sadducees Summary and Overview

The origin of this Jewish sect cannot definitely be traced. It was probably the outcome of the influence of Grecian customs and philosophy during the period of Greek domination. The first time they are met with is in connection with John the Baptist's ministry. They came out to him when on the banks of the Jordan, and he said to them, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matt. 3:7.) The next time they are spoken of they are represented as coming to our Lord tempting him. He calls them "hypocrites" and "a wicked and adulterous generation" (Matt. 16:1-4; 22:23). The only reference to them in the Gospels of Mark (12:18-27) and Luke (20:27-38) is their attempting to ridicule the doctrine of the resurrection, which they denied, as they also denied the existence of angels. They are never mentioned in John's Gospel. There were many Sadducees among the "elders" of the Sanhedrin. They seem, indeed, to have been as numerous as the Pharisees (Acts 23:6). They showed their hatred of Jesus in taking part in his condemnation (Matt. 16:21; 26:1-3, 59; Mark 8:31; 15:1; Luke 9:22; 22:66). They endeavoured to prohibit the apostles from preaching the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:24, 31, 32; 4:1, 2; 5:17, 24-28). They were the deists or sceptics of that age. They do not appear as a separate sect after the destruction of Jerusalem.

(followers of Zadok), #Mt 3:7; 16:1,6,11,12; 22:23,31; Mr 12:18; Lu 20:27; Ac 4:1; 5:17; 23:6,7,8| a religious party or school among the Jews at the time of Christ, who denied that the oral law was a revelation of God to the Israelites. and who deemed the written law alone to be obligatory on the nation, as of divine authority. Except on one occasion. #Mt 16:1,4,6| Christ never assailed the Sadducees with the same bitter denunciations which he uttered against the Pharisees. The origin of their name is involved in great difficulties, but the most satisfactory conjecture is that the Sadducees or Zadokites were originally identical with the sons of Zadok, and constituted what may be termed a kind of sacerdotal aristocracy, this Zadok being the priest who declared in favor of Solomon when Abiathar took the part of Adonijah. #1Ki 1:32-45| To these sons of Zadok were afterward attached all who for any reason reckoned themselves as belonging to the aristocrats; such, for example, as the families of the high priest, who had obtained consideration under the dynasty of Herod. These were for the most part judges, and individuals of the official and governing class. This explanation elucidates at once #Ac 5:17| The leading tenet of the Sadducees was the negation of the leading tenet of their opponents. As the Pharisees asserted so the Sadducees denied, that the Israelites were in possession of an oral law transmitted to them by Moses, [PHARISEES] In opposition to the Pharisees, they maintained that the written law alone was obligatory on the nation, as of divine authority. The second distinguishing doctrine of the Sadducees was the denial of man's resurrection after death. In connection with the disbelief of a resurrection by the Sadducees, they likewise denied there was "angel or spirit," #Ac 23:8| and also the doctrines of future punishment and future rewards. Josephus states that the Sadducees believed in the freedom of the will, which the Pharisees denied. They pushed this doctrine so far as almost to exclude God from the government of the world. Some of the early Christian writers attribute to the Sadducees the rejection of all the sacred Scriptures except the Pentateuch; a statement, however, that is now generally admitted to have been founded on a misconception of the truth, and it seems to have arisen from a confusion of the Sadducees with the Samaritans. An important fact in the history of the Sadducees is their rapid disappearance from history after the first century, and the subsequent predominance among the Jews of the opinions of the Pharisees. Two circumstances contributed, indirectly but powerfully, to produce this result: 1st. The state of the Jews after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus; and 2d. The growth of the Christian religion. As to the first point, it is difficult to overestimate the consternation and dismay which the destruction of Jerusalem occasioned in the minds of sincerely-religious Jews. In their hour of darkness and anguish they naturally turned to the consolations and hopes of a future state; and the doctrine of the Sadducees, that there was nothing beyond the present life, would have appeared to them cold, heartless and hateful. Again, while they were sunk in the lowest depths of depression, a new religion, which they despised as a heresy and a superstition, was gradually making its way among the subjects of their detested conquerors, the Romans. One of the causes of its success was undoubtedly the vivid belief in the resurrection of Jesus and a consequent resurrection of all mankind, which was accepted by its heathen converts with a passionate earnestness of which those who at the present day are familiar from infancy with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead call form only a faint idea. To attempt to chock the progress of this new religion among the Jews by an appeal to the temporary rewards and punishments of the Pentateuch would have been as idle as an endeavor to check an explosive power by ordinary mechanical restraints. Consciously, therefore, or unconsciously, many circumstances combined to induce the Jews who were not Pharisees, but who resisted the new heresy, to rally round the standard of the oral law, and to assert that their holy legislator, Moses, had transmitted to his faithful people by word of mouth, although not in writing, the revelation of a future state of rewards and punishments.

