Who are the Pharisees and Scribes in the Bible? Who are the Pharisees and Sadducees

Who were the Sadducees and Pharisees?

The Gospels often mention the Sadducees and Pharisees because Jesus was in constant conflict with them. The Sadducees and Pharisees formed the ruling class of Israel. There are many similarities between the two groups, but there are also important differences.

Sadducees: During the time of Christ and the New Testament era, the Sadducees were aristocrats. They sought wealth and held influential positions in society, including among the high priests, and they also occupied a majority of the 70 seats in the supreme council, which was called the Sanhedrin. They tried to keep the peace by accepting the decisions of Rome (Israel was under Roman control at this time) and seemed to be more concerned with politics than religion. Since they were not in conflict with Rome and belonged to the wealthy upper class, they had little interest in the common people, nor did they have a high opinion of them. Those who belonged to the party of the Pharisees enjoyed great favor among the people. Although the Sadducees occupied the majority of seats in the Sanhedrin, history shows that in most cases they had to accept the ideas of the Pharisaic minority, since they were more popular with the masses.

Religiously, the Sadducees were more conservative in one main doctrinal direction. The Pharisees equated oral traditions with the written Word of God, while the Sadducees believed that only the written Word came from God. The Sadducees maintained the authority of the written Word of God, especially the books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). While they may be commended for this, they were certainly not perfect in their doctrinal views. Below is a short list of their beliefs that were contrary to Scripture:

1. They were very self-sufficient, to the point of denying God's involvement in everyday life.

2. They denied the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23, Mark 12:18–27, Acts 23:8).

3. They denied an afterlife, believing that souls died at death, and therefore denied the existence of any punishment or reward after earthly life.

4. They denied the existence of the spiritual world, i.e. angels and demons (Acts 23:8).

Since the Sadducees were more concerned with politics, they were indifferent to Jesus until they became afraid that He might attract unwanted attention from the Romans. It was at this point that the Sadducees and Pharisees united and conspired to put Christ to death (John 11:48–50, Mark 14:53; 15:1). We find other references to the Sadducees in Acts 4:1 and 5:17. Also, according to historian Josephus, the Sadducees were involved in the death of Jacob (Acts 12:1-2).

Since this party existed due to its political and priestly connections, after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. the Sadducees also disappeared.

Pharisees: Unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees were primarily middle class businessmen, and therefore associated more with ordinary people. The common people respected the Pharisees much more than the Sadducees. Although they were in the minority in the Sanhedrin and had fewer priestly positions, they appear to have had significant influence on Sanhedrin decision-making.

Regarding religion, they considered the written Word to be inspired by God. During Christ's earthly ministry this was what is now called the Old Testament. But they also gave equal rights to oral traditions and tried to defend this position by insisting on the origin of the traditions from Moses. Over time, these traditions were added to the Word of God, which is forbidden (Deuteronomy 4:2), and the Pharisees sought to strictly follow these traditions along with the Old Testament. The Gospels are replete with examples of the Pharisees treating these traditions with no less respect than the Word of God (Matthew 9:14; 15:1-9; 23:05; 23:16, 23; Mark 7:1-23; Luke 11 :42). However, they remained faithful to the Word of God regarding several other important doctrines. Unlike the Sadducees, they believed the following:

1. They believed that God was in control of all things, but the decisions a person made influenced the course of his life.

2. They believed in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6).

3. They believed in an afterlife, with appropriate rewards and punishments on an individual basis.

4. They believed in the existence of angels and demons (Acts 23:8).

Despite the fact that the Pharisees were rivals of the Sadducees, they were able to forget about their differences in one case - the trial of Christ. It was at this point that the Sadducees and Pharisees united (Mark 14:53; 15:1; John 11:48–50).

While the Sadducees ceased to exist after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Pharisees, who were more focused on religion, continued to exist. In fact, the Pharisees were against the rebellion that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and were the first to make peace with the Romans after that. The Pharisees were also responsible for drafting the Mishnah, an important document describing the continued existence of Judaism after the destruction of the temple.

