ZEALOTS: The Biblical term (Hebr. kenaim; Gk. zelotai) for those who in glowing love and holy anger act against all who would acorn God's honor and revelation. A particular use of the term is shown in I Cor. xiv. 12, where Paul describes the Corinthians as zealous for the divine gifts. In the Old Testament the passion is represented as manifesting itself in behalf of the law or against idolatry (Ex. xx. 5, xxxiv. 14; Deut. iv. 24), while in the New Testament Paul describes himself as formerly a zealot in behalf of the traditions of the fathers (Gal. i. 14), and the Christian community at Jerusalem is also said to have been zealous for the law (Acts xxi. 20). The word is used in exactly the same sense in the Talmud of those who discountenanced contempt of the law (Mishna, Sanhedrim, ix. 6). This general sense may have been that in which the surname of the Apostle Simon Zelotes was applied. A narrower application was to that party which would push to the extreme opposition to the Roman overlordship, and Josephus repeatedly employs the word in this sense. He implies (War, 1V., iii. 9) that the name was one the members of the party assumed. In the Talmud this usage is not found, clearly because, while the Pharisaism of the Talmud assumes the anti-Gentilic pose of the zealots, the nationalizing significance was forgotten; yet it reappears in this sense in the very late "Fathers" of Rabbi Nathan, chap. vi.

The origins of the party of zealots are in close connection with Pharisaism (see Pharisees and Sad-

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DUCEES). The Pharisees had their roots in the Hasideans of the early Maccabean times, and they remained a party of scribes in which religious interests far outweighed all others. But by a transformation they developed away from the Hasideans, attempted to get closer to the life of the people, and to have larger influence upon the Maccabean state. This brought them into connection with politics, which indeed their ideals did not forbid. They could see in heathen control of the Holy Land the working of divine providence, even though this seemed to contradict the choice by God of the Hebrews as his own people while it did not oppose efforts to set aside this heathen control. Their religious motives were often made politically effective by the Pharisees, as when they won over the Mecca; bean princes, stirred up trouble for Alexander Jannaeus when he sided with the Sadducees, actually ruled through Queen Alexandra, protected the weak Hyrcanus, and furnished trouble fdr Herod the Great. This makes intelligible the report of Josephus that after the introduction of the census into Judaea by Quirinius (q.v.) the Galilean Judas (a man learned in the law), in common with Sadduc the Pharisee, aroused the people against the Romans and thereby furnished the basis for a party which in general was in full agreement with the Pharisees, but inspired with a boundless love for freedom would recognize God alone as lord and king, thereby occasioning the troubles which came later under Gessius Florus and ended in the destruction of Jerusalem (And., XVIII., i. 1, 6). The war party which came into control in the time of Gessius Florus was by Josephus called that of the zealots (War, IV., iii. 10), whose origin in the Pharisees he recognizes, though the party of Judas is not to be confused with Pharisees, Sadduceea, or Essenes (War, II., viii. 1). As a Pharisee and friend of the Romans he had an interest, indeed, in transferring responsibility for the war from the Pharisees and emphasizing the distinction between the two parties. Yet one may not with Montet (see bibliography) think of the zealots as a combination half Pharisee and half Sadducee. They emphasized the theocratic ideals of the Pharisees and then pursued these to their extreme consequences. And since the Sadduc mentioned above may well be the pupil of Shammai, it is probable that this heathen-hating school contributed ideas as well as persons to the zealots of the Jewish war. Thus is explained the proverbial regard of the zealots for the Sabbath together with their willingness to fight on that day in accordance with Shammai's principles. Yet one must not identify the school of Shammai with the zealots, who allowed to obtrude more and more the national, social, and material in place of the legal and theocratic.

The insurrection provoked by Judas and Sadduc made so little impression that a decade afterward Gamaliel could speak as is reported in Acts v. 37. But there were consequences which appeared afterward in Judas' own family, since two sons were crucified by the procurator Tiberius Alexander. Abortive attempts were made to carry out their ideas till the times of Gessius Florus, when open insurrection broke out, and then was affixed the name zealots. The historical relationship with the earlier move-

ment is proved by the connection with the insurrection of Menahem the son of Judas, also a man learned in the law (scribe), and some of his relations. While some of the zealots belonged to the business class, this latter was generally in favor of peace. The zealots did not scruple to employ the bandits or sicarii, indeed were themselves in the later Jewish period considered as identical with them. Their fanaticism caused them to be disowned and denounced by the Pharisees (Josephus, War, IV., iii. 9). But even in these times their Pharisaic origin is clear, since they never entered into relationship with the Sadducaic priesthood, while something is evident always of the theocratic ideas with which their development began, which were drawn from the Old Testament.

(F. Sieffert†.)

Bibliography: J. Derenbourg, Essai sur Z'hist. et la giogra- phie de la Palestine d'aprgs les thalmuds, pp 237 sqq, Paris, 1867; J. Wellhausen, Die Pharisder und die Sad- pp. 22 sqq., 110 sqq., Greifswald, 1874; II. Greets, ideas of the sealote.