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The Sadducees were one of the religious parties of Second Temple Judaism.

Overview

During the late Second Temple period, the Sadduccean party represented the interests of the upper-class Jewish priestly aristocracy. Not all priests were Sadducees, but more than any other party the Sadducees emphasized the centrality of the Temple and the priesthood.

Religiously, the Sadducees were a conservative party, which after the Maccabean revolt preserved the ideology of the Zadokites. According to Josephus, they stressed human freedom (against any apocalyptic speculation on the superhuman origin of evil), and rejected the belief in the end of time or in the coming of an eschatological Messiah. They considered normative the five books of Moses, downplaying the role of the Prophets and the tradition.

At the center of their religious worldview was the Temple and the priesthood.

God/humans relations are regulated by the Mosaic covenant. There is no end of times or afterlife (no lat judgement). In their free will, humans obey or disobey and receive accordingly during their lifetime: rewards for their merits and punishments for their transgressions.

This world is the Kingdom of God and his ruled by God's messiahs. There is no end of times and no Final messiah to be waiting for.

Until the Jewish War, the Sadducees - although numerically a minority - were the ruling party. They supported the Hasmoneans and then the Romans. The Pharisees and the Essenes were the most significant opposition as reform movements they openly challenged the authority of the Sadducees. More radical groups, like the Zealots and the Early Christians, attacked (sometimes violently) the leadership of the Sadducees and had to face repression and even the execution of some of their most prominent leaders (Judas the Galilean, Jesus of Nazareth, and James).

The Sadducees continued to have a role of leadership at the beginning of the Jewish War, when Ananus ben Ananus succeeded in creating a government of national unity with the Pharisees and the Essenes. As the revolt progressed, however, the more moderate parties were marginalized and suppressed by the most radical factions (such as the Zealots and the Sicarii).

With the destruction of the Temple, the Sadducees disappeared as a political party. In Medieval times, the Karaites claimed to be the descendants of the Sadducees against the authority of the Rabbis.

The Sadducees in ancient sources

Jewish sources

Josephus, War II -- [8, 2] There are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect are called Essenes ... [8, 14] The Sadducees are those that compose the second order, and take away fate entirely, and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil; and they say, that to act what is good, or what is evil, is at men's own choice, and that the one or the other belongs so to every one, that they may act as they please. They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades ... the behavior of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them.

Josephus, Ant XIII -- [5,9] At this time there were three sects among the Jews, who had different opinions concerning human actions; the one was called the sect of the Pharisees, another the sect of the Sadducees, and the other the sect of the Essenes. Now for the Pharisees, they say that some actions, but not all, are the work of fate, and some of them are in our own power, and that they are liable to fate, but are not caused by fate. But the sect of the Essenes affirm, that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination. And for the Sadducees, they take away fate, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal; but they suppose that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves the causes of what is good, and receive what is evil from our own folly. However, I have given a more exact account of these opinions in the second book of the Jewish War.

Josephus, Antiquities XVIII 1 -- [2] The Jews had for a great while had three sects of philosophy peculiar to themselves; the sect of the Essenes, and the sect of the Sadducees, and the third sort of opinions was that of those called Pharisees; of which sects, although I have already spoken in the second book of the Jewish War, yet will I a little touch upon them now ... [4] But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent: but this doctrine is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

Christian sources

Early Christian sources

Gospel of Mark

• Question about the Resurrection (Mk 12:18-27; Matthew 22:23-33; Luke 20:27-40) -- "Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question... Jesus said to them ... you are quite wrong."

Gospel of Matthew

• Preaching of John the Baptist -- But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matt.3.7)

Matt.16.1-6 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven ... Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Matt.16.11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

Matt.16.12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Matt.22.23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question,

Matt.22.34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

Gospel of Luke

Luke.20.27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,

Acts of Apostles

Acts.4.1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them,

Acts.5.17 But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy

Acts [23.6] Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” [23.7] And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. [23.8] For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

The Sadducees in Scholarship

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the views and principles of the Sadducees may be summarized as follows:

(1) Representing the nobility, power, and wealth ("Ant." xviii. 1, § 4), they had centered their interests in political life, of which they were the chief rulers. Instead of sharing the 'Messianic hopes of the Pharisees, who committed the future into the hand of God, they took the people's destiny into their own hands, fighting or negotiating with the heathen nations just as they thought best, while having as their aim their own temporary welfare and worldly success. This is the meaning of what Josephus chooses to term their disbelief in fate and divine providence ("B. J." ii. 8, § 14; "Ant." xiii. 5 § 9).

(2) As the logical consequence of the preceding view, they would not accept the Pharisaic doctrine of the resurrection (Sanh. 90b; Mark xii. 12; Ber. ix. 5, "Minim"), which was a national rather than an individual hope. As to the immortality of the soul, they seem to have denied this as well (see Hippolytus, "Refutatio," ix. 29; "Ant." x. 11, § 7).

(3) According to Josephus (ib. xiii. 10, § 6), they regarded only those observances as obligatory which are contained in the written word, and did not recognize those not written in the law of Moses and declared by the Pharisees to be derived from the traditions of the fathers. Instead of accepting the authority of the teachers, they considered it a virtue to dispute it by arguments.