Jesus rebuked both the Pharisees and Sadducees for many things. Perhaps the best lesson we can learn from them is to not be like them. Unlike the Sadducees, we must believe everything the Bible says, including miracles and the afterlife. Unlike the Pharisees, we must not give tradition equal rights to Scripture, and we must not allow our relationship with God to be reduced to a legalistic list of rules and rituals.

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The first preparatory week before Lent is called the Week of the Publican and the Pharisee. What role did the Pharisees play in governing ancient Israel, what did they do, and what do we know about the Pharisees from history, and what can we learn without any textbooks if we take a closer look at ourselves?

The Pharisees gave excessive importance to insignificant external details, forgetting about the internal content. The photo shows a fragment of a leaflet that unknown people are laying out in Moscow churches.

Minority Party

The word Pharisee is a transliteration from Hebrew, in which the word “perushim” means “separated” (from the verb “parash” - to separate). Probably, the Pharisees were called that because they distanced themselves from ordinary people in order to comply with all religious norms and rules. We know about the Pharisees thanks to the Gospels and the works of the Pharisee Josephus Flavius ​​- says Archpriest, teacher of the Department of Biblical Studies of PSTGU, cleric of the Church of the Three Saints on Kulishki Alexander Prokopchuk. According to him, there are practically no other monuments of the first century left, which was facilitated by the first Jewish war, as a result of which Jerusalem was destroyed in the 70th year. The next literary monuments begin to appear only at the turn of the 3rd-4th centuries. “Information about the first century, recorded in the fourth - in science it is simply not customary to use such information,” explains Father Alexander. These three sources are the basis for most of the descriptions of the Pharisees found in many New Testament textbooks. For example, Rev. Alexey Emelyanov, head of the department of biblical studies at PSTGU, in his lectures says that the Pharisees were a religious and political party, numbering from 3 to 5 thousand people. Their antagonists in the Sanhedrin, that is, in the supreme military-religious assembly that ruled Israel, were the Sadducees, who owned the majority. In addition to the Law, the Pharisees kept the traditions of the elders, that is, oral interpretations and commentaries on the law that arose after the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century. BC, they denied the possibility of any coexistence with pagan power and sharply shunned it. The Sadducees, on the contrary, collaborated with occupying Rome on many issues. Among the Sadducees, the vast majority were priests and came from priestly families. The Pharisee could have a simple origin, but he was distinguished by special learning and zeal in pleasing God. The Pharisee sought to fulfill the entire law exactly, at least in public.

Interpreters of the Law

There are quite a few specific rules and norms in the Old Testament. How to apply them in your life if there is no exact indication? Let's say the commandment of Sabbath rest, which prohibits working. What exactly is work? The author of a popular commentary on the New Testament, a professor at the University of Glasgow, William Barclay, argues that the Pharisees reasoned as follows: God said his last word in the law, therefore the law must contain instructions on how to act in each specific situation. If a specific norm is absent, then it is implied, and it can be deduced from the law.

In addition to the Pharisees, the Gospel also mentions scribes. As Fr. writes. Alexey Emelyanov, this is not the same thing. All scribes, as a rule, were Pharisees, but not vice versa. Scribes are a special caste of experts in the Law, scientific people who, like the Pharisees, tried to observe the Law from the outside. They were scholars in the sense that they kept tradition, memorized Scripture, taught Scripture, were scholars and teachers, and were also experts in the Law. When it was necessary to find out the place of birth of Jesus Christ, King Herod called the scribes, and, guided by the Old Testament, they pointed to Bethlehem. All these many rules, in which they saw the essence of the religious life of Judea, have been preserved to this day,

The founders of Judaism and... the Church?

