Taking all these dues together, we see that the material resources of this little nation were drawn upon to an extraordinary degree, and that none but a very energetic and temperately living people could have borne such burdens, and upon the whole even prospered under them. From the social point of view, the Jews must be reckoned among the more fortunate nations. As long as the foreign yoke was not too heavy and their religious susceptibilities were not offended, there prevailed amongst them a considerable degree of contentment and a healthy enjoyment of life (Sir 14-14), which at times might rise to hearty re- joicing, as we see, for instance, in the Song of Songs and the noisy celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. No doubt there were social extremes, the one of wealth and luxury, the other of grinding poverty (cf. the parable of Dives and Lazarus), but the majority belonged to neither of these classes, and in peaceful times led a temperate and generally contented life.
vy. Parries.—If the Jewish people was thus free from sharp social contrasts, there were opposing elements of another kind amongst them, which consumed their strength in the most dangerous fashion, and whose conflicts are the moving factors of the whole post-exilie history, until at last they brought about the destruction of the nation. The essential principle of this opposition is of a religious character, social and political principles play only a subordinate réle in it.
What in pre-exilic times had been the wealthy secular nobility, became after the Exile the temple aristocracy: a privileged class to which a number of quite diverse circumstances gave a marked superiority. We have seen how, in consequence of the growing prosperity of the nation, the priests
*The Samaritans, who also came under the Roman sway, were relieved, according to Ant. xvu. xi. 4, of a third of the taxes, because they had taken no part in the revolt.
+ Cf., further, Schtirer, GJV i. 511.
NEW TESTAMENT TIMES
necessarily came into the possession of great wealth. ‘At the saine time the condition of things involved the passing of the relics of independence which were left to the Jews, into the hands of the high priest and_ his priestly coadjutors. In this way they were brought to interest themselves in actual politics, and thus were gradually forced into opposition to the strict party, whose ideal was complete political passivity and a confident ex- pectation of Divine intervention. There were thus developed opposite religious principles, which by constant friction were always brought into sharper contrast. The ‘pious’ could not avoid looking upon their opponents with the same eyes as those with which the prophets had regarded the secular nobility of their day. The rich aristocracy were thought of as the ungodly, who believed not in God’s help but in_ political devices often of a desperate nature; they were the unrighteous, who used their wealth and their influence with foreign nations to inflict all kinds of damage upon their opponents, the strict party. At the same time it would be a serious misunderstanding to reduce this opposition to a mechanical system, and to suppose, for instance, that all the priests belonged to the broader party. That there were even high priests who sympathized with the stricter tendency is sufficiently proved by the instance of Simon the Just, whose memory is still glorified in the later Pharisaic literature; and among the ordinary priests there were many who belonged to the ‘pious.’ Jewish history shows also that, among the priests who politically occupied the standpoint of the secular school, there were earnest men who were prepared to lose their life rather than neglect the duties assigned to them in connexion with the cultus (Jos. Ant. XIV. iv. 3). It would be equally wrong to suppose that the strict party represented an opposition to the temple cultus because this was in the hands of the temple aristocracy. That it was not so may be shown from the way in which Ben Sira, who himself belonged to the stricter school, exhorts his readers to ‘honour the priests and to pay them their appointed dues (Sir 7). The correct view is simply that in the ranks of the temple aristocracy there was a party prepared to sacrifice the sacred uniqueness of Israel for the sake of worldly advantages, and that this disposi- tion was so strongly developed that its representa- tives could not but appear to the strict school in the light of apostates.
The name under which in later times the ad- herents of the secular party meet us is Sadducees, properly members of the Jerusalem priesthood (from Zadok, 1K 18, Ezk 40%). In opposition to them the Pharisees stand for the most uncompro- mising representatives of the stricter tendency. The name means properly ‘those who separate themselves,’ who keep at a distance from the ordinary unclean life and from all unclean per- sons (in contrast to the ‘am ha-arez, the common people, who were indifferent in matters of Levitical purity, ete.).
Tt was the elevation of the Maccabees that was responsible for the above-described opposition be- coming a chronic malady. The Maccabees were originally allies of the stricter school, but, after they attained to the supreme power, they slipped over to the views of the temple aristocracy and thus came into conflict with the Pharisees. Above all, it was repugnant to the strict party that the Hasmonzans should confuse and corrupt the Messianic hopes. It is evident from the so-called First Book of Maccabees that the adherents of the Hasmonean princes believed that these hopes had found a fulfilment in the persons of the latter. After they had conquered the whole land and assumed the royal title, it did indeed look as if