532 
SAD 
interest of the Pharisees, and restored their power and in¬ 
fluence. The Sadducees, however, afterwards regained a 
considerable share of political and ecclesiastical consequence; 
for we find, that Caiaphas (as some have supposed), and 
Ananus (as we have already mentioned), who were both of 
this sect, possessed in succession the office of high priest. 
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the sect of the Sadducees 
fell into contempt among their countrymen, and even incurred 
the hatred of the Christians. The emperor Justinian issued 
a severe edict against them (Noell. 146.); inflicting banish¬ 
ment, ahd, in case of obstinate perseverance, even death, 
upon those who should teach their doctrines. 
The chief heads of the Sadducean tenets were these:— 
All laws and traditions, not comprehended in the written 
laws, are to be rejected as merely human inventions. Nei¬ 
ther angels nor spirits have a distinct existence, separate 
from their corporeal vestment: the soul of man, therefore, 
does not remain after this life, but expires with the body. 
There will be no resurrection of the dead, nor any rewards 
or punishments alter this life. Man is not subjected to irre¬ 
sistible fate, but has the framing of his condition chiefly in 
his own power ; so that they attributed all things to free-will, 
and thus opposed the opinion of the Pharisees, who admitted 
a kind of destiny or fatality in all our actions. Polygamy, 
according to the Sadducees, ought not to be practised. It 
has been asserted (see Tertull. de Prescript. 1. i. c. 14. Orig. 
cent. Cels. 1. i. p. 39.), that the Sadducees only received, 
as of sacred authority, the five books of Moses. But the 
contrary clearly appears from their controversy with the 
Pharisees, in which the latter appeal to the prophets and 
other sacred writings, as well as the law, which they could 
not have done with any propriety or effect, if the Sad- 
ducees had not admitted their authority. To this we may 
add, that if this had been the case, it is very improbable 
that such heresy would have passed without censure. 
1 The Sadducees are sometimes ranked with the Epicureans, 
but improperly; for though they agreed with them in deny¬ 
ing the doctrine of a future state, they differed from them 
essentially in their ideas of God and providence. Whilst 
the Epicureans admitted no supreme intelligent ruler of the 
world, and supposed the gods wholly unconcerned in human 
affairs, the Sadducees acknowledged the existence of the one 
true God, the Jehovah of the Jews, and admitted his uni¬ 
versal providence, only rejecting the notion of an absolute 
and uncontroulable influence over the volitions and actions 
of men: they admitted, too, the reasonableness and obliga¬ 
tion of religious worship. Their denial of a state of future 
rewards and punishments may, perhaps, in part be ascribed 
to their believing in the homogeneous nature of man; for 
Josephus expressly says (De Bell. Jud. 1. ii. c. 12. Ant. Jud. 
1. xviii. c. 2. 1. xx. c. 8.), that they took away the distinct 
and permanent nature of the soul: re tvjv ' ^ia,y.ovr l v 
a,i/aicioi<7i. This was, probably, the chief ground of tlieir 
opposition to Christianity, whose distinguishing doctrine is 
that of the resurrection from the dead. Brucker’s Phil, by 
Enfield, vol. ii. p. 173, &c. 
It is certain they denied the resurrection and the existence 
of angels and spirits (Matt. xxii. 23. Acts xxiii. 8.), and 
allowed of no happiness but what is enjoyed in this life; 
believing, that every thing told of the other world had been 
artluliy invented by the Pharisees. Hence, also, they attri¬ 
buted all things to free-will; in which they apposed the 
opinion of the Pharisees, who admitted a kind of destiny, 
or fatality in all our actions; so that they were, upon the 
whole, Epicurean deists in all other respects, except that 
they • acknowledged the world to have been created, and 
perhaps to be upheld and preserved, by God. 
SA'DDUCISM, s. The tenets of the Sadducees.—Infi¬ 
delity, or modem deism, is little else but revived saddiicism, 
&c. Waterland. 