For a long time, the teachings of the scribes were passed on orally from generation to generation. The Jews believed that this "Oral Torah" was given to Moses along with the written Law. In the mid-third century BC, the oral law was codified and written down. Today this code of laws is known as the Mishnah and is a book of almost eight hundred pages. Later, interpretations on the Mishnah appeared; these commentaries, collected together in the early Middle Ages, are known as the Gemara, together with the Mishnah they make up the Talmud. According to Fr. Alexander Prokopchuk, the Pharisees can be considered the founders of modern Judaism. This is the only party of the Sanhedrin that survived the war with Rome. The Sadducees were tied to the temple and the cult of the Jerusalem temple, so after the destruction of the temple their party ceased to exist. The Pharisees were not tied to worship; their piety was based on following the law. Despite the fact that the Pharisees were not priests, they took an active part in worship. In the temple, the Pharisees occupied the first rows in the temple, and stood facing the people, reading prayers out loud and together with everyone. The first rows were reserved for them as for the most respected among the people, and the Pharisees really enjoyed respect. To command even more respect, the Pharisees painted their faces white during fasting and walked around casually dressed during fasting days so that everyone could see that they were fasting and admire their devotion. After the war, the Pharisees no longer had their own party, because the autonomous state of Israel ceased to exist. However, the religious and philosophical school of the Pharisees remained and became the defining tradition for the subsequent development of Judaism.

Father Alexander is sure that speaking about the Pharisees only in negative terms is a cliche. “Many of them were truly pious people seeking God,” the priest emphasizes. “This environment shaped the Christian Church in many ways, and this is reflected in the Book of Acts.” In addition, in the Gospel itself there are also different attitudes of the Pharisees towards Jesus Christ. Some sympathized with Him, there were even friends - for example, the Pharisee Nicodemus, a disciple of the Savior and a member of the Sanhedrin. At the end of the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, it talks about the Pharisees who accompanied Jesus Christ, although they did not have complete faith in Him. The Pharisee Gamaliel defended the apostles before the Sanhedrin. In addition, according to Fr. Alexander, some of the traits of the Pharisees are also present in modern Christians, you just need to take a closer look at yourself.

The Pharisee arrogates to himself the “right” to God

The Pharisees were extremely proud of their righteousness and observance of the rules; in their minds, external piety did not in any way contradict internal malice and contempt for others. They looked down on ordinary people and called them people of the earth - “am-garetz”. With such a man the Pharisee could not even sit at the same table. “We often have the illusion that just belonging to Orthodoxy already puts us, as membership in the party of the Pharisees, in an exceptional position,” warns Father Alexander. “Into a certain relationship with God, which does not depend in any way on the internal state of a person, and which no one else can claim.” According to the priest, this is reminiscent of the position of the Pharisees, who believed that only they had some kind of exclusive, unique right to God, and that such a right was impossible for others. “If we think so, if we think that just belonging to Orthodoxy makes us even a little better, then this is certainly not the case,” the shepherd is sure. According to him, closeness to God and unity with Him are determined not only by compliance with rules and norms, but also by inner aspiration to Christ. “Merely belonging to Orthodoxy does not confer privileges at the court of God,” continues Father Alexander. “On the contrary, it is said that to whom much is given, much will be required.”

Another Pharisee mistake that many repeat is the Pharisee’s “gratitude” to God. “When a Pharisee thanks God, he does not compare himself with those who are higher than him,” the priest explains his thought. “He compares himself to obvious criminals – murderers, thieves, adulterers.” According to the priest, this is reminiscent of the position of people who recently came to the Church and declare that they have not done anything bad in their lives, because they have not killed anyone. “That is, if he killed, he’s bad. And if he didn’t kill anyone, it means that life was completely normal and God cannot have any complaints against a person, he is almost a saint,” Father Alexander is surprised. In his opinion, such gratitude is not really gratitude. “He doesn’t praise God, he praises himself and thanks only himself,” explains the priest. - Giving yourself high praise. He is sure in advance that God can only give him five. He doesn’t even allow the thought that he might have some kind of disadvantage, some kind of flaw or shortcoming.” According to the priest, with such a view of oneself, real repentance is impossible. “That is, in essence, it is impossible to move towards God,” concludes the father. Alexander.

