PHARISEES, a sect among the ancient Jews. The name is derived from the Greek .aptaaios, and this most probably from the Hebrew t67,parcuh, to separate. Suidas says, "The Pharisees are by inter pretation allovicrAlvos (the separated), because they divided and separated themselves from all others, in exactness of life and in attention to the injunctions of the law." The origin of this sect is unknown. Josephus, who was himself one of the Pharisees, speaks of them as flourishing long before he was born. He says (‘ Antiq., b. 13, c. 9), "At this time (about 150 n.e.) there were three sects of the Jewe, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes." On several occasions he describes the Pharisees as the chief sect, and as possessing great authority among the people.
They believed in the existence of angels and spirits, and held the doctrine of the resurrection; but their notion of the latter appears to have been Pythagorean, namely, that there is a resurrection of the soul only by a transmigration into another body. From the benefits of this resurrection they shut out all the notoriously wicked, consigning them at once to eternal misery, upon the separation of the soul from the body. While the Esaenes maintained that all things were ruled by absolute fate, and the Sadducees that all things were under human control, the Pharisees adopted a middle course, maintaining that some things were predestinated. and others left for men to determine. It was a leading maxim of the Stoics that some things were in our power, and others not in our power; and Josephue tells us that the sect of tho Pharisees was very much like that of the Stoics.
But they were mainly distinguished by their zeal for "the traditions -- of the elders." to which they attached an importance equal to that of the klee.iuo writings ; and it was from a strict adherouce to these tra ditions, as well as from an observance of the punetilioa of the law Itself, that they were called Pharisees. Several of these traditions are motioned in the New Testament., but they ale only a small portion of the whole. "To go through the'm all," says Prideaux, " would be to transcribe the Talmud, a book of twelre volumes in folio." The Pharisees are represented in the New Testament as a hypo. critical, proud. and arrogant people, pretending to be emphatically the 'separated," trusting to themselves that they alone were righteous, and despising all other men. This was their character as a body ; but there were among them individuals free from these bad qualities, such as Nioudemus, Joseph of Arimathiea, Carnally], and, as some think, Simeon, who uttered the hpina called " Nuno dimittis," to whom must be added Josephus, their historian.
(Josspbus, d ati1q., xiii. P, 19 ; aviL 3 ; wiidz 2 ; 1)e. Bell. Jmd., ii. 7 ; De I'ild aid ; &Mae, *spades,; Prideaux, nection ; Jahn, Hob. Ant., b. iii., c. 1, gl 316-20.) PliAlt3IAC0PCEIA, a book published by the colleges of physicians with the sanction of government, containing directions for the prepa ration of medicines.