010. Chapter 8 - The Sects of the Jews

Chapter 8 - The Sects of the Jews No one could hope for an accurate understanding of the life of the American people who had not made a careful study of the political and religious parties or organizations which play a decisive part in its affairs. The social and business organizations would also demand study, but the political and religious units would be paramount. The Bible student who attempts to reconstruct the life of Judaea at the opening of the Christian era must make the same sort of investigation into the nature and significance of the various Jewish sects. The life of Jesus can not be clearly understood until it is studied in relation to the sects from which His enemies arose. The Jews at the time of Jesus were divided into the following sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, and Zealots. The Pharisees

“The Pharisees” means “the separated ones.” Whether this title is self-assumed or was bestowed by enemies is not known. They were devoted students of the Old Testament and sticklers for the observance of the law. They were the chief exponents of the “traditions of the elders,” the hedge which they had built about the law. They believed in a “theocratic democracy”: God was their sole King. But they bowed to the Roman rule as a punishment for the sins of the nation. They were a religious rather than a political party. Nevertheless, they looked for a Messiah to lead against Rome, and when they thought the proper time had come, they revolted with the rest. Josephus says there were more than six thousand Pharisees, but not all the Pharisees were scribes. The more learned of the sect were called scribes, and had supplanted the priests as instructors of the people when the Pharisees gradually won the favor of the masses. The scribes ruled in the synagogue, as the Sadducees in the temple. The Sadducees The Sadducees were the liberal theologians, the cultured aristocrats, and the smooth politicians of the time. They were of the priestly class. Not all the priests, however, were Sadducees, because many did not have the necessary wealth and culture. The Sadducees did not make the strict profession of religion current among the Pharisees unless they found it profitable in securing and retaining a place of power among the people. They were moved by policy continually, and usually adopted the principles of the Pharisees when they secured an official position. The Sadducees denied the existence of angels and the resurrection. They repudiated the traditions of the elders so treasured by the Pharisees. Scholars disagree as to whether they accepted all the Old Testament or only the Pentateuch. Their liberal views make it evident that they accepted the Old Testament Scripture in about the same way in which the radical critic accepts it today. They were influential in the Sanhedrin, and had a practical monopoly of the high priesthood. Both sects united in crucifying Jesus, but the Sadducees became the more relentless persecutors of the church in its infancy. In their attitude toward the Bible and in their program and policies, they were the counterpart of the “modernists” of today. The Essenes The Essenes are thus described by Philo: “They were a sect of Jews, and lived in Syria, Palestine, over four thousand in number, and called Essaei, because of their saintliness….Worshipers of God, they yet did not sacrifice animals, regarding a reverent mind as the only true sacrifice. At first, they lived in villages and avoided cities in order to escape the contagion of evils rife therein. They pursued agriculture and other peaceful arts, but accumulated not gold or silver. No maker of warlike weapons, no huckster or trader by land or sea was to be found among them. Least of all were any slaves found among them, for they saw in slavery a violation of the law of nature, which made all men free brethren one of the other….For no one had his private house, but shared his dwelling with all, and, living as they did in colonies, they threw open their doors to any of their sect who came their way. They had a storehouse, common expenditure, common raiment, common food eaten in common meals. This was made possible by their practice of putting whatever they each earned day by day into a common fund” (cf. Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, article “Essenes”).