(4) According to Acts xxiii. 8, they denied also the existence of angels and demons. This probably means that they did not believe in the Essene practise of incantation and conjuration in cases of disease, and were therefore not concerned with the Angelology and Demonology derived from Babylonia and Persia.

(5) In regard to criminal jurisdiction they were so rigorous that the day on which their code was abolished by the Pharisaic Sanhedrin under Simeon b. Shetaḥ's leadership, during the reign of Salome Alexandra, was celebrated as a festival (Meg. Ta'an. iv.; comp. Ket. 105a). They insisted on the literal execution of the law of retaliation: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Ex. xxi. 24; Meg. Ta'an. iv.; B. Ḳ. 84a; comp. Matt. v. 38). On the other hand, they would not inflict the death penalty on false witnesses in a case where capital punishment had been wrongfully carried out, unless the accused had been executed solely in consequence of the testimony of such witnesses (Mak. i. 8; Tosef., Sanh. vi. 6, where "Bocthusians" stands for "Sadducees").

(6) They held the owner of a slave fully as responsible for the damage done by the latter as for that done by the owner's ox or ass; whereas the Pharisees discriminated between reasonable and unreasonable beings (Yad. iv. 7).

(7) They also insisted, according to Meg. Ta'an. iv., upon a literal interpretation of Deut. xxii. 17 (comp. Sifre, Deut. 237; Ket. 46; see also the description of the custom still obtaining at weddings among the Jews of Salonica, in Braun-Wiesbaden's "Eine Türkische Reise," 1876, p. 235), while most of the Pharisaic teachers took the words figuratively. The same holds true in regard to Deut. xxv. 9: "Then shall his brother's wife . . . spit in his [her deceased husband's brother's] face," which the Pharisees explained as "before him" (Yeb. xii. 6; see Weiss, "Dor," i. 117, note).

(8) They followed a traditional practise of their own in granting the daughter the same right of inheritance as the son's daughter in case the son was dead (Meg. Ta'an. v.; Tos. Yad. ii. 20; B. B. viii. 1, 115b).

(9) They contended that the seven weeks from the first barley-sheaf-offering ("'omer") to Pentecost should, according to Lev. xxiii. 15-16, be countedfrom "the day after Sabbath," and, consequently, that Pentecost should always be celebrated on the first day of the week (Meg. Ta'an. i.; Men. 65a). In this they obviously followed the old Biblical view which regards the festival of the firstlings as having no connection whatsoever with the Passover feast; whereas the Pharisees, connecting the festival of the Exodus with the festival of the giving of the Law, interpreted the "morrow after the Sabbath" to signify the second day of Passover (see Jubilees, Book of). Views on Temple Practises.

(10) Especially in regard to the Temple practise did they hold older views, based upon claims of greater sanctity for the priesthood and of its sole dominion over the sanctuary. Thus they insisted that the daily burnt offerings were, with reference to the singular used in Num. xxviii. 4, to be offered by the high priest at his own expense; whereas the Pharisees contended that they were to be furnished as a national sacrifice at the cost of the Temple treasury into which the "she-ḳalim" collected from the whole people were paid (Meg. Ta'an. i. 1; Men. 65b; Sheḳ. iii. 1, 3; Grätz, l.c. p. 694).

(11) They claimed that the meal offering belonged to the priest's portion; whereas the Pharisees claimed it for the altar (Meg. Ta'an. viii.; Men. vi. 2).

(12) They insisted on an especially high degree of purity in those who officiated at the preparation of the ashes of the Red Heifer. The Pharisees, on the contrary, demonstratively opposed such strictness (Parah iii. 7; Tos. Parah iii. 1-8).

(13) They declared that the kindling of the incense in the vessel with which the high priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement was to take place outside, so that he might be wrapped in smoke while meeting the Shekinah within, according to Lev. xvi. 2; whereas the Pharisees, denying the high priest the claim of such super-natural vision, insisted that the incense be kindled within (Sifra, Aḥare Mot, 3; Yoma 19b, 53a, b; Yer. Yoma i. 39a, b; comp. Lev. R. xxi. 11).

(14) They extended the power of contamination to indirect as well as to direct contact (Yad. iv. 7).

(15) They opposed the popular festivity of the water libation and the procession preceding the same on each night of the Sukkot feast, as well as the closing festivity, on which the Pharisees laid much stress, of the beating of the willow-trees (Suk. 43b, 48b; Tos. Suk. iii. 16; comp. "Ant." xiii. 13, § 5).

(16) They opposed the Pharisaic assertion that the scrolls of the Holy Scriptures have, like any holy vessel, the power to render unclean (taboo) the hands that touch them (Yad. iv. 6).

(17) They opposed the Pharisaic idea of the 'Erub, the merging of several private precincts into one in order to admit of the carrying of food and vessels from one house to another on the Sabbath ('Er. vi. 2).

(18) In dating all civil documents they used the phrase "after the high priest of the Most High," and they opposed the formula introduced by the Pharisees in divorce documents," According to the law of Moses and Israel" (Meg. Ta'an. vii.; Yad. iv. 8; see Geiger, l.c. p. 34).

The Sadducees in Fiction

References

• Sadducees / E. Regev / T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism (2019 Stuckenbruck, Gurtner), dictionary

• Sadducees / Günter Stemberger / The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), dictionary, 1179-1181

• / [[]] / The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992 Freedman), dictionary,

External links

• Wikipedia