PHARISEES (plia'r'i-seez), (Gr. fpaptcralbs, far is-ah'yos, a separatist, from Heb. Paw-rash' , to separate).
(1) Name. The name denotes those who are separated, i. e. from ordinary persons, of course, by the correctness of thcir opinions and the holi ness of their lives. They were a Jewish sect who had the dominant influence in the time of our Lord, to whose faults the overthrow of the statc may be attributed, and who have to bear the aw ful burden of having crucified the Lord and giver of life, (2) Origin. The precise period when the Pharisees appeared as a sect, history does not supply us with the means of determining. That they, however, as well as their natural opponents, thc Sadducees, existed in the priesthood of Jonathan, in the interval, that is, between 159 and 144 before Christ, is known from Josephus, who (Antiq. xiii, 5) makes mention of them as well as of the sect of the Essenes. The terms he em ploys warrant the conviction that they were then no novelties, but well known, well defined, and two established religious parties. But from the time of Jonathan to that of Ezra (about 460 B. C.), there had taken place no great formative event such as could of itself cause so great a change in the Hebrew system as was the rise of these sects; whereas the influences to which the Israelites had been subject in the Medo-Persian dominions, and the necessarily somewhat new di rection which things took on the rebuilding of the temple and the restoration of the civil and religious polity, could hardly fail, considering the distance front Moses at which these changes hap pened, and the great extent to which the people had lost even the knowledge of the institutions and language of their forefathers, to lead to di versities of views, interests, and aims, whence sects would spring as a natural if not inevitable result. There is, therefore, good reason to refer the origin of the Pharisees to the time of the re turn from the Babylonish captivity, a period which constitutes a marked epoch, as dividing the He braism of the older and purer age from the Juda ism of the later and more corrupt times. Nor, did our space allow, should we find it difficult to trace the leading features of the Pharisaic char acter back to those peculiar opinions and usages with which the old Israelitish typc of mind had been made familiar, and at the same time corrupt, in the Persian empire.
(3) Characteristics. But as we think it more for the readcr's instruction to lay bcfore him the very words in which this sect is described, than to give a philosophical account of the rise and connection of their principles, to which of neces sity our own views would impart a coloring, we shall proceed to transcribe a nearly literal transla tion of the most important passages in question.
'The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers,which are not written in the law of NIoses, and for that reason it is that the Sadducees re ject 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 de rived from the tradition of our forefathers. Hence great disputes. The Sadducees are able to per suade none but the rich, and have not the popu lace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side."The Pharisees are not apt to be severe in punishments' (Joseph. Antiq. xiii :to. 5 and 6; Epiphan. Haw. 15).
'The Pharisees live meanly and despise deli cacies in diet : and they follow the conduct of reason, and what that prescribes to them as good they do. 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 when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away from men the free dom of acting as they think fit, since their notion is that it hath pleased God to make a constitution of things whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or vi ciously.' (4) Belief. 'They also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, ac cording as mcn have lived virtuously or viciously in this life. The latter arc to be detained in an everlasting prison; but the former shall have power to revive and live again: on account of which doctrine they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people: and whatsoever is done about divine worship. prayers, and sacrifices, is performed according to their directions, insomuch that the cities gave great attestations to them on account of their entire virtuous conduct' (Jo seph. Antici. xviii, r, 3).