Sadducees (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. Ori;^n and History of the SaddaceM. U. Derivation ol Hit; name ' Sudducee.' UL Their opiHjsition to the Pbari(>eea. (a) Coiitroveraies aa to the IjSiw: (1) Crimln! Law, (2) qucslionB of Ritual, (3) the Feasts. (6) Doctrinal ditferencea : (1) aa to the resurrection of the body, and future retribution ; (2) aa to the existence of aii^rels and spirits; (3) aM to fate' and free n'ill, and Divine providence, iv. The Sadducees and Jeaus. i. Origin and History op the Sadducees (cf. art.

Pharisees, § i.)— The Sadducees were the spiritual descendants of the priestly party in Jemsaleni, which, towards the close of tlie Greek period of Israel's history, was anxious to Hcllenize the Palestinian .Je«s. The Maccaba;an rising (see art.

Maccabees), which was caused by the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to accomplish this by violence, taught these Ilellenizers the folly of tampering with the national religion ; while the success of Judas Maccaba'us and his brothers in assertin" the nation's political independence de- prived them of olBce and power. Tlieir descend- ants, however, speedily accommodated themselves to the new order of things, which was in many respects after tlieir mind.

The Maccabtcan rising had ended otherwise than was hoped when it bsyan. In the course of the struggle for national inaependence the Maccabee brothers were com- pelled to enter into alliances with foreign princes, to receive honours and dignities from them, and in general to maintain their cause by the use of purely secular means. The .Jewish State which they set up was not essentially dillcrent from the secular States around them. Tliis led to a new development of parties among the Jews.

The HASiUiEANS, who had withdrawn from the struggle with the Syrians, when religious freedom was granted, grew both in numbers and in strictness, and came to be known as the Pharisees. Their great concern was, not that the nation should be politically independent, but that it should be secured against the intrusion of all foreign ele- ments by the most scrupulous observance of the Law.

And they now found themselves face to face, not with foreign rulers, but with native princes, who, while thoroughly orthodox in the faith, were indillerent to what they conceived to be the interests of religion, and from whom they accordingly became increasingly estranged. The successors of the llcllinizcrs, on the other hand, were in f\ill sympathy witli the sec\ilar mlicy of the llasmona'an princes, and, unlike the Vliarisces, took no exception to the illegitimacy of tlieir high priesthood.

They entered the service of the new princes as soldiers and diplomatists, and, drawing around them the lea<ling adherents of the new dynasty, formed the party, to which was given their family name of Zadokites or Sad- tiurer^i. Taught by experience, this party made no violent attempts to introduce Greek customs ; but they were a purely political party : their main interest was in the .

Jewish State as an independent State, and not, like that of the Pharisees, in the legal purity of the Jews as a religious community. The tension between the Hasmoineans and the Phari- sees at last became so keen that John llyrcanus broke decisively with the latter, and openly pro- claimed himself on the side of the Sadducees. From their first appearance in history as a dis- tinct party (during the reign of John Hyrcanus, B.C.

135-105), the Sadducees were the devoted adherents of the Hasmona'an princes. Under Aristobulus L and Alexander Janna^us, the im- mediate successors of John Hyrcanus, their party was supreme. Under Alexandra Salome the Phari- sees were for a short time in possession of power ; but when Aristobulus II. became king the Sad- ducees once more came to the front. They sup- ported him in his conflict with Hyrcanus II.

, Antipater, and the Romans, and they also stood by him and his two sons, Alexander ami Antigonus, in their attempts to restore the Hasmona;an dynasty. But the day of their political power was now past. Their numbers were also considerably reduced. When Poinpey captured Jerusalem (B.C. 63) he executed many of their leaders, as did also Herod (B.C. 37).

Herod further diminished their influence by appointing and removing high priests accord- ing to his own pleasure, and by fliling the San- hedrin with his own creatures.

