SAUDUCEKS
SADDUCEES
439
genfeld, Die Ketzergexchichte des Urchristcntums, Leipzij;, 1S84, p. 86 f.) Insteail of attemiidii;; the ambitious tusk of expiessinf: the liiHeiencfS in any one phiase, we sliall do better simply to set down what is known of them as they existed.
(a) Standard of Jitith and practice. — The funda- mental dillorence between Pharisees and Saddueees was that rehitin^ to the supreme arbiter of all dis- putes. What is the standard ? What the linal court of appeal? The Saddueees held that it was con- tained only in the written Law. The Pharisees held that tlie oral traditions were as authoritative at least as the written Law.
'The Pharisees have delivered to the i>eople from the trftdi- tion of the fatliers all nmiiner of ordinances not contained in the laws of Moses ; for which reason the sect of the Saddncees reject these ordinances ; for they attirni that only such laws ought to be observed as are written, while those which are orally delivered from the tradition of the fathers are not bind- ing. And concerning: these thinjjs ^(reat questionings have arisen among them * (Jos. Ant, xni. x. 6).
All other sources fully bear out the accuracy of this statement, which in a sense is the most im- portant that we ha\e. In its light everything else must be read and where necessary corrected. It explains the negations or Agnosticism of the Sad- ducean creed : no doctrine that was not clearly taught in the written Law possessed for them valid- ity or certainty. It explains why they were more rigid than the Pharisees in enforcing the penal law {Ant. XIV. iv. 2 f. ). It would be misleading to call the Saddueees the Protestants of Judaism, but there is some similarity between their divergence from the Pharisees and the divergence of Protest- ants from Roman Catholics on the question of authority. In both cases we have an appeal to the written Word alone, as against an appeal to the Word plus traditions, precedents, and ecclesiastical judgments. For the latter the Pharisees claimed the same sort of infallibility as the Roman Church attaches to ex cathedra pronouncements by the pope.
How did this conflict eventuate ? In reality there was a clear victory for neither. Pharisaism and Sadduceeism in their long discussions aHected each other. On the one hand, the complexities of life convinced the Saddueees that cases had to be met for which there was no definite guidance in the written Word, and popular feeling compelled them to fall in with the procedure of the Pharisees {^n(. XVIII. i. 4). Still, we may take it, they strove to make all new regulations in harmony with the AVord. On the other hand, their insistence on the supreme authority of the Word led to an intensive study of the Word by the Pharisees, who were concerned to show, just as a Roman Catholic is, that the oral tradition was really based upon the Word. Hence the Pharisees won, but only by doing full justice to the Sadducean position.
' The Pharisees won the day ultimately, for they were able to show by subtle exegesis that the oral tradition was based upon the written Law. But. and this is the great point, the fciad- ducajan principle was thus victorious: as a party they went under ; but the Pharisees, by adopting the Sadducaian prin- ciple that nothing is binding that cainiot be shown to be in ac- cordance with the written Law, implicitly acknowledged that the Saddueees had been right alt along' (Oesterley, op. cit., p. 143).
(J) Providence. — According to Josephus, the Saddueees did not believe in Providence.
While the Pharisees, he tells us, hold that some things in the world happen by the will of Providence, and that other things lie in the power of men, ' the Saddueees take away Providence, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal ; but they suppose that all our actions are in our own power' (Ant. xlll. v. 9). 'The Saddueees take away Providence entirely, and suppose that Ood is not concerned in our doing or not doing wh.at is evil ; and they say that to act what is good, or what is evil, is at men's own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please' (i>'J n. viii. 14).
We cannot admit that this is an accurate ac- count of Sadducean belief. Josephus is here
straining the position of the Saddueees into corre- spondeiu:e with the Epicureans and sceptical indi- vidualists of (Ireece. If the Saddueees were the stalwart supporters of the written Word, they could not have held such a view of God and the world. Further, if Jo.sei>hus is accurate here, passages such as Mt 3' l(i', Ac 5™- become unin- telligible. There it is implied that Saddueees be- lieve in wrath to come, in signs from heaven, in the danger of lighting against God. Again, while Rabbinical writings contain no evidence of any dispute with the Pharisees on this topic — a silence which is very significant — the Zadokite fragments show the Sadtlucean doctrine of G<jd to be in har- mony with OT teaching (see Oesterley, op. cit., p. 145 f.). We conclude th;it on this topic there was no essential dill'erenee between Pluirisees and Saddueees. It follows that the popular idea of Saddueees as irreligious and rationalist is as base- less as the idea that all Pharisees were whited sepulchres.