Kirill MILOVIDOV

Scribes and Pharisees

Scribes and Pharisees
From the Bible. The Gospel of Matthew (chapter 23, v. 14) says: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses and hypocritically pray for a long time.”
“Scribes” are dogmatic interpreters of Old Testament laws.
“Pharisees” are members of an ancient Jewish religious sect, distinguished by extreme fanaticism and special zeal in performing rituals and observing the rules of external piety.
Allegorically: about demagogues, hypocrites, hypocrites, covering up and justifying their own selfish interests with quotes from authoritative sources, constant references to them.

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: “Locked-Press”. Vadim Serov. 2003.

See what “Scribes and Pharisees” are in other dictionaries:

- (hypocrites). Wed. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses and hypocritically pray for a long time. Checkmate. 23, 4. Wed. 23; 13 15, 25, 27. Wed. The Pharisee stood up and prayed to himself like this: God, I thank You that I am not like others... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)

Hypocrites Wed. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour the houses of widows and hypocritically pray for a long time. Matt. 28, 4. Wed. 23; 13 15, 25, 27. Wed. The Pharisee, standing up, prayed to himself like this: God, I thank You that I am not like other people... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary

Book Contempt. About bigots, hypocrites, phrase-mongers. /i> Expression from the Bible. BMS 1998, 266 ... Large dictionary of Russian sayings

Literally translated from Aramaic: Separated. Pharisees were the name given to representatives of a religious movement (sect) in ancient Judea (2nd century BC, 2nd century AD), which arose after the Jews left captivity in Egypt. For the Pharisees there were... ... Dictionary of popular words and expressions

Stories of the Jewish people ... Wikipedia

- (excommunicated) (Mat.3:7, Matt.23:26, etc.) a well-known sect that arose among the Jews after their long-term captivity in Babylon. The name Pharisees comes from a Hebrew word meaning to excommunicate, to separate; but the history of their origin is hidden in... ... Bible. Old and New Testaments. Synodal translation. Biblical encyclopedia arch. Nikifor.

Noun, number of synonyms: 1 hypocrite (32) ASIS Dictionary of Synonyms. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

See Teacher (II; IV,1,2) see Pharisees see Sadducees see Rule, arrange, arranged (arrangement, establishment, order) see Corvan see Masoretic Text see Mishnah see Writing, scribe, write ( III,3c) see Ezra (3) see Gamaliel see Paul... Brockhaus Biblical Encyclopedia

The biblical name for a special class of people who are often spoken of in both the Old and New Testaments (Heb. sopherim, Greek γραμματεΐς). Those familiar with writing or books in ancient times thereby stood out from the crowd and received special significance in... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Who were the Sadducees, and also the Pharisees with whom they are often associated? In all four Gospels, both the first and second are often mentioned; Jesus Christ was in conflict with them on issues of theology. These are two religious sects in Israel also fighting each other. In our article we will talk in detail about who the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes were.

Characteristics of the Sadducees

Considering the question of who the Pharisees and Sadducees are in the Bible, we first give characteristics to each of these religious movements. And later we will compare them with each other. Let's start with the Sadducees. Who is this? They can be briefly described as follows.

At the time of Jesus Christ, the Sadducees were an aristocratic branch of the Levite tribe. They had a desire for wealth and influential positions in society. Their representatives often held the positions of high priests, and also sat in the Sanhedrin - the supreme council, having a majority of seats there.

Until the middle of the 2nd century BC, all the highest positions of priests were filled by representatives of the descendants of Zadok, who, as stated in the book of Kings, was the high priest under King Solomon. There is an opinion that the meaning of the word “Sadducees,” which denotes the priestly aristocracy of New Testament times, is precisely connected with the name of this dynasty descended from Zadok.

Sadducees and people

At that time, the territory of Israel was completely controlled by the Romans, and the Sadducees tried to live in peace with them, supporting their decisions. Those around them had the impression that they were more involved in politics than in religious affairs.