When Juda;a, after the deposition of Archelaus, came under the direct rule of the Romans, the Sadducees, who now included the families raised to the dignity of the high priesthood by Herod, again attained a measure of power through their preponderance in the Sanhedrin, to which the Romans committed the internal government of the country, reserving to themselves, however, not only the control of all military matters and the levying of customs, but also the confirmation and execution of all capital sentences.

Matters remained thus down to the troubled days that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, except durin<' the short reign of Agripjia I. (A.D. 41-44), \Wio favoured the Phari- sees. But the latter were the real possessors of power ; for, in order to render themselves tolerable to the people, the Sadducees were compelled to act in most matters in accordance witli Pharisaic principles.

And when Jerusalem was destroyed and Israel ceased to exist as a nation, they speedily disappeared entirely from history. According to Josephus (Ant. xin. x. 6, xvin. I. 4), the Sad- ducees were a small minority of the Jews, which included only the rich and those of the higlicst dii^nity. This is almost equivalent to identifying them with the priestly aristocracy and their adherents.

During the aecond half o'f the Persian and the whole of the Greek domination of Israel, the high priesta were the civil aa well as the religious lit-ada of the Jewish community in Judaja, and, theirs being the only hereditary olllce among the Jews since the downfall of the Davidic monarchy, they and their families formed a kind of B:u'crdotaI nobility fcf. Jos. Vita, 1). We are expressly told in Ju8ephufl(^nf. xi. IX. l)and in Ac 6" (cf.

4' 231"), that in NT ti IMS some at leaat of the high priesta were Sadducees. It was these chief priests with their families and adherents that formed the Sadducean party. This part.v, however, waa not a priestly fiarty in the sense that the uriests gt-nerally necessarily be- onged to it : some of these (e.u. Joscphus, Vita, 1 1.; see also Vita, 39; Taylor's Sailings of the Jewish fathers^, ii. 10, Hi. 2) were Pharisees (cf. Jn V^- "^i).

Nor <iid it, aa a rule, stand up for the Bpecial interests of the priests. The opposition between the Pharisees and the 8adducces was not an o]>position between the strict legalists and the jiriesis, but between the former and the chief priesta and their adherents (cf. Schiirer, ajy^il.iWt.) ii. Deiuvation of tiih; name 'Sadducees.'— The name 'Sadducees' (D'pns, sing, 'piiii, -aiSov- Koioi) is now almost universally derived from the proper name Xndiik.

The derivation, favoured by many of the Fathers and bv a few moderns (i-.q. Derenbourg, Stanley, ami Kdersheim), from the adj. pnj, accordmg to which the Sadducees were the riqhteon.

i, so called either because, in op|iosition to the Pharisees, they adhered to the written law, or because of their severity as judges^ 350 SADDtrCEES SADDUCEES must be abandoned, owing to the impossibilitjr of accounting for the change of i into u (see especially Montet, Essai s^ur les origines des partis sadui'ien et pharisien, 53 fl'.) From which Zailoli, however, did they derive their name? According io Aboth de- Rabbi Nathan, from a disciple of Antigonus of Socho.

• Antigonus of Socho received from Shime'on ha-Caddiq. He used to say. Be not as slaves that serve the Rah on the terms of receiving recompense ; but be as slaves that serve the Itab not on the terms of receiving recompense ; and let the fear of Heaven be upon j'ou ; that your reward may be doubled for the time to come. Antigonus of Socho had two disciples, who repeated his words ; and they repeated them to (their) disciples, and their disciples to their' disciples.

They arose and refined after them, and said. What did our fathers imagine, in saj-ing that a labourer might do work all the day and not receive his reward at evening? Nay, but if our fathers knew that there was the world to come, and that there was a revival of the dead, they would not have spoken thus. They arose and separated from the Thorah ; and two sects were formed from them, Cadukin and Baithtmn ; Cadukin after the name of Qadok,^aithuain after the name of'Baithos ' (Taylor, I.e. 112 f.)

