3. Special characteristics. — The chief outstand- ing feature of the Sadducees was probably tiieir
conservatism. They stood by the established posi- tion, held by tiie old points of view, and rejected everything tiiat partook of the nature of novelty. They were priests, but priests of aristocratic family, and, as such, their duties were political as well as religious. Brought into (dose contact with their Gentile rulers, tlieir political interests tended to thrust the religious into the background. Their aim was the welfare of the State as a secular insti- tution, rather than the purity of the nation as a religious community. As sober, practical states- men, representative of moderate Jewish opinion, they entertained no extravagant notions of the coming high position or brilliant future of Israel. And being themselves in comfortable circumstances, they were satisfied with the present, and felt no special need of a future rectification in the inter- ests of justice. The intellectual standpoint of the Sadducees seems to have been mainly negative. They were characterized chiefly by their denial of certain doctrines, and had no po.sitive religious or tlieological system of their own. They stood in most things in direct opposition to the Pharisees, yet in an opposition which involved no fundamental principle, but into which they had been driven by their historical development.
The leading difierence between the two parties is to be found in this, that the Sadducees held by the written Law, and rejected the Pharisaic tradi- tion. It is not, however, correct to say that the Sadducees acknowledged only the Pentateuch and rejected the rest of the OT. Kuenen even main- tains that they accepted the Oral Tradition, ' in .so far as this was already established when they constituted themselves a party ' (Hel. of Isi-ael, iii. p. 144). Schiirer says that they agreed with the Pharisees on some — jierhaps many — particulars of the tradition, but ' only denied its obligation, and reserved the right of private opinion ' (HJP II. ii. 38). A number of minor differences are recorded in Rabbinical literature, of which full accounts will be found in Schiirer, or in art. ' Sadducees ' in Hastings' DB. The Sadducees are stated to have been more severe in penal legislation, adhering more strictly to the letter of the Law ; and in questions of ritual, while admitting the principle of Levitical purification, they ridiculed the Phari- sees for the absurdities of their traditional regula- tions. It has been maintained that the attitude of the Sadducees was largely determined by their desire to magnify the importance of the priesthood ; but Schiirer denies that any such motive can be traced. Probably they felt that the Pharisees vitiated the Law by their self-contradictions, and that only by an adherence to what was definite and authentic (^ould the system be conserved according to wliicli alone God could be rightly worshi})ped.
The distinctive Sadducean doctrines are usually classed under three heads : — (1) They^ denied the resurrec^tion, personal immortality, and retribution in a future life. So far they merely stood by the old Hebrew jtosition, and from their niateiialistic and worldly jjoint of view they felt no need of a future life to compensate for the inequalities of the inx'sciit. In the same spirit tliey also renounced the entire Messianic !io]ie, at least in the form then current. (2) Tiiey denied tlie existence of aiigel.^ and spirits. Tiiis was scarcely the position of the or, but tlieir worldly common sense and general culture were liound to prejudice them against the fantastic jyroducts of the Pharisaic imagination in the wild extravagances of its angtlology and deiiionology. (3) They denied foreordination and the supremacy of fate, and upheld the freedom of the liuiiian will, maintaining ' th.at good and evil are at the choice of m.an, who can do the one or the other at his discretion.' This is quite in keeping witli the rest of their views. They felt no special
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need of a Divine Providence to order their life, and claimed that whatever they possessed was due to their own efforts. Generally it may be said that, after the manner of an aristocracy, they resented any attempt to impose on them an excess of legal strictness, and that ' advanced religious views were, on the one hand, superfluous to their worldly- mindedness, and, on the other, inadmissible by their higher culture and enlightenment' {HJPli. ii. 41). Yet the distance between them and the Pharisees was not so great as it might appear. Politically at least there was no insuperable bar- rier. The two could sit together in the Sanhedrin, and could combine to make common cause against Jesus and to plan His destruction.
i. Relations to Jesus. — The Sadducees are not often mentioned by name in the Gospels, but it has to be remembered that, when mention is made of the chief priests, practically the sai'ne persons are referred to. Jesus did not come into the same constant antagonism with the Sadducees as with the Pharisees. For the most part they seem to have ignored Him, at least in the early part of His ministry. They joined with the Pharisees in asking Him to show them a sign from heav^en (Mt 16^), and shortly afterwards He warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Saddu- cees, meaning probably, so far as the Sadducees were concerned, their utterly secular spirit. They resented His action in the cleansing of the Temple, and along with the scribes and elders they de- manded His authority (Mk IP'^-), and from this time forward sought to destroy Him (v.'^). They thought to inveigle Him with the Koman power by asking whether it was lawful to give tribute to Csesar (Lk 20^'^), and they attempted to discredit His teaching by presenting to Him the problem of the woman who had been married to seven brethren, and asking whose wife she should be in the resur- rection ; but they only brought ujion themselves discomfiture, and the reproof that they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (Mt 22^^ ||). They sat in the Sanhedrin which condemned Him, and with the others mocked Him upon the cross. Their oppo.sition to Christian doctrine did not cease with the death of Jesus. There is no record of any Sadducee being admitted into the Christian Cliurch, and before long they were merely a memory, hazy and indistinct.