SAD'DUCEES , a Jewish sect often mentioned in the N.T. The origin of the term and its meaning are involved in obscurity, but the most satisfactory theory is that the sect was derived from Zadok and constituted a kind of "sacerdotal aristocracy." This explains Acts 5:17. The Zadok spoken of is the famous high priest of that name whom Solomon appointed to succeed the deposed Abiathar. 1 Kgs 2:35. The Sadducees were a small party, of limited influence among the people, and of a rationalistic turn of mind. From their connection with the high priests, they were men of position, and probably of more or less wealth. They were worldly-minded and had only a superficial interest in religion. They are the forerunners of the modern reform Jews. Their theology was in direct contradiction to the Pharisaic, and, from its nature, could not be popular. It embraced four principal tenets: (1) A denial of the divinity and consequent authority of the oral Law, the body of commentary on the written Law which the Pharisees, without any historic evidence, maintained was handed down by tradition from the lawgiver himself. (2) The Sadducees accepted the teaching of Moses only, and seem to have rejected the later books of the O.T. (3) The denial of man's resurrection - the soul dies with the body. Matt 22:23. Of course the doctrine of future rewards and punishments fell with it; likewise belief in angel or spirit. Acts 23:8 (4) Their fourth principal tenet was that man had the most absolute moral freedom, for upon this freedom was dependent the moral quality of his actions. This tenet was, however, so far "pushed as almost entirely to exclude the divine government of the world." In the N.T. they are not spoken of with the same bitterness as the Pharisees; yet they were determined foes to our Lord, and made common cause with them in condemning him to the cross. Annas and Caiaphas were Sadducees. The sect disappears from history after the first Christian century. They have their successors in the worldly Jews and Christians of the present day.

Matthew 3:7; Matthew 16:1; Matthew 16:6; Matthew 16:11-12; Matthew 22:23; Matthew 22:34; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27; Acts 4:1; Acts 5:17; Acts 23:6-8. Matthew (as distinguished from Mark) does not usually explain Jewish usages, taking for granted that his readers are familiar with them. His deviating from his wont to explain "the S. say there is no resurrection" is cleared up by what Josephus (Ant. 18:1, section 4) states "the doctrine of the Sadducees is that the soul and body perish together; the law is all that they are concerned to, observe; this doctrine however has not many followers, but those of the highest rank, ... almost nothing of public business falls into their hands." See also his B. J., ii. 8, section 14. Thus the Jews might easily be ill informed as to the dogmas of a sect, small in numbers, raised above those masses to whom Matthew addresses himself, and to whom therefore his information would not have been superfluous. Another undesigned coincidence, confirming the sacred writers accuracy, is that the opposition to Christ in the Gospels is almost exclusively on the part of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:29; Matthew 23:32; John 11:57; John 18:3) and His denunciations are mainly against these; but in Acts on the part of the Sadducees (Acts 4:1; Acts 5:17; Acts 23:6; Acts 23:8). Why so? Because the resurrection of the dead (the doctrine denied by the Sadducees), which was scarcely understood during the Gospels' period (Mark 9:10), became the leading doctrine of Christianity in connection with the apostles' witness for Christ's resurrection at the time described in Acts 1:22; Acts 2:32; Acts 3:12; Acts 4:2 (Greek "preached in the person of Jesus the resurrection from the dead"), Acts 4:10; Acts 5:31; Acts 10:40; and was therefore bitterly opposed by the Sadducees. John never mentions them, and no writing of theirs has come down to us. They denied the oral and upheld the written law. Rabbi Nathan (first mentioned in the Aruch, a rabbiical dictionary, A.D. 1105) states that Antigonus of Socho (mentioned in the Mishna, Avoth 1, as having received