This legend, though adopted by Ewald ((?K/' iv. 357), is of no historical value. It is tirst found in a document of late origin ; it is plainly wron" in what it says of the Boethusians, who derived their name from Boethus, the father of Simon, whose daughter, Mariamne, Herod married, and whom he raised to the high priesthood {./I n<. XV. ix. 3 ; cf. XVII. iv. 2, xvm. v. 1, xix. vi. 2) ; it is al.

so mistaken in asserting that the Sadducees rejected tlie Law, and in making the denial of a resurrection of the dead their primary and funda- mental characteristic. We must tlierefore either derive the name ' Sadducee ' from an unknown Zadok, an influential member or head of the party at an epoch which it is impossible to determine (Montet, I.e. 59), or from Zadok, who was priest in Jerusalem in the days of David and Solomon (1 K 18- 26- 32ff- 2^> ; cf .

4M Ch 29"), and whose descendants held the same office do\vn to the Exile. The latter derivation is generally regarded, not indeed as thoroughly established, but as the most probable. In his ideal picture of the future theocracy, Ezekiel (40-16 4319 44*16 4811 . jj, all these passages the LXX lias the form SaSooi'/c) admits only the 'sons of Zadok ' to the right of officiating as priests in the new temple at Jerusalem. Though after the return from the Exile this rule w.

as not strictly carried out, the ' sons of Zadok ' formed the main body of the post-exilic priesthood ; and more especially it was from among them that the chief priests down to the close of tlie (IJreek period were drawn (see art. PltlKSTS AND Levites, p. 96'). In the ahsenee, therefore, of more s[)ecifie information, it is a.ssumeJ that the family name ' Zadokites ' or ' Sadducees' was given, probably by their enemies, 10 the .

sacerdotal aristocratic party, which included not only the chief families of the legitimate line, but also the adherents of the Ha.smona?an princes, and, in NT times, the families raised to the high priestly dignity by Herod and his successors.* This derivation of the name ' Sadducees ' ia not inconsistent with what we know of the behaviour of many of these ' sons of Zadok.'

As early as the time o^ Ezra and Nehemiah, not only did many of the common priests intermarry with the Gentiles among whom they lived (Ezr 9'^), but Kliashib, the high priest, and members of his family, entered freely into alliances with the neighbouring aris- • It is not claimed for this derivation of the name 'Sadducee,' which was first suggested by Geiger, that it is more than prob- able. Montet (I.e. 51 f.)

argues against it that there is not a single trace in post-exiUc literature of this close connexion between the Sadducees and the Zadokites, and that this unanimous silence is fatal to the hypothesis. Kuenen, whom he cites (p. 59 f.) as holding substantially his own view, after- wards changed his opinion. 'The name "Sadducees," which the priestlv nobility of Jerusalem received later, I now also identify with Zadokites.

In the not unjustifiable reaction against Oeiger's exaggeration I went too far" (Gfammeltt Abhandlungm mr BMuchen WUtert»cha/i, 496). tocracy and with the Persian officials {Neh 13"- "). They were evidently more concerned for their own {irivileges than for the reformation so dear to the leart of Ezra and Nehemiah. The position of the high priests as civil heads, under the Persian or Greek governors, of the community in Jndaea, almost inevitably led to their gradual seculariza- tion.

They were necessarily brought into close contact with their Gentile rulers ; and their political interests tended to thrust their religious interests into the background. There were doubt- less some of these high priests who remembered what was due to their position as the servants of Jehovah, but the temptation to forget must have been very great.

Towards the close of the Greek period many of the chief priestly families were entirely secularized ; they felt no interest in what was distinctively cliaracteristic of the Jewish religion ; for the sake of their own personal enjoyment and advancement they were willing, and indeed eager, to adopt the manners and customs of their Gentile masters. 'The high priests regarded their sacred office only as a pedestal of worldly power' (Wellhausen, IJG' 248).

