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The Pharisees: their Origin and their Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Louis Finkelstein
Louis Finkelstein
Affiliation:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America New York
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Extract

The brilliant light thrown upon the Pharisees and the Sadducees by the careful studies of Geiger and Wellhausen, and their many disciples, has not completely dispelled the obscurity whieh surrounds the origin and being of these ancient groups. Geiger, whose views have in the main been accepted by Graetz, Detenbourg, Weiss, and Klausner, conceived of the conflict between these sects as intrinsically similar to that which developed in his own day between the reform and orthodox Jews in Germany.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , July 1929 , pp. 185 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1929

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References

1 Geiger developed his theory of the Pharisees primarily in his Urschrift, but also in He-Haluz, VI, 13–30, and in his Sadducäer und Pharisäer (Breslau, 1863). Wellhausen's main discussion of the question is to be found in his Die Pharisäer und die Sadduzäer. A mine of information on the whole subject will be found in Ginzberg's Unbekannte Jüdische Sekte (New York, 1922), a source which has been strangely overlooked by many writers on the subject. The view of Graetz is expressed in his Geschichte der Juden, III, 88 ff. (4th ed.); that of Derenbourg, in Histoire de la Palestine, I, 119 ff.; that of Hausrath, in Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, I, 118 ff.; and that of Klausner, in Historia Yisraelit, II, 99 ff.

2 The view of Schürer, which, while based on that of Wellhausen, marks a distinct advance over it, will be found in his Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, II, 456 ff. (4th ed.); that of Bousset in his Religion des Judentums, 3rd ed., pp. 185 ff.; and that of Dubnow in his Weltgeschichte des Jüdischen Volkes, II, 143 ff.

3 Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums, II, 383 ff.

4 Vol. I, pp. 70 ff.

5 I take it for granted, with the other writers on the subject, that in the rabbinic sources which we now have before us the term Boethusians is used interchangeably with Sadducees. Originally it probably represented a subdivision of the group. An examination of the various passages in which the terms are used has not yet enabled me to draw any satisfactory distinction between them. Similarly, I take it that the Essenes were originally a group among the Pharisees. The importance attached to them by Josephus is doubtless due not to their numbers but rather to his admiration for them. That is why in his first passage on the subject (Jewish War ii. 8, 2) he speaks of the Essenes at disproportionate length and puts them first. In his later descriptions (Antiquities xiii. 5, 9; xviii. 1, 2) he realizes the incongruity of putting the smallest group first, and therefore mentions first the Pharisees.

6 Compare also Ant. xiii. 10, 6, where we are told that only the wealthiest of the Jews belonged to the Sadducees. See also Abot d'B. Nathan 5 (ed. Schechter, p. 26), where there is still a recollection of the luxury of the Sadducees, who used to eat ”from gold and silver vessels.” Compare further Graetz, III, note 12.

7 Mishnah, Gittin 5, 1.

8 For R. Eliezer's beginnings see Abot d'R. Nathan 6 (Schechter, p. 30). Regarding R. Tarfon compare also the stories told of him in Wayikra R. 34,16 and Jer. Shebi'it 4, 2 (35 b).

9 Compare also the high priest R. Eliezer b. Harsom, of whom the haggadah remarks with its usual exaggeration that he owned “a thousand cities and a thousand ships,” Jer. Ta‘anit 4, 8 (69 a). See also Graetz, 4th ed., III, 723.

10 See Lurje, M., Studien zur Geschichte der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Verhältnisse im Israelitisch-Jüdischen Reiche, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenchaft, 45 (1927), p. 16Google Scholar.

11 2 Samuel 32, 7.

12 Jer. 32, 7 ff.

13 Song of Solomon 8, 11.

14 Tosefta, Ma'aser Sheni 5, 16 (Zuckermandel, p. 96).

15 Jer. Shebi'it 4, 2 (35 b). For further examples of absentee landownership after the year 70, see Büchler, Der galiläische ‘Am-ha’ Ares, 34 ff.; S. Klein, Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte und Geographie Galiläas, pp. 10 ff.

16 B. Pesahim 69 a. Both R. Eliezer and R. Tarfon were Pharisees, of course. But they belonged to a later generation, when Pharisaism had absorbed into itself practically all the Jewish population, leaving to Sadducism only the wealthiest high-priestly families. Nevertheless the peasant manners persisted among these new Pharisees. See below, p. 254.

17 B. Berakot 61 b.

18 B. Sanhedrin 68 a.

19 See Weiss, Dor Dor we-Dorshaw, II, 82 ff.

20 Mishnah, Ohalot 16, 1; B. Shabbat 17 a, 116 a, etc.

21 B. Baba Mezi'a 85 a.

22 B. Pesahim 49 b.

23 Ibid.

24 See below, notes 27 and 30.

25 Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, II, 45 ff.

