SADDUCEES (Zadacnocaiot), one of the four Jewish sects at the time of Christ. The Rabbinical tradition makes them the followers of Sadoc, a disciple of Antigonus Sochos. They denied the existence of any spiritual beings except God, and believed that the soul died with the body, and therefore that there was no resurrection. (Matt. xxii. 23; Acts, xxiii. S.) In consequence of this disbelief in a future state of rewards and punishments, they were inexorable in punishing crimes. They rejected the doctrines of predestination and providence, main taining that men were left to determine their own course without assistance or hindrance from Cod. They rejected the traditions of the Pharisees, and adhered to the text of the Mosaic law. They have been accused of rejecting all the books of the Old Testament except the Peutateuch ; but the passage of Josephus, on which this charge is founded, does not sustain it. Though inveterately opposed to the
Pharisees, they united with them against Christ. During the period to which the New Testament refers, though less numerous and less popular than the Pharisees, they seem to have been superior by the eminent men they had in the Sanhedrim, and some of their body were high-priests, as Caiaphas and Ananias. It seems that they consider ably modified their opinions in progress of time, and received the doctrines of angelic beings and of the resurrection; so that at last they were only distinguished by their rejection of tradition, from which circumstance they obtained the name of Caraites, in the 8th century A.D. (Josephus, Antiq.,' xiii. 5, 6, 9, 10; xviii. 1, 4; Jahn's 'Biblical Antiquities; Winer's Itealworterbuch.')