Since they were a rich class and had no conflicts with Rome, their lives had little connection with ordinary people, they were outside the circle of interests of the Sadducees. Therefore, they did not feel favor from the people, to put it mildly. This was one of the differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The latter were much more popular among the masses.

Many of the historians show the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem as corrupt and having lost all respect among the people. But we cannot help but mention other opinions, according to which such a picture is only partially correct. In fact, for many Jews the figure of the high priest has not lost its significance. In the absence of a king from the line of David, it was believed that God sent a high priest to take charge of the people.

The severity of the Sadducees

In religious terms, the Sadducees are a sect that did not recognize the oral tradition of the holy fathers, that is, those rules that were not set forth in written sources and, first of all, in the Torah. For the Pharisees, on the contrary, it was of very great importance. We will discuss this issue in more detail below.

As the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus wrote, the Sadducees' judgment was very harsh. He said that they were particularly cruel in passing sentences. Evidence is the story of how the high priest Anan, who belonged to the Sadducees, doomed James (the brother of Jesus Christ) to martyrdom. Around the year 62, the Jews threw Jacob from the wing of the temple in Jerusalem and stoned him.

Another evidence is contained in the New Testament, which tells that it was the Sadducees who crucified Jesus Christ. Researchers come to this conclusion based on the fact that the decision to execute him was made by the Sanhedrin, while it was led by the Sadducees.

Pharisees means “distant”

The Pharisees and Sadducees differed, in particular, in that the former were not aristocrats, but the middle entrepreneurial class. Therefore, their communication with ordinary people was closer, and the people treated them more loyally. Despite the fact that they had a minority in the Sanhedrin, according to historians, their influence on decision-making can be defined as very significant.

The Pharisees had no connection with the Temple, that is, with the official Jerusalem hierarchy. According to researchers, they were mainly poor landowners or traders. But some of them completely devoted their lives to studying the Law and its interpretation.

The name of the religious sect "Pharisees" originates in the Hebrew "perushim" or Aramaic "perishaya". In both cases the meaning of the word is “separated.” This implies separation from sinners and people who are not distinguished by piety.

Keep the Sabbath day

In principle, the Pharisees did not completely exclude themselves from the lives of all other Jews and did not break off relations with the Jerusalem Temple. However, they believed that the people did not observe religious precepts scrupulously enough, doing so carelessly and very approximately.

A distinctive feature of the Pharisees was the desire for a detailed clarification of the instructions of the Old Testament, which were stated rather vaguely, and for their strict observance. At the same time, they assigned a huge role to the “traditions of the elders.” As a result, the norms that were established in Judaism at the beginning of our era were much more strict and detailed than those prescribed by the Pentateuch.

So, for example, the Mosaic Law gives a direct prohibition on working on the Sabbath day, requiring it to be given to the Lord God. At the same time, the word “work” is understood very broadly. For example, lighting a fire, writing more than one letter, or moving more than a certain number of steps is prohibited. All aspects of human life are regulated in the same detailed way - relationships between spouses, the process and time of cooking.

Thus, in relation to religion, the Pharisees believed that the written word was inspired by God, but at the same time they gave equal rights to oral traditions, insisting on their origin from Moses. Over time, they added traditions to the Word of God and strictly followed the rules from both of these sources.

Opinion of Josephus and the Apostle Paul

He wrote in “Jewish Antiquities” that the distinctive feature of the Sadducees sect and their teaching from the teaching of the Pharisees is that the Pharisees transmitted to the people many laws based on ancient traditions that were not part of the legislation of Moses. The Sadducees completely reject these layers and demand compliance only with written laws, depriving oral tradition of any meaning. In this regard, many disagreements and disputes arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In the “Acts” of the Apostle Paul, the teaching of the Pharisees is characterized as “the strictest in our religion.” Being adherents of ritual purity, they did not want to sit at the table not only with foreigners and people of other faiths, but also with other Jews if they believed that the latter were defiled by sin or did not carefully fulfill everyday religious instructions. The Pharisees carefully observed fasting, prayed for a long time, observed the Sabbath day, and strictly followed the regulations regarding the tithe due to the Temple.