26 See George Adam Smith, Jerusalem, I, p. 15, and pp. 75–103.

27 The Boethusians are credited with the opposition to the willow-ceremony, Tosefta, Sukkah 3, 1 (Zuckermandel, p. 195) and B. Sukkah 43 b. The ceremony consisted in beating the willow-twigs on the ground after the procession. The Boethusians objected most strenuously to the carrying out of the ceremony on the sabbath, because in their opinion that involved a transgression of the sabbath law without performing any part of the regular worship. Graetz is certainly correct in inferring that they had objection to the whole ceremony but were willing to tolerate it on weekdays (Graetz, Geschichte, III, note 12).

28 Mishnah, Sukkah 5, 1.

29 It is worth noting in this connection that for the Judaean farmer the perennial dew was as important as the seasonal rainfall. See Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, art. ‘Dew.’ In the various blessings found in passages dealing with agriculture the dew is always mentioned either alone or before the rain. See, for instance, Genesis 27, 28. 39; 1 Kings 17, 1; 2 Samuel 1, 21, where the dew is mentioned before the rain. The same is true in the prayer for rain which is one of the earliest sections of the Amidah (see Jewish Quarterly Review, 1925, pp. 8, 36 f.). Compare on the other hand Joel 2, 23, where the prophet, after promising to the farmers the return of their fruits and produce and to the shepherds their grass, continues: “O sons of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he hath given you the early rain in normal measure and poured down upon you winter rain and latter rain as before.”

30 The incident is recorded in Josephus, Antiquities xiii. 13, 5; Tosefta, Sukkah 3, 16 (Zuckermandel, 197); B. Sukkah 48 b. These are our main sources regarding the controversy.

31 See Jewish Quarterly Review, N.S. XVI, 35, 143.

32 Ibid., pp. 143 ff.

33 Mishnah, Ta'anit 1, 1. The habit of omitting in summer the prayer for rain in the ninth benediction of the Amidah was doubtless a result of the extension of the principle which seemed to be implied in the limitation to the winter months of the mention of rain-giving in the second benediction. See Mishnah, Ta'anit, loc. cit., and also Mishnah, Berakot 5, 2.

34 For the connection between this prophet and Jerusalem see the commentaries ad loc. Note particularly that the prophet, like Ezekiel before him, considers that part of the ideal future will be the breaking forth of a new spring in Jerusalem and the rise of a new river to give water to the city.

35 See below, pp. 224–231, and also Kittel, Die Psalmen, pp. 237 ff., who explains many of the Psalms as implying a bitter struggle in pre-maccabaean times between different sections of the population.

36 Jubilees 6, 23. Compare also my article on the Book of Jubilees in Harvard Theological Review, XVI (1923), 43 ff. The compromise character of the Book of Jubilees has not yet received sufficient attention. Its halakoth, as well as some of its doctrinal statements, seem to have as their purpose the offering of a way out of the rising bitterness between the sects. Hence, the author resorts to a forced interpretation of Joshua 5, 11 and to an artificial calendar in order to fix shabuot both on a definite calendar date (as the Pharisees would have it) and on Sundays (as the Sadducees desired). In the same manner he is ambiguous about the resurrection, which was a subject of acrimonious discussion, and seeks to concentrate attention on immortality. His law of tithes (32, 9–11; compare Harvard Theological Review, XVI, 52 ff.), as well as his provisions about the purity of a woman after childbirth (3, 10–14), also seem to indicate a desire to work out a compromise between extreme views. See also below, p. 246.

37 See however Leviticus 23, 24, where the new moon of the seventh month is called “a memorial of blowing of trumpets.”

38 Can we connect with this controversy the significant omission of the day of atonement from the list of days of judgment in Mishnah, Rosh ha-Shanah 1, 2? And can we go further and suppose that Mishnah, Shebu'ot 1, 3—5, which makes the day of atonement a season for forgiveness primarily of sins against temple purity, has at its source the ancient controversy between the Pharisees and the Sadducees?

39 See Geiger, Nachgelassene Schriften, III, 287 ff.

40 Mishnah, Shabbat 1, 3.

41 Mishnah, Berakot 1, 1.

42 Mishnah, Pesachim 10, 9. See also the story told in Tosefta, Pesachim 10, 12 (Zuckermandel, p. 173) and in the passover haggadah. From the limitation put in Jubilees 49, 12 on the time for eating the sacrifice, demanding that it be completed before the passing of “a third part of the night,” it would seem that the Sadducees objected to the late celebration of the Pharisees.