SADIA, a small seaport •on the western coast of Madagas¬ 
car. Lat. 19. 5. S. 
SADLER’S WELLS, a well-known place of entertain¬ 
ment in the neighbourhood of London. It derives its name 
SAD 
from Mr-. Sadler, who erected a music-house near the spot* 
which was much frequented, before the Reformation, oil 
account of the famous well, to the waters of which many 
extraordinary cures were ascribed, and which was, therefore, 
deemed sacred, and called holy well. The priests belong¬ 
ing to the priory of Clerkenwell used to attend there, and 
hence the people were led to believe, that the virtues of the 
water proceeded from the efficacy of their prayers. 
Upon the Reformation the well was stopped up, on ac¬ 
count of the superstitious use that was made of it; till, in 
1683, Mr. Sadler found it, covered with a carved arch of 
stone. After his decease, one Francis Forcer, a musician, 
became occupier of the wells and music-house. His son 
succeeded him, and first exhibited in this place, the diver¬ 
sions of rope-dancing, tumbling, &c. 
SA'DLY, ado. Sorrowfully; mournfully. 
My father is gone wild into his grave; 
For in his tomb lie my affections ; 
And with his spirit sadly I survive. 
To mock the expectations of the world. Shakspeare. 
He griev’d, he wept, the sight an image brought 
Of his own filial love ; a sadly pleasing thought. Dryden . 
Calamitously ; miserably.—We may at present easily see, 
and one day sadly feel. South .—Gravely ; seriously. 
Ta tell thee sadly, shepherd, without blame 
Or our neglect, we lost her as we came. Milton. 
In a dark colour.—A gloomy obscure place, and in it only 
one light, which the genius of the house held, sadly attired. 
B. Jonson. 
■ SA'DNESS, s. Sorrowfulness; mournfulness; dejection 
of mind. 
The soul receives intelligence 
By her near genius of the body’s end, 
And so imparts a sadness to the sense. Daniel. 
Melancholy look —What hinders, that paleness, sadness, 
and deadness may not be remedied ? since God hath given to 
mankind not only bread to strengthen, and wine to cheer 
man’s heart; but also oil, and other things proper, to make 
him a serene and cheerful countenance. Bp. Taylor.— 
Seriousness; sedate gravity. This is perhaps the oldest 
usage. 1 . 
Mighty lord, this merry inclination 
Accords not with the sadness of my suit. Shakspeare. 
SADO, an island of Japan, about 90 miles in circumfer¬ 
ence, in a large bay on the northern coast of the island of 
Niphon. Lat. 37. 40; N. long. 138. 54. E. 
SADOC, a famous Jewish doctor in the third century 
B. C., and principal founder of the sect who after him were 
called Sadducees, was the disciple of Antigonus Sochaeus, 
president of the Sanhedrim about 260 years before the birth 
of our Saviour. That great doctor, offended at the corrup¬ 
tions of the law of Moses which began to take place soon 
after the termination of the prophetic age, by the introduction 
of the traditionary law, which chiefly respected ceremonies, 
fastings, and other practices distinct from the moral duties of 
life; and more particularly reprobating the pretensions which 
were made to meritorious works of supererogation, by means 
of which men hoped to entitle themselves to extraordinary, 
temporal rewards; strenuously maintained and taught, that 
men ought to serve God, not in a servile manner, either 
through fear of punishment or hope of reward, but from a 
pure and disinterested principle of piety. This refined doc¬ 
trine, which he opposed only to the expectation of temporal 
rewards and punishments, was misinterpreted by his fol-' 
lowers, who extended it to the rewards and punishments of 
a future life, Such was the construction which was put upon 
it by Sadoc and Baithosus, two of his disciples, who, after 
his death, taught that no future state of rewards or punish¬ 
ments was to be expected, and, consequently, that there 
would be no resurrection of the dead. Hence arose, about 
two hundred years before Christ, the sect of the Baithosaei, or 
Sadducees. 