the oral law from Simon the Just, last of the great synagogue). had two disciples, who in turn taught disciples his saying "be not like servants who serve their master for the sake of reward, but serve without view of reward"; and that the disciples reasoned, "if our fathers had known that there is another world, and a resurrection of the dead, they would not have spoken thus"; so they separated themselves from the law (and denied there is another world and a resurrection); "so there arose two sects, the Zadokites from Zadok, and Baithusians from Baithos." But this does not justify the modern notion that Zadok himself misinterpreted Antigonus' saying; still the Sadducees might claim this Zadok as their head. But the Zadok from whom the Sadducees are named may be rather the famous Zadok who superseded Abiathar under Solomon (1 Kings 2:35); "the house of Zadok," "the sons of Zadok," "the seed of Zadok" are named with preeminent honour in 2 Chronicles 31:10; Ezekiel 40:46; Ezekiel 42:19; Ezekiel 44:15; Ezekiel 48:11; so they became a kind of sacerdotal aristocracy, including the high priests' families; compare Mishna, Sanhed. iv. 2, which ordains that only priests, Levites, and Israelites whose daughters might marry priests, were "clean" so as to be judges in capital trials; also Acts 5:17, "the high-priest, and all that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees." Besides their reasonable denial of an oral law, which the Pharisees maintained was transmitted by Moses, the Sadducees denied the resurrection because it is not explicitly stated in Moses' Pentateuch, the legislator's sanctions of the law being primarily temporal rewards and punishments (Exodus 20:12; Exodus 23:25-26; Deuteronomy 7:12-15; Deuteronomy 28:1-12; Deuteronomy 28:15-68). Christ (Matthew 22:31-32; Luke 20:37) however shows that even Exodus 3:6; Exodus 3:16 suffices to prove the resurrection; and Hebrew 11 quotes the patriarchs as examples of a faith which looked beyond the present for eternal rewards. Job (Job 19:26), Isaiah (Isaiah 26:19), Daniel (Daniel 12:2), and David (Psalm 16; Psalm 17) express the same faith, the germ of which is in the Pentateuch (See RESURRECTION.) The Pharisees, though wrong in maintaining oral tradition as obligatory, yet preserved in respect to the resurrection the faith of the fathers. In Acts 23:8 "the Sadducees" are said to disbelieve in "angel or spirit"; but angels are often introduced in the Pentateuch, which the Sadducees admitted (Genesis 16:7; Genesis 19:1; Genesis 22:11; Genesis 28:12; Exodus 23:20; Numbers 22:23); and Josephus and the Mishna do not mention their disbelief of angels. Probably it is only their disbelief of angelic communications to men in their time, such as the Pharisees suggested (Acts 23:9) may have been made to Paul, that the Sadducees denied. Josephus states, "the Pharisees say that some things are the work of fate (he should have said God's providence; he uses the Roman mode of expression), but others in our own power to be or not to be; the Essenes, that fate rules all things. The Sadducees make all things in the power of ourselves as the causes of our good things, and meeting with evils through our own inconsiderateness" (Ant. 18:1, section 3; B. J. 2:8, section 14). The Sadducees, though giving paramount authority to Moses' Pentateuch, did not as Epiphanius asserts (Haer. 14) reject the other Scriptures; for Josephus would certainly have mentioned it were it so. After the fall of Jerusalem the Sadducees doctrine disappeared, the afflicted Jews instinctively turning for consolation from the sad present to the bright hope of an eternal future life. The Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Herodians of Jesus' day represent the three schools antagonistic to vital Christianity in our days: infidelity; superstition, spiritualism and spiritual pride; worldly compromise. This "leaven" (see Leviticus 2:11; 1 Corinthians 5:8) Jesus warns against; called "doctrine" in Matthew 16:12, "hypocrisy" in Luke 12:1, "the leaven of Herod" Mark 8:15; Antichrist's antitrinity, the three frogs out of the mouth of the dragon, the false prophet, and the beast (Revelation 16:13-14).