There is nothing, therefore, improbable in the supposition that the aristocratic priestly party, whose interests were mainly political, and of which they formed from the beginning a considerable part, came to be known by their family name. iii. Their Opposition to the Pharisees.— Though the Sadducees were the priestly nobility and the Pharisees were drawn mainly from the ranks of the common people, the opposition between them was not a mere opposition between two dif- ferent classes of society.

Nor was it merely a question as to the laxer or stricter interpretation and observance of the Law. It was an opposition of principles, of dispositions, and of theories of life (Wellhausen, I.e. 295).

The Pharisees were, in their own peculiar way, intensely religious ; their great desire was to mould their fellow- countrymen into a ' holy ' nation by means of the Law ; the}' looked forward to a future, in which their hopes were sure to be realized, and could therefore meanwhile endure the foreign dominion, provided it allowed them perfect religious freedom.

The Sadducees, on the other hand, were largely indiflferent to religion, except in so far as it was a matter of custom ; their great care was for tlie State as a purely secular State; they were satisfied with the present, so far as it permitted them to live in comfort and splendour. The acute opposition between the two parties first manifested itself in the political sphere, in the struggle for power durin" the reign of John Hyrcanus and hig successors.

When the Hasraonsean dynasty fell, the animosity still continued ; but to a large extent it necessarily ceased to be political, and concentrated itself upon questions as to the Law, matters of ritual, and doctrine. (a) Controversies as to the Law. — The Sadduceei refused to acknowledge the binding force of the oral law, the 'tradition of the elders' (Mt 15', Mk 7'), to which the Pharisees attached supreme importance. They held that only the written law of Moses was binding (Ant. xill. x.

6, XVUI. i. 4) ; and although, as judges, and in order to maintain their position against the Pharisees, they must have had their own exegetical tradition, they did not regard themselves as absolutely bound even by it ; they held it praiseworthy to dispute with their teachers (Ant. xvm. i. 4). It is incorrect, however, to represent them as acknowledging onW the Pentateuch and as rejecting the rest of theOT.

They also doubtless agreed with the Pharisees on many points settled by the oral law ; only, unlike the Pharisees, they did not regard it as binding (cf. 'Taylor, Sayings 0/ Jewish Fathers', p. 115). SADDUCEES SADDUCKES 351 In addition to, and j.iartly in consequence of, thi8 fundamental differyiirc Itetween the two parties, there were differences as to Indtviduiil Ifj^l questions, (l) Vrimiuai Law, Aa judges, the budducees were more severe tjian the Pharisees {Ant. xx. ix. 1 ; cf. xin. X. fl).

They interpreted literally the Ux lalionis (Ex 2124. |)t 1921), whereas the Pharisees mitigated its severity by accepting as punishment a money payment. They also inter- preted literally DC 2o''* (' spit in his face ') ; the Pharisees said It was enough to spit before the offending person. As regards Ex 2l^'''-^^'^lhey went beyond the requirement of the Law in exacting compensation not only for the damage done by one's ox or ass, but also for that done by one's servants.

'They were less severe, however, than the Pharisees in punishing false witnesses. According to Dt lyi^ff. a false witness was to suffer the punishment whicn he hoped to see inflicted on the per-ion falsely accused by him. The Sadducees held that this punish- ment should be inflicted on him only if the falsely accused peraon had been punished ; the Pharisees demanded his puni.sh- ment, provided sentence had been pronounced on the accused, whether the sentence was executed or not.

(2) ijuiettioiu oj liituaL The Pharisees laid the greatest stress on the cleanness of the vessels ust-d, and on the various actions being perfonue<l in due succession and with strict legal corrc<-t- ness.

