LITMIR.BIZ

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probably derived their name from one of their leaders, Zadok. The national interests of the Judæan community were placed by the Sadducees above the Law. Burning patriotism was their ruling sentiment, and piety occupied but the second place in their hearts. As experienced men of the world, they felt that the independence of the State could not be upheld by the strictest observance of the laws of religion alone, nor by mere reliance upon Divine protection. They proceeded from this fundamental principle: man must exert his bodily strength and his spiritual powers; he must not allow himself to be kept back by religious scruples from forming political alliances, or from taking part in wars, although by so doing he must inevitably infringe some of the injunctions of religion. According to the Sadducæan views, it was for that purpose that God bestowed free will upon man so that he himself should work out his own well-being; he is master of his fate, and human concerns are not at all swayed by Divine interposition. Reward and punishment are the natural consequences of our actions, and are therefore quite independent of resurrection. Without exactly denying the immortality of the soul, the Sadducees completely repudiated the idea of judgment after death. Oppressed by the abundance of religious ordinances, they would not admit their general applicability nor the obligation of keeping them. Pressed to give some standard by which the really important decrees might be recognized, they laid down the following rule: that only the ordinances which appeared clearly expressed in the Pentateuch were binding. Those which rested upon oral tradition, or had sprung up at various times, had a subordinate value and could not claim to be inviolable. Still they could not help occasionally recognizing the value of traditional interpretations.

      From a number of individual instances in which the Sadducees separated themselves from their rivals, one can mark the extent of their opposition to the latter. This appeared in their judiciary and penal laws and in the ritual they adopted, their worship in the Temple being in particular a subject of angry controversy. The Sadducees thought that the punishment ordered by the Pentateuch for the infliction of any bodily injury – "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" – should be literally interpreted and followed out, and obtained in consequence the reputation of being cruel administrators of justice; whilst the Pharisees, appealing to traditional interpretations of the Scriptures, allowed mercy to preponderate, and only required a pecuniary compensation from the offender. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were more lenient in their judgment of those false witnesses whose evidence might have occasioned a judicial murder, as they only inflicted punishment if the execution of the defendant had actually taken place. There were many points relating to the ritual which were warmly disputed by the two parties; for instance, the date of the Feast of Weeks, which, according to the Sadducees, should always fall upon a Sunday, fifty days from the Sabbath after the Passover; so also the pouring of water on the altar and the processions round it with willow branches during the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, which the Pharisees advocated and the Sadducees rejected. The latter objected to the providing of the national offerings out of the treasury of the Temple, and insisted that the required sacrifices should be left to the care and zeal of individuals. The manner in which the frankincense should be kindled on the Day of Atonement, whether before or after the entrance of the high priest into the Holy of Holies, was also the cause of bitter strife. On these and other points of dispute the Sadducees invariably followed the exact letter of the Law, which resulted in their occasionally enforcing stricter rules than the Pharisees, who have been so much abused for their rigid austerity. To one Levitical injunction, however, they paid but little attention – that of carefully avoiding the touch of any person or thing considered unclean – and when their rivals purified the vessels of the Temple after they had been subject to any contact of the sort, they ridiculed them, saying, "It wants but little, and the Pharisees will try and cleanse the sun."

      In spite of the relief which these less stringent views gave the people, the Sadducees were not popular; the feeling of the time was against laxity and in favor of strict religious observance. Besides, the Sadducees repelled their countrymen by their proud, haughty demeanor and their severe judicial sentences. They never gained the heart of the public, and it was only by force and authority that they were able to make their principles prevail. At that period the religious sentiment was so active that it gave birth to a religious order which far surpassed even the Pharisees in strictness and painful scrupulousness, and which became the basis of a movement that, mixing with new elements, produced a revolution in the history of the world. This order, which, from a small and apparently insignificant origin, grew into a mighty power, destined to exert an irresistible influence, was that of the Essenes.

      The origin of this remarkable Essene order, which called forth the admiration even of the Greeks and the Romans, can be dated from the period of great religious enthusiasm excited by the tyranny and persecutions of the Syrians. The Essenes had never formed a political party, but, on the contrary, avoided the glare and tumult of public life. They did not place themselves in harsh antagonism to the Pharisees, but rather assumed the position of a higher grade of Pharisaism, to which party they originally belonged. They sprang without doubt from the Assidæans, whom they resembled in their strict observance of the Sabbath. In their eyes the mere act of moving a vessel from one place to another would count as a desecration of that holy day. Even the calls of nature were not attended to on that day. They lived in all respects like the Nazarites, whose ideal it was to attain the highest sanctity of priestly consecration. It was their constant endeavor, not only to observe all the outward Levitical laws, but to attain through them to inward sanctity and consecration, to deaden their passions and to lead a holy life. The Levitical laws of cleanliness had, through custom and tradition, developed to such a pitch that their austere observers must have been in constant danger of being defiled by contact with persons and objects; and bathing and sacrifices were prescribed, through which they might recover a state of purity. A life-long Nazarite, or, what is the same thing, an Essene, was consequently obliged to avoid any intercourse with those who were less strict than himself, lest he should be contaminated by their proximity. Such considerations compelled him to frequent the society of, and to unite himself with, those only who shared his views. To keep their purity unspotted, the Essenes were thus induced to form themselves into a separate order, the first rule of which commanded implicit obedience to the laws of scrupulous cleanliness. It was only those whose views coincided with their own who could be allowed to cook food for them, and from such likewise had to be procured their clothes, tools, implements of trade and other things, in order to ensure that, in their manufacture, the laws of cleanliness had been duly carried out. They were thus completely set apart by themselves; and, in order to keep clear of any less strictly rigid observers, they thought it advisable to have their meals in common. Thus the Passover supper, which could be partaken of only in a circle of fellow-worshipers, must have been their ideal repast. It was almost impossible for Essenes to mix with women, as by the slightest contact with them they risked coming under the Levitical condemnation of uncleanliness, and, led on from one deduction to another, they began to avoid, if not to despise, the married state. How was it possible for the Essenes to maintain their excessive rigidity, especially in those warlike times? Not only the pagan enemy, but even the Judæan warriors returning from the battle-field, defiled by the touch of a corpse, might bring all their precautions to naught. These fears may have induced the Essenes to seek seclusion in some retired place, where they could remain unvexed by the sounds of war and undisturbed in their mode of life by any of its necessary incidents. They chose for their residence the desert to the west of the Dead Sea, and settled in the oasis of Engadi. The fruit of palm trees, which abound in this district, partly furnished their simple fare. All the Assidæans did not join in the asceticism of the Essenes, nor did all the Essenes betake themselves to the desert. Some continued to live in their own family circles and did not renounce marriage; but, in consequence of their rigid scruples, they were met by many difficulties.

      Thus it was that celibacy and repasts held in common came to be considered as the general and most important characteristics of the Essenes. This mode of living led the Essenes to divest themselves of all their private possessions. To a member of their sect private property could be of no use; each one placed his fortune in the common treasury, out of which the wants of the various members of the order were supplied. Hence the proverb, "A Chassid says, 'Mine and thine belong to thee'" (not to me). There were consequently neither rich nor poor among them, and this lack of all concern about material matters naturally led them to abstract their attention from everything mundane and to concentrate it upon religious matters. They thus avoided more and more

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