43 Jer. Sotah 1, 4 (16 d).

44 Mishnah, Berakot 1, 1.

45 For the continual burning of the weekday fire, see Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie, p. 96.

46 Mishnah, Pesachim 4, 4.

47 The Pharisees maintained only that shabuot occurred on the fiftieth day after the first day of passover, and that the revelation had occurred on that day. Shabuot could thus not have a fixed monthly date, since the Jews began their new months whenever the new moon was actually seen. The months of Nisan and Iyyar might both have 29 days, or might both have 30 days, or (what was most usual) one 29 days and one 80 days, the lunar period being about 29½ days. Shabuot might thus occur on the fifth of Sivan (if the two preceding months were each of 30 days), or on the sixth (if one month had 29 days and the other 30), or on the seventh (if both had 29 days). See Tosefta, ‘Arakin 1, 9 (Zuckermandel, p. 543). This did not at all interfere with the celebration of shabuot as the anniversary of the revelation, for the important consideration was that the revelation occurred forty-nine days after the exodus, and it was then that shabuot was celebrated. There is considerable discussion in rabbinic sources regarding the monthly day on which the Sinaitic theophany took place. According to Mekilta, Exodus 19, 10 (ed. Friedmann, 63b; ed. Horovitz-Rabin, 211) it occurred on the sixth of the month. That is also the opinion of the Seder Olam (chapter 5, ed. Ratner, 14 a; ed. Marx, 14) and of most authorities in the Talmud; see B. Shabbat 86 b and B. ‘Aboda Zara 3 a, as well as the Targum Ps.-Jonathan on Exodus 19, 16. On the other hand, some authorities held that the revelation had occurred on the seventh day of Sivan (R. Jose, in B. Shabbat, loc. cit.). This uncertainty as to the monthly date of the revelation accounts for the failure of Philo and Josephus to allude to the connection between the revelation and the festival. It would have been quite impossible to explain the situation clearly to Greeks or even to hellenized Jews. Indeed, the Mishnah itself never alludes to the fact that shabuot is the anniversary of the revelation. Yet that all its authorities held that view cannot be doubted. The antiquity of the tradition can be seen from the efforts made by the Book of Jubilees to give an historical association for its date of shabuot, the fifteenth of Sivan. The very fact that according to Jubilees 1, 1 Moses is commanded to “come up to God on the mount” in order that he may receive the tablets, indicates that the oral revelation had taken place on the previous day. See also Jubilees 6, 17. It is even possible that the Chronicler has the controversy in mind when he represents the covenant under Asa as established in “the third month” (2 Chron. 15, 10).

48 The date of shabuot is fixed by that of the waving of the first sheaf of the wheat-harvest. According to all parties this occurred about passover time. The Sadducees maintained that the time was the Sunday of passover week, the Pharisees the second day of the passover week. For the controversy see Megillat Ta'anit, chapter 1, and Gemara, chapter 1; Mishnah, Menachot 10, 3; Tosefta, Menachot 10, 23 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 528); baraita in B. Menachot 65 a; and compare Geiger, Urschrift, p. 139. With Geiger's theory that the Pharisaic custom was the older, compare Dillmann, Commentary on Leviticus, pp. 587–588. It must be noted here that Joshua 5, 11 seems to support the Pharisaic view.

49 Compare the importance given to the children's questioning with regard to passover, Exodus 13, 8. 14; Deuteronomy 6, 20.

50 It is interesting to note that the American festival of Thanksgiving, originally a harvest-festival, has now become an historical holiday, commemorating chiefly the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers.

51 The controversy about this matter is described in Mishnah, Parah 3, 7; Tosefta, Parah 3, 7–8 (Zuckermandel, p. 632).

52 Mishnah, Zabim 5, 12; see also Maimonides, Yad, Hilkot Abot Ha-Tumot, chapter X.

53 Mishnah, Parah 3, 6.

54 Mishnah, Parah 3, 6.

55 See Mishnah Aharonah ad loc.

56 Tosefta, Parah, loc. cit.

57 Tosefta, Parah, loc. cit.

58 This doubtless is the origin of the law declaring the ‘am ha-arez (originally the farming population) unclean. Their clothes were unclean in comparison with those of the Pharisees (Mishnah, Hagigah 2, 7). Since their ancestors had never observed the laws of purity, the peasantry resisted the attempt of the later rabbis to enforce these laws among them. Hence they are to be suspected of impurity (compare, for example, Toharot 7, 2–5). For an understanding of the true status of the ‘am ha-arez it is important to remember that originally he was suspected of being lax only in regard to two laws, that of purity and that of tithes (Büchler, Der galiläische ‘Am-ha'areṣ, pp. 5 ff., 41 ff.). The laws of purity were not observed outside of Jerusalem in early times for reasons which have been explained. The tithes were not paid by the farmers because they felt themselves unable to give so large a proportion of their produce.

59 It is to be borne in mind that according to the interpretation put on the laws of purity in the second commonwealth the impure person suffered no other disability than to be prohibited from coming into sacred precincts, such as the temple or, in cases of more severe uncleanness, the city of Jerusalem, and from eating holy food, such as sacrificial meat or terumah.

60 Mishnah, Megillah S, 4, and commentaries, ad loc.

61 See note 52.

62 Antiquities xviii. 1, 4 and Tosefta, Yoma 1, 8 (Zuckermandel, p. 181); Jer. Yoma 1,5 (39 a); B. Yoma 19 b.

63 Judith 12, 8.

64 Tosefta, Yadaim 2, 20.

65 Tosefta, Hagiga 3, 35 (Zuckermandel, p. 238). See also Jer. Hagiga 3, 8 (79 d).

66 Mishnah, Yadaim 4, 7.

67 Jer. Ketubot 8, 11 (32 c). The same baraita is cited in B. Shabbat 16 b. There the following question is raised: By common consent the impurity of metallic utensils was recognized as biblical; how then could a baraita make it originate with Simeon b. Shetah? The Talmud in its usual fashion makes a formal reply to the objection. But there can be no doubt of the accuracy of the tradition before us, since it was known to both Palestinian and Babylonian authorities.

