ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



303 



Sadducets. 



Iv'clesis**. differed from one another in the principles which they 

 otlHutory. professed, they agreed in rejecting the claims of Jesus ; 

 > ""V" P ' they considered him as a pretender to the character of 

 the Messiah; and thought it not only innocent, but me- 

 ritorious, as well as necessary, to suppress the religion 

 which he taught. 



The sects alluded to were the Pharisees, the Saddu- 

 cees, and the Essenes. The Essenes were the Thera- 

 peutae of Judea ; a class oilmen who lived, or affected 

 to live, in contemplative retirement, and to take no 

 part in the concerns of the state. They are not men- 

 tioned in the sacred books ; but from other sources of 

 information we learn, that they held the doctrine of the 

 malignity of matter, ascribing all evil passions to the 

 body, and attempting, by abstinence, silence, and other 

 varieties of mortification, to purify the soul, and to pre- 

 pare it for heaven. While they acknowledged the law 

 of Moses, they regarded the Pentateuch as a collection 

 of allegorical and mysterious truths ; and of course the 

 chief labour and difficulty of their theology, was to find 

 the hidden meaning, the holy and crle*tial import which 

 the literal enunciation was supposed to conceal Of all 

 the Jewish sects, the Essenes appear to have made, in 

 point of fact, the least opposition to the progress of 

 Christianity. The Sadducees were the unbelievers in 

 religion. They denied the existence of angels or spi- 

 rits, contending, that man stood at the head of all the 

 works which God had made; and they rejected the no- 

 tion of the soul's immortality. Their scepticism, how- 

 ever, had its limits ; for they admitted the books of 

 Moses, and received them as the communications of 

 heaven to the great legislator of their nation ; but they 

 refused the other parts of the sacred canon, except in 

 so far as they contained the civil and political history 

 of the Hebrew people. Though not remarkable for 

 their numbers, they were of great consideration in the 

 state. Their influence in the Sanhedrim was such as 

 to render it necessary to court their favour. Many of 

 the sect were rich, many of them learned ; and they 

 enjoyed, almost exclusively, the patronage and pro- 

 tection of the great. During the course of our Savi- 

 our's ministry, they proposed to him many insidious 

 question*, cither with a view to confound him by their 

 skill in argument, or to expose him to the resentment 

 of the Roman procurator, or to the derision of the peo- 

 ple. And when the apostles of Jesus discoursed to 

 tht-ir hcareis of a resurrection and a future judgment, 

 doctrines so completely opposite to the tenets of the 

 Sadducees, this powerful sect soon proved themselves 

 to be the most violent of all the persecutors and op- 

 pressors of Christianity. 



In point of numbers, however, as well as influence over 

 the public opinion, the Sadducees were constrained to 

 yield to the Pharisees. This last was by far the mo>t po- 

 pular of the Jewish sects. Their errors, if not more deep- 

 ly rooted, were more extensively diffused; they presided 

 in the schools; they were the chief doctors of the law, 

 the favourite expositors of the Levitical institute, and in- 

 terpreters of the prophecies ; and, in the estimation of 

 the multitude, they were the surest guides to a holy life. 

 If the creed of the Sadducei s was narrow, the Pharisees 

 vere ample believers. They received the books of Mo- 

 tes, and all the other parts of the Jewish scriptures 

 which enter into the canon ; and they added to these 

 their traditionary doctrine or oral law, which they re- 

 presented as of equal obligation and value with the 

 written statute itself. Many of the precepts contained 

 in this oral law, were in direct opposition, not only 

 to tl.e srint, but even to the letter of the decalogue; 

 and as Uieae precepts were, not committed to writing, it 



was in the power of the Pharisees to alter or to modify E 

 them at pleasure. Hence it was that the precepts in 

 question were so managed in the application, as to in- 

 crease the wealth, and support the pretensions, of this 

 predominating sect. Hence it was that the Pharisees 

 " devoured widows houses" with impunity, and "bound 

 heavy burdens upon the poor, which they themselves 

 would not touch with one of their fingers." And hence 

 it was that our Saviour, after pronouncing a woe upon 

 them, declares, that they had made void the law, that 

 is the decalogue, and the precepts connected with it, 

 illustrative of its enactments, by their traditions. 



or 



The character of the leading persons belonging to this 

 sect was such, as to excite the highest aversion and 

 disgust of every enlightened and well-regulated mind. 

 They were very far from having attained to that pure 

 and heavenly virtue which the people ascribed to them. 

 Though most scrupulous and elaborate in the exercises 

 of piety, they were not devout ; with long prayers in 

 their mouths, they fancied themselves in need of no 

 spiritual gift ; and while they enlarged their phylac- 

 teries, and paid tithe of mint, and aloes, and cu- 

 min, they neglected the great and necessary duties of 

 justice, mercy, and truth. They afford us the most 

 complete specimens of meditated and consummate hy- 

 pocrisy, and constitute the most perfect examples which 

 the New Testament exhibits, of all that we are bound 

 to avoid and to abhor. 



The liatred of the Pharisees towards Christ and his Reception 0$. 

 apostles, was marked by its extraordinary virulence, Christianity 

 From some incorrect interpretations of the prophecies, " g * 

 they had figured to themselves the Messiah as a mighty 

 deliverer, who was to rescue the Israelitish nation from 

 the oppression of the Roman yoke, and subject the whole 

 world to the institutions and the authority of Moses. 

 Our Saviour was not the deliverer whom they expected: 

 he appeared without the pomp and splendour of royal- 

 ty ; without armies or attendants ; and he declared, in 

 the plainest manner, that his kingdom was not of this 

 world. The pride of the nation was offended, and the 

 opposition of the Pharisees was roused in all its bitter- 

 ness and malignity. After repeated and fruitless at- 

 tempts to involve Jesus in some charge which might 

 affect his life, they succeeded in gaining over one of 

 his immediate followers, and by the well-known treach- 

 ery of Judas Iscariot, he was given up to their fury. 

 It was the impetuous zeal of the Pharisees that urged 

 the Roman procurator to put our Saviour to death. It 

 was the Pharisees who sealed the stone which covered 

 the mouth of the sepulchre ; and it was the same ac- 

 tive and persevering party that bribed the soldiers who 

 watched the grave, and instructed them to publish the 

 false acsount of the resurrection. They were the chief 

 agents in the martyrdom of Stephen. They granted 

 to Saul the commission which authorized him to bring 

 the Christians of every description bound to Jerusalem. 

 And by their ill-supported expositions of the sacred 

 books, and the delusive hopes with which they flatter- 

 ed and amused the people, they urged on the destiny, 

 and precipi tated the destruction of their country. Groan- 

 ing under the severities of a foreign administration, se- 

 verities rendered necessary by the factious disposition 

 and impatient spirit of the Jews, this unhappy people 

 at length broke out into open rebellion ; and still 

 dreaming that the era of deliverance was at hand, they 

 rashly and foolishly set the Roman power at defiance. 

 The war raged throughout Asia- Minor and a great part 

 of the East; The armies of the empire, under the or- 

 ders of Titus, marched into the sacred territory. The 

 chief city of the Jews was besieged, and for six long 



