RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mug- Pharisees and Sadducees
The same is also probably true of the name
" Sadducees." It is a mistake to derive the same
from the Stoics (Koster, TSK, 1837, p. 164); more
plausible is it to explain the Sadducees as Zaddikim,
" the just," from their stress upon the
3. Deriva- simple law in contrast with Pharisa-
tion of ical traditions (Derenbourg) ; or their
" Saddu- strictness in dealing penal sentences cees." (Reville). Only on linguistic grounds, again, is there warrant for deriving the term (Gk. Saddoukaios, Heb. Zadduki), from a personal name of which no trace exists after the exile. Such a gratuitous hypothesis (Gratz, Montet, Legarde) can be justified only by extreme embarrassment. There is, on the other hand, great probability in favor of the hypothesis (Geiger), whereby the name is traced to that Zadok who was high priest in the time of David and Solomon, in whose line the high-priestly dignity continued during nearly the entire dominion of David's royal house (II Sam. viii. 17; I Kings i. 32; Ezek. xl. 46; Josephus, Ant., X., viii. 6). In the period after the exile, not only the high priest Joshua (Neh. xl. 11; cf. I Chron vi.; Josephus, Ant., X., viii. 6), but also, according to Josephus, all the high priests descending from him down to Menelaus, hence also all the high-priestly families of their lineage — belonged to the house of Zadok. According to this view the name " Sadducees " denotes the descendants of the high priest Zadok, together with their adherents. Which theory is also favored by analogy of the " Boethusians," who in the Talmudic writings appear as an offshoot of the Sadducees; or as a sect akin to them. For the " Boethusians " can be named Sadducees only through the circumstance that Herod the Great adopted the line of the Alexandrine Boethos, whose granddaughter he married, into the succession of the high-priestly families (Josephus, Ant., XV., ix. 3). If the name Sadducees denotes the Zadokites, it is impossible to deny all actual connection with the Zadokite highpriestly families, and to identify them with the Maccabean princes and their following, who had obtained that name only by way of reproach (Wellhausen). It is probable that the name Zadokites was given to the party by their enemies; but this was possible only in case the real Zadokite high priests formed the stock of the party; so that a partizan following could then readily join the same. In this light, the two party names of Pharisees and Sadducees are distinct in so far as that the former has reference to religious aims, the latter to connection with the high-priestly nobility. This does not controvert the correctness of the given derivation; indeed, the point becomes thereby more prominent that the Pharisaical party structure took its departure from religious motives; the Sadducean, predominantly from aristocratic interests.
Partizan opposition between Pharisees and Sadducees probably arose in the first decades of the Maccabean era. A Jewish tradition (in the Baraitha to Rabbi Nathan's Aboth), respecting the founding of the Sadducees' party through two pupils of Antigonus of Socho, would carry the origins back to the close of the second century b.c. But apart from other improbabilities in this account,
which dates only from the Middle Ages, its chronological correctness is precluded by the certified existence of the Sadducees' cause at a considerably earlier period. According to Josephus 4. Date of (Ant, XIII., x. 6), an open conflict Origin. between Pharisees and Sadducees broke out as early as toward the close of the administration of Hyrcanus, about 115 b.c. But this presupposes an antecedent and quiet development of both parties, and Hyrcanus himself was brought up in the Pharisaic doctrine (Josephus, Ant., XIII., x. 5). Essentially opposite is the incidental remark of Josephus in his narrative of the last executive years of Jonathan (Ant., XIII., v. 9), that about that time there were three " sects " among the Jews: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. The origin of the Pharisees and Sadducees falls, therefore, at its latest, during the rule of Jonathan; but it can not be set back much further, since no trace of their names appears earlier to show that the parties were forming. The assumption is forbidden that they*' arose before the Maccabean insurrection. Nor may appeal be made to the presence of the Hasideans (see Hasmoneans, § 1) in the pre-Maccabean period. For the Pharisees are not to be identified with these. While one can date the Pharisees and Sadducees as parties back to the beginning of the postexilic period (A. Geiger, Ursprung und Uebersetzung der Bibel, pp. 26 sqq., 56 sqq., Breslau, 1857) only by resting upon conjecture, it is possible that the partizan antithesis but continued an older contention, such as might have 'taken shape prior to the Maccabean uprising; indeed, opposition of interests similar to these appeared in the pre-Maccabean era.
This first of all appears in the class distinction between the Pharisees and Sadducees. Soon after the return, there began to develop an opposition between the scribes, who insisted upon 5. Rela- an absolutely strict prescriptive life, tions of and the adherents of the aristocratic Pharisees high-priestly lines, who favored the and Scribes, gentiles. This antithesis accentuated itself in the Syrian and Hellenistic era, and led to the formation of parties during the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes. At that time the rising party of radical Hellenism, which sought to supplant Mosaic Judaism by Greek manners and customs, was withstood by the coterie of the Hasideans, who determined to adhere with the utmost rigor to the Jewish law as the unconditional norm of life. At that time the leaders of the former party were the high-priestly aristocrats; those of the second, the scribes. A similar class distinction formed the basis of the conflict between Pharisees and Sadducees. True, the Pharisees are not identical with the scribes. From Acts xxiii. 9, it appears that in the apostolic age not all scribes were Pharisees, but that there were also Sadducee or neutral scribes ; and only a portion of the Pharisees consisted of scribes (Mark ii. 16; Luke v. 30). Indeed, a characteristic distinction comes forth in the very use of the two terms in the Gospels. Quite often they speak of the Pharisees, where only individuals of that sect are meant (Matt. ix. 19-34, etc.). On the
Pharisees and Sadducees