68 Jer. Ketubot, ibid.; compare B. Shabbat 15 b. The first attempt to establish the ordinance may have been made by Jose b. Joezer, but the actual enforcement of it must have waited for Simeon b. Shetah.

69 For the scriptural laws on the subject see Leviticus 11, 32 ff.; 15, 12 ff.; Numbers 19, 14 ff.; 31, 20; and 31, 21–23. The only passage that mentions metallic substances is the last. That passage, however, does not seem to refer to the purification of utensils that have been levitically defiled; it deals with the specific instance of vessels taken from the heathen. That it could not have been interpreted to refer to levitical impurity is clear from the command to “pass through fire“all the vessels which can bear that treatment. Lustration consists of immersion in water.

70 See Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie, pp. 70–71, and Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie, I, 58–75.

71 Compare Mark 7, 4.

72 This is recognized as a special form of rabbinical impurity, which even the Pharisees admitted had no basis in Scripture. The man remains pure except for his hands, which must be washed before coming in contact with any food, lest the food become impure through them. Significantly the Pharisees did not declare impure the vessels which the hands might touch.

73 Mishnah, Yadaim 4, 6.

74 Geiger, Urschrift, p. 146.

75 Wellhausen, Die Pharisäer, p. 64.

76 Abot d'R. Nathan, chapter 6 (ed. Schechter, p. 30).

77 Sifre, Deuteronomy, 357 (ed. Friedmann, 150 a).

78 B. Berakot 28 a.

79 Mishnah, Yoma 1, 6.

80 B. Baba Batra 21 a. We know also that Simeon b. Shetah was the person mainly responsible for the establishment of a school system in Jerusalem (Jer. Ketubot 8, 11, 32 c). It speaks volumes for the Pharisaic love of learning that as soon as they obtained authority in the state (under Queen Alexandra) they took care to institute a system of public education.

81 The other known controversies between the sects regarding religious ceremonial were (a) that dealing with the meal-offering to be brought in connection with animal sacrifices, the Sadducean priests insisting on eating these offerings in spite of Pharisaic objections to the practice (Megillat Ta'anit 8, scholion); (b) that dealing with the right of an individual to make a voluntary offering of an animal to be used for the public sacrifice, the wealthy aristocratic Sadducees maintaining that it might be done, the democratic, urban Pharisees denying it (B. Menahot 65 a, scholion to Megillat Ta'anit 1, 1); (c) that relating to the laws of ‘niddah,’ concerning which our information is inadequate (see Mishnah, Niddah 5, 2; but compare Tosefta, Niddah 5, 3 and B. Niddah 33 b); (d) that dealing with ‘erub,’ regarding which also our information is incomplete (see Geiger, He-Haluz, VI, 15, who maintains that the Sadducees denied the law of ‘erub’ and therefore would not carry from the house into the court even though there were an ‘erub,’ and Ginzberg, Unbekannte Jüdische Sekte, 192 ff., who maintains, rather, that the Sadducees did not at all prohibit carrying into courts and alleys); and (e) that dealing with ‘nizoq,’ regarding the meaning of which there is similar confusion. See Mishnah, Yadaim 4, 7, and commentaries there; Geiger, Urschrift, p. 147, maintains that the legalistic discussion is in reality an allegory for an argument regarding the right of the Herodians to the kingship; Leszynsky, Die Sadduzäer, pp. 38–43, interprets ‘nizoq’ as ‘honey’; Zeitlin, Jewish Quarterly Review, N.S., VIII, 67 ff., maintains that the discussion is about the liability of vegetables still attached to the soil to acquire impurity. With some hesitation I offer the suggestion that by ‘nizoq’ the Mishnah means ‘aqueduct,’ but the discussion of the matter would take us too far afield. I agree with Wellhausen (p. 61) in rejecting as a gloss the passage in scholion to Megillat Ta'anit where we are told that the Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed (a) about the lex talionis, the Pharisees rejecting its literal interpretation and the Sadducees accepting it, (b) about the proof of virginity in cases arising under Deuteronomy 22, 13, the Sadducees again taking the verses literally and the Pharisees interpreting them figuratively; and (c) regarding the laws of ‘halizah,’ where the Sadducees are again described as literalists and the Pharisees as liberal interpretationists. Aside from the clear stylistic marks which point to its being a late interpolation, there is a difference of opinion among the tannaim about two of these matters (see the view of R. Eliezer about the lex talionis in B. Baba Kamma 84 a, and that of R. Eliezer b. Jacob in Sifre, Deuteronomy, 237); it seems hardly possible that there should have been a disagreement between the Pharisees as a sect and the Sadducees about these points. The interpolator clearly supposed that the Sadducees were literalists and the Pharisees interpretationists, and built his report of the alleged controversies on that basis. Geiger maintains that there was another controversy between the Sadducees and the Pharisees regarding impurity after childbirth. According to him the Pharisees considered the blood that issued after the days of major impurity (seven for a male child, fourteen for a female child) pure, while the Sadducees maintained that this blood was still impure, and thought it was a means of purification (see He-Haluz 5, 29 and 6, 28 ff.). But Ginzberg has shown that there was no such controversy between the sects (notes on Geiger's Kebuzat Ma'amarim, p. 385, and Unbekannte Jüdische Sekte, p. 191).

