PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES.

4.97

Instantly they abandoned the High Priest to form an escort to the Doctors. "All hail to the men of the people," said the High Priest bitterly to them, when they took leave of him. "All hail," they replied, "to the men of the people who do the work of Aaron, and no hail to the son of Aaron who does not act like Aaron." Josephus, though his account of these two sects (Antt. xviii. 1, §§ 3, 4; xiii. 5, §9 ; B. J. ii. 8, §14) is little to be relied on, and is probably borrowed in part from Nicolas of Damascus, is yet undoubtedly right in saying that in spite of the rank of the Sadducees they had no real reverence from the people. "They influence," he says, "the well-to-do" (TOÙS Európous), but have no popular following, while the Pharisees have the multitude as their allies."

I have several times spoken of the Sadducees as "worldly," and the epithet is justified by the ostentation which made them desire to be served in vessels of gold and silver, and to demand double dowry for every young girl married to a priest; and by the greed which suffered them to grow rich at the expense of the people. Of the latter propensity two stories are told. One of them is a quarrel which they had with the Pharisees about the supply of victims for the daily sacrifice, which the Pharisees very properly said ought to be provided by the Temple treasury; whereas the Sadducees, regarding the Temple treasure as their own, wanted the victims to be paid for by separate subscriptions. Similarly the Sadducees claimed for the priests (ie., for themselves) the use of the meat-offerings, which the Pharisees said ought to be burnt on the altar. The Pharisees won the day, and appointed two festivals in honour of the double victory. Thus both Pharisees and Sadducees were constantly driven into extremes by the repulsion of antagonistic errors.

2

Another story is that as they sold pigeons at the chanujôth, they multiplied to such an extent the cases in which the sacrifice of a pigeon was necessary, that the price of a single pigeon rose to a gold piece. Then R. Simeon Ben Gamaliel cried, "By the Temple I will not sleep till I have reduced their price to a denarius." Accordingly he pointed out such numerous reductions to the necessity of making this offering, that the price of a pigeon sank to the fourth of a denarius. These shops are expressly called the shops of the sons of Hanan,

1 Abhôth de Rabbi Nathan, v.; Kethubhôth, 1, 6. In the former passage we have a sort of deliberate theory of Epicureanism.

2 Megillath Taanith, §§ 1, 19. They also arranged that the Temple tribute should be received with great pomp (Jer. Schekalîm, 45 d; Grätz, iii. 460). 3 Keritôth, i. 7.

and the Talmud distinctly alludes to the want of uprightness in the management of them.1

The one maxim of the political life of a Sadducee seems to have been quietism, even at the expense of patriotism. No wonder the priestly party were disliked and suspected, when ever since the days of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus the people had found cause to complain of them, that they were seeking to change the government of their nation in order to enslave them (Jos. Antt. xiv. 3, § 2).

Josephus, in describing the rupture between John Hyrcanus and the Pharisees (Antt. xiii. 10, §6), distinctly states that the main difference between the two sects consisted in the acceptance by the Pharisees and rejection by the Sadducees of the Oral Law or tradition of the elders; and although the assertion may be a little too sweeping, it is undoubtedly founded on a real fact.

Ewald, who, in his History of the People of Israel, enters into a full account of the Pharisees and Sadducees, points out how the Pharisees were led to encourage and defend hypocrisy, and conventionalise all true piety, partly by the character of the Levitical dispensation, partly from motives of ambition, and partly out of strong antagonism to the Sadducees. Wishing to retain the advantages which they had received from the Asmonæan revival of national piety, "under the influence of ambition, and devoted more or less consciously to their own interests, they made piety into a sort of art or trade in order permanently to secure their own power.”

After observing that we only know the Sadducees from the reports of their avowed enemies, he says, "It was the school of freedom of life, of thought, and of action; but it was a freedom which sprang out of the Greek age, with its deep moral degradation, which corresponded with it, and was acceptable to it." But for this the Sadducees might have been of real use in counteracting the rigidity and one-sidedness of Pharisaic development. But in their opposition to this injurious scrupulosity they failed to note the deeper sores which at this time were eating into the Jewish and Gentile world.

He speaks slightingly of the notices of these sects in Josephus (Antt. xiii. 5, § 9; Vit. 2; B. J. i. 5, § 2; ii. 8, § 2) as abrupt, arbitrary, and devoid of deep knowledge, and says-too uncharitably-of Jost, Grätz, and Geiger, that their views are baseless, "because they are themselves Pharisees, and desire to be nothing else."

1 J. Pea. i. 6.

2 Vol. V., p. 366, seqq., E. Tr.

TRADITIONAL SAYINGS OF CHRIST.

499

EXCURSUS XV. (Vol. II., p. 446.)

TRADITIONAL SAYINGS OF CHRIST.

THE apocryphal sayings (aypapa dóyuara) of Christ-i.e., the sayings attributed to Him by early writers, but unrecorded in the New Testament-have been collected and arranged by Prof. Westcott (Introd. to the Gosp., App. C.) with his usual care and learning. I here quote only the most remarkable, or those which are not mere variations of His actual words, referring all who are interested in the subject to Prof. Westcott (l.c.), or Hofmann (Leben Jesu, 317-329).

1. For the remarkable story appended in D to Luke vi. 5, v. supra, Vol. I., p. 438.

2. Cod. D also appends to Matt. xx. 28, "But ye seek from little to increase, and that from the greater there be a less."

3. "Show yourselves tried money-changers." SóKIMO). (Epiphan. 44, 2.)

(riveσbe TрATEŠITαι (γίνεσθε τραπεζῖται

4. "He that wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall rest.” "Look with wonder at that which is before you." (Clem. Alex. Strom. ii. 9, 45.)

5. "He who is near me is near the fire; he who is far from me is far from the Kingdom." (Orig. Hom. in Jerem., iii., p. 778; Didymus in Ps. lxxxviii. 8.)

6. "Keep the flesh pure and the seal unspotted." (Clem. Rom. Ep. ii. 8.)

7. "For those that are sick I was sick, and for those that hunger I suffered hunger, and for those that thirst I suffered thirst." (Orig. in Matt., I. xiii. 2.)

8. "In whatsoever I may find you in this will I also judge you." (Just. Mart. Dial. 47.)

9. "Never be joyful, except when ye shall look on your brother in love." (Jer. in Eph. v. 3.)

These are the most remarkable. One or two others have been quoted or alluded to in the body of the work (v. supr., Vol. I., pp. 320, &c.), and of the remainder some are wholly unworthy of our Lord, or spring from a desire to claim His authority for false and exaggerated principles, or are mere amplifications and misquotations of His actual words.

One or two of the Mohammedan legends respecting Christ, preserved in the Koran or elsewhere, are striking-e.g.:

Ex. gr. Acts xx. 35.

"Jesus, the Son of Mary, said, 'He who longs to be rich is like a man who drinks sea-water; the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes, and never leaves off drinking till he perishes.'"

"Jesus once said, 'The world is like a deceitful woman, who, when asked how many husbands she had had, answered, so many that she could not count them.' And Jesus said, 'When they died, did they leave you behind?' 'On the contrary,' said she, 'I murdered and got rid of them.' 'Then,' said Jesus, 'It is strange that the rest had so little wisdom, that when they saw how you treated the others they still burned with such love for you, and did not take warning from their predecessors.'" See others in Hofmann, ubi supr., p. 328. An interesting monograph might be written on the picture of Jesus as presented in the Mohammedan writings. In the Koran itself His name is frequently mentioned with those of various prophets; but the special references are not numerous.

INDEX.