According to them, all the vessels of the temple had to t)e purified at the close of each feast ; the scriptures were so precious that they could be written only on the skins of clean animals, and any one who touched the sacred rolls was thereby rendered imclean ; in accordance with Lv 16*3 they insisted, in opposition to the Sadducees, that on the Day of Atonement the high jiriest should not kindle the incense till after he had entered the Holy of Holies ; at a Feast of Tabernacles, Alexander Jannieus was attacked by the people, the majority of whom by that time favoured the Pharisees, because, as high priest, he poured the water of libation upon the ground beside the altar, mstead of upon the altar.

The Sadducees scoffed at the Pharisaic laws relating to purity : according to Pharisaic frinciples, the sacred wTitinps were less pure than the books of loiuer, contact with which did not defile ; the Pharisees, it was said, would even sjirinkle the sun in the heavens with lustral water. So far as they laid stress on Levitical purity, it was apparently in the interest of the priesthood. They insisted that the re<l heifer, from whose ashes the lustral water was pre(>ared (Nu 19'1'>).

should he burned only by priests who had been thoroughly cleansed from all possible defilement, whereas the Pharisees laid more stress on the act performed by the priest than on the priest himself, whom they even tried to defile by contact with themselves.

The Pharisees demanded that the cost of the daily sacrifice, which was offered on behalf of the whole people, should be defrayed out of the temple lreaaur>' : while the Sadducees maintained that, the treasure in the temple being in a manner their property, the sacrificial victims should be provided from the free-will offeringv of the Individuals who took pirt in the sacrifice. (:t) Agio the Feaftn, the two parties differed in the manner of fixing the date of Pentecost. According to Lv 2.'

11- ** seven hill weeks ha<l to be counted from ' Ine morrow after the labbath ' upon which the priest waved the sheaf of first-fruits before the Lord. The Pharisees followed the traditional inter- pretation {e.g. in the LXX, ad loc. ; cf. Ant. ill. x. 6), that tlie 'sabbath' meant the first day of the feast, and that conse- quently Pentecost might fall on any dav of the week. The Sadducees (or rather, according to Schiircr, I.e. 413, the Boethusians, a variety of the .

Sadcfucees) held that the 'sabltath' meant the weekly sabbath, and that therefore Pentecost always fell on the first day of the week. They naturally also refused to acknowledge as binding the tradition of the fathers as to the way of observing the sabbath.* (A) Doctrinal diffcretices. —(1) According to the NT (Mt 22-=', Mk 12'", Lk 20", Ac 4'-» 23') and Joseiilins, the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the hii(hi, to whicli .

losophus adds tliat they denied also future rcivirrh and punishment.', and even maintained that the soul perishes with the body {Ant. XVIII. i. 3f. ; BJ II. viii. 14). The doctrines of a hoilily resurrection and of future retribution in the later Jewish .sense are not found, till late, in the OT ; but it teaches a shadowy existence of Houls ill Sheol. In opixisition to the I'hariseea, therefore, the Sadducees held substantially the old Hebrew view, save (if Jo.

sephus is to be trusted) as regards continued existence after death. (2) Ac- cording to Ac 2:!' they also denied the exi.itence of anr/cls and spirit.-!, i.e. of a world of supcrinnndane sjiii^its. SeeinR that they accepted the OT, it is dilhcult tounibTstand their position on this subject. It was jirobably due to their general indillerence to religion and to the rationalistic tenii)er which led to the extreme limit in opposition to the angelology of their adversaries.

(3) According to Josephus [BJ n. viii. 14 ; Ant. XIII. v. 9) the Sad- ducees denied ' fate ' altogether ; it was impossible • For a full account of these controversies see Slontet, I.e. M6II., where the authorities arc given ; also Schiirer. I.e. i\Z B. for God to commit or to foresee anj'thing evil ; the doing of good or evil was left entirely to man's free choice ; man was the fna.ster of his own destiny and the sole author of his own happiness or misery.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, made everything dependent on ' late ' and God ; still they did not teach an absolute fatalism ; it had pleased God that there should be 'a mixture' of the Divine and human elements ; there was a co-operation of God in all human actions, good and evil, but the doing of good or evil was to a large extent iti man's power {BJ 11. viii. 14 ; Ant. XVIII. i. 3, XIII. v. 9).