82 See Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, pp. 78–80.

83 Mishnah, Yadaim 4, 6.

84 See Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie, p. 84. Compare what is said below about the conception of slavery in Ben Sira and in contemporaneous urban works.

85 Samuel Joseph Finn, Dibre Ha-Yamim libne Yisrael, II, 206.

86 Mishnah, Yadaim, loc. cit. The mishnah ends with a peculiar phrase which seems to hang in the air, both grammatically and logically: “For if I vex him, he will kindle some one's stack of grain and I shall be obliged to pay.” This additional argument has nothing to do with what goes before and is not connected with it by any form of conjunction. Moreover there is no logical basis whatever for such an argument, for the owner might equally well fear that the slave in anger would destroy his own heap of grain with another's. It is the master's discipline that prevents the slave from wreaking vengeance on him by destroying other people's property. Surely that would be better than permitting a slave who did damage to go about unscathed. Moreover the same argument is mentioned in B. Baba Kamma 4 a, but in slightly different phraseology. From this fact, taken together with the loose connection both in thought and syntax between the additional clause and the main body of the mishnah, we may conclude that this argument was added at a later time. It probably dates from a period when the Jews had returned to agricultural life in larger numbers, and the original argument of the mishnah no longer satisfied them. They then invented a new, and less logical argument, which might serve as an excuse for the law, if not as a valid reason for it. It is noteworthy that the difficulties involved in the argument presented by this final clause were remarked by the mediaeval commentators on the Talmud. Asheri well sums up their point of view when he declares that the reason given in the mishnah was not intended to be taken seriously, and that the Pharisees were only mocking the Sadducees in suggesting it (see commentary of Asheri on Baba Kamma 4 a, cited in Shittah Mekubbezet, ad loc). It is also important to bear in mind that the law became so difficult to enforce in a slave-holding community, such as Babylonian Jewry was, that R. Nahshon Gaon, in the seventh century, changed it by permitting the court to have any slave flogged who had committed a depredation against the property of a freeman (see Pardes, Constantinople ed., 24 d, and Warsaw ed., 60 a; cited also in Takkanot ascribed to R. Gershom, printed in Res. of R. Meir of Rothenburg, Prague ed., 1608, section 1022, and elsewhere; published in my Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, p. 201).

87 Compare also Antiquities xx. 9, 1, “He was also of the sect of Sadducees, who were very rigid in judging offenders.” What Josephus says on the subject would seem to be corroborated by Megillat Ta'anit 4, where we are told that a festival day was set aside by the Pharisees to commemorate the rejection of the Sadducean “book of punishments.” Clearly there must have been a book in which the forms of punishment and the punishable crimes were outlined according to Sadducean custom; this was doubtless accomplished under Simeon b. Shetah. Compare, however, Zeitlin in Jewish Quarterly Review, N. S., X, 255. It is true that in the law on false witnesses the Pharisees were more severe than the Sadducees, but regarding that see Supplementary Note 2.

88 Mishnah, Sanhedrin 5, 1.

89 Ibid. 5, 2.

90 Ibid.

91 Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7, 2.

92 B. Sanhedrin 52 a.

93 Mishnah, Makkot 1, 10.

94 Mishnah, Makkot, loc. cit.

95 Compare Kohut, Ueber die jüdische Angelologie und Dämonologie in ihrer Abhängigheit vom Parsismus (Leipzig, 1866), and his ‘Was hat die talmudische Eschatologie aus dem Parsismus entnommen?’ in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, XXI, 552 ff. Also, with particular reference to the doctrine of the resurrection, Koeklen, Die Verwandschaft der jüdisch-christlichen mit der parsischen Eschatologie (Göttingen, 1902). See further Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, 3rd ed., pp. 480 ff. For a recent summary of the situation see G. F. Moore, The Birth and Growth of Religion, pp. 136 ff., and his Judaism, I, 404; II, 394–395. In opposition to the theory that the Jews were influenced by the Persians see George Adam Smith, The Minor Prophets, II, 310 ff.; Maynard in Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 44, pp. 163 ff. Maynard points out that it would be more natural for Judaism to adopt Zoroastrian practices than doctrines, and that we find no trace of Jewish custom being influenced by the Persian religion. Similar arguments are presented by Wood, I. F. in Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 46, p. 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Yet it must be remembered that in the days when Judaism was exposed to Persian influences, its practice had been codified but its theology was still fluid. Hence it was possible for new ideas to make their way into Jewish consciousness, whereas it was inconceivable that the practices which were crystallized in the torah should be abandoned.

