignity (Ant., XVIII., i. 4). And in the Psalms of Solomon, wherein the joy of the Pharisaic circles over the downfall of the Sadducees in the year 69 B.C. finds distinct vent, the latter are described as eye-serving courtiers and unjust judges (iv. 1–10, ii. 3–5). Hence the Sadducees' aristocratic character is distinctive and proper. But if Josephus (Life, i.) designates the priests in general as the nobility of the Jewish people, at all events this does not apply in a social connection. And it is erroneous (Geiger, Hausrath, Montet) to suppose that the Sadducees represented the interests of the priesthood on a preponderant scale; there lay no intrinsic objection in the nature of Pharisaism to the priesthood as such, and there appear to have been not a few priestly Pharisees (cf. Josephus, Life, i.–ii., xxxix.; Mishna Eduyoth, ii. 6–7, viii. 2; Aboth, ii. 8, iii. 2; Sheḳalim, iv: 4, vi. 1). It was rather the high-priestly families that offset the rest of the priesthood in the manner of a distinctive aristocracy. Under the Maccabean Simon, the adherents thereof effected their reception into the senate; while in the time of Pompey, they sat and voted in the sanhedrim (Ps. of Sol., iv. 2), which had grown out of the earlier senate, and represented a remnant of political independence, while their influence here was limited by the unaristocratic assessors of the scribes' class, yet in a certain measure it was secured by the fact that the high priests, who now constantly belonged to their circles, held the presidency in the sanhedrim. These " chief priests," as the officiating and former high priests, together with their kindred, are called in the New Testament (Schürer, in TSK, 1872, pp. 614 sqq.), are therefore at once the most important element of the Jewish aristocracy, and the proper nucleus of the Sadducean party. Josephus mentions only incidentally of Ananus that he belonged to the Sadducees (Ant., XX., ix. 1). In the Psalms of Solomon the Sadducee members of the sanhedrim appear as unworthy directors of the temple worship (i. 8, ii. 1–5, viii. 12). In Acts the Sadducees are expressly designated as those empowered with dispensing penal correction (iv. 1–3), as also the high priest's party (v. 17). Certain reminders of the Sadducaic complexion of the high priest's retinue occur in talmudic sources (cf. Geiger, ut sup., pp. 109 sqq.).

7. Relation of Pharisees to Jewish Nationalism.

In keeping with this class distinction between Pharisees and Sadducees is the national attitude of the two parties. One may not think of the Sadducees as the national and patriotic party; of the Pharisees, on the contrary, as an unattached, international society. To the Pharisees might better be applied the term "national"; they were more frequently the opposers of the oppressors of the people. It is to the Pharisees that Rabbi Hillel's word applies: "Do not separate thyself from the congregation," (Pirke Aboth, ii. 4); and they desired that the benefits of the theocracy should benefit all, without exception (II Macc. ii. 17). Hence the Pharisees had not only the women on their side (Josephus, Ant., XVII., ii. 4), but the masses generally (Ant., XIII., x. 6). Yet on another side one may not perceive in them the healthy citizenship, the true kernel of the people, the truly national party. As a faction of the scribes, they pursued only distinctively religious aims. It was merely in a religious connection that they desired the welfare of the people and 11the maintenance of what was peculiarly Jewish. And if they sought to extend their leadership over all other spheres of life, their sole motive was that these might thus become dominated by the thoroughly prescriptive form of their religious aims. There resulted an externally theocratic trend of policy, and this was naturally contradicted by a totally non-Jewish government; so that, theoretically, the Pharisees did not concede the legality of tribute to such a regime (Matt. xxii. 17). They endured government by a heathen power as brought about by the divine providence, but only in the expectation of its future downfall. And the hatred latent in such an attitude easily converted itself into fanatical deeds. But yet again, they could sacrifice the theocratical idea to an untheocratical Jewish prince like Alexander Jannæus. Furthermore, how little the Pharisees were disposed to bridge the gap between priesthood and people appears from their especially strict precepts regarding the tithe and other dues in favor of priests and Temple. Indeed, they set themselves over against the people with the utmost exclusiveness as a spiritual aristocracy, from which arose their party name, "the separated," the haughty behavior charged to their reproach by Jesus (Matt. xxiii. 5 sqq.), and the contempt with which they looked down upon the rest of the people as ignorant, not knowing the law, and unclean (John vii. 49; cf. the "Letter of Aristeas," dating from the time of Herod, in E. Kautsch, Apokryphen, ii. 67, 140 sqq., Tübingen, 1900). So the Pharisees' popularity among the common people had yet its limits.

