2. The ceremonj- of faking off the shoe (Ti'^'OTI), in case the surviving brother refuses to perform the duty of Levir towards the widow of his deceased brother, is explained most rigidly by the Sadducees insisting upon the letter of the law, that the rejected widow is to spit into tlie man's face (T'lSD, Dent, xxv, 9) ; while the Pharisees, adapting the law to the requirements of the time, regarded the spitting before his face as satisfying the demands of the injunction, and hence explained the passage accordingly {Taanith, iv).
3. The same conservatism and rigor the Sadducees manifested in the right of reldliation, insisting upon the literal carrying-out of the law, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot," etc. (Kxod. xxi. 23, etc.); while the Pharisees, with a due regard for the
interests of the people, maintained that pecuniary com- pensation is suthcient i^Buba Kama, 53 b; Si a,b; Taa- nith, iv, 2).
4. For the same reason the Sadducees also insisted upon the literal explanation of the law in Deut. xix, 21, maintaining that false witnesses are only then to be executed when the sentence of the falsely accused had actually been carried out, in which case alone the words '•life for life" receive their literal fullilment; whereas the Pharisees concluded, from Deut. xix, 19, that if they are found out, even before the sentence has been carried out, they are to be executed; for it is there said, "Ye shall do unto him as he intended to do unto his broth- er." Hence the intention is to be visited with capital punishment (Mishna, Maccoth, i, 6; Tosiphta Sanhe- drin, vi).
5. The laii) of inheritance formed another distinctive feature of the Sadducees. According to the Mosaic law, the son alone is the rightful heir; and in case there is no son, the daughter inherits the father's property (Numb, xxvii, 1-11). Now, the Sadducees maintained that in case the son, who is the heir presumptive, has sisters, and he dies, leaving a daughter, the property is not to go entirely to his female issue, but that the de- ceased's sisters are to have an equal share with his is- sue, urging that the deceased son's daughter is only the second degree, while his sisters are the first degree. The Pharisees, on the contrary, maintained that the deceased brother's daughter is the rightful and sole heir, inas- much as she is the descendant of the male heir, whose simple existence disinherited his sisters (Mishna, Baha Bathra, viii, 1 ; Babylonian Baba Bathra, 115 b; 116; Taanith, v, 2.
6. From the law that the owner of cattle is responsi- ble for damages done by his animals (Exod. xxi, 28, 29), the Sadducees maintained that a master is responsible for damages done by his slave, submitting that he is far more answerable for him than his cattle, inasmuch as he is to watch over his moral conduct. The Pharisees, on the other hand, denied this, submitting that the slave is a rational, and hence a responsible, creature ; and that if the master be held answerable for his conduct, the dissatisfied slave might, out of spite, commit ravages in order to make his master pay (Mishna, Yadaim, iv, 7).
D. Ritual Questions. — 1. The first im])ortant distinc- tion in this department to be mentioned is the great stress which the Sadducees laid on the ritual purity of the person of the officiating priest. He had to keep aloof from the very appearance of uncleanness. Hence they required that the burning of the red heifer, from the ashes of which the water of absolution was prepared, should not be performed by any priest who had been defiled, although he had immersed, because he does not become undefiled before sunset (TT^tT "^H"!"!??;). The Pharisees, on the other hand, disregarding the person and regarding the thing, opposed this great ado about the aristocratic priest. "They prepared a baptistry on the Mount of Olives, where the burning of the red heif- er took place, and designedly defiled the priest who was to burn it, so that the Sadducees should not be able to say that the heifer is not to be prepared by such as had not become pure by the sun-setting" (Mishna, Aj7a, iii,7).
2. The Sadducees, again, did not believe that the sa- cred vessels in the Temple are to be subjected to the strict laws of Levitical purity, which the Pharisees stoutly maintained. So strict were their views on this sidiject that the Pharisees had all the sacred ves- sels immersed at the conclusion of every festival, be- cause some unclean priest might have touched them. Hence, when the Pharisees, on one occasion, immersed even the golden candlestick after a festivity, the Sad- ducees tauntingly exclaimed, "Behold, the Pharisees will at last also purify the sun !" {.Jerusalem Chagiga, 79 d). That the Pharisees should have thus guarded i the sanctity of the vessels against the possible touch
SADDUCEE
238
SADDUCEE
of a defiled priest must have been all the more annoy- ing to the priestly iSadducees, since in other things wliich did not affect this aristocratic fraternity, but conduced to the comfort of the people at large, tlie Pharisees were less rigorous with regard to the laws of Levitical purity than the Sadducees, as may be seen from the following instance.
3. The Sadducees interpreted the injunction in Lev. xi, 39, 40 most rigidly, maintaining that it is not only the carcass of an animal which died a natural death that detiles by touching it, but also its sundry parts, such as the skin, bones, sinews, etc. ; while the Pharisees restricted this defilement by contact simply to the Jiesh, except the parts of a dead human body, and of a few reptiles, in which the skin and the tiesh are, to a certain extent, identical.