D. RITUAL QTJESTIONS.
As the first important distinction in this de partment, is to be mentioned the great stress which the Sadducees laid on the ritual purity of the person of the officiating priest. He had to keep aloof from the very appeamnce of unclean ness. Hence they required that the burning of the red heifer, from the ashes of which the water of absolution was prepared, should not be performed by any priest who had been defiled, although he had immersed, because he does not become undefiled before sunset pnv '1-113M). The Pharisees, on the other hand, disregarding the person, and regarding the thing, opposed this great ado about the aristocratic priest ; they prepared a baptistry on the Mount of Olives, ulere the burn ing of the red heifer took place, and designedly de filed the priest who was to burn it, so that the Sad ducees should not be able to say that the heifer is not to be prepared by such who had not become pure by the sun setting' (.11fishna Para, iii. 7).
ii. The Sadducees, again, did not believe that the sacred vessels in the temple are to be subjected to the strict laws of Levitical purity, which the Pharisees stoutly maintained. So strict were their views on this subject, that the Pharisees had all the sacred vessels immersed at the conclusion of every festival, because some unclean priest might have touched them. Hence, when the Pharisees on one occasion immersed even the golden candlestick after a festivity, the Sadducees tauntingly exclaimed, Behold the Pharisees will at last also purify the sun !' (yerzesalem Chcrgica, 79 d). That the Pharisees should thus have guarded the sanctity of the vessels against the possible touch of a defiled priest must have been all the more annoying to the priestly Sadducees, since in other things which did not affect this aristocratic fraternity, but conduced to the com fort of the people at large, the Pharisees were less rigorous with regard to the laws of Levitical purity than the Sadducees, as may be seen from the follow ing instance :— iii. The Sadducees interpreted the injunction in Lev. xi. 39, 4o, most rigidly, maintaining that it is not only the carcase of an animal which died a natural death that defiles by touching it, but also its sundry parts, such as the skin, bones, sinews, etc. etc. ; whilst the Pharisees restricted this defilement by contact simply to the flesh, except the parts of a dead human body, and of a few reptiles, in which the skin and the flesh are to a certain extent identical.
iv. As a necessary and vital consequence of the foregoing view, the Sadducees maintained that the skin and the other parts of an animal not legally slaughtered—i.e. both of all those animals which the law permits to be eaten when legally slaughtered, but which have died a natural death, and of those which the law does not permit to be eaten—are not allowed to be made into different articles of use, and that leather, parchment, or any other of the numerous articles made from the skin, bones, veins, etc., is defiling. This rigid view obliged the Sadducees to explain Lev. vii. 24 in an , unna tural manner, by taking the expression ri.n,) to denote an animal approaching the condition of be coming a carcase—i.e. being so weak that it must soon expire—and to urge that an animal in such a condition may be slaughtered before it breathes its last. In such a case, though its flesh is a defiling carcase and must not be eaten, the fat, skin, bones, etc., may be used for divers purposes (7erusalem Megilla, 9 ; Babylon Sabbath, io8 a). The Phari sees, on the other hand, as the representatives of the people, whose interests they had at heart, allowed the sundry parts of such animals to be used as materials for different utensils. They even allowed the sacred Scriptures, the phylacteries, and the mezuza [MEzuzA], to be written on parchment prepared from the skin of an animal which either died a natural death or was torn by wild beasts, but not on parchment prepared from the skin of an unclean animal (ibid. and Tract Sepher Tora be
ginning, Sopherim beginning). Bearing, in mind this difference of opinion, we shall understand the import of the two discussions recorded in the Mishna between the Sadducees and the Pharisees based thereupon—` The Sadducees,' we are told, said, We complain of you Pharisees because you say the sacred Scriptures when touched defile the hands, but the books of Homer do not defile the hands.' Jochanan b. Zakkai said, And have we nothing else to object to the Phari sees but this ? Do they not also assert that the bones of an ass are clean, but the bones of Jochanan the high-priest are unclean ?' (7aa'ajini, iv. 6). Now, according to the Sadducees, contact with sacred things so far front defiling actually sanctified ; whilst the Pharisees, in order to guard the sacred things against contact, ordained that contact with such holy things defiles. On the other hand, the Sadducees regarded the touching of foreign books as defiling, because they are written upon parch ment made from skins of unclean animals, or of clean animals not legally slaughtered, which with them were like carcases, and which, as we have seen, the Pharisees did not admit. Hence the charge of the Sadducees that the Pharisees assign a superi ority to profane books over the sacred Suiptures, which Jochanan b. Zakkai rebuts by ironically en hancing this charge, and saying that this is not the only accusation against the Pharisees, inasmuch as he shows thereby a similar consequence arising from Pharisaic views. The bones of a dead man, he submits, are unclean, according to the express declaration of the Bible, even if they happen to be the bones of such a man as John Hyrcanus, the patron of the Sadducees, whereas the bones of an animal, even if it be unclean, and such a con temptible one as an ass, are clean, thus showing that the defiling power of an object does not always betoken a degradation in its nature, but. on the contrary, because it is of an elevating nature there fore it defiles more easily. The other discussion, also arising from this difference of opinion, is re. corded in the Talmud, where the law of the Phari saic sages is recorded that the sacred Scriptures, the phylacteries, and the mezuza, may be written upon parchment prepared from the skin of an animal which died a natural death, but not from an un clean beast. Whereupon a Boethusian [= SAD DUCEE] asked R. Joshua Ha-Garsi, Where can you show that the phylacteries are not to be written on the skin of an unclean animal ?' [R. Joshua], Because it is written [Exod. xiii. 9, where the phylacteries are enjoined] that the law of the Lord be in thy mouth, that is to say, pre pared from animals allowed to be put into the mouth.' [The Sadducee], But according to this they ought not to be written on the skin of an animal which died or was torn [because these too must not be put into the mouth, or be eaten]?' To which he replied, I will tell thee a parable to show the distinction between the two. Two men are guilty of death : one is killed by the king himself, and the other by the executioner. Whose lot is preferable ?' Reply, That one's whom the king executed.' [So is the carcase of a clean animal killed by the hand of the King of Kings to be pre ferred to the unclean animal which is already stamped with defilement whilst alive.] But according to this' [said the Sadducee], the carcase ought also to be eaten.' To which he replied The Law says ye shall not eat of any thing that died [Deut. xiv. 21], and sayest thou that it , should be eaten ?' To this he replied 'Bravo r (o.N.Ap = KaWs, Sabbath 108 a).