8. Relation of Sadducees to Nationalism.

Still less, however, is a national and patriotic attitude to be discerned in the case of the Sadducees. Their connection with the Hasmoneans (q.v.) came about only as the administration of the same lost its incipiently Jewish national character. The goal of their political action was, first of all, the strengthening of their aristocratic caste. Only as dictated to them through this class interest, did they stand on the national side. The circumstance that the first Hasmonean who ruled after the transition of Hyrcanus to the Sadducees' party, Aristobulus I., was surnamed the " Philhellene," throws light on their Hellenistic tendency. Subsequently, they became servile friends of the Romans. All the more overbearing and hard-hearted were they at that time in regard to the common people (Josephus, War, II., viii. 14; Ant., XX., ix. 1). Hence their unpopularity was so great that, in order to "make themselves possible" at all, they had to govern, in the administration of their offices, according to Pharisaic principles (Josephus, Ant., XVIII., i. 4). Nevertheless, neither Pharisees nor Sadducees were of an antinational character directly. The Pharisees did not manifest that purely separatistic demeanor of the Hasideans or of the Essenes. Neither were the Sadducees willing, like the radical Hellenists of the pre-Maccabean era, to surrender the people's national existence, its faith and its law. Obviously, then, after the founding of the legally national Maccabean state, the extreme elements of both the previously existing tendencies were eliminated. The most partizan among the Hasideans receded into small groups, which led eventually to the formation of the Essenes' order. And the radical Hellenists perished in the conflicts with the Maccabeans. Thus the more moderate elements were left over, and they merged, in turn, into the broad stream of the popular life whence they had originally issued.

