Josephus on the "Pharisees" and the "Sadducees"

General Overview

THE Pharisees derive their name from the Hebrew word פּרשׁ "to divide or separate," for they maintained very strict views of ceremonial uncleanness and thus "separated"[1] themselves from many things which less scrupulous minds might not regard as unclean; hence by consequence they also "separated" themselves from the great majority of the people who did not think as they did. The Sadducees were in every sense the antithesis of the Pharisees; they derive their name from the priests of the line of Sadoc, cf. Ezech. 40:46, 43:19, 44:15, 48:11, and also the addition to Ecclus. 51:12 in the Hebrew text.[2]

The differences between these two sects is best shown in their history as far as it is known to us.

In the Maccabean times allusion is made more than once to the "Assideans." This name is merely a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew word ﬨםיﬧיﬦ, the "pious" or "the Saints" so often mentioned in the Psalms, cf. also Proverbs 2:8, and 1 Sam. 2:9. In 1 Macc. 2:42 we read that when Mathathias, the father of the Maccabees, raised the standard of revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes then was assembled to them the congregation of the Assideans, mighty men of Israel, every one that offered himself willingly for the Law. These men who thus offered themselves to the Maccabees are clearly not the Maccabees themselves but a particular class of men who were devoted to the Law. Again, in 1 Macc. 7:12-13, And there were gathered together unto Alcimus and Bacchides a company of scribes to seek for justice. And the Assideans were the first among the children of Israel that sought peace of them. It is interesting to note the connection here asserted between the "scribes" and the Assideans. The High Priest Alcimus here mentioned was not of the High Priestly stock; he was a renegade Jew who threw in his lot with the Seleucidans for the sake of position, he stands for a type of that party amongst the Jews, and especially among the priests (cf. 2 Macc. 4:13-17), who esteemed the glories of the Greeks best of all. Alcimus, for his own purposes, identified the Assideans with the Maccabeans, 2 Macc. 14:6, but the passages above quoted show that this is not true.

We find, then, in the Maccabean period two distinct tendencies among the Jews. There were those who felt that the very existence of the nation was imperiled by contact with other nations and who viewed with distrust everything that was Greek. These Nationalists saw also that their only safeguard lay in the Law and its observance. This was the spirit that dominated Pharisaism: the Pharisees were legalists because they were Nationalists. The priesthood on the other hand was inclined to accept the Grecian domination with its culture; and the priesthood, be it remembered, was the aristocracy of the nation. But the priesthood formed part of the Law, hence the Pharisees could not reprobate the priesthood, they had, if they were to be consistent, to support it. Thus in the New Testament we find the Pharisees and Sadducees working together, the two parties were mutually necessary.

It is easy now to understand how the Assideans as a nationalist and legalist party would throw themselves whole-heartedly into the Maccabean movement. For them it meant the salvation of the nation. But unfortunately the Assideans proved extremists and by making an idol of the traditions derived from the fathers, they, just as did the Sadducees by their love of power and wealth, contrived to bring about the fall of the nation. At the same time, while fully alive to the defects of Pharisaism, we must in justice note that they were fundamentally right. The Law had been given to the Jews to observe, and its observance would prove the nation's preservation. It was only the Pharisees unfortunate insistence on an immense mass of superimposed tradition that vitiated all their efforts and led to their rejection of the Messiah. The excesses of the Pharisees naturally tended, by the law of contraries, to crystallize Sadducaeism. The former demanded a host of traditions, the latter replied by rejecting all and sundry. And the step from religious to political antipathies is an easy one; the Pharisees were not strictly speaking a political party, but they became one for the sake of power.

The following passages from Josephus will enable us to realize the growth of the respective parties. Josephus speaks of them as "sects,"[3] and in a sense they were so, but Josephus was an absolutely Hellenized Jew and hence was apt to clothe even Jewish history in a Grecian dress. It is often said that Josephus, in at least some of the following extracts, is only quoting his favorite authority, Nicolas of Damascus, but if this is so he apparently endorses all he says. Josephus, then, tells us[4] that in his youth he made trial of the life led by the Essenes and lived in the desert for three years with one Banus, an ascetic.[5] But when he had attained his nineteenth year he "began to conduct himself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees, which is akin to the sect of the Stoics as the Greeks call them." Josephus has in several places left us an account of the three great Jewish sects, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and as he lived amongst them and made trial of the life led by two of them his testimony to their real character is of the greatest importance. He first gives an account of them in his history of the Jewish Wars,[6] and since he refers to this account twice over he evidently regarded it as a satisfactory description.[7]

The Pharisees

"The Pharisees are those who seem most skillful in the explanation of their laws, and they introduce the first sect. These ascribe all to fate and to God; yet they allow that to do what is right or the contrary is principally in the power of men, although fate does cooperate in every action. They say that all souls are incorruptible; that the souls of good men are only removed into other bodies,[8] but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment... Moreover the Pharisees are friendly to one another, and they insist on the exercise of concord and regard for the public."[9]

Elsewhere Josephus is much more explicit:

"The Pharisees live meanly and make no concessions to delicacy. They follow the guidance of reason, and what that prescribes for them as good, that they do; they think, too, that they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason's dictates. They also pay respect to such as are in years, nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced. And though they maintain that all things are done by fate, yet they do not take away the spontaneity of men's actions, for they maintain that it has pleased God to make a mixture and that to the will of fate should be added the human will with its virtue and baseness. They also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as men have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; to the latter is appointed an everlasting prison, but to the former the refreshment of returning to life. On account of these doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people, so that all Divine worship, whether it be prayer or sacrifice, is done according to their direction, insomuch that the cities gave great attestation to them on account of their entire virtuous conduct both in their actions and in their discourses."[10]