Sadducee Beliefs Contrary to Scripture

As mentioned above, in religious terms, the Sadducees are representatives of a more conservative branch of the doctrinally united direction of Judaism. They respected the authority of the written Word of God, denying oral sources. But at the same time, there are obvious contradictions in their beliefs with the Holy Scriptures, namely that the Sadducees:

1. They were very self-sufficient, to the point of denying the presence and participation of God in everyday existence.
2. They denied the doctrine of resurrection after death.
3. They did not believe in life beyond the grave, but believed that souls die along with the body. It followed from this that there could be no punishment or reward after life on earth.
4. They did not agree with the existence of a spiritual world with angels and demons.

However, what interested the Sadducees more than religion was politics. Therefore, Jesus Christ was at first indifferent to them. But then, as the Bible says, the Sadducees became afraid, deciding that there was a danger of attracting the attention of the Romans to him. And at that moment they united with the Pharisees, conspiring with them to bring about the death of Jesus. This issue will be discussed in more detail below.

Since the Sadducees were a party that existed through priestly and political connections, it disappeared after the Romans destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem.

What did the Pharisees believe?

In contrast to the Sadducees, the Pharisees believed that:

1. All things around are subject to the control of the Almighty, but at the same time, the decisions that are made by a person in a certain way influence the course of his life.
2. When a person dies, his soul does not die, and he rises from the dead.
3. There is an afterlife, which depends on what a particular person deserved during life - reward or punishment.
4. Along with people in the world, there are both bright angels and dark ones - demons.

As mentioned above, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Sadducees ceased to exist, while the Pharisees, more focused on religion, continued to exist. The Pharisees were against the rebellion that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. They were among the first to make peace with the Romans after this. The Pharisees are credited with compiling the Mishnah, a very important document that describes the further existence of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple.

Who are scribes?

Along with the Pharisees and Sadducees in the New Testament, Jesus Christ often criticizes the scribes. As a rule, he begins his denunciations with the phrase: “Woe to you, Pharisees and scribes, hypocrites.” Who are these scribes?

Scribes were a profession practiced among Jews that involved writing Torah scrolls and other religious sources. They were also called sofers, or soifers. In Russian, these are scribes.

They wrote manuscripts using a special square script - the Assyrian script in which the Tablets of the Testament were written. This specialty required the development of special techniques, knowledge of the laws of lettering, and extraordinary concentration.

In addition, the scribe must be a God-fearing person, honest and strictly follow the commandments of the Torah. They formed a learned corporation and became the first of the interpreters of the Holy Scriptures. The sofers lived in the city of Ibais and were mainly from the tribe of Levi.

Some authors, such as Epiphanius of Cyprus and John of Damascus, identified the scribes as a separate Jewish heretical sect. However, today such a distinction is considered incorrect, since the scribes could well have been both Pharisees and Sadducees. Therefore, the words of Jesus Christ regarding the scribes must be considered in a figurative sense - as people formally related to the faith.

Pharisees, Jesus Christ, Sadducees

As stated in the Gospels, the Son of God had many claims against both religious sects. He did not agree with the fact that the Sadducees denied those provisions of the Holy Scriptures mentioned above, nor with the fact that the Pharisees gave equal rights to oral tradition, which is prohibited by the Bible.

He also opposed the excessive formalism inherent in the teachings of the Pharisees, since a person’s relationship with God should not be reduced only to the mindless performance of rituals and following a strict list of rules. As stated in the New Testament, Jesus was also unpopular with both the high priests and most of the Sadducees and Pharisees. He constantly exposed the hypocritical behavior of both.

One of the main opponents of Christ is the high priest Caiaphas. After all, when the Savior kicked the money changers out of the temple, he caused great material damage, including to Caiaphas personally. Moreover, the high priest was very much afraid that the increasing popularity of the preacher from Nazareth among the Jews might eventually lead to a Roman invasion. And this, in turn, leads to the loss of his high position.