9. Religious Characteristics.

With this alteration of parties, however, the fundamental religious trend persisted. The Pharisees, like the pre-Maccabean party of scribes, assiduously cultivated a strictly legalistic piety, holding themselves aloof from the world (Josephus, War, II., viii. 14; Ant., XVII, ii. 4; Life, xxxviii.; Acts xxiii. 3, xxvi. 5; Phil. iii. 5). Religion determined all their aims. But they set the essence of religion in the knowledge and fulfilment of the law. From this one-sided and legal drift of their piety there emerged all the defects and excesses of the same, such as are exhibited quite sharply in the New Testament. They built or garnished the sepulchers of the prophets (Matt. xxiii. 29 sqq.), but had none of their spirit; they zealously disputed over their prophecies (Luke xvii. 20), but their belief in the same simply sanctified their venality. They labored zealously for the propagation of their faith (Matt. xxiii. 15), but only in behalf of outward results (cf. Sieffert, Die Heidenbekehrung im Alten Testament and im Judenthum, pp. 43 sqq., 1908; see Proselytes). Their faith was no inwardly liberating power, so that for them the law was but an enslaving yoke (John viii. 32; cf. Gal. v. 1). Out of this came the minute and anxious manner of fulfilling the law (Matt. xxiii. 23), the externalizing of the entire religious and moral life, the mechanicalism of their prayer (Matt. vi. 5 sqq.), the stress upon fasting (Matt. ix. 14); valuation of conspicuous borders to their garments, and broad phylacteries (Matt. xxiii. 5), the literalness of service in observing the sabbath (Matt. xii. 2, 9–13; Luke xiii. 10 sqq., xiv. 4 sqq.; John v. 1 sqq., ix. 14 sqq.). From this source arose their prescriptions of cleanliness (Matt. xv. 2, xxiii. 25; Mark vii. 2 sqq.; Luke xi. 38 sqq.), their preference for external acts of devotion above the plainest duties (Matt. xv. 5; Mark vii. 11 sqq.). This was indeed a straining at gnats and swallowing of camels (Matt. xxiii. 24). Of course, it was possible to practise all this in good faith and with honest sentiments. This is evidenced by the examples of Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and in particular, too, by that of Paul, who even though recalling his bygone disquietude with aversion (Rom. vii. 7 sqq.), yet thinks back without shame to his Pharisaic past (Phil. iii. 5 sqq.; Acts xxiii. 6, xxvi. 5). Only often enough that emphasis upon external acts led to complete self-satisfaction (Matt. xix. 16 sqq.; Luke xviii. 10) and to ostentation of piety (Matt. vi. 5 sqq., 16, xv. 7 sqq.; Mark vii. 6, xii. 40; Luke xx. 47), extending even to the endeavor to conceal the lack of inner moral integrity by means of the outward show of devout deportment (Matt. xxiii. 25 sqq.; Luke xi. 39 sqq.). In the Talmud, besides, there occur not a few beautiful sentences, urging toward right thinking and true humanity (especially in Pirke Aboth). But 12they stand isolated in a wilderness of external precepts which smother the spirit of the law in their casuistical forcing of its letter. In distinction from all this, the Sadducees evinced a strong inclination toward other than Jewish manners; and, consistently with this trait, they were fain to guard the advantages of their social standing, their culture and possessions, from prejudice in the way of a troublesome piety. They were charged with leading an effeminate mode of life (Josephus, Ant., XVIII., i. 3). The fourth of the Psalms of Solomon gives a picture, inspired by Pharisaism, of the worldly, even dissolute, life of the Sadducees and of their hypocritical show of pious ardor. And a late rabbinical tradition (Aboth of Rabbi Nathan) tells of their luxury in the article on tableware, and their scoffing at the economy of the worrying Pharisees.

10 Theological Differences.

This also affords a ready key to the particular theological disputes between the Pharisees and Sadducees. From the different fundamental religious trend of the two parties there most immediately results their antithetical relation toward that oral tradition which had been early created by the scribes of the past age, through exposition and application of the law, for a sort of hedge to the same (Josephus, Ant., XIII., xvi. 2; Matt. xv. 2; Mark vii. 3). This tradition was made of binding force by the Pharisees; by the Sadducees it was rejected (Josephus, Ant., XIII., x. 6). Through their endeavor to regulate the whole of human life, down to every detail, by means of the law, the Pharisees were led to lay great stress on enlarging the scope of the same by tradition, even to ascribe a paramount importance to the latter in comparison with the less exactly defined law (Mishnah, Sanhedrin, xi. 3). Ultimately, therefore, tradition, like the law, came to be traced back to Moses (Pirke Aboth, i. 11 sqq.), and so came the possibility of invalidating a legal provision by virtue of a traditional precept (cf. Mark vii. 11). Moreover, the Sadducees did not altogether avoid developing an exegetical school tradition, partly diverging from the tradition of the Pharisees (Megillath Taanit, 10); partly, indeed, accordant with it (Sandehrin, xxxiii. 6. Horayoth 4a). But while they admitted no authority transcending the law, they so emphasized independence of judgment that they made it a boast to contradict their teachers themselves as far as possible (Josephus, Ant., XVIII., i. 4). But their principled rejection of legal tradition resulted partly from their opposition to the Pharisaic scribes, partly from their desire to be constrained as little as possible through legal regulations. Hence they repudiated all refining deductions from the law, and appealed simply to the letter thereof, which was easier to circumvent. Thus the letter of the law became for them their only categorical religious principle. Sometimes, again, they enforced the strictness of the letter, in contrast with its attenuation; particularly in imposing penal sentences they were "more hard-hearted than all other Jews" (Josephus, Ant., XX., ix. 1). Jesus himself experienced this hard-heartedness on the part of his Sadducee judges.

