CHASIDIM (" Pietists "). This name anciently denoted a whole class of Jewish sects. After the Babylonish captivity, the Jews, with regard to their observance of the law of ]]loses, were divided into two classes—Chasidim and Zadikim. When the so-called great synagogue was commissioned by the Persian government to draw up a code of civil and religious laws for the emigrant Jews returning to settle in their native land, several innovations were made on the Mosaic law. Those who accepted these innovations were styled the C.; while those who rejected them were styled, or styled themselves, the Zadikim, or " upright," because they adhered strictly to the law given by Moses, with out observing any of the additions made to it. The C. branched forth into several sects, all holding traditions in connection with the written law, which they believed to possess a divine sanction equally with that law. The Pharisees, so often mentioned in the New Testament, formed an early sect among the C., while from the Zadikim sprang forth the
Hellenistic Samaritans, Essenes, Sadducees, etc. Afterwards, the C., or Pharisees, split into Talinudists, Rabbinists, and Cabalists, some of whom underwent still further subdivision.—The modern C. arc not, like those in the times of the Maccabees, marked by any peculiar spiritualistic tendency iu religion, but rather by a strict observ ance of certain traditional forms, and a blind subservience to their teachers. Their doctrine was promulgated in the middle of the 18th c. by Israel of Podolia, called Baal_ lord of the name," so called because he professed to perform miracles by using the great cabalistic name of the supreme being). Though condemned by the orthodox rabbis, this new teacher had great success iu Galicia, and when he died (1760) left 40,000 converts. They are now broken into several petty sects; their religion is utterly formal, and its ceremonies are coarse and noisy.