96 Zechariah 3, 1.

97 Job 1, 6 ff.

98 1 Chronicles 21, 1.

99 Zechariah 13, 2.

100 Enoch 9, 6. As is well known this part of Enoch is pre-maccabaean, and may be dated about 200 B. c.

101 Enoch 35, 5–7.

102 This insistence of Ben Sira on freedom of the will is important in view of the light it sheds on the doctrine as expounded by the Sadducees of later times. We know nothing from the Talmud or the New Testament about any controversy between the sects regarding freedom of the will, but Josephus tells us that “the Pharisees say that some actions, but not all, are the work of Fate, and that regarding some of them it is in our own power to decide whether or not they shall come to pass… while the Sadducees deny Fate, and say there is no such thing, and that human affairs are not in its disposal, and they suppose that all our actions are in our own power so that we are ourselves the cause of our good fortune and bring on our misfortune through our own folly” (Ant. xiii. 5, 9). Since Fate is nowhere mentioned in Pharisaic literature as one of their concepts, the interpreters of this passage have attempted to read into it a number of accepted Pharisaic teachings (see, for example, Graetz, vol. III, note 12, and most recently Klausner, Historia Yisraelit, II, 111). It seems to me that the difficulties disappear as soon as we realize that in Josephus, as in Ben Sira, the Pharisaic belief in wicked angels and spirits is considered a limitation of human freedom, and that to the extent that these exist man may be said to be only partially free. Josephus, as is usual with him, gives the Hebrew conception a philosophic, high-sounding name, and therefore denominates what in Zechariah appears as “the spirit of uncleanness” by the Greek term, Fate. According to the Pharisees some human actions are determined by evil spirits, but not all, for man is free to overcome the evil spirits. The Sadducees denied the existence of evil spirits outside of man, and like Ben Sira maintained that our evil desires are not whispered to us from without, but are the expressions of our own ‘yezer,’ the evil inclination. The matter deserves fuller treatment than can be accorded it here, but a comparison of the various passages in Josephus with those about evil spirits in the Book of Jubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, as well as with the cited passages from Ben Sira, will, I think, leave no doubt that what Josephus for his Greek readers calls Fate really represents the Pharisaic doctrine of evil spirits. See in this connection Josephus, Ant. xviii. 1, 3, and War ii. 8, 2, and the passages cited by Hoelscher, Der Sadduzäismus, p. 4. Compare also Ginzberg, Unbekannte Jüdische Sekte, p. 238, and Moore, Judaism, I, 455 ff.

103 See above, pages 219 ff.

104 B. Gittin 38 b. Compare the statements attributed there to both R. Eliezer and R. Akiba that it is a positive commandment to keep heathen slaves in their subjection.

105 Such as, for instance, the identification of the light with good, regarding which see such verses as Zechariah 14, 6; Eccles. 11, 7, and the expression “light of God's countenance,” which is referred to in one way or another in Daniel 9, 17; Psalm 44, 4; 80, 4. 8. 20; and 89, 16, sources which are usually attributed to the Maccabaean age The other Psalms in which this expression occurs are probably all from the Persian period. Compare, however, its occurrence in the priestly blessing, Numbers 6, 25, and the conception in Genesis, chapter 1, that light was created on the first day, and “was good,” and also that it existed independently of the sun or moon, which were created on the fourth day. The rabbis associate this teaching, correctly I think, with the belief in a divine source of light. Perhaps this also accounts for the beaming of Moses’ face when he descended from Mount Sinai (Exodus 34, 29–35).

106 The Persian influence in developing the Jewish doctrine of the Messiah and the messianic age is less easily traced, though it was inevitable that the Jews should permit their own conception of a glorious future to be somewhat colored by that of their rulers.

107 Daniel 12, 2; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Simeon 6, 7; Judah 25, 1. 4; Zebulun 10, 2; Benjamin 10, 6–8; Enoch 51, 105; Psalms of Solomon 3, 16; 2 Maccabees 12, 44.

108 See Jewish Quarterly Review, N. S., XVI, 22.

109 M. Sanhedrin 10, 1.

110 Acts 23, 8; Josephus, Antiquities xviii. 1, 3.

111 Ezekiel 37, 11.

112 See citations above, p. 226, and in addition Ecclus. 22, 11; 39, 9; 41, 11.

113 See, for example, Eccles. 3, 20.

114 1 Maccabees 1, 37; 2, 38.

115 Compare Psalms 44, 79, and 80.

116 Enoch 25, 6.

117 2 Kings 21, 16; Jer. 2, 30.

118 Jubilees 23, 31; Wisdom of Solomon 3, 1.

119 See above, pp. 185 f.

120 See also Ginzberg, Unbekannte Jüdische Sekte, p. 229.

121 Enoch 45, 1; Test. Asher 7, 1. See below, p. 239.

122 Jer. Rosh Ha-Shanah 1, 2 (56 d).

123 See also Job 4, 18 and 33, 23. Compare further the story of Araunah's seeing the angel in 1 Chronicles 21, 20 with the appearance to Abraham and Manoah. Araunah knows that it is an angel that he sees, and his sons, who do not see the angel, are yet awestruck by his presence. Compare also the mention of the “holy ones” in Zechariah 14, 5.