Therefore, having gathered together, the Pharisees and Sadducees, represented by the high priests and other religious leaders, decided to hand him over into the hands of Rome in order to put him on trial and execute him.

Jesus and the Jews

And how did the entire Jewish people, who are often reproached for being the collective culprit of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, react to this? Trying to answer this question, let's turn to the primary sources. Thus, the Gospel of Matthew says that a crowd of Jews, appealing to Pontius Pilate, demanded that he crucify Jesus, while accusing the latter: “His blood lies on us and our children.”

Does it follow from this that we must conclude that all Jews living in Jerusalem in the 1st century should be considered as murderers of Christ? Let’s not rush into this and cite the words of another Gospel author, John, who testifies to the extraordinary popularity of Christ among this people. This is especially true of Galilee, to which he devoted a greater period of his ministry.

Again, the Gospel of Matthew indicates that just 5 days before Jesus was arrested and executed, he was greeted as the Messiah by a crowd of Jews entering Jerusalem. So who needed the death of Christ? Matthew notes that it was the “chief priests and elders” who instigated only a small group of Jews.

As for the people, they became a silent witness, essentially approving the crime of their leaders, the true culprits of the bloodshed. It was precisely for this tolerance shown by the Jews towards the bloody acts of high-ranking representatives of the Sadducees and Pharisees that responsibility for them was placed on the entire people.

(continuation)

Sadducees

When the service of Jehovah was restored and persecution from the pagans ceased, the former division of the people into parties of Hellenists who accepted Greek customs and Hasidim faithful to the old days was replaced by a division into Sadducees and Pharisees who had some, but not very close, kinship with the former parties; The struggle of these new parties characterizes the time preceding the emergence of Christianity. Before the appearance of Pompey in Judea, government was almost constantly in the hands of the Sadducees; these were people of a noble and wealthy class, alien to too narrow national exclusivity, who wanted to bring Jewish concepts and customs into some harmony with the Greek ones. Being in constant contact with Greek culture and Roman power, they developed for themselves the rules of political prudence and wanted to protect the state from harm by building fortresses, organizing a good army and alliances; The Pharisees, hoping for the miraculous protection of God, saw in all this treason and atheism. The Pharisees considered an even more important manifestation of atheism that the Sadducees, satisfied with the present, ignored the hopes of the coming of the Messiah, did not recognize the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which formed a necessary part of belief in the kingdom of the Messiah, and answered questions about the future with a cold reference to the Pentateuch of Moses, alien to the fantastic teachings of Pharisaic theology. Therefore, it was easy to consider them as denying the resurrection of the dead, the existence of angels, and all the hopes of the Jewish people for a great future. But in fact, they were not a theological or philosophical school at all; they were simply members or adherents of the priestly aristocracy, both the old one, the head of which was the family of Zadok, and the new one, which was grouped around the Hasmoneans, who replaced the family of Zadok. That is why they were called Sadducees, that is, “Zadokites”; it was a party of spiritual aristocrats, a hierarchical government party that held sway over the Sanhedrin, the assembly of spiritual dignitaries. The opponents of the Sadducees, the Pharisees, who were closer to the mass of the people, sought to subordinate the entire people's life to the forms of Levitical purity. They dominated the synagogues and schools of large and small cities, while the center of Sadducees was the Jerusalem temple. The spiritual aristocracy found the exaggerated religious rules, the fulfillment of which the Pharisees made a necessary condition for salvation, embarrassing; they denied the obligatory nature of this complex formalism, adhering only to the rituals established by the Pentateuch, the preservation of which they called their calling.