But Josephus himself could not but see in the same Pharisees the destroyers of his nation. Thus he tells us how ill-disposed they were towards Hyrcanus I, the High Priest: "They that were the worst disposed to him were the Pharisees ... who have so great a power over the multitude that when they say anything against the King or the High Priest they are presently believed." Josephus then goes on to relate how the Pharisees endeavored to make Hyrcanus resign the High Priesthood, with the result that:

"one Jonathan of the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees ... made him (Hyrcanus) leave the party of the Pharisees and abolish the decrees they had imposed on the people and punish those who observed them. From this source arose that hatred which he and his sons met with from the multitude... What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers which are not written in the Law of Moses;[11] and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them. The Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side."[12]

It was the Pharisees who stirred up the people against Alexander Janneus.[13] At his death Alexander gave the government into the hands of his wife Alexandra, and to encourage her he advised her to:

"put some of her authority into the hands of the Pharisees, for they would commend her for the honor she had done them and would reconcile the nation to her. He told her they had great authority among the Jews both to do hurt to such as they hated, and to bring advantages to those to whom they were friendlily disposed; for that they are then believed best of all by the multitude when they speak any severe thing against others, though it be only out of envy at them. And he said that it was by their means that he had incurred the displeasure of the nation."[14]

Alexandra followed this advice:

"She made Hyrcanus (II) High Priest because he was the elder, but much more because he cared not to meddle with politics, and permitted the Pharisees to do everything, to whom also she bade the multitude be obedient. She also restored again those practices which the Pharisees had introduced according to the traditions of their forefathers, and which her father-in-law Hyrcanus had abrogated. So she had indeed the name of Regent, but the Pharisees had the authority, for it was they who restored such as had been banished, and set at liberty such as were prisoners. Indeed, to say all at once, they differed in nothing from lords. However the Queen also took care of the affairs of the kingdom ... and the country was entirely at peace excepting the Pharisees, for they disturbed the Queen."[15]

In the parallel passage in the Wars[16] Josephus is still more outspoken:

"The Pharisees joined themselves to Alexandra to assist her in the government. These are a certain sect of the Jews that appear more religious than others, and seem to interpret the laws more accurately. Now Alexandra hearkened to them to an extraordinary degree, as being herself a woman of great piety towards God. But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs. They banished and reduced whom they pleased, they bound and loosed men at their pleasure, and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of the royal authority, whilst the expenses and difficulties of it belonged to Alexandra ... she governed other people and the Pharisees governed her."

Elsewhere Josephus points out the inability of the Pharisees to live peaceably:

"There was a certain sect of men that were Jews, they valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the Law of their fathers, and made men believe that they were highly favored by God... These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing Kings. A cunning sect they were and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief. Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good will to Caesar and to the King's government, these very men did not take the oath, being above six thousand."

The Sadducees

After describing the Pharisees, "who introduce the first sect," Josephus goes on to say:

"But the Sadducees are those that compose the second order; they take away fate entirely, and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil. And they say that to do what is good or what is evil is at men's own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to everyone that they may act as they please. They also take away belief in the immortal duration of the soul, as also in punishments and rewards in Hades. Moreover the Pharisees are friendly to one another and are for the exercise of concord and regard for the public. But the behavior of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them."[17]

This last remark throws a lurid light on John 11:49-50. We have already given the passages where Josephus speaks of the opposition of the Sadducees to the Pharisees,[18] as also of their influence with the rich but not with the poor,[19] and of their holding only to the Law and not to the traditions handed down by the fathers.[20] Elsewhere Josephus adds some interesting details regarding the Sadducees:

"The doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies. Nor do they regard the observation of anything besides what the Law enjoins them, for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent. But this doctrine is received by but a few, though still by those of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves, for when they become magistrates, as they have unwillingly and by force sometimes to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees because the multitude would not otherwise endure them."[21]

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1. Cf. Origen XIII. 54 in Joan; P.O. XIV. 503.

2. This derivation from the line of Sadoc seems preferable to the commonly accepted derivation from the Hebrew tsadiq, meaning "just," though this latter derivation is often given by the Fathers, cf. St. Jerome, Com. on St. Matt. xxii. 23, Sadducœi autem qui interpretantur justi.

3. See Acts 5:17, 15:5, 26:5.

4. Life. ii.

5. The text may be corrupt, the three years are perhaps meant to comprise the time during which he stayed with the Essenes and Banus.

6. Wars, II. viii. 14.

7. It will be noticed that this account is exceedingly brief, Josephus however refers to it as apparently a very full account, Ant. XIII. v. 9, and x. 6; since, then, the account of the Essenes in this passage of the Wars is very full it seems probable that we have not now the original account of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

8. This sounds like the doctrine of Transmigration of Souls, it is hard to believe that Josephus can really mean this, and indeed, Ant. XVIII. i. 3. cf. infra, he sets forth a doctrine which is incompatible with it.

9. Cf. Ant. XIII. x. 6, "the Pharisees are not apt to be severe in punishments."

10. Ant. XVIII. i. 3.

11. Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, I. 49.

12. Ant. XIII. x. 5-6.

13. Ibid. xiii. 5.

14. Ant. XIII. xv. 5.

15. Ibid xvi 2

16. Ibid. XVII. ii. 4.

17. Wars, II. viii. 14.

18. Ant. XIII. x. 6.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid. XVIII. i. 4.

By Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M., D.S.ScR.
Professor of New Testament Exegesis
The Collegio Angelico, Rome

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F. THOMAS BERGH, O.S.B.,
CENSOR DEPUTATUS.

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