' Projierly understood, the real ditieience between the Pharisees and Sadducees seems to have amounted to this : that the former accentuated God's preordination, the latter man's free-will ; and that, while the Pharisees admitted only a partial influence of the human element on what happened, or the co-operation of the human with the Divine, the Sadducees denied all absolute pre- ordination, and made man's choice of evil or good, with its consequences of misery or happiness, to depend entirely on the exercise of free-will and self-detemiinatiofi ' (Edersheira, The Life and Times of Jesus the Me-s-sirth, i.

316 f.) Though Josephus is our only authority for the denial of Divine providence on the part of the Sadducees, there is no good reason to question his substantial accu- racy. Thej' felt no need of a Divine providence, but relied entirely on their own resources. ' They claimed nothing from God, nor lie from them ' (Wellhausen, I.e. 29.''>). iv. The Saduucee.s and Jesu.s.— In the NT the Sadducees are mentioned by name only in Mt 3' 16'-6->"- (in the par.

allel passage, Mk 8"if-, they are not mentioned), 22-='- »^, Mk 12'*, Lk 20", Ac 4' 5" 23°- '• '. They are not mentioned by name in St. John's Go.spel, where, however, we lind the e.\i)ression ' chief priests and Pharisees ' (7", •" 1 1"- " 18^) instead of the ' Phari.sees and Sadducees' of Mt and Mk. It was only towards the close of His life that our Saviour came into open conflict with them.

They had little influence with the jieople, especially in religious matters ; His criticism was therefore mainly directed against the Pharisees and scribes, the supreme religions auUiorities, although, according to Mt 16"- ", He also warnetl His disciples against the leaven of the Sadducees, meaning, probably, their utterly .secular spirit.

They, on their part, seem to have ignored Ilini, until, by driving the nKjney-ehangers out of the temple (Mt 21>=»^, Mk 11'="-, Lk I'J"'), He inter- fered with the prerogatives of the Sanhedrin. His acceptance of the Messianic title ' son of David ' also filled them with indignation against Him (Mt 21"'). They accordingly joined the scribes and I'liarisees in oiijm.

sition to Him, and sought to destroy Him (Mk U", Lk 19-"), first, however, attempting to discredit Him in the ej'cs of the people, and to bringdown 11(1011 Him thevengeanceof the Romans, bj- their questions as to His authority, as to the resurrection, and as to the lawfulness of paying tribute to C.tsar (Mt 21-»'- 22^"'', Mk ll-'^''- 12^'"';, Lk 2U"f 'O"- '"«■ ; cf. Jn U""- »').

In the San- hedrin that tried Him they probably formed the majority, and the 'chief priests,' who ]iresided, belonged to their party. The ostensible ground on which thej' condemned Him was His claim to be the Messiah ; this was blas]iliemy against God, for which they decreed Him worthy of death (Mt 26'"'' , Mk M""-, Lk 22""-). But the Sadducees, at lea-st, were doubtless even more influenced by the fear that a .Missiaiiic movement led by Jesus might have disastrous political consei|uence8(cf.

Jn ll*™). After our Lord's Ascension tliey persisted in their opposition to Him in the person of His disciples (Ac 4"'- .')'"'• 2.3'"). We are not informc<l that any of them joined the infant Church ; for, as we have 352 SADDUK SAINT Been, the priests, a great company of whom were obedient to the faith (Ac 6'), were not necessarily of their party. According to Josephus (Ant. XX. ix. 1 ) they were also responsible for the death of James, the ' brother ' of our Lr)ril. LiTBRATiTRB.

— See literature at end of art. Piiaribees. D. Eaton. SADDUK (B 2a55oi'.XouKos, A ^dSSomos, AV S.uliluc), 1 F.s 8-. — Zadok the high priest, ancestor of ICzra (cf. Ezr 7').