them' (Deut. xi, 21). He promised it to them (pfib)— i. e. to the living, and not to the dead ; but as they were now dead, it is evident that there will be a resurrection if the promise is to be fulfilled" (Sanhedrin, 90 b).
We are also fold in the New Test, that the Sadducees say that there is " neither angel nor spirit" (Acts xxiii, 8) ; but this can by no means imply that they altogether denied the existence of angelic and spiritual beings, since the Sadducees were firm believers in the divinity of the Mosaic law, where the appearance of angels is again and again recorded ((ien. xvi, 7; xix, 1; xxii, 11; xxviii, 12; Exod. xxiii, 20; Numb, xxii, 23 et al.), and neither Josephus nor the Talmudic writings charge them with this unbelief. W^hat they denied is the incarnation and manifestation of dnemoniac powers and angelic beings in later days, as believed and described in the Jewish writ- ings and in the New Test.
3. The opinions of the Sadducees respecting the free- dom of the will, and the wa)' in which those opinions are treated by Josephus {^Ant. xiii, 5, 9), have been noticed elsewhere. See Pharisees. It may here be added that possibly the great stress laid by the Sadducees on tlie freedom of the will may have had some connection with their forming such a large portion of that class from which criminal judges were selected. Jewish philoso- phers, in their study, although they knew that punish- ments as an instrument of good were unavoidable, might indulge in reflections ttiat man seemed to be the creature of circumstances, and might regard with compassion the punishments inflicted on individuals whom a wiser moral training and a more happily balanced nature might have made useful members of society. Those Jews who were almost exclusively religious teachers would naturally in- sist on the inability of man to do anything good if (iod's Holy Spirit were taken away from him (Psa. li, 11, 12), and would enlarge on the perils which surrounded man from the temptations of Satan and evil angels or spirits (1 Chron. xxi, 1 ; Tob. iii, 17). But it is likely that the tendencies of the judicial class would be more practical and direct, and more stricth' in accordance with the ideas of the Levitical prophet Ezekiel (xxxiii, 11-19) in a well-known passage in which he gives the respon- sibility of bad actions, and seems to attribute the power of performing good actions exclusively to the individual agent. Hence the sentiment of the lines,
"Our .nets our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still,"
would express that portion of truth on which the Sad- ducees, in inflicting punishments, would dwell with most emphasis; and as, in some sense, they disbelieved in angels, these lines have a peculiar claim to be regarded as a correct, exponent of Sadducfean thought. Yet per- haps, if writings were extant in which tlie Sadducees explained their own ideas, we might find that they rec- onciled these principles, as we may be certain that Eze- kiel (lid, with other passages apparently of a diflferent im- port in the Old Test., and that the line of demarcation between them and the Pharisees was not, in theory, so very sharply marked as the account of Josephus would lead us to suppose.
C. Le(j(tl Mutters. — 1. The Sadducees restricted the Lerirate l<iw to cases of betrothal (HDIIX), but denied its obligation when the marriage was consummated (riNlirS). Thus, for instance, though they regarded a betrothed woman (nD1"iN) as a wife, and treated her as a married woman in accordance with the Slosaic legis- lation [see Mahuiagk], yet, when her betrothed hus- band died without cohabiting with her, his surviving brother could perform the duty of Levir without com- mitting incest, as she was still a virgin. In this re- spect, too, the Sadducees, as the erudite Geiger has shown, followed the ancient Levirate law, which is Ijased upon Gen. xxxviii, 7-10, and which— inferring from the similarity of expression used in ver. 7 and 10 that Er too had acted wickedly and not properly con-
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summated the marriage with Tamar — enacted that the Levir is onh' then to perform the dutj' towards his de- ceased brother when the marriage has not been con- summated (Yebamot/i, 'H b; hercshith liiibba, Ixxxv; Geii^er. J ihlisc he Zeitschrift [Breslaii, 18G2], i, 30, etc.). It is to be remarked that the Samaritans of old restrict- ed the Levirate law (Ueut. xxv, 5, etc.) in the same manner, and that the Talmud which records it tells us that in support of this restriction the Samaritans ap- pealed to the expression nriinn, which they translated outer, and regarded as the adjective of P^H PITX, con- struing it with the preceding JT^nP X5, while they took ^T IT'^xb as explicative of the preceding by way of rep- etition, translating the whole passage " The wife of the deceased who is outside (i. e. the consummation of the marriage) is not to be for another man" {Jerusalem Ye- bumoth, i, 6; Kirchheim, Karme Shomron, p. 3(j). The Karaites, who may be regarded as modern Sadducees, explain the Levirate law in the same manner. This re- striction of the Levirate law on the part of the Sad- ducees imparts additional force to the incident recorded in the Gospels (Matt, xxii, 23, etc. ; Mark xii, 18, etc. ; Luke XX, 27, etc.). Here we are told that the Sad- ducees, not believing in a resurrection, put the follow- ing question to our Saviour : The tirst of seven brothers married a wife and died childless, whereupon the second brother performed the duty of Levir, and he too died without issue; then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh brother successively performed the duty of Levir, so that she alternately became the wife of seven husbands — now, whose wife is she to be at the resurrec- tion? With the restricted application of the Levirate law before us, it w^ill be seen that though this ironical question was chiefly directed against the doctrine of the resurrection, yet it at the same time also attacks the or- thodox rharisaic view of the Levirate law which was undoubtedly shared by our Saviour. What the Sad- ducees thereby say is, as Geiger rightly remarks, that according to their application of the Levirate law, which restricts it to the betrothed woman (nai"'X), apart from the extremely rare occurrence of death between the betrothal and connubial intercourse (nNT;!33), espe- ciall}' several times under similar circumstances, the re- lation of the woman to her last husband who consum- mated the marriage is far more intimate than to any of the other husbands to whom she was simph' betrothed. Supposing, therefore, for argument's sake, that there will be a resurrection, and that the woman will rise with all the seven brothers, no difficulty will be experienced ac- cording to the restricted application of this law, inas- much as she will be the wife of the last husband who alone consummated the marriage. According to the Pharisaic practice, however, the Levirs have to marry the widow after the marriage has been consummated, so that she is the real wife of all the seven brothers; hence the ironical question put to our Saviour, "According to the Pharisaic doctrine of the Levirate law, in which you believe, the difficulty will be to decide whose wife she is to be."