Pharisees

The difference between the claims of the ecclesiastical dignitaries and the spirit of Pharisaism that prevailed among the people had both a religious and a political nature. But, from a historical point of view, the essence of the matter is that the Zadokites (Sadducees) were adherents of John Hyrcanus and his dynasty, and the Pharisees (“perushim,” i.e., “separated”) were removed (“separated”) from all contact with paganism, they sought to protect Israeli life from foreign influences by strictly observing religious customs. Thus, Pharisaism was not some special school or party that arose after the victory over the Syrians who oppressed the Jewish religion, but a product of that mood that more and more took possession of the feelings of the Jewish people under the Hasmoneans and during the dynasty of Herod. In the middle class, among women, among youth, among the entire mass of the people, devotion to Pharisaism was constantly growing. It, in contrast to Sadduceeism, strictly adhered to antiquity; the religious customs inherited from it were all elevated by Pharisaism to the necessary commandments of “righteousness”; it created from them a strong formalism that regulated the entire life of the people, every movement of a person from morning to night, from the cradle to the grave; nothing was discarded from the customs of antiquity; only additions were made to them. Coming from the ranks of the Hasidim (“pious”), the Pharisees strictly adhered to the Law of Moses; but in their petty concern for observing the letter of it, through an arbitrary and strained interpretation of its definitions, they compiled a mass of petty rules, the implementation of which they attached great importance to. Guided by the principle of “protect the law,” they saw the restriction and constraint of freedom of action as a guarantee of piety. The reward for the inconvenience of heavy formalism, with which the teachers of Pharisaism, representatives of the aspirations of the Jewish people, burdened themselves and others, served for them with brilliant thoughts about the future life, about the resurrection of the dead and dominion on earth: with vivid pictures of this bliss, they inflamed the imagination of the people. Entangling their whole lives with the ceremony of washing, purification, fasting, almsgiving, prayers, sacrifices, the Pharisees believed that they remained faithful to the spirit of the martyrs who suffered for the faith during the Maccabean wars, and that God, with whom they carried out a formal calculation of their deeds of service to him, would fulfill for the sake of their merits, they promised to send the Messiah to the Jewish people, who would give them dominion on earth. Everyone knows from the Gospels to what extremes Pharisaism reached. According to the calculations of the lust for power, according to the conscious or unconscious attractions of egoism, the Pharisees made piety a technical art, a craft, and, as specialists in this craft, they ruled over the thoughts of the people. They wore signs of distinction from ordinary people, for example, on their hands and necks, small scrolls of scraps on which the commandments of the law were written, and tried to attract people to themselves with their pious appearance.

Essays

In addition to the Sadducees and Pharisees, there was, as we know from Joseph, a third party, the Essenes, who formed an ascetic order, the existence of which has been reliably known since the time of Jonathan Maccabee. They sought to achieve the highest holiness by strict abstinence from pleasures, had a secret doctrine of angels, observed special commandments, the most important of which were: the prohibition of oaths and bloody sacrifices, the preference of celibacy over marriage, extreme moderation in food and strict concern for the purity of the body. These rules, perhaps, were borrowed from Eastern creeds, namely, perhaps, from Parsism, either directly or through neo-Pythagoras; but, perhaps, they were formed in an independent way: when, during the Syrian persecution of the Jewish faith, the high priests deviated from the law of Moses and national worship in the temple ceased, then it might have seemed to people of strict piety that the official church had perished irrevocably, and that it was necessary to look for another way to reunification with God. This is how it might have seemed to the Hasidim, with whose name the name of the Essenes has an etymological connection. But whatever the origin of their sect, they considered the best means to serve God and acquire spiritual salvation to be withdrawal from the world and its pleasures, curbing all passions and lusts, abstinence, feats of repentance, prayer and teaching. They lived in groups in secluded places on the western side of the Dead Sea, engaged in agriculture, cattle breeding and crafts that were not reprehensible to strict morality. Some of them completely renounced personal property, donating all their property and everything acquired through work to a common treasury for common use. They were divided into different degrees, but all wore the same clothes. Only a few of them allowed themselves marital cohabitation. They benefited other people by caring for the sick and giving support to the poor. – Related to the Essenes were the Therapeutae, Egyptian Jews who formed a society very similar to Christian monastic orders; they led a contemplative life away from the world; we know about them only from the treatise On the Contemplative Life, which was attributed to Philo, but is now recognized as a work of a much later date, depicting not facts, but only ideals.