124 Jubilees 2, 2–3.

125 Test. Levi 5, 6; Test. Dan 6, 2.

126 Jubilees 15, 27.

127 Tobit 7, 13.

128 Compare Epstein, Jewish Marriage Contract, p. 25, and see B. Kiddushin 9a.

129 See Jewish Quarterly Review, N. S., XVI, 36 ff., and XIX, 211.

130 Jubilees 22, 6.

131 Antiquities xviii. 1, 3.

132 Following Schürer's emendation, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, II, 883.

133 Moore, Judaism, I, 69.

134 For the explanation of this controversy see the convincing article of Lauterbach in Hebrew Union College Annual, IV, 195 ff. It appears that the Sadducean custom was based on a naïve conception of God as appearing enthroned over the ark of the covenant, while the Pharisaic custom rested on a more mature point of view. From the fact that in this instance the scriptural text supports the Pharisaic usage it is probable that the Sadducean custom goes back to very ancient times. The high priests, fearful lest on entering the holy place they might find themselves face to face with the terror-striking vision of the divine presence, continued the old custom of preparing the incense before entering, so as to protect themselves from the vision. This was in spite of the Lawgiver's express command that the incense be prepared after they had come within the vail. The old custom had such a hold on the terrors of the priests that as late as the end of the commonwealth the Pharisees still had to struggle against it.

135 See above, note 36.

136 There seems to have grown up a feeling among the Pharisees that a decision reached at solemn gatherings of the Sanhedrin was in some way divinely inspired. To us this doctrine seems so strange that we have difficulty in understanding it. Yet there is evidence that it was widely held, and that through it the Pharisees sought to justify to their own consciences their novel, and frequently revolutionary, interpretations of the law. Indeed this seems to have been the origin of the later rabbinic maxims that “if ten sit down to discuss a law, the shekinah comes down among them.” Compare also Simeon b. Shetah's statement to Alexander, “And not before us dost thou stand, but before Him who spake and the world came into being” (B. Sanhedrin 19 a).

The ancients found nothing bizarre in this doctrine. Their ancestors had held for centuries that while ordinary men may make their own decisions, “the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord'’ (Proverbs 21, 1). The decision of a king was believed to be not his, but God's. Cf. Maine, Ancient Law (London, 1906), p. 5. It took little imagination to transfer the faith in this royal inspiration to the council of elders who had legislative and judicial power. The divine inspiration of legislatures and courts may sound strange to us, but when we recall that for the ancients the truth is the word of God, and how regularly we accept a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, or of the highest court of a State, as the last word in truth, we can readily see that our ancestors were only expressing in their theological parlance the same thoughts that we express in modern terminology.

Those who maintained that the decisions of the judges were not their own but God's, would naturally seek — in a rationalist age — to explain their theory in human terms. Some of the judges were known to be less than fit for divine inspiration. How then could their human votes be said to be expressive of the Will of God?

It is here, I think, that the doctrine of divine foreknowledge of which Josephus speaks in War ii. 8, 14 came to the assistance of the Pharisees. The judges were free to vote as they would, but God had long ago foreseen their action. He moved their hearts and spoke through their decisions.

The doctrine is admittedly not clear, and the explanation is difficult. Yet we have the testimony of Josephus and E. Akiba (Mishnah, Abot 3, 19) that the Pharisees did discuss the problem of divine foreknowledge in its relation to human freedom, and I can see no point at which the, unphilosophic Palestinians of pre-christian times would find occasion to analyze the matter except the one which has been indicated.

137 Die Pharisäer, pp. 86 ff.

138 Ibid. 87.

139 Compare Test. Levi 8, 14; 31, 14–17. See also Charles, Book of Jubilees (London, 1903), Introduction, p. lxii.

140 The late Professor Israel Friedlander (Jewish Quarterly Review, N. S., IV, 443 ff.) maintained that the version of the Talmud (B. Kiddushin 66a), in which the story of the break is referred to the time of King Alexander Jannaeus, is to be accepted in preference to that of Josephus, who makes the break an incident in the life of John Hyrcanus (Ant. xiii. 10, 6). Even if this particular incident happened in Alexander's time, it is clear from a number of sources, the Talmud included, that John Hyrcanus broke with the Pharisees. See, for example, B. Berakot 29a, where we are told: “Do not trust thyself till the day of thy death, for Johanan the high priest served as high priest for eighty years and in the end became a Sadducee.” Obviously the Talmudic sources had the same tradition which Josephus records, that before his death John Hyrcanus broke away from the Pharisees.

141 See Ant. xiii. 16, 2, where Josephus tells us that the Sadducees received from Alexander “the greatest marks of favor,” which, according to Graetz, III, note 13, included not only honors and offices but also the lands of the conquered nations.

