(5) Opposition to the Pharisees. As may be inferred from what has been advanced, the Sad ducees stood in direct opposition to the Pharisees. So they are described by Josephus (Antiq. xiii. io, 6), and so they appear in the New Testament. Hostile, however, as these two sects were, they united for the common purpose of opposing our Lord (Matt. xvi :1, 6, up sq.; xxii :23, 34; Acts iv:1; v :17). In opposing the Pharisees the Sadducees were led to impeach their principal doctrines, and so to deny all the 'traditions of the elders,' holding that the law alone was the written source of religious truth (Antiq. xviii. 1, 4). By more than one consideration, however, it might be shown that they are in error who so understand the fact now stated, as if the Saddu cees received no other parts of the Jewish canon than the Pentateuch ; for in truth they appear to have held the common opinion regarding the sa cred books—a fact of some consequence, inas much as we thus gain the determination, on the point of the Jewish canon, of the critical skepti cism of the day.
The Sadducees taught that the sour of man per ished together with his body, and that of course there was neither reward nor punishment after death (Joseph. De Bell. Ind. ii. 8, 14; comp. Matt. xxii :23). Indeed, they appear to have disowned the moral philosophy which obtrudes the idea of recompense.
(6) Zadok's Injunction. 'Be not as those slaves'—so runs an injunction derived, it is said, from Zadok himself—'who serve their master on this condition, namely, that they receive a re ward; but let the fear of heaven be in you (Pirke Aboth, i. 3, and Rabbi Nathan on the passage). Were they consistent in this view they may have held high and worthy ideas of duty, its source and its motives; ideas, however, which are ob viously more suited for men of cultivation like themselves than for the great bulk of human be ings. And in views such as this may probably be found a chief cause why they were far less ac ceptable with the common people and far less influential in the state than their rivals, the Phari sees. The cold self-reliance and self-sufficiency which sits apart in the enjoyment of the satisfac tion resulting from its own resources, and aims at nothing beyond its own spht.:c and nothing higher than its own standard, may possess pecu liar attractions for the philosophic few, or for the contemptuous scoffer, but is too alien from ordi nary sympathies, and too unkindling and too tranquil to find general acceptance in any condi- tion of society that the world has yet known.
(7) Their Denial of a Future State. It was a position with the Sadducees, that the Scrip tures did not contain the doctrine of a future life. In this opinion they have had many followers in modern times. Yet Jesus himself finds a proof of that doctrine in the Pentateuch (Matt. xxii: 31, 32), and the astonishment which his teaching on the point excited seems to show that it was not an ordinary inference of the Rabbins, but a new doctrine that Jesus then deduced; this makes against the mode of interpretation which would represent this as a sort of arguntentum ad ham inens, a shaft from the quiver of Christ's enemies. That, however, the species of exegesis to which this proof belongs prevailed among the Jews in the time of our Lord there can be no doubt; for from the period of the return from Babylon it had been gaining ground, was very prevalent in the days of Christ, and abounds in the Talmudical writings. Being, however, a kind of exegetical spiritualism, it was disallowed by the Sadducees, who accordingly rejected the doctrines which by its means had been deduced from the sacred writings.
(8) Specific Teachings. Sadduceeism appears tc have been to some extent a logically deduced and systematically formed set of ideas. Making this life the term of our being, and man his own beau ideal, it was naturally led to assert for man all the attributes that he could reasonably claim. Hence it taught the absolute freedom of
the human mind. The words of Josephus are em phatic on this point : 'The Pharisees ascribe all to fate and to God, but the Sadducees take away fate entirely, and suppose that God is not con cerned in our doing or not doing evil; and they say that to act what is good or what is evil is in man's own choicc; and that all things depend on our own selves' (Dc Bell. Jud. ii. 8, 14; Antiq. xiii. 5, 9). An inference injurious to them has been deducea from this position, as if they denied divine Proviience altogether; but their reception of the canonical books, and their known observ ance of the usages for divine worship therein prescribed, are incompatible with such a denial. Indeed we have here the same difficulty which has presented itself over and over again ten thousand times to thinking minds, namely, how to unite in harmony the moral freedom of man with the arrangements and behests of the will of a wise and loving God.
(9) Negations. As the Sadducees denied a future state, so also they were led to deny the ex istence of angels and spirits (Acts xxiii :8) ; for they appear to have concluded that since there were no human spirits in heaven, there could be no other beings in the invisible state but God. Yet if we allow the force of this deduction, we cannot well understand how, receiving, as they did, at any rate the five books of Moses, they could bring themselves to disown angel-existence. unless, indeed, it was under the influence of a strong repellant influence which came from the extravagant notions entertained on the point by their antagonists, the Pharisees. It must, how ever, be said that this denial, whencesoever it came, shows how entirely theirs was a system of negatives and of materialism; and being such, it could, with all its elevated moral conceptions, do very little for the improvement of individuals and the advancement of society.
(10) Small Number of Adherents. A very natural consequence was that their doctrine held sway over but comparatively few persons, and those mostly men distinguished by wealth or sta tion (Antiq. xviii. 1, 4; xiti. 3o. 6). They were the freethinkers of the day, and freethinking is ordinarily the attribute only of the cultivated and the fortunate. Least of all men are those of a skeptical turn gregarious. They stand on their own individuality; they enjoy their own independence; they look down on the vulgar crowd with pity, if not with contempt. They may serve quietly to undermine a social system, but they rarely assume the proselyting character which gave Voltaire and Diderot their terrible power for evil. It has been reserved for modern infidelity to be zealous and enthusiastic.
What Josephus says of the repulsiveness of their manners (Dc Bell. Jud. ii. 8, 14) is in keeping with their general principles. A skeptical material ism is generally accompanied by an undue share of self-confidence and self-esteem, which are among the least sociable of human qualities.
(11) A Political Party. The Sadducees, equally with the Pharisees, were not only a relig ions hut a political party. Indeed, as long as the Alosaic polity retained an influence, social policy could not be sundered from religion ; for religion was everything. Accordingly the Sadducees formed a part of the Jewish parliament, the San hedrint (Acts xxiii :6), and sometimes enjoyed the dignity of supreme power in the high-priest hood. Their possession of power, however, seems to have been owing mainly to their indi vidual personal influence, as men of superior minds or eminent position, since the general cur rent of favor ran adversely to them, and their enemies, the Pharisees, spared no means to keep them and their opinions in the background. Ac cordingly in the Rabbinical writings they are branded with the name of heretics. J. R. B.