13. Though admitting that Exod. xiii, 6 enjoins phy- lacteries, the Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic regula- tions about the making and weaving of them (Sanhe- drin, 88 b ; INIaimonides, Yad I/uchezaka, Hilchoth Te- phillin, iv, 3). See Phvlac teky.
14. Based upon the law that a lying-in woman is not
to touch holy things nor to go into the Temple during the thirty-three days following the first seven days af- ter the birth of a boy, and during the sixty-six days following the first fourteen days after the birth of a girl (Lev. xii, 2-8), the Sadducees maintained that this law excludes the woman from the enjoyment other connu- bial rights all these days ; while the Pharisees, who al- ways endeavored to relieve the peojile as much as pos- sible from the burden of the law, did not transfer the holiness of the things and of the Temple to the persons, thus granting to the wife and to the husband the enjoy- ment of their rights. Hence, while they held every other appearance of blood in the woman as defiling, they regarded it, in this instance, as the effects of the birth, and as pure blood (mno '''CI). It is for this reason that the n in n~.n:3 (Lev. xii, 4, 5) has not the Mappik, thus denoting pure blood, as the present Mas- oretic text is the Pharisaic text; and that the render- ing of it in the A. Y. by " the blood of her purifying," though agreeing with the Sadduc£ean text, which is undoubtedly the original one, is at variance with the textus recepitis (comp. Geiger, //e-C^«^?/2, v, 29; vi, 28 sq. ; JiidiKrhe Zeitschriff, i, 51 ; ii, 27, etc.).
It must not, however, be concluded that these are the only distinctive features of the Sadducees, although not many more are mentioned by their opponents, the Phar- isees.
IV. History of the Sadducees. — 1. Their Origin. — The oldest record pretending to describe the source of this sect ("jHS "^n^T riSX) is the commentary of Kabbi Nathan Ha-Babli (q. v.) on the tractate of the Mishna entitled Aboth (PISS) = the Moral Senjings of the An- cient Fathers. In this commentary on the saying of Antigonus of Soho (B.C. 200-170)— "Be not like ser- vants who serve their master for the sake of receiving wages, but be like servants who serve their master without expecting to receive wages, and let the fear of the Lord be up(Mi you" (Mishna, .-lio//;, i,3) — Kabbi Nathan remarks as follows: "Antigonus of Soho had two disciples who propounded his maxim ; they taught it to their disciples, and their disciples, again, taught it to their disciples. Thereupon they began to examine it after them, and said, ' What did our fathers purport to teach by this maxim? Is the laborer to work all day, and not receive his wages in the evening? Surely, if our fathers had known that there is another world, and believed in a resurrection of the dead, they would not have spoken thus.' They then separated themselves from the law, and two sects arose from them— the Za- dokites [ = Sadducees] and the Boethusians. The Za- dokites are called after Zadok, and the Boethusians af- ter Boethus. They used vessels of silver and vessels of gold all their days, not because they were proud, but because the Sadducees said that the Pharisees had a tradition that they are to afflict themselves in this world, and yet they have nothing in the world to come" {A both di Rabbi Nathan, cap. v). That Zadok and Boethus were contemporaries of Antigonus of Soho, that they opposed the doctrines of the sages, and that the sages ordained laws to obviate the cavils of their opponents, is also declared by Saadia Gaon (q.v.) (A.D. 892-942). Thus Isaac Israeli tells us: "Saadia says, the contemporaries and the tribimal of Antigonus of Soho ordained it as a law that the beginning of the month is to be determined by the appearance of the new moon, to do away with the cavils of Zadok and Boethus, who disputed against the sages about the fixing of the new moon" ( Yesod Ohnn, iv, 6, p. 9 [ed. Berlin, 1><48J). Sim- ilar in import to Rabbi Nathan's statement on Aboth, i, 3 is the remark of Maimonides (A.D. 1135-1204) on the same passage. "Antigonus," says this great au- thority, " had two disciples, one named Zadok and the other Boethus, who, when they heard this sage pro- pound this maxim, left him, saying one to the other, the Rabbi distinctlv declares that there is neither a fut-
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ure state of reward and punishment, nor any hope for man— because they misunderstood his maxim. Tliere- upoii they strengthened each other's hands, separated themselves from the congregation, and left the observ- ance of the law, when one sect followed the one, and another sect followed the other, whom the sages re- .spectively called the Zadokites and the Boethusians" {Comment, on Abulh, i, 3). It must be added that the greatest Jewish authorities since the Dth century of the Ciiristian ;era have regarded Zadok and Boethus as the heretical leaders who originated two sects. IMod- ern critics, however, reject this current account of the origin of the Sadducees from Zadok and Boethus, the disciples of Antigonus of Soho, as unhtstnrical, because (a) it is not mentioned either in Josephus, the Mishna, or the Oemara; (6) the original account of Rabbi Na- than neither says that Zadok and Boethus themselves misunderstood Antigonus's maxim, nor that they were the chiefs of these sects, but that their disciples misin- terpreted the import of the maxim, and separated them- selves from the congregation; and (f) it is illogical to suppose that the disciples of Zadok, who, according to Rabbi Nathan's accomit, did not misunderstand Antig- onus, but simply continued to propound his master max- im, would call themselves, or be called, Zadokites - Sad- ducees, and not Antigonites, seeing that tlie maxim be- longs to Antigonus and not to Zadok. The second and third reasons, however, are of little value, since the pres- ent text of Rabbi Nathan's Aboth is obscure, and since Saadia Gaon, the A ntcfi, Maimonides, and all the an- cient Jewish authorities who lived centuries ago, and who had better means of procuring correct codices, un- derstood the passage to mean, and also derived it from independent sources, that Zadok and Boethus themselres misunderstood their master Antigonus, and that they were the originators of the sects. It is the first reason which, coupled with the fact that the oldest records are perfectly silent about Zadok and Boethus as disciples of Antigonus, goes far to show that the passage in the A balk of Rubhi Nathan, like many other pieces in the same work, is by a later hand; and that its author, who most probably flourished towards the end of the 7th century, though possessing the right information that the Zadokites and Boethusians were the followers of Zadok and Boethus, misstated the fact by making these two chiefs, who lived at different times, contemporaries, and by describing them as disci|)les of Antigonus. This mistake is all the more natural since the real and essen- tial differences between the Sadducees and the Phari- sees actually began to develop themselves in the time of Antigonus; and it is not at all imjirobable that, though the Sadducees, as we shall presently see, derived their early sentiments and distinctive name from a much old- er leader named Zadok, a distinguished descendant of that leader, bearing the same name, may have lived in the time of Antigonus, and may have contributed great- ly to the final separation of the Sadducees from the Pharisees.