142 It is not to be supposed at all, as is frequently maintained (Hoelscher, Der Sadduzäismus, p. 89; but see Dubnow, Weltgesch. des Jüdischen Volkes, II, 136 ff.), that the Pharisees approved of John Hyrcanus's enforced conversion of the Idumaeans and the similar policy of his successors (Josephus, Ant. xiii. 9, 1; xiii. 15, 4). We now know that the so-called Noachic laws date from the early Hasmonaean period, and that they were intended as a code to which the heathen who were subject to the Jewish state ought to conform (see Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, V, p. 193; Guttman, Das Judentum und Seine Umwelt, p. 105; and Finkelstein, Harvard Theological Review, XVI, p. 59). The laws prohibited blasphemy, the worship of idols, murder, theft, illicit sexual relations, and one or two other crimes about which our sources are not clear. But certainly there was no thought of compulsory circumcision or conversion.

143 See sources cited in note 140.

144 Ant. xiii. 16, 4.

145 Ant. xiv. 21: “The king of Arabia took all his army and made an assault on the temple, and besieged Aristobulus therein.”

146 Ant. xiv. 4, 2.

147 Ant. xiv. 1, 3. The vigor of Aristobulus, apparently an inheritance from his father, was probably what endeared him to the Sadducean nationalists and warriors, while Hyrcanus's love of peace, a trait which he apparently had received from his mother, naturally inclined him to the Pharisees. This interpretation of the struggle between the brothers is also given by Wellhausen, pp. 100 ff.

148 Ant. xiv. 2, 1.

149 Ant. xiv. 4, 2.

150 Ant. xiv. 9, 4; xv. 1, 1. Apparently the Pharisees themselves were divided as to policy in regard to the admission of Herod. For Josephus later tells us that “the whole nation was gathered together” (Ant. xiv. 16, 2), by which he seems to mean that all parties were united against Herod. This would account for Herod's slaughter of the members of the Sanhedrin, apparently irrespective of party, except for Sameas and Pollio. The Pharisees could not acquiesce in the appointment of a king who was a proselyte, for they felt that to be an infringement of Deuteronomy 17, 15 (see Sifre, ad loc., and M. Sotah 41 a, from which it appears that Agrippa felt that the verse disqualified him). Hence their resistance to the recognition of Herod as king. As Strabo puts it, “by no torments could they be made to call him (Herod) king” (Josephus, Ant. xv. 1, 1). Even those who had proposed (Ant. xiv. 3, 2) the suppression of the whole Jewish kingship, and rejoiced (War i. 8, 5) when Gabinius actually brought about that change in their government, resented the appointment of a king who was not a born Jew. In view of the facts as related by Josephus, I find myself unable to accept Well-hausen's conclusion that the Pharisees were inspired by their concentration on religious matters and were without any political demands. It seems far more likely that they had as much political interest as their opponents, but that their interest was in peace, even though that might involve a limited territory and subjection to foreign domination; the Sadducees on the contrary desired to increase the territory of Judaea and to be independent.

151 Ant. xiii. 13, 5.

152 Ginzberg, Notes in Geiger's Kebuzat Ma'amarin, p. 387. Cpmpare also Geiger, Jüdische Zeitschrift, VI, 105–117. For the relationship between Shammaite and Sadducean halakah see Geiger, He-Haluz 6, 15 ff.; and also Jewish Quarterly Review, N. S., XIX, 90, note 20.

153 See Weiss, Dor, II, 78 ff.; compare also R. Tarfon's leaning to Bet Shammai in M. Berakot 1, 3. The Shammaite leanings of R. Eliezer b. Hyrkanos are well known.

154 Ant. xvii. 2, 4.

155 I believe, however, that turning to Jerusalem in prayer was rather a desideratum of the men of Jerusalem than a fact among the provincials. The Galilaean synagogues which have been unearthed, and which date from the second century of the Christian era, do not seem to have provided for turning to Jerusalem in prayer. It is true that in the prayer of King Solomon there is an indication that men should pray toward Jerusalem and the temple (1 Kings 8, 44. 48). But it is questionable whether that was always carried out in practice.

156 See also Genesis 32, 6 and 32, 15–16, where Jacob's wealth and his gifts to Esau are described; the omission of horses is significant. Compare also Job 1, 2.

157 Perhaps to these various evidences from literature one should be added from the Mishnah, Hagigah 2, 7, where the Pharisees are contrasted with the ‘am ha-arez: “The clothes of the ‘am ha-arez are impure for Pharisees, those of the Pharisees for persons who eat terumah.” The passage is most easily understood if we suppose that originally Pharisees meant townspeople, and ‘am ha-arez peasants. As has been shown above (pp. 209–210), the peasants, living outside of Jerusalem, did not have to observe the laws of impurity. Their children grew up without any recognition of them. Even when an ‘am ha-arez came to the capital, he could not suddenly accept a whole system of levitical laws which he had never seen observed in his village. He tended to ignore them, and was “suspected regarding purity.” His clothes were therefore impure for the observant Pharisees who did adhere to the laws of impurity applying to the citizen of Jerusalem. On the other hand even such a Pharisee did not observe the more stringent laws of purity which the priests had to comply with; hence his clothes were impure for the priests.