Josephus described them at great length. He said they had a peculiar kind of worship of the sun, and the sect arose at the time when the friendship between Sparta and Jerusalem was strongest. Possibly the sect arose under Greek influence. The sun worship must have come from the East. Various attempts have been made to show that John the Baptist, or even Christianity, was influenced by the Essenes. But the arguments are farfetched and feeble. It is very remarkable that the Essenes are nowhere mentioned in the New Testament when they were almost as numerous as the Pharisees. But they were localized west of the Dead Sea, and we know of no ministry of Jesus in this section. They were living apart like hermits, and were not touched by the main current of Jewish life. They did not combat the works of Jesus. This is what brought the Pharisees and Sadducees into such prominence in the New Testament. The Zealots The Zealots are called “the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy” by Josephus. They were the political extremists, who favored revolution to throw off the Roman yoke, and were most active in bringing it about. Their rallying cry was “No tribute to Caesar; no king but Jehovah; no tax but the temple tax.” The party was founded by Judas of Gamala, and led in the revolt against the enrollment of Quirinius (a.d. 6, 7). They played a leading part in the final siege of Jerusalem, and were fearful opponents both of the Romans and of the milder sects of the Jews. One of the apostles of Jesus was a Cananaean or Zealot (Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). The Herodians The Herodians were probably a political party devoted to the interests of the Herod family and eager to restore them to full power. Archelaus was deposed a.d. 6, and a Roman procurator placed in power. This party had adherents both in Jerusalem (Matthew 22:16; Mark 12:13) and in Galilee (Mark 3:6). These are the only passages where they are mentioned in the New Testament. They may have played some particular favorite; i.e., the Herodians of Galilee may have been particularly interested in the pretensions of Herod Antipas. Tertullian says they were a religious party, but this is probably true only in the sense that all the sects of the Jews were more or less religious. The Multitudes When one counts up six thousand Pharisees, four thousand Essenes, and a much smaller number of the other three sects, and remembers the dense population of Palestine in the time of Christ, it becomes evident that the great mass of the Jews did not belong to any of these sects. They are constantly called “the multitudes” in the New Testament. The frequent references contrasting the Pharisees and publicans might give the impression that all the people belonged to either one of these upper sects or to the miserable horde of tax collectors. But this is not true. The mass of the people who found it impossible to keep the strict regulations of the Pharisees, and who had grown disgusted with the Sadducees, were eager for some great religious movement like that of John the Baptist, which would open its doors to them and into which it would be possible for them to enter. This helps to explain the general response to the call of John the Baptist. Among the masses there were devout men and women like Simeon and Anna, Joseph and Mary, Zacharias and Elisabeth. These were the people who belonged to none of the sects of the Jews, but were spiritual and saintly. They were anxiously awaiting the coming of the Messiah. Sanday calls these people “the special seed-plot of Christianity.” How many simple, pious folk of the masses awaited Christ’s coming, we do not know. John and Jesus were born in such homes, and from this class the leading disciples of John and Jesus doubtless came. Here was the nucleus of the Christian church.

Minor Sects in the New Testament

How does it happen that the other sects are scarcely mentioned in the Gospels while the Pharisees and Sadducees play such a prominent part? The reason the Essenes are not mentioned has already been discussed. The Herodian party, since it was political and limited in its scope to devotion to the ruling family, lay outside the range of Jesus’ activities. We have no record of Jesus’ ever enter mg Tiberias, the capital city of Herod Antipas. He seems to have avoided it. When Herod tried to drive Him out of Galilee by open threats, Jesus sent back the ringing answer: “Go say to that fox, Behold, I cast out demons, and I perform cures to-day and tomorrow, and the third day I am perfected” (Luke 13:32). When tried before Herod, He refused to answer a word to questions and taunts. Once when starting across the Lake of Galilee, He warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and “of Herod.” This may have reference to attempts of the Herodian party to influence the disciples. Thrice the Herodians are mentioned as joining in the plots of the Pharisees against Jesus (Mark 3:6; Matthew 22:16; Mark 12:13).

Influence of the Zealots on the Ministry of Jesus The Zealots perhaps played a much larger part in the ministry of Jesus than we realize. They are practically never mentioned, but they, with their great influence among the fiery Galileans, strongly underlie the Gospel records. The continual necessity which Jesus had of warning men who were healed by prodigious miracles to keep silent about it, and not to stir up too much excitement by reporting it abroad, doubtless came from the constant pressure of the Zealots to start a revolution against Rome. The movement to take Him by force and make Him a king whether or no, at the time of the feeding of the five thousand, was doubtless engineered by the Zealots, who were attempting to compel Him to be an earthly Messiah and lead on against Rome. “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force” (Matthew 11:12), doubtless refers to the insidious pressure of the Zealots to turn His movement from its spiritual to a material mission.

Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees The gospel story is woven in a large measure about the Pharisees and Sadducees and Jesus. The terrific controversy with these sects, which culminated in the death of Jesus, was in part inherited from John the Baptist. The cultured aristocrats and the self-righteous Pharisees, although they deigned to send delegations to investigate and question John, scorned his baptism and repudiated his mission. John blazed forth against them in thrilling denunciation, and by a mighty effort wrested the leadership of the multitudes from these two sects. Here lies the first secret of the desperate struggle which ensued. The Pharisees and Sadducees controlled the nation. The movement of John and later that of Jesus, which must have seemed to them to have grown out of John’s work, directly challenged their authority, their way of life, and their leadership of the nation. And so they fought back in a most bitter and unscrupulous way to retain their leadership. The first collision which Jesus had with the Sadducees was in the nature of a bold and sensational challenge of their whole management of the temple which must have electrified the nation. John had denounced them from a distance, but when Jesus, after a few weeks of quiet work in Galilee, went up to Jerusalem for the great opening of His public ministry, He walked into the temple court with a whip in His hand and drove out the entire horde of merchandisers. The infuriated Sadducees who had been perpetrating this piece of graft were dumbfounded and could only make a lame demand for His authority. But they immediately began their incessant plotting to bring about His death.

Continual Opposition of the Pharisees The encounters with the Sadducees were in the main periodic because they were centralized in Jerusalem; Jesus’ visits here were only occasional. But His struggles with the Pharisees were almost continuous, for they were scattered all over the nation in charge of the schoolhouses and places of worship in every city and village. They were the real leaders of the intellectual and religious life of the nation, even though the Sadducees controlled the temple. Moreover, they had a keen interest in the great teachings of Jesus. The deadly skepticism of the Sadducees added fuel to their resentment when Jesus occasionally met them and challenged and pierced their shallow unbelief, but the devotion of the Pharisees to the traditions of the elders caused them to be in constant opposition to Jesus. The struggle between truth and false teaching, between divine love and hypocritical self-complacency and selfishness was fast and furious, and was fought out in each town and village. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye are as graves that appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them….Woe unto you lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him” (Luke 11:44, Luke 11:52-54). “And he again entered into the synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him whether he would heal him on the sabbath day, that they might accuse him. And he said unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth, and he said unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath day or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they held their peace. And when he had looked round about on them in anger, being grieved for their hardness of heart, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea” (Mark 3:1-7). These are characteristic scenes, the latter showing the controversy in an early stage, and the former in a more advanced stage. The Gospel of John shows how furious the encounters became as the struggle developed. The Pharisees regarded Jesus as a breaker of the sacred traditions of the elders, and continually tried to prove that He set at naught the Old Testament law. But when challenged, Jesus either showed that their traditions were false or that they had supplanted the great principles of the Old Testament with puerile traditions, which they reverenced more than the law itself, or, if He proceeded to set aside the law itself, as in the case of divorce or the law of unclean meats, He did so in such towering fashion that they knew not how to answer Him. The climax came in the terrific series of discussions during the last week in Jerusalem, when finally they did not dare to ask Him any more questions; they went off humiliated, but full of fury and of determination to kill Him. The farcical trial which the two sects staged, and the weak and conflicting testimony brought to prove He spoke against the temple and the law, upon which He was condemned by the Sanhedrin, show how hypocritical and cruel their attitude was. Before Pilate they brought the empty accusation of “king,” but finally made the real charge that “he called himself the Son of God.”

It is customary to trace the life of Jesus in relation to the weak and the sinful — to broken humanity — but one needs to make a study of Him in relation to His deadly enemies to get a full-rounded picture. It is when we see Him surrounded by His enemies, seeking to save them in spite of themselves, pausing to be kind and patient with any one of them who gave the slightest indication of being fair or open-minded, striking out fearlessly for the truth and for the downtrodden publicans and masses, but suffering as a lamb led dumb to the slaughter when the affront was personal; it is in such moments that we see Jesus shine forth with heaven’s splendor in a dark world. The climax of this picture is: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.”