11. Legal and Dogmatic Differences.

This divergent attitude of the Pharisees and Sadducees in respect to the letter of the law and to tradition, also explains a number of the particular legal disputes which are attributed to them in Talmudic sources, many of which are historical. In certain cases the Sadducees, as it appears, represented the priesthood; in the rest, a definite principle of opposition is not to be ascertained. To be noted also are some dogmatic differences, among which the most important was the one touching the doctrine of resurrection; not, as Josephus presents it in Hellenizing fashion (War, II., viii. 14; Ant., XVIII., i. 3, 4), the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. If the Sadducees rejected the doctrine in question, they advocated the older position of Judaism. For the like doctrine was not at all proposed in the earlier Old Testament Scriptures, and not with complete distinctness before its appearance in the Book of Daniel. The Sadducees' position was reinforced by their directly practical contemplation of earthly conditions. On the other hand, the fact that the Pharisees decidedly espoused the doctrine of resurrection was quite in accord with their very diligent fostering of hopes in the Messiah, which hopes, like their doctrine itself, on account of their avaricious temperament, assumed a strongly sensual cast. In like manner the doctrine concerning angels, which had been elaborated by the Pharisaic scribes on the basis of the Old Testament, was rejected by the Sadducees (Acts xxiii. 8) consistently with their preoccupation with mundane affairs. According to Josephus the Pharisees and Sadducees also diverged in their conception as to the relation between destiny and human free-will (War, II, viii. 14; Ant., XIII., v. 9, XVIII., i. 3). This seems to indicate that the Pharisees, in their religious decisiveness, made everything dependent on divine providence; whereas the Sadducees, as men of practical affairs, deducted the elements of welfare and calamity from human transactions.

12 Relationship of Pharisaism to Religion.

The further development of the religious life could not attach itself to the materialistic and worldly bent of the Sadducees, but only to Pharisaism, which, however legalistic, traditional, and mercenary, was yet distinguished by a certain religious Pharisaism potentiality, as appears from the relation of primitive Christianity to both parties. The contact between Christianity and the Sadducees' party was but slight and external. Enraged at the Christian revival of the hope of resurrection, and threatened in their hierarchical position by the. Messianic claims of Jesus and the accordant expectations of the Apostolic Church, the Sadducees persecuted both those teachings with scorn and violence. With Pharisaism, however, Christianity had to reach an understanding on inward grounds quite from the start. Proceeding from the common platform of the law and the Messianic hopes, Jesus attacked the formalism of the Pharisees and their entire externalizing of the moral and religious life in that he coupled the profoundest vitalization of the same with the renovating forces which emanated from 13 his own person. The hatred that he thereby brought upon himself on the part of the Pharisees also frenzied the popular masses. But when afterward in the apostolic congregation the proclaiming of Christ's resurrection pushed to the foreground, over shadowing, in a manner, the content of his own preaching, Pharisaism's antithesis to Christianity receded so far behind the vehement persecution of the same through the Sadducees, that it now be came feasible for Pharisaic elements to make their way into the Christian assembly (Acts xv. 1 sqq.). It was only where the logical issues of Christianity became voiced in direct opposition to an absolute enforcement of the law (somewhat reservedly, at first, by the deacon Stephen, afterward more vigorously and with practical application by the Apostle Paul) that the Pharisaic enmity awoke, in utter bitterness. However, it was precisely his own Pharisaic training in youth that moved the Apostle Paul, after his radical breach with his past, to engage in a conflict with the Pharisaic party, not only outside, but especially within Christianity; wherein he prevailed to illustrate the peculiar principles of Christianity in contrast with the legal religion of the Old Testament, in a degree equaled by no other apostle.

F. Sieffert.

Bibliography: J. Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer and die Sadducäer, Greifswald, 1874; A. Geiger, Sadducäer und Pharisäer, Breslau, 1863; idem, in Jüdische Zeitschrift, ii (1863), 11–54; M. Friedländer, Die religiösen Bewegungen innerhalb des Judentums im Zeitalter Jesu, Berlin, 1905. Consult further: Grossmann, De Judæorum disciplina arcani, Leipsic, 1833–41; idem, De philosophia Sadducæorum. ib. 1836–38; De Pharisæismo Judæorum Alexandrino, ib. 1846–50; De collegio Pharisæorum, ib. 1851; A. F. Gfrörer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, i. 309 sqq.. Stuttgart, 1838; J. A. B. Lutterbeek, Die neutestamentlichen Lehrbegriffe, i. 157–222, Mainz, 1852; I. M. Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, i. 197 sqq., 216 sqq., Leipsic; 1857–59; A. Müller, in the Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, philosoph.-historical class, xxxiv (1860), 95–164; J. Derenbourg, Hist. de la Palestine, pp. 75–78, 119–144, 452–456, Paris, 1867; Hanne, in ZWT, 1867, pp. 131–179, 239–263; A. Hausrath, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, i. 129 sqq., Heidelberg, 1868, Eng. transl., Hist.of the N. T. Times, 4 vols., London, 1895; A. Kuenen, De Godsdienst van Israel, ii. 338–371, 456 sqq., 2 vols., Haarlem, 1869–70; J. Cohen, Les Pharisiens, 2 vols., Paris, 1877; A. M. Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, pp. 165 sqq., London, 1881; Baneth, in Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, ix (1882), 1–37, 61–95; J. Hamburger, Real-encyclopädie für Bibel and Talmud, ii. 1038 sqq., Strelitz, 1882; E. Montet, Essai sur les origines des parties saducéen et pharisien. Paris, 1883; idem, in JA, 1887, pp. 415–423; R. Mackintosh Christ and the Jewish Law, pp. 39 sqq., London, 1885; F. Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud, Leipsic, 1886; idem, Jüdische Theologie auf Grund des Talmud und verwandter Schriften, pp. 10–14, 44–46, ib. 1897; E. Davaine, Le Sadducéisme, Montauban, 1888; A. Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, ii. 54 sqq., 549 sqq., Freiburg, 1888–89; A. B. Bruce, Kingdom of God, pp. 187 sqq., Edinburgh, 1889; J. L. Narbel, Étude sur Ie parti pharisien, Lausanne, 1891; H. E. Ryle, and M. R. James, Psalms of Solomon, pp. xlviii.-lii., Cambridge, 1891; J. F. W. Bousset, Jeau Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum, Göttingen, 1892; idem, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, pp. 161–168, Berlin; 1903; Krüger, in TQ, lxxxv (1894), 431–496; O. Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, pp. 158 sqq., Freiburg, 1895; A. Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden, pp. 123–256, Tübingen, 1896; I. Elbogen, Die Religionsanschauung der Pharisäer, Berlin, 1904; S. Schechter, Die Chassidim, Berlin, 1904; G. Hölscher, Der Sadduzäismus, Eine kritische Untersuchung zur späteren Judenreligionsgeschichte, Leipsic, 1906; S. Bamberger. Sadducäer in ihren Beziehungen zu Alexander Jannai and Salome, Frankfort, 1907; Schürer, Geschichte, ii. 380–419, Eng. transl., II., ii. 1–43 (contains bibliography); DB, iii. 821–829, iv. 349–352; EB, iv. 4234–40, 4321–29; JE, ix. 661–666, x. 630–633; KL, ix. 1990–96; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, part xxxi., pp. 206–218; Jacobus, Dictionary, pp. 666–668, 760–761. Magazine literature is indicated in Richardson, Encyclopaedia, pp. 848, 969; the subject is treated also in the more important works on the life of Christ, such as those of Farrar (Excursuses IX.–XIV.), Edersheim, and Keim, and in those on the history of the